I myself have devoted a good deal of time to the domestication of animals, and by following out the two principles just laid down, I found myself invariably successful. The polecat, although of inconsiderable size, is an animal of infinitely greater fierceness than the tiger; yet I had one so thoroughly domesticated that it was permitted to enjoy perfect liberty. I succeeded equally with the fox, the badger, and the otter, as a paper which recently appeared in the Penny Journal was designed to show. In fact, I should say that mere fierceness is but a very slight obstacle to domestication—timidity is much harder to be overcome. The timid races of animals require a mode of treatment directly opposed to the above. They require to have their dread of man diminished, and their boldness encouraged. If you wish to tame a very timid animal, instead of supplying it with food you must let it fast, in order to render it so bold with hunger that it will eat in your presence and from your hand. If you can get its confidence raised to such a degree that it will bite you or attempt to do so, so much the better—those little vices will afterwards be easily eradicated. I have succeeded in familiarizing the most timid creatures—the rat and the mouse, for instance. The public has already had an account of how I succeeded with the former of these animals in the pages of the “Medical Press” and “Naturalist.” Some of these days I shall give a paper on the latter in the Penny Journal.
Van Amburgh has done much with his animals; but in consequence of exhibiting with specimens not as yet perfectly subdued, he has met with some severe accidents. More caution and less haste would have prevented these. One of the principal ingredients that should enter into the composition of an animal tamer, is COURAGE. If the animal you are endeavouring to domesticate perceive that you fear it—and animals are instinctively sharp-sighted—from that instant all chance of control ceases. You must be prepared to endure bites, scratches, &c. with, at all events apparent, recklessness, and should never suffer any thing to delay your chastisement: the severer it is, the less frequently will you have to repeat it. Van Amburgh possesses this ingredient in an eminent degree. I once saw him exhibiting with his superb Barbary lion, since dead; as he left the cage, the animal rushed at him, and succeeded in inflicting a sharp scratch upon his hand. Now, had Van Amburgh displayed fear, or in short acted otherwise than he did, his reign had been over, and the lion would in all probability have renewed his attack the next opportunity, and have killed him. But what did he do? He returned into the cage, and advancing sternly and undauntedly towards the lion, saluted him with a shower of blows over the head and face, with the small iron rod which he always carried with him. And mark the result. The brute at once yielded, quailed before his master, who, planting a foot upon the prostrate body of his late assailant, coolly wiped the blood from his hand, amidst the deafening plaudits of the spectators, who had witnessed the appalling scene with feelings more easily imagined than described.
There is another description of animal taming, which I must not omit to mention, viz, by charms or drugs. There were, and are indeed still to be met with, although more rarely than formerly, persons who profess to be able, by some secret spell or charm, to tame the fiercest horse, or calm the fury of the most ferocious watch-dog. There are also persons who follow the trade of rat-catching, and pretend that by means of certain drugs they can entice away all the rats from the premises to which they are called in to exercise their skill. There are also a set of men in India and Persia who profess to charm serpents, and draw them from their holes. Of these last it is not at present my design to speak. I may, however, return to them in a future paper.
The first of these, or those who pretend to possess the power of quelling the spirit of the horse, or appeasing the vigilant fury of the dog, are now but few in number, and very seldom to be met with. They abounded more in Ireland than they did in the sister kingdom, and were called “whisperers.” Perhaps the best mode in which I can bring them and their practices before my readers, is by giving them an account of the last and most celebrated whisperer that we recollect. His name was James Sullivan, and he possessed the power of taming the most furious horse, if left alone with him for about half an hour. The name of this singular man is recorded by Townsend in his “Survey of the County of Cork,” and we shall quote his account of Sullivan’s performances, to which he states himself to have been an eye-witness:—
“James Sullivan was a native of the county of Cork, and an awkward ignorant rustic of the lowest class, generally known by the appellation of ‘the Whisperer;’ and his profession was horse-breaking. The credulity of the vulgar bestowed that epithet upon him from an opinion that he communicated his wishes to the animal by means of a whisper, and the singularity of his method gave some colour to the superstitious belief. As far as the sphere of his control extended, the boast of veni, vidi, vici, was more justly claimed by James Sullivan than by Cæsar, or even Bonaparte himself. How his art was acquired, or in what it consisted, is likely to remain for ever unknown, as he has lately left the world without divulging it. His son, who follows the same occupation, possesses but a small portion of the art, having either never learned its true secret, or being incapable of putting it in practice. The wonder of his skill consisted in the short time requisite to accomplish his design, which was performed in private, and without any apparent means of coercion. Every description of horse, or even mule, whether previously broke, or unhandled, whatever their peculiar vices or ill habits might have been, submitted without show of resistance to the magical influence of his art, and in the short space of half an hour became gentle and tractable. The effect, though instantaneously produced, was generally durable; though more submissive to him than to others, yet they seemed to have acquired a docility unknown before. When sent for to tame a vicious horse, he directed the stable in which he and the object of his experiment were placed, to be shut, with orders not to open the door until a signal was given. After a tete-a-tete between him and the horse for about half an hour, during which little or no bustle was heard, the signal was made; and on opening the door, the horse was seen lying down, and the man by his side, playing familiarly with him, like a child with a puppy dog. From that time he was found perfectly willing to submit to discipline, however repugnant to his nature before. Some saw his skill tried on a horse which could never before be brought to stand for a smith to shoe him. The day after Sullivan’s half-hour lecture, I went, not without some incredulity, to the smith’s shop, with many other curious spectators, where we were eye-witