Heads And Tales Part 24

Messrs Irby and Mangles,[197] as they approached the Jordan, saw a herd of nine wild pigs, and they found the trees on the banks of a stream near that river all marked with mud, left by the wild swine in rubbing themselves. A valley which they pa.s.sed was grubbed up in all directions with furrows made by these animals, so that the soil had all the appearance of having been ploughed up.

Burckhardt mentions the occurrence of the wild boar and panther together, or the _ounce_, as he calls it, on the mountain of Rieha, and also in the wooded part of Tabor. He mentions "a common saying and belief among the Turks, that all the animal kingdom was converted by their prophet to the true faith, except the wild boar and buffalo, which remained unbelievers; it is on this account that both these animals are often called Christians. We are not surprised that the boar should be so denominated; but as the flesh of the buffalo, as well as its Leben or sour milk, is much esteemed by the Turks, it is difficult to account for the disgrace into which that animal has fallen among them; the only reason I could learn for it is, that the buffalo, like the hog, has a habit of rolling in the mud, and of plunging into the muddy ponds in the summer time up to the very nose, which alone remains visible above the surface."[198] Wild boars were frequently fallen in with by this traveller during his Syrian travels in the neighbourhood of rush-covered springs, where they could easily return to their "wallowing in the mire;" he also met with them on all the mountains he visited in his tour. In the Ghor they are very abundant, and so injurious to the Arabs of that valley that they are unable to cultivate the common barley on account of the eagerness with which the wild swine feed on it, and are obliged to grow a less esteemed kind, with six rows of grains which the swine will not touch.

Messrs Hemprich and Ehrenberg tell us that the wild boar is far from scarce in the marshy districts around Rosetta and Damietta, and that it does not seem to differ from the European species. The head of a wild boar which these travellers saw at Bischerre, a village of Lebanon, closely resembled the European variety, except in being a little longer.

The Maronites there, who ate its flesh in their company, called it _chansir_,[199] a name evidently identical with the Hebrew word _chasir_, which occurs in the Bible. The Turks, according to Ehrenberg, keep swine in their stables, from a persuasion that all devils who may enter will be more likely to go into the pigs than the horses, from their alliance to the former unclean animals.--_A. White, in "Excelsior."_

[Ill.u.s.tration: The River Pig.]

THE RIVER PIG, OR PAINTED PIG OF THE CAMAROON.[200]

The other day we revisited the Zoological Gardens, and found that two old friends had got--the one, a companion, the other, a neighbour. The latter was the bulky hippopotamus, now most bearish, and more and more unmistakably showing the minute accuracy of those master lines in the Book of Job, in which Behemoth's portrait, pose, and character are depicted. The former was the subject of this article--evidently, as far as colour goes, "the chieftain of the _porcine_ race."

The poet tells us, however, "Nimium ne crede colori;" and observation, as well as the Scripture, shows us daily that "fair havens" in summer are but foul places to "winter in;" that fair speeches, and a flattering tongue, and the kisses of an enemy, "are deceitful;" and that beneath a fine spotted or barred coat, the jaguar and the tiger, the cobra and the hornet, conceal both the power and the propensity for mischief. So with our old friend Potamoch.o.e.rus. The pretty creature,--beauty is relative--the Cameroon pig is the prettiest, the gaudiest of the race,--the pretty creature, we repeat, is of a fine bay red, made to look more bright from the circ.u.mstance of the face, ears, and front of the legs being black, while the red is relieved, and the black is defined, by the pencilled lines of white which edge the ears, streak over and under the eye, and ornament the long whiskers, another long white line traversing the middle of the back; a very attractive combination of colour--the painting of "Him who made the world"--and one which must make the _Potamoch.o.e.rus penicellatus_ most conspicuous among the bright green shrubs and dark marshes of the rivers of equinoctial Africa, on whose banks the race has been planted. The present largest specimen was taken, when a "piggie," by a trading captain, as it was swimming across the Cameroon River. He brought it to Liverpool; Dr Gray, of the British Museum, gave an account of it in the "Ill.u.s.trated Proceedings of the Zoological Society of London for 1852"--an excellent work--where its figure, drawn and coloured by the hand of Wolf, shows the condition of the African sow four years ago. It was then a round, comfortable, kind-looking creature, which one might almost have fondled as a pet. The pig now looks rather a dangerous beast, and its beauty is not increased by its face having grown longer, and by the b.u.mp and hollow on each cheek being larger and deeper; nor is its mouth so attractive or innocent, now that its tusks--those ivory daggers and knives of the family of Swine--have grown longer. The creature, partly it may be from familiarity, jumps up against the iron palisade which separates the visitor from its walk, but a poor pannage as a subst.i.tute for its African home. We would advise him to read the notice: "Visitors are requested not to tease the animals;" "not to touch" would be a good reprint--for few, we fancy, would try to tease.

