Lady O—— told us many amusing details of the Harem, which I reserve till we meet, that I may not exhaust all my resources.
Many things in Persia seem to be very agreeable, many the very reverse; among them the scorpions and insects.
These things we are free from in our temperate climates. Let us all therefore be contented in them; a wish which I cordially form for you and me.
Your L——.
LETTER XXI.
London, Dec. 16, 1827.
Dear Julia,
After writing some verses in the W—— album, in which Arabian steeds, Timour’s magnificence, Cecil, Elizabeth, and the fair beauties of Teheran, met in agreeable confusion, I took leave of my kind hosts, and returned to London. The same evening L—— took me to a singular exhibition.
In a suburb, a good German mile from my lodging, we entered a sort of barn; dirty, with no other ceiling than the rough roof, through which the moon peeped here and there. In the middle was a boarded place, about twelve feet square, surrounded by a strong wooden breastwork: round this was a gallery filled with the lowest vulgar and with perilous-looking faces of both sexes. A ladder led up to a higher gallery, for the patrician part of the spectators, which was let out at three shillings a seat. There was a strange contrast between the ‘local’ and a crystal lustre hanging from one of the balks of the roof lighted with thick wax candles: as well as between the ‘fashionables’ and the populace among whom they were scattered, who—the latter I mean—were continually offering and taking bets of from twenty to fifty pounds. The subject of these was a fine terrier, the illustrious Billy, who pledged himself to the public to kill a hundred rats in ten minutes. As yet the arena was empty, and there was an anxious, fearful pause; while in the lower gallery huge pots of beer circulated from mouth to mouth, and tobacco smoke ascended in dense clouds. At length appeared a strong man, bearing a sack, looking like a sack of potatoes, but in fact containing the hundred live rats. These he set at liberty in one moment by untying the knot, scattered them about the place, and rapidly made his retreat into a corner. At a given signal Billy rushed in, and set about his murderous work with incredible fury. As soon as a rat lay lifeless, Billy’s faithful esquire picked him up and put him in the sack; among these some might be only senseless, or perhaps there might be some old practitioners who feigned themselves dead at the first bite. However, be that as it may, Billy won in nine minutes and a quarter, according to all the watches; in which time a hundred dead, or apparently dead, rats were replaced in their old quarters—the sack. This was the first act. In the second, the heroic Billy, (who was greeted with the continual shouts of an enraptured audience,) fought with a badger. Each of the combatants had a second, who held him by the tail. Only one bite or gripe was allowed; then they were separated, and immediately let loose again. Billy had always the best of it, and the poor badger’s ears streamed with blood. In this combat, too, Billy was bound to seize the badger fast in a certain number of minutes,—I don’t recollect how many. This he accomplished in brilliant style, but retired at last greatly exhausted.
The amusements ended with bear-baiting, in which the bear treated some dogs extremely ill, and seemed to suffer little himself. It was evident through the whole, that the managers were too chary of their animals to expose them in earnest; I therefore, as I said, suspected from the beginning some hidden talents for representation—even in the rats.