Chapter IV: Introduction (3)

But it was not necessary to shew his knowledge for the sake of contrasting it with my ignorance, that Mr Jussieu says this bauhinia is by Mr Bruce taken for an acacia vera. Now the acacia vera is a large, wide-spreading, thorny, hard, red-wooded, rough-barked, gum-bearing tree. Its flower, though sometimes white, is generally yellow; it is round or globular, composed of many filaments or stamina; it is the Spina Egyptiaca, its leaves, in shape and disposition, resembling a mimosa; in Arabic it is called Saiel, Sunt, Gerar; and if M. de Jussieu had been at all acquainted with the history of the east, he must have known it was the tree of every desert, and consequently that I must be better acquainted with it than almost any traveller or botanist now alive. Upon what reasonable ground then could he suppose, upon my bringing to him a rare and elegant species of bauhinia, which probably he had not before seen, that I could not distinguish it from an acacia, of which I certainly brought him none?

A large species of Mullein likewise, or, as he pleases to term it, Bouillon Blanc, he has named Verbascum Abyssinicum; and this the unfortunate Mr Bruce, it seems, has called an aromatic herb growing upon the high mountains. I do really believe, that M. de Jussieu is more conversant with the Bouillon Blancs than I am; my Bouillons are of another colour; it must be the love of French cookery, not English taste, that would send a man to range the high mountains for aromatic herbs to put in his Bouillon, if the Verbascum had been really one of these.

Although I have sometimes made botany my amusement, I do confess it never was my study, and I believe from this the science has reaped so much the more benefit. I have represented to the eye, with the utmost attention, by the best drawings in natural history ever yet published, and to the understanding in plain English, what I have seen as it appeared to me on the spot, without tacking to it imaginary parts of my own, from preconceived systems of what it should have been, and thereby creating varieties that never existed.

When I arrived at the Lazaretto at Marseilles, the Farenteit, as it is called in Nubia, or the Guinea-worm, the name it bears in Europe, having been broken by mismanagement in my voyage from Alexandria, had retired into my leg and festered there. The foot, leg, and thigh, swelled to a monstrous size, appearance of mortification followed, and the surgeon, with a tenderness and humanity that did honour to his skill, declared, though reluctantly, that if I had been a man of weak nerves, or soft disposition, he would have prepared me for what was to happen by the interposition of a friend or a priest; but as from my past sufferings he presumed my spirit was of a more resolute and firmer kind, he thought saving time was of the utmost consequence, and therefore advised me to resolve upon submitting to an immediate amputation above the knee. To limp through the remains of life, after having escaped so many dangers with bones unbroken, was hard, so much so, that the loss of life itself seemed the most eligible of the two, for the bad habit of body in which I found myself in an inveterate disease, for which I knew no remedy, and joined to this the prejudice that an Englishman generally has against foreign operators in surgery, all persuaded me, that, after undergoing amputation, I had but very little chance of recovery, besides long and great suffering, want of sleep, want of food, and the weakness that attends lying long in sick-bed, had gradually subdued the natural desire and anxiety after life; every day death seemed to be a lesser evil than pain. Patience, however, strong fomentations, and inward applications of the bark, at length cured me.

It was immediately after receiving my melancholy sentence, that, thinking of my remaining duties, I remembered I had carried abroad with me an order from the king to procure seeds for his garden. Before I had lost the power of direction, I ordered Michael, my Greek servant, to take the half of all the different parcels and packages that were lying by me, made up for separate uses, and pack them so as they might be sent to Sir William Duncan the king’s physician, then in Italy, to be conveyed by him to Lord Rochfort, secretary of state. I by the same conveyance accompanied these with a short letter, wrote with great difficulty,--that it appearing, beyond leaving room for hope, that my return was to be prevented by an unexpected disease, I begged his Majesty to receive these as the last tender of my duty to him.

Michael, who never cared much for botany, at no period was less disposed to give himself trouble about it than now; his master, friend, and patron was gone, as he thought; he was left in a strange country; he knew not at word of the language, nor was he acquainted with one person in Marseilles, for we had not yet stirred out of the lazaretto. What became of the seeds for a time I believe neither he nor I knew; but, when he saw my recovery advancing, fear of reproof led him to conceal his former negligence. He could neither read nor write, so that the only thing he could do was to put the first seed that came to hand in the first envelope, either in parchment or paper, that had writing upon the back of it, and, thus selected, the seeds came into the hands of M. de Jussieu at Paris. By this operation of Michael, the verbascum became an aromatic herb growing on the highest mountains, and the bauhinia acuminata became an acacia vera.

The present of the drawings of the Abyssinian plants was really, as it was first designed, a compliment but it turned out just the contrary, for, in place of expecting the publication that I was to make, in which they would naturally be a part, the gates of the garden were thrown open, and every dabbler in botany that could afford pen, ink, and paper, was put in possession of those plants and flowers, at a time when I had not said one word upon the subject of my travels.

