Page:The Yellow Book - 07.djvu/271



By Hubert Crackanthorpe

are the largest travelling circus in Europe. Their staff numbers over two hundred and fifty; they have a hundred and seventy horses, seven elephants, eight lions, two tigers, three camels, and a dromedary; their cortège on the road is sixty-three waggons long. I joined them at Dieppe: they had parted with their interpreter, and I took his place.

Monday, 2 a.m.—There was no moon; all night the wind had been screaming, driving spasmodic showers before it; overhead, above the roofs, vague forms of tattered clouds were scudding.

In the market-place, flaring petroleum lights flitting to and fro; dim figures hurrying hither and thither through the darkness; loose horses neighing as they stampeded among the tent-ropes; incessant volleys of oaths echoing from wall to wall.

"Here," Jim, the stud-groom, called to me, "hold this lot o' 'orses, will yer?" He thrust a bundle of halter-ropes into my hand, and disappeared into the darkness.

The big tent came down with a run, and lay before me bellying and flapping in the wind, followed by the crashing of the poles, as the men swung them into the tent-waggon. Close beside me, I caught