This story would have seemed quite ridiculous to me if I had not heard many others more wonderful pass current without question, and had I not often seen elephants employed in Madras at work which in America would be assigned only to artisans of considerable skill.
“Believe anything you are told about the intelligence of an elephant,” said a traveler from India to me once, before I visited that country; “the chances are it is true.”
I engaged an experienced mahout, or driver, an intelligent native by the name of Akbar. I determined, however, to make use of his services just as little as possible, in order that Ulysses might learn to depend upon myself alone. I attended personally to the matter of food and drink, and took pains that my protegé should receive no favors from the hand of anyone else. I soon learned the things that gave him pleasure, and put myself to no little trouble to gratify him on every possible occasion. I continued this process, combining with it instruction in such small services as “house elephants” in India are always expected to perform, until I saw that I had completely gained his confidence and affection. During this period of his tutelage, Ulysses would have trusted and obeyed me to any extent. I think he would willingly have laid down his life or endured torture for my sake. Nothing made him happier than to be near me as I sat under the banyan tree in my garden, smoking and reading. When I opened his stall in the mornings and called to him to come out, he fairly quivered with joy at the sound of my voice, and gave vent to his satisfaction at seeing me by shrill trumpetings. His devotion was annoying at times, and one of the first difficulties that I experienced was in teaching him to be less demonstrative.
It is a fact, which most readers of this narrative have proved for themselves by actual experiment, that animals may be taught the meaning of words. An intelligent dog, for example possesses a considerable vocabulary. I proposed to undertake a systematic course of instruction in the English language with Ulysses and to ascertain to what extent he was capable of acquiring our vernacular. Whenever he learned a new word I made a note of it in a book, and by constant review contrived to fix it in his memory. As soon as he began to comprehend what my purpose was, as he did after I had been laboring with him a couple of weeks, he became very eager to learn, and greatly increased the rapidity of the work.
