OUR BACKYARD CIRCUS 107 



beasts to move on down toward the lake ; but not 

 before I had another good view filmed of elephant life. 



Years ago in Kansas as a small boy, long before I 

 ever dreamed I'd go to Africa to live, I watched the 

 big greyish black beasts waddle by on circus day with 

 their curious shuffling walk. They looked so slow 

 and stupid, so indifferent to what went on about 

 them, so grotesquely out of place amid the trumpery 

 of civilization, that even as a small boy I wondered 

 vaguely what they might be like in their own native 

 haimts. 



As I grew older I picked up the traditional beliefs 

 about the elephant. I learned to think of him as a 

 mixture of viciousness and sagacity when he was 

 aroused, and as a profoundly dumb brute when left 

 to his own devices. I knew he was trained at hauling 

 teak in India and at doing meaningless tricks in 

 America. 



I heard many tales of the elephant's power of 

 memory and desire for revenge. "Don't feed the 

 elephant" was a sign we all knew was based on the 

 fact the beast might become violent if given red 

 pepper instead of peanuts. An elephant killed a man 

 in Brooklyn who burned his tusk with his lighted 

 cigar. "Alice," one of the New York Zoo collection 

 vented her anger by rushing into the Reptile House 

 and throwing to the concrete floor glass show cases 

 filled with poisonous snakes. And so on. 



