36 Wild £2? Tame Hoopoes 



possible into my cabin, which on account of the birds, 

 I had secured to myself; for I had a suspicion that 

 although birds were allowed on board, they might not 

 be permitted in the cabins. My suspicions were veri- 

 fied after we had been steaming towards Marseilles for 

 two days. 



The captain, a jolly-looking old Frenchman, stopped 

 me in a promenade on the upper deck, and, with a 

 somewhat severe tone and scarcely a bow, said, " On 

 dit que Monsieur a des oiseaux dans sa cabine, il faut 

 les mettre avec les quailles." 



I tried to smile sweetly, and, in what I hoped was 

 a wheedling tone, explained that they were in a cage 

 " tout petit, tout petit ; " that I had paid double for 

 my cabin ; that they were in no one's way ; that I 

 had brought them all the way from Assouan, and 

 had to feed them every two hours. The only answer 

 I received was a thoroughly French shrug of round 

 shoulders, and, with a by no means benign expression, 

 the captain turned on his heel. 



But my hoopoes remained in my cabin for all that ! 

 I felt exactly like what Lord Salisbury must have felt 

 after retaining Fashoda ! 



And this feeling was enhanced when I again won 

 the day over the gazelles. 



At first I had managed to have their crate put in a 

 snug corner on the lower deck, near the furnaces ; for 

 they felt the increasing chilliness of the sea-air con- 

 siderably after the heat of Assouan and the warmth of 

 Cairo; and poor little " Shamadana" — a baby-boy of 

 a gazelle — was especially humpy. 



