28o HAUNTS AND HOBBIES 



His arrival caused the greatest excitement ; whole 

 crowds from the city flocked out to behold him ; the 

 excitement penetrated even to the zenanas. At the 

 special request of the wealthiest resident in the city, 

 the boy was conducted to his house, in order that his 

 wives and the other females of his family might see 

 him. 



Now, through the police, I made the fullest investiga- 

 tion into the matter ; nevertheless as to who the boy 

 was, where he came from, or who had brought him, 

 I could discover nothing. But for the statement that 

 he had been brought up among the wolves there was 

 not the smallest foundation ; it arose merely from the 

 love of the marvellous, the inability of the boy to 

 speak, his very animal expression of countenance, and 

 the mystery of his sudden appearance. The simple 

 facts were that the boy was an idiot, that most probably 

 he belonged to some party of vagrants, and for some 

 reason or other had been deserted by them when 

 passing through the district. I have little doubt that 

 the other tales of " wolf-children," if we could in- 

 vestigate them, would be found equally unreliable. 



Although at various times I have been much in the 

 neighbourhood of wolves, I never but once beheld one — 

 I mean free in the jungle. The occasion was this : I was 

 marching ; my tent was pitched by a river. In the 

 afternoon I took a stroll along it ; on the opposite side 

 was a wood, and between the wood and the bank of the 

 river there stretched a narrow tract of open ground. 

 Presently I saw walking slowly along this tract what at 

 first sight I took to be a very large dog ; then on look- 



