IN A MENAGERIE. 115 



in ramshackle cages, half-starved, filthy, and 

 malodorous. 



An eagle and a vulture, caged together, 

 treated us with scornful contempt ; a polar 

 bear swung his melancholy head like a pen- 

 dulum, as if wound up by internal machinery 

 and could not stop till his clockwork had run 

 down. There was a real white elephant, 

 made white by rubbing himself against 

 his newly-whitewashed walls. Large and 

 splendid lions and tigers, weary of the heart- 

 less, hopeless life they were doomed to live, 

 lay sleeping on their floors, sometimes lazily 

 lifting an eyelid and closing it again as ex- 

 pressive of their supreme scorn of the human 

 race. 



Even the monkeys were not lively ; but the 

 saddest, cruellest sight of all, was that of a 

 noble hound shut up in a miserable cage with 

 a mangy wolf. How that beautiful dog 

 barked and howled, and, as we approached, 

 begged, entreated, implored us to let him out 

 of that accursed cage, and away from his 

 villainous companion ; one could not help 

 wondering what business he had " dans cette 

 gattre?" What crime could he have com- 

 mitted that he should be doomed to such a 

 prison and such foul companionship ? It was 

 not easy to feel sympathy for the imprisoned 



