under
their blankets and wouldn't come out, and I wasn't allowed to poke them;
so I missed seeing several of the most curious. An ugly cobra laid and
blinked at me through the glass, looking quite as dangerous as he was.
There were big and little snakes,--black, brown, and speckled, lively
and lazy, pretty and plain ones,--but I liked the great boa best.

When I came to his cage, I didn't see anything but the branch of a tree,
such as I had seen in other cages, for the snakes to wind up and down.
'Where is he, I wonder? I hope he hasn't got out,' I said to myself,
thinking of a story I read once of a person in a menagerie, who turned
suddenly and saw a great boa gliding towards him. As I stood wondering
if the big worm could be under the little flat blanket before me, the
branch began to move all at once, and with a start, I saw a limb swing
down to stare at me with the boa's glittering eyes. He was so exactly
the colour of the bare bough, and lay so still, I had not seen him till
he came to take a look at me. A very villainous-looking reptile he was,
and I felt grateful that I didn't live in a country where such
unpleasant neighbours might pop in upon you unexpectedly. He was kind
enough to take a promenade and show me his size, which seemed immense,
as he stretched himself, and then knotted his rough grayish body into a
great loop, with the fiery-eyed head in the middle. He was not one of
the largest kind, but I was quite satisfied, and left him to his dinner
of rabbits, which I hadn't the heart to stay and see him devour alive.

I was walking toward the camel's pagoda, when, all of a sudden, a long,
dark, curling thing came over my shoulder, and I felt warm breath in my
face. 'It's the boa;' I thought, and gave a skip which carried me into
the hedge, where I stuck, much to the amusement of some children riding
on the elephant whose trunk had frightened me. He had politely tried to
tell me to clear the way, which I certainly had done with all speed.
Picking myself out of the hedge I walked beside him, examining his
clumsy feet and peering up at his small, intelligent eye. I'm very sure
he winked at me, as if enjoying the joke, and kept poking his trunk into
my pocket, hoping to find something eatable.

I felt as if I had got into a foreign country as I looked about me and
saw elephants and camels walking among the trees; flocks of snow-white
cranes stalking over the grass, on their long scarlet legs; striped
Zebras