Page:St. Nicholas - Volume 41, Part 1.djvu/23

1915.] is on elephants. Very few, however, except princes and foreign travelers, ever ride on these lordly animals. In the “zoos” in Calcutta and Bombay, there are elephants for the children to ride. They climb steps to a platform the height of the elephant’s back, then jump into the howdah, where they are tied fast to make sure of their not falling. The old huthi, as the elephant is called there, sways off, waving his trunk, flopping his ears, and blinking his eyes. He makes a tour of the gardens, then returns to the platform to get other children.

At Jaipur, Gwalior, and a number of other towns where there is a fort on a hill, elephants can be hired for the ascension. The huge creatures knelt down while we clambered into the howdah with the aid of ladders. When they rose, it seemed like an earthquake to us on their backs. They climbed the hill so slowly that the others of the party who walked arrived ahead of us. Our huthi would smell about carefully with his trunk before taking each step, then he would put a huge foot forward cautiously, and throw his great weight onto it slowly, as if afraid that the earth would give way under him. It took him so long to accommodate his four feet to cach step, that I was thankful he had not as many as a centiped.

To appreciate an elephant in all his glory, one should see him in the splendor of princely procession. Designs in bright colors are painted on his forehead and trunk, trappings of silver ornament his tusks, head, and ankles, a rich cloth of gold and silver embroidery hangs over his colossal sides, and on his back is perched a rare howdah, often of gold and silver, with silk hangings. Aloft in the howdah rides the prince, resplendent with gold, silk, and jewels. In front, on the elephant’s neck, sits the mahout, urging him on with strange-sounding grunts, and prods from a short, pointed spear.

The elephants are reserved for state occasions. Most of the princes now have automobiles, which they look upon much as a child does its latest toy. The mass of the people depend upon the bullocks and horses to cart them about. There are now, also, in most parts of the empire, telephones and telegraphs: but they are such ancient systems and so unreliable that they are not to be compared with ours. India is through and through a lazy country, where nobody is in a hurry. Vol. XLI.—2.