306 WILD ANIMALS. 



France, whicli probably bad been procured by bim wben he 

 invaded Palestine. This animal must have made a great sensation 

 in England, for it is referred to by all the chroniclers of the period. 

 The king was very proud of his gift, and in 1256 issued the 

 following order to the sheriff of London. "We command you, 

 that, of the farm of our city, ye cause, without delay, to be built 

 at our Tower of London, one house of forty feet long, and twenty 

 feet deep for our elephant." 



After this date other elephants are mentioned at different periods 

 as having been presented by European kings to their contem- 

 poraries, but no English monarch appears to have been the 

 recipient of such a gift until King James I., to his intense dehght, 

 had one sent him. Chambers' " Book of Days " gives the following 

 description of the circumstances attending the receipt of this 

 animal by the king. " About the year 1629, the king of Spain 

 effected an important diversion in his own favour by sending the 

 king — ^priceless gift ! — an elephant and five camels. ' Going 

 through London, after midnight,' says a state-paper letter, ' they 

 could not pass unseen,' and the clamour and outcry raised by 

 some street-loiterers at sight of their ponderous bulk and 

 ungainly step, roused the sleepers from their beds io every 

 district through which they passed. News of this unlooked- 

 for addition to the Royal Zoological Garden in St. James' Park, 

 is conveyed to Theobalds as speedily as horse-flesh, whip and 

 spur could do the work. Then arose an interchange of missives to 

 and fro — betwixt the king, my lord treasurer, and Mr. Secretary 

 Conway — grave, earnest, and deliberate, as though involving the 

 settlement or refusal of some treaty of peace. In muttered 

 sentences, not loud but deep, the thrifty lord treasurer shows 

 ' how little he is in love with royal presents, which cost his 

 master as much to maintain as would a garrison.' No matter. 

 Warrants are issued to the ofl&cers of the mews, and to 

 Buckingham, master of the horse, ' that the elephant is to be 

 daily well-dressed and fed, but that he should not be led forth to 

 water, nor any admitted to see him, without directions from his 

 keeper, which they were to observe and follow in all things 

 concerning that beast, as they will answer for the contrary at 