Whether this was owing to M. de Jussieu, M. de Thouin, or M. Daubenton, to all, or to any one of them, I do not know, but I beg they will for a moment consider the great impropriety of the measure. I suppose it would be thought natural, that a person delineating plants in a foreign country with such care, risk, and expence as I have done, should wish to bring home the very seeds of those plants he had delineated in preference to all others: supposing these had been the only seeds he could have brought home, and generosity and liberality of mind had led him to communicate part of them to M. de Jussieu, we shall further say, this last-mentioned gentleman had planted them, and when the time came, engraved, and published them, what would he think of this manner of repaying the traveller’s attention to him? The bookseller, that naturally expected to be the first that published these plants, would say to the traveller whose book he was to buy, This collection of natural history is not new, it has been printed in Sweden, Denmark, and France, and part of it is to be seen in every monthly magazine! Does M. de Jussieu think, that, after having been once so treated, any traveller would ever give one seed to the king’s garden? he certainly would rather put them in the fire; he must do so if he was a reasonable man, for otherwise, by giving them away he is certainly ruining his own work, and defeating the purposes for which he had travelled.

When I first came home, it was with great pleasure I gratified the curiosity of the whole world, by shewing them each what they fancied the most curious. I thought this was an office of humanity to young people, and to those of slender fortunes, or those who, from other causes, had no opportunity of travelling. I made it a particular duty to attend and explain to men of knowledge and learning that were foreigners, everything that was worth the time they bestowed upon considering the different articles that were new to them, and this I did at great length to the Count de Buffon, and Mons. Gueneau de Montbeliard, and to the very amiable and accomplished Madame d’Aubenton. I cannot say by whose industry, but it was in consequence of this friendly communication, a list or inventory (for they could give no more) of all my birds and beasts were published before I was well got to England.

From what I have seen of the performances of the artists employed by the cabinet, I do not think that they have anticipated in any shape the merit of my drawings, especially in birds and in plants; to say nothing milder of them, they are in both articles infamous; the birds are so dissimilar from the truth, that the names of them are very necessarily wrote under, or over them, for fear of the old mistake of taking them for something else. I condescend upon the Erkoom as a proof of this. I gave a very fine specimen of this bird in great preservation to the King’s collection; and though I shewed them the original, they had not genius enough to make a representation that could with any degree of certainty be promised upon for a guess. When I was at Paris, they had a woman, who, in place of any merit, at least that I could judge of, was protected, as they said, by the queen, and who made, what she called, Drawings; those of plants were so little characteristic, that it was, strictly speaking, impossible, without a very great consideration, to know one plant from another: while there was, at same time, a man of the greatest merit, M. de Seve, absolutely without employment; tho’, in my opinion, he was the best painter of every part of natural history either in France or England.

_London Published Dec.^r 1.^{st} 1789 by G. Robinson & Co._]

KUARA.

This beautiful tree, now presented to the reader, is the production of the south and S. W. parts of Abyssinia. It is very frequent, and, with the ebony, almost the only wood of the province of Kuara, of which it bears the name; indeed in all Fazuclo, Nuba, and Guba, and the countries where there is gold. It is here designed in its natural size both leaves, flowers, and fruit, the whole so plainly, that it is needless to descant upon its particular parts, well known to naturalists. It is what they call a Corallodendron, probably from the colour of its flowers or of its fruit, both equal in colour to coral.

Its fruit is a red bean, with a black spot in the middle of it, which is inclosed in a round capsula, or covering, of a woody nature, very tough and hard. This bean seems to have been in the earliest ages used for a weight of gold among the Shangalla, where that metal is found all over Africa; and by repeated experiments, I have found that, from the time of its being gathered, it varies very little in weight, and may perhaps have been the very best choice that therefore could have been made between the collectors and the buyers of gold.

I have said this tree is called Kuara, which signifies the Sun. The bean is called Carat, from which is derived the manner of esteeming gold as so many carats fine. From the gold country in Africa it passed to India, and there came to be the weight of precious stones, especially diamonds; so that to this day in India we hear it commonly spoken of gold or diamonds, that they are of so many carats fine, or weight. I have seen these beans likewise from the West-Indian islands. They are just the same size, but, as far as I know, are not yet applied to any use there.

_London Publish’d Dec^r. 1.^{st} 1789. by G. Robinson & Co._]

WALKUFFA.

This tree grows in the Kolla, or hottest part of Abyssinia. It does not flower immediately after the rains, as most trees in Abyssinia do, that is, between the beginning of September and the Epiphany, when the latter rains in November do still fall in violent periodical showers, but it is after the Epiphany, towards the middle of January, that it first appears covered with blossoms. However beautiful, it has no smell, and is accounted destructive to the bees, for which reason it is rooted out and destroyed in those countries that pay their revenue in honey. It resembles the Kentish cherry-tree in appearance, especially if that tree has but a moderate, not overspreading top. The wood immediately below its bark is white, but under that a brownish yellow, something like cedar; the old trees that I have seen turn darker, and are not unlike to the wood of the laburnum, or pease-cod tree. The natives say it does not swim in water. This however I can contradict upon experiment. The wood, indeed, is heavy, but still it swims.

