ANIMAL LIFE IN THE PRAIRIES OF THE OLD WORLD:--HERBIVOROUS ANIMALS.
To the prodigal Flora of the Tropics, which we shall soon see displaying
in the virgin forests its exuberant fecundity, corresponds a Fauna no
less rich, and marked by a singular variety.
This Fauna offers, especially in the Old World, an impressive character
of power, strength, superior force--I had almost said, _majesty_. In
truth, if we do calmly compare the mammals and the birds of tropical
America with those which roam the wild plains of Africa, Hindostan, the
Indo-Chinese peninsula, and the great islands of the Indian Ocean, we
cannot but recognize the evident superiority of the latter. The
anthropoid Ape, the enormous Pachyderms, Elephant, Rhinoceros,
Hippopotamus, Giraffe, and, among animals of the same order, the
Antelopes, many of which attain the dimensions of the Horse, belong
exclusively to the Eastern Hemisphere. The genus Camel, represented in
Asia by the Bactrian Camel, in Africa by the Dromedary, is but weakly
typified in South America by the Lama, the Vicuña, and the Alpaca, not
inelegant in form, but of a markedly inferior stature. And what equality
is there between the lordly Tiger of the rank Indian jungles, and the
sleek, stealthy Jaguar of the American wilderness? Or who will venture
to compare the so-called "Lion of America," the Puma or Cougouar, with
the regal quadruped which makes the hot Libyan wastes re-echo with his
terrible roar?
Among the Birds, the Phenicoptera, with its disproportionate legs and
neck, distributed over all the ancient continent below 40° of latitude,
and the Ostrich, properly so called, are much superior in dimensions to
their analogues on the other side of the Atlantic, the American Flamingo
and the Nandou. So do the Eagles and Vultures of Europe, Asia, and
Africa prevail in numbers and force over those of the New World. And the
ancient continent can likewise claim as its own the gigantic Epiornis,
the wonderful "Roc Bird" of the well-known Oriental legend, whose
petrified eggs and some of whose fossil bones have been discovered in
Madagascar. It is true, however, that the greatest of living Raptores,
the Condor, inhabits exclusively the Cordillera of the Andes:--
"Stands solitary, stands immovable
Upon some highest cliff, and rolls his eye,
Clear, constant, unobservant, unabashed,
In the cold light, above the dews of morn."--(_W. S. Landor._)
But the balance is re-established by the Erpetological and Entomological
Fauna of the New World, which can oppose its huge Boas, its Caïmans and
Pythons, to the Crocodiles and Gavials of Africa and Asia; its Crotali
and Trigonocephali to the Najas of India, the Echidnas of the Cape, and
the Cerastes of Egypt and the Sahara; while the Bull Frog of the United
States and the Pipa of Guiana are only found on the banks of the vast
lonesome swamps of the new continent. As far as the Desert World is
concerned, in both hemispheres the legions are innumerable, and their
energies commensurate to the greatness of the continual work of
destruction and purification which they seem destined to accomplish in
all tropical countries.
It is unnecessary to carry any further the parallel between the two
hemispheres. We shall more clearly detect their analogies and
differences by pursuing the study, already opened up in the Steppes and
Seas of Sand, of the principal species proper to the various forms of
the Desert, the different regions and divisions of the Savage World.
Yet I must confess that the difficulties of the study increase with the
extent of the field we are called upon to explore. The Steppes and
Wildernesses of Sand constitute, both in Africa and Asia, regions which
are clearly defined, and the poverty both of their fauna and their flora
fixes a definite limit to the researches of the naturalist. Such is not
the case in the immense countries which now lie before us. Instead of
sighing, like Alexander, for more worlds to conquer, the student of
science is ever deploring the impossibility of exhausting even a single
division of the grand work before him. "Art is long; life is short." The
most industrious among us can never rise to the full height of his
glorious task; must always remain like a child on the shore of the ocean
of truth, and be content with the few shells his nerveless hand
contrives to gather. In the wide regions we are about to traverse we
feel at every step the colossal character of the enterprise. Every
instant their aspect changes; Nature never repeats herself; their
products vary with the latitude, the climate, and the soil. To pass in
review all the trees and plants and flowers which flourish there, all
the animals and peoples which dwell among them, would be nothing less
than to embrace in a vast encyclopædia the description and history of
two organic kingdoms. But such is not the design of the present volume.
