Yollande, in her role of trainer, went on and on like a brook.

“Here, now, is a dromedary.  He has a hump on his back, a fatty exerescence which enables him to bear much fatigue, without eating or drinking for several days.  It is owing to this fat, rather like a box of provisions on his back, that he can traverse hot and sandy deserts where it would be difficult to find a single blade of grass to eat.”

Then through the farm bedroom passed long caravans of camels, led by carnival Arabs, their humps changed into gigantic larders in which rattled all sorts of canned things.  Canned salmon, Russian caviare, dried biscuits, smoked meats, tongues, sardines, canned peas, foies-gras, lobsters, and fruits, in fact all those things which Mother Etienne had seen piled up in many-coloured pyramids at the best grocery stores.  Really it was too ridiculous.—­Miss Booum must have been making fun of her visitor.—­That couldn’t really be the best food for camels.

It was still worse when it came to the turn of the hippopotami.  A thousand ill-digested memories from the illustrated papers were in her mind, all mixed up.  Where did the Nile and the Zanzibar flow?  Which was it that separated Egypt from Senegal?  And the gigantic hippopotamus, looking perfectly huge and out-of-place in a gondola fit for a sultana, appeared to her, floating down the calm stream, a red fez with a golden star on his head, puffing away at a peculiar double-bowled pipe, the pride of the collection of a retired police-officer in the village, who had it from the real cousin of a sea-captain from Marseilles.

“Do you see those little lumps there enclosed between four boards?  It is a nest of land-tortoises.  The largest, called the Giant tortoise, easily supports on its back a weight of two hundred pounds.  This shell which weighs so heavily is its house.  At the least alarm, it retreats into its house and stays there, till all danger is past.”  This plan of walking about with your house on your back seemed rather a good one to Mother Etienne.  You could go out on rainy days without getting wet, and on cold days it would keep your back nice and warm.

“Near at hand is a collection of mammals, the kangaroo family.  The kangaroo is the largest mammal of Australia.  It is generally a peace-loving animal, but bites, scratches, and claws if it is teased.  Its best defence however is flight.”  All these technical details left the good woman cold.  What she remembered best were the practical qualities of the creatures.  The kangaroo has one very great peculiarity, the female has a pouch, a sort of bag, in which she hides her young if danger appears, just as the soldier has his knapsack.

For the first time in her life Mother Etienne was much struck By certain resemblances between animals and human beings, finding in them actions, looks, and habits which reminded her irresistibly of many of her acquaintances.  It was amongst the monkeys that it was the most marked.  Two chimpanzees, with pensive faces garbed in black, seemed to be mourning some beloved relative.  It was as though their sad but shining eyes, gazing at the straw which half-covered them, were seeking something hidden, intangible.