HOW JUMBO CROSSED THE OCEAN.
BY W. L. ALDEN.
Jumbo has arrived. Two weeks ago there was published in Young People an account of his departure from England by a lady who knew him very well, and who was very familiar with his doings during his last days on English soil.
Now we have the great elephant with us, safe at the Hippodrome, under Mr. Barnum's care, and where thousands of American children can make his acquaintance, and find out what made him such a wonderful favorite on the other side of the ocean.
Jumbo had a great time crossing the sea. A big elephant is a very awkward passenger when he travels by water. He weighs so much that he must be kept in the centre of the ship, and he must be fastened so securely that he can not possibly break loose. Jumbo made the passage in the same box in which he was drawn eight miles from the Zoological Gardens in London to the dock where the great steamer that was to carry him to America lay.
This box was made as strong as oak and iron could make it, and was provided with openings in the front, through which Jumbo could stretch out his trunk to receive his food and drink. Jumbo's cage was only a trifle smaller than the main hatchway of the steamer, and yet it fitted him almost as closely as if it had been an Ulster overcoat. Being wedged closely into the hatchway, the box could not be moved by the rolling or pitching of the ship, and Jumbo, being packed tightly in the box, could not bruise himself. Thus he was as well situated as a sea-faring elephant could expect to be.
Jumbo did not like the sea, particularly when he was seasick. When we remember how seasick a child weighing sixty pounds often is at sea, we can understand how tremendously seasick an elephant weighing six tons can be. For the first two or three days of the passage Jumbo suffered greatly from seasickness. He lost his appetite. He frequently sighed like a small earthquake, and he tried to get rid of his headache by beating his head against the front of his box. This remedy seemed to help him, for on the third day he began to get better, and made a light breakfast of two hundred pounds of hay, two bushels of oats, a bushel of biscuits, fifteen loaves of bread, twenty buckets of water, and a few trifles, and in a few hours he felt well enough to receive visits from the passengers.
Two keepers—Mr. Scott, who has been with Jumbo seventeen years in England, and one whom Mr. Barnum had sent over from New York—were with him constantly while at sea, taking turns in sitting up with him at night, so that he need never feel lonesome. Lamps were also kept burning in front of him all night, in case he should want to read, and far more care was taken of him in every way than of any other passenger. Most of the time he was amiable, and conducted himself in a way to win the approbation of everybody. Once, however, he became very ill-tempered, and his keepers could not please him, no matter what they did. Finally they brought some little children to him. The sight of them reminded Jumbo of his happy life in the Zoological Gardens, where he was accustomed to carry children on his back. The ill-temper vanished, and he became once more the gentle beast that he had been before he was forced to go to sea.
In spite of his general amiability, Jumbo does not like to be treated with disrespect. One of the sailors of the vessel found this out. The man was washing his clothes near Jumbo's box, and he rudely slapped the elephant's trunk to make him move it out of the way. This was, in Jumbo's opinion, an outrage which no gentleman would offer to a respectable elephant, and he determined to resent it. Presently the man went away, leaving his clean clothes within Jumbo's reach. The latter instantly seized them, wiped the deck with them until they were far blacker than before they had been washed, and with a sweet smile, handed them back to the astonished sailor.
The great ship, the Assyrian Monarch, arrived at New York on the morning of Easter Sunday. An immense floating derrick was brought alongside of the vessel, and heavy chains being made fast to the elephant's box, it was hoisted out of the ship, and lowered to the deck of a big lighter. Jumbo strongly disapproved of this proceeding, and mentioned it loudly. It was his opinion that the chains would break while the box was in the air, and that he would get a terrible fall. In this he proved to be mistaken, for he was brought without accident to Pier No. 1, North River, which, being built of stone and iron, was strong enough to bear his weight, and there he was landed.
It was nearly nine o'clock in the evening by the time that everything was ready for a start. Eight horses were harnessed to the box, which, with Jumbo, weighed over twelve tons, and long ropes were fastened to the axles, so that men could assist the horses in dragging the enormous load. Each rope was about two hundred feet long, and at least five hundred people took hold of them. The horses and the men made a tremendous effort, but after they had pulled the box about three feet, the wheels sank into the ground, and it could not be stirred. Mr. Barnum then sent to the Madison Square Garden for two elephants. He proposed to take Jumbo out of his box, and to introduce him to the two elephants, hoping that he would accept their invitation to take a stroll up Broadway with them, and to stop at their hotel—as they would politely call the Madison Square Garden.
