1937-11-05 — Page 15

THE CHINA MAIL FRIDAY SUPPLEMENT, NOVEMBER 5, 1937

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"IT KILLED THE CAT"

PARAMAH

came out of the high, virgin forests and down the slopes of the hills, until the river confronted him. It was the broad, quiet-flowing, wicked Jamsuj River, which no beast of

had the northern forests crossed.

ever

The young elephant wondered why the land that lay beyond the Jamsuj had always been regarded as forbidden territory by his own folk of the hathi-log. The river looked smooth and shallow the enough for fording, while plains that stretched beyond it with were open and inviting,

scattered brakes of sugar-cane liberally about the prospect.

Anyway, Paramah decided, no new country could be worse than the one he was bent upon leaving. Legend has it that curiosity once killed a cat and curiosity was the besetting sin of that young ele- phant, for which he had often beaten by his parents.

been

Only a fortnight ago all the full-grown beasts of the herd, save one old bull and the mothers with calves running at heel, had begun to fade away silently, mys- teriously into the dark forests. When Paramah's father disap- peared the half-grown young ele- phant had made no fuss, but the sight of his mother preparing to take her departure was a very she different matter. Hitherto had never left him and he had come, indeed, to look upon her rather as a nurse than as a par- ent; someone, in fact, especially created to minister to his many to wants, someone preordained the task of attempting to satisfy his insatiable curiosity.

Upon this occasion, however, Kaloomi had proved unwilling to answer her son's importunate questioning. She had, in fact, hustled him somewhat roughly towards the old bull who had been left in charge of the yearlings, And the mothers and the calves. so it was from the other yearlings that Paramah learned that all the older beasts had gone off to celebrate an elephant dance in a certain secret place.

They had warned Paramah that it was a sight which no human being has ever been allowed to witness and at which no elephant under two years of age may be present.

had

That warning, however, affected Paramah as little as a duck's back is affected by water. Here was something new and he meant to find out all about it. The road to the dancing floor had not been hard to follow; for, if. $ the way was long and those who had trampled it before him were converging singly upon the place appointed, it must be remembered native that elephants, in their

haunts, seldom take thought to cover up their traces.

And so Paramah had come at last to a cleared space in the for- est, where the earth had been trampled to the hardness of a brick floor, where no grass grew and where the trunks of the trees that had been left standing were BO completely stripped of bark that their boles showed ghostly white, like disembodied elephant ́tusks, in the moonlight.

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con-

The earth looked grey as death, save where some immobile ele- sil- phant threw the clear-cut houette of its densely black sha dow upon the ground. And, since everything was also as silent as death, Paramah had suddenly known fear. He had tried to steal away, but had been strained to stop by a most strange fascination; the ghost of a toot had wailed from his up-flung trunk and then his mother had come to him. Kalavissin, Para- mah's father, had joined Kaloomi a moment later and between them the old elephants had hustled their frightened, inquisitive son away before any of the other ele- phants had caught sight of him.

a

Thereby was Paramah's life saved by his parents, but even they would have killed him had he stayed to witness the dance. "As it was they took him to

far quiet place in the forest, enough from the dancing floor for his squeals to remain unheard, and there they had beaten hím with their trunks until he was sore all over. Finally, they had ordered him to go back to the

Short Story

herd and had, themselves, return- ed to the dancing floor.

But Paramah had not gone back to the old bull, and the nursing mothers and the calves and year- lings. Instead. he had come to the northern bank of the Jamsuj River and now stood looking across to the Forbidden Terri- tory. He was getting rid of the soreness of his beating but was still resentful, mainly because he had not been allowed to witness the Dance of the Elephants. Meanwhile, there was no one to stop him exploring those inviting looking lands which lay beyond the river, and in which succulent sugar-cane grew in such profu- sion.

Paramah tested the water deli- cately with the sensitive tip of his trunk, then slid clumsily down the bank. The river bed shelved gradually, but soon he was swim- ming and was surprised to find

the under-current how swiftly flowed. He reached the southern bank after a bit of a struggle, surged out of the water and up the bank, where he paused to blow his trunk clear. Then he made sugar for the nearest patch of

cane.

As it happened, the Hindu own- er of that piece of cultivation was sitting up to watch a trap he had baited in the hope of catch- ing a marauding tiger. The man was completely invisible, but the moment Paramah lapped his trunk round a bunch of canes and set the rest crackling the Hindu sprang to his feet and fired charge of pot-leg from his ancient flint-lock musket into the young elephant's tender rump.

a

Was

Paramah fled, squealing to. high heaven, but the pain worse than the actual wound, for he had not been very close when the farmer fired at him and the his charge had barely broken tough skin.

He approached the next cane- brake with far greater circum- spection, and much less noise, and

By F. A. M. Webster

this time he was allowed to feed in peace, a circumstance which greatly increased his confidence. Just before dawn he retired into a topi of broad-crowned trees, through which a stream from the There he Jamsuj meandered, found a pleasant mud-wallow from which he ejected a couple of waterbuffalo, before settling down to wile away the long hours of intense heat in pleasant idle-

ness.

At night he resumed his south- ern journey, pausing to feed just when and where he listed. Para- mah, in fact, was enjoying him- self immensely now that he was entirely free from any form of restraint.

By the end of a week, however, he was completely fed up with his own society. He had, in fact, al- most decided to turn back for the purpose of recrossing the river and rejoining his own herd when

he struck a trail which set him thinking.

In men he took not the slight- est interest, for the only speci- mens of the human race he had encountered so far, except the cul- tivator who had peppered his flank but whom he had hardly glimpsed, were the timid forest dwellers of his native fastness, and they had been only too glad to keep out of the way of the wild elephants.

And so when Paramah struck a broad, squashy trail, much be- branches sprinkled with broken

and elephant droppings, he took no notice of the human footprints which crossed and recrossed the tracks of the elephants. In fact he trumpeted merrily and follow- ed that trail at a lumbering run.

A funny little man watched him go, a little man not unlike the primitive natives of Para- mah's own jungle, but unlike the them in this respect, that dirty little Assamese jungli-wal- lah was a tracker of wild ele- phants, as his father, and his fathers for countless generations had been before him.

Silent as a small black shadow, the little man flitted behind the elephant, big, half-grown grey

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nor was he, much more than stone's throw away when the dawn broke and Paramah, from the top of a small hill, surveyed the strongly stockaded but at pre- sent empty keddah and the order- ly lines where the tame elephants now stood were picketed and trumpeting while they waited for their mahouts to attend to their wants.

..

Paramah watched while the lowcaste Mirgas and the middle- class Dwasala elephants were rid- den and marched away to work. Then all his attention was taken up as his eyes fell upon a beauti- ful Koomeriah she-elephant, which was ridden by a white man. Paramah, the wild elephant, never before had seen such a beast or such a being.

Without showing a glimpse of his hide or tusks Paramah follow- ed. The Koomeriah, whose name was Roshni, fascinated him, but in following her he came to the muddy river side where the low caste elephants were pulling loads (Continued on Page 7)

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