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CHAPTER I.
THE WILD PLAINS OF THE OLD WORLD:—THE AFRICAN INTERIOR.

WHEN we have crossed the 18th parallel (or nearly so) of north latitude in Africa and the 30th in Asia—the southern boundary of the Rainless District—countries of extreme fertility and exuberant product succeed to the dreary solitudes we have hitherto traversed.

At intervals, indeed, the traveller encounters some vast blighted and accursed area, where, for a part of each year, a deadly aridity prevails; but ever there comes a happy moment, even in these desolate wastes, when genial Nature resumes her rights, abundant rains nourish vegetable and animal life, and the glowing scene constrains us to exclaim with thankful heart, “The earth is the Lord’s, and the fulness thereof.”

The Asiatic plains in the south, are, however, preserved from such abrupt alternations; numerous water-courses, leaping downward from the snowy fountains of the Himalayan chain, refresh and fertilize these countries, which are almost everywhere subject to the dominion of man. Analagous causes, in the grand rich islands of the warm Indian seas, produce similar effects; there, also, the very deserts are humid regions, and tall grasses, bushes, shrubs, reeds, and climbing plants grow in a rank and luxuriant chaos which we designate by the name of jungles, in whose dense obscurity the tiger makes his lair, and the serpent conceals his deadly venom!

In the immense triangle defined by that portion of the African continent which extends from the Mountains of the Moon to the Cape of Good Hope, nature has maintained almost intact her savage independence; but she displays there her most varied forms, from the snow-crested ice-bound mountain to the lowest and most monotonous plain, from the impenetrable forest to the nakedest and barrenest steppe.

To enable the reader to comprehend these widely different aspects, and to describe the peculiar characteristics of each region of this immense continent, it will be necessary for us to recapitulate its most important geographical features.

A vast plateau, of comparatively slight elevation, occupies all Southern Africa, extending eastward as far as the fifth or sixth degree north of the equator. To the north-west, it is bounded by the mountains of Senegambia; to the north-east, by those of Abyssinia. On the east and west, the mountains descend to the very shore in secondary chains; to the south the table-land is brought down to the sea in a series of terraces which separate the mountain-ranges.

At its southern extremity, the African continent is from 550 to 600 miles broad. It is occupied by the British colony of the Cape, which is bounded on the north by the Orange River. The most striking features of the physical geography of this part of Africa, and which determine in the main its climate and natural productions, are three chains of mountains disposed parallel to one another and to the southern coast. These are separated by terraces or upland plains, each range forming the boundary of the lower and the abutment of the higher terrace. The communication is maintained by transverse valleys, which are often of a highly romantic character. The loftiest and most inland chain is christened in different parts of its course the Roggeveld Bergen, the Nieuveld Bergen, and the Sneeu Bergen, or “Snowy Mountains.” Of these the loftiest summit is the Compass Berg, 10,000 feet in altitude. The second chain, the Black Mountains, though not so lofty are more massive, and, in truth, composed of two or three chains in close juxtaposition. The third, or last chain, in proceeding from south to north, varies from eighteen to fifty-four miles, enlarging towards the west.

The plain or terrace between the Black and the Snowy Mountains is much loftier than the two other steps by which we descend to the southern extremity of the continent. The lowest terrace, bordering on the sea, is well-watered and fertile. The second, or central terrace, consists of fertile districts, equally well watered, but intersected by vast dry deserts, called (from a Hottentot word) Karroos. The third terrace, commonly designated the Great Karroo, at the base of the Roggeveld and Nieuveld chain, is 300 miles in length, 80 miles in breadth, and 2000 feet above the sea-level. Its soil, says a writer in the Quarterly Review, presents throughout its whole extent, for the greater portion of the year, not a trace of vegetation. These gloomy solitudes assume a character of picturesque grandeur through their very wildness of desolation. The scene might convey to a fanciful mind the dreary image of a ruined world, where the witches and demons of Goethe’s Walpurgis-Night might fitly celebrate their revels.

During the long dry summer months, the smallest birds would not find wherewithal to sustain their existence in these sombre deserts, whose solemn silence not even the murmur of an insect interrupts.

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NIGHT-SCENE IN THE AFRICAN INTERIOR.
NIGHT-SCENE IN THE AFRICAN INTERIOR.

Yet these regions, deprived of springs and running waters, are not always sterile deserts, are not always desolate plains. In the dry season, the soil, a yellow ferruginous clay, acquires the hardness of brick, just as if it had been exposed to the fire of a furnace; but the roots and bulbs, protected by a ligneous covering, resist the devouring heat. The first rains revive them; they put forth their stems and branches; a myriad flowers reveal their sparkling colours; and the country which, a day or two before, had shown to the eye a bare and dreary surface, shines out in a panoply of splendour, as if a magician’s spell had suddenly transformed it into a terrestrial paradise! But as the days lengthen, and the sun’s power increases, the bloom and the beauty vanish, and the curse of fire once more descends upon the gloomy scene.

In several districts north of the Cape Colony whole years pass by without the sight or sound of running water rejoicing the wistful wanderer. Dr. Livingstone, while residing among the Bakouans, in the Bechuana country, saw the natives excavating the bed of the Kolobeng to extract a few drops of water. A centigrade thermometer, sunk two and a half inches in the earth, at noon, marked 56°. Insects placed on the surface of the ground died in a few seconds. The grass was so dry that it crumbled into powder when plucked.

The coast of Natal is rich in trees and herbage. The Zambesi, and other rivers which descend from the central plateau, refresh the plains of Mozambique and Zanzibar. But from the 4th parallel of north latitude to Cape Guardafui extends an almost continuous desert. The southern extremity of the Lupata chain also presents a vast naked country, where the presence of gold has encouraged the Portuguese to found some establishments.

The neighbouring zone of Kaffraria consists of great far-spreading, gently-undulating plains, characterized by extreme aridity. The western districts are much less broken than the central, and exhibit no undulations except in the vicinity of the ocean. There an immense level territory exists under the name of the Kalihari Desert, whose southern boundary is marked by the Gariep or Orange River, which drains rather than waters it. To the north this awful wilderness stretches as far as the Lake Ngami, thus covering the area comprised between the 29th and 30th parallels of south latitude. The pastoral country of Namaqua and Damaras bounds it on the west. Eastward it extends to the 24th meridian of west longitude.

Moisture is not wholly wanting in this vast region. The Kalihari has been called a desert, says Livingstone,[80] because it contains no running water, and very little in wells. Far from being destitute of vegetation, it is covered with grass and creeping plants, and there are large patches of bushes, and even trees. It is remarkably flat; and prodigious herds of antelopes roam over its trackless plains. The soil is composed in general of a fine soft sand, lightly coloured—that is, of a nearly pure silica. In the ancient beds of dried-up rivers lie immense patches of alluvial soil, which, hardened by the sun, form great reservoirs, retaining the rain-water for several months of the year. The quantity of grass flourishing in this region is remarkable. It grows generally in thick tufts, occasionally intermingled with spaces where the earth is naked or closely overgrown with creeping plants. These, deeply rooted in the soil, suffer but little from the effects of the excessive heat. Most of them have tubercular roots, and are so organized as to furnish both food and liquid during the long droughts—an epoch when one vainly seeks elsewhere anything which can appease one’s hunger or one’s thirst.

The rich vegetation of the Kalihari is due to its geological constitution. It consists of a great valley, or rather of a vast basin, whose bottom is formed of a diluvial earth, and which is encircled by a belt of rocks, cloven at several places. It follows that where the rain is abundant, the slope of the hills directs it towards the centre of the basin, and this rain filters and deposits itself beneath the surface of the soil. And it appears to be a proof of this statement, that on digging in the sand cisterns are formed, or “sucking-places,” which are filled with water supplied by subterraneous conduits.

This so-called Desert is not without its utility. Not only does it nourish innumerable multitudes of animals of every kind, but it has become the asylum of fugitive tribes. Here at first the Bakalabaris found a refuge; and then, in their turn, other peoples of the Bechuana, whose territories had been invaded by the Kaffirs.

The Kalihari has its mirage and its sirocco. During the excessive drought which precedes the rainy season, a burning wind traverses this desert from north to south, and during its three or four days’ duration it withers and dries up everything in its path. It is so loaded with electricity that a bundle of ostrich feathers, which remained exposed to it for a few seconds, was itself charged as if it had been in contact with a powerful electrical machine, and produced a lively disturbance, accompanied by cracking noises, when taken in the hand. As often as this wind prevails, the electricity of the atmosphere is so abundant that every movement of the natives causes sparks to be given off their karosses, or cloaks made of the skin of beasts.

The contrast is striking between the well-watered east coast of South Africa and the arid western coast. After the scarped mountains of the Cape, which ascend northward to the ocean, come the less lofty chains—the hills of sand which separate the interior sandy desert from the equally sandy district of the littoral. With the exception of the Walvish Bay, the coast for eight hundred miles—from the great Orange River to Cape Negro—has not a stream of water.

At Cape Negro commences a series of terraces, separated from one another by long bands of sunken ground. This ensemble describes a curve towards the interior, and leaves on the coast a level plain of about 110 miles in breadth.

In Benguela the plains are healthy and cultivated. More to the north, one encounters nothing but monotonous savannahs and forests with gigantic trees. The soil, at a great number of points, is saturated with water, and, so to speak, enveloped in a shroud of pestilential vapour, which the breeze never scatters.

The low plains of Biafra and Benin, and especially the Delta of the Niger, are unwholesome, rank, and foul-smelling marshes. In their mangrove swamps lurks fever, and a legion of deadly diseases.

Until the early years of the present century very little was known of the interior of Southern Africa. At this epoch some native merchants traversed the country from one sea to another—from St. Paul de Loanda to the coast of Mozambique and Zanzibar. This exploit was repeated and outstripped by Dr. Livingstone, who, from 1850 to 1856, accomplished a marvellous journey of six thousand miles, through regions never before trodden by the white man’s foot.

Setting out from Kolobeng, the most advanced of the English missionary stations, he arrived, after having crossed some three hundred miles of a region without water, at the beautiful river Zouga, which issues from the western extremity of Lake Ngami.

Lake Ngami is from 45 to 60 miles long, and from 56 to 110 in circumference. Its direction is N.N.E. to S.S.W. Its southern portion curves westward, and it receives from the north-west the TeoughÉ. The water, very fresh when the lake is full, grows brackish during the dry season. At the latter period it is very shallow, and at eighteen or twenty miles from the shore canoes can be manoeuvred with the help of a pole. The banks are everywhere low. At the west a considerable space, utterly bare of trees, proves that the lake was formerly larger. During the months which precede the arrival of the northern waters, cattle, to quench their thirst, make their way with difficulty through the belt of reeds dried up by the sun. The natives, says Livingstone, who reside on the shores of the lake, tell us that trees and antelopes are carried down by the waters during the annual inundation.

The same traveller informs us that the vast regions lying to the north of the lake at such great distances—regions copiously watered, and deluged every year by the heavy tropical rains—pour towards the south the excess of the waters which saturate their soil; and a certain quantity of these waters, encountering the lake on their way, flow into it. It is in March and April that the inundation begins. The waters, on descending, find the rivers dried up, and the lake itself exceedingly shallow. The rivers in this part of Africa flow in channels capable of containing a far greater volume of water than they generally hold. When looking at them, you might believe yourself in some desolated Oriental garden where all the irrigating canals still exist, but where the dams permit only a mere thread of water to take its course.

“The water,” adds Livingstone,[82] “is less absorbed by the earth than lost between banks too wide apart, where the air and the sun evaporate them. I am persuaded that there is not in the whole of this country a river which loses itself amid the sands.”

The country situated to the north is exceedingly level for some hundreds of miles, and abundantly provided with lakes and rivers, which the slightest undulations of the soil divert into innumerable windings. The plain is alternately covered with sombre thickets, lofty forests, and dense herbage. On the banks of some rivers this herbage assumes gigantic proportions, and by its tenacity opposes an effectual barrier to animals. In many places the wide green pastures are enlivened by large herds of cattle, which the natives breed. The land of the Barotses possess immense prairies of this description, the home of numerous herds of elephants. But this richness of the soil is counterbalanced by the insalubrity of the climate. These vast, periodically flooded surfaces become, when the waters recede, the nurseries of deadly fevers, and other formidable maladies, whose destructive influence extends to a great distance.

The magnificent river Zambesi, known in its upper course by the local appellation of Leambye—both words having the same signification in the native tongue, “the River”—fertilizes and brightens these productive regions. Flowing at first from north to south, it makes a sharp bend westward, to march with stately step from south to north, and from west to east, until, with a south-eastern inclination, it moves onward to the Indian Ocean.

It was at a point nearly midway between the two oceans—the Indian and the Atlantic—that the intrepid Livingstone first descried the Zambesi, regarding its fertile banks and noble stream with much the same emotions of delight and surprise as thrilled to the heart of Balboa, when

He arrived there near the close of the dry season, and yet a grand volume of water still sparkled in the river’s bed, which varied from 950 to 1900 feet in breadth. At the epoch of the great floods, the Zambesi rises perpendicularly more than eighteen feet, and at certain points extends more than forty miles from its bank. From the borders of the ChobÉ to those of the Zambesi spreads a low, level country, whose uniform expanse is only broken by the gigantic hillocks of the termites. At intervals the traveller lights upon spots where the waters have formerly settled, then on great morasses and deep rivers, winding their slow way through an almost impervious jungle. There is a certain fatal beauty about the whole region, like that of a Circe or a Lucrezia Borgia; but its atmosphere breathes disease and death.

A general depression and flatness of surface seems to be the physical characteristic of this part of Central Africa. Thus, on the route adopted by Livingstone, in a N.N.E. direction, from the chain of Bamunguatos to the Zambesi, all is level. Mount N’goua, an isolated mass in 18° 27´ 20´´ south latitude, and 24° 13´ 63´´ east longitude, is a wholly exceptional accident. The Kandehy Valley, which deploys on the northern slope of this narrow colossus, is one of the most picturesque scenes that greeted the eyes of Livingstone during his adventurous pilgrimage. Fruit trees, loaded with emerald foliage, adorn its sides; a crystal brook ripples in the centre. Under the shade of an enormous baobab the graceful antelopes browse undisturbed, until alarmed by the footfall of the approaching traveller. Gnus and zebras contemplate the strange intruder with an air of surprise. A few continue to crop the grass indifferent; others pause in the banquet, uncertain whether to stay or take to flight. The huge hulk of a white rhinoceros drags labouring up the shady valley. Buffaloes, and condors, and giraffes stray far into its pleasant depths as peaceful and almost as trustful as those of their race which, in days remote, wandered among the beauties of Eden, in

Further to the north, even to the river Sanshureh, the country increases in richness and beauty, the water-courses multiply, and the herbage aspires to such a height that vehicles and animals are lost amongst it.

An exceeding gentleness, an almost Arcadian calm, characterizes the landscape on the banks of the Leeba, a great affluent of the Leambye. This river drags its slow and ever-winding waters through a delightful meadow-land, which is probably flooded every year, for there is no wood except where the ground rises four or five feet above the general level of the plain. The soil of these tree-crowned plateaux, or knolls, is sandy, while that of the prairies consists of an alluvial earth, gray and black, and mixed with numerous river-shells.

Ascending the Leeba, we enter on a plain more than eighteen miles in breadth, where the water rises to the traveller’s ankles. This water, says Livingstone, does not proceed from the overflow of the river; but the level of the ground is so horizontal that the rain-water cannot pass away, and abides there for months. Still more humid are the adjacent plains of Lobala. This vast submerged area forms a watershed between the rivers of the north and those of the south. Up to this point all the rivers wend their way southward; but from this point they adopt a northerly course, to empty their tribute into the KasaÏ or LokÉ.

The interior table-land, especially towards the mid-course of the Zambesi, is intersected by lofty mountain-chains. It is in this region, and at the southernmost point of the river’s great Delta, which is 270 miles in length, that the famous Falls occur, named by the natives “Mosioatounya,” or “Smoke-resounding,” re-christened by Livingstone, the Victoria. Their vast columns of vapour are visible at a distance of five or six miles, and might suggest to an American traveller the rolling clouds that ascend from a burning prairie. The banks and islands of the river are here enriched with sylvan vegetation of every variety of form and colour: the mighty baobab, each of whose enormous arms would form the trunk of a large tree; the graceful palm, with its crest of plume-like foliage; the silvery mohonams, whose leaves sparkle in the sunshine like Achilles’ shield; and the nutsouri, abounding in clusters of pleasant scarlet fruit.

The Falls are bounded on three sides by densely-wooded ridges 300 or 400 feet in height, and may be likened to a flood of water a thousand yards broad, suddenly hurled over a basaltic precipice 100 feet in depth, and then as suddenly compressed into a narrow gully not more than fifteen or twenty yards across.

“If one imagines,” says Dr. Livingstone,[84] “the Thames filled with low tree-covered hills immediately below the Tunnel, extending as far as Gravesend, the bed of black basaltic rock instead of London mud, and a fissure made therein from one end of the Tunnel to the other, down through the keystones of the arch, and prolonged from the left end of the Tunnel through thirty miles of hills; then fancy the Thames leaping bodily into the gulf, and forced there to change its direction and flow from the right to the left bank, and then rush boiling and roaring through the hills, he may have some idea of what takes place at this the most wonderful sight I have witnessed in Africa.”

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VICTORIA FALLS, RIVER ZAMBESI.
VICTORIA FALLS, RIVER ZAMBESI.

In descending into the narrow abyss already spoken of, the cataract breaks into five separate streams, which send up, to an elevation of 200 or 300 feet, as many columns of luminous vapour—pillars of shivering spray, and foam, and diamond sparkle, which in the sunlight are gloriously wreathed with the rare hues of Iris.

In descending the Zambesi, we encounter the great river Kafue, which flows from the north. Beyond the point of confluence the country becomes opener, freer, and healthier, and we arrive at the Portuguese town of TÉtÉ.

About 200 miles to the north-west of TÉtÉ lies the great lake of fresh water, Niyanyizi-Nyassa, or “Lake of Stars,” which stretches far away to the north-west across Unyamuezi, or “The Land of the Moon.” It is rather shallow, sprinkled with numerous fairy islands, and seems to be the remains of an ancient lake of much greater extent. To the south-west a belt of fertile country separates it from another lake called Shirwa, whence issues a beautiful river, tributary to the Zambesi, impeded in its course by numerous rapids, but traversing a level and unwholesome country.

At the same time (1856-58) that Livingstone accomplished these great discoveries, Equatorial Africa was penetrated from the coast of Zambesi by Captains Burton and Speke. These undaunted and indefatigable travellers, after having ascended the river Pangany for a hundred and thirty miles, through a rich and cultivated but pestiferous plain, arrived in February 1858 at Lake Tanganyika, of which the natives had spoken to Livingstone, describing the country lying to the westward of that mass of water as bare of wood, and solely covered with marshy plains.

Lake Tanganyika lies 200 miles S.W. of the Victoria N’yanza, between lat. 3° and 7° 45´ S., at an elevation of 1844 feet above the sea. The 30th meridian of east longitude strikes it in the centre. Its length is 320 miles; but its breadth seldom exceeds 15 or 20, and never 60 miles, so that it has been compared to a beach inclining its head towards the north. To the north-east its shores are bold and elevated; the water is fresh and deep. The country around it is rich in pasture, where a thriving population breed numerous flocks and herds.

About two hundred miles to the north-east of this lake, and 3740 feet above the sea-level, lies the vast basin of the Victoria N’yanza, discovered by Captain Speke in 1859, and more fully explored by Speke and Grant in 1862. Its northern shore runs nearly parallel to the Equator, at a distance of about twenty miles from it; its southern is in lat. 2° 46´ S., and long. 33° E. It would seem at some remote period to have occupied a much larger area than it does at present, though even now it is supposed to measure 220 miles in length and fully as much in breadth. Speke describes it as very shallow. Fleets of canoes cover its surface; but the natives on the one shore never venture across to the other, and no intercommunication has ever existed between them. The surrounding landscapes are of a pastoral character, genial and fertile, with quiet breadths of rich meadow land, dotted by hundreds of white hornless cattle, and scarcely distinguishable from our midland English scenery, were they not interspersed with groves of the banana, the coffee-tree, and the date-palm. At its north-eastern extremity, and probably connected with it, lies a long narrow basin which the natives call Lake Baringo. On the west it receives the tributary waters of the KitangulÉ, and from the north throws off the various streams which unite in one channel to form the famous Nile.

North-west from the N’yanza lies the little LÚta N’zigÉ, or Albert Lake, discovered by Sir Samuel Baker in 1864; a long, narrow, and shallow basin, surrounded by mountains 7000 feet high, about 230 miles in length, and 2488 feet above the sea-level, which apparently serves as the great reservoir of the Nile.[85]

The discoveries of Livingstone, Burton, Speke, Grant, and Baker, seem to confirm the theory put forward by Sir Roderick Murchison, that the central portion of South Africa is a large and elevated basin, abounding in immense plains, in fertile lands, besprinkled with numerous lakes fed by a thousand currents descending from the lofty mountains that surrounded it. The rains, says Morin, cause these lakes to overflow, and their waters, prevailing over every obstacle, break through the barrier of the high lands, and descend into the lower levels in a series of cataracts, to make their way eventually towards the ocean. Livingstone has proved the truth of this felicitous induction as far as the Zambesi is concerned. The Nile also issues from the lofty table-lands through deep and rocky ravines. The great reservoir of the mysterious Egyptian river, the N’yanza Spekii, may be accepted as the final confirmation of Sir Roderick’s theory, and the conspicuous feature of the African people. The southern extremity of this lake stretches as far as the watershed between North and South Africa. Starting from the same viewpoint, Speke concludes that another great lake will be found under the Equator, to the west of the Tanganyika and the N’yanza Victoria. This will be the reservoir of the Congo. To establish this fact will be to solve the last problem of the hydrographic system of Africa.[86]

The western region of the African equatorial zone has been but superficially explored, and in this direction numerous hypotheses remain to be verified. Lake Tchad, situated in Central Nigritia, between Bornou on the west and the south-west, and the Kanem to the north and east, was discovered in 1823 by Major Denham, and explored by Dr. Barth in 1852. The latter traveller grows eloquent in his description of the delicious perspective which he had supposed it would offer to the gaze. He met with numerous slaves on their way to cut grass for the horses. But instead of a lake, an immense treeless plain stretched as far as the eye could reach. The herbage became fresher and greener, thicker and taller; a marshy bottom, describing a curve which projected here and receded there, embarrassed his progress more and more; and after a useless and prolonged struggle to escape from the quagmire, seeking in vain on the horizon some mirror-like surface, he retraced his steps, dabbling in the slimy water, and consoling himself with the reflection that at least he had seen some traces of the “liquid element.” But the scene was strangely different when, in the winter of 1854-55, more than one-half of the Ngornou was destroyed by the inundation; and to the south of that town lay a deep sea, swallowing up the whole plain even to the village of Koukiya! The lower stratum of the soil, composed of limestone, appeared to have given way in the preceding year, and had lowered the shore of the lake several yards; hence the inundation. But apart from this evidently exceptional geological catastrophe, the character of the Tchad is clearly that of an immense lagoon whose borders change every month, and of which it is consequently impossible to lay down any strictly accurate map.[87]

Lake Tchad lies between lat. 12° 30´ and 14° 30´ N., long. 13° and 15° 30´ S. Its length varies from two hundred to three hundred miles, according to the amount of rainfall and similar circumstances; at its broadest it measures one hundred and seventy miles; and it has an elevation of eight hundred feet above the sea-level. The actual margin of its waters is lined by a deep fence of papyrus and tall reeds, from ten to fourteen feet high. Its islands are densely peopled. Fish and water-fowl abound, and not less do crocodiles and hippopotami. The lake has no outlet, but receives several rivers, of which the Waube and the Shari are the most notable.

The country watered by the Niger is also broken up by vast plains which, fertile and glowing in the rainy season, are scorched and withered by the summer heats. The famous port of Kabara, not far from TimbuktÙ, is several miles from the river, and only accessible for five months in the year at the epoch of the great rains.

Beyond this belt of vegetation, this girdle of fertility, Nature wears a sombre aspect—the stony look of a corpse; for the immense Desert of the Sahara begins. The transition from the one region to the other, from the land of plenty to the land of want and famine, from the land of bright lakes, and copious streams, and green pastures, to the land of rocky heights and barren sandy wastes, is as startling as the change which sometimes occurs in human life—the change of a moment, from bustling and exuberant happiness to profound sorrow. It is such contrasts, however, that enable us fully to appreciate the beauty and wealth of Nature.

teach us to prize the balmy breath of the “sweet south” that wanders “o’er a bank of violets.” Fresh from the dreary Sahara plain, burnt and scathed by a Tropic sun, we can feel all the loveliness of the woodland and the leafy vale, of each

Thus, in the material world as in the moral and intellectual, the law of compensation prevails, and the wayfarer in the Desert of Life may cheer himself with the recollection that in due time the silence will be succeeded by music, the desolation by beauty, and the wilderness by

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CHAPTER II.
DESERTS OF THE NEW WORLD:—PRAIRIES, PAMPAS, LLANOS.

THEY who study the philosophy of history, of which men talk so much, and know so little; they who seek in the general laws of nature and the physical economy of the globe an explanation of its ethnological phenomena, may find, it seems to me, a curious subject for investigation in the singular destiny of the New World. They will have to ascertain by what concurrence of circumstances the two Americas, separated from us by an immensity of waters, and revealed to the world of the East but some four centuries ago, shall have traversed in so brief a period the successive phases of conquest, colonization, and emancipation; why European emigration was directed thitherward at the very beginning; and thitherward continues still to flow from every quarter; finally, by what tacit and unanimous agreement this New World has become the adopted country of all the proscribed and disinherited of the Old; while almost the entire area of the African continent, which is so much more readily accessible, is scarcely less favoured in its climatic conditions, and upon which the white race has rested, from the remotest antiquity, its political institutions, its arts, and its industry, has remained uninfluenced by the advancing tide of civilization.

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PRAIRIES OF NORTH AMERICA—STAMPEDO OF WILD BISONS.
PRAIRIES OF NORTH AMERICA—STAMPEDO OF WILD BISONS.

I limit myself to indicating this problem, which, however, it is not within my present province to examine, but which naturally suggests itself when we think of the swift development undergone by the European societies planted on the American continent—when we remember how rapidly they are narrowing the area of the desert and the wilderness. At the epoch of the discovery of the New World it was one vast desolation, with the exception of Mexico and Peru; and these were but the seats of a civilization which seemed to have passed without transition from infancy to old age, from vigour to decrepitude, and which crumbled into dust under the pitiless blows of the Spanish conquerors. Neither Cortez nor Pizarro would have overthrown a great empire with a handful of foot-soldiers and men-at-arms, a squadron or two of horse, and a few unwieldy guns, had not the Colossus already nodded to its fall, had not the Column been hollow at the base. But soon the European nations shared among themselves this immense country and the neighbouring islands. The Slave race, whose destiny it seemed to be to reign among the polar ice and snow, long contented itself with the inclement and inhospitable region of the extreme north-west, which it has but recently surrendered to the United States Government. The Anglo-Saxon race, in the northern continent, has seized the lion’s share. It now holds between the two oceans, from the fifty-fifth to the thirtieth parallels of north latitude, a fertile and life-breathing territory, well fitted to be the cradle of great empires; the flourishing Confederation of Canada, the colony of British Columbia, and the mighty republic of the United States. Virgin forests have fallen before the restless axe of the hardy pioneer; hundreds of populous cities have risen as if by enchantment in districts haunted within the memory of men by the bear and the wild buffalo; a network of railways spreads from the Atlantic almost to the base of the Rocky Mountains; crops of waving corn bloom over wide prairies that a few years ago yielded only the tall grass and waving reed; the aboriginal tribes of the Red Indians have melted away before the impetuous tide of an ever-advancing civilization; and the exhaustless energies of our race have already raised in less than a century two mighty empires on the Mississippi and the St. Lawrence, destined to a marvellous, a changeful, and doubtlessly a glorious history. And both these empires have sprung from the loins of England, are governed in the main by the same laws, hold the same religion, are animated by the same aspiring and unwearied genius, and

in everything, as we believe,

Southward from the thirtieth parallel stretches the domain of the Latin races, already mingled with and being absorbed by the Anglo-Saxon, in Canada, California, and the Southern States of the Union. Vast as this region is, for it comprehends all Central America and all the Southern Continent, it is infinitely less prosperous, less powerful, less peopled, than what we may call Saxon America. Mexico is a byword and a reproach for savage anarchy and murderous license. Neither Chili, nor Peru, nor even Brazil approaches Canada in solid power and the auspicious promise of future greatness. The Latin race seems dwarfed and cowed by the neighbourhood of the energetic Anglo-Saxon, is swiftly retiring before it in North America, and in the course of centuries will probably be subjugated by it, even in the southern division of the great Continent.

