Our attention was then arrested by an immense baboon, called _General Jacko_, who was distributing his signatures as fast as he could dip his pen in the ink, to those who enabled him to fill his enormous craw with plums, raisins, and figs. The next object which attracted our notice was a magnificent man, standing, as we were told, six feet six inches and a half, independent of the heels of his shoes. The gorgeous splendour of his Oriental dress was rendered more conspicuous by an immense plume of white feathers, which were like the noddings of an undertaker’s horse, increased in their wavy and graceful motion by the movements of the wearer’s head. As this extraordinary man was to perform some wonderful feats of strength, we joined the motley throng of spectators at the charge of “only threepence each,” that being vociferated by Flockton’s[312] successor as the price of the evening admittance. After he had gone through his various exhibitions of holding great weights at arm’s-length, etc., the all-bespangled master of the show stepped forward, and stated to the audience that if any four or five of the present company would give, by way of encouraging the “Young Hercules,” _alias_ the “Patagonian Samson,” sixpence apiece, he would carry them all together round the booth, in the form of a pyramid. With this proposition my companion and myself closed; and after two other persons had advanced, the fine fellow threw off his velvet cap surmounted by its princely crest, stripped himself of his other gewgaws, and walked most majestically, in a flesh-coloured elastic dress, to the centre of the amphitheatre, when four chairs were placed round him, by which my friend and I ascended, and, after throwing our legs across his lusty shoulders, were further requested to embrace each other, which we no sooner did, cheek-by-jowl, than a tall skeleton of a man, instead of standing upon a small wooden ledge fastened to Samson’s girdle, in an instant leaped on his back, with the agility of a boy who pitches himself upon a post too high to clear, and threw a leg over each of our shoulders; as for the other chap (for we could only muster four), the Patagonian took him up in his arms. Then, after _Mr. Merryman_ had removed the chairs, as he had not his full complement, Samson performed his task with an ease of step most stately, without either the beat of a drum, or the waving of a flag.