SOME OF OUR PETS.
Friendliness of South African birds and beasts--Our Secretary
bird--Ungainly appearance of Jacob--His queer ways--Tragic fate of a
kitten--A persecuted fowl--Our Dikkops--A baby buffalo--Wounded buffalo
more dangerous than lion--A lucky stumble--Hunter attacked by "rogue"
buffalo--A midnight ride--Followed by a lion--Toto--A pugnacious
goose--South African climate dangerous to imported dogs--Toto and the
crows--Animals offered by Moors in exchange for Toto.
South Africa is the land of pet animals. The feathered and four-footed
creatures are all delightful. They have the quaintest and most amusing
ways, and they are very easily tamed. The little time and attention
which in a busy colonial home can be spared for the pets is always
repaid a hundredfold; and often you are surprised to find how quickly
the bird or beast which only a few days ago was one of the wild
creatures of the _veldt_--torn suddenly from nest or burrow, and
abruptly turned out from the depths of a sack or of a Hottentot's
pocket into a human home--has become an intimate friend, with a
clearly-marked individual character, most interesting to study, and
quite different from those of all its fellows, even of the same kind.
On one point, however, the whole collection is sure to be unanimous,
and that is a strong feeling of rivalry, and jealousy of one another,
each one striving to be first in the affections of master and mistress.
A great fondness for and sympathy with animals is not the least among
the many tastes which T---- and I have in common; and in our up-country
home, far off as we were from human neighbours, we were always
surrounded by numbers of animal and bird friends.
We began to form the nucleus of our small menagerie while still at
Walmer; and one of our first acquisitions was a secretary bird. The
friends near whom we lived possessed three of these creatures, which
had all been found, infants together, in one nest on an ostrich farm
near Port Elizabeth; and to my great delight, one of them was given to
us. "Jacob," as we named him, turned out a most amusing pet. His
personal appearance was decidedly comical; reminding us of a little
old-fashioned man in a grey coat and tight black knee-breeches; with
pale flesh-coloured stockings clothing the thinnest and most angular of
legs, the joints of which might have been stiff with chronic
rheumatism, so slowly and cautiously did Jacob bend them when picking
anything up, or when settling himself down into his favourite squatting
attitude. Not by any means a nice old man did Jacob resemble, but an
old reprobate, with evil-looking eye, yellow parchment complexion, bald
head, hooked nose and fiendish grin; with his shoulders shrugged up,
his hands tucked away under his coat-tails, and several pens stuck
behind his ear. Altogether an uncanny-looking creature, and one which,
had he appeared in England some two or three centuries ago, would have
stood a very fair chance of being burned alive in company with the old
witches and their cats; indeed, he looked the part of a familiar spirit
far better than the blackest cat could possibly do.
[Illustration: JACOB.]
[Illustration: TOTO.]
Yet with all his diabolical appearance, Jacob was very friendly and
affectionate, and soon grew most absurdly tame--too tame, in fact. He
would come running to us the moment we appeared in the verandah, and
would follow us about the garden, nibbling like a puppy at our hands
and clothes. He would walk, quite uninvited, into the house, where his
long-legged ungainly figure looked strangely out of place, and where he
was much too noisy to be allowed to remain, although the broadest of
hints in the shape of wet bath-sponges, soft clothes-brushes, Moorish
slippers, and what other harmless missiles came to hand, were quite
unavailing to convince him he was not wanted. The noisy scuffle and
indignant gruntings attendant on his forcible expulsion had hardly
subsided before he would reappear, walking sedately in at the first
door or window available, as if nothing had happened.
His objectionable noises were very numerous; and some of them were
unpleasantly suggestive of a hospital. He would commence, for instance,
with what seemed a frightful attack of asthma, and would appear to be
very near the final gasp; then for about ten minutes he would have
violent and alarming hiccups; the performance concluding with a
repulsively realistic imitation of a consumptive cough, at the last
stage. His favourite noise of all was a harsh, rasping croak, which he
would keep up for any length of time, and with the regularity of a
piece of clockwork; this noise was supposed to be a gentle intimation
that Jacob was hungry, though the old impostor had probably had a
substantial feed just before coming to pose as a starving beggar under
our windows. The monotonous grating sound was exasperating; and, when
driven quite beyond endurance, T---- would have recourse to extreme
measures, and would fling towards Jacob a large dried puff-adder's
skin, one of a collection of trophies hanging on the walls of our
cottage. The sight of this always threw Jacob into a state of abject
terror. He seemed quite to lose his wits, and would dance about wildly,
jumping up several feet from the ground in a grotesque manner; till at
last, grunting his loudest, and with the pen-like feathers on his head
bristling with excitement, he would clear the little white fence, and
go off at railway speed across the common, where he would remain out of
sight all the rest of the day; only returning at dusk to squat solemnly
for the night in his accustomed corner of the garden.
