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Toomai of the Elephants

I will remember what I was, I am sick of rope and chain– I will remember my old strength and all my forest affairs. I will not sell my back to man for a bundle of sugar-cane: I will go out to my own kind, and the wood-folk in their lairs. I will go out until the day, until the morning break– Out to the wind’s untainted kiss, the water’s clean caress; I will forget my ankle-ring and snap my picket stake. I will revisit my lost loves, and playmates masterless!

Kala Nag, which means Black Snake, had served the Indian Government in every way that an elephant could serve it for forty-seven years, and as he was fully twenty years old when he was caught, that makes him nearly seventy–a ripe age for an elephant. He remembered pushing, with a big leather pad on his forehead, at a gun stuck in deep mud, and that was before the Afghan War of 1842, and he had not then come to his full strength.

His mother Radha Pyari,–Radha the darling,–who had been caught in the same drive with Kala Nag, told him, before his little milk tusks had dropped out, that elephants who were afraid always got hurt. Kala Nag knew that that advice was good, for the first time that he saw a shell burst he backed, screaming, into a stand of piled rifles, and the bayonets pricked him in all his softest places. So, before he was twenty-five, he gave up being afraid, and so he was the best-loved and the best-looked-after elephant in the service of the Government of India. He had carried tents, twelve hundred pounds’ weight of tents, on the march in Upper India. He had been hoisted into a ship at the end of a steam crane and taken for days across the water, and made to carry a mortar on his back in a strange and rocky country very far from India, and had seen the Emperor Theodore lying dead in Magdala, and had come back again in the steamer entitled, so the soldiers said, to the Abyssinian War medal. He had seen his fellow elephants die of cold and epilepsy and starvation and sunstroke up at a place called Ali Musjid, ten years later; and afterward he had been sent down thousands of miles south to haul and pile big balks of teak in the timberyards at Moulmein. There he had half killed an insubordinate young elephant who was shirking his fair share of work.

After that he was taken off timber-hauling, and employed, with a few score other elephants who were trained to the business, in helping to catch wild elephants among the Garo hills. Elephants are very strictly preserved by the Indian Government. There is one whole department which does nothing else but hunt them, and catch them, and break them in, and send them up and down the country as they are needed for work.

Kala Nag stood ten fair feet at the shoulders, and his tusks had been cut off short at five feet, and bound round the ends, to prevent them splitting, with bands of copper; but he could do more with those stumps than any untrained elephant could do with the real sharpened ones. When, after weeks and weeks of cautious driving of scattered elephants across the hills, the forty or fifty wild monsters were driven into the last stockade, and the big drop gate, made of tree trunks lashed together, jarred down behind them, Kala Nag, at the word of command, would go into that flaring, trumpeting pandemonium (generally at night, when the flicker of the torches made it difficult to judge distances), and, picking out the biggest and wildest tusker of the mob, would hammer him and hustle him into quiet while the men on the backs of the other elephants roped and tied the smaller ones.

There was nothing in the way of fighting that Kala Nag, the old wise Black Snake, did not know, for he had stood up more than once in his time to the charge of the wounded tiger, and, curling up his soft trunk to be out of harm’s way, had knocked the springing brute sideways in mid-air with a quick sickle cut of his head, that he had invented all by himself; had knocked him over, and kneeled upon him with his huge knees till the life went out with a gasp and a howl, and there was only a fluffy striped thing on the ground for Kala Nag to pull by the tail.

“Yes,” said Big Toomai, his driver, the son of Black Toomai who had taken him to Abyssinia, and grandson of Toomai of the Elephants who had seen him caught, “there is nothing that the Black Snake fears except me. He has seen three generations of us feed him and groom him, and he will live to see four.”

“He is afraid of me also,” said Little Toomai, standing up to his full height of four feet, with only one rag upon him. He was ten years old, the eldest son of Big Toomai, and, according to custom, he would take his father’s place on Kala Nag’s neck when he grew up, and would handle the heavy iron ankus, the elephant goad, that had been worn smooth by his father, and his grandfather, and his great-grandfather.

He knew what he was talking of; for he had been born under Kala Nag’s shadow, had played with the end of his trunk before he could walk, had taken him down to water as soon as he could walk, and Kala Nag would no more have dreamed of disobeying his shrill little orders than he would have dreamed of killing him on that day when Big Toomai carried the little brown baby under Kala Nag’s tusks, and told him to salute his master that was to be.

“Yes,” said Little Toomai, “he is afraid of me,” and he took long strides up to Kala Nag, called him a fat old pig, and made him lift up his feet one after the other.

“Wah!” said Little Toomai, “thou art a big elephant,” and he wagged his fluffy head, quoting his father. “The Government may pay for elephants, but they belong to us mahouts. When thou art old, Kala Nag, there will come some rich rajah, and he will buy thee from the Government, on account of thy size and thy manners, and then thou wilt have nothing to do but to carry gold earrings in thy ears, and a gold howdah on thy back, and a red cloth covered with gold on thy sides, and walk at the head of the processions of the King. Then I shall sit on thy neck, O Kala Nag, with a silver ankus, and men will run before us with golden sticks, crying, `Room for the King’s elephant!’ That will be good, Kala Nag, but not so good as this hunting in the jungles.”

“Umph!” said Big Toomai. “Thou art a boy, and as wild as a buffalo-calf. This running up and down among the hills is not the best Government service. I am getting old, and I do not love wild elephants. Give me brick elephant lines, one stall to each elephant, and big stumps to tie them to safely, and flat, broad roads to exercise upon, instead of this come-and-go camping. Aha, the Cawnpore barracks were good. There was a bazaar close by, and only three hours’ work a day.”

Little Toomai remembered the Cawnpore elephant-lines and said nothing. He very much preferred the camp life, and hated those broad, flat roads, with the daily grubbing for grass in the forage reserve, and the long hours when there was nothing to do except to watch Kala Nag fidgeting in his pickets.

What Little Toomai liked was to scramble up bridle paths that only an elephant could take; the dip into the valley below; the glimpses of the wild elephants browsing miles away; the rush of the frightened pig and peacock under Kala Nag’s feet; the blinding warm rains, when all the hills and valleys smoked; the beautiful misty mornings when nobody knew where they would camp that night; the steady, cautious drive of the wild elephants, and the mad rush and blaze and hullabaloo of the last night’s drive, when the elephants poured into the stockade like boulders in a landslide, found that they could not get out, and flung themselves at the heavy posts only to be driven back by yells and flaring torches and volleys of blank cartridge.

Even a little boy could be of use there, and Toomai was as useful as three boys. He would get his torch and wave it, and yell with the best. But the really good time came when the driving out began, and the Keddah–that is, the stockade– looked like a picture of the end of the world, and men had to make signs to one another, because they could not hear themselves speak. Then Little Toomai would climb up to the top of one of the quivering stockade posts, his sun-bleached brown hair flying loose all over his shoulders, and he looking like a goblin in the torch-light. And as soon as there was a lull you could hear his high-pitched yells of encouragement to Kala Nag, above the trumpeting and crashing, and snapping of ropes, and groans of the tethered elephants. “Mael, mael, Kala Nag! (Go on, go on, Black Snake!) Dant do! (Give him the tusk!) Somalo! Somalo! (Careful, careful!) Maro! Mar! (Hit him, hit him!) Mind the post! Arre! Arre! Hai! Yai! Kya-a-ah!” he would shout, and the big fight between Kala Nag and the wild elephant would sway to and fro across the Keddah, and the old elephant catchers would wipe the sweat out of their eyes, and find time to nod to Little Toomai wriggling with joy on the top of the posts.

