residences of the Romans, _viz._, near London, Colchester, and York;
and not any in Ireland or Scotland. They have also been found in
Italy mixed with great numbers of the bones of other beasts known
to have been exhibited by the Romans. This animal is not known to
inhabit any country but Africa. Two were caught near Damietta, A.D.
1600. They are known to inhabit Abyssinia, Bornou, the Cape of Good
Hope, Senegal, and they were met with in great abundance by the two
vessels, the Sion, of 200 tons, and St. John, of 50 tons, which
sailed above nine hundred miles up the river Gambia, A.D. 1620,
employed by Sir Wm. St. John[86]. The inference is, that they inhabit
the whole of that vast continent, and that it is most probable the
number of species is as great as that of elephants; and that the
fossil kinds not having been brought from the same country as the
living individuals with which they have been compared, has induced
naturalists to suppose them extinct. An elaborately grand Roman
[p364] pavement was dug up at Roxby, in Lincolnshire, upon which
is represented Orpheus, surrounded by an elephant, lion, boar, dog,
wolf, stag, and another, which appears to be the hippopotamus[87].
TURTLE. TORTOISE.
“A beautiful fossil sea-turtle has recently been discovered, and,
by the perfect substitution of all the organic parts as well as its
locality, may be considered an interesting remain of a former world.
It is encrusted in a mass of ferruginous limestone, and weighs 180
lbs. The spot on which it was found is in four fathoms of water,
and is formed of an extensive stratum of stones, called the Stone
Ridge, about four miles off Harwich harbour; and is considered to be
the line of conjunction between the opposite cliffs of Walton and
Harwich. It is in the possession of Mr. Deck, of Cambridge[88].”
A fossil turtle was found near Harwich, embedded in a solid block of
cement-stone; another large stone, when broken, was found to contain
“nearly the whole of a _human_ skeleton[89].”
Fossil sea-tortoises have been found in the environs of Brussels, in
the environs of Maestricht, at the village of Melsbroeck and in the
mountain of St. Peter, in the state of Glaris and in the vicinity of
Aix; they differ in species from any of those at present known[90].
There is not any of the extraneous fossil remains more probably of
Roman origin than tortoises. “The beds, the doors, and pillars of the
houses of the Greeks and Romans, were decorated with tortoise-shell.
In the reign of Augustus, this species of luxury was at, its height
in Rome[91]. Bruce says, the Egyptians dealt very largely with the
Romans in this elegant article of commerce; Martial relates that
beds were inlaid with it; Velleius Paterculus observes, that when
Alexandria was taken by Julius Cæsar, the magazines were so full of
this article, that he at first proposed to make it the principal
ornament of his triumph; as he used ivory afterwards when triumphing
for his African victories[92].” [p365]
Cuneboline and his son Arviragus having had the elephant, tapir, and
unicorn on their coins; and as the first was brought up at the court
of Augustus[93], there is every probability of their having possessed
tortoises at Harwich, the port of the capital of the British king.
SPECIES.
With regard to elephants, the number of species appears to be very
great, even with the extremely limited knowledge we possess. The
writer saw three distinct kinds captured in one keddah at Tippera,
when he was there during Mr. Corse’s residence at that place, and who
has described them. Some African females have tusks as large as the
males, but it is not known to be so in Asia. Le Vaillant mentions a
race of elephants which never have tusks. Two Ceylon elephants were
found to differ in the shape of the jaws, and another is mentioned by
Baron Cuvier, which is dissimilar to any that had been seen[94].
The Camelopard now at Paris differs in many essential anatomical
characters from the kind at the Cape of Good Hope[95].
The Romans and Moguls crossed the species and genera of different
animals. The crocotta was between a dog and a wolf; the crocuta,
between a hyæna and a lioness[96]. The Moguls cross the breed of dogs
with leopards, the best of which are those of Hezereh and Tesheen in
Cabulistan; and some are so brave that they will attack a lion[97].
Four towns near Babylon were exempted from any other tax than the
maintaining of dogs which were supposed to be produced between the
tiger and bitch[98]. We thus may perceive how impossible it is to
be certain of a fossil species being extinct because we are not
acquainted with it. [p366]
Ptolemy Philadelphus, in a procession at Alexandria, had twenty-four
thousand Indian dogs, a camelopard, a white bear, and twenty-four
chariots drawn by elephants, twelve by lions, seven by oryxes,
eight by ostriches, four by wild asses, and five by buffaloes[99].
Bajazet, in the fourteenth century, had twelve thousand dog-keepers.
