Few of those people who go to a menagerie realize what an immense
undertaking it is to transport wild beasts from the land of their
birth and of their freedom to the land of their imprisonment, and, too
frequently, of their death. I will ask my readers to picture for
themselves an African desert blazing beneath a burning sun. Across the
weary waste of sand a long column of men and animals is wending its
slow way. As it draws nearer we see that it is a caravan of wild
animals on their way from the interior to the seaboard. And as it
passes us, the vast mass of living creatures, as in a chemical
process, slowly dissolves itself into distinct particles and
individualities. Let us regard them carefully. In the first place we
notice a procession of fourteen stately giraffes, then come five
elephants, a huge rhinoceros, four wild buffaloes bellowing sadly
after the mates they have forever left behind. Then there go lumbering
by a number of enormous carts or wagons, in which are safely confined
thirty hyenas, five leopards, six lions, two chetahs, sixteen
antelopes, two lynxes, one serval, one wardbob, twenty smaller
carnivorous animals, four African ant-eaters, and forty-five monkeys.
And then there come slowly prancing by, wary, restless, cunning,
twenty-six ostriches. There are twenty boxes of birds, from which
sounds of shrill screaming are constantly proceeding. There are
upwards of a hundred Abyssinian goats scattered here and there in the
procession. These are to give milk for the young animals, and to serve
as food and meat for the old. The caravan is on its way through the
desert to Suakim, which is the first shipping place for Europe. There
are no less than a hundred and twenty camels in it, which are
required to carry the food for this caravan, and there are upwards of
a hundred and sixty drivers in the procession. It takes the caravans
upwards of thirty-six days to cover the distance which lies between
Cassala in the interior of Nubia and the port of Suakim, for which
they are bound. The same journey is usually performed by quick post
camels in twelve days.
This is the exact account of a caravan which Karl Hagenbeck told me he
brought across the desert in the year 1870. "It is tremendously
anxious work," said he, "the transportation of these animals across
sea and land. The amount of water which we have to carry with us in
goats' hides upon camels' backs is prodigious, for nothing would be
more awful than to run short of water in the middle of the desert, and
to be surrounded by a number of wild beasts, maddened with heat and
unquenchable thirst. The principal food for the young elephants and
rhinoceroses on the way home is a fruit called nabeck, that is, a kind
of cherry of which they are very fond. Giraffes and antelopes and
ostriches are provided with the doura corn that grows in the interior.
All these bigger animals walk, and as they jog along my people feed
them occasionally with hard ship biscuit, which appears to sustain
them well through the journey. At four o'clock every morning the
caravan strikes its tents and begins its march. They go plodding along
till ten o'clock, when the day becomes too hot for further progress."
[Illustration: KARL HAGENBECK.]
"But do the animals never attempt to escape?" said I.
"Well, not often," replied Karl Hagenbeck; "but," he added, with a
hearty laugh of recollection, "I remember that once, in that very year
1870, of which I have just been telling you, the whole of the
ostriches, twenty-six in number, ran away just as we were getting them
into the railway station at Suakim. Away they went, heading straight
for the desert. I never was in such a dreadful fix in my life. At last
it struck me that it would be a good plan to drive all the goats and
camels towards them; we did so, and, when the ostriches saw them
advancing, they formed themselves into a flock, and we drove the whole
lot into the station. The birds were caught one by one and put into
the cars. That was the last transport, by-the-by, that poor Casanova
ever brought over. Indeed, he died at Alexandria in the very midst of
the whole business, and we buried him on the evening of his death. It
was a dreadful time, and everything appeared to be against us, for at
the very moment of his death, just as we were getting the animals on
board ship, a fearful earthquake shook the whole land. I thought there
was something about to happen, for the animals were very uneasy, the
birds were twittering, the monkeys were chattering and trembling, the
lions were roaring constantly, the elephants were deafening with their
long trumpetings. Suddenly I felt the steamer quivering from stem to
stern. The sea was tossing, the sun was hidden behind a thick yellow
mist. I looked toward the land where the minarets were toppling down,
and where the greatest horror and confusion appeared to prevail, and
all the while poor Casanova lay dead or dying below. I shall never
forget that awful morning.
"We had had the greatest possible difficulty just before, too, for at
Suakim the railway people had told us that we had too many wagons, and
that they would not transport us any farther. However, I soon settled
that by going up to the directors of the railway and demanding from
them an express train immediately; 'for,' said I, 'these animals are
for the Emperor of Austria,' and to prove this I showed them a great
document sealed by the emperor himself."