I have not undertaken to give an exact picture of nature, which would
task to the uttermost the powers of men of such diverse genius as
Humboldt, Owen, Lyell, Darwin, Tyndall, Hooker, and Ruskin, but to
sketch the bold outlines and more prominent features of the physiognomy
of the Desert World, and not to reproduce its more minute details.
My embarrassment, then, arises less from the multitude and infinite
variety of the objects we have to examine, than from the difficulty of
harmonizing the study with the divisions of this work. How, in fact, can
I establish a positive distinction between the animals of the Prairies
or the Savannahs and those of the Forests, between those of the latter
and the animals proper to the Mountains? For such a purpose it is
needful that each of these forms of the Desert World should possess its
peculiar fauna; which is true only within very narrow limits. In
reality, most animals inhabit or frequent, according to circumstances,
sometimes one district, sometimes another, without its being possible to
assign with any amount of precision their habitual, or simply their
occasional, abode.
I shall avail myself, therefore, of the liberty allowed to every writer
who does not design a purely didactical work, by not unnecessarily
troubling myself whether the animals whose organization or
characteristics attract our notice, particularly affect a low or
elevated locality, the shady wood or open plain, the pestilential swamp
or the river-watered valley, and by permitting myself, except in the
case of some evident and constant partiality, to place them where the
most eminent observers assure us they are really, if not exclusively,
met with.
On this account, the plains, more or less densely wooded and broken up,
which occupy the greater portion of the African Continent, will readily
furnish us with the opportunity of studying the majority of animals
indigenous to that continent, and, in general, to the entire Tropical
zone of the Old World. In fact, nearly all the genera of Mammals, Birds,
and Reptiles, are there represented by their most characteristic types.
Clothed with a luxuriant vegetation; watered by periodical rains and
numerous streams; intersected by thick masses of forests, groves, and
thickets; relieved from monotonous uniformity by mountain and ravine, by
marshes and lakes of vast extent,--these fields ever exhibit that aspect
of busy life under which we love to represent to ourselves the earth
when she first emerged from the boiling seas of Chaos, when the forces
which had seethed within her bowels for so many thousands of centuries
had been tranquillized by the Divine will, and she was despatched on her
mysterious course to be the theatre of man's glorious destiny.
* * * * *
During the daytime silence and solitude prevail over the open plains. It
is the hour when most animals seek, under the foliage of the trees,
among the tall rank grasses, in the bosom of the waters or under the
surface of the earth, a shelter against the swift burning arrows of the
sun, and repose immovable in their different lairs. But when the great
orb of day sinks towards the horizon, all Nature seems to awake. More
imperious needs succeed to those of rest and slumber; hunger and thirst
stimulate the most sluggish into exertion. Then the reptile begins to
stir in the mud where he lay embedded; the herbivora return to their
fresh pastures, and move towards the rivers and ponds in whose waters
they may slake their thirst; the carnaria take the same road; they know
that in the open plain they will find victims for their murderous jaws.
The Desert is astir with strange sounds and mysterious voices; the air
re-echoes the thousand discordant cries which ring from the mountains
and the rocks; black shadows pass, re-pass, and flit to and fro, in
every direction; terror, rage, agony, voracity, all these instincts
obtain expression in the dreadful concert; it is the orgie of the
appetites, the grand "Witches' Sabbath" of Nature, whose furious
animation slackens towards the middle of the night, until, at sunrise,
the lively accents and joyous melodies of the birds, and the peaceful
pastimes of the other animals of the day, succeed to the lamentations
and sinister invocations of the prowlers of the darkness.
