SOME DISTINGUISHED STRANGERS.
rilHEY are temporarily lodged, like Mr. Black's Cornish heroine, I under the ensign of the Three Feathers, blazoned on scarlet and blue, and fluttering gaily in the wind ; and they are beautiful captives of many kinds, living trophies of the peaceful campaign -of the Prince of Wales in India. Birds from the distant hills -and plains, with the sun-colours in their feathers, and beasts with the stealthy glare of the jungle-life in their eyes. The Prince's collection, being placed apart in the Zoological Gardens, and their quarters being temporary, with an airy and tent-like appear- ance, have not the sentenced-for-life look of the habitual prisoners ; and their individuality is not merged in the scientific
• arbitrariness of signs and classifications. It is melancholy to see
that the grand creatures in the new Lion-house are regarded only as specimens by those who have rule over the Gardens ; they are not named, as the great carnivora in Dublin are, for instance, and a great deal of their interest and significance is lost by the omission. Who cares about "Leo Fells " in a general way, with an intimation -of his habitat in the free days of yore, from which one hears an
echo in his growl during the mauvais quart d'heure which precedes his to long-delayed dinner? But for "Darius" or "Cyrus," "Tamerlane" or "Tippoo," we should feel much livelier regard ; or if those historic names should be deemed too far-fetched for the appreciation of the general, there is the list in the famous peroration of Serjeant Buzfuz to choose from, but give the beautiful creatures names, we beg ! It is with great satisfaction that one finds the Prince's animals rescued from the " specimen " category,—one
-wishes they were not called a "collection,"—.and distinguished thy names.
• The first object one sees is a doe, with her little fawn, happy and watchful, but not timid. The little one's head is supremely graceful, and its movements are surprisingly alert. Then comes a row of cages, with forlorn and patchy little grass- plate in the centre of them, the prisons of some beautiful, restless birds, which hop, in a strange, persistent way, up against the bars, in perpetual protest. The plumage of one of these birds, in the brilliancy and the blending of the colours, in the scintillat- ing, rippling effect produced by every movement, is quite wonder- ful The bird's tail is exactly like a silken flounce, of the tint which used to be called "Bismarck malade," in the old time when Bismarck was a joke, and one wonders, if the blue and black, the green and gold, the purple and the brown, glisten and intermingle so beautifully, in the pale sunshine of our country, what this creature must have been like when he flashed and sparkled under an Indian sky.
The deer are all beautiful, but they are too much crowded, and one longs to know that they are in their paddock-prison at Sand- ringham. Their sniffing muzzles, and the short, snapped-off bounds they make within their narrow cage are painful to see. Only Castor and Pollux, a magnificent pair, at sight of whom one has visions of great forest solitudes and mighty hill-sides, have room to exhibit their strong and agile limbs and fair proportions. The sheep are handsome creatures, too, and wistful-looking, but very tame. Their fine horns and silky fleeces give them an air of distinction beyond achievement by our rotund and tidy South- downs ; and they seem to be of an inquiring spirit, for they advance to the barrier, inspect their visitors, and then retire for consultation. Perhaps they feel that their society has become mixed since they have been on land, and wonder what it means.
