However, that I might not have the front of my trowsers torn as well as the behind, as soon as I gained my footing I turned round, with my back to the bars of the cage, but I had not been there a minute before I was attacked by something which digged into me like a pickaxe, and as the hyaena had torn my clothes, I had no defence against it.

To turn round would have been worse still; so, after having received above a dozen stabs, I contrived by degrees to shift my position until I was opposite to another cage, but not until the pelican, for it was that brute, had drawn as much blood from me as would have fed his young for a week.

I was surmising what danger I should next encounter, when to my joy I discovered that I had gained the open door from which the lioness had escaped.

I crawled in, and pulled the door to after me, thinking myself very fortunate: and there I sat very quietly in a corner during the remainder of the noise and confusion.

I had been there but a few minutes, when the beef-eaters, as they were called, who played the music outside, came in with torches and loaded muskets.