A considerable portion of South America, however, is uncultivated, unpeopled, and but imperfectly explored. There the Desert re-appears with—

under its most sharply defined forms and most impressive conditions. The supremacy of the whites over the indigenous tribes is almost nominal; and if the latter are gradually dying out, the catastrophe, in this instance, is due rather to their own lack of vigour, energy, and capacity, than to the pressure of civilization.

However rapid may be the growth of population in North America, however great the rapidity—shall we say the avidity?—of the American squatters in their conquest and appropriation of the soil, the Desert still occupies, principally in “the far West” and the North—that is to say, in the angle comprised between the line of the great lakes and the Rocky Mountains—an area almost equal to the whole of Continental Europe. There we find, as Mr. Johnstone points out, the largest plains in the world. One such, for example, is that immense basin which extends from the mouths of the Mackenzie, in the icy Arctic Sea, even to the remote Delta of the Mississippi, and from the huge chain of the Rocky Mountains, with their piny recesses and snowy peaks, to the less rugged and more pastoral range of the Alleghanies; a total area of 4,400,000,000 square yards (3,245,000 square miles). A table-land of gentle elevation, nowhere above 1500 feet, and rarely more than 700 feet high, separates this territory into two secondary basins.

The north-east, which pours its waters into the Arctic Ocean, Hudson’s Bay, and through the Canadian lakes and River St. Lawrence, into the Atlantic; and,

The south basin, of the Missouri-Mississippi, whose mighty waters flow into the Gulf of Mexico.

It is in the latter that the traveller encounters the great grassy plains of the Prairies or Savannahs which are so remarkable a feature of North America, and which chiefly lie along the western bank of the Mississippi. “There are no prairies,” says Sir J. Richardson, “to the north of Peace River, and the level lands which border the Rocky Mountains do not extend beyond the Great Salt Lake.”

Under so wide a range of latitude the plain necessarily embraces a great variety of soil, climate, and productions; but being almost in a state of nature, it is characterized in its central and southern parts by interminable grassy savannahs and enormous forests, and in the far north by deserts not less dreary than those of Siberia.[90]

Southward, a bare sandy waste, 400 or 500 miles wide, skirts the base of the Rocky Mountains to the forty-first parallel of north latitude. The dry plains of Texas and the upper region of the Arkansas have all the features of Asiatic table-lands; further to the north, the lifeless, treeless steppes on the high grounds of the far West are burnt up in summer, and frozen in winter by biting blasts from the Rocky Mountains. Towards the Mississippi the soil improves, but its delta is a labyrinth of streams, and lakes, and dense brushwood, and the rank marshes at its mouth cover an area of 35,000 square miles. “There are also,” says Mrs. Somerville, “large tracts or forest and saline ground, especially the Grand Saline between the rivers Arkansas and Neseikelongo, which is often covered two or three inches deep with salt, like a fall of snow. All the cultivation on the right bank of the river is along the Gulf of Mexico and in the adjacent provinces, and is entirely tropical, consisting of sugar-cane, cotton, and indigo. The prairies, so characteristic of North America, then begin.”

And what are these prairies?

Leagues upon leagues of rolling meadow-land, sometimes as level as an English pasture, always as boundless, apparently, as the sea; richly covered with long rank grass of tender green, and lighted up by flowers of the liliaceous kind which scent the air with fragrance. Here and there, in the north, occur clumps of oak and black walnut; in the south, groups of tulip, and cotton, and magnolia trees. Occasionally the monotonous scene is relieved by a lazy brook, whose banks bloom with a brilliant mass of azaleas, kalmias, rhododendrons, and andromedas; the low howl of the cayeute, or prairie dog, breaks the silence; and life is given to the landscape by the frequent appearance of herds of bison, deer, and wild horses. At times, in the remote districts, the prairie wolves will be seen in some leafy covert awaiting the approach of a victim; or flights of birds darken the air, and tempt the traveller with the promise of an abundant provision.

On the right bank of the Missouri, and on the borders of the White River, in the territory of Nebraska, lies a dreary desert valley, some 30 feet deep, which the French expressively designate les Mauvaises-Terres. It may be doubted whether the whole world offers a stranger or a more impressive landscape. Here geology recognizes the vestiges of an astonishing diluvian labour, and it is impossible to venture a step without striking one’s foot against the fossil relics of vanished animals.

It is a kind of world apart, says an American writer; a large valley which seems to have been excavated, in the first place, by an immense vertical out-throw, and then modelled by the prolonged and incessant action of denudating agents. With a mean breadth of 28, and a total length of 90 miles, it develops itself in a westerly direction, at the foot of the sombre mountain-chain known as the Black Hills. On issuing from the immense, uniform, and monotonous prairie, the traveller finds himself suddenly transported, after a descent of 100 to 200 feet, into a depression of the soil where rise a myriad of abrupt rocks, irregular or prismatic, or like columns dressed with enormous pyramids, and from 110 to 220 feet in height.

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VIEW OF THE “MAUVAISES-TERRES,” NEBRASKA, U.S.
VIEW OF THE “MAUVAISES-TERRES,” NEBRASKA, U.S.

These natural towers are so multiplied over the surface of this extraordinary region, that the roads wind through them in narrow passages, and the labyrinth may be likened to the irregular streets and narrow alleys of some mediÆval European city. Seen from afar, the interminable succession of rocks resembles the massive monuments of antiquity; nor are turrets wanting, nor flying buttresses, nor graceful arches, nor vaulted portals, groups of columns, faÇades, and taper spires. If at one place the eye lights upon the ruins of a feudal fortress, at another it surveys the graceful ensemble of a Saracenic mosque. Or you might almost say, in the distance, that it is a fantastic “city of the dead” which looms before you; or the gigantic palace of a race of unseen beings, fashioned by the power of spell and enchantment. And if the illusion vanishes when, descending from the heights, you penetrate into the mazes of this DÆdalian marvel, the reality is not less calculated to inspire you with astonishment, and the imagination remains confused before this wild, this grand, yet ominous freak of Nature—ominous, for the place seems like a colossal Golgotha, and the rocks may be the monuments consecrated by invisible hands to the things and creatures, the life and majesty, of a forgotten Past!

A spectacle unexpected by the European traveller comes at intervals to heighten and confirm the illusion. Here and there are reared constructions of manifest human work, but of a truly primitive character. They consist of four poles, supporting a rude platform of wicker. Mount any adjacent hillock, and you will see corpses and human skeletons outstretched upon the platform. These constructions are, in truth, the burial-places of the Sioux Indians, who wander still in the neighbouring districts.

The whole coast of the Mexican Gulf, from the Pearl River eastward, through Alabama and a great part of Florida, is occupied by the so-called “pine barrens,” which extend far into the interior. These “vast monotonous tracts of sand, covered with forests of gigantic pine trees,” are not less a characteristic feature of North America than the “rolling prairies.” They are not limited to this part of the United States, but occur to a great extent in Virginia, North Carolina, and elsewhere. Tennessee and Kentucky, though the plough has passed over extensive areas, still possess large forests, and the Ohio flows for hundreds of miles among patriarchal trees, with a rich undergrowth of azaleas, rhododendrons, and other beautiful shrubs, bound together in chains of flowers by creeping plants. When America was discovered, one mass of unbroken forest spread over the mainland, from the Gulf of St. Lawrence and the Canadian Lakes to the Gulf of Mexico, and from the Atlantic Ocean it crossed the Alleghany Mountains, and spread in gloom and grandeur over the valley of the Mississippi—an ocean of vegetation swelling and sinking for upwards of one million of square miles.

Prairies which, in their general aspect, resemble those of the Missouri and the Mississippi, are found to the east and west of the American Desert, in Arrisona, in Texas, in California, and various provinces of Mexico. Vegetation, however, nevertheless differs according to the conditions of each region, and the alternatives of deluging rains and extreme dryness become more and more conspicuous as we approach the Equator. Nevertheless—and this, perhaps, is the feature most distinctive of the Prairies, or Savannahs, from the Pampas and Llanos—the dryness is never sufficiently severe in the former to destroy vegetation, as is the case in the latter. But the herbs and grasses often grow so dry in summer that the most trivial accident—such as a lighted match flung carelessly away, or the ashes dropped from a hunter’s pipe—will kindle the most awful conflagrations, and the flames will spread devouringly over leagues of open ground, consuming trees and shrubs, and burning to death the cattle or wild animals which haply fall within their range. With the crackling, hissing, seething noises of the fire mingle the groans of the perishing beasts, while huge clouds of smoke roll before the wind, like the billows of a wind-swept ocean, and live tongues of flame ever and anon light up the terrible scene with lurid splendour. These “Prairie-fires” are sometimes kindled in revenge by the Indians, and occasionally the settlers resort to this dangerous but summary method of clearing the encumbered ground. However caused, the spectacle is one of infinite grandeur, which might have furnished Dante with a fresh image of horror for his “Inferno.”

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A PRAIRIE ON FIRE IN CENTRAL AMERICA.
A PRAIRIE ON FIRE IN CENTRAL AMERICA.

From the fortieth to the thirty-fifth parallels of north latitude the Desert appears in North America under a form more like the “seas of sand” of Africa and Arabia; the vast areas of the Llanos and the Pampas. These two words are nearly synonymous. They are used to designate wide level plains, inundated and fertile in the rainy season, but in the hot season stripped by the sun’s rays of every apparent trace of vegetation. Between the Californian Alps and the Rio-Colorado withers a grand, sandy, and utterly barren plain, which touches the northern borders of La Sonora. Somewhat further to the east extends the Llano-Estacado, which eventually merges into the American Desert. But the most considerable Pampas and Llanos belong to South America. Of these, the most arid and the most desolate—which most vividly recall the rainless deserts of the Old World—are the Pampa of Atacama, between the Andes and the Pacific, with Taracapa on the north, and Copiapo on the south; that of Sechura, which forms a great portion of the littoral of the Peruvian department of Truxillo; and that of Pernambuco, which forms the major part of the plateau north-east of Brazil.

These Deserts, no less than those of Africa and Arabia, merit the name of the “Land of Fear.”

Their surface is as smooth as that of the calm sea, and bounded only by the circular line of the horizon; the eye frequently ranges over a space of twenty-five square miles without meeting a clump of trees on which to rest; nor is the monotony relieved by the slightest undulation of the soil. Everywhere is nothingness, silence, desolation, death. More than one wayfarer has never escaped from their mazy solitudes. Fatigue, hunger, thirst, decimate the caravans which undertake to traverse them, and the track is marked by whitened skeletons, whose flesh has been devoured by vultures, and which unknown hands have piled up and arranged with a ghastly symmetry of order.

However, since the discovery of America, certain portions of the Llanos have become habitable. Towns have risen at intervals on the banks of the rivers which water them. These centres of population are connected with each other by huts of reeds, covered with ox-hides, and separated by about a day’s march. Here reside the Llaneros, to whose charge are intrusted the innumerable herds of cattle, horses, and mules, which subsist on the pasturage of the Steppes.

The inhabitants of the Llanos possess characteristics as marked as those of their plains. The hatos wherein they assemble are situated at long distances apart; but the true home of the llanero, a bold and skilful horseman, is his saddle. Firmly seated on his rapid steed, he gallops at will across the trackless plain, and combining the two extremes of solitude and activity, confines his half-savage existence to the custody or the ownership of his herds of horses and cattle. Thus, born in the Llanos like his father, a descendant of the first Spanish settlers, he has no idea of any other country than his southern pastures, of any other career than his dreamy pastoral life. Clothed in a picturesque costume, half Spanish, half Indian; his machete (or cutlass) thrust through a belt of leather, his poncho (a chequered mantle) over his shoulder, and the redoubtable lasso suspended in a coil to his saddle-bow; armed with the clumsy lance, which serves to drive his herd before him, and, at need, to vindicate its owner’s courage in some partisan affray; the llanero, never thinking of the past, never dreaming of the future, on the alert in every danger, and accustomed to the severest privations, enjoys with intoxication the rude happiness of his wild freedom.

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PAMPAS OF SOUTH AMERICA.
PAMPAS OF SOUTH AMERICA.

The Llanos of Venezuela occupy a superficial area, estimated, according to Humboldt, at 153,000 square miles, between the deltas of the Orinoco and the river Coqueta. They are as flat as the surface of the sea, and covered with long rank grass. You might travel over the dreary level for 1100 miles from the delta of the Orinoco to the foot of the Andes of Pasto, and frequently not encounter an eminence a foot high in 270 square miles. Their length is twice that of their breadth; and as the wind blows constantly from the east, the climate is the more ardent the further west. “These Steppes, for the most part,” says Mrs. Somerville,[92] “are destitute of trees or bushes, yet in some places they are dotted with the mauritia and other palms.” Flat as they are, two kinds of inequalities will sometimes occur: one consists of banks or shoals of grit or compact limestone, five or six feet high, perfectly level for several leagues, and imperceptible except on their edges; the other inequality can only be detected by the barometer or levelling instruments; it is called a Mesa, and is a gentle knoll swelling very gradually to an elevation of a few fathoms. Yet slight as is this altitude, a Mesa forms the watershed from south-west to north-east, between the affluents of the Orinoco and the streams flowing to the northern coast of Terra Firma. In the wet season, from April to the end of October, the tropical rains pour down in torrents, and hundreds of square miles of the Llanos are inundated by the overflow of the rivers. In the hollows the water is sometimes twelve feet deep, and such numbers of horses and other animals perish, that the ground smells strongly of musk, an odour peculiar to many quadrupeds. “From the flatness of the country, too, the waters of some affluents of the Orinoco are driven backwards by the floods of that river, especially when aided by the wind, and form temporary lakes. When the waters subside, these Steppes, manured by the sediment, are mantled with verdure, and produce ananas, while occasional groups of fan palm-trees and mimosas skirt the rivers. When the dry weather returns, the grass is burnt to powder; the air is filled with dust raised by currents occasioned by difference of temperature, even when there is no wind. If by any accident a spark of fire falls on the scorched plains, a conflagration spreads from river to river, destroying every animal, and leaves the clayey soil sterile for years, till vicissitudes of weather crumble the brick-like surface into earth.”

When this takes place, the rending of the indurated soil is sudden and violent, as if from the shock of an earthquake. If at such a time two opposing currents of air, whose conflict produces a rotatory motion, come in contact with the surface of the earth, the Llanos assume a strange and singular aspect. Like cone-shaped clouds, whose extremities seem to touch the ground, the sand rises through the rarefied air in the electrically-charged centre of the whirling current; like the sand-spouts of the Saharan Desert, or the waterspouts which formerly were the awe and dread of the mariner. Then does the lowering sky cast a “dim uncertain light,” like a November fog in London, on the desolate plain. The horizon draws suddenly nearer; the Steppe seems to contract, and a nameless terror seizes the heart of the wanderer. The hot dusty air increases in suffocating heat; and the east wind, blowing over the long-heated soil, yields no refreshment, but rather oppresses with its burning glow. The pools, hitherto protected from evaporation by the yellow fading branches of the fan palm, begin to disappear. As in the north the animals grow torpid with the mortal cold, so under the influence of the parching drought the boa and the crocodile fall asleep, buried deeply in the dry mud. Everywhere the drought prevails, and yet everywhere the refracted rays of light delude the traveller with the image of gleaming lakes and rushing rivers. The distant palm bush hovers above the ground like a spectre, apparently raised by the influence of the contact of unequally heated, and, therefore, unequally dense strata of air. Half hidden by the rolling clouds of dust, restless with the pangs of thirst and hunger, the horses and cattle roam around, the cattle dismally lowing, and the horses stretching out their long necks and snuffing the wind, in the hope some moister current may betray the neighbourhood of a not wholly failing pool. More sagacious and astute, the wary mule seeks a different mode of alleviating his thirst. Under its prickly envelope the melon-cactus conceals a watery pith. The mule first strikes the prickles aside with his fore-feet, and then cautiously approaches his lips to the plant and drinks the cool juice. But the experiment is not always without danger, and many animals are lamed by the spines of the cactus.

When the overpowering heat of the day is followed by the cooler temperature of the night, which is always of the same length in these latitudes, even then the cattle can obtain no repose. Enormous bats suck their blood like the fabled vampires during their sleep, or attach themselves to their backs, causing festering wounds in which mosquitoes, horse-flies, and a host of stinging insects, niche themselves. Thus the animals lead a weary life during the hot season. But at length, after the long drought and the parching glow, comes the welcome rain! Then takes place a transformation such as the fancy of the poet never surpassed or equalled. The deep blue of the hitherto unclouded sky grows lighter; the dark space in the constellation of the Southern Cross is hardly distinguishable at night; the soft phosphorescent lustre of the so-called Magellanic clouds “fades, fades, and falls away;” even the stars in Aquila and Ophiucus in the zenith beam with a tremulous and less planetary radiance. And lo, yonder in the south, a single cloud, like the peak of some remote mountain, soars perpendicularly from the horizon. Gradually the gathering vapours fold over the sky. Hark! The thunder is pealing in the distance, and louder and nearer come its awful reverberation. It heralds the life-restoring rain! Scarcely has the genial moisture refreshened earth, before a blessed fragrance breathes from the previously barren Steppe, and its nakedness is clothed upon with the bloom and beauty of a thousand grasses. The herbaceous mimosas, with renewed sensibility to the influence of light, open their drooping leaves to greet the rising sun; and the rosy-fingered morn is saluted with a glad chorus of birds, and by the opening blossoms of the water-plants. Now the horse bounds over the plain in keen ecstasy of spirit, and the cattle grazes plentifully on the fresh green herbage. Yet the new life is not without its peril. Anguis latet in herbÂ. Among the tall thick grass lurks the spotted jaguar, the tiger of the New World, and measures carefully the distance that separates him from his unsuspecting victim.

Sometimes (so say the natives) the moistened clay on the margin of the swamps will blister and swell slowly into a kind of mound until, with a violent noise, like the outbreak of a small mud volcano, the accumulated earth is cast high into the air. The spectator who comprehends the purport of this strange scene immediately retreats, for he knows that the birth of the portentous travail will be a gigantic water-snake or huge crocodile roused from its torpidity.

The rivers which bound the plain to the south—the Arauca, the Apure, and the Pajara—gradually swell, and now Nature compels the same animals, which in the first half of the year panted with thirst on the dry and dusty soil, to adopt an amphibious life. A portion of the Steppe now assumes the aspect of a vast inland sea.[93] The brood mares retire with their foals to the more elevated banks, which rise like islands above the watery expanse. Every day the dry space grows smaller. It is a miniature reproduction of the Noachian Deluge. The animals, crowded together, swim about for hours in quest of other pasture, and feed sparingly on the tops of the flowering grasses that spring above the seething surface of the turbid waters. Many foals are drowned, and many are surprised by the crocodiles, killed by a blow from their powerful tails, and devoured. It is no uncommon thing to see the marks of these monsters’ cruel teeth on the legs of horses and cattle which have narrowly escaped from their blood-thirsty jaws. Such a sight reminds the thoughtful observer of that capability of adaptation to the most varied circumstances with which the all-powerful Creator has endowed certain animals and plants.[94]

The Pampas of Pernambuco and Buenos Ayres have three times the superficial area of the Llanos of Venezuela. So great is their extent, that while forests of palms border them on the north, they are covered with snow in the south, during a great part of the year, like the northern Steppes of Tartary. According to the climatic divisions generally adopted, these regions belong to the Temperate Zone; but in truth they comprehend a great variety of climates. Their character is not less grand or original than that of the Llanos which precede them. “The Pampas,” says an American writer, “surpass in majesty all the marvels of the new continent, and yet they astonish the traveller by the air of abandonment and sadness which is impressed upon them, especially in the low country watered by the Plata. Traces of life are there infrequent; still rarer are the objects which attract attention. Here, at the bottom of a crevasse, a cactus conceals its head bristling with spines; there, a solitary tree rises majestically toward heaven. Sometimes, upon the plain, the eye discovers the monstrous skeleton of an animal which flourished in those remote times when the Alps still slept in the depths of ocean, and dreamed not of blending their snow-burdened peaks with the clouds. The Pampas serve as the burial-place for races of gigantic men, now extinct, who seem to issue from their silent graves in testimony to the former being of vanished generations, and to bear witness to the Creator of all things. Above your head, and far away in the azure of heaven, you perceive a black point; it is a condor describing slowly its sinister circles. In the distance passes and disappears the ungainly figure of an ostrich. The inexpressible charm of these solitudes is their absolute freedom. And while traversing them the wayfarer comprehends the love with which they inspire the Indian, whose hope it is to meet beyond this world with yet vaster horizons for the indulgence of his wandering tastes.”

At the southern extremity of South America spreads a sterile plain, sown with pebbles and blocks of porphyry: it is Patagonia. As we retrace our steps towards the north, the soil rises before us in terrace after terrace, till it reaches the base of the Cordilleras. In the northern districts the pebbly soil gives place to verdant meadows, where the Patagonians breed numerous herds of horses and cattle. Water is wanting in this country. The rains are rare, and the dry seasons very prolonged. The summer heat is overwhelming; in winter violent winds sweep the Savannahs, which are covered with nocturnal frosts. Under such climatic influences the soil produces only a dry coarse grass. In the interior a few beeches and cacti are met with, and then broad swamps, fringed with reeds and rushes. In the spring a mantle of clover spreads over the earth, but only to be withered up by the first heats of summer.

Along the banks of the Rio Negro the Pampas of Buenos Ayres stretch from the coast of the Atlantic to the foot of the Andes. On a considerable portion of this vast area marshes of salt water encroach—a phenomenon all the more curious because the salt lies only on the surface, and all the wells artificially excavated yield fresh water. During the rains the low grounds are flooded; but as soon as the sun has dried up the plain, it is clothed in rich pasturage, while the elevated table-lands are dry and withered. There, too, the dryness is often attended with disastrous results. From 1827 to 1830, as Mr. Darwin records, not a drop of water fell; all traces of vegetation disappeared; the rivers ran dry, and the herds perished in incalculable numbers; in the single province of Buenos Ayres, the loss was estimated at more than a million head of cattle.

To the north of the Rio Salado, at the portals of the Andes, the country assumes a look of implacable desolation; no winds ever agitate the lower strata of the atmosphere. The water-courses which descend from the mountains lose themselves in the sand; salt marshes, whence the very birds hold aloof, alone alternate with a soil everywhere intersected by crevices. The district of the Pampas which stretches northward to the spurs of the Andes consists of a sandy soil, free from salt, but wholly unproductive. These solitudes, however, are ploughed by running streams, none of which communicate with the sea. They descend from the Andes, traverse the Pampas from east to west, and empty themselves into the saline lakes. Somewhat further to the north, and nearer the Equator, lies an almost unknown region of salt—a region of indescribable gloom, where neither tree, nor bush, nor blade of emerald grass, delights the eye. Eighteen months frequently elapse in this land of desolation, worthy of being one of the circles in Dante’s “Inferno,” without the cheering sound of a shower of rain, and when at length it arrives, it splits the rocks of salt and melts them into wide pools of brackish mud. As soon as the sun has absorbed the excessive humidity of the soil, myriads of salt crystals glitter on the surface, and convert the Desert into one immense mirror.

To the north-west of La Plata extends a desert of very different character—the Despoblado, or uninhabited land, a plateau of the Andes, rising some 4200 feet above the level of the sea. This desert is cloven into two portions by a deep valley, bordered with sharp rocks, which affords the only practicable route from Bolivia to Buenos Ayres. Winter, in this sombre world within a world, is a time of horror, when the spirit of Desolation goes to and fro in wrath unchained. Yet even here humanity drags about the fetters of existence. The traveller occasionally alights upon the wretched huts where the unfortunate descendants of the ancient Peruvians linger through life. Their wealth consists in a few llamas. Their occupation, in hunting the alpaca, the guanaco, and the chinchilla; in filtering the river sands for scanty grains of gold; in collecting salt, and disposing of it to the inhabitants of the nearest towns.

“The aspect of the Puna, or Despoblado,” says Von Tschudi,[95] “is singularly monotonous and dreary. The expansive levels are scantily covered with grasses of a yellowish-brown hue, and are never enlivened by fresh-looking verdure. Here and there, at distant intervals, may be seen a few stunted Quenera trees,[96] or large patches of ground covered with the Ratanbia shrub.[97] Both are used by the Indians as fuel, and for roofing their huts. The cold climate and sterile soil are formidable impediments to agriculture. Only one plant is cultivated in these regions with any degree of success. It is the maca, a tuberous root grown like the potato, and, like it, used as an article of food. In many of the Puna districts it constitutes the principal sustenance of the inhabitants. It has an agreeable and somewhat sweetish flavour, and when boiled in milk it tastes like the chestnut.”

The most imposing spectacle presented by the Deserts of South America is that of their frequent hurricanes. As the Simoom to the Sahara, so is the Pampero to the Pampas. Its approach is foretold by signs which the native’s experienced eye readily recognizes. All at once the air seems stricken motionless, and over the solitude broods a solemn silence. A cloud white and light as snow—a cloud “no bigger than a man’s hand”—rises in the south-west. It advances, and as it advances enlarges its proportions. Other clouds appear, and all gather into one imposing mass. The dust rises and whirls round in thick columns suspended between heaven and earth. Lower and lower descend the congregated vapours, until they envelop the earth in a funeral shroud, whose folds the hurricane incessantly agitates, and which the forked lightnings seem to rend in fragments. Suffocating gusts of a fiery wind traverse space. And now the sudden tempest stoops down from the summit of the Andes, and sweeps the Savannah with resistless fury. Enormous masses of sand, upgathered by the rafale, obscure the clearness of day; at noon the earth is covered with a darkness that may be felt. The thunder mingles its roar with the strident voices of the storm. All that lives, all that breathes, is at the mercy of the unchained elements, which are as pitiless in their wrath as a roused people. Thousands of animals perish in the Savannahs; and prostrate, with his face to the earth, man tremblingly awaits the expiring breath of the grand convulsion!

The horses and cattle of Europe are replaced in the Pampas of South America by the herds of guanacos and llamas which covered them at the epoch of the Spanish conquest. Their owners, descendants of the Spaniards intermingled with the native races, possess many of the characteristics of the Arab.

Like the llanero of Venezuela, the guacho of the Pampas realizes the idea of the ancient centaur; and from the throne of his saddle, to which hangs the inseparable lasso, he surveys the plains where he is lord and king with the fiery glance of a free and independent spirit. He owes scant allegiance to any established authority, and under the blue sky of heaven enjoys the blessings of uncontrolled freedom. And what to him the fever and turmoil of civilization, when, mounted on his noble steed, he can roam at will, with none to say him nay, over leagues and leagues of grassy prairies!

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CHAPTER III.
THE AUSTRALIAN INTERIOR.

GEOGRAPHERS have given the name of the “fifth division of the globe” to that immense archipelago, or rather, that mass of archipelagoes which remote geological convulsions have elevated in the Pacific Ocean, between the three continents, Asia, Africa, and America, and whose existence was first revealed to the Western World by the maritime explorations of the Portuguese and the Dutch, in the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries. From the epoch when these enterprises commenced, the spherical figure of the earth was established beyond dispute; and after the discovery of America, it became only reasonable to suppose that, in virtue of a law without which our planet could not have maintained its equilibrium in space, there must exist a continent intended to balance those of the Northern Hemisphere. But for many years all the researches of intrepid navigators only led them to the shores of small islands and islets, not a few of which were barren, uninhabited, and swept by the winds of ocean; while others, girdled with palms, enriched with vegetation, and blessed by bland and genial airs, seemed to realize the poetical idea of the Fortunate Islands,

At length, however, by directing their investigations towards the less submerged region of the Indian Ocean, and by sailing beyond the great eastern islands which seem to have been formerly connected with the Indian Peninsula, the Portuguese mariners were the first to descry a long line of coast which they did not doubt was that of an Austral Continent, whose satellites, so to speak, were the previously discovered islands. This supposed continent is still represented in the old maps published at the close of the seventeenth and the beginning of the eighteenth centuries, by a mass of ill-defined contours, with this indication: Terra Australis incognita. The succeeding voyages of Carpenter, Nuyts, Tasman, and the illustrious Cook, proved that this Austral or Southern Land was in effect a continent, or, at least, an island of extraordinary dimensions, whose coasts alone—and these but a small extent inland—were inhabited by miserable tribes, with black skin, and hideous features, placed at the extreme limit which separates man from the brute. The Dutch navigators, who had first determined the principal outlines of this continent, named it New Holland, but after it passed into the hands of England, it received, as it still preserves, the appellation of Australia.

Take away from this Australian Continent its fertile districts in the south-east, where have sprung up and developed with amazing rapidity the flourishing colonies of New South Wales, Victoria, and Queensland, and what remains? A country entirely wild, and, one might almost venture to say, an immense Desert. The gloomy aspect and the barrenness of its northern shores, with few exceptions, had repulsed the early Portuguese and Dutch navigators, who little suspected what splendid treasures were hidden among its auriferous sands and rocks. They saw but insufficient rivers and scanty vegetation, and went no further.