Although the painting of this tree, which I here exhibit, is neither more nor less accurate in the delineation of its parts than every other design of natural history given in this work to the public, yet the inimitable beauty of the subject itself has induced me to bestow much more pains upon it than any other I have published, and, according to my judgment, it is the best executed in this collection. All its parts are so distinctly figured, the flower exposed in such variety of directions, that it supersedes the necessity of describing it to the skilful botanist, who will find here every thing he possibly could in the flower itself. This is a great advantage, for if the parts had been ever so studiously and carefully reserved in a _hortus siccus_ as they are spread upon the paper, it would have been impossible not to have lost some of its finer members, they are so fragil, as I have often experienced in different attempts to dry and preserve it.

The flower consists of five petals, part of each overlapping or supporting the other, so that it maintains its regular figure of a cup till the leaves fall off, and does not spread and disjoin first, as do the generality of these rosaceous flowers before they fall to the ground. Its colour is a pure white, in the midst of which is a kind of sheath, or involucrum, of a beautiful pink colour, which surrounds the pistil, covering and concealing about one-third of it. Upon the top of this is a kind of impalement, consisting of five white upright threads, and between each of these are disposed three very feeble stamina of unequal lengths, which make them stand in a triangular oblong form, covered with yellow farina.

_London Publish’d Dec^r. 1.^{st} 1789 by G. Robinson & Co._]

The pistil is a yellow tube, divided at the top into five segments, and fixed at the bottom in what appears to be the rudiment of a fruit; but I never saw this in any state of perfection, and the Abyssinians say it never produces anything but a small, round, black seed, concerning which I can say no further. The perianthium consists of five sharp-pointed segments, which inclose the flower when not arrived to maturity, in a conical pod of a light-green colour, which colour it likewise keeps in its more advanced state when spread. I do not know any other name it has but that of Walkuffa, nor do I know the signification of that name in any language.

WOOGINOOS, OR BRUCEA ANTIDYSENTERICA.

This shrub, the branch of which is before us, is a production of the greatest part of Abyssinia, especially the sides of the valleys in the low country, or Kolla. It is indeed on the north side of Debra Tzai, where you first descend into the Kolla. This drawing was made at Hor-Cacamoot, in Ras el Feel, where the Wooginoos grows abundantly, and where dysenteries reign continually, Heaven having put the antidote in the same place where grows the poison.

Some weeks before I left Gondar I had been very much tormented with this disease, and I had tried both ways of treating it, the one by hot medicines and astringents, the other by the contrary method of diluting. Small dozes of ipecacuanha under the bark had for several times procured me temporary relief, but relapses always followed. My strength began to fail, and, after a severe return of this disease, I had, at my ominous mansion, Hor-Cacamoot, the valley of the shadow of death, a very unpromising prospect, for I was now going to pass through the kingdom of Sennaar in the time of year when that disease most rages.

Sheba, chief of the Shangalia, called Ganjar, on the frontiers of Kuara, had at this time a kind of embassy or message to Ras el Feel. He wanted to burn some villages in Atbara belonging to the Arabs Jeheina, and wished Yasine might not protect them: they often came and sat with me, and one of them hearing of my complaint, and the apprehensions I annexed to it, seemed to make very light of both, and the reason was, he found at the very door this shrub, the strong and ligneous root of which, nearly as thick as a parsnip, was covered with a clean, clear, wrinkled root, of a light-brown colour, and which peeled easily off the root. The bark was without fibres to the very end, where it split like a fork into two thin divisions. After having cleared the inside of it of a whitish membrane, he laid it to dry in the sun, and then would have bruised it between two stones, had we not shewn him the easier and more expeditious way of powdering it in a mortar.

The first doze I took was about a heaped tea-spoonful in a cup of camel’s milk; I took two of these in a day, and then in the morning a tea-cup of the infusion in camel’s milk warm. It was attended the first day with a violent drought, but I was prohibited from drinking either water or bouza. I made privately a drink of my own; I took a little boiled water which had stood to cool, and in it a small quantity of spirits. I after used some ripe tamarinds in water, which I thought did me harm. I cannot say I found any alteration for the first day, unless a kind of hope that I was growing better, but the second day I found myself sensibly recovered. I left off laudanum and ipecacuanha, and resolved to trust only to my medicine. In looking at my journal, I think it was the 6th or 7th day that I pronounced myself well, and, though I had returns afterwards, I never was reduced to the necessity of taking one drop of laudanum, although before I had been very free with it. I did not perceive it occasioned any extraordinary evacuation, nor any remarkable symptom but that continued thirst, which abated after it had been taken some time.

