26 BEASTS AND MEN 
Sudan was found to have lost its glory, for the destruction of 
A king and his two wives. 
very fortunate for me. 
enough of the quadrupeds. 
Joseph Menges, 
animal life in the interval had 
been terrible. . But more of 
this anon. The end of the 
year 1880 brought me some 
relief from my financial 
anxiety. My faithful friend 
Barnum sent me huge orders 
for elephants. Barnum and 
another American named 
Forepaugh were at this time 
strenuous competitors in the 
circus world, and the Ameri- 
can public seem to have had 
an especial predilection for 
elephants. At all events, 
elephants were the chief at- 
traction, and the fact was 
The only difficulty was to find 
I therefore sent one of my most 
famous travellers, Joseph Menges, 
to Ceylon in order to ascertain 
the prices of elephants in that 
island, and to find out whether 
large numbers of the creatures 
could be obtained there. Menges’ 
reports were most satisfactory, and 
before long both he and certain 
other of my travellers were hard 
at work exporting a continuous 
stream of elephants from Ceylon. 
I was perpetually receiving fresh 
orders not only from Barnum but 
also from Forepaugh, for the 
rivals were continually endeavouring to overtrump each other 
