BIANCA RESCUES BOSTOCK FROM "BRUTUS."BIANCA RESCUES BOSTOCK FROM "BRUTUS."
"The rest was easy. I put her through some other tricks, circled her around the cage a couple of times, and brought her back to her corner. Then, as she crouched there and snarled at me, I played a tattoowith my whip-handle on the floor just in front of her. It was just a sort of flourish to finish off with, and it was one thing too much; for in doing this I turned quite away from the rest of the group and made Brutus think that I meant to hurt the lioness. He said to himself: 'Hullo! Here's a stranger in our cage taking a whip to Spitfire. I'll just settlehim.' And before I could move he sprang twenty feet off his pedestal, set his fangs in my thigh, and dragged me over to Bianca, as if to prove his gallantry. Then the Frenchwoman did a clever thing: she clasped her arms around his big neck, drew his head up, and fired her revolver close to his ear. Of course she fired only a blank cartridge, but it brought Brutus to obedience, for that was Bianca's regular signal in the act for the lions to take their pedestals; and the habit of his work was so strong in the old fellow that he dropped me and jumped back to his place.
"There wasn't any more to it except that I lay five weeks in bed with my wounds. But this will show you how Bianca loved those lions: she wouldn't let me lift a hand to punish Brutus. Of course I called for irons as soon as I got up, and, wounded or not, I would have taught Mr. Brutus a few things before I left that cage if I could have had my way. But Bianca pleaded for him so hard—why, she actually cried—that I hadn't the heart to go against her. She said it was partly my own fault for turning my back,—which was true,—and that Brutus was a good lion and had only tried to defend his mate, and a lot more, with tears and teasing, until I let him off, although I knew I could never enter Brutus's cage again after leaving it without showing myself master. That's always the way with lions: if you once lose the upper hand you can never get it back."
IN the course of days spent with Mr. Bostock and his menagerie, I observed many little instances of the tamer's affection for his animals. I could see it in the constant fondling of the big cats by Bostock himself, and by Bonavita, his chief tamer, and even by the cage grooms. And no matter how great the crush of business, there was always time for visiting a sick lioness out in the stable, who would never be better, poor thing, but should have all possible comforts for her last days. And late one afternoon I stood by while Bonavita led a powerful, yellow-maned lion into the arena cage and held him, as a mother might hold a suffering child, while the doctor, reaching cautiously through the bars, cut away a growth from the beast's left eye. It is true they used a local anesthetic; but even so, it hurt the lion, and Bonavita's position as he knelt and stroked the big head and spoke soothing words seemed to me as far as possible from secure. Yet it was plain that his only thought was to ease the lion's pain.
"I couldn't have done that with all my lions," Bonavita said to me after the operation; "but this one is specially trained. You know he lets me put my head in his mouth."
Bonavita is a handsome, slender man, with dark hair and eyes, quite the type of a Spanish gentleman; and I liked him not only for his mastery of twenty-odd lions, but because he had a gentle manner and was modest about his work. According to Mr. Bostock, Bonavita has but two strong affections: one for his old mother, and one for his lions. Occasionally I could get him aside for a talk, and that was a thing worth doing.
"People ask me such foolish questions about wild beasts," he said one day. "For instance, they want to know which would win in a fight, a lion or a tiger. I tell them that is like asking which would win in a fight, an Irishman or a Scotchman. It all depends on the particular tiger you have and the particular lion. Animals are just as different as men: some are good, some bad; some you can trust and some you can't trust."
"Which is the most dangerous lion you have?" I inquired.
"Well," said he, "that's one of those questions I don't know how to answer. If you ask which lion has been the most dangerous so far, I should say Denver, because he tore my right arm one day so badly that they nearly had to cut it off. Still, I think Ingomar is my most dangerous lion, although he hasn't got his teeth in me yet; he's tried, but missed me. It doesn't matter, though, what I think, for it may be one of these lazy, innocent-looking lions that will really kill me. They seem tame as kittens, but you can't tell what's underneath. Suppose I turn my back and one of them springs—why, it's all off."
Another day he said: "A man gets more confidence every time he faces an angry lion and comes out all right. Finally he gets so sure of his power that hedoes strange things. I have seen a lion coming at me and have never moved, and the lion has stopped. I have had a lion strike at me and the blow has just grazed my head, and have stood still, with my whip lifted, and the lion has gone off afraid. One day in the ring a lion caught my left arm in his teeth as I passed between two pedestals. I didn't pull away, but stamped my foot and cried out, 'Baltimore, what do you mean?' The stamp of my foot was the lion's cue to get off the pedestal, and Baltimore loosed his jaws and jumped down. His habit of routine was stronger than his desire to bite me."
