everything, and to prove that the Giver and Provider from whom only all good comes, notes all things. And because, as was said by a worthy divine in an Episcopal church last Sunday night, “Whatever makes known and discloses a knowledge of God to the extent of becoming an instrument of good and benefit to any of God’s creatures, displays God in his own person for the benefit of the world, thereby being a power and antidote to all disease and evil, both to the human-family and the brute creation.”

When I first saw Jumbo I met him on the coast of France. He was about being brought from that country to England for medical care—to your humble servant, the animals’ physician. A more deplorable, diseased, and rotten creature never walked God’s earth, to my knowledge. Jumbo had been presented to France, together with another baby elephant, when they were quite infants.

When he was given in my charge, outside of Paris, his condition was simply filthy. He had been in the care of Frenchmen for several years, and they either did not know how to treat the race of elephants, or culpably neglected his raising. I don’t know which, but when I met him in France I thought I never saw a creature so woe-begone. The poor thing was full of disease, which had worked its way through the animal’s hide, and had almost eaten out its eyes. The hoofs of the feet and the tail were literally rotten, and the whole hide was so covered with sores, that the only thing I can compare it to was the condition of the man of leprosy spoken of in the good old “Guide-book,” or of Job’s state, when he had to scrape himself with a potsherd. However, I received Jumbo as I have received many other of God’s creatures that other people have given up for “a bad job.” I received him kindly, took him tenderly over the Channel, and lodged him in a comfortable, clean bed in my stable. I undertook to be his doctor, his nurse, and general servant. I watched and nursed him night and day with all the care and affection of a mother (if it were possible for a man to do such a thing), until by physicking from the inward centre of his frame I cleared out all diseased matter from his lungs, liver, and heart. I then, by means of lotions of oil, etc., took all the scabs from the roots of his almost blinded eyes. I removed his leprous coat as cleanly as a man takes off an overcoat; and his skin was as fine as that of a horse just from the clipper’s, after the hair had been cut off. I was rewarded by having a clean-shaven looking creature in a perfectly sound state of mind and body; and he required no blanket nor overcoat, although he was far, far from home, in a much more northerly climate than his native element in “Afric’s Sunny Sands.” Taking climate and covering into account, it was like transferring a man from the western shores of the Atlantic to “Greenland’s Icy Mountains.”

CHAPTER II.

JUMBO’S COMPANION ELEPHANT ALICE, AT THE ZOÖLOGICAL GARDENS, LONDON.

Her name is Alice. She is a native of the west coast of Africa, and was born in the year of our Lord one thousand eight hundred and sixty-four, the same year that Jumbo—nearly four years old—was brought to me.

She was born in the midst of a tribe of wild elephants that roamed about and sported in the freedom of their native element in the region spoken of above.

When Jumbo had grown into a good-sized Elephant Boy, I suggested that we ought to get him a sweetheart, so that, although he was a prisoner, chained and manacled in the Zoölogical Gardens, London, he would have a companion through life of his own race. So, having Jumbo entirely under my own care and management, I persuaded our Garden Directors to send to Africa for a female baby elephant. I must say the Directors were very good to me, at that time. They saw that I had got a fine specimen of the elephant tribe in my Jumbo, and that he was going to beat the world as a curiosity and wonder—which the sequel has proved.

So they sent ambassadors all the way to Africa, with instructions to buy or capture a good specimen of the female baby elephant.

These men went down from London to the great sea, and arriving on the west coast of Africa, after considerable search, found such a specimen as they thought would answer my purpose. They brought it over safely and deposited it in my care and keeping.

The arrival of this female baby elephant—not a year old—caused me great joy, and I cannot find words to express to my readers the pleasure and happiness I experienced at beholding my Jumbo’s delight when he first saw Alice coming along. Jumbo was now about four years old, and I stood head and shoulders above him in height.

If I could have the pleasure of that day over again, I would make a considerable sacrifice. However, when I passed by Jumbo’s stable, where he roamed at leisure, the moment he saw Alice led along toward him, I thought he would have broken that stable front out to get at us. His delight and pleasure, expressed in the liveliest manner possible, and which I understood, exceeded that of any boy when he meets his sweetheart for the first time. At least my Jumbo was more demonstrative and, I verily believe, possessed more real affection and love at first sight than most of the young men of the present generation do in a like situation. Jumbo’s great antics on this occasion were very entertaining, and if I may be pardoned for saying so much about these dear children of the forest, it did me good to behold them at the time, and even now I am happy in recapitulating the circumstances.

I immediately associated the young female elephant with Jumbo in a separate stall. We named her Alice; he was very proud of his sweetheart, and continued to cut great capers for quite a time.

Jumbo always showed the greatest regard for Alice, a good deal more so in fact than some young men show for their sweethearts in this or any other country.

Jumbo and Alice lived very happily together in the Zoölogical Gardens, London, for about seventeen years, and want of space prevents me from telling of the numerous interesting events that came within my knowledge as I tended and raised these young folks through their childhood to man and woman’s estate, so to speak. But I will observe, before leaving this part of the subject of Alice’s history, that I never, in all my experience among animals or humanity, saw more respect, deference, and affection shown by a male to a female than Jumbo paid at all times to Alice, even during his sickness. And in return, he received that true feminine affection and devotion from Alice which characterizes all true daughters of man or beast since the days of Adam and Eve. Nay, I will go further, I don’t think that Alice ever deceived Jumbo; she certainly never flirted with any other elephants (and she often had the chance).

CHAPTER III.

JUMBO AS A SWIMMER.

Jumbo knows how to bathe and swim; I may say he is a “great swimmer.” He makes a bigger hole in the water than most other animals, and he certainly throws water up into the air higher than any other animal, with his great water-spout trunk.

When in London some years ago, it being inconvenient to take Jumbo down to the river, it was arranged to construct a special bath for him and Alice, his wife. I just wish I had the boys and girls who have done so much shouting for Jumbo in this country, with me there to see Jumbo and Alice bathing. I would not wish for greater pleasure than to stand upon the top of the bath and look into their faces as they would gaze with intensity at the manœuvres of Jumbo as he led the way into the bath, down to the deep end, where he could have a swim, with Alice close at his heels. It is