But at first there was nothing else to see, and Singh turned impatiently to his companion, and said: “When does the procession begin?”
“Why, that’s the procession,” said a small boy close to him, taking the answer upon himself. “The wild beasts are inside. Didn’t you know?” And then he proceeded to display his own knowledge. “They draw all the vans up in a square,” he began excitedly, “out there in the home-field behind the ‘King’s Arms,’ and then they open the sides of the vans, which are like great shutters on hinges at the top and bottom, so that when they are opened one shutter falls down and covers the wheels, and the other is pulled up, leaving the side all iron bars. Don’t you see? Then, instead of being vans, they are turned into dens and cages.”
“Is that so?” said Singh quietly.
“Oh, I suppose so,” replied Glyn. “I have never seen one of these affairs; but it seems a very reasonable way for building up a place all dens and cages in very short time.”
“Oh, look here!” cried another of the boys. “Here’s a game! Look at that nigger!”
Singh started as if he had been stung, and was about to turn furiously upon the boy, under the impression that he was the nigger in question; but at the same moment he caught sight of a full-blooded, woolly-headed West Coast African leading a very large camel by a rope, the great ungainly beast mincing and blinking as it gently put down, one after the other, its soft, spongy feet, which seemed to spread out on the gravelled road, while their high-shouldered owner kept on turning its bird-like head from side to side, muttering and whining discontentedly, as if objecting to be seen by such an elongated crowd, and murmuring against being made the one visible object of the show.
The camel was not an attractive creature, for, in addition to its natural peculiarities of shape, it was the time of year for shedding its long hairy coat, and this was hanging in ragged ungainly locks and flakes all along its flanks and about its loping, unhealthy-looking hump.
This was something to look at, and the excited boys shouted, cheered, and gave forth remark after remark such as must have been painful to the dignity of the melancholy-looking beast, which kept on turning its half-closed, plaintive-looking eyes at the noisy groups, wincing and seeming to protest against the unkindly and insulting remarks.
“Oh, I say, isn’t he a beauty?” cried one.
“Yes; it’s just like a four-legged bird,” shouted another.