Chapter IX: Part 9

is still popular, but hardly correct. More probably the lion would get out of the way politely,—if we may judge by the pacific behaviour of those in our last-explored lion-haunt, Mashonaland. M. Georges Leroy’s contention for the natural affinity, or semi-sympathy, which should exist between man and the intelligent hunting animals, is no doubt partly reasonable. Leigh Hunt, when recording his impressions of a visit to the Zoological Gardens, was unpleasantly struck by the _incongruity_ of the notion of being eaten by a wild beast,—“the hideous, _impracticable fellow-creature_, looking one in the face, struggling with us, mingling his breath with ours, tearing away scalp or shoulder-blade.” But the “fellow-creature” is not nearly so impracticable as he is supposed to be. More human beings are probably killed by tigers than by any other wild beast, except by starving wolves. Yet this is what Sir Samuel Baker has to say on the subject—“There is a great difference in the habits of tigers. Some exist upon the game in the jungles; others prey especially upon the flocks belonging to the villagers. A _few_ are designated ‘man-eaters.’ These are sometimes naturally ferocious, and having attacked a human being, _may_ have devoured the body, and thus acquired a taste for human flesh; or they _may_ have been wounded on more than one occasion, and have learnt to regard man as a natural enemy. But more frequently the ‘man-eater’ is a very old tiger, or more probably tigress, that, having hunted in the neighbourhood of villages and carried off some unfortunate woman, has _discovered_ that it is far easier to kill a native than to hunt jungle game.” As a rule, the tiger is only anxious to avoid men; and it is noticed that in high grass tigers are more dangerous than in forests, because in the former they cannot be seen, neither can they see, until the stranger is close upon them. An ancient instance of the opposite behaviour is that recorded of the new colonists of Samaria, whom the lions attacked, “and slew some of them.” A curious inversion of this experience occurred when the islands in the Brahmaputra, which were swarming with tigers, were first cultivated. The natives, mainly by the aid of traps set with a bow and arrow, killed off the tigers so fast that the skins were sold by auction at from eight annas to one rupee apiece. In this case, the tigers were the first aggressors by carrying off cattle. But it seems evident that there exists no _à priori_ reason, founded in natural antipathy, why man and animals, if we could reconstruct a “state of nature” in which we could put civilized, not savage man, should not dwell together in profound peace, or at least in such peace as obtains between accidental neighbours. The only ground for quarrel that seems inevitable is the everlasting one between the shepherd and the wolf; and that, after all, is a question, not of prejudice, but of property.

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POSSIBLE PETS.

THE number of animals which with ordinary tact and kindness can be tamed by man is so great, that the range of possible pets would seem almost co-extensive with the limits of the animal world. But tame tigers must, as a rule, remain a luxury for Sultans and Sarah Bernhardts, and the sociable bear be left to the professional gentlemen who make a living from his society. We say “as a rule,” not without reason, because there is hardly any limit to an Englishman’s fancy for pets. The writer was requested last year to act as a friendly broker to bid for the bear which found its way so often to the London Police Courts after being exhibited before the Queen at Windsor. The would-be purchaser was a worthy butcher before whose shop the bear was being exhibited, while the writer heard its history from the genial and dirty foreigner who owned it. “Sir,” said the butcher,” excuse the liberty; but would you kindly ask that Frenchman what he will take for the bear?” “Certainly,” we replied, “if you will say why you want it; is it for professional purposes?”—for the bear was fat. “Oh, no! I should not think of such a thing,” said the butcher. “I want him for a pet.” “Very well; how high will you go?” we asked. “Up to ten pounds,” the butcher replied. But though we did our best, the owner would not accept less than eight hundred francs, to the great disappointment of the would-be purchaser. What is required for an every-day pet is that it shall be beautiful and intelligent; that it shall neither be too large nor too delicate; and, if a bird, that it shall sing or talk—preferably both. The two first requirements will not go far to limit the choice. Beauty of form and harmony of colour are the almost inseparable attributes of that physical perfection which the natural life of animals demands; and he would be a rash man who classed any of the more highly organized animals as “stupid” without trial.

But there are “diversities of gifts,” and the exquisite beauty of the silky little chinchilla must be held to compensate for the want of the lively cleverness of the coati-mundi or the Capuchin monkeys. The limits set by size and constitution are the main consideration in the choice of pets. Yet even so the possible range is very great, and might well extend far beyond the species which form the main body of those usually seen in this country. To begin with our native animals, who has seen a tame hare? Most school-boys have kept tame rabbits by the dozen—singularly uninteresting pets when shut up all day in a box munching cabbage-stalks—and generally turned over to younger sisters in favour of a terrier puppy after brief possession. Yet even after the experience of tame hares so charmingly told by Cowper, the most domestic of poets, the hare is neglected as a pet. Yet its form and fur are beautiful, and so far as the writer has been able to judge of this, perhaps one of the least carefully observed, except for persecution, of our wild animals, the hare is a clever, affectionate creature, as far above the rabbit in the scale of intelligence as it is in physique. Last spring, after a late fall of snow, an old hare brought her leverets from the hill, and hid them in a straw-stack near a farm, and remained constantly near them all day, coming to them regularly as soon as the twilight made it safe. They are bold as well as affectionate, and have been known to drive off a hawk which was carrying away a young one, springing up and striking the bird as it flew low above the ground; and their attachment to locality is so great, that even if kept at large, they would probably not leave their owner’s grounds.

