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.
Of the habits of this pig we can find no written record, though in the
journals of the Scottish or Wesleyan Missionaries there may be some
notices of it. We do not know whence the Society procured the second
specimen, but it shows that Africa's wild animals, like its chain of
internal Caspian seas, and its mountain-ranges and rivers, are becoming
gradually known. Old Bosman, who was chief factor for the Dutch on the
Gold Coast 150 years ago, refers to the swine near Fort St George
d'Elmina being not nearly so wild as those of Europe, and adds, "I have
several times eaten of them here, and found them very delicious and very
tender meat, the fat being extraordinarily fine."[201] He evidently
refers to some other species.
Travellers in South Africa have made us familiar with the habits, and
specimens in the Zoological Gardens, in a pannage close to that of the
"painted pig," show us the form and ugliness, of the bush pig and flat
pig (_Choiropotamus Africanus_) of that southern land, with their long
heads, long legs, upturned tails, and horrid tusks. They have a strange
habit of kneeling on their fore-legs. In South Africa they abound; and
the natives--our excellent friend, the Rev. Henry Methuen, tells
us--often bring their jaws for barter. They are of a dingy, dirty gray;
the boar is two feet and a half high, and his tusks sometimes measure
"eleven inches and a half each from the jawbone," are five inches and a
half in circumference at the base, and are thirteen inches apart at
their extremities.
No animal is more formidably armed; and his rapidity and lightness of
movement make him a very marked object to the African Nimrod, who, midst
"clumps of bush"--be they Proteacae, heaths, or Diosmeae--not unfrequently
comes on a herd of wild pigs "headed by a noble boar," with tail erect.
We could enter largely on the history of this active species, and quote
many a stirring anecdote of travellers' rencontres with this fearless
animal. The lion skulks away from him, but the rhinoceros--at least one
species--the buffalo, with his formidable front of horn and bone, and
the bush pig, with his dreaded tusks, show but little fear; and it is
well for the huntsman that he has a sure eye, a steady hand, and a
double-barrelled gun, and not a few Caffir followers to help him, should
his eye be dim, his hand waver, or his gun "flash in the pan." Dogs
avail but little; a deadly gash lays open their ribs, and a side-thrust
of a wild boar will cut into the most muscular leg, and for ever destroy
its tendons. We have done with pigs, and would only recommend a visit--a
frequent visit--to that paradise of animals, the Zoological Gardens,
where, a fortnight ago, we saw wild boars from Hesse Darmstadt; wild
boars from Egypt; bush pigs from Africa; peccaries from South America;
and two painted pigs from West Africa; all "_de grege porci_," and in
excellent health: to say nothing of two hippopotamuses; four "seraphic"
giraffes; antelopes (we did not number them); brush turkeys from
Australia; an apteryx from New Zealand; the curious white sheathbills
from the South Seas; the refulgent metallic green and purple-tinted
monaul, or Impeyan pheasant, strutting with outspread, light-coloured
tail, just as he courts his plain hen-mate on the Indian mountains; a
family of the funny pelicans--cleanliness, ugliness, and contentment in
one happy combination; a band of flamingoes; eagles and vultures; the
harpy--that Picton of the birds--looking defiance as he stands, with
upraised crest, flashing eye, and clenched talons, over his food; the
wily otter; the amiable seal, which carries us to the seas and rocks of
much-loved Shetland, with their long, winding voes, their
bird-frequented cliffs, and outlying skerries; the Indian thrush, which
reminds one of a "mavis" at home; the parrot-house, with its fine
contrasts of colour and its discordant noises; Penny's Esquimaux
dog--poor fellow, a prisoner, unlike to what he was when, with our dear
friends Dr Sutherland and Captain Stewart, this very dog breasted the
blast before a sledge in the Wellington Channel.[202] Look at that
wondrous sloth, organised for a life in a Brazilian forest--those two
restless Polar bears; and though last, not least, those wonders of the
great deep, "the sea-anemones," the exquisite red and white "feathery"
tentacles of the long cylindrical-twisted serpulae, and
marvellously-transparent streaked shrimps, all leg, and feeler, and eye,
and "nose"--in the salt-water tanks in the Vivarium.--_A. White, in
"Excelsior."_
S. BISSET AND HIS LEARNED PIG.
S. Bisset, formerly referred to, when at Belfast bought a black sucking
pig, and after several experiments succeeded in training a creature, so
obstinate and perverse by nature, to become most tractable and docile.
In August 1783, he took his learned pig to Dublin for exhibition. "It
was not only under full command, but appeared as pliant and good-natured
as a spaniel. He had taught it to spell the names of any one in the
company, to tell the hour, minute, and second, to make his obeisance to
the company, and he occasioned many a laugh by his pointing out the
married and the unmarried. Some one in authority forced him to leave
Dublin, and he died broken-hearted shortly after at Chester, on his way
to London, where forty and more years before he had first been induced
to train animals."[203]
QUIXOTE BOWLES FOND OF PIGS.
