330 THE LION KILLER. 



Three months after this la9t interview I reached Paris, 

 and my first visit was paid to Mons. Leon Bertrand, the 

 editor of the Journal des Chasseurs. 



Honor where honor is due. 



It seemed to me that this naturalist writer, whose name 

 is known to every one who ever fired a gun or wore a hunt- 

 ing knife, the founder of a sporting review without a rival in 

 the world, should receive my first visit. I had no personal 

 acquaintance with him, although a correspondence that had 

 arisen between us had already revealed to me the spirit of 

 the man, and attached me to him by one of those sympa- 

 thetic bonds that, once formed, are never broken. We had 

 not talked together more than an hour, before we were like 

 two brothers. Are there not natures made to love each 

 other with a regard that is born with the first clasping of the 

 hands ? 



On the next day, which was the first day of the year 1848, 

 we went together to the Jardin des Plantes, accompanied by 

 a lady and her daughter, who desired to be present at my 

 first interview with Hubert, 



On entering the department of the garden apportioned to 

 ferocious beasts, as they are pleased to call them, I was 

 astonished at the narrow limits in which the animals were 

 obliged to live, in a mortal repose, as well as the pestilential 

 odor that exhaled from the dens, which the hyenas and other 

 unclean beasts might endure, but which most surely would 

 kill the lions and panthers, those animals with clean sleek 

 skins that are neatness personified. 



While I was slowly approaching the cage of my friend, 

 thinking of the unpleasant subjects that had been suggested 

 to my mind, he was lying down half asleep, regarding at 

 intervals with half shut eyes, the persons who were passing 

 and re-passsing before him. 



All of a sudden he raised his head, his tail moved, his eyes 