A charming little foreign pet for the house is the suricate, or meer-cat. This pretty creature, which, if we remember rightly, was among the number of Frank Buckland’s animal companions, is an active and vivacious little fellow, some 10 in. long, with greenish-brown fur, large bright eyes, a short pointed nose and dainty paws, which, like the squirrel’s or the racoon’s, are used as hands, to hold, to handle, and to ask for more. Eloquent in supplication, tenacious in retention, the suricate’s paws are expressive, plaintive, and wholly irresistible. The creature is made for a pet, and is so affectionate to its master that it can undergo any degree of “spoiling” without injury to its temper. A larger, more beautiful, and most charming creature, not unlike the suricate in some respects, though in no way related to it, is the brown opossum from Tasmania. “Sooty Phalanger” is the elegant name given to it by naturalists; but except when the specimen kept by the writer discovered that a chimney made a good substitute for a hollow tree for its midday sleep, there was nothing in its appearance to justify the scientific adjective. The fur is of the richest dark-brown, and covers its prehensile tail like a fur boa. Its head is small, with a pink nose and very large brown eyes; and it has a “compound” hand, with the claws on its fingers, and an almost human and clawless thumb, with the aid of which it can hold a wine-glass, or eat jam out of a teaspoon. That owned by the writer was, without exception, the most fearless and affectionate pet he has ever known. In the evening, when it was most lively, it would climb on to the shoulder of any of its visitors, and take any food given it. It had a mania for cleanliness, always “washing” its hands after taking food, or even after running across the room, and was always anxious to do the same office by the hands of any one who fed it. It made friends with the dogs, and would “wash” their faces for them, catching hold of an old setter’s nose with its sharp little claws, to hold it steady while it licked its face. The staircase and banisters furnished a gymnasium for exercise in the winter, and in summer it could be trusted among the trees in the garden. This opossum is becoming scarce, owing to the demand for its fur; but there is little doubt that specimens could still be bought for a moderate sum. That owned by the writer cost three pounds. The American grey squirrel is a common and hardy species, which becomes very tame, though scarcely so pretty as our red squirrel; and the South American coatis, especially the small kind, are most amusing pets; though, like the mongoose, they need to be kept warm. All the coatis are sociable, lively creatures, quite omnivorous, and with as many odd tricks as a monkey. The mongoose, that “familiar” of Indian households, has such a natural bias for human society, that, according to Mr. Kipling, it will often come into a house from the jungle, and voluntarily enrol itself among the members of the family. It is a slim, active little animal, varying from a foot to nearly two feet in length, of a curious mottled silvery-grey colour, and so amazingly rapid in its movements that its victory over the cobra is not surprising. Provided that it is kept warm in winter, it will live well in an English home, and loses none of those domestic qualities which make it such a favourite in India. The marmot and the viscacha, or prairie-dog, are amusing little fellows, and if allowed the use of a small enclosure in which the marmots can burrow and make hay for the winter, and the viscachas make their “collections” of curiosities, either species would, no doubt, add to the interest of an English country house. But as both the marmot and the viscacha hibernate in winter, their owner must be prepared for their disappearance underground from Christmas until March.

There is only one monkey which we can thoroughly recommend as an indoor pet, the beautiful and intelligent little Capuchin. The marmosets, even more beautiful and equally pleasing, are too delicate for our climate, and die of colds and coughs after the first fogs of winter. But the lively little Capuchins may be kept for years in an English house; and no monkey approaches their good-temper and pretty winning ways. They all have good round heads, with black fur on the top and light-brown on the cheeks. Some have pinkish faces, and others dark-brown skins, with eyes like brown jewels. Their faces are most expressive, and seldom still, for they take deep and abiding interest in everything in or about their cages. One kept in a large house in Leicestershire had learnt to put out burning-paper, which it did most adroitly by beating it with its hands or knocking it against the floor. Another, which was kept at the Zoo, would, if it got a match, collect a heap of straw, strike the match, light its bonfire, and dance round it. This dangerous accomplishment led to its removal from the cages on Saturdays and Bank-holidays, when the crowd makes it difficult to keep a watch on its movements. The Capuchin is so small, so pretty, and so clever, that it seems to embody all the good and none of the bad points of monkey nature.