In the course of my journey through Sennaar, I saw that all the inhabitants were well acquainted with the virtues of this plant. I had prepared a quantity pounded into powder, and used it successfully everywhere. I thought that the mixing of a third of bark with it produced the effect more speedily, and, as we had now little opportunity of getting milk, we made an infusion in water. I tried a spiritous tincture, which I do believe would succeed well. I made some for myself and servants, a spoonful of which we used to take when we found symptoms of our disease returning, or when it was raging in the place in which we chanced to reside. It is a plain, simple bitter, without any aromatic or resinous taste. It leaves in your throat and pallet something of roughness resembling ipecacuanha.

This shrub was not before known to botanists. I brought the seeds to Europe, and it has grown in every garden, but has produced only flowers, and never came to fruit. Sir Joseph Banks, president to the Royal Society, employed Mr Miller to make a large drawing from this shrub as it had grown at Kew. The drawing was as elegant as could be wished, and did the original great justice. To this piece of politeness Sir Joseph added another, of calling it after its discoverer’s name, Brucea Antidysenterica: the present figure is from a drawing of my own on the spot at Ras el Feel.

The leaf is oblong and pointed, smooth, and without collateral ribs that are visible. The right side of the leaf is a deep green, the reverse very little lighter. The leaves are placed two and two upon the branch, with a single one at the end. The flowers come chiefly from the point of the stalk from each side of a long branch. The cup is a perianthium divided into four segments. The flower has four petals, with a strong rib down the center of each. In place of a pistil there is a small cup, round which, between the segments of the perianthium and the petala of the flower, four feeble stamina arise, with a large stigma of a crimson colour, of the shape of a coffee-bean, and divided in the middle.

CUSSO, BANKESIA ABYSSINICA.

The Cusso is one of the most beautiful trees, as also one of the most useful. It is an inhabitant of the high country of Abyssinia, and indigenous there; I never saw it in the Kolla, nor in Arabia, nor in any other part of Asia or Africa. It is an instance of the wisdom of providence, that this tree does not extend beyond the limits of the disease of which it was intended to be the medicine or cure.

The Abyssinians of both sexes, and at all ages, are troubled with a terrible disease, which custom however has enabled them to bear with a kind of indifference. Every individual, once a month, evacuates a large quantity of worms; these are not the tape worm, or those that trouble children, but they are the sort of worm called Ascarides, and the method of promoting these evacuations, is by infusing a handful of dry Cusso flowers in about two English quarts of bouza, or the beer they make from teff; after it has been steeped all night, the next morning it is fit for use. During the time the patient is taking the Cusso, he makes a point of being invisible to all his friends, and continues at home from morning till night. Such too was the custom of the Egyptians upon taking a particular medicine. It is alledged that the want of this drug is the reason why the Abyssinians do not travel, or if they do, most of them are short-lived.

The seed of this is very small, more so than the semen santonicum, which seems to come from a species of worm-wood. Like it the Cusso sheds its seed very easily; from this circumstance, and its smallness, no great quantity of the seed is gathered, and therefore the flower is often substituted. It is bitter, but not nearly so much as the semen santonicum.

The Cusso grows seldom above twenty feet high, very rarely straight, generally crooked or inclined. It is planted always near churches, among the cedars which surround them, for the use of the town or village. Its leaf is about 2-1/4 inches long, divided into two by a strong rib. The two divisions, however, are not equal, the upper being longer and broader than the lower; it is a deep unvarnished green, exceedingly pleasant to the eye, the fore part covered with soft hair or down. It is very much indented, more so than a nettle-leaf, which in some measure it resembles, only is narrower and longer.

These leaves grow two and two upon a branch; between each two are the rudiments of two pair of young ones, prepared to supply the others when they fall off, but they are terminated at last with a single leaf at the point. The end of this stalk is broad and strong, like that of a palm-branch. It is not solid like the gerid of the date-tree, but opens in the part that is without leaves about an inch and a half from the bottom, and out of this aperture proceeds the flower. There is a round stalk bare for about an inch and a quarter, from which proceed crooked branches, to the end of which are attached single flowers; the stalk that carries these proceeds out of every crook, or geniculation; the whole cluster of flowers has very much the shape of a cluster of grapes, and the stalks upon which it is supported very much the stalk of the grape; a very few small leaves are scattered through the cluster of flowers.

_London. Published Dec.^r 1.^{st} 1789 by G. Robinson & Co._]

_Abissinica._

_London Publish’d Dec.^r 1.^{st} 1789 by G. Robinson & Co._]

The coral itself is of a greenish colour, tinged with purple; when fully blown, it is altogether of a deep red or purple; the flower is white, and consists of five petals, in the midst is a short pistil with a round head, surrounded by eight stamina of the same form, loaded with yellow farina. The cup consists of five petals, which much resemble another flower; they are rounded at the top, and nearly of an equal breadth every way.