[Illustration: HIPPOPOTAMUS AND CROCODILE OF THE RIVER NILE.]
In the foremost rank of the great animals to which the fauna of Asia and
Africa owes its superiority, I have named the huge Pachyderms,[123]
those mighty colossi which may be regarded as the analogues, in the
terrestrial creation, of the Cetacean giants of the marine creation. The
Pachyderms formed in Cuvier's system a sufficiently natural order, which
modern systematists have dismembered, and, as I believe, a little
arbitrarily. This order comprised, besides the elephants, the
hippopotami, the rhinoceroses, and the tapirs, all the Porcidæ family,
and even the Solidungulates, such as the horse and ass. In the present
work I shall adopt Cuvier's division. The elephant is the denizen of the
forests where, in a succeeding chapter, we shall encounter both him and
the rhinoceros. But the hippopotamus belongs incontestably to the fauna
of the plain. His name (from the Greek) signifies "River Horse." And,
indeed, he lives in the rivers, the pools, the deep marshes; his manners
are essentially amphibious. He dives and swims with a surprising ease
and agility, considering the enormous bulk of his body, and the
shortness of his heavy, unwieldy legs. He is able to remain a long time
under water. His colour is a brownish-black, and his proportions, ten to
twelve feet in length, and eight to ten in height. His head is
immensely large; the mouth cavernous in its prodigious width; the teeth
immensely strong, the incisors and canines of the lower jaw being long,
and curved forwards; these canines or tusks sometimes measure more than
two feet in length, and weigh upwards of six pounds each. Those in the
upper jaw are much smaller, and the front teeth are of a moderate size.
The broad thick lips are beset with scattered tufts of short bristles;
the small quick eyes are placed very near the top of the head; the small
ears are slightly pointed, and lined with short thick hair. His food
mainly consists of the coarse herbage that flourishes on the banks of
lakes and rivers; but Milne Edwards speaks of three or four of them
standing knee-deep in the water, forming an irregular line, and pouncing
upon the fish brought within their reach by the rapid currents. At night
time they abandon their watery haunts to prowl among the sugar-cane
plantations, the fields of millet and rice, which they devour with
eagerness. Their march is so impetuous, that they break down every
barrier; nothing can resist them.
The hippopotamus is spread over all eastern and southern Africa; is
found in Nubia, Ethiopia, Abyssinia; at the Cape, the Senegal and the
Congo. Both the settlers and the natives of these countries hunt them
with ardour for the sake of the ivory they yield, nor is their flesh
despised by a keen appetite and vigorous stomach. Sometimes they
excavate, in the animal's ordinary route, a tolerably deep pit, beset
with sharp pointed poles, and concealed by a covering of leafy branches:
sometimes, in the shade of the evening, they lie in ambuscade among the
bushes, and aim at his huge bulk the deadly bullet, as he comes up from
the water, labouring and bellowing. It is necessary to aim well at his
head; for the rest of his body is almost as invulnerable as that of
Achilles.
Here is a lively picture from Sir Samuel Baker's valuable volumes, in
which the hippopotamus is a foremost figure.
"We were towing through high reeds," he says,[124] "the men invisible,
and the rope mowing over the high tops of the grass, when the noise
disturbed a hippopotamus from his slumber, and he was immediately
perceived close to the boat. He was about half-grown, and in an instant
about twenty men jumped into the water in search of him, thinking him a
mere baby; but as he suddenly appeared, and was about three times as
large as they had expected, they were not very eager to close. However
the reis pluckily led the way, and seized him by the hind leg, when the
crowd of men rushed in, and we had a grand tussle. Ropes were thrown
from the vessel, and nooses were quickly slipped over his head; but he
had the best of the struggle, and was dragging the people into the open
river; I was therefore obliged to end the sport by putting a ball
through his head. He was scored all over by the tusks of some other
hippopotamus that had been bullying him."
