AFRICA " TRAN SLATED."
THAT familiar and expressive illustration of incongruity, "a trout on a gravel-walk," comes forcibly into one's mind, on beholding the spectacle presented by the enclosure at the Alexandra Palace, where, behind a strong and high barrier of iron wire, a crowd of strange animals and stranger men are exhibited to the spectators collected on a hill-side to look at them. The scene is like the woodcut in the old Bibles which represents the Garden of Eden on the naming-day of all the animals, with the candidates waiting about, in attitudes more or less desultory, for the turn of each. The long necks and fine heads of black dromedaries are pushed through the lower spaces in the wire-work, as the animals nibble the edges of the grass ; camel-leopards rear their soft noses on high, and feel with their spongy tongues for imaginary leaves of the trees they have left behind them in Africa ; camels moon about, grunting and discontented, as if they wished to know why, as they are not just then being packed or unpacked, or racing, or pursuing the lumbering ostriches—whose forte seems to be the getting in the way of every other animal in the company—they are not allowed to remain in their stables. A large female camel, with a small and fluffy foal, the softest, gentlest little creature imaginable, with a confidence in human beings quite touching, and of course due to its extreme youth, is not an amiable mother, apparently. she administers its lawful nourishment to her offspring reluctantly, and sends it off among the others with promptitude. A very handsome white donkey, with reddish-brown patches, a strong, intelligent, self-willed beast, sniffs the air of Muswell Hill as if it might be a little breezier and a little sandier with advantage ; an elephant, who looks surprisingly small among the crowd, con- .sidering his vast bulk in his stable, lifts up his trunk and trum- pets; while several smaller elephants, yet in their infancy, shamble about in the uncouth fashion of their kind, wagging their mean little tails, and actively canvassing the spectators through the wires for cakes and fruit. The little elephants are very pleasant, friendly fellows, and one of them is a person of resource and enterprise. It was charming to watch him, as he insinuated himself between one of the Nubian tents and a tree-stem, whereon seine tempting leaves and shoots were sprouting greenly, quickly slid his trunk along the bark, which it resembled in colour and texture, and devoured the twigs, packing them away in his soft, cushiony mouth with haste and furtiveness, remarkably like the demeanour of a child surreptitiously engaged with a jam-pot. It was painful to learn, On the authority of this young person's trainer, who is much attached to his charge, that " green-meat " is very bad for the elephant in this climate. " Gripes " said the trainer, who had watched this proceeding, shaking his head with prophetic sadness ; "gripes! It always does it. And apples are awful,—they will give 'em apples in the Gardens. As for oranges, they're death to 'ern." Cayenne-pepper is successfully administered occa- sionally as a corrective of the results of this cruel kind- ness. Mild-eyed, silver-gray, horned and humped bovine animals march soberly up and down the length of the en- closure ; and by far the strangest sight there, three juvenile "rhinos," all under two years old, trot about after their keeper, hustling each other close at his heels, and uttering queer little cries, very human-sounding indeed. These massive creatures, enormous in their littleness, with their huge, unwieldy heads, their clumsy limbs, and their great pot-bellied bodies, are exceedingly docile and intelligent. Their keeper, a handsome Nubian lad, talks to them, and they answer him in their odd, squeaky voices, which will become gruff as they grow older ; roll and tumble about him, mumble his fingers, and are on the best of terms with him. They are very affable towards strangers also, and come up to be played with,—which is rather embarrassing, for what can one do, except pat their preposterous heads, and think of Sidney Smith's joke about tickling the dome of St. Paul's to amuse the Dean and Chapter. The effect of this, crowd of strange animals, all perfectly tame and harmless, turned loose in the great space of the inclosure, is very striking—quite unlike what one feels at the separate sight of them in the Zoological Gardens —and by degrees, as the business of the " camp " proceeds, the illusion takes hold of one's mind ; the books of sport and travel one has read come back to one's memory ; these are the creatures who come down to drink, in crowds, at the brink of African lakes, by night, and travel in long, patient procession across the deserts. On the hill- side the Nubian huts are constructed ; they are made of strips of matting, about a yard and a half high, and in front of each is the "trophy " of its owner. A very unpleasant object is a trophy, consisting of hippopotamus-skulls, all black and ghastly, and the crossed horns and antlers of other animals slain in the chase. The hunters never move without these trophies, are very particular about their mats, never suffering any one but themselves to touch them, and have also brought to this country a huge box full of miscellaneous bones, which is regarded with considerable dislike by their white comrades. Camel-saddles, head-stalls, ropes, leathern water-bottles, shields of rhinoceros-hide, long spears, and Sundry clumsy packages lie scattered on the grass and under a wide white canvas tent, until the hour arrives at which the camels are to be laden, and the caravan is to start for the desert journey with respect to which it must be acknowledged the spectators have to make believe very much indeed ; and for which the Nubians, under the presidence of the head man, a Turk, in ft fez, but who is otherwise inappropriately arrayed in rough English costume, make ready with unrestrained shouts of laughter. They probably do not see the humour of the proceeding from our point of view of it, but they undoubtedly have a point of view of their own, and insist upon it to each other pretty strongly. It is a good deal assisted, no doubt, by the gravity of the spectators, which is remark- able. A suspicion of the genuineness of the Nubians lurks in the bosoms of many of the visitors, whose notions of " blacks " in the histrionic sense are mostly derived from the "minstrels" of the music-halls ; and it is pleasant to observe the ingenuous satisfaction afforded by the growing conviction among the multitude that the colour is "fast," and does not "run" when the Nubians do. They believe implicitly in the Turk, and hugely enjoy the legend which circulates among them that he has a wife who has never been out of doors for twenty-one years !—but as for blacks,—well, have we not read
