This Garden is approached up a steep hill. It is not pretty, but contains some good animals. Passing through a large café, we come to the entrance-gate (fifty pfennig), and find on the left a large bird-of-prey aviary. This is followed by a pen containing a herd of American bison, one cow having a calf at her heels. In a large Oriental house are a fine Indian elephant, some pigmy cattle, and a tapir. Opposite is a monkey house, containing a pair of most amusing chimpanzees. There they sat at two school-desks, quietly picking their noses. Anthropoid apes are almost human; they make such a business of doing nothing.
In another house was a pair of white-tailed gnus (how restless and timid these animals are!), a pair of black bucks, and a zebra. Then a deer enclosure follows. In a house devoted to the smaller cats are some good specimens, notably, several servals, caracals, and a beautifully marked ocelot, a genet from South Europe, and an ichneumon from South Africa.
According to the labels on the cages, one might imagine that there were thousands of animals in Cape Colony, but this is not so at the present day. South Africa means, probably, anywhere south of the Zambesi, which is a totally different thing. Opposite a large open space occupied by rows of seats was a big circular cage, containing Fräulein Clair Heliot’s performing lions, and a magnificent lot of animals they are. I made the acquaintance of this charming lady, and she told me a great number of interesting facts about her pets. To see the lady enter the cage in a smart print dress and a picture hat and kiss and caress each huge lion in turn is a wonderful sight. I have a great admiration for anyone who possesses such love of, and power over, the brute creation. So often one sees lions skulk away in terror from the lion-tamer. Not one of Clair Heliot’s lions was in the least afraid of her, showing plainly that what she had taught them was taught with the greatest kindness. It was a sight to see a parrot or a monkey come to this lady when she called it. All the animals in the Garden knew and loved her.
BRINDLED GNU, STUTTGART.
It is curious that we in England make so few pets of animals. We have, of course, cats, dogs, and horses, but we go little further. I do not mean to say that every lady should have her pet lion about her, but there are other pets quite as dear and quite as affectionate as the horse, dog, and cat.
Besides Clair Heliot’s lions, there was a permanent lion house, containing a pair of lions, a pair of tigers, and a particularly fine jaguar.
There is a cool underground aquarium well worth the penny extra they charge for admission. The tanks have sea and fresh water pumped continuously into them by a gas engine. Here is to be seen a beautiful collection of fish: trout, lobsters, eels, carp, flat-fish, cray-fish, king-crabs, dog-fish; some beautiful sea-anemones, a large number of sea-horses (most fascinating to watch), tortoises, a salamander from Japan, and a tiny seal in a tank and pretty grotto. We next come to some crane pens and duck-ponds, chamois among some rocks, a number of ostriches, and the inevitable herd of Shetland ponies.
CHAPTER XXVII
ZOOLOGISCHER GARTEN, FRANKFORT-ON-MAIN: DIRECTOR, D. SEITZ