Select Specimens of Natural History Collected in Travels to Discover the Source of the Nile. Volume 5.

This rhinoceros very luckily is not carnivorous, for he is among the swiftest of animals, and smells and scents people at a great distance; and yet, with all these advantages, though his constant occupation, according to Dr Sparman, seems to be hunting waggons and men also, he never was so successful as to kill but one man, as far as was ever known.

HYÆNA.

There are few animals, whose history has passed under the consideration of naturalists, that have given occasion to so much confusion and equivocation as the Hyæna has done. It began very early among the ancients, and the moderns have fully contributed their share. It is not my intention to take up the reader’s time with discussing the errors of others, whether ancient or modern. Without displaying a great deal of learning to tell him what it is not, I shall content myself with informing him what it is, by a good figure and distinct relation of what in his history hath been unknown, or omitted, and put it in the reader’s power to reject any of the pretended Hyænas that authors or travellers should endeavour to impose upon him. At the same time, I shall submit to his decision, whether the animal I mention is a new one, or only a variety of the old, as it must on all hands be allowed that he is as yet undescribed.

Most of the animals confounded with him are about six times smaller than he is, and some there are that do not even use their four legs, but only two. The want of a critical knowledge in the Arabic language, and of natural history at the same time, has in some measure been the occasion of this among the moderns. Bochart46 discusses the several errors of the ancients with great judgment, and the Count de Buffon47, in a very elegant and pleasant manner, hath nearly exhausted the whole.

I do not think there is any one that hath hitherto written of this animal who ever saw the thousandth part of them that I have. They were a plague in Abyssinia in every situation, both in the city and in the field, and I think surpassed the sheep in number. Gondar was full of them from the time it turned dark till the dawn of day, seeking the different pieces of slaughtered carcases which this cruel and unclean people expose in the streets without burial, and who firmly believe that these animals are Falasha from the neighbouring mountains, transformed by magic, and come down to eat human flesh in the dark in safety. Many a time in the night, when the king had kept me late in the palace, and it was not my duty to lie there, in going across the square from the king’s house, not many hundred yards distant, I have been apprehensive they would bite me in the leg. They grunted in great numbers about me, though I was surrounded with several armed men, who seldom passed a night without wounding or slaughtering some of them.

One night in Maitsha, being very intent on observation, I heard something pass behind me towards the bed, but upon looking round could perceive nothing. Having finished what I was then about, I went out of my tent, resolving directly to return, which I immediately did, when I perceived large blue eyes glaring at me in the dark. I called upon my servant with a light, and there was the hyæna standing nigh the head of the bed, with two or three large bunches of candles in his mouth. To have fired at him I was in danger of breaking my quadrant or other furniture, and he seemed, by keeping the candles steadily in his mouth, to wish for no other prey at that time. As his mouth was full, and he had no claws to tear with, I was not afraid of him, but with a pike struck him as near the heart as I could judge. It was not till then he shewed any sign of fierceness; but, upon feeling his wound, he let drop the candles, and endeavoured to run up the shaft of the spear to arrive at me, so that, in self defence, I was obliged to draw out a pistol from my girdle and shoot him, and nearly at the same time my servant cleft his skull with a battle-ax. In a word, the hyæna was the plague of our lives, the terror of our night-walks, the destruction of our mules and asses, which above all others are his favourite food. Many instances of this the reader will meet with throughout my Travels.

The hyæna is known by two names in the east, Deeb and Dubbah. His proper name is Dubbah, and this is the name he goes by among the best Arabian naturalists. In Abyssinia, Nubia, and part of Arabia, he is, both in writing and conversation, called Deeb, or Deep, either ending with a b or p; and here the confusion begins, for though Dubbah is properly a hyæna, Dabbu is a species of monkey; and though Deeb is likewise a hyæna, the same word signifies a jackal; and a jackal being by naturalists called a wolf, Deeb is understood to be a wolf also. In Algiers this difference is preserved strictly; Dubbah is the hyæna; Deeb is the jackal, which run in flocks in the night, crying like hounds. Dubb is a bear, so here is another confusion, and the bear is taken for the hyæna, because Dubb, or Dubbah, seems to be the same word. So Poncet, on the frontiers of Sennaar, complains, that one of his mules was bit in the thigh by a bear, though it is well known there never was any animal of the bear-kind in that, or, I believe, in any other part of Africa. And I strongly apprehend, that the leopards and tigers, which Alvarez and Don Roderigo de Lima mention molested them so much in their journey to Shoa, were nothing else but hyænas. For tigers there are certainly none in Abyssinia; it is an Asiatic animal. Though there are leopards, yet they are but few in number, and are not gregarious, neither, indeed, are the hyænas, only as they gather in flocks, lured by the smell of their food; and of these it would seem there are many in Shoa, for the capital of that province, called Tegulat, means the City of the Hyæna.