One, however, especially a lady, likes to know and to feel _texture_; and sadly used the fine, mild Edward Cross, of Exeter Change and the Surrey Zoological Gardens, once the Nestor as well as the King among keepers of wild beasts--a gentle, gentlemanly, white-haired, venerable man,--sadly, we say, used Mr Cross to lament that there _were_ parasols, and that he could not keep them _out_ of his garden. Mr C. told the writer that he lost many a beast and bird from the pokes of that insinuating weapon. We dissuade any lady from touching or going near a zebra's mouth, or the horns of an ibex or an algazel, or the pointed bill of a heron or stork, or from putting her hand near this fine painted pig.

Up jumps Potamoch.o.e.rus--eye rather vindictive, however--and mark, as that big specimen is foreshortened before you, the profile of the little companion pig of the same species, standing within a few feet, but safe from the poke of any umbrella or parasol; look how innocent and inviting--how quiet, and sleek, and polished, and painted, and mild it looks, all but that little suspicious eye, with its wink oblique, and its malicious twinkle.

Of the habits of this pig we can find no written record, though in the journals of the Scottish or Wesleyan Missionaries there may be some notices of it. We do not know whence the Society procured the second specimen, but it shows that Africa's wild animals, like its chain of internal Caspian seas, and its mountain-ranges and rivers, are becoming gradually known. Old Bosman, who was chief factor for the Dutch on the Gold Coast 150 years ago, refers to the swine near Fort St George d'Elmina being not nearly so wild as those of Europe, and adds, "I have several times eaten of them here, and found them very delicious and very tender meat, the fat being extraordinarily fine."[201] He evidently refers to some other species.

Travellers in South Africa have made us familiar with the habits, and specimens in the Zoological Gardens, in a pannage close to that of the "painted pig," show us the form and ugliness, of the bush pig and flat pig (_Choiropotamus Africa.n.u.s_) of that southern land, with their long heads, long legs, upturned tails, and horrid tusks. They have a strange habit of kneeling on their fore-legs. In South Africa they abound; and the natives--our excellent friend, the Rev. Henry Methuen, tells us--often bring their jaws for barter. They are of a dingy, dirty gray; the boar is two feet and a half high, and his tusks sometimes measure "eleven inches and a half each from the jawbone," are five inches and a half in circ.u.mference at the base, and are thirteen inches apart at their extremities.

No animal is more formidably armed; and his rapidity and lightness of movement make him a very marked object to the African Nimrod, who, midst "clumps of bush"--be they Proteacae, heaths, or Diosmeae--not unfrequently comes on a herd of wild pigs "headed by a n.o.ble boar," with tail erect.

