My father used to go himself to hunt most of the animals in which he dealt—a laborious kind of occupation, which I, in my turn, learnt to follow, whilst accompanying him on his expeditions—sometimes to the coast of China—sometimes to the jungles of the Isle of Hainan, so prolific in wild animals—sometimes as far as Japan, in spite of the obstacles and perils of a navigation bravely undertaken in barques of slender construction, spite of the Malay pirates—those veritable sharks, who swallow everything that crosses their path; and spite of the cruel punishments which used formerly to await those whom the Chinese and Japanese chanced to find trespassing on their sacred territories.
My father was in the habit of bringing back from those distant expeditions—and later I had the satisfaction of bringing back with him—panthers, tigers, boas, leopards, and, above all, innumerable varieties of apes. It was during one of our last hunting expeditions in the Island of Formosa that my father, assailed by a young tiger, which he was on the point of enveloping in a net so as to capture it alive, had half a shoulder and a portion of a thigh carried off by a blow of the brute’s paw. I had the gratification of defending him and protecting him from the further rage of the furious creature; and had, moreover, the satisfaction of carrying him back with me to Macao, though I had not the happiness of seeing him live. Badly tended by the doctors of the country, he languished for a couple of years with wounds which they did not know how to cicatrise, and died at length after undergoing the most frightful sufferings. Just before he drew his last breath in my arms, he begged of me not to continue in his profession. I promised him I would not; but as he had left me nothing else to live upon and to support my poor mother, and as, to speak frankly, I had no taste for any other kind of pursuit, I was compelled to break my promise. You will see from the tale which you are about to peruse the fearful punishment I brought upon myself by so doing.
I stuck, then, to my father’s business, and, in order to prove to the valuable connection acquired by long years of good and loyal management how anxious I was to carry it on with energy, I increased the number of my examples of rare animals, and sent afar experienced hunters charged to bring back with them, to the latitudes of the Indies, specimens hitherto unknown. Being satisfied by long experience that luxury dazzled the eye, and consequently attracted the attention of buyers, I set to work to renovate the interior of my bazaar. Bronze and gilding were had recourse to, to relieve the too apparent simplicity of my cages. An English cleanliness reigned throughout all parts of the establishment, which, in the evening, I lighted up with gas, a dazzling novelty in those days for Macao.
Here I ought to mention a singular trait in my character. I was remarkably fond of animals at first, by reason of my benevolent organisation; afterwards, as a natural result of the unremitting study which I had been obliged to make of their forms, features, movements, customs, manners, instincts, passions, and intelligence; their sympathies and antipathies; their caprices, maladies, and affinity, more or less expressed with man, with a thousand other attributes essentially belonging to their nature, which is perhaps still more obscure and mysterious than our own.
I had pushed my observations so far on those particular beings with whom it is now-a-days maintained we have a certain affinity, that I could easily recognise among them those whose instinctive dispositions corresponded in a measure with our own, and who would have become, for example, barristers, if any such profession as that of the Bar existed amongst apes, for they were always gesticulating, haranguing, and arguing. I recognised again such as would have been doctors, among those who were continually occupying themselves with the physical condition of their fellows, examining their tongues, their throats, and the inside of their eyes; others who would certainly have become comedians, for they were perpetually making grimaces, and playing and dancing from morning to night; others again who would have made first-rate astronomers, for they invariably arranged themselves so as to have the sun always shining on the tips of their noses. I recognised, moreover, with a similar infallibility, those who possessed a taste for commerce, apes who made a point of collecting together all the fruit and corn which fell from the negligent hands of their fellows, and of piling it up in a corner. In like manner I distinguished the misers, the spendthrifts, the madcaps, the bullies, the good fathers and mothers, the mothers given to flirting, and the incorrigibly bad sons; and particularly thieves of every shade, from the sharper moving in good society, who cheats at the card-table, to the more daring robber who takes to the highway. I should have said of the one, “Here is an ape who would loll in his carriage if he had only a white cravat;” of the other, that “he would be safe to be hung if he only happened to wear a coat.”
As apes are far more saleable animals when their natural talent for imitation is developed by the aid of education, I made a point of putting most of those in my collection through a course of instruction, the object of which was to render them more attractive and engaging in the eyes of intending purchasers. I taught them, for instance, to throw somersaults, to jump through hoops, to dance, to play the tambourine, to march, to fence, and to salute in approved military style. Many among them, I admit, were unwilling scholars, and chafed and fretted under the tuition they received; some so much so, indeed, that, as is commonly the case with members of the human family, they could only be persuaded to prosecute their studies by the lively fear of a little wholesome correction. All this, however, arose simply from their not knowing so well as I did what was really for their own advantage.
Spite of the many little tiffs which arose between us in our several capacities of master and scholars, I conceived, in my character of naturalist, painter, doctor, philosopher, and instructor, far more than in my character of merchant, a strong liking for my boarders. I succeeded, by my powers of penetration, in reading in their eyes their desires, wants, and thoughts, and almost ended by conversing with them. In this psychological study I should, without doubt, have attained a height unknown to the most skilful naturalists of our grand European museums, if the fatal accident through which my poor father lost his life had not all at once put an end to my passion for animals. After this unfortunate calamity it was impossible for me not to see in each animal of my collection an accomplice of the tiger which had deprived my parent of existence. This antipathy, day by day growing stronger, caused me at first to neglect the brutes, and afterwards to punish them with far more severity than I had hitherto been accustomed to exhibit towards them. They soon perceived this, since animals have stronger instincts perhaps than men, and thereupon they repaid me with hatred and spite for the rigour with which I ordinarily treated them. They became wicked and vindictive; and I, on my part, became only the more inflexible. A struggle commenced between us, which was carried to a point when I was no longer able to rule them except by threats and red-hot bars of iron.
This was the result; if, in order to punish and to tame them, I no longer allowed any one among them to leave his cage, I was obliged from motives of prudence to refrain from entering any of their dens. On both sides there was a permanent state of anger and hostility, and I must say there was no end to the wicked tricks they played me. The last one they were guilty of was of so cruel, and indeed terrible a character, that if I were to pass it over in silence, the origin of my prodigious troubles would be rendered in a great measure unintelligible. One alone was guilty of this deed, though all were in a degree parties to it by reason of their undisguised animosity towards me.
Vice-Admiral Campbell, who at that time was commander of the English naval station in Oceania, was in the habit, every time he touched at Macao, of visiting my bazaar, and of making purchases for his aviaries and ship menageries of such things as parroquets, birds from the Island of Lugon, or tame tigers, which served to amuse him during his passage from one island to another, and throughout the long anchorages he was occasionally compelled to make up some wearisome and disagreeable inlet.
I may here say a few words on the importance of the English stations in the Chinese and Australian seas. The object of these—which, by the way, is not always attained—is to protect the lives and properties of Europeans from the descents of Chinese and Malay pirates, a numerous and terrible race. These formidable sea-serpents, who are to Oceania what the Algerians were in former times to the Mediterranean, recognise no authority under heaven—neither that of the Emperor of China, backed by his mandarins; nor that of the sultans who reign over some few large islands, like Borneo and Mindanao; nor even that of the English and Dutch viceroys, representatives of powerful nations, it is true, but who find considerable difficulty in making their flags respected in these distant seas.