If the description given by M. de Buffon is an elegant and good one, the draught of the animal is no less so. It is exactly the same creature I have seen on Mount Libanus and at Aleppo, which makes me have the less doubt that there are two species of this animal, the one partaking more of the dog, which is the animal I am now describing, the other more of the nature of the hog, which is the hyæna of M. de Buffon. Of this the reader will be easily satisfied, by comparing the two figures and the measures of them. The same distinction there is in the badger.

The animal from which this was drawn was slain at Teawa, and was the largest I had ever seen, being five feet nine inches in length, measuring from his nose to his anus; whereas the hyæna exhibited by M. de Buffon was not half that, it being only three feet two inches nine lines in length. Notwithstanding the great superiority in size by which the hyæna of Atbara exceeded that of M. de Buffon, I did not think him remarkable for his fatness, or that he owed any of his size to his being at that time in more than ordinary keeping; on the contrary, I thought the most of those I had before seen were in a better habit of body. As near as I could guess, he might weigh about 8 stone, horseman’s weight, that is, 14 pound to the stone, or 112 pound.

The length of his tail, from the longest hair in it to its insertion above the anus, was one foot nine inches. It was composed of strong hair of a reddish, brown colour, without any rings or bands of blackness upon the points. In the same manner, the mane consisted of hairs exactly similar both in colour and substance, being longer as they approached the neck, where they were about seven inches long; and though it was obvious that, upon being irritated, he could raise them upon his back, yet they were not rigid enough, and were too long to have the resistance of bristles of the hog or boar. This mane reached above two inches beyond the occiput between his ears, but then turned short, and ended there.

From the occiput to his nose he was one foot three inches and a half. The length of the nose, from the bottom of the forehead, was five inches and a half, in shape much like that of a dog, the whole head, indeed, more so than that of the wolf or any other creature. The aperture of the eye was two inches nearly; that of the mouth, when not gaping or snarling, about four inches and a half. The ear, from its base to its extreme point, was nine inches and a quarter; it was mostly bare, or covered with very thin, short hair. From the inside of one ear to that of the other, measured across the forehead, was seven inches and a half. From the edge of the opening of one eye to that of the other, measured in the same manner, it was three inches nearly. From the sole of the fore-foot, as it stood on the ground, to the top of the back above the shoulder, it was three feet seven inches; but his back was smooth and plain, not rising or curved as the hyæna of M. de Buffon appears to have been. The fore-leg was two feet in length, the foot flat, and four inches broad. From the sole of the foot to the middle of the fore joint was six inches and a half, and this joint seemed to be ill-made, and as it were crooked and half bent. He has four toes, and a straight nail between each of them, greatly resembling that of a dog, strong and black, but by no means calculated for tearing animals, and as little for digging, by which occupation he is said chiefly to get his food.

He stands ill upon his hind-legs, nor can his measure there be marked with precision. It is observable in all hyænas, that when they are first dislodged from cover, or obliged to run, they limp so remarkably that it would appear the hind-leg was broken, and this has often deceived me; but, after they have continued to run some time, this affection goes entirely away, and they move very swiftly. To what this is owing it is impossible for me to say. I expected to have found something likely to be the origin of it in the dissection of this animal given by M. de Buffon, but no such thing appears, and I fear it is in vain to look for it elsewhere.

I apprehend from the sole of his hind-foot to the joining of the thigh at his belly, was nearer two feet seven inches than any other measure. The belly is covered with hair very little softer and shorter than that of his back. It grows shorter as it approaches his hind-legs. His colour is of a yellowish brown, the head and ears the lightest part of him. The legs are marked thick with black bands which begin at the lower hinder joint, then continue very dark in colour till the top of the thigh, where they turn broad and circular, reaching across the whole side. Over the shoulder are two semicircular bands likewise, then come very frequent bands down the outside of the fore-leg in the same manner as the hind. The inside of all his legs are without marks, so are the neck, head, and ears, but a little above the thorax is a large black streak which goes up along the throat, and down to the point of the lower jaw. His nose is black, and above the point, for some inches, is of a dark colour also.

The Hyæna is one of those animals which commentators have taken for the Saphan, without any probability whatever, further than he lives in caves, whither he retires in the summer to avoid being tormented with flies. Clement48 of Alexandria introduces Moses saying, You shall not eat the hare, nor the hyæna, as he interprets the word saphan; but the Hyæna does not chew the cud; they are not, as I say, gregarious, though they troop together upon the smell of food. We have no reason to attribute extraordinary wisdom to him; he is on the contrary brutish, indolent, slovenly, and impudent, and seems to possess much the manners of the wolf. His courage appears to proceed from an insatiable appetite, and has nothing of the brave or generous in it, and he dies oftener flying than fighting; but least of all can it be said of him that he is a feeble folk, being one of the strongest beasts of the field.

