The wild-beast tamer then motioned me away from the serpent cages, and we went to those of their cousins, the crocodiles and alligators. We passed by an aviary of very great size, where parrots and other beautifully plumed birds chattered, laughed, quarrelled, and made love in a long, ear-piercing enjoyment of their captivity; and further on we came to a large tank, in which were slowly paddling round some spiteful-looking alligators—huge-jawed, soulless-eyed, each one a waiting, watching destroyer of life.
KARL HAGENBECK’S FATHER AND HIS FIRST SHOW IN BERLIN.
We looked at them for a little while, and then Mr. Hagenbeck said: “Once I had to pack sixteen of these fellows up for the Düsseldorf Zoölogical Gardens. I grappled hold of the first one and was pulling him ashore, when he gave me a frightful blow with his tail 221 and knocked me into the tank, where, for a brief moment, I was alone with fifteen alligators. Those who were standing by told me that as soon as I splashed in a number of them made a rush, but I was out again like an India-rubber ball. The swirl of the water and the open jaws of the disappointed beasts told me that I had not been one second too smart. This was a very narrow escape, as, if one of the crocodiles had happened to get hold of me, all the rest would have attacked me, snapping and biting at me at one and the same moment, until there would have been little, if anything, left of me at all. They are the most determined fighters even amongst themselves. Six of them, each about fourteen feet long, had a fight amongst themselves once, and so desperately did they set to, that within fourteen days they were all dead. Three of them had their jaws broken, and in some cases their legs were torn right out of their bodies. This occurred at night, and one of the keepers, happening to hear the frightful noise which was made by the clashing of their jaws, rushed off to tell me what was happening. We lit our lanterns and hurried to the scene of action, but, beyond trying to separate them with long poles, it was little we could do. When we managed to part them for a time they only renewed the fight with greater fierceness than ever, and so terribly were they wounded, that, as I said, they were all dead in a fortnight. Nowadays, when I get a new consignment of alligators I always muzzle them for four days with a rope. They then calm down, and I cut the rope off; otherwise, if I did not do that they would begin fighting as soon as they came out of the box, for the first sight of day-light after the long journey always seems to excite them. A fight amongst the snakes, also, is a terrible thing. I had once five big pythons in one cage. One of the keepers flung a dead rabbit amongst them, and two of them, being very hungry, attacked it at once. At the same moment the other four flew for the prey, and in one moment all the six were in one big writhing lump. The keepers fetched me, and I at once attempted to uncoil them. I succeeded, but hardly had I done so when the fight began again between the first two. The larger one threw his tail round the small one’s neck and squeezed it with such force against the wall that it lost all power. Then the bigger snake got hold of the rabbit and swallowed it, after which it gradually loosened its hold of the smaller snake. The little one then sought revenge, and flew at the big python, which was rendered almost helpless by its huge meal, bit it in the back, coiled round and round it, 222 and squeezed it till it could hardly breathe, although it screamed as I had never heard any living creature scream before. The funny thing was that when I went to see them next morning they were all right and perfectly good friends.
“Talking of fights, I was once turned out of bed at one o’clock in the morning by one of my keepers, who came in with the news that the big kangaroo had jumped a six-foot fence into the next stable, in which there was a large hippopotamus. When I came down there was the queerest kind of a duel going on. The kangaroo stood up to his belly in water, whilst the hippopotamus, with wide-open jaws, snapped at him right and left. However, the kangaroo managed to ‘get in’ a good right and left with his front legs, and scratched the hippopotamus in the face tremendously. When the amphibian came to close quarters, the kangaroo jumped up, gave him a tremendous blow with his hind legs, and then managed to get on to dry land. I caught the kangaroo with a big net, and after all the fighting there wasn’t so very much harm done.”