Vagaries

by Axel Munthe

I have been here several times, and I know the negro's description by heart. I will show you the animals.

Here, in this cage, moping on his perch, his head hidden beneath his ragged feather-cloak, you see the proudest representative of the bird world—The Royal Eagle, three years old, taken young. You have read about him, the strong-winged bird, who in solemn majesty circles above the desolate mountain-tops. Alone he lives up there amongst the clouds—alone like the human soul. He builds his nest upon an inaccessible rock, and the precipice shields his young from rapacious hands. Taken young; that means that the nest was plundered, the mother was shot as she flew shrieking to protect her child, and by the butt-end of the gun was broken the wing-bone of the half-grown eagle as he struggled for his freedom. Here he has sat ever since; he sleeps during the day, but he is awake the live-long night, and when all is silent in the tent a strange, uncanny moan may be heard from his cage. Three years old! He is not the most to be pitied here, for he is not likely to last long—the Royal Eagle dies when caged.

Here you see a Bear. His cage is so small that he cannot walk up and down; he sits there almost upright on his hindquarters, rocking his meek and heavy head from side to side. If you offer him a piece of bread, he flattens his nose against the bars and gently and carefully takes the gift out of your hand. His nose is torn by the iron ring he once was made to wear, and his eyes are bloodshot and streaming from the strong gaslight; but their expression is not bad, it is kind and intelligent like that of an old dog. Now and then he grips the bars with his mighty paws, helplessly shaking the cage until the guinea-pigs who live below him rush up and down in abject terror. Ay, shake your cage, old Bruin! the bars are steel, stronger than your paws; you will never come out—you are to die in your prison. You are a dangerous beast of prey—you live on bilberries and fruit, and now and then you help yourself to a sheep to keep yourself from dying of starvation. God Almighty did not know better than to teach you to do so, but no doubt it was very ill-judged of Him, and you are very much to blame; it is only man who has the right to eat his fill.

Here you see a Hyæna. The negro stirs up the hyæna with a cut of his whip, and timorously the animal crouches in the farthermost corner of the cage, whilst the negro tells the spectators that the hyæna is known for its cowardice. The hyæna dare not risk an open fight, but treacherously attacks the defenceless prisoner whom the savages have left bound hand and foot to his fate in the wilderness, or the exhausted beast of burden whom the caravan has abandoned in the desert after having hoisted on to another the load he is no longer able to bear. The negro pokes cautiously with his pointed stick into the corner where the cowardly animal tries to hide itself, and the spectators all agree that the hyæna, with its crouching back and restless eyes, conveys a faithful picture of treachery and cowardice. None of the spectators have ever seen a hyæna before, but they have seen crouching backs and restless eyes. Not even the dead does the hyæna leave in peace, says the negro, and with disgust man turns away from the guilty animal.

Here you see a Polar Bear. Its name is advertised in huge letters on the placard outside; and he deserves the distinction well indeed, for his torture perhaps surpasses that of all the other animals. The Polar bear is another dangerous beast of prey; he does a little fishing for himself up in the north where man is busy exterminating the whales. The horrible sufferings of the animal need no comment—let us go on.

A little South African Monkey and a rabbit live next to the cage inhabited by the panting Polar bear.[13]

The little monkey is sick to death of the eternal clambering up and down the bars of the cage, and the swing which dangles over her head does not amuse her any more. Sadly she sits there upon her straw-covered prison floor, in one hand she holds a half-withered carrot, which she turns over once again to see if it looks equally unappetising on every side, while with the other she sorrowfully scratches the rabbit's back. Now and then she gets interested, drops the carrot, and attentively with both hands explores some suspicious-looking spot on her companion's mangy back and pulls out a few hairs, which she carefully examines. But soon she wearies of the rabbit also, and does not know in the least what to do with herself. She looks round in the straw, but there is nothing to be seen but the carrot; she looks round the bare, slippery walls of her cage, but neither there is there anything of the slightest interest to be found. And at last she has nothing else to do but, for the hundredth time that hour, to jump into the swing, only to leap on to the floor the next minute and seat herself again, leaning against the rabbit. The spectators call this jumping for joy, but the poor little monkey knows how jolly it is.

