68 THE WILDERNESS AND JUNGLE 



witness a Khedah, in which wild elephants 

 are driven into a series of stockades. Sir 

 Sheshadri Ayer, the Minister, was remarking 

 on the comparative failure of the present Indian 

 head of the Khedah establishment as con- 

 trasted with the success formerly achieved in 

 that position by G. P. Sanderson. It ap- 

 peared that the Indian director, inspired by 

 humanitarian motives, avoided the destruction 

 of any elephant that was seen turning back or 

 escaping from a stockade. Sanderson, on the 

 other hand, used invariably to shoot all such, 

 on the sound principle that dead men tell no 

 tales. That his view was in all probability the 

 correct one is sufficiently proved by an incident 

 that was related to me on this occasion. A fair 

 number of elephants had been driven right 

 up to the outer stockade, and one or two had 

 entered by the concealed gate. Suddenly a 

 fine tusker advanced to the gateway and took 

 up his position under the suspended gate, 

 where he proceeded to resist the entrance of 

 other elephants, beating them off for a con- 

 siderable time and finally leading them in a 

 wild rush that broke the line of beaters. Then 

 someone present remembered that on a pre- 

 vious occasion an elephant, apparently the same 

 one, had escaped from the outer stockade, and 

 it seemed reasonable to assume that the intelli- 

 gent animal had remembered and used his 

 experience so as to prevent others from falling 

 into the same trap. 



"A step further is reached when an elephant 

 reasons not from experience, but from fore- 



