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

ASHKOKO.

This curious animal is found in Ethiopia, in the caverns of the rocks, or under the great stones in the Mountain of the Sun, behind the queen’s palace at Koscam. It is also frequent in the deep caverns in the rock in many other places in Abyssinia. It does not burrow, or make holes, as the rat and rabbit, nature having interdicted him this practice by furnishing him with feet, the toes of which are perfectly round, and of a soft, pulpy, tender substance; the fleshy parts of the toes project beyond the nails, which are rather broad than sharp, much similar to a man’s nails ill grown, and these appear rather given him for the defence of his soft toes, than for any active use in digging, to which they are by no means adapted.

His hind foot is long and narrow, divided with two deep wrinkles, or clefts, in the middle, drawn across the centre, on each side of which the flesh rises with considerable protuberancy, and it is terminated by three claws, the middle one is the longest. The forefoot has four toes, three disposed in the same proportion as the hind foot; the fourth, the largest of the whole, is placed lower down on the side of the foot, so that the top of it arrives no farther than the bottom of the toe next to it. The sole of the foot is divided in the centre by deep clefts, like the other, and this cleft reaches down to the heel, which it nearly divides. The whole of the forefoot is very thick, fleshy, and soft, and of a deep black colour, altogether void of hair, though the back, or upper part of it, is thick-covered like the rest of its body, down to where the toes divide, there the hair ends, so that these long round toes very much resemble the fingers of a man.

In place of holes, it seems to delight in less close, or more airy places, in the mouths of caves, or clefts in the rock, or where one projecting, and being open before, affords a long retreat under it, without fear that this can ever be removed by the strength or operations of man. The Ashkoko are gregarious, and frequently several dozens of them sit upon the great stones at the mouth of caves, and warm themselves in the sun, or even come out and enjoy the freshness of the summer evening. They do not stand upright upon their feet, but seem to steal along as in fear, their belly being nearly close to the ground, advancing a few steps at a time, and then pausing. They have something very mild, feeble like, and timid in their deportment; are gentle and easily tamed, though, when roughly handled at the first, they bite very severely.

This animal is found plentifully on Mount Libanus. I have seen him also among the rocks at the Pharan Promontorium, or Cape Mahomet, which divides the Elanitic from the Heroopolitic Gulf, or Gulf of Suez. In all places they seem to be the same, if there is any difference it is in favour of the size and fatness, which those in the Mountain of the Sun seem to enjoy above the others. What is his food I cannot determine with any degree of certainty. When in my possession, he ate bread and milk, and seemed rather to be a moderate than voracious feeder. I suppose he lives upon grain, fruit, and roots. He seemed too timid and backward in his own nature to feed upon living food, or catch it by hunting.

The total length of this animal as he sits, from the point of his nose to his anus, is 17 inches and a quarter. The length of his snout, from the extremity of the nose to the occiput, is 3 inches and 3/8ths. His upper jaw is longer than his under; his nose stretches half an inch beyond his chin. The aperture of the mouth, when he keeps it close in profile, is a little more than an inch. The circumference of his snout around both his jaws is 3 inches and 3/8ths; and round his head, just above his ears, 8 inches and 5/8ths; the circumference of his neck is 8 inches and a half, and its length one inch and a half. He seems more willing to turn his body altogether, than his neck alone. The circumference of his body, measured behind his forelegs, is 9 inches and three quarters, and that of his body where greatest, eleven inches and 3/8ths. The length of his foreleg and toe is 3 inches and a half. The length of his hind thigh is 3 inches and 1/8th, and the length of his hind leg to the toe taken together, is 2 feet 2 inches. The length of the forefoot is 1 inch and 3/8ths; the length of the middle toe 6 lines, and its breadth 6 lines also. The distance between the point of the nose and the first corner of the eye is one inch and 5/8ths; and the length of his eye, from one angle to the other, 4 lines. The difference from the fore angle of his eye to the root of his ear is one inch 3 lines, and the opening of his eye 2 lines and a half. His upper lip is covered with a pencil of strong hairs for mustachoes, the length of which are 3 inches and 5/8ths, and those of his eye-brows 2 inches and 2/8ths.

