less windows, guarded by rougli wooden bars, we
perceived a large archway with closed doors; above:
this entrance was a shield, with a device that
gladdened my English eyes: there was the British
lion and the unicorn ! Not such a lion as I had
been accustomed to meet in his native jungles, a
yellow cowardly fellow, that had often slunk away
from the very prey from which I had driven him,
but a real red British lion, that although thin and
ragged in the unhealthy climate of Khartoum, looked
■as though he was pluck to the backbone.
This was the English Consulate. 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
court yard, 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,
m 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 m the season, owing to some difficulties in
procuring boats, and the change of the 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 managerie, 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 Tok-
rooris during the night, by carving him like a
scored leg of pork with their tusks, the fact of