Before the elephants arrived, eight more horses were harnessed to the box; it was pried out of the mud, and started slowly on its way. At the Bowling Green the two elephants from Madison Square Garden were met, and welcomed Jumbo with enthusiastic "trumpetings," to which he courteously replied. Two or three times the box came to a stop while on the way up Broadway, but the horses and men pulled and the two elephants pushed until it was in motion again. It was after midnight when the Madison Square Garden was reached, and then it was found that the box was so big it would not go through the doors. So poor Jumbo had to pass the night in the street.
On Monday, however, he was safely installed in his new home. He has not mentioned how he likes this new continent, or the strange people among whom he has come; but considering the attention he receives, and the dainties fed him by thousands of admiring little folks, he ought to be a serene and satisfied elephant.
[CHASED BY A SHARK.]
A REMINISCENCE OF THE RED SEA.
BY DAVID KER.
"What a jolly place for a swim! I'll have one as soon as my dinner's digested."
"Take my advice, and don't do nothin' of the sort; for if you do, as sure as eggs are eggs, there'll be somethin' else digested besides your dinner."
"How do you mean?"
"Sharks!"
And with this impressive conclusion, the worthy Captain turned on his heel and walked off.
We had run three parts of the way down the Red Sea, and were now anchored close to the Arabian shore, just off the Turkish fort of Koomfidah, the low massive wall of which stood out white and bare in the blistering sunshine, while beyond it stretched, far as the eye could reach, the dim immensity of the great central desert.
Our vessel lay fully a mile and a half from the shore, although it seemed within a stone's-throw in the clearness of that wonderful atmosphere. But between us and the interminable waste of flat sandy beach the clear bright water was flecked with a broad band of white, very much like a streak of thick cream, marking the whereabouts of one of those treacherous coral reefs which make the Red Sea as dangerous a place as any in the world.
Outside the reef where we lay the sea was still heaving restlessly from the effects of the gale that had blown overnight; but the broad shallow lagoon within was as calm as a mill-pond. Half a dozen gaunt, swarthy Arabs were splashing and wallowing in the smooth water with shouts of delight, which were very tantalizing to us as we "stood on the burning deck," with the very pitch melting between the planks under the intolerable heat. Others still were trooping down to the beach in their long white robes, like a train of ghosts, from the little group of tumble-down mud hovels which, clustering around the outer wall of the fort, represented the "town" of Koomfidah.
Their bathing-place was of course safe enough, for no shark could enter there; but as if on purpose to show us how little they cared for this, several of the nearest Arabs scrambled across the reef and began to swim toward us; and in a twinkling the water around our ship swarmed with dusky figures (including not a few round-faced "pickaninnies" who could not have been more than six or seven years old at the outside), plashing and paddling about as merrily as if no such thing as a shark had ever been heard of.
"Some o' them chaps'll be gettin' picked up, if they don't look out," said a young sailor, looking down at them over the bows.
"Not they!" rejoined a veteran "salt," who had made the Red Sea voyage many a time before. "Sharks never touches a Harab."
"Nor a darky neither," added another. "I've see'd the darkies in the West Injies, jist afore they dived, put tar on the palms o' their 'ands where they was rubbed white, so as to give the sharks nothin' to aim at, like."
"I take it them Harabs ain't good enough to suit Mr. Shark's taste, and mayhap it's the same way with the darkies," said No. 1, with a grin.
And the two old sea-dogs, perching themselves upon the bulwarks, watched with a look of quiet amusement the whirl of lean brown limbs that kept darting to and fro like shoals of fish through the cool, clear water.
"You see," remarked No. 1, "there ain't a sign o' their bein' touched, and yet there's lots o' sharks close by, I'll be bound. But if you or me, Bill, was to jump in there, we wouldn't ha' touched the water afore there'd be 'arf a dozen o' them sea-lawyers at us all to once."