He has no tail, and gives at first sight the idea of a rat, rather than of any other creature. His colour is a grey mixt with a reddish brown, perfectly like the wild or warren rabbit. His belly is white, from the point of the lower jaw, to where his tail would begin, if that he had one. All over his body he has scattered hairs, strong and polished like his mustachoes, these are for the most part two inches and a quarter in length. His ears are round, not pointed. He makes no noise that ever I heard, but certainly chews the cud. To discover this, was the principal reason of my keeping him alive; those with whom he is acquainted he follows with great assiduity. The arrival of any living creature, even of a bird, makes him seek for a hiding-place, and I shut him up in a cage with a small chicken, after omitting feeding him a whole day; the next morning the chicken was unhurt, tho’ the Ashkoko came to me with great signs of having suffered with hunger. I likewise made a second experiment, by inclosing two smaller birds with him, for the space of several weeks; neither were these hurt, though both of them fed, without impediment, of the meat that was thrown into his cage, and the smallest of these a kind of tit-mouse, seemed to be advancing in a sort of familiarity with him, though I never saw it venture to perch upon him, yet it would eat frequently, and at the same time, of the food upon which the Ashkoko was feeding; and in this consisted chiefly the familiarity I speak of, for the Ashkoko himself never shewed any alteration of behaviour upon the presence of the bird, but treated it with a kind of absolute indifference. The cage, indeed, was large, and the birds having a perch to sit upon in the upper part of it, they did not annoy one another.

In Amhara this animal is called Ashkoko, which I apprehend is derived from the singularity of those long herinacious hairs, which, like small thorns, grow about his back, and which in Amhara are called Ashok. In Arabia and Syria he is called Israel’s Sheep, or Gannim Israel, for what reason I know not, unless it is chiefly from his frequenting the rocks of Horeb and Sinai, where the children of Israel made their forty years peregrination; perhaps this name obtains only among the Arabians. I apprehend he is known by that of Saphan in the Hebrew, and is the animal erroneously called by our translators Cuniculus, the rabbit or coney.

Many are the reasons against admitting this animal, mentioned by scripture, to be the rabbit. We know that this last was an animal peculiar to Spain, and therefore could not be supposed to be either in Judea or Arabia. They are gregarious indeed, and so far resemble each other, as also in point of size, but in place of seeking houses in the rocks, we know the cuniculus’ desire is constantly sand. They have claws, indeed, or nails, with which they dig holes or burrows, but there is nothing remarkable in them, or their frequenting rocks, so as to be described by that circumstance; neither is there any thing in the character of the rabbit that denotes excellent wisdom, or that they supply the want of strength by any remarkable sagacity. The saphan then is not the rabbit, which last, unless it was brought to him by his ships from Europe, Solomon never saw. It was not the rabbit’s particular character to haunt the rocks. He was by no means distinguished for feebleness, or being any way unprovided with means of digging for himself holes. On the contrary, he was armed with claws, and it was his character to dig such, not in the rocks, but in the sands. Nor was he any way distinguished for wisdom, more than the hare, the hedge-hog, or any of his neighbours.

Let us now apply these characters to the Ashkoko. He is above all other animals so much attached to the rock, that I never once saw him on the ground, or from among large stones in the mouth of caves, where is his constant residence; he is gregarious, and lives in families. He is in Judea, Palestine, and Arabia, and consequently must have been familiar to Solomon. For David describes him very pertinently, and joins him with other animals perfectly known to all men: “The hills are a refuge for the wild goats, and the rocks for the saphan, or ashkoko63.” And Solomon says, “There be four things which are little upon the earth, but they are exceeding wise64:”—“The saphannim are but a feeble folk, yet make they their houses in the rocks65.” Now this, I think, very obviously fixes the Ashkoko to be the saphan, for this weakness seems to allude to his feet, and how inadequate these are to dig holes in the rock, where yet, however, he lodges. These are, as I have already observed, perfectly round; very pulpy, or fleshy, so liable to be excoriated or hurt, and of a soft fleshy substance. Notwithstanding which, they build houses in the very hardest rocks, more inaccessible than those of the rabbit, and in which they abide in greater safety; not by exertion of strength, for they have it not, but are truly as Solomon says, a feeble folk, but by their own sagacity and judgment, and are therefore justly described as wise. Lastly, what leaves the thing without doubt is, that some of the Arabs, particularly Damir, say, that the saphan has no tail; that it is less than a cat, and lives in houses, that is, not houses with men, as there are few of these in the country where the saphan is; but that he builds houses, or nests of straw, as Solomon has said of him, in contradistinction to the rabbit, and rat, and those other animals, that burrow in the ground, who cannot be said to build houses, as is expressly said of him.

