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Updated: September 15, 2025
"But I have heard my father and mother say that we elephants live to be very old." "And can you remember so far back, when you were a baby in the jungle?" asked Humpo. "Oh, yes, very easily," answered Umboo.
And maybe Umboo's jungle story will go in a book, as mine did." "Is yours in a book?" asked Humpo, the camel. "It is," answered Snarlie, and he did not speak at all proudly as some tigers might. "My story is in a book, and there are pictures of me, and also Toto, the little Indian princess. For I came from India, just as Umboo did." "Now who is talking?" asked Woo-Uff, the lion.
So the big circus elephant, slowly swaying to and fro, and gently clanking his chains, told more of his jungle story. When he looked all around among the trees, which were dripping water from the heavy rain, and when he could not see any of the other elephants, Umboo felt very badly indeed.
"No, it was not this one, but it was one like it," said the elephant. "I came here about a year ago." "I remember that time," said Snarlie. "I liked you as soon as I saw you, Umboo." "So did I," spoke Woo-Uff, the lion, stretching out his big paws. "Let us hear the rest of Umboo's story," suggested Chako, the monkey. "Did you like the circus?" "Indeed I did, very much," Umboo answered.
And then began long days and months of lessons for Umboo and the other wild elephants. They were not wild any longer, for the first thing they learned was that the tame elephants would help them, and next that the white and black men would be kind to them and feed them.
"How can one make the best of it when it is so hot?" asked Chako. "The sun shines down on this circus tent hotter than ever it did in the jungle. And there is no pool of water where we can splash and be cool." "Oh, if water is all you want, I can give you some of that," spoke Umboo. "Wait a minute!"
Wait until I see what a funny face he is going to make." The man held out the bag of wind to Umboo. But, instead of taking it, and getting fooled, the wise elephant suddenly dipped his trunk into a tub of water that stood near. Umboo sucked his trunk full of water and then, all at once, before the man knew what was going to happen, Umboo blew the water all over him.
"I came on a ship, just as you did," answered Umboo, and then he went on to tell how he was led away from the lumber yard. To get from the place where he had, for a year or more, been piling up teakwood logs, to the great, salt ocean which the ships crossed, Umboo had to take a ride on the railroad. He might have walked, but this would have taken too long.
They huddled together in the middle part, and rubbed their trunks against one another, as men, in trouble, might shake hands. "Oh, will we ever get out of this, and have sweet bark and palm nuts to eat again?" asked Umboo. "It was almost better to be lost in the jungle, as I was, than it is to be here, for then I had enough to eat. But of course I was lonesome without you," he said to his mother.
For Umboo remembered hearing the other elephants talking about Jumbo, who, however, came from Africa and not from India. "Come, Umboo!" called the circus man. "You are going on a big ship, and take a long ride. I hope you will not be seasick." Umboo did not know exactly what a ship was.
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