Again, Bonavita explained that there is some strange virtue in carrying in the left hand a whip which is never used. The tamer strikes with his right-hand whip when it is necessary, but only lifts his left-hand whip and holds it as a menace over the lion. And it is likely, Bonavita thinks, that to strike with that reserve whip would be to dispel the lion's idea that it stands for some mysterious force beyond his daring.
"You see, lions aren't very intelligent," said he; "they don't understand what men are or what they want. That is our hardest work—to make a lion understand what we want. As soon as he knows that he is expected to sit on a pedestal he is willing enough to do it, especially if he gets some meat; but it often takes weeks before he finds out what we are driving at. You can see what slow brains lions have, or tigers either, by watching them fight for a stick or a tin cup. They couldn't get more excited over a piece of meat. One of the worst wounds I ever got came from going into a lion's den after an overcoat that he had dragged away from a foolish spectator who was poking it at him."
BONAVITA'S FIGHT WITH SEVEN LIONS IN THE RUNWAY.BONAVITA'S FIGHT WITH SEVEN LIONS IN THE RUNWAY.
I finally got Bonavita to tell me about the time whenthe lion Denver attacked him. It was during a performance at Indianapolis, in the fall of 1900, and the trouble came at the runway end where the two circular passages from the cages open on an iron bridge that leads to the show-ring. Bonavita had just driven seven lions into this narrow space, and was waiting for the attendants to open the iron-barred door, when Denver sprang at him and set his teeth in his right arm. This stirred the other lions, and they all turned on Bonavita; but, fortunately, only two could reach him for the crush of bodies. Here was a tamer in sorest need, for the weight of the lions kept the iron doors from opening and barred out the rescuers. In the audience was wildest panic, and the building resounded with shouts and screams and the roars of angry lions. Women fainted; men rushed forward brandishing revolvers, but dared not shoot; and for a few moments it seemed as if the tamer was doomed.
But Bonavita's steady nerve saved him. As Denver opened his jaws to seize a more vital spot, the tamer drove his whip-handle far down into his red throat, and then, with a cudgel passed in to him, beat the brute back. The other lions followed, and this freed the iron door, which the grooms straightway opened, and in a moment the seven lions were leaping toward the ring as if nothing had happened. And last of the seven came Denver, driven by Bonavita, white-faced and suffering, but the master now, and greeted with cheers and roars of applause. No one realized how badly he was hurt, for his face gave no sign. He bowed to the audience, cracked his whip, and began the act as usual. As he went on he grew weaker, but stuck to it until he had put the lions through four of their tricks, and then he staggered out of the ring into the arms of the doctors, who found him torn withugly wounds that kept him for weeks in the hospital. That, I think, is an instance of the very finest lion-tamer spirit.
Among various meetings with tamers of animals, I recall with particular pleasure one afternoon when my friend Newman brought to see me a tamer famous in his day—George Arstingstall. I knew that Arstingstall was the first man in this country to work lions, tigers, leopards, elephants, sheep, monkeys, and various other beasts all in a great circular cage. Also that his fame had spread across Europe and his daring feats been shown from London to Moscow; but I did not know what a simple, modest man he was, nor realize until then the charm of listening to a couple of circus veterans, comrades for years, talking of the old stirring days. Here were two men getting on to sixty, yet talking with the eagerness of boys about their exploits and perils under fang and claw.
It was: "Say, Bill, do you remember when that bull pup caught Topsy by the trunk and stampeded the—"
"Stampeded the whole business. Do I remember, George? Up in Boston. Bing! bang! over the Common, and the Old Man wild! Well I guess. But, say, George, that wasn't as bad as the stampede in Troy, when those four elephants cleaned out the rolling-mill. Oh, what a night! Let's see. There was Nan and—"
"And Tip."
"Yes, poor old Tip. I strangled him at Bridgeport. You remember, George, he wouldn't take the poison. Oh, he was no fool, Tip wasn't, and I told the Old Man we'd have to put nooses on him and cut off his wind."
"I know, Bill, the Old Man said it wasn't possible to strangle an elephant—"
"And say, George, I had his wind shut off inside of three minutes after the boys began to haul. Oh, you can't beat three sheave-blocks, George, for finishing off a bad tusker. Well, this night in Troy those four elephants went sailing through this rolling-mill, trumpeting like mad, right over the hot iron, scaring those Irishmen blue, and then smashed down a steep refuse bank into the mud. Oh, what looking elephants! Nan had her legs all burned, and—"
"I know, and say, Bill, do you remember where I found Tip? Three miles out of Troy, standing up in a corn-field sound asleep, and two little boys on a rail fence looking at him. He'd knocked over a shanty and smashed open a barrel of whisky—a whole barrel, Bill—and there he was sound asleep. When I saw those little boys I made up my mind I'd found Tip.