The Christians in Abyssinia do not eat the flesh of this animal, as holding it unclean, neither do the Mahometans, who in many respects of this kind in abstinence from wild meat, have the same scruple as christians. The Arabs in Arabia Petrea do eat it, and I am informed those on Mount Libanus also. Those of this kind that I saw were very fat, and their flesh as white as that of a chicken. Though I killed them frequently with the gun, yet I never happened to be alone so as to be able to eat them. They are quite devoid of all smell and rankness, which cannot be said of the rabbit.

I have no doubt that the El Akbar and the El Webro of the Arabs, are both the same animal. The El Akbar only means the largest of the Mus-montanus, under which they have classed the Jerboa. The Jerd, and El Webro, as also the Ashkoko or Akbar, answer to the character of having no tail.

BOOTED LYNX.

This is a very beautiful species of Lynx, and, as far as I know, the smallest of the kind. His body from the tip of the nose to the anus being only 22 inches. His back, neck, and forepart of his feet are of a dirty grey. His belly is of a dirty white, spotted with undefined marks, or stains of red. Below his eyes, and on each side of his nose, is a reddish brown,the back of his ears being of the same colour, but rather darker; the inside of his ears is very thickly clothed with fine white hair, and at the end is the pencil of hairs distinctive of this genus. On the back of his forefeet, he has a black streak or mark, which reaches from his heel two inches up his leg. On his hinder foot he has the same, which reaches four inches from the heel, and ends just below the first joint, and from this circumstance I have given him his name.

His tail is 13 inches long, the lower part of it, for 6 inches, is occupied with black rings. Between these rings his tail is nearly white, the rest much the same colour as his back. From his nose to his occiput is 4 inches and three quarters. From one eye to the other, measuring across his nose, is one inch and three quarters. From the base of one ear to that of the other, is 2 inches and 2/8ths. The aperture of the eye three quarters of an inch, and of a yellow iris. The length of his ear from its base to the point of the pencil of hairs at the top of it, 4 inches and three quarters. From the sole of his forefoot to his shoulder, as he stands, 13 inches and three quarters. From the sole of his hind foot, to the top of his rump, 15 inches and a quarter.

He has very much the appearance of a common cat, both from the length of his tail, and the shape of his head, which however is broader, and his neck thicker than that of a domestic animal. He is an inhabitant of Ras el Feel, and, small as he is, lives among those tyrants of the forest, the elephant and rhinoceros. I do not mean that he has any hunting connections with them, as the jackal with the lion, I rather think he avails himself of what is left by the hunters of the carcases of those huge beasts. But the chief of all his food is the Guinea-hen, of which the thickets and bushes of this country are full. For these he lurks chiefly at the pools of water when they drink, and in this act of violence I surprised him. He is said to be exceedingly fierce, and to attack a man if any way pressed. At this time he mounts easily upon the highest trees; at other times he is content with hiding himself in bushes, but in the season of the fly he takes to holes and caverns in the ground. I never saw its young ones, nor did I ever hear any noise it makes, for the shot killed him outright, but did not in the least disfigure him; so that the reader may depend upon this representation of him as I have given it, with all possible truth and precision.

Of BIRDS.

The number of birds in Abyssinia exceeds that of other animals beyond proportion. The high and low countries are equally stored with them, the first kind are the carnivorous birds. Many species of the eagle and hawk, many more still of the vulture kind, as it were overstock all parts of this country. That species of glede called Haddaya, so frequent in Egypt, comes very punctually into Ethiopia, at the return of the sun, after the tropical rains. The quantity of shell-fish which then covers the edges of the desert, and leaves the salt springs where they have been nourished, surprised by the heat, and deserted by the moisture, are the first food these birds find in their way. They then are supplied in the neighbouring Kolla, by the carcases of those large beasts, the elephant, rhinoceros, and giraffa, the whole tribe of the deer kind, and the wild asses that are slain by the hunters, part of which only are used in food.

The vast quantity of field-rats and mice that appear after harvest, and swarm in the cracks, or fissures in the ground, are their next supply. But above all, the great slaughter made of cattle upon the march of the army, the beasts of burden which die under carriage and ill treatment, the number of men that perish by disease and by the sword, whose carcases are never buried by this barbarous and unclean people, compose such a quantity, and variety of carrion, that it brings together at one time a multitude of birds of prey, it would seem there was not such a number in the whole earth. These follow the camp, and abide by it; indeed, they seem another camp round it, for, besides those that ventured among the tents, I have seen the fields covered on every side as far as the eyes could reach, and the branches of the trees, ready to break under the pressure of their weight.

