ross the deck amidships. In the twinkling of an
eye, the boa wrapped himself around the python, and the tiger got away.

"Then, while the two big snakes thrashed around the deck, Mr. Bengal
slunk away like a cat scared by a dog--his tail between his legs, and
the fur on his back raised up so that it looked like that of a
razor-backed hog.

"He went forward of the house to think it over, and the two snakes
fought it out, while the lion, thinking that he had won the fight,
roared and growled his defiance to the rest.

"He was too confident; the big rhinoceros looked him in the face, and
the trouble was resumed.

"Mr. Lion charged; but the rhino lowered his head, caught him between
the forepaws with his horn, and sent him flying over his head, with a
big gash in his body. That was enough for the lion, king of beasts
though he was.

"Leaving a trail of blood, he slunk forward of the house, and there
must have met his enemy, the tiger. We could not see, but we could
hear, and we knew the fight between the two was resumed.

"The snakes were thrashing it out all this time, but neither seemed to
get the better of it. The boa's instincts were to crush, the python's
to swallow; but this swallowing pertained also to the boa, and it came
about that the boa got about three inches of the python's tail into his
mouth, and later the python got a grip on the boa's tail.

"They held fast and ceased their struggles, their efforts now being
centered in the desire to swallow each other. This seemed a good
solution of our problem, and we wished them well.

"Meanwhile, the hyenas and the Russian wolves got mixed up, and--talk
about your dog fights--you never saw anything like it. Those beasts
fought and snarled and wrestled round the deck in a way to make you
glad you were up aloft, out of harm's way.

"It was a strange fight; both the hyenas and the wolves are cowards,
each afraid of the other. And it was only when two wolves got at a
hyena, or two hyenas got at a wolf that there was any real scrapping.
But it came about that these two breeds destroyed each other.

"One after the other crawled away to die from loss of blood.

"The wild asses and zebras had got busy. Something about the
arrangement of the zebra's stripes must have offended the artistic
sensibilities of the wild asses, for pretty soon there was a lively
kicking-match going on round the deck--a zebra against a donkey,
kicking out, stern to stern, like prize-fighter