"'What ye lookin' at, little boys?' I sung out.
"'El'phunt, mister,' says one of the boys, sort of careless like, just as if it was a common thing in Troy for elephants to be asleep in corn-fields."
"I know, that's the way little boys act," remarked Newman, sagaciously. "Say, George, tell about the time you took that car-load of animals over the Alleghanies."
After some preliminaries, Mr. Arstingstall responded to the invitation, and I heard a story that Victor Hugo might have turned into a masterpiece of description.
It was back in the winter of 1874, and circus trains were not fitted up as completely then as they are to-day. Arstingstall was in charge of a car packed with a medley of animals—lions and tigers in cages, some camels, some boxes of monkeys, some hyenas, a sacred bull from Tibet, and a young male elephant recently brought from Africa and as yet untrained. All these were on their way to Wisconsin, where the show was to makeits spring opening in a couple of weeks, during which Arstingstall was expected to break the young elephant for driving in a chariot race.
At one end of the car was a stove against the bitter weather, but the elephant was chained at the other end, and as they came into the mountain region Arstingstall noticed that the elephant was suffering from cold, and at the first stop sent a man out for half a bucket of whisky, which he filled up with water and gave to the shivering animal. There is no use giving an elephant whisky unless you give him enough.
Now came a run of an hour and a half without stop, and during this time Arstingstall was alone in the animal-car, and about as busy as he ever expects to be on this earth. The trouble began when he unloosed the elephant's chains to lead him nearer the stove, for it looked as if his ears might freeze, as happens. Indeed, an elephant's ears will sometimes freeze so hard that big pieces drop off, while a frozen tail has been known to drop off entirely.
Against such chances Arstingstall wished to take precautions, so he led the elephant down the car, through the jumble of animals and cages, all the less prepared for mischief as this was rather a smallish elephant, not over six feet at the shoulder and showing only half-grown tusks. But they were sharp. Whether it was the whisky taking violent effect or some sudden hatred for his keeper—at any rate, that elephant, long before he reached the stove, set forth upon a murderous campaign the like of which Arstingstall had never known. Before he realized the danger, he felt the creature's trunk twisting around his neck, and he was hurled violently to the floor. There he lay helpless, while the elephant hesitated, one might fancy,whether to kneel on him and crush the life out or run him through with his tusks.
In that moment's pause Arstingstall made a last despairing effort, did the only thing he could do, sunk his teeth into the fleshy finger that curls around the end of an elephant's trunk and covers the opening so that no invading mouse may enter and work destruction. In all an elephant's great body, there is no spot so sensitive as this finger, and, with a scream of pain, the animal loosed his hold, whereupon Arstingstall sprang behind one of the cages. But the elephant was after him in a moment, swinging his trunk and trumpeting black murder. Arstingstall dodged behind the camels, behind the sacred bull, behind the stove. The elephant followed him everywhere, profiting by his smallness, and where he could not go himself he sent his curling trunk. Arstingstall, out of breath, climbed on top of the lion's cage, thinking to find some respite, but the red-ended trunk pursued him. Once more he tried biting tactics, and as the reaching finger swept along the cage top he seized it again in his teeth, and this time took a piece clean out of it, which was not pleasant for him, and less so for the elephant.
Now came a truce of some minutes, during which the elephant put forth screaming challenges, but kept at a distance, and allowed Arstingstall to reach the bunks beside the monkeys' cages. From the topmost bunk opened a trap-door in the car roof, the only exit, as the sliding side-doors were bolted. He might escape here to the back of the train, but that would leave a mad elephant in possession of the car, a thing not to be thought of. Thus far the elephant's rage had been directed solely against his keeper, but, the keeper gone, he might turn to destroying the other animals, mightkill the sacred bull, or smash open the lions' cages—there was no telling what he might do. Arstingstall saw that his duty lay in that car. Whatever came, he must—
Crash! came the elephant again, and the lower berth was a wreck. And now the din became infernal with the roaring and bellowing and chattering of the other animals. Arstingstall did some quick thinking. There was sure death before him, unless he could somehow conquer this frenzied creature, whose rushes, coming harder and harder, must soon batter down the car, for all its stout oak timbers. Oh, for a weapon, a prod of some sort, a—like a flash the thought came; down at the other end was the pitchfork used for throwing fodder. There was his chance; he must get that pitchfork.
