THE MAN AND THE ELEPHANT
In the name of God, the compassionate, the merciful, who created thesoul and gave to the tongue words of wisdom, Listen! and I will tell youthe story of a king and an elephant; of a man who rose above environmentand of an elephant who was a victim of it; though this is not the rule.
Let me illustrate. If a hog is shifted from the sty to a state ofnature, he lifts his snout from the mud and in time acquires the courageof a wild boar; if a man returns to a state of nature, he becomes asavage. Take an Indian, educate him in your great school Harvard; if hereturns to his tribe, he cuts the seat from his trousers and wrapshimself in a blanket. The desert nomads, wandering over the site of thebirthplace of civilization, philosophy and religion, scarcely glance atthe half-buried ruins about them, and live as did their fathers fivethousand years ago.
In your youth, do not let conceit shut your mind to the acquisition ofwisdom. Do not think that the world was in darkness until you were born.Old age will shatter hope and you will lose confidence in yourgeneration and become an ancestor worshiper, because you arebirth-marked mentally and physically by your ancestors; because old ageloves youth, and the present the past, and contrasts the joys and sportsof childhood with the toil and pain and poverty of old age; because theevil days have come, the clouds return after the rain, the house youlive in trembles, your grinders cease because they are few, your windowsare darkened; and having eaten, you know you are naked and are ashamedand afraid.
Solomon the Wise, philosopher and preacher, says: "All is vanity * * *one generation passeth away and another generation cometh, but the earthabideth forever. * * * Fear God and keep his commandments, for this isthe whole duty of man."
The Story.
More than five thousand years before the birth of our prophet Muhammed,The Praised One; even before Ur was; the ancestors of King Surgulla, whobelonged to a Turanian tribe, came down from the Heights of Elam on theeast, into the plain country and finally settled near Nun-ki, that is,the place of the first water, on the left bank of the Euphrates.
Here was the temple of Hea, the water god; here the palm trees grew in agreat garden watered by crystal springs; which place the Jews, a modernpeople, call the Garden of Eden. Here sat the fathers in judgment undera great palm tree and the chief mufti read from the tablets:
"When the upper region was not yet called heaven, And the lower region was not yet called earth, And the abyss of Hades had not yet opened its arms, Then the chaos of waters gave birth to all of them And the waters were gathered together into one place."
The first settlement of tents grew into a city and was called the Cityof The Good God, Urugudda, which in time was shortened to Eridu. Eriduenjoying several centuries of peace and prosperity, became the capitalof a great nation; a seat of learning, philosophy and religion andarchitecturally beautiful. Its many white public buildings, palaces andtemples of fretted marble and porphyry with their red and green tiledroofs and cupolas and gold crescent-crowned minarets, resplendent undera tropic sun, excited the cupidity of every bold robber, who, ridingfrom the desert, viewed its greatness from the distant sand hills.
The people of Girsu were nomads; and worshiped the sun, the moon andwater. Their chief had a half grown son, born to sit in the light of thesun, Chalginna. His sole possessions were a light, keen spear, a swiftwhite camel, a water bottle made from a goat skin and a mat on which tosleep. In the stillness of the night as he rested on his mat of camelcloth, though he slept too soundly to hear the roar of the camels or thebleating of the goats or the barking of the jackal, he saw the city anddreamed of its conquest and pillage. Each morning fearful that duringthe night something might have happened to it, he rode the miles acrossthe desert to the highest of the sand hills, from which with eyes keenas an eagle's, he looked, the while whetting his wolf-like appetite tofeed upon it.
In the city there was a boy his own age, the son of the king, and nearlyas strong and brave as he, who day after day was drilled to take hisfather's place; and who had dreams of empire more extensive than hisfather's. When he was grown, he journeyed with a considerable retinueeastward into Persia, where he was to marry the daughter of a greatprince. It was well his caravan guard was strong; because Chalginna, whohad gathered about him near a hundred kindred spirits ruled by hisfiercer spirit hovered upon its flanks, as a band of hungry wolves fromthe shelter of the thicket eye the lambs while the shepherd is about andlick their chops in anticipation of mutton at the first lapse ofvigilance.
