Presented for your examin­ation are two extraordin­ary tales of unusual pets. The first is a tale that some might consider a modern-day retelling of the classic folk tale of Androcles and the Lion. [1]

Examine, if you will, the not-so ordinary life of one Chevalier Crowther – “the skater, juggler and unicyclist, who has been travelling with a circus through Mexico”. [2]

One day, Crowther was out shooting near Vera Cruz and temporarily ceased his exert­ions to rest under a cactus tree.

“I fell fast asleep. When I slowly unclosed my eyes what I saw made me keep stiller than death. A huge cobra snake, as thick round the body as my thigh, lay coiled on my naked chest (I had thrown my shirt open when sitting down). I tried to still the beating of my heart. After what seemed to me hours, but in reality was perhaps a few minutes, I cautiously turned my head, but a loud hissing from the serpent made me lie quieter than before. I closed my eyes, expecting every moment to feel his fangs at my throat. I could hear my comrades hallooing and shouting in the distance, signalling to me to return; then I heard a growl apparently over my head. I opened my eyelids a little bit and saw in the tree a beautiful spotted tiger cat, crouching ready to spring.”

The big cat sprang onto the gigantic snake and a titanic struggle ensued.

“The cat, with her claws firmly embedded in the serpent’s neck was tearing and biting him furiously. I saw a fold of the serpent gradually closing round the cat’s body, and could almost hear the cracking of the ribs.”

Crowther feared he would hit the cat if he shot at the snake, so entered the fray with his knife, instead.

“The hunting-knife was heavy, about 18 inches [45cm] long, and an edge like a razor. I dropped on one knee, and with one powerful cut – a straight cut, without drawing or pushing – I severed the coil round the cat’s neck without hurting a hair of the animal.

“As she felt herself free she stretched herself out and tried to rise, but could not. I patted her head, and she feebly licked my hand. I lifted her and carried her to a neighbouring stream and let her drink, and then washed the blood off her muzzle and claws. She had a nasty bite on one of her hind legs. I saw some plants growing near, of the sort which the Indians use for serpent bites. I coll­ected a few and chewed them, so as to make a poultice; then with my sharp hunting knife shaved off the hairs round the wound, cauterised it by burning it with a lighted cigarette, then applied the leaves, and with my handkerchief bound up the limb securely. The animal seemed to understand that all I was doing was for its good, and, reaching some of the leaves, commenced eating them. I carried the cat carefully to our camp, and tended it daily for a week. I never confined it. It would follow me about like a dog, and sleep on my pillow at night…”

Crowther later returned to Vera Cruz and the cat went with him: “The cat is still with me, very affectionate, but savage with strangers. The life of confinement it is compelled to lead in towns is, I am afraid, injuring its health.”

Our next story from the Pet Dimension is only marginally more possible than the giant spider of Paris story discovered by Theo Paijmans (FT242:49). In fact, some might say it’s a real whale of a tale.

Allegedly, on a small, unnamed island in the South Pacific was a solitary white man living among the natives. He lived by selling dry coconut meat to sailors on passing trading ships.
He took particular delight in showing off an unusual pet to visitors, one of whom recounted the experience thus:

“The island was surrounded by coral, and from each corner of its northern side, which was about two miles [3.2km] long, a wall of coral stretched away northward to meet at a sharp angle five or six miles [8–10km] away. The great sea waves broke into foam upon these walls, but within their protection was a triangle of water as smooth as any lake. Out over this the boat rode easily until we had reached a point about midway between the middle point of the reef and the shore. Here the boys stopped rowing, and two of them began drumming with clubs upon the bottom of the boat.” [3]

At this point, our narrator was told to close his eyes for a surprise:

“…and someone blew long blasts upon a horn. Then that, too, ceased, and the boat lay motionless, and nothing disturbed the stillness. All at once I heard a huge sigh, and felt a hot and sickish breath. There was no need for the planter to bid me open my eyes, for surprise or no surprise, the lids would not stay shut. Not more than six feet [1.8m] away I saw a huge monster floating on the surface and looking at us with the most expressionless eye that I ever saw in a living beast.

