swim yet. I learned how later, though, and I liked the water. But this
time my mother took me across the river on her back."

"It's a good thing your mother didn't have a camel-back like Humpo,"
said Woo-Uff, with a sort of chuckling laugh.

"Why?" asked Horni, the rhinoceros.

"Because, if Mrs. Stumptail had a back, with humps in, as the camels
have, Umboo would have fallen off into the water," said the lion, as
he opened his big mouth in a sleepy yawn, showing his big, white,
sharp teeth.

"My mother's back was big and strong," said Umboo. "It was flat, and
not humpy, like a camel's, though their backs are all right on the
desert. My mother lifted me up on her back with her trunk, and there I
sat while she and the other elephants waded into the river."

And then the circus elephant went on telling his story.

Into the jungle river walked the elephants, the littlest ones on their
mothers' backs, and some, very small ones, held in their mothers'
trunks, which were lifted high in the air. These were the babies of
the herd who were too small to ride safely on the backs of the big
creatures.

"Pooh! I'm bigger than you! I can swim like the other elephants!" said
Keedah; a large elephant boy, as he looked up and saw Umboo on his
mother's back. "I don't have to be carried across a river! I can swim
by myself."