I have already observed that the Arabs have confounded the Saphan with several other animals that have no sort of resemblance to it; there are two of these very remarkable, the Fennec and Jerboa, of which I am now to treat. As I have given excellent figures of both, by drawings taken from the creatures alive, I have no doubt I shall prevent any confusion for the future, and throw some light upon sacred scripture, the greatest profit and use that can result from this sort of writing.

If the rabbit has been frequently confounded with the saphan, and stood for it in the interpretation of the Hebrew text, the same has likewise happened to another animal, the Jerboa, still more dissimilar in form and in manners from the saphan, than even the rabbit itself, and much less known. The Jerboa is a small harmless animal of the desert, nearly the size of a common rat: the skin very smooth and shining, of a brown tinged with yellow or gold colour, and the ends of the hairs tipt with black. It lives in the smoothest plains or places of the desert, especially where the soil is fixed gravel, for in that chiefly it burrows, dividing its hole below into many mansions. It seems to be apprehensive of the falling in of the ground; it therefore generally digs its hole under the root of some spurge, thyme, or absinthium, upon whose root it seems to depend for its roof not falling in and burying it in the ruins of its subterraneous habitation. It seems to delight most in those places that are haunted by the cerastes, or horned viper. Nature has certainly imposed this dangerous neighbourhood upon the one for the good and advantage of the other, and that of mankind in general. Of the many trials I made, I never found a Jerboa in the body of a viper, excepting once in that of a female big with young, and the Jerboa itself was then nearly consumed.

The Jerboa, for the most part, stands upon his hind-legs; he rests himself by sitting backwards sometimes, and I have seen him, though rarely, as it were lie upon all four; whether that is from fatigue or sickness, or whether it is a natural posture, I know not. The Jerboa of the Cyrenaicum is six inches and a quarter in length, as he stands in the drawing. He would be full half an inch more if he was laid straight at his length immediately after death. The head, from his nose to the occiput, is one inch two lines. From the nose to the foremost angle of the eye, six lines. The opening of the eye itself is two lines and a quarter; his ears three quarters of an inch in length, and a quarter of an inch in breadth; they are smooth, and have no hair within, and but very little without; of an equal breadth from bottom to top, do not diminish to a point, but are rounded there. The buttocks are marked with a semicircle of black, which parts from the root of the tail, and ends at the top of the thigh. This gives it the air of a compound animal, a rat with bird’s legs, to which the flying posture still adds resemblance. From this stroke to the center of the eye is three inches, and to the point of his toe the same measure; his tail is six inches and a quarter long, seems aukwardly set on, as stuck between his buttocks, without any connection with his spine; half of it is poorly covered with hair of a light or whiter colour than his body; the other half is a beautiful feather of long hair, the middle white, the edges jet black: this tail, which by its length would seem an incumbrance to him, is of a surprising advantage in guiding and directing him in his jumping.

From the shoulder to the elbow of the fore-foot is half an inch: from the elbow to the joining of the paw, 5/8ths of an inch. The claw itself is curved, and is something less than a quarter of an inch. It has very long mustachoes, some of them standing backward, and some of them forward from his nose; they are all of unequal lengths, the longest an inch and a half; his belly is white: he seems to be of a very cleanly nature, his hair always in great order. From his snout to the back part of the opening of the mouth is half an inch; his nose projects beyond his under jaw three quarters of an inch. He has four toes in his hind-foot, and a small one behind his heel, where is a tuft of hair coloured black. The fore-foot hath three toes only.

The ancients have early described this animal; we see him in some of the first medals of the Cyrenaicum, sitting under an umbellated plant, supposed to be the silphium, whose figure is preserved to us on the silver medals of Cyrene. The high price set upon it is mentioned by several historians, but the reason of that value, or the use of the plant, I have never yet been able to comprehend. I suppose it was an adventitious plant, which the curiosity and correspondence of the princes of that state had probably brought from some part of Negroland, where the goats are brousing upon it at this day with indifference enough, unconscious of the price it bore in the time of the Ptolemies.

