This subject is one which will not be unwelcome to those whose faith
in the myths of Roman history has been dissipated by Niebuhr and
others: they may still believe the story of Romulus and Remus and the
wolf. The Honourable Captain Egerton, in a communication from India,
says: 'Colonel Sleeman told me one of the strangest stories I ever
heard relating to some children, natives of this country (Oude),
carried away and brought up by wolves. He is acquainted with five
instances of this, in two of which he has both seen the children and
knows the circumstances connected with their recapture from the
animals. It seems that wolves are very numerous about Cawnpore and
Lucknow, and that children are constantly carried off by them. Most of
these have, of course, served as dinners for their captors, but some
have been brought up and educated by them after their own fashion.
Some time ago, two of the king of Oude's sowars (mounted gendarmes),
riding along the banks of the Goomptje, saw three animals come down to
drink. Two were evidently young wolves, but the third was as evidently
some other animal. The sowars rushed in upon them, captured the three,
and to their great surprise found that one was a small naked boy. He
was on all-fours; like his companions; had callosities on his knees
and elbows, evidently caused by the attitude in moving about; and bit
and scratched violently in resisting the capture. The boy was brought
up in Lucknow, where he lived some time, and may, for aught I know, be
living still. He was quite unable to articulate words, but had a
dog-like intellect--quick at understanding signs, and so on. Another
_enfant trouvé_, under the same circumstances, lived with two English
people for some time. He learned at last to pronounce the name of a
lady who was kind to him, and for whom he shewed some affection; but
his intellect was always clouded, and more like the instinct of a dog
than the mind of a human being. There was another more wonderful, but
hardly so well-authenticated, story of a boy who never could get rid
of a strong wolfish smell, and who was seen, not long after his
capture, to be visited by three wolves, which came evidently with
hostile intentions, but which, after closely examining him--he seeming
not the least alarmed--played with him, and some nights afterwards
brought their relations, making the number of visitors amount to
five--the number of cubs which composed the litter from which he had
been taken. There is no account of any grown-up person having been
found among the wolves. Probably, after a certain time, the captives
may have got into a set of less scrupulous wolves, not acquainted with
the family: the result is obvious.'