several other animals that have no sort of resemblance to it; there
are two of these very remarkable, the Fennec and Jerboa, of which I am
now to treat. As I have given excellent figures of both, by drawings
taken from the creatures alive, I have no doubt I shall prevent any
confusion for the future, and throw some light upon sacred scripture,
the greatest profit and use that can result from this sort of writing.
If the rabbit has been frequently confounded with the saphan, and stood
for it in the interpretation of the Hebrew text, the same has likewise
happened to another animal, the Jerboa, still more dissimilar in form
and in manners from the saphan, than even the rabbit itself, and much
less known. The Jerboa is a small harmless animal of the desert, nearly
the size of a common rat: the skin very smooth and shining, of a brown
tinged with yellow or gold colour, and the ends of the hairs tipt
with black. It lives in the smoothest plains or places of the desert,
especially where the soil is fixed gravel, for in that chiefly it
burrows, dividing its hole below into many mansions. It seems to be
apprehensive of the falling in of the ground; it therefore generally
digs its hole under the root of some spurge, thyme, or absinthium, upon
whose root it seems to depend for its roof not falling in and burying
it in the ruins of its subterraneous habitation. It seems to delight
most in those places that are haunted by the cerastes, or horned viper.
Nature has certainly imposed this dangerous neighbourhood upon the
one for the good and advantage of the other, and that of mankind in
general. Of the many trials I made, I never found a Jerboa in the body
of a viper, excepting once in that of a female big with young, and the
Jerboa itself was then nearly consumed.
The Jerboa, for the most part, stands upon his hind-legs; he rests
himself by sitting backwards sometimes, and I have seen him, though
rarely, as it were lie upon all four; whether that is from fatigue or
sickness, or whether it is a natural posture, I know not. The Jerboa of
the Cyrenaicum is six inches and a quarter in length, as he stands in
the drawing. He would be full half an inch more if he was laid straight
at his length immediately after death. The head, from his nose to the
occiput, is one inch two lines. From the nose to the foremost angle of
the eye, six lines. The opening of the eye itself is two lines and a
quarter; his ears three quarters of an inch in length, and a quarter
of an inch in breadth; they are smooth, and have no hair within, and
but very little without; of an equal breadth from bottom to top, do not
diminish to a point, but are rounded there. The buttocks are marked
with a semicircle of black, which parts from the root of the tail, and
ends at the top of the thigh. This gives it the air of a compound
animal, a rat with bird’s legs, to which the flying posture still
adds resemblance. From this stroke to the center of the eye is three
inches, and to the point of his toe the same measure; his tail is six
inches and a quarter long, seems aukwardly set on, as stuck between his
buttocks, without any connection with his spine; half of it is poorly
covered with hair of a light or whiter colour than his body; the other
half is a beautiful feather of long hair, the middle white, the edges
jet black: this tail, which by its length would seem an incumbrance to
him, is of a surprising advantage in guiding and directing him in his
jumping.
From the shoulder to the elbow of the fore-foot is half an inch: from
the elbow to the joining of the paw, 5/8ths of an inch. The claw itself
is curved, and is something less than a quarter of an inch. It has
very long mustachoes, some of them standing backward, and some of them
forward from his nose; they are all of unequal lengths, the longest an
inch and a half; his belly is white: he seems to be of a very cleanly
nature, his hair always in great order. From his snout to the back
part of the opening of the mouth is half an inch; his nose projects
beyond his under jaw three quarters of an inch. He has four toes in his
hind-foot, and a small one behind his heel, where is a tuft of hair
coloured black. The fore-foot hath three toes only.
The ancients have early described this animal; we see him in some of
the first medals of the Cyrenaicum, sitting under an umbellated plant,
supposed to be the silphium, whose figure is preserved to us on the
silver medals of Cyrene. The high price set upon it is mentioned by
several historians, but the reason of that value, or the use of the
plant, I have never yet been able to comprehend. I suppose it was an
adventitious plant, which the curiosity and correspondence of the
princes of that state had probably brought from some part of Negroland,
where the goats are brousing upon it at this day with indifference
enough, unconscious of the price it bore in the time of the Ptolemies.
