Select Specimens of Natural History Collected in Travels to Discover the Source of the Nile. Volume 5.Bruce, James
History
Select Specimens of Natural History Collected in Travels to Discover the Source of the Nile. Volume 5.
Bruce, James
Natural history -- Egypt; Natural history -- Ethiopia; Nile River; Plants -- Egypt; Plants -- Ethiopia; Scientific expeditions -- Egypt
In Barbary, then, he has no courage by day; he flies from man, and
hides himself from him: But in Abyssinia or Atbara, accustomed to man’s
flesh, he walks boldly in the day-time like a horse or mule, attacks
man wherever he finds him, whether armed or unarmed, always attaching
himself to the mule or ass in preference to the rider. I may safely
say, I speak within bounds, that I have fought him above fifty times
hand to hand, with a lance or spear, when I had fallen unexpectedly
upon him among the tents, or in defence of my servants or beasts.
Abroad and at a distance the gun prevented his nearer approach; but in
the night, evening, or morning, we were constantly in close engagement
with him.
This frequent victory over man, and his daily feeding upon him without
resistance, is that from which he surely draws his courage. Whether to
this food it is that he owes his superior size, I will not pronounce.
For my own part, I consider him as a variety of the same rather
than another species. At the same time I must say, his form gave me
distinctly the idea of a dog, without one feature or likeness of the
hog, as was the case with the Syrian hyæna living on Mount Libanus,
which is that of M. de Buffon, as plainly appears by his drawing.
I have oftentimes hinted in the course of my Travels at the liking he
has for mules and asses; but there is another passion for which he is
still more remarkable, that is, his liking to dog’s flesh, or, as it is
commonly expressed, his aversion to dogs. No dog, however fierce, will
touch him in the field. My greyhounds, accustomed to fasten upon the
wild boar, would not venture to engage with him. On the contrary, there
was not a journey I made that he did not kill several of my greyhounds,
and once or twice robbed me of my whole flock: he would seek and seize
them in the servants tents where they were tied, and endeavour to carry
them away before the very people that were guarding them.
This animosity between him and dogs, though it has escaped modern
naturalists, appears to have been known to the ancients in the east.
In Ecclesiasticus (chap. xiii. ver. 18.) it is said, “What agreement
is there between the hyæna and the dog?” a sufficient proof that the
antipathy was so well known as to be proverbial.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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