DELAPORTE’S LITTLE PRESENTS

  Were you astonished yesterday evening not to hear my knock at your door for a little talk? You said, “Good! it is the Carnival; he has some dinner on in town, or some ball at the Opera. It is Saturday night; he is amusing himself instead of working, the idle fellow.”

  Did I tell not you, though, that it was in working that I was amusing myself? I have neither dined in town, nor have I been to the Opera.

  I have been to the Jardin des Plantes and to the Rue d’Erfurth.

  From this moment I take you into my confidence. You have the right to ask me what I was doing.

  Perhaps you may have heard of the arrival a short time ago at the Jardin of a hippopotamus, two lions, three giraffes, five antelopes, and twenty monkeys. And perhaps you have also heard that a gift has been made to the Louvre of a complete Nigritian museum, and in consequence have made up your mind to go and see all that your first free day.

  Well, when you visit the museum at the Louvre, when you see the hippopotamus in his tank, the giraffes behind their palings, the antelopes in their enclosure, and the monkeys in their palace, you will say of the museum, “How strange!” and of the animals, “How curious! “But you will not have an inkling of something connected with both which is the most curious and the most strange of all.

  I mean the manner in which the giver, by the exercise of great determination and much patience, got possession of this wonderful gift to the State, worth more than 150,000fr. But I am going to tell you all about that, for the donor is one of my friends.

  You must be told that I have friends in the four quarters of the globe, and even in the fifth, since the appointment of Count C-- to the consulship of Oceania.

  By the way, have you read my account of my voyage to Tunis? If you have not, it is a matter of regret, for, on my word, it is one of the most amusing things I have ever written. If you had read it, you would know that when we arrived at Tunis, M. Delaporte was French Consul there, and one of the first visits we paid was, of course, to him.

  It chanced to be his day of reception, and we found him seated on a throne such as few kings possess. This throne was covered with the skins of twelve lions. Two stuffed lions, crouching down as if in act to spring, their eyes shining, their claws unsheathed like the claws of a sphinx, formed the arms of the seat.

  A magnificently handsome Jewess, in Eastern costume, knelt before the Consul, and with a blush held out to him her slipper with the heel towards him. What the slipper presented in this manner meant I have already explained in the Vèloce.

  We did not disturb Delaporte in his part as Cadi, which, in spite of our presence, he played with the utmost gravity until the last suitor had been seen out by the janissaries, when, throwing aside Eastern solemnity, we rushed into each other’s arms.

  Next day Delaporte took us to see his excavations, for he always felt he should have something to give the Government, and he had come there to excavate, seated like Marius among the ruins of Carthage. By perseveringly excavating he had at last struck a fragment of marble with his pick. He was not yet quite sure what this block from which the steel drew sparks formed part of. Was it a capital, a basin, or a fountain? We were going to find out, for it was almost certain that we should find the rubbish had been cleared away before our arrival.

  We covered the two or three leagues between Tunis and Carthage as quickly as our horses could carry us, and in less than three-quarters of an hour we reached the excavations. Just as Delaporte had anticipated, the men had made a great advance in the work since the day before, and a colossal head, measuring six feet from the chin to the roots of the hair, had been uncovered.

  It was the head of Lusilla, the daughter of Marcus Aurelius, and stands to-day in the Hall of Antiquities, near the Venus of Milo.

  After the revolution of February Delaporte was sent to Cairo, and while there he took it into his head to discover what till then no one had ever discovered, viz., some Coptic manuscripts. He found nine and sent them to the Library.

  One day there had been some disagreement between a Christian and a slave-dealer about a woman from Burun. Delaporte summoned all the parties before him and settled the matter by buying the woman and setting her at liberty. Then as the slave-dealer, everything “considered, seemed to be, for a slave-dealer, fairly honest and intelligent, Delaporte asked him a good deal about those lands of fable into which he penetrated in pursuit of his trade.