This unclean multitude remain together in perfect peace till the rains become constant and heavy; which deprive them of their food by forcing the hunters and armies to retire home. Nor are other circumstances wanting equally obvious, which account for the great number of birds that live on insects. The fly, of which we have already spoken so often, reigns in great swarms from May to September on the plains, and in all the low country down to the sands of Atbara. These are attended by a multitude of enemies, some of whom seek them for food; others seem to persecute them from hatred, or for sport, from the multitude they scatter upon the ground, without further care concerning them. Honey is the principal food of all ranks of people in Abyssinia, and consequently a multitude of bees are produced everywhere. Part of these are kept in large cages, or baskets, hung upon the trees; others attach themselves to the branches, others build nests in the soft wood of the trees, especially the Bohabab, whose large and fragrant flower furnishes them with a honey which it strongly perfumes. The honey generally borrows its colour from the flowers and herbs from whence it is gathered. At Dixan we were surprised to see the honey red like blood, and nothing can have an appearance more disgusting than this, when mixed with melted butter. There are bees which build in the earth, whose honey is nearly black, as has been observed by the jesuit Jerome Lobo, I willingly place this truth to his credit, the only one, I think, I can find in his natural history, a small atonement for the multitude of falsehoods this vain and idle romancer has told on every occasion. Nor are the granivorous birds fewer in number or worse provided for; all the trees and shrubs in Abyssinia bear flowers, and consequently seeds, berries, or fruit, of some kind or other; food for all or some particular species of birds. Every tree and bush carries these likewise in all stages of ripeness, in all seasons of the year.

This is, however, not to be understood as meaning that any tree produces in the same part, fruit or flowers more than once a-year; but the time of each part’s bearing is very particularly distributed. The west side of every tree is the first that blossoms, there its fruit proceeds in all stages of ripeness till it falls to the ground. It is succeeded by the south, which undergoes the same process. From this it crosses the tree, and the north is next in fruit; last of all comes the east, which produces flowers and fruit till the beginning of the rainy season. In the end of April new leaves push off the old ones without leaving the tree at any time bare, so that every tree in Abyssinia appears to be an evergreen. The last I saw in flower was the coffee-tree at Emfras the 20th of April 1770: from this time till the rains begin, and all the season of them, the trees get fully into leaf, and the harvest, which is generally in these months throughout Abyssinia, supplies the deficiency of the seed upon bushes and trees. All the leaves of the trees in Abyssinia are very highly varnished, and of a tough leather like texture, which enables them to support the constant and violent rains under which they are produced.

This provision made for granivorous birds, in itself so ample, is doubled by another extraordinary regulation. The country being divided by a ridge of mountains, a line drawn along the top of these divides the seasons likewise; so that those birds to whom any one food is necessary become birds of passage, and, by a short migration, find the same seasons, and the same food, on the one side, which the rains and change of weather had deprived them of on the other.

There is no great plenty of water-fowl in Abyssinia, especially of the web-footed kind. I never remember to have seen one of these that are not common in most parts of Europe. Vast variety of storks cover the plains in May, when the rains become constant. The large indigenous birds that reside constantly on the high mountains of Samen and Taranta, have most of them an extraordinary provision made against the wet and the weather; each feather is a tube, from the pores of which issue a very fine dust or powder, in such abundance as to stain the hand upon grasping them. This I shall presently mention in the description of one of these birds, the golden eagle of Lamalmon. In looking at this dust through a very strong magnifying power, I thought I discerned it to be in form of a number of fine feathers.

Though all the deep and grassy bogs have snipes in them, I never once saw a woodcock: swallows there are of many kinds, unknown in Europe; those that are common in Europe appear in passage at the very season when they take their flight from thence. We saw the greatest part of them in the island of Masuah where they lighted and tarried two days, and then proceeded with moon-light nights to the south-west. But I once saw in the country of the Baharnagash, in the province of Tigré, the blue forked-tailed swallow, which builds in the windows in England, making his nest out of season, when he should have been upon his migration; this I have already taken notice of in my journey from Masuah to Gondar.

