THE OLD UPTOWN AQUARIUM 143 



between them and a wall in such a position that 

 they could work their huge body around and crush 

 me against the wall without apparently intending 

 to do so. If, in place of being in their winter 

 quarters they happen to be under their summer 

 canvas, then I must watch them for fear of being 

 stepped upon. They have numerous other tricks 

 "up their sleeve" by which they can make life un- 

 comfortable or even squeeze it out entirely from 

 the body of an ambitious artist, and they try to do 

 it in an apparently accidental manner. I 

 am not speaking here of vicious elephants, but of 

 the ordinary circus animal, in truth the only ele- 

 phant in whose society I have felt at all safe was 

 poor old Jumbo. Jumbo was an African elephant, 

 but whether that had anything to do with his good 

 disposition or not I am unable to state. 

 When they had 



THE "WHITE" ELEPHANT 



they used to scrub it and scrape its toe nails to 

 make it appear as light colored as possible; the 

 effect was also greatly heightened by a pink elec- 

 tric light. To make the "white" elephant appear 

 still lighter in color, poor old Jumbo was painted 

 with a coat of lamp black and grease or some 

 similar substance; this made the contrast between 

 the two, when standing together, quite noticeable, 

 but I doubt that there would have been much dif- 

 ference in their color if the two elephants had been 

 turned out to pasture for a week or two. 