ow"The African Swallower," among the talented company of Mr. Vincent Crumnales, was very like an Irishman, and how
Corney Delany deceived even Mrs. Paul Rooney, until his ire was aroused to the point of self-betrayal by "the haythens, the Turks." The Nubians are, however, undeniable, and very fine- looking men, for the most part ; not in the least ferocious, but with beaming faces, eyes like jewels set in mother-of-pearl, tall, slight, elastic figures, slender hands, the white nails showing strangely at the slim dark finger-ends ; and skins of fine smooth close grain, the colour a deep brown-black, like the darkest tint of antique bronze, and with the roundness and polish of bronze upon it. Only one or two have the thick lips of the negro, as we think of him, the others have thin, rather wide mouths, with white, per- fect teeth, just a little protruding, arched noses, and a peculiarily fine, free carriage of the head. All their hair is wool, close, thick, jet black, elaborately combed, and in some instances curled, raised high over the smooth, polished forehead, and evidently an object of much pride and solicitude. One handsome, saucy lad, who stepped, and jumped, and flung himself off and on his camel, and clung round the neck of an ostrich as if he had not a joint that could be put out or a bone that could be broken about him, having run his lissome fingers with an air of triumph through the six inches or so of upright wool on his own head, smacked his open palm suddenly on the bald pate of one of the European assistants, and then snapped his fingers derisively, with a gleeful shout of laughter which could not have been surpassed by any white schoolboy. A little man in a white skull-cap is the chief and priest of the party, and it was very curious to observe him summoning them to some mysterious religious ceremony. They all attended promptly, wholly indifferent to the spectators—in- deed, their cheerful absence of all restraint is one of the striking features of the spectacle—squatted around him, and made queer gestures with their heads and hands, then broke up the meeting, and began to jump, dance, and lunge playfully at each other's shields with their long spears. Their movements are soft and graceful, they jump strangely and noiselessly with both feet, they fling their long, slender arms out, as they talk and laugh together, and they shout in a musical tone. In the hunting scene, when the camels gallop in their lopsided way, and the ostriches blunder and lollop about, more fussy than frightened, and presenting an appearance of being half-plucked preliminary to being cooked, which was supremely ridiculous, the hunters show to great advantage. They sit, or lie, or dangle about the tall, clumsy animals anyhow, and as they come down to the end of the enclosure, waving their shining black arms, with their white muslin garments fluttering about them, their eyes and teeth glittering, and their wild chattering and laughter ring- ing in the air, the scene is as strange a one as the most ardent lover of novelty could desire. The lading and starting of the caravan is a curious sight, too, absurd as some of the " pro- perties " are, and the conduct of the camels justifies one's ex- pectations. "Good and mild "they certainly are not ; they kick, squeal, bite, and protest, as we have every reason to believe they do in their native lands, and this gives a pleasant realism to the scene. But when the caravan is really started, and is wending its way through the trackless desert of the smooth enclosure—which the ostriches have cleared of pebbles—under escort of the whole troop of Nubians ; when the pair of monkeys sit melancholy on a big box slung on the side of a black dromedary, and the camels follow in pairs—like Eliezer's, to the well where he met Rebecca and gave her the earrings—when the little elephants trot de- murely, with their flapping ears laid back like saddle-cloths upon their shoulders; and the little "rhinos" plod heavily and whine like children taken out for a walk against their will ; when the giraffes come loafing along, with their forelegs all right, but their hind legs conducting themselves independently, and as if they belonged to somebody else ; when the mild bulls plod solemnly, the ropes swaying loosely in the escort's hands ; when the ostriches form a flying squadron, with thrust-out necks and thick-lashed eyes, peering into the illimitable wastes of llornsey Rise, and sniffing the simoora from the quarter of Wood Green,—then, the strangeness vanishes! We have seen all this before. Our fondest memories are associated with it, we return to the epoch of tin toys, and the soldiers whom we were forbidden to swallow. This is none other than our own old Noah's Ark come to life, and formed in procession ; there they are, bless them all the beasts by twos-and-twos, even the sheep-dogs barking around ; only the raven is not there, nor yet the dove ; but then, for compensa- tion, we have Shem, Rani, and Japhct, multiplied many times, and in white muslin and bare legs, instead of the " ulsters" of
the period.
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