th. For this reason they have
built up a protective instinct against fire. Whenever there is
fire of any sort, they run. As they have seen the jungle set on
fire from time to time for generations and generations, the sight
of fire frightens them more than anything else. As long as they
have inherited this fear from their ancestors, it is very wise
not to play with fire in the presence of animals. If an animal as
powerful as an elephant were frightened by fire, he would run mad
and do the greatest amount of mischief.

One noon when we had suspended work for the day, I tied Kari in
his shed and lay down in my hammock to rest. Toward late
afternoon, I heard the same terrible trumpeting that I had heard
before. The same thing had happened again. The two engineers,
being idle, had drunk liquor and were trying to tease the animals
nearby. The shed had a thatched roof of straw. The walls were of
clay, but there was a lot of bamboo lying on the floor. Kari was
eating twigs, some of which happened to have dry leaves.

I came up to the elephant, and seeing what was going on, told the
white men to stop teasing him. They would not hear of it,
however. Just then I saw a flame rising from the leaves. Kari
raised his trunk and trumpeted fiercely. As I was afraid that he
would be burned to death, I hastened to loosen his chain and with
one terrible trumpet he rushed out of the shed, trampling down
one of the drunken men and killing him instantly. Kari then
trumpeted more and more loudly, waving his trunk and rushing
madly around.

Realizing the danger we were in, I went up a very heavy banyan
tree out of Kari's reach and lay among the leaves. The first
thing he did was to go and put his foot on the automobile of the
chief engineer, which happened to be standing outside of the
shed. In a few minutes there was nothing but a mass of twisted
steel on the ground, over which the elephant danced in anger.
Then he saw the chief engineer and two other men standing on the
porch of a bungalow. He rushed at them, but they knew what it
meant to have a mad elephant about, and ran into the house. Kari
then pulled down part of the thatched roof of the bungalow with
his trunk, and finding no one there made straight for two new
trucks that had only been in use a fortnight and broke them to
pieces. Then he rushed at a bull which was grazing in a field,
and wound his trunk around his neck. The bull dropped dead. In a
few moments Kari was out of sigh