TROPICAL RUMINANTS AND EQUIDÆ.
The Camel—Its Paramount Importance in the great Tropical Sandwastes—Its Organisation admirably adapted to its mode of Life—Beauty of the Giraffe—Its Wide Range of Vision—Pleasures of Giraffe Hunting—The Antelopes—The Springbok—The Reedbok—The Duiker—The Atro—The Gemsbok—The Klippspringer—The Koodoo—The Gnu—The Indian Antelope—The Nylghau—The Caffrarian Buffalo—The Indian Buffalo and the Tiger—Dr. Livingstone’s Escape from a solitary Buffalo—Swimming Feats of the Bhain—The Zebra—The Quagga—The Douw.
There is a sea without water and refreshing breezes, without ebb and flood, without fishes and algæ! And there is a ship which safely travels from one shore to the other of that sea, a ship without sails or masts, without keel or rudder, without screw or paddle, without cabin or deck!
This ship, so swift and sure, is the Dromedary, and that sea is the desert; which none but he, or what he carries, can pass.
In many respects the vast sandy deserts of Africa and Asia remind one of the ocean. There is the same boundless horizon, the same unstable surface, now rising, now falling with the play of the winds; the same majestic monotony, the same optical illusions, for as the thirsty mariner sees phantom palm-groves rise from the ocean, thus also the sandwaste transforms itself, before the panting caravan, into the semblance of a refreshing lake. Here we see islands, verdant oases of the sea—there, oases,400 green islands of the desert; here, sand billows—there, water waves, separating widely different worlds of plants and animals; here, the ship, the camel of the ocean—there, the dromedary, the ship of the desert!
But for this invaluable animal, the desert itself would ever have remained impassable and unknown to man. On it alone depends the existence of the nomadic tribes of the Orient, the whole commercial intercourse of North Africa and Southwest Asia; and no wonder that the Bedouin prizes it, along with the fruit-teeming date-palm, as the most precious gift of Allah. Other animals have been formed for the forest, the water, the savannah; to be the guide, the carrier, the companion, the purveyor of all man’s wants in the desert, is the camel’s destiny.
Wonderfully has he been shaped for this peculiar life, formed to endure privations and fatigues under which all but he would sink. On examining the camel’s foot, it will at once be seen how well it is adapted for walking on a loose soil, as the full length of its two toes is provided with a broad, expanded, and elastic sole. Thus the camel treads securely and lightly over the unstable sands, while he would either slip or sink on a muddy ground. He can support hunger longer than any other mammiferous animal, and is satisfied with the meanest food. Frugal, like his lord the wiry Bedouin, the grinding power of his teeth and his cartilaginous palate enable him to derive nutriment from the coarsest shrubs, from thorny mimosas and acacias, or even from the stony date-kernels, which his master throws to him after having eaten the sweet flesh in which they are imbedded.
For many days he can subsist without drinking, as the pouchlike cavities of his stomach—a peculiarity which distinguishes him from all other quadrupeds, perhaps, with the sole exception of the elephant—form a natural cistern or reservoir, whose contents can be forced upwards by muscular contraction, to meet the exigencies of the journey. It is frequently believed that this liquid remains constantly limpid and palatable, and that in cases of extreme necessity camels are slaughtered to preserve the lives of the thirsty caravan; but Burckhardt never heard of the Arabs resorting to this expedient, nor did he think it likely they would do so, as their own destruction must be involved401 in that of the beast on which they rode, and the lukewarm liquid thus obtained, besides affording a very poor supply, would be sufficiently nauseous to make even a Tantalus turn away disgusted.
