rels of apples, 700 pounds of fish, seventy tons of hay, two cases of wine, 2,000 pigs and dogs-cold-weather beasts. Yes, there is the hippopotamus, too, which can scarcely be called a cold-weather animal, bushels of oats, one case of eggs, three though traces of his kind have been discovered almost anywhere between the equator and the eternal snows. Our total in wagons, animals, and food is something enormous; for, unlike the circus on land, the circus at sea cannot secure material from day to day. There are 324 horses, nineteen elephants, thirty-two "led animals," such as camels, zebras, and three-horned oxen, and twenty-five ponies. We have, therefore, between decks some 600 animals to be properly cared for during a twelve or fourteen days' seavoyage, and to be safely debarked at the end of the trip. If it were simply feeding and caring for 600 animals of a single species, the problem would be a very simple one. But when it is remembered that here we have a great variety of species, each requiring different food and special treatment, it will be seen that the problem is complicated enough to be interesting. Even of one species, all can not be dealt with alike. Take the horses: the delicate thoroughbred of the ring cannot be treated as "baggage stock." The task could never be accomplished, of course, but for the skill acquired in long, intelligent experience. How, otherwise, could it be known that our savage collection will require 2,700 pounds of beef? Or that 100 cabbages go with seventy pounds of bread daily; and with six bar barrels of onions, and so on. When I was a farmer's boy, my father used to say that not more than one man in a hundred who owned horses knew how to take care of a horsea common, every-day horse. Think what must it mean to get proper care taken of the 600 horses of a great circus, whether at sea or on land! In the first place, for show purposes, horses are not bought young. The baggage stock-those great, powerful, sleeklooking fellows are from seven to twenty-five years old. Poor" Pilot," the big white baggage horse that we buried the second day out, had drawn a cage with seven others of his patient kind for the last eighteen years. In the next place, these horses are of high and low degree, and are not all to be approached, cared for, fed, A VISIT TO THE WILD ANIMALS. Down in the forward hold of the ship, braced with stout stanchions to the iron beams above, and arranged in any way to preserve the economy of space, are the cages To for life. She seemed too much dazed at my and snarling of the pumas, the impatient impudence to resent it; but the incident growl of the Bengal tiger. And now and made such an impression on my nerves that, then, from out the darkness forward, comes a few minutes later, when a pelican reached the unearthly shriek of the hyenas, sinking out in the darkness and nipped me on the all the rest. The darkness, the flashing leg, I almost fainted from fright. The op- eyes, the pent-up uncertainty, the creaking portune break of a wave over the cages on of ship's timbers, the low moans that rise to deck sent an icy shower down into the hold, a human whine and explode in wild, hysterdrenching both Mr. Linson and myself, and ical laughter no madhouse could inspire so brought speedy recovery; but it ruined such terrors. Under the dim light of a a very clever sketch of Nellie that the lantern, two men go from cage to cage. artist had nearly finished. One brandishes an iron bar, while the other quickly thrusts a chunk of meat beneath the foot-board. Then follows the flash of two lightning paws, and then a low growl or a loud purr of content as the morsel is crunched between the powerful jaws. the Poor Johanna! Johanna is the famous gorilla. A lantern swings in front of her cage, just forward of the lion's noisy den. By its fitful gleams, I saw her leaning disconsolately in a corner. She had been very sea-sick. On our second day out, her indefatigable keeper, McKay, gave her hot lemonade and occasionally a stiff snifter of whisky, and ran back and forth between her cage and the cook's galley, bringing dainties of fruit and chicken, and hot broths and the like. No royal sea-sick lady could have been more ardently served in her distress. On a Monday we went down to see them feed the wild animals. Those of the cat kind are never fed on Sunday; that is how they know it is Sunday. Nobody seems to know who invented this custom; its beginning falls in that dim time whereof memory of man runneth not to the contrary.' 66 The mere smell of the meat, as it is lowered into the hold, drives the animals crazy this morning. It is chopped up on a cutting table, between the cages, by a stalwart keeper in a butcher's apron. The ship rolls and pitches to an extent that makes an unsupported footing precarious. The ears are assailed by a combination of sounds: the roar of the raging sea is drowned by the bellowing of the king of beasts, the snapping 66 66 Our circus family amuse themselves on and "Jennie.” And so the circus family, deck with the side-show band, the mandolins, below and above, get on happily together and the guitars; pitching pennies; watching from start to finish. ships and porpoises. Madam Hodji Tahar, In the very face of the Bishop Rock light a pretty Arabian acrobat, with the smooth- we bury "Eagle," the beautiful black stalest of dark olive complexions, black eyes, lion whose particular accomplishment it was and hair of midnight, entertains us-occa- to dance the couchee-couchee with John sionally with a wild Spanish dance. Penny- O'Brien on his back. Eagle was thirty-six ante in the smoking-room seems on years old, and came from Hamburg. He night and day unceasingly. Our indefati- had been with the show since 1869, and was gable artist passes his day among the animals probably one of the most intelligent, as well between decks, and gathers an interested as beautiful, horses that ever appeared in circle of mothers and children about him in the ring. They buried him by the dim light of the cabin in the evening. And there also, a lantern in British waters- darkly at dead at the piano, sits Oxford, warbling in a low of night"-and his groom stood by in the sweet tenor, songs in French, Italian, Span- shadow of a wardrobe wagon and wept alone. ish, and the four or five other languages he Another horse, a baggage horse, died soon knows. And the bright eyes of the little after, and was buried in the English Channel. Moorish woman who also speaks half a dozen languages, but can neither read nor write any of them, swim with pleasure, and her hands and feet and swaying figure describe the time of the castanets and ankle bells. Everybody shouts across the cabin, calling everybody else by his or her first name. It is "George," and "John," and "Charlie," and "Bill," and "Emma," and "Emma," and "Lizzie," Up the Channel we steam, through the fog, that is the wonted foretaste of London, to the ominous screech of the siren; with the rattle of chains and the creaking of blocks; with all the steam windlasses going fore and aft, and the men all busy removing the lashings of the cages, and getting everything ready for a quick unloading to-morrow. And so ends the voyage. |