The immensity of wild beasts slaughtered by the Persians, Moguls,
and Romans, would be incredible, were it not attested by so many
different authorities; and with regard to the Romans, no author
mentions a less number than five thousand of every description slain
at the opening of the Coliseum. These sports having been in vogue all
over the Roman empire for so many centuries, the fossil bones which
have been found are but few indeed. In Britain there were at least
five amphitheatres; at Sandwich, Dorchester, Silchester, Caerleon,
York[100]. In France, at Paris, Cahors[101], Vienne, Arles, Orange,
Autun, Treves, Nismes, Poitou[102], and Bordeaux. In Spain, at
Seville, Tarragona, Merida, and Saguntum. In Italy a great number.
The popularity of monarchs and statesmen depended on their power
to indulge the people with these cruel sports. Commodus is said to
have been one of the most dexterous marksmen: he always had with
him Parthians, to teach him archery, and Moors, to perfect him in
throwing the dart. He ran with all horned animals, except bulls,
and smote them unerringly as he pursued. Lions, panthers, and other
fierce beasts, he ran after in the Peridrome, and darted at them from
above with never-failing effect, whether he aimed at the forehead or
the heart. With arrows, pointed like a half-moon, he would cut off
the heads of the Mauritanian ostriches, while their wings were [p367]
expanded to aid their speed, and they continued their course for
a time without their heads. He would expose a prize-fighter to the
attack of a panther, and strike the beast dead before it could fasten
its teeth on the man. A hundred lions have been sent out of the
dens, and all killed by him with such certainty, that they lay close
together, not a dart failing[103].
Domitian had been equally notorious in these grand sports in the
Amphitheatre.
“What scene sequestered, or what rude renown,
Sends no spectator to the imperial town?
The Rhodopean hind now tempts the plains,
And tunes from Hemus his Orphean strains.
The Sarmat, Cæsar, hies, thy works to see;
And gives the steed he swills[104] to share the glee.
They come, who first the rising Nile explore;
And they who hear remotest ocean roar.
The Arab hasted, the Sabean flew;
And the Cilician own’d his native dew.
With tortured tresses, here Sicambrians gay;
There Ethiops, bristling in their diverse way.
’Mid various speech, but one glad voice we find,
That hails thee father of converg’d mankind[105].”
As for the Romans themselves, according to Juvenal, these amusements
seem to have been preferred to all others.
“Could you the pleasures of the Cirque forego,
At Fabrateria or at Frusino,
Some villa might be bought, for what will here
Scarce hire a gloomy dungeon by the year[106].”
Had the fossil animals died, or been killed by natural accidents, the
skeletons would generally have been found entire, but for the most
part they are scattered and broken, and are often mixed with bones
of animals resembling the species of the present time[107]. In the
vicinity of Orleans in France, a _fossil_ roe, of a living species,
was found in _limestone_, along with the bones of the _palæotherium_.
Instances have occurred of bones being found, in great numbers; and,
many feet deeper, other heaps of bones of elephants and wild beasts;
but as many amphitheatres were built [p368] with wood, and as the
games were exhibited for about six centuries, those structures would
require to be often renewed, and the old bones would thus be covered
over with earth. Britain was invaded or visited by about twenty
emperors, or those so high in importance as to become emperors of
Rome; and York was the head-quarters of the Roman empire during the
residence in Britain of Severus and his two sons and co-emperors,
Geta and Caracalla[108]. All the _collections_ of fossil bones
are found at the head-quarters of the Romans, or near the several
amphitheatres in the island. Bones of elephants which have been found
in France and Italy in fifteen places, are so faithfully accurate to
the road over which Hannibal and Asdrubal with fifty-two elephants
marched[109], and _Hannibal’s (thirty-seven) all perished before
his arrival at Thrasymene_, that no theory whatever can stand in
competition with such historical conviction[110]. If the bones found
on Hannibal’s road be not those of his Getulian elephants, are we
to conclude that the remains of the beasts lost two thousand years
ago have totally perished; but that other bones of elephants, many
thousands of years older, have been preserved upon the same spot,
although some of them are found quite near the surface? At Plaine
de Grenelle, a fossil elephant was dug up, and at that place there
stood a Roman amphitheatre[111]. The great numbers of elephants then
used in warfare may be judged of, by Metellus having captured upwards
of a hundred in the battle of Palermo, where many besides had been
killed[112]; and accordingly fossil bones have been found, there
and also at Syracuse, where there was an amphitheatre. In Spain,
thirty-nine elephants were slain at Munda, in the battle fought
between the two Scipios and Asdrubal. At the bridge of Manzanares,
and at Toledo, fossil remains of elephants have been [p369] dug up;
and at these very places Hannibal and Asdrubal defeated one hundred
thousand Carpetani, many of whom were trodden to death by their forty
elephants[113].