Herodotus[50], Theophrastus[51], and Aristotle[52], all mention this
animal under the name of διπους, γαλαι διποδες or, two-footed rats.
This animal is found in most of the parts of Arabia and Syria, in every
part of the southern deserts of Africa, but no where so frequently, and
in such numbers, as in the Cyrenaicum, or Pentapolis. In my unfortunate
journey there, I employed the Arabs, together with my servants, to kill
a number with sticks, so as that the skins might not be injured by
shot. I got them dressed in Syria and in Greece, and sewed together,
making use of the tail as in ermine for the lining of a cloak, and they
had a very good effect; the longer they wore, the glossier and finer
appearance the skins made. The Jerboa is very fat and well-coloured;
the buttocks, thighs, and part of the back, are roasted and ate by
the Arabs. I have eaten them; they are not distinguishable from a
young rabbit either in colour or taste; they have not even the strong
taste the rabbit has. Some writers have confounded these two animals
together; at least they have mistaken this for the saphan, and the
saphan for the rabbit. This, however, is plainly without foundation.
These long legs, and the necessity of leaping, demand the plain ground,
where nature has always placed this creature.
The Arabs Ibn Bitar, Algiahid, Alcamus, and Damir, and many others,
have known the animal perfectly, though some of them seem to confound
it with another called the Ashkoko. Ibnalgiauzi says, that the Jerboa
is the only kind that builds in rocks, which from ten thousand examples
I am sure he does not, nor is he any way made for it, and I am very
certain he is not gregarious. They have a number of holes indeed in
the same place, but I do not remember ever to have seen more than two
together at a time. The Arab Canonists are divided whether or not he
can be lawfully eaten. Ibnalgiauzi is of opinion he cannot, nor any
other animal living under the ground, excepting the land crocodile,
which he calls El Dabb, a large lizard, said to be useful in venereal
pursuits, Ata and Achmet, Benhantal, and several others, expressly
say, that the eating of the Jerboa is lawful. But this seems to be an
indulgence, as we read in Damir, that the use of this animal is granted
because the Arabs delight in it. And Ibn Bitar says, that the Jerboa
is called Israelitish, that the flesh of it is dried in the outward
air, is very nourishing, and prevents costiveness, from which we should
apprehend, that medicinal considerations entered into this permission
likewise. However this may be, it seems to me plain, such was not the
opinion of the old translators of the Arab version from the Hebrew;
they once only name this animal expressly, and there they say it is
forbidden. The passage is in Isaiah, “They that sanctify themselves and
purify themselves in the gardens behind one tree in the midst, eating
swine’s flesh, and the abomination, and the mouse, shall be consumed
together, saith the Lord[53].” The Hebrew word signifies mouse, and so
our English translation renders it. But the Arabic version calls it
expressly the Jerboa, and classes it with the abomination and swine’s
flesh, that is, in the class of things in the highest degree forbidden.
There is little variety in this animal either in size or colour, in the
wide range that they inhabit. Towards Aleppo they have broader noses
than the African ones, their bodies also thicker, and their colour
lighter; a thing we always see in the Syrian animals, compared to the
African. The first of these I saw was in London, in the hands of Dr
Russel, who has wrote the history of Aleppo, of whom I have before made
mention. Haym published an account of the Jerboa, so does Dr Shaw, but
there exists not, that I know, one good figure of him, or particular
description.
The figure given us by Edwards is thick and short, out of all
proportion. His legs are too short, his feet too large, he wants the
black mark upon his heel, the nails of his forefeet are greatly too
long, and there is certainly a latitude taken in the description, when
his head is said very much to resemble that of a rabbit. Dr Hasselquist
has given us a kind of description of him without a figure. He says the
Arabs call him Garbuka, but this is not so, he goes by no other name in
all the east, but that of Jerboa, only the letter J, sometimes by being
pronounced Y, for Jerboa he is called Yerboa, and this is the only
variation in name.
