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An elephant will wind his trunk around a log and load it on a train or ship, much as a machine called a derrick would do.
One of the things a rajah likes best to do is to hunt tigers. The tiger—a huge, orange-colored cat with black stripes—is a fearful creature. He lives in the jungles of India, and when he is hungry he raids villagesand kills domestic animals and people. A rajah going forth to a tiger hunt takes good care that he is in no danger. He and a party of friends, with hundreds of servants, go out into the jungle and climb to a safe place in a tree where a platform has been built. The servants then go through the jungle beating pans and drumsand anything that will make a noise, keeping up a terrific din to scare the tiger along toward the rajah andhis party of friends. When he comes within range they fire upon him from above. They then take his skin hometo cover the floors or walls of the rajah’s palace.
There are over a hundred different religions in India but, as I told you in the last chapter, most of the people are Hindus. A Hindu believes his spirit comes back into this World in the shape of an animal or of another person. That is one reason why useful or good animals are treated well. A Hindu thinks that if he is good he will, when he dies, suddenly, in a twinkling, be born again—rich or in the shape of a good animal; if he has been bad, he will, when he returns, be poor or in the shape of a bad animal. When I look into the kindly eyes of my dog who wags his tail, puts out his paw, and whines “m-m-m,” I can almost believe as the Hindu does that some human being, perhaps a rajah, is in his dog body.
On the west side of India is a big city called Bombay, but Bombay does not look much different from any other large city in Europe. The buildings look much like the buildings in London or New York.
But if you travel north from Bombay for about two days you will come to a town with two buildings like none other in the World. This town is called Agra. One building is a tomb, the other is a mosque. The tomb was built by a Mohammedan prince for one of his four wives who was his favorite. It is called the Taj Mahal, and some think it the most beautiful building in the World.
