London possesses two scenes of popular enjoyment on a great scale, in its British Museum and its Zoological Gardens. In the former, the glance is sent over the life of antiquity; in the latter, over that of the present time in the kingdom of nature; and in both may the Englishman enjoy a view of England’s power and greatness, because it is the spirit of England which has compelled Egypt and Greece to remove hither their gods, their heroic statues: it is England whose courageous sons at this present moment force their way into the interior of Africa, that mysterious native land of miracles and of the leviathan; it is an Englishman who held in his hand snow from the clefts of the remote Mountains of the Moon; it is England which has aroused that ancient Nineveh from her thousands of years of sleep in the desert; England which has caused to arise from their graves, and to stand forth beneath the sky of England, those witnesses of the life and art of antiquity which are known under the name of the Nineveh Marbles, those magnificent but enigmatical figures which are called the Nineveh Bulls, in the immense wings of which one cannot but admire the fine artistic skill of the workmanship, and from the beautiful human countenances of which glances oriental despotism with eyes—such as those with which King Ahasuerus might have gazed on the beautiful Esther, when she sank fainting before the power of that glance. They have an extraordinary expression—these countenances of Nineveh, so magnificent, so strong, and at the same time, so joyous—a something about them so valiant and so joyously commanding! It was an expression which surprised me, and which I could not rightly comprehend. It would be necessary for me to see them yet again before I could fully satisfy myself whether this inexpressible, proudly, joyous glance is one of wisdom or of stupidity! I could almost fancy it might be the latter, when I contemplate the expression of gentle majesty in the head of the Grecian Jupiter. Nevertheless, whether it be wisdom or stupidity—these representations of ancient Nineveh have a real grandeur and originality about them. Were they then representatives of life there? Was life there thus proud and joyous, thus unconscious of trouble, care, or death, thus valiant, and without all arrogance? Had it such eyes? Ah! and yet it has lain buried in the sand of the desert, lain forgotten there many thousand years. And now, when they once more look up with those large, magnificent eyes, they discover another world around them, another Nineveh which cannot understand what they would say. Thus proudly might Nineveh have looked when the prophet uttered above her his “wo!” Such a glance does not accord with the life of earth.
In comparison with these latest discovered but most ancient works of art, the Egyptian statues fall infinitely short, bearing evidence of a degraded, sensual humanity, and the same as regarded art. But neither of these, nor of the Elgin marbles, nor of many other treasures of art in the British Museum, which testify at the same time to the greatness of foregone ages, and to the power of the English world conquering intelligence, shall I say any thing, because time failed me rightly to observe them, and the Nineveh marbles almost bewitched me by their contemplation.
It is to me difficult to imagine a greater pleasure than that of wandering through these halls, or than by a visit to the Zoological Garden which lies on one side of the Regent’s Park. I would willingly reside near this park for a time, that I might again and again wander about in this world of animals from all zones, and listen to all that they have to relate, ice-bears and lions, turtles and eagles, the ourang-outang and the rhinoceros! The English Zoological Garden, although less fortunate in its locality than the Jardin des Plantes in Paris, is much richer as regards animals. That which at this time attracted hither most visitors was the new guest of the garden, a so-called river-horse or hippopotamus, lately brought hither from Upper Egypt, where it was taken when young. It was yet not full grown, and had here its own keeper—an Arab—its own house, its own court, its own reservoir to bathe and swim in! Thus it lived in a really princely hippopotamus fashion. I saw his highness ascend out of his bath in a particularly good humor, and he looked to me like an enormous—pig, with an enormously broad snout. He was very fat, smooth, and gray, and awkward in his movements, like the elephant. Long-necked giraffes walked about, feeding from wooden racks in the court adjoining that of the hippopotamus, and glancing at us across it. One can scarcely imagine a greater contrast than in these animals.