After conquering your enemy, kill him and eat him: such is the maxim of
savage life. It was carried out by Sir Samuel Baker and his men, much to
the satisfaction of the conquerors. "A new dish!" exclaims our
traveller; "there is no longer mock-turtle soup; _real_ turtle is _mock_
hippopotamus. I tried boiling the fat, flesh, and skin together, the
result being that the skin assumes the appearance of the green fat of
the turtle, but is far superior. A piece of the head thus boiled, and
then soused in vinegar, with chopped onions, cayenne pepper, and salt,
throws brawn completely in the shade."
The same traveller relates that the natives on the shores of the Albert
N'yanza, previous to embarking on a voyage, cast a handful of beads into
the lake, to propitiate the hippopotamus, that their canoe may not be
upset.
The genus _Tapir_ is wanting in Africa; but we find a species, _Tapirus
Indicus_, in India and the Indian Archipelago, where it was first
noticed by Diard and Duvaucel. These naturalists saw an individual of
this species at Barrackpore, near Calcutta, whither he had been imported
from the island of Sumatra. "I was much surprised," says Diard, "that so
large an animal had not hitherto been discovered; but I was much more
so, on seeing in the Asiatic Society's Museum the head of a similar
animal, a native of Malacca, which had been sent to the Society, on the
29th of April 1806, by M. Faghuarie, governor of that province." This
tapir is as common at Malacca as the rhinoceros and elephant. In size he
closely approaches the common ass. He is black all over, except the
ears, which are fringed with white, and on the back, which is of a pale
gray. His habits are identical with those of the American tapirs, to be
described hereafter.
[Illustration: RHINOCEROS.
African Phacocoerus (_Choeripotamus Africanus_).]
* * * * *
In the African plains, from Nubia and Senegal to the Cape, we meet with
a Pachyderm intermediate between the hippopotamus and the wild boar:
this is the _Phacocoerus_, which was known to the ancients, and
designated by credulous Ælian the _Sus tetrakeros_, or "Boar with Four
Horns." He has no horns, however, but only, beneath each ear, a horny
protuberance, which greatly disfigures his head, and procures him the
popular appellation of the "Warty Hog"--the "Bush Vark," or "Bush Hog"
of South Africa (_Choeripotamus Africanus_). He has four projecting
tusks, and long sharp tufted ears. His stature, his feet, his tail, the
mane of stiff bristles which garnishes his neck, identify him with the
wild boar; but his body, almost naked on the flanks and hinder part,
likens him to an hippopotamus. He is gregarious, of fierce and brutal
habits, and lives chiefly in the bushes or tall herbage.
[Illustration: THE DAW AND THE QUAGGA.]
The Solidungulæ (or Solid-hoofed), which roam among the wide pasturages
of the Tropical regions of the Ancient World, contrast, by the elegance
of their forms and the beauty of their clothing, with the unwieldy
Pachyderms, of rugged and swarthy hide, placed by Cuvier under the same
classification. The Wild Horse does not exist in these latitudes, though
we may find there the most beautiful species of the genus: the Hémione,
the Onagra, the Zebra, the Daw, and the Quagga. The _Hemionus_
("half-ass"), which we are endeavouring to acclimatize in Europe, and
numerous specimens of which may be seen in the Zoological Gardens of
London and Paris, is of a clear brown colour all over the body, except
the belly and legs, which are white. His mane is short, and his tail
garnished only with a tuft of hairs at the extremity. The species is
Asiatic, and appears to have originated in India, whence it spread
westward into Asia Minor, and northward into the Steppes which stretch
to the base of the Himalayas. The modern names are _Koulem_, _Kiang_,
and _Dziggethai_ (or "Mountain Ass"). He roams in great troops across
the dreary Asiatic deserts, and is fond of bitter and saline herbage,
and brackish water. Now, as of old, he has "the range of the mountains
for his pasture," and the "salt places" for his dwelling. His swiftness
and wariness render his chase an exciting pastime, and in Persia he is
considered the noblest of game.
