Wild beasts

by J. Hampden Porter

Forks, for instance, those queer talons that were picked up and laid down, excited his curiosity. He examined them, he ate from one with propriety, their glitter attracted him, but he did not understand the rationale of such devices, and their use never failed to fix his attention. Moreover, on occasions when the amenities of social intercourse were in order, he was peaceable enough; not affable by any means, for he never noticed the attendants or appeared to be conscious of their presence. Smoking afforded this observant creature much satisfaction. Smoke itself, if puffed in his face, displeased him, but the preliminaries, striking a match, and the wreaths that floated away and vanished, all this he liked and pondered upon, as he did on certain pictures hung around, and everything that for reasons which can only be guessed at, excited wonder. Professor Prantl lays down the law that a beast cannot think logically; nevertheless, and apart from other facts which refute that decision, it was perfectly plain that Gato solved some problems implying this power. After a course of observations and experiments, it was discovered by him that shadows were not alive because they moved, and then these ceased to be pursued. Much study was requisite to arrive at a conclusion that the sunbeams reflected from a mirror were of the same inanimate nature. This was settled to his satisfaction only after great research. The creature saw this thing done time and again before convincing himself of the resemblance between those luminous shadows and the dark spectra which had formerly deceived him.

Gato grew graver with age, and abandoned many amusements in which he had at one time taken delight. It seemed to his guardian that there was a steady development of his intellect, which showed itself in everything he did. It would be too much to say that he was capable of thinking about his own thoughts, but who shall decide that he was not? With consciousness, memory, and a strong sense of personal identity; filled with innate tendencies, through the medium of which he interpreted external impressions; prone to contemplations that, as his eye and changing attitudes indicated, were not vague, apathetic dreams, no one can know that he did not revive mental states and meditate on centrically initiated ideas.

Personally, and so far as mere individual opinion unsupported by proof goes, the conviction in his friend’s mind is that he did. Often, as with all cats, his brain was torpid. Unconscious cerebration, no doubt, went on, but only dim, transient images floated into the field of consciousness, and fragmentary, isolated, shadow-like pictures of outward things were presented to the “mind’s eye.” It was plain enough when he was in this semi-somnolent condition, and the difference between it and the active exercise of faculty upon something within himself, was unmistakable. He thought, but how, and about what? In his realm of that ideal world so little of which has been explored by man, subjective processes transpired such as we have no clue to and no measure for. The contents of mind, however, must be derivations from experience in a wild beast as much as in a human being. What he had observed, seen, felt, and remembered in that form which his own organization conferred, were manifested characteristically: that is to say, when vivid imaginations excited, or external sense-notices aroused him, the beast of prey awoke at once. The same most likely, or rather, most certainly, must have been true of all mental conditions, but while the animal remained impassive, the fact was indiscernible. When this savage warrior lay before his companion’s arm-chair, and looked straight in his eyes with fixed intensity, calling to mind, perhaps, the things he knew about this man, it was natural that recollections of trainers’ confidences, accounts given by travellers and hunters, one’s own experiences, the many superstitions of civilized and savage peoples, should suggest ideas which had a tendency to color and distort observation upon the part of his vis-à-vis.

No one, however, who was not under the influence of a fixed prejudice, could have looked into Gato’s unfaltering orbs and seen there any confirmation of the common belief that brutes such as he are only restrained by fear; or that they have an instinctive sense of reverence and awe in the presence of human beings. All the respect this one felt for his guardian he learned. Besides that, he had superstitions concerning him. In maturity his great size, and reports of the wisdom he had attained to, made the animal famous, so that many persons desired to see him—that is, through the grating at his door. But strangers found no favor with this misanthropist, and he disliked being stared at. Thus, after regarding such intruders with a stern countenance, and taking no notice of his friend under these degrading circumstances, he affected to be unconscious that anybody was there, or else deliberately turned his back upon the visitors. For a time it was supposed that this mark of contempt occurred accidentally. Gato could have had no conception of the significance of this act as it is understood in civilized society, but he did it for reasons of his own, and at length quite evidently on purpose.

