Wild £2? Tame Hoopoes 37 



I was most anxious about him from the fact that 

 he did not belong to me, but to my sister-in-law, 

 who was to travel home by a more circuitous route. 

 But alas ! that tiresome old captain discovered the 

 whereabouts of the gazelles, and promptly ordered 

 them to be put in a filthy cage on the deck of the 

 third-class passengers, where everything was smelly, 

 dirty, wet, generally nasty, and un-English, as far as 

 a passenger boat was concerned. 



To get to them, I had to step over the reclining 

 bodies of quantities of Greek peasants, who lay and 

 sat there day and night, men, women, and children, 

 all muddled together, continually playing cards, with 

 packs as dirty as themselves. 



Here too were the quails, which the captain 

 thought might be companions to my hoopoes. 



They were interesting in more ways than one, but 

 especially so because they were the last consignment 

 that were to be allowed to be imported to France 

 from Egypt, and would be landed a day before the 

 new law was to take effect. 



Thousands of these poor little birds, which are 

 caught on the north coast of Africa when migrating 

 to Europe in April, would, if not intercepted, duly land 

 in France, and France would benefit accordingly ; 

 hence the new law that Egyptian quails are for the 

 future forbidden. 



There were — so they said — 60,000 on board the 

 boat I was on ; and 60,000 quails, closely huddled 

 together by fifties in low canvas-roofed cages, which 

 are not cleaned out, can smell rather strong, with a 