None of the rivers of New Holland are navigable to any great distance from their mouths. The want of water is severely felt in the interior, where a treeless desert of sand, swamps, and jungle is intersected by streams called “creeks,” which are dry for the greater portion of the year; yet a belief long prevailed that a large sea or fresh-water lake occupied the centre—a belief founded partly on the nature of the soil, and partly on the circumstance that all the rivers that flow into the sea on the northern coast, between the Gulf of Van Diemen and Carpentaria, converge towards their sources, as if they served for drains to some large body of water.

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AUSTRALIAN LANDSCAPE.
AUSTRALIAN LANDSCAPE.

The eastern side of the country is traversed by a great range of thinly timbered down, clothed with grasses and herbage, and rising to an elevation of 3500 feet. These are known as the Blue Mountains, and stretch from north to south over nearly thirty degrees of latitude, from Cape York to Cape Wilson. All their western slopes descend gradually towards the interior, until they are lost in the vast desert plain of the interior.

The streams which flow in this direction either pour their waters into the great rivers, such as the Darling and the Murray, which has an internal navigation of 1800 miles, or lose themselves in the marshes and lakes, which the great summer heats periodically dry up.

Another chain of mountains stretches from south to north along the western coast of Australia, from Point d’Entrecasteaux to Murchison River. A third chain, in the northern region, runs from east to west, between Camden Harbour and the Gulf of Carpentaria. The interior of the country is, as I have already indicated, in all probability an immense plain, thinly sown with trees of the two families of AcaciÆ and Eucalypti, and tenanted by the wombat and the kangaroo.

Over this vast portion of Australia, which still remains a blank upon the map, numerous expeditions of discovery have been attempted since the earliest days of European colonization. Hardy pioneers—those men who are the real, but obscure, and speedily forgotten founders of empires—have sacrificed their lives in the endeavour to lay down a track across the great island-continent from north to south. Anglo-Saxon enterprise no sooner found itself securely planted on the sea-coast, than it felt that behind it lay a continent to acquire, and the indomitable instinct of the race bade it continue its mission of colonization. During the last quarter of a century, the colonial governments have liberally encouraged these explorations, and the annals of Australian discovery have been illuminated by the names of Eyre (1840), Sturt (1845), Leichardt (1846-48), Kennedy (1848), and M’Douall Stuart (1858-62), second to none among our English discoverers in patience, resolution, and heroic daring.

The problem remained: to cross the central wilderness of Australia, and prove the possibility of a passage from the southern shores to the northern, from Melbourne to the Gulf of Carpentaria. This problem was finally solved, at no light cost, by the intrepid Burke and energetic Wills.

On the 20th of April 1860, there set out from Melbourne, under the auspices of the Government of Victoria, a small troop of gallant explorers, under the immediate direction of Robert O’Hara Burke, a man well-fitted for his post: born in the county of Galway in 1821, after having served as captain in a Hungarian regiment, he had discharged for several years the duties of inspector of a body of the colonial police.

The second in command was a brave young Englishman, William John Wills, twenty-six years of age, an assistant in the Observatory at Melbourne.

The expedition consisted of eighteen persons, and was provided with horses, camels which had been expressly imported from Arabia, waggons, all kinds of scientific instruments, and the necessary amount of stores and provisions for a protracted journey.

Cooper’s Creek, which marked about a third of the whole distance, was fixed upon as place of rendezvous and as the final starting-point. Thither, to save time, Burke and Wills, with six men, six camels, five horses, and some months’ provisions, proceeded in advance of the main body; and arriving there on the 13th of December, Burke established a depÔt, left it in charge of BrahÉ, a petty officer, and three assistants, and with Wills, a couple of men (King and Gray), the camels, and one horse, plunged on the 16th into the trackless Australian wilds.[98]

Keeping nearly due north, and near or upon the meridian of 140° E., they traversed, day after day, well-watered plains, with numerous clumps of wood, and tolerable indications of a good grazing country. On the 12th of February 1861, the four travellers had conquered every obstacle, and struck the marshes on the Albert River, which flows into the Gulf of Carpentaria. Their goal was reached, and the problem of a connecting route between north and south successfully solved.

The vast Australian solitudes hitherto traversed had presented every variety of aspect, from the stony plateaux and the watery sands where the rivers can keep no regular channel, and where wide spaces of dry bare ground separate great shallows of brackish water, to finely irrigated plains, clothed with herbs or bushes, and promising abundant resources for future colonists. Meteorological phenomena present in these regions the greatest uncertainties: either the dry season is so protracted as to ruin all vegetation, or the rains so thoroughly deluge the soil as by a contrary cause to ensure the same result. These climatic contradictions explain the variations observable in the narratives of the different travellers who have visited the interior. One point, however, is beyond all doubt; the hopeless sterility of Nuyts Land,—that immense sandy tract which, over an extent as yet unknown, is regarded as impassable, and stretches along the southern coast between Spencer Gulf and King George Harbour. As before said, the primary cause of the barrenness of Central Australia is the lack of water—running water and rain water. Yet the most sterile portions lie far nearer the coast than was formerly credited; and monotonous as may be the descriptions of explorers, so far as the landscapes of Central Australia are concerned, we may from to-day consider that, with the exception of certain points, no obstacles exist sufficiently powerful to arrest the expansion of European colonization, in a country especially where cattle-breeding is the principal industry, and the one which takes precedence of all others.

The chief difficulty encountered by each exploring party has been the penury of natural products of the soil adapted for human food. The traveller is compelled to carry with him a sufficiency of provisions to last him from his departure until his return. It was this insufficiency of rations which wrought the fatal dÉnouement of the glorious enterprise of Burke and Wills.

After reaching the Gulf of Carpentaria, there remained nothing more for Burke and his three companions but to retrace their steps to their depÔt at Cooper’s Creek. But their energies were exhausted, and from the beginning of April their provisions failed them. At the close of ten or twelve days’ march, they were constrained to kill a horse. In the following week, Gray succumbed to the excessive fatigue. The three survivors dragged themselves on to the depÔt, where they arrived on the morning of the 21st of April. But the men whom they had left in charge had taken their departure that very morning, after waiting long beyond the time originally fixed for their return.

“You may imagine our consternation,” says Wills in his Journal, under the date of April 21st; “four months of harassing marches and privations of every kind had completely exhausted our strength. It was an extremely difficult task for either of us to accomplish a distance of only a few yards. The effort necessary to ascend the smallest elevation of the ground, even without a burden, induces an indescribable sensation of pain and helplessness, and the general lassitude makes one unfit for anything.”

There was no resource now but to rejoin BrahÉ and his men, if possible. Before quitting the depÔt, the latter had left a small supply of provisions, which proved eminently serviceable. On the 23rd Burke, Wills, and King resumed their march, at the rate of four or five miles a-day, in the direction of Mount Despair, which was about sixty miles distant, and where were placed the most advanced posts, northward, of South Australia. A terrible fatality, however, seemed to pursue them; one of their camels, Landa, perished in a bog; the other, Rajah, they were soon forced to kill for food; then they themselves were compelled by sheer exhaustion to return to the depÔt, which, meanwhile, had been revisited by BrahÉ without his discovering a trace of their brief sojourn. Thus abandoned to perish in the Desert, they existed upon the bounty of such natives as they met with, and who occasionally supplied them with a few fish and a little nardoo, an aquatic plant whose pounded seeds the aborigines make into bread. Such a regimen was insufficient to restore their exhausted strength.

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Burke, Wills, and King in the Deserts of Central Australia.
Burke, Wills, and King in the Deserts of Central Australia.

Early in June their afflictions were aggravated by a deplorable catastrophe. The flames of their bivouac fire, driven by a strong wind, reduced to ashes their hut and all that they possessed. There was nothing for them now but to live with the friendly natives who had succoured them. Unfortunately, they had disappeared. It was in vain they attempted to seek them out; Burke and Wills never saw them again.

On Saturday the 29th of June, the latter, utterly exhausted, insisted that his companions should leave him in the wilderness, while they continued their search after the natives. Unwillingly they consented, and taking a solemn farewell of their unfortunate comrade, they dragged themselves away with aching hearts. Four or five days afterwards, King returned with some birds he had contrived to kill, but found Wills asleep in the arms of death. King was now alone, for the intrepid Burke had also fallen a victim to the cruel spirit of the wilderness, resting on the barren ground, with his face upturned to the southern stars. The sole survivor was fortunate enough to fall in with the natives, who welcomed him cordially, and carried him with them from camp to camp. After two months and a half of this strange existence, he was discovered by a relief party sent out from Melbourne, under the command of Mr. Howitt (September 15, 1861), who also gathered the remains of the two gallant but ill-fated leaders, and reverently consigned them to a decent grave.

They had not died in vain. From the shores of Port Philip to those of the Gulf of Carpentaria they had discovered and marked out a practicable route; and when the great Australian colonies shall have pushed forward into the interior, and have occupied the borders of the northern gulf, they will remember with gratitude the brave explorers who sacrificed their lives to effect the passage from one sea to the other.

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CHAPTER IV.
VEGETABLE LIFE IN THE AFRICAN PLAINS.

THE facts actually ascertained in reference to the Flora of the plains of Central Africa, although as yet of a limited character, form as a whole too comprehensive a subject to be fully discussed in these pages. I must, therefore, confine myself to a rapid survey of the principal botanical features of the countries whose general features and physical aspect I have sketched in the preceding chapters.

Senegambia and Upper Guinea, on the west coast of Africa, form a low table-land, situated upwards of 3000 feet above the sea-level, and furrowed by deep gorges, in whose rocky beds the rivers roll and foam, fed by the waters of numerous streams. Grassy savannahs and wide cultivated areas are here inhabited by a numerous population. Several travellers have explored these regions; but all have specially applied themselves to make known the colossal plants which flourish therein, and those, first and foremost, which have a particular interest, either from their Anak-like stature or the manifold uses of their products. I shall have occasion to speak of the arborescent species which, in this part of the Old Continent, blend in immense and impenetrable forests. But owing to this very circumstance we possess few details respecting the plants which clothe the vast plains of Senegambia and Upper Guinea. We only know that there, as everywhere, the great family of the GramineÆ is largely represented. In general these species far exceed in height the plants which make the wealth and glory of our English meads; and they chiefly belong to the tribe of PaniceÆ. A legion of Cassias inhabit the low fresh hills of the Senegambian lands; and some are held in high estimation for their fruit, as the Cassia, or Senna, which is considered one of the most active purgatives. The species generally recognized as best adapted for medicinal purposes are those with oboval and those with obtuse leaves—Cassia obovata and Cassia obtusifolia. The former is a perennial herbaceous plant, from one to two feet high, with smooth egg-shaped leaves and racemes of yellow flowers; the latter differs only in the form of its leaves, which are short and broad, or obtuse.

Many of the cereals are cultivated in Senegambia on a very large scale; but they differ wholly from those which engage the attention of the European agriculturist. Barley will not grow even on the most elevated plateaux, on account of the constant and excessive heat. It is true that it will germinate; but it develops so rapidly that it passes through all the phases of its vegetation in the space of a few weeks, and yields but impoverished ears empty of grains; it is useless to the people of Senegambia except as forage. But, on the other hand, there are numerous GramineÆ adapted to hot regions, which the natives cultivate for their uses. Among others I may name the Tocussa and the Coracan (Eleasine Tocussa and E. Corocana), with their curved digitate spikes and productive seeds; the Pennicellaria spicata, or Guinea Corn, a very tall grass, somewhat resembling maize, whose long cylindrical culms or blades bear each a multitude of white round grains, which, ground into meal, form very savoury cakes, as you may read in Mungo Park’s Travels; and the Durra, Doura, Indian Millet, or Sorgho Grass (Sorghum), a coarse, strong, broad-leaved grass, four to eight feet high, with a round grain a little larger than mustard seed; it is the principal corn-plant of Africa, and exceedingly nutritious, the natives employing it in the preparation of a favourite dish named Kouskoussou.

The cereals most widely cultivated in Senegal include the Colonial Millet (Oplismenus colonus); the Abyssinian Meadow Grass (Poa Abyssinica), called “Teff” in Abyssinia, whose seeds are used for making bread, and whose blades yield an abundant herbage; Rice (Oryza sativa), and different varieties of maize. Leguminous plants appear wanting in Senegal. Their absence is probably due to the same causes as those which we have indicated as affecting the growth of barley. Cabbages and the different salads grow, in fact, with a rapidity which prevents them from maturing; they flower in two or three weeks after being sown. The inhabitants consequently resort to those alimentary species which belong to hot countries, and which can only be obtained in Europe at an enormous expense and by artificial means. Among the plants with edible roots are various kinds of Yams (such as the Dioscorea alata); Batatas (Convolvulus Batatas); and the Manioc or Manihot (Jatropha Manihot),[99] better known as Cassava, which, although in itself a deadly poison, is easily deprived by heat of its noxious properties, and when roasted or boiled becomes a nutritious and highly savoury food. It yields the valuable farinaceous material of Tapioca. Its leaves are cooling and healing; from its seeds an excellent oil is procured; and the juice which drops from its root serves for empoisoning arrows. Good and evil are both strangely mixed in this important plant.

The Corchorus olitorius,[100] an annual cultivated in Egypt as a potherb, is largely grown in Senegal for the tenacious fibres of its root and the oily juices of its seeds. The Black Pepper (Piper nigrum) of India and the Sunda Isles we find perfectly acclimatized in this part of Africa, and it flourishes even in a wild state. Finally, the Coffee-tree (Coffea Arabica), the Cocoa (Theobroma Cacao), Indigo (Indigofera tinctoria), and the Cocos oleracea, are among the cultivated plants of Senegambia.

In northern Guinea and the Gaboon, recently made famous by Du Chaillu’s discovery of the gorilla, Savannahs and cultivated districts are intermingled, though their flora is still imperfectly known. A great number of grasses adorn the fresh and humid prairies, and sedges and reeds abound, while, on the river-banks, in shady nooks, flourish some of the Screw-pine tribe,[101] notably the Pandanus Candelabrum, a highly curious plant, which attracts one’s attention by its mode of vegetation, its graceful ribbon-like foliage, and its small fragrant flowers. Thatching and cordage are obtained from the fibrous leaves; the fruit resembles a richly-coloured pine-apple, but is insipid to the taste.

The Savannahs of the neighbouring provinces, and especially those of the Gold Coast, are in general sparsely inhabited, nor are those on the banks of the Niger an exception; man shrinks from a region which the deadly malaria seems to claim as its own. The flora is very poor, consisting chiefly of aquatic grasses, with blades of moderate height, and leaves of comparatively little succulence. The herbaceous plants, suitable for food or industrial uses, which are most frequently met with in Guinea and the Gaboon, resemble those already described as belonging also to Senegambia. But there are many different Arums, such as the Caladium segmium and Colocasia mucronatum, properly known as Taro, Tara, or Tayo, and employed in making granulate sugar from the stem of the former, and in boiling or roasting for food the rhizomÆ of the latter; Tobacco; the ox-heart Annona, a plant sometimes cultivated in Europe, where it never fructifies, though its aromatic fruits are its most valuable product, and are highly esteemed by the Africans,—these “Custard Apples” resembling thick cream, and being eaten, like cream, with a spoon; the Banana,[102] with its gigantic foliage—precious “Musa Sapientum “—valuable not only to “wise men,” but foolish men, as a substitute for wheat or the breadfruit tree, and gratifying the savage with a succulent and nutritious food. Forty or fifty banana plants will flourish in a square space of one thousand feet, and an acre of ground will yield sufficient provision for fifty men. That area of land which, sown with wheat, would feed only one man, will nourish five-and-twenty if planted with bananas.

I must not forget the Pistachios,[103] which flourish spontaneously in the vast plains of Central Africa, and the highly valuable Sugar Cane (Saccharum officinarum), which, like the Cotton Plant, has rendered inestimable services to man, and yet has been the origin of unutterable crime and misery, promoting by its cultivation the accursed slave-trade. The Vine (Vitis vinifera) is cultivated in a few districts. Among the herbaceous or sub-frutescent plants peculiar to this region, and which enjoy a certain reputation on account of the utility of their products, I may name the following:—

The Calebash Nutmeg (Monodora myristica), one of the AnnonaceÆ, remarkable for its withered fruits, which, when rasped like its seeds, furnish a condiment deservedly esteemed by the natives; Guinea Pepper (Uvaria Æthiopica), whose properties are well known and appreciated in this part of Western Africa; and finally, one of the CucurbitaceÆ, the Telfairia pedata, whose seeds enclose a very oleaginous substance.

To the east, in Nigritia or the Soudan, the country is nearly level, although situated at an elevation of 1200 to 1300 feet above the sea. The vegetation here is very scanty; yet the copious tropical rains favour the growth of plants suitable for the provender of cattle; pastures are abundant, and formed by the principal Grasses (Panicum Setaria, and the like), the Sedges, Rushes, &c. These meads are clothed with verdure for three or four months of the year, and much frequented by the shepherds who dwell in the vicinity of Lake Tchad.

Still further eastward, if we continue our wanderings, we plunge into the warm regions of Darfour and Kordofan. Here the country is cast in bold outlines; numerous lofty mountain-chains are intersected by narrow valleys and smooth expanses of meadow-land. All that portion of Kordofan which lies west of the White Nile is a Prairie some thirty-five miles long by twenty-eight broad, stretching towards the rising sun, and relieved by small patches of shrubs of the family LeguminosÆ, especially the Mimosa, with its graceful shrinking foliage, which shudders at the lightest touch, and its spherical rose-hued or snow-white blossoms.

These meadow-lands suffer from excessive aridity; it is only with an arduous struggle that a few grasses resist the dryness which almost constantly prevails; and frequently, as is the case in other parts of Western Africa, the inhabitants can only procure water for their needs by sinking wells of extraordinary depth. Less arid, the southern part of Kordofan is better clothed with vegetation; the country is more broken, and increases in picturesqueness of aspect as we approach the neighbourhood of Mount Tegeler. Sennaar, which is traversed by the Blue Nile, is far from offering an equally luxuriant vegetation: along the river extends a vast belt of meadow, generally barren, or only blessed with a few herbaceous plants, a few LeguminosÆ, with deeply-buried roots; and its aspect, therefore, is one of great gloom. The landscape wants

which appeal so potently to the sensibilities of the poet. Nor does the scenery improve as we ascend the Sennaar to the Lake of Zana, situated to the south-east, for though the rich black soil of the Kulla valley nourishes a profuse vegetation, it is the vegetation peculiar to the marsh and the swamp; the wind rushes through thick sedges, and whispering reeds, and waving grasses. On the northern borders of the lake the pasturages are fresh and green, and a man might easily lurk unseen among their gigantic GramineÆ, the Panicas and the Setarias. Still keeping our faces eastward, like the Ghebirs of ancient Iran, we perceive that Abyssinia is divided into two parts by the River Tacazze, an affluent of the Nile; the western being called Amhora, and the eastern TigrÉ. Owing to its peculiar geographical configuration and the elevation of its mountains, Abyssinia rejoices in a wholly special Flora. In the Semen, west of the Tacazze, there is a mountain lifting its crest above the limit of perpetual snow, or to an altitude of 14,000 feet. Up to a height of 6500 feet its slopes are thickly carpeted with fresh and fragrant sward, and the air throbs with the music of a hundred streams which flow from the perennial fountains of ice and snow.

In the TigrÉ the country is not fertile, nor is it well populated. Its geological features are interesting, for we meet everywhere with isolated masses of limestone, arranged generally in horizontal strata of various extent, and bearing indisputable traces of a vast volcanic labour. On the coast of the Red Sea, the oriental slopes only present at their base a few scattered thickets chiefly composed of thorny shrubs and the LeguminosÆ. We meet also with various kinds of Aloes and EuphorbiaceÆ (Spurge-Worts), as the Euphorbia neriifolia, Euphorbia grandidens, and Euphorbia Abyssinica. It is said that King Juba II., of Mauritania, discovered the plant growing on Mount Atlas, wrote a short treatise on its virtues, and named it after his physician Euphorbos (about the end of the first century B.C.) The root, generally speaking, is aperient, and the milky juice useful in cases of rheumatism and cramp.

The plains of TigrÉ present a beautiful appearance with the variety of flowers that bloom among the grass; including a kind of scarlet aloe, which is to be met with almost everywhere in TigrÉ, and appears, like our gorse, to flower at all seasons, forming a graceful object in the foreground. The many varieties of mimosas, too, with their different-coloured blossoms—pink, yellow, and white—appear to be spread over the whole face of the country, whether rock or plain, hill or valley. “When in blossom,” says an English traveller,[104] “many of them emit a fragrance so powerful as to render the whole neighbourhood more odorous than a perfumer’s shop. The jessamine is seen in profusion in many parts, but principally on the hills; and there is also a beautiful parasitical creeper (an Æschynanthus), which grows, like the mistletoe, from the bark of other trees. It has a bright dark-green fleshy leaf, with brilliant scarlet flowers.”

The same traveller describes a tree called the dima,[105] which, though not very solid as food, adds much to the flavour of the cuisine. It has a large greenish shell, some nine inches long; inside of it lie a number of seeds, and attached to them by fibres a quantity of yellowish-white cakey powder, having a sweetish acid taste, and when mixed with water forming an agreeable beverage, somewhat resembling lemonade. The Abyssinians mix with it red pepper and salt, and eat it as a relish with their bread. When the tree reaches a certain size, its trunk almost always becomes hollow; and then it frequently contains a store of wild honey, which may easily be obtained by means of a small axe and fire.

More to the south, in the Shoa, we meet with an almost analogous vegetation: the Socotrine Aloes (Aloe socotrina), which supplies our Pharmacopoeia with an active cathartic, is particularly abundant. The Celastrus edulis,[106] a small branching shrub whose leaves possess very similar properties to those of the Tea-plant, and are employed for the same purpose by the Abyssinians, is widely cultivated. The Arabs distil from them a stimulating drink called Kat. Nor should I forget the Cousso, or Casso, named after its discoverer Brayera anthelmintica,[107] an infusion of whose bark or leaves forms one of the most powerful vermifuges in the world; and the Musa ensete, a magnificent banana, with gigantic leaves and nerves of a vivid red, which now flourishes in our European plantations.

Among the cultivated plants may be included most of those which I have noticed under the head of Senegambia; while, owing to the considerable elevation of the mountains, we find many others which belong to cool and temperate climates—such, for example, as rye and barley. The Sugar Cane, the Pomegranate, and numerous AurantiaceÆ, as, for example, the Citron and the Orange, have been likewise introduced into this part of Southern Africa.

From the coast of Aden, where almost complete sterility prevails prior to the rainy season—from the coast of Aden to Cape Guardafui, situated at the easternmost point of Africa, the traveller encounters a constant succession of mountains or elevated table-lands, haunted by the shepherds of the Somali tribes,—a people notorious for their brigandage. Respecting the coast of Ajan we know but little, except that its arid and sandy soil supports a scanty vegetation of stunted plants. The Zanguebar coast is not more familiar to the botanist, and is mainly covered with marshes.

But the littoral of Western Africa is gifted with a flora as luxuriant as it is varied. According to Dr. Welwitsch, who has explored this region, previously almost a terra incognita to Europeans, “the special feature in the neighbourhood of Benguela is the abundance of parasitical LorunthaceÆ, or mistletoe, on the thickets of the thorny Mimosa, to which are attached those RoccellÆ (or Archils), the Roccella tinctoria and R. fuciformis, that yield so brilliant a lilac dye. In the gardens of Benguela the vegetables of Europe are most successfully cultivated, as well as a great number of fruit trees belonging both to tropical and temperate climes: citron and orange, the olive, the cashew-nut, the anana, the fig, the vine, the pomegranate, the elais-palm, the banana, the anona, and the corrossol. The vine bears grapes twice every year, and the crop on each occasion is abundant and of fine flavour. The gardens in the vicinity of MossamÈdes, between the fifteenth and sixteenth parallels of south latitude, exhibit a curious medley of vegetables on every side, where you may see flourishing side by side the banana and the potato, manioc and wheat, sugar-cane and flax, barley, and every kind of Spanish potato.”

A few miles from Cape Negro the coast rises for from 300 to 350 feet above the sea-level, forming a continuous plateau, where the flora, though meagre when compared with that a little further to the north, offers nevertheless to the traveller some objects of the highest interest. It was here that Dr. Welwitsch met with the strange plant which, in commemoration of its intrepid discoverer, Sir William Hooker named Welwitschia,[108] but which the natives call Tumboa. “In its youth its two original cotyledonary leaves appear to grow considerably, and extend horizontally in opposite directions, raised but little above the surface of the sand, whilst the intervening stock thickens and hardens, assuming an obconical shape, flat at the top, and rapidly tapering below into the descending root. As years go on, the original pair of leaves, having attained their full size, and a hard, tough, fibrous consistence, do not die away, but gradually split up into shreds; the woody mass which bears them rises very little higher, but increases horizontally both above and below the insertion of the leaves, so as to clasp their base in a deep marginal slit or cavity; and from the upper side, at the base of the leaf, several short flowering stalks are annually developed. These are erect, dichotomously branched jointed stems, rising from six inches to a foot in height, and bearing a pair of small opposite scales at each fork or joint, each branch being terminated by an oblong cone, under the scales of which are the flowers and seeds. The result is, that the country is studded with these misshapen table-like or anvil-like masses of wood, whose flat tops, pitted with the scars of old flowering stems, never rise above a foot from the ground, but vary, according to age, in a horizontal diameter of from a few inches to five or six feet—those of about eighteen inches diameter being supposed to be already above a hundred years old.”[109]

These fantastic monstrous shapes were found by Dr. Welwitsch, with their deeply-embedded roots, on the dry plateau of the Benguela coast, in 15° 40´ south latitude. Herr Montein met with it in a perfectly similar situation on quartzose soil, in the neighbourhood of the Nicolas River, 14° 20´ south latitude; and Mr. Baines and Mr. Anderson, in Dawaraland, between 22° and 23° south latitude, in the neighbourhood of Whalefish Bay, and in a district where never a drop of rain falls. We may therefore place the habitat of this remarkable plant between the 14th and 23rd parallels of south latitude. The crown, when divested of its leaves, bears a close resemblance to a fungus.

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Vegetable Life of Cape Colony. 1. Helichrysum fruticosum. 2. Erica Cavendishiana. 3. Protea longifolia. 4. Todea Africana.
Vegetable Life of Cape Colony.
1. Helichrysum fruticosum. 2. Erica Cavendishiana. 3. Protea longifolia. 4. Todea Africana.

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Vegetable Life of Cape Colony. 1. Pelargonium hederÆfolium (Ivy-leaved Geranium). 2. Oxalis rosacea (Wood-Sorrel). 3. Pelargonium glaucum. 4. Pelargonium zonale (Zone-leaved Geranium). 5. Pelargonium tricuspidatum.
Vegetable Life of Cape Colony.
1. Pelargonium hederÆfolium (Ivy-leaved Geranium). 2. Oxalis rosacea (Wood-Sorrel).
3. Pelargonium glaucum. 4. Pelargonium zonale (Zone-leaved Geranium).
5. Pelargonium tricuspidatum.

