The weekly herald. [volume] (Cleveland, Tenn.) 1876-1888, 1881-08-19
Elephants in a Bath Tub.


themselves Cor more than two years,
Superintendent Brown suddenly real
lied 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 pro-
boscidians. The sea lion pool or seal
tank could not be used, as they are 700
small, and it was remembered that when
Empress took her last bath in the duck
pond in 1879 she Topped around in
such an extravagant 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 ele-
plants were to bathe, 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 circumference and has
concrete floor and is lined with bricks.
Half an hour after the elephants, Dom
Pedro, Empress and Fanny, breakfasted
yesterday morning they were marched
from their pens to the brick-covered
roadway which inclines to the water in
the bathing place. Here Empress be-
came suspicious about the solidity of
the roadway and stopped. The keeper,
however, found several tender places on
her body with his harpoon, and after
two or three wicked snorts, which were
echoed by her companions, she moved
cautiously towards 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 water, stopped,
raised her trunk and trumpeted loudly.
This cry seemed to dispel the fears of
her companions, for an instant later
Dom Pedro pushed his way to the front
and went boldly into the water. Fanny
plunged in next, taking a genuine ele-
phantine "header" and reappearing in
the center OF the pool Empress entered
very slowly until her legs were covered,
and then with grunt, which indicated
intense satisfaction, she toppled over
on her left side and sank out of sight.
Dom Pedro, after sousing himself thor
oughly and going under the water sev-
eral times, waded to place where the
water was only about three feet deep
and stood there lazily whisking his
good-for-nothing little tail at the flies,
as he viewed with evident astonishment
the preposterous capers Fanny was cut
ting. The Dom accepted the situation
as coolly as though he bathed every day
instead of once in two years, but the
females fairly bubbled over with mani
festations of satisfaction and they dived
and spouted and snorted and trumpeted
nearly an hour. A ter 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 COM
ing to the surface each time her piggish
little eyes sparkled joyously and she
scampered 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 80 Of
water into his trunk and, poking that
member out horizontally until it was as
rigid as hose nozzle, he discharged its
contents full in the face of an observing
naturalist who stood near the edge of
pool. The naturalist as soon as he re-
covered his breath used bad language
and Dom Pedro beloved as if proud of
his performance. 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 one o'clock this after
noon.