For the next hour it was a fight, man against elephant, for the winning and holding of that pitchfork. There was the whole story, and some day I hope to give its details, the moves and counter-moves, the strategy of brute against human, the conflict of brain against crude force. Arstingstall won, but by what patience and quiet nerve he alone knows. Foot by foot, cage by cage, he worked his way down the length of that car, the elephant now on the defensive, one would say, as if he realized what was planning, the man watching, resolute, biding his time, ready for a sudden rush, forced now and again to use his teeth upon that murderous trunk.
Finally, he got the pitchfork, and for a moment—what a moment that was!—held four prongs of flashing steel before the elephant's eyes, red-burning, unsubmissive. It was all over now, the battle was won, the animal knew, and stood still awaiting the blow. Down came the weapon, and right through the trunk wentthose four sharp points, down into the timbers under foot. Then Arstingstall braced the handle under a wall-beam, so that the elephant was nailed fast to the floor, nose down. And then the brute squealed his submission.
Three weeks later Arstingstall drove that elephant, perfectly broken, in a chariot race, and for years after there was not a better little bull in the herd than he.
WHENEVER I made the round of cages with Mr. Bostock I was struck by the fierce behavior of a certain male lion with brown-and-yellow mane,—"Young Wallace," they called him,—who would set up a horrible snarling as soon as we came near, and rush at the bars as if to tear them down. And no matter how great the crowd, his wicked yellow eyes would always follow Bostock, and his deep, purring roar would continue and break into furious barks if the tamer approached the bars. Then his jaws would open and the red muzzle curl back from his tusks, and again and again he would strike the floor with blows that would crush a horse.
"Doesn't love me, does he?" said Bostock, one day.
"What's the matter with him?" I asked.
"Why, nothing; only he's a wild lion—never been tamed, you know; and I took him in the ring one day. He hasn't forgotten it—have you old boy? Hah!" Bostock stamped his foot suddenly, and Young Wallace crouched back, snarling still, a picture of hatred and fear.
"Yes," went on Bostock, "he's wild enough. You see, after the fire, I had to get animals from pretty much everywhere, and get 'em quick. Did some lively cabling, I can tell you; and pretty soon there werelions and tigers and leopards and—oh, everything from sacred bulls down to snakes, chasing across the ocean, and more than half of them had been loose in the jungle six months ago. It was a case of hustle, and we took what they sent us. Then we had fun breaking 'em in. Ask Madame Morelli if we didn't. She's in the hospital now from the claws of that fellow." He pointed to a sleepy-looking jaguar.
"Tell you how I came to take this wild lion into the ring. I had a press-agent who had been announcing out West what a wonder I was with wild beasts, and how I wasn't afraid of anything on legs, and so on. That was all very well while I was in Baltimore; but when I joined my other show after the fire, of course I had to live up to my reputation. And when they got up a traveling men's benefit out in Indianapolis and asked me to go into the ring with Young Wallace, why, there wasn't anything to do but go in. It wasn't quite so funny, though, as it seemed, for I might as well have taken a lion fresh from the wilds of Africa." Mr. Bostock smiled at the memory.
"Well, I did the thing, and got through all right. Young Wallace hasn't forgotten what happened to him. I got the best of him by a trick: had a little shelter cage placed inside the big arena cage, and at first I stood in the small one, and let the lion come at me. Oh, you'd better believe he came! I thought sure he'd jump clean over the thing and land on me; for there was no roof to my cage—only sides of wire netting. He didn't quite do it, though; and as soon as I saw he was getting rattled I stepped out quick and went at him hard with whip and club. And I drove him all over the ring, and the people went crazy, for he was the maddest lion you ever saw.
"That was all right as far as it went, but the peoplewanted more. They got to be out-and-out bloodthirsty there in Indianapolis. Wanted me to go in the ring with Rajah, that big tiger. See, over there! Come up, Rajah. Beauty, isn't he? Doesn't pay any special attention to me, does he? Nearly killed me, just the same. Look!" He lifted his cap and showed wide strips of plaster on his head.
"Point about Rajah was that he'd killed one of my keepers a couple of weeks before. Poor fellow got in his cage by mistake. And now these Indianapolis folks wanted to see me handle him. Between you and me, this keeper wasn't the first man Rajah had killed, and I didn't care much for the job. As for my wife—well, you can imagine howshefelt when she heard I was going in with Rajah.
