Democratic Sentinel, Volume 19, Number 48, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 6 December 1895 — The Elephant as a Playfellow. [ARTICLE]

The Elephant as a Playfellow.

A man who has traveled in India a great deal says that an elephant is a better playfellow for a boy than a dog. The native hoys make the elephants take them in swimming. They climb on the elephant’s back and ride in triumph to the best swimming hole. The elephant walks into deep water and keeps right on walking until there’s nothing to be seen of him except his trunk and a good, level island of back. The boy stands on the Island and yells like—well, just about like a good, healthy American boy, and he dives off the island, and the elephant grabs him with his trunk and puts him up onto "dry land,” and answers his yell with a cry that’s half snort and half whoop, tnd altogether he gives that boy just is good a time “in swimming" as if he uad lived in America and never drearn--d of using an elephant’s back for a pring board. Queer country, India, -n’t it?