The _Hemippus_ ("half horse"), a species closely allied to the Hemionus,
is a native of the fertile districts of Syria and Arabia. Another
species, the _Tarpan_, roams the Steppes of Tartary, and is with great
difficulty tamed to the use of man. He is of a reddish colour, but the
mane and tail are black, and along the back runs a black stripe. The
_Onagra_, _Onager_, or Wild Ass of Tartary, is represented in Abyssinia
by a smaller variety, of very graceful form, whose hide exhibits
already, upon the legs, some of those well-defined stripes which so
magnificently adorn the "outer vestment" of the Quagga, the Daw, and,
especially, the Zebra.
All these Solidungulæ are identical in habits and character: social
among themselves, they are fierce and mistrustful towards other animals.
When in peril, they seek safety at first by rapid flight; but if driven
to bay, they assume a courageous bearing, assail their enemies
intrepidly, and frequently compel them to retreat. It is even asserted
that the Quagga (_Asinus Quagga_) will mingle with herds of domestic
animals, and defend them against the attacks of beasts of prey.
According to Dr. Gray, this animal derives his name from his voice,
which resembles the barking of a dog, or a sound like _Couagg_, or
_Quag_. Pennant calls him the _Quacha_. He resembles the horse in his
haughty bearing and rapid movements. His head, neck, mane, and shoulders
are blackish-brown, banded with white; the stomach, hind parts, and
legs are whitish; the dorsal line is black; the ears have two irregular
black bands and a white tip. In the _Daw_, the blackish-brown tint
extends over all the upper parts of the body, as well as the stripes,
which are alternately black and light brown. The Quagga and the Daw
belong to Southern Africa, and especially to Caffraria. The habitat of
the Zebra appears to be more extended in range. He is found even as far
north as Abyssinia. He was known to the Romans under the name of the
_Hippotigres_, and figured in the sanguinary sports of the Amphitheatre.
Assuredly he is the handsomest species of the genus _Equus_ (Horse). He
is as tall as the Hemionus; his legs are shapely, his mien and bearing
full of spirit; he has a well-proportioned head, and a coat of
incomparable richness of design, with the skin lustrous, and large black
stripes symmetrically arranged over the whole body, on a ground of pure
white.
[Illustration: ZEBRAS (_Equus Zebra_).]
* * * * *
Africa, as I have said above, is the native country of the large
Ruminants. Not less remarkable than the Camel in the fantastic
originality of his form, which matches the exquisite richness of his
skin, the gigantic _Giraffe_ (_Camelopardalis Giraffa_) is distributed
over nearly the whole continent south of the Sahara. Sometimes he even
ventures into the Desert; but most frequently his long neck and tall
legs are seen in the fertile plains of Negroland, the Soudan, the
Senegal, and Nubia. "His head," says a popular zoologist, "resembles
that of the camel in the absence of a naked muzzle, and in the shape and
organization of the nostrils, which are oblique and narrow apertures,
defended by the hair which grows from their margins, and surrounded by
cutaneous muscular fibres, by which the animal can close them at will.
This is a beautiful provision for the defence of the air passages, and
the irritable membrane lining the olfactory cavities, against the fine
particles of sand which the storms of the Desert raise in almost
suffocating clouds. The large, dark, and lustrous eyes of the giraffe,
which beam with a peculiarly mild but fearless expression, are so placed
as to take in a wider range of the horizon than is subject to the vision
of any other quadruped. While browsing on his favourite acacia, the
giraffe, by means of his laterally-projecting orbits, can direct his
sight so as to anticipate a threatened attack in the rear from the
stealthy lion, or any other foe of the Desert. To an open attack he
sometimes makes a successful defence by striking out his powerful and
well-armed feet; and the king of beasts is said to be frequently
repelled and disabled by the wounds which the giraffe has thus inflicted
with his hoofs." The lion, however, seldom attacks him unless he can
surprise him in a state of repose, when he will leap upon his victim's
back and tear him to pieces.