As was said, curiosity, which is always indicative of mental development, was an unusually prominent trait in his character. There were numbers of things to which he paid no attention, but when an act attracted his notice and was constantly performed, it appeared to require investigation, and he applied himself to the subject in a manner quite different from that superior air with which ordinary matters were regarded. Books amazed Gato. Nothing could be made out with regard to them by means of scent or sight: they were dead apparently, and not fit to eat. What was in them that never came out? Why should they be watched so closely? This question he never found any satisfactory answer to, and one might see that it often perplexed him. When he was little, reading made him jealous, and he put his paws on the page and invited his friend to play. This mysterious occupation lost its novelty in time, and the desire to romp passed away, but frequently in after days when he observed his companion turn towards the bookcase and get up, he escorted him to the shelves, scrutinized the way in which he looked for a volume, or turned over the leaves of several, and went back to see if anything was at last coming to light about this strange and constant occupation.

Gato resolutely refused to learn English. Why he preferred Spanish, no one knows, but he did, and would only respond to communications made in that tongue. Habit and association had much to do with this, no doubt, but there is reason to think that a distaste for our vernacular was one of the many prejudices which, in a measure, detracted from those qualities which embellished his character. His guardian discoursed to him at length; taught him to do and leave undone numerous things, but had to use the only idiom his pupil chose to acquire any knowledge of. If he were called in English, the perverse creature would not come. He stood and stared like an obstinate child. More than this, if he understood, as no doubt he sometimes did, and even wanted to do what was commanded, but could not, because he had made up his mind never to do anything unless spoken to properly, he got angry. There is no doubt in the writer’s mind that this is a fact, and that the prejudice referred to existed. Force might have been resorted to, of course, but that would have had the effect of deforming his nature after every effort had been made to leave it to its natural expansion, except in so far as its tendencies were prevented from expressing themselves in homicidal acts.

Langworthy, “the lion-tamer,” as the posters called him, used to say that feline beasts, after coming to know one, were infallible physiognomists, but that they had to learn a face before being able to understand its expressions; also that they only read the signs of anger and fear, and never looked for anything else, not caring about approval or kindness, because all the great cats were destitute of affection. Lions, tigers, leopards, and the rest, he believed, scrutinized the countenance chiefly to see if a man were afraid. If so, no assumed look could conceal the fact, and they instantly became dangerous. Privately he scouted the idea that there was any power to overawe animals in one person rather than another, and held that the sole difference between men in this respect depended upon quickness of observation, and especially upon fearlessness.

In the main this squares with what is known of comparative psychology, and of the Felidæ in particular. But like most sweeping assertions upon beasts or men, it is not wholly accurate. Many animals are exceedingly vain, nearly or possibly quite as much so as savage men, and vainer they could not be. Now this trait is inseparable from a desire for praise, and although it is no more necessary to feel any respect or affection for the persons who gratify this longing, than it is to love people because they are able to excite jealousy, creatures with such a disposition will always solicit approbation, and be pleased when it is accorded. Certainly this was the case with Gato, who was fond of display, and delighted in being noticed and admired; who did many things for the express purpose of being praised, and claimed commendation as plainly as if he had been able to speak.

The faces of brutes, similarly with those of human races which differ greatly in appearance from the observer, at first all look alike. But afterwards one begins to discriminate, and finally distinguishes differences between them, and changes in the same individual at different times. While Gato lay by the fountain listening to the wind murmur through the great tamarind boughs that shaded him, heard the water fall, saw the fleecy trade-wind clouds sail slowly overhead, and was evidently neither asleep nor lethargic, but keenly observant of every sight and sound, how easy would it have been to fit his reflections to the scene; “to opine probably and prettily,” as Bacon expresses it, and provide the chained savage with poetic resignation, or indignant sorrow, to make him feel and think in forms as far from reality as the vapors that floated above him were far from being the substantial masses they seemed. Such writings, eloquent and interesting as they often are, do a positive disservice to science. Think, he did: that was to be seen in the eye that softened or grew stern; in its far-away or introverted expression, or quick scrutinizing glance; in the smoothed or corrugated brow, the quivering, contracted, or placid lips; in attitudes indefinably expressive, and variations of his ensemble that cannot be described.

How should human insight penetrate this underworld of the intellect? All things definite there were transmigrations of his own experiences under the stress of heredity. What was emotional, unformed, and yet operative, was the bequest of a wild and free ancestry that sent down their tendencies and traits, gave him his organization, and, with a certainty as inevitable as death, stamped everything that he could think or feel with their “own form and impress.” His ideas were reproductions; his emotions rose into consciousness from unknown depths. The latter set him upon the verge of what his predecessors realized, vaguely revealed their past, prompted those unrecognizable half-memories that are born with every being, prepared him for possibilities from which captivity cut him off, stirred his heart, and made life and the earth all that they were or could be to him.