Читать книгу Life at the Zoo: Notes and Traditions of the Regent's Park Gardens онлайн

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The way in which this tiger found its way to the Zoo is typical of the unexpected means by which the menagerie is supplied with rare animals. Colonel Stafford, who had been engaged on the Afghan Boundary Commission in 1885, was returning by land through Central Asia, when he found the tiger, in a little cage, waiting at the terminus on the eastern side of the Caspian, and destined for some scientific gentleman at Warsaw. As the northern tiger was almost unknown in England, and there seemed some delay in the arrival of the purchase-money, Colonel Stafford bought it for the Indian Government, who approved of his investment, and presented it to the Zoological Society. To get the tiger by the Russian Central Asian railway to the Black Sea, and thence to England, was no easy matter. In the first place, the railway officials objected that tigers were not scheduled in their bill of charges, and unlike the English station-master, who held that cats is dogs, and rabbits is dogs, and parrots is dogs, maintained that tigers were tigers, and ought to be paid for at exceptional rates, including, of course, a bribe to the officials. This view being disputed by the tiger’s owner, it remained at the station, where, being not only quite tame, but an adept at small tricks, it became a general favourite. Its great performance was that of raising a basin of water and pouring it over its head; and this accomplishment, displayed before the daughter of the superintendent of the line, ultimately secured the tiger a passage to the sea. At Poti it was shipped for Constantinople, being supplied with a small flock of sheep as food in case the voyage was protracted. The animal remembered and recognized his first purchaser long after it had found a resting-place at the Zoo, though not at so long an interval as that after which the lion in the Tower showed its affection for its old keeper. This lion, which a certain Mr. Archer, employed at the Court of Morocco, “had brought up like a puppy-dog, having it to lie on his bed, until he grew as great as a mastiff, and no dog could be more gentle to those he knew,” was sent to the Tower, where, after an interval of seven years, he recognized one John Bull, a servant of his master, who, according to Captain John Smith, “went with divers of his friends to see the lions, not knowing that his old friend was there. Yet this rare beast smelt him before he saw him, whining, groaning, and tumbling with such an expression of acquaintance, that, being informed by the keepers how he came, Bull so prevailed that the keepers opened the grate, and Bull went in. But no dog could fawn more on his master than the lion on him, licking his feet and hands, and tumbling to and fro, to the wonder of all the beholders. Bull was quite satisfied with this recognition, and managed to get out of the grate; but when the lion saw his friend gone, no beast, by bellowing, roaring, scratching, and howling, could express more rage and sorrow; neither would he either eat or drink for four whole days afterwards.” “Warsaw’s” affections were not put to so severe a test; but his forbearance may be judged from the fact that he would allow his paws to be pulled out between the bars, and his toes to be examined, to see whether his nails wanted cutting.