If we now approach the Cape of Good Hope—the Cabo del Tormentoso, or “Cape of Storms,” of the early navigators—we shall observe a characteristic vegetation peculiar to a solid or stony soil, sometimes hilly, but generally dry. It is in the desolate and barren steppes situated within the confines of Caffraria that those splendid herbaceous bulbous plants display their beauties, which are now familiar to our English gardens under the names of Gladiolus, Oxalis, Ixia, and Tulbaya. To those magnificent ornaments of the floral world we must add some less known plants, remarkable in other respects; such as the Mollugo cerviana, which, with a few FicoideÆ, form the almost exclusive nourishment of the herbivorous animals belonging to these countries. The GramineÆ are rare in the plains of Cape Colony, but, on the other hand, they contain a number of oleaginous plants included in divers families. Here, for instance, are those singular CompositÆ, whose stems so closely resemble waxen tapers; several FicoideÆ, of which some species—as, notably, the Mesembryanthemum edule, or Hottentot’s Fig, distributed over the interior of Southern Africa, and the Mesembryanthemum tuberosum—are eagerly sought by the Hottentots, Caffres, and natives generally, who eat the fruits of the former and the roots of the latter; the Stapelia hirsuta, or Carrion Plant, and several others of the same genus, whose carrion-smelling flowers are singularly handsome, though their odour is most offensive; a great number of aloes, particularly the Aloe verrucosa, A. ciliaris, A. plicatilis, and A. arborescens, each distinguished by a strange wayward boldness of form and figure; and, finally, those larger Euphorbias of which I have already spoken, and which yield a white milky juice that hardens on exposure to the air. It is mainly on the slopes or stony hills of the Cape that we meet with numerous and remarkable species of the Immortelles, with their white, yellow, or lilac, and satin-smooth flowers. The woody Immortelle (Helichrysum fruticosum) is one of those peculiar to the Cape districts. It is in analogous but more sandy localities that those graceful little shrubs, with varied corollas, flourish, which are so popular in England under the name of Ericas, and which frequently exhibit the highest beauty of form and colour. In the engraving is figured the exquisite Erica Cavendishiana, a deservedly great favourite in our English conservatories. There, too, the traveller delightedly examines the almost interminable succession of Pelargoniums, or Geraniums, rich in clusters of delicate bloom, and in exquisitely green foliage. What a blank would their absence leave in our blossomy parterres! Here and there he notes dense coppices of the Arduinia spinosa, the Lycium Afrum, the EuclÆa ondulata, whose berries are eaten by the Hottentots; several species of Rhus,[110] among others the Rhus lucidum; and, finally, a great number of the strange fantastic ProteaceÆ, with their hard dry evergreen leaves and curiously beautiful flowers. At the foot of the mountains, in the countries bordering on Caffraria, different CycadaceÆ are found, especially the Zamia and Encephalartus, an elegant plant with a short spherical trunk, surmounted by a crown of long rigid palmated leaves. The natives prepare with their pith a species of cake which they eat instead of bread. Ferns are not numerous at the Cape; the most remarkable, undoubtedly, is the Todea Africana. The hills and meadows of this part of South Africa do not always exhibit so marked an aridity; rivers and streams refresh the soil, and there, where the current is not too swift nor the depth too great, grows the beautiful Calla of Ethiopia, a species of Aroidea, whose snow-white fragrant flowers resemble a large horn in shape; the Aponogeton distachyum, another aquatic plant, with white flowers and floating leaves, is not less common in similar positions; then on the banks, in fresh and shady nooks of greenery, thrives the Strelitzia reginÆ, a gorgeous-flowered genus of MusaceÆ, named after Charlotte of Mecklenburg-Strelitz, queen of George III. The foliage of this magnificent plant consists of long-stalked leaves sheathing at the base, arising from a contracted stem, the flower stalk encircled below by the sheath of the leaf-stalk; while from its upper portion springs a large bract or spathe placed obliquely, within which lie the flowers, resplendent in orange and purple.

In the Desert of Kalahari exists an abundant and varied vegetation. According to Dr. Livingstone, it is an immense plain which nourishes a prodigious quantity of herbaceous plants, generally of very small elevation, and besprinkled at intervals with thickets of bushy shrubs. The herbs which are enabled to withstand the prolonged droughts of these arid localities are species with tuberous roots, creeping or spindle-like, and deeply buried in the ground. The Citrullus vulgaris and C. amarus are found in enormous quantities. Dr. Livingstone speaks of another individual of the gourd tribe, probably a kind of Cucumis, whose fruits colour red when ripe, and which has sometimes a sweet and sometimes a bitter flavour. In these vast regions, where a desolating aridity prevails, the rivers and streams dry up for a great portion of the year, and the soil of their bed, generally black and loamy, is rapidly covered with a profuse vegetation, composed in great part of grasses and rush-plants.

The banks of the rivers Mokolo and Zouga, and the shores of Lake Ngami, are covered with herbs and small thorny stunted bushes, including the Acacia detinens. In the south of Africa the soil is so dry that only plants of a fleshy consistency can endure the heat; elsewhere, in more temperate climes, these latter plants are also very abundant, but the surrounding herbage destroys them. Among those which grow there in great numbers I may name the FicoideÆ, and particularly the Mesembryanthemum inflexum, which is very widely spread, and whose stems and leaves are eaten by herbivorous animals. This plant, says Dr. Livingstone, is so useful that it is cultivated by the Dutch Boers on an extensive scale. On his northward route towards Linianty, this illustrious traveller fell in with meadows of such rank fertility that its herbage frequently rose above his vehicles. The natives, designated Makalatos, show some agricultural taste and skill, and cultivate durra, maize, two kinds of beans, arachides, pumpkins, and the like. Everywhere, along the banks of the Gambye and the Liba, he met with exceptionally fertile land, where the grasses attained an unusual development. On the Liba bloomed wide verdurous plains, consisting of plants with dazzling corollas and gramineÆ of tall stature. Owing to the burning heats which blight these districts, herbaceous plants are developed with extraordinary rapidity.

In the rainy season the Liba meadows are covered, like our own, with an immense variety of mushrooms, some nutritious, others poisonous. The former are much relished by the natives. One of the most common, and one of the finest flavour, is found, says Dr. Livingstone, on all the ant-hills; it is completely white, very good even when eaten raw, and about eight inches in diameter. There is another of a brilliant red or superb blue, but it is poisonous.

The banks of the Quilo, like those of the Quango, are endowed with a most luxurious vegetation; the same is the case with the banks of the Zambesi. Everywhere spreads a gigantic and abundant herbage. In the environs of the small town of Cassanga, the natives cultivate manioc, potatoes, haricots, tomatoes, &c. There are found also bananas and guava plants, and probably all the legumes and fruit trees recognized by Dr. Welwitsch at Benguela, which lies nearly under the same latitude. From the table-land of Cassanga you may survey nearly the whole of the valley watered by the Quango. It is a gently undulating plain, covered with herbs, and sown with great woods. The coffee-tree was formerly cultivated in the province of TÉtÉ, but has been abandoned; cassias, however, flourish, and indigo. Among the cultivated plants of TÉtÉ Livingstone, moreover, mentions some species which are not yet botanically distinguished—such as the Loatsa (Pennisetum typhoideum), and several of the bean tribe, one of which grows underground like the arachides.

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CHAPTER V.
VEGETABLE LIFE IN THE PRAIRIES, PAMPAS, AND LLANOS OF THE NEW WORLD.

OF all the provinces, as yet uninhabited or only scantily peopled, which compose the northern regions of the New World, none offer so vast an extent of prairies as that which is situated in the vicinity of the Neosho and the Vert-de-Gris, between the Missouri frontier and the River Arkansas. Woods of small extent—or, more generally, limited patches of copse and thicket—are met with at intervals in these plains. The Smilax rotundifolia, a species of sarsaparilla, with round leaves and sarmentous stems; the Rhus toxicodendrum, a shrub with a very poisonous juice; and the Asimina triloba, a plant bearing nutritious fruit, are, with a few other subfrutescent species, the denizens of these lonely localities. Annual or perennial plants abound in the prairies, and attain there a considerable development, especially in the more humid districts. The plains bordering on the Swan’s Marsh, situated upon the upper course of the River Osage, nourish a great number of species, as elegant as they are varied. As in our own meadows, the GramineÆ, the CyperaceÆ (or Sedges), the LeguminosÆ, and the CompositÆ—the latter especially—are very extensively diffused. But, in contrast to the majority of our species, their representatives are in general of remarkable dimensions, with flowers of extraordinary splendour, and most of them have been naturalized in our British gardens.

The American prairies, again, like the meadow-lands of Europe, are alternated with dry, gravelly spaces, marshes, swampy angles, and wooded tracts. It is curious to trace a certain likeness between the genera which inhabit these localities in both continents. Thus, M. TrÉcul, who explored, in 1848 and 1849, nearly the whole of the State of Missouri to the foot of the Rocky Mountains, Louisiana, Texas, and a part of Northern Mexico, discovered in the vicinity of the Swan’s Marsh, Water-Plantains (Alisma), Sagittarias, and NymphÆas, in the inundated districts; CharaceÆ—their tubular branches incrusted with carbonate of lime—bladder-plants, and the beautiful floating NaiadaceÆ, in deeper pools and stagnant waters; and the LythraceÆ (or Loose-Strife tribe) on the banks of the brooklets. But the commonest aquatic plant in these morasses, and that which conceals, so to speak, all the other plants proper to such localities, is the Nelumbium calophyllum, with its rose-coloured blossoms; its seeds and rhizomes are eaten by the natives.

The vast plains of Missouri are sufficiently fertile. Among the plants most abundant in somewhat damp places we must notice several CompositÆ; the Liatris, with their violet flowers and long spiky bunches, the Calliopsis tinctoria of the dyers, the Gaura of Lindheimer, and the Tripsacum dactyloides. Asters, Erigerons, Gaillardies, Helianthi (sun-flowers), Solidagos, the Rudbeckia hirta, and the Coreopsis, are found almost as far south as Texas. By the side of these CompositÆ flourish several Desmodiums and Cassias, some graceful Baptisias—with blue flowers and light green foliage, the Melanthum Virginicum, the Euphorbia marginata, the Asclepias Cornuti—now naturalised in the neighbourhood of Paris—the Hibiscus palustris and H. moscheutos, gigantic MalvaceÆ, whose splendidly-beautiful flowers are often three or four inches in diameter. As plants widely spread in the stonier Prairies, we may note the Gauras, different varieties of Œnothera, and especially the Silphium laciniatum (vulgarly called the Magnetic Plant, or Compass of the Prairies). Its leaves are said to turn their faces uniformly east and west, so that their edges are consequently directed due north and south. The plant is also known as Pilot-weed, Polar-plant, Rosin-weed, and Turpentine-weed; the latter name derived from the copious resin exuded by its stems, which grow to a height of three to six feet, as well as by the leaves, which are deeply pinnatified.

In the small woods which skirt the Prairies is found in abundance, twining round the bushes, the Apios tuberosa, a leguminous plant formerly recommended to European cultivation on account of the rounded tubercles which grow upon its subterranean stems. The Arabians collect them in the spring, and carefully dry them to eat for food. The Apios belongs to the family of UmbelliferÆ, and is consequently allied to celery, parsnip, and carrot.

In Missouri, and as far as the confines of Mississippi, we also fall in with very productive sandy plains alternating with wooded uplands. This country recalls, on the whole, the aspect of that which we have just described, and the plants which thrive therein are almost the same.

On the hills and woody slopes in the neighbourhood of the Iron Mountain, we likewise meet with sufficiently verdurous prairies. M. TrÉcul collected there numerous GramineÆ, some species of Carex, Plantains, Euphorbias, Polygalas, and Vervains; many genera, in fact, which in France, and similar soils elsewhere, have numerous representatives. It is in the grassy tracts of the wooded districts that the larger species of Phlox flourish, while the smaller varieties of the same genus vegetate upon the hills. The low humid meadows enchant us with their gorgeous scarlet ActÆas,[111] their yellow Balsams their Echinacea purpureas, and their superb Lilies; those which are dry and rather stony are covered with the broad golden flowers of the gay Œnothera macrocarpa.[112]

Among the shrubs which people the marshy tracts of this same region, I must point out the Sassafras, a kind of laurel with deciduous leaves, yellow flowers, which precede the foliage, and small dark-blue fruit. It is found from Canada to Florida; a mere bush in the north, but a tree fifty feet high in the south. The wood is soft, light, of a coarse fibre, with a pungent aromatic taste, and a strong agreeable odour. The wood is brought to market in the shape of chips, but for medicinal purposes the thick spongy bark of the root is prepared, and it is found extremely valuable as a powerful stimulant, sodorific, and diuretic. The mucilaginous leaves are employed in thickening soup. An infusion of the bark or wood makes a pleasant beverage, formerly known as Saloop; and the wood also yields an oil which is used medicinally.

But it is in the state of Texas, and especially near San Antonio de Bejar, that those immense desert spaces commence which occupy all the northern region of Mexico. The southern districts of Texas offer in their prevailing landscapes a mixture of beautiful prairies and shady woods. Among the plants peculiar to humid and turfy localities, I may particularize the Sarracenias, a group of remarkable exogens, whose leaves are hollowed out into tubes or pitchers, open at the upper end, and streaked with bands of different colours; the Eriocaulons, a kind of rush, carrying their small flowers in spherical capitals on the summits of their tall branching stems; and the Nelumbios (Nelumbium calophyllum), aquatic plants of unusual beauty, American congeners of the celebrated Lotus, the “insane root which takes the reason prisoner.” The nuts are wholesome and edible, and the root-stocks are also occasionally eaten. These plants are likewise found, in analogous habitats, in Mississippi and Louisiana, accompanied by the light-green Magnolia, the Dog-berry tree of Florida, several Wax-berries, and the Sassafras laurel, now acclimatized in Europe, and whose bark is employed as I have said, medicinally, while its wood and roots are made use of by turners and toy-manufacturers.

Prairies abound in Texas, wide rolling sweeps of grassy sward, with an apparently interminable horizon, unbroken by rock, or wood, or river—leagues upon leagues of rank thick grass where countless herds are depastured, and where the hunter still finds game worthy of his deadly rifle. Among those which skirt the Bay of Matagorda, and extend in the vicinity of Victoria, GonzalÈs, and Seguin, M. TrÉcul discovered an ample variety of CompositÆ; of GramineÆ, more especially those belonging to the generÆ Poa, Spartina, Dactyloctenium; CyperaceÆ, Euphorbias, Cucumbers, and Gourds. From the Texan Prairies our European gardeners have of late years received a Graminea of the genus Panicum, the Black Mosquito Grass, which by its long creeping rhizomes may be employed with undoubted success to arrest the inland movement of the Dunes and shifting sandy shores. The yellow water-lily (Nuphar lutea) spreads its fine leaves on the surface of the Texan streams, in beautiful companionship with the Nuphar advena and the NymphÆa odorata. In the same localities vegetates a weak variety of our European Sagittaria, and the Pistia spatulata spreads itself upon the water, like our English Duckweed, both being members of the family PistaceÆ.

As far as New Braunfels, the Prairies are occasionally relieved by clumps of fine old trees; but below that point the traveller only encounters, and that at rare intervals, a few scarce coppices and scanty thickets. Growing more common at San Antonio de Bejar, they abound in the region of Castroville, and spread over nearly the entire country to the very borders of Mexico.

These bushes or coppices mainly consist of the Prosapis glandulosa, the Guaiacum angustifolium, the Xanthoxylum inerme and a few Acacias.

The Guaiacum[113] is noticeable for its hard and heavy wood, generally known as Lignum VitÆ, sometimes as Guaiacum wood, and occasionally as Brazil wood. It also yields a peculiar resinous product, which is medicinally employed, in powder, pill, and tincture, for the relief of chronic rheumatism and chronic skin diseases. It is of a greenish-brown colour, and though it has scarcely any taste, leaves a hot arid sensation in the mouth.

The Xantoxyton type, of the order XanthoxylaceÆ, derives its name from the yellowness of its timber. Its fruits have a pungent aromatic taste, like pepper. The popular name of “toothache tree” is applied to some of the American species, from the relief their bark and fruits are supposed to give in cases of that distressing affliction.

In the neighbourhood of Castroville, TrÉcul found, profusely scattered among the thickets, a species of Ephedra, closely resembling the Ephedra altissima, whose feeble reed-like branches were literally covered with small red fruits, producing a novel and attractive effect. As a plant curious from its mode of vegetation, and which is spread in Texas as well as in Louisiana, I may mention the Tillandria usneoides, so named after Professor Tillands, of Abo. This is a genus of BromeliaceÆ, growing on the boughs of trees, and notably on those of the evergreen oak. It hangs down like a tuft of long gray hair, in somewhat the same fashion as certain lichens (usnea) in European pine-forests, communicating to the trees a strange and positively weird aspect. The plant is collected, and the outer cellular portion being removed by soaking in water, the fibrous residuum is then employed to stuff cushions, mattresses, and pillows; whence it is sometimes called “Vegetable horse-hair.”

In the thickets that dot the central Prairies commonly flourish the Lantana Camara, and the curious Ungnandia speciosa, a species of chestnut tree on a very reduced scale.

It was in Texas, and in the rocky, arid, and hilly plains, that the French botanist TrÉcul discovered several notable varieties of Yuccas, to one of which, a new, and certainly the most beautiful species, his name has very justly been affixed: the Yucca TrÉculeana. It raises its tall panicle of gorgeous flowers from the centre of a crown of glossy, rigid, spear-like leaves, like a victorious trophy. In Eastern Texas we note the first appearance, in the drier and stonier portions of the Prairies, of a representation of the family CactaceÆ, the Opuntia frutescens, frequently growing side by side with the Silphium terebinthinaceum. The Opuntia is more generally known as the “Indian Fig” or “Prickly Pear,” from the large purple juicy fruits which it yields. The Silphium belongs to the family of CompositÆ. But Western Texas is the true birth-place of these oleaginous plants, some of which, such as the Echinocactus robusta, the Mamillaria rodantha, and the Opuntia microdasys (“small-thorny Opuntia”), are cultivated in our apartments, where they require but very little attention. M. TrÉcul has discovered in this region a new and rare variety of Echinocactus (E. TrÉculeanus), some kinds of Cereus, and, especially, the Cereus Peruvianus, a beautiful plant with large showy flowers.

Such are the principal plants which, in North America, characterize the vegetation of the Prairies and the Savannahs. This rapid and condensed description will show the reader that the species most extensively spread belong to the genera in which are grouped the more common inhabitants of our own Old World meadows and grassy plains.

If we now transport ourselves, on the poet’s winged Pegasus, that takes no account of distance or of natural obstacles, to the Equatorial zone of the New World—into Guatemala, for example—we shall find the undulating and verdurous prairies giving place to high table-lands furrowed by deep and romantic ravines. Their botanical interest, however, is trivial, and their vegetation of a meagre and stunted kind. But between Guatemala, Nicaragua, and Honduras, lies an extensive valley, locally named Llanora, sown with numerous beautiful varieties of plants. Among them the GramineÆ family predominates, and, without attaining the proportions and the quality of the herbs which we shall meet with in the interior, form breadths of meadow very charming in their rare fresh greenness.

From the summit of the Cordilleras, in the neighbourhood of Bogota, at an altitude of about 3200 feet, the eye surveys almost the entire extent of those vast level plains which stretch from the base of the mountain-chain to remote Brazil, Guiana, and Venezuela.

The Steppes comprised between Bogota and the river Meta are formed, in general, of GramineÆ with crawling stems, and with nearly always very tall culms, especially in the cooler localities. Herbage is so abundant that the traveller who penetrates into these immense pastures experiences almost insurmountable difficulties. He himself and his horse are nearly hidden by the tall grasses, which frequently attain a stature of five to seven feet. And such is their vigour, that after having been burnt to the ground by one of the terrible conflagrations so frequent in these countries, they spring up again with wondrous swiftness; if the plants had not flowered prior to the passage of the destructive flames, they do so afterwards, and even when their leaves have been wholly destroyed. The lofty table-lands of Bogota and Tukerres, in New Grenada, present a succession of rich pasturages, perfumed by some species of LabiatÆ, and notably by the Micromeria Browniana, which thrives among the GramineÆ, their fodder is highly esteemed.

The barren and sandy plains of Peru, fertilized by the numerous water-courses which furrow them, are covered with thick bloom and verdure in the rainy season. With the GramineÆ and JuncaceÆ—the grasses and rushes common in these Steppes—mingle different members of the LiliaceÆ family, and especially several kinds of Lily. The higher region of the eastern face of the Peruvian Cordillera, situated between 10,000 and 13,000 feet of elevation, forms an immense undulating plateau watered by the upper course of the Maranon. Everywhere, over a considerable area, the plains are clothed with a meagre vegetation, or alternate with wide morasses, lakes, and brooks. Among the plants which people them is a species of the GramineÆ, Stipa itchu; and there are also several Alpine varieties, CompositÆ, LeguminosÆ, and one of the CyperaceÆ family, the Cyperus articulatus.

The Llanos of Caraccas, and of the Rio Apure and the Meta, over which roam immense herds of cattle, are, in the strictest sense of the term, says Humboldt,[114] “grassy plains.” Their prevalent vegetation, belonging to the two families of CyperaceÆ and GramineÆ, consists of various species of Paspalum, P. leptostachyum and P. linticulare; of Kyllingia, of Panicum, Anthephora, Aristida, Vilfa, and Anthistiria. Only here and there are found, interspersed among the GramineÆ, a few herbaceous dicotyledonous plants, consisting of two very low-growing species of Mimosa (Sensitive Plant)—Mimosa intermedia and Mimosa dormiens—which are great favourites with the wild horses and cattle. The natives give to this group of plants, which close their delicate feathery leaves on being touched, the expressive name of Dormideras—“sleepy plants.” Nota tree is visible for miles; but where solitary individuals occur, they are, in moist places, the Mauritia Palm; in arid districts, a Protacea—namely, the Rhopula complicata; also the highly useful Palma da Corija, or de Sombrero; and our Corypha inermis, an umbrella palm, whose leaves are used to thatch the roofs of huts.

The Mauritia palm, Palm Moriche, Mauritia flexuosa, Quiteve, or Ita palm—for by any or all of these names it is known—belongs to the family of LepidocaryeÆ. The trunk grows as high as 26 feet, but it probably requires from 120 to 150 years to reach this height. It extends high up on the declivity of the Duida Mountains, and forms in moist places beautiful groups of a shining emerald verdure, like that of our European alder groves. The trees preserve the humidity of the ground by their shade, and hence the Indians say that the Mauritia draws the water round its roots by a mysterious attraction. From its tops the Indians frequently suspend their hammocks to escape the attacks of the mosquitoes.

Sir Walter Raleigh was the first who brought to England this fruit of the Mauritia palm, which he very justly likened, on account of its scales, to a fir cone.

The plains of the Rio Negro and the Amazons are the home and habitat of the most remarkable of all aquatic plants, the Victoria regia,[115] truly deserving its royal rank on account of its curious conformation and splendid beauty. It is said to have been first observed by HÄuke, about 1801, and afterwards to have been noticed by Bonpland, D’Orbigny, and others; but the first person who accurately described it was PÖppig, in 1832, who saw it in the river Amazons. Sir Richard Schomburgk, who discovered it in the rivers of Guiana, was, I believe, the first to introduce it in England, where a splendid specimen may be seen at Kew, another at Chatsworth, and a third in the Botanic Garden of Glasgow. Its thick fleshy root-stocks send up a number of long cylindrical leaf-stalks, traversed by air canals, and armed with stout conical prickles. The blade of the leaf is circular, and floats on the surface of the water; when fully developed, it measures from six to twelve feet in diameter, and its margin being uniformly turned upwards to the depth of two or three inches, it assumes the appearance of a large shallow tray. The lower surface is traversed by a number of very prominent veins, radiating from the centre to the margin, and connected with one another by smaller transverse nerves; so that the whole under-side, which is of a purplish colour, is divided into a network of irregular quadrangular compartments or open cells, admirably fitting the leaf for floating on the water. The flowers rise upon prickly stalks. They are more than a foot in diameter, with the white outer petals inclined downwards; while the central rose-coloured ones, with the stamens, remain erect: the whole presenting the fanciful appearance of a central rose-coloured crown resting on a circular range of snowy and most gracefully curved petals. The fruit is a sort of globular capsule, about the size of a child’s head, and formidably beset with prickles. The interior is fleshy, and divided into numerous cells, full of round farinaceous seeds, which are eaten roasted by the Spaniards. Hence, in some parts of South America, it is called MaÏs del Agua, or Water Maize.

The pools and lagoons of this region nourish numerous other aquatic plants, among which it will suffice to particularize the Scyndapsus fragrans and the Raphia tÆdigera.

Turning now to the vast area of the Brazilian empire, we find it divided into matos (or woods) and campos (or open plains). When the inhabitants would convert into cultivable land a district occupied by forest, they set fire to it during the dry season, and soon a vegetation of frutescent but dwarf species succeeds the primitive vegetation. By renewing this purifying process a second and a third time, the soil finally becomes covered with a species of fern closely resembling our large Pteris, Pteris caudata; and if the spot be once more abandoned, it is speedily taken possession of by a viscous, grayish, and foetid species of GramineÆ, well known locally by the name of Capim gordura, to botanists by that of Tristegis glutinosa. So boundless a voracity has this plant, that it wholly expels from certain regions another and less tenacious variety of the GramineÆ, the Saccharum, or Sapa. The Capim gordura constitutes in itself almost the entire flora of the artificial campos. It is but an indifferent fodder, and cattle derive from it little vigour.

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Aquatic Plants of Guiana. 1. Victoria regia. 2. Raphia tÆdigera. 3. Scyndapsus fragrans.
Aquatic Plants of Guiana.
1. Victoria regia. 2. Raphia tÆdigera. 3. Scyndapsus fragrans.

In general, the natural campos bear a certain resemblance to our meadows; grass, however, is less abundant; they consist, especially in the colder localities, of GramineÆ which do not, perhaps, exceed our British species in dimensions, but differ greatly in the size of their leaves, and often also in their spreading inflorescence. By their side, as is the case with us, grow other plants of a more graceful floral character. Among these are MyrtaceÆ, MelastomaceÆ, with their capsular fruits, and a species of CompositÆ, called Veronia.

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Vegetable Life in the Pampas. Pampas Grass (Gynerium argenteum).
Vegetable Life in the Pampas.
Pampas Grass (Gynerium argenteum).

The wayfarer who traverses the sterile campos is astonished to discover, on the tortuous and stunted trees that grow there at rare intervals, some flowers of a singular loveliness. Yet who can refuse his admiration from the gorgeous VochyaceÆ; the MalpighiaceÆ, richly and handsomely flowered; the LeguminosÆ, with their long hanging clusters of sparkling blossoms; the trumpet-shaped flowers of the Bignonias, and the superb Oochnus? Nor will he forget a rare Salvertia, fragrant as the lily of the valley, and with its blossoms disposed in thyrses which outvie in beauty those of the chestnut.

In the genial smiling country which extends from Monte Video to the mouth of the Rio Negro, the vegetation is almost wholly confined to GramineÆ. It is in this region that the feathery Pampas Grass (Gynerium argenteum) flourishes luxuriantly, covering leagues upon leagues with its silvery panicles and drooping leaves, which, when stirred by a gentle wind, ripple like the slow-moving, spray-gleaming waters of a sunny sea. It has become of late years a favourite ornament of our British gardens, and may justly be taken as a type of tender loveliness.[116] Beyond the Rio Negro the country puts on a wilder aspect, and it is with difficulty the most adventurous botanist can penetrate into its recesses.

Nearly all the southern districts of Patagonia form, as we have already seen, an immense and almost level plain, whose soil is generally dry, arid, and impeded with large pebbles; the northern districts, on the other hand, offer a less monotonous landscape, are broken up with rocks and ravines, interspersed among tolerably fertile pastures, whose flora has not yet been fully investigated.

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CHAPTER VI.
THE FLORA OF THE AUSTRALIAN PLAINS.

THE Deserts of the Australian interior have been laboriously traversed, not, as we have seen, without much suffering, and even sacrifice, by a handful of intrepid travellers, who have proposed to themselves simply the solution of certain geographical problems. It will therefore be understood that we owe to them only a few incidental notices of their botanical features. For an accurate examination of these the pioneers of commerce have neither the means, the opportunities, nor the requisite scientific knowledge. As far as its flora is concerned, the Australian interior is wholly “virgin soil,” a new botanical world, perhaps, awaiting the advent of a Columbus. Only the littoral districts have been satisfactorily explored; and here, in the south, we meet with the names of LabillardiÈre, Robert Brown, Gaudichaud, D’Urville, Sieber, Lesson, Cunningham, and other eminent botanists. To these celebrated names we must also add those of Dr. Mueller, Director of the Botanical Gardens at Melbourne, Sir William Hooker, and Mr. Bentham. Their united labours have provided the public with a vast amount of curious and authentic information, and have established the fact that the botany of New Holland, like its zoology, has a physiognomy peculiarly its own, and that many, nay, most of its vegetable species, are not less characteristic than its strange and astonishing animal types. One is almost tempted to adopt in sober earnest what Sydney Smith said in humorous exaggeration, that, “in this remote part of the earth, Nature (having made horses, oxen, ducks, geese, oaks, elms, and all regular and useful productions for the rest of the world) seems determined to have a bit of play, and to amuse herself as she pleases.”[117] Undoubtedly she has indulged in the most wayward and eccentric forms. If there exist any relations between the vegetation of Australia and that of any other part of the globe, it is certainly with the districts of Southern Africa which lie near the Cape of Good Hope that Australia exhibits the greatest affinity. It would seem as if these two continents in some remote age had not been separated, as they now are, by “leagues of salt water,” but that their vegetable species had been able to propagate themselves freely from the one to the other.

According to Richard, the approximative number of species distinguished by botanists amounts to about five thousand; but so many discoveries have been made of later years, that we may raise the estimate to seven thousand. While the Australian plants are distributed among numerous families, each of the latter comprises but a very limited number of individuals. The predominant plants belong, in the main, to these families or orders:—LeguminosÆ, CompositÆ, MyrtaceÆ, GramineÆ, CyperaceÆ, Filices, ProteaceÆ, EpacridÆ, OrchidaceÆ, in a proportion which varies, moreover, according to the various districts explored.

The fertility of the soil, and the climatic conditions of the southern shores of the Australian continent, are highly favourable to the introduction of new species. Our English settlers have availed themselves to the utmost of this circumstance, and have cultivated on a large scale all the most useful fruit trees and vegetables of Europe, and others imported from tropical climes; so that mingled in the same prolific gardens may be seen the fig-tree and the banana, the guava, the orange-tree, the olive, and the apple—cabbages, potatoes, turnips, peas. Even the vine has been successfully naturalized, and its manufactured products are not inferior in excellence to the famous Rhenish wines.

