The Arabs Ibn Bitar, Algiahid, Alcamus, and Damir, and many others, have known the animal perfectly, though some of them seem to confound it with another called the Ashkoko. Ibnalgiauzi says, that the Jerboa is the only kind that builds in rocks, which from ten thousand examples I am sure he does not, nor is he any way made for it, and I am very certain he is not gregarious. They have a number of holes indeed in the same place, but I do not remember ever to have seen more than two together at a time. The Arab Canonists are divided whether or not he can be lawfully eaten. Ibnalgiauzi is of opinion he cannot, nor any other animal living under the ground, excepting the land crocodile, which he calls El Dabb, a large lizard, said to be useful in venereal pursuits, Ata and Achmet, Benhantal, and several others, expressly say, that the eating of the Jerboa is lawful. But this seems to be an indulgence, as we read in Damir, that the use of this animal is granted because the Arabs delight in it. And Ibn Bitar says, that the Jerboa is called Israelitish, that the flesh of it is dried in the outward air, is very nourishing, and prevents costiveness, from which we should apprehend, that medicinal considerations entered into this permission likewise. However this may be, it seems to me plain, such was not the opinion of the old translators of the Arab version from the Hebrew; they once only name this animal expressly, and there they say it is forbidden. The passage is in Isaiah, “They that sanctify themselves and purify themselves in the gardens behind one tree in the midst, eating swine’s flesh, and the abomination, and the mouse, shall be consumed together, saith the Lord[53].” The Hebrew word signifies mouse, and so our English translation renders it. But the Arabic version calls it expressly the Jerboa, and classes it with the abomination and swine’s flesh, that is, in the class of things in the highest degree forbidden.
There is little variety in this animal either in size or colour, in the wide range that they inhabit. Towards Aleppo they have broader noses than the African ones, their bodies also thicker, and their colour lighter; a thing we always see in the Syrian animals, compared to the African. The first of these I saw was in London, in the hands of Dr Russel, who has wrote the history of Aleppo, of whom I have before made mention. Haym published an account of the Jerboa, so does Dr Shaw, but there exists not, that I know, one good figure of him, or particular description.
The figure given us by Edwards is thick and short, out of all proportion. His legs are too short, his feet too large, he wants the black mark upon his heel, the nails of his forefeet are greatly too long, and there is certainly a latitude taken in the description, when his head is said very much to resemble that of a rabbit. Dr Hasselquist has given us a kind of description of him without a figure. He says the Arabs call him Garbuka, but this is not so, he goes by no other name in all the east, but that of Jerboa, only the letter J, sometimes by being pronounced Y, for Jerboa he is called Yerboa, and this is the only variation in name.
The Arabs of the kingdom of Tripoli make very good diversion with the Jerboa, in training their grey-hounds, which they employ to hunt the gazel or antelope after instructing him to turn nimbly by hunting this animal. The prince of Tunis, son of Sidi Younis, and grandson of Ali Bey, who had been strangled by the Algerines when that capital was taken, being then in exile at Algiers, made me a present of a small grey-hound, which often gave us excellent sport. It may be perhaps imagined a chace between these two creatures could not be long, yet I have often seen, in a large inclosure, or court-yard, the greyhound employ a quarter of an hour before he could master his nimble adversary; the small size of the creature assisted him much, and had not the greyhound been a practised one, and made use of his feet as well as his teeth, he might have killed two antelopes in the time he could have killed one Jerboa.
It is the character of the saphan given in scripture, that he is gregarious, that he lives in houses made in the rock, that he is distinguished for his feebleness, which he supplies by his wisdom: none of these characteristics agree with the Jerboa, and therefore though he chews the cud in common with some others, and was in great plenty in Judea, so as to be known by Solomon, yet he cannot be the saphan of the scripture.
FENNEC.
This beautiful animal, which has lately so much excited the curiosity, and exercised the pens rather than the judgment of some naturalists, was brought to me at Algiers by Mahomet Rais, my drugoman or janizary, while consul-general to his Majesty in that regency.
Mahomet Rais bought it for two sequins from an acquaintance, a Turkish oldash, or foot-soldier, just then returned from Biscara, a southern district of Mauritania Cæsariensis, now called the Province of Constantina. The soldier said they were not uncommon in Biscara, but more frequently met with in the neighbouring date territories of Beni Mezzab and Werglah, the ancient habitations of the Melano-Gætuli; in the last mentioned of which places they hunted them for their skins, which they sent by the caravan to sell at Mecca, and from whence they were after exported to India. He said that he had endeavoured to bring three of them, two of which had escaped by gnawing holes in the cage. I kept this for several months at my country-house near Algiers, that I might learn its manners. I made several drawings of it, particularly one in water-colours of its natural size, which has been the original of all those bad copies that have since appeared. Having satisfied myself of all particulars concerning it, and being about to leave Algiers, I made a present of him to Captain Cleveland, of his majesty’s ship Phœnix, then in that port, and he gave him to Mr Brander, Swedish consul in Algiers. A young man, Balugani, of whom I have already spoken, then in my service, in which, indeed, he died, allowed himself so far to be surprised, as, unknown to me, to trace upon oiled paper a copy of this drawing in water-colours, just now mentioned. This he did so servilely, that it could not be mistaken, and was therefore, as often as it appeared, known to be a copy by people[54] the least qualified to judge in these matters. The affectation of the posture in which it was sitting, the extraordinary breadth of its feet, the unnatural curve of the tail, to shew the black part of it, the affected manner of disposing its ears, were all purposely done, to shew particular details that I was to describe, after the animal itself should be lost, or its figure, through length of time, should be less-fresh in my memory.
