Part 18
That gossiping man, J. T. Smith, once Keeper of the Prints in the British Museum, and author of "Nollekens and his Times," relates, that when he and a friend were returning late from a club, and were approaching Temple Bar, "about one o'clock, a most unaccountable appearance claimed our attention,--it was no less than an elephant, whose keepers were coaxing it to pass through the gateway. He had been accompanied with several persons from the Tower wharf with tall poles, but was principally guided by two men with ropes, each walking on either side of the street, to keep him as much as possible in the middle, on his way to the menagerie, Exeter Change, to which destination, after passing St Clement's Church, he steadily trudged on, with strict obedience to the command of his keepers.[191]
"I had the honour afterwards of partaking of a pot of Barclay's entire with this same elephant, which high mark of his condescension was bestowed when I accompanied my friend, the late Sir James Wintel Lake, Bart., to view the rare animals in Exeter Change,--that gentleman being assured by the elephant's keeper that, if he would offer the beast a shilling, he would see the noble animal nod his head and drink a pot of porter. The elephant had no sooner taken the shilling, which he did in the mildest manner from the palm of Sir James's hand, than he gave it to the keeper, and eagerly watched his return with the beer. The elephant then, after placing his proboscis to the top of the tankard, drew up nearly the whole of the beverage. The keeper observed, 'You will hardly believe, gentlemen, but the little he has left is quite warm;' upon this we were tempted to taste it, and it really was so. This animal was afterwards disposed of for the sum of one thousand guineas."
THE ELEPHANT AND THE TAILOR.
This old story has been often told, but never so well as by Sydney Smith in one of his lectures at the Royal Institution. "Every one knows the old story of the tailor and the elephant, which, if it be not true, at least shows the opinion the Orientals, who know the animal well, entertain of his sagacity. An eastern tailor to the Court was making a magnificent doublet for a bashaw of nine tails, and covering it, after the manner of eastern doublets, with gold, silver, and every species of metallic magnificence. As he was busying himself on this momentous occasion, there passed by, to the pools of water, one of the royal elephants, about the size of a broad-wheeled waggon, rich in ivory teeth, and shaking, with its ponderous tread, the tailor's shop to its remotest thimble. As he passed near the window, the elephant happened to look in; the tailor lifted up his eyes, perceived the proboscis of the elephant near him, and, being seized with a fit of facetiousness, pricked the animal with his needle; the mass of matter immediately retired, stalked away to the pool, filled his trunk full of muddy water, and, returning to the shop, overwhelmed the artisan and his doublet with the dirty effects of his vengeance."
DR JOHNSON ALLUDED TO AS "AN ELEPHANT."
"If an elephant could write a book, perhaps one that had read a great deal would say, that an Arabian horse is a very clumsy, ungraceful animal." This was written by Horace Walpole to Miss Berry, in 1791, in allusion to Dr Johnson's depreciation of Thomas Gray the poet.[192] It is an acute observation, well worth being wrought out. There is a grandeur and even a grace about this bulky beast and its motions well deserving the study of any one who has the opportunity. Elephants in our streets are not now so rare as they used to be. We saw three in one procession in the streets of Edinburgh in 1865.
ELEPHANT'S SKIN.
"Did any of you ever see an elephant's skin?" asked the master of an infant school in a fast neighbourhood. "I have!" shouted a six-year-old at the foot of the class. "Where?" inquired the master, amused by his earnestness. "_On the elephant!_" was the reply.
FOOTNOTES:
[187] This memoir has been published, and the subject of it was this very ant-eater. Professor Owen has introduced many striking facts from the history of its structure, in his lecture delivered at Exeter Hall, 1863, and published by the Messrs Nisbet.
[188] "The Life of the Right Hon. Francis North, Baron Guilford, Lord Keeper of the Great Seal, under King Charles II. and King James II., &c." By the Hon. Roger North. A New Edition, in three vols., 1826, vol. ii. p. 167.
[189] Mark Lemon, "Jest Book," p. 329.
[190] "John Holland and James Everett," vol. iv. p. 283.
[191] "A Book for a Rainy Day," p. 92.
FOSSIL PACHYDERMATA.
CUVIER AND THE FOSSIL.
George Cuvier was perhaps the first man who, by his admirable works and researches, gave zoology its true place among the sciences.
His discoveries of the structure of molluscous and other animals of the obscurer orders are perhaps eclipsed by his researches in osteology. He has enabled the comparative anatomist to tell from a small portion of bone not only the class, but the order, genus, and even the species to which animal that bone belonged.
Mrs Lee,[193] in her Life of the Baron, gives an example of his enthusiasm in his researches.
M. Laurillard was afterwards his secretary and the draftsman who executed nearly all the drawings in his "Ossemens fossiles." At the time of this story he had not particularly attracted Cuvier's notice.
