A General History and Collection of Voyages and Travels, Volume 16Kerr, Robert
History
A General History and Collection of Voyages and Travels, Volume 16
Kerr, Robert
Voyages and travels
We were clear as to the existence of all the animals already
mentioned, but there are two others besides, which we could not
distinguish with sufficient certainty. Of the first of these we saw
none of the skins, but what were dressed or tanned like leather. The
natives wear them on some occasions; and from the size as well as
the thickness, they were generally concluded to belong to the elk, or
mouse-deer, though some of them perhaps might belong to the buffalo.
The other animal, which seems by no means rare, was guessed to be a
species of the wild cat or lynx. The length of the skins, without the
head, which none of them had, was about two feet two inches. They are
covered with a very fine wool or fur, of a very light-brown or whitish
yellow colour, intermixed with long hairs, which on the back, where
they are shortest, are blackish; on the sides, where they are longer,
of a silver white; and on the belly, where they are longest, of the
colour of the wool, but the whitish, or silver hairs, are often so
predominant, that the whole animal acquires a cast of that kind. The
tail is only three inches long, and has a black tip. The whole skin
being, by the natives, called _wanshee_, that, most probably, is their
name for this animal. Hogs, dogs, and goats, have not as yet found
their way to this place. Nor do the natives seem to have any knowledge
of our brown rats, to which, when they saw them on board the ships,
they applied the name they give to squirrels. And though they called
our goats _eineetla_, this, most probably, is their name for a young
deer or fawn.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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