A character of a desperate young man, who employs high courage and strong
faculties in this sort of dangers, and wastes his talents in wild riot,
addressing the audience as a snake-man,--keeping the ring while the
monkey rides the pony,--singing negro and other songs.
The country boors were continually getting within the barriers, and
venturing too near the cages. The great lion lay with his fore paws
extended, and a calm, majestic, but awful countenance. He looked on the
people as if he had seen many such concourses. The hyena was the most
ugly and dangerous looking beast, full of spite, and on ill terms with
all nature, looking a good deal like a hog with the devil in him, the
ridge of hair along his back bristling. He was in the cage with a
leopard and a panther, and the latter seemed continually on the point of
laying his paw on the hyena, who snarled, and showed his teeth. It is
strange, though, to see how these wild beasts acknowledge and practise a
degree of mutual forbearance, and of obedience to man, with their wild
nature yet in them.
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