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The Four-tusked Elephant


                                                                                                                         Armand Denis





Armand Denis, the author of this essay, was camping in a forest of Congo with two people Putnam and Texan. They had heard about the four-tusked elephant that lived in the forest. The elephant was said to speak in a human voice. Once Denis went to the pigmies, the residents of the forest, and asked if they had seen the four-tusked elephant. One of them said that they had seen it many times and that it was fierce and very wicked. Every pigmy of that place believed in the existence of the elephant and was frightened of it. Having heard the description of the pigmies, the narrator thought it to be true. It was from the talks Denis had with the pigmies that he had finally formed some notion about where the elephant must be. All the indications pointed to one particular place, a low-lying area of the swamp of the forest.

 After this, the narrator started his task to solve the mystery about the elephant. He persuaded three pigmy hunters to go for a forest venture with him. After some days’ journey, they saw a group of elephants eating tree branches. There was a large elephant, but it had only two tusks. The hunters said that the four-tusked one knew the narrator was coming and it had gone. Thinking that his effort was useless, he returned to the camp and then left for other parts of Congo.

 Several months later, Denis returned the pigmy country for some other business. He was staying in a hotel when he heard some local Belgian settlers talking about the four-tusked elephant. He went to them and got information about a tusk trader named Santos. He visited Santos, who said that he had bought the tusks from an African. The trader also said that he had sent them to the warehouse at Abba to sort them out before the delivery to Belgium. Denis now went to Mobile, who had sold the tusks to Xantos. Mobile said that they really were of a single elephant which was lying dead for many days on the ground. On hearing this, Denis asked him to find the skull of the elephant. He could prove the existence of the unique elephant only if he got the skull and fitted the tusks into its sockets. Therefore, he wrote to the trading company at Abba mentioning that he wanted to buy the tusks for more than their market price. Then he set off his journey on the north.



 He returned to the place after four months. He went straight to Mombeli’s house, but could not find him. After his long effort, he found the skull buried in a ditch. It was done by Mobile for its safety. He got a letter from the trading company which said that the tusks were sent to Belgium. Immediately he gave a call to his father to buy the tusks. Then he started for Belgium with the skull. When he reached home he knew that his father had already sent the tusks to a museum at New York. The narrator went to the museum with the skull. In the museum, he fitted all the four tusks into the sockets of the skull. And they fitted neatly. But, Denis could not believe the existence of the four-tusked elephant.

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