No one who has seen pumas when kindly treated in captivity can doubt the justice of the impression that these friendly and beautiful cats at once produce, that they _must_ be suited for pets and companions. The general verdict of South Americans as to their gentleness and natural liking for man, even when wild on the Pampas, is given in some detail in a later chapter on Animal Temper. There was at least one puma kept as a pet in this country, by Captain Marshall, the owner of a unique private menagerie at Marlow on the Thames. Reports of a gentleman, “with a tame lioness by his side,” having been seen sitting by a lock gate on the Thames, evidently pointed to the taming, not of a lioness, which, however domesticated among those whom it knows, would be too dangerous and uncertain a creature to take abroad, but of a puma, which, being neither striped nor spotted, would be at once described as a “lioness” by the ordinary “man in a boat.” This was the case, and the following is Captain Marshall’s short account of his late pet, for unfortunately it died of liver-complaint before the writer could ask to make its acquaintance. “My big full-grown puma,” writes its master, “was as tame as a cat. It was kept for months on a chain and collar, and could be led about. It would rest its head on my lap, and I could pull it about as much as I liked. I also had a baby one, but she was _not_ tame.” The lovely snow leopard, which came to the Zoo in 1894, was a lady’s pet. It had always been fed upon cooked meat, and was perfectly tame. The writer has patted it as it lay in its box in the Lion House, and it merely looked up exactly like a sleepy grey Angora cat. Yet this was a full-grown leopard, in perfect condition and health, living in the next cage to one of the black variety, which was almost the wildest creature in the menagerie.

Those who possess an aviary may be interested to hear that at the Zoo, blackcaps, whitethroats, garden-warblers, and nightingales, all birds of passage, are living in excellent health through the winter; and one nightingale was singing on December 29, but the song, though very beautiful, was not a true nightingale’s note, but largely borrowed from that of the bulbul in the next aviary, the bird being a young one, caught in the autumn. It is evident, from the experiment at the Zoo, that our summer warblers may be kept as pets; but the bird of all others suited for the aviary, but neglected as a rule in England, is the bulbul. The Persian variety has the finest song, but the Indian is an even prettier bird, and sings exquisitely. In appearance, the bulbuls are not unlike the Bohemian waxwing, with a black conical top-knot, cinnamon-coloured backs, red-and-white or yellow-and-white cheeks, and white breasts, with some bright colour near the tail. The note is most liquid and beautiful, and the bird has a pretty habit of varying the volume of the sound, singing loudly in the open, and almost whispering its song to its master or mistress if confined in a room. We might do worse than follow the example of the Persians, and make the bulbul our favourite cage-bird, instead of the canary.

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THE PARIS ZOOLOGICAL GARDENS IN THE TWO SIEGES.

HERE is an odd scene in the Jardin des Plantes at the end of April 1871. The communards were defending the ramparts, and a steady rain of shells had been pouring in from the Versaillist batteries for a week. Every one in Paris was “stale” from continued siege and bombardment. War had lost all its excitement, and nothing relieved its squalid discomfort. An order to impress all citizens for the National Guard had just been issued, and one of these, M. Henri de Goncourt, an author, a man of taste, and a man of peace, had wandered into the Jardin des Plantes, partly from sheer ennui, partly, as he would have us believe, in the hope that he might find an empty loose box of a deer or antelope, in which he could sleep, and escape the _réquisition militaire_ of the omnipotent M. _Pipe-en-Bois_. He found a party of National Guards sauntering round the Gardens, conducted by a philosophical Republican, who halted his squad in front of the kangaroos’ cages, and gravely took for his text the maternal virtues of “_Citoyenne_” _Kanguroo_, begging them, “with emotion,” to observe the contrast of the animal, which always carried its infant in its pocket, with the indifference of “_les femmes aristo_” to their babies! The republican zeal for improving the occasion is typical of the frame of mind to which the average Parisian can always bring himself and his audience over any political or patriotic question, on the most trifling occasion, a kind of conscious insincerity which his hearers agree to share in order to enjoy the sentiment of the moment. But the time and occasion are not often so comical. The observer of the scene, M. de Goncourt, a writer steeped in the literary life of Paris, a life which the siege had starved and crushed, leaving the poor man in a state of acute _mental_ starvation very curiously shown in his journal of the siege, declared that the animals which had survived the first siege, or had been introduced to the Gardens after the Prussian occupation, were almost as bored by the loss of their “public” as he was at the loss of his. “The animals,” he says, “are silent. The elephant, _abandonné de son public_, leaning indolently against the wall, was eating his hay with the air of a man compelled to dine alone.

In the first siege, the animals of the Paris Zoo which could by any means be classed as “game” or venison early found their way into the butchers’ and game-dealers’ shops. As early as October 3 two large stags were exposed for sale; at the same time big tame carps, which had adorned the fountains in the Gardens, were rubbing their purple noses against the sides of a baby’s bath, set upon the counter, and a young bear, freshly killed, its broad paws clenched in death, was hanging like a sheep from the hooks above, destined for auction by hungry Parisians on the following day. On the last night of the old year, in the shop of the butcher Roos, in the Boulevard Haussmann, far less appetizing viands were the subject of a sale, which for the moment was invested with an interest equal to that attending an auction of masterpieces of art at Christy’s. The last batch of animals from the Jardin d’Acclimatation was on offer, to supply the materials for a New Year’s dinner. The trunk of “Pollux,” a young elephant, was the central attraction, and among a number of unfamiliar heads and horns, a shopman was pointing to a pile of camel steaks.

