It was not like the air of the jungle, for it was cooler, and Nero had been used to being very hot nearly all the time. But he did not mind being a bit cool.
Nero's cage was hoisted out of the hold, the deep, black hold of the ship, and slung on a big automobile truck with some boxes and barrels. Nero was the only wild animal, and people passing along on the dock stopped to look into the big wooden cage at the tawny yellow lion who had been brought all the way from the jungle.
Away started the auto-truck, giving Nero a new kind of ride. He would much rather have walked, but of course a lion can't go about loose in the streets of New York, though they do let the elephants and camels walk in a circus parade. But Nero was not yet in a circus.
Nero looked out through the bars of his cage as he was carted through the streets of New York.
"My, this is a queer jungle!" thought the lion. "Where are the trees and the tangled vines and the snakes and monkeys and other animals? All I see are men and other queer creatures. This isn't at all like my jungle!"
And of course it was not, being a big city. There are not many places for trees in a city, you know.
So Nero cowered down in the corner of his cage until he was put in a freight car to be sent to a place called Bridgeport, Connecticut, where some circus men keep their wild animals, to train them, and have them safe during the winter when it is too cold to give shows in the big, white tents.
"Well, this is a new sort of motion," thought Nero, as the train started off. "I don't know that I like it, but still it is better than being made to turn somersaults all the while."