Fennewick
Fennewick
Fenwick 1
Fenwick 2
Fenwick 3
Fenwick 4
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Fennewick - Section 01
Part A
When the Elephant is desired as a servant, he is captured in various ways. Sometimes he is driven into great pens; sometimes he tumbles into pitfalls, and sometimes tame Elephants coax him into traps, and fondle and amuse him while their masters tie up his legs with strong ropes. The pitfalls are not favorite methods of capturing Elephants. Besides the injury that may be done to the animal, other beasts may fall into and disturb the trap, and even men may find themselves at the bottom of a great deep hole when they least expect it, for the top is very carefully covered over with sticks and leaves, so as to look as much as possible like the surrounding ground. Du Chaillu, who was a great hunter in Africa, once fell down one of these pits, and it was a long time before he could make anybody hear him and come and help him out. If an Elephant had happened to put his foot on the covering of that hole while Du Chaillu was down there, the hunter would have found himself very much crowded.
But few stories are quite as wonderful as that one. We have no difficulty at all in believing the account of the Elephant who took care of a little child. He did not wear a cap and apron, as the artist has shown in the picture, but he certainly was a very kind and attentive nurse. When the child fell down, the Elephant would put his trunk gently around it, and pick it up. When it got tangled among thorns or vines, the great nurse would disengage it as carefully as any one could have done it; and when it wandered too far, the Elephant would bring it back and make it play within proper limits. I do not know what would have been the consequence if this child had behaved badly, and the Elephant had thought fit to give it a box on the ear. But nothing of the kind ever happened, and the child was a great deal safer than it would have been with many ordinary nurses.
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