The Wonders of the Jungle, Book Two. Sarath Kumar Ghosh
have eaten a little more, he turns still more in that direction.
In this manner he leads the herd in a kind of curve toward the river, browsing all the way from the trees near by. So, at the end of the day, when the elephants have had enough to eat, they reach the river and have also enough to drink. Is not that a very clever method of providing both food and drink for the herd?
If the herd sleep near the bank that night, they start from there the next morning in their search for food; and they usually go into the jungle by the same path by which they came. But on returning to the river to drink that night, the leader need not bring them back by exactly the same path.
The fact that they did not have enough to eat right near the river shows that the jungle is not very thick there; so the elephants will have no trouble in making a fresh path, a little higher up the river, or a little lower down. A wise leader usually does that: he leads the herd to the river slightly higher up or lower down, and so he makes a slightly different curve through the jungle. Why? Because if he kept to exactly the same curve from the jungle to the river every day, the herd would eat up all the leaves along that path in a few days. So, by changing the curve a little from time to time, he allows fresh leaves to grow there meanwhile.
You now understand why the president of the elephant herd must be wise and clever to do all that I have told you so far. Even among men the President of a Republic has similar duties to attend to, though in a different manner: he too has to govern his country in such a manner as to provide the people with their daily wants, if they obey the laws and do honest labor.
In the elephant herd everyone has to do honest work, as he has to gather his own food; and he has also to obey the laws of the herd. I shall now tell you about that.
He Must Keep Order in the Herd
The third duty of the elephant leader is to keep order in the herd. Most elephants are by nature gentle, docile, and obedient. That is why men can tame them and make them work; otherwise, if elephants were by nature fierce and disobedient, men could not train them so perfectly as to perform at a circus, or carry people in a procession. So even in the jungle, where the elephants are wild, they usually obey the leader and keep the laws of the herd.
These laws chiefly concern their daily food and drink. As I have told you, in their daily search for food the elephants march in a line, one behind another. A selfish elephant in the middle of the line might want to stop and eat up all the leaves on a tree near him; and if he did so, he would block the way for those behind him, and besides, there would be no leaves on that tree for them to eat when they came to it.
So there is a general rule in the herd that each elephant must take just a few of the leaves from a tree, and then move on; and if instead he does block the way, the elephants behind him may push him forward and make him move on.
"But," you may ask, "why can't the other elephants behind him also stop and eat up all the leaves on the trees near them?"
Because then all the trees on that line of march would be bare of leaves, and it might take a whole month for fresh leaves to grow there again. But if the herd took only a portion of the leaves from each tree, there would be enough food for them along that path if they happened to visit it again in a few days.
In fact, the elephants need make only a few such paths through the jungle, if they eat only part of the leaves at a time along any of the paths. Then they can visit these paths in turn on other days, and always find enough food there—because the fresh leaves constantly growing on the trees would make up for the small portion they had eaten.
So you understand how wise the elephants are in having that law in the herd.
"But," you may say, "if they were to eat all the leaves on a tree, their path would be a short one; while if they eat only a portion of the leaves, their path would be much longer, as they must nibble from many more trees to satisfy their hunger."
That is quite true. But there is no advantage in having a short path, because at the end of their march in search of food they must find water to drink, as I have already told you—and they may have to go several miles to reach the nearest stream. So they might as well nibble from the trees all the way to the stream, especially as elephants can easily march ten or twelve miles in that manner every day.
Besides, after taking a bunch of leaves from a tree, they must chew it before taking the next bite; so, meanwhile, they might just as well walk on to the next tree. In fact, if they have not quite finished chewing, most elephants pass by one or two trees before taking the next bite. That shows how really wise they are. For then they are sure of finding enough food along that path when they visit it again a few days later.
It is the president of the herd who sets a good example to the others in doing all these wise things. As he walks at the head of the line, he sees at a glance what is the best thing to do in that particular path, whether to nibble a little from every tree, or to pass by a few trees without nibbling from them at all. And whatever he does, all the other elephants do after him.
My dear children, it is exactly the same among us. When food is scarce in a country and people must be careful, then it is the President who tells us how to portion out the food supply in the country. Otherwise, some people would be wasteful and throw food away—and others would not have enough to eat.
It is very important to learn from your childhood to be careful of food. Do you know that in the United States every man, woman, and child on an average throws away every year seven dollars' worth of food on the plate? That would be enough to feed all the people in the poorhouses and the hospitals.
Elephants are most careful of their food. Their president is all the time thinking of the best method of making the food supply of the jungle last them from season to season. But the other elephants must help him to do that, by following his good example. If any particular elephant is selfish and wants to eat up at once all the food near him, he is pushed out of the line by the other elephants, as I have already told you. If he is naughty again, he is more severely punished.
How he is punished, I shall tell you in another chapter. I shall then tell you how all sorts of naughty elephants are punished; for, just like people in a country, I am sorry to say that there are in the jungle a few elephants that do not obey the law.
An elephant can be selfish not only in eating, but also in drinking. You will remember what I told you in Book I—how all the elephants stand in a line along the bank of a stream and drink; and after they have all satisfied their thirst, they may jump into the water to bathe and swim.
It would be very selfish for an elephant to jump into the water before the others had finished drinking; for then he would muddy the water which some of the others were still drinking. And for such conduct an elephant is very severely punished.
But the very worst offense in an elephant herd is quarrelling and fighting; for, sometimes, two elephants do quarrel and fight, just like a couple of naughty boys in school. But there is never any real need to quarrel in an elephant herd; for if one of the elephants has done wrong or broken the rules of the herd, he will be punished by the president of the herd—just as in school a naughty boy would be punished by the teacher or by the head of the school.
It is not necessary for any other elephant in the herd to quarrel or fight with the naughty elephant, even if he has been injured by him; the president of the herd will punish the naughty elephant soon enough. So if two elephants do fight, both of them are punished; of course the one who began the fight is punished more severely than the other.
He Must Avoid Danger from Outside
The president of the herd must lead the elephants in such a manner as to avoid any danger that may come