The eagles sat upon crags placed in a row beneath a lofty transparent arch of iron work, an arrangement which seemed to me excellent, and which I hope seemed so to them, in case they could forget that they were captives. Here they might breathe, here spread out their huge wings, see the free expanse of heaven, and the sun, and build habitations for themselves upon the rock. On the contrary, the lions, leopards, and such like noble beasts of the desert, seemed to me particularly unhappy in their iron-grated stone vaults; and their perpetual, uneasy walking backward and forward in their cages—I could not see that without a feeling of distress. How beautiful they must be in the desert, or amid tropical woods, or in the wild caverns of the mountains, those grand, terrific beasts—how fearfully beautiful! One day I saw these animals during their feeding time. Two men went round with wooden vessels filled with pieces of raw meat; these were taken up with a large, iron-pronged fork, and put, or rather flung, through the iron grating into the dens. It was terrible to see the savage joy, the fury, with which the food was received and swallowed down by the beasts. Three pieces of meat were thrown into one great vault which was at that time empty, a door was then drawn up at the back of the vault, and three huge yellow lions with shaggy manes rushed roaring in, and at one spring each possessed himself of his piece of flesh. One of the lions held his piece between his teeth for certainly a quarter of an hour, merely growling and gloating over it in savage joy, whilst his flashing eyes glared upon the spectators, and his tail was swung from side to side with an expression of defiance. It was a splendid, but a fearful sight. One of my friends was accustomed sometimes to visit these animals in company with his little girl, a beautiful child, with a complexion like milk and cherries. The sight of her invariably produced great excitement in the lions. They seemed evidently to show their love to her in a ravenous manner.
The serpents were motionless in their glass house, and lay, half asleep, curled around the trunks of trees. In the evening, by lamp light, they become lively, and then, twisting about and flashing forth their snaky splendors, they present a fine spectacle. The snake-room, with its walls of glass, behind which the snakes live, reminded me of the old northern myth of Nastrond, the roof of which was woven of snakes’ backs, the final home of the ungodly—an unpleasant, but vigorous picture. The most disagreeable and ugliest of all the snakes, was that little snake which the beautiful Queen Cleopatra, herself false as a serpent, placed at her breast; a little, gray, flat-headed snake, which liked to bury itself in the sand.
The monkey-family lead a sad life; stretch out their hands for nuts or for bread, with mournful human gestures; contentious, beaten, oppressed, thrust aside, frightening one another, the stronger the weaker—mournfully human also.
Sad, also, was the sight of an ourang-outang, spite of all its queer grimaces, solitary in its house, for it evidently suffered ennui, was restless, and would go out. It embraced its keeper and kissed him with real human tenderness. The countenance, so human, yet without any human intelligence, made a painful impression upon me: so did the friendly, tame creature here, longing for its fellows, and seeing around it only human beings. Thou poor animal! Fain would I have seen thee in the primeval woods of Africa, caressing thy wife in the clear moonlight of the tropical night, sporting with her among the branches of the trees, and sleeping upon them, rocked by the warm night wind. There thy ugliness would have had a sort of picturesque beauty. After the strange beast-man had climbed hither and thither along the iron railing, seizing the bars with his hands, and feet—which resembled hands—and also with his teeth, he took a white, woolen blanket, wrapped it around him in a very complicated manner, and ended by laying himself down as a human being might do, in his chilly, desolate room. They say that he will not live long in this country.[[4]]
After this, all the more charming was the spectacle presented by the waterfowl from every zone. Ducks, Swans, and Co., all quite at home here, swimming in the clear waters, among little green islands on which they had their little huts. It was most charmingly pretty and complete. And the mother-duck with her little, lively, golden-yellow flock, swimming neck and heels after her, or seeking shelter under her wings, is—at all times—one of the most lovely scenes of natural life—resembling humanity in a beautiful manner.
Even among the wild beasts I saw a beautiful human trait of maternal affection. A female leopard had in her cage two young cubs, lively and playful as puppies. When the man threw the flesh into her cage, she drew herself back, and let the young ones first seize upon the piece.
Crows from all parts of the world here live together in one neighborhood, and that the clattering and laughter was loud here did not surprise me, neither that the European crows so well maintained their place among their fellows. That which, however, astonished and delighted me was, the sweet, flute-like, melodious tones of the Australian crow. In the presence of this crow from Paradise—for originally it must have come therefrom—it seemed to me that all the other crows ought to have kept silence with their senseless chattering. But they were nothing but crows, and they liked better to hear themselves.