They went out
into the field, and soon met with an elephant, whom they began to attack
in their usual manner. But unfortunately, the horse of the man who was
fighting with the elephant at the time fell, and the rider was thrown to
the ground. Then the elephant had his vengeance, and it was a terrible
one--almost too terrible to think upon. He instantly seized the unhappy
man with his trunk, threw him up into the air to a vast height, and
received him upon his tusks as he fell. Then, turning toward the other
two brothers with an aspect of revenge and insult, he held out to them
the mangled body of his victim, writhing in the agony of death.
At Macassar an elephant driver one day had a cocoanut given him, which,
in order to break it, he struck two or three times against the
elephant's head. The next day the animal saw some cocoanuts exposed in
the street for sale, and taking one of them up in his trunk, beat it
about the driver's head until he fractured his skull.
Mr. Colton, the author of that admirable book called "Lacon," tells a
similar anecdote of an elephant in Madras. It was a war elephant, and
was trained to perform an act of civility called the _grand salam_,
which is done by falling on the first joint of the fore-leg at a given
signal. The elephant was to make the salam before a British officer. It
was noticed at the time that he was rather out of humor.
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