His dread of the puff-adder's skin inclined us to doubt the truth of
the popular belief in the secretary's usefulness as a destroyer of
snakes, on account of which a heavy fine is imposed by the Cape
Government on any one found killing one of these birds. I certainly do
not think Jacob would have faced a full-grown puff-adder, though we
once saw him kill and eat a small young one in the garden, beating it
to death with his strong feet, and then swallowing it at one gulp. He
was like a boa-constrictor in his capacity for "putting himself
outside" the animals on which he fed--lizards, rats, toads, frogs, fat
juicy locusts, young chickens, alas! and some of the smaller pets if
left incautiously within his reach, even little kittens--all went down
whole. The last-named animals were his favourite delicacy, and he was
fortunate enough while at Walmer to get plenty of them. His enormous
appetite, and our difficulty in satisfying it, were well known in the
neighbourhood, and the owners of several prolific cats, instead of
drowning the superfluous progeny, bestowed them on us as offerings to
Jacob. They were killed and given to him at the rate of one a day.
Once, however, by an unlucky accident, one of them got into his
clutches without the preliminary knock on the head; and the old
barbarian swallowed it alive. For some minutes we could hear the poor
thing mewing piteously in Jacob's interior, while he himself stood
there listening and looking all round in a puzzled manner, to see where
the noise came from. He evidently thought there was another kitten
somewhere, and seemed much disappointed at not finding it.
One day, when there had been a great catch of rats, he swallowed three
large ones in succession, but these were almost too much even for him;
the tail of the last rat protruded from his bill, and it was a long
time before it quite disappeared from view. The butcher had orders to
bring liberal supplies for Jacob every day, and the greedy bird soon
learned to know the hour at which he called. He would stand solemnly
looking in the direction from which the cart came, and as soon as it
appeared, he would run in his ungainly fashion to meet it.
Jacob was largely endowed with that quality which is best expressed by
the American word "cussedness;" and though friendly enough with us, he
was very spiteful and malicious towards all other creatures on the
place. He grew much worse after we went to live up-country, and became
at last a kind of feathered Ishmael; hated by all his fellows, and
returning their dislike with interest. Some time after we settled on
our farm we found that he had been systematically inflicting a cruel
course of ill-treatment on one unfortunate fowl, which, having been
chosen as the next victim for the table, was enclosed, with a view to
fattening, in a little old packing-case with wooden bars nailed across
the front. Somehow, in spite of abundant mealies and much soaked bread,
that fowl never would get fat, nor had his predecessor ever done so; we
had grown weary of feeding up the latter for weeks with no result, and
in despair had killed and eaten him at last--a poor bag of bones, not
worth a tithe of the food he had consumed. And now here was another,
apparently suffering from the same kind of atrophy; the whole thing was
a puzzle to us, until one day the mystery was solved, and Jacob stood
revealed as the author of the mischief. He had devised an ingenious way
of persecuting the poor prisoner, and on seeing it we no longer
wondered at the latter's careworn looks. Jacob would come up to his
box, and make defiant and insulting noises at him--none could do this
better than he--until the imbecile curiosity of fowls prompted the
victim to protrude his head and neck through the bars; then, before he
had time to draw back, Jacob's foot would come down with a vicious dab
on his head. The foolish creature never seemed to learn wisdom by
experience, though he must have been nearly stunned many times, and his
head all but knocked off by Jacob's great powerful foot and leg; yet as
often as the foe challenged him, his poor simple face would look
inquiringly out, only to meet another buffet. As he would not take care
of himself, we had to move him into a safe place; where he no longer
died daily, and was able at last to fulfil his destiny by becoming
respectably fat.
