They proved to be a rather poor place of suburban amusement; poor, at
least, by daylight, their chief attraction for the public consisting in
out-of-door representations of battles and sieges. The storming of
Sebastopol (as likewise at the Cremorne Gardens) was advertised for the
evening, and we saw the scenery of Sebastopol, painted on a vast scale,
in the open air, and really looking like miles and miles of hill and
water; with a space for the actual manoeuvring of ships on a sheet of
real water in front of the scene, on which some ducks were now swimming
about, in place of men-of-war. The climate of England must often
interfere with this sort of performance; and I can conceive of nothing
drearier for spectators or performers than a drizzly evening. Convenient
to this central spot of entertainment there were liquor and refreshment
rooms, with pies and cakes. The menagerie, though the ostensible staple
of the gardens, is rather poor and scanty; pretty well provided with
lions and lionesses, also one or two giraffes, some camels, a polar
bear,--who plunged into a pool of water for bits of cake,--and two black
bears, who sat on their haunches or climbed poles; besides a wilderness
of monkeys, some parrots and macaws, an ostrich, various ducks, and other
animal and ornithological trumpery; some skins of snakes so well stuffed
that I took them for living serpents till J----- discovered the
deception, and an aquarium, with a good many common fishes swimming among
sea-weed.
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