There are few owls in Abyssinia; but those are of an immense size and beauty. The crow is marked white and black nearly in equal portions. There is one kind of raven; he, too, of a large size, his feathers black intermixed with brown; his beak tipt with white, and a figure like a cup or chalice of white feathers on his occiput, or hinder part of his head. I never saw either sparrow, magpie, or bat in Abyssinia. Pigeons are there in great numbers, and of many varieties; some of them very excellent for eating. I shall hereafter describe one of them whose name is Waalia. All the pigeons but one sort are birds of passage, that one lives in the eaves of houses or holes in the walls, and this is not eaten, but accounted unclean for a very whimsical reason; they say it has claws like a falcon, and is a mixture from that bird. The same sort of imagination is that of the Turks, who say, that the Turkey, from the tuft of black hair that is upon his breast, partakes of the nature of the hog. This pigeon’s feet are indeed large, but very different in formation from that of the falcon.

There are no geese in Abyssinia, wild or tame, excepting what is called the Golden Goose, Goose of the Nile, or Goose of the Cape, common in all the South of Africa: these build their nests upon trees, and when not in water, generally sit upon them.

I have already spoken of fishes, and have entered very sparingly into their history. These, and other marine productions of the Arabian Gulf, or even the small share that I have painted and collected, would occupy many large volumes to exhibit and describe, and would cost, in the engraving, a much larger sum than I have any prospect of ever being able to afford.

NISSER, or GOLDEN EAGLE.

I have ventured from his colour to call this bird the Golden Eagle, by way of distinction, as its Ethiopic name, Nisser, is only a generic one, and imports no more than the English name, Eagle. He is called by the vulgar Abou Duch’n, or Father Long Beard, which we may imagine was given him from the tuft of hair he has below his beak.

I suppose him to be not only the largest of the eagle kind, but surely one of the largest birds that flies. From wing to wing he was 8 feet 4 inches. From the tip of his tail to the point of his beak when dead, 4 feet 7 inches. He weighed 22 pounds, was very full of flesh. He seemed remarkably short in the legs, being only four inches from the joining of the foot to where the leg joins the thigh, and from the joint of the thigh to the joining of his body 6 inches. The thickness of his thigh was little less than 4 inches; it was extremely muscular, and covered with flesh. His middle claw was about 2 inches and a half long, not very sharp at the point, but extremely strong. From the root of the bill, to the point, was 3 inches and a quarter, and one inch and three quarters in breadth at the root. A forked brush of strong hair, divided at the point into two, proceeded from the cavity of his lower jaw at the beginning of his throat. He had the smallest eye I ever remember to have seen in a large bird, the aperture being scarcely half an inch. The crown of his head was bare or bald, so was the front where the bill and scull joined.

This noble bird was not an object of any chace or pursuit, nor stood in need of any stratagem to bring him within our reach. Upon the highest top of the mountain Lamalmon, while my servants were refreshing themselves from that toilsome rugged ascent, and enjoying the pleasure of a most delightful climate, eating their dinner in the outer air with several large dishes of boiled goats flesh before them, this enemy, as he turned out to be to them, appeared suddenly; he did not stoop rapidly from a height, but came flying slowly along the ground, and sat down close to the meat within the ring the men had made round it. A great shout, or rather cry of distress, called me to the place. I saw the eagle stand for a minute as if to recollect himself, while the servants ran for their lances and shields. I walked up as nearly to him as I had time to do. His attention was fully fixed upon the flesh. I saw him put his foot into the pan where was a large piece in water prepared for boiling, but finding the smart which he had not expected, he withdrew it, and forsook the piece which he held.

There were two large pieces, a leg and a shoulder, lying upon a wooden platter, into these he trussed both his claws, and carried them off, but I thought he looked wistfully at the large piece which remained in the warm water. Away he went slowly along the ground as he had come. The face of the cliff over which criminals are thrown took him from our sight. The Mahometans that drove the asses, who had, as we have already observed in the course of the journey, suffered from the hyæna, were much alarmed, and assured me of his return. My servants, on the other hand, very unwillingly expected him, and thought he had already more than his share.

