The rhinoceros shewn at the fair of St Germain, that which the Count de Buffon and Mr Edwards saw, kept clean in a stable for several years, I shall believe had neither worms nor scolopendræ upon it, neither does this officer of the Shaftesbury report it had; but he says, that one covered with mud, in which it had been weltering, had upon it animals that are commonly found in that mud; and this neither Mr Parsons nor Mr Edwards, nor the Count de Buffon, ever had an opportunity of verifying. Chardin[44] says, that the Abyssinians tame and train the rhinoceros to labour. This is an absolute fable; besides, that we have reason to believe the animal is not capable of instruction, neither history not tradition ever gave the smallest reason to make us believe this, nor is there any motive for attempting the experiment, more than for believing it ever was accomplished. Tractable as the elephant, is, the Abyssinians never either tamed or instructed him; they never made use of beasts in war, nor would their country permit this training; so much the contrary, as we have already seen, that Ptolemy Philadelphus, and his successor Ptolemy Evergetes, did every thing in their power to persuade them to take the elephant alive, that they might tame them; but, as he was a principal part of their food, they never could succeed; and the latter prince, for this very purpose, made an expedition into Abyssinia, and was obliged to extirpate these hunters, and settle in their place a colony of his own at Arkeeko near Masuah, which he called Ptolemais Theron for that very reason; after which, he himself tells us in the long Greek inscription he left in the kingdom of Adel, that he had succeeded so far, by means of his colony of Greeks, as to train the Ethiopic elephant so as to make him superior to those in India; but this he could never do by employing Abyssinians.