The Arabs of the kingdom of Tripoli make very good diversion with the
Jerboa, in training their grey-hounds, which they employ to hunt the
gazel or antelope after instructing him to turn nimbly by hunting
this animal. The prince of Tunis, son of Sidi Younis, and grandson of
Ali Bey, who had been strangled by the Algerines when that capital
was taken, being then in exile at Algiers, made me a present of a
small grey-hound, which often gave us excellent sport. It may be
perhaps imagined a chace between these two creatures could not be
long, yet I have often seen, in a large inclosure, or court-yard, the
greyhound employ a quarter of an hour before he could master his nimble
adversary; the small size of the creature assisted him much, and had
not the greyhound been a practised one, and made use of his feet as
well as his teeth, he might have killed two antelopes in the time he
could have killed one Jerboa.
It is the character of the saphan given in scripture, that he is
gregarious, that he lives in houses made in the rock, that he is
distinguished for his feebleness, which he supplies by his wisdom: none
of these characteristics agree with the Jerboa, and therefore though he
chews the cud in common with some others, and was in great plenty in
Judea, so as to be known by Solomon, yet he cannot be the saphan of the
scripture.
FENNEC.
This beautiful animal, which has lately so much excited the curiosity,
and exercised the pens rather than the judgment of some naturalists,
was brought to me at Algiers by Mahomet Rais, my drugoman or janizary,
while consul-general to his Majesty in that regency.
Mahomet Rais bought it for two sequins from an acquaintance, a Turkish
oldash, or foot-soldier, just then returned from Biscara, a southern
district of Mauritania Cæsariensis, now called the Province of
Constantina. The soldier said they were not uncommon in Biscara, but
more frequently met with in the neighbouring date territories of Beni
Mezzab and Werglah, the ancient habitations of the Melano-Gætuli; in
the last mentioned of which places they hunted them for their skins,
which they sent by the caravan to sell at Mecca, and from whence
they were after exported to India. He said that he had endeavoured
to bring three of them, two of which had escaped by gnawing holes in
the cage. I kept this for several months at my country-house near
Algiers, that I might learn its manners. I made several drawings of
it, particularly one in water-colours of its natural size, which has
been the original of all those bad copies that have since appeared.
Having satisfied myself of all particulars concerning it, and being
about to leave Algiers, I made a present of him to Captain Cleveland,
of his majesty’s ship Phœnix, then in that port, and he gave him to
Mr Brander, Swedish consul in Algiers. A young man, Balugani, of
whom I have already spoken, then in my service, in which, indeed,
he died, allowed himself so far to be surprised, as, unknown to me,
to trace upon oiled paper a copy of this drawing in water-colours,
just now mentioned. This he did so servilely, that it could not be
mistaken, and was therefore, as often as it appeared, known to be a
copy by people[54] the least qualified to judge in these matters. The
affectation of the posture in which it was sitting, the extraordinary
breadth of its feet, the unnatural curve of the tail, to shew the
black part of it, the affected manner of disposing its ears, were all
purposely done, to shew particular details that I was to describe,
after the animal itself should be lost, or its figure, through length
of time, should be less-fresh in my memory.
[Illustration: _Fennec_
_London Publish’d Dec.^r 1.^{st} 1789. by G. Robinson & Co._]
Doctor Sparman, with his natural dullness, and a disingenuousness
which seems partly natural, partly acquired, and improved by constant
plagiarisms, from the works of others, pretends in favour of his
country and countrymen, to steal this into a Swedish discovery. He
says that Mr Brander has published an account of it in some Swedish
transactions, a book I never saw, but that being long importuned by
his friend Mr Nicander, to give the figure of the animal itself to be
published, he constantly refused it.