Southey records of Quixote Bowles that he "had a great love for pigs; he
thought them the happiest of all God's creatures, and would walk twenty
miles to see one that was remarkably fat. This love extended to bacon;
he was an epicure in it; and whenever he went out to dinner, took a
piece of his own curing in his pocket, and requested the cook to dress
it."[204]
ON JEKYLL NEARLY THROWN DOWN BY A VERY SMALL PIG.
"As Jekyll walk'd out in his gown and his wig,
He happen'd to tread on a very small pig;
'Pig of science,' he said, 'or else I'm mistaken,
For surely thou art an _abridgment of Bacon_.'"[205]
GOOD ENOUGH FOR A PIG.
An Irish peasant being asked why he permitted his pig to take up its
quarters with his family, made an answer abounding with satirical
_naivete_. "Why not? Doesn't the place afford every convenience that _a
pig can require_?"[206]
Mrs Fry, in 1827, visited Ireland on one of her Christian and
philanthropic tours. In a letter to her children from Armagh she
says--"Pigs abound; I think they have rather a more elegant appearance
than ours, their hair often rather curled. Perhaps naturalists may
attribute this to their intimate association with their betters!"[207]
THE COUNTRYMAN'S CRITICISM ON THE PIGS IN GAINSBOROUGH'S PICTURE OF THE
GIRL AND PIGS.
Thomas Gainsborough, the great English painter, exhibited, in 1782,
among pictures of noblemen, gentlemen, and ladies, his well-known "Girl
and Pigs."[208]
Wolcot, better known as "Peter Pindar," in his first "Ode to the Royal
Academicians," refers to this picture.
"And now, O Muse, with song so big,
Turn round to Gainsborough's Girl and Pig,
Or Pig and Girl, I rather should have said;
The pig in white, I must allow,
Is really a well painted sow,
I wish to say the same thing of the maid."
"The expression and truth of nature in the Girl and Pigs," remarks
Northcote, "were never surpassed. Sir Joshua Reynolds was struck with
it, though he thought Gainsborough ought to have made her a beauty."
Reynolds, indeed, became the purchaser of the painting at one hundred
guineas, Gainsborough asking but sixty. During its exhibition, it is
said to have attracted the attention of a countryman, who
remarked--"They be deadly like pigs, but nobody ever saw pigs feeding
together but what one on 'em had a foot in the trough."
HOOK AND THE LITTER OF PIGS.
Once a gentleman, who had the marvellous gift of shaping a great many
things out of orange-peel, was displaying his abilities at a
dinner-party before Theodore Hook and Mr Thomas Hill, and succeeded in
counterfeiting a pig. Mr Hill tried the same feat; and after destroying
and strewing the table with the peel of a dozen oranges, gave it up,
with the exclamation, "Hang the pig! I _can't_ make him." "Nay, Hill,"
exclaimed Hook, glancing at the mess on the table, "you have done more;
instead of one pig, you have made a _litter_."[209]
Hook, we may add, was an original wit. He did not, like most professed
wits, study his sayings before, and arrange with his seeming opponent
for an imaginary war of words. He was an _impromptu_ wit.
JESTS ABOUT SWINE.
Lord Chancellor Hardwicke's bailiff, having been ordered by his lady to
procure a sow of a particular description, came one day into the
dining-room when full of company, proclaiming with a burst of joy he
could not suppress--"I have been at Royston Fair, my lady, and I have
got a sow exactly of _your ladyship's_ size."[210]
* * * * *
John was thought to be very stupid. He was sent to a mill one day, and
the miller said--"John, some people say you are a fool! Now, tell me,
what you do know, and what you don't know."--"Well," replied John, "I
know millers' hogs are fat!"--"Yes, that's well, John; now, what don't
you know?"--"I don't know _whose corn_ fats 'em."[211]
PIGS AND SILVER SPOON.
The Earl of P---- kept a number of swine at his seat in Wiltshire, and
crossing the yard one day, he was surprised to see the pigs gathered
round one trough, and making a great noise. Curiosity prompted him to
see what was the cause, and on looking into the trough he perceived a
large silver spoon. A servant-maid came out, and began to abuse the pigs
for crying so. "Well they may," said his lordship, "when they have got
but one _silver spoon_ among them all."
* * * * *
We have heard of one nobleman in Strathearn, who, when a young man, used
to be thus addressed by his mother--"William! how are the children _and
your pigs_?"[212]
SYDNEY SMITH ON BEAUTIFUL PIGS.
DEFINITION OF BEAUTY BY A UTILITARIAN.
"Go to the Duke of Bedford's piggery at Woburn, and you will see a breed
of pigs with legs so short, that their stomachs trail upon the ground;
a breed of animals entombed in their own fat, overwhelmed with
prosperity, success, and farina. No animal could possibly be so
disgusting, if it were not useful; but a breeder who has accurately
attended to the small quantity of food it requires to swell this pig out
to such extraordinary dimensions,--the extraordinary genius it displays
for obesity,--and the laudable propensity of the flesh to desert the
cheap regions of the body, and to agglomerate on those parts which are
worth ninepence a pound,--such an observer of its utility does not
scruple to call these otherwise hideous quadrupeds a beautiful race of
pigs!"[213]
JOSEPH STURGE, WHEN A BOY, AND THE PIGS.