He did more than wriggle. One night he slid down from the post and slipped in between the elephants and threw up the loose end of a rope, which had dropped, to a driver who was trying to get a purchase on the leg of a kicking young calf (calves always give more trouble than full-grown animals). Kala Nag saw him, caught him in his trunk, and handed him up to Big Toomai, who slapped him then and there, and put him back on the post.

Next morning he gave him a scolding and said, “Are not good brick elephant lines and a little tent carrying enough, that thou must needs go elephant catching on thy own account, little worthless? Now those foolish hunters, whose pay is less than my pay, have spoken to Petersen Sahib of the matter.” Little Toomai was frightened. He did not know much of white men, but Petersen Sahib was the greatest white man in the world to him. He was the head of all the Keddah operations–the man who caught all the elephants for the Government of India, and who knew more about the ways of elephants than any living man.

“What–what will happen?” said Little Toomai.

“Happen! The worst that can happen. Petersen Sahib is a madman. Else why should he go hunting these wild devils? He may even require thee to be an elephant catcher, to sleep anywhere in these fever-filled jungles, and at last to be trampled to death in the Keddah. It is well that this nonsense ends safely. Next week the catching is over, and we of the plains are sent back to our stations. Then we will march on smooth roads, and forget all this hunting. But, son, I am angry that thou shouldst meddle in the business that belongs to these dirty Assamese jungle folk. Kala Nag will obey none but me, so I must go with him into the Keddah, but he is only a fighting elephant, and he does not help to rope them. So I sit at my ease, as befits a mahout,–not a mere hunter,–a mahout, I say, and a man who gets a pension at the end of his service. Is the family of Toomai of the Elephants to be trodden underfoot in the dirt of a Keddah? Bad one! Wicked one! Worthless son! Go and wash Kala Nag and attend to his ears, and see that there are no thorns in his feet. Or else Petersen Sahib will surely catch thee and make thee a wild hunter–a follower of elephant’s foot tracks, a jungle bear. Bah! Shame! Go!”

Little Toomai went off without saying a word, but he told Kala Nag all his grievances while he was examining his feet. “No matter,” said Little Toomai, turning up the fringe of Kala Nag’s huge right ear. “They have said my name to Petersen Sahib, and perhaps–and perhaps–and perhaps–who knows? Hai! That is a big thorn that I have pulled out!”

The next few days were spent in getting the elephants together, in walking the newly caught wild elephants up and down between a couple of tame ones to prevent them giving too much trouble on the downward march to the plains, and in taking stock of the blankets and ropes and things that had been worn out or lost in the forest.

Petersen Sahib came in on his clever she-elephant Pudmini; he had been paying off other camps among the hills, for the season was coming to an end, and there was a native clerk sitting at a table under a tree, to pay the drivers their wages. As each man was paid he went back to his elephant, and joined the line that stood ready to start. The catchers, and hunters, and beaters, the men of the regular Keddah, who stayed in the jungle year in and year out, sat on the backs of the elephants that belonged to Petersen Sahib’s permanent force, or leaned against the trees with their guns across their arms, and made fun of the drivers who were going away, and laughed when the newly caught elephants broke the line and ran about.

Big Toomai went up to the clerk with Little Toomai behind him, and Machua Appa, the head tracker, said in an undertone to a friend of his, “There goes one piece of good elephant stuff at least. ’Tis a pity to send that young jungle-cock to molt in the plains.”

Now Petersen Sahib had ears all over him, as a man must have who listens to the most silent of all living things–the wild elephant. He turned where he was lying all along on Pudmini’s back and said, “What is that? I did not know of a man among the plains-drivers who had wit enough to rope even a dead elephant.”

“This is not a man, but a boy. He went into the Keddah at the last drive, and threw Barmao there the rope, when we were trying to get that young calf with the blotch on his shoulder away from his mother.”

Machua Appa pointed at Little Toomai, and Petersen Sahib looked, and Little Toomai bowed to the earth.

“He throw a rope? He is smaller than a picket-pin. Little one, what is thy name?” said Petersen Sahib.

Little Toomai was too frightened to speak, but Kala Nag was behind him, and Toomai made a sign with his hand, and the elephant caught him up in his trunk and held him level with Pudmini’s forehead, in front of the great Petersen Sahib. Then Little Toomai covered his face with his hands, for he was only a child, and except where elephants were concerned, he was just as bashful as a child could be.

“Oho!” said Petersen Sahib, smiling underneath his mustache, “and why didst thou teach thy elephant that trick? Was it to help thee steal green corn from the roofs of the houses when the ears are put out to dry?”

“Not green corn, Protector of the Poor,–melons,” said Little Toomai, and all the men sitting about broke into a roar of laughter. Most of them had taught their elephants that trick when they were boys. Little Toomai was hanging eight feet up in the air, and he wished very much that he were eight feet underground.

“He is Toomai, my son, Sahib,” said Big Toomai, scowling. “He is a very bad boy, and he will end in a jail, Sahib.”

“Of that I have my doubts,” said Petersen Sahib. “A boy who can face a full Keddah at his age does not end in jails. See, little one, here are four annas to spend in sweetmeats because thou hast a little head under that great thatch of hair. In time thou mayest become a hunter too.” Big Toomai scowled more than ever. “Remember, though, that Keddahs are not good for children to play in,” Petersen Sahib went on.

“Must I never go there, Sahib?” asked Little Toomai with a big gasp.

“Yes.” Petersen Sahib smiled again. “When thou hast seen the elephants dance. That is the proper time. Come to me when thou hast seen the elephants dance, and then I will let thee go into all the Keddahs.”

There was another roar of laughter, for that is an old joke among elephant-catchers, and it means just never. There are great cleared flat places hidden away in the forests that are called elephants’ ball-rooms, but even these are only found by accident, and no man has ever seen the elephants dance. When a driver boasts of his skill and bravery the other drivers say, “And when didst thou see the elephants dance?”

Kala Nag put Little Toomai down, and he bowed to the earth again and went away with his father, and gave the silver four-anna piece to his mother, who was nursing his baby brother, and they all were put up on Kala Nag’s back, and the line of grunting, squealing elephants rolled down the hill path to the plains. It was a very lively march on account of the new elephants, who gave trouble at every ford, and needed coaxing or beating every other minute.

Big Toomai prodded Kala Nag spitefully, for he was very angry, but Little Toomai was too happy to speak. Petersen Sahib had noticed him, and given him money, so he felt as a private soldier would feel if he had been called out of the ranks and praised by his commander-in-chief.

“What did Petersen Sahib mean by the elephant dance?” he said, at last, softly to his mother.

Big Toomai heard him and grunted. “That thou shouldst never be one of these hill buffaloes of trackers. That was what he meant. Oh, you in front, what is blocking the way?”

