ELEPHANTS IN SPORT.

Northland Age, Volume 3, Issue 7, 18 September 1906, Page 2

ELEPHANTS IN SPORT.

. ■;■■■■■ . General Baden Powell say* that elephants are very clever ih overcoming difficulties met with on the march They make their way through seemingly impenetratnble jungle, and in places where young trees grow very close together they either push them down with their heads or twist them together with their trunks. When they come to a deep nullah they gently slide down into it on their forelegs, kneeling on the bank with their hind legs until sure of their balance. In climbing out they reverse tho process, and it often seems to the man in the howdah that tho animal is going to fall backwards as it kneels on its forelegs, and helps itself with its trunk, which serves as a fifth leg. When an elephant gets "bogged” a pole is thrown down to him, and he walks out on It as if on a tight rope. It is wonderful how the mahouts drive an elephant. They make him move forward by prodding him with their toes behind their ears, stop him by sticking the driving hook into the front of his forehead and pulling backwards, hit him hal'd with the flat side of the hook when correcting him, and do very much by word of command. One day, as the General was riding home, his elephant trod on a thorn. It stopped, held out its foot, and would not go on till the mahout got'down and examined it. The mahout saw the thorn, but it had broken off short in the foot and he could not extract it, so he told the elephant it was all right, and the docile animal went on quito happy again.