But the ‘ship of the desert’ is not only provided with water for the voyage, but also with liberal stores of fat, which are chiefly accumulated in the hump; so that this prominence, which gives it so deformed an appearance, is in reality of the highest utility—for should food be scarce, and this is almost always the case while journeying through the desert, internal absorption makes up in some measure for the deficiency, and enables the famished camel to brave for some time longer the fatigues of the naked waste. This is so well known to the Bedouin that the first thing he examines about his camel when preparing for a long journey is the hump: should he find it large he knows that the animal will endure considerable fatigue even with a very moderate allowance of food, for he believes in the proverb that the ‘camel can subsist for an expedition on the fat of its own hump.’ Yet all mortal endurance has its limits, and even the camel, though so well provided against hunger and thirst, must frequently succumb to the excess of his privations, and the bleached skeletons of the much-enduring animal strewed along the road mark at once the path of the caravan and the dreadful sufferings of a desert-journey.
BACTRIAN CAMEL.
DROMEDARY.
While the Bactrian Camel with a double hump ranges from Turkestan to China, the single-hump camel or dromedary, originally Arabian, has spread in opposite directions towards the East Indies, the Mediterranean, and the Niger, and is used in Syria, Egypt, Persia, and Barbary, as the commonest beast of burden. It serves the robber, but it serves also the peaceful merchant, or the pilgrim, as he wanders to Mecca to perform his devotions at the prophet’s tomb. In long array, winding402 like a snake, the caravan traverses the desert. Each dromedary is loaded, according to its strength, with from six hundred to a thousand pounds, and knows so well the limits of its endurance, that it suffers no overweight, and will not stir before it be removed. Thus, with slow and measured pace, the caravan proceeds at the rate of ten or twelve leagues a day, often requiring many a week before attaining the end of its journey.
When we consider the deformity of the camel, we cannot doubt that its nature has suffered considerable changes from the thraldom and unceasing labours of more than one millennium. Its servitude is of older date, more complete, and more irksome, than that of any other domestic animal—of older date, as it inhabits the countries which history points out to us as the cradle of mankind; more complete, as all other domestic animals still have their wild types roaming about in unrestrained liberty, while the whole camel race is doomed to slavery; more irksome, finally, as it is never kept for luxury or state like so many horses, or for the table like the ox, the pig, or the sheep, but is merely used as a beast of transport, which its master does not even give himself the trouble to attach to a cart, but whose body is loaded like a living waggon, and frequently even remains burdened during sleep.
Thus, the camel bears all the marks of serfdom. Large naked callosities of horny hardness cover the lower part of the breast and the joints of the legs, and although they are never wanting, yet they themselves give proof that they are not natural, but that they have been produced by an excess of misery and ill-treatment, as they are frequently found filled with a purulent matter.
The back of the camel is still more deformed by its single or double hump than its breast or legs by their callosities; and as the latter are evidently owing to the position in which the heavily burthened beast is forced to rest, it may justly be inferred that the hump also, which merely consists of an accumulation of fat, did not belong to the primitive animal, but has been produced by the pressure of its load. Even its evident use as a store-house for a desert journey may have contributed to its development, as Nature is ever ready to protect its creatures, and to modify their forms according to circumstances; and thus, what at first was a mere casual occurrence,403 became at length, through successive generations, the badge and heir-loom of the whole race.
Even the stomach may, in the course of many centuries, have gradually provided itself with its water-cistern, since the animal, after a long and tormenting privation, whenever an opportunity of satisfying its thirst occurred, distended the coats of that organ by immoderate draughts, and thus, by degrees, gave rise to its pouch-like cavities.
The hardships of long servitude, which have thus gradually deformed the originally, perhaps, not ungraceful camel, have no doubt also soured its temper, and rendered its character as unamiable as its appearance is repulsive. ‘It is an abominably ugly necessary animal,’ says Mr. Russell, in a letter dated from the camp of Lucknow; ‘ungainly, morose, quarrelsome, with tee-totalling propensities; unaccountably capricious in its friendships and enmities; delighting to produce with its throat, its jaws, its tongue, and its stomach, the most abominable grunts and growls. Stupidly bowing to the yoke, it willingly submits to the most atrocious cruelties, and bites innocent, well-meaning persons, ready to take its part. When its leader tears its nostril, it will do no more than grunt; but ten against one it will spit at you if you offer it a piece of bread. For days it will march along, its nose close to the tail of the beast that precedes it, without ever making the least attempt to break from the chain; and yet it will snort furiously at the poor European who amicably pats its ragged hide.’