In indicating the most curious indigenous plants of New Holland, we shall more particularly confine ourselves to those of Victoria, one of the best known districts, and perhaps also one of the most extensive, most diversified, and most picturesque. The plains are, in general, sufficiently grassy and fertile, especially in those parts which border on the brooks and rivers. The plants most extensively distributed belong to the GramineÆ and CyperaceÆ; we find, among the former, the Pennisetum fasciculare, a great number of PoaceÆ, and the Arundo conspicua; in foliage and general appearance the latter presents some striking analogies with the Pampas Grass; among the PoaceÆ predominates the Cyperus vaginatus, a common object on the banks of the river Murray in those parts which are subject to frequent inundations. A strong tenacious netting is made from the fibres of its leaves. To these herbs we have to add some flowering plants, such as the star-like Lobelias; numerous species of mint (as Mentha Australis, M. satureioides, M. grandiflora, and M. gracilis), from which an essential oil is extracted for use in the manufacture of perfumes; the Sida pulchella and Lavatera plebeia, of which stout fibre or solid thread is made, the fibres of Australian flax (Linum marginale) being adapted to the same purpose. The Restias, a curious rush-like order of endogens, also inhabit these moist places: as do the Kingias, very common grasses; the Astelia Banksii, a species of LiliaceÆ, with grass-formed leaves and a strong tenacious stem; and the Xerotes longifolia. The Nardoo (Narsilia macropus, or, as it is sometimes called, N. salvatrix), whose spores and spore-cases are pounded by the native Australians and made into bread or porridge, is a kind of cryptogamous plant, with leaves formed of four folioles, like those of a truffle. It abounds in the low grounds and inundated districts, especially on the banks of the Murray. Finally, the Stag-horn (Acrostichon grande), a gigantic mushroom, clings to the branches of the great trees.

Small bushy clumps are scattered over the plains, and flourish with peculiar vigour along the water-courses. They consist of various shrubs. The traveller will not fail to notice a whole series of LeguminosÆ—Chlorozoma, PultenÆa, Viminaria, Mirbelia, Podolobium (all are shrubs of exceeding elegance, and now form the rare ornaments of our English gardens); of EpacridÆ—Epacris stiphelia, E. leucophogon, and others, which have also been imported into our home-parterres; a great number of Euribias, a genus of subfrutescent CompositÆ, of which a few are rendered interesting by their heathlike foliage; the Pimelea axiflora, whose supple and tenacious bark is fashioned into bands and straps; the Myrsine variabilis, with its woody stems and drupaceous fruit; the Aralia crassifolia, a singular shrub, with long, narrow, and very rigid leaves; the Callistemon salignum (vulgarly called “stonewood”), employed for xylographic purposes; the Casuarina equisetifolia,[118] or “Swamp Oak”—also called “Cassowary Tree”—a lofty tree, with very durable wood, long, slender, drooping, emerald-green branches, and conical fruit, inclosing small winged nuts; various species of Melaleuca, yielding the green aromatic oil called cajaputi or cajeput oil, valuable as a stimulant or antispasmodic; finally, some Cordylines, or ’Tis, plants of the natural order LiliaceÆ, and nearly allied to the Dragon’s Blood Tree, attaining a height of ten to fifteen feet, with a berry-like fruit, and lanceolate leaves of a reddish hue, which afford a nutriment for cattle, thatch for houses, and whose fibres are frequently made into cloth. The root, when baked, is much used as an article of food, and the fermented juice yields an intoxicating beverage.

The dry, rocky, arid, and sandy districts, which may be compared to the Landes of Brittany, are clothed with a peculiar vegetation. The strangest plant, which is also the most widely distributed, is undoubtedly the Xanthorrhoea arborea,[119] forming a conspicuous feature in the dreary landscape, and when stripped of its leaves resembling a black man holding a spear. The leaves afford good fodder for cattle, while the natives eat the soft white centre of the top of the stem. They yield two kinds of fragrant resin—one of a yellow colour, balsamic and inodorous, called Botany Bay; and the other red, called Black Boy Gum. The tree—which the settlers have christened “Black Boy” and “Grass Gum”—has a thick trunk, encrusted in a thick coating of the persistent basis of old leaves, glued together by the yellow or red resin with which the plant abounds, and usually burned and blackened outside by bush-fires. The leaves are long, wiry, and grass-like, and are borne in a dense tuft at the top of the stem, hanging gracefully all around it. Their long flower-stalks aspire from its centre, sometimes growing as high as fifteen or twenty feet, and carrying aloft a thick cylindrical flower spike.

Among the lowlier plants are found a few Hectias, such as the Hectia PitcairniÆfolia, one of the Bromelias, very curious from its mode of vegetation; and the Stipa crinita, a very common grass. The leaves of the latter have been manufactured into paper of tolerable consistency.

The sandy and colder tracts are the habitat of the annual or perennial CompositÆ, distinguished by their smooth and shining flowers. On the other hand, the dry rocky surfaces are besprinkled with inconsiderable woods, or rather thickets, formed in part of the Santalum acuminatum, whose nutritious fruit are called “peaches” by the colonists; the Santalum persicarium, or sandal wood; several Nitrarias,[120] with edible fruits; a great number of Acacias, notably the Acacia verticillata, A. sophora, and A. doratoxylon, whose very hard wood is employed in the fabrication of javelins; a considerable series of ProteaceÆ, particularly the Banksia Australis, B. serrata, and B. integrifolia, so characteristic in aspect and foliage; and a few Eucalypti,[121] or “Gum Trees,” of small stature—among others, the “Traveller’s Tree,” or Eucalyptus oleosa.[122] Its roots extend horizontally, and retain a quantity of water sufficient to quench the wayfarer’s thirst in the hour of need. All the Eucalypti are curious trees, with entire and leathery leaves, affording an unusual amount of aromatic oil. Many of the species abound in resinous secretions; some attain a great size, with trunks of from 8 to 16 feet in diameter, and 150 or 160 in length. The Eucalyptus resinifera—“Red Gum” or “Iron Bark Tree”—reaches to an elevation of 150 to 200 feet. When wounded, a red juice flows from it very freely, hardening into irregular, inodorous, and transparent masses in the air, and furnishing as much as sixty gallons from a single tree.

Finally, I may refer to the Dryandra, whose foliage is very graceful, and its conformation very varied. Sometimes it is found as a bush, three to seven feet high; and sometimes, as in the Dryandra repens, creeping along the ground.

On the more temperate heights the traveller encounters some plants of a fantastic character: as, for instance, the Doryanthes excelsa, with its upright gigantic leaves, more than 6 feet long, and from 2-1/2 to 3-1/2 inches broad; from their centre rises a strong stalk, 15 or 18 feet high, terminated by a compact and voluminous cluster of great deep-red flowers. There, too, are found the magnificent arborescent ferns, Alsophila Australis and Dicksonia Antarctica. The trunk of the former aspires to a stature of 25 to 90 feet; that of the second, to 12 to 28 feet; and in both the stems are terminated by a cluster of immense flowers, which give to these plants a quite distinctive character.

Nor must we quit the Australian Flora and its marvels without alluding to the Corypha Australis, which begins to make its appearance at the mouth of the Snowy River. It is a gigantic palm, growing solitarily, or in thin groups, in low, cool, and even moist places. Its trunk probably attains to 140 feet in height; and the top of its stem is crowned by a gorgeous crest of fan-shaped leaves, which are employed in the manufacture of straw hats.

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CHAPTER VII.
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:—

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.

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Hippopotamus and Crocodile of the River Nile.
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.

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Rhinoceros. African Phacocoerus (Choeripotamus Africanus).
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.

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The Daw and the Quagga.
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.

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Zebras (Equus Zebra).
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.

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A Lion rending a Giraffe.
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.

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1. Antelope Gnu. 2. Oreas Lanna (or Eland). 3. Striped or Banded Gnu.
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.

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An African Hopo, or Snare for Herbivorous Animals.
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.

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NEXT to man, the most dangerous enemies of the peaceful herbivora are the great Carnivora of the FelidÆ genus, in whose first rank zoologists and poets were formerly wont to place the lion.

The so-called “king of animals,” however, has of late years lost much of his prestige. Observant travellers have watched him with a jealous and suspicious eye; intrepid hunters have dared to measure themselves against him, and to beard him in his retreats. Our popular heroes suffer greatly by this close examination. Achilles to his Myrmidons, I suspect, was less godlike than he appeared to the warriors of Troy, who saw him only in the rush and tumult of the battle. Certain it is that the researches of modern science have stripped the lion of most of the splendid attributes with which romance had invested him. Here is a glowing picture:—

But the fact is, that with all his prodigious strength, his terrible teeth and claws, his imposing physiognomy and attitudes, he is an animal more prudent than courageous, and very unlike the highly-coloured portrait which Buffon painted. There have not been wanting well-accredited authorities to accuse him of cowardice; as our own countryman Livingstone, and the Frenchman Delegorgue. According to the latter, he is but a nocturnal robber, whom a ray of light disconcerts, or the barking of dogs, and the shouts of men, women, and children, or a blow from a well-applied whip, will frequently put to flight. Even if provoked, or wounded by man, he will often refuse to fight to the last extremity; or if he accept the challenge, and succeed in harassing his antagonist, he contents himself by breaking a limb or two, by marking his chest with his teeth and nails, after which he leaves him and goes his way. “I have known,” says Delegorgue, “an intrepid hunter who, twice in seven years, had been treated in this fashion by a wounded lion; the first encounter cost him two broken limbs; the second, six fractures, without counting the deep scars left by his claws on several parts of the body. Another, named VermaËs, in his daring, was held for more than a minute by a lion, and got quit with four deep marks of his canine teeth; glorious scars, which he showed to me with an air of lively satisfaction.” Livingstone records a similar adventure which befell himself with a lion at which he had aimed a couple of shots. The wounded animal turned upon his aggressor, harried him, severely injured an arm, and then directed his wrath against one of the doctor’s companions, whom he seized by the shoulder. He intended, in all probability, to administer a similar correction to this individual, when suddenly the two bullets he had received produced their effect, and he fell dead.

These facts prove, at least, that if the lion is not brave he is not malicious, and that the reputation for generosity which he has borne from remote times was not undeserved. It is only in his old age that the lion willingly enters upon a regimen of human flesh, from sheer want of power to obtain any other easily. When a lion is too old, says Livingstone, to provide himself with game by hunting, he frequently enters into the very villages and kills the goats; if, then, a woman or a child go out at night, he makes them equally his prey; and as thenceforth he has no other means of subsistence, he continues to feed himself in this manner. Hence has arisen the saying, that if a lion once tastes human flesh he prefers it to all other kinds. The beasts which attack man are invariably aged lions. When one of them conquers the fear inspired by man so far as to approach a village and seize the goats, the inhabitants invariably say, “His teeth are worn out, and he will soon kill somebody;” and feeling the necessity of defending themselves, they hunt him immediately.

It is generally believed, on the authority of Buffon, that the lion lives in retirement with his mate, that he hunts in solitary dignity, and will suffer no other carnaria, not even one of his own race, to hunt in his own domain. This is an error. Lions, on the contrary, often assemble in a “hunting-party,” four or five in number, when they fly at “high game,” such as a buffalo or a giraffe. M. Vardon saw three lions throw themselves at once on a buffalo which he had just wounded with a musket-shot. “During the day-time, in winter,” says Delegorgue, “you may frequently see troops of lions, which assemble together for the purpose of marking off and driving the game towards the ravines, or wooded glens difficult of access, where some of their companions are posted; these are strict battues, conducted without any noise, the odours of the lions being sufficient to enforce the retreat of the herbivora which they pursue.” The lion himself may, in his turn, be chased and tracked with dogs, like a wild boar, a wolf, or a stag; but most frequently the hunters pursue and shoot him on foot, and this is but a pleasure-jaunt for a man of sang-froid, if a good shot, and well acquainted with the animal’s habits.

We know that the roar of the lion—that is, of the hungry lion—is considered the most terrible of cries, which inspires all the animals, and even man, with unconquerable dread. It appears, however, that man—to say nothing of his dogs—speedily grows accustomed to it, and that the lion, in his turn, cannot be frightened by the barking of the latter. A very curious fact, remarked by Livingstone, is the singular resemblance of the lion’s roar to the cry of the ostrich. “I have carefully inquired,” says the great African traveller, “the opinion of Europeans who have heard both. I have asked them if they could discover the least difference between the roar of the one and the cry of the other. They have all informed me that they could not perceive any, at whatever distance the animal might be placed. The voice of the lion, generally, is deeper than the ostrich’s; but up to the present time I have only been able to distinguish it with certainty because it is heard during the day, and the ostrich’s during the night.”

Lions were formerly common enough in all Southern Asia, Persia, Asia Minor, and even Greece. They long ago disappeared from these countries, and are rarely met with now-a-days in Hindostan. The Indian lion is smaller than his African congener; his mane is shorter and less abundant, and several naturalists signalize him as a distinct species, intermediary between the true African lion and the American puma. There are three varieties of Asiatic lions: the Bengal, the Persian or Arabian, and the maneless lion of Goojerat—the latter confined to a very narrow district. The African “king of beasts” is spread over the entire continent from the Mediterranean to the Cape of Good Hope; but the species includes three kinds: the Barbary lion, with a deep yellowish-brown fur and a full flowing mane; the Senegal, whose fur is of a brighter yellow, and whose mane thinner; and the Cape, of which there are two varieties, one brown, the other yellowish; the former being the fiercer and more powerful animal.

A lion of the largest size measures about eight feet from the nose to the tail, and the tail itself about four feet. The male has usually a thick shaggy mane; the head is large, with rounded ears, and the face covered with short close hair; great strength and muscular force distinguish his conformation; and the tail terminates in a tuft of hair, which is not fully developed until he is six or seven years old.

In Africa the lion has for his fellows the Leopard and the Panther. Many writers at one time confounded these two FelidÆ, and even classified them with the Indian tiger. For the vulgar, every great cat with a spotted skin is a tiger. But scientific naturalists neither apply this name to the American jaguar nor to other spotted FelidÆ of the Old or New World; and it is with difficulty they now agree to recognize in the Leopard and the Panther two ill-defined varieties of the same species. Assuredly they exhibit very marked differences. The Leopard is nearly as large as the lion; his limbs are robust, his head is strong. From nose to tail he measures four feet, his tail is two feet and a half long, and his body so flexible that he accomplishes the most surprising leaps, and swims, and climbs trees, or crawls along the ground, serpent-like, with admirable ease. Compared with the jaguar and panther of naturalists, he is uniformly of a paler and more yellowish colour, and rather smaller, while the spots on his skin are rose-formed, or consist of several dots partially united into a circular figure in some instances, and in others into a quadrangular, triangular, or other less determinate forms. The lower part of the neck and inner parts of the limbs are white; the spots are continued upon the tail, which is long, and black at the extremity.

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The African Leopard.
The African Leopard.

The Panther is larger than the leopard, measuring about six feet and a half from nose to tail, which is itself about three feet long. On his sleek hide the spots are disposed in circles of four or five, with, usually, a central spot in each circle, in which, as well as in his deeper colour, he differs from the leopard. Both are handsome, stealthy, and ferocious animals; supple, agile, and muscular. The leopard (Felis leopardus) is a native of Africa, principally ranging along its western coast and on the confines of the Sahara. The panther (Felis pardus) is also an African denizen, though likewise found in Arabia, Persia, and Hindostan. During the day he lurks in the thickets and among the tall grasses, but when the shades of night descend he issues from his lair, and haunts the brooks and pools whither the herbivora resort to quench their thirst. There, upon some rock, he lies in ambuscade, commanding the track pursued by innocent victims, and darting with unerring precision upon the first which presents itself.

Neither leopard nor panther often ventures to assail man. When attacked by him, they seek at first to make their escape, and only turn at bay when escape is impossible. In Java, and some other of the great Indian islands, there exists a black panther, which has gained, it is difficult to say how, the reputation of extraordinary ferocity and daring. Sometimes, in the world of man, great reputations are built upon equally slight foundations. He owes his fame to the imagination of the natives, and differs from his congeners in no single respect but the blackish colour of his skin. A skilful naturalist, who was for some years a resident in Java, relates that, while botanizing in the fields and jungles early in the day, he frequently roused the black panthers in their lairs. At first he was somewhat startled by the apparition of an animal of such terrible renown, but seeing him turn tail very quickly on his approach, he soon grew re-assured, and troubled himself no more at these rencontres than if he had met a dog or a cat.

We now come to the most formidable of all the Carnaria: the Tiger, properly so called, or Royal Tiger, whose portrait Buffon has been pleased to paint with his boldest brush and most glowing colours, without any other motive apparently than a love of antithesis, or the artist’s desire to give force and effect to a striking picture. He had endowed the king of animals with all the regal qualities his imagination could suggest, and by way of contrast he ascribed to the tiger the lowest and cruellest instincts. He painted him as the Moloch of the brute creation; the Domitian, Caligula, or Nero of the jungles. He was blood-thirsty, treacherous, cowardly, and hideous. His limbs were too short, his head was too large, he was ill-proportioned; in a word, on the unfortunate beast he poured out all the vials of his satiric wrath.

With this piÈce de fantaisie it would be curious to contrast the graver and more authentic description of the impartial Daubenton. He asserted that the tiger was very little known to Europeans, and that in France there existed but a single specimen, and that a very badly prepared one, in the “Cabinet du Roi.” But we are now better informed, and the tiger, perhaps, up to a certain point, is rehabilitated. Let us take him first in his physical aspect. All travellers agree in describing him as the handsomest of animals. He has not the grave countenance, the majestic attitudes of the lion; but he has all the grace, all the suppleness, all the lively and undulatory movements of the domestic cat. He does not stand so high upon his legs as the lion, and he lacks that full flowing mane which invests the physiognomy of the latter with a human and truly noble air; but all the parts of his head and body, despite of Buffon, are admirably proportioned. Not quite so tall as the lion, and less robust in appearance, he is endowed with a surprising vigour. He can carry off, while in full career, and making the most rapid leaps, the heaviest prey—a kid, for instance, an antelope of full size, even a bull, it is said, and, necessarily, a man. Finally, his skin, symmetrically striped, like a zebra’s, with wavy bands of brown and black, on a reddish ground, with the contour of the face, the chin and belly of the purest white, defies all comparison. The stripes of his head, legs, and tail are disposed with irreproachable symmetry in curves of the most graceful character. So much for his physical character; let us pass to his moral.

His appetites, and consequently his manners and instincts, differ but little from those of the other FelidÆ, and, in particular, of the lion. While he has a keen love of living flesh and warm blood, he does not scorn to return, under the pressure of hunger, to a dead prey already partially devoured. Like all the carnaria, a sagacious instinct prompts him to kill in provision for coming as well as for present hunger. This is the reason that Buffon has stigmatized him as “unnecessarily cruel.”

“The bound with which he throws himself upon his prey,” says an English naturalist, “is as wonderful in its extent as it is terrible in its effects.” Pennant justly observes that the distance which it clears in this deadly leap is scarcely credible. Man is a mere puppet in his gripe; and the Indian buffalo is not only borne down by the ferocious beast, but carried off by his enormous strength. If he fails in his spring, it has been said that he will take to flight. This may be true in certain instances; but, in general, far from slinking away, he pursues the affrighted prey with a speedy activity which is seldom exerted in vain. Hence we are led to the observation of Pliny celebrating his swiftness, for which the Roman zoologist has been censured, and apparently most unjustly; nor is he the only author among the ancients who notices his speed. Appian speaks of the swift tiger as the offspring of the zephyr. Pliny, says Pennant, has been frequently taken to task by the moderns for calling the tiger “animal tremendÆ velocitatis;” they allow it great agility in its bounds, but deny it swiftness in pursuit. Two travellers of authority, both eye-witnesses, confirm what Pliny says: the one, indeed, only mentions in general his vast fleetness; the other saw a trial between one and a swift horse, whose rider escaped merely by getting in time amidst a circle of armed men. The chase of this animal was a favourite diversion with the great Cam-Hi, the Chinese monarch, in whose company our countryman, Mr. Bell, that faithful traveller, and the PerÈ Gerbillon, saw these proofs of the tiger’s speed.

The Latin “tigris” is from a Persian word signifying “swift as an arrow,” which we find incorporated in the name of the river Tigris.

The tiger’s habits are essentially nocturnal, and almost aquatic. His favourite haunts are the banks of rivers and lakes, not only because he may there pounce upon the herbivora which come to drink, but because he can there satisfy himself with a banquet of fish. To this he is as partial as any European epicure, and in angling his skill and dexterity are not unworthy of an Izaak Walton. He is the “complete angler” of the carnivorous world! He swims admirably, and in pursuit of his prey never hesitates at the most tremendous “header,” so that the Arnee Buffaloes, which traverse immense distances by yielding themselves to the swift river-currents, have more cause to dread his attacks than those of the crocodiles.

Buffon has calumniated the tiger by accusing him of cowardice, while, as we have seen, he has not less grossly flattered the lion by representing him as the perfect type of intrepidity. During the day the tiger, after having supped freely, sleeps in his den; he avoids man, and when aroused by the hunters, his first movement is one of flight. But by night or day, if he be an hungered, no obstacle arrests, no peril daunts him; and he pounces upon man as he would upon any other prey. He penetrates into isolated habitations; breaks into the villages, and sometimes even into the towns; seizes the domestic animals in their very stables; men even within the shelter of their own houses; and sometimes devours his spoil upon the spot; sometimes, if he fears pursuit, drags it off to his secret lair.

At Goa, in a butcher’s stall, was slain a tiger which had fallen asleep there after gorging himself with food; and in the vicinity of that once famous, but now degraded city, a cross marks the spot where a Portuguese officer, marching at the head of his men, was seized before their eyes by a tiger, and carried off before they could make the slightest effort to save him.

Tigers are found in India, in the Indo-Chinese Peninsula, at Borneo, at Java, and at Sumatra. Civilization has hunted them out of the Celestial Empire, but they are met with in Tartary, even in extremely cold latitudes. The tigers of the North a beneficent Nature has furnished with much longer hair than their congeners of the Tropical zone, and they seem to form a distinct variety of the species. Wherever the tiger exists, war À l’outrance is declared between man and him! It is a vendetta which has been handed down from the remotest antiquity, and is as bitter now as in any past generation. Every year hundreds of persons fall victims to his appetite and his prowess; every year hundreds of his race are shot down by the relentless sportsman, or ensnared and killed by the peasants, whose cattle and whose lives he threatens.

By the Malays and the half-savage Indians who dwell among the Indo-Chinese jungles, he is hunted in the same way that the African negroes hunt the lion and the leopard. When the presence of one of these scourges becomes known in a district, they place some dainty bait on the bank of the river where he drinks and plants himself every night, and they form an ambush among the thickets, taking care to mark the direction of the wind. It is not long before the tiger directs his steps towards the enticing booty, and the hunters’ arrows or musket-balls stretch him dead, in most cases, before he can seize it.

A vast amount of pompous preparation attaches to the tiger-hunt of India. It is a sumptuous expedition, commanded by some distinguished chief—an European officer, a native prince, or a stranger of rank—in which each person has his allotted station and particular duties. Usually the hunters are mounted on elephants, so that the tiger cannot reach them on the back of the colossus, without being arrested by the trunk of the latter or his formidable tusks. Each sportsman provides himself with three or four rifles, besides revolvers and cutlasses. Formerly the Hindu rajahs made use in this chase of arrows and lances, but now they greatly prefer the European weapons. The expedition is never an impromptu affair. It is always organized against an enemy whose presence has been discovered in the district, and whose den is pretty well known. The march commences at sunrise, that the beast may be surprised while enjoying his siesta, after the fatigues and the plunder of the night. Suddenly awaking, says Mr. Stocqueler,[126] he bounds out of the jungle, and is saluted by a discharge which often proves sufficient; but sometimes the animal is safe and sound, or only wounded; then he furiously springs upon the first elephant within his reach. If the hunter has not time to plant a ball in his chest or head, the position of the mahout, or driver, is very critical; for, placed on the elephant’s neck, he has no other defence than the sharp iron-pointed stick which he uses to guide his colossal steed. Fortunately the hunters are arrayed in a compact mass, and a few well-directed shots terminate the struggle.

The most favourable districts for tiger-hunting, continues Mr. Stocqueler, are those of Goruckpore, on the frontiers of Nepaul. Sir Roger Martin relates that in this quarter once reigned a tiger of such ferocity, and so greedy of human blood, that he was the terror of all the “country-side.” Once he broke open, in full day-light, the cabin-door of a Taroo; but the native dealt him such a lusty blow on the head with his hatchet that he took to flight, and ever afterwards preserved the mark of the wound, which caused him to be easily recognized, and dreaded all the more. Sir Roger resolved to free the country from this plague; he took the field like a gallant soldier, but slew eight-and-forty tigers before he fell in with the BalafrÉ of ill renown, who defended himself gallantly, and proved no easy victim. Abbye-Singh, rajah of Omorah, one of the oldest hunters of the country, slew, it is said, to his own hand more than five hundred tigers; a fact which illustrates their numerousness in the Terac, Nepaul, and Goruckpore. Despite the activity and address of the hunters, they would never succeed in purging the country; but civilization and clearances of the ground are driving the wild beasts inch by inch towards the north, where the hardy amateurs of “sport” must now go in quest of them.

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TIGER-HUNTING IN THE INDO-CHINESE PENINSULA.
TIGER-HUNTING IN THE INDO-CHINESE PENINSULA.

Among the FelidÆ of the Old World peculiar to Tropical Asia, I must cite the Reinaoudahan, distinguished by his woolly and tufted tail, from whence he has received the name of the “Fox-tailed Tiger,” and the GuÉpard, or “Maned Leopard,” “Hunting Leopard,” and “Cheetah.” I am inclined to believe that these two varieties really signify one animal; the Gueparda jubata of naturalists. “Intermediate in size and shape between the leopard and the hound,” says Burnett, “he is slenderer in his body, more elevated on his legs, and less flattened on the fore part of his head than the former, while he is deficient in the peculiarly graceful form, both of head and body, which characterizes the latter. His tail is entirely that of a rat; and his limbs, although more elongated than in any other species of that group, seem to be better fitted for strong muscular exertion than for active and long-continued speed.” His anatomical structure and general habits are those of the FelidÆ, but the fur is crisper. The general ground-colour is a bright yellowish-brown above, lighter on the sides, and nearly white beneath. On the back, sides, and limbs he is marked with numerous black spots, which on the tail are so closely set together that they appear like rings. The cheetah is easily tamed, and trained to the chase; for which purpose, like our staghounds, he is bred and employed in Persia and India.

The other families of digitigrade Carnivora, Dogs, HyÆnas, Viverras (Viverra, Civet), MustelidÆ (Mustela, Weasel), are largely represented in the prairies and jungles of the tropical regions of the Old World. Wild dogs, with straight ears, a pendant tail, scanty bristling hair, thin flanks, wander in numerous troops over the plains of Southern Africa, living, like the wolf or the hyÆna, by hunting the small quadrupeds and devouring the remains of carcasses abandoned by the greater Carnivora. The jackals, and even the hyÆnas, range far beyond the limits of the Desert. At the Cape exists a larger and more ferocious species of hyÆna than that of the Sahara, from which it differs externally, its skin being marked with spots instead of stripes. Moreover, the disproportion in the height of the fore and hind legs is more marked in this animal than in his North African congener.

At the Cape, also, and in a great part of South Africa, we find another species, the HyÆna villosa, or “Sea-Shore Wolf;” distinguished from the preceding by having stripes on the legs, while the rest of the body is of a dark grayish-brown. Allied to the HyÆnas is the Proteles, or “Aard-Wolf “ (Proteles Lalandii), an animal nearly as large as a jackal, inhabiting the southern parts of the African Continent. He has the teeth and pointed head of the civits; the striped fur and stiff bristly hair of the hyÆnas. The general colour is a yellowish-gray, radiated with transverse stripes of dusky black; the tail is short and bushy. The fore-feet are provided with five toes; the hinder ones with four; all the claws being strong and large. He burrows like a fox, and prowls abroad at night in search of food, which consists chiefly of carrion and small vermin. But it is said that he particularly affects the enormous fatty tail of the African sheep, devouring with avidity the semi-fluid mass, which requires no mastication.

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Spotted HyÆnas (HyÆna crocuta).
Spotted HyÆnas (HyÆna crocuta).

One of the most curious and most graceful of the South African carnaria is the Fennec, or Zorda (Megatolis), a genus of CanidÆ, resembling the European fox in form and stature, but his hair of a light brown colour; his muzzle is of extreme fineness, and his eye lively and intelligent; his enormous ears gift him with an extraordinary delicacy of hearing. Every animal has its particular taste, and that of the Fennec is for ostrich eggs, which, as he cannot open them with his teeth on account of their size, he breaks by dashing them against hard angular stones. He is not only met with at the Cape, but in Dongola, Nubia, and the Sahara south of Tunis and Constantina.

