The Republican. [volume] (Oakland, Md.) 1877-current, 1881-07-30
Delighted Elephants in a Bath.

As the three elephants in the Zoolog-
ical Garden had not washed themselves
for more than two years Superintendent
Brown suddenly realized that it would
be eminently proper to give them bath,
but the difficulty was to find bath-tub
large enough to accommodate the trio of
monster proboscians. The sea-lion pool
or seal tank could not be used, as they
are too small, and it was remembered
that when Empress took her last bath in
the duck-pond in 1879 she Topped
around in such an extravaganza manner
and stirred up the mud so thoroughly
that she came out far dirtier than she
was when she went in. 1t was clear that
If the elephants were to battle tub
would have to be built. The work was
begun in April, and, as it was finished
on Friday, the bathers took their first
dip yesterday morning. The bath-tub
is oval in shape, ten feet deep, about
one hundred and twenty feet in circum-
terence and has concrete floor and is
lined with bricks. Half an hour after
the elephants, Dom Pedro, Empress and
tanny, breakfasted yesterday morning
they were marched from their pens to
the Undiscovered roadway which in
cInes to the water in the bathing place.
here Empress became suspicious about
the solidlty of the roadway and stopped.
The Keeper, however, found several ten
der places on her body with his harpoon.
ana after two or three wicked shorts.
which were echoed by her companions,
she moved cautiously toward the water.
The plane to the pool is only about sixty
feet long, but so slowly did the bathers
move that fifteen minutes elapsed before
Empress put one of her feet in the wa
ter, stopped, raised her trunk aud trum-
peted loudly. This cry seemed to dispel
the tears OF her companions, for an in
slant later Dom Pedro pushed his wav
to the front and went boldly into the wa
ter. Fanny plunged in next, taking a
genuine elephantine s'header'' and reap
pearing in the centre of the pool. En-
press entered very slowly until her legs
were covered, and then with a grunt
which indicated intense satisfaction
she toppled over on her left
slde and sank out of sight. Dom
Pedro, after sousing himself thoroughly
and going under the water several
times, waded to place where the wa
ter was only three feet deep and stood
there lazily whisking his good for-noth-
ing little tail at the flies, as he viewed
with evident establishment the prepos-
ferrous capers Fanny was cutting. The
Dom accepted the situation as coolly as
though he went in bathing every day in
stead OF once in two years, but the fe-
males fairly dubbed over with manifes-
tations of satisfaction and they dived
and spouted and snorted and trumpeted
nearly an hour. After splashing around
fifteen or twenty minutes Fanny walked
up the incline and then deliberately rolled
down into the water again. The effect
of this newly discovered feat must have
pleased her intensely, for on coming to
the surface each time her piggish little
eyes sparkled joyously and she scam
pered up the bath to repeat the novel
performance.
At the moment the spectators were
most deeply interested in Fanny's per-
formances Dom Pedro showed his ILL
breeding by sucking gallon or so of
water into his trunk, and poking that
member. out boEiz2nts llig 'ls,edtiiJ itty,eSns
tents full in the face of an observing nat
uralist who stood near the edge of the
pool. The naturalist on recovering his
breath used bad language and Dom Pc
dro beloved as if proud of his perform
ance. The keeper had some difficulty
in getting the elephants out of the water,
but he finally succeeded and drove them
to their pens. On the journey, however,
Fanny insisted on rolling in the dust, SO
that when she reached her apartment she
was about three times as dirty. looking
as when she went into the bath, but she
will take another dip at l clock this
Observation-Disclosures Times.