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.
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