IN WHICH A VISIT IS PAID TO A RED-HAIRED LADY AND CERTAIN MEMBERS OF
LONDON'S FOREIGN POPULATION ARE ENUMERATED
Armed with a message of introduction from Mrs. Wiles, I called on Mr.
Wiles at his place of business. He is to be found under the New Ape
House. You knock on the closed door opposite the King's Nepal
exhibits, and as you stand there waiting for it to be opened the
contemptible monkey house and the shameless prismatic mandril are on
your left. By and by steps are heard on a stone passage and Mr.
Wiles or his mate opens the door.
"Are you Mr. Wiles?" I asked.
He said he was, and I told him that I was Mr. Falconer, and our
alliance was completed. Some friendships are made beforehand, and
this was one of them.
He showed me his kitchen, where the food of these delicate exotic
creatures is prepared, and then he led me to the little warm room
where Barbara holds her court. She herself opened the door for us--a
young clinging ourang-outang, red as Rufus, with quick sad eyes and
restless hands and arms that could strangle a bull. These arms she
flung round Mr. Wiles's neck and he carried her to the window.
"Wouldn't do for the missis to see too much of this," he said.
"Women don't understand it. She's a brick, my missis, but, bless
your heart, she'd carry on a treat if she found me and Barbara like
this. The rum thing," he went on, "is that Barbara's a woman too.
In fact, you can't be long in these Gardens without finding out how
much alike we all are--us and them. As for babies, why, they ought
to be here; and lots of grown-up people too. Makes you think a bit,
you know." He lowered his voice. "It makes you think too much,
almost. What I ask myself is this, What is a soul? Because, here's
Barbara, here, hasn't got one, and I have; and as far as I can see,
the only difference between us, after clothes, is that she can't talk
and I can. But knowing! there's nothing she doesn't know and nothing
she doesn't feel. She's as understanding as a Christian and much
more affectionate than many of them. What I ask myself sometimes is,
Why is Barbara in a cage and all these people out and about? or, Why
aren't I in a cage and Barbara paying a bob to see me? It wants a
bit of thinking. It isn't enough just to say, Because I'm a man and
Barbara's an ourang-outang; because, who was it called me a man and
Barbara an ourang-outang? Why, man did. That is to say, it's all
going his way. But what do you suppose ourang-outangs call us? Ah!
Suppose"--he lowered his voice to a whisper--"suppose ourang-outangs
call themselves men and us apes! Wouldn't that be terrible? But
nobody knows. Not even Dr. Chalmers Mitchell knows."
Barbara meanwhile sat absolutely motionless save that her eyes roved
and her great jaws worked a little. It was enough for her that she
was in Mr. Wiles's arms and he in hers.
"Look at her now," Mr. Wiles continued; "she's taking it all in. She
knows what I'm saying. And another thing. The best in the land come
to see her. The King and Queen are often here. Great scholars come,
artists, authors. And they all make a fuss of her such as they
wouldn't make of any human being outside their own families, and not
them often. That's odd, isn't it? Makes you think there's something
more in apes than you bargained for.
"The trouble is," he went on, "they're so delicate, ourang-outangs,
and so are chimpanzees; in fact, all the larger apes. First it's
bronchitis and then it's pneumonia. I've had so many pass through my
hands--all dead now. Barbara's doing fairly well, but I dread the
winter. I dare say you've heard of the famous performing
chimpanzee--Consul? Seen him, perhaps? It might surprise you to
know that there have been twenty-six Consuls since he first appeared.
The public think it's the original one, but it's not. Twenty-six."
Whatever else I may have to do later in the day I manage to get to
the Zoo for a little while every fine morning. Only thus can one
obtain real intimacy with any of its inhabitants, whether they have
souls or not. Only thus could I have become so close a friend of the
wombat, that engaging stupid Australian with his broad, blunt,
good-natured face. As the wombat lives on the north bank of the
turgid dyke called the Regent's Canal, into which apathetic but
sanguine Londoners drop bait all day with never a bite, and
nursemaids drop surreptitious love-letters when they have read them a
sufficient number of times, it is upon him that I pay one of my first
calls, since it is by the Albert Road gate that I enter this
attractive sanctuary: passing on my way Owls' Terrace, the solemn
occupants of which are either reflecting so sagely upon life (far
more sagely than anybody in Primrose Terrace) or are merely
pretending to, no one will ever know which.
After the wombat I visit the capuchin (or sapajou), whose peculiarity
it is to be more like an old man seen through the wrong end of a
telescope than any other monkey or ape will ever be, although it is
the chimpanzee that has the credit of coming nighest to our perfect
state. So it may, taken as a whole, but for human features, however
wizened and poor, the capuchin (or sapajou) bears away the bell.
According to the Zoo guide-book, the capuchin (or sapajou) differs
from man principally in retaining his tail and possessing four more
grinding teeth than even those of us who are lucky to keep the
complement that Heaven allowed us.
I then cross the canal by the private half of the public bridge,
where the visitor to the Zoo is separated from the common outsider by
an iron railing which makes each look to the other far liker a wild
beast than is pleasant in this neighbourhood, and so come to my
gentle friends, the giraffes, those pathetic survivals from the past
whom American ex-presidents and gallant big-game hunters generally
are so eager to exterminate. How any thinking creature proud in the
possession of an immortal soul can bring his finger to pull the
trigger at such an innocent, beautiful, and liquid-eyed vegetarian as
this I shall never have imagination enough to understand; but they do
it continually, and evidently have no compunctions, for they are
photographed afterwards with one foot on the victim's corpse.
And so past the island cave of the beaver, a creature upon whom no
visitor's eye has ever rested, and who, for all the British public
knows, may not be there at all, to the elephants, one of whom has
been nodding his head against the bars and opening his inadequate
mouth for buns ever since 1876, and will, I dare say, continue to do
so for many years yet. How many buns he has eaten let the
statistician compute. I have no doubt that if placed in a line
touching each other they would extend from London to Adelaide in the
usual manner.
After the elephant, who is all deliberate matter, I visit the otter,
who is all nervous fluid and the merriest creature in the gardens,
and so, by way of the magical lizards, come to Mr. Wiles and Barbara.
That is my short round. When there is more time I extend it to take
in the gay little foreign birds with the pretty names, who live
between the lizards and the bears, and who, with the lizards, seem to
be almost more wonderful achievements on the part of the Creator than
the elephant or giraffe. And I like also to look once again at the
King Penguin and the Snow Leopards; but the lions and tigers I rarely
visit, for I cannot bear the forlorn look in their eyes. It hurts me
to think that it is partly my subscription that is keeping them here.
And coming out again into the world of men, it seems strange and
unbelievable that anyone should choose to live anywhere but close to
Regent's Park.