The bark of the tree is smooth, of a yellowish white, interspersed with brown streaks which pass through the whole body of the tree. It is not firm or hard, but rather stringy and reedy. On the upper part, before the first branch of leaves set out, are rings round the trunk, of small filaments, of the consistence of horse hair; these are generally fourteen or sixteen in number, and are a very remarkable characteristic belonging to this tree.

As the figure of this plant is true and exact beyond all manner of exception, I cannot but think it may be found in latitudes 11 or 12° north in the West Indies or America; and having been found a gentle, safe, and efficacious medicine in Abyssinia, it is not doubted but the superior skill of our physicians would turn it to the advantage of mankind in general, when used here in Europe. In consequence of the established prerogatives of discoverers, I have named this beautiful and useful tree after Sir Joseph Banks, President of the royal Society.

TEFF.

This grain is commonly sown all over Abyssinia, where it seems to thrive equally on all sorts of ground; from it is made the bread which is commonly used throughout Abyssinia. The Abyssinians, indeed, have plenty of wheat, and some of it of an excellent quality: They likewise make as fine wheat-bread as any in the world, both for colour and for taste; but the use of wheat-bread is chiefly confined to people of the first rank. On the other hand, Teff is used by all sorts of people from the king downwards, and there are kinds of it which are esteemed fully as much as wheat. The best of these is as white as flour, exceedingly light, and easily digested. There are others of a browner colour, and some nearly black; this last is the food of soldiers and servants. The cause of this variation of colour is manifold; the Teff that grows on light ground having a moderate degree of moisture, but never dry; the lighter the earth is in which it grows, the better and whiter the Teff will be; the husk too is thinner. That Teff, too, that ripens before the heavy rains, is usually whiter and finer, and a great deal depends upon sifting the husk from it after it is reduced to flour, by bruising or breaking it in a stone-mill. This is repeated several times with great care, in the finest kind of bread, which is found in the houses of all people of rank or substance. The manner of making it is by taking a broad earthen jar, and having made a lump of it with water, they put it into an earthen jar at some distance from the fire, where it remains till it begins to ferment, or turn sour; they then bake it into cakes of a circular form, and about two feet in diameter: It is of a spungy, soft quality, and not a disagreeable sourish taste. Two of these cakes a-day, and a coarse cotton cloth once a-year, are the wages of a common servant.

_London Publish’d Feb.^y 9.^{th} 1790. by G. Robinson & Co._]

At their banquets of raw meat, the flesh being cut in small bits, is wrapt up in pieces of this bread, with a proportion of fossile salt and Cayenne pepper. Before the company sits down to eat, a number of these cakes of different qualities are placed one upon the other, in the same manner as our plates, and the principal people, sitting first down, eat the white Teff; the second, or coarser sort, serves the second-rate people that succeed them, and the third is for the servants. Every man, when he is done, dries or wipes his fingers upon the bread which he is to leave for his successor, for they have no towels, and this is one of the most beastly customs of the whole.

The Teff bread, when well toasted, is put into a large jar, after being broken into small pieces, and warm water poured upon it. It is then set by the fire, and frequently stirred for several days, the mouth of the jar being close covered. After being allowed to settle three or four days, it acquires a sourish taste, and is what they call Bouza, or the common beer of the country. The bouza in Atbara is made in the same manner, only, instead of Teff, cakes of barley-meal are employed; both are very bad liquors, but the worst is that made of barley.

The plant is herbaceous: from a number of weak leaves proceeds a stalk of about twenty-eight inches in length, not perfectly straight, smooth, but jointed or knotted at particular distances. This stalk is not much thicker than that of a carnation or jellyflower. About eight inches from the top, a head is formed of a number of small branches, upon which it carries the fruit and flowers; the latter of which is small, of a crimson colour, and scarcely perceptible by the naked eye, but from the opposition of that colour. The pistil is divided into two, seemingly attached to the germ of the fruit, and has at each end small capillaments forming a brush. The stamina are three in number, two on the lower side of the pistil, and one on the upper. These are, each of them, crowned with two oval stigmata, at first green, but after, crimson. The fruit is formed in a capsula, consisting of two conical, hollow leaves, which, when closed, seems to compose a small conical pod, pointed at the top. The fruit, or seed, is oblong, and is not so large as the head of the smallest pin, yet it is very prolific, and produces these seeds in such quantity as to yield a very abundant crop in the quantity of meal.

Whether this grain was ever known to the Greeks and Romans, is what we are no where told. Indeed, the various grains made use of in antiquity, are so lamely and poorly described, that, unless it is a few of the most common, we cannot even guess at the rest. Pliny mentions several of them, but takes no notice of any of their qualities, but medicinal ones; some he specifies as growing in Gaul, others in the Campania of Rome, but takes no notice of those of Ethiopia or Egypt. Among these there is one which he calls Tiphe, but says not whence it came; the name would induce us to believe that this was Teff, but we can only venture this as a conjecture not supported. But it is very improbable, connected as Egypt and Ethiopia were from the first ages, both by trade and religion, that a grain of such consequence to one nation should be utterly unknown to the other. It is not produced in the low or hot country, the Kolla, that is, in the borders of it; for no grain can grow, as I have already said, in the Kolla or Mazaga itself; but in place of Teff, in these borders, there grows a black grain called Tocusso. The stalk of this is scarce a foot long; it has four divisions where the grain is produced, and seems to be a species of the meiem msalib, or gramen crucis, the grass of the cross. Of this a very black bread is made, ate only by the poorest sort; but though it makes worse bread, I think it makes better bouza.