An Assamese driver, two or three elephants ahead, turned round angrily, crying: “Bring up Kala Nag, and knock this youngster of mine into good behavior. Why should Petersen Sahib have chosen me to go down with you donkeys of the rice fields? Lay your beast alongside, Toomai, and let him prod with his tusks. By all the Gods of the Hills, these new elephants are possessed, or else they can smell their companions in the jungle.” Kala Nag hit the new elephant in the ribs and knocked the wind out of him, as Big Toomai said, “We have swept the hills of wild elephants at the last catch. It is only your carelessness in driving. Must I keep order along the whole line?”

“Hear him!” said the other driver. “We have swept the hills! Ho! Ho! You are very wise, you plains people. Anyone but a mud-head who never saw the jungle would know that they know that the drives are ended for the season. Therefore all the wild elephants to-night will–but why should I waste wisdom on a river-turtle?”

“What will they do?” Little Toomai called out.

“Ohe, little one. Art thou there? Well, I will tell thee, for thou hast a cool head. They will dance, and it behooves thy father, who has swept all the hills of all the elephants, to double-chain his pickets to-night.”

“What talk is this?” said Big Toomai. “For forty years, father and son, we have tended elephants, and we have never heard such moonshine about dances.”

“Yes; but a plainsman who lives in a hut knows only the four walls of his hut. Well, leave thy elephants unshackled tonight and see what comes. As for their dancing, I have seen the place where–Bapree-bap! How many windings has the Dihang River? Here is another ford, and we must swim the calves. Stop still, you behind there.”

And in this way, talking and wrangling and splashing through the rivers, they made their first march to a sort of receiving camp for the new elephants. But they lost their tempers long before they got there.

Then the elephants were chained by their hind legs to their big stumps of pickets, and extra ropes were fitted to the new elephants, and the fodder was piled before them, and the hill drivers went back to Petersen Sahib through the afternoon light, telling the plains drivers to be extra careful that night, and laughing when the plains drivers asked the reason.

Little Toomai attended to Kala Nag’s supper, and as evening fell, wandered through the camp, unspeakably happy, in search of a tom-tom. When an Indian child’s heart is full, he does not run about and make a noise in an irregular fashion. He sits down to a sort of revel all by himself. And Little Toomai had been spoken to by Petersen Sahib! If he had not found what he wanted, I believe he would have been ill. But the sweetmeat seller in the camp lent him a little tom-tom–a drum beaten with the flat of the hand–and he sat down, cross-legged, before Kala Nag as the stars began to come out, the tom-tom in his lap, and he thumped and he thumped and he thumped, and the more he thought of the great honor that had been done to him, the more he thumped, all alone among the elephant fodder. There was no tune and no words, but the thumping made him happy.

The new elephants strained at their ropes, and squealed and trumpeted from time to time, and he could hear his mother in the camp hut putting his small brother to sleep with an old, old song about the great God Shiv, who once told all the animals what they should eat. It is a very soothing lullaby, and the first verse says:

Shiv, who poured the harvest and made the winds to blow, Sitting at the doorways of a day of long ago, Gave to each his portion, food and toil and fate, From the King upon the guddee to the Beggar at the gate. All things made he–Shiva the Preserver. Mahadeo! Mahadeo! He made all– Thorn for the camel, fodder for the kine, And mother’s heart for sleepy head, O little son of mine! Little Toomai came in with a joyous tunk-a-tunk at the end of each verse, till he felt sleepy and stretched himself on the fodder at Kala Nag’s side. At last the elephants began to lie down one after another as is their custom, till only Kala Nag at the right of the line was left standing up; and he rocked slowly from side to side, his ears put forward to listen to the night wind as it blew very slowly across the hills. The air was full of all the night noises that, taken together, make one big silence– the click of one bamboo stem against the other, the rustle of something alive in the undergrowth, the scratch and squawk of a half-waked bird (birds are awake in the night much more often than we imagine), and the fall of water ever so far away. Little Toomai slept for some time, and when he waked it was brilliant moonlight, and Kala Nag was still standing up with his ears cocked. Little Toomai turned, rustling in the fodder, and watched the curve of his big back against half the stars in heaven, and while he watched he heard, so far away that it sounded no more than a pinhole of noise pricked through the stillness, the “hoot-toot” of a wild elephant.

All the elephants in the lines jumped up as if they had been shot, and their grunts at last waked the sleeping mahouts, and they came out and drove in the picket pegs with big mallets, and tightened this rope and knotted that till all was quiet. One new elephant had nearly grubbed up his picket, and Big Toomai took off Kala Nag’s leg chain and shackled that elephant fore-foot to hind-foot, but slipped a loop of grass string round Kala Nag’s leg, and told him to remember that he was tied fast. He knew that he and his father and his grandfather had done the very same thing hundreds of times before. Kala Nag did not answer to the order by gurgling, as he usually did. He stood still, looking out across the moonlight, his head a little raised and his ears spread like fans, up to the great folds of the Garo hills.

“Tend to him if he grows restless in the night,” said Big Toomai to Little Toomai, and he went into the hut and slept. Little Toomai was just going to sleep, too, when he heard the coir string snap with a little “tang,” and Kala Nag rolled out of his pickets as slowly and as silently as a cloud rolls out of the mouth of a valley. Little Toomai pattered after him, barefooted, down the road in the moonlight, calling under his breath, “Kala Nag! Kala Nag! Take me with you, O Kala Nag!” The elephant turned, without a sound, took three strides back to the boy in the moonlight, put down his trunk, swung him up to his neck, and almost before Little Toomai had settled his knees, slipped into the forest.

There was one blast of furious trumpeting from the lines, and then the silence shut down on everything, and Kala Nag began to move. Sometimes a tuft of high grass washed along his sides as a wave washes along the sides of a ship, and sometimes a cluster of wild-pepper vines would scrape along his back, or a bamboo would creak where his shoulder touched it. But between those times he moved absolutely without any sound, drifting through the thick Garo forest as though it had been smoke. He was going uphill, but though Little Toomai watched the stars in the rifts of the trees, he could not tell in what direction.

Then Kala Nag reached the crest of the ascent and stopped for a minute, and Little Toomai could see the tops of the trees lying all speckled and furry under the moonlight for miles and miles, and the blue-white mist over the river in the hollow. Toomai leaned forward and looked, and he felt that the forest was awake below him–awake and alive and crowded. A big brown fruit-eating bat brushed past his ear; a porcupine’s quills rattled in the thicket; and in the darkness between the tree stems he heard a hog-bear digging hard in the moist warm earth, and snuffing as it digged.

Then the branches closed over his head again, and Kala Nag began to go down into the valley–not quietly this time, but as a runaway gun goes down a steep bank–in one rush. 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 plowed out his pathway. Then Little Toomai laid himself down close to the great neck lest a swinging bough should sweep him to the ground, and he wished that he were back in the lines again.

The grass began to get squashy, and Kala Nag’s feet sucked and squelched as he put them down, and the night mist at the bottom of the valley chilled Little Toomai. There was a splash and a trample, and the rush of running water, and Kala Nag strode through the bed of a river, feeling his way at each step. Above the noise of the water, as it swirled round the elephant’s legs, Little Toomai could hear more splashing and some trumpeting both upstream and down–great grunts and angry snortings, and all the mist about him seemed to be full of rolling, wavy shadows.