The butcher was concluding his speech, in the centre of a circle of women—

“It is forty francs a pound, for the filet or the ribs. Yes—forty francs. Dear, you say? Not at all; I do not see my way to making a penny on it. I counted on 3000 lbs., and he (the elephant) has only cut up into 2300 lbs. The feet—you ask the price of the feet?—are twenty francs; the other portions eight francs to fourteen francs a pound. Allow me to recommend the elephant sausage; there is onion in my sausage, ladies and gentlemen!”

De Goncourt was able to purchase two larks for his breakfast—like the toasted mice of the hero of Bulwer Lytton’s _Parisians_, “dainty, but not nutritious.” That evening he found, at Voisins, the famous elephant sausage, _and he dined on it_.

The rarer animals from the Jardin d’Acclimatation in the Bois de Boulogne were transferred before the siege to the Jardin des Plantes. These were mostly bought by the proprietor of the English butcher’s shop, M. Debos; he also bought the elephants of the Jardin des Plantes for 27,000 francs. “Personally, I have eaten the flesh of elephants, wolves, cassowaries, porcupines, bears, kangaroos, rats, cats, and horses,” says the author of the _Englishman in Paris_. His views on these creatures as articles of food are only given at length in the case of the dog, cat, and horse. The last was supposed to have become a recognized part of the food supply of Paris in the year before the siege, but it never acquired any popularity. “It is very curious, but a positive fact nevertheless, that I have heard Parisians speak favourably afterwards of dog’s and cat’s flesh, even of rats baked in a pie; I have heard them say, that for once in a way, and under ordinary circumstances, they would not mind partaking of those dishes; I have never heard them express the same good-will towards horse-flesh. One thing is certain. At the end of the siege, the sight of a cat or dog was a rarity in Paris, while by the official reports there were thirty thousand horses left.”

The same writer records the opinion of an officer who was most successful in “siege cookery” on the subject of the dog as food. This gentleman, aided by a soldier servant, had made an excellent dish of “larks,” which turned out to be field-mice, slightly flavoured with saffron to disguise their musky taste. “You may disguise anything with saffron except dog’s flesh. His meat is oily and flabby; stew him, fry him, do what you will, there is always a castor-oil flavour remaining, which cannot be got rid of. The only way to minimize that flavour, to make him palatable, is to salt or rather pepper him; to cut him up into large slices and leave them a fortnight, bestrewing them very liberally with peppercorns. Then before cooking them, put them into boiling water for a time, and throw the water away.”

All palates do not seem to have disliked dog so greatly. At Brebant’s, where M. Renan and other leading writers dined regularly during the siege, a “saddle of mutton” was brought in. “We shall have the shepherd served up to-morrow,” said M. Hébrard. It was explained that it was a “_très belle selle de chien_,” and that this was the third time they had eaten dog.

“No, no,” exclaimed M. Saint-Victor, horrified. “M. Brebant is a respectable man—he would have told us—horse, _not_ dog.”

“Dog or mutton,” said Nefftzer, his mouth full, “I have never eaten a better _rôti_. If Brebant would give you rat, it is excellent, a mixture of pork and partridge.”

During this dissertation poor M. Renan, who appeared preoccupied and thoughtful, grew pale, then green, threw his five francs on the table, and left hurriedly.

The result of the compulsory experiments in food during the siege will not be much assistance to guide the work of acclimatization, or to aid in the discovery of a new meat, either from the menageries of the Zoological Gardens, or our beasts of burden, though all the needful accessories of good cooks, good wines, and good company were available to secure success.

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OTHER BEASTS OF BURDEN.

THE failure of the Zoological Society to establish any new draught animal in this country seems to show that as long as an Englishman can get a horse, he tries to do without any other beast of burden. The use of dogs is no longer legal, and we have nearly discarded the sturdy ox, even for ploughing. A few are to be seen in Wiltshire and on the Cotswold Hills; in Berkshire there are some half-dozen teams, among them a famous quartette of red steers belonging to Sir William Throckmorton; and Mr. Beresford Hope’s team of “sheeted” Dutch oxen, black giants with white “sheets” of identical shape, is one of the sights of the farm at Bedgebury in Sussex; but outside these counties we know of none in England.

