CHAPTER XXXVII
CARL HAGENBECK, THE KING OF ANIMAL IMPORTERS. A VISIT TO HIS HANDELS MENAGERIE IN HAMBURG AND TO HIS WILD-ANIMAL PARK IN STELLINGEN
Many people will no doubt wonder how Zoological Gardens obtain their collections of animals and birds. It was my good fortune to be conducted round the Handels Menagerie as well as the Park at Stellingen by Herr Carl Hagenbeck, the genial king of animal importers. I was ushered into his office, and seated upon a chair made of antelopes’ horns and covered with lizard skins. In front of me on a bureau were some life-like bronzes of animals, modelled from living specimens formerly in Hagenbeck’s collection. Some bronze elephants with real ivory tusks were remarkably well executed. Above the writing-table was a portrait of Hagenbeck’s father framed in ivory tusks, and close by a curious malformation of roe-deer’s horns. The room was littered with horns and skulls and curiosities from every part of the world.
CARL HAGENBECK.
‘I began to collect animals when I was four years old,’ said Carl Hagenbeck, with a smile. ‘My father began business with some seals, and in 1852 he bought the first polar bear ever seen in Europe. He exhibited it in Hamburg, charging fourpence admission. With the proceeds he bought other animals and birds from sailors who brought them home on their ships.’
From this humble beginning Carl Hagenbeck, by his wonderful skill and knowledge of the art of keeping live animals in health, has now, after having been head of the business for thirty-six years, the largest stock of live animals in the world. The value of his animals is greater than the value of the animals in any one Zoological Garden in Europe.
‘I suppose you employ a good number of people to collect for you?’ I asked.
‘Yes,’ he said; ‘just now I have a large crowd of people coming from Siberia with thirty roe-deer, fifteen ibex, wild sheep, and several small animals and birds for me. I have seven people collecting for me in Central Asia, and one in India fetching me home twenty elephants. Three of my people are in Mongolia, one in the Pamir district, one in the Altai district, and one in the Arar lake district. One of my men is on the road now from the Soudan, and will be here the first week in June with three large giraffes, some kudu, and other antelopes.’
‘The giraffes for England?’ I asked.
‘Yes,’ he said; ‘the Duke of Bedford has already bought them for his park.’
‘But when are you going to import an African rhinoceros?’ I asked.
‘Stop a moment,’ Hagenbeck replied; ‘some of my people, now animal-catching in German East Africa, have got me already for shipment seventy zebras, two African rhinos, some white-bearded gnus, water-buck and other antelopes, smaller animals, and birds; one of my men is coming home from Abyssinia with some Grévy’s zebras.’
‘Ah! but when, Mr. Hagenbeck, will you get a gorilla?’ I said, thinking I had him this time.
‘Stop a minute,’ again said Hagenbeck; ‘I am expecting within the next three months from West Africa several chimpanzees and also some young gorillas. On April 12 last my men in Australia had caught for me sixty kangaroos, including several big red “boomas” and some entirely new species of kangaroo. They have also got a collection of rare little animals and a great number of interesting and rare birds. Next month one of my people goes again down into the Kadizian steppes to fetch some waggon-loads of big camels and dromedaries. Out of that district last year I imported sixty-five camels and dromedaries. Besides all this, I buy up everything which comes by ship into Hamburg. Into this place in one day came 5 Ceylon elephants, including a mother and baby; 2 Sambur deer from India; 21 various monkeys from West Africa; 102 flamingoes; 3 white storks from Egypt; and 162 baboons and 3 hyænas from Arabia. Not only are animals continually coming in, but plenty are going out. The Americans are beginning to go in tremendously for Zoos, and in a few years’ time there will be some magnificent Gardens over there. Last week I shipped £500 worth of animals to Cincinnati and £700 worth of animals to Philadelphia.’
‘You must have had many adventures when travelling and carting your animals about?’ I suggested.
