I conceive that the preceding rapidly sketched hints will serve as a sufficient ground-work for the animal-tamer to act upon. He must not be discouraged if he do not succeed at first, and he must be satisfied to take time, and persevere. Without this he need not hope for success.
The animal-tamer must be fearless--such a thing as terror must be a feeling wholly foreign to his soul. He must be as brave as a lion: for how can he otherwise hope to subdue the bravest of the animal creation? I have said “bravest,” and so let the word stand; but I was perhaps led to employ the expression rather from popular prejudice, than from a conviction of its truth. The feline tribes are very powerful and very fierce animals, but they are by no means brave. A bulldog has more courage in his pigmy body, than exists in the prodigious carcasses or a dozen lions or tigers. Let the animal-tamer recollect this, and the knowledge of this fact will probably encourage him. To give a case in point:--I was once endeavouring to make friends with the tigress in the Zoological Gardens, Phœnix Park--a beautiful animal, subsequently purchased from the Zoological Society by the proprietors of the Portobello Gardens, and since unfortunately dead. I had got so far as to be able to stroke the creature on the head and back, and even to open her mouth with my hand, and leave it within her terrible jaws. This I did on my third visit to her, in presence of the animal’s keeper. One day I was alone with the tigress, and my hand was upon her neck: she with equal good nature had placed her enormous paw upon my shoulder, and was purring in a most affectionate manner, when a sudden noise from one of the other animals caused me to start; instantly the paw was brought down upon my arm with some violence, and before I could extricate my hand, Kate, as the tigress was called, had closed her teeth upon the limb, which she held firmly, though as yet uninjured. I strove to withdraw my hand, but to no purpose. I felt in a most uncomfortable position, reader, for I feared that I should lose a very useful member of my frame: it was my _right_ hand. Had I lost it, I should have been unable to have written this or any of the other papers I have given you. The teeth of the tigress became more and more firmly closed, and my efforts to disengage my hand were unavailing; I called for assistance, but no one was within hearing; when, calling courage and resolution to my aid, I bethought me of my own principles, and, raising my other hand, dealt Kate as severe a blow as I was able with my clenched fist upon her nose. The experiment was successful. The animal, at once releasing my hand, sprang with an angry howl to the opposite side of her cage, from which in a few moments she returned cowering and submissive, apparently eager to regain that portion of my good opinion that she seemed conscious of having forfeited.