The Minds and Manners of Wild Animals: A Book of Personal Observations

I invite any Doubting Thomas who thinks that Kartoum does not "think" and "reason" to try his own thinking and reasoning at inventing for Kartoum's door a latch that a keeper can easily and surely open and close at a distance of ten feet, and that will be Kartoum-proof. As for ourselves, three or four seemingly intelligent officers and keepers, and a capable foreman of construction, have all they can do to keep ahead of that one elephant, so great is his ingenuity in thwarting our ways and means to restrain him. In about two days of effort our elephant keepers taught Gunda to receive a coin from the hand of a visitor, or pick it off the floor, lift the lid of a high-placed cash-box, drop the coin into it and ring a bell. This very amusing industry was kept up for several years, but finally it became so popular that it had to be discontinued. Keeper Dick Richards easily taught Alice to blow a mouth organ, and to ring a telephone, to take the receiver off its hook and hold it to her ear and listen. For years Alice has rendered, every summer, valuable services of a serious nature in carrying children and other visitors around her yard, and only once or twice has she shown a contrary or obstinate spirit. Tame elephants never tread on the feet of their attendants or knock them down by accident; or, at least, no instances of the kind have come to my knowledge. The elephant's feet are large, his range of vision is circumscribed, and his extreme and wholly voluntary solicitude for the safety of his human attendants can not be due to anything else than independent reasoning. The most intelligent dog is apt to greet his master by planting a pair of dirty paws against his coat or trousers. The most sensible carriage-horse is liable to step on his master's foot or crowd him against a wall in a moment of excitement; but even inside the keddah, with wild elephants all about, and a captive elephant hemmed in by three or four tame animals, the noosers safely work under the bodies and between the feet of the tame elephant until the feet of the captive are tied.