Were we right to legislate against the use of dogs for draught? A careful inquiry has been made in Brussels, and the verdict is that dogs are more useful than horses for minor town traffic—quieter, cleaner, and cheaper. “The first distinctive institution that attracts the attention of a stranger in Belgium,” writes the Consul, “is the working-dog. Liège is a city of great wealth and industry, employing as many horses as any other town of its size in Europe; and yet for every horse, at least two dogs are to be seen in its streets.” In the early morning, we are told, the boulevards are literally alive with them. The butcher, the baker, the grocer, the porter, carriers of all kinds, engage the dog’s services. His step is so much quicker than that of the horse, that he will in an hour cover twice as much ground, and he carries with him a greater burden in proportion to his size. Six hundred pounds is the usual weight for an ordinary dog, though a mastiff often draws as much again. They cost about 3_d._ a day to keep on black bread and horse-flesh, and draught-dogs are now carefully bred, mastiffs crossed with the bull-dog to give lungs and chest fetching the highest prices, averaging from £4 to £6. The Consul concludes by stating his opinion that “there is not an article of merchandise, from a ton of coals to a loaf of bread, sold in our cities, which might not be more advantageously delivered by dogs than horses.” The Consul is doubtless thinking of ordinary “tradesmen’s” deliveries. It would be ridiculous to expect dogs to take the place of the brewers’ dray horses, or the railway-goods horses,—but his views certainly deserve consideration. In England, where their use was once common, we seem to look on dogs as only suitable for draught inside the Arctic circle. The absence of a strong shoulder and hard hoofs suggests cruelty in their employment. Nothing in Holland and Belgium gives an Englishman a keener sense of discomfort than seeing dogs in carts. His first impulse is to protest against it as ill-usage. In reply he will learn that a careful inquiry had been held many years ago; that Mr. Grantley Berkeley, whose personal affection for animals, as shown in his _Memoirs_, was almost a passion, had been consulted, and that the verdict had been in favour of continuing their use. Many months of careful observation confirmed this view. No animal so enjoys his work, or does it so willingly, as a dog. Except the elephant, no other animal can be trusted to work alone like the smugglers’ dogs between France and Belgium, or collies watching sheep. They are scarcely ever struck or beaten either in Holland or Belgium. They do not fight, and the only drawbacks to their use are their readiness to attack a stranger who approaches their cart when left in their charge, and the severe hydrophobia “scares” which their numbers at times produce. They are exuberantly happy in their daily work, and come of their own accord at the right hour to be harnessed. Small dogs in little carts are always ready and anxious to race against big ones; and though at the Hague the barking and galloping of dogs within the city-bounds is forbidden, as “furious driving” is here, the dogs, when returning with empty carts, may race as much as they please. Two little boys, with their cart drawn by a sturdy bull-terrier, used often to wait for and race a couple of half-bred mastiffs drawing a cart with two men, the owners running alongside, and jumping on when the carts—mere narrow shelves like all dog-carts, whether on wheels or sledges—were going at ten miles an hour. There may be cruelty, just as in the use of any other creature. But men are always hardest on a sluggish animal. One donkey suffers more than twenty dogs. The legislation which stopped their use in England was nominally humanitarian. But it has often been asserted, that it was chiefly due to the objection which persons who drove horses entertained for dog-carts, and to the country gentleman’s dislike of dogs as enemies to game. We should be sorry to see dogs replace ponies in common use. But it should not be illegal to employ them. We have seen a little Pomeranian helping to pull its invalid master’s chair, and evidently proud of its work. In this case, it would have been difficult for the policeman to put the law in force. In snow-time we have harnessed a setter and a retriever to a toboggan-sledge, and they enjoyed the fun quite as much as their master,—indeed, they upset us at the first corner.

The English reliance on horses, big and little, is almost justified by the wonderful adaptation for manifold uses which careful breeding has produced. The work of the dog must, in civilized countries, be limited to petty draught on well-made roads and in towns. In the Arctic circle he is a necessity to man as a beast of burden. When the Greenland dogs die, the Greenlander must become extinct. It is impossible for him to drag home the seals, sharks, white whales, and narwhals, which he shoots on the ice, without his dogs, or for the Eskimo to make his long migrations with his family and household goods to fresh hunting-grounds without their aid. If the epidemic of rabies which half-destroyed their teams had not been arrested by the ice-fiord of Jacobshaven, the Greenlanders would by now have been pensioners on Danish charity. It was noticed, as evidence of the absolute dependence of the Arctic man upon the services of the Arctic dog as a beast of burden, that whenever a native lost his dogs, he went very rapidly down-hill in the scale of Eskimo respectability, and became a sort of hanger-on to the fortunate possessor of a sledge-team. Exactly the same degradation has been observed in the case of the Tartar who is too poor to keep his horse, and a corresponding rise in the social scale of the “foot” Indians of Patagonia, when a neighbouring tribe of horse-Indians lent them horses, and provided them with hunters to teach their use in the capture of game. On good ground, a team of six Eskimo dogs will draw a load of from eight to ten hundred-weight at a speed of seven miles an hour. Large teams, with light sledges and little except the driver to carry, are wonderfully rapid. Kane, the Arctic traveller, was carried for seven hundred miles at an average rate of fifty-seven miles a day. Lieutenant Schwatka sent two Eskimo with a double team of forty dogs, the sledge having its runners “iced” by pouring water over them, to the rescue of a half-frozen sailor, who was viewed from the ship at a distance of ten miles across an ice-covered bay just before nightfall. Two drivers sat on either side of the sledge, with knives to cut the harness of any dog that might stumble and be dragged to death, and the sledge was driven at perhaps the highest speed ever known. The dash of ten miles was accomplished in twenty-two and a half minutes. But creditable as such an achievement is to the half-starved descendants of the Arctic wolf, the strongest evidence against the use of the dog for general draught purposes is the fact, that wherever the surface, even in the snow regions, is sound and safe for any other creature than the light and active dogs, the reindeer, or, in the more southerly districts, the horse, at once takes its place. There is one exception, the great Thibetan mastiff, which stands apart. These dogs, the largest in size of any native and unimproved breed, cross the mountains regularly as beasts of burden, and bring their loads as far as Darjeeling. For size, courage, and general utility they are probably the finest race of dogs in the world.