If we glance at the sports of the Mongols, what a treasure for an
osteologist might be found at Termed in Sogdiana, where the army
commanded in person by Genghis Khan were four months occupied in
enclosing an immense circle, till all the wild beasts were driven
(without one escaping, under pain of death to the soldier who failed
in his duty, but who was not allowed to kill the tigers, lions, &c.)
into a spacious plain, where they were slaughtered by the Grand Khan
and all the Imperial princes and military commanders, till they
chose to permit the soldiers to end the destruction[114]. How many
fossil _species_ might be discovered there, of which naturalists
have no knowledge! The Persians are said to have slaughtered as many
as fourteen thousand beasts on a like expedition[115]. So long have
these amusements existed, that Hushing, king of Persia, B. C. 865,
_bred dogs and leopards_ for hunting[116].
Besides the fossil remains which have been found of numerous
quadrupeds, named by the Romans in their sports, they employed the
following, bones of which have not been detected:—Indian dogs, white
bears, camels (one found), dromedaries, camelopards, wild asses,
zebras, quaggas, oryxes (unicorns), Ethiopian sheep, Arabian sheep,
the crocotta (bred from a dog and wolf), crocuta (from a hyæna and
lioness), little dragons, ostriches. The gnu was known to the Romans;
and probably the nyl-ghau and the om-kergay (quite harmless, and
the size of a rhinoceros). In this list several of the fossil kinds
described as the ancient wild beast with a thick skin (palæotherium),
and the beast without weapons, or unarmed (anoplotherium), may
be found, and also those of the genus canis, and a carnivorous
beast[117].
Such is a short notice of this most extensive subject, to which the
writer’s attention has been attracted by the concurrence of [p370]
historical relations with the locality of fossil remains. It is
offered for the consideration of the reader, not in a spirit of
controversy, but with a desire to ascertain an important truth in
natural history, whether his speculations be confirmed or refuted.
Whichever way a decision is awarded, it will add to the interest
attached to zoological pursuits, and the reader will be, by these
remarks, enabled to form a judgment whether the laborious and
ingenious works which have been published, since the conviction that
elephants are not human giants, (a notion seriously maintained so
recently as in Clavegero’s _History of Mexico_, written since that of
Robertson) are descriptions of the quadrupeds of a _former world_, or
of the world which is now in _existence_. _It is necessary to remark
that these particular researches relate only to animals connected
with Roman and Mogul history_; and if it should be conceded that it
may justly be inferred, that quadrupeds hitherto deemed extinct are
still to be found in the undiscovered parts of Africa, Asia, and
America, not half of either region being yet scientifically known,
it will give an interest to zoology and osteology ten fold more
attractive than a blank and unsatisfactory hypothesis of their having
all perished _before the creation of man_, as is often alleged. It
is perhaps the most remarkable circumstance in literature, that
naturalists so rarely allude to the astonishing number of beasts
slain in the Roman games, although the list of them is, generally
speaking, so similar to that of the fossil remains. Erroneous notions
concerning fossil bones, those of elephants, in particular, being the
most plentiful, began in very early ages when they were considered
to be human; and James the First (of Britain) sent Lord Herbert
of Cherbury to Gloucester, to ascertain if a skeleton, dug up at
that place, was really that of a giant. There were found mingled
with it horns and bones of oxen and sheep, and the tusks of a boar.
Lord Herbert, Dr. Clayton, and the celebrated Harvey, thought the
bones were those of one of the Roman elephants; and Bishop Hakewill
received a letter from my lord of Gloucester, mentioning that “he was
_not confident_ that the grinder was the tooth of a man[118].” This
discovery, perhaps, put an end in England to the notion of giants’
bones. [p371]
The next fanciful origin was, that these fossil remains were those
of an extinct monster, called Mammoth by the native Siberians, their
name for the walrus; but which was transferred and confounded with
the bones of whales, elephants, and buffalos, found in that country,
and such erroneous opinions will long be entertained in those
quarters.
The diluvian origin was imagined by many to be the true one, but
later careful examinations proving that the animals died on the spot
where they are found broken, and the bones scattered about, that
hypothesis could not in such instances be maintained, and recourse
was had to the supposition, that Britain was in former ages a
tropical country; but the mixed fossil remains, being those both of
hot and cold climates, and of beasts peculiar only to Africa, or to
Asia, this theory appears to be quite as objectionable as the others.