Some have thought, from the frequent use of Teff, hath come that disease of worms which I have mentioned in the article Cusso. But I am inclined to think this is not the case, because the Gibbertis, or Mahometans, born in Abyssinia, all use Teff in the same proportion as the Christians, yet none of these are troubled with worms. And from this I should be led to think that this disease arises rather from eating raw meat, which the Mahometans do not, and therefore are not affected with this disorder as the Christians are.

OF QUADRUPEDS.

I believe there is in the world no country which produces a greater number, or variety of quadrupeds, whether tame or wild, than Abyssinia. As the high country is now perfectly cleared of wood, by the waste made in that article from the continual march of armies, the mountains are covered to the very top, with perpetual verdure, and most luxuriant herbage.

The long rains in summer are not suddenly absorbed by the rays of the sun: a thick veil defends the ground when it is in the zenith, or near it, affording heat to promote vegetation without withering it by destroying the moisture, and by this means a never-failing store of provender is constantly provided for all sorts of cattle. Of the tame or cow-kind, great abundance present themselves everywhere, differing in size, some having horns of various dimensions; some without horns at all, differing also in the colour and length of their hair, by having bosses upon their backs, according as their pasture or climate varies. There are kinds also destined to various uses; some for carriage, like mules or asses, some to be rode upon like horses; and these are not the largest of that kind, but generally below the middle size. As for that species bearing the monstrous horns, of which I have often spoke in my narrative, their size is not to be estimated by that of their horns; the animal itself is not near so big as a common English cow; the growth of the horn is a disease which proves fatal to them, because encouraged for a peculiar purpose. Whether it would be otherwise curable, has not yet, I believe, been ever ascertained by experiment. But the reader may with confidence assure himself, that there are no such animals as carnivorous bulls in Africa, and that this story has been invented for no other purpose but a desire to exhibit an animal worthy of wearing these prodigious horns. I have always wished that this article, and some others of early date, were blotted out of our philosophical transactions; they are absurdities to be forgiven to infant physic and to early travels, but they are unworthy of standing among the cautious, well-supported narratives of our present philosophers. Though we may say of the buffaloe that it is of this kind, yet we cannot call it a tame animal here; so far from that, it is the most ferocious in the country where he resides; this, however, is not in the high temperate part of Abyssinia, but in the sultry Kolla, or valleys below, where, without hiding himself, as wild beasts generally do, as if conscious, of superiority of strength, he lyes at his ease among large spreading shady trees near the clearest and deepest rivers, or the largest stagnant pools of the purest water. Notwithstanding this, he is in his person as dirty and slovenly as he is fierce, brutal, and indocile; he seems to maintain among his own kind the same character for manners that the wolf does among the carnivorous tribe.

But what is very particular is, this is the only animal kept for giving milk in Egypt. And though apparently these are of the same species, and came originally from Ethiopia, their manners are so entirely changed by their migration, difference of climate or of food, that, without the exertion of any art to tame them, they are milked, conducted to and fro, and governed by children of ten years old, without apprehension, or any unlucky accident having ever happened.

Among the wild animals are prodigious numbers of the gazel, or antelope kind; the bohur, sassa, secho, and madoqua, and various others; these are seldom found in the cultivated country, or where cattle pasture, as they chiefly feed on trees; for the most part, they are found in broken ground near the banks of rivers, where, during the heat of the day, they conceal themselves, and sleep under cover of the bushes; they are still more numerous in those provinces whose inhabitants have been extirpated, and the houses ruined or burnt in time of war, and where wild oats, grown up so as to cover the whole country, afford them a quiet residence, without being disturbed by man. Of this I have mentioned a very remarkable instance in the first attempt I made to discover the source of the Nile, (vol. III. p. 439.) The hyæna is still more numerous: enough has been said about him; I apprehend that there are two species. There are few varieties of the dog or fox kind. Of these the most numerous is the Deep, or, as he is called, the Jackal; this is precisely the same in all respects as the Deep of Barbary and Syria, who are heard hunting in great numbers, and howling in the evening and morning. The true Deep, as far as appears to me, is not yet known, at least I never yet saw in any author a figure that resembled him. The wild boar, smaller and smoother in the hair than that of Barbary or Europe, but differing in nothing else, is met frequently in swamps or banks of rivers covered with wood. As he is accounted unclean in Abyssinia, both by Christians and Mahometans, consequently not persecuted by the hunter, both he and the fox should have multiplied; but it is probable they, and many other beasts, when young, are destroyed by the voracious hyæna.