"On the morning of the performance I decided to have a rehearsal, and called on a few picked men to help me. I knew by the way he had killed his keeper that Rajah would go at my head if he attacked me at all, so I rigged up a mask of iron wire, and wore this strapped over my head like a little barrel. Then I drove him into the arena and began, while the others looked on anxiously. It's queer, sir, but that tiger went through his tricks as nice as you please, back and forth, up on his pedestal and down again, everything just as he used to do in the old days before he went bad. Never balked, never turned on me; just as good as gold.
"RAJAH'S" ATTACK UPON BONAVITA IN THE RUNWAY."RAJAH'S" ATTACK UPON BONAVITA IN THE RUNWAY.
"Soon as I was satisfied I drove him across the bridge and down the runway toward his den. I came about a dozen feet behind him, carrying a long wooden shield, as we generally do in a narrow space. Rajah reached his cage all right, and went in. You see, he couldn't go down the runway any farther, for the door opening outward barred the passage. Behind that door I hadstationed a keeper, with orders to close it as soon as Rajah was inside; but Rajah went in so silently that the keeper didn't know it, the peep-holes in the door being too high for him to see very well. The result was that the cage door stood open for a few seconds after the tiger had gone in. It seems a little thing, but it nearly cost me my life; for when I came up Rajah's head was right back of the open door, and when I reached out my hand to close the door he sprang at me, and in a second had me down, with his teeth in my arm and his claws digging into my head through openings in the mask.
"Then you'd better believe there was a fight in that runway! The keepers rushed in; Bonavita rushed in. They shot at him with revolvers, they jabbed him with irons, they pounded at him with clubs; and one of the blows that Rajah dodged knocked me senseless. Well, they got me out finally. I guess the mask saved my life. But I didn't take Rajah into the ring that evening, and Rajah won't be seen in the ring any more. He's made trouble enough. Why, the things I could tell you about that tiger would fill a book."
Some of these things he did tell me, for I brought the talk back to Rajah whenever the chance offered. I well remember, for instance, the occasion when I heard how Rajah once got out of his cage and chased a quagga—one of those queer little animals that are half zebra and half mule. It was late at night, and we had entered the runway, Mr. Bostock and I, after the performance, for he wanted me to realize the perils of this narrow boarded lane that circles all the dens and leads the lions to the ring. It is indeed a terrifying place—a low, dimly lighted passage, curving constantly, so that you see ahead scarcely twenty feet, and are always turning a slow corner, always peering aheaduneasily and listening! What is that? A soft tread? The glow of greenish eyeballs? Who can tell when a bolt may slip or a board give way? So many things have happened in these runways! Of course a lion has no business to be out of his den, but—but suppose he is? Suppose you meet him—now—there!
Well, it was here that I heard the story. Bonavita, it appears, was standing on the bridge one morning when there arose a fearful racket in the runway, and, looking in, he saw the quagga tearing along toward him. He concluded that some one had unfastened the door, and was just preparing to check the animal, when around the curve came Rajah in full pursuit. Bonavita stepped back, drew his revolver, and, as the tiger rushed past, fired a blank cartridge, thinking thus to divert him from the quagga. But Rajah paid not the slightest heed, and in long bounds came out into the arena hard after the terrified quadruped, which was galloping now with the speed of despair. A keeper who was sweeping clambered up the iron sides and anxiously watched the race from the top. Bonavita, powerless to interfere, watched from the bridge.
THE TIGER "RAJAH" KICKED BY THE QUAGGA.THE TIGER "RAJAH" KICKED BY THE QUAGGA.
Of all races ever run in a circus this was the most remarkable. It was a race for life, as the quagga knew and the tiger intended. Five times they circled the arena, Rajah gaining always, but never enough for a spring. In the sixth turn, however, he judged the distance right, and straightway a black-and-yellow body shot through the air in true aim at the prey. Whereupon the quagga did the only thing a quaggacoulddo—let out both hind legs in one straight, tremendous kick; and they do say that a quagga can kick the eyes out of a fly. At any rate, in this case a pair of nervous little heels caught the descending tiger squarely under the lower jaw, and put him to sleep like a nice littlelullaby. And that was the end of it. The quagga trotted back to its cage, Bonavita put up his revolver, the frightened sweeper climbed down from the bars, and Rajah was hauled back ignominiously to his den.
Here we have three instances showing the extreme importance of little things in a menagerie. A keeper opens door No. 13 instead of door No. 14, and is straightway killed. A screw is loose in a bolt fastening, and, presto! a tiger is at large. A watcher at a peep-hole looks away for a moment, and a life goes into jeopardy. It is always so; and I will let Mr. Bostock tell how a little thing gave Rajah his first longing to kill.