Le Vaillant has justly observed that if precedency among animals were
determined by their height, the giraffe would hold the first rank. The
most careless observer must be impressed by the enormous length of his
fore-legs, and his long tapering neck, which enables him to browse upon
the fresh foliage and green young shoots of the loftiest trees; nor can
he fail to admire his small and elevated head, his brilliant beaming
eyes, and his mildness of aspect. Unusual as are the animal's
proportions, they are not inharmonious, and his appearance is eminently
picturesque. When full grown, he measures seventeen feet from the top of
the head to the fore-feet. This, however, is a maximum. It should be
added that his fore-legs are not so much longer than the hind, but the
shoulders are extraordinarily high. The animal's colour is a light fawn,
marked with numerous darker spots. His horns consist of two porous bony
substances, about three inches long, which form, as it were, a part of
the skull.
[Illustration: A LION RENDING A GIRAFFE.]
Several species of antelopes and wild oxen traverse in numerous herds
the wide prairies of Africa and Asia. Among the African species, I may
name the _Bubalus_, which lives principally in the north-west, and whose
keen stout horns, disposed like the prongs of a pitchfork, render him
exceedingly formidable; the _Gnu_, or Connochetæ (_Catoblepus Gnu_),
which inhabits the wild karoos and hilly districts of South Africa, in
migratory herds, and is distinguished by the weird ugliness of his head,
with its curved horns, and its beautiful flowing mane, white at the
base, and black at the tips; the _Oreas Lanna_, improperly called the
"Cape Eland" (_Antilope Oreas_), a graceful animal, as large as the
horse, and five feet high at the shoulder, with straight pointed horns,
whose great strength is augmented by a spiral wreath; and the _Oryx_
(_Oryx gazella_), Egyptian Antelope, or Pasom, somewhat superior in size
to a deer, with horns three feet long, black hoofs and horns, a white
head, and neck and upper part of the body of a pale bluish-gray.
Tropical Asia presents but a very small number of Antelopes, properly so
called, of which the _Nylghau_, or White-footed Antelope (_Partux
picta_) is the largest. Its face is long and narrow; its black, round,
and pointed horns, though only about seven inches long, are slightly
curved forwards; the broad ears are fringed with white hairs; along the
top of the deep narrow neck runs a slight mane of black hair, which is
continued to some distance down the back; a long hanging tuft of a
similar colour adorns the breast. This animal is said to have abounded
in the forests between Delhi and Lahore in the days of Aurungzebe, and
formed one of the objects of the chase with that "king of kings" during
his expedition to Cashmere. The Hindoo name, "Nyl-ghau," signifies "blue
ox," which is true of the male, but the female is a pale brown. He is a
courageous animal, very difficult to tame; travellers affirm that when
attacked he throws himself on his knees, and in this position moves
forward, until, suddenly leaping to his feet, he rushes impetuously upon
his enemy, and smites him vigorously with his sharp horns.
I must not omit to particularize, among the great Ruminants of the
Tropical regions of the Old World, the Buffaloes, or Wild Oxen, which
feed in immense troops in the fertile and well-watered prairies. The two
African species or varieties which are best known are, the Buffalo of
Caffraria, and the Short-horned Buffalo. The former is not confined to
the Caffre country, as his name would lead one to suppose; but ranges
as far as Abyssinia. His horns, very wide, and close together at the
base, form, above the eyes, a kind of helmet very useful to the animal
in pushing aside the bushes that impede his progress. His hair is rough
and black over the whole body. The short-horned buffalo has a smooth
brown skin, muzzle nearly black, ears large, horns arched and of
moderate dimensions.
[Illustration: 1. Antelope Gnu. 2. Oreas Lanna (or Eland). 3. Striped or
Banded Gnu.]
These buffaloes, despite of their ferocious aspect and savage habits,
are wholly inoffensive, and in all cases of danger are tempted at first
to take to flight; but should they be pressed too closely, or wounded,
their irascible and vindictive disposition speedily displays itself.
