Only a tank, some twenty feet long by fifteen feet wide, filled with sea
water!

Truth was, there was a man-Folk on board who had caught, and wanted to
carry to a great park in some far-distant land, a crocodile. Boo! a
great sea-reptile that I wonder any one should want to have around, even
as a curiosity. It had been taken from the river Nile in Egypt, much
farther up the Mediterranean borders than I had ever been.

The crocodile did not live, so I was put into its tank, and that was the
"bed" the sailors had made, by filling it with salt water. Shade of my
royal grandfathers! how long I could live in such pinching quarters was
a question.

I was given plenty of herring--so called--and other kinds of fish to
eat, and "Folks" visited me about every hour of the day. There were
children on the steamer, pretty little dears, that never tired of
talking to me, and between them all, passengers, sailors, and the
children, I learned how Folks talked, and a great many other things
besides.

One fine, manly little fellow visited me constantly. He was voyaging for
his health, and took much pleasure in sitting beside the tank, book in
hand, yet watching my movements, and once he said something that made me
wish I could talk in the language of Folks. Yet before I tell what it
was, I want to say that there was one thing I did not like at all, but
was not able to let the Folks know it.

The sailors called me "Dolly!" A great name to give a lord of the sea, a
fellow bearing the title I owned!