1 68 WILD NEIGHBORS chap. 



amphitheatre. Six hundred were provided by 

 Pompey for a single festival. 



It was with the idea of reviving something 

 of the glory of those old shows that an arrange- 

 ment was made at the Paris Hippodrome, re- 

 cently, for the exhibition of lions upon a grand 

 scale. Instead of a cage mounted upon a wagon, 

 these bold managers proposed an arena, and in 

 place of one lion a score. 



When the time comes in the programme for 

 the introduction of this "act," the hippodrome 

 is cleared, and the audience awaits in tense silence 

 what is to come. Suddenly, out of the ground 

 arises a palisade of sharp iron pickets twenty 

 feet high and curved inward at their top. It 

 encloses an oval fifty yards long and twenty 

 yards wide. The moment it ceases to rise, and 

 stands fixed in its slot, an opening appears in the 

 centre where flooring has been removed, and half 

 a dozen men, dressed like Roman gladiators, and 

 each bearing a whip and a steel trident, enter 

 by a little gate. They shut this securely behind 

 them, and take their positions. They are none 

 too soon, for already, pushed upward upon a 

 platform-elevator, which rises like a stage-trap 

 in a theatre to fill the central opening, are com- 

 ing a drove of lions and lionesses. They growl 

 and roar as their great manes and restless bodies 

 rise above the surface, arousing the greetings of 

 the audience. 