Hard by the hill-sheep, standing content, in cool, green litter, three restless ostriches pace the clay floor of their pen, rearing their curved necks and flat heads with the matchlessly beautiful eyes, unlike those of any other bird, above the stout, wooden barrier, as if, perchance, there might come to them the keen scent of the free desert, and the glorious glint of the sun-beloved sands. Not the proud loneliness of the eagle's eyes, not the fierce, brilliant, golden glow of the great owl's, not the sparkling splen- dour of the hawk's, full of vigilance and pounce, can be com- pared with the lustrous, far-seeing, soft, deep beauty of the lid and lash-shaded eyes of the bird of the waste. They gleam with every turn of the long, supple neck ; their sloping, human shape lends them a strange intelligence, and, set close to the up- right, keen ear, they suggest that the desert fables are true,—that the desert-bird sees the winds as they sweep forth from their cavern, and hears the muster of the sand-storms which warns it to fly. The resemblance between the ostrich and the camel is plainly to be traced in these specimens, which are young and comparatively bare of plumage. They rather remind one of the little woman who became uncertain of her own identity, and left the question to be decided by her "little dog at home "—in consequence of having had her petti- coats "cut all roundabout "—for their longish, egg-shaped bodies want the feather-flounce of drapery, and the tail-tuft, for purposes of decoration. In their narrow pen, and while they pace its length restlessly, one sees the powerful structure of their strong legs, the knobbly knee-joints, the tough sinews playing under the scaly skin, with queer, coralline patches upon the shin-bone ; the huge, padded feet, and broad talons ; and when one of them gives it up, conquered by the wooden barriers at either end, and lies down sullenly, he doubles up his legs, and lays his long neck flat along the ground, with the alert head carved upwards at the end of it, exactly like the camel. In an enclosure hard by there is a camel, lying on the dry earth in a similar attitude, and if you want to see something like that wonderful eye of the ostrich, over which the lashes now fall like streaks of rain, you will find it, less lustrous, but otherwise with similar charac- teristics, in the patient head of the animal who is a poem, accord- ing to William Howitt, and a plague, according to ungrateful, but we fear better-informed, witnesses. The ostriches have an unin- terrupted prospect of the tigers and leopards over the way, and may procure a side-glimpse of a very interesting personage. This is " Greorgie," a youthful but talented black bear, to whom Artemus Ward's description applies admirably. That melancholy "showman" could hardly fail to laugh, in his own proper person, if he could see this " artfullest little cuss" practising the tricks he learned on board the Serapis '—where he was a great pet—to beguile the tedium of a small cage and a sullen companion, for "Mr. Brown," the other bear, sleeps continuously, in a ridicu- lously fore-shortened attitude, which exhibits his big, flat paws to signal disadvantage. " Georgie " is of a social turn and active habits, inual given to whimpering, but after a cheerful fashion, to himself, and as he impatiently throws the short chain and rope behind him (treed when he takes his tvalks abroad, but which surely might be taken off when he comes in), and applies himself to clinThing an imaginary mast, crooning all the time, he presents an absurd caricature of some of the operations of seamanship, executed to a musical accompaniment. Back comes the chain spit, and " Georgie " pate up a podgy, black paw, and thrusts it away pettishly, as a girl might k curl, which, being genuine, bears handling, and grumbling deeply, begins over again. He stands on his hind-feet and shakes his bars, also shakes his very- much-too-large head; he slaps himself about the middle of his person, like an elderly getibleman who has mislaid his railway- ticket ; he fights with his paws in a muffled manner ; and finally, finding -circumstances too Strong for him, he stands on his head with great deliberation, looking cunningly upside-down out of his little slits of eyes, ardrattles his hind feet on the bars, reminding one in- stantly of the demeanour of Tom Scott at the inquest on the body of Quilp. It is pleasant to know that " Georgie " has been out for a morring vpromenade, has had his portrait taken, and is not at all to be 'pitied. He is described by his pen-oral attendant as "very good-thumoured, only a bit fractious with the cage."