Whether this fact is so or not, I do not pretend to give my opinion:
if it is, I cannot but think Mr Brander’s conduct in both cases was
extremely proper. The creature itself passed, by very fair means,
from my possession into Mr Brander’s, who cannot doubt that I would
have given it to him in preference to Mr Cleveland, if I had known he
thought it of the least consequence; he was then, as having had the
animal by just means in his possession, as much entitled to describe
him as I was; or as the Turk, the prior possessor, who gave him to me,
had he been capable, and so inclined. On the other hand, Mr Brander
likewise judged very properly in refusing to publish the drawing at
the request of Mr Nicander. The drawing was not justly acquired, as it
was obtained by a breach of faith, and seduction of a servant, which
might have cost him his bread. It was conducted with a privacy seldom
thought necessary to fair dealing, nor was it ever known to me, till
the young man began to be dangerously sick at Tunis, when he declared
it voluntarily to me, with a contrition, that might have atoned for a
much greater breach of duty.
Dr Sparman attempts to conceal these circumstances. He says Mr Brander
told him, that I saw this animal at Algiers, and that I employed the
same painter that he did to make the drawing of him, and speaks of a
painter found at Algiers as readily as if he had been at the gates of
Rome or Naples. These are the wretched subterfuges of low minds, as
distant from science as they are from honour and virtue. Why, if the
animal was equally known to Mr Brander and me, did he not, when writing
upon it, give his name, his manners, the uses to which he was destined,
and the places where he resided? why send to Algiers for an account of
him, after having him so long in his possession, since at Algiers he
was probably as great a stranger as he was at Stockholm? why call him
a fox, or pronounce his genus, yet write to Algiers for particulars to
decide what that genus was?
The Count of Buffon[55], content with the merit of his own works,
without seeking praise from scraps of information picked up at random
from the reports of others, declares candidly, that he believes this
animal to be as yet anonyme, that is, not to have a name, and in this,
as in other respects, to be perfectly unknown. If those that have
written concerning it had stopt here likewise, perhaps the loss the
public would have suffered by wanting their observations would not have
been accounted a great detriment to natural history.
Mr Pennant[56], from Mr Brander’s calling it a fox, has taken occasion
to declare that his genus is a dog. Mr Sparman, that he may contribute
his mite, attacks the description which I gave of this animal in a
conversation with the Count de Buffon at Paris. He declares I am
mistaken by saying that it lives on trees[57]; for in consequence, I
suppose, of its being a fox, he says it burrows in the ground, which,
I doubt very much, he never saw an African fox do. His reason for this
is, that there is a small animal which lives in the sands at Camdebo,
near the Cape of Good Hope, which is rose-coloured, and he believes it
to be the animal in question, for he once hunted it till it escaped
by burrowing under ground, but he did not remark or distinguish his
ears[58].
I do really believe there may be many small animals found at Camdebo,
as well as in all the other sands of Africa; but having seen the rest
of this creature during the whole time of a chace, without remarking
his ears, which are his great characteristic, is a proof that Dr
Sparman is either mistaken in the beast itself, or else that he is an
unfortunate and inaccurate observer. There is but one other animal
that has ears more conspicuous or disproportioned than this we are now
speaking of. I need not name him to a man of the professor’s learning.
The Doctor goes on in a further description of this animal that he had
never seen. He says his name is Zerda, which I suppose is the Swedish
translation of the Arabic word Jerd, or Jerda. But here Dr Sparman has
been again unlucky in his choice, for, besides many other differences,
the Jerd, which is an animal well known both in Africa and Arabia, has
no tail, but this perhaps is but another instance of the Doctor’s ill
fortune; in the first case, he overlooked this animal’s ears; in the
second, he did not perceive that he had a tail.
The Arabs who conquered Egypt, and very soon after the rest of Africa,
the tyranny and fanatical ignorance of the Khalifat of Omar being
overpast, became all at once excellent observers. They addicted
themselves with wonderful application to all sorts of science; they
became very skilful physicians, astronomers, and mathematicians; they
applied in a particular manner, and with great success, to natural
history, and being much better acquainted with their country than we
are, they were, in an especial manner, curious in the accounts of its
productions. They paid great attention in particular to the animals
whose figures and parts are described in the many books they have left
us, as also their properties, manners, their uses in medicine and
commerce, are let down as distinctly and plainly as words alone could
do. Their religion forbade them the use of drawing; this is the source
of the confusion that has happened, and this is the only advantage we
have over them.