The band reasoning that the wedding party, returning, would be richer bythe princess and her dowry, deferred their attack; but reckoned not thatpart of that dowry would be a dozen elephants, the first brought intothe valley of the Euphrates.
In a seemingly boundless desert, where the hills of sand were shifted bythe winds and famine and thirst held cheerless dominion, they chargedthe caravan; but their camels balked and ran away, never before havingseen or scented such monsters. Two, crazed by the sight of the greatbeasts, lost their heads and charged alone, bearing their now unwillingriders who rolled off and sought to hide in the sand drifts. The princeand his mahout, on a young male elephant hunted them. The elephantthreshed the camels into helpless cripples and the prince killed the tworobbers with shafts from his cross-bow.
This failure taught Chalginna a lesson. When the elephants were placedto pasture in the rich river plains; under cover of the night, he drovehis war camels into their vicinity, until they knew the herd and theherd knew the camels. The boldest of his men provided themselves withshort staffs, tipped with an iron point and hook, first walked among theelephants and then rode about upon their heads as did their mahouts. Allthe elephants grew to know and mind them, except Gisco, the young bullwhich the prince rode. He trumpeted wrathfully and beat aboutdangerously with his trunk whenever a Semite or camel approached him.
Seven years have passed since the marriage of the prince. Chalginna,first captain of the robber band, then chief of his tribe is now rulerof Yemen and head of a great confederacy of desert tribes. Erigalla isking of Eridu, having succeeded his father.
Each of his caravans is pillaged or made to pay tribute and his subjectsare kidnapped and held for ransom, by Chalginna. It is impossible tofollow the robber into the desert or to corner him in battle; becausewhen attacked, his force riding camels, scatters as chaff across thedesert of loose sand; and neither horses nor elephants nor man canfollow.
There are now thirty-three elephants, Gisco the bull, which bears theking's howdah, is leader of the herd and knows no master except hismahout and the king.
One night, the uproar and trumpeting of the elephants awoke the city,though their pasture was more than a mile down the river. A company ofhorsemen sent to investigate reported that seven of the elephants weremissing and the king's great elephant was badly wounded, having thirtyspear heads buried in his fleshy sides and many wounds about the headand neck; while trampled into the earth about his feet or torn andmaimed almost beyond identification of form were the bodies of sevencamels and four of Chalginna's troopers.
King Erigalla sent out five hundred horsemen and a hundred and fiftychariots to recover his elephants. When they came to the camp ofChalginna, he did not run but gave battle and drove them back to thevery gates of the city. Then he dared the king to meet him in the greatriver valley; but the king declined, feeling that now he should reservehis strength, expecting an assault upon the city.
Again by night Chalginna visited the river pastures, having a dualpurpose; one was to kill the bull elephant, but he had been taken to thepalace garden, where, soothed by the cooling spray from the greatfountain, he was being nursed back to his great strength; the other wasto cut down a great tree and a number of saplings, which were dragged tothe desert camp by thirty work camels and need in the construction of aportable ram. The great tree trunk was rigged to swing from a frame onraw hide belts and a platform built on either side on which men mightstand and, grasping pegs driven in the log, propel it back and forthwith g
reat force. Above the whole Chalginna built an oval canopy ofsaplings, broad enough not only to cover the machine, but to shield thefour great elephants which would bear it. When finished the strongest ofhis men, twelve on each side, took places on the platforms; and for somedays men and elephants were drilled in its manipulation. When thetraining was completed, Chalginna having gathered six thousand troopers,five thousand on camels and a thousand horsemen, at twilight started onthe march against the city of Eridu. The portable ram, suggesting animmense land tortoise, led the advance; Chalginna and his staff rodebeside it on the other elephants and the troopers followed.