  This trade is not unimportant, Egypt alone requiring every year nearly 20,000 slaves, who are drawn from Darfur, Sennaar, Abyssinia, Nubia, the banks of the White and Blue Nile, and from the foot of the Mountains of the Moon.

  The slave-dealer mentioned six or seven provinces one after another, situated between 6° and 2°, and the names of which were not to be found even on the enormous map which Delaporte spread out in order to look for them.

  “Would you undertake,” said Delaporte to the trader, “to buy and bring me back a complete collection of every article used by these peoples, whose names are unknown to geographers, in connexion with music, toilet, war, cooking, ornament, and work, in short, everything you can pick up from a needle to lances and shields, from the mat on which the king sleeps to the porringer out of which the soldiers eat?”

  “It would be difficult,” said the slave-dealer, shaking his head.

  “But not impossible?”

  “No, with the help of the Prophet nothing is impossible; but.”

  “But what?”

  “It would cost a great deal.”

  “No matter; tell me how much money you would need.”

  “I should need neither gold nor silver; such people have never seen a para (a Turkish penny).”

  “Then what would you take with you?”

  “Venetian glass, shells from the Red Sea.”

  “How many quintals? “(= 100lbs.) “One hundred.”

  “Then come with me.”

  And Delaporte took the trader to Mouski and bought one hundred quintals of glass and shells, adding thereto five or six blocks of salt, which is so precious a commodity in the interior of Africa that it can be exchanged for its weight in gold dust. He then wished his agent a successful journey, and they parted.

  Three years passed by, from 1849 till 1851; the first Delaporte looked out for his trader with impatience, the second with anxiety, and the third he gave him up. But one morning a man made his appearance at the French Consulate.

  “What do you want?” asked Delaporte.

  “It is I.”

  “But who are you?”

  “The slave-merchant.”

  “Ah! And what about my collection?”

  “It is at Bulak; come with me there, and you will see.”

  They ordered a couple of asses and rode to Bulak, which is a quarter of a league from Cairo. On their arrival the trader showed Delaporte an immense canga, so overloaded that it seemed ready to sink. It contained the Nigritian collection, and a very complete collection it was, I can tell you. For everything was there, from the needle to the lance and shield; from those peculiar bracelets put on the arms of a bride to the great drums as big as a cask on which an ascending and descending scale can be played by passing with the drumstick from one to another.

  When you see all this, you will be astonished at the intelligence displayed by the slave-trader; he had left nothing out, from the lizard four feet long, of which the silvery skin is used to ornament the bows of the chiefs, to the lyre of Orpheus made-of a turtle-shell and four strings. Of everything he had procured examples, of barbed arrows and necklaces, of men’s drawers and women’s, of maces, the form of which was copied from those used by the Crusaders; of poleaxes which might have come from the Sandwich Islands. In this collection there was such a variety of pipes that the painter in “La Vie de Bohème,” who had only two, one for friends and one for acquaintances, might have revelled in them. Did you wish for flutes, there they were; or for conches, horns, and trumpets, behold them; and then there were daggers of every possible kind and shape, curved swords to cut off heads with, gourd bottles for brandy, elephants’ tusks, the teeth of hippopotami, rhinoceros horns, and gold dust in plenty.

  For I tell you there was some of everything.

  When Delaporte began to ask the trader about what he had seen and done, and what kept him so long, this is what he learned.

  Three years before four fishermen had been sent to the banks of the Nile, about sixty leagues higher than the junction of the two branches, one of which coming from the Mountains of the Moon, is called the Blue Nile, the other, the source of which is lost in the interior of Africa, bears the name of Bahr-el-Abiad, or the White Nile, Now, what were those four fishermen doing, camped among the reeds for three years by order of Abbas Pasha? They were waiting till a female hippopotamus should give birth to a young one.

  “I beg your pardon ?”

  Just what I said, they were waiting, by the order of Abbas Pasha, till a baby hippopotamus should arrive, that they might capture it.