As I had myself a desire of more intimate acquaintance with him, I loaded a rifle-gun with ball, and sat down close to the platter by the meat. It was not many minutes before he came, and a prodigious shout was raised by my attendants, He is coming, he is coming, enough to have discouraged a less courageous animal. Whether he was not quite so hungry as at the first visit, or suspected something from my appearance, I know not, but he made a small turn, and sat down about ten yards from me, the pan with the meat being between me and him. As the field was clear before me, and I did not know but his next move might bring him opposite to some of my people, and so that he might actually get the rest of the meat and make off, I shot him with the ball through the middle of his body about two inches below the wing, so that he lay down upon the grass without a single flutter. Upon laying hold of his monstrous carcase, I was not a little surprised at seeing my hands covered and tinged with yellow powder or dust. Upon turning him upon his belly, and examining the feathers of his back, they produced a brown dust, the colour of the feathers there. This dust was not in small quantities, for, upon striking his breast, the yellow powder flew in fully greater quantity than from a hair-dresser’s powderpuff. The feathers of the belly and breast, which were of a gold colour, did not appear to have any thing extraordinary in their formation, but the large feathers in the shoulder and wings seemed apparently to be fine tubes, which upon pressure scattered this dust upon the finer part of the feather, but this was brown, the colour of the feathers of the back. Upon the side of the wing, the ribs, or hard part of the feather, seemed to be bare as if worn, or, I rather think, were renewing themselves, having before failed in their function.

What is the reason of this extraordinary provision of nature is not in my power to determine. As it is an unusual one, it is probably meant for a defence against the climate in favour of those birds which live in those almost inaccessible heights of a country, doomed, even in its lower parts, to several months of excessive rain. The pigeons we saw upon Lamalmon, had not this dust in their feathers, nor had the quails; from which I guess these to be strangers, or birds of passage, that had no need of this provision, created for the wants of the indigenous, such as this eagle is, for he is unknown in the low country. That same day I shot a heron, in nothing different from ours, only that he was smaller, who had upon his breast and back a blue powder, in full as great quantity as that of the eagle.

BLACK EAGLE.

This beautiful bird was the first subject that suffered the loss of liberty, after the king and whole army had vindicated theirs, had passed the Nile in circumstances scarcely within the bounds of credibility, had escaped all the deep-laid schemes of Fasil, and by a train of accidents almost miraculous, passed triumphantly on before him after the battle of Limjour, having joined Kefla Yasous, advanced and encamped at Dingleber the 28th of May 1770.

This bird, who from the nobleness of his kind was appositely enough thought to be a type of the king, fell by a fate, in which he still more resembled him, overpowered by the strength and number of a species of birds in character infinitely below him. It has been repeatedly observed in the course of my narrative, that an inconceivable number of birds and beasts of prey, especially the former, follow an Abyssinian army pace by pace, from the first day of its march till its return, increasing always in prodigious proportion the more it advances into the country. An army there leaves nothing living behind, not the vestige of habitation, but the fire and the sword reduces everything to a wilderness and solitude.

The beasts and birds unmolested have the country to themselves, and increase beyond all possible conception. The slovenly manner of this savage people, who after a battle neither bury friends nor enemies, the quantity of beasts of burden that die perpetually under the load of baggage, and variety of mismanagement, the quantity of offal and half-eaten carcases of cows, goats, and sheep, which they consume in their march for their sustenance, all furnish a flock of carrion sufficient to occasion contagious distempers, were there not such a prodigious number of voracious attendants, who consume them almost before putrefaction. In their voracious stomachs lies the grave of the bravest soldier, unless very high birth or office, or very extraordinary affection in their attendants, procure them a more decent, though more uncommon fate, a sepulchre in a neighbouring church-yard. There is no giving the reader any idea of their number, unless by comparing them to the sand of the sea. While the army is in motion they are a black canopy, which extend over it for leagues. When encamped, the ground is discoloured with them beyond the sight of the eye, all the trees are loaded with them. I need not say that these are all carrion birds, such as the vulture, kite, and raven, that is a species to which nature has refused both the inclination and the power of feeding upon living subjects.