But as a rule in Asia the dog is the draught animal of the inferior races. Mr. Nordenskiold, in his voyage in the _Vega_ to the Asiatic shore of the Behring Sea, noticed a marked difference between the “Dog Chukchs,” the inhabitants of the coast, and the “Reindeer Chukchs” of the interior. The latter were better clothed and in better circumstances. Both showed great kindness to their animals, which is unusual among semi-savages. The “Coast Chukchs” always carried dog-shoes, neatly-made bags of soft leather, with straps attached, to put on their dogs’ feet if cut by the sharp snow. The herd of a “Reindeer Cutch” came down from the pasture every morning to meet their master. The leading stag came first; and bade him good-morning by gently rubbing his nose against his master’s hands. All the other deer were then allowed to do the same, the master taking each by the horn, and carefully examining its condition. The inspection over, the herd then wheeled, and returned to the pasture. It would be difficult to name another beast of burden so tame and so efficient as the reindeer. A good reindeer will travel one hundred miles a day over frozen snow, and can draw a weight of three hundred pounds; thus surpassing the dog by one-half in distance and two-thirds in drawing power. The loads carried by the camels of the Heavy Camel Corps across the Bayuda Desert were very little heavier than those drawn by the reindeer across the Northern steppes. Including the rider, the average weight was about three hundred and forty-two pounds. Even so, they were over-weighted, and the little Egyptian horses ridden by the Hussars, who accompanied the column, were less exhausted than the larger beasts when the forced march was completed. The llama, admirable as it was for climbing the step-roads of the Incas, which ruined Pizarro’s horses, is only an inferior camel; and the yak, Thibetan goat, and buffalo are highly specialized forms, suited to particular climates and conditions. The water-buffalo is the one domestic animal which evolves the enthusiasm and affection of the Chinaman. He loves it as the Hindoo does his cow, and paddles by its side in the squashy rice-fields, with a smiling contentment on his bland countenance, due to a feeling that in his buffalo he owns the one thing needful to make his husbandry a success and satisfaction. Of all the creatures of the flowery land, it is the only one which the Celestial takes with him into the countries of the barbarians into which he migrates. Long ago the Chinaman in Singapore and the Straits Settlements became a buffalo breeder, and now he has imported them into the Sandwich Islands. There also the trotting ox is now established, and is regularly ridden by the Kanaka boys. The breed is maintained in great purity, and for pace and size they match the best animals of the Indian plains.

But the elephant must still hold the first place as a beast of burden. His normal load is eight hundred pounds, so that in India he is reckoned equal to eight ponies, to five pack-mules or stout bullocks, and to three and one-third of a camel. Next to the elephant in general usefulness we should be inclined to place the “trotting ox” of India. “All Indian oxen can be trained to trot,” says Mr. Lockwood Kipling. “The sloping quarter and straight hock may possibly account for something in their more horselike gait. One of the first things to strike a stranger is the hurrying ox. The rekla, a light two-wheeled cart drawn by a pair of oxen, cheap, speedy, and convenient, is the hansom cab of the natives of Bombay. All through the Mahratta country the ox is the common draught-animal, differing in speed and size according to the work for which he is required. Cattle of the Nagore breed, used by rich men to draw their state carriages, used to be kept near Delhi for carrying despatches. Mr. Youatt was informed that they would travel with a soldier on their back fifteen or sixteen miles in the day, at the rate of six miles an hour. The Nagore cattle have none of the awkward swinging motion of the legs of the English cow. They bring their hind-legs under them in as straight a line as the horse. “They are very active,” continues Mr. Youatt, “and can clear a five-barred gate with the greatest ease.” One owner possessed a calf which would jump an iron railing higher than a gate, and a bull which would leap the same railing to go to water, and having drunk, leap back again.

Napoleon borrowed his idea of bullock transport for the first stages of his Russian campaign from the Indian army. But the Indian bullocks are shod, Napoleon’s were not, and the bullock transport was ruined before the frontier of Poland was reached. But even if this important detail had received attention, it may be doubted whether a large experiment in the use of a new beast of burden ever succeeds in an old country. Natural selection never proceeds faster than when controlled by human necessity, and though the dog may be reinstated in the tradesman’s carts, the ox continues to disappear from the dwindling area of arable land in this country.

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THE SOLDIER’S CAMEL.

“BACTRIAN camels,” says Major A. Leonard in his work on the _Camel, its Uses and Management_,[14] “or those from Afghanistan, or any such cold climate, would thrive just as well in a re-mount depôt in England as they do at the Zoo. What in the world is to prevent their introduction into this country, and the formation of camel and mule transports? Nothing, that I can see.”