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Zibeth, and Indian Genet.
Zibeth, and Indian Genet.

I cannot conclude this chapter without alluding to a few of the Carnivora with elongated snout and non-retractile claws, which inhabit the plains of Southern Asia and the great adjacent islands. The first place I give to the Cuon Bansu, or Pariah Dog of India, which seems allied to both the Wild Dog, the Wolf, and the Jackal. His eyes are prominent, his skin is of a reddish-yellow, brightest about the head, spotted with black upon the tail. He is a gregarious animal, hunting in large troops, and waging war against hares, gazelles, antelopes. He will even venture to attack the buffaloes. Some varieties of this species range high up on the mountains.

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Striped Parodoxure of Java devouring a Crested Goura.
Striped Parodoxure of Java devouring a Crested Goura.

From the order of Carnivora I might also select, in the wild plains in the Old World, more than one curious species for our investigation, if my space permitted me to pass in review the two families of the ViverridÆ and the MustelidÆ. To the former belong the famous Ichneumon, that assiduous reptile-destroyer which the ancient Egyptians included in their religious cultus; the Genets (Viverra genetta) with their sleek, soft fur, natives of the western parts of Asia, India, and Java; the Civets (Viverra civetta), which furnish the commerce of Europe and the East with a once popular scent, to which important medical virtues were attributed; the Zibeth (Viverra zibetha), a maneless civet, peculiar to Asia as the latter is to Africa, and met with in Sumatra, Borneo, Amboyna, the Celebes, and Hindostan; and, finally, the Paradoxures (animals with a fantastic or paradoxical tail), so named by Cuvier because the individual studied by that great naturalist kept his tail constantly coiled up and inclined on the same side. All these Carnivora are of small stature; their short paws are furnished with demi-retractile claws; their body is excessively elongated, and of a worm-like shape; their tail is long and flexible, the muzzle tapering, the fur soft, and of a tawny or reddish colour, with spots or bands of black or brown.

The MustelidÆ are allied to the ViverridÆ in their general conformation. Their skin is equally soft, and capable of furnishing a beautiful fur; but its colour is generally uniform. The head is more rounded, the muzzle more obtuse, the tail shorter, than in members of the preceding family. Finally, a great number are plantigrades. These animals are more commonly distributed over the cold regions of the Northern hemisphere than in countries bordering on the Tropics. The genus Ratel (Ratellus mellivorus), however, is represented both in India and South Africa. The Cape species is celebrated for the havoc it makes among the nests of the wild bees, of whose honey it is singularly fond, and to whose discovery it is assisted by the voice and movements of a bird called the Honey-Guide. It has a rough tongue, short legs, with very long claws, a blunt, black nose, no external ears, a remarkably tough and loose skin, with thick hair. Its colours are ashen gray on the upper parts, and black on the inferior, and its length from the nose to the tip of the tail is forty inches, the tail measuring twelve. The Indian species, differing but little from the African, inhabits Bengal.

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CHAPTER IX.
ANIMAL LIFE IN THE PRAIRIES OF THE OLD WORLD:—BIRDS AND REPTILES.

THE savannahs and marshes of the ancient continent are frequented by birds of great stature: Cursores, Raptores, and Palmipeds. The colossus of the feathered world, the Ostrich, which has been aptly surnamed the Camel-Bird (Struthio camelus), inhabits the arid plains of the African interior, and frequently penetrates into the Sahara. The male is of a glossy black, with white on the wings and tail; the female wears an uniformly dusky livery. It is the loose flexible plumes of the male which are so prized for a lady’s toilette, and which figure in the crest of the prince of Wales. The female’s feathers are of inferior value, and improperly designated in commerce, “vulture-feathers.”

The Ostrich lives with his fellows in flocks of some number. He feeds voraciously on grass, grain, young twigs, and will swallow pieces of wood, leather, metal, or any hard substance. In his apparent want of taste he is probably guided by instinct, for these objects are probably useful in promoting the work of digestion. Some travellers have represented him as a stupid animal; but this is an error, for he displays both vigilance and shrewdness in avoiding the attacks of his enemies. The chase of this bird is exceedingly laborious, for though he does not fly he skims the ground, and his wings impel him forward with a velocity which distances the swiftest horse. But neither his speed nor his strength avails against the stratagems of man. The Arab horsemen surround the flock in a circle, which they gradually contract as they advance, until the poor birds are confined in a very narrow area, and dashing madly against one another, fall exhausted with fatigue. They are then slain by a few blows from a stick.

The female lays from ten to twelve eggs in a hole in the sand; she broods over them during the night, occasionally leaving them in the hottest part of the day. In procuring the eggs, which weigh about three pounds each, and are reputed a great delicacy, the natives are very careful not to touch any with their hands, as the parent birds would be sure to discover it on their return, and not only discontinue laying any more in the same place, but trample to pieces all those which have not been removed. A long stick is accordingly made use of to push them from the nest.

Another gigantic bird, whose wings are but partially developed, and whose legs are long and robust, the galeated or helmeted Cassowary (Casuarius), is a native of Java and the adjacent islands of the Indian Archipelago. His head is surmounted by a sort of osseous crest or horny helmet. In size he is much inferior to the ostrich, not exceeding five feet when erect; but he is robustly built, and of exceeding strength. His plumage is very poorly supplied with feathers, so as to resemble at a little distance, it is said, a coat of coarse or hanging hair. He is a swift runner, like the ostrich; is equally voracious, and not more dainty in his food.

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Ostriches (Struthio camelus).
Ostriches (Struthio camelus).

At that season of the year when the coming winter in our Northern hemisphere already “casts its shadows before,” legions of migratory birds swarm towards the tropical regions of Africa and Asia. Storks and cranes, and aquatic birds, descend upon those vast and genial southern prairies, where they obtain in abundance the precious food denied them in less favoured climes.

A beautiful crane, of ashen plumage, with a shapely ebon-black neck, and her head adorned with two white tufts of plumes, the “Lady of Numidia,” selects for her dwelling-place the eastern and western shores of the African Continent.

The Stork (Ciconia) is a cosmopolitan bird which alternately favours with his presence the North of Europe and the Torrid Zone, everywhere discharging with fidelity his useful sanitary mission by destroying myriads of noxious vermin. To kill them was considered by the ancients a foul crime, which could only be fitly punished by death, and the Egyptians included the Stork with the Ibis in their allegorical and mysterious worship. In his migrations he avoids the two extremes of heat and cold, never going farther north than Russia, nor, in winter, further south than the land of the Nile. The White Stork (Ciconia alba) is upwards of three feet six inches long. One species, popularly known as the Marabout, never quits Africa and the Indies. The name is also applied to the light silken feathers which embellish the wings of the species—one of the ugliest, let me add, created by Nature, with his bald head and neck, his huge beak, and absurdly meditative postures.

The chief of the birds of the shore and river-bank, the Flamingo (Phoenicopterus), may merit admiration on account of his dazzling scarlet plumage and handsome bearing. Owing to the great length of his legs and neck he stands nearly five feet high, and measures six feet from the point of the beak to the tip of the claws. The small round head is furnished with a bill nearly seven inches long, which is higher than it is wide, light and hollow, having a membrane at the base, and suddenly curving downwards from the middle. The legs and thighs are singularly delicate and slender. The Flamingoes are timid and suspicious birds; they keep together when feeding, drawn up in artificial array like the lines of a battalion of British infantry, with some of their number planted as sentinels to give notice of the approach of danger. Their voice has a peculiarly deep trumpet-like sound. At the note of alarm they all take to flight, swooping through the air in the form of a triangle.

They are skilful fishers. They wade deep into the water, where their long necks enable them to seize their prey with ease. Their food consists of spawn, insects, and molluscous animals. Owing to their peculiar structure they are both waders and swimmers.

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ROSE FLAMINGOES (Phoenicopterus antiquorum).
ROSE FLAMINGOES (Phoenicopterus antiquorum).

Several of the African Grallatores wage a murderous war against reptiles in the marshes and the meads; a war which claims the gratitude of man, who could never defend himself against their prolific increase and pertinacious attacks. I have already referred to the Stork; it is needful I should also mention the Ibis, once an object of worship on the banks of the Nile; the Jacana, his long claws armed with sharpened nails that transfix his prey; the formidable-billed BalÉniceps, which devours the young crocodiles; and the famous Serpent-Bird of the Cape, belonging to the Grallatores by his legs, to the Raptores by the talons and crooked beak with which he is provided, as well as by the structure of his internal organs. These birds are the allies and protectors of man, as Michelet has shown with characteristic eloquence in his rhapsodical prose poem, “L’Oiseau;” yet even these, in their combined efforts, are insufficient against the prolific races of aquatic and terrestrial reptiles, some formidable by their size and strength, some by their subtlety and venom. The narratives of the adventurous men who have not feared to incur

in traversing the wild regions of the Ancient World, are full of striking accounts of encounters with these monsters, and of the miseries they inflict upon the countries cursed with their presence.

“In Afric’s sunny clime,” flood, and river, and lake are haunted by the loathsome and dangerous Crocodile (Lacerta crocodilus), one of the most powerful species of the Saurian race. Though he preys chiefly on fish, his capacious jaws will devour any animal that comes within their reach; and when one reflects that he often attains the length of twenty to thirty feet, that the upper part of his body is clothed with an almost impenetrable scaly armour, that his long, oar-like tail is of immense strength, one can readily comprehend the vast amount of destruction such a monster can effect. Happily his movements on land are impeded by the unwieldiness of his body, which prevents him from turning except with great difficulty, and enables his intended victims to effect their escape. In the water, however, he glides along with great rapidity.

The female deposits her eggs, which are not much larger than those of a goose, in the sand or mud near the banks of the rivers or streams which she frequents. By a beneficent provision of Nature, the young are largely devoured by birds, ichneumons, and other animals, preventing their otherwise rapid increase. The colour of a full-grown crocodile is a blackish-brown above and yellowish-white beneath, the upper parts of the legs and sides being relieved by shades of deep yellow, and in some places tinged with green. The mouth is of vast width, and both jaws bristle with a terrible array of sharp-pointed teeth.

The African species all belong to the same genus, of which the Crocodile of the Nile is the type.

At the Gaboon, the negroes hunt their enemies either with muskets or a kind of harpoon. Their vulnerable points are the attachment of the anterior limbs, and, of course, the eyes. It is here that their assailants endeavour to mark them. They are killed every day without their number appearing to be sensibly diminished, and, what is singular enough, without their seeming to grow mistrustful. During the heat of the noon, they retire among the reeds and rushes for repose, but never remain long in any one place. At evening and at morning they sally forth in quest of prey. They swim without making any noise, scarcely disturbing the water, which they cleave like dogs; they will also remain motionless on its surface, glancing around them with cruel, dull, sinister eyes. The negro does not feel towards them so great an horror as Europeans experience, who are powerfully affected by their exceeding hideousness. They eat their flesh, with which their huge bony skeleton is scantily furnished, and, according to Du Chaillu, can never obtain enough of the much-prized delicacy.[127]

The Indian Crocodile, the Gavial or Garial (Crocodilus Gangeticus), is of the same size as his African congener, but easily distinguished by the peculiar conformation of his mouth; the jaws being remarkably straight, long, and narrow. The sides of the head are straight and perpendicular, the upper surface quadrilateral; and the mandible, instead of sloping gradually from the forehead, sinks suddenly to follow a straight and almost horizontal direction. The teeth are nearly double in number those of the Nilotic monster, but he is far less dangerous, and feeds only on fish. There are two species: the Gavial of the Ganges, found in all the great rivers of Southern Asia; and the Gavial of Schlegel, belonging exclusively to the island of Borneo.

Serpents of every size, venomous and non-venomous, multiply in the jungles, marshes, and woods of all tropical countries. Africa and Asia are abundantly provided with them. In Senegal they are all, or mostly all, inoffensive, and the objects of devout worship on the part of the negroes of Dahomey; but naturalists have not yet determined their respective genera. It is certain, however, that they do not all belong to the same species. In size, says the French traveller, Dr. RÉpin, they vary from three to ten feet. Their head is large, flattened, and triangular; the neck not quite so large as the remainder of the body; in these respects resembling the entire host of Ophidia. They vary in colour from a bright yellow to a yellowish-green, according perhaps to their age. Most of them are marked upon the back, for their whole length, with two brown lines, while a few are irregularly spotted. The long and prehensile tail, and the facility with which some of them climb, would refer them probably to the genus Leptophis of DumÉril and Bibron. At Whydah, these divinities are lodged in a temple shaded by lofty and beautiful trees. This curious edifice is described as a kind of rotunda, from thirty to forty feet in diameter, and from twenty-two to twenty-five feet high. Its walls, constructed of sunburnt clay, are pierced, like those of the Dahomean houses, by two opposite gates, affording free ingress and egress to the deities of the place. The roof, formed of branches curiously interlaced and covered with a layer of dried grass, is constantly tapestried with a myriad serpents. Some climb or descend by writhing round the trunks of trees arranged for this purpose along the walls; others, suspended by the tail, balance themselves indifferently in the air; others, again, lie coiled up in spiral folds on the ground or among the grasses of the temple roof. They never want for nourishment; the devout supply them with constant renewals of food, and in such abundance, that the priests, who, moreover, exercise the double profession of sorcerers and doctors, are in no greater peril of starvation than their gods!

The spotted serpents of which Dr. RÉpin speaks may possibly be no other than Pythons, those gigantic Ophidians of the tropical regions of the Old World which are found in Africa, in India, in the Indian Archipelago, and even in Australia. It should be noted, however, that their size generally exceeds that of the largest serpents which Dr. RÉpin saw at Whydah. Their length is from fifteen to twenty-five feet—specimens have been met with measuring thirty—and their maximum diameter ranges from ten to twelve inches. Their back is variegated with large spots, whose form, colour, and disposition differ according to their species. The tail is short, and not prehensile. Their favourite haunt is the low marshy ground, rank with moist herbage, where they prey upon birds and small animals, swallowing them whole—swallowing them even alive—after having seized them in the invincible folds of their long sinuous bodies, and always commencing with their hinder parts. So greedy a repast must necessarily be followed by a slow and difficult digestion, and cannot be renewed at any very brief interval. They eat in effect but once a month, or once in two months. During the lethargic and semi-somnolent condition which invariably follows their debauch, they fall easy victims to the attacks of their enemies. The principal African species of this genus are, the Python of Seba, of Central Africa, and the Royal Python of Senegambia.

The species peculiar to Asiatic climes is the Python Molure, a native of the Indian Peninsula, and of the islands of Java and Sumatra. The Python of the Sunda Islands, called by the natives Ular-Sawa, attains the length of fully thirty feet. It has a large flat head, of a bluish-gray colour, a thick yellowish muzzle, and cylindrical neck. Its body is marked with deep-blue spots, with a yellow or tawny border; its yellow tail with blue rings. Its ordinary habitat is the rivers; it feeds on rats and birds, but also pursues, when ashore, the largest animals.

We are indebted to Dr. Livingstone for much curious information respecting the serpents of South Africa, and especially in reference to the Striking Echidna, a singularly formidable viper, which the negroes designate Picakolou. He tells us that he killed one day a reptile of this species, which was of a deep brown colour, verging on black, and measured seven feet and a half in length.[128] These reptiles possess so abundant and deadly a venom, that when one of them is attacked by a band of dogs, the first dog bitten dies immediately; the second, five minutes afterwards; the third, at the end of an hour; and the fourth, after a more or less lengthened agony. A great number of beasts is annually destroyed by the Picakolous; the fangs of an individual killed at Kolobeng distilled poison for several hours after its head had been severed from its body. It is probably this plentiful secretion which the natives call “the serpent’s spittle,” and which leads them to suppose that the Picakolou is endowed with a power of injecting it into its enemies’ eyes when the wind is favourable.

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Python Molure. Echidna, or Picakolou. Fennec (Megalotis).
Python Molure. Echidna, or Picakolou. Fennec (Megalotis).

Other venomous species exist in this part of Africa, of which several are vipers, and among others the Puff-Adder (Vipera inflata). The natives have named it Noga-Poutsane, or the Goats’ Serpent, because it makes at night a bleating exactly resembling that animal. There were certainly no goats, says Livingstone, in the place where I happened to hear it. The natives suppose that by this bleating it hopes to deceive the traveller, and draw him within its reach. Some species emit, when they are frightened, a peculiar odour, strong enough to indicate their presence when they have found their way into the huts. There are also several varieties of Cobras (the Naja-Haje of Dr. Smith). When they are attacked, they raise their head a foot from the ground, extend their neck in a threatening manner, dart their tongue to and fro with extreme rapidity, while rage glares in their fixed and glassy eyes.

Different serpents of the genus Dendrophis, as, for example, the Green Climber (Bucephalus viridis), scale the trees in search of birds and their eggs, to which they are curiously partial. The Bucephalus is armed with fangs; nevertheless it is not venomous, and these fangs, which turn inwards, are only of use in preventing the retrogression of their prey, only one part of which is enclosed between its jaws.

The Cobra or Naja (Vipera naja), the “Hooded Snake” and “Spectacle Snake” of the English, the “Cobra de Capella” of the Portuguese, must be classed among those serpents which are the most dangerous through their violence, and the subtle character of their venom. It is easily recognized by its faculty of dilating the back and sides of the neck, under the influence of fear or rage, to which it owes its popular appellation; the elevated skin of the back of the neck presenting much the appearance of a hood (capella). It is usually three or four feet in length; of a pale reddish-brown colour above, and bluish or yellowish-white below; with a characteristic mark on the back of the neck closely resembling the figure of an old-fashioned pair of spectacles. It is a sluggish creature, and easily killed, but its poison is of the most fatal quality, causing death within two hours. It frequents the purlieus of human residences in India, and occasionally penetrates into the very houses, attracted apparently by the domestic poultry, and by the humidity of the wells and drainage. In Ceylon, the natives, if journeying abroad by night, carry a small stick with a loose iron ring, whose strange metallic sound, as they strike it on the earth, frightens the cobra from their path. The poison is harmless if taken internally. It is secreted in a large gland in the serpent’s head, and flows, when the animal compresses its mouth on any object, through a cavity of the tooth into the wound.[129]

The Indian species plays a conspicuous part in the displays of the Hindu jugglers, who exercise a strange power over them by the tones of their voice and the sounds of various musical instruments, compelling them to rise partially from the ground and go through a succession of fantastic movements. Something of this power is also due to the fascination of the juggler’s eye. Serpent-charming is of remote antiquity in Egypt and in most Oriental nations, where the profession would seem to be hereditary. Several allusions to it occur in Holy Writ.[130]

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CHAPTER X.
ANIMAL LIFE IN THE PRAIRIES OF THE NEW WORLD:—HERBIVORA, INSECTIVORA, AND CARNIVORA.

WE have seen that the order of Pachydermata, which furnished the Ancient World with the most gigantic species of the terrestrial creation, is represented in the New World by comparatively insignificant types: the Tapir and the Peccary. The first, although far inferior in stature to the elephant, the rhinoceros and the hippopotamus, is, nevertheless, one of the largest American Herbivora; the bison, llama, and stag alone exceeding it in size.

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American Tapir (Tapirus Americanus).
American Tapir (Tapirus Americanus).

Two species are distinguished, which both inhabit South America,—the American Tapir and the Tapir Pinchaca. The former is about as large as a mule or an ass. His skin is black, covered with rough brown hair. He has a long bowed neck, legs and feet resembling those of the hog, and a nose prolonged into a kind of trumpet. He feeds on leaves and many kinds of fruit, and sometimes does much injury in the mandioca fields of the Indians. His flesh is very good eating, and considered exceedingly wholesome. It is even reputed to be a remedy for the ague. A very shy and timid animal, he wanders about principally at night. “When the Indian discovers a feeding-place,” says Mr. Wallace,[131] “he builds a stage between two trees, about eight feet above the ground, and there stations himself soon after dusk, armed with a gun, or with his bow and arrow. Though such a heavy animal, the tapir steps as lightly as a cat, and can only be heard approaching by the gentle rustling of the bushes; the slightest sound or smell will alarm him, and the Indian lies still as death for hours, till the animal approaches sufficiently near to be shot, or until, scenting his enemy, he makes off in another direction.” When compelled to stand at bay, however, he defends himself with extraordinary vigour. D’Azara assures us that if the jaguar flings himself upon the tapir, the latter will drag him onward and onward through the densest bushes, until, torn cruelly by the thorns and brambles, he is constrained to let his would-be victim escape.

The Tapir Pinchaca appears to be confined to the region of the Cordilleran table-lands. The name “Pinchaca,” bestowed on the species by M. Roulin, is that of a fabulous animal mentioned in the traditions of New Grenada. It is distinguished from the former species by the absence of those lateral folds on the snout and occipital ridge to be remarked in the American Tapir, by its long thick hair—which, however, does not form a mane on the neck—and by a white mark at the extremity of the lower jaw.

The Peccaries are the wild boars of Tropical America. They are smaller than those of the Old World; have fewer teeth, and their tail is rudimentary. They live in numerous herds, and not only defend themselves energetically against aggressors, but when the latter have grown fatigued, assume the offensive, and pursue them with incredible fury. Hunting them, therefore, is for man, no less than for the jaguar, a dangerous adventure. When one of them has been seized by the latter, or slain by the former, the herd combine in pursuit of the murderer, and if he does not succeed in escaping them by a rapid retreat, or by opposing some insurmountable obstacle to their headlong career, he is infallibly torn to pieces.

The genus Horse, or, to adopt the new nomenclature, the family of EquidÆ, are altogether wanting in the American Fauna; that is, in the native indigenous Fauna of the New World. Previous to the era of Spanish Conquest, America did not possess a single species analagous to the horse, the onagra, the hemionus, the zebra, or the quagga; and the reader of the animated pages of Prescott or Arthur Helps will remember with what terror the Peruvians as well as the Mexicans regarded the mounted cavaliers of Pizarro and Cortez. The horse, however, when introduced by Europeans, multiplied rapidly in the Savannahs, where he soon became wild, and breeding with the ass, produced the mule, which, in the Spanish-American States, as in the mother-country, is now the most useful auxiliary of man. The European ox is likewise acclimatized over the entire extent of the new continent; and immense herds of the latter species, together with troops of horses and mules, people the Llanos and Pampas of South America, where the first conquerors had only met with herds of stags (Cervus Mexicanus), llamas, and cobiais.

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HUNTER PURSUED BY PECCARIES.
HUNTER PURSUED BY PECCARIES.

The Llama, or Guanaco (Auchenia llama), and his congeners, the Vicuna and the Alpaca (Auchenia), are now only found among the recesses of the Andes, their native country, to which they have retreated before the restless advance of man. In describing them I shall freely avail myself of Dr. Von Tschudi’s interesting notices.[132]

The Llama measures from the sole of the hoof to the top of the head, four feet six to eight inches; from the sole of the hoof to the shoulders, from two feet eleven inches to three feet. The female is usually smaller and less strong than the male, but her wool is finer and better. A great variety of colour prevails; the more general is brown, with shades of yellow or black; frequently speckled, but very rarely quite white or black. The speckled brown llama is, in some districts, called the moromoro.

The burden carried by this useful animal, the camel of the New World, should not exceed from one hundred to one hundred and twenty-five pounds. If the load be too heavy, he lies down, and no force or persuasion will induce him to resume his journey until the excess be removed. In the silver mines his utility is very great, as he frequently carries the metal from the mines in places where the declivities are so steep that neither asses nor mules can keep their footing. His abstemiousness is remarkable, and he will not feed during the night.

“A flock of llamas journeying over the table-lands,” says Dr. Von Tschudi, “is a beautiful sight. They proceed at a slow and measured pace, gazing eagerly around on every side. When any strange object scares them, the flock separates, and disperses in various directions, and the arrieros have no little difficulty in re-assembling them. The Indians are very fond of these animals. They adorn them by tying bows of ribbons to their ears, and hanging bells round their necks; and before loading, they always fondle and caress them affectionately. If, during a journey, one of the llamas is fatigued and lies down, the arriero kneels beside the animal, and addresses to it the most coaxing and endearing expressions. But notwithstanding all the care and attention bestowed on them, many llamas perish on every journey to the coast, as they are not able to bear the warm climate.”

When resting they make a peculiar humming noise, which, if it proceed from a numerous flock and is heard at some distance, resembles a concert of Æolian harps.

The flesh of the llama is spongy, and not agreeable in flavour: Its wool is used in manufacturing coarse cloths.

The Alpaca (Auchenia), or Paco, is smaller than the llama. It measures only three feet three inches from the lower part of the hoof to the top of the head, and to the shoulders two feet and a half. In form it resembles the sheep, but has a longer neck and a more graceful head. Its fleece is very long, in some parts four or five inches, and exquisitely soft. Its colour is usually either white or black, but in some few instances is speckled. Of its wool the Indians weave their blankets. It is also exported to Europe, and especially to England, in large quantities, though since the alpaca was naturalized in Australia, through the patriotic exertions of Mr. Ledger, England has begun to obtain a supply from her great and thriving colony.[133]

The alpacas are kept in large flocks, which graze, throughout the year, on the green and level heights, and are driven to the huts only at shearing-time. Their shyness is very great, and at the approach of a stranger they take to rapid flight. Their obstinacy is remarkable. If one of these animals should be separated from the flock he will throw himself on the ground, and neither force nor persuasion will induce him to rise; he will frequently suffer the severest punishment rather than go the way his driver wishes. Few animals seem to stand in such urgent need of the companionship of their species, and it is only when brought to the Indian huts very young that they can be separated from their flocks.

The largest animal of this tribe is the Huanacu or Guanaco. He measures five feet from the bottom of the hoof to the top of the head, and three feet three inches to the shoulders. So nearly does he resemble the llama in form that, until very recently, zoologists supposed the latter to be an improved species of the huanacu, and that the huanacu was neither more nor less than a wild llama. But there are specific differences between them. The huanacu is of a uniform reddish-brown colour on the neck, back, and thighs. The under part of the body, the middle line of the breast, and the inner side of the limbs are of a dingy white. The wool is shorter and coarser than that of the llama, and of nearly uniform length on all parts of the body. The huanacus assemble in small herds of five or seven, and if taken very young may be tamed, but can with difficulty be trained as beasts of burden.

The VicuÑa is a more beautiful animal than either of the preceding. His size is a medium between that of the llama and alpaca. He measures four feet one inch to the top of the head, and two feet six inches to the top of the shoulders. He is distinguished by his longer and shapelier neck, by the superior fineness of his short curly wool. The crown of the head, the upper part of the neck, the back, and thighs are of a peculiar reddish-yellow hue, which the natives call color de vicuÑa. The lower part of the neck and the inner parts of the limbs are of a bright ochreous colour, and the breast and lower part of the body white.

During the wet season the vicuÑa browses on the scanty vegetation of the Cordilleran ridges. He never ventures up to the bare rocky summits, for his hoofs, being accustomed only to the yielding sward, are very soft and tender. He lives in herds, consisting of from six to fifteen females, and one male, who is the protector and leader of the herd, and who, while the females graze, stands a few paces apart, carefully watching over their safety. At the approach of danger he gives a signal, consisting of a kind of whistling sound and a quick movement of the foot. Immediately the herd draws close together, each animal stretching out his head in the direction of the impending alarm. Then they take to flight; first moving leisurely and cautiously, but quickening their pace to the utmost degree of speed; whilst the male vicuÑa, who covers the retreat, occasionally halts to observe the motions of the enemy. The females reward his devotion by the warmest affection and fidelity, and will suffer themselves to be killed or captured rather than desert him.

The mode in which the Indians hunt the vicuÑa is sufficiently curious. In the Chacu, as it is termed, the whole company, seventy or eighty in number, proceed to the Attos—the most secluded districts of the Peruvian mountains—which are the animal’s favourite haunts, with an abundant supply of rope and cord, and numerous stakes. Selecting a spacious open area, they drive the stakes into the ground in a circle, at intervals of from twelve to fifteen feet apart, and connect them together by ropes fastened at the height of two or two and a half feet from the ground. The circular space within this enclosure measures about half a league in circumference; an opening of about two hundred paces in width is left for entrance. On the ropes which are carried round the stakes, the Indian women hang pieces of coloured rag that flutter gaily in the wind.

The chacu being thus made ready, the Indians, who are mounted on horseback, range over the country within a circuit of several miles, driving before them all the herds of vicuÑas they encounter, and forcing them into the chacu. When a sufficient number is collected, they close the entrance. The timid animals do not attempt to leap over the ropes, being affrighted by the fluttering rags, and when thus secured, the Indians easily kill them with their bolas.