  Alas! Hippopotami, which were so numerous under the Caesars, have become rare in our day. It is with them as with whales. Formerly whales were so abundant all round Newfoundland that a pilot was almost as much afraid of the living archipelago formed by a school as if it had been an archipelago of rocky islands; and now, if we desire to come across one, we must go as far as the Polar Seas.

  What has made the hippopotamus so rare? Perhaps the great demand there is for their tusks, out of which artificial human teeth a re made, for the ivory of the hippopotamus never grows yellow.

  And what did Abbas Pasha want with a baby hippopotamus?

  England, the rival of France, possessed among many other advantages a male hippopotamus, and greatly desired a female also. So she applied to Abbas Pasha, who being unable to refuse anything to England, placed the four fishermen on the banks of the White Nile, that they might secure for him the first young hippopotamus that its mother might drop on one of the innumerable islets in the river. For as to capturing an adult animal of the kind, there was no use thinking of it. Hippopotami die, but never surrender.

  This account gave Delaporte a new idea. He would add a menagerie to his museum. He applied to the proper quarters and ordered two lions, three or four giraffes, five or six antelopes, and as many monkeys as could be got.

  But you will ask, How does one go about the catching of lions, giraffes, antelopes, or monkeys, especially monkeys? For if they let themselves be caught, what becomes of the old saying, “As cunning as a monkey?”

  I am going to tell you all about it.

  As soon as the tracks of a lion are seen a hole from ten to fifteen feet deep is dug and hidden by branches. A goat is killed and laid on the deceitful surface which covers the hole. The lion, which is too proud to fear a snare, comes along against the wind, scents the goat at fifteen paces, beats his sides with his tail, licks his lips, roars for joy, and springs upon the offered dainty. The floor of branches sinking beneath his weight he is thrown to the bottom of the trench.

  The first, and perhaps the second day, he is too uneasy to eat, but before the third day is over he devours the goat. He is left for four days longer in the hole so that he has full leisure to digest his meal. On the fifth day he is ravenous. Then a large cage made of wood and iron is let down with the door, which is a sliding one, lifted. At the back of the cage is a quarter of a carcass. The lion without hesitation enters the cage; the door slides down and the lion is caught.

  It is all very simple, you see.

  As to giraffes — in certain regions in the centre of Africa they are very common and go about in herds. They are hunted by means of dromedaries. The big ones out-distance pursuit, but the young ones are run down. They are captured and petted and treated with such kindness that in less than a week they become quite tame.

  Antelopes are animals whose intelligence is very moderately developed. I am always indignant when a poet compares the eyes of his mistress to the fine eyes of these animals, for the Arab proverb says, “As stupid as an antelope.” They can be caught in a thousand different manners, but the most usual is a springe.

  Now for the monkeys. Yes, we have got to them at last.

  To be stupid is a defect; to be greedy is a vice.

  Monkeys are greedy and in spite of all their intelligence their greediness is their ruin. They are above all given to drink. But what else was to be expected of them, resembling man as they do? Man would be the only animal to get tipsy, were it not for the monkeys, whose favourite tipple is a kind of beer brewed in Darfur and Sennaar. Calabashes full of this drink are placed about where monkeys most do congregate.

  As soon as a monkey tastes this beer he utters a cry of joy which attracts all his companions to him. Then begins a regular orgy, every single monkey trying to drink more than the others. When they are all quite drunk negroes appear, but the drinkers show no mistrust, for being no longer able to see clearly they take the new arrivals for monkeys of a larger growth, so that the negroes have only the trouble of carrying or leading their booty home. If they carry them the monkeys embrace them, weeping and covering them with kisses. For monkeys are sentimental in their cups.

  If the negroes lead them it is only necessary to take one by the hand, he in his turn takes the hand of his, neighbour, and so on till there is a long row all abreast. As they are all unsteady on their feet they are glad of each other’s support and hold tight, staggering as they advance like so many satyrs. Not seldom does a negro arrive at home with ten or twelve of these creatures in his care, just as with us we often see a tutor accompanied by ten or twelve pupils.