----
Gisco, the king's bull elephant, though fully recovered, was stillchained to a stake in the palace garden. There he stood, swaying hisgreat body, feeding upon rank and tender rushes brought from the rivermarsh; and to drive away the flies and reduce the heat occasionallysprayed his body and the earth around with water from the fountain. Thewind blew from the desert. Shortly past midnight he ceased swaying andlifted his great ears, stood for a moment as a great beast of bronze;then he raised his trunk aloft and trumpeted an alarm that was heard byhalf the city. The wind had borne to his keen sense of smell the pungentodor of the camel, the scent of the missing from his herd and givenwarning that his old enemies, Chalginna's troopers, were at hand.
The watchman on the wall looking carefully desertward, saw a great blackmass approaching the main gate and gave a general alarm. The palace isawakened. The king, his mahout and two of his guard come into thegarden; slaves having placed the war howdah upon Gisco, they take theirplaces, and the elephant lumbers off towards the great gate. At the gatethe king climbs from the howdah into a midwall opening and ascends tothe barbican. Looking about, he sees his soldiers in place behind theparapets; the city is on guard; then looking desertward, he sees theblack mass quite near and gradually severs from it Chalginna's tortoise,which he knows is some implement of war and surmises its purpose.
When the tortoise is within fifty feet of the wall, darts and arrows ofthe besieged are showered upon it, but as it is well shielded by thesapling cover thatched with rawhide, there is no halt until it isagainst the wall. Then the great ram pounds upon the gate of bronze andiron and the thuds are heard above the noise of conflict. Chalginna hascalled and is knocking for admittance; and the city trembles.
Barrels of boiling water are poured upon the machine and great stonesand darts are cast upon it; but it turns all as a tortoise shell turnsrain and the sticks and pebbles of a boy. Then they throw burning pitchand firebrands upon it, but they have so water soaked it that it willnot burn.
The gates begin to give and in a last effort to destroy the dreadmachine Gisco and half dozen elephants loaded with warriors are let outa secret gate and charge upon it. Three of the elephants reached the rambut are so violently assailed by Chalginna and his staff and theelephants on which they are riding, which turn against their old mates,that they can do nothing more than protect themselves. Gisco strikes atthe machine and nearly upsets it. The operator shifts the ram from thegate and drives the great log against his side with such force as tobreak several of his ribs and knock him to the earth.
Chalginna, who has seen the king in the howdah borne by Gisco, jumps tothe back of the fallen elephant, but slips and falls within reach of histrunk; his left arm is seized and broken, almost wrenched from itssocket. His followers after rescuing their leader, swarm about the kingand overpower him. He is bound and borne to the rear; and Chalginna islifted back upon his elephant. The gates yield; the robbers enter; andthe city is given over to pillage, violence and slaughter.
Many of Erigalla's soldiers are slain, many of the women are madeslaves. The queen and her young son, a boy of three years, though thecity is searched, cannot be found. Chalginna by conquest becomes itsruler and adopts its standard as his own; an eagle with outstretchedwings bearing in her talons the cab of a lion.
----
On a bare spot, but a few hundred yards beyond the city wall, almostbeside the dusty road leading to the great gate; a place where lepersand the blind are wont to sit and beg; Chalginna placed along the edgeof a huge, half buried, flat rectangular stone, great cubes of hewngranite four inches apart, so that they formed a little doorless chambernot much larger than one of the granite blocks used in its construction.The people passing said to one another: "Our new king is building ashrine or a tomb."
When finished, except the dropping into place of the cap stone weighingten tons, the captive king is brought forth and placed within. Then thecap stone is shifted into place and the doorless prison closed upon theprisoner.
Upon the front Chalginna cut this inscription:
"The palace of King Erigalla. His subjects are the beggars and lepers ofthe city; they may render obeisance to their sovereign; but let no otherperson dare, or to speak with, save to revile him. He who disobeys shallbe made a beggar and blind."
----
Gisco, the day after the battle, lay where he had fallen. When nightcame on, driven by thirst to move despite the pain, slowly he rose onhis great columnar legs and stumblingly dragged his ungainly body to theriver where on the low bank he sank exhausted and filled himself withthe tepid water. Screened by a dense growth of water palm and creepers,he lay there for several days; then having recovered sufficiently tomove about a bit, fed upon the tender rushes of the marsh.