By what accident this small eagle, who was not a carrion bird, came among these cowardly and unclean feeders, is more than I can say; but it met the fate very common to those who assort with bad company, and those of sentiments and manners inferior to their own. One of these, a kite, vulture, or raven, I know not which, struck the poor eagle down to the ground just before the door of the king’s tent, and hurt him so violently, that he had scarcely strength to flutter under the canopy where the king was sitting; pages and officers of the bed-chamber soon seized him. It was not long before they made the application that the king was to be dethroned by a subject, and Fasil was in everybody’s mouth. The omen was of the kind too unpleasant to be dwelt upon; the sensible people of the attendants hurried it away, and it of course came to me with all the circumstances of the accident, the moral of that tale, and twenty prophecies that were current to confirm it. I confess my own weakness; at first it made a strong impression upon me. In the moment the passage of Shakespeare came into my mind,

And this recollection occupied my mind so forcibly, that I stood for a moment speechless, and as it were rivetted to the ground. This behaviour, unusual in me, who used always to laugh at their presages, and prophecies, was observed by the page that brought me the bird, and was reported to the king; and though he did not speak of it that time, yet some days after, when I was taking my leave of him on his retreat from Gondar to Tigré, he mentioned it to me: said we were mistaken, for the omen referred to Powussen’ of Begemder, and not to Waragna Fasil.

After sketching his genteel and noble manner while alive, our unfortunate prisoner found his death by the needle, was put out of sight, and carried to Gondar, where the drawing was finished. He was altogether of a dark brown, or chesnut, leading to black. The whole length, from the extremity of the tail to the nose, was two feet four inches. The breadth, from wing to wing, four feet six inches. He was very lean, and weighed something less than five pounds. The fourth feather of his wing after the three largest, was white. The feathers of the lower side of his tail were of a bluish brown, checkered with white, and those of the upper side of the tail were black and white alternately. His thighs were thick-covered with feathers, and so were his legs, down to the joining of the foot. His feet were yellow, with strong black claws. The inside of his wings was white, with a mixture of brown. His leg, from the joining of the foot, was three inches. His beak, from the point to where the feathers reached, was two inches and a quarter. The length of his crest from the head to the longest feather, five inches. The eye was black, with a cast of fire colour in it, the iris yellow, and the whole eye exceedingly beautiful. He seemed wonderfully tame, or rather sluggish, but whether that was from his nature or misfortune I cannot be a judge, never having seen another.

RACHAMAH.

This bird is met with in some places in the south of Syria and in Barbary, but is no where so frequent as in Egypt and about Cairo. It is called, by the Europeans, Poule de Faraone, the hen or bird of Pharaoh. It is a vulture of the lesser kind, not being much larger than our rook or crow, though, by the length of its wings, and the erect manner in which it carries its head, it appears considerably larger. In Egypt and all over Barbary it is called Rachamah, and yet it has been very much doubted what bird this was, as well as what was the origin of that name. Some of the Arabs will have it derived from Archam, which signifies variegated, or of different colours. It has been answered, that this is not the derivation, as archam in Arabic signifies variegated, or of more colours than two or three blended together, whereas this is in its feathers only black and white, separate from one another, and cannot be called variegated. But I must here observe, that this is by no means a proper interpretation of the Arabic word. Among many examples I could give, I shall adduce but one. There is a particular kind of sheep in Arabia Felix, whose head and part of the neck are black, and the rest of the beast white; it is chiefly found between Mocha and the Straits of Babelmandeb. This in Arabic is called Rachama, for no other reason but because it is marked black and white, which are precisely the two colours which distinguish the bird before us.

But I still am induced to believe the origin of this bird’s name has an older and more classical derivation than that which we have just spoken of. We know from Horus Apollo, in his book upon Hieroglyphics, that the Rachma, or she-vulture, was sacred to Isis, and that its feathers adorned the statue of that goddess. He says it was the emblem of parental affection, and that the Egyptians, about to write an affectionate mother, painted a she-vulture. He says further, that this female vulture, having hatched its young ones, continues with them one hundred and twenty days, providing them with all necessaries; and, when the stock of food fails them, she tears off the fleshy part of her thigh, and feeds them with that and the blood which flows from the wound. Rachama, then, is good Hebrew, it is from Rechem, female love, or attachment, from an origin which it cannot have in men. In this sense we see it used with great propriety in the first book of Kings66, in Isaiah67, and in Lamentations68, and it seems particularly to mean what the Egyptians made it a hieroglyphic of in very ancient ages, and before the time of Moses, maternal affection towards their progeny. No mention is here made of the male Rachama, nor was he celebrated for any particular quality.

From this silence, or negative personage in him, arose a fable that there was no male in this species. Horus Apollo69, after naming this bird always in the feminine gender, tells us roundly, that there is no male of the kind, but that the female conceives from the south wind. Plutarch70, Ammianus71, and all the Greeks, say the same thing; and Tzetzes72, after having repeated the same story at large, tells us that he took it all from the Egyptians, so there seems to be little doubt either of the origin or meaning of the name.