"One day Cuvier came to his brother Frederic to ask him to disengage a fossil from its surrounding mass, an office he had frequently performed. M. Laurillard was applied to in the absence of F. Cuvier. Little aware of the value of the specimen confided to his care, he cheerfully set to work, and succeeded in getting the bone entire from its position. M. Cuvier, after a short time, returned for his treasure, and when he saw how perfect it was, his ecstasies became incontrollable; he danced, he shook his hands, he uttered expressions of delight, till M. Laurillard, in his ignorance both of the importance of what he had done, and of the ardent character of M. Cuvier, thought he was mad. Taking, however, his fossil foot in one hand, and dragging Laurillard's arm with the other, he led him up-stairs to present him to his wife and sister-in-law, saying, 'I have got my foot, and M. Laurillard found it for me.' It seems that this skilful operation confirmed all M. Cuvier's previous conjecture concerning a foot, the existence and form of which he had already guessed, but for which he had long and vainly sought. So occupied had he been by it, that, when he appeared to be particularly absent, his family were wont to accuse him of seeking his fore-foot. The next morning the able operator and draftsman was engaged as secretary."
FOOTNOTES:
[192] "Letters of Horace Walpole," edited by Peter Cunningham, ix., 319.
[193] "Memoirs of Baron Cuvier," by Mrs R. Lee (formerly Mrs T Ed. Bowdich), 1833, p. 93.
SOW.
A very gross but useful animal, which can, by feeding, be stuffed into such a state of fatness as only one who has seen a Christmas cattle show in England could believe it possible for beast to acquire. Dean Ramsay, in a happy anecdote, refers to a good quality of the sow as food. He tells, that a Scottish minister had been persuaded to keep a pig, and that the good wife had been duly instructed in the mysteries of black-puddings, pork-chops, pig's-head, and other modes of turning poor piggy to account. The minister remarked to a friend, "Nae doubt there's a hantle o' miscellaneous eating aboot a pig." The author of "A Ramble," published by Edmonstone and Douglas in 1865, has devoted some most amusing pages of his work to an account of "Pig-sticking in Chicago," as witnessed by him during the late American war. The wholesale and scientific off-hand way in which living pigs enter into one part of a machine, and come out prepared pork, could only have been devised by a Yankee.
[Illustration: The Wild Boar of Syria and Egypt. (Sus Scrofa.)]
The essay of Charles Lamb on Roast Pig, and his history of how the Chinaman discovered it, is a most characteristic bit of the productions of Elia. We have cut from a recent paper, what seems an authentic story, of one of this race having obtained a kind of mausoleum. We hope it is not a hoax, but that it is as genuine as all that is in one of "Murray's Handbooks:"--
MONUMENT TO A PIG.--"Up to the present time," says the _Europe_ of Frankfort, "no monument that we are aware of had ever been erected to the memory of a _pig_. The town of Luneburg, in Hanover, has wished to fill up that blank; and at the Hotel de Ville, in that town, there is to be seen a kind of mausoleum to the memory of a member of the swinish race. In the interior of that commemorative structure is to be seen a glass case, inclosing a ham still in good preservation. A slab of black marble attracts the eye of visitors, who find thereon the following inscription in Latin, engraved in letters of gold--'Passer-by, contemplate here the mortal remains of the pig which acquired for itself imperishable glory by the discovery of the salt springs of Luneburg.'"
THE WILD BOAR (_Sus scrofa_).
We have a specimen of the family of swine in that well-known and useful animal, with whose portrait Sir Charles Bell furnishes the reader, as an example of a head as remote as possible from the head of him who designed and executed the Elgin marbles. Although the learned anatomist brought forward the profile of this animal as the type of a "non-intellectual" being, yet there are instances enough on record to show that pigs are not devoid of intelligence, and are even, when trained, capable of considerable docility. "Learned pigs," however, such as are exhibited at country fairs, are a rare occurrence, and the family to which they belong is essentially one "gross" in character, and far from gainly in appearance. The most handsome of the race is one from West Africa, recently added to the Zoological Gardens, and described by Dr Gray under the name of _Potamochærus penicillatus_. The wild swine of Africa are, with this bright exception, anything but handsome, either in shape or colour; and the large excrescences on their cheeks and face give the "warthogs" a ferocious look, which corresponds with their habits. In the East there are several species of wild swine. One of the most celebrated is the _Babyrusa_ of the Malay peninsula, distinguished by its long recurved teeth, with which it was once fancied that they suspended themselves from trees, or rather supported themselves when asleep. Mrs M'Dougall[194] refers to the wild hogs of Borneo, which seem to be dainty in their diet, as they think nothing of a swim of four miles from their jungle home to places on the river where they know there are trees laden with ripe fruit. These Borneo swine are active creatures too, as they can leap fences nearly six feet high. In South America the sow family is represented by the Peccaries (_Dicotyles_), of which there are two species, one of which is very abundant in the woods, and forms a most important article in the diet of the poor Indians. They, too, can swim across rivers, and although their legs are short, they can run very fast.
