I dare say that there are many boys now of only the age that Jumbo was at that time, who would not be able to distinguish the difference in the music under the same circumstances.
I ought, perhaps, to tell my young readers that Jumbo has had, and even has to-day some habits that are rather babyish. I suppose you, my readers, and I have our faults and failings, like all other intelligent and instinctive animals; and one of Jumbo’s faults is that when I am out of his sight, or rather when I go away, he knows it, and if I don’t come back at regular times he always makes me aware of it, both day and night. And he is selfish, for if I am an hour or two overdue after the time he is looking for me, he commences to whine and cry, and becomes very naughty, just the same as a child crying after its mother. Not that he wants anything but my company. However, you will forgive him. Won’t you? As you remember you have done the same thing yourselves. So learn to be charitable and forgiving to others.
It was thought by the people of England that Jumbo could not be brought to see the American nation. It was held—and a good deal of pressure was brought to bear upon me, to the effect—that I should never be able to make the voyage across the Atlantic in safety with so monstrous an animal, and that the risk anyway was too great. It was also held by some that, as there were thousands of Americans coming to London every season, it was too risky a speculation or enterprise to pay, as the most of such visitors would have seen Jumbo in London.
I am sometimes tickled a bit, when I think of the tens of thousands of miles Jumbo and I have travelled in the interior of this country since we made the perilous journey of three thousand miles by sea to the American shores; and I often wonder what the people of the old country will say to me when they hear of our travels out West, North, and South, or what they will say to me when we get back to our own shores.
CHAPTER VI.
ARRANGEMENTS MADE BY MR. P. T. BARNUM, “THE GREATEST SHOWMAN ON EARTH,” TO EXHIBIT JUMBO IN THE UNITED STATES.
When, in the year 1882, Mr. P. T. Barnum, “The Greatest Showman on Earth,” had completed all arrangements for the exhibition of Jumbo to the people of the United States, I consented, after considerable persuasion, to accompany him on his voyage across the broad Atlantic, and to exhibit him to the American nation, then numbering nearly fifty millions of souls. One of the reasons which persuaded me was that I anticipated meeting again many kind old friends who had left the Old Country for the New, and had become happy and prosperous under the “starry banner.” I must confess that I was somewhat curious to see what kind of reception would be accorded Jumbo. I was not at all anxious, for I felt he would make a great sensation, but curious to see how he would be received in a strange land. I may add that I have not been disappointed. On the contrary, I and Jumbo have received the utmost courtesy, and the kindest hospitality wherever we have been, and on our great western “ten-thousand-miles tour” in the far west Jumbo has been received, applauded, and what I value most, appreciated by the free sons of toil who are clearing the finest country under the sun. The ovations have been something beyond my most sanguine expectations, and I am grateful to the American people for their reception of Jumbo.
General Tom Thumb acknowledged, when he visited us at Brockton, Mass., that Jumbo was “a bigger card” than himself. Well, this was amusing, coming from the smallest man, and yet a man who, perhaps, had the biggest record for sight-seeing on earth.