The fathers in the first ages, after the death of Christ, seem to have been wonderfully pressed in point of argument before they could have recourse to a fable like this to vindicate the possibility of the Virgin Mary’s conception without human means. Tertullian73, Orgines74, Bazil75, and Ambrosius76, are all wild enough to found upon this ridiculous argument, and little was wanting for some of these learned ones to land this fable upon Moses, who probably knew it as a vulgar error before his time, but was very far from paying any regard to it; on the contrary, it is with the utmost propriety and precision, that, speaking to the people, he calls it Rachama in the feminine, because he was then giving them a list of birds forbidden to be ate77, among which he selected the female vulture, as that was best known, and the great object of idolatry and superstition; and the male, and all the lesser abominations of that species, he included together in the word that followed his kind; though the English translator, by calling the female vulture him, has introduced an impropriety that there was not the least foundation for. That Moses was not the author of or believer in this Egyptian fable, is plain from a verse in Exodus, where, at another time, he speaks of this bird, as a male, and calls him Racham, and not Rachama.

It will not be improper that I here take notice, that the English translator, by his ignorance of language, has lost all the beauty and even the sense of the Hebrew original. He makes God say, “Ye have seen what I did unto the Egyptians, and how I bore you on eagles wings, and brought you unto myself78”. Now, if the expression had been really Eagle, the word would have been Nisr, and would have signified nothing; but, in place of eagle, God says Vulture, the emblem of maternal affection and maternal tenderness towards his children, which has a particular connection with, “brought you unto myself;” so that the passage will run thus, Say to the children of Israel, See how I have punished the Egyptians, while I bore you up on the wings of the Rachama, that is, of parental tenderness and affection, and brought you home to myself. It is our part to be thankful that the truths of Holy Scripture are preserved to us entire, but still it is a rational regret that great part of the beauty of the original is lost.

Notwithstanding all that has been said, this bird has been mistaken nearly by all the interpreters Hebrews, Syrians, and Samaritans; the Greeks, from imaginations of their own, have thought it to be the pelican, the stork, the swan, and the merops. Bochart, after a variety of guesses, acknowledges his own ignorance, and excuses it by laying equal blame upon others. Hitherto, says he, we have not been able to condescend upon what bird this was, because those that have wrote concerning it were as ignorant in the natural history of things as they were skilful in the interpretation of words.

The point of the beak of this bird is black, very sharp and strong for about three quarters of an inch, it is then covered by a yellow, fleshy membrane, which clothes it as it were both above and below, as likewise the forepart of the head and throat, and ends in a sharp point before, nearly opposite to where the neck joins the breast; this membrane is wrinkled, and has a few hairs growing thinly scattered upon the lower part of it. It has large, open nostrils, and prodigious large ears, which are not covered by any feathers whatever. The body is perfect white from the middle of the head, where it joins the yellow membrane, down to the tail. The large feathers of its wing are black; they are six in number. The lesser feathers are three, of an iron-grey, lighter towards the middle, and these are covered with three others lesser still, but of the same form, of an iron rusty colour; those feathers that cover the large wing-feathers are at the top for about an inch and a quarter of an iron-grey, but the bottom is pure white. The tail is broad and thick above, and draws to a point at the bottom. It is not composed of large feathers, and is not half an inch longer than the point of its wings. Its thighs are cloathed with a soft down-like feather, as far as the joint. Its legs are of a dirty white, inclining to flesh colour, rough, with small tubercules which are soft and fleshy. It has three toes before and one behind; the middle of these is considerably the longest; they are armed with black claws, rather strong than pointed, or much crooked. It has no voice that ever I heard, generally goes single, and oftener sits and walks upon the ground than upon trees. It delights in the most putrid and slinking kind of carrion, has itself a very strong smell, and putrifies very speedily.

It is a very great breach of order, or police, to kill any one of these birds near Cairo. But as there are few of its species in Egypt, and its name is the same all over Africa and Arabia, it seems to me strange that the Arabian or Hebrew writers should have found so much difficulty in discovering what was the bird. It lays but two eggs, and builds its nest in the most desert parts of the country. More of its history or manners I do not know. The books are full of fanciful stories concerning it, which the instructed reader at first sight will know to be but fable.