choose a king, according to their custom in the days of AEsop. But they
are choosing neither a king nor a President, else we should hear a
most horrible snarling! They have come from the deep woods and the
wild mountains and the desert sands and the polar snows only to do
homage to my little Annie. As we enter among them the great elephant
makes us a bow in the best style of elephantine courtesy, bending
lowly down his mountain bulk, with trunk abased and leg thrust out
behind. Annie returns the salute, much to the gratification of the
elephant, who is certainly the best-bred monster in the caravan. The
lion and the lioness are busy with two beef-bones. The royal tiger,
the beautiful, the untamable, keeps pacing his narrow cage with a
haughty step, unmindful of the spectators or recalling the fierce
deeds of his former life, when he was wont to leap forth upon such
inferior animals from the jungles of Bengal.

Here we see the very same wolf--do not go near him, Annie!--the
selfsame wolf that devoured little Red Riding-Hood and her
grandmother. In the next cage a hyena from Egypt who has doubtless
howled around the pyramids and a black bear from our own forests are
fellow-prisoners and most excellent friends. Are there any two living
creatures who have so few sympathies that they cannot possibly be
friends? Here sits a great white bear whom common observers would call
a very stupid beast, though I perceive him to be only absorbed in
contemplation; he is thinking of his voyages on an iceberg, and of his
comfortable home in the vicinity of the north pole, and of the little
cubs whom he left rolling in the eternal snows. In fact, he is a bear
of sentiment. But oh those unsentimental monkeys! The ugly, grinning,
aping, chattering, ill-natured, mischievous and queer little brutes!
Annie does not love the monkeys; their ugliness shocks her pure,
instinctive delicacy of taste and makes her mind unquiet because it
bears a wild and dark resemblance to humanity. But here is a little
pony just big enough for Annie to ride, and round and round he gallops
in a circle, keeping time with his trampling hoofs to a band of music.
And here, with a laced coat and a cocked hat, and a riding-whip in his
hand--here comes a little gentleman small enough to be king of the
fairies and ugly enough to be king of the gnomes, and takes a flying
leap into the saddle. Merrily, merrily plays the music, and merrily
gallops the pony, and merrily rides t