Although each of us tried to conceal the fact, we were very excited and ate far less breakfast than usual. Stringer, on whom the brunt of the situation would naturally fall, was quite abstemious. He consumed only one piece of bacon and a little toast. But he drank three cups of strong coffee--and looked much better for it. . . .
Breakfast over, we took a taxi to the huge canvas town on the outskirts of the city.
Already, at the early hour of eight o'clock, it was thronged with industrious, gesticulating citizens who were knocking pegs from out of the ground, loosening ropes, and lowering and rolling up the vast expanse of gray-white canvas. Little columns of blue smoke ascended vertically and steadily from the caravan chimneys into the still air; there was the confused noise of many people talking and shouting; the smell of trodden orange peel, frizzling bacon, and wild beasts; the thud of horses' feet on the soft turf; and then, suddenly, the sound of a man crying out: "Go easy, damn your eyes! . . . Mind that rope, Jim!"
We wended our way through the litter and commotion and smell, until we found some responsible-looking person who conducted us to the proprietor's caravan, a travelling palace of yellow and black, with its brasswork shining in the morning sun like burnished gold. There we met the strange man who amassed wealth by the simple method of exhibiting wild animals in cages, freaks on platforms, ladies and gentlemen on galloping horses. He shook hands with us, looked curiously at Stringer for a few moments, and then led the way to an isolated cage situated in one corner of the field.
"I had it brought up here into a quiet spot where you won't be disturbed," he said.
A canvas curtain was hung over the front of the van and when this had been removed we found ourselves confronted by a sheet of plate glass, behind which were the steel bars that kept our friend the gorilla at bay.
"Consumption is the greatest danger we have to face," said the proprietor. "Next to that, we have to guard against cold. You'll notice the cage is specially made for keeping contaminated air out and the heat in--particularly during the performances and in cold weather. The atmosphere is kept moist by means of an electric heater in that pool of salt water, and the four radiators you see maintain a temperature varying from about 60 to 90 degrees each day--which is the average variation in the jungle. Nothing is worse for the gorilla than a constant degree of heat, which one never finds under natural conditions.