Lallah Rookh (died 11 September 1860) was a female Asian elephant in Dan Rice's circus. She was known for her tightrope walking act. Lallah started her circus career in Franconi's Hippodrome under the name of

Jenny Lind Johanna Maria "Jenny" Lind (6 October 18202 November 1887) was a Swedish opera singer, often called the "Swedish Nightingale". One of the most highly regarded singers of the 19th century, she performed in soprano roles in opera in Sweden and a ...

, from which she kept from 1848 to 1851. In 1851, she was renamed as

Juliet Juliet Capulet () is the female protagonist in William Shakespeare's romantic tragedy ''Romeo and Juliet''. A 13-year-old girl, Juliet is the only daughter of the patriarch of the House of Capulet. She falls in love with the male protagonist R ...

and was paired with another elephant, Romeo. She worked with animal trainer Charles Noyes who, in 1853, left Franconi's with Lallah and a white

camel A camel (from: la, camelus and grc-gre, κάμηλος (''kamēlos'') from Hebrew or Phoenician: גָמָל ''gāmāl''.) is an even-toed ungulate in the genus ''Camelus'' that bears distinctive fatty deposits known as "humps" on its back. C ...

to join with Rice's circus in

Columbus, Ohio Columbus () is the state capital and the most populous city in the U.S. state of Ohio. With a 2020 census population of 905,748, it is the 14th-most populous city in the U.S., the second-most populous city in the Midwest, after Chicago, and t ...

. Rice renamed her Lallah Rookh after the popular poem by Thomas Moore and she began performing in the show two days after they arrived. Lallah was the first elephant in the United States to perform a head stand consistently. Her most famous feat was her tightrope walking act. Lallah walked on a specially made rope, six inches in diameter and twenty feet long, which hung four feet off of the ground between two pairs of crossed beams. Midway through her walk, Lallah would stop and raise her foreleg, and Dan Rice would give her an American flag to hold in her trunk as she continued the rest of the way. In August 1860, Rice had Lallah Rookh swim across the

Ohio River The Ohio River is a long river in the United States. It is located at the boundary of the Midwestern and Southern United States, flowing southwesterly from western Pennsylvania to its mouth on the Mississippi River at the southern tip of Illino ...

in Cincinnati, Ohio to drum up publicity for his new "Monster Show." It took her 45 minutes to swim across the river. A month later, Lallah died of a fever brought about by her swim.Carlyon, David. ''Dan Rice'' 2001, p. 294

References

{{reflist 1860 animal deaths Circus animals Individual elephants in the United States

See also

References