‘Yes; I have had many narrow escapes,’ he replied. ‘In Suez a full-grown giraffe ran away with me. The rope I held him by got entangled round my arm, and I could not get free. I was dragged along the streets and fearfully banged about. When I at length got loose I was so exhausted I was obliged to lie down for a quarter of an hour without moving. Another time a freshly imported troop of elephants ran away in Vienna. I was upon one of them myself, the others hugging close to it. I lost my elephant-guiding hook, but I stopped him by biting his ear with my teeth, when all the others, which were closely bunched round him, stopped with him. I got the six elephants, as I thought, safely tethered by a rope in the railway-car; but the rope broke, and there was I with six loose elephants boxed up in a closed car. When I got out I was uninjured. Another time a big African elephant got frightened at the railway-station at Hamburg and ran away with me, but I held fast to his ears, and finally brought him back to his stable. Another time a big elephant got hold of me, lifted me up, and smashed me down on a barrier which was before him. I got several bruises, but no bones were broken. Again, I was chased by a male ‘must’ elephant, which had gone mad. I came well out of that also, and finally tethered him unaided. Once again I was packing animals away in a large packing-case, and was standing with my back to a six-feet tusker elephant. This elephant had been badly treated, but this I was unaware of. All at once the elephant made a rush at me, and literally pinned me to the packing-case. One tusk grazed me on my right side, the other grazed my left. My clothes were cut, and the skin on both my sides was grazed. Finally, I fell down, and escaped in a miraculous manner. But I now come to what I consider the greatest escape of all. I was superintending the lowering of a large alligator into a pit, when, with a sweep of its tail, it knocked me right into the middle of a dozen large alligators and some polar bears. I jumped out in a second, or I should most assuredly have been torn to pieces. I could tell you many other events in my life, which you would scarcely credit; but come, I must show you round the menagerie.’
What a wonderful place that menagerie is, to be sure! There are no less than three training cages, where lions, elephants, tigers, dogs, and bears are all taught to perform together most astonishing tricks. The training of these animals goes on all day.
‘Just step on one side a minute,’ calmly says Carl Hagenbeck.
The next instant a cage was opened, and two large lions bounded out into the open past me without taking any notice, and with a jump were into a large circular cage, where they were put to do tricks by an attendant, who played with them as you or I would play with kittens. They were rough, too; they jumped on his back, and they ran at him and pawed him, but he didn’t seem to mind a bit. In a second training cage another man, armed only with a stout whip, led in one by one six tigers and three lions, all full-grown, and, catching each by the neck, first put a chain collar round it, and then tethered each to the iron bars of the cage at equal distances apart; a large barrow of horses’ heads and flesh was then brought in, and some flesh flung to each. There was no fighting, as each was tethered apart.
In another cage three lions, two tigers, two leopards, and two pumas went through the same feeding process. I asked one of the men if he ever got hurt.
‘Yes,’ he said, ‘I get a scratch now and then by accident; but it is done in play, for I love my animals and they love me.’
I asked Hagenbeck what the lot of six tigers and three lions were worth. He answered that when he first trained them he was offered £7,500 for them. ‘But I would not take it,’ he added. ‘Why, they bring me in £4,000 a year clear profit when on the road, besides the advertisement they give me.’
In one house I saw 150 monkeys. Three large lion houses contained twenty-five lions, twenty-one Bengal tigers, and five crosses between lion and tiger, seen nowhere else in the world. Two of these lion-tigers were three weeks old, and were being suckled by a fox-terrier bitch. Two were one year and two weeks old, and one (a magnificent animal) was full-grown. It is five years old, is fawn-coloured and faintly striped; it weighs 450 lb., is 10 feet long, and stands 45½ inches high at the shoulder. It is the largest carnivorous animal alive. In one of the lion houses was a magnificent collection of red-deer horns from Hungary, Germany, and Denmark. In an elephant house were twelve elephants, including a female elephant suckling a youngster eight months old. The female was served in captivity, and is now expected to give birth to a second.
There were 28 big Arabian baboons, 40 adult females, and 92 young ones, a very large number of polar bears, wolves, foxes, dogs, hyænas, leopards, 8 various bears, and many birds. There were, however, no giraffes, and Hagenbeck, when questioned, said, even now the Soudan has been opened again, he fears that there are not so many giraffes as there used to be there. ‘Why,’ he said, ‘in the summer season of 1876 I had no less than thirty-five giraffes in my menagerie.’
A staff of twenty men is employed in the menagerie, and it costs Carl Hagenbeck £4,000 a year to feed his collections in Hamburg and Stellingen.