"It was several years ago," said he, "when I was running a wagon show in England. I remember we were about a mile and a half out of a certain town when this thing happened. For some reason Rajah had been transferred to a bear-wagon, and we ought to have examined it more carefully, for bears are the worst fellows in the world to damage a cage by ripping up the timbers; it seems as if nothing can resist their claws and teeth. And this particular cage was in such bad shape that Rajah managed to get out of it. I knew something must be wrong when I saw the big elephant-wagon that headed the procession go tearing away with its six horses on a dead run under the driver's lash. No wonder the driver was scared, for he had turned his head and seen the two draft-horses that followed him down on the ground, with Rajah tearing at one of them, and the other one dead.
"It wasn't a pretty sight when we got there, and it wasn't an easy job, either, capturing Rajah. I don't know what we should have done if it hadn't been for a long-haired fellow in the show called 'Mustang Ned,' who came up with a coil of rope and lassoed the tiger.Then we tangled him up in netting, and finally got him into one of the shifting-cages. But after that he was never the same tiger. You wouldn't think there was a time when Rajah used to ride around the tent on an elephant's back, with only a little black boy to guard him!"
"What, outside the iron ring?"
"Yes, sir, right among the women and children. He did that twice a day for over a year. Might be doing it yet if the black boy hadn't been so careful of his white trousers."
"His white trousers?"
"That's right. You see, this boy rode on the elephant, behind Rajah, and he wore long black boots and a fine white suit. Made quite a picture. Only he didn't like to rub his trousers against the tiger, for an animal's back is naturally oily; so he used to tuck his legs under a lion's skin that Rajah rode on, and wrap it around him like a carriage-robe.
"Well, one day as they were going around the nigger lost his balance and tumbled off the elephant, pulling the lion's skin with him, and of course that dragged Rajah along, too. The first thing we knew, there was a big tiger on the ground, and people running about and screaming. Pleasant, wasn't it?
PUTTING THE TIGER "RAJAH" AGAIN UPON THE ELEPHANT'S BACK.PUTTING THE TIGER "RAJAH" AGAIN UPON THE ELEPHANT'S BACK.
"In another minute we'd have had a panic; but by good luck I was there, and caught Rajah quickly around the neck and held him until the others got a rope on him. Then we had a time getting him back on the elephant. First I tried to make him spring up from a high pedestal, but he wouldn't spring. Next I had them work a ladder under Rajah, so that he sat on it; and then, with two men at one end and me at the other, we lifted him slowly level with our shoulders, level with our heads, and just there the tiger gave a vicious growl,and the two men lowered their end. That made him work up toward my end, and in a second I had Rajah's face close to my face, and both my hands occupied with the ladder. I couldn't do a thing, and the only question was whathewould do. He looked at me, looked at the elephant, and then struck out hard and quick, missing me only by a hair; in fact, he didn't miss me entirely, for one of his claws just reached the corner of my eye—see, I have the scar still. But he jumped on the elephant, and we kept the mastery that day. Still, it was bad business, and I saw we couldn't take such chances again. That was Rajah's last ride."
THE general opinion among wild-beast tamers is that the tiger is more to be feared than the lion. The one will kill a man as easily as the other, but the lion gives fair warning of his murderous intention by rushing at his victim with a roar, whereas the tiger, true representative of the cat tribe, sneaks up with semblance of affectionate purr, only to set his fangs suddenly into the very life of his victim. The lion has somewhat greater muscular power than the tiger, but the latter has greater quickness.
The tamer Philadelphia told me once that he had seen a lion fasten his fangs in the shoulder of a dead horse and drag the carcass, weighing perhaps a thousand pounds, a distance of twenty feet. If a lion and a strong horse were to pull in opposite directions, the horse would drag the lion backward with comparative ease; but if the lion were hitched behind the horse, facing in the same direction, and were allowed to exert his strength in backing, he could easily pull the horse down upon his haunches, so much greater is his strength when exerted backward from the hind legs than in forward pulling.
A lion springing through the air from a distance of six feet would knock down a horse or bullock with a single blow of his forearm, backed by the momentumof his three hundred pounds' weight, and a full-grown lion in the jungles will jump twenty-five or thirty feet on the level from a running start. In captivity the same lion would clear a distance about half as great. A lion can jump over a fence eight or ten feet high, but not at a bound. He catches first with his forelegs, and drags his body after him. Tigers will jump a trifle higher than lions. But of all wild animals, the leopards are the greatest jumpers, being able to hurl their lithe and beautiful bodies, curled up almost into a ball, to extraordinary heights. They bound with ease, for instance, from the floor of the cage so as to touch a ceiling twelve feet high.