“Ai!” he said, half aloud, his teeth chattering. “The elephant-folk are out tonight. It is the dance, then!”

Kala Nag swashed out of the water, blew his trunk clear, and began another climb. But this time he was not alone, and he had not to make his path. That was made already, six feet wide, in front of him, where the bent jungle-grass was trying to recover itself and stand up. Many elephants must have gone that way only a few minutes before. Little Toomai looked back, and behind him a great wild tusker with his little pig’s eyes glowing like hot coals was just lifting himself out of the misty river. Then the trees closed up again, and they went on and up, with trumpetings and crashings, and the sound of breaking branches on every side of them.

At last Kala Nag stood still between two tree-trunks at the very top of the hill. They were part of a circle of trees that grew round an irregular space of some three or four acres, and in all that space, as Little Toomai could see, the ground had been trampled down as hard as a brick floor. Some trees grew in the center of the clearing, but their bark was rubbed away, and the white wood beneath showed all shiny and polished in the patches of moonlight. There were creepers hanging from the upper branches, and the bells of the flowers of the creepers, great waxy white things like convolvuluses, hung down fast asleep. But within the limits of the clearing there was not a single blade of green– nothing but the trampled earth.

The moonlight showed it all iron gray, except where some elephants stood upon it, and their shadows were inky black. Little Toomai looked, holding his breath, with his eyes starting out of his head, and as he looked, more and more and more elephants swung out into the open from between the tree trunks. Little Toomai could only count up to ten, and he counted again and again on his fingers till he lost count of the tens, and his head began to swim. Outside the clearing he could hear them crashing in the undergrowth as they worked their way up the hillside, but as soon as they were within the circle of the tree trunks they moved like ghosts.

There were white-tusked wild males, with fallen leaves and nuts and twigs lying in the wrinkles of their necks and the folds of their ears; fat, slow-footed she-elephants, with restless, little pinky black calves only three or four feet high running under their stomachs; young elephants with their tusks just beginning to show, and very proud of them; lanky, scraggy old-maid elephants, with their hollow anxious faces, and trunks like rough bark; savage old bull elephants, scarred from shoulder to flank with great weals and cuts of bygone fights, and the caked dirt of their solitary mud baths dropping from their shoulders; and there was one with a broken tusk and the marks of the full-stroke, the terrible drawing scrape, of a tiger’s claws on his side.

They were standing head to head, or walking to and fro across the ground in couples, or rocking and swaying all by themselves– scores and scores of elephants.

Toomai knew that so long as he lay still on Kala Nag’s neck nothing would happen to him, for even in the rush and scramble of a Keddah drive a wild elephant does not reach up with his trunk and drag a man off the neck of a tame elephant. And these elephants were not thinking of men that night. Once they started and put their ears forward when they heard the chinking of a leg iron in the forest, but it was Pudmini, Petersen Sahib’s pet elephant, her chain snapped short off, grunting, snuffling up the hillside. She must have broken her pickets and come straight from Petersen Sahib’s camp; and Little Toomai saw another elephant, one that he did not know, with deep rope galls on his back and breast. He, too, must have run away from some camp in the hills about.

At last there was no sound of any more elephants moving in the forest, and Kala Nag rolled out from his station between the trees and went into the middle of the crowd, clucking and gurgling, and all the elephants began to talk in their own tongue, and to move about.

Still lying down, Little Toomai looked down upon scores and scores of broad backs, and wagging ears, and tossing trunks, and little rolling eyes. He heard the click of tusks as they crossed other tusks by accident, and the dry rustle of trunks twined together, and the chafing of enormous sides and shoulders in the crowd, and the incessant flick and hissh of the great tails. Then a cloud came over the moon, and he sat in black darkness. But the quiet, steady hustling and pushing and gurgling went on just the same. He knew that there were elephants all round Kala Nag, and that there was no chance of backing him out of the assembly; so he set his teeth and shivered. In a Keddah at least there was torchlight and shouting, but here he was all alone in the dark, and once a trunk came up and touched him on the knee.

Then an elephant trumpeted, and they all took it up for five or ten terrible seconds. The dew from the trees above spattered down like rain on the unseen backs, and a dull booming noise began, not very loud at first, and Little Toomai could not tell what it was. But it grew and grew, and Kala Nag lifted up one forefoot and then the other, and brought them down on the ground –one-two, one-two, as steadily as trip-hammers. The elephants were stamping all together now, and it sounded like a war drum beaten at the mouth of a cave. The dew fell from the trees till there was no more left to fall, and the booming went on, and the ground rocked and shivered, and Little Toomai put his hands up to his ears to shut out the sound. But it was all one gigantic jar that ran through him–this stamp of hundreds of heavy feet on the raw earth. Once or twice he could feel Kala Nag and all the others surge forward a few strides, and the thumping would change to the crushing sound of juicy green things being bruised, but in a minute or two the boom of feet on hard earth began again. A tree was creaking and groaning somewhere near him. He put out his arm and felt the bark, but Kala Nag moved forward, still tramping, and he could not tell where he was in the clearing. There was no sound from the elephants, except once, when two or three little calves squeaked together. Then he heard a thump and a shuffle, and the booming went on. It must have lasted fully two hours, and Little Toomai ached in every nerve, but he knew by the smell of the night air that the dawn was coming.

The morning broke in one sheet of pale yellow behind the green hills, and the booming stopped with the first ray, as though the light had been an order. Before Little Toomai had got the ringing out of his head, before even he had shifted his position, there was not an elephant in sight except Kala Nag, Pudmini, and the elephant with the rope-galls, and there was neither sign nor rustle nor whisper down the hillsides to show where the others had gone.

Little Toomai stared again and again. The clearing, as he remembered it, had grown in the night. More trees stood in the middle of it, but the undergrowth and the jungle grass at the sides had been rolled back. Little Toomai stared once more. Now he understood the trampling. The elephants had stamped out more room–had stamped the thick grass and juicy cane to trash, the trash into slivers, the slivers into tiny fibers, and the fibers into hard earth.

“Wah!” said Little Toomai, and his eyes were very heavy. “Kala Nag, my lord, let us keep by Pudmini and go to Petersen Sahib’s camp, or I shall drop from thy neck.”

The third elephant watched the two go away, snorted, wheeled round, and took his own path. He may have belonged to some little native king’s establishment, fifty or sixty or a hundred miles away.

Two hours later, as Petersen Sahib was eating early breakfast, his elephants, who had been double chained that night, began to trumpet, and Pudmini, mired to the shoulders, with Kala Nag, very footsore, shambled into the camp. Little Toomai’s face was gray and pinched, and his hair was full of leaves and drenched with dew, but he tried to salute Petersen Sahib, and cried faintly: “The dance–the elephant dance! I have seen it, and–I die!" As Kala Nag sat down, he slid off his neck in a dead faint.

But, since native children have no nerves worth speaking of, in two hours he was lying very contentedly in Petersen Sahib’s hammock with Petersen Sahib’s shooting-coat under his head, and a glass of warm milk, a little brandy, with a dash of quinine, inside of him, and while the old hairy, scarred hunters of the jungles sat three deep before him, looking at him as though he were a spirit, he told his tale in short words, as a child will, and wound up with:

“Now, if I lie in one word, send men to see, and they will find that the elephant folk have trampled down more room in their dance-room, and they will find ten and ten, and many times ten, tracks leading to that dance-room. They made more room with their feet. I have seen it. Kala Nag took me, and I saw. Also Kala Nag is very leg-weary!”