Footnote 14:

Longmans, Green and Co., London. 1874.

Major Leonard speaks with the authority of one who has spent sixteen years as a transport officer, and if the suggestion which he makes, based as it is on the observation of the good health and long lives enjoyed by the northern camels at the Zoological Gardens, be adopted by the War Office, the original intention of the founders of the Society, to make their Gardens an example of what was possible in the way of acclimatization, would be fulfilled in an unexpected quarter.

BACTRIAN CAMEL. From a photograph by Gambier
Bolton.
]

The reason for Major Leonard’s suggestion is to be found in the failure in the management of our camel transport in war-time. The natural liking of Englishmen for domestic animals of all kinds is quite equalled by the skill they usually show in their management. Yet the sufferings of our transport animals in war are such as at any other time would cause a pang to the national conscience. It is a fact that the feeling of humanity, which will not tolerate the overcrowding of a cattle-ship, is scarcely shocked when, as in the Afghan War, twenty-thousand camels perish, mainly from mismanagement, or when a transport officer can write of the fate of those creatures in the Nile Expedition—“Seeing, as I have done, hundreds and thousands of camels die from sheer exhaustion, brought on by neglect and ill-treatment, arising from down-right stupidity, obstinacy, and ignorance, is enough to make one ashamed of having had any connection with the business.” The push across the Bayuda Desert was a race against time; yet it hardly seems consonant with the usual fairness of Englishmen to their “mounts,” that of the thousand camels used, probably not one survived the treatment it received; and Count Gleichen, writing after service with the Camel Corps throughout the war, says, “I am afraid we looked upon them as mere machines for carrying, and hardly thought of their sufferings from hunger and thirst as long as they could be whacked along.” This was after the battle of Metemmeh. Of the same example of cruel and disastrous mismanagement Sir C. Rivers Wilson says—“The camels had been without water for from six to seven days, having been accustomed to water every second or third day. They were on one-third rations, which they did not always get. For thirty-seven hours they were tied down so tightly in the zeribah before Abu Klea, that they could not move a limb, and I doubt if they were fed at all during that time. Then for sixteen hours they were on the march, and tied down for another twenty-four hours without any food. The result almost justified the saying, that we thought we had found in the camel an animal which required neither food, drink, nor rest; we certainly acted as if the camel were a piece of machinery.” Except during the time of battle, all this cruelty to the animals and waste of mobility in the force was unnecessary. The so-called “desert” was full of food and well supplied with water. On the day before the retreat from Metemmeh, a camel convoy of the friendly Kababish came in across the desert in perfect condition. “It made my mouth water,” writes an officer, “to see these magnificent, well-fed brutes swinging along, each with its load balanced on its hump.” His own beast had holes in its skin into which you could have put a cocoa-nut. Read in the light of these facts, the inimitable ballad in which Mr. Rudyard Kipling sums up the miseries of the commissariat-camel, and the incompetence of the uninstructed British private to manage it, is an invitation to substitute common-sense and kindness for ignorance and cruelty in the treatment of the four-footed army which helps to fight our battles.

Major Leonard has been engaged in this service in Afghanistan, South Africa, India, and the Soudan. That is in itself a credential for his book; for no one not possessed of an equable and reflective temper could have gone through his experiences and yet be enthusiastic over his branch of the profession, and, above all, over what he justly calls that “little-known and strangely unsympathetic animal,” the camel. Yet Major Leonard’s practical experience leads him to the conclusion that, of all transport animals, it is the best for military use in the East. Incidentally, he gives us an historical note on Mr. Rudyard Kipling’s immortal ballad on the Commissariat Camel—

“The driver question in Afghanistan was enough to appal the heart of the stoutest transport officer. They deserted, and soldiers had to be told off to act as drivers. On December 20, 1878, I had to leave 161 bags of Commissariat stores on the ground, many of the drivers having deserted, and taken their camels with them. This is a common trick of the Sind drivers. They go back by a circuitous route, and in many cases—it is said—are re-engaged by the Commissariat.”

The place assigned to the camel in this estimate need not raise any bright ideal of the creature as a travelling companion. Mr. R. Kipling’s remark, that you might as well lavish your affections on a luggage-van as on a camel, still holds good. But there is a balance in favour of the camel when compared with other Oriental beasts of burden. The experiences of a single march, noted by Major Leonard, gives a glimpse of the comparative “cussedness” of different transport animals, which is as fresh as it is amusing. The occasion was the advance of the Candahar force from Quetta in the last Afghan War. At the crossing of the river Lora, at the foot of the Kojak-Amran range, the camels were swallowed up wholesale in the quicksands, owing entirely to their extraordinary stupidity. We quote this incident first, because the one serious drawback to the use of the camel consists precisely in this strange insensibility to danger—

“The river was not very broad, and not more than two feet deep in any part of the stream; but the bed was full of quicksands, in whose treacherous depths many an unfortunate camel perished. It is only natural to suppose, that by sheer force of example an ordinarily intelligent animal would have learnt to avoid the danger, by seeing those which preceded it sinking deeper and deeper out of sight. Yet these camels plodded steadily on into the quicksands, though those which had preceded them were disappearing so fast that in many cases only their necks and heads were visible.”