Upon the most attentive consideration, the animal here represented seems to be of a different species from the hyæna of M. de Buffon. This of Atbara seems to be a dog, whereas the first sight of the hyæna of M. de Buffon gives the idea of a hog, and this is the impression it seems to have made upon the first travellers that describe him. Kempfer49 calls him Taxus Porcinus, and says he has bristles like a hog.

We have an example of variety of this sort in the badger. There is a sow of that kind, and a dog. The dog is carnivorous, and the sow lives upon vegetables, though both of them have been suspected at times to eat and devour animal food.

The hyæna about Mount Libanus, Syria, the north of Asia, and also about Algiers, is known to live for the most part upon large succulent, bulbous roots, especially those of the fritillaria, and such large, fleshy, vegetable substances. I have known large spaces of fields turned up to get at onions or roots of those plants, and these were chosen with such care, that, after having been peeled, they have been refused and left on the ground for a small rotten spot being discovered in them. It will be observed the hyæna has no claws either for seizing or separating animal food, that he might feed upon it, and I therefore imagine his primitive manner of living was rather upon vegetables than upon flesh, as it is certain he still continues his liking to the former; and I apprehend it is from an opportunity offering in a hungry time that he has ventured either upon man or beast, for few carnivorous animals, such as lions, tigers, and wolves, ever feed upon both.

As to the charge against him of his disturbing sepulchres, I fancy it is rather supposed from his being unable to seize his living prey that he is thought to attach himself to the dead. Upon much inquiry I never found one example fairly proved. The graves in the east are built over with mason-work; and though it is against the law of the Turks to repair these when they fall down, yet the body is probably consumed long before that happens; nor is the hyæna provided with arms or weapons to attempt it in its entire state; and the large plants and flowers, with fleshy bulbous roots, are found generally in plenty among the graves.

But the hyæna of Atbara seems long to have abandoned his primitive food of roots, if that was ever his, and to have gone largely and undeniably into the slaughter of living creatures, especially that of men. Indeed, happily for himself, he has adopted this succedaneum; for as to roots or fruit of any kind, they are not to be found in the desert country where he has chosen his domicil; and he has no difficulty from the sepulchres, because whole nations perish without one of them being buried. Add to this, that the depravity of human nature, the anarchy and bad government of the country, have given him greater opportunities than anywhere else in the world to obtain frequent and easy victories over man.

It is a constant observation in Numidia, that the lion avoids and flies from the face of man, till by some accident they have been brought to engage, and the beast has prevailed against him; then that feeling of superiority imprinted by the Creator in the heart of all animals for man’s preservation, seems to forsake him. The lion, having once tasted human blood, relinquishes the pursuit after the flock. He repairs to some high way or frequented path, and has been known, in the kingdom of Tunis, to interrupt the road to a market for several weeks; and in this he persists till hunters or soldiers are sent out to destroy him.

The same, but in a much greater extent, happens in Atbara. The Arabs, the inhabitants of that country, live in encampments in different parts of the country, their ancient patrimony or conquest. Here they plow and sow, dig wells, and have plenty of water; the ground produces large crops, and all is prosperity so long as there is peace. Insolence and presumption follow ease and riches. A quarrel happens with a neighbouring clan, and the first act of hostility, or decisive advantage, is the one burning the others crop at the time when it is near being reaped. Inevitable famine follows; they are provided with no stores, no stock in hand, their houses are burnt, their wells filled up, the men slain by their enemies, and many thousands of the helpless remainder left perfectly destitute of necessaries; and that very spot, once a scene of plenty, in a few days is reduced to an absolute desert. Most of the miserable survivors die before they can reach the next water; they have no subsistence by the way; they wander among the acacia-trees, and gather gum. There, every day losing their strength, and destitute of all hope, they fall spontaneously, as it were, into the jaws of the merciless hyæna, who finding so very little difference or difficulty between slaying the living and devouring the dead, follows the miserable remains of this unfortunate multitude, till he has extirpated the last individual of them. Thence it comes that we find it remarked in my return through the desert, that the whole country is strewed with bones of the dead; horrid monuments of the victories of this savage animal, and of man more savage and cruel than he. From the ease with which he overcomes these half-starved and unarmed people, arises the calm, steady confidence in which he surpasses all the rest of his kind.

In Barbary I have seen the Moors in the day-time take this animal by the ears and pull him towards them, without his attempting any other resistance than that of his drawing back: and the hunters, when his cave is large enough to give them admittance, take a torch in their hand, and go straight to him; when, pretending to fascinate him by a senseless jargon of words which they repeat, they throw a blanket over him, and haul him out. He seems to be stupid or senseless in the day, or at the appearance of strong light, unless when pursued by the hunters.

I have locked up a goat, a kid, and a lamb with him all day when he was fasting, and found them in the evening, alive and unhurt. Repeating the experiment one night, he ate up a young ass, a goat, and a fox, all before morning, so as to leave nothing but some small fragments of the ass’s bones.

