As a supporting example, many elephants have been trained to work in the Congo River basin. In its work an elephant may be called upon to push heavy burdens with its head, to pull with a harness, or to drag logs with a cable that it holds in its teeth. If it has tusks, it may use them in various ways, but it never pulls loads with its trunk. In India elephants are sometimes used in tiger hunts. The hunter takes his place on a platform saddle, or howdah, strapped to the elephant's back.
Beaters range through the jungle to drive out the tigers.
When the great cats draw near, the elephant gives warning and so prepares the hunter for his shot. The chief danger to the hunter, it is said, is on the rare occasions when a wounded tiger leaps on an elephant's back and the elephant madly runs under overhanging tree branches to get rid of its attacker. In captivity as in the wilds, female elephants are the more steady and trustworthy. Males are seldom found in circus herds. An exception to this was Jumbo, the huge African male elephant made famous by P.T. Barnum, the showman.