In many cases it seemed to be a particularly exasperating job to get these captives out of the kraal. Two trained mounts would finally be driven up on each side of the young elephant, and a sort of collar made of cocoanut-fiber rope was slipped under his neck. These collar ropes are crossed at the top, and an end is made fast to the neck of the tame mounts, which, being a good deal taller than the little chap in the middle, would be able to lift him nearly off his front legs by raising their heads, and so compel him to walk, the youngster’s great act being to lie down and refuse to budge. The leg-ropes were then thrown off, and in this way they made a start for the exit, with a third elephant bringing up the rear to push the captive forward in case of any signs of balking. When he was gracefully shoved through the gateway, two others would meet him outside the stockade, and he would be marched off across the river to the stables, to be chained up to his post, and there either sensibly accept his lot and start to learn to work, or else be starved into submission. In some few cases captivity seems to take all the spirit out of the beasts, and rather than endure it, they will refuse all food and water and finally die, a sort of martyr at the altar of freedom.
[Illustration: FIRST STEPS IN THE EDUCATION OF A YOUNGSTER IN THE INNER PEN]
The attachment the elephant has for his keeper is something marvelous. Almost incredible accounts are told of their devotion. Perhaps this is due to the inseparable life that the mahout and his elephant lead, for the keeper and his charge are constantly together. Always the same hand feeds and tends him, always the same voice commands him, whether at work in the lumber-yards, charging through the jungle at a round-up, or moving slowly in some royal procession. If by any chance a mahout becomes too ill to work or dies, there is often the greatest difficulty to induce the elephant to accept a new master, and it is very seldom that the new man can gain the complete mastery over the brute that its original trainer had.
There is a wrong impression prevalent that the Siamese regard the white elephant as a deity. That they hold it in special regard is true, for each Buddha, in passing through a series of transmigrations, is supposed to have inhabited the body of some white animal, either a monkey, a dove, or an elephant; and therefore a white animal is yet worshiped as having at some time been the superior of man.