These bolas consist of three balls, composed either of lead or stone; two of them heavier than the third. They are fastened to long elastic strings, made of twisted sinews of the vicuÑa, and the opposite ends of the strings are all tied together. The Indian holds the lightest of the three balls in his hand, and swings the two others in a wide circle above his head; then, taking his aim at the distance of about fifteen or twenty paces, he lets go the hand-ball, whereupon all three whirl in a circle, and cling round the object aimed at. The aim is usually directed at the animal’s hind legs, and the cords twisting round them, he is unable to move. Great skill and long practice are required to throw the bolas dexterously; a novice in the art incurs the risk of dangerously hurting either himself or his horse, by not giving the balls the proper swing, or by letting go the hand-ball too soon.

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1. Guanaco. 2. Llama. 3. VicuÑa.
1. Guanaco. 2. Llama. 3. VicuÑa.

The vicuÑas, after being secured by the bolas, are killed; their skins belong to the Church, and their flesh, which is tenderer and better flavoured than that of the llama, is distributed in equal portions among the hunters.

Under the dynasty of the Incas, the Peruvians rendered almost divine worship to the llama and his congeners, adorning the temples with large figures of these animals fashioned in gold and silver.[134]

If the natives of the South American continent possess neither the Ox nor the Sheep, they have at least a precious resource in the Bison, and the Musk Ox, or Ovibos. Of the latter I shall speak when my survey brings me to the colder regions of North America.

The Bison is wholly confined to the great prairies of this continent, which he traverses from north to south, and reciprocally, in his periodical migrations. According to some naturalists, he is a variety of the Aurochs, the fierce wild bull that formerly tenanted the forests of Gaul, Germany, and Sarmatia, and is still found in the densely-wooded districts of Moldavia, Wallachia, Lithuania, and Caucasia. Herds of Aurochs (Bos Bison), under the special protection of the Russian Emperor, and believed to number fully eight hundred animals, still roam in the depths of the great Lithuanian forest of Bialowieza. The American genus commonly called Buffalo, but not to be confounded with the buffaloes of the Old World, occurs as far north as the Great Martin Lake, in latitude 63°, and congregates in countless thousands on the wide undulating prairies between the Mississippi and the Rocky Mountains. Their flesh is supposed to supply with provision some 300,000 Indians, who pursue them on horseback, and kill them with bow and arrow, spear or rifle. The chase is exciting, and has proved a great attraction to the more adventurous spirits of the New World. It is exciting because it is perilous, for the hunted animal will often turn upon his adversary, and in speed he can outstrip the swiftest horse. He finds a formidable enemy in the white wolf. Hunting in packs of one or two hundred, the latter fling themselves upon two or three solitary bisons, and, surrounding them, worry the huge brutes to death. Never have they courage enough, however, to attack a herd, though the latter, when they catch sight of wolves, manifest the greatest alarm, form into battle array, and are only prevented by excess of terror from taking to flight. This panic-stricken feeling the Indian often turns to his advantage. He clothes himself in the skin of a white wolf, and with bow and arrows in his hands, boldly faces a herd, crawling towards them on his hands and knees; the affrighted buffaloes press closely together to receive the supposed wolf, who, on arriving at a convenient proximity, suddenly springs to his feet, and utters an unearthly yell. They fall into a frenzy of terror which enables him to select several victims.

The Indians also capture great numbers by setting fire to the grass of the prairies; the flames compel them to retire to the centre, where they are easily slain. Or they endeavour to throw them into a panic of alarm, in which case they seem possessed with a sudden madness, and, if driven towards a precipice, will dash themselves headlong over it, falling crushed and bleeding into the chasm beneath.

The American bison is similar to the European, but his tail and limbs are shorter; the horns are shorter and more blunt; the tail has fewer vertebrÆ; and the mane is fuller and shaggier. His flesh is excellent eating, having a flavour like that of venison. The tallow forms an important article of trade, one bull sometimes yielding 150 pounds. The skins are much used by the Indians for blankets, and when tanned they employ them as coverings for their beds and wigwams. Spread upon frames of wicker-work, they make admirable canoes. The long hair or fleece, of which a male bison yields six to eight pounds, is spun and woven into cloth.

The favourite nourishment of the bison, says Humboldt, is the Tripsacum dactyloides, called “Buffalo-Grass” in North Carolina, and a species of trefoil, resembling Trifolium repens, which Burton has named Trifolium bisonicum. It is remarkable, he continues, that the Buffalo, or Bison of the North, has exercised an influence upon geographical discovery in the mountainous regions where no road is laid down. Assembled in herds of several thousands, and seeking a milder climate, they migrate at the approach of winter into the countries situated south of Arkansas. Their massive form and size render it difficult for them to cross the mountains; and, consequently, wherever the traveller finds a track beaten out by numerous hoofs—a “buffalo-path,” in fact—he may confidently adopt it as the most convenient route for himself and his steed. In this manner have been discovered the best passes in the Cumberland Mountains, the Rocky Mountains, from the sources of the Yellow-Stone to the River La Plata; and, finally, from the southern branch of the River Columbia to the Rio Colorado of California.

The animals which we most frequently meet with in the Steppes of South America are the small spotted Stag (Cervus Mexicanus); the mailed Armadillos; some species of Tatous, which glide like rats into the burrows of the hares; troops of indolent Cobiais; of Civets agreeably striped, but infecting the air with their emanations; and the great maneless Lion, the Jaguar or American Tiger, whose strength is sufficient to slay the young bulls and carry them off to the summits of the hills.

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1. Agouti. 2. Capybara.
1. Agouti. 2. Capybara.

The Cervus Mexicanus wanders in numerous troops in the grassy Llanos of the Caraccas. He is only spotted while young; and varieties completely white have been discovered. On the slopes of the Andes he is never found at a greater elevation than 1600 to 1900 feet. At 3000 feet he is replaced by a much larger variety, slightly differing from the European stag.

The Rodents of the genera Capybara, Agouti, and Paca, are widely diffused over the plains of Tropical America. Of the three, the Capybara (HydrochÆrus capybara) is the largest. He attains the size of a sheep, has a voluminous head, small round ears, eyes large and black, a thick divided nose flanked by formidable whiskers, a short neck, a thick body covered with short, coarse, russet hair, and short legs; altogether, not a “thing of beauty.” Like the peccary, he is tailless, and in a manner web-footed, being thus adapted for a semi-aquatic life.

These great Rodents, says the illustrious author of “The Origin of Species,” in one of his earlier works,[135] are generally called “Carpinchos;” they occasionally frequent the islands in the mouth of the Plata, where the water is quite salt, but are more abundant on the borders of fresh-water lakes and rivers. In the day-time they either lie among the aquatic plants, or openly feed on the turf plain. When viewed at a distance, from their manner of walking and colour, they resemble pigs; but when seated on their haunches, and attentively watching any object with one eye, they re-assume the appearance of their congeners, the Caries. Both the front and side view of their head wears quite a ludicrous aspect, from the great depth of their jaw.

The Capybara leads no joyous life apparently, for in the water he is perseveringly pursued by the crocodile, and in the plain by the jaguar. He runs so awkwardly as to be easily caught by hand, and the South Americans profess to relish his flesh.

The Paca (Coelogenys) differs from the Capybara in the complex structure of his molar teeth. He inhabits the woody regions of South America, where he is generally found in the vicinity of water, concealing himself in burrows so near the surface, that the pedestrian’s foot often intrudes within them. His form is thick and clumsy, spotted with white on the sides, and intermediate in size and appearance between a hog and a hare.[136] He is about a foot in height and two feet in length, with hind limbs much longer than the fore, but considerably bent. The claws are thick, strong, and conical; the eyes large, prominent, and of a brownish hue; the ears nearly naked, and whiskers rigid. The paca is heavy and corpulent, but swims and dives with remarkable agility. As he feeds only on fruits and tender plants, his flesh is exceedingly savoury, and a staple dish in many parts of America. His burrow is provided with three apertures, and his capture is managed by closing up two of these, and digging up the third.

The Agouti (Dasyprocta Agouti) is another South American Rodent, about one-third the size of the Paca; he swims, but does not dive. He has sometimes been named “the rabbit of the South American continent,” but differs from it in many essential points, and really belongs to the CavidÆ, or guinea-pig tribe. He possesses the voracious appetite of the hog, and devours indiscriminately everything that comes in his way. He conveys his food to his mouth with his fore-paws, like a squirrel, and as he has long hind legs, runs, or rather leaps, with considerable swiftness. He is hunted very perseveringly on account of the devastation he causes among the sugar-canes. There is a larger species called the Mara, or Pampas Hare (Dasyprocta Patachonica), which will wander for miles away from its home.

Among the most interesting Rodents of the New World must be classed the Vizcacha and the Chinchilla, whose furs are so highly valued. The Vizcacha, or Bizcacha (Calomys bizcacha), somewhat resembles a rabbit, but his teeth are larger, and he has a long tail. He lives, it is said, on roots, and never wanders far from his burrow. His flesh, when cooked, is very white and savoury. The Chinchilla (C. lanigera) inhabits the cold mountain-valleys, where his close, fine gray fur is an invaluable protection. He is a pretty animal, much like the rabbit, but with a squirrel’s tail; of a mild and sociable disposition; and living with his kind on the most amicable terms.

Nor must the Beaver be forgotten, the most industrial animal of the Rodentia, which has wholly disappeared from Europe, and is yearly growing scarcer in America.

The Beaver (Castor fiber) is specially recognizable by his broad horizontally-flattened tail, which is of a nearly oval form, but slightly convex on its upper surface, and covered with scales. His hind feet are webbed, and together with the tail, which acts as a rudder, propel him through the water with ease and swiftness. His length, exclusive of his tail, which measures one foot, is about three feet; colour, a deep chestnut; hair, very fine, glossy, and smooth. The incisor teeth are large, and so hard, that the North American Indians used them in fabricating their horn-tipped spears and cutting bone, until iron tools were introduced from Europe.

The sagacity with which he constructs his habitation has long been a theme of eulogy, and has furnished moralists with many an apt image and pregnant illustration. Water is the necessity of his life. It is indispensably necessary that the stream near which the animal lives should never run dry; and to prevent so dire a misfortune, he is gifted with an instinct which teaches him to keep the water at or about the same mark, by building a dam across the channel.

In order to comprehend the art with which this dam is constructed, we must watch the beaver at his patient toil.[137]

When the animal has fixed upon a tree which he believes suitable for his purpose, he sits upright, and with his chisel-like teeth cuts a bold groove completely round the trunk. He then widens the groove in exact proportion to its depth, so that when the tree is nearly cut through, it somewhat resembles the “contracted portion of an hour-glass.” When this stage has been reached, he looks anxiously at the tree, and views it on every side, as if to measure the direction in which it should fall. Having settled this question, he goes to the opposite side, and with two or three powerful bites cuts away the wood, so that the overbalanced tree comes to the ground.

The beaver next proceeds to cut it up into lengths of about a yard or so, employing a similar method of severing the wood. The next part of the task is to make these rounded and pointed logs into a dam. For this purpose the logs are laid horizontally, and covered with stones and earth until they can resist the force of the water. Vast numbers are thus laid; and as fast as the water rises, fresh materials are added, being obtained mostly from the trunks and branches of trees which have been stripped of their bark by the beavers.

In those places where the stream runs slowly the dam is carried straight across the river; but where the current is strong, a convex shape is given to it, so as to resist the force of the rushing water. The dam is frequently of great size, measuring two or three hundred yards in length, and ten or twelve feet in thickness. In many localities the streams have been diverted by these erections into entirely different channels.

It is in this manner that the beavers keep the water to the required level; we must next see how they make use of it. They build their houses close to the water, and communicating with it by means of subterranean passages, one entrance of which passes into the house, or “lodge,” as it is technically named, and the other into the water, so far below the surface that it cannot be closed by ice. It is, therefore, always possible for the beaver to gain access to the provision stores, and to return to its house, without being perceived from the land.

“The lodges,” says Mr. Wood, “are nearly circular in form, and much resemble the well-known snow-houses of the Esquimaux, being domed, and about half as high as they are wide—the average height being three feet, and the diameter six or seven feet. These are the interior dominions, the exterior measurement being much greater, on account of the great thickness of the walls, which are continually strengthened with mud and branches, so that during the severe frosts they are nearly as hard as solid stone. Each lodge will accommodate several inhabitants, whose beds are arranged round the walls.”

There is no animal, however, whose sagacity can foil human ingenuity. The trappers, who hunt the beaver for the sake of his fur, and the peculiar odoriferous secretion called castor, are more than a match for all his artifices. Not even in winter-time is he safe from their pursuit. Striking the ice smartly, they judge from the sound whether they are near an aperture; and as soon as they are satisfied, cut away the ice and stop up the opening, so that the beavers, if alarmed, may not escape into the water. They then proceed to the shore, and by repeated soundings trace the course of the beavers’ subterranean passage, which is sometimes eight or ten yards long, and by closely watching the different apertures invariably catch the inhabitants. While thus engaged, they must be careful not to spill any blood, as in case of such a mishap the rest of the beavers take alarm, retreat to the water, and cannot be captured. The trappers entertain a superstitious notion, which leads them to remove a kneecap from each beaver and throw it into the fire.

The beavers generally quit their huts in the summer-time, though one or two of the houses may be tenanted by a mother and her young family. Those old beavers which are free from domestic ties take to the water, and swim up and down the stream in bachelor-like liberty until the month of August, when they return to a settled life. There are, also, certain individuals called by the trappers “les paresseux,” or “the idlers,” which do not live in houses, and construct no dam, but dwell in subterranean tunnels like those of our common water-rat. They are always males; gay young bachelors, with no incentives, we will suppose, to an industrious career. Neither in the beaver nor in the human world, however, does idleness prosper, for the capture of “les paresseux” is a comparatively easy task.

South America is the home of those singular Edentate Mammals, with scaly shields, which the natives call Tatous, but which are better known to Europeans by the name of Armadillos (Priodonta gigas). Cuvier has divided the whole genus into five groups, distinguished from one another by the number and form of their teeth and claws:—“Cachecames,” “Apars,” “Encouberts,” “Cabassous,” and “Priodontes.” Their general characteristics, however, are the same, and to describe one is virtually to describe all.

The body of the Armadillo has been invested by nature with a complete suit of armour: thus the head is protected by an oval or triangular plate, the shoulders by a large buckler, and the haunches by a similar buckler; while between these solid portions intervenes a series of transverse bands, or zones of shell, which accommodate this coat of mail to the various postures of the body; the tail also is covered by a series of calcareous rings, so that the animal exhibits a peculiar and somewhat ungainly appearance. Like the hedgehog, he can roll himself up into a ball, and present a solid impervious substance to the attacks of any adversary. The interior surface of the body, not covered by the shell, is clothed with coarse scattered hairs, some of which also emerge between the joints of the coat of mail.

This strange quadruped, like a mediÆval knight,—

has a rather pointed snout, long ears, short and thick limbs, and stout claws. Nature has thus fitted him by a peculiarly admirable organization for those habits of burrowing, which he performs with such astonishing rapidity that it is almost impossible to capture him by digging. His hunters therefore smoke him out of his subterraneous lair; as soon as he reaches the surface he rolls himself up, and is easily taken prisoner. He is then roasted in his shell, and devoured with avidity, his flesh being as great a dainty to a South American Indian as turtle to a London alderman.

By the side of the armadillos we may place another individual of the Edentata, not less strange in form: this is the Tamanoir, or Great Ant-Eater (Myrmecophaga jubata), which feeds exclusively on ants, digging open their hills with his powerful crooked claws, and drawing his long flexible tongue, covered with viscous saliva, lightly over the myriad insects that immediately sally forth to defend their homes.

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1. Armadillo Loricata. 2. Ant-Eater.
1. Armadillo Loricata. 2. Ant-Eater.

“The habits of the Myrmecophaga jubata are now pretty well known. It is not uncommon in the drier forests of the Amazons valley. The Brazilians call the species the TamanduÁ bandeira, or the Banner Ant-Eater; the term banner,” says Mr. Bates,[138] “being applied in allusion to the curious coloration of the animal, each side of the body having a broad oblique stripe, half gray and half black, which gives it some resemblance to a heraldic banner. It has an excessively long, slender muzzle, and a warm-like extensile tongue. Its jaws are destitute of teeth. The claws are much elongated, and its gait is very awkward. It lives on the ground, but all the other species of this singular genus are arboreal. I met with four species altogether. One was the Myrmecophaga tetradactyla, or Little Ant-Eater; the two others, more curious and less known, were very small kinds, called TamanduÁ-i (Myrmecophaga tamandua). Both are similar in size—ten inches in length, exclusive of the tail—and in the number of the claws, having two of unequal length to the anterior feet, and four to the hind feet. One species is clothed with grayish-yellow silky hair; this is of rare occurrence. The other has a fur of a dingy brown colour, without silky lustre. One was brought to me alive, having been caught by an Indian clinging motionless inside a hollow tree. I kept it in the house about twenty-four hours. It had a moderately long snout, curved downwards, and extremely small eyes. It remained nearly all the time without motion, except when irritated, in which case it reared itself on its hind-legs from the back of a chair to which it clung, and clawed out with its fore-paws like a cat. Its manner of clinging with its claws, and the sluggishness of its motions, gave it a great resemblance to a sloth. It uttered no sound, and remained all night on the spot where I had placed it in the morning. The next day I put it on a tree in the open air, and at night it escaped. These small TamanduÁs are nocturnal in their habits, and feed on those species of termites which construct earthy nests, that look like ugly excrescences on the trunks and branches of trees. The different kinds of ant-eaters are thus adapted to various modes of life, terrestrial and arboreal.”

In Tropical America the most remarkable representatives of the Carnivora are two great species of FelidÆ: the Puma, or Cougouar (Felis concolor), also called the Lion of America; and the Jaguar, or Ounce (Felis onca), sometimes distinguished as the American Tiger.

The Puma measures about five feet from nose to tail; the tail alone measuring two feet and a half. His colour is a brownish-red, with small patches of deeper tint, only shown up by certain lights; the breast, belly, and inner flanks are of a reddish ash; the lower jaw and throat entirely white; the tail of a dusky ferruginous tinge, tipped with black. As he grows older, however, his general colour becomes a silvery fawn. He has no mane. His manners—that is, his habits and disposition—are rather those of the panther than the lion. He climbs trees with cat-like expertness, whether in chase of birds, or to secure a vantage-point from which he may pounce upon some unsuspecting victim. He never attacks the larger quadrupeds, confining himself to such “small deer” as young calves, colts, and sheep. Men, children, dogs—these he suffers to pass by unmolested. His depredations are nocturnal. When domesticated, he may well be likened to the common cat, and he shows his pleasure at being caressed by the same kind of gentle purring. But he is a ferocious animal, and will kill fifty sheep or more in order to drink their blood.

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Cougouars, or Pumas.
Cougouars, or Pumas.

A much more formidable animal is the Jaguar. In size and strength he is but little inferior to the tiger. He has a large and rounded head; his pliant body is marked on the back with long uninterrupted stripes, on the legs and thighs with full black spots; his ground colour is a pale brownish-yellow; his legs are short, thick, and robust. He extends his ravages over all Central and South America, and over a considerable range of the northern continent. Like the tiger, he loves the shade of hot swampy jungles, the neighbourhood of the river and the lake. He generally preys on animals of domestic origin, which have grown wild in the prairies and the pampas, but he will also attack the bisons, and the other herbivora. Fish, too, he does not disdain to eat; and in default of other food, will even seize upon the caÏmans. It is rare that he attacks man; but if attacked by him, he defends himself courageously, and his muscular strength renders him exceedingly formidable. Not even an Ajax could maintain a combat with him as Fitz-James fought with Roderick Dhu, when—

if man would win, he must arm himself with bow and arrow, keen spear, or unerring rifle. The hunter, thus provided, pursues him with restless animosity to obtain his fur, which is much esteemed in commerce, where it is improperly designated by the names of “Great Panther,” and “American Tiger.”

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Bison attacked by a Jaguar.
Bison attacked by a Jaguar.

According to Humboldt, the Pampas are colonized with dogs grown wild, which gather in great numbers in subterranean caverns, and oftentimes, when stimulated by hunger, fling themselves upon man, in whose defence they originally displayed their courage.

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Prairie Wolves (Arctomys Ludoricianus).
Prairie Wolves (Arctomys Ludoricianus).

In North America there exists a very curious species of Rodents, belonging to the sub-genus Spermophilus, or Spermatophilus—that is, “grain-eaters.” They are better known by the hunter’s name, “Prairie Dogs.” Mr. Murray remarks that it is difficult to say why they obtained such an absurd appellation, for they do not bear the slightest resemblance to the canine species, either in formation or habits.[139] “In size,” he says, “they vary extremely, but in general they are not larger than a squirrel, and not unlike one in appearance, except that they want his bushy tail; the head is also somewhat rounder. They burrow under the light soil, and throw it up round the entrance to their dwelling like the English rabbit; on this little mound they generally sit, chirping and chattering to one another, like two neighbour gossips in a village. Their number is incredible, and their cities (for they deserve no less a name) full of activity and bustle. I do not know what their occupations are; but I have seen them constantly running from one hole to another, although they do not ever pay any distant visits. They seem on the approach of danger always to retire to their own homes; but their great delight apparently consists in braving it, with the usual insolence of cowardice when secure from punishment; for, as you approach, they wag their little tails, elevate their heads, and chatter at you like a monkey, louder and louder the nearer you come; but no sooner is the hand raised to any missile, whether gun, arrow, stick, or stone, than they pop into the hole with a rapidity only equalled by that sudden disappearance of Punch, with which, when a child, I have been so much delighted in the streets and squares of London.”

Captain Murray observes that as there is generally neither rain nor dew on the plains which they inhabit, during the summer, while, on the other hand, these little creatures never wander far from their “towns,” it seems reasonable to conclude they need no other liquid than they can extract from the grass they eat. It is certain that they pass the winter in a complete state of lethargy and torpor, for they accumulate no supply of provisions against that season; while the herbage which thrives about their habitat dries up in autumn, and soon afterwards the frosts render it impossible for them to procure their ordinary food. When the prairie dog feels the approach of his time of somnolence—generally about the end of October—he closes all the passages of his dormitory to protect him from the cold, and wholly resigns himself to the pleasures of repose. He remains thus immured and inert until awakened by the first warm airs of spring, when he throws wide his gates and reappears on the surface of the refreshened earth, in all his whilome liveliness and gaiety.

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CHAPTER XI.
ANIMAL LIFE IN THE PRAIRIES OF THE NEW WORLD:—BIRDS AND REPTILES.

WE have seen in a preceding chapter that the great terrestrial and aquatic birds (“Waders”) of the wild plains of the Ancient World have few analogues in America, and that the small number of genera which are represented therein are represented by much smaller species. I have cited the Ostrich and the Phenicopterus. The American Ostrich, or Nandou (Rhea), is not above half the size of his African congener, from which he differs in having the feet three-toed, and each toe armed with a claw. Moreover, his head and neck are more fully clothed with plumage; the wings are plumed, and more perfectly developed; and he is tailless. The neck has sixteen vertebrÆ. Though endowed with more perfect wings than the Ostrich of Africa, he is nevertheless incapable of flight, representing another grade in Nature’s slow ascent from the wingless bird to the bird possessed of full powers of flight. He inhabits the wide grassy plains of South America below the Equator, and as far south as latitude 42°. He is never seen across the Cordilleras, but roams in great numbers the banks of La Plata and its tributaries. He is generally seen in small troops.

There are at least three species: the Rhea Americana, about five feet high; the Rhea macrorhyncha, distinguished by its large bill; and the Rhea Darwinii, the smallest, which inhabits Patagonia.

The Flamingoes proper to the New World are: the Red Flamingo, all whose plumage glows with a more or less vivid red; and the Fiery Flamingo, probably only a variety of the preceding. Both are natives of the dreary Patagonian desert, of Chili, and some other southern districts.

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1. Cathartes-Urubu. 2. King of the Vultures.
1. Cathartes-Urubu. 2. King of the Vultures.

The order of Waders, and that of Palmipeds, include, in the low marshy levels of this continent, some characteristic species: notably, the Jacanas and the Kamichis; the Agami or Trumpet-Bird, remarkable for its pastoral instinct, its domestic aptitudes, and the ringing sound of its voice; the Savacou, which, in the structure of its enormous beak and its general habits, is allied to the African BalÆniceps. Here, as in Africa, a species of rapacious Grallator flourishes, the Cariama, delivering “a war to the knife” against the reptile legions. Raptores more accurately defined—such, for example, as the Falco cachinnans, or Laughing Vulture—share in the destructive campaign against frogs, toads, lizards, and small serpents. And in the New, as in the Old World, Nature does not neglect the work of purification, intrusting it in the savannahs and the pampas to various kinds of VulturidÆ, which devour the putrid carcasses that would otherwise pollute the atmosphere. The Cathartes-Urubu and the Aura are the most common species; the Mexicans call them Zopilotes. They are found in all Central and Southern America, and frequently range to very high latitudes. They are of small size, very social, easy familiarized with man, and may be seen in great numbers, not alone in the deserts and plains, but in the great towns, where they efficiently play the part of great sanitary reformers. They are gifted with extraordinary delicacy of scent; they detect the existence of carrion at great distances, and flock from the four quarters of heaven to banquet upon it. The Sarcoramphus Papa, or “King of the Vultures,” a species closely allied to the great Condor of the Andes, is likewise encountered very frequently in the plains of Tropical America, but only where the herbage has been set on fire; which is a common enough occurrence, either through lightning, or by accident or design on the part of the Indians. Then he arrives on rapid pinion to prey upon the lizards, and frogs, and serpents which are destroyed by the scathing and consuming flames. His attire is more elegant than his mission in creation would seem to render necessary. The plumage on the upper part of the body is of a reddish hue, the neck and head of a delicate bluish-violet, the beak red, the crest orange, the eyebrows white, and the wings black. He is about the size of the domestic Turkey. The tawny Caracara, a bird of the genus Polyborus, as large as the common Kite, and with a tail nine inches long; and the Harpy Eagle (ThrasaËtus), distinguished by its formidable beak and legs, its erect crest and flashing eyes—both widely distributed in all the hot regions of the New World—belong to the FalconidÆ family (in the latest classification), as well as the great white-headed Fishing Eagle, or Pygargue (HaliaËtus Leucocephalus), which inhabits the northern continent. The latter has been eloquently described by the Paisley ornithologist, the celebrated Wilson:[140]—“Elevated on the high dead branch of some gigantic tree that commands a wide view of the neighbouring shore and ocean, he seems calmly to contemplate the motions of the various feathered tribes that pursue their busy avocations below; all the winged multitudes that subsist by the bounty of this vast liquid magazine of Nature. High over all these hovers one whose action instantly arrests his attention. By his wide curvature of wing and sudden suspension in the air, he knows him to be the Fish Hawk, settling over some devoted victim of the deep. His eye kindles at the sight, and, balancing himself with half-opened wings on the branch, he watches the result. Down, rapid as an arrow from heaven, descends the distant object of his attention, the roar of his wings reaching the ear as he disappears in the deep, making the surges foam around! At this moment, the eager looks of the eagle are all ardour, and, levelling his neck for flight, he sees the fish hawk emerge struggling with his prey, and mounting in the air with screams of exultation. These are the signals for our hero, who, launching into the air, instantly gives chase, and soon gains on the hawk; each exerts his utmost to mount above the other, displaying in these rencounters the most elegant and sublime aËrial evolutions. The unencumbered eagle rapidly advances, and is just on the point of reaching his opponent, when, with a sudden scream, probably of despair and honest execration, the latter drops the fish; the eagle, poising himself for a moment, as if to take a more certain aim, descends like a whirlwind, snatches it in his grasp ere it reaches the water, and bears his ill-gotten booty silently away to the woods.”

A similar picture, let me add, has been painted by the poet Spenser, though he refers, of course, to the British Eagle:—

The Reptilia are represented in America by a very great number of species, many being remarkable for their great size or the terrible venom with which they are provided. The crocodiles of the American continent form a distinct genus, sometimes designated Alligator, and sometimes Caiman. The Alligators, or Caimans (Alligator lucius), are Saurians of huge bulk; with a long flat head, thick neck and body, a cavernous mouth suggestive of infinite voracity, dull cruel eyes, and a long taper tail, which, strongly compressed on the sides, is surmounted with a double series of strong plates, that unite about the middle, and form a single row to the extremity. It is this tail that gives them most of their progressive power in the water, and though it obstructs their movements on land, it is useful even then as a powerful weapon of defence. Transverse rows of square bony plates, rising in the centre into keel-shaped ridges, protect the body, and render the hideous animal exceedingly formidable as an antagonist. It frequently attains the length of eighteen, and is seldom less than fifteen feet. Its teeth are numerous, sharp, and strong; its claws long and tenacious. It feeds generally on fish, turtle, fowl, or whatever other prey may fall within its reach; and woe to the unfortunate animal that comes to the river-bank in quest of water within the range of this ferocious saurian.

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Alligators, or Caimans.
Alligators, or Caimans.

