‘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.