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will; but they say the Planter, being a bloated capitalist, refused to retain a creature which could go on strike to such purpose as to shut up the whole concern.
Mahouts also believe that when a wild elephant is coming downhill and cannot reach forward with his trunk to sound a dangerous foot-hold, he breaks a sapling and, holding it like an alpen-stock, probes and feels his way. Colonel Lewin tells me of a belief in the Chittagong Hill tracts, that wild elephants assemble together to dance! Further, that once he came with his men on a large cleared place in the forest, the floor beaten hard and smooth, like that of a native hut. "This," said the men, in perfect good faith, "is an elephant nautch-khana"--ballroom. It is a common remark that stout people are often light dancers, and sometimes most eligible partners. The elephant, in spite of his bulk, is both on land and water a very buoyant person, quick on his feet and, in his deliberate way, as clever a kicker as a mule, which is saying a great deal. There is therefore no reason why he should not dance, and I confess to a deep envy of the Assam coolie, who said he had been a hidden unbidden guest at an elephant ball. Elephants are easily taught to dance by American and European circus trainers; and it is recorded by an American trainer that elephants off duty, left entirely to themselves, have been seen to rehearse the lessons they have learned. Let us believe, then, until some dismal authority forbids us, that the elephant beau monde meets by the bright Indian moonlight in the ballrooms they clear in the depths of the forest, and dance mammoth quadrilles and reels to the sighing of the wind through the trees and their own trumpeting, shrill and sudden as the Highlander's hoch!
It is firmly believed that dead elephants are buried by their kind. Mr. Sanderson admits that he is unable to account for the total absence of their remains in the jungle, and so gives us leave to share for once in an Orient mystery, dim and inscrutable. The free-thinking native who solves it by boldly claiming that the great beasts, left to themselves, do not die at all, does not diminish the marvel, which still remains to delight all those who love to wonder.
It is natural that a creature so highly esteemed should be made to reflect the popular conception of Hindu character in its weaknesses and failings as well as in its placid and gentle strength. He is believed with little cause to be keenly sensitive; they say he breaks his heart like a proud Rajput, and dies at will of resentment or grief. So do some Orientals. He is said to have a memory for insult or injury as tenacious as that of a usurer for a debt, and soon or late he will be even with his oppressor. He can be taught to master his natural timidity, and when properly led he will face the tiger in his lair, but he is not ashamed to fly before a little dog. In sickness he comes very close to the human, for the mahouts say he resigns himself like a native when stricken with fever; when he lies down they give him up, for he gives up all hope of himself, and against a despair of that bulk there is no argument. He is liable to sudden bursts of rage, and can sulk in ill-temper for days at a time. When downright mad nothing can stand before him. Death in Hindu poetry and talk is a mad elephant, for who shall stay him? Love and lust are also mad elephants, blind, unreasoning, and cruel.