It is 'mid-day, and the beautiful, dangereas creatures in the strong-barred cages opposite the ostriches are taking their siesta, though they must wonder what has become of the sun. Do they alias Um much in the number of their lemes,—liberty, and the wild, Cree jungle-country, their mates, and their prey ; the prowl o' rights, under the big silver lights, the unmolested sleep in the day among the tall, coarse jangle-grass, under the broad, golden beams; the cool, dark water-pools, the fierce hunting joys? What awful despair it would be, if they only knew it, if they, too, could Look before and after, and pine for what is not,—an English climate, a perpetual prison, fle ver -A prowl, and nothing to kill; meals of an insipid description at stated hours, coldly purveyed by a man --with a barrow, and no hope ef adding him to the bill of fare ! If they only knew ! How do we know that they don't know The mystery which hides their life from ours is almost as deep as that which parts us *am the other world. What depths of moody and passionate suffering, for instance, may there not be in the tiger-heart of "Vixen," the six-months-old orphan, whose mother was killed when the cub was taken, as exultant corre- spondents told -us. The days have been many and long since then, but Vixen" has not been tamed or reconciled, and as she lies in a sullen 'heap in the far corner of her prison, face down- wards on her,paws, one cannot think only of her fine marks and her. "nasty "1emper. " Jamboo " is a lovely panther, and sleeps like any :most harmless thing, with an upturned paw like a powder-put. The large tigers, " Moody " and "Sankey," bear good characters, and are superb creatures ; the eyes of "Sankey," which he lazily uncloses at the request of a keeper, are wells of light ; and the young leopards are fascinating, —likewise, it seems, friendly. " Pompey " is a great favourite, very tame and playful ; and "Jack," an interesting invalid, but in the convalescent stage, and sensible of the soothingness of warm milk, looks up out of his straw when his health is inquired for, with more than the ordinary obligingness of a tame cat. Peculiar ideas prevail among certain of the visitors relative to the habits and requirements of the animals, and a lady, much exercised in her mind by the smallness of the cages, hopes the dear things are taken out to exercise every day ; for which well- meaning remark she is instantly snubbed by a bystander, who remarks, that he "should like to see her taking a leopard or two out for a walk."
Again, we come to some beautiful deer. The varieties are not specified, but one recognises them from the illustrations in the sporting and travel-books. Here is one exquisite creature, an embodiment of grace and swiftness ; surely he comes from Cash- mere,—from the country which Mr. Drew has unrolled before stay-at-home travellers' gaze,—with his collar of rough embroidery, and his eyes like "the fabled jewels of Giamschid." The deer have charming names (though "Nimrod" is rather an inversion of the rdles of the hunter and the hunted) ; among them are "Sultan," " Cerf Volant," "Actmon," "Rajah," and "Rylstone." " Sempis" and ",Tauris" are a beautiful pair of Brahminee cattle, and it is impossible to imagine anything more profound than their rest and complacency. If they were only Buddhist deities, their vacuous contemplativeness, their absolute bien-etre might be Nirwana itself. Dogs abound, and are as many-sided of char- acter as one ordinarily observes an assemblage of them to be; and as usual, the big ones are thoughtful and dignified, the little ones animated by curiosity and short-tempered.
It is not promenade-hour, and the elephants are not on view, but a private peep at those delightful creatures, undergoing their daily toilet, in a yard at the back of the new Lion-house, is worth any amount of full-dress parade. There they are, with hand- some natives, unhappily in English clothes, but with superb tur- bans, and gold ear-rings, in sedulous attendance upon them; two big, black elephants, not nearly full-grown, but a tidy size, for all that, lying on their big, black sides, grunting and wobbling feebly, with all their feet stuck out in the most helpless con- ceivable fashion, and presenting a ludicrous resemblance to two very fat old gentlemen, in very loose trousers (which are, never- theless, strapped tightly at the feet), who have tumbled down, and are vainly striving to get up again. The attendants kneel " about " on them unconcernedly, scrub them with hard brushes, talk to them amicably during the process, punch and push them, not unkindly, wash them very thoroughly, rub up the blue and red paint with which their foreheads and ears are adorned, and finally give each a friendly smack, and bid them get up. With most pathetic grunting and grumbling, the huge biddable beasts obey ; then they draw off a quantity of water, which is running from a spout, with their trunks, and pour it into their capacious bodies, with guttural satisfaction. The pails are put away, the flags are mopped, the toilet is com- pleted, and the big beasts stand at attention in obedience to orders, and make the privileged visitors a slow and stately "salaam." In the meantime, the baby-elephants are shut off in a stone corridor, and they don't like it. This is a dull sort of thing, after the universal petting and the "coming-in-to dessert" they have been accustomed to, so they stamp and trample a good deal, and cast much grass upon their heavy, pendulous heads, and think it ought always to be going-out hour. They are very amusing little animals, and we were assured that they are net sucl babies as they look, for notwithstanding his tender age— he is only eighteen months old—" Roostum " can work, pull ropes and chains, and push heavy weights, and has had to do it, too.
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