The last, and the most specious, of all the hypothetical proofs of
the origin is, that the teeth not often corresponding with those of
the living specimens which have been seen, they must be the remains
of extinct quadrupeds. There are, perhaps, fifty large regions
where elephants abound, and the teeth of _very few indeed_ of the
animals of those countries have yet been seen. This last appears to
be, defective as it is, the strongest objection that can be urged
against the historical origin; and the few remarks in this essay will
contribute materially to weaken this remaining hypothesis. The reader
who feels any interest in zoology will, by their means, be assisted
in his endeavours to untie or cut this gordian knot. After he has
decided either that these beasts are in existence, or all extinct.
“In his reflections, then, what scenes shall strike!
Adventures thicken! novelties surprise!
What webs of wonder shall unravel there[119]!”
FOOTNOTES:
[53] Count Bournon; Phil. Mag., vol. lvii., p. 458.
[54] Strahlenberg, p. 405.
[55] Dr. Plott’s History of Oxf., p. 161.
[56] Phil. Trans. Abridged, vol. iv., part ii., p. 273.
[57] Cuvier, Theory of the Earth.
[58] In the American Quarterly Review, published at Philadelphia,
March, 1827. Art. “Fossil Remains.”
[59] Titles, “Werner,” “Fletz,” “Transition.”
[60] See two dissertations on the Geology of the U. S. of N.
America, by W. M’Clure, Esq., in the Transactions of the Amer. Phil.
Soc., new series, vol. i., Philadelphia, 1818. This gentleman had
entertained a different view in the previous volume; but after eight
years’ experience, in Europe and America, he had the philosophical
justice, boldly to amend his former opinions.
[61] See Phil. Trans. Abridged, vol. iv., part ii., p. 236 to 245,
and Camden’s Brit., Gough’s Ed., 1789, vol. iii., 604.
[62] Essay on the Antiquity of the Irish Language, by Lieut. Col.
Vallancey, 8vo., London, 1818, p. 12.
[63] See Gibbon, ch. xxvii., Zosimus, b. iv., Rapin, b. i., Wars and
Sports, ch. xiii.
[64] Life of Agricola.
[65] Parkinson, vol. iii., letter 26. Mr. P. relates that Baron
Cuvier inclines to doubt the authenticity of this account; but Capt.
Cochrane’s testimony _now_ renders it very probable to be correct.
It is very worthy of remark, that the wild elephants in America are
found, as reported, at Choco, and west of the Missouri; and that
Mango Capac and Montezuma’s ancestor, by the traditions, landed at
Cape St. Helen’s and Culiacan,—as if some elephants had been let
loose, or had escaped and betaken themselves to perhaps the nearest
thick forests, and have remained there undisturbed.
[66] Rees’s Cyclopedia, Addenda, “Mastodon.”
[67] See Parkinson, vol. iii., letter 26, p. 367.
[68] Duchat, an author of unquestioned credit, has seen recent wood
petrified into flint by the water of a river in Ava. Rees’s Cyc.,
“Wood.”
[69] Levesque, Hist. de Russie, vol. vii. 244.
[70] Wars and Sports, p. 263.
[71] Conquest of Peru, ch. x. It is somewhat curious that, when
Pyrrhus for the first time brought elephants into Italy, the Romans
gave them the name of Lucanian bulls; and that the Americans call
them big bulls in their traditions. It is probable that both people
compared them with the largest beast known to them; as elephants,
if indigenous in america before the arrival of Mango Capac and
Montezuma’s ancestor, would have been extremely numerous, and have
had a proper name.
[72] Shakspeare spells this name Cymbeline; Milton writes Kymbeline,
which is probably the true pronunciation: see his History, 8vo.
1695, p. 62.
[73] Wars and Sports, p. 269.
[74] Id. p. 506. The Burmans eat elephants. The writer was at Dacca
in 1794, when some Burmese troops invaded the Chittagong frontier.
An expedition, under Colonel Erskine, was sent against them; and on
the return to Dacca of Colonel Boujonnar’s battalion, the officers
told the writer that they found in the stockade the skeleton of an
elephant, which the Burmans had devoured.
[75] Conquest of Mexico and Peru, p. 288–301.
[76] Hakluyt, vol. iv., p. 558; and Conquest of Peru and Mexico, ch.
vii.
[77] A Roman coin is said to have been discovered recently among the
Indians in America, which has justly created surprise; but others
have been found long ago. Bishop Hakewill’s book is dated A.D.
1635: he says, “Marianus Siculus, in his history of Spain, reports
that certain coined pieces of gold, engraved with the image and
inscription of Augustus Cæsar, were found in the American mines;
thereby inferring that those countries were _then_ discovered.” p.