Little Toomai lay back and slept all through the long afternoon and into the twilight, and while he slept Petersen Sahib and Machua Appa followed the track of the two elephants for fifteen miles across the hills. Petersen Sahib had spent eighteen years in catching elephants, and he had only once before found such a dance-place. Machua Appa had no need to look twice at the clearing to see what had been done there, or to scratch with his toe in the packed, rammed earth.

“The child speaks truth,” said he. “All this was done last night, and I have counted seventy tracks crossing the river. See, Sahib, where Pudmini’s leg-iron cut the bark of that tree! Yes; she was there too.”

They looked at one another and up and down, and they wondered. For the ways of elephants are beyond the wit of any man, black or white, to fathom.

“Forty years and five,” said Machua Appa, “have I followed my lord, the elephant, but never have I heard that any child of man had seen what this child has seen. By all the Gods of the Hills, it is–what can we say?” and he shook his head.

When they got back to camp it was time for the evening meal. Petersen Sahib ate alone in his tent, but he gave orders that the camp should have two sheep and some fowls, as well as a double ration of flour and rice and salt, for he knew that there would be a feast.

Big Toomai had come up hotfoot from the camp in the plains to search for his son and his elephant, and now that he had found them he looked at them as though he were afraid of them both. And there was a feast by the blazing campfires in front of the lines of picketed elephants, and Little Toomai was the hero of it all. And the big brown elephant catchers, the trackers and drivers and ropers, and the men who know all the secrets of breaking the wildest elephants, passed him from one to the other, and they marked his forehead with blood from the breast of a newly killed jungle-cock, to show that he was a forester, initiated and free of all the jungles.

And at last, when the flames died down, and the red light of the logs made the elephants look as though they had been dipped in blood too, Machua Appa, the head of all the drivers of all the Keddahs–Machua Appa, Petersen Sahib’s other self, who had never seen a made road in forty years: Machua Appa, who was so great that he had no other name than Machua Appa,–leaped to his feet, with Little Toomai held high in the air above his head, and shouted: “Listen, my brothers. Listen, too, you my lords in the lines there, for I, Machua Appa, am speaking! This little one shall no more be called Little Toomai, but Toomai of the Elephants, as his great-grandfather was called before him. What never man has seen he has seen through the long night, and the favor of the elephant-folk and of the Gods of the Jungles is with him. He shall become a great tracker. He shall become greater than I, even I, Machua Appa! He shall follow the new trail, and the stale trail, and the mixed trail, with a clear eye! He shall take no harm in the Keddah when he runs under their bellies to rope the wild tuskers; and if he slips before the feet of the charging bull elephant, the bull elephant shall know who he is and shall not crush him. Aihai! my lords in the chains,"–he whirled up the line of pickets–"here is the little one that has seen your dances in your hidden places,–the sight that never man saw! Give him honor, my lords! Salaam karo, my children. Make your salute to Toomai of the Elephants! Gunga Pershad, ahaa! Hira Guj, Birchi Guj, Kuttar Guj, ahaa! Pudmini,–thou hast seen him at the dance, and thou too, Kala Nag, my pearl among elephants!–ahaa! Together! To Toomai of the Elephants. Barrao!”

And at that last wild yell the whole line flung up their trunks till the tips touched their foreheads, and broke out into the full salute–the crashing trumpet-peal that only the Viceroy of India hears, the Salaamut of the Keddah.

But it was all for the sake of Little Toomai, who had seen what never man had seen before–the dance of the elephants at night and alone in the heart of the Garo hills!

#JungleBook

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thewritingsubpub-blog · 7 years

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Chapter Two: The Journey’s Start and a Rare Meeting

Sieg had a horrible nightmare that night, in which he and his new team were walking along a trail, Blair making happy cooing noises, Morta was pouting a bit, but was still having fun and Sieg was leading the group, he might have been on crutches but was still making good pace. The group had been making good pace in their training each becoming quite strong in their own regard. That was until a storm rolled in, it was clear all day until a few moments ago and now it was pouring sheets of rain. He felt a gut reaction to hide under a certain tree, but it felt sketchy and didn’t seem to offer much protection from the rain. So he went under a different tree, when lightning struck the tree he was under and fried the whole group to a crisp. As the last thoughts crossed his mind all he could wonder was, ‘Is this how my life is going to end? Before it even began? Why?’

And as the last thought crossed his mind Sieg shot awake careful not to scream and wake the others. First thing he did was to check himself and make sure he wasn’t fried he then gave the same treatment to Blair and Morta, who stirred a bit, but were ultimately unaffected by their trainers investigation. In a cold sweat Sieg got up and wandered around the room he was in, looking out the windows fearfully and heading to the bathroom to clean up. “What was that?” Sieg wondered aloud, afraid the dream would happen again he refused to sleep at all. And until the sun rose he tried to wrack his brains to figure it out and lo’ the sun did rise to a very tired Siegfried and his two well rested Pokemon.

Having gotten no sleep, Sieg was dragging his feet, but despite that the group made good progress in their growth, which made Sieg feel a bit uneasy, but he tried to tiredly shrug it off. He had decided to first head North of Oldale for a bit and train there, They had beaten a youngster fairly swiftly thanks to Blair,s growth and Morta’s toughness. Playing around in the tall grass a bit they decided to take a break for the morning and relax, a Zigzagoon came up to investigate and began to rummage around in their sack. Noticing this Sieg pulled his bag away, but the Zigzagoon was stubborn and fought to keep the bag at investigation level. Continuing to poke around in the bag the Zigzagoon accidentally bumped his nose against a Pokeball and got himself captured. Bewildered and also feeling ready to move on Sieg and the group packed up and got ready to move on to Route 102.

As they made their way over to Petalburg, a decent number of trainers for a beginner challenged them. He counted off three youngsters, a bug catcher and a lass. With Petalburg nearby the small group took a break from training to have some lunch and rest awhile. They sat down in the shade together and Sieg pulled off his pack to pull out some food he got prepared before they headed off for the day. He pulled out a BLT for himself, a few meat patties for Morta and a couple handfuls of seeds for Blair. He decided that now was the time to pull out the little troublemaker and settle things.

The first thing that happened was the racoon looked around confused and then when he laid his eyes on Sieg he gave his head a little tilt. Sieg simply sighed and said, “Well you made yourself part of our little team here you can stay if you like but you don’t have to. But if you want to stay you’re gunna need a name.” The Zigzagoon looked around and nodded happily, if still a bit confused. “Alright then you’re name’ll be Jeff, you seem like a Jeff to me.” Laughing together and sharing a meal had been fun and they began to felt recharged. However that fun soon dissipated when menacing clouds began to gather, a crack of lightning, a roll of thunder and it began to rain hard on our group.