‘All the animals look so well,’ I remarked. ‘How is it done?’
‘Do you know what the secret is?’ said Carl Hagenbeck. ‘It is not warmth that animals and birds require. Why, I can show you photographs of my zebras and flamingoes, my lions and my antelopes, standing out in deep snow, and preferring it to a stuffy enclosed den. The secret of how to keep wild animals well is fresh air. They must have fresh air. All my lions can walk from their warm dens out into an open-air den. That’s why they are well. Your lion house in London is no good. You have outside cages, it is true, but the animals are only allowed there in the summer months. Must animals be allowed fresh air only in the summer? Certainly not. They must have fresh air all the year round, not hot, stuffy cages during the whole winter.’
These are wise words from the most observing, most successful keeper of live animals in the world.
During my inspection of the Handels Menagerie it was impossible to take photographs, owing to the rain and terrific hailstorms.
‘Will you come now and see my animal park at Stellingen?’ asked Herr Hagenbeck.
‘With pleasure,’ I answered, eager to see more wonders.
A handsome carriage and pair soon drove up to the door. We stepped in and were driven away. Carl Hagenbeck now told me of his great scheme. He had bought a large property at Stellingen, and here, in two years’ time, he hoped to amalgamate his whole collection in one vast park. On one huge square plot of ground would be the stables for the elephants and the dens for the carnivorous animals, with the training cages in the centre. The whole of the rest of the land would be devoted to buffaloes, zebras, antelopes, deer, ibex, etc.
‘There will be no cages there,’ he said; ‘there will be no bars and no netting. You will stand here and look over a vast plain covered with animals of every description, all apparently in the same enclosure. But they will be separated by wide ditches, so ingeniously hidden by rockwork that it will appear to the eye as if all the animals were in the park together.’ Hagenbeck grew quite animated during the description of his vast plans. ‘In two years I shall spend on this property £20,000. And you know,’ he added, ‘in Germany you can do with £20,000 what you could not do with £40,000 in England, labour and materials being so much cheaper. But we have arrived, so let us get out and have a look at the place, such as it is at present.’
In one large pen there were no less than 102 flamingoes. Such a sight I had never witnessed since I saw the hosts in the lagoons in Egypt. There were some 60 cranes and storks, 100 water-fowl, 50 swans, and 50 various birds. There were 50 deer of various sorts, 18 antelopes, 22 buffaloes, yaks, and zebus, 3 zebras, 2 camels and a dromedary, 8 llamas and guanacos, and some Shetland ponies. There were three sorts of water-buffalo from the Caucasus, Siam, and Egypt.
There was a female white deer, presented to Hagenbeck by the German Emperor. There were some of the rare Dobowsky’s deer, found only in the possession of the Duke of Bedford. There was a pair of brindled gnus, taken in exchange from Dr. Sclater. There were Caucasian deer, axis deer, Sambur deer, and wapiti deer. There was an enormous dromedary from Russian Turkestan, the largest species of its race. There were Siberian roe-deer with enormous horns as big as our red deer’s. There was an Alcal sheep from Russian Turkestan, and two sorts of ibex (one very tall) from Central Siberia. These animals, Hagenbeck says, will be found to be new to science, also one from the Pamir district, price £100! Hundreds of packing-cases, from one which held a rabbit to another which carried an elephant and her baby, filled a whole field. In the surrounding fields grazed llamas, yaks, and camels, where one would expect to find domestic sheep and cows.
‘And here, I suppose, in two years’ time we shall see half a dozen okapi grazing?’ I suggested.
At last I had beaten Hagenbeck, for he shook his head, and answered:
‘They are hard to get—very hard to get!’
After partaking of coffee in the house, I shook Carl Hagenbeck by the hand, and thanked him for his kindness in showing me the most wonderful collection of animals in the world.
