avity of human nature, as the keeper observed. There was a
beautiful creature, the royal Bengal tiger, only three years old, what
growed ten inches every year, and never arrived at its full growth. The
one we saw, measured, as the keeper told us, sixteen feet from the snout
to the tail, and seventeen from the tail to the snout: but there must
have been some mistake there. There was a young elephant and three
lions, and several other animals which I forget now, so I shall go on to
describe the tragical scene which occurred. The keeper had poked up all
the animals, and had commenced feeding them. The great lion was growling
and snarling over the shin-bone of an ox, cracking it like a nut, when,
by some mismanagement, one end of the pole upon which the chandelier was
suspended fell down, striking the door of the cage in which the lioness
was at supper, and bursting it open. It was all done in a second; the
chandelier fell, the cage opened, and the lioness sprang out. I remember
to this moment seeing the body of the lioness in the air, and then all
was dark as pitch. What a change! not a moment before all of us staring
with delight and curiosity, and then to be left in darkness, horror, and
dismay! There was such screaming and shrieking, such crying, and
fighting, and pushing, and fainting, nobody knew where to go, or how to
find their way out. The people crowded first on one side, and then on
the other, as their fears instigated them. I was very soon jammed up
with my back against the bars of one of the cages, and feeling some
beast lay hold of me behind, made a desperate effort, and succeeded in
climbing up to the cage above, not however without losing the seat of my
trowsers, which the laughing hyaena would not let go. I hardly knew where
I was when I climbed up; but I knew the birds were mostly stationed
above. However, that I might not have the front of my trowsers torn as
well as the behind, as soon as I gained my footing I turned round, with
my back to the bars of the cage, but I had not been there a minute
before I was attacked by something which digged into me like a pickaxe,
and as the hyaena had torn my clothes, I had no defence against it. To
turn round would have been worse still; so, after having received above
a dozen stabs, I contrived by degrees to shift my position until I was
opposite to another cage, but not until the pelican, for it was that
brute, had drawn as much blood from me as would have fed his youn