The stories illustrating the sagacity of the elephant are innumerable, but few are more remarkable than the following one recorded by a writer in a Bombay paper upon the authority of an artillery officer, who was a witness of the incident:
The battering train going to the siege of Seringapatam had to cross the sandy bed of a river that resembles other rivers in the East, which leave during the summer season but a small stream of water running through them, though their beds are mostly of considerable breath, very heavy for draught and abounding in quicksand.
It happened that an artilleryman, who was seated on the tumbril of one of the guns, by some accident fell off in such a situation that in a minute or two, the hind wheel must have gone over him. The elephant, which was stationed behind the gun, perceiving the predicament in which the man was, instantly, without any warning from its keeper, lifted up the wheel with its trunk, and kept it suspended till the carriage has passed clear of him.
The Irish Times, January 3rd, 1890.