Out of Africa

In the Menagerie

About a hundred years ago, a Danish traveller to Hamburg, Count Schimmelma

Count Schimmelma

“Your Excellency does well to look at the Hyena,” said he. “It is a great thing to have got a Hyena to Hamburg, where there has never been one till now. All Hyenas, you will know, are hermaphrodites, and in Africa, where they come from, on a full-moon night they will meet and join in a ring of copulation wherein each individual takes the double part of male and female. Did you know that?”

“No,” said Count Schimmelma

“Do you consider now, your Excellency,” said the showman, “that it should be, on account of this fact, harder to a Hyena than to other animals to be shut up by itself in a cage? Would he feel a double want, or is he, because he unites in himself the complementary qualities of creation, satisfied in himself, and in harmony? In other words, since we are all prisoners in life, are we happier, or more miserable, the more talents we possess?”

“It is a curious thing,” said Count Schimmelma

They moved on to look at the Giraffes in the neighbouring cage.

“The wild animals,” continued the Count, “which run in a wild landscape, do not really exist. This one, now, exists, we have got a name for it, we know what it is like. The others might as well not have been, still they are the large majority. Nature is extravagant.”

The showman pushed back his worn fur-cap, underneath it he himself had not got a hair on his head. “They see one another,” he said.

“Even that may be disputed,” said Count Schimmelma

The showman looked at the Giraffe for some time and then said: “God sees them.”

Count Schimmelma

“Oh yes, your Excellency,” said the showman, “God sees the Giraffes. While they have been ru

Count Schimmelma

“Indeed, my good Ka

The showman looked up at him nervously. “Indeed, Sir, should I?” he said, and slipped down the snake into the case. “And why, Sir? If I may ask so,” he added after a moment.

“Ah, Ka

The showman had stood for a little while in deep thoughts. “Your Excellency,” he said at last, “you must needs love snakes. There is no way round it. Out of my own experience in life, I can tell you so, and indeed it is the best advice that I can give you: You should love the snakes. Keep in your mind, your Excellency, how often,—keep in mind, your Excellency, that nearly every time that we ask the Lord for a fish, he will give us a serpent.”

Fellow-Travellers

At the table on the boat to Africa I sat between a Belgian going to the Congo, and an Englishman who had been eleven times to Mexico to shoot a particular kind of wild mountain-sheep, and who was now going out to shoot bongo. In making conversation on both sides, I got mixed up in the languages, and when I meant to ask the Belgian if he had travelled much in his life, I asked him: Avez-vous beaucoup travaillé dans votre vie? He took no offence but, drawing out his toothpick, he answered gravely: Enormément, Madame. From this time he made it his object to tell me of all the labours of his life. In everything that he discussed, a certain expression came back: Notre mission. Notre grande mission dans le Congo.

One evening, as we were going to play cards, the English traveller told us about Mexico and of how a very old Spanish lady, who lived on a lonely farm in the mountains, when she heard of the arrival of a stranger, had sent for him and ordered him to give her the news of the world. “Well, men fly now, Madame,” he said to her.

“Yes, I have heard of that,” said she, “and I have had many arguments with my priest about it. Now you can enlighten us, sir. Do men fly with their legs drawn up under them, like the sparrows, or stretched out behind them, like the storks?”

He also, in the course of our talk, made a remark about the ignorance of the Natives of Mexico, and of the schools there. The Belgian, who was dealing, paused with the last card in his hand, looked piercingly at the Englishman, and said: Il faut enseigner aux nègres à être ho