One day T---- returned from bathing, his Turkish towel, instead of
being as usual filled with blue lotus for the dining-table, showing
very evident signs of living contents; and two of the queerest little
birds came tumbling out of it. They were young dikkops, a little covey
of which he had surprised near his bathing-place. They possessed very
foolish, vacant faces; and their large, round, bright yellow eyes were
utterly void of expression, just as if a bird-stuffer had furnished
them with two pairs of glass eyes many sizes too large. Their great
thick legs, on the enormously swollen-looking knee-joints of which they
squatted in a comical manner, were just as much out of proportion as
the eyes, and of the same vivid yellow; indeed, the bird-stuffer seemed
to have finished off his work with a thick coating of the brightest
gamboge over legs and bill. They had no tail to speak of, and their
soft plumage was of all different shades of brown and grey, very
prettily marked. The dikkop (a Dutch name, meaning "thickhead"), is a
small kind of bustard, and is by far the best of the many delicious
game-birds of South Africa. It is a nocturnal bird, sleepy during the
daytime, but lively and noisy at night--as we soon found to our
discomfort. Not being able to decide at once on a place for our
newly-acquired specimens, we put them into our bedroom for the first
night, but they were soon awake--so, alas! were we--and their plaintive
cry, sounding incessantly from all parts of the room as they ran
restlessly to and fro, speedily obliged us to turn them out. We found
permanent quarters for them at the end of the verandah, opposite the
fernery, where my American trunks--too large to go into the house--had
been placed. These we arranged to form a little enclosure, in which the
dikkops were safe from the voracious Jacob, who would soon have
swallowed them, legs and all, if he had had the chance. One, evidently
the smallest and weakest of the covey, we named Benjamin; but, unlike
his Scriptural namesake, he received rather a smaller than a larger
portion of the good things of this world, the greedy Joseph taking
advantage of his own superior size and strength to get the lion's share
of all the food, and Benjamin meekly submitting; till we interfered,
and by separating the two at feeding-time ensured an equal division.
Joseph's general conduct was cruel and unbrotherly; and when one day,
during the process of packing to move up-country, he came to an
untimely end, being accidentally crushed under the heaviest "Saratoga,"
we naturally expected Benjamin to rejoice. Instead of this, however,
the little fellow pined and fretted; refusing to eat, and calling
incessantly with his little mournful cry of three soft musical notes in
a minor key, as if hoping to bring back his oppressor--from whom he
ought to have been thankful to be free--and at the end of two days he
also was dead.
During one of T----'s journeys up-country he made a strange purchase,
which he forwarded at once to me by train. It was a baby buffalo, which
had been taken alive by the hunters who shot its mother. The buffalo
being a rare animal in the Cape Colony, we looked on this little
specimen as a great acquisition; and, had he lived, he would have been
a very valuable, though perhaps in time somewhat formidable addition to
the menagerie; but the railway officials to whose care he was consigned
being no exception to the generality of Cape colonists--whose usual way
of doing business is to let things take care of themselves--the poor
little fellow was put into the train without being fastened or secured
in any way, and the jolting he received en _route_ knocked him about so
that he arrived in a very sad state, with his head cut and bleeding in
several places; and did not live many days.
The buffalo is considered by all hunters a far more dangerous animal to
encounter than the lion, and almost as formidable as the elephant or
rhinoceros. When wounded, he has an ugly trick of lying in wait, hidden
in the bush, with only his nose out; and turning the tables on the
pursuer by making an unexpected charge. Many hunters have been killed
in this manner by infuriated buffaloes.
When T---- was hunting in the interior some years before, a friend who
was there with him met with an exciting adventure. Having come across a
herd of buffaloes he fired into the midst of them; then, unaware that
he had wounded one of the animals, he rode in pursuit of the herd. On
coming up with them, he dismounted, and was just preparing to fire
again, when a shout from his brother, who was behind, made him look
round, just in time to see the wounded buffalo, which had emerged from
the bush, charging him furiously. He gave him both barrels, each shot
striking him in the centre of the forehead; but, as the buffalo always
charges with his nose in the air, both bullets glanced off, and Mr.
B---- escaped only by a quick jump on one side. The buffalo passed him;
then turning round, tossed and killed the horse. The next shot finished
the buffalo's career; and on the great head, which has been kept as a
trophy, are the marks of the two first bullets, showing how calm was
the presence of mind, and how true the aim, in that moment of danger.
Another of T----'s hunting companions, chased in a similar manner by a
wounded buffalo, owed his life to a lucky stumble, which so astonished
the animal that he stood still for a few seconds staring at the
prostrate figure; giving the hunter time to get up and take refuge
behind a tree, from whence he shot his assailant.