Not a single horse, elephant, or mule, was lost in this way in crossing the ford, and they one and all displayed a marked and consistent caution which was clearly the result of reason—

“One elephant, which the officer commanding the 6-11 Battery of the Royal Artillery lent to assist in extricating some camels which were being engulfed in the quicksands, showed an amount of sagacity which was positively marvellous. It was with the utmost difficulty that we could get him to go near enough to attach a drag-rope to one camel I wanted to rescue. In spite of our being about fifty yards from the bank of the river, he evinced the greatest anxiety, while his movements were made with extreme caution. Despite coaxing, persuasive remonstrance, and at last a shower of heavy blows dealt upon his head by the exasperated mahout, this elephant stubbornly refused to go where he was wanted, but, with his trunk shoved out in front of him, kept feeling his way with his ponderous feet, placing them before him slowly, deliberately, and methodically, treading all the while with the velvety softness of a cat, and taking only one step at a time. Then suddenly he would break out into a suppressed kind of shriek, and retreat backwards in great haste. When the animal had nearly completed a circuit of the ground with the same caution and deliberation, he advanced to within ten yards of the poor camel, but not another inch would he move, though several men were walking between him and the camel without any signs of the ground giving way.”

But if the camel is too mechanical, the elephant is too soft for the hardships of the baggage train or rough country. He requires good roads, a temperate climate, and meals not only “regular,” but luxurious. Ten elephants out of eleven reached Candahar safely in 1878, on a diet of chapatties, rice, sugar, and two bottles of rum apiece after their supper. No wonder “the faces of the men, and their remarks, as they looked on with watering mouths and overpowering envy, were worthy of a camp-ballad by Rudyard Kipling.” Yet this is, we submit, an error on the right side, both in economy and efficiency. Which cost most, the elephants’ comforts on the road to Candahar, or the ninety-two camels which dropped from exhaustion and hunger on the first day’s march back from Metemmeh, where the day before 50,000 lbs. weight of stores had been flung into the Nile? The “patient ox” combines the cunning of the mule with a spirit of revenge which is generally attributed to the camel, though Count Gleichen states, that only one case of camel-bite was reported to him during the Nile expedition. A leading bullock on the Candahar march lay down six times, and when it was at last reluctantly agreed that the creature must be dying from exhaustion, it “rushed at a private and tossed him ten feet in the air, then on to the next man and sent him flying, and lastly at its own driver, whom it tumbled over like a ninepin, while the rest took refuge behind the wagons.” The creature would not move in harness, and finally had to be unyoked and driven into camp. The mule is the handiest and hardiest, the donkey the least trouble, and the pony the pleasantest of all pack animals, according to Major Leonard’s experience, the Spanish donkeys and Sicilian mules being perhaps the finest and most useful of their respective kinds. But though military opinion is, on the whole, in favour of the mule, he gives facts and figures to show that the camel, unmanaged as it is, is a still more economical and effective beast for military service. Its power of enduring hunger and thirst is greater, it carries double the load of two mules, needs fewer drivers, is never shod, and costs less to buy and less to keep; for food and water have to be carried for miles in desert country, while the camel browses on almost any shrub, and can make the ordinary caravan march from well to well.

This opinion must not rest on general considerations, for the good working example of the comparative efficiency of the two animals in a campaign is obtainable. Lord Roberts, on his march from Cabul to Candahar, covered a daily average of fourteen and a half miles for nineteen days. This was done with mules and ponies, the camels belonging to the regiments being exchanged for the former. In the Bayuda Desert the camels travelled thirty-four miles daily in the first march; and allowing for the two days’ rest and two of fighting, nearly thirty miles a day in the second march of two hundred miles. But in this case the camels were starved, and worked to death. The difference between the careful treatment of the cavalry horse—Marbot’s reminiscences of his life as a cavalry officer must have opened the eyes of many readers to the practical anxieties of that profession—and the ignorant neglect of the camel suggests a doubt whether the Englishman is really so adaptable as we are pleased to think. The two hundred pages which Major Leonard devotes to instruction in feeding, watering, loading, doctoring, equipping, and purchasing camels, contain so many “glimpses of the obvious” that the reference as to our general neglect of this indispensable animal for Asiatic warfare is irresistible.

The two great breeding grounds of the camel are the whole central zone of Asia north of the Himalayas, and the centre and northern fringe of the African Soudan. With the latter we are in touch through the frontier tribes of Egypt, and there is little doubt that we could make Egypt the nucleus of a camel transport unrivalled in the history of the world. But unless our officers and men have some training in their management, the suffering camels will continue to cause, as they have hitherto in our frontier wars, an embarrassed strategy, neglected sick, and an ill-supported soldiery. A permanent camel transport service in Egypt and on the north-west frontier of India would probably save in our next considerable war, millions of money and hundreds of soldiers’ lives.

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THE CANADIAN BEAVER.