204 THE CARRIAGE OF ANIMALS 



wild animals which could never be permitted any degree 

 of liberty, owing to their temper or unmanageable 

 dimensions. These are transported from immense 

 distances before any ' civilized ' means of transport is 

 available. Mr. Hagenbeck informed the writer that 

 he once brought, amongst other creatures, fifty lions 

 and leopards, besides rhinoceroses, from the neigh- 

 bourhood of the Atbara, or Black Nile, to the Red 

 Sea coast, without losing one animal. The regions 

 traversed were partly fertile and populated, but partly 

 broken by strips of desert. The difficulty of transport 

 was more apparent than real. Nearly all the animals 

 were quite young, the lions being not more than a 

 quarter grown. These, with the leopards and hyaenas, 

 were carried in cages made of hard native wood, with 

 bars on one side only, exactly like cages in which bird- 

 catchers carry linnets. These were slung on the backs 

 of camels, with a thick pad between the back of the 

 cage and the camel's flank. The only serious difficulty 

 encountered was in the transport of the rhinoceroses. 

 Though young, they were very bulky, heavy, and abso- 

 lutely unmanageable. They were also very valuable, 

 and it was decided to spare no pains to bring them 

 safely to the coast. After some experiments, it was 

 found possible to put each of the rhinoceroses in a 

 kind of litter, slung on poles. These were laid across 

 the backs of a pair of the strongest camels procurable, 