The most dangerous buffaloes are the old solitary bulls which have been
turned out of the herd; they become as artful and malicious as rogue
elephants, and often hide in the bush when they get your wind, to rush
out on you unexpectedly. On another of T----'s hunting expeditions, on
the river Sabie, not far from Delagoa Bay, one of the party was walking
quietly along with his rifle over his shoulder, when he was suddenly
attacked by one of these "rogues," and so frightfully gored that for a
time he was not expected to live. T---- started off at once to fetch a
doctor; and rode all through the night, steering his course by the
stars, to an encampment which most fortunately happened to be within
about thirty miles. It was that of a party who were bringing up a
number of _mitrailleuses_ and other arms, taken in the Franco-Prussian
war and presented by Germany to the Transvaal Government. In the camp
there were an immense number of donkeys, which were used for the
transport of the guns; and when one commenced braying, all the others
immediately following suit, it was a Pandemonium which made night
hideous indeed. On retracing his course the next day, accompanied by
the doctor, T---- saw by the spoor that during that midnight ride he
had been followed by a lion.
And now, though the transition seems rather an abrupt one from savage
beasts to the sweetest and gentlest of domestic pets, our dear old dog
Toto deserves a little notice. We brought him from England with us--he
is a dog of Kent, being a native of the Weald--and when put on board
the steamer at Southampton he was not many months old. He still had the
blunt nose and thick paws of puppyhood; also its mischievous little
needle-like teeth, with which he ate off the straps of our
portmanteaus, and, when allowed an occasional run on deck, did
considerable damage to the Madeira chairs of the passengers.
Fortunately he was so general a favourite that his iniquities were
overlooked. The children on board were especially fond of him, and
would often petition for him to be let loose, to join in their games.
He seemed to grow up during the voyage--possibly the sea air hastened
his development--and he had almost attained full size and perfect
proportions by the time we landed in Cape Town; he, poor fellow, being
in such wild delight at finding himself again on _terra firma_ and
released from the narrowness of ship life, that he was quite mad with
excitement, jumping and dragging at his chain, and knocking us nearly
off our legs, besides involving us and himself in numerous
entanglements with the legs of others. We had to be perpetually
apologizing for his conduct, and really felt quite ashamed of him.
He is a large black-and-tan collie; with a soft glossy coat, a big
black feather of a tail, and the most superb white frill; of which
latter he is justly proud, drawing himself up to show it off to the
best advantage whenever it is stroked or admired. Altogether he is a
very vain dog, quite conscious of his good looks. His big, honest,
loving brown eyes have none of that sly, shifty look which gives a
treacherous appearance to so many collies; his face, which is as good
and kind as it is pretty, has a great range of expression, and it is
wonderful to see how instantly it will change from a benevolent smile,
or even a downright laugh, to a pathetic, deeply injured, or scornful
look, if Toto considers himself slighted or insulted. We have to study
his feelings carefully, for he is proud and sensitive even beyond the
usual nature of collies; and if we have been unfortunate enough to
offend him--as often as not quite unintentionally--he will give us the
cut direct for several days; repelling all advances with the most
freezing indifference, and plainly, though always politely, for he is a
thorough gentleman, intimating his wish to drop our acquaintance.
Sometimes we are puzzled to know why Toto is haughty and distant
towards us, or ignores our existence; and, on looking back, recall
perhaps that so long ago as the day before yesterday one of us, in the
hurry of daily work, finding his large form obstructing the door
through which we had to pass, told him, somewhat impatiently, to get
out of the way.
Or perhaps--worse still--we may have laughed at him. Possibly the mouse
he was chasing on the veldt popped into the safety of a hole just as he
had all but caught it, and we unfeelingly made a joke of his
disappointment--or, in his excessive zeal to hold himself very upright
when sitting up to beg at dinner, dear Toto may have leaned back just a
little too far and rolled over on to his back; a painful position for
so majestic an animal, and one which ought to have commanded respectful
silence, instead of provoking an unkind laugh. This misfortune has
happened several times to poor Toto, especially during the process of
learning his threefold trick of sitting up to beg, "asking"--with a
little short bark--for bone or biscuit, and finally catching the
contribution in his mouth. It is really difficult to refrain from
laughing at his sudden collapse, preceded as it always is by an extra
self-satisfied look--just the expression of the dog in Caldecott's
"House that Jack built," as he sits smiling and all-unconscious of the
cow coming up behind to toss him. A conceited protrusion of Toto's big
white shirt-frill is usually the occasion of falling, and no doubt he
deserves to be laughed at; but the poor fellow's evident distress, and
his "countenance more in sorrow than in anger" at our cruel mirth, have
led us to make great efforts to keep our gravity, and, with true
politeness, to pretend not to see him.