It is chiefly in the warmer parts of the world that the species of this family are found. They are all distinguished by the middle toes of each foot being larger than the others, and armed with hoofs,[195] the side toe or toes being shorter, and scarcely reaching the ground. The nose terminates in a truncated, tough, grissly disk, which is singularly well adapted for the purpose of the animals, which all grub in the ground for their food. In some parts of France it is said that they are trained to search for truffles.
Having briefly alluded to different species "_de grege porci_," we now limit ourselves to our immediate subject.
The wild boar, at no very remote period, was found in the extensive woods which covered great portions of this island. The family of Baird derives its heraldic crest of a wild boar's head from a grant of David I., King of Scotland. This monarch was hunting in Aberdeenshire, and when separated from his attendants, the infuriated pig turned upon him; one of his people came up and killed it, and in memory of his feat received from the grateful king the device still borne by the family. The name of a Scottish parish, and of one of the oldest baronial families in Scotland--Swinton of Swinton, in Berwickshire--is derived also from this animal, the first of the Swintons having cleared that part of the country from the wild swine which then infested it. It is curious to know that some large fields in the neighbourhood of Swinton still carry in their names traces of these early occupants. Dr Baird informed the writer that there are four of these fields so distinguished:--"Sow-causeway," and "Pikerigg," where the wild swine used to feed ("pick their food"); "Stab's Cross," where Sir Alan Swinton with his spear pierced some monarch of the race; and "Alan's Cairn," where a heap of stones was raised as a monument of his hardihood. In the southern part of our island only the nobility and gentry were allowed to hunt this animal; and in the reign of William the Conqueror any one convicted of killing a wild boar in any of the royal demesnes was punished with the loss of his eyes.
In many parts of the Continent the wild boar is still far from rare, and affords, to those who are fond of excitement, that peculiar kind of "pleasure" which involves a certain amount of danger. Scenes somewhat similar to those depicted by Snyders may still be witnessed in some parts of Germany; and in the sketches of Mr Wolf, the able artist whose designs illustrate these papers, we have seen animated studies of this truly hazardous sport.
The nose of the wild boar is very acute in the sense of smell. A zealous sportsman tells us, "I have often been surprised, when stealing upon one in the woods, to observe how soon he has become aware of my neighbourhood. Lifting his head, he would sniff the air inquiringly, then, uttering a short grunt, make off as fast as he could."[196] The same writer has also sometimes noticed in a family of wild boars one, generally a weakling, who was buffeted and ill-treated by the rest. "Do what he would, nothing was right; sometimes the mother, uttering a disapproving grunt, would give him a nudge to make him move more quickly, and that would be a sign for all the rest of his relations to begin showing their contempt for him too. One would push him, and then another; for, go where he might, he was sure to be in the way." In the extensive woods frequented by this animal in Europe, abundant supplies of food are met with in the roots of various plants which it grubs up, in the beech-mast, acorns, and other tree productions, which, during two or three months of the year, it finds on the ground. Although well able to defend itself, it is a harmless animal, and being shy, retires to those parts of the forests most remote from the presence of man. A site in the neighbourhood of water is preferred to any other.
Travellers in the East frequently refer to this animal and to its ravages when it gets into a rice-field or a vineyard; for although its natural food be wild roots and wild fruits, if cultivated grounds be in the neighbourhood, its ravages are very annoying to the husbandmen, who can fully and feelingly understand the words of the Psalmist, "The boar out of the wood doth waste it" (Ps. lxxx. 13).
Messrs Irby and Mangles,[197] as they approached the Jordan, saw a herd of nine wild pigs, and they found the trees on the banks of a stream near that river all marked with mud, left by the wild swine in rubbing themselves. A valley which they passed was grubbed up in all directions with furrows made by these animals, so that the soil had all the appearance of having been ploughed up.
Burckhardt mentions the occurrence of the wild boar and panther together, or the _ounce_, as he calls it, on the mountain of Rieha, and also in the wooded part of Tabor. He mentions "a common saying and belief among the Turks, that all the animal kingdom was converted by their prophet to the true faith, except the wild boar and buffalo, which remained unbelievers; it is on this account that both these animals are often called Christians. We are not surprised that the boar should be so denominated; but as the flesh of the buffalo, as well as its Leben or sour milk, is much esteemed by the Turks, it is difficult to account for the disgrace into which that animal has fallen among them; the only reason I could learn for it is, that the buffalo, like the hog, has a habit of rolling in the mud, and of plunging into the muddy ponds in the summer time up to the very nose, which alone remains visible above the surface."[198] Wild boars were frequently fallen in with by this traveller during his Syrian travels in the neighbourhood of rush-covered springs, where they could easily return to their "wallowing in the mire;" he also met with them on all the mountains he visited in his tour. In the Ghor they are very abundant, and so injurious to the Arabs of that valley that they are unable to cultivate the common barley on account of the eagerness with which the wild swine feed on it, and are obliged to grow a less esteemed kind, with six rows of grains which the swine will not touch.
