“‘You weep, as if you had experienced sorrow upon sorrow,’ said Tsze-Loo.
“The woman replied, ‘It is so. My husband’s father was killed here by a tiger, and my husband also; and now my son has met the same fate.’
“Confucius asked her why she did not remove from the place, and on her answering, ‘There is here no oppressive government,’ he turned to his disciples, and said, ‘My children, remember this, oppressive government is fiercer than a tiger.’”
It takes an effort for a modern man to feel the force of the words of the sage. The tiger means so little to us, and meant so much to the weeping woman and her neighbours. Still harder is it for us to realise the primitive ignorance of the exact shape of the enemy. Even to the few backwoodsmen who have seen one dead, it soon becomes a vague recollection. The infinite terror of the beasts and the ignorance of their forms are not the less indubitable facts, because they are so far beyond our ordinary comprehension; and these are the facts that perhaps explain, so far as we [169] ]can explain, the grotesque shape of the Griffin. We must remember that our Zoos are a modern invention, almost like firearms; for two or three millenniums do not make antiquity in a world so old as ours. In the days when Griffins first took shape, whatever was the most hideous object would seem to be the best likeness of the horrid reality.
But the Zoos should let us know better now; and our writers and speakers should teach us better than to hate the beasts of prey. It is quite unnecessary. There is something coldly impartial in their war with us. They do not hate us, any more than the rocks do, or the icebergs. Red, “red in tooth and in claw,” they remain unconscious instruments of Fate, and serve to stiffen us. If they kill us, it is in self-defence or for food. There is no wanton cruelty; but there is no mercy. There are surprises, but no treachery. Even the French do not feel themselves betrayed, when it is the wolves that win. There is no sentimental humbug about this war; but also, no excuse for ferocity.
I never visit a Zoo and see the poor prisoners behind the bars without hearing, with the mind’s ears, a greeting, an appeal for pity, as if the poor big cats were really saying what they can only symbol in silence.
“Look at and pity us! You will not have such [170] ]cats to look at long. Lions and tigers, leopards and jaguars, the species now all perishing salute ye, O men!
“We are neither grotesque nor hideous, neither wicked nor cowardly, neither cruel nor treacherous. We are merely cats. We had to live in the only way for which we were adapted.
“The war between you and us is nearly over now. It has lasted long, but the end is at hand. The world is lost to us big cats, and we are passing away, on the wings of the wind....
“Woe, woe to the conquered!!!...