This conversation, following so closely upon the Captain's warning, certainly did not encourage me to try a swim in these perilous waters, and a little incident which occurred that very afternoon encouraged me still less.
I was standing near the binnacle, watching the bursting of the waves upon the reef, when one of them suddenly broke into a high jet of glittering spray, flinging off a shower of tiny rainbows in every direction. A second glance showed me that the rainbows were a shoal of flying-fish, which plunged again the next moment, and then leaped a second time into the air, flashing and sparkling till the whole sea appeared to be on fire.
All of a sudden, just as the graceful little sea-fairies were passing close to our stern, up through the bright, smooth water shot a huge shovel-like snout and sharp three-cornered back fin, seeming to come right from under the ship itself, and in the very midst of the fluttering column appeared a monstrous black shark, at least sixteen feet from snout to tail. One snap of his powerful jaws took in a round dozen of the terrified fish, which scattered in all directions, two or three of them leaping even clear over our bulwarks, and falling upon the deck, where the sailors inhospitably seized and cooked them for supper.
This last incident was more effectual in keeping me from risking a "dip" than either the Captain's warning or that of the sailors. But what was to be done? To be roasted as if by a slow fire for six or seven days together in a temperature of 117 in the shade, with this splendid cool sea always before me to invite me to a bath, was not to be thought of, while to escape this martyrdom by going down the throat of a shark would be a case of "out of the frying-pan into the fire."
At last a bright idea struck me. One of our quarter-boats, which was getting rather shaky, had been moored astern, and allowed to fill with water, in order to keep it from being split by the heat of the sun. Here, then, was a first-rate bath ready-made, which, if not exactly big enough for a swim, would serve admirably for every other purpose. The first experiment was a complete success, and from that time regularly every morning I slid down the mooring-rope, and had a "duck" in my floating tub, to the unbounded amusement of the Arab boys, who came splashing and chattering around me.
In this way things went on up to the very day of our departure from Koomfidah. That morning I rose earlier than usual from my "luxurious couch" (which consisted of a spare sail on the planks of the after-deck) to have just one more bath before leaving. But it is always that "just one more" which does all the mischief; and as a matter of course, after being prudent and cautious up to the very last moment, I ended by committing an imprudence which all but cost me my life.
The sea, as I well remember, seemed cooler and more tempting than ever that day, and since the appearance of that energetic gentleman who had such a good appetite for flying-fish, no sharks had been seen except at a great distance. In short, I got tired of wallowing from side to side of my boat-bath, like a hippopotamus in a tank, and decided to scramble out of it, and have a swim round the ship itself.
Twice, thrice, four times, I made the circuit of the vessel, and then, seeing no sign of danger, determined to strike farther out to sea. I was already about a hundred yards from the ship's bow, when I suddenly heard a shout that made me feel creepy all over.
"Look out! here's a shark!"
Instantly came a rush in the water beside me, and up started between me and the ship the big ungainly head, the grinning teeth, the small, narrow, cruel eye, the huge pointed fin, like some ugly vision in a nightmare.
Luckily the shark's overlapping snout forces him to turn on his side in order to bite, or all would have been over at the first rush. A sudden turn foiled the monster, but the next moment he was round and at me again like an arrow. And so we went plunging to and fro, churning the smooth blue water into foam, while the shouts of the sailors (who had clustered like bees along the ship's side) seemed to rend the very sky.
But my enemy was too hungry to be scared by noise, and although we were gradually nearing the ship, always kept himself between. My breath began to fail, and I felt that before the boat could be lowered I should be past help, for the shark had turned short round and met me front to front.
There was a loud halloo from above—something splashed heavily into the water—and then the sea all round me became a whirl of foam. A billet of wood, flung from the upper deck, had hit the shark on his tenderest point, the snout; and before he could rally from this stunning blow, I had seized the anchor-chain and was safe on board.
"Captain," said I, as the worthy man came up just in time to witness my ascent, "I shall certainly take your advice after this."
"Dare say you will, when it's too late to be of any use!" growled the uncourteous skipper. "I always thought you was a fool, and now I'm sure of it."
This was certainly not complimentary, but on reflection I was much of the same opinion myself.