Though Toto is not generally a demonstrative dog, there is no mistake
about his affection for us; he shows it in many quiet little
sympathetic ways, and seems even more human than the generality of
collies. He has constituted himself my special guardian and protector,
and though at all times a very devoted attendant, he would always take
extra care of me whenever, during T----'s journeys about the country, I
was left at home alone. Then the faithful old fellow would not leave me
for an instant. The silent sympathy with which he thrust his nose
lovingly into my hand cheered the dreary moment when, after watching
T---- out of sight, I turned to walk back to the lonely house; and his
quiet unobtrusive presence enlivened all the weeks of solitude. He
would lie at my feet as I sat working or writing; follow me from room
to room or out of doors, always close at my heels; and curl himself up
to sleep under my bed, when at any time during the night the slightest
word or movement on my part would produce a responsive "tap, tap," of
his tail upon the floor. And when his master returned, he always seemed
to look to him for approbation; his whole manner expressing his pride
in the good care he had taken of house and mistress.
Our garden at Walmer was constantly invaded by neighbouring fowls and
ducks, which would lie in wait outside, ready to slip in the instant
the little gate was left open; the fowls of course found plenty of
occupation among the flowers; while the ducks would at once make for a
large tub, generally full of photographic prints taking their final
bath under a tap of slowly-trickling water. The horrid birds seemed to
take a delight in driving their clumsy bills through the soft, sodden
paper; and after several prints from our best negatives had been
destroyed, we summoned Toto to our aid. He threw himself with great
energy into the work of ridding us of the intruders. He would lie in
ambush for them, and when, much to his delight, they appeared inside
the gate, he would rush to the attack, chasing first one and then
another about the garden till he caught it; then, lifting it and
carrying it out in his mouth as gently as a cat carries her kitten, he
would deposit it outside, with much angry quacking or frightened
screeching from the victim, as the case might be, but without the loss
of a feather.
Once he, in his turn, was attacked by a pugnacious goose, which he was
endeavouring to drive out of the garden; and which turned on him
savagely, keeping up a desperate battle with him for a long time, until
it was quite exhausted, and sat down panting. It chased him many times
round our small lawn, and once, in its excitement, put its head right
into his mouth. Luckily for the goose, Toto was so utterly bewildered
by its strange conduct, that he missed the golden opportunity of
snapping off the imbecile head so invitingly presented.
He was equally zealous in keeping the garden free from cats; and in
pursuit of one of these he actually climbed so far into the lower
branches of a tree that his victim, evidently expecting to see him come
all the way to the top, gave himself up for lost, and dropped to the
ground in a fit.
Imported dogs often die in South Africa; especially if they remain near
Port Elizabeth, or if they have distemper, which is much more severe in
the colony than it is in Europe. Poor Toto laboured under both these
disadvantages; for during our stay at Walmer he was attacked with
distemper, and, the summer being also an unusually hot one, everything
seemed against him. He was so ill that we quite gave up all hope of
saving him, and bitterly regretted having brought him out with us. Just
when he was at his worst, however, business called us away for a few
days to Cradock, which is some distance inland; and T----, knowing it
to be a healthy place for dogs, suggested that we should take the poor
creature with us--dying as he seemed to be--on the slight chance that
the change of climate might save him. We left him there--parting from
him sadly and without much hope of seeing him again; but we were
leaving him in the kindest of hands, and, thanks to the careful nursing
he received, as well as to the timely change of air, he lived--indeed,
I am glad to say, lives still. He remained some months at Cradock,
whence from time to time came the good news of his steady improvement,
and finally, some time after we had settled up-country, the
announcement that he would be sent off to us at the first opportunity.
Then, one day as we sat at dinner, we heard a sudden and startling
tumult in the kitchen; the welcoming voices of the servants; a frantic
scuffle outside the sitting-room door; and in rushed Toto, handsomer
and fuller of life and spirits than ever; whining and howling with
delight, and nearly upsetting us, chairs and all, besides endangering
everything on the table, as he jumped wildly to lick our faces. He had
been brought from Klipplaat by a passing waggon, in the usual
"promiscuous" manner in which property, animate as well as inanimate,
is delivered at its destination on Cape farms.