The elephant, rhinoceros, giraffa, or camelopardalis, are inhabitants of the low hot country; nor is the lion, or leopard, faadh, which is the panther, seen in the high and cultivated country. There are no tigers in Abyssinia, nor, as far as I know, in Africa; it is an Asiatic animal; for what reason some travellers, or naturalists, have called him the tiger-wolf, or mistaken him altogether for the tiger, is what I cannot discover. Innumerable flocks of apes, and baboons of different kinds, destroy the fields of millet every where; these, and an immense number of common rats, make great destruction in the country and harvest. I never saw a rabbit in Abyssinia, but there is plenty of hares; this, too, is an animal which they reckon unclean; and not being hunted for food, it should seem they ought to have increased to greater numbers. It is probable, however, that the great quantity of eagles, vultures, and beasts of prey, has kept them within reasonable bounds. The hippopotamus and crocodile abound in all the rivers, not only of Abyssinia, but as low down as Nubia and Egypt: there is no good figure nor description extant, as far as I know, of either of these animals; some unforeseen accident always thwarted and prevented my supplying this deficiency. There are many of the ass kind in the low country towards the frontiers of Atbara, but no Zebras; these are the inhabitants of Fazuclo and Narea.

_London Publish’d Dec.^r 1.^{st} 1789 by G. Robinson & Co._

_Heath. Sc._]

RHINOCEROS.

Naturalists seem now in general to be agreed that there are two species of this quadruped, the first having two horns upon his nose, the second one. It is also a generally received opinion, that these different species are confined to distant places of the old continent; that with one horn is thought to be exclusively an inhabitant of Asia, that with two horns to be only found in Africa.

Whether this division is right in all its parts, I shall not advance. That there is a rhinoceros in Asia with one horn is what we positively know, but that there is none of the other species in that part of the continent does not appear to me as yet so certain. Again, there is no sort of doubt, that though the rhinoceros with two horns is an inhabitant of Africa, yet is it as certain that the species with one horn is often found in that country likewise, especially in the eastern part, where is the myrrh and cinnamon country, towards Cape Gardefan, which runs into the Indian ocean beyond the Straits of Babelmandeb. And if I was to credit the accounts which the natives of the respective countries have given me, I should be induced to believe that the rhinoceros of the kingdom of Adel had but one horn. They say this is the case where little rain falls, as in Adel, which, though within the tropics, is not liable to that several months deluge, as is the inland part of the country more to the westward. They say further, that all that woody part inhabited by Shangalla, corresponding to Tigré and Siré, is the haunt of the rhinoceros with two horns. Whether this is really the case I do not pretend to aver, I give the reader the story with the authority; I think it is probable; but as in all cases where very few observations can be repeated, as in this, I leave him entirely to the light of his own understanding.

The animal represented in this drawing is a native of Tcherkin, near Ras el Feel, of the hunting of which I have already spoken in my return through the desert to Egypt, and this is the first drawing of the rhinoceros with a double horn that has ever yet been presented to the public. The first figure of the Asiatic rhinoceros, the species having but one horn, was painted by Albert Durer, from the life, from one of those sent from India by the Portuguese in the beginning of the sixteenth century. It was wonderfully ill-executed in all its parts, and was the origin of all the monstrous forms under which that animal has been painted, ever since, in all parts of the world. Several modern philosophers have made amends for this in our days; Mr Parsons, Mr Edwards, and the Count de Buffon, have given good figures of it from life; they have indeed some faults, owing chiefly to preconceived prejudices and inattention. These, however, were rhinoceroses with one horn, all Asiatics. This, as I have before said, is the first that has been published with two horns, it is designed from the life, and is an African; but as the principal difference is in the horn, and as the manners of this beast are, I believe, very faithfully described and common to both species, I shall only note what I think is deficient in his history, or what I can supply from having had an opportunity of seeing him alive and at freedom in his native woods.

It is very remarkable, that two such animals as the elephant and rhinoceros should have wholly escaped the description of the sacred writers. Moses, and the children of Israel, were long in the neighbourhood of the countries that produced them, both while in Egypt and in Arabia. The classing of the animals into clean and unclean, seems to have led the legislator into a kind of necessity of describing, in one of the classes, an animal, which made the food of the principal Pagan nations in the neighbourhood. Considering the long and intimate connection Solomon had with the south-coast of the Red Sea, it is next to impossible that he was not acquainted with them, as both David his father, and he, made plentiful use of ivory, as they frequently mention in their writings, which, along with gold, came from the same part. Solomon, besides, wrote expressly upon Zoology, and, we can scarce suppose, was ignorant of two of the principal articles of that part of the creation, inhabitants of the great Continent of Asia east from him, and that of Africa on the south, with both which territories he was in constant correspondence.