The camel seems to have been rather harshly dealt with in this description; at any rate, it may plead for its excuse that it would be too much to expect a mild and amiable temper in a toil-worn slave.
Which of all four-footed animals raises its head to the most towering height? Is it the colossal elephant, or the ‘ship of the desert’? No doubt the former reaches many a lofty branch with its flexible proboscis, and the eye of the long-necked camel sweeps over a vast extent of desert; but the Giraffe embraces a still wider horizon, and plucks the leaves of the mokaala at a still greater height. A strange and most surprising animal, almost all neck and leg, seventeen feet high against a length of only seven from the breast to the beginning of the tail, its comparatively small and slanting body resting404 on long stilts, its diminutive head fixed at the summit of a column; and yet, in spite of these disproportions, of so elegant and pleasing an appearance, that it owes its Arabic name, Xirapha, to the graceful ease of its movements.
The beauty of the giraffe is enhanced by its magnificently spotted skin, and by its soft and gentle eyes, which eclipse even those of the gazelle, and, by their lateral projection, take in a wider range of the horizon than is subject to the vision of any other quadruped, so as even to be able to anticipate a threatened attack in the rear from the stealthy lion or any other foe of the desert.
GIRAFFES AND ZEBRAS.
The long tail, adorned with a bushy tuft of flowing black hair, no doubt renders it good service against many a stinging insect; and the straight horns, or rather excrescences of the frontal bone, small as they are, and muffled with skin and hair, are by no means the insignificant weapons they have been supposed to be. ‘We have seen them wielded by the males against each other with fearful and reckless force,’ says Maunder, in his excellent ‘Dictionary of Animated Nature,’ ‘and we know that they are the natural arms of the giraffe most dreaded by the keeper of the present living giraffes in the Zoological Gardens, because they are most commonly and suddenly put in use. The giraffe does not butt by depressing and suddenly elevating the head, like the deer, ox, or sheep, but strikes the callous obtuse extremity of the horns against405 the object of his attack with a sidelong sweep of the neck. One blow thus directed at full swing against the head of an unlucky attendant would be fatal.’
The projecting upper lip of the giraffe is remarkably flexible, and its elongated prehensile tongue, performing in miniature the part of the elephant’s proboscis, is of material assistance in browsing upon the foliage and young shoots of the prickly acacia, which constitute the animal’s chief food.
With feet terminating in a divided hoof, and a ruminant like our ox, the giraffe has four stomachs, and an enormous intestinal length of 288 feet, a formation which bears testimony to the vast and prolonged powers of digestion necessary to extract nutrition from its hard and meagre diet.
Ranging throughout the wide plains of Central Africa from Caffraria to Nubia, the giraffe, though a gregarious animal, generally roams about only in small herds, averaging sixteen in number, from the young animal of nine or ten feet in height, to the dark chestnut-coloured old male, towering to a height of upwards of eighteen feet. Notwithstanding the rapidity with which it strides along, the fore and hind leg on the same side moving together, instead of diagonally as in most other quadrupeds, yet a full gallop quite dissipates its strength; and the hunters, being aware of this, always try to press the giraffes at once to it, knowing that they have but a short space to run before the animals are in their power. In doing this the old sportsmen are careful not to go too close to the giraffe’s tail; ‘for this animal,’ says Dr. Livingstone, ‘can swing his hind foot round in a way which would leave little to choose between a kick with it and a clap from the arm of a windmill.’
Captain Harris, in his ‘Wild Sports of Africa,’ gives us an animated picture of a giraffe hunt, breathing the full life and excitement of the chase.