After thus paying his footing in South Africa nearly with his life,
Toto was thoroughly acclimatized, and passed through several very hot
summers on the farm without a day's illness; only showing by increased
liveliness his preference for the cooler weather; being very happy on
the occasional really cold days of our short winter, and--like everyone
else--cross during a hot wind. He has now accompanied us back to
England, where--probably on the strength of being an old traveller who
has twice crossed the line--he gives himself great airs, and makes no
secret of his contempt for the stay-at-home dogs who have not had his
advantages. This involves him in many fights; and the brother and
sister with whom--having no settled home in England--we have
occasionally left him, have several times been threatened with
summonses for his misdeeds.
Toto is now getting on in years--those few years, alas! which make up
the little span of a dog's life--but he is still lively enough; and the
crows at Mogador, where we spent the winter of 1888-89, will long
remember the games they have had with that comical foreign dog, so
unlike any of the jackal-like creatures to which they were accustomed.
They knew him well, and always seemed to look out for him; and, as soon
as he emerged from the ugly white-washed gateway of the town, and
approached their favourite haunt, the dirty rubbish-heaps just outside
the walls, they would fly close up to him, challenging him to catch
them.
Undaunted by invariable failure, he was always ready, and would dash
noisily after them; while they, enjoying the joke--for every crow is a
fellow of infinite jest--flew tantalizingly along close in front of his
nose, and only just out of his reach. Sometimes they would settle on
the ground a long way off, and--apparently oblivious of him--become so
deeply absorbed in searching for the choicest morsels of rubbish that
Toto, deluded by the well-acted little play, would make a wild charge.
But the artless-looking crows, who all the while were thinking of him,
had accurately calculated time and distance; and as he galloped
up--confident that this time at least he was really going to catch
one--they would allow him to come within an inch of touching them
before they would appear to see him at all; then, rising slowly into
the air--as if it were hardly worth the trouble to get out of his
way--they would hover, croaking contemptuously, above his head, just
out of reach of his spring.
And when at last he was tired out with racing after them, and--being,
like Hamlet, "fat and scant of breath"--could only fling himself
panting on the sand, they would walk derisively all round him; come up
defiantly, close to his gasping mouth, and all but perch on him. Before
we left, several of the native dogs had learned the game; possibly
their descendants will keep it up, and--who knows?--some naturalist of
the future may record his discovery of a strange friendship between
dogs and crows in Mogador.
From the latter place T---- made several expeditions to the interior,
travelling on foot and in native dress, for the purpose of distributing
Arabic Testaments--on one occasion going as far as the city of Morocco.
On these trips Toto accompanied his master, and--far from being the
object of contempt and aversion, as a dog usually is in Mohammedan
lands--was universally admired and coveted by the natives; by some of
whom--had T---- not eaten of their bread and salt, thus placing them on
their honour--it is extremely likely that he would have been stolen. It
was something quite new to them to see a dog actually fond of his
master, and treated by the latter as a friend; full of intelligence,
too, and altogether different from their own uninteresting dogs; his
clever tricks--which seemed to them almost uncanny--earned him many a
good feed; and among the variety of animals offered at different times
in exchange for him, were two donkeys, a horse, and a young camel.
Toto can boast, too, of having spent many nights in quarters where
probably never dog has slept before--_i.e._ in Mohammedan mosques.
These were the usual sleeping-places assigned to the travellers by the
simple village folk, whose toleration contrasts strongly with the
fanaticism of the towns. There the mosques are held very sacred; and
for Europeans to look in at their doors, even from across the street,
gives great offence.
* * * * *
And now, as I write, the old dog--faithful and friendly as ever--sits
up begging, no longer conceitedly and unsteadily as in his youth, but
in the more sober fashion of the poor, fat, apoplectic-looking bears at
the Zoo; with legs well spread out to afford the firm foundation needed
by the portliness of advancing years. His kind eyes are fixed very
lovingly and deferentially on the tiny face of his present queen and
mistress, the little fair-haired girl who has come to us since we left
the Cape; and who, with a regal air of command, holds out her biscuit
to the seated Colossus, who, not so long ago, towered above her small
head, and bids him "ask for it." Together these two friends and
playfellows make so pretty a picture, that we could wish Briton Rivière
or Burton Barber were here to see it and give it to the world.