I believe there are very few remarkable animals, either in Africa
or Arabia, that are not still to be found described in some Arabian
author, and it is doing the public little service, when, from
vanity, we substitute crude imaginations of our own in place of the
observations of men, who were natives of the country, in perpetual
use of seeing, as living with the animals which they described.
There cannot, I think, be a stronger instance of this, than in the
subject now before us; notwithstanding what has been as confidently
as ignorantly asserted, I will venture to affirm, that this animal,
so far from being _unknown_, is particularly described in all the
Arabian books; neither is he without a name; he has one by which he
invariably passes in every part of Africa, where he exists, which in
all probability he has enjoyed as long as the lion or the tiger have
theirs. He is white, and not rose-coloured[59]; he does not burrow
in the earth, but lives upon trees; he is not the jerda, but has a
tail, and his genus is not a dog, for he is no fox. Here is a troop
of errors on one subject, that would give any man a surfeit of modern
description, all arising from conceit, the _cacoethes scribendi_, too
great love of writing, without having been at the pains to gain a
sufficient knowledge of the subject by fair inquiry and a very little
reading.
The name of this quadruped all over Africa is El Fennec; such was
the name of that I first saw at Algiers; such it is called in the
many Arabian books that have described it. But this name, having no
obvious signification in Arabic, its derivation has given rise to many
ill-founded guesses, and laid it open to the conjectures of grammarians
who were not naturalists. Gollius says, it is a weasel, and so say
all the Arabians. He calls it _mustela fænaria_, the hay weasel, from
fœnum, hay, that being the materials of which he builds his nest. But
this derivation cannot be admitted, for there is no such thing known
as hay in the country where the Fennec resides. But supposing that the
dry grass in all countries may be called hay, still fœnum, a Latin
word, would not be that which would express it in Africa. But when we
consider that long before, and ever after Alexander’s conquest, down as
low as the tenth century, the language of these countries behind Egypt
was chiefly Greek, an etymology much more natural and characteristic
will present itself in the word φοινιξ, a palm tree, whence comes
phœnicus, adjective, of or belonging to the palm or date-tree.
Gabriel Sionita[60] says, the Fennec is a white weasel that lives in
Sylvis Nigrorum, that is, in the woods of the Melano-Gætuli, where
indeed no other tree grows but the palm-tree, and this just lands us
in the place from which the Fennec was brought to me at Algiers, in
Biscara, Beni-Mezzab, and Werglah. It will be observed, that he does
not say it is an animal of Nigritia; for that country being within the
tropical rains, many other trees grow besides the palm, and there the
date does not ripen; and by its very thin hair, and fine skin, this
creature is known at first sight to belong to a dry, warm climate.
But to leave no sort of doubt, he calls him Gætulicus, which shews
precisely what country he means. There, in the high palm-trees, of
which this country is full, he writes, the Fennec builds its nest,
and brings up its young. Giggeius tells us, that their skins are made
use of for fine pelisses; Ibn Beitar, that quantities of this fur is
brought from the interior parts of Africa, and Damir and Razi say, that
their skins are used for summer pelisses[61].
After leaving Algiers I met with another Fennec at Tunis; it had come
last from the island of Gerba[62], and had been brought there by the
caravan of Gadems, or Fezzan. I bought one at Sennaar, from whence it
came I know not. I kept it a considerable time in a cage, till finding
it was no longer safe for me to stay at Sennaar, I trusted it by way of
deposit in the hands of a man whom it was necessary to deceive, with
the expectation that I was to return, and only going for a few days to
the camp of Shekh Adelan. It was known by Mahomet Towash, and several
people at Sennaar, to be frequently carried to Cairo, and to Mecca,
with paroquets, and such curiosities which are brought by the great
caravan from the Niger which traverses the dreary desert of Selima, and
takes the date villages in its way eastward.
All these animals found at separate times did exactly resemble the
first one seen at Algiers. They were all known by the name of Fennec,
and no other, and said to inhabit the date villages, where they built
their nests upon trees perfectly conformable to what the Arabian
authors, whether naturalists or historians, had said of them.