On our way down the nave, we stopped for a moment to see the Koh-i-noor, but the Mountain of Light looked to us little brighter than a piece of cut-glass. It does not come up to the general expectation. Manage it as they will, it does not shine at all wonderfully, and the people got it into their heads that the authorities were shamming them with a glass imitation instead of the veritable Koh-i-noor; an idea well expressed in “Punch,” who called it “the knave of diamonds.” We determined to show our patriotism by going first of all carefully through the American department, and quite a trial to one’s patriotism it is, a great space, very scantily filled with an ill-assorted, incongruous collection (although they have given up to Russia and France about one quarter of the space that Mr. Lawrence asked for and insisted upon having): one long shelf displayed only half a dozen wooden pails; another side was decorated with a miserable collection of cast-off specimens of autumn-leaves, and below with a case containing five or six dozen bottles of prepared magnesia, all just alike, flanked at the sides with a similar collection of Old Jacob Townsend’s Sarsaparilla, surmounted by a portrait of the illustrious inventor. The strength of the nation has gone to daguerreotypes, of which there are about two thousand very good specimens of the art, it must be said, far better than they can produce in England. The same may be said of many things, creditable in themselves, but of which they have filled up their space, or attempted to fill it, with an enormous number of specimens, where one or two would suffice. But wherever anything is quite poor and commonplace, the exhibitor is sure to make it up in brag, in which it must be confessed we do “beat all creation.” Monday we went to the Zoölogical Gardens, very extensive, in fine keeping, the richest collection of living animals of all sorts in the world. Were very much amused with monkeys of all sorts and sizes, from those little larger than a rat to the great and sedate orang-outang,[22] just arrived, who is quite a human and a very respectable grave old fellow. We saw the hippopotamus, too, but he lay sleeping in the sun, and would give no sign of life except occasionally opening his eye and giving a wink. But one of the most amusing sights was the little suckling elephant, with its mother, and it was curious to see the little thing use its trunk as perfectly and knowingly as its mother.... We stayed to see the ferocious animals fed, at half past four, no great sight, as they behaved extremely proper, and then we hurried back to the station and came home to Kew.