Messrs Hemprich and Ehrenberg tell us that the wild boar is far from scarce in the marshy districts around Rosetta and Damietta, and that it does not seem to differ from the European species. The head of a wild boar which these travellers saw at Bischerre, a village of Lebanon, closely resembled the European variety, except in being a little longer. The Maronites there, who ate its flesh in their company, called it _chansir_,[199] a name evidently identical with the Hebrew word _chasir_, which occurs in the Bible. The Turks, according to Ehrenberg, keep swine in their stables, from a persuasion that all devils who may enter will be more likely to go into the pigs than the horses, from their alliance to the former unclean animals.--_A. White, in "Excelsior."_
[Illustration: The River Pig.]
THE RIVER PIG, OR PAINTED PIG OF THE CAMAROON.[200]
The other day we revisited the Zoological Gardens, and found that two old friends had got--the one, a companion, the other, a neighbour. The latter was the bulky hippopotamus, now most bearish, and more and more unmistakably showing the minute accuracy of those master lines in the Book of Job, in which Behemoth's portrait, pose, and character are depicted. The former was the subject of this article--evidently, as far as colour goes, "the chieftain of the _porcine_ race."
The poet tells us, however, "Nimium ne crede colori;" and observation, as well as the Scripture, shows us daily that "fair havens" in summer are but foul places to "winter in;" that fair speeches, and a flattering tongue, and the kisses of an enemy, "are deceitful;" and that beneath a fine spotted or barred coat, the jaguar and the tiger, the cobra and the hornet, conceal both the power and the propensity for mischief. So with our old friend Potamochoerus. The pretty creature,--beauty is relative--the Cameroon pig is the prettiest, the gaudiest of the race,--the pretty creature, we repeat, is of a fine bay red, made to look more bright from the circumstance of the face, ears, and front of the legs being black, while the red is relieved, and the black is defined, by the pencilled lines of white which edge the ears, streak over and under the eye, and ornament the long whiskers, another long white line traversing the middle of the back; a very attractive combination of colour--the painting of "Him who made the world"--and one which must make the _Potamochoerus penicellatus_ most conspicuous among the bright green shrubs and dark marshes of the rivers of equinoctial Africa, on whose banks the race has been planted. The present largest specimen was taken, when a "piggie," by a trading captain, as it was swimming across the Cameroon River. He brought it to Liverpool; Dr Gray, of the British Museum, gave an account of it in the "Illustrated Proceedings of the Zoological Society of London for 1852"--an excellent work--where its figure, drawn and coloured by the hand of Wolf, shows the condition of the African sow four years ago. It was then a round, comfortable, kind-looking creature, which one might almost have fondled as a pet. The pig now looks rather a dangerous beast, and its beauty is not increased by its face having grown longer, and by the bump and hollow on each cheek being larger and deeper; nor is its mouth so attractive or innocent, now that its tusks--those ivory daggers and knives of the family of Swine--have grown longer. The creature, partly it may be from familiarity, jumps up against the iron palisade which separates the visitor from its walk, but a poor pannage as a substitute for its African home. We would advise him to read the notice: "Visitors are requested not to tease the animals;" "not to touch" would be a good reprint--for few, we fancy, would try to tease.
One, however, especially a lady, likes to know and to feel _texture_; and sadly used the fine, mild Edward Cross, of Exeter Change and the Surrey Zoological Gardens, once the Nestor as well as the King among keepers of wild beasts--a gentle, gentlemanly, white-haired, venerable man,--sadly, we say, used Mr Cross to lament that there _were_ parasols, and that he could not keep them _out_ of his garden. Mr C. told the writer that he lost many a beast and bird from the pokes of that insinuating weapon. We dissuade any lady from touching or going near a zebra's mouth, or the horns of an ibex or an algazel, or the pointed bill of a heron or stork, or from putting her hand near this fine painted pig.
Up jumps Potamochoerus--eye rather vindictive, however--and mark, as that big specimen is foreshortened before you, the profile of the little companion pig of the same species, standing within a few feet, but safe from the poke of any umbrella or parasol; look how innocent and inviting--how quiet, and sleek, and polished, and painted, and mild it looks, all but that little suspicious eye, with its wink oblique, and its malicious twinkle.