Africa, India, and the Soudan. That is in itself a credential for his
book; for no one not possessed of an equable and reflective temper could
have gone through his experiences and yet be enthusiastic over his
branch of the profession, and, above all, over what he justly calls that
“little-known and strangely unsympathetic animal,” the camel. Yet Major
Leonard’s practical experience leads him to the conclusion that, of all
transport animals, it is the best for military use in the East.
Incidentally, he gives us an historical note on Mr. Rudyard Kipling’s
immortal ballad on the Commissariat Camel—
“The driver question in Afghanistan was enough to appal the heart of the
stoutest transport officer. They deserted, and soldiers had to be told
off to act as drivers. On December 20, 1878, I had to leave 161 bags of
Commissariat stores on the ground, many of the drivers having deserted,
and taken their camels with them. This is a common trick of the Sind
drivers. They go back by a circuitous route, and in many cases—it is
said—are re-engaged by the Commissariat.”
The place assigned to the camel in this estimate need not raise any
bright ideal of the creature as a travelling companion. Mr. R. Kipling’s
remark, that you might as well lavish your affections on a luggage-van
as on a camel, still holds good. But there is a balance in favour of the
camel when compared with other Oriental beasts of burden. The
experiences of a single march, noted by Major Leonard, gives a glimpse
of the comparative “cussedness” of different transport animals, which is
as fresh as it is amusing. The occasion was the advance of the Candahar
force from Quetta in the last Afghan War. At the crossing of the river
Lora, at the foot of the Kojak-Amran range, the camels were swallowed up
wholesale in the quicksands, owing entirely to their extraordinary
stupidity. We quote this incident first, because the one serious
drawback to the use of the camel consists precisely in this strange
insensibility to danger—
“The river was not very broad, and not more than two feet deep in any
part of the stream; but the bed was full of quicksands, in whose
treacherous depths many an unfortunate camel perished. It is only
natural to suppose, that by sheer force of example an ordinarily
intelligent animal would have learnt to avoid the danger, by seeing
those which preceded it sinking deeper and deeper out of sight. Yet
these camels plodded steadily on into the quicksands, though those which
had preceded them were disappearing so fast that in many cases only
their necks and heads were visible.”
Not a single horse, elephant, or mule, was lost in this way in crossing
the ford, and they one and all displayed a marked and consistent caution
which was clearly the result of reason—
“One elephant, which the officer commanding the 6-11 Battery of the
Royal Artillery lent to assist in extricating some camels which were
being engulfed in the quicksands, showed an amount of sagacity which was
positively marvellous. It was with the utmost difficulty that we could
get him to go near enough to attach a drag-rope to one camel I wanted to
rescue. In spite of our being about fifty yards from the bank of the
river, he evinced the greatest anxiety, while his movements were made
with extreme caution. Despite coaxing, persuasive remonstrance, and at
last a shower of heavy blows dealt upon his head by the exasperated
mahout, this elephant stubbornly refused to go where he was wanted, but,
with his trunk shoved out in front of him, kept feeling his way with his
ponderous feet, placing them before him slowly, deliberately, and
methodically, treading all the while with the velvety softness of a cat,
and taking only one step at a time. Then suddenly he would break out
into a suppressed kind of shriek, and retreat backwards in great haste.
When the animal had nearly completed a circuit of the ground with the
same caution and deliberation, he advanced to within ten yards of the
poor camel, but not another inch would he move, though several men were
walking between him and the camel without any signs of the ground giving
way.”