‘Many days had now elapsed since we had even seen the camelopard, and then only in small numbers, and under the most unfavourable circumstances. The blood coursed through my veins like quicksilver therefore as, on the morning of the 19th, from the back of Breslar, my most trusty steed, with a firm-wooded plain before me, I counted thirty-two of these animals industriously stretching their peacock-necks to crop406 the tiny leaves which fluttered above their heads in a mimosa grove that beautified the scenery. They were within a hundred yards of me; but having previously determined to try the boarding system, I reserved my fire.
‘Although I had taken the field expressly to look for giraffes, and had put four of the Hottentots on horseback, all excepting Piet had as usual slipped off unperceived in pursuit of a troop of koodoos. Our stealthy approach was soon opposed by an ill-tempered rhinoceros, which, with her ugly calf, stood directly in the path, and the twinkling of her bright little eyes, accompanied by a restless rolling of the body, giving earnest of her intention to charge. I directed Piet to salute her with a broadside, at the same moment putting spurs to my horse. At the report of the gun, and the sudden clattering of hoofs, away bounded the giraffes in grotesque confusion, clearing the ground by a succession of frog-like hops, and soon leaving me far in the rear. Twice were their towering forms concealed from view by a park of trees, which we entered almost at the same instant, and twice, in emerging from the labyrinth, did I perceive them tilting over an eminence immeasurably in advance. A white turban that I wore round my hunting cap, being dragged off by a projecting bough, was instantly charged by three rhinoceroses, and, looking over my shoulder, I could see them long afterwards, fagging themselves to overtake me. In the course of five minutes the fugitives arrived at a small river, the treacherous sands of which receiving their long legs, their flight was greatly retarded; and after floundering to the opposite side, and scrambling to the top of the bank, I perceived that their race was run. Patting the steaming neck of my good steed, I urged him again to his utmost, and instantly found myself by the side of the herd. The stately bull being readily distinguishable from the rest by his dark chestnut robe and superior stature, I applied the muzzle of my rifle behind his dappled shoulder with the right hand, and drew both triggers; but he still continued to shuffle along, and being afraid of losing him, should I dismount, among the extensive mimosa groves with which the landscape was now obscured, I sat in my saddle, loading and firing behind the elbow, and then, placing myself across his path, until the tears trickling from his full brilliant eye, his lofty frame began to totter, and at the seventeenth discharge from the deadly-grooved407 bore, like a falling minaret bowing his graceful head from the skies, his proud form was prostrate in the dust. Never shall I forget the tingling excitement of that moment. At last then, the summit of my hunting ambition was actually attained, and the towering giraffe laid low. Tossing my turbanless cap into the air, alone in the wild wood, I hurraed with bursting exultation, and, unsaddling my steed, sank exhausted beside the noble prize I had won.’
In a similar strain of triumph Gordon Cumming describes his first giraffe hunt: ‘Galloping round a thick bushy tree under cover of which I had ridden, I suddenly beheld a sight the most astounding that a sportsman’s eye can encounter. Before me stood a troop of ten colossal giraffes, the majority of which were from seventeen to eighteen feet high. On beholding me they at once made off, twisting their long tails over their backs, making a loud switching noise with them, and cantering along at an easy pace, which, however, obliged my horse to put his best foot foremost to keep up with them. The sensations which I felt on this occasion were different from anything that I had before experienced during a long sporting career. My senses were so absorbed by the wondrous and beautiful sight before me, that I rode along like one entranced. At every stride I gained upon the giraffes, and after a short burst at a swinging gallop, I was in the middle of them, and turned the finest cow out of the herd. On finding herself driven from her comrades and hotly pursued, she increased her pace and cantered along with tremendous strides, clearing an amazing extent of ground at every bound, while her neck and breast coming in contact with the dead old branches of the trees were continually strewing them in my path. In a few minutes I was riding within five yards of her stern, and firing at the gallop I sent a bullet into her back. Increasing my pace, I next rode alongside, and placing the muzzle............