THE MENAGERIE. 273 garden, and completely embowered in flowering vines. The only rooms were the dining hall, with cushioned divans on each side and a drapery of the Austrian colors at the end, and my apartment, which overlooked a small garden-court, wherein two large ostriches paced up and down, and a company of wild geese and wild swine made continual discord. The court at the entrance communicated with the stables, which contained the Consul's horses — a white steed, of the pure Arabian blood of Nedjid, and the red stallion appropriated to my use, which was sent by the King of Par-Fur to Lattif Pasha, and presented by him to the Consul. A liejin, or trained dromedary, of unusual size, stood in the court, and a tame lioness was tied to a stake in the corner. She was a beautiful and powerful beast, and I never passed her without taking her head between my knees, or stroking her tawny hide until she leaned against me like a cat and licked my hand.

Passing through a side-door into the garden, we came upon a whole menagerie of animals. Under the long arbors, covered with luxuriant grape-vines, stood two surly hyenas, a wild ass from the mountains of the Atbara, and an Abyssinian mule.

A tall marabout (a bird of the crane species, with a pouch-bill), stalked about the garden, occasionally bending a hinge in the middle of his long legs, and doubling them backwards, so that he used half of them for a seat. Adjoining the stable was a large sheep-yard, in which were gathered together gazelles, strange varieties of sheep and goats from the countries of the White Nile, a virgin-crane, and a large antilojpus leucoryx, from Kordofan, with curved horns four feet in length. My favorite, however, was the leopard, which was a most playful and affectionate creature, except at meal-time. He was not 12*