There are two animals, named frequently in scripture, without naturalists being agreed what they are. The one is the behemoth, the other the reem, both mentioned as the types of strength, courage, and independence on man, and as such exempted from the ordinary lot of beasts, to be subdued by him, or reduced under his dominion. Tho’ this is not to be taken in a literal sense, for there is no animal without the fear or beyond the reach of the power of man, we are to understand this as applicable to animals possessed of strength and size so superlative as that in these qualities other beasts bear no proportion to them.

The behemoth, then, I take to be the elephant; his history is well known, and my only business is with the reem, which I suppose to be the rhinoceros. The derivation of this word, both in the Hebrew and the Ethiopic, seems to be from erectness, or standing straight. This is certainly no particular quality in the animal itself, who is not more, or even so much erect as many other quadrupeds, for, in its knees it is rather crooked; but it is from the circumstance and manner in which his horn is placed. The horns of all other animals are inclined to some degree of parallelizm, with his nose, or _os frontis_. The horn of the rhinoceros alone is erect and perpendicular to this bone, on which it stands at right angles, thereby possessing a greater purchase, or power, as a lever, than any horn could possibly have in any other position.

This situation of the horn is very happily alluded to in the sacred writings: “My horn shalt thou _exalt_ like the horn of an unicorn[31]:” and the horn here alluded to is not wholly figurative, as I have already taken notice of in the course of my history[32], but was really an ornament, worn by great men in the days of victory, preferment, or rejoicing, when they were anointed with new, sweet, or fresh oil, a circumstance which David joins with that of erecting the horn.

Some authors, for what reason I know not, have made the reem, or unicorn, to be of the deer or antelope kind, that is, of a genus whose very character is fear and weakness, very opposite to the qualities by which the reem is described in scripture; besides, it is plain the reem is not of the class of clean quadrupeds; and a late modern traveller, very whimsically, takes him for the leviathan, which certainly was a fish. It is impossible to determine which is the silliest opinion of the two. Balaam, a priest of Midian, and so in the neighbourhood of the haunts of the rhinoceros, and intimately connected with Ethiopia, for they themselves were shepherds of that country, in a transport, from contemplating the strength of Israel whom he was brought to curse, says, they had as it were the strength of the reem[33]. Job[34] makes frequent allusion to his great strength, and ferocity, and indocility. He asks, Will the reem be willing to serve thee, or abide by thy crib? that is, Will he willingly come into thy stable, and eat at thy manger? And again, Canst thou bind the reem with a band in the furrow, and will he harrow the vallies after thee[35]? In other words, Canst thou make him go in the plow or harrows?

Isaiah[36], who of all the prophets seem to have known Egypt and Ethiopia the best, when prophecying about the destruction of Idumea, says, that the reem shall come down with the fat cattle; a proof that he knew his habitation was in the neighbourhood. In the same manner as when foretelling the desolation of Egypt, he mentions as one manner of effecting it, the bringing down, the fly[37] from Ethiopia to meet the cattle in the desert, and among the bushes, and destroy them there, where that insect did not ordinarily come but on command[38], and where the cattle fled every year to save themselves from that insect.

The Rhinoceros, in Geez, is called Arwé Harish, and in the Amharic, Auraris, both which names signify the large wild beast with the horn. This would seem as if applied to the species that had but one horn. On the other hand, in the country of the Shangalla, and in Nubia adjoining, he is called Girnamgirn, or horn upon horn, and this would seem to denote that he had two. The Ethiopic text renders the word Reem, Arwé Harish, and this the Septuagint translates Monoceros, or Unicorn.

If the Abyssinian rhinoceros had invariably two horns, it seems to me improbable the Septuagint would call him Monoceros, especially as they must have seen an animal of this kind exposed at Alexandria in their time, then first mentioned in history, at an exhibition given by Ptolemy Philadelphus at his accession to the crown, before the death of his father, of which we have already made mention.

The principal reason of translating the word Reem, Unicorn, and not Rhinoceros, is from a prejudice that he must have had but one horn. But this is by no means so well-founded, as to be admitted as the only argument for establishing the existence of an animal which never has appeared, after the search of so many ages. Scripture speaks of the horns of the unicorn[39], so that, even from this circumstance, the reem may be the rhinoceros, as the Asiatic, and part of the African rhinoceros, may be the unicorn. It is something remarkable, that, notwithstanding Alexander’s expedition into India, this quadruped was not known to Aristotle[40]. Strabo and Athenæus both speak of him from report, as having been seen in Egypt. Pausanius calls him an Ethiopic bull; the same manner the Romans called the elephants _Lucas bovis_, Lucanian oxen, as being first seen in that part of Magna Grecia. Pompey exhibited him first in Italy, and he was often produced in games as low as Heliogabalus.

As all these were from Asia, it seems most probable they had but one horn, and they are represented as such in the medals of Domitian. Yet Martial[41] speaks of one with two horns; and the reality of the rhinoceros so armed being till now uncertain, commentators have taken pains to persuade us that this was an error of the poet; but there can be now no doubt that the poet was right, and the commentators wrong, a case that often happens.