By this point Sieg was very anxious and tried to steer the group to Petalburg, but got lost in the heavy rain. That was when Sieg had a feeling similar to that in his dream, looking around he spotted the tree he saw in his dream. Not wishing to repeat the gruesome end of his nightmare he grabbed the group and dove for the tree, finding a small hollow inside to weather out the rain inside. Once they were settled in he heard a voice call out for help in the rain, Sieg didn’t want to leave the confines of the dry hollow they found, but as the cries grew more and more desperate he went out in search of the source, telling Morta, Jeff and Blair to stay put for now. Making his way through the rain he got closer and closer to where he thought the cries were coming from, thinking about it he wondered why the cries weren’t being drowned out by the rain, but he didn’t care at this point. After a few more feet he found what was trying to call for help, a young Ralts, which explained why he heard the cries over the rain. Sieg knelt down and tried as cautiously as he could to approach the little Ralts trying to emanate as much positive emotion as he could despite being tired, cold, wet and a bit panicked since his nightmares were coming true. The little psychic hesitated for a moment weighing its options before jumping onto Sieg’s hands. Bringing the Pokemon back to the hollow in the tree to dry off with the rest of them, he set the Ralts onto his lap and Blair hopped on his lap with the Ralts. Morta sniffed a bit and curled up next to Sieg and Jeff looked around confused, but happy that they might be making another friend real soon. And just like that they waited out the rain, eventually falling asleep together.

Sieg thankfully was already very tired and had a dreamless rest while the rain came down overhead. When he came to the rain had gone and Morta had left to check to make sure it wasn’t coming back again. Feeling movement on his lap Sieg looked down and saw that while Blair was fast asleep the Ralts was beginning to stir and wake up. Siegfried loved his Ralts when he first caught one back in his world and hoped that the little psychic would stay. He gently set down Blair without waking her to address, the Ralts properly, “Well I wouldn’t say our meeting was ideal and I don’t want to make you stay if you don’t have to, but if you’d like I’d enjoy your company on our little journey here.” He tried to sound as polite as possible, the little Ralts gave it some thought, clearly this Pokemon was far more cautious than his previous new friend Jeff. After a short time of deliberating, the young ralts gave out a positive feeling and bowed slightly to gesture that indeed the pokemon would. Giving out a breath of relief Sieg then proceeded to the next topic, he reached into his bag which had dried out since then and pulled out a pokeball, showing it to the ralts. “This is a Pokeball, I can’t really explain the particulars since I don’t get it, but essentially this will make sure that no other trainer can steal you from me. Most trainers always seem to keep their pokemon in the balls, but I personally like to keep my team out. All you have to do is push the white button in the middle and it’s done.” The Ralts looked at Sieg and tilted their head and then pressed the button going into the Pokeball, it rolled in his palm once and went silent capturing the Ralts.

Immediately letting his new friend out, adorably the Ralts tilted its head again, grinning Sieg then said, “Well now that that’s done we need to decide on a name for you since I can’t keep calling you by your species.” The Ralts gave a polite nod agreeing to the notion. “Well, um are you male or female?” Sieg let out very awkwardly, “I don’t wish to be rude but I don’t want to give you an embarrassing name you’ll regret later.” The Ralts blushed heavily and gave out very vague psychic signs and after a few minutes of playing some very odd and awkward sign language Sieg figured out that his Ralts was a girl. “Ok.” He started shyly, “ I’ll list out some names and you tell me which one you like best ok?” The Ralts nodded happy to be past that embarrassing display, “Rose?” She shook her head, “Ellen?” Rejected, “Sylvie?” Another turned down name. Sieg had a hard time with names, both remembering and thinking them up, but looking up at the tree that had saved them from the storm he saw it had Camelia flowers on them and remembered that there was a lovely name attached to the flower. Thinking long and hard about it he had almost given up when he remembered it. “How about Tsubaki?” The Ralts gave it some thought, then gave a wide grin and gave a hard nods and radiated positive feelings. “Well that settles that, you shall be called Tsubaki from now on, welcome aboard our merry little crew.” Grinning and giving a hug to the little Ralts, Sieg then put her down and moved over to a little bundle still lazily dozing away.

He smiled warmly at the slumbering form of Blair and gently shook her to try and stir her so everyone could get to Petalburg in a reasonable time. At first Blair just turned over and continued to sleep, but before too long she was looking blearily up at Sieg. He picked her up and set her on his shoulder, “Come on, Fireball, time to get up and head into the next town.” Sieg had just thought that nickname for Blair on the fly and looked rather proud for it. Before he went out to grab the attention of the rest of his team, he felt a little tug on his pants. Looking down he saw Tsubaki who was holding her arms up looking like she wanted a ride on Sieg’s shoulders as well. “Okay Tsubaki come on up.” Chuckling Sieg picked up his new friend and placed her on his other shoulder, happy to have such lovely company.

He walked out from the tree and garnered Morta and Jeff’s attention, “C’mon you two we’re all heading off for Petalburg for the first leg out to Rustboro.” quickly the Poochyena and Zigzagoon fell into line as the made their way to the next town. It was a leisurely walk to town and they were stopped by one more Lass who wanted to fight them. “Bet you can’t beat my pokemon, it’s tough as nails.” Sieg just gave a look to his pokemon, “You wanna bet? Morta you start.” Morta hopped into the space in between the trainers and took her ready position. The Lass then sent in a Lotad, “Go Lotad show them what we’re made of!” Sieg just shrugged, “Morta use Bite.” Morta then charged in and bit the Lotad who promptly fainted easily. “How did- what happ- huh!?” The Lass could barely get out a proper sentence in shock while Sieg was rewarding Morta with a good scratching behind the ears, her favorite spot he had learned. “Well we’ve been training pretty hard all day so my team is already pretty tough, sorry to have treated your friend roughly. As recompense I’ll walk with you to the Pokecenter in Petalburg so you can get him healed.” Sieg offered very kindly, the girl though shot him a look that said she was upset, “Fine, I don’t think I have too much choice at the moment anyway.” She shot him one last half hearted glare before they began to walk the rest of the way to Petalburg.

Thankfully the walk the rest of the way was uneventful, but there was one thing that made Sieg increasingly uncomfortable. Aside from the quiet chatter of his pokemon it was dead quiet, he couldn’t blame the girl for being upset at him, he did win rather handily and it probably seemed unfair. But he wished she’d at least ease the tension by talking or something. What made it worse is every once in awhile she’d shoot him a glare as if he’d shot the poor Pokemon rather than just faint it. Finally after what felt like hours of stiff silence the had made it to the Pokecenter, The Lass gave her Pokemon to Nurse Joy and Sieg rented a room for the night since he planned on staying in the area to train Tsubaki and to spoil all his Pokemon a little for their hard work. He left the Pokecenter, Pokemon in tow and felt much more relieved now that he wasn’t under the heated microscope of the Lass’ glares. Before he went out to train Tsubaki up so she wouldn’t lag behind the team he went to the Mart to buy some potions and gauge to see if his pokemon wanted anything from there. While he and his team headed over to the Mart he gave a cursory glance around the small quaint town. It was quiet, peaceful and full of happy people and seeing that brought a small happy smirk to Sieg’s face.

