Chapter XII Zoologischer Garten, Aix-la-Chapelle (Aachen): Director, Aug. Bast
This Garden was founded in 1886 by Sir Emil Lochner, and his widow is now proprietress.
On paying twenty pfennig one is confronted by a large, handsome concert-hall with glass roof and sides, with pretty beds of tulips in front of it. At first I could find no animals, although I found several empty cages and pens. At length, however, I came upon a deer house with outside enclosure, containing, amongst others, a pair of wapiti about half grown. Close by it was a bear den built like a castle, and containing a brown and a polar bear; in two other pens close at hand were a pair of white goats and a pretty roe deer. What, apparently, had been an antelope shed now housed two monkeys and some parrots. There was rather a nice lion house, but there was not a single animal in it. There was a llama pen inhabited by one llama, and a pheasant house and a duck lake finished a very disappointing show, considering the accommodation and possibilities of the place.
To add to the enjoyment of my visit to the Garden, I was caught in a snowstorm there, May 7.