I regarded our lion and unicorn
for a few moments with feelings of veneration; and as Mr.
Petherick, the
Consul, who was then absent on the White Nile in
search of Speke and Grant, had very kindly begged me to occupy
some rooms in the Consulate, we entered a large courtyard, and
were immediately received by two ostriches that came to meet us;
these birds entertained us by an impromptu race as hard as they
could go round the courtyard, as though performing in a circus.
When this little divertissement was finished, we turned to the
right, and were shown by a servant up a flight of steps into a
large airy room that was to be our residence, which, being well
protected from the sun, was cool and agreeable. Mr. Petherick had
started from Khartoum in the preceding March, and had expected to
meet Speke and Grant in the upper portion of the Nile regions, on
their road from Zanzibar; but there are insurmountable
difficulties in those wild countries, and his expedition met with
unforeseen accidents, that, in spite of the exertions of both
himself, his very devoted wife, Dr. Murie, and two or three
Europeans, drove them from their intended path. Shortly after our
arrival at the Consulate, a vessel returned from his party with
unfavourable accounts; they had started too late in the season,
owing to some difficulties in procuring boats, and the change of
wind to the south, with violent rain, had caused great suffering,
and had retarded their progress. This same boat had brought two
leopards that were to be sent to England: these animals were led
into the courtyard, and, having been secured by chains, they
formed a valuable addition to the menagerie, which consisted of
two wild boars, two leopards, one hyaena, two ostriches, and a
cynocephalus or dog-faced baboon, who won my heart by taking an
especial fancy to me, because I had a beard like his master.
Although I take a great interest in wild animals, I confess to
have an objection to sleep in the Zoological Gardens should all
the wild beasts be turned loose. I do not believe that even the
Secretary of that learned Society would volunteer to sleep with
the lions; but as the leopards at the Khartoum Consulate
constantly broke their chains, and attacked the dogs and a cow,
and as the hyaena occasionally got loose, and the wild boars
destroyed their mud wall, and nearly killed one of my Tokrooris
during the night, by carving him like a scored leg of pork with
their tusks, the fact of sleeping in the open air in the
verandah, with the simple protection of a mosquito-netting, was
full of pleasant excitement, and was a piquante entertainment
that prevented a reaction of ennui after twelve months passed in
constant watchfulness. The shield over the Consulate door, with
the lion and the unicorn, was but a sign of the life within; as
the grand picture outside the showman's wagon may exemplify the
nature of his exhibition.
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