In Tartary they have an animal called czigithai, which possibly is of the same species as the zebra, as the principal difference between them is in the colour; a difference which, we have repeatedly observed, may be occasioned by the varieties of the climates. This czigithai is common in the southern parts of Siberia, Thibet, Dauria, and Tartary. Gerbillan says they are to be met with in the country of the Mongoux and Kakas; that they differ from mules, and cannot be brought to carry burthens. Muller and Gmelin both assert that there are numbers of them in the countries of the Tongusians, who hunt them like other game: that they resemble a bright bay horse, excepting they have long ears, and a tail like a cow. It is probable that if they had compared him with the zebra they would have found a much greater resemblance. In the Petersburgh cabinet there are stuffed skins both of the zebra and czigithai; they differ very much in colour, but yet they may belong to the same, or nearly the same species. Besides there is no other animal in Africa but what is to be found in Asia, and, therefore, if these are different species the zebra alone would stand as an exception to that general rule. If the czigithai does not belong to the zebra species it may possibly be the onagre, or wild ass of Asia; which latter should not by any means be confounded with the zebra. According to all travellers there are various kinds of wild asses, and the onagre is supposed to rank at the head of them. The horse, ass, onagre, and czigithai, may form four distinct species; and if there are but three, it will remain uncertain whether the latter is an onagre or zebra. The onagre is said to exceed the horse in swiftness, and the very same remark is made of the czigithai. Let this particular fact be as it may, the horse, ass, zebra, and czigithai, belong to the same genus, and are only different branches thereof. From the two first being rendered domestic, mankind have received great advantages, and the two last being reduced to a similar state would, no doubt, prove likewise a useful acquisition.
Though the Hippopotamus has been celebrated from the earliest ages; though mentioned in the sacred writings under the name of behemoth, and though his figure is engraved upon the obelisks of Egypt, and on the Roman medals; yet he was but imperfectly known to the ancients. Aristotle scarcely mentions him, and in the little he does say, there are more errors than facts. Pliny copied Aristotle, and far from correcting, adds to the number of his errors. It was only towards the middle of the sixteenth century that we had any precise information concerning this animal; Belon being then at Constantinople, saw a living one; of which, however, he has given but an imperfect representation, for the two figures which he has joined to his description, were not taken from the hippopotamus he has seen, but were copied from the reverse of a medal of the Emperor Adrian, and from the colossus of the Nile at Rome; so that we must carry the epoch of the knowledge of this animal to the year 1603, when Frederico Zerenghi, a surgeon of Narni, in Italy, printed at Naples, the history of two of these animals, which he had killed in Egypt, in a great ditch he had caused to be dug in the environs of the Nile, near Damietta. This little work was written in Italian, and appears to have been neglected by his contemporary and succeeding naturalists; notwithstanding, it is the only good and original one on the subject, and has so strong pretensions to credit, that I shall here give an extract and translation from it.
“With a view of obtaining an hippopotamus, (says Zerenghi) I suborned the people about the Nile, (who had seen two of these animals come from the river) to dig a large pit in the place where they passed over, and to cover it with light wood, earth, and grass. Returning in the evening to the river, they both fell into the pit. The people came immediately and acquainted me with the event, and I hastened thither with my Janissary. We killed both the animals by firing three charges from a large arquebuse into each of their heads. They expired immediately, uttering a doleful cry, which more resembled the bellowing of a buffalo, than the neighing of a horse. This exploit was performed on the 20th of July, 1600. The following day I had them drawn out of the pit, and skinned with care; the one was a male and the other a female. I had both the skins salted, and filled with the leaves of the sugar cane, in order to transport them to Cairo, where I had them salted a second time with greater attention and more convenience. In doing of which we used near 400lbs. of salt to each skin. At my return from Egypt, in 1601, I brought these skins to Venice, and from thence to Rome. I shewed them to many learned physicians. Doctor Jerome Aquapendente and the celebrated Aldrovandus, were the only persons who knew them to be the skins of the hippopotamus; and as the work of Aldrovandus was then printing, he had (with my consent) a figure drawn from the skin of the female, which he has given with his book.
“The hippopotamus has a very thick and hard skin; it is impenetrable, unless it be soaked some time in water: the mouth is not, as the ancients have said, of a moderate size, but enormously large; neither are his feet as they say, divided into two hoofs, but into four. His size is not that of an ass, for he is much bigger than the largest horse, or buffalo; he has not a tail like that of the hog, but rather that of the tortoise, except being incomparably larger; his mouth or nose is not elevated, but resembles that of the buffalo, and is much larger; he has no mane like the horse, but only some short hairs; he does not neigh like the horse, but his voice is between the bellowing of the buffalo, and the neighing of the former. His teeth do not jut out of his mouth, for when it is shut, the teeth, although extremely large, are all hid under the lips. The inhabitants of this part of Egypt call him foras l’bar, which signifies a sea-horse. Belon is much deceived in his description of this animal, he attributes to him teeth like those of a horse, which would induce me to think he had never seen him, although, as he tells us he had, for the teeth of the hippopotamus are very large and very singular. To clear up every doubt and uncertainty, continues Zerenghi, I have here given the figure of the female hippopotamus; every proportion has been taken exactly after nature, as well as the measure of its body and limbs.
“The length of this hippopotamus, from the extremity of the upper lip to the beginning of the tail, is nearly eleven feet two inches.[O]
[O] This measurement is according, to Paris feet and inches.
“The circumference of the body is about ten feet.