In Barbary, then, he has no courage by day; he flies from man, and hides himself from him: But in Abyssinia or Atbara, accustomed to man’s flesh, he walks boldly in the day-time like a horse or mule, attacks man wherever he finds him, whether armed or unarmed, always attaching himself to the mule or ass in preference to the rider. I may safely say, I speak within bounds, that I have fought him above fifty times hand to hand, with a lance or spear, when I had fallen unexpectedly upon him among the tents, or in defence of my servants or beasts. Abroad and at a distance the gun prevented his nearer approach; but in the night, evening, or morning, we were constantly in close engagement with him.

This frequent victory over man, and his daily feeding upon him without resistance, is that from which he surely draws his courage. Whether to this food it is that he owes his superior size, I will not pronounce. For my own part, I consider him as a variety of the same rather than another species. At the same time I must say, his form gave me distinctly the idea of a dog, without one feature or likeness of the hog, as was the case with the Syrian hyæna living on Mount Libanus, which is that of M. de Buffon, as plainly appears by his drawing.

I have oftentimes hinted in the course of my Travels at the liking he has for mules and asses; but there is another passion for which he is still more remarkable, that is, his liking to dog’s flesh, or, as it is commonly expressed, his aversion to dogs. No dog, however fierce, will touch him in the field. My greyhounds, accustomed to fasten upon the wild boar, would not venture to engage with him. On the contrary, there was not a journey I made that he did not kill several of my greyhounds, and once or twice robbed me of my whole flock: he would seek and seize them in the servants tents where they were tied, and endeavour to carry them away before the very people that were guarding them.

This animosity between him and dogs, though it has escaped modern naturalists, appears to have been known to the ancients in the east. In Ecclesiasticus (chap. xiii. ver. 18.) it is said, “What agreement is there between the hyæna and the dog?” a sufficient proof that the antipathy was so well known as to be proverbial.

And I must here observe, that if there is any precision in the definition of Linnæus, this animal does not answer to it, either in the cauda recta or annulata, for he never carries his tail erect, but always close behind him like a dog when afraid, or unless when he is in full speed; nor is the figure given by M. de Buffon marked like the hyæna of Atbara, though, as have I said, perfectly resembling that of Syria, and the figure I have here given has, I believe, scarcely a hair misplaced in it. Upon the whole, I submit this entirely to my reader, being satisfied with having, I hope, fully proved what was the intent of this dissertation, that the saphan is not the hyæna, as Greek commentators upon the scripture have imagined.

JERBOA.

I have already observed that the Arabs have confounded the Saphan with several other animals that have no sort of resemblance to it; there are two of these very remarkable, the Fennec and Jerboa, of which I am now to treat. As I have given excellent figures of both, by drawings taken from the creatures alive, I have no doubt I shall prevent any confusion for the future, and throw some light upon sacred scripture, the greatest profit and use that can result from this sort of writing.

If the rabbit has been frequently confounded with the saphan, and stood for it in the interpretation of the Hebrew text, the same has likewise happened to another animal, the Jerboa, still more dissimilar in form and in manners from the saphan, than even the rabbit itself, and much less known. The Jerboa is a small harmless animal of the desert, nearly the size of a common rat: the skin very smooth and shining, of a brown tinged with yellow or gold colour, and the ends of the hairs tipt with black. It lives in the smoothest plains or places of the desert, especially where the soil is fixed gravel, for in that chiefly it burrows, dividing its hole below into many mansions. It seems to be apprehensive of the falling in of the ground; it therefore generally digs its hole under the root of some spurge, thyme, or absinthium, upon whose root it seems to depend for its roof not falling in and burying it in the ruins of its subterraneous habitation. It seems to delight most in those places that are haunted by the cerastes, or horned viper. Nature has certainly imposed this dangerous neighbourhood upon the one for the good and advantage of the other, and that of mankind in general. Of the many trials I made, I never found a Jerboa in the body of a viper, excepting once in that of a female big with young, and the Jerboa itself was then nearly consumed.

The Jerboa, for the most part, stands upon his hind-legs; he rests himself by sitting backwards sometimes, and I have seen him, though rarely, as it were lie upon all four; whether that is from fatigue or sickness, or whether it is a natural posture, I know not. The Jerboa of the Cyrenaicum is six inches and a quarter in length, as he stands in the drawing. He would be full half an inch more if he was laid straight at his length immediately after death. The head, from his nose to the occiput, is one inch two lines. From the nose to the foremost angle of the eye, six lines. The opening of the eye itself is two lines and a quarter; his ears three quarters of an inch in length, and a quarter of an inch in breadth; they are smooth, and have no hair within, and but very little without; of an equal breadth from bottom to top, do not diminish to a point, but are rounded there. The buttocks are marked with a semicircle of black, which parts from the root of the tail, and ends at the top of the thigh. This gives it the air of a compound animal, a rat with bird’s legs, to which the flying posture still adds resemblance. From this stroke to the center of the eye is three inches, and to the point of his toe the same measure; his tail is six inches and a quarter long, seems aukwardly set on, as stuck between his buttocks, without any connection with his spine; half of it is poorly covered with hair of a light or whiter colour than his body; the other half is a beautiful feather of long hair, the middle white, the edges jet black: this tail, which by its length would seem an incumbrance to him, is of a surprising advantage in guiding and directing him in his jumping.

