The menageries : quadrupeds, described and drawn from living subjects.

Date:
1831
Catalogue details

Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: The menageries : quadrupeds, described and drawn from living subjects. Source: Wellcome Collection.

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    sort of sacrilege to attempt their destruction in sheer wantonness, merely to furnish sport to the great de- stroyer, man; and I was glad when it was unani- mously agreed to leave them unmolested.” These, however, are not the feelings of the Hottentot who shoots the “ noble and stately” beast, nor ot the Door who carries his teeth to the coast, nor of the factor who buys them. It is not to be expected, nor perhaps is it desirable, that they should so feel. In his relations to the inferior animals, man must every hour harden his heart. It is his duty to abstain from every wanton or cruel sacrifice;—but the great economy of nature is, perhaps, as much carried on by the power and the will of man to destroy every creature that can conduce to his necessities, or even his most artificial wants, as the relations between the animal and the vegetable world are maintained by the constant interchange of destruction that goes forward amongst the insect race;—for every shrub attracts its peculiar enemy, and that enemy in his turn becomes a victim to one more adroit or more poAverful than himself. The English, in the sixteenth century, used to trade for ivory on the coast of Guinea. While the Portuguese retained their domination on the African shores, this sort of commerce was extremely irregular, being principally carried on by merchant vessels that obtained elephants’ teeth, in small quantities, from the scattered negroes*. Our growing maritime superiority, and our colonial establishments in Southern Africa, have now given to this trade the ordinary precision of other commercial operations. The great mart for ivory is Cape Town ;—and thi- ther the Hottentots resort to exchange ivory and cattle for gunpowder, muskets, knives, tobacco, and * See Towtson’s Voyage, 1555, in Hakluyt’s Collection.