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.

    45/412 (page 35)
    were even forbidden to hunt in it under severe penal- ties, and, in consequence of this, the wild animals had resorted thither in considerable numbers. “ The upper part of this extensive tract, into which we now penetrated, is an exceedingly wild and be- wildering region, broken into innumerable ravines, encumbered with rocks, precipices, and impenetrable woods and jungles, and surrounded on almost every side by lofty and sterile mountains. During our first day’s journey, although we saw many herds of large game, such as quaghas, gnoos, hartebeests, koodoos, with a variety of the smaller antelopes, there was no appearance of elephants ; but, in the course of the second day, as we pursued our route down the valley of the Ivoonap river, we became aware that a nume- rous troop of these gigantic animals had recently preceded us. Foot-prints of all dimensions, from eight to fifteen inches in diameter, were everywhere visible; and in the swampy spots on the banks of the river, it was evident that some of them had been luxuriously enjoying themselves by rolling their un- wieldy bulks in the oooo and mud. But it was in the groves and jungles that they had lea the most striking proofs of their recent presence and peculiar habits. In many places paths had been trodden through the midst of dense thorny forests, otherwise impenetrable. They appeared to have opened these paths with great judgment, always taking the best and shortest cut to the next open savanna, or ford of the river; and in this way they were of the greatest use to us by pioneering our route through a most difficult and intricate country, never yet traversed by a wheel-carriage, and great part of it, indeed, in- accessible even on horseback, except for the aid of these powerful and sagacious animals. In such places (as the Hottentots assured me) the great bull elephants always march in the van, bursting through