The Elephant Keeper

Excerpt

The Master of the Dover was one Captain Elias Hall, a stout, red-faced man who looked uneasy in a stiff suit. Taking a chisel, he prised two boards from the first crate, which had slipped its harness and landed heavily. It contained the striped horse, a creature known as a Zebra, and I saw at once that it had broken both its front legs and was very near death. Joshua was much distressed by its suffering, and the contents of the next crate to be opened were even more painful to behold, for the Leopard was long past all hope of recovery. This Leopard was evidently the prize trophy of the Captain, who had hoped, no doubt, to sell it for a large sum of money to some gentleman, and he did his best to rouse the poor animal by kicking its body and pulling its tail, to no avail, since it was utterly dead and had, indeed, begun to stink. The third crate, rather smaller, held a ginger-coloured baboon with a neat white beard and sky-blue testicles, just as the sailor had said; shivering
as if it were cold, and holding its head in its hands, it crouched in a corner of the crate. Someone called for it to be brought forth, but someone else told us that it was excessively dangerous and would bite at will. Joshua now began to cry, saying that he wanted to go
home; however, Mr. Harrington dissuaded him.

The next crate to be opened contained a large grey animal, lying on its side, deep in ordure, its hind legs in shackles. In my ignorance I had no notion even whether it might be of the land or sea, for in truth it did not resemble any creature that I had ever seen or imagined, except perhaps a whale. I heard the word Elephant, but scarcely registered its meaning in my astonishment.  It had two huge ear flaps, four thick legs, and a single snake-like prottuberance dangling from the centre of its face. From a distance it seemed hairless, although on closer inspection I saw thick wiry hairs sprouting at intermittent intervals from the cracks and fissures in its skin, which was the colour of ash. Its eyes were closed.
To me it looked nearly as dead as the Leopard, and Captain Hall evidently feared as much, because he ordered two of his sailors to throw sea-water over its body. At the shock of the water, the creature's eyes remained closed, but it made a small stir with its head, whereupon a party of sailors dragged it out of the crate and, in spite of its great weight, endeavoured to set it on its feet. The Elephant promptly collapsed, being unable to stand, very nearly crushing one of the sailors beneath its weight. I was not surprised that it could not stand for, as I was presently informed, it had been confined in this tight space and virtual darkness for the entire length of the voyage, a matter of some ninety-one days, during the bulk of which it had been fed a meagre diet of biscuits and roots. It was easy to imagine the suffering that the creature must have endured, and the confusion in its mind; that it had survived the journey, was very near incredible.

-From the book Elephant Keeper by Christopher Nicholson