But if the camel is too mechanical, the elephant is too soft for the
hardships of the baggage train or rough country. He requires good roads,
a temperate climate, and meals not only “regular,” but luxurious. Ten
elephants out of eleven reached Candahar safely in 1878, on a diet of
chapatties, rice, sugar, and two bottles of rum apiece after their
supper. No wonder “the faces of the men, and their remarks, as they
looked on with watering mouths and overpowering envy, were worthy of a
camp-ballad by Rudyard Kipling.” Yet this is, we submit, an error on the
right side, both in economy and efficiency. Which cost most, the
elephants’ comforts on the road to Candahar, or the ninety-two camels
which dropped from exhaustion and hunger on the first day’s march back
from Metemmeh, where the day before 50,000 lbs. weight of stores had
been flung into the Nile? The “patient ox” combines the cunning of the
mule with a spirit of revenge which is generally attributed to the
camel, though Count Gleichen states, that only one case of camel-bite
was reported to him during the Nile expedition. A leading bullock on the
Candahar march lay down six times, and when it was at last reluctantly
agreed that the creature must be dying from exhaustion, it “rushed at a
private and tossed him ten feet in the air, then on to the next man and
sent him flying, and lastly at its own driver, whom it tumbled over like
a ninepin, while the rest took refuge behind the wagons.” The creature
would not move in harness, and finally had to be unyoked and driven into
camp. The mule is the handiest and hardiest, the donkey the least
trouble, and the pony the pleasantest of all pack animals, according to
Major Leonard’s experience, the Spanish donkeys and Sicilian mules being
perhaps the finest and most useful of their respective kinds. But though
military opinion is, on the whole, in favour of the mule, he gives facts
and figures to show that the camel, unmanaged as it is, is a still more
economical and effective beast for military service. Its power of
enduring hunger and thirst is greater, it carries double the load of two
mules, needs fewer drivers, is never shod, and costs less to buy and
less to keep; for food and water have to be carried for miles in desert
country, while the camel browses on almost any shrub, and can make the
ordinary caravan march from well to well.
This opinion must not rest on general considerations, for the good
working example of the comparative efficiency of the two animals in a
campaign is obtainable. Lord Roberts, on his march from Cabul to
Candahar, covered a daily average of fourteen and a half miles for
nineteen days. This was done with mules and ponies, the camels belonging
to the regiments being exchanged for the former. In the Bayuda Desert
the camels travelled thirty-four miles daily in the first march; and
allowing for the two days’ rest and two of fighting, nearly thirty miles
a day in the second march of two hundred miles. But in this case the
camels were starved, and worked to death. The difference between the
careful treatment of the cavalry horse—Marbot’s reminiscences of his
life as a cavalry officer must have opened the eyes of many readers to
the practical anxieties of that profession—and the ignorant neglect of
the camel suggests a doubt whether the Englishman is really so adaptable
as we are pleased to think. The two hundred pages which Major Leonard
devotes to instruction in feeding, watering, loading, doctoring,
equipping, and purchasing camels, contain so many “glimpses of the
obvious” that the reference as to our general neglect of this
indispensable animal for Asiatic warfare is irresistible.
The two great breeding grounds of the camel are the whole central zone
of Asia north of the Himalayas, and the centre and northern fringe of
the African Soudan. With the latter we are in touch through the frontier
tribes of Egypt, and there is little doubt that we could make Egypt the
nucleus of a camel transport unrivalled in the history of the world. But
unless our officers and men have some training in their management, the
suffering camels will continue to cause, as they have hitherto in our
frontier wars, an embarrassed strategy, neglected sick, and an
ill-supported soldiery. A permanent camel transport service in Egypt and
on the north-west frontier of India would probably save in our next
considerable war, millions of money and hundreds of soldiers’ lives.
------------------------------------------------------------------------
THE CANADIAN BEAVER.
INDIAN tradition ascribes the rescue of the world from its aqueous ages
to the industry and intelligence of the beaver, the animal which first
learnt to control and turn to account the opposing elements of land and
water. The beavers were of gigantic size, before the Great Spirit
smoothed them down to their present dimensions, after they had completed
his work on the unfinished earth; and they, with their fellow-workers,
the musquash and the otter, dived and brought up the mud, and with it
made mountains and lakes, caves and cataracts, dividing the land from
the waters, while the envious spirits of evil pelted the Titan beavers
with gigantic rocks, which still strew the plains and valleys with
monstrous boulders of misshapen stone. If the legend needed any
justification beyond its picturesqueness and simplicity, a study of Mr.