The caiman never attacks man if his intended victim is on his guard, but he is cunning enough to know when this may be done with impunity. Mr. Bates records an affecting instance. The river Amazons at CaiÇara had sunk one season to a very low point, so that the port and bathing-place of the village now lay at the foot of a long sloping bank, and a large caiman made his appearance in the shallow and muddy water. “We were all obliged,” says our traveller,[141] “to be very careful in taking our bath; most of the people simply using a calabash, pouring the water over themselves while standing on the brink. A large trading canoe, belonging to a Barra merchant, arrived at this time, and the Indian crew, as usual, spent the first day or two after their coming into port in drunkenness and debauchery ashore. One of the men, during the greatest heat of the day, when almost every one was enjoying his afternoon’s nap, took it into his head whilst in a tipsy state to go down and bathe. He was seen only by the Suiz de Paz (Justice of Peace), a feeble old man who was lying in his hammock, in the open verandah at the rear of his house on the top of the bank, and who shouted to the besotted Indian to beware of the alligator. Before he could repeat his warning the man stumbled, and a pair of gaping jaws, appearing suddenly above the surface, seized him round the waist and drew him under the water. A cry of agony was the last sign made by the wretched victim. The village was aroused; the young men, with praiseworthy readiness, seized their harpoons and hurried down to the bank; but of course it was too late, a winding track of blood on the surface of the water was all that could be seen. They embarked, however, in light boats, determined on vengeance; the monster was traced, and when, after a short lapse of time, he came up to breathe, one leg sticking out from his jaws, was dispatched with bitter curses.”

In the temperate regions of North America, where crocodiles still exist, these animals pass the entire winter in lethargic torpor. In the Pampas of tropical America, on the contrary, it is during the hot season that they remain inert in the mud of the dried-up marshes. “According to the statements of the natives,” says Humboldt, “you may sometimes see, on the return of the rainy season, the humid clay slowly uplifted and loosened in great clods. A violent detonation soon makes itself heard, and the earth is flung up into the air to a great height, as in eruptions of small mud volcanoes. If you understand the cause of this phenomenon you will quickly take to flight, for from this retreat immediately emerges a monstrous water-serpent or a plated crocodile, which the first shower has awakened from his lethargy.” The great water-serpent here spoken of is, in all probability, the gigantic Boa-Constrictor, one of the most dangerous denizens of the marshy plains of equatorial America. Travellers of unimpeachable authority assert that this frightful reptile often attains the length of thirty-six to forty-five feet. Day and night he lurks among the tall rank herbage; in the morning and the evening he places himself in ambush on the border of some lake or water-course to surprise the quadrupeds which flock thither to quench their thirst. By means of his prehensile tail he suspends himself to a tree on the shore, and patiently awaits the coming prey. When an animal passes within his reach, he swiftly seizes it, enfolds it in his spiral coils, crushes it against the tree which serves for his point d’appui, compresses its bleeding mass into a convenient form, covers it with a glutinous saliva, and swallows it. In this fashion the boa will devour a stag or even an ox entire, nor does he fear to attack the puma and the jaguar. Whether he is dangerous to man may reasonably be doubted; his immense size, at all events, renders it easy to avoid him. He preys upon fish in default of other provision, and to catch his victims often remains for a considerable time with his head and a portion of his body plunged under water.

The true scourges of tropical America and the Antilles are the Rattlesnake and the lance-headed Viper.

The Rattlesnake (Crotalus horridus) is one of the deadliest of venomous serpents, is frequently six feet in length, and as thick as a man’s leg. But Providence has furnished it with an antidote against its own poison, or, at least, with an instrument which makes it its own betrayer, and warns man involuntarily against its formidable presence. This is the rattle to which it owes its vulgar appellation. The rattle is situated at the end of the tail, and consists of several hard, dry, bony processes. Imagine a string of hollow, dry, semi-transparent bones, nearly of the same size and figure, and resembling to some extent the shape of the human os sacrum: imagine these so placed that the tip of every uppermost bone runs within two of the bones below it; imagine these constantly clattering against each other, as the reptile moves, with a hoarse, dull, echoing sound, and you will be able to form some idea of the permanent warning of its approach which the Crotalus carries about with it. The rattle is placed with the broad part perpendicular to the body, and not horizontal; and the first joint is attached to the last vertebra of the tail by means of a thick muscle beneath it, no less than by the membranes which unite it to the skin. The bony rings increase in number with the reptile’s age, and it gains an additional one, it is said, at each casting of the skin.

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Crotalus, and Boa-Constrictor.
Crotalus, and Boa-Constrictor.

The Crotalus horridus is of a yellowish-brown colour, varied with patches of a deeper hue, and from the head to some distance down the neck run two or three longitudinal stripes of the same. Its habits are sluggish; it moves slowly, and only bites when angered, or for the purpose of killing its prey. It is provided with two kinds of teeth—viz., the smaller, which, planted in each jaw, serve to catch and retain the food; and secondly, the fangs or poisonous teeth, which kill the prey, and are placed outside the upper jaw. It feeds principally upon the smaller mammals and upon birds, which it seems certain it possesses a peculiar power of fascinating—the effect, it may be, of intense fear. “When the piercing eye of the rattlesnake is fixed on them,” says Mr. Murray, “terror and amazement render them incapable of escaping; and, while involuntarily keeping their eyes fixed on those of the reptile, birds have been seen to drop into its mouth, as if paralyzed, squirrels descend from their trees, and leverets run into the jaws of the expecting devourer.” Hogs and peccaries, however, are unaffected by this panic, and feed greedily upon the reptile which causes it, whose venomous fangs cannot penetrate their formidable hide. Its poison, once imbibed, is very fatal, acting upon man and the larger mammals, such as the horse or ass, in a few hours.

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Trigonocephalus pursued by Birds.
Trigonocephalus pursued by Birds.

The lance-headed Viper or Trigonocephalus (Bothrops lanceolatus), is most common in the West Indian Islands, where it is justly dreaded. It has been computed that, at Martinique, fifty persons out of a population of 125,000 souls die annually from the bite of these odious reptiles. Their fecundity is frightful. Every female bears sixty young, which on their very advent into the world are completely formed and able to wound. This viper, moreover, carries no warning rattle; nothing indicates its presence; and in the countries which it inhabits, the wayfarer, if prudent, will beat the herbs and bushes as he advances with a switch. Then the Trigonocephalus, if there be one in the way, will take flight and reveal itself, for it is too large to glide away unseen. Therefore, the negroes of Martinique, who, of necessity, are assiduous reptile hunters, state as an incontrovertible axiom, confirmed by immemorial experience, that “a serpent seen is a serpent dead.” In truth, the serpent is only formidable to man when not perceived, and when one treads upon it accidentally. In the open field its defeat and death are inevitable, however little coolness or skill its assailant may possess. And to warn us of the presence of the Trigonocephalus, Nature has supplied us with numerous watchful sentinels in the small birds, whose not unreasonable hate against this serpent is a remarkable proof of their intelligence. If ever your destiny conduct you to the Antilles, says a naturalist, cold-blooded sportsman as you may be, do not slay the little bird which the grateful negroes, though he sings but little, have wished to name the nightingale; for if you do so, they will regard you with suspicion and dislike. He is their protector, and he watches also over you. No sooner does he see, from his aËrial station, the scales of the reptile gliding into the herbage or glittering among the large leaves, than he can no longer control himself. He flies to and fro, he leaps from branch to branch, summoning with a lamentable cry all the feathered tribe from the neighbouring trees. From far and near the cry widens and is repeated; from all directions flock nightingales, and thrushes, grosbeaks, and humming-birds, and hovering above the assassin, furiously denounce it, and indicate its lurking-place to man. Irritated by such a concert of maledictions, the serpent elevates its crest, but, lo! they are far beyond its reach! And the cries, the murmurs, the insults are redoubled! It seeks to conceal itself, but these cries persistently accompany it. Wherever it drags its slimy shining bulk, they follow, they harass, and they denounce it. Either night comes on, or it succeeds in completely hiding itself from their watchful gaze, before they reluctantly leave it to its own devices. Great the consternation if their enemy escape them! But what joy, what triumphal sounds, if man appears upon the scene and slays it!

I have previously alluded to the enormous toads found in South America, and to the gigantic frog which belongs to the northern continent. Among the former I may particularize as one of the largest known species, the Agua; and, as remarkable for its mode of gestation, the Pipa. The Surinam Toad, or Pipa Surinamensis (the Bufo Pipa of LinnÉ), is distinguished by its large triangular head, and horizontally flattened body, with a granulated back. It is now ascertained that the female deposits her spawn at the brink of some shallow or stagnant pool; the male then collects the heap and cautiously places it on the back of the female, where, after impregnation, they are pressed into cellules produced by the tumefaction of the skin. In rather less than three months the eggs are hatched, and the young emerge in a complete state.

The Bull-Frog (Rana pipilus), of North America, is from six to eight inches long and from three to four inches broad. When his limbs are fully extended he measures about eighteen inches in length. Its back is of a sombre green colour, varied with black; the under-parts being of a whitish hue, tinged with green, and thickly spotted. The fore-feet have only four toes, and are unwebbed; the hind-feet are large, long, and widely webbed. Its voice may be compared to the distant lowing of a bull, and a chorus of them at night is sufficient to arouse the soundest sleeper. They prey upon ducklings, goslings, and small birds, drowning before devouring them. Spite of its size and ungainliness, it is very nimble, and can accomplish a leap of upwards of six feet in height.

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1. Bufo Agua. 2. Pipa Surinamensis.
1. Bufo Agua. 2. Pipa Surinamensis.

Incomplete as is this rapid survey of the Fauna of the New World Deserts, I cannot terminate it without referring to the strange and formidable fish which haunt the pools, lakes, and marshes of South America—those Gymnoti, or Electrical Eels, sometimes five, six, and even eight feet long, which emit electrical discharges of sufficient violence to strike down a man, a horse, or an ox. It is by this singular property the gymnotus supports its existence; its shocks stupify the smaller fishes and other animals that come within its range, so that they fall an easy prey to its voracity. The electrical organs consist of four bundles of parallel membranaceous laminÆ arranged along the inner side of the tail, and constituting a remarkably powerful battery.

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FISHING FOR GYMNOTI.
FISHING FOR GYMNOTI.

In hunting the gymnoti the Indians adopt a cruel expedient. They drive a herd of horses and mules into the ponds which these eels inhabit, and harpoon them when they have spent their electrical force on the unhappy quadrupeds. The fish swim on the surface of the water like serpents, and skilfully glide beneath the animal’s body, discharging the whole length of their electrical battery, and attacking simultaneously the digestive viscera, and, above all, the gastric plexus of nerves. Fain would the horses escape their enemies’ attacks, but the Indians drive them back into the water with stout canes of bamboo and long whips. After awhile the eels grow exhausted; the animals show less alarm; and the Indians begin to ply their harpoons with equal agility and success. There are several species of this remarkable fish, and most, if not all, are valued as wholesome food. The Gymnotus Electricus, however, is the only one which possesses any electrical powers.

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CHAPTER XII.
ANIMAL LIFE IN THE AUSTRALIAN PRAIRIES.

THE first naturalists who explored the littoral of the Australian continent and its adjacent islands were struck with astonishment at the sight of the strange and almost monstrous animals they discovered there. Far more certainly than Columbus had they fallen in with a New World; a new world of zoology and botany; a world apart, peopled by beings wholly different from those they had elsewhere studied, and some of which exhibited a complexity and originality of organization and structure wholly antagonistic to the received theories of fundamental characteristics belonging to the various classes of the animal kingdom. The Australian Fauna, in this respect, can only be compared to that of Madagascar, which equally bears an impress peculiarly its own, and presents but a few features of kinship with the Indian Fauna. It is the latter also that the Australian Fauna most closely approaches, or, to speak more correctly, from which it least widely diverges.

The great Herbivora—Pachyderms, Ruminants, and Solidungulates—are absolutely wanting in Australia, as well as the Carnivora properly so called—Apes and LemuridÆ. The class of Mammals is only represented by a small number of Cheiroptera and Rodents; by some Amphibia, PhocÆ, and OtidÆ (Seals and Bustards), which inhabit the bays carved out of its long line of coast; by the Marsupials and a very limited order of Monotremata. The two latter groups are pre-eminently characteristic of the Australian Fauna; the second belongs exclusively to it. Little, indeed, is wanting to make it identical with the sub-class of the Marsupials, represented only in South America by the genera Opossum didelphis, Hemiurus, and Chironectes, and elsewhere limited to New Holland, Tasmania, New Guinea, New Zealand, and some other less important islands of Oceania.

The Marsupials (from the Greek ??s?p??, a purse) owe their distinctive name to a very curious peculiarity in the organization of the females. The latter bring their young into the world while still very feeble, and of themselves fix them to their breasts, where they remain attached until they have acquired that degree of development which all other mammals possess at their birth. Generally the breasts are covered with a loose skin, forming a sort of pouch or purse, in which the young are concealed, which protects them against climatic changes, and enables the mother conveniently to carry them everywhere about with her. Two particular bones, called the marsupial bones, attached to the pubis, and placed amidst the abdominal muscles, support this pouch. They assist, says Professor Owen, in producing a compression of the mammary gland, necessary for the alimentation of a peculiarly feeble offspring, and they defend the abdominal viscera from the pressure of the young as they increase in size, during their mammary or marsupial existence, and still more when they return to the pouch for temporary shelter.

The marsupials present, moreover, in the different families composing the order, a great diversity of organization. Most of them are herbivorous or frugivorous; but there are some which prefer animal nourishment, and which, in their habits as well as in the structure of their jaws and their digestive apparatus, closely approach the carnivora.

The order of which I am speaking includes some animals of great size. Such is the Great Kangaroo (Macropus giganteus), which generally measures about seven and a half feet in length from the nose to the tip of the tail, the tail being rather more than three feet in length, and fully twelve inches in circumference at the base. In its erect sitting posture, when it rests on its hind-legs and the root of its tail as on a tripod, its height amounts to about fifty inches; but when it rises on its toes to look around, its stature exceeds that of a man. The great length of its hind-legs is a notable peculiarity; their feet are provided with only four toes, the central being very long, of great strength, and terminated in a large and powerful hoof-like nail or claw. The fore-legs, on the contrary, are very short, and the feet divided into five toes, each furnished with a short and somewhat hooked claw. The animal’s head is small, with rather pointed ears, and large but placid eyes; it has a thin and gracefully proportioned neck; so that a startling discrepancy is observable between the fore and the posterior parts of the animal, though the general effect is neither ungraceful nor unpleasing. It should be noticed that the kangaroo never folds his tail between his legs, which, I may add, are extraordinarily strong. The thighs are thick, the tarsi long and robust. He only walks on all fours when hotly pressed, and then his appearance is decidedly ungainly. In escaping from an enemy he rears himself upright, skims the plain with bounding leaps, and in a few minutes leaves behind him the swiftest horse or dog. But if all avenues of retreat be closed to him, he plants himself firmly against a tree or a rock and fights with obstinate courage, ripping up his assailants with his potent hind-feet, like a stag with his horns or a wild boar with his tusks.

The diet of the kangaroo is essentially “vegetarian;” he lives upon leaves, herbs, and roots, and employs his fore-paws, like the Rodents, to carry his food to his mouth. The animal’s habits are mild and inoffensive. They roamed very peacefully about the Australian prairies before the new continent was opened up to European enterprise; having no other enemies to fear than the natives, who were scattered in small tribes over a few points of an immense territory. Their chase is now one of the favourite amusements of the colonists, who destroy them in great numbers. They are easily domesticated, and may be regarded as already acclimatized in Europe, where, it is hoped, they may prove of great utility. The flesh of the tame Kangaroo is very good, but that of the wild animal is still better. Their skin, covered with a thick hair of an uniformly gray colour, may be adapted to various purposes.

The genus comprehends several species of very different dimensions: as, the Great Kangaroo, already mentioned; the Woolly or Red Kangaroo (M. laniger), which rather exceeds it in size; and the Potoroo, which is larger than a rat.

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Large-Browed Wombat (Phascolomys latifrons).
Large-Browed Wombat (Phascolomys latifrons).

I must cite, besides the Kangaroos, as the most remarkable types of the Australian Marsupials, the Phascolomys, the Phascolarctos, the Phalangas, and the Thylacynas.

The Phascolomys, like the kangaroo, has been introduced into Europe, where he seems to be perfectly acclimatized, and specimens may be seen both in the London Zoological Gardens and the Jardin Zoologique of Paris. He is better known by his native name of the Wombat (Phascolomys Wombat), and was first discovered by Bass, the gallant explorer and surgeon, whose name is indissolubly connected with the bright deeds of Australian discovery. The large-browed wombat might, at first sight, be mistaken for a small bear. His loins are thick, his limbs short, his hair coarse—thickly set on the loins, back, and head, thinly scattered about the belly—and of a light, shining sandy-brown. It is difficult to say why he is surnamed latifrons, for his forehead is no larger than that of other animals of his family; and, at all events, he exhibits, by way of compensation, an extraordinary extent of surface in the hinder parts, which, as they are utterly deficient in tail, present a very grotesque appearance. He burrows like the badger, and on the Australian continent never quits his retreat until night sets in. He lives on herbs and roots. The natives roast his flesh, and esteem it a viand of no ordinary excellence.

The Phascolarctos, or Koala (Phascolarctos cinereus), is closely allied to the wombat. He is strongly but clumsily made, with robust limbs and powerful claws, which he employs in clinging to the branches of the trees where he chiefly makes his home. However, he frequently visits terra firma, and burrows with great ease; concealing himself in a torpid state in his subterranean retreat during the cold season. His fore-feet have each five toes, of which two are opposed to the other three—a circumstance noted in no other mammal. He has no tail, like the wombat. His coat is a bluish-gray fur, very thick and extremely soft, darkest on the back, and very pale under the throat and belly. An elongated nose looks as if it were tipped with black leather. The eyes are round and dark; the ears almost hidden in the plenitude of fur. By day he is a drowsy and, sooth to say, a stupid animal; but at night he wakes up into a more active state. He feeds upon the fresh young tops of trees, selecting their blossoms and young shoots; and though in appearance resembling the Phalanga, in habits seems closely allied to the Sloth.

The Phalangas form the typical genus of the tribe of Phalangistins, which comprehends, in addition, the genera Trichosura, Pseudochira, and Dromicia. Several species are met with in Malaysia, but they chiefly belong to the Australian Fauna. They live chiefly in trees, feeding on various kinds of small animals, insects, eggs, and fruits, which they grasp between their fore-paws, and so bring to their mouth. Their appearance may be imagined by putting together a rather short head with short ears and short woolly fur; a squirrel-like body and long prehensile tail, sometimes completely covered with hair: the body measures about twenty-six inches, and the tail about fifteen inches. The two principal species are the Sooty Phalanga (Phalangista fuliginosa), found in Van Diemen’s Land, and named in reference to its smoky black fur; and the Vulpine Phalanga, or Vulpine Opossum (P. vulpina), widely distributed over Australia, and having a fox-like character about his head. The Flying Phalangas are also allied to this genus.

The Thylacyni are distinguished from the Opossums by the hind-feet having no thumb, by a hairy and non-prehensile tail, and by having two incisors less to each jaw. Only one species is known to exist in Australia,[142] where it is called the “Tasmanian Wolf,” and sometimes “Tiger” and “HyÆna.” It resembles a wolf in many respects, but its hinder parts are sensibly higher than its fore; its elongated muzzle is almost cylindrical in shape, and very thick; and his tail, broad at the base, tapers away to a fine point. The colour is gray, striped with black across the hinder limbs.

Of the Thylacynus cynocephalus M. Paul Gervais furnishes the following description:[143]—

“There exists in Tasmania an animal of carnivorous habits almost as large as a wolf, and whose external forms at the first glance do not differ sufficiently from those of the latter to prevent one from including him in the family CanidÆ; but this member of the Carnivora, though he has also the wolf’s appetite, and commits havoc in the same manner among the flocks of the colonists, belongs, like most of the Australian Mammals, to the sub-class of Marsupials. There is also much analogy, in many of its osteological characteristics, with the extinct genera of the Hyenodons and PtÉrodons; but the latter are in reality Monodelphia, and should be ranged among the Carnivora properly so called. The English settlers in Van Diemen’s Land give the thylacynus the name of Zebra Wolf, because it has, in effect, the greater portion of the dorsal region and the base of the tail marked with transversal brown lines, like zebra stripes. This carnivorous animal is also their Dog-headed Opossum.

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Thylacynus cynocephalus.
Thylacynus cynocephalus.

“Allied to other Marsupials by the totality of its anatomical characteristics, it is nevertheless easy to distinguish generically; in the first place, it is of great size, and its exterior recalls that of the Wolf, though it has a longer head and a tail garnished with very short hair; the latter is, at the same time, a little depressed. Moreover, it numbers forty-six teeth, with wide intervals between each. It is digitigrade: it has five toes on the fore, and four toes on its hinder feet; its marsupial bones are simply rudimental.”

If there be one group of animals more than another whose unforeseen discovery has succeeded in astonishing and embarrassing zoologists, it is assuredly that which has been designated by the name of Monotremata. It is the lowest order of vertebrated animals, the very bottom of the scale, approximating in many characteristic points to the family of Birds. The pelvis, it is true, is furnished with marsupial bones, but these animals possess no pouch. The skull is smooth, the brain-case proportionately very small, the snout much prolonged, while the jaws have neither teeth nor soft movable lips. The shoulder-bones do not resemble those of a mammal, but in some respects the scapular joint of the bird; in other respects, that of the reptiles. The feet have five toes, each armed with a long nail; and, in addition, the hind-feet are provided with a perforated spur-like weapon, which is connected with a gland. The genus derives its distinctive name from the circumstance that the orifices of the urinary canals, the intestinal and the generative canals, open, as in birds, into a common vent. The mammary glands, of which only one exists on each side, are not furnished with nipples, but open by simple slits on each side of the abdomen.

This order includes two families: the OrnithorhynchidÆ and the EchidnidÆ, both belonging to Australia and Tasmania. The former are aquatic in their habits, the latter terrestrial.

The Echidna (Echidna Hystrix), or Porcupine Ant-Eater, resembles the Porcupine in his general appearance and coat of spines, the Ant-Eater in his snout, mouth, and long lubricated tongue. His legs are very short and thick, and each is furnished with five broad rounded toes; the four toes are armed with a long blunt claw, but on the hind-feet one toe is without a claw, two are short and blunt, and one is of great length, rather curved, and sharp pointed. He measures about twelve inches, and all over the upper-parts of the body and tail is thickly beset with formidable spines, very sharp and strong; over the head, legs, and under-parts with bristly hair of a deep brown colour. His short tail is covered with perpendicular spines. Digging up the ground with his keen claws he disburies a host of insects, which he rolls over his long red cylindrical tongue. He is very timid, and when any one approaches him, coils himself up in a ball, like a hedgehog.

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1. Ornithorhynchus. 2. Echidna.
1. Ornithorhynchus. 2. Echidna.

The Ornithorhynchus (“Bird-beaked”), or Duck-Billed Platypus, is another extraordinary animal, which seems to serve as the connecting link between the aquatic birds and the mammalia. His length is about twenty inches; his body, long and flattened like an otter’s, is covered with a thick soft fur, moderately dark brown above and whitish beneath; his tail is flat and obtuse; his feet are furnished with a membrane that unites the toes; and he has an elongated, enlarged, and flattened muzzle like a duck’s beak. It is evident, therefore, that he can live only on soft food, and that his habits must be aquatic; and hence we find him burrowing in the banks of the streams, and groping for his food, like a duck, among the mud and water. The settlers term him characteristically “the River-Mole.”

A word of allusion must now be permitted to the Petrogale, a genus of the Kangaroo family, described by Dr. Gray. The Brush-tailed Rock Wallaby (P. penicillata) has a rough long fur, of a dusky brown hue, tinged with red and gray; a white streak passes down the middle of the throat; his tail is very black, like a raven’s plumage, long, and furnished with thick hairs forming a brush. The male is about three feet and a half long. Another species is called the Short-Eared Rock Kangaroo (P. brachiotis). Both are excessively wild and shy in their habits, frequenting in the day-time the most inaccessible rocks and the loftiest mountain-peaks, and descending, at the approach of twilight, to feed in the retired and grassy valleys. They flock together in such numbers as to form well-beaten paths along the mountain-sides, and leap from crag to crag with all the agility of the chamois.

The Ornithological Fauna of Australia and the islands of Oceania is incomparably richer than the Mammalogical Fauna, and includes several species of the most dazzling plumage; but nearly all these species inhabit the forests which cover a part of the littoral and probably of the interior. However we must signalize, as peculiar to the Prairies, a great number of the Brevipennes (i.e., Short-wings), the Emu or Emeu (Dromaius NovÆ HollandiÆ); two Palmipeds, the Black Swan and the Cereopsis; and, finally, a bird, the only one of its order, almost as much of a paradox among bipeds as is the ornithorhynchus among quadrupeds, the Apteryx.

The Emu is allied to the cassowary; he is nearly equal to the ostrich in bulk, but has a thicker body, shorter legs, and a shorter neck. He measures more than seven feet in length; his plumage exhibits a mixture of brown and gray; his beak is black, his head covered with feathers; he has real wings, though they are of so small a size as to be useless for flight; they are covered with feathers like the rest of the body, from which, when the bird is not in motion, they can hardly be discerned. Internally, the emu differs, it is said, from all other species, particularly in having no gizzard, and in the extremely small size of his liver.

Emus are killed, according to Captain (now Sir George) Grey, in precisely the same manner as kangaroos, but as they are more prized by the natives, a greater degree of excitement prevails when an emu is slain; shout succeeds shout, and the distant natives take up the cry until it is sometimes re-echoed for miles. The feast which follows the death, however, is a very exclusive one, for the flesh is much too delicious to be made a common article of food. Heavy penalties are accordingly pronounced against young men, and unauthorized persons, who venture to touch it; and these, invariably, are rigidly enforced.[144]

Every schoolboy knows the famous quotation in his Latin grammar which tells of a

A Black Swan is no longer a “rara avis.” The species (Cygnus atratus) belongs to New Holland and Tasmania, and is of the same size as the common swan. His plumage is wholly black, with the exception of the primary pens, which are white; his beak is red, and so is the featherless skin surrounding it at the base. He has been successfully acclimatized in Europe, and ornaments the lakes and streams of many English parks.

The Cereopsis, or Cerefaced Goose, of New Holland, is a Palmiped genus, about the size of a common goose, which, in general appearance, he resembles, except that his legs are longer, averaging from two and a half to three feet. The plumage is of a dingy gray. A large patch of dull white occupies the top of the head; the quill-feathers, both of the wings and tail, are of a dusty black. His voice has a hoarse deep clang, like that of a storm-bell. He usually weighs from seven to ten pounds, and makes an excellent dish for an Australian Christmas table. Specimens may be seen both in the Zoological Gardens of London and Paris.

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Apteryx Australis.
Apteryx Australis.

The Apteryx Australis, or Wingless Emu—the Kiwi of the New Zealanders—somewhat resembles a penguin in form, and stands about two feet in height. The only living specimen in Europe lives, I believe, in the London Zoological Gardens. As it does not appear to rank, in scientific classification, with any other family or genus, naturalists have erected it into a distinct order—the Nullipennes, or Wingless. The wings of the apteryx are literally rudiments; a mere stump, terminated by a hook. None of his bones are hollow; he has no abdominal air-cells; his feathers have no accessory plume; his feet have a short and elevated hind-toe; his eyes are small; he feeds on insects; and his habits are nocturnal. He is a bird of great physical power, and runs with ostrich-like swiftness; taking refuge, when pursued, in burrows, hollow trees, and the clefts of the rocks. His cry resembles a loud whistle, and the natives entrap the bird by imitating it. When the female has been taken, the male is easily caught, owing to his reluctance to leave her. He will, however, defend himself vigorously with his spurs.

The Erpetological Fauna of Australia, and, in general, of Oceania, is very poor, and comprehends no great species. I may notice a genus of lizards, the Chlamydosaurus, discovered by Allan Cunningham, the naturalist attached to Captain King’s expedition, about 1820. It measures about seventeen inches in length, of which twelve inches are apportioned to the tail; is of a yellowish-brown colour; has a large head, with prominent eyes; and a membraneous ruff or tippet round its neck, covering its shoulders, and when expanded spreading about five inches in the form of an open umbrella. If attacked or terrified, it elevates the frill or ruff and makes for a tree; where, if overtaken, it throws itself upon a stem, raising its head and chest as high as it can upon the fore-legs, then doubling its tail underneath the body, and displaying a very formidable set of teeth from the concavity of its large frill, it boldly faces any opponent, biting fiercely whatever is presented to it, and even venturing so far in its rage as to fairly make a fierce charge at its enemy.

Venomous serpents are numerous: particularly the Hydrophis, or Water-Snake, very common in the neighbouring seas, where it feeds on fishes. The back part of the body and tail being much compressed, and vertically raised, endows it with the capacity of swimming.

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