The rabbit is resigned. The captivity of generations has stupefied him—the longing for liberty has died ages ago from out of his degenerated hare-brain. He hopes for nothing, but he desires nothing. He has no social talents; he is in no way qualified to entertain his restless friend; and besides that, he fails to grasp the situation. But he rewards the monkey to the best of his abilities for the little offices of friendship which she performs for him; and when the gas has been turned out, and the cold night air enters the tent, then the Northerner lends his warm fur coat to the trembling little Southerner, and nestling close to one another they await the new day.

The inhabitant of the cage in yonder corner has not been advertised at all upon the placard outside. He is not to be seen just now; perhaps he is asleep for a while in his dark, little bedroom; but every one who catches sight of that wire wheel knows that it is a Squirrel who lives here. What he has to do in a menagerie is more than I can say, for on that point the zoological education of the public should surely be completed—we all know what the squirrel looks like. Superstitious people of my country say that it is an evil omen if a squirrel crosses their path. I don't know where they got hold of that idea, but maybe they have taken it from a squirrel—for the squirrel believes exactly in the same way if a man crosses his path, and, alas! he has got reason enough for his belief. I, on the contrary, have always thought it a piece of good luck whenever I have happened to come across a little squirrel. Often enough while roaming through the woods and halting with grateful joy at every other step before some new wonder in the fairyland of nature—often enough have I caught a glimpse of the graceful, nimble, little fellow swinging himself high overhead on some leafy branch, or carefully peeping out from his little twig cottage, watching with his bright eyes whether any schoolboys were lurking beneath his tree. "Come along, little man," I then would say in squirrel language; "true enough, I did not turn out the man I had been expected to become when at school; but, thank God! I have at least arrived so far in knowledge that I have learned to feel tender sympathy for you and yours!" We were, alas! not taught this at school in my days; we exchanged birds' eggs for old stamps; we shot small birds with guns as big as ourselves—and now let him who can come and deny the doctrine of original sin! We were cruel to animals, like all savages. To the best of my abilities do I now endeavour to expiate the wrong I was then guilty of. But an evil action never dies; and I know of bloodstains on tiny boys' fingers which have rusted to stains of shame in the childhood recollections of the man. To my humiliation I have shot many a little bird, and many another did I keep imprisoned. Regretfully do I also own to having killed a squirrel; treacherously did I plunder his home, and his little one did I imprison in just such another cage as the one we now stand in front of. See! there comes the little squirrel out from his bedroom and begins to run round and round in his wire wheel. He has made the same attempt thousands and thousands of times, and yet he makes it once again. Yes, it looks very pretty! when I used to watch my squirrel running round and round in his wire wheel in precisely the same way, and at last the wheel was turning so rapidly that I could not distinguish the bars, I thought it was capital fun. I know now why he runs; he runs in anxious longing for freedom; he runs as long as he has strength to run; for neither is he able to distinguish any more the bars of the turning wheel. He may run a mile and still he is hedged in by the same prison bars. The simple invention is almost diabolically cunning; it is the wheel of Ixion in the Tartarus of pain to which mankind has banished animals.

Here you see a Wolf from Siberia. The wolf is also, as is well known, a dangerous, wild beast. When the cold is extreme, and the snow lies very deep, the wolves approach the habitation of man, and in starving crowds they follow any sledge they meet—they have even been known in very rare cases to attack the horses. We have all read that terrible story of the Russian peasant on his way home across the deserted snow-fields; he heard the panting of the wolves behind his sledge, and he could see their eyes glitter through the darkness of the night, and in order to save his own life he had to throw one of his children to the wolves.