hat is probably why I never
found out just how tall he was. He lived in a pavilion, under a
thatched roof which rested on thick tree stumps so that it could
not fall in when Kari bumped against the poles as he moved about.

One of the first things Kari did was to save the life of a boy.
Kari did not eat much but he nevertheless needed forty pounds of
twigs a day to chew and play with. Every day I used to take him
to the river in the morning for his bath. He would lie down on
the sand bank while I rubbed him with the clean sand of the river
for an hour. After that he would lie in the water for a long
time. On coming out his skin would be shining like ebony, and he
would squeal with pleasure as I rubbed water down his back. Then
I would take him by the ear, because that is the easiest way to
lead an elephant, and leave him on the edge of the jungle while I
went into the forest to get some luscious twigs for his dinner.
One has to have a very sharp hatchet to cut down these twigs; it
takes half an hour to sharpen the hatchet because if a twig is
mutilated an elephant will not touch it.

When one goes into the jungle, one must remember that there are
laws one cannot break. Do you know that anyone who is afraid or
who hates one of the animals of the jungle gives out an odor
which attracts tigers and wolves? Every day that I was afraid to
go into the jungle, I did not dare to stay on the ground for
fear lest the tigers would smell my presence and attack me. I
climbed a tree instead, because when one is in a tree the odor of
one's body does not go into the forest, and the animals cannot
tell whether one is afraid or not.

It was not an easy job, as you see, to get twigs and saplings for
Kari. I had to climb all kinds of trees to get the most delicate
and tender twigs. As he was very fond of the young branches of
the banyan tree which grows like a cathedral of leaves and
branches, I was gathering some, one spring day in March, when I
suddenly heard Kari calling to me in the distance. As he was
still very young, the call was more like that of a baby than an
elephant. I thought somebody was hurting him, so I came down from
my tree and ran very fast to the edge of the forest where I had
left him, but he was not there.

I looked all over, but I could not find him. I went near the edge
of the water, and I saw a black something struggling above its
surface. Then it rose higher and it was the trunk of my
elephant. I thought he