To give some idea of the prices asked and obtained for animals, I take the following from Carl Hagenbeck’s catalogue:
| Carnivora. | |||
| £ | s. | d. | |
| A pair of Nubian lions, four years old, tame, and performing | 250 | 0 | 0 |
| Male Nubian lion, nineteen months old | 60 | 0 | 0 |
| Female Somali lion, fine breeding animal, with three young ones, the lot | 180 | 0 | 0 |
| Male tiger from Siberia, one and a quarter years old | 150 | 0 | 0 |
| Puma, three and a half years old | 30 | 0 | 0 |
| Male leopard from Sumatra | 25 | 0 | 0 |
| Striped hyæna, three years old | 15 | 0 | 0 |
| Twelve polar bears, performing together, the lot | 900 | 0 | 0 |
| Thirty-three animals, all together in one huge cage— | |||
| 1 male Somali lion, nine years old. | |||
| 1 male Senegal lion, two years old. | |||
| 2 male Nubian lions, eighteen months old. | |||
| 3 male Nubian lions, fourteen months old. | |||
| 1 male Bengal tiger, two years old. | |||
| 2 female Bengal tigers, two years old. | |||
| 3 male Siberian tigers, two years old. | |||
| 1 male Indian leopard, three years old. | |||
| 3 polar bears. | |||
| 5 Thibetan bears. | |||
| 2 sloth bears. | |||
| 2 Russian bears. | |||
| 1 pair of striped hyænas and 5 large boarhounds. | |||
| Price, including three caravans and properties | 5,000 | 0 | 0 |
| Hay-eating Mammals. | |||
| One female hippopotamus, six months old | 500 | 0 | 0 |
| Female Indian working elephant | 300 | 0 | 0 |
| Female Chapman’s zebra | 150 | 0 | 0 |
| Llama, female | 20 | 0 | 0 |
| Male Brahma bull, largest ever imported, height to top of hump 5 feet 8 inches | 150 | 0 | 0 |
| Racing zebra bull and racing cart, the lot | 15 | 0 | 0 |
| Pair of yaks | 50 | 0 | 0 |
| Male white-tailed gnu, three years old | 125 | 0 | 0 |
| Leucoryx antelope | 40 | 0 | 0 |
| Altai deer | 60 | 0 | 0 |
| Chinese deer | 50 | 0 | 0 |
| Sika deer | 8 | 0 | 0 |
| Molucca deer | 15 | 0 | 0 |
| Fallow deer | 5 | 0 | 0 |
| Reindeer | 15 | 0 | 0 |
| Siberian roe-deer | 30 | 0 | 0 |
| Giant kangaroo | 20 | 0 | 0 |
| Small Mammals. | |||
| Jackals, each | 1 | 5 | 0 |
| Mongoose | 1 | 5 | 0 |
| Guinea-pigs, each | 0 | 2 | 0 |
| White rats, each | 0 | 1 | 0 |
| Sea Mammals. | |||
| One pair walruses, two years old, weight 5 cwt. each, perform well, the only ones in captivity | 1,400 | 0 | 0 |
| Sea-lions, each | 75 | 0 | 0 |
| Seals, each | 15 | 0 | 0 |
| Monkeys. | |||
| Baboons | 7 | 0 | 0 |
| Hamadryas | 1 | 5 | 0 |
| Mandril | 4 | 0 | 0 |
| Bonnet | 1 | 5 | 0 |
| Capucine | 1 | 15 | 0 |
| Birds. | |||
| One pair West African ostriches | 75 | 0 | 0 |
| Emu | 10 | 0 | 0 |
| Two Indian white cranes | 25 | 0 | 0 |
| Demoiselle crane | 1 | 10 | 0 |
| Marabou stork | 7 | 10 | 0 |
| Cape penguin | 7 | 10 | 0 |
| Seagulls, each | 0 | 10 | 0 |
| White swan | 4 | 0 | 0 |
| Condor | 10 | 0 | 0 |
| Black crow | 0 | 3 | 0 |
| Reptiles. | |||
| (Alligators and crocodiles are sold by the foot.) | |||
| Alligators, 1-foot reptiles, each | 0 | 10 | 0 |
| Alligators, 2-feet reptiles, each | 1 | 5 | 0 |
| Alligators, 2½-feet reptiles, each | 1 | 10 | 0 |
| Indian crocodiles, 6½ feet | 7 | 10 | 0 |
| Indian crocodiles, 7 feet | 8 | 10 | 0 |
| Lace monitor | 2 | 0 | 0 |
| Terrapin | 0 | 10 | 0 |
| Tortoises (Testudo geometrica), each | 0 | 1 | 0 |
The above prices include packing and delivery free on board at Hamburg.
INDEX