ADVENTURES WITH WILD BEASTS

Taranaki Daily News, Volume LIV, Issue 227, 23 March 1912, Page 8

ADVENTURES WITH WILD BEASTS

FAMOUS COLLECTOR TELLS HIS EXPERIENCES. Carl Hagenbeck, who lias, near Hamberg, in Germany, one-of the largest "zoos" in the world, tells in the Birmingham Weekly Post of some of his adventures with wild animals. It was 46 years ago (he writes), that 1 made my iirsl contract with a hunter namely, the African traveller, Lorenzo Cassanova. He was a wonderful man, and would return from the Soudan with quite an unwieldy caravan of thfe wildest beasts to be found in the Dark Continent. One day I got a telegram from him saying he was ill at Suez, and would I come at once and take over the animals which he had collected. lat once left Hamburg, and when I arrived at the hotel in Suez where ,the hunter was staying I saw a curious sight. Elephants, in the -courtyard tied to palm trees, in hte courtyard tied to palm trees. Among them sixteen ostriches ran about unfettered, while in sixty great packingcases, lions, leopards, panthers, striped hyenas, civet cats, rhinoceros, and all sorts of birds moved about restlessly to and fro. lat once made arrangements for transporting the creatures to Hamburg. On the way to the Suez railway station the sixteen ostriches escaped,' and made a bee-line for the desert. J CURIOUS OSTRICH HUNT. I was in despAir, as I particularly wanted these birds, having already orders for them. At this moment one of the men who had helped Cassanova bring j the caravan from the Soudan to Suez came up to me and told me how they could be recaptured. It was certainly an original and novel way. I told him to go ahead. He at once drove a herd of goats after the fleeing ostriches, and instructed several Arabs to mount dromedaries and follow the goats. Soon the ostriches were overtaken. The men manoeuvred in such a way that they got the goats on one side of the ostriches and the dromedaries on the other. Then they gave the signal to advance; the whole caravan, ostriches and all, started with the utmost docility towards that railway station. It appears that throughout the march from the Soudan, which had lasted forty-two days, the ostriches had travelled between the goats and the, dromedaries. When they found them-< selves again in this position they forgot all,about their desire for freedom, and ambled cheerfully again into captivity. ESCAPE FROM A PYTHON. j I am always receiving consignments of animals here in Hamburg from my 1 travellers, and these are always being j despatched again to zoological gardens in all parts of the world. In handling them we have, of course, to use the caution, as the following inci- ] dents show: —l was transferring a large python to a crate, when the creature made a dash at me. With a movement like a flash of lightning it tried to get its body around my waist, and if it had succeeded nothing could have prevented it from crushing me to death. As luck would have it, one of my men, just at the critical moment, threw a blanket over the reptile's head. I then jumped on its tail, which caused it to/ devote its. attention to my feet. In the next instant had darted the great net used in handling these creatures over its head, and were out of danger. On another occasion we went one morning to remove a python from a cage containig three others. They were all lying very listles and apparently half asleep. The moment we slid up the bars the four creatures were as lively as kittens, and made a concerted dash at us. Needless to add. we closed the shutter down very quickly, and waited a more favorable opportunity.

COMIC ENCOUNTER. J Sometimes these incidents have not I been devoid of humor. On one occasion I had an anxious ten minutes in endeav- j oiirinjr to seperate a hippopotamus and a kangaroo. Next to the Hippo's stable' was a compartment in which I had placed the largest kangaroo I had ever had in my possession. The latter was over six feet high, and a very strong and powerful animal. One .night the kangaroo jumped over into the hippo's pen. I conclude it must have got frightened over something. The kangaroo landed in the hippo's tank, which ' was empty. It was' two oelock in the morning when the incident occurred, and when I arrived on the scene T could not help smiling, the whole affair being so comical. There stood the monster hippo, with its enormous mouth snapping at the kangaroo down in the tank below. The moment the hippo moved towards the tank the kangaroo sprang into the air and struck his companion on the face with his great fore-feet. When the hippo got too venturesome by endeavoring to walk into that tank, despite the kicks the kangaroo took a mighty leap into the air and struck with his hind feet, inflicting terrible scratches with his claws.

Try as it would, the hippo could not get into that tank, nor at the kangaroo. \\ ell, to separate the combatants, was the puzzle. We did this bv fixing up an arrangement by which we dropped a large seal net over the kangaroo, and then, drawing in the cords, secured him. To divert the hippo's attention, the moment net was lowered over the kangaroo one of my own men pretended to < titer the cage. The ruse succeeded, and the kangaroo was safelv released and taken back to his rightful i|uarters. At the docks once a large female elephant refused to go up the gaugwav of the vessel which was to take'her to New York. To assist me the captain placed forty men at my disposal. We put a rope on eacli of the .animal's fori feet. Then when I shouted "Right!" the men holding that rope pulled for all they were worth, and when T shouted "Left''" those holding the other rope did the same. The result was that at each pull the eli pliant was induced to move forward, and in this way she got on board. When she reached the deck she suddenly lifted one'of her feet, gave it a twist, just as you would bend'your finger, but it resulted in the twenty men that were hanging on to that rope being sent flying in all directions, much to the amusement of the captain and his friends, who watched the whole proceedings from the bridge. MY NARROWEST ESCAPK. f am often asked what is inv narrowest escape. Perhaps the following is the closest shave 1 have ever had. I was superintending the despatch of some animals at (he railwav station in Berlin, when a half-grown elephant, which was standing in one of Che trucks with its 1 egs chained, suddenly turned round and tried to pin me to the wall. I was at that moment examinim; a cage colli a in in;' monkeys. When T~ent'ted the car 1 knew the elephant was cross, and should have kept mv face towards him. Instead of doiie/ >o T turned round to look at something, and at that moment the brute went for me. His tusks were too wide apart for him to properly grip me. They just grazed mv skin on each side of my back. One of my men rushed to the rescue, and pulled me down between the animal's head and wall. They then stood me on nrv feet to see if my back was broken. With the exception of torn clothing and a grazed skin T was all right. Before now T have stopped elephants in the street from running away by lUinginrr on to thpiv oars. Whon a yoiiiijr man I was leading a full-grown giraffe along the streets, when it got frighten-

Ed and bolted. The rope I held him by got entangled round my arm and I was] dragged along the streets and fearfully banged about about, I was once superintending the lowering of a big alligator into a pit, when, with a sudden sweep of its tail, it knocked me right into the middle of a dozen large alligators. I jumped out in a second, but none too quickly, for the alligators were after me with wide-opened mouths.