Crowbar in hand, Isaac Van Amburgh became famous for confrontinglions in the confined space of a cage in a new type of public enter-tainment. His look alone was believed to subdue lions although inperformance he manhandled them forcefully. Sensationalist handlingacts proliferated and the feat that came to typify 19th-century travellingmenageries involved tamers, including lion queen Ellen Chapman,putting their heads into a lion’s mouth. Shows in which captive animalssubmitted to humans proved extremely popular, and Van Amburghalso appeared fighting tigers and lions in elaborate theatrical panto-mimes about imperial wars. By the mid-19th century, lion tamer actswere emulating African safari hunts with pistols fired into the air.Similarly war re-enactments with animals and nationalistic sentimentsnot only increased in number but greatly increased in scale, repro-ducing realistic effects with the latest cannons, gunpowder and trainedhorse actors lying dead.