ROUGHING IT IN SOUTHERN INDIA 31 



negotiated without any fuss at all : it was only play to them. 

 Looping the rope, and twisting it round the bush once or 

 twice at the bottom, close to the ground — making it just 

 tight enough to obtain a good hold without fear of snapping 

 off — they would then walk away, sometimes backwards, 

 sometimes forwards, just according to the growth of the 

 roots, the direction of which they seemed able to guess. 

 Effort there was, and pull there was, but none that could 

 be seen. All you saw was the ground giving and cracking 

 as the bush came up, roots and all ; never once did they 

 allow a bit of the plant to break off short, only to grow 

 again, as the men often did. 



An interesting and instructive, indeed almost humiliating, 

 thing it is, too, to watch elephants at work in a timber-yard. 

 The way they stack logs, or draw out any particular one 

 indicated without disturbing the stack, letting its place 

 be filled up by surrounding ones, is something to be wit- 

 nessed, not described. An elephant knows to a nicety the 

 measure of his own strength : what he can and what he 

 cannot do ; it is the height of folly to interfere, or dictate 

 to him, in the arrogance of human wisdom, against his 

 unerring instinct. To watch a tree felled with an elephant's 

 help is enough to make one recognise and respect some 

 unnamed sense in him that men lack. The forest axemen 

 appreciate this to the full. 



Rama was the one always chosen for any special task 

 needing great judgment. I often saw him thus engaged 

 when a huge tree had to be felled. On one occasion, I 

 remember, it was of such height and girth that it would 

 have been risky for the men to be anywhere near at the 

 last, in case it should give way too suddenly or lurch over 

 sideways. But it could not fall backwards, so Rama's busi- 

 ness was to push it over when the two axemen had hewn 

 deeply enough to make that possible ; and when that 

 moment had come he was to be the judge. 



