occasion I watched with breathless anxiety and dumb amazement a man,
who seemed to have discarded every garment common to the race, wheel a
wheelbarrow with a grooved wheel up a tight rope stretched from the
ground to the outer peak of the pavilion; and all the time there was a
man in the wheelbarrow who seemed paralyzed with fright,--as no doubt he
was. The man who wheeled the barrow was the world-famous Blondin.

[Illustration: Russ Gardens, 1856]

Another sylvan retreat was known as "The Willows." There were some
willows there, but I fear they were numbered; and there was an _al
fresco_ theatre such as one sees in the Champs-Elysées; indeed, the
place had quite a Frenchy atmosphere, and was not at all German, as was
Russ' Garden. French singers sang French songs upon the stage--it was
not much larger than a sounding-board.

An air of gaiety prevailed; for I imagine the majority of the _habitués_
were from the French Quarter of the city. Of course there were birds and
beasts, and cages populous with monkeys; and there was an emeu--the
weird bird that can not fly, the Australian cassowary. This bird
inspired Bret Harte to song, and in his early days he wrote "The Ballad
of the Emeu";

O say, have you seen at the willows so green,
So charming and rurally true,
A singular bird, with the manner absurd,
Which they call the Australian emeu?
Have you
Ever seen this Australian emeu?