“‘There’s my pet,” cried the planter. ‘I raised him almost from the time he was a baby of 20ft [6m] long, and now he measures 67 feet [20m] over all and lots more growth to come yet’.

“The pet was a sperm whale. He seemed enormous when compared with us men. Behind the great head there stretched out a long body covered in great patches with barnacles as large as a teacup, and the sleek flukes of the tail, lying flat upon the water, seemed ever so far away, yet ever so much too near, when I recalled whalers’ accounts of the behaviour of this animal when enraged. The great head rose from the sea so high above the water that it becalmed the boat. The eye was about the size of an ox eye, and had almost the same deep violet shade. The ear was not so far distant from the eye, a simple orifice in the skin. The colour of the skin was a dusty black, which became lighter and more yellow underneath; except for the barn­acles the skin was quite smooth.

“The great animal lay motionless just out of arm’s reach until the planter called to him, and dabbled his fingers in the water, much as one attracts a kitten by scratching on the carpet. The dist­ant flukes made a half turn in the water and the whale moved easily towards us and ranged up alongside, just touching the boat. The planter reached over the gunwale and began to pick a number of wriggling things out of the corner of the whale’s eye. He handed several to me, and I found them to be small white crabs, which, with all their legs spread out, would cover one of the old silver half-dimes. These parasites are a constant annoyance to all whales, which have no means of ridding themselves of the pest.”

They proceeded to clean the whale’s gums and teeth. After “one side was cleaned, the planter gave the whale a slap between the ear and the eye, and bade him turn the other side. When this one had been picked clean, the whale sculled quickly ahead until it was 600ft or 700ft [180–210m] away from the boat.”

“Then it began a series of antics and displayed an agility scarcely to be expected from so great an animal. It darted straight ahead, it suddenly backed water, it swam in a circle, it gambolled like a dolphin, it threw itself clear from the water, making a great splash and dangerous waves when it fell back; last of all it put its head down and flukes up, throwing nearly half its length into the air, and rose quietly beside the boat. The chopped meat was thrown overboard, and we rowed back to shore while this odd pet was feeding.”

How had the planter acquired his huge pet?

“One day some years ago, I was sailing up the lagoon with a barrel full of chopped meat to bait a pool in the reef beyond. All at once I felt the boat lifted up and overturned, and when I had righted her and clambered aboard, there was the whale feeding on the meat which had been scattered all about… Somehow or other he never seemed able to find the pass back into the sea, and now he is so big that he could not get out even if he wished to. From being afraid of him I grew reconciled to his presence in the lagoon. One day he came up to the boat, and though I was very much frightened, I began to pick these crabs out of his eye.

“From that time he attached himself to me, and I found that he relished being petted. Once when I was ill I left him unatt­ended for several weeks. He came down the lagoon much further than usual, and at last ran himself aground just below my house, and had to wait several hours for the tide to float him off. That shows that he missed me. Here is another example of his intelligence. When the boys drum upon the bottom of the boat he hears the sound a long distance under water and at once comes to the surface. Then if I blow the horn he knows that I have come out to feed him, and comes quickly up to the boat. But if I do not blow the horn he never comes close, but frolics around us at long range. It is not easy to say how much sense a whale has, but this ought to convince anyone that my big pet is possessed of considerable intelligence.”

If only this tale were true and not suspiciously like a Yankee yarn of old. Perhaps… in another dimension… parallel to ours… it is.

NOTES
1 See “Androcles and the Lion and other folktales of Aarne-Thompson type 156” by DL Ashliman at http://tinyurl.com/5l8sjp.

2 “A Cat And Serpent Fight”, Evening Post (Wellington, New Zealand), 9 July 1892, p2 [quoting from the London Era].

3 Evening Post (Wellington, New Zealand) 24 Jan 1891, p1 (quoting from the Pittsburg [sic] Despatch and widely circ­ulated in other American newspapers).