OUR BACKYARD CIRCUS 133 



third evening, we heard a breaking of branches on 

 the edge of the forest, and a general thrashing around 

 and found the same matriarch grazing contentedly, 

 pulling down her branches and nipping off the shoots. 

 No big booms of flashlights were going to disturb 

 her; and to show that she was not afraid, she walked 

 through the hole in the boma which she had just 

 made and went along the row of houses, where the 

 boys slept, like a runaway elephant going up a town 

 street; and quietly proceeded to strip off one of the 

 thatchings as a final gesture of independence. It 

 must have been startling for the boys to wake up 

 and see the roofs being slowly lifted off above their 

 heads and in a moment we heard a succession of cries 

 and the straw huts disgorged frightened black figures 

 that ran, tripped, and tumbled on all fours all up and 

 down the narrow path. 



This, of course, was trying even though it enabled 

 us to study the ways of elephants. And indeed 

 hers were not the usual ways of elephants. Every 

 part of the garden was reeking with the scent of 

 the boys, which would not have disturbed the ele- 

 phants of Siam and India, who are trained in 

 captivity to draw great trunks of teakwood trees 

 and to plow, but almost always send their wild 

 brothers of Africa crashing through the trees. The 

 boys solved the problem by saying simply that that 

 "tembo'' was crazy. 