  Arrived at their destination, they are put into cages that they may grow sober by degrees. Each day an ever-lessening quantity of beer is given them till they grow used to captivity. Not until the supply quite ceases and they have only water to drink do they realize that they are prisoners.

  Six months after his order had been placed Delaporte was in possession of his two lions, three giraffes (one of which was about to become a mother), five antelopes, and twenty monkeys. The menagerie was thus complete except for the hippopotamus.

  Now, Delaporte had taken an oath that he would have his hippopotamus.

  It would never occur to any of you, my dear readers, would it, to take such an oath.

  Bu t you are wrong. A hippopotamus is worth 100,000 francs if it is worth a centime.

  It is quite true that if in lieu of his income of 5,000 francs entered in his account-book a small capitalist of the Marais were to be given a hippopotamus and told that was his capital, he would find himself very much perplexed and would cry out that he was robbed. But a Consul at Cairo knows the true value of such an animal.

  Just as Abbas Pasha had placed fishermen on the White Nile to spy out the arrival of the hippopotamus which England desired Delaporte kept two negroes at Bukah whose sole mission was to spy on the fishermen of Abbas Pasha.

  One day one of the negroes arrived quite breathless at the Consulate.

  “Well, what’s the matter?” asked Delaporte.

  “The hippopotamus has arrived.”

  Delaporte put on his hat and hurried to Bulak.

  “Is it a male or a female?” he asked the fishermen.

  “It is a male,” they replied.

  Delaporte laughed that laugh of a true Parisian that the Arabs have never been able to understand. “Never mind,” he said, “I am very glad.”

  “Why are you glad?” demanded the Arabs.

  “Because it is a male.”

  For it was a female England desired.

  Delaporte put further questions in order to find out how they had got possession of the animal and learned that one day they had noticed a hippopotamus come out of the water and climb up on one of the river islands. There she lay down, and shortly after they saw a young one beside her. Almost immediately she got up and took a plunge-bath in the river, and the fishermen, without losing any time, emerged from the reeds, jumped into the boat, and made for the island. The young one offered no hindrance to being lifted on board, except by being very heavy and helpless, and they rowed to shore as quickly as possible.

  But quickly as they rowed, they soon heard behind them the terrible snorting of the father and mother, who followed in the wake of the boat, one about fifty feet behind the other, like the Curiatii, and with evident signs of hostile intentions.

  The mother opened her mouth wide enough to swallow a bull of ordinary dimensions, and made her jaws rattle in a terrifying manner. She was overtaking the boat so rapidly that, although they were only thirty yards from the shore, the rowers saw that she would be on them before they could land.

  “Let us get rid of the mother first,” said one of the men, and the boat stopped short.

  The man who had spoken took his bow and a poisoned arrow, and waited in act to draw.

  “Make ready!” he cried.

  The three remaining rowers held their oars in readiness to take the water.

  The hippopotamus was rapidly approaching. The archer standing in the bow drew his arrow to the head and let fly.

  Now, a hippopotamus has only two vulnerable spots, the neck and between its eyes. The arrow penetrated the latter. A cry gave the signal, and the three rowers, taking a vigorous stroke, shot twenty yards ahead. The wounded animal followed for a few seconds, but suddenly the terrible poison, which is as sudden as prussic acid or brucine, took effect.

  The poor mother beat the water blindly with her fore feet, turned over and over, and then disappeared in the middle of the whirlpool which its expiring struggles had formed.

  Meantime, the boat had touched land, to be followed in a moment by the papa hippopotamus, for the loss of his mate had not made him relax the pursuit.

  Then the same Arab who had already shot the female with his arrow now-took one of those lances, a dozen feet long, which you will see, my dear readers, when the Nigritian Exhibition is opened and given over to your curiosity — lances with keen iron points, poisoned like the arrows — and, crouching down right in the path of the hippopotamus, held the lance as a boar spear is held, with the sharp end towards the animal, thus aiming at the throat. This the iron entered to the depth of two feet.

 

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