From the shoulder to the elbow of the fore-foot is half an inch: from the elbow to the joining of the paw, 5/8ths of an inch. The claw itself is curved, and is something less than a quarter of an inch. It has very long mustachoes, some of them standing backward, and some of them forward from his nose; they are all of unequal lengths, the longest an inch and a half; his belly is white: he seems to be of a very cleanly nature, his hair always in great order. From his snout to the back part of the opening of the mouth is half an inch; his nose projects beyond his under jaw three quarters of an inch. He has four toes in his hind-foot, and a small one behind his heel, where is a tuft of hair coloured black. The fore-foot hath three toes only.

The ancients have early described this animal; we see him in some of the first medals of the Cyrenaicum, sitting under an umbellated plant, supposed to be the silphium, whose figure is preserved to us on the silver medals of Cyrene. The high price set upon it is mentioned by several historians, but the reason of that value, or the use of the plant, I have never yet been able to comprehend. I suppose it was an adventitious plant, which the curiosity and correspondence of the princes of that state had probably brought from some part of Negroland, where the goats are brousing upon it at this day with indifference enough, unconscious of the price it bore in the time of the Ptolemies.

Herodotus50, Theophrastus51, and Aristotle52, all mention this animal under the name of διπους, γαλαι διποδες or, two-footed rats. This animal is found in most of the parts of Arabia and Syria, in every part of the southern deserts of Africa, but no where so frequently, and in such numbers, as in the Cyrenaicum, or Pentapolis. In my unfortunate journey there, I employed the Arabs, together with my servants, to kill a number with sticks, so as that the skins might not be injured by shot. I got them dressed in Syria and in Greece, and sewed together, making use of the tail as in ermine for the lining of a cloak, and they had a very good effect; the longer they wore, the glossier and finer appearance the skins made. The Jerboa is very fat and well-coloured; the buttocks, thighs, and part of the back, are roasted and ate by the Arabs. I have eaten them; they are not distinguishable from a young rabbit either in colour or taste; they have not even the strong taste the rabbit has. Some writers have confounded these two animals together; at least they have mistaken this for the saphan, and the saphan for the rabbit. This, however, is plainly without foundation. These long legs, and the necessity of leaping, demand the plain ground, where nature has always placed this creature.

The Arabs Ibn Bitar, Algiahid, Alcamus, and Damir, and many others, have known the animal perfectly, though some of them seem to confound it with another called the Ashkoko. Ibnalgiauzi says, that the Jerboa is the only kind that builds in rocks, which from ten thousand examples I am sure he does not, nor is he any way made for it, and I am very certain he is not gregarious. They have a number of holes indeed in the same place, but I do not remember ever to have seen more than two together at a time. The Arab Canonists are divided whether or not he can be lawfully eaten. Ibnalgiauzi is of opinion he cannot, nor any other animal living under the ground, excepting the land crocodile, which he calls El Dabb, a large lizard, said to be useful in venereal pursuits, Ata and Achmet, Benhantal, and several others, expressly say, that the eating of the Jerboa is lawful. But this seems to be an indulgence, as we read in Damir, that the use of this animal is granted because the Arabs delight in it. And Ibn Bitar says, that the Jerboa is called Israelitish, that the flesh of it is dried in the outward air, is very nourishing, and prevents costiveness, from which we should apprehend, that medicinal considerations entered into this permission likewise. However this may be, it seems to me plain, such was not the opinion of the old translators of the Arab version from the Hebrew; they once only name this animal expressly, and there they say it is forbidden. The passage is in Isaiah, “They that sanctify themselves and purify themselves in the gardens behind one tree in the midst, eating swine’s flesh, and the abomination, and the mouse, shall be consumed together, saith the Lord53.” The Hebrew word signifies mouse, and so our English translation renders it. But the Arabic version calls it expressly the Jerboa, and classes it with the abomination and swine’s flesh, that is, in the class of things in the highest degree forbidden.

There is little variety in this animal either in size or colour, in the wide range that they inhabit. Towards Aleppo they have broader noses than the African ones, their bodies also thicker, and their colour lighter; a thing we always see in the Syrian animals, compared to the African. The first of these I saw was in London, in the hands of Dr Russel, who has wrote the history of Aleppo, of whom I have before made mention. Haym published an account of the Jerboa, so does Dr Shaw, but there exists not, that I know, one good figure of him, or particular description.

