ALPHONSE DAUDET.
AGE 21, PARIS, 1861. “LETTERS FROM MY MILL.”
AGE 30, PARIS, 1870.
AGE 35, PARIS, 1875. “FROMONT JEUNE ET RISLER AINÉ.”
DAUDET AT THE PRESENT DAY.
WILD ANIMALS.—I
HOW THEY ARE CAPTURED, TRANSPORTED, TRAINED, AND SOLD.
By Raymond Blathwayt.
The greatest wild animal trader in the world is Karl Hagenbeck of Hamburg. To hear, therefore, how he captures and transports the brutes that compose his stock in trade, how he trains them, and some of the peculiarly strange adventures which have befallen him in dealing with them, cannot fail to be of interest. A few days ago I went to his Hamburg menagerie, where, on opening a door, I found myself in a great shed full of caged wild beasts. As visitors, except those on business, are not allowed within those notable precincts, my unexpected appearance excited the cages’ occupants to set up a grand concerto of roars and howls. Awestruck at the sight and sounds, I stood dazed until suddenly recalled to myself by a Nubian lion, who laid hold of my cloak-flaps with unsheathed claws. At once I leaped forward, while the beast retired snarling to the farthest corner of its cage, where in the dark shadows its eyes glared like two living coals. At this moment Mr. Hagenbeck came forward and gave me a hearty welcome, coupled with a word of warning against venturing too near the cages. He is a tall man, singularly pleasant looking, with keen eyes and a decisive manner. Later we sat in his office, and there I heard many incidents of the interesting life which he has led for so many years.
“My father,” said he, “who started in life as a fish dealer in this very town, never dreamed that he would one day be the founder of the greatest menagerie in the world. But it chanced that, in the year 1848, some fishermen, who usually traded with him, brought 27 him some seals which they had caught in their sturgeon nets. They were fine animals, and he could not help being delighted with them, and straightway resolved to take them to Berlin. There he opened a small exhibition in Kroll’s Gardens, charging an admission fee. But there came a revolution; business was at a standstill, and he was glad enough to get rid of the seals for a small sum of money, and to return to his fish-dealer’s shop in Hamburg. But he was bitten with the wild-beast fever; live animals had more attractions for him than dead fish, and so he told the fishermen that he would always be ready to buy any queer animals they might choose to bring him. A short time after that a sailor from a whaling vessel brought him a polar bear; this he exhibited here in Hamburg. It was a great novelty, and the people flocked in crowds to see it. From that time forward, sailors from all parts of the world would bring him animals for sale—monkeys, parrots, deer, snakes, and so on; once a young lion. Gradually he got together quite a small menagerie, but I am bound to say that at first there was not much profit in the business. When I left school in 1859, at the age of fifteen, father asked me which of his two callings I would rather choose as mine. Of course, being a boy, I chose the wild beasts. He gave me a hundred and fifty pounds to spend as best I could in buying animals. Fortune favored me from the start. I made some capital bargains, increased the business rapidly, and in 1866 father handed the whole business over to me.”
