CHAPTER XXXIII 



STRANGE CREATURES MET WITH IN THE WATER THE 



WOODS FULL OF TRAGEDIES EVEN FOXES NOT SURE 



OF THEIR GAME BEASTS NEVER TROUBLE TROUBLE 

 TILL TROUBLE ITSELF TROUBLES THEM 



IT is a common belief that all wild animals can 

 swim, but authorities deny that llamas or giraffes 

 ever swim and claim that camels, like men, must 

 learn to swim, and that monkeys and apes drown if 

 thrown into deep water. Personally, however, I have 

 never seen any of these particular animals attempt to 

 bathe. It was a common belief among the boys that 

 when pigs attempted to swim they cut their own throats 

 with their rapidly moving front feet; but I have seen 

 pigs swim long distances in swiftly flowing rivers and 

 emerge upon the banks of the stream with no blood 

 upon their throats. I once knew an old pig which fre- 

 quented the levee where the then unfinished abutment of 

 the Cincinnati and Covington bridge stood, and I have 

 seen this pig, time and again, jump into the water of the 

 Ohio River, swim fifty or a hundred yards out in the 

 stream and come back again, apparently for no other 

 purpose than the pleasure it derived from the bath. 



Upon several occasions I have seen both horses and 

 cattle escape from steamers upon which they had been 



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