Herodotus50, Theophrastus51, and Aristotle52, all mention this animal under the name of d?p???, ?a?a? d?p?de? or, two-footed rats. This animal is found in most of the parts of Arabia and Syria, in every part of the southern deserts of Africa, but no where so frequently, and in such numbers, as in the Cyrenaicum, or Pentapolis. In my unfortunate journey there, I employed the Arabs, together with my servants, to kill a number with sticks, so as that the skins might not be injured by shot. I got them dressed in Syria and in Greece, and sewed together, making use of the tail as in ermine for the lining of a cloak, and they had a very good effect; the longer they wore, the glossier and finer appearance the skins made. The Jerboa is very fat and well-coloured; the buttocks, thighs, and part of the back, are roasted and ate by the Arabs. I have eaten them; they are not distinguishable from a young rabbit either in colour or taste; they have not even the strong taste the rabbit has. Some writers have confounded these two animals together; at least they have mistaken this for the saphan, and the saphan for the rabbit. This, however, is plainly without foundation. These long legs, and the necessity of leaping, demand the plain ground, where nature has always placed this creature.

The Arabs Ibn Bitar, Algiahid, Alcamus, and Damir, and many others, have known the animal perfectly, though some of them seem to confound it with another called the Ashkoko. Ibnalgiauzi says, that the Jerboa is the only kind that builds in rocks, which from ten thousand examples I am sure he does not, nor is he any way made for it, and I am very certain he is not gregarious. They have a number of holes indeed in the same place, but I do not remember ever to have seen more than two together at a time. The Arab Canonists are divided whether or not he can be lawfully eaten. Ibnalgiauzi is of opinion he cannot, nor any other animal living under the ground, excepting the land crocodile, which he calls El Dabb, a large lizard, said to be useful in venereal pursuits, Ata and Achmet, Benhantal, and several others, expressly say, that the eating of the Jerboa is lawful. But this seems to be an indulgence, as we read in Damir, that the use of this animal is granted because the Arabs delight in it. And Ibn Bitar says, that the Jerboa is called Israelitish, that the flesh of it is dried in the outward air, is very nourishing, and prevents costiveness, from which we should apprehend, that medicinal considerations entered into this permission likewise. However this may be, it seems to me plain, such was not the opinion of the old translators of the Arab version from the Hebrew; they once only name this animal expressly, and there they say it is forbidden. The passage is in Isaiah, “They that sanctify themselves and purify themselves in the gardens behind one tree in the midst, eating swine’s flesh, and the abomination, and the mouse, shall be consumed together, saith the Lord53.” The Hebrew word signifies mouse, and so our English translation renders it. But the Arabic version calls it expressly the Jerboa, and classes it with the abomination and swine’s flesh, that is, in the class of things in the highest degree forbidden.

There is little variety in this animal either in size or colour, in the wide range that they inhabit. Towards Aleppo they have broader noses than the African ones, their bodies also thicker, and their colour lighter; a thing we always see in the Syrian animals, compared to the African. The first of these I saw was in London, in the hands of Dr Russel, who has wrote the history of Aleppo, of whom I have before made mention. Haym published an account of the Jerboa, so does Dr Shaw, but there exists not, that I know, one good figure of him, or particular description.

The figure given us by Edwards is thick and short, out of all proportion. His legs are too short, his feet too large, he wants the black mark upon his heel, the nails of his forefeet are greatly too long, and there is certainly a latitude taken in the description, when his head is said very much to resemble that of a rabbit. Dr Hasselquist has given us a kind of description of him without a figure. He says the Arabs call him Garbuka, but this is not so, he goes by no other name in all the east, but that of Jerboa, only the letter J, sometimes by being pronounced Y, for Jerboa he is called Yerboa, and this is the only variation in name.

The Arabs of the kingdom of Tripoli make very good diversion with the Jerboa, in training their grey-hounds, which they employ to hunt the gazel or antelope after instructing him to turn nimbly by hunting this animal. The prince of Tunis, son of Sidi Younis, and grandson of Ali Bey, who had been strangled by the Algerines when that capital was taken, being then in exile at Algiers, made me a present of a small grey-hound, which often gave us excellent sport. It may be perhaps imagined a chace between these two creatures could not be long, yet I have often seen, in a large inclosure, or court-yard, the greyhound employ a quarter of an hour before he could master his nimble adversary; the small size of the creature assisted him much, and had not the greyhound been a practised one, and made use of his feet as well as his teeth, he might have killed two antelopes in the time he could have killed one Jerboa.

It is the character of the saphan given in scripture, that he is gregarious, that he lives in houses made in the rock, that he is distinguished for his feebleness, which he supplies by his wisdom: none of these characteristics agree with the Jerboa, and therefore though he chews the cud in common with some others, and was in great plenty in Judea, so as to be known by Solomon, yet he cannot be the saphan of the scripture.