STORY OF A LION.
When Smith's Circus and Menagerie Combination Company went to Utica James Rounders was a lusty fellow of twenty, of some natural sagacity, and no school education. An interest in wild beasts had been developing in him for several years, and the odor of sawdust had become grateful to his nostrils. It was, however, only one kind of wild beast with which he was especially occupied. The quadruped of the noble aspect, stately gait, and tremendous roar—the lion—was the animal of Rounders's predilection and the object of his study.
He had gotten together some leading facts—so far as the stories of lion-killers may be regarded as such—concerning his favorite animal. He had heard how a lion had galloped off from the suburbs of the Cape of Good Hope with a two years' old heifer in his mouth, and jumped over a hedge twelve feet high, taking his burden over with him. In the same region of southern Africa another lion was seen bearing off a horse at a canter, the neck in his mouth and the body slung behind across his back. According to one who hunted the animal in the interior of Africa, a lion one day sprang on an ox, his hind feet on the quarters, his fore feet about the horns, and drew the head backward with such force as to break the back of the animal. On another occasion the same hunter saw a lion who took a heifer in his mouth, and though its legs trailed on the ground, he carried it off as a cat would a rat, and jumped across a wide ditch without difficulty. These accounts of the lion's strength were articles of faith with James Rounders. He had been told that the royal Bengal tiger of Asia was the equal in strength, if not the superior, of the African lion, he having been known to smash the head of a bullock by a single blow of his paw; but this Rounders did not believe.
He read with some difficulty, moving his lips as he did so, in order to get the matter clearly before his mind. He regarded it as a laborious task, and would sooner have chopped a cord of wood than read for half an hour. Notwithstanding the irksomeness of reading, there were two books which led him conscientiously through their pages to the end—those of Gordon Cumming and Jules Gérard on the hunting and killing of lions. The two volumes comprised his library, and furnished his mind with all the literary nutriment which it required.
Rounders went to the opening performance of Smith's Circus and Menagerie Combination Company. The ground leading up to the front of the canvas was garnished in the usual way. There were two small parasitic tents near the great one, on which primitive pictures hung of the woman of enormous girth and the calf with six legs. A man stood at the flap entrance of each, inviting people to enter and see these wonders of nature for a moderate sum. Near by was the lemonade wagon, whose proprietor was handing out glasses of his fluid with a briskness that showed that many were athirst.
When he entered the great tent the brass band was blowing blatantly, four cavaliers in rusty spangles and four dowdy women were riding round the ring, going through the old-time preliminary called the grand entry; for whatever else may change, the circus remains faithful to its traditions. The Yorick of the sawdust soon followed, and said the things which convulsed us with laughter in our tender years, and which cause us to smile in our maturity in the recollections they bring back. It was the same bold joke and the same grimace. The quips and quirks force on us the fact that there is but little originality in the human mind, and this was substantially the reflection of Rounders as he turned an indifferent ear to the wearisome wit. He prided himself on his acumen, and was not to be taken in with such worn buffoonery. Yet I trow that even Rounders envied the children who gave themselves over body and soul to the accredited man of humor.
He looked at the woman going through the hoops, the trick pony seeking for the hidden handkerchief, and the bareback rider turning a summerset, with a mild interest, for he had seen them or something like them before. The strong man who threw up the cannon balls into the air, and allowed them to fall on his nape, to roll down the hollow of his back to the ground, hardly aroused this indifferent spectator. What he looked forward to with curiosity was the performance of the lion-tamer, and when it did come it exceeded his expectations.
The master of the ring, attired in what resembled the uniform of an officer of the navy, stepped into the middle of the arena, and with the affectation of good breeding characteristic of the class, said, "Ladies and gentlemen: I have the honor to announce that John Brinton, the most extraordinary and celebrated tamer of lions in the world, will appear before you in his remarkable performance, during which every one is requested to keep his seat. Your attention is especially directed to the third part of it, as one of the marvels of the nineteenth century.
"To-morrow there will be a matinée at one o'clock, and in the evening the performance at the usual hour."