quotes_toomai.htm



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The huge limbs moved as steadily as pistons, eight feet to each stride, and the wrinkled skin of the elbow-points rustled. The undergrowth on either side of him ripped with a noise like torn canvas, and the saplings that he heaved away right and left with his shoulders sprang back again and banged him on the flank, and great trails of creepers, all matted together, hung from his tusks as he threw his head from side to side and ploughed out his pathway.

  

This is from “Toomai of the Elephants” in The Jungle Book”.

After the elephant hunters have finished their drives for the season, hundreds of wild elephants, and a few working animals from captivity, are gathering secretly by night, deep in the jungle, to dance together, tramping up and down with a noise like war-drums. Little Toomai is on the back of his father’s elephant; he is the only one, ever, to see the elephants dance.