Walking into the Mart he told his Pokemon to find something they’d like and he’d buy it for them as presents for the end of the day. Since he had a decent amount of starting money from the wins and his base starting balance he had enough to spoil them all a little bit. Watching his Pokemon dart every which way he decided to walk up to the Pokemart attendant. “Hello sir, what do you need today?” Asked the clerk politely. “Well I need some potions, I got a new Pokemon on my team and I want to make sure she can keep up and handle herself, also I’m buying some presents for my Pokemon so when they come back with what they want I’ll be buying those too.” The clerk gave him a slight look, but brushed it off immediately and got out the potions, ten in all. Looking back for his Pokemon Sieg noticed Morta had come back first and in her maw was something that made him tilt his head then laugh. Morta had come back with a pair of Black Glasses, probably so she’d look cool, so Sieg grabbed them and placed them on the counter with the potions. Jeff came back next with something just as strange but for different, quite baffling reasons. Jeff had picked up a Shroomish Pokedoll and dragged it over to the counter looking up at Sieg expectantly, slightly perturbed he added the Shroomish doll to the pile on the counter.

He then waited for Blair and Tsubaki to come back with their items, but since they were taking a while he decided to go and look for them. He looked around at the aisles before he spotted them in an aisle for accessories, he sauntered over to see what they were looking at at what he saw them hold made him grin warmly at the two. In Tsubaki’s tiny hands were a cute little necklace and locket, she seemed to be very nervous making a move toward the counter only to stare at the other necklaces again. Blair on the other hand was confidently holding on to a Black bow that she seemed to have taken to and was instead trying to encourage her new found friend to ask for the necklace. Smiling he made his presence known to the two Pokemon, “Tsubaki would you like that necklace?” Sieg asked pointing to the one in her hands. Tsubaki merely blushed and fretted some more, “It’s okay I’ll go ahead and get it for you, no need to fret.” He then gently took the necklace from Tsubaki’s hands and with Blair and Tsubaki following behind closely. Sieg then put the necklace and the bow, once he had gotten it from Blair, on the counter, “Okay that should do it.” The clerk rang him up to which Sieg happily paid. Gathering all his potions and presents he then walked back to the Pokecenter to put the presents in the room for later, for now it was time to train Tsubaki up for the rest of the day.

Just in case he brought the rest of the crew but also allowed them time off from training to relax and play until he needed them to switch in for a fight Tsubaki wasn’t ready for. He quickly learned her moveset was a little unusual being, Growl, Confusion, Calm Mind and Teleport. Most of those moves were fairly normal for a Ralts her level to have but Calm Mind was something most would have had at much later levels. But with that aside they worked hard together and brought up Tsubaki to a suitable level, ditching Growl for Disarming Voice and as the sun had set, everyone had gotten stronger. Going back to the center to stay the night, Sieg ordered some food for dinner as the Pokemon all began to enjoy their gifts.

Morta had put on her sunglasses slickly by flicking them into the air with her muzzle and catching them where they needed to be on her face. Jeff and curled around his Pokedoll and was lightly chewing on it happy with his little comfort item. Tsubaki had managed to finagle her new necklace around her head where it hung from her neck, she stared at the accesory quite happily while one was having trouble with her gift, Blair. Blair not having the proper limbs to put on her bow was struggling quite a lot until fed up with trying to get it to work herself caught Sieg’s attention so he could put it on her instead. “You having trouble huh?” he stared at her warmly, to which she nodded glumly. “Okay I’ll get that on ya just hold still.” He sat down by her so she could perch in his lap and relax while he tried to get her bow to wrap around her feathers tight enough not to fall off. At first it was tough, he never tied something on someone else and Blair kept squirming, but after ten minutes of trying, failing, getting everyone to settle in for another round to fail again, he finally got the bow on Blair just right. She immediately hopped off to go and look at herself in the mirror, admire the lovely addition to her visage and preen herself to make her look even better. Sieg chuckled at this, with a small smile tugging at the edges of his mouth. Feeling tired from training everybody went to sleep pretty fast, Morta and Jeff took their own sides of the bed, Jeff curled up to his Shroomish doll, and Blair and Tsubaki had joined Sieg in the bed curled up together to rest until a brighter tomorrow.

Sieg woke up with a start looking around groggily he noticed something was off that brought him to his senses. He woke up in a place he didn’t remember going to sleep in. His first instinct was to look around for his new friends and Blair. But upon a cursory scan he didn’t see them, so he tried to call for them, but to his horror he couldn’t make a sound outside of a wheezing sound. Scared now he tried to stand up only to realize his hands were bound and bolted to the ground. His eyes darted around the room the twilight of a sunset burning in his eyes when he heard a door open. Looking in the direction of the sound he saw a shadowy figure approach him, “Ah looks like you're awake, good~.” The figure said threateningly, “well thn considering you looked loaded I assumed you were worth something to your parents, but it looks like they’ve abandoned you. So you have no use to me goodbye~.” with a horrid pain in his head he faded into blackness.

He awoke with a start and freezing cold sweat covered his body, taking a sweep around the room he realized it was familiar, but having a bad feeling still looming in his gut Sieg decided it was time to head out somewhere else. Quickly and quietly he got changed and packed in the dark to avoid suspicion. Next he went and gently roused all his Pokemon, Blair protested a bit, but upon seeing the pale and frightened look on Siegfried’s face she quieted down. Everyone seemingly both confused and scared walked out of the room and headed for Petalburg’s exit, all the while a looming feeling of dread was skulking around just behind them, lurking in the town like a bad omen. This was how his journey came to start, it wasn’t at all how had wanted it to go, he wanted to walk out to the new world confident and excited and yet here he is creeping out of the city, in the middle of the night, his tail between his legs and scared of something he wasn’t even sure was there.

#chapter 2 #The Burning Empress and the Lone Stranger #fucking finally

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thecoroutfitters · 7 years

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Written by R. Ann Parris on The Prepper Journal.

I have a love-hate relationship with bamboo. I’m from parts of the country where the stuff takes over the edges of some roadways and chokes out some of the natural diversity found in some locations, usually locations with a lot of uses for wildlife and foraging. On the other hand, bamboo is really useful stuff. Whether somebody’s looking at a long-term, widespread, nation-altering event and wants the sustainable source of materials, or whether somebody’s just trying to save a few bucks to get ahead of the curve or save up for basic preparedness, a stand or two of bamboo has a lot to offer us. Even hitting some examples for inside and outside homes, gardens, and livestock I can’t even touch on all its uses. Feel free to list out what I miss at will, from its use as cups to the impressive BTUs bamboo can offer, furniture to bridges. It really is a handy material to locate.

Harvesting Bamboo

I’m going to encourage you to drive around looking and knock on doors or don a blaze-orange vest and harvest from roadsides instead of planting bamboo. Try to wash off boots, vehicles, and tools after any harvest of wild species, especially in damp areas. There are all kinds of things from phrag grass to kudzu that will hitch rides, plus various diseases and pests we can transfer between locations.

The great *they* like to tell us that you’re supposed to harvest bamboo from as close to the ground plane as you can.

I don’t do that.

I prefer not to create future punji sticks and heel-catchers we can’t see from all the future leaf fall. Nor do I cut at knee-height.

I tend to cut up in the rib to head level. It eats up the earth space or footprint and takes longer to die back and be replaced, true. However, pretty much nobody is going to get speared when they kneel down, nobody’s going to snag a boot or toe, and nobody’s dog is going to gash its face.

What size bamboo you want is dependent on your task, but as you harvest, don’t just abandon the leafy bits.

