THE ZU.
Our course was now through a series of cross streams, and finally we
emerged into a long, perfectly straight, and perfectly tranquil expanse
of water, bordered by a path which had every appearance of having been
made by the hand of man.
Night fell: a strange, murky night, smelling of lucifer matches, and
lit on the eastern horizon by a mysterious light, flaring like a dreary
dawn.
Our passage was obstructed by a thousand obstacles, and at one point we
plunged into the very bowels of the earth for a distance of at least a
quarter of a mile. Next we found the canal barred by a grinning row of
black iron teeth, under which we dived as best we might. We were now,
Ustani whispered to us, within the strange and dreaded region known to
the superstitious natives as _the Zu_. For the first time in our
expedition we heard the roaring of innumerable wild beasts. The
rattling trumpet of the elephant, the drum of the gorilla, the scream
of the lion, the chattering of countless apes, the yells of myriads of
cockatoos, the growls of bears, the sobs of walri,[18] the whistle of
rhinocerotes, combined to make a strange pandemonium--strange, I call
it, because the zoological learning I had picked up while with Nora at
Oxford, informed me at once that the variety of roars, screams, grunts,
skreeks, whirrings, which our footsteps seemed to awake in every kind
of animal, bird, and insect, could be paralleled only in the pages of
the 'Swiss Family Robinson.' Add to this, that it was _night_, yet dark
as a day on the London flags when the fog creeps silently about your
feet and, rising from utter blackness, grows white and whiter in its
ascent, till it coils round your neck, a white choker!
[18]
Is this plural correct?--PUBLISHER.
I can't find walrus in the Latin dictionary nor anything else
beginning with W somehow, but it _seems_ all right.--ED.
Yes, the fog was playing a dark game, but Nora could see it and go one
lighter (there were several on the stream we had quitted). She produced
a patent electric light.[19] Aided by this, we looked about us and saw
the strange denizens of the Zu.
[19]
Patent in the first sense of the word. She has not yet
received offers advantageous enough to close with in the other
sense.
It was now that the presence of mind of Leonora saved us. Foreseeing
the probability of an encounter with wild beasts, she had filled her
practicable pocket (she belonged to the Rational Dress Association)
with buns and ginger-bread nuts.
The elephant now walked round, the wolves also circulated, the bear
climbed his pole, the great gorilla beat his breast and roared.
Leonora was their match.
For the elephant she had a rusk, a bun for the bear, and the gorilla
was pacified by an offering of nuts from his native Brazil.
THIS WAY TO THE CROCODILE HOUSE
we now read, on an inscription in black letters, and, following the
path indicated, we reached the dank tank where the monsters dwell. We
had arrived at a place which I find it difficult to describe. The floor
was smooth and hard.
'What do you make of _this_?' asked Leonora, tapping her dainty foot on
the floor.
'Flags,' I replied phlagmatically, and she was silent.
In the centre of the space was a dark pool, circled by crystalline
palaces inhabited by the sacred snakes, from huge pythons to the
terrapin proud of his tureen. Again, there was a whipsnake, and a toad,
bloated as the aristocracy of old time, and puffed up as the plutocracy
of to-day. For such is the lot of toads!
Now a strange thing happened.
'_Hark!_' said Ustani; '_hark! hark! hark!_ a den is opening!'
He was right; it was the den of a catawampuss, an animal whose habits
are so well known that I need not delay to describe them.
In the centre of the dark pool in the middle of the vague space lay one
crocodile. The rest were sleeping on the banks. The catawampuss
secretly emerged from its den--horror, I am not ashamed to say,
prevented me from interfering--stealthily crept across the cold floor,
and, true to the instincts of all the feline tribe,[20] made straight
for the water.
[20]
_Is_ the catawampuss one of the Felidae?--PUBLISHER.
Of course he is. Look at his name!--ED.
'Ah!' cried Ustani, 'he's going for him!'
The expression was ambiguous, but we understood it.
The catawampuss, cunning as the dread jerboa, crept to the edge of the
pool, took a header into it, and then, still true to the feline
instincts, _swimming on its back_, made its way to the crocodile. In
this manner it caught the crocodile by the tail and waked it. When the
tail of a crocodile awakes the head awakes also. The crocodile's head,
then, waking as the catawampuss seized its tail, caught the tail of the
catawampuss. The interview was hurried and tumultuous.
The crocodile had one of his ears chawed off (first blood for the
catawampuss), but this was a mere temporary advantage. When next we saw
clearly through the tempest of flying fur and scales, the head of the
catawampuss _had entirely disappeared_, and the animal was clearly
much distressed.
Then, all of a sudden, the end came.
_They had swallowed each other!_
Not a vestige of either was left!
This duel was a wonderful and shocking sight, and was therefore
withdrawn, by request, as the patrons of the Gardens are directly
interested in the morality of the establishment.