[JUMBO.]
BY MRS. ZADEL B. GUSTAFSON.
Just at the present moment there is not, I think, in all Europe or America a personage more talked about than Jumbo. Even the Queen, who was shot at a few weeks ago by a poor crazy man, but not hurt; even the Czar, who is shut up in one of his Russian palaces for fear of being shot at, are having less said about them.
Jumbo, as I am perfectly sure you all know as well as I do, is an elephant, the biggest elephant in captivity, as gentle as he is big, and the English people, young and old, are very fond of him.
He is an African elephant, and Sir Samuel Baker, a Fellow of the Zoological Society, who knows a great deal about elephants, says that he knew Jumbo when he was a baby about four and a half feet high, and had just been captured by Arabs on the shore of the Settite River, in Abyssinia, in 1861. Now Jumbo, the pride of the English Zoo, is twenty-one years old, and measures eleven feet in height to his withers, which is the high ridge between the shoulder-blades just at the end of the neck. He is very skillful in catching buns and apples which are thrown to him by his young admirers.
A FAREWELL RIDE ON JUMBO.
Our picture of this enormous but gentle creature represents him in the act of giving a farewell ride to a party of his little friends. From this picture you will see that Jumbo's head and ears differ from those of the Indian species. His forehead is not so high and prominent; his ears are much larger, of a different and handsomer shape, while the brows are very large and full over the eyes, and the eyes themselves, when you can see them through the thick long lashes, have a really wonderful expression of intelligence and dignity. He has a long trunk, very powerful and graceful; but his tusks seem to be only roots, just showing through the skin at the sides of the face, and it is said that he has kept them worn down by rubbing them against the walls of his den.
As soon as it was known that our great American showman, Mr. Barnum, had bought Jumbo for his travelling show, Jumbo, big as he is, was in everybody's mouth, and a very great fuss was made about his own unwillingness to go. The newspapers took up the matter, and gave whole columns of talk to Jumbo. It seemed to be taken for granted that nothing more dreadful could happen to the poor beast than to fall into Mr. Barnum's hands.