Martin’s work on _The History and Traditions of the Canadian Beaver_[15]
would almost bear out the Indian belief, that the intelligence and
mechanical skill of the beaver were prior and superior to that of man in
the development of the New World. The exaggerated descriptions of the
beaver-lodges and engineering feats given by the early French Canadians,
hardly deserve the author’s condemnation; the works themselves are so
complete and so ingenious, that the symmetrical additions of early
explorers add but little to the facts which their incomplete
observations only partially grasped. That a creature whose engineering
structures were based, consciously or unconsciously, on principles only
known to highly civilized man, should embellish them with conveniences
known to half-civilized man, was a natural inference; and to credit the
beaver with a wish to insert windows in the walls of his lodge was no
great flight of fancy to men who had seen with their own eyes that the
same animal could construct a dyke a mile long, with the precise section
which human experience has determined to be that best adapted to resist
the forces of pent-up water. Mr. Martin has so well fulfilled the
promise of his title-page, to present an “exhaustive monograph popularly
written” on the life and history of the beaver, that an attempt to
follow the varied commercial, historical, and palæontological references
in which the story of the beaver abounds, would be impossible. It will,
perhaps, be sufficient to consider the main questions of the
extraordinary intelligence exhibited by the animal, and the possibility
of its preservation from the total destruction with which the species is
now threatened. So far as the most careful modern observation shows,
there is but one claim which has been seriously made for the beaver’s
sagacity which is matter for doubt. It has been asserted that the animal
always cuts the trees it selects, so that they may fall towards the
water. There is evidence that this is not _always_ the case. But trees
growing near the water naturally tend to lean towards the stream, and
naturally extend the heaviest growth of branches over the water, where
light and space are greatest, and the greater number of those cut by the
beavers would probably fall in that direction without any special
provision. But the inseparable features of a beaver-colony, the dyke or
“dam,” and the less famous but almost equally wonderful “canal,”
suggests an estimate of brain-power or inherited instinct for mechanics
which an exhaustive examination of the facts heightens rather than
diminishes.
Footnote 15:
Edward Stanford: London.
The object of the dam is to supply a temporary want, not a permanent
necessity always present to the beaver-mind. In summer, the beavers
wander up the streams, finding food without difficulty. In winter, they
require a permanent supply of water at a certain level, in which they
can swim beneath the ice, store their supply of branches for food so as
to be accessible without exposing themselves, and keep a “moat” round
their lodges. Left to itself, the stream would run low in winter, when
the freezing of the snow and earth stops the water-supply. Hence the
necessity for the dam to maintain it at a constant level. Such a train
of arguments supposes a number of “concepts” in the beaver’s brain which
would occur to no other animal. To carry it out efficiently would puzzle
most human beings not acquainted with engineering. Moreover, the work
must be done with the material at hand, so that beaver-dams are found
built of branches and mud, of grass, of sand, and of mud only. To get
the wood to the water-side, the beaver clears paths, or “rolling-ways,”
cuts a water-channel to meet and assist in the transportation of the
wood, and in some cases actually makes a long canal for water-carriage
and safe travelling. “Though the beaver-canal is not so popularly
known,” writes Mr. Martin, “and is more easily reconciled with instinct,
it must not be supposed that it is a minor feature in the performances
of this animal; it is almost incredible that a work, so apparently
artificial, could have remained unnoticed till 1868, when Mr. Morgan
published his valuable notes, so amply illustrating the works of the
American beaver. When the colony has been settled quietly for many
years, and has cut all the desirable trees close at hand, and further
supplies are sometimes hundreds of yards away, the necessity for clear
rolling-ways and good canals is obvious.” No doubt the necessity is
obvious, but that does not explain the wonder that a small rodent animal
should anticipate civilized man, and make a road to bring commodities to