When Joseph Sturge, that good Quaker, was in his sixth year, his
biographer, Henry Richard,[214] records that he was on a visit to a
friend of his mother's at Frenchay, near Bristol. Sauntering about one
day, he came near the house of an eccentric man, a Quaker, who was much
annoyed by the depredations of his neighbour's pigs. Half in jest, and
half in earnest, he told the lad to drive the pigs into a pond close by.
Joseph, nothing loath, set to work with a will, delighted with the fun.
The woman, to whom the pigs belonged, came out presently, broom in hand,
flourishing it over the young sinner's head. The tempter was standing
by, and sought to cover his share of the transaction by shaking his head
and saying--"Ah,
'Satan finds some mischief still
For idle hands to do.'
The child looked up at him indignantly, and said, 'Thee bee'st Satan
then, for thee told'st me to do it.'"
FOOTNOTES:
[194] "Letters from Sarawak," p. 104. 1854.
[195] "Divides the hoof, and is cloven-footed, yet cheweth not the cud"
(Lev. ii. 7).
[196] Boner's "Chamois Hunting in the Mountains of Bavaria," p. 97.
[197] "Travels" (Home and Colonial Library), p. 147.
[198] "Travels in Syria and the Holy Land," p. 9.
[199] Symbolae Physicae.
[200] _Potamochoerus penicellatus._ [Greek: Potamos], a river; [Greek:
choiros], a pig; _penicellatus_, pencilled. It is said to be the _Sus
porcus_ of Linnaeus.
[201] "A New and Accurate Description of the Coast of Guinea, written
originally in Dutch." London, 1705, p. 247.
[202] See Dr Sutherland's interesting account in his "Journal of a
Voyage in Baffin Bay and Barrow's Straits in the years 1850, 1851;" a
truly excellent work on the Arctic regions, by one who is now Surveyor
of Natal.
[203] See Biography in G. H. Wilson's _Eccentric Mirror_, i., No. 3, p.
30.
[204] "Common-Place Book," iv. p. 514.
[205] Mark Lemon, "Jest Book," p. 107.
[206] _Ibid._, p. 337.
[207] "Memoir of the Life of Elizabeth Fry," vol. ii. p. 30. 1847.
[208] "Life of Thomas Gainsborough, R.A.," by the late George William
Fulcher, edited by his Son, p. 122. 1856.
[209] Mark Lemon, "Jest Book," p. 328.
[210] _Ibid._, p. 2.
[211] Mark Lemon, "Jest Book," p. 31. The latter of these jests is
attributed by Dean Ramsay to a half-witted Ayrshire man, who said he
"kenned a miller had aye a gey fat sow."--_Reminiscences_, p. 197.
[212] Mark Lemon, "Jest Book," p. 269. This worthy nobleman was and is
much attached to his home-farm. He is well known in Perthshire.
[213] "Wit and Wisdom of Rev. Sydney Smith," third edition, p. 253. From
a lecture at Royal Institution.
[214] "Memoirs of Joseph Sturge," by Henry Richard.
HORSE.
The noblest animal employed by man, and consequently the subject of many
volumes of anecdote,--a study for the painter and sculptor, from the
days of the Greek and Assyrian artists to the present day. Charles
Darwin and Sir Francis Head have given graphic descriptions of the
catching of the wild horse, which swarms on the Pampas of South America.
How pathetic to see the led horse following the bier of a soldier! It
was, perhaps, the most affecting incident in the long array of the
funeral of the great Duke.
In the Museum at Brussels, Dr Patrick Neill observed, in 1817, "the
stuffed skin of the horse belonging to one of the Alberts, who governed
the Low Countries in the time of the Spaniards. It was shot under him in
the field, and the holes made in the thorax by the musket bullets are
still very evident."[215]
Poor Copenhagen, the Duke's charger at Waterloo, was buried. Many would
have liked his skin or skeleton. The Duke resisted all attempts to give
his old friend up for such a purpose. We hope no resurrectionist
succeeded in getting up his bones, years after his burial at
Strathfieldsaye.
BELL-ROCK HORSE.
The Bell-Rock Lighthouse, built on a dangerous range of rocks twelve
miles south by east from Arbroath, was begun by Robert Stevenson on the
17th August 1807, and finished in October 1810. Mr Jervise[216] records
that "one horse, the property of James Craw, a labourer in Arbroath, is
believed to have drawn the entire materials of the building. The animal
latterly became a _pensioner_ of the Lighthouse Commissioners, and was
sent by them to graze on the Island of Inchkeith, where it died of old
age in 1813. Dr John Barclay, the celebrated anatomist, had its bones
collected and arranged in his museum, which he bequeathed at his death
to the Royal College of Surgeons, and in their museum at Edinburgh the
skeleton of the _Bell-Rock horse_ may yet be seen."
BURKE AND THE HORSE.