When the negroes hunt the buffalo, says Paul Gervais, they are very
careful to attack isolated individuals only, because, in the herds of
these animals some will always be found disposed to avenge the death of
their companions, and pursue the hunters to the uttermost. In their
excesses of fury they strike the ground with their horns; dash their
bodies against the trees in which their enemies have taken refuge;
sometimes they will spend their rage upon one another, or upon the
bodies of those of their kind which have been brought low.
Asia is the home of the Common Buffalo (_Bos bubalus_), and from thence
he has migrated into several islands of the Indian Archipelago, Eastern
Europe, and even into Italy. In France and Great Britain he has long
been domesticated. But there also exist in several Indian provinces some
savage species of the _Arnee Buffalo_ (_Bos Arni_ of Dr. Shaw), easily
recognized by his horns of prodigious size and length, which frequently
measure six feet in length, and eighteen inches in circumference at the
base.
Travellers have asserted that nearly all the herbivora, and in
particular the more feeble and timorous, evince a marked preference for
open and level places; to such an extent, that the herds of antelopes,
gazelles, and zebras may be seen abandoning their pastures when the
herbage is unusually luxuriant. It is in the thickets, the matted and
almost impenetrable jungles, and among the tall rank grasses, that the
beast of prey glides stealthily and unseen upon his intended victim.
Where the surface of the ground is smooth and bare, the herbivora can
descry an approaching enemy, and take to flight or make ready for
defence. It is not, however, the carnaria that they have most cause to
dread, but man; not less cruel he than the stealthy lion or the prowling
tiger, and far more formidable since European commerce has furnished the
savage with firearms. He quickly learns to make use of these; but prior
to their introduction into wilderness, prairie, and forest, he had
devised against his prey various more or less successful means of
destruction.
In Central Africa, for instance, the Bakouain Negroes, to capture _en
masse_ buffaloes, zebras, giraffes, antelopes, and even rhinoceroses,
which gather in crowds around the grateful waters, construct a colossal
and all-devouring snare, which they call a _Hopo_.
[Illustration: AN AFRICAN HOPO, OR SNARE FOR HERBIVOROUS ANIMALS.]
"This snare," says Dr. Livingstone,[125] "consists of two very stout and
very high fences, approaching each other so as to assume the shape of a
V; at the apex of the angle, instead of completely joining them, they
are prolonged in a straight line, forming an alley about fifty paces in
length, abutting on a ditch which may measure from four to five yards
square, and be from six to eight feet deep. Trunks of trees are arranged
cross-wise on the borders of this trench, chiefly on the side from which
the animals will arrive, and upon the opposite one, by which they will
endeavour to escape. These trees form an advanced border above the
ditch, rendering flight impossible, and the whole is carefully covered
over with reeds, which hide the snare, and make it resemble a trap
placed among the herbage. As the two fences are often a mile in length,
while the base of the triangle which they define is nearly of the same
dimensions, a company who form around the hopo a circle of three to four
miles in circumference, by gradually drawing it closer, are certain to
collect a great quantity of game. The hunters direct by their cries the
animals which they surround, and cause them to reach the summit of the
hopo. Men concealed at this point then fling their javelins into the
midst of the affrighted herd, which, dashing headlong through the
solitary opening it can find, involves itself in the narrow alley
leading to the ditch. The animals fall in pell-mell, until the snare is
filled with a living mass, which enables the others to escape by passing
over the bodies of the victims. The spectacle is horrifying; the
hunters, intoxicated by the pursuit, and no longer controlling
themselves, strike these graceful animals with a delirious joy, while
the poor creatures, crushed to the bottom of the abyss beneath the
weight of the dead and dying, raise from time to time the pile of
carcasses, by struggling, in the midst of their agony, against the
burden which suffocates them."
Of the _corral_ in which the Cingalese entraps the elephant, and of the
ingenious snares laid by the Malay or the Indian for the murderous
tiger, I shall speak hereafter. Between man and the carnivora it was
natural that a deadly war should be incessantly waged; but humanity
would seem to dictate towards the inoffensive herbivora a less
sanguinary hostility.