Remember, bamboo is really just a big, thick grass. In most cases, the leaves make fine mulch and compost. You can also use trimmings as a fiber element for goats – especially goats that are getting rich tree and shrub fodders. Chickens and rabbits can have it as well.

There is a handy knife-type saw the Japanese and Koreans each have specifically for bamboo. I use mine for all kinds of harvests. However, for bamboo, I’m more likely to go with either style of long-handled pruners, a laminate or hardwood blade on a hacksaw, or the same on a sawsall – it depends on what’s waiting closest in my truck and sometimes how much I’m planning to harvest.

The hacksaw or pruners are handy for dropping, then immediately bucking off the tops and the leafy “branches”, and sorting as I go. I tend to always have good one-handed pruners in my pocket or bag(s), though, so there are times I alternate cutting and stripping instead.

Garden Trellis

I can’t do an article about bamboo and not talk about one of its best-known uses as a garden trellis material. However, because it is so well-known, I won’t beleaguer the point.

What I’ll say instead is that bamboo is fairly long-lived, but not indefinite, especially in the damp-soil conditions of a lot of gardens. It’s not as strong as steel. However, it is pretty tough, and it does last out a season or longer, easily. The thicker the bamboo, the longer it lasts. I will also point out that unless it’s the UV-resistant type, or painted, PVC is also going to crack under a lot of conditions – sometimes in a season, sometimes after two or three.

So if you’re able to find it for free, and are looking for a long-term sustainable material that can be whacked and added to compost or used as mulch when it’s failing, bamboo can be a super alternative to buying tomato cages or lumber for squash and bean trellises.

I also want to point out a handy trick. Instead of using just cord, or any cord at all, you can drill out holes near the tops of your poles, and use thinner stalks as a pin.

I prefer drilling bamboo while it’s green, first with a thin “standard” bit, and then either a larger drywall bit or a narrow auger, depending on the size hole and thickness of the bamboo.

You can use other lengths of bamboo as a spacer to create a wider tripod, or keep it snugged up tight for a teepee type structure.

The amount of “top” left above the holes and pin can change what the bamboo will do for you. You can lay out another thick piece or pieces across the tops to move water, form a longer bean trellis, or support a row cloth or plastic cover. Or, you can trim it nice and tight for a neater appearance and create fewer perches.

Other Garden Uses for Bamboo

Bamboo can be used in lots of other ways for our food production.

It has been used to create irrigation systems in both frigid and steamy-humid parts of the world for millennia. We can use it to create “gutter” or “PVC” style tiered raised beds for shallow-rooted plants.

It can be split or small branches can be stripped and bent while green to create exclusion nets or frames – to keep butterflies and thus their caterpillars off our plants, or to protect plants from dog tails, birds, or chickens. The same types of frames can be used to create feed-through graze boxes for chickens, preventing just how much of a plant they can reach and damage, which allows the plant to survive and grow back for continuous feeding.

It has also been used to create the framework for hoop houses.

Bamboo can be used to create our whole greenhouse, point in fact, and to build raised garden beds. By size and desired style, it can create everything from neat, tidy faces to woven wattle. It can be left raw and rustic, or have boards added to smooth the upper surface.

Again, this stuff isn’t cedar, it’s not CMU brick, and it’s not landscaping timbers. It will have to be replaced more frequently than those. However, it’s been used pretty much forever and it does offer that free, sustainable material instead of paying for something.

Fencing

While we’re building our garden out of free, sustainable materials, we might also want to fence it. Bamboo can also help either lower those costs or eliminate them.

We can weave it in wattle style, or get artsy and cute. We can fill in gaps on rail fences to prevent dogs and rabbits from slipping through, or extend the height of fencing to deter deer.

We can place it tightly or weave nearly mats with it to help buffer winds and create snow fences as well, which lets us almost pick the places snow will pile up or spread the snow load out to create lower drifts over a larger area.

Housing & Enclosures

Bamboo can also keep our livestock housed and where we put them.

From bird cages to goat pens, and even for the live otter and primate trade in parts of the world, it’s been doing so for centuries.

We can create full sheds and barns out of it, using either the lap-roof, tile or thatching styles for roofs.

We can also create fish traps and boxes of various types. Those boxes can be used in our aquaculture and aquaponics systems to separate breeders and growouts without needing separate tanks, or to purge our fish before harvest depending on our feeding systems.

Bamboo can also be used to create the drop-out or crawl-out tubes for various types of BSF larvae or mealworms for our feed systems as well.

Construction

Around the world, from places like snowy Nepal to steam Thailand, bamboo gets used for long-term construction on a regular basis.

The most effective roofing style is the split-overlap that prevents drips, although roofing is also done with mats and thatching styles using bamboo stalks and leaves.

In many cases where load-bearing is of issue, you’ll find bamboo bundled into pillars and pillars closer than we use in 2×4 stick construction.

As mentioned with beds and trellises, construction isn’t going to last forever. However, folks have been using it for centuries and in places with high winds and snow loads, they’re still using it.

If we have running water, we can use some of those eons-old construction methods to make our lives easier.

Water wheels use running waterways to lift relatively small amounts of water up into aqueduct style irrigation systems or through channels or piping to cisterns – which either hold it, or are used to create pressurized tanks to then distribute that water elsewhere.

Bamboo is also used to build mills that Westerners are more accustomed to seeing. Those mills can be used to do work directly – like threshing and grinding grain – or to spin low-level turbines for pumps or generating energy.

Similar designs for slow-moving fish wheels exist as well, spinning in rivers and streams and using scoops to drop fish into catchments. They’re not super efficient, but like a yoyo, they’re fishing while we’re off doing something else.

Creativity – Corn Crib or Coop?

Even if we don’t see plans for something straight off, the flexibility of bamboo and our minds can help us cut costs.

There’s no reason a shelf system can’t be combined with a plan for hampers to create a drying rack for foods, herbs, tea, or seeds.

Likewise, with some modifications, a coconut caddy we see from the balmy East can be modified into a corn crib, or a hay feeder that will reduce wastes and costs – even now. That caddy and what we know about cages can be used to create a bird coop or rabbit hutch, or that hutch can be converted back to grain drying and storage or curing potatoes or sweet potatoes.

We aren’t limited to the styles we see, either. While slender wands aren’t as strong, we can use them pretty much anywhere bamboo would have been split.

We can also take inspiration from the uses for bamboo, and apply them to things we may have in excess in our area, like young stands of aspen, copious privet, or willow.

Seventh Generation

As much as I love bamboo for all the things it can do, it doesn’t really belong running loose in North America. While certain species are less invasive than others, and it can be controlled by mowing around it and keeping it contained, I caution against planting it. Some of that is the Seventh Generation outlook on life. Sure, even invasive stuff can be fairly easily controlled on a property now, with mowing or due to other plantings or the terrain. But what happens when we’re no long fit and able, and it’s no longer our property?

So while I love it, I highly encourage preppers and homesteaders and craftsmen to find a patch of bamboo, not plant it. They’re out there, California to Wyoming, Florida to Vermont. They’ll usually be found on a secondary highway or county road, routinely in damper areas along those roadsides, or near homes.

The post Bamboo – Nature’s Gift to Preppers appeared first on The Prepper Journal.

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