Page:Dapples of the Circus (1943).pdf/213

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was returning with little cargo, some of the animals and circus people were transferred to her, and all went on their way rejoicing, feeling that they had escaped miraculously.

Arrived at Rio de Janeiro, the ninety gaudy circus cars were transferred, first to a ferry-boat, and then to one of the leading South American railroads. So two days after the big American show landed on South American soil they were once more bumping over the rails in the accustomed manner, showing every day or two. But the accommodations for exhibiting, and especially for feeding the circus, were not as good as in the United States, notwithstanding the fact that the advance agents and buyers had done everything possible.

Nor had the advertising been neglected. For weeks small South American urchins, of all degrees of blackness, from the swarthy Spaniard to the native, black as a coal, had been gaping open-mouthed at