86 



The Life of an Elephant 



more confined, he listened to the soothing 

 words of his new owner. 



The next few days he passed in miserable 

 anxiety, for to an animal of this bulk there can 

 be no peace on swaying and heaving decks, 



which he imagined were unable to carry his 

 weight ; but even this trial came to an end, and 

 at last the ship moved on an even keel against 

 the stream of a broad river. On either side, 

 the banks, raised only a few feet above the tide, 

 were covered with rice-fields or grass-lands 

 which stretched away to the horizon, without 



