Five Mile Beach weekly journal., 1907-04-24
Wben the TrIxmpef
Founded.

copyright. 1907. by Homer Sprague.1
They were building the great high
way and railroad bridge over the Gun
ga river, near Nagpoor, in India, and In
this month of August the scene was as
busy a one as could be conceived. The
approaches were being filed in by a
thousand natives; the ironwork was
being pushed along by 300 more direct
ed by English engineers and foremen;
200 men were unloading the cars Of
the working trains; 800 elephants, each
In charge of a mahout, were carrying
or dragging beams of wood and grid
ers of iron. When the steam whistles
blew for dinner on this particular day.
one of the mahouts approached his boss
and, after a respectful salaam, said:
81 have to tell you that my beast
Banga has had to be punished often to-
day. He is homeslck and out Of tenn
per. I have talked kindly to him,
have coaxed and reasoned, but it has
done no good. He still defies me. I
am afraid that If do not let him rest
he will make great trouble"
"But there is no time for rest" re-
piled the overseer, who was a native
himself. "The work must be driven,
the bridge must be finished. Tomor-
row your beast may no longer be
homesick. There can be no rest for him
today"
The mahout drove his elephant to the
feeding place and placed food before
him, brt the beast would not eat. He
was offered dainties. but he refused
them. The mahout sang to him, prom
ised him n whole months rest when
the bridge should be finished, but Ban
ga made rumbling in his throat and
would not be placated. His conduct
was noticed by other mahouts, and
some of them said:
"He should not go back to work this
afternoon. He is dangerous. He will
win over Our beasts. Hear him growE
in his throat The great sahib should
be told that there is danger"
Word was sent to the engineer In
charge of the works. He was an Eng
lishman who had lived long in India
and knew the ways of natives and ele-
plants. Some of the beasts and their
drivers had come 200 miles to work on
the bridge 1t was a well known fact
that now and then an elephant got
homesck and became dangerous if not
laid off for day or two. The engineer
had set out to make that banner day,
and when word came from Banga the
reply went back that the beast was not
to be excused a
Banga rumbled in his throat and
'-,tittpsid rst lfa trf y
ton of work he raised his trunk and
made a whistling noise through it,
Every other elephant on the works
caught the sound and repeated the sig
nal back.
ut means dangerr' whispered the
mahouts to each other, but the great
sahib had spoken, and there was no
holding back.
For two hours after dinner the work
went on at high pressure. Every man
was there and not an elephant refused
to obey orders. Even Banga worked
better than during the morning. The.
mahouts and their bosses had had
vigilant eye on the toiling beasts, but
as time passed their fears were quieted..
'"Thief and robber, dost thou not
see that Banga is at work?' demanded
q foreman of q mahout.
Four elephants twined their trunks
; around an iron girder and lifted 1t
from the ground. They held it sus-
pended for a moment, and then Banga
! let go, raised his trunk and blew a
trumpet blast. But few men there had
ever heard the like before. They were
men who had hunted the great beast
In his wild state and had heard the
sound from a wounded and enraged ell
ephant In thirty seconds a scene OF
industry was turned into hell Three
hundred elephants were trumpeting at
once. Nearly 1000 men were running
and shouting. Locomotives and en-
} gines were blowing whistles of warm
ing for just one minute, and then the
great beasts broke loose, and Banga
} led them all in his fury. With one
blow of his trunk he killed his mahouts
with second he made a corpse of the
overseer who had called him thief.
Then up and down the long dirt filed
approaches the 300 behemoths raved-
They struck men down as fast as they
could reach them. Some they hurled
into the air and others into the nearby
treetops. They upset the locomotives
and dump carts of the dirt trains and
rolled them down the embankments.
They picked up beams and planks and
girders and kegs of bolts and rivets
and sent them after.
Ten minutes cleared the long west
ern approach. Then hundred of the
beasts, moving as if under orders,