credited, is it reasonable to suppose that he would
continue to labour for man instead of turning into the nearest
jungle? The elephant displays less intelligence in its natural state
than most wild animals. Whole herds are driven into ill-concealed
inclosures which no other forest creatures could be got to enter;
and single ones are caught by being bound to trees by men under cover
of a couple of tame elephants, the wild one being ignorant of what
is going on until he finds himself secured. Escaped elephants are
re-taken without trouble; even experience does not bring them wisdom.
Though possessed of a proboscis which is capable of guarding it
against such dangers, the wild elephant readily falls into pits dug
in its path, whilst its fellows flee in terror, making no effort to
assist the fallen one, as they might easily do by kicking in the earth
around the pit. It commonly happens that a young elephant falls into
a pit, in which case the mother will remain until the hunters come,
without doing anything to assist her offspring--not even feeding it
by throwing in a few branches.

"When a half-trained elephant of recent capture happens to get loose,
and the approach of its keeper on foot might cause it to move off,
or perhaps even to run away altogether, the mahout calls to his
elephant from a distance to kneel, and he then approaches and mounts
it. The instinct of obedience is herein shown to be stronger than
the animal's intelligence. When a herd of wild elephants is secured
within a stockade, or _kheddah_, the mahouts ride trained elephants
amongst the wild ones without fear, though any one of the wild ones
might, by a movement of its trunk, dislodge the man. This they never
do."

On the other hand we do hear of wonderful cases of reasoning on the
part of these creatures. I have never seen anything very
extraordinary myself; but I had one elephant which almost invariably
attempted to get loose at night, and often succeeded, if we were
encamped in the vicinity of sugar-cane cultivation--nothing else
tempted her; and many a rupee have I had to pay for the damage done.
This elephant knew me perfectly after an absence of eighteen months,
trumpeted when she saw me, and purred as I came up and stroked her
trunk. I then gave her the old sign, and in a moment she lifted me
by the trunk on to her head. I never mounted her any other way, and,
as I used to slip off by a side rope, the constant kneeling down and
getting up wa