After many days his strength returned. Going forth to feed in thepastures he found another bull had usurped his place as leader of theherd. After a battle lasting for hours he regained his supremacy.
Chalginna's mahouts, wishing to use the elephants to move some greatstones to strengthen the wall came down to drive the herd to the city.Gisco would not let one of them approach him, but followed after thesubmissive herd, trumpeting his resentment.
Instinctively he shunned the prison of Erigalla until he sensed hismaster was within, then pressing his head against the great front stone,backed by his seven tons of bulk he shoved upon it but could not shakeor budge it as the stones were set in cement mortar and riveted withbars of iron. Then he passed his trunk into one of the apertures; andthe captive reached out his arm and stroked the end of it with his hand.
A trooper passing on a camel jabbed the elephant in the flank with thepoint of his spear. He turned more quickly than seemed possible andkilled both trooper and camel; then driven to madness by the scent ofthe nomad horde in possession of the city, or possibly to revenge hismaster, he charged through the gate, killing and destroying as he went,and for an hour was master of the city.
They set out poisoned fruit to tempt him but he would not eat. Theysought to blind him with darts, but his small eyes were uninjured,though his head and great sides bristled with arrows.
At the order of Chalginna, a gang of workmen set a great stake deep inthe earth, without the wall beside the road near the great gate and notmore than fifty yards from King Erigalla's prison; to this they fixed afew links of heavy chain.
The mahout who had driven him before the city had been sacked was forcedby threats of death to bring him to the stake and fasten the chain uponhis leg, a few inches above his five great toes; and Gisco too was aprisoner, and so near that when the king spoke his name he heard andanswered.
It was well for the sanity of the king in the first months of thatimprisonment that the elephant was a fellow prisoner; and by his lowtrumpetings conveyed to him his sympathy and loyalty. No other beingdared, though a dirty beggar woman, bearing a small boy child upon herhip, frequently passed, hoping to see the king, but he sat in a cornerout of sight, with his head bent forward upon his breast or overcome bydespair rolled in the dust upon the floor.
Had the woman seen the face of the king she would not have known him.The bones of his cheeks stood out, his eyes were sunk in their sockets,and his face and body were black from the dust of the highway, whichnearly choked him. Given barely sufficient water to sustain life, hec
onstantly suffered from thirst, and in a parched voice mumbled halfunconscious prayers: "Cast me not off, Oh God! for no one else can helpme. Grant that in my affliction my eyes shall not grow blind to Thygoodness! Feeble as I am, Thou only art my refuge."
The man was nearly mad; the elephant ate his rushes in contentment.
Once, when the sirocco blew so fiercely that the beggars sought shelterbehind the angles of the city wall and the highway was deserted, a bunchof blue lotus flowers rolled at the King's feet and a familiar voicewhispered his name. He rose from his corner and peering through acrevice between the stones saw the face of the beggar woman whom he hadseen pass and repass so often, always carrying on her hip a little boyor now and again feeding a handful of green rushes to Gisco. Reachingout his grimy hand and arm he touched the tips of her fingers, and whenhis eyes had grown accustomed to the light, he saw beside her face, thatof his little son. Think you they cared for the sandstorm?
The baby slept and woke and spoke of being hungry and the wind blew on.The woman, because the jailer would shortly come, bringing a smallearthen jar of water and a cake of bread made of millet seed, was forcedto leave. From a small leather bag, hidden in the breast of her dressshe took several priceless gems and tossed them through to the king,retaining several less valuable ones; then saying she would returnbetween midnight and morning she went to a hovel built against the outerwall, in the beggar colony and prepared food for her boy. When themorning star showed itself, lifting the sleeping boy she came again tothe prison, bringing a small skin of water and a bag of dried fruit.From that day she rose with the morning star and visiting her husband,brought water and food. When the boy slept in the afternoon, she sat inthe narrow shade of the prison and held him, but dared not speak a word.
