I believe there is in the world no country which produces a greater number, or variety of quadrupeds, whether tame or wild, than Abyssinia. As the high country is now perfectly cleared of wood, by the waste made in that article from the continual march of armies, the mountains are covered to the very top, with perpetual verdure, and most luxuriant herbage.

The long rains in summer are not suddenly absorbed by the rays of the sun: a thick veil defends the ground when it is in the zenith, or near it, affording heat to promote vegetation without withering it by destroying the moisture, and by this means a never-failing store of provender is constantly provided for all sorts of cattle. Of the tame or cow-kind, great abundance present themselves everywhere, differing in size, some having horns of various dimensions; some without horns at all, differing also in the colour and length of their hair, by having bosses upon their backs, according as their pasture or climate varies. There are kinds also destined to various uses; some for carriage, like mules or asses, some to be rode upon like horses; and these are not the largest of that kind, but generally below the middle size. As for that species bearing the monstrous horns, of which I have often spoke in my narrative, their size is not to be estimated by that of their horns; the animal itself is not near so big as a common English cow; the growth of the horn is a disease which proves fatal to them, because encouraged for a peculiar purpose. Whether it would be otherwise curable, has not yet, I believe, been ever ascertained by experiment. But the reader may with confidence assure himself, that there are no such animals as carnivorous bulls in Africa, and that this story has been invented for no other purpose but a desire to exhibit an animal worthy of wearing these prodigious horns. I have always wished that this article, and some others of early date, were blotted out of our philosophical transactions; they are absurdities to be forgiven to infant physic and to early travels, but they are unworthy of standing among the cautious, well-supported narratives of our present philosophers. Though we may say of the buffaloe that it is of this kind, yet we cannot call it a tame animal here; so far from that, it is the most ferocious in the country where he resides; this, however, is not in the high temperate part of Abyssinia, but in the sultry Kolla, or valleys below, where, without hiding himself, as wild beasts generally do, as if conscious, of superiority of strength, he lyes at his ease among large spreading shady trees near the clearest and deepest rivers, or the largest stagnant pools of the purest water. Notwithstanding this, he is in his person as dirty and slovenly as he is fierce, brutal, and indocile; he seems to maintain among his own kind the same character for manners that the wolf does among the carnivorous tribe.

But what is very particular is, this is the only animal kept for giving milk in Egypt. And though apparently these are of the same species, and came originally from Ethiopia, their manners are so entirely changed by their migration, difference of climate or of food, that, without the exertion of any art to tame them, they are milked, conducted to and fro, and governed by children of ten years old, without apprehension, or any unlucky accident having ever happened.

Among the wild animals are prodigious numbers of the gazel, or antelope kind; the bohur, sassa, secho, and madoqua, and various others; these are seldom found in the cultivated country, or where cattle pasture, as they chiefly feed on trees; for the most part, they are found in broken ground near the banks of rivers, where, during the heat of the day, they conceal themselves, and sleep under cover of the bushes; they are still more numerous in those provinces whose inhabitants have been extirpated, and the houses ruined or burnt in time of war, and where wild oats, grown up so as to cover the whole country, afford them a quiet residence, without being disturbed by man. Of this I have mentioned a very remarkable instance in the first attempt I made to discover the source of the Nile, (vol. III. p. 439.) The hyÆna is still more numerous: enough has been said about him; I apprehend that there are two species. There are few varieties of the dog or fox kind. Of these the most numerous is the Deep, or, as he is called, the Jackal; this is precisely the same in all respects as the Deep of Barbary and Syria, who are heard hunting in great numbers, and howling in the evening and morning. The true Deep, as far as appears to me, is not yet known, at least I never yet saw in any author a figure that resembled him. The wild boar, smaller and smoother in the hair than that of Barbary or Europe, but differing in nothing else, is met frequently in swamps or banks of rivers covered with wood. As he is accounted unclean in Abyssinia, both by Christians and Mahometans, consequently not persecuted by the hunter, both he and the fox should have multiplied; but it is probable they, and many other beasts, when young, are destroyed by the voracious hyÆna.

The elephant, rhinoceros, giraffa, or camelopardalis, are inhabitants of the low hot country; nor is the lion, or leopard, faadh, which is the panther, seen in the high and cultivated country. There are no tigers in Abyssinia, nor, as far as I know, in Africa; it is an Asiatic animal; for what reason some travellers, or naturalists, have called him the tiger-wolf, or mistaken him altogether for the tiger, is what I cannot discover. Innumerable flocks of apes, and baboons of different kinds, destroy the fields of millet every where; these, and an immense number of common rats, make great destruction in the country and harvest. I never saw a rabbit in Abyssinia, but there is plenty of hares; this, too, is an animal which they reckon unclean; and not being hunted for food, it should seem they ought to have increased to greater numbers. It is probable, however, that the great quantity of eagles, vultures, and beasts of prey, has kept them within reasonable bounds. The hippopotamus and crocodile abound in all the rivers, not only of Abyssinia, but as low down as Nubia and Egypt: there is no good figure nor description extant, as far as I know, of either of these animals; some unforeseen accident always thwarted and prevented my supplying this deficiency. There are many of the ass kind in the low country towards the frontiers of Atbara, but no Zebras; these are the inhabitants of Fazuclo and Narea.