For a short distance a lion or a tiger will outrun a man, and can equal the speed of a fast horse, but they lose their wind at the end of half a mile at the most. They have little endurance, and are remarkably weak in lung power. Their strength is the kind which is capable of a terrific effort for a short time. It would take six men, for instance, to hold a lion down in his first struggles, even after his legs were tied.
One day Philadelphia, wishing to test the affection popularly supposed to exist between a lion and a mouse, put a mouse in the cage of a full-grown Nubian lion. The lion saw the mouse before it was fairly through the bars, and was after him instantly. Away went the little fellow, scurrying across the floor and squealing in fright. When he had gone about ten feet, the lion sprang, lighting a little in front of him. The mouse turned, and the lion sprang again. This was repeated several times, the mouse traversing a shorter distance after each spring of the lion. It was demonstrated that a lion is too quick for a mouse, at least in a large cage.
Finally the mouse stood still, trembling, while thelion studied it with interest. Presently he shot out his big paw, and brought it down directly on the mouse, but so gently that the little fellow was not injured in the least, though held fast between the claws. Then the lion played with him in the most extraordinary way, now lifting his paw and letting the mouse run a few inches, now stopping him as before. Suddenly the mouse changed his tactics, and, instead of running when the lion lifted his paw, sprang into the air straight at the lion's head. The lion, terrified, gave a great leap back, striking the bars with all his weight, and shaking the whole floor. Then he opened his great jaws and roared and roared again, while the little mouse, still squealing, made his escape. Of the two, the lion was the more frightened.
Speaking of Philadelphia, I used to wonder, as I watched him manage Black Prince on horseback, whether the lion was really in earnest as he struck and roared with such apparent viciousness, or whether he had simply been trained to play a part. Certainly the lion looked as if his one desire was to kill the little man who teased him so with rod and whip, smiling all the time under his yellow mustache.
One night Black Prince sprang ten feet through the air straight at Philadelphia, who saved his life by dodging, but did not escape the sweep of the lion's forearm. No one knew that, however, for the tamer showed no sign of injury, but brought his heavy whip down with a stinging cut over the lion's head, and went through the "act," holding a handkerchief to his face now and then, but smiling as before. When he left the ring, it was found that one of the lion's claws had laid his cheek open almost from eye to lip.
"He meant to kill me that trip," said Philadelphia, as they bound up his face.
"We will never show that lion again," declared the manager, much excited.
"Oh, yes, we will!" answered the wounded tamer. "I will make him work to-morrow as usual." And he did, teasing and prodding him that day as never before, as if daring him to do his worst.
The climax was reached one night in January, when Black Prince came within an ace of killing this daring tamer, and certainly would have done so had not his attention been diverted just at the critical moment by the horse he was riding. He paused in the very act of springing, as if undecided whether to destroy the man or the horse, and that pause put the tamer on his guard, while the watchful grooms rushed in through the iron gates and drove Black Prince from the ring.
Speaking to me afterward of that night, Philadelphia said: "I knew the critical moment had come, and that it would not do to push matters any farther. If I had made Black Prince do his jump when he balked and turned on me, he would have sprung at my throat, caught me between his fore paws, and fastened his fangs in my neck or breast. It would have been impossible for ten men to have dragged him off, and I should have been killed there in the sight of the spectators, just as my nephew, Albert Krone, was killed in Germany some years ago by a Russian bear."
In conclusion, let me recall a night that I spent among the wild beasts of the famous Hagenbeck menagerie. That, by the way, is a thing worth doing if one values strange sensations.
It is two hours after midnight. The snow lies crisp under foot, the stars and electric lights shine quietly in the still night. Before me rises a big building, its walls pictured with springing lions and pyramids of tigers. As I enter, a long roar from within tells methat the animals are not all asleep. The roar, a lion's, comes three times with increasing volume, and at the fourth is answered by another of equal volume; then two lions roar together, the sounds coming quicker and quicker, with an increasing staccato that ends finally in hoarse barks.
Taking a little alarm-clock that the night watchman loans me, I go back among the cages, where I am to keep strange vigil. A small wooden door at the right takes me into an open space ranged with cages and wagons, the former containing some barking dogs. From here I pass into a circular shed, where are more wagons and dogs, and at the farther end by the wet, sticky-looking seals I reach a small door leading into a low passage, beyond which are the wild beasts.