The figure given us by Edwards is thick and short, out of all proportion. His legs are too short, his feet too large, he wants the black mark upon his heel, the nails of his forefeet are greatly too long, and there is certainly a latitude taken in the description, when his head is said very much to resemble that of a rabbit. Dr Hasselquist has given us a kind of description of him without a figure. He says the Arabs call him Garbuka, but this is not so, he goes by no other name in all the east, but that of Jerboa, only the letter J, sometimes by being pronounced Y, for Jerboa he is called Yerboa, and this is the only variation in name.

The Arabs of the kingdom of Tripoli make very good diversion with the Jerboa, in training their grey-hounds, which they employ to hunt the gazel or antelope after instructing him to turn nimbly by hunting this animal. The prince of Tunis, son of Sidi Younis, and grandson of Ali Bey, who had been strangled by the Algerines when that capital was taken, being then in exile at Algiers, made me a present of a small grey-hound, which often gave us excellent sport. It may be perhaps imagined a chace between these two creatures could not be long, yet I have often seen, in a large inclosure, or court-yard, the greyhound employ a quarter of an hour before he could master his nimble adversary; the small size of the creature assisted him much, and had not the greyhound been a practised one, and made use of his feet as well as his teeth, he might have killed two antelopes in the time he could have killed one Jerboa.

It is the character of the saphan given in scripture, that he is gregarious, that he lives in houses made in the rock, that he is distinguished for his feebleness, which he supplies by his wisdom: none of these characteristics agree with the Jerboa, and therefore though he chews the cud in common with some others, and was in great plenty in Judea, so as to be known by Solomon, yet he cannot be the saphan of the scripture.

FENNEC.

This beautiful animal, which has lately so much excited the curiosity, and exercised the pens rather than the judgment of some naturalists, was brought to me at Algiers by Mahomet Rais, my drugoman or janizary, while consul-general to his Majesty in that regency.

Mahomet Rais bought it for two sequins from an acquaintance, a Turkish oldash, or foot-soldier, just then returned from Biscara, a southern district of Mauritania Cæsariensis, now called the Province of Constantina. The soldier said they were not uncommon in Biscara, but more frequently met with in the neighbouring date territories of Beni Mezzab and Werglah, the ancient habitations of the Melano-Gætuli; in the last mentioned of which places they hunted them for their skins, which they sent by the caravan to sell at Mecca, and from whence they were after exported to India. He said that he had endeavoured to bring three of them, two of which had escaped by gnawing holes in the cage. I kept this for several months at my country-house near Algiers, that I might learn its manners. I made several drawings of it, particularly one in water-colours of its natural size, which has been the original of all those bad copies that have since appeared. Having satisfied myself of all particulars concerning it, and being about to leave Algiers, I made a present of him to Captain Cleveland, of his majesty’s ship Phœnix, then in that port, and he gave him to Mr Brander, Swedish consul in Algiers. A young man, Balugani, of whom I have already spoken, then in my service, in which, indeed, he died, allowed himself so far to be surprised, as, unknown to me, to trace upon oiled paper a copy of this drawing in water-colours, just now mentioned. This he did so servilely, that it could not be mistaken, and was therefore, as often as it appeared, known to be a copy by people54 the least qualified to judge in these matters. The affectation of the posture in which it was sitting, the extraordinary breadth of its feet, the unnatural curve of the tail, to shew the black part of it, the affected manner of disposing its ears, were all purposely done, to shew particular details that I was to describe, after the animal itself should be lost, or its figure, through length of time, should be less-fresh in my memory.

Doctor Sparman, with his natural dullness, and a disingenuousness which seems partly natural, partly acquired, and improved by constant plagiarisms, from the works of others, pretends in favour of his country and countrymen, to steal this into a Swedish discovery. He says that Mr Brander has published an account of it in some Swedish transactions, a book I never saw, but that being long importuned by his friend Mr Nicander, to give the figure of the animal itself to be published, he constantly refused it.

Whether this fact is so or not, I do not pretend to give my opinion: if it is, I cannot but think Mr Brander’s conduct in both cases was extremely proper. The creature itself passed, by very fair means, from my possession into Mr Brander’s, who cannot doubt that I would have given it to him in preference to Mr Cleveland, if I had known he thought it of the least consequence; he was then, as having had the animal by just means in his possession, as much entitled to describe him as I was; or as the Turk, the prior possessor, who gave him to me, had he been capable, and so inclined. On the other hand, Mr Brander likewise judged very properly in refusing to publish the drawing at the request of Mr Nicander. The drawing was not justly acquired, as it was obtained by a breach of faith, and seduction of a servant, which might have cost him his bread. It was conducted with a privacy seldom thought necessary to fair dealing, nor was it ever known to me, till the young man began to be dangerously sick at Tunis, when he declared it voluntarily to me, with a contrition, that might have atoned for a much greater breach of duty.

