The Sa'-Zada Tales. By W. A. Fraser. (D. Nutt. 6s.)—
Sa'-Zada is the keeper of the "Animal City "—what we commonly call a menagerie—and in a great heat-wave he contrives for his charges the distraction of telling the stories of their lives. 'HAW,' the elephant, known as the "Patient One," is his Vizier, or rather Head Constable; for Arno: the buffalo, Gidar: the jackal, Coyote,' the prairie wolf, Soot,' the wild boar, Raj Bagh: the tiger, to mention a few of the dramatis personae, want keeping in order, especially when the gazelle, the moose, and the hare, with various monkeys, birds, &a., make up the company. The creatures meet every night at the leopards' cage, and take up the role of tale-teller in turn, not without interruptions from the audience, Magh: the orang-outang, having in particular a very caustic tongue. The leopards begin, for they are at home, with very blood-curdling stories,—" enough to make one have bad dreams," as Magh ' remarks. And so it goes on, the whole being admirably done. It seems to be a speciality of our cousins on the other side of the Atlantic to tell sympathetically the story of animal life. It is, we suppose, one of the advantages of having such a possession as the Yellowstone Park.—Not unworthy to be ranked with this, though scarcely equal to it in the special characteristic of sympathy, is Matsya : the Romance of an Indian Elephant, by Warren Killingworth (Wells Gardner, Darton, and Co., 6s.) Matsya,' is well-descended elephant, is bought for an Indian ruler, has a great career opening before him—he may carry the Rajah himself, or certainly his heir-apparent—when he is stolen— it is not an easy thing, it seems, to steal an elephant—shipped to England, sold to a circus company, and finally recovered by the devotion of his mahout. It is an excellent story, and reads as very true to life, whether the scene is laid in some far-away Indian Court or in familiar English places.
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