The Birmingham age-herald., 1905-12-10

Also four big UT
 And a ferocious Schelk"
 The Lay of the Nieblungen (Revised.) NCE upon a time there was a Ger man who got corner upon the O worlds visible supply of captive hippopotami His stock consisted of one haby, brunting bull. and to bring it to his pens cost him two years of patient effort. ten thousand dollars in cash, and the life of his second son. And so he guarded it jealously d specuator in wheat watches his horde, and observed its price rise, dollar by dollar hundred by hundred and thousand by thousand.
 Finally it was quoted on the wild an nal exchanges of the world at twenty i've thousand dollar and curators of many zoos gazed upon 1t covetously, with tears in their eyes. A Yankee circus man, roaming Europe in search of two-headed boys and human pin-cushions, bought it at sight. It was the first live hippopota- mus ever held in bondage west of Suez, and when the press agent had done his part, it was well worth its cost. From Bangor, Me, to Sacramento, Cal. and from Mobile, Ala, to Sault Ste. Marie up and down the United States from coast to coast the rural and urban yeo- men focked to see it. On the posters it loomed terrifying and vast,-a gigantic, shapeless being, with nostrls like the muzzies of ten-inch guns and little, beady pinkish eyes-''the Far Famed Be- hemoth of Holy Writ "-''The Goliath of the Brute Creation, the Living Moun- tain, "-"the Untamed Giant of the Track les Jungles." It made the Wild Men ot Borneo" and 'Boseo the Snake Eater" seem tame.
 That was some time ago. Today the trade in hippopotami is better systema- tized, and better understood, and 1t is not necessary to waste years of effort or thousands of dollars in theIr quest, or to sacrifice d son. As u result, the market price of the numbering beasts has declined, and you may order d dozen, or a score, or a shipload of them from Carl Hagen beck of Hamburg and he will lay them down for you on New York docks, safe and sound, for rather less than five thou sand dollars apiece.
 1t was this same Hagenbeck, you must know, who got that famous corner of other days, and it was his son, Diedrick, d mighty hunter before the Lord, whose life helped to pay for 1t. The Hagenbecks were then (and are now) the worlds chief deal CTS in wild beasts of the snow wastes and the jungle. Give them your order and cash in hand, and they will get you any tow-footed or four-footed or foot less thing you want-a boa constructor, yak a chmpanzee or a gnu. IT 1t is not in stock at Stellingen, their huge animal depot near Hamburg, they will find 1t for you-in Greenland in Transcaspia, on the slopes of the Atlas mountains, or in Mesopotamia. They brought to Europe the first captive rhinoceros, and they brought, too, the first sacred Brahma bull, the first Mongolian horse, the first giraffe and the first Siberian tiger.
 The story of Dedrck Hagenbecks death is the story of the family firms methods. Travellers from the east had brought home fearsome tales of the hippopotamus. of its huge bulk, it's queer smooth hide, its pink, beady eyes. and its wonderful strength.
 Diedrick led the expedition for hippopo- tami and it's goal was the Ganges river, in India. It was not long before favorite haunt of the clumsy animals was found, and Diedrick, with two natives, ct out in a canoe to explore its mazes In small stretch of open water they encountered a baby hippo" sporting in the muddy water, much as a young pig might wal low in the parentGl sty In moment a moose was about it's thick neck, and it was being hauled bodily out of the water and into the rickety canoe.
 But the native oarsmen, quick as they were, were not quick enough. On the bank was the mother of the little cap tive-a heavy. undecided COW, with the strength of a hundred horses. She had been dozing In the sum- with the flies thick upon her, but of a sudden she was awake and alert, with nostrils distended and flesh aquiver. A might splash and she was in the stream. and then there began a race for life
 Near the bank the struggling youngster in the boat overturned one of the natives and he dropped his oar. As the frail craft