Dr Sparman attempts to conceal these circumstances. He says Mr Brander told him, that I saw this animal at Algiers, and that I employed the same painter that he did to make the drawing of him, and speaks of a painter found at Algiers as readily as if he had been at the gates of Rome or Naples. These are the wretched subterfuges of low minds, as distant from science as they are from honour and virtue. Why, if the animal was equally known to Mr Brander and me, did he not, when writing upon it, give his name, his manners, the uses to which he was destined, and the places where he resided? why send to Algiers for an account of him, after having him so long in his possession, since at Algiers he was probably as great a stranger as he was at Stockholm? why call him a fox, or pronounce his genus, yet write to Algiers for particulars to decide what that genus was?

The Count of Buffon55, content with the merit of his own works, without seeking praise from scraps of information picked up at random from the reports of others, declares candidly, that he believes this animal to be as yet anonyme, that is, not to have a name, and in this, as in other respects, to be perfectly unknown. If those that have written concerning it had stopt here likewise, perhaps the loss the public would have suffered by wanting their observations would not have been accounted a great detriment to natural history.

Mr Pennant56, from Mr Brander’s calling it a fox, has taken occasion to declare that his genus is a dog. Mr Sparman, that he may contribute his mite, attacks the description which I gave of this animal in a conversation with the Count de Buffon at Paris. He declares I am mistaken by saying that it lives on trees57; for in consequence, I suppose, of its being a fox, he says it burrows in the ground, which, I doubt very much, he never saw an African fox do. His reason for this is, that there is a small animal which lives in the sands at Camdebo, near the Cape of Good Hope, which is rose-coloured, and he believes it to be the animal in question, for he once hunted it till it escaped by burrowing under ground, but he did not remark or distinguish his ears58.

I do really believe there may be many small animals found at Camdebo, as well as in all the other sands of Africa; but having seen the rest of this creature during the whole time of a chace, without remarking his ears, which are his great characteristic, is a proof that Dr Sparman is either mistaken in the beast itself, or else that he is an unfortunate and inaccurate observer. There is but one other animal that has ears more conspicuous or disproportioned than this we are now speaking of. I need not name him to a man of the professor’s learning. The Doctor goes on in a further description of this animal that he had never seen. He says his name is Zerda, which I suppose is the Swedish translation of the Arabic word Jerd, or Jerda. But here Dr Sparman has been again unlucky in his choice, for, besides many other differences, the Jerd, which is an animal well known both in Africa and Arabia, has no tail, but this perhaps is but another instance of the Doctor’s ill fortune; in the first case, he overlooked this animal’s ears; in the second, he did not perceive that he had a tail.

The Arabs who conquered Egypt, and very soon after the rest of Africa, the tyranny and fanatical ignorance of the Khalifat of Omar being overpast, became all at once excellent observers. They addicted themselves with wonderful application to all sorts of science; they became very skilful physicians, astronomers, and mathematicians; they applied in a particular manner, and with great success, to natural history, and being much better acquainted with their country than we are, they were, in an especial manner, curious in the accounts of its productions. They paid great attention in particular to the animals whose figures and parts are described in the many books they have left us, as also their properties, manners, their uses in medicine and commerce, are let down as distinctly and plainly as words alone could do. Their religion forbade them the use of drawing; this is the source of the confusion that has happened, and this is the only advantage we have over them.

I believe there are very few remarkable animals, either in Africa or Arabia, that are not still to be found described in some Arabian author, and it is doing the public little service, when, from vanity, we substitute crude imaginations of our own in place of the observations of men, who were natives of the country, in perpetual use of seeing, as living with the animals which they described. There cannot, I think, be a stronger instance of this, than in the subject now before us; notwithstanding what has been as confidently as ignorantly asserted, I will venture to affirm, that this animal, so far from being unknown, is particularly described in all the Arabian books; neither is he without a name; he has one by which he invariably passes in every part of Africa, where he exists, which in all probability he has enjoyed as long as the lion or the tiger have theirs. He is white, and not rose-coloured59; he does not burrow in the earth, but lives upon trees; he is not the jerda, but has a tail, and his genus is not a dog, for he is no fox. Here is a troop of errors on one subject, that would give any man a surfeit of modern description, all arising from conceit, the cacoethes scribendi, too great love of writing, without having been at the pains to gain a sufficient knowledge of the subject by fair inquiry and a very little reading.

The name of this quadruped all over Africa is El Fennec; such was the name of that I first saw at Algiers; such it is called in the many Arabian books that have described it. But this name, having no obvious signification in Arabic, its derivation has given rise to many ill-founded guesses, and laid it open to the conjectures of grammarians who were not naturalists. Gollius says, it is a weasel, and so say all the Arabians. He calls it mustela fænaria, the hay weasel, from fœnum, hay, that being the materials of which he builds his nest. But this derivation cannot be admitted, for there is no such thing known as hay in the country where the Fennec resides. But supposing that the dry grass in all countries may be called hay, still fœnum, a Latin word, would not be that which would express it in Africa. But when we consider that long before, and ever after Alexander’s conquest, down as low as the tenth century, the language of these countries behind Egypt was chiefly Greek, an etymology much more natural and characteristic will present itself in the word φοινιξ, a palm tree, whence comes phœnicus, adjective, of or belonging to the palm or date-tree.

