The behemoth, then, I take to be the elephant; his history is well known, and my only business is with the reem, which I suppose to be the rhinoceros. The derivation of this word, both in the Hebrew and the Ethiopic, seems to be from erectness, or standing straight. This is certainly no particular quality in the animal itself, who is not more, or even so much erect as many other quadrupeds, for, in its knees it is rather crooked; but it is from the circumstance and manner in which his horn is placed. The horns of all other animals are inclined to some degree of parallelizm, with his nose, or os frontis. The horn of the rhinoceros alone is erect and perpendicular to this bone, on which it stands at right angles, thereby possessing a greater purchase, or power, as a lever, than any horn could possibly have in any other position.
This situation of the horn is very happily alluded to in the sacred writings: “My horn shalt thou exalt like the horn of an unicorn[31]:” and the horn here alluded to is not wholly figurative, as I have already taken notice of in the course of my history[32], but was really an ornament, worn by great men in the days of victory, preferment, or rejoicing, when they were anointed with new, sweet, or fresh oil, a circumstance which David joins with that of erecting the horn.
Some authors, for what reason I know not, have made the reem, or unicorn, to be of the deer or antelope kind, that is, of a genus whose very character is fear and weakness, very opposite to the qualities by which the reem is described in scripture; besides, it is plain the reem is not of the class of clean quadrupeds; and a late modern traveller, very whimsically, takes him for the leviathan, which certainly was a fish. It is impossible to determine which is the silliest opinion of the two. Balaam, a priest of Midian, and so in the neighbourhood of the haunts of the rhinoceros, and intimately connected with Ethiopia, for they themselves were shepherds of that country, in a transport, from contemplating the strength of Israel whom he was brought to curse, says, they had as it were the strength of the reem[33]. Job[34] makes frequent allusion to his great strength, and ferocity, and indocility. He asks, Will the reem be willing to serve thee, or abide by thy crib? that is, Will he willingly come into thy stable, and eat at thy manger? And again, Canst thou bind the reem with a band in the furrow, and will he harrow the vallies after thee[35]? In other words, Canst thou make him go in the plow or harrows?
Isaiah[36], who of all the prophets seem to have known Egypt and Ethiopia the best, when prophecying about the destruction of Idumea, says, that the reem shall come down with the fat cattle; a proof that he knew his habitation was in the neighbourhood. In the same manner as when foretelling the desolation of Egypt, he mentions as one manner of effecting it, the bringing down, the fly[37] from Ethiopia to meet the cattle in the desert, and among the bushes, and destroy them there, where that insect did not ordinarily come but on command[38], and where the cattle fled every year to save themselves from that insect.
The Rhinoceros, in Geez, is called Arwé Harish, and in the Amharic, Auraris, both which names signify the large wild beast with the horn. This would seem as if applied to the species that had but one horn. On the other hand, in the country of the Shangalla, and in Nubia adjoining, he is called Girnamgirn, or horn upon horn, and this would seem to denote that he had two. The Ethiopic text renders the word Reem, Arwé Harish, and this the Septuagint translates Monoceros, or Unicorn.
If the Abyssinian rhinoceros had invariably two horns, it seems to me improbable the Septuagint would call him Monoceros, especially as they must have seen an animal of this kind exposed at Alexandria in their time, then first mentioned in history, at an exhibition given by Ptolemy Philadelphus at his accession to the crown, before the death of his father, of which we have already made mention.
The principal reason of translating the word Reem, Unicorn, and not Rhinoceros, is from a prejudice that he must have had but one horn. But this is by no means so well-founded, as to be admitted as the only argument for establishing the existence of an animal which never has appeared, after the search of so many ages. Scripture speaks of the horns of the unicorn[39], so that, even from this circumstance, the reem may be the rhinoceros, as the Asiatic, and part of the African rhinoceros, may be the unicorn. It is something remarkable, that, notwithstanding Alexander’s expedition into India, this quadruped was not known to Aristotle[40]. Strabo and Athenæus both speak of him from report, as having been seen in Egypt. Pausanius calls him an Ethiopic bull; the same manner the Romans called the elephants Lucas bovis, Lucanian oxen, as being first seen in that part of Magna Grecia. Pompey exhibited him first in Italy, and he was often produced in games as low as Heliogabalus.