We could enter largely on the history of this active species, and quote many a stirring anecdote of travellers' rencontres with this fearless animal. The lion skulks away from him, but the rhinoceros--at least one species--the buffalo, with his formidable front of horn and bone, and the bush pig, with his dreaded tusks, show but little fear; and it is well for the huntsman that he has a sure eye, a steady hand, and a double-barrelled gun, and not a few Caffir followers to help him, should his eye be dim, his hand waver, or his gun "flash in the pan." Dogs avail but little; a deadly gash lays open their ribs, and a side-thrust of a wild boar will cut into the most muscular leg, and for ever destroy its tendons. We have done with pigs, and would only recommend a visit--a frequent visit--to that paradise of animals, the Zoological Gardens, where, a fortnight ago, we saw wild boars from Hesse Darmstadt; wild boars from Egypt; bush pigs from Africa; peccaries from South America; and two painted pigs from West Africa; all "_de grege porci_," and in excellent health: to say nothing of two hippopotamuses; four "seraphic"

giraffes; antelopes (we did not number them); brush turkeys from Australia; an apteryx from New Zealand; the curious white sheathbills from the South Seas; the refulgent metallic green and purple-tinted monaul, or Impeyan pheasant, strutting with outspread, light-coloured tail, just as he courts his plain hen-mate on the Indian mountains; a family of the funny pelicans--cleanliness, ugliness, and contentment in one happy combination; a band of flamingoes; eagles and vultures; the harpy--that Picton of the birds--looking defiance as he stands, with upraised crest, flas.h.i.+ng eye, and clenched talons, over his food; the wily otter; the amiable seal, which carries us to the seas and rocks of much-loved Shetland, with their long, winding voes, their bird-frequented cliffs, and outlying skerries; the Indian thrush, which reminds one of a "mavis" at home; the parrot-house, with its fine contrasts of colour and its discordant noises; Penny's Esquimaux dog--poor fellow, a prisoner, unlike to what he was when, with our dear friends Dr Sutherland and Captain Stewart, this very dog breasted the blast before a sledge in the Wellington Channel.[202] Look at that wondrous sloth, organised for a life in a Brazilian forest--those two restless Polar bears; and though last, not least, those wonders of the great deep, "the sea-anemones," the exquisite red and white "feathery"

tentacles of the long cylindrical-twisted serpulae, and marvellously-transparent streaked shrimps, all leg, and feeler, and eye, and "nose"--in the salt-water tanks in the Vivarium.--_A. White, in "Excelsior."_

S. BISSET AND HIS LEARNED PIG.

S. Bisset, formerly referred to, when at Belfast bought a black sucking pig, and after several experiments succeeded in training a creature, so obstinate and perverse by nature, to become most tractable and docile.

In August 1783, he took his learned pig to Dublin for exhibition. "It was not only under full command, but appeared as pliant and good-natured as a spaniel. He had taught it to spell the names of any one in the company, to tell the hour, minute, and second, to make his obeisance to the company, and he occasioned many a laugh by his pointing out the married and the unmarried. Some one in authority forced him to leave Dublin, and he died broken-hearted shortly after at Chester, on his way to London, where forty and more years before he had first been induced to train animals."[203]

QUIXOTE BOWLES FOND OF PIGS.

Southey records of Quixote Bowles that he "had a great love for pigs; he thought them the happiest of all G.o.d's creatures, and would walk twenty miles to see one that was remarkably fat. This love extended to bacon; he was an epicure in it; and whenever he went out to dinner, took a piece of his own curing in his pocket, and requested the cook to dress it."[204]

ON JEKYLL NEARLY THROWN DOWN BY A VERY SMALL PIG.

"As Jekyll walk'd out in his gown and his wig, He happen'd to tread on a very small pig; 'Pig of science,' he said, 'or else I'm mistaken, For surely thou art an _abridgment of Bacon_.'"[205]

GOOD ENOUGH FOR A PIG.

An Irish peasant being asked why he permitted his pig to take up its quarters with his family, made an answer abounding with satirical _navete_. "Why not? Doesn't the place afford every convenience that _a pig can require_?"[206]

Mrs Fry, in 1827, visited Ireland on one of her Christian and philanthropic tours. In a letter to her children from Armagh she says--"Pigs abound; I think they have rather a more elegant appearance than ours, their hair often rather curled. Perhaps naturalists may attribute this to their intimate a.s.sociation with their betters!"[207]

THE COUNTRYMAN'S CRITICISM ON THE PIGS IN GAINSBOROUGH'S PICTURE OF THE GIRL AND PIGS.