its city, instead of shifting to a fresh encampment like the Red Indian
himself when supplies are exhausted. Our estimate of the _individual_
intelligence of beavers must greatly depend on the power of adaptation
shown by them in special cases. Mr. Martin seems to lean to the opinion
that the creature is controlled by a dominant instinct, which makes its
action almost automatic, and alleges this want of adaptability as an
insurmountable obstacle to its domestication. The instances given of its
behaviour in captivity hardly justify such a conclusion. A tame beaver,
kept as a pet in a trapper’s hut, “used to lie before the fire as
contentedly as a dog. It was not till winter set in that it became a
nuisance. Poor old Bill McHugh’s house was well ventilated, an open
chink between the logs being thought very little of by himself and his
family; but the beaver was very impatient of such negligence, and used
to work all night at making things air-tight and comfortable, without
much discrimination as to the materials it employed. If Bill or his
guests went to bed leaving their moccasins and tichigans drying before
the fire, they were certain to be found in the morning stowed away in
some chink or cranny; and stray blankets and articles of clothing were
found torn up for the same purpose.” That was contrary to our notions of
housekeeping, but the beaver’s wish to keep out the cold was not more
“instinctive” than that of any squatter’s wife on a Surrey heath. The
preparations made to meet the severe cold of the winter of 1890 by the
beavers at the “Zoo” in Regent’s Park were an odd mixture of cleverness
and what seems too like the stupidity of “instinct.” Their “lodge” was
partly their own building, and partly “subsidized” by the authorities.
That is, it had a roof of corrugated iron supported by strong posts at
the corners. The sides were carefully built up with branches set on end
by the beavers themselves, and well plastered with mud, which they push
in with their fore-paws and pat down hard. They not only carried the
plaster up to the “eaves” of the house, but patted a quantity of mud
down on the iron roof, a quite unnecessary labour, except on the
assumption that there were joints in it which require filling. The whole
was crowned with a pile of branches, which served no useful purpose.
Last year these beavers dug a canal from the stone-rimmed pond to one of
the burrows running under their house. We were not able to see whether
it actually joined the pond, or whether the rim of stone which divided
it from the pool at the surface was continued downwards. In any case,
they had managed to fill the canal with water, and had a clear waterway
from the house to the edge of the pool. They were also busy cutting
through a poplar stem; the largest chip of wood lying at its foot
measured 3½ in. Another stump was being carefully gnawed into fine
sawdust, which was probably intended for bedding.
Since then the beavers have been supplied with a fine new house of
concrete, which will probably keep out their enemies the rats which
invaded the old house, though it will leave less inducements to the
animals to go on with their interesting building feats. Yet as soon as
the new house was completed they at once set to work to scratch out a
“canal” in the run, and managed to fill it partly with muddy water.
If the beaver is to be saved from extermination, some means for its
artificial preservation must be found, though, from the failure of the
attempts made in Prussia and elsewhere in Central Europe to save the
species—so late as 1725 an edict was published in Berlin prohibiting the
destruction of the beavers of the Elbe—Mr. Martin is not hopeful of
success, even in Canada. Lord Bute’s colony in the island from which he
takes his title appear to have been less fortunate than was at first
supposed. In 1883, when it was desired to send specimens to the
Fisheries Exhibition, it was found that their numbers, as estimated by
the work done, had been much exaggerated, and the enclosure was
completely ransacked before a couple could be secured. One hundred and
eighty-seven large trees were cut down by the beavers between 1874 and
1878. In that time they dammed a pool seventy-eight yards long, and
constructed seven dykes, one having an embankment of one hundred and
five feet. But in spite of the difficulties which their engineering
industry presents to their would-be preservers, proposals for a
“beaver-ranch” are still being discussed in Canada; and though
experience forbids the hope that they can be kept for profit, sentiment
may yet succeed in preserving the creature which has been adopted as the
“totem” of the pale-faces’ colony by the great Lakes.
------------------------------------------------------------------------
THE TEMPER OF ANIMALS.
THE old theory that animal good-temper might be accounted for on the
ground that animals are sensible of pleasure and pain, but not of
advantage and disadvantage, was only a half-truth, for animals are
subject to jealousy, and jealousy is the direct result of a feeling of
personal disadvantage. But it draws attention to the fact that occasions
for disagreement in the case of most animals are rare and unusual.
Questions of domicile are almost the sole ground of discord in the
animal world, with the exception of the fierce dissensions raised at
pairing-time, and even in the last case combat is only general in the
case of polygamous animals. Deer fight more fiercely than wolves, and
wild sheep than lions; and though there is, or was, an eagle in the Zoo
which was caught locked in the talons of another eagle when fighting in
the spring, the fiercest birds are usually friendly with their own
species, and while ruffs and black-game fight like gladiators for their
wives, the eagles and the peregrines as a rule mate in peace. Proximity,
the severest trial to human temper, seldom ruffles the animal mind, and
different species live in harmony together, each seeming, as in the case
of the owls and the prairie-dogs, or rooks and starlings, rather to
prefer than shun the society of the other. The choicest spots for homes
are naturally the source of warfare among birds, and other animals
frequently fight for the possession of some favourite breeding-place.
Badgers and foxes which have shared the same earth during winter often
fight for sole possession in the spring, when the fox invariably wins, a
result which would hardly be expected from the relative physique of the
two animals. But such quarrels are only for the sake of rearing their
young, not for selfish reasons; and even apprehended pressure of the
food-supply rarely excites ill-will, except in the case of the largest
carnivorous birds and animals, which require a wider range for hunting,
and drive their young to other districts. The rodents and ruminants are
less jealous; and that strong social and gregarious instinct which the
existence of ill-temper as a permanent characteristic would inevitably
destroy, keeps them together in peace and harmony. They love society,
and not the least marked difference between the temperament of animals
and men, is that animals do not by mere contact irritate each other,—a
positive and not unimportant compensation for the absence of the gift of
speech.
Since occasions of difference are so few, nothing but the assumption of
an ancient and inbred malignity in animal minds, such as the author of
_Three Men in a Boat_ supposes in the case of fox-terriers to have been
due to a double dose of original sin, could justify the view so
generally held that animals are, as a rule, ferocious and ill-tempered,
a notion summed up in Mr. Burnand’s conclusion in _Happy Thoughts_, that
most of the creatures with which he came in contact in the country were,
“when not dangerous, always very uncertain.” The exact contrary would be
nearer the truth. Animal temper is naturally pacific, equable, and mild.
Bad temper is the privilege of more highly organized natures; and the
mild resentment of the placable tiger finds its development in the
apoplectic fury of the mandrill and the measured malice of mankind.
Horace’s suggestion, that Prometheus added to the ill-temper of man the
strength of a mad lion, must be taken literally. The general law of
good-nature in the animal world makes the exceptions all the more
remarkable. Quarrelsome species appear among a friendly tribe, just as
an ill-tempered individual does in a kindly species. The ruminants are a
most peaceful race, yet deer are savage, and so is that handsome Indian
antelope the nilgai. A tame stag is a very dangerous pet, and even the
beautiful roebuck has been known to kill a boy in a wild fit of rage.
But the fiercest and most vindictive of all, with the exception of the
Cape buffalo, is the South African gnu, which never loses its ill-temper
when tamed, and always remains among the few dangerous animals which the
keepers at the Zoo have to deal with. Hardly less ill-tempered are the
zebras and the wild asses, which suggests that human mismanagement is
not entirely to blame for the occasional ill-temper and obstinacy of
mules and donkeys. To the ill-tempered species we may add the buffalo
and the two-horned black rhinoceros. The last is really ferocious,
charging down on any creature, man or beast, without provocation, and
capable of inflicting mortal wounds even on the lion, the elephant, or
its own kind.