snout; but there must have been some mistake
there. There was a young elephant and three lions, and several other
animals, which I forget now, so I shall go on to describe the tragical
scene which occurred. The keeper had poked up all the animals, and had
commenced feeding them. The great lion was growling and snarling
over the shin bone of an ox, cracking it like a nut, when by some
mismanagement, one end of the pole upon which the chandelier was
suspended fell down, striking the door of the cage in which the
lioness was at supper, and bursting it open. It was all done in a
second; the chandelier fell, the cage opened, and the lioness sprung
out. I remember to this moment seeing the body of the lioness in the
air, and then all as dark as pitch. What a change! not a moment before
all of us staring with delight and curiosity, and then to be left in
darkness, horror and dismay! There was such screaming and shrieking,
such crying, and fighting, and pushing, and fainting, nobody knew
where to go, or how to find their way out. The people crowded first on
one side, and then on the other, as their fears instigated them. I was
very soon jammed up with my back against the bars of one of the cages,
and feeling some beast lay hold of me behind, made a desperate effort,
and succeeded in climbing up to the cage above, not however without
losing the seat of my trousers, which the laughing hyaena would not
let go. I hardly knew where I was when I climbed up; but I knew the
birds were mostly stationed above. However, that I might not have the
front of my trousers torn as well as the behind, as soon as I gained
my footing I turned round, with my back to the bars of the cage; but I
had not been there a minute, before I was attacked by something which
digged into me like a pickaxe, and as the hyaena had torn my clothes,
I had no defence against it. To turn round would have been worse
still; so after having received above a dozen stabs, I contrived by
degrees to shift my position, until I was opposite to another cage,
but not until the pelican, for it was that brute, had drawn as much
blood from me as would have fed his young for a week. I was surmising
what danger I should next encounter, when to my joy I discovered that
I had gained the open door from which the lioness had escaped. I
crawled in, and pulled the door too after me, thinking myself very
fortunate; and there I sat very quietly in a corner during the
remainder of the noise and