97 



end of the ambitioiis Zoo<^ commenced in 1875. Deer were retained, 

 as inexpensive to feed ; and when in 18TT the fence of the first en- 

 closure across the lake became rotten (it must have been a wooden 

 structure) they were acconnnodated in the now empty Kangaroo 

 enclosure temporarily : but it in its turn began to go to pieces in 

 1878 (Keport p. 6) : and in 1879 their old enclosure was repaired 

 with a strained wire fence, and within it they remained until much 

 later giving at times a lot of trouble by breaking bounds. Mean- 

 while the other enclosure for the large animals were swept away 

 more quickly than they had been erected. 



The uncontrolled growth of the Zoo, must have made a great 

 difference to the Gardens; and it was well that as it had to go, it 

 went so quickly: by 1879 equilibrium had been reached again. The 

 short stay of the Tigers had caused the old orchid house to 

 be removed and some terracing on a small scale to be done; the 

 short stay of the Kliino liad caused some levelling to be carried out, 

 and ultimately its wallow became a Water lily pond : the erection of 

 a house for the Keeper C'apel left the Gardens in possession of a 

 building which was afterwards useful for a number of years, as a 

 gardener's house, and then under Cantley for his clerk. 



We will take the year 1879 as a convenient one, for a des- 

 cription of the Gardens under Murton. They were then in their 

 twentieth year: Murton had done his best planting; and the Zoo 

 had become stable. 



The visitor in 1879, approaching the Gardens from town, 

 found at the entrance what Cantley afterwards called " heavy 

 masses of masonry doing duty as pillars.'' Passing between them, 

 he would have found two roads — neat roads newly bordered by brick 

 drains* one road leading straight forward, the other ascending to 

 his right, and bordered by a particularly large drain. This road on 

 the right soon after was closed and a pathway laid instead along 

 its line; but in 1879 the visitor who followed it was conducted to 

 the Herbarium King Eoad, and could cross it and proceed first 

 on a path, then on a road, nearly straight to the southern face of 

 the Bandstand hill, and on his way he would have passed the new 

 Monkey house noting there that the roadway had been recently 

 altered. 



The other road, leading straight forward from the main 

 gate is that which persists ; at a little distance it was joined by a 

 small path, by which anyone approaching from the Barracks could 

 enter the Gardens through a turnstile upon a small bridge. A 

 little further than this small path, the road reached the foot 

 of the Lake and then followed its margin to another fork, the right 

 arm of which now persists as the Main Gate Eoad, and the left 



§ To limit the Zoo to -^miller animals was the first decision : to limit it to 

 Malayan animals was a later de'^ii^ion. For an account of the anim ils in the 

 Zoo when it was Ma'ayan, vide Ridley in the Journal of the Straits Branch of 

 the R->yal Asiatic Society, No. 40, 1906, pp. 133-194. 



* M'lrton had been allowed to dig laterite from Goodwood Hill for these 

 roads until the supply of good material there had been exhausted. Turf for 

 the Lawns he was allowed to draw from Fort Canning and Magazine Hills. 