Gabriel Sionita60 says, the Fennec is a white weasel that lives in Sylvis Nigrorum, that is, in the woods of the Melano-Gætuli, where indeed no other tree grows but the palm-tree, and this just lands us in the place from which the Fennec was brought to me at Algiers, in Biscara, Beni-Mezzab, and Werglah. It will be observed, that he does not say it is an animal of Nigritia; for that country being within the tropical rains, many other trees grow besides the palm, and there the date does not ripen; and by its very thin hair, and fine skin, this creature is known at first sight to belong to a dry, warm climate. But to leave no sort of doubt, he calls him Gætulicus, which shews precisely what country he means. There, in the high palm-trees, of which this country is full, he writes, the Fennec builds its nest, and brings up its young. Giggeius tells us, that their skins are made use of for fine pelisses; Ibn Beitar, that quantities of this fur is brought from the interior parts of Africa, and Damir and Razi say, that their skins are used for summer pelisses61.

After leaving Algiers I met with another Fennec at Tunis; it had come last from the island of Gerba62, and had been brought there by the caravan of Gadems, or Fezzan. I bought one at Sennaar, from whence it came I know not. I kept it a considerable time in a cage, till finding it was no longer safe for me to stay at Sennaar, I trusted it by way of deposit in the hands of a man whom it was necessary to deceive, with the expectation that I was to return, and only going for a few days to the camp of Shekh Adelan. It was known by Mahomet Towash, and several people at Sennaar, to be frequently carried to Cairo, and to Mecca, with paroquets, and such curiosities which are brought by the great caravan from the Niger which traverses the dreary desert of Selima, and takes the date villages in its way eastward.

All these animals found at separate times did exactly resemble the first one seen at Algiers. They were all known by the name of Fennec, and no other, and said to inhabit the date villages, where they built their nests upon trees perfectly conformable to what the Arabian authors, whether naturalists or historians, had said of them.

Though his favourite food seemed to be dates or any sweet fruit, yet I observed he was very fond of eggs: pigeons eggs, and small birds eggs, were first brought him, which he devoured with great avidity; but he did not seem to know how to manage the egg of a hen, but when broke for him, he ate it with the same voracity as the others. When he was hungry, he would eat bread, especially with honey or sugar. It was very observable that a bird, whether confined in a cage near him, or flying across the room, engrossed his whole attention. He followed it with his eyes where-ever it went, nor was he at this time to be diverted by placing biscuit before him, and it was obvious, by the great interest he seemed to take in its motions, that he was accustomed to watch for victories over it, either for his pleasure or his food. He seemed very much alarmed at the approach of a cat, and endeavoured to hide himself, but shewed no symptom of preparing for any defence. I never heard he had any voice; he suffered himself, not without some difficulty, to be handled in the day when he seemed rather inclined to sleep, but was exceedingly unquiet and restless so soon as night came, and always endeavouring his escape, and though he did not attempt the wire, yet with his sharp teeth he very soon mastered the wood of any common bird-cage.

From the snout to the anus he was about ten inches long, his tail five inches and a quarter, near an inch on the tip of it was black. From the point of his fore-shoulder to the point of his fore-toe, was two inches and 7/8ths. He was two inches and a half from his occiput to the point of his nose, the length of his ears three inches and 3/8ths. These were doubled, or had a plait on the bottom on the outside; the border of his ears in the inside were thick-covered with soft white hair, but the middle part was bare, and of a pink or rose colour. They were about an inch and a half broad, and the cavities within very large. It was very difficult to measure these, for he was very impatient at having his ears touched, and always kept them erect, unless when terrified by a cat. The pupil of his eye was large and black, surrounded by a deep blue iris. He had strong, thick mustachoes; the tip of his nose very sharp, black, and polished. His upper jaw reached beyond the lower, and had four grinders on each side of the mouth. It has six fore-teeth in each jaw. Those in the under jaw are smaller than the upper. The canine, or cutting teeth, are long, large, and exceedingly pointed. His legs are small, and his feet very broad; he has four toes armed with crooked, black, sharp claws; those on his fore-feet more crooked and sharp than behind. All his body is nearly of a dirty white, bordering on cream colour; the hair of his belly rather whiter, softer, and longer than, the rest, and on it a number of paps, but he was so impatient it was impossible to count them. He very seldom extended or stiffened his tail, the hair of which was harder. He had a very sly and wily appearance. But as he is a solitary animal, and not gregarious, as he has no particular mark of feebleness about him, no shift or particular cunning which might occasion Solomon to qualify him as wise; as he builds his nest upon trees, and not on the rock, he cannot be the saphan of the scripture, as some, both Jews and Arabians, not sufficiently attentive to the qualities attributed to that animal, have nevertheless erroneously imagined.