Thomas Gainsborough, the great English painter, exhibited, in 1782, among pictures of n.o.blemen, gentlemen, and ladies, his well-known "Girl and Pigs."[208]

Wolcot, better known as "Peter Pindar," in his first "Ode to the Royal Academicians," refers to this picture.

"And now, O Muse, with song so big, Turn round to Gainsborough's Girl and Pig, Or Pig and Girl, I rather should have said; The pig in white, I must allow, Is really a well painted sow, I wish to say the same thing of the maid."

"The expression and truth of nature in the Girl and Pigs," remarks Northcote, "were never surpa.s.sed. Sir Joshua Reynolds was struck with it, though he thought Gainsborough ought to have made her a beauty."

Reynolds, indeed, became the purchaser of the painting at one hundred guineas, Gainsborough asking but sixty. During its exhibition, it is said to have attracted the attention of a countryman, who remarked--"They be deadly like pigs, but n.o.body ever saw pigs feeding together but what one on 'em had a foot in the trough."

HOOK AND THE LITTER OF PIGS.

Once a gentleman, who had the marvellous gift of shaping a great many things out of orange-peel, was displaying his abilities at a dinner-party before Theodore Hook and Mr Thomas Hill, and succeeded in counterfeiting a pig. Mr Hill tried the same feat; and after destroying and strewing the table with the peel of a dozen oranges, gave it up, with the exclamation, "Hang the pig! I _can't_ make him." "Nay, Hill,"

exclaimed Hook, glancing at the mess on the table, "you have done more; instead of one pig, you have made a _litter_."[209]

Hook, we may add, was an original wit. He did not, like most professed wits, study his sayings before, and arrange with his seeming opponent for an imaginary war of words. He was an _impromptu_ wit.

JESTS ABOUT SWINE.

Lord Chancellor Hardwicke's bailiff, having been ordered by his lady to procure a sow of a particular description, came one day into the dining-room when full of company, proclaiming with a burst of joy he could not suppress--"I have been at Royston Fair, my lady, and I have got a sow exactly of _your ladys.h.i.+p's_ size."[210]

John was thought to be very stupid. He was sent to a mill one day, and the miller said--"John, some people say you are a fool! Now, tell me, what you do know, and what you don't know."--"Well," replied John, "I know millers' hogs are fat!"--"Yes, that's well, John; now, what don't you know?"--"I don't know _whose corn_ fats 'em."[211]

PIGS AND SILVER SPOON.

The Earl of P---- kept a number of swine at his seat in Wilts.h.i.+re, and crossing the yard one day, he was surprised to see the pigs gathered round one trough, and making a great noise. Curiosity prompted him to see what was the cause, and on looking into the trough he perceived a large silver spoon. A servant-maid came out, and began to abuse the pigs for crying so. "Well they may," said his lords.h.i.+p, "when they have got but one _silver spoon_ among them all."

We have heard of one n.o.bleman in Strathearn, who, when a young man, used to be thus addressed by his mother--"William! how are the children _and your pigs_?"[212]

SYDNEY SMITH ON BEAUTIFUL PIGS.

DEFINITION OF BEAUTY BY A UTILITARIAN.

"Go to the Duke of Bedford's piggery at Woburn, and you will see a breed of pigs with legs so short, that their stomachs trail upon the ground; a breed of animals entombed in their own fat, overwhelmed with prosperity, success, and farina. No animal could possibly be so disgusting, if it were not useful; but a breeder who has accurately attended to the small quant.i.ty of food it requires to swell this pig out to such extraordinary dimensions,--the extraordinary genius it displays for obesity,--and the laudable propensity of the flesh to desert the cheap regions of the body, and to agglomerate on those parts which are worth ninepence a pound,--such an observer of its utility does not scruple to call these otherwise hideous quadrupeds a beautiful race of pigs!"[213]

JOSEPH STURGE, WHEN A BOY, AND THE PIGS.