What a "Damconsul" was the elephant did not know; but concluded that it was the title these barbarous people bestowed on the Maharajah of that district. Since he lived at a Court, it seemed certain that he would know how to appreciate and fittingly entertain him. The elephant therefore consented to follow his attendant slaves, though they understood not the noble art of riding him, but were fain to lead him like a beast of burden. On the way he found a spring of sweet water, of which he drank his fill, despite the protestations of his leaders and the outcries of the inhabitants of the bungalow of the well, whose lamentations showed them to be of low caste and little sensible of the honour done them.
The procession at length reached the gate of the Court; and while the attendants were in the lodge explaining matters to the astonished keeper, the elephant, realising that "drink was good but food better," determined to do a little foraging on his own account, and so moved softly off, taking along the stake to which his keepers fondly imagined he was tethered.
He judged that he was now in the park of the Court of the "Damconsul"; and the fact that there were many clumps of familiar plants scattered over the grass increased his belief that this was the case. He tried a few coleus and ate a croton or two; but found them insipid and lacking the freshness of those which bloomed in his native land. Then turning to a grove of young palms, he tore a number up by the roots; which he found required no expenditure of strength, and so gave him little satisfaction. Moreover, they grew in green tubs, which rolled about between his feet and were pitfalls for the unwary. He lay down on a few of the beds; but the foliage was pitifully thin and afforded him no comfortable resting-place; moreover, there were curious rows of slanting things which glistened in the sunlight, and which he much wished to investigate. On examination he found them quite brittle, and easily smashed a number of them with his trunk. Nor was this all, for in the wreckage he discovered a large quantity of most excellent fruit--grapes and nectarines and some very passable plums. Evidently the "Damconsul" was an enlightened person, who knew how to live; and, indeed, it is not fitting for even an elephant to turn up his trunk at espalier peaches at a guinea apiece.