310. Batou, the cousin of Kublai, both grandsons of Genghis, had
conquered Russia, ravaged Europe to the Adriatic, and died on his
march to Constantinople, in 1256. His successor also ravaged as far
as Constantinople, (P. de la Croix, p. 387.) Mango (so spelt by Du
Halde, ii., 251, and Maundeville, p. 275; Manku by Tooke, Russ.
Emp., ii., 13) was brother to Kublai, who is considered by the
writer to be the father of the first Inca, and there is nothing more
probable than that he and other Moguls on the Japanese expedition
may have possessed Roman coins, the plunder of Hungary, Poland,
Dalmatia, and the Greek empire, as far as the capital.
[78] Cuvier, Theory of the Earth, p. 257.
[79] Conq. of Peru, &c. plate iv.
[80] Theory of the Earth, p. 67.
[81] Herodotus, Thalia xcix. Rees’s Cyc., “Sumatra.”
[82] Wars and Sports, p. 335.
[83] Travels of Lewis Vertomanus to Egypt, Arabia, &c., A.D. 1503,
in Galvano’s collection. Hakluyt, vol, iv., p. 162.
[84] Wars and Sports, p. 354.
[85] See Cuvier’s Theory of the Earth, p. 80. Wars and Sports, p.
335. With regard to the unicorn, Camper has remarked, that “if
this animal was ruminant and cloven-footed, it is certain that its
frontal bone must have been divided longitudinally into two, and
that it could not possibly have had a horn placed upon the suture.”
This remark by Camper, when we consider how nature adapts every
thing to its purposes, cannot stand as a real objection to the
existence of the oryx. The most eminent naturalists have been wrong
in some of their conjectures. John Hunter pronounced the mastodon
to be a carnivorous beast. Buffon, after frequently considering the
bones of the mammoth, conceived them to belong to a beast six times
larger than the biggest elephant; and Muller was of opinion that
it must have been 105 feet in height, and 133 in length! So little
capable is any human being to judge what nature does, or can do!
[86] See Relation of Master Wm. Jobson in Purchas, vol. ii, p. 921.
[87] Conq. of Peru; p. 450.
[88] New London Literary Gazette, Oct. 13, 1827, p. 303.
[89] Common Sense Newspaper, No. 60.
[90] Cuvier’s Theory of the Earth, p. 291.
[91] Shaw’s Zool., III. pt. 1. Rees’s Cyc. “Tortoise.”
[92] _Ibid._
[93] Milton’s Hist. 8vo. p. 62.
[94] Cuvier, Ossemens Fossiles, p. 185.
[95] Ed. New Phil. Journal, Sept. 1827, p. 390. Here is a direct
instance, that if a fossil _Egyptian_ camelopard had been found, it
would, like elephants, &c., have been pronounced to be an _extinct_
species, the modern specimens being from South Africa.
[96] Pliny, b. viii.
[97] Ayeen Akbery, vol. i. p. 242.
[98] Herodotus, Clio, cxci. We may conjecture that _tiger_ has been
written for _leopard_, a frequent error.
[99] Montfaucon, vol. iii. p. 179.
[100] Augustan History, “Severus,” p. 253. “Wherever Caracalla
wintered, or but intended to winter, they were constrained to erect
amphitheatres and cirques for public games, and those within a
while were taken down again.”—Hakewill’s Apology, p. 443. Caracalla
was three years at York; and Spartian, in his Life of Severus,
relates, that among other omens just before that emperor died, (at
York,) three figures of Victory, which stood upon the platform near
the throne, were blown down while the _games of the circus were
celebrating_. There was a Roman road from York to Whitby (Dunus
Sinus), and Kirkdale is about half way between the port and the
capital.
[101] Rees’s Cyc. “Cahors.”
[102] Marquis Maffei, p. 260.
[103] Herodian, “Commodus.”
[104] The Tartar opens a vein of his horse and drinks the blood.
[105] Martial (Elphinston’s, p. 19) on the Sports of Domitian.
[106] Satire iii.
[107] Cuvier. Theory of the Earth, pp. 89 and 263.
[108] The emperors had their families and the whole Roman court with
them. The celebrated Julia Domna, and her sister Julia Mesa, were
there during those three years. See De Serviez, Roman Empresses,
vol. ii. p. 239.
[109] Passage des Alpes par Annibal, d’après la narration de Polybe.
Comparée aux récherches faites sur les lieux, par J. A. De Luc.
Géneve, 1818.
[110] Wars and Sports, p. 295.
[111] Gibbon, ch. xix. p. 177.
[112] Catrou, vol. ii. p. 591.
[113] Livy, b. xxi. ch. v.; b. xxiv. ch. xlii.
[114] De la Croix. Hist. of Genghis, b. iii. ch. vii.