When the showman came to our town, he told the audience a great many
things as he passed from cage to cage in his combined circus and
menagerie. He told them of the great wangdoodle, two of which were
brought from South Africa in three ships, and he told them other
stories, which made the very little people open their eyes and mouths
wide, but which the intelligent boys and girls only smiled at.
He was a great humbug--there is no doubt about it. But one day I found
him alone, and cornered him. Then he told me what he didn't tell to his
audiences, and that was much more interesting than a great part of his
lecture. When he found that I did not believe in the immense sums which,
according to his posters, some of his articles cost, he said:
"But we _do_ pay big prices for good curiosities, and no mistake, though
our posters and show-bills do tell some pretty big stories. I once paid
twenty-five thousand dollars for a baby hippopotamus, and if I could get
another one to-day, I'd pay just as much, or more. A full-grown
hippopotamus is pretty expensive too. That one over there cost us four
thousand dollars. Elephants, as a rule, are not dear, and you can
usually buy a fine specimen for about two thousand dollars. A giraffe
costs all the way up from one thousand to five thousand; a tiger or a
lion, about five hundred; a zebra, fifteen hundred; and a polar bear,
about a thousand dollars. Polar bears," he added, meditatively, "are
delicate. 'Why don't you dye him black?' said a fellow in the audience
to me once. 'Because,' said I, 'he'll die quick enough.' They do like a
good cold snap, with the thermometer away down below zero, the polars
do.
"'Is the wild-beast trade a reg'lar business?'" he said, repeating a
question of mine. "I should say it was, and more than one large fortune
is invested in it. Some of it is done in Hamburg, a good deal in the
sea-ports of Holland, some in Falmouth, and some in London. Probably
more of it is done in New York than anywhere in Europe. There's a man in
Falmouth who boards every ship approaching the English coast off the
Lizard, and buys most of the curiosities the sailors have brought with
them from the foreign lands in which they have been. But only a very
small part of the whole supply comes through sea-captains and sailors.
Expeditions go out into Africa and South America to hunt and capture the
wild beasts of those continents, and there is one man whose last camp
included ninety-two servants, seventy-two camels, twelve mules,
twenty-seven horses, and three donkeys.
"This dealer is a Maltese, who, when a boy, used to knock about the
docks, and seeing the strange animals on board some of the ships,
promised himself that he would make wild-beast-hunting his trade when he
became a man. He has lost more than one fortune, and is probably poor
now. It's a wonder that he's alive; the business is full of dangers, and
there is no certainty of profit in it.
"He usually goes from Alexandria to Suez, and down the Red Sea to
Khartoum. The natives expect animal buyers, and nearly always have a
stock to sell. 'Buy my little lion,' they will say, 'and I will throw
into the bargain a young boy or girl.' The lions are carried in cages
slung between two camels, and until the camels have become used to the
growling of their burden they give the greatest trouble. Sometimes the
natives are not friendly, and between their attacks and the ravages of
fever, the expedition loses many of its men.
"The cost of such an expedition is not less than thirty thousand
dollars, and while the buyer may double this sum in selling, he may lose
all. Leaving Africa with a stock worth one hundred thousand dollars, it
is not likely to be worth more than half that when it reaches Malta. The
risk is so great that a monkey which can be bought for five cents in
Africa is worth twenty dollars in New York, and the increase in the
value of large animals is proportionate. You can buy a very good lion in
Africa for the price that you would give for a monkey here."
The showman gossiped on in this way for some time, and had begun to be
something of a bore, when a little man entered from a side door--to
speak properly from one of the canvas folds of the tent, in the middle
of which the showman and I were seated before a brazier of glowing
coals. He was pale-faced and delicate-looking, but his dress was
striking, consisting of a jaunty little velvet jacket, yellow corduroy
breeches, and Hessian boots with enamelled leather tops.
"He," said the showman, "is Señor Delmonio, the Emperor of the Jungle,
the greatest lion-tamer in the world." I had heard of this celebrity,
whose name and portrait appeared in gigantic posters of the show, with
the announcement that his services only had been obtained at an outlay
of several thousand dollars a week. "Bill," he called out, "here's a
gentleman interested in the business."
"What did you call him?" I asked.
"Well, you see," was the answer, "he's a Boston man, and his name is
Bill Smith."
Señor Delmonio, or Bill Smith, came toward us and shook hands, and then
quietly went to the back of a cage containing a pair of savage and
uneasy lions. He was out of sight for a moment, but re-appeared entering
the cage from the rear. The lions did not pounce upon him, as I
shiveringly feared they would do. They curled themselves against the
bars, and uttered low growls, as if they were anxious to avoid him; they
sat on their haunches at his command, and leaped through hoops which he
had taken into the cage with him; they showed docility, but it was with
an unwillingness that made itself known in continuous growls.
This was a rehearsal, and when it was finished, the "Emperor of the
Jungle," as quiet as ever, came back to where we were sitting. He seemed
low-spirited.
"Yours is dangerous work," I said, not having any liking for those
exhibitions in which the peril of the performer is what attracts the
audience.
"Yes," he answered, with a sigh, "I suppose it will end badly for me
some time; it usually does end badly. You see it's against nature. I
know that very well. The beasts don't like it, and sooner or later they
take their revenge on poor fellows who, like me, trifle with them. It's
the whip alone that keeps them under control. If I dropped my whip while
I was in the cage with them, they would fancy that I had lost my power,
and they would attack me in a moment. How do I begin in training them?
Well, the usual way is to make acquaintance with them from the outside,
by doing chores around the cage, and getting them familiar with your
face, and above all with your voice. It's pretty ticklish to enter the
cage for the first time. I expected to come out bleeding, if not dying.
But they behaved well, and I've not been afraid since.
"When they are accustomed to you and you to them," he continued, "the
next thing is to teach them tricks, and this takes a good deal of time
and a good deal of whipping. The lions are the smartest. You can train a
lion to do the ordinary tricks, such as jumping through hoops and over
gates, in about five weeks, and a lioness in about six weeks. The
leopard is next in intelligence to the lion, and learns almost as
readily. A tiger would take eight weeks to learn what the leopard learns
in six, and a tigress would take nine weeks for the same work. The hyena
is the stupidest, and you can't do anything with him in less than four
months. The most difficult thing of all is to teach a wild beast to let
you lie on it without eating you. I do this every night with one of the
tigresses, but she don't like it one bit; it aggravates her inwardly.
"The great secret of wild-beast taming is to know when to use the whip
and when not to use it. But as a matter of fact there is no such thing
as really taming a tiger or a lion. A man may have some influence over
it, but he is never quite safe with it. No wild beast has ever been
actually tamed. A lion will tear you merely out of bad temper
occasionally; but a tiger is more vicious, and will attack you from
sheer love of blood."
It was now time for the exhibition, and I wished the showman and Señor
Delmonio good-day. Some time afterward, when I again met the latter, he
had abandoned the foolish business of trifling with the angry passions
of wild beasts, and was devoting himself to the more sensible business
of training horses.
[Illustration: THE LITTLE PIE-PLANT GATHERER.]