In time, other beggars seeing the beggar woman resting in the shade ofthe prison came there to rest and talk, and they came to know the kingand talk with him, telling him what had occurred throughout the kingdom.
The captain of the gate guard, who had supervision of the king andGisco, noticed that the beggar children played with and climbed over theelephant and fed him grass and bits of bread, though he would not letone of Chalginna's troopers approach him. He also noticed that thebeggars were beginning to gather about the king's prison and to talkwith him. This he thought to forbid, but before doing so asked Chalginnafor instructions. He thought it a great joke, saying: "It seems theinscription is to be fulfilled. The prison is being converted into thepalace of the king of the beggars. Do not interfere with the king'scourt, let his subjects render obeisance. How have the mighty fallen."
One day a beggar from a far country resting against the prison wall,heard the king bemoaning his fate and asked:
"Why weepest thou?"
"Once I was king of this country, but now I am a beggar and a prisoner."
"What matter it? God giveth to one man a diadem and a throne; another asgreat in his sight, sitteth in the dust at the gate of the city andsoliciteth alms; time may shift the one to the other's place, and one isas well off as the other. If you would have peace, strike not thefeeble, soothe the afflicted, do good as it is offered to your hand. Ifyou would make the night of your prison as bright as day, light it withthe lamp of your good works. The less you have here, the smoother yourroad to paradise. A camel carrying only his hump of curses and blessingsmakes the best time. You see before you a beggar who would not exchangehis peace of mind for the sceptre of Chalginna. A king must be a lightsleeper or lose his head with his crown."
The king thought over this counsel. A few days later he asked the beggarwoman to bring him a bag of silver coins, and among them she placed afew gold ones.
Thereafter, when a beggar spoke to the king of being hungry--after hehad promised not to mention the gift--a silver coin found its way intohis hand. A poor water carrier with a large family, who had lost hisdonkey, received a gold coin to buy another. A mother of three smallchildren was given one with which to buy a goat and some food. Acrippled beggar, forced to visit a far country, was given two goldcoins, with which he purchased an old but serviceable camel.
The king advised with and comforted all who sought him. His subjectsgrew in number, the homage they rendered was prompted by affection andthe tribute they paid was love.
On his birthday, in the second year of his imprisonment, the prisonhouse was dressed in blue lotus flowers and wreathed with palm leaves,and a great collar of flowers was placed about the neck of Gisco.
Chalginna, riding in state beyond the great gate, was impressed by thedecorations and the gathering. More than three hundred beggars, mainlywomen and children, bearing palm branches, were gathered around thelittle prison house and on a throne covered with goat skins, just underthe inscription, sat a little boy, wearing a crown of blue lotus flowersand holding a palm branch sceptre.
Contemptuously curious, he asked the child's name and was told, "He isthe son of a beggar woman, probably a leper, that lives in a hovel nearthe gate," whereat he laughed and rode on.
The celebration ended by the planting of a thrifty young palm to theright of the prison. From the day of its planting, each beggar when hehad water to spare, poured it about its root, and the tree grew ruggedand thrifty from these libations.
On each succeeding birthday the same ceremony was repeated, until agrove of fifteen thrifty young palms shaded the prison and made acomfortable resting place for the beggars and the traveling poor.
The boy who took the part of king, now almost a man, continued in thatcharacter. The assembly of beggars at these birthday ceremonies nownumbered thousands. They looked upon the imprisoned king with more favorthan on Chalginna, who to feed his extravagances, became an extortionistand was fast making beggars of even his most loyal subjects. It wasbeginning to be whispered about that many of those who participated inthe ceremony were not really beggars, and the captain of the gatesuggested to Chalginna that the crowd was growing dangerous. He rode outto see and, impressed by its proportions, determined in the future toforbid the ceremony.
Ants ate to a mere shell the stake to which the chain that bound Giscowas attached, and it parted almost of its own accord. He was a greatoverfed elephant, ponderous in bulk and frame, weighing more than seventons, and at last grown as tractable and lazy as a puppy.