I push aside a curtain covering the entrance against drafts, and see before me a picture never dreamed of by humdrum New-Yorkers sleeping within stone's throw. The cages, ranged in double row, form an alleyway, divided at intervals by gas-stoves, on which water is heating. In front of the big group of lions and tigers sleeps one of the grooms, stretched on a cot bed. He wears a pink shirt and blue drawers, and his bare feet are turned to the gas-stove, which burns night and day. Another groom sleeps farther on, beside the Tibet goats, and still another near the ponies, opposite the small cage of the lioness Mignon. They sleep so soundly that a riot would scarcely waken them; yet, by some subtle sense, they would be on the alert in an instant if anything were wrong in the cages.
Three animals rouse themselves as I step into the darkness which shrouds the big cage—the lion Yellow Prince is one of them—and as I approach the bars three pairs of burning eyes glare at me through the shadows. I venture to turn on the electric light and peer intothe cage. Here are three leopards, the three royal Bengal tigers, and a full-grown lion, making no more noise between them than a sleeping child.
I return to the farther end of the shed, where the five-year-old lioness Helena, alone in her cage, is walking back and forth drowsily, as if on the point of dropping off for her night's rest. Indeed, she does this presently, turning on her side, and stretching her legs out perfectly straight, with no bend at the joints. It was Helena who, in a fit of nervous fright a year or two ago, sprang upon Betty Stuckart, the famous prize beauty, and nearly killed her. Since then she has lived in solitary confinement.
The stillness now would be absolute but for a very curious sound, which comes out of the gloom beyond the big cage of leopards and tigers. It is the elephant Topsy sleeping. There is no stranger sight in a menagerie than that of an elephant asleep. The huge legs are bent to right angles at the knees, the trunk is curled into the mouth, and the whole suggests a shapeless mound of mud or clay, or a half-inflated balloon. Head and tail are alike; the ears lie flat; the eyes are quite concealed in wrinkled flesh, but from somewhere within this seemingly dead mass comes a long, hissing sound, like the exhaust from a steam-pipe. This sound continues for several seconds and then stops, to be repeated after an interval of silence.
A ROYAL BENGAL TIGER.A ROYAL BENGAL TIGER.
So complete is the illusion of the sleeping elephant's not being alive at all, but only a mound of dead matter, that, abstractedly, I set the alarm-clock down upon the flat bone of the forehead. No sooner have I done so than I spring back startled, leaving the clock ticking on the elephant's head. There has been no noise or movement, no indication of displeasure, no effort to dome harm. But suddenly, in the middle of the huge, mud-colored mass there has appeared a round, red circle about two inches in diameter. The elephant has simply opened his eye. The eye does not roll, or move, or wink. It merely remains open on me for a few seconds, a round, staring circle, and then disappears as suddenly as it came.
Leaving Topsy, I resume my wanderings among the cages. The whole place is asleep, and I am seized with intense desire to awaken something. I take a long straw, and tickle Black Prince on his black nose. His eyes open instantly, and the heavy paw swings round like the working-beam of an engine, only more quickly, to crush the straw for its impertinence. I tickle him again, and again he strikes, with force enough to knock down a horse. As I continue, his blows grow quicker and heavier, and his big tusks snap at the troublesome straw. Finally, in desperation, he starts up, and, throwing back his magnificent head, looks at me out of his brown, wicked eyes, lifts his chin, curls down his lower lip a little, and bellows forth a low, plaintive sound, more like the mooing of a cow than the roar of a lion. Then, apparently ashamed of this uninspiring sound, he shakes his mane and roars in genuine lion fashion.
So the hours of the night pass, and at last, having seen everything and grown weary of experiments, I seat myself on a trunk near Black Prince's cage, and am soon buried in my meditations. The tips of the tigers' noses begin to change from red to green, and then back again; the leopards' tails are no longer straight, but end in snake-heads with forked tongues darting out. I overhear curious conversations among the lions, and presently men in blue shirts and pink drawers come marching past, each carrying an alarm-clock.Then a curious thing happens: with a sweep of her trunk, the elephant Topsy lifts Jocko, the monkey, out of his red box.
"You must unlock the cages," says Topsy.
"All right," says Jocko. And he does.
Then all the lions, tigers, leopards, boar-hounds, Tibet goats, bears, ponies, and wild boars join in the procession, while the alarm-clocks beat time. Black Prince walks first, and, presently wheeling the line toward me, lifts his fore paw and says:
"Mein Herr, it is six o'clock."