From military camels and hunting cheetahs, to herding dogs and talking mynahs, animals have been living, working, playing and performing with humans in India for centuries. In this intimate book, John Lockwood Kipling writes about animals in daily Indian life, bringing alive the sights, sounds and smells of the nineteenth century.

In these tales, forty restless elephants are hoisted into a steam ship and nearly sink it; a guilty goat gets the thrashing of its life; a cheetah-keeper wakes up every night to a feline bedfellow; and a dog follows a king to heaven.

Kipling describes...