When the stake parted, he had no thought to move beyond the radius ofthe circle of the chain, but continued to walk the old beat, or standand sway his great bulk as he had done for so many, many days. He nolonger struck at or trumpeted with rage when Chalginna's troopers rodewithin reach, but ate nuts and dates from their hand.
His old mahout visiting the spot and seeing how the long imprisonmenthad affected the elephant was moved to tears. He made up his mind, bysome expedient, to rouse the spirit of the great beast. Coming throughthe gate before it was closed, he spent the night without the city andafter midnight mounting to the old place on the elephant's head, soughtto ride him to the river pastures; but he circled the old limit of hischain and could not be budged beyond.
As the beggars looked after the material wants of Gisco, so they hadcared for the king; and he within the confines of his prison, which wasa space not a fiftieth as great as Gisco's circle, had found room toexercise and keep his body in condition. Gradually, the wants and wrongsof his subjects, which were many, forced upon him the resumption of thecares of a sovereign, until he was now the servant of the beggars,though he advised, counciled and commanded them.
The man had lived above his environment, the elephant had not.
Environment tended to Chalginna's destruction; he was too primitive bynature to be the king of a great city. Had he been as capable as when hetook the city, he would long since have been alarmed by the influence ofErigalla, and have placed him where deposed kings are harmless; butpower and the vices of the city had ruined a great nomad chieftain. Hewas ambitious now only to indulge new vices and extravagances, andenergetic only in the collection of tribute.
In the sixteenth year of Erigalla's imprisonment the beggars withce
rtain of his former subjects, men who could remain loyal to a deposedking, if he were a just man, made extensive preparations to celebratehis birthday. Many who heretofore had worn disguises as beggars, camethis time armed and habited in their usual garb. More than ten thousandgathered without the gates to celebrate the occasion.
Chalginna had forgotten his resolve to forbid the ceremony. In thesedays he forgot many things. When told of the great gathering, he calledtogether his personal guard and rode out, curious to see and if heshould deem it expedient, forbid the ceremony.
He was scarcely noticed by the multitude, though a few, feeling safe inthe crowd, hooted their derision.
As he approached the prison, three strange elephants drew a derrickagainst the wall and the great cap stone was lifted half off. Thecaptive king, wearing the crown which Chalginna had never found, anddressed as was his wont in the olden days, was lifted over the wall andtook his seat on a throne in the palm grove in front of the prison.
Gisco, whose neck was bound about with a great wreath of lotus flowers,seeing his old master or disturbed by the three strange elephants,stepped gingerly beyond the circle of his captivity and came slowlytowards them, giving low trumpetings of joy.
Chalginna, who assumed to treat the king's temporary release as a partof a farcical ceremony, but was so exercised by it as to determine uponhis death that night, was incensed beyond self-control when the elephantwhich had disabled his arm, passing near seemed to sneeze contemptuouslyin his very face.
He struck at the great beast with his short sword, and though he didlittle more than scratch through the thick hide, he severed the wreathof lotus flowers and it dropped to the ground.
Gisco the spiritless, the lazy, for a moment was transformed into Giscothe war elephant. He struck the king's horse lifeless; grasped the kingabout the middle and lifting him high above the heads of the astonishedmultitude, dropped him head down, through the roof of the prison; thenshoving the half removed cap stone into place, slowly walked back to hisold circle and began eating from his rack of rushes.
While yet the multitude stood apathetic in astonishment, the beggarseer, who was consulted as an oracle, the same who had advised thecaptive king in the early days of his imprisonment, climbed upon the capstone of the prison and addressed the multitude: "Let no one oppose thedecree of God. Chalginna is deposed." And the people echoed: "It is thewill of God! Long live King Erigalla! Long live the King!"
And he reigned in peace sixty and seven years from that day, saw hisson's sons and their children, died in honor and full of days, and wassucceeded by his son, the beggar boy, known as Surgulla the Great, whofor forty and three years ruled all the land from the Red Sea east tothe Persian Gulf and from the Black Sea south to the Gulf of Aden.
The End
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