As all these were from Asia, it seems most probable they had but one horn, and they are represented as such in the medals of Domitian. Yet Martial[41] speaks of one with two horns; and the reality of the rhinoceros so armed being till now uncertain, commentators have taken pains to persuade us that this was an error of the poet; but there can be now no doubt that the poet was right, and the commentators wrong, a case that often happens.
I do not know from what authority the author of the Encyclopedia[42] refers to the medals of Domitian, where the rhinoceros, he says, has a double horn; in all those that have been published, one horn only is figured. The use made of these horns is in the turning-loom; they are made into cups, and sold to ignorant people as containing antidotes against poisons; for this quality they generally make part of the presents of the Mogul and kings of Persia at Constantinople. Some modern naturalists have scarce yet given over this prejudice; which might have had a possibility of truth while the Galenical school flourished, and vegetable poisons were chiefly used; but it is absurd to suppose, that what might discover solanum, or deadly night-shade, upon contact, would have the like effect upon the application of arsenic; and from experience I can pronounce, that a cup of this is alike useless in the discovery or either. The handles of daggers are always, in Abyssinia, made of this horn, and these being the only works to which they are applied, is one of the reasons why I have said we should not rashly pronounce that the Asiatic rhinoceros has but one horn, merely because the foremost, or round horn, is the only one of the many that have been sent from India. In Abyssinia we seldom see the hunters at the pains to cut off or bring to market the second horn of the rhinoceros they have slain, because, being flat, in place of round, it has not diameter or substance enough to serve for the uses just spoken of; so that the round horn is the only one that appears either at Gondar or Cairo; and if we were to judge from this circumstance, the African rhinoceros is unicorn for the same reason as we do the Asiatic. The horns of this animal are hard and solid, of a reddish brown on the outside, a yellow inclining to gold within, and the heart a spot of black, which occupies the space of near two inches where the diameter of the horn is five. The surface takes a perfect polish, but when dried is very liable to splinter and crack. It likewise warps with heat, and scratches easily. And this was the reason that, though exceeding beautiful when new, it never would endure any time when made into the form of a snuff-box, but warped and split with the heat of the pocket, though this I believe was chiefly owing to the lamina, or flat pieces into which it was cut, being always left too thin. The foremost of these horns crook inward at the point, but by no means with so sudden a curve as is represented by the Count de Buffon. How sensible the animal is in this part, may be known from the accident I was eye-witness to in hunting him at Tcherkin, where a musquet-ball breaking off a point of that horn, gave him such a shock, as to deprive him for an instant of all appearance of life. Behind the foremost, or crooked horn, is the flat straight one, and again immediately behind that I have seen distinctly the rudiments of a third, and the horn full an inch long. If we may judge by its base, it would seem this third horn was intended to be as long as the other two.
The hunters of these large beasts are called Agageer, from Agaro, to kill, by cutting the hams or tendon of Achilles with a sword. I have already described the manner of this hunting. These Agageers, the only people that have an opportunity of observing, if they would only tell what they do observe truly, say, they frequently see rhinoceroses with three horns grown; that this last is round, but does not crook at the point, and is not quite so long as are the other two, nor tapered so much as the foremost or crooked one; but this I leave entirely upon their veracity. I never did see the animal myself, nor three grown-horns adhering to each other, as I have seen two. So if this is truth, here is a third species of this quadruped. They say the third horn is only upon the male, and does not grow till he is advanced in years; the double horn which I have is fixed to a strong muscle or cartilage; when dry, exceedingly tough. It comes down the os frontis, and along the bone of the nose; but not having observed accurately enough at the time the carcase was lying before me, I do not remember how this muscle terminated or was made fast, either at the occiput or on the nose. It has been imagined by several that the horn of the rhinoceros and the teeth of the elephant were arms which nature gave them against each other: that want of food, and vexation from being deprived of their natural habits, may make any two beasts of nearly equal strength fight or destroy each other, cannot be doubted; and accordingly we see that the Romans made these two animals fight at shows and public games: but this is not nature, but the artifice of man; there must be some better reason for this extraordinary construction of these two animals, as well as the different one of that of so many others. They have been placed in extensive woods and deserts, and there they hide themselves in the most inaccessible places; food in great plenty is round about them; they are not carnivorous, they are not rivals in love; what motive can they have for this constant premeditated desire of fighting?