exiftence of a living original. Among the feveral thoufand
figures of animals that, in the courfe of the journey, ;we had
met with, none had the appearance o f being monftrous, none
that could be confidered as works of the imagination, crea-
“ tures of the brain on the contrary, they were generally as
faithful reprefentations of nature as the talents of the artift
would allow. An inftance o f this appeared in the cavern we
laft vifited. The back Ihell o f the tejiudo geometrka was lying,
on the ground; and the regular figures with which it is
marked, and from which it takes its name, had been recently,
and very accurately, copied on the fide o f a fmooth rock. It
was thought, indeed, from feveral circumftances, that the
favages had flept in the cavern the preceding night.
The unicorn, as it is reprefented in Europe, is unqueftion-
ably a work of fancy ; but it ;does npt follow from thence that
a quadruped with one horn, growing out of the middle of the
forehead, fhould not exift. The arguments, indeed, that might
be offered are much ftronger for its exiftence than the objections
are againft it. The firft idea of fuch an animal feems to.
have been taken from Holy W r it; and from the defcription
there given, a reprefentation o f the unicorn, very illy conceived,
has been affumed as a fupporter to. regal arms. The
animal, to which the writer of the Book of Job, who was no
mean natural hiftorian, puts into the mouth o f the Almighty a
poetical allufion, has been fuppofed, with great plaufibility, to
be the one-horned rhinofceros : “ Canft thou bind the unicorn
“ with his band in the furrow? or will he harrow the vallies.
“ after thee ? Wilt thou truft him becaufe hia ftrength is great,
“ or
“ or wilt thou leave thy labor to him?” Mofes alfo very probably
meant the rhinofceros when he mentions the unicorn as
having the ftrength of God. Ariftotle had a very different idea
of the animal, to which he gives the name of unicorn, for he
defcribes it as a fpecies of wild afs with folidungulous feet.
The African rhinofceros, having; invariably two horns, cannot
be fuppofed as the prototype of the Bosjefmans’ paintings
of the unicorn. Befides, the former frequently occurs among
their produ&ions, and is reprefented as the thick ihort-legged
figure that it really is, whilft the, latter is faid by the peafantry
to be uniformly met with a§ a folidungulous animal refembling
the horfe, with an elegantly ihaped body, marked from the
ihoulders to the flanks with longitudinal ftripes or bands. The
greateft number of fuch drawings are faid to be met with in the
Bambos-berg ; and, as the people who make them live on the
north fide o f this great chain of mountains, the original may
one day, perhaps, be alfo found there.
This part of Africa is as yet untrodden ground, none of the
peafantry having proceeded beyond the mountains. It may be
faid, perhaps, that if fuch an animal exifted, and was known- to
the natives inhabiting a part of the country not very diftant
from the borders of the colony, the fail would certainly before
this time have been afcertained. This, however, does not follow.
Very few of the colonifts have croffed the Orange river,
or have been higher along its banks than the part where we
were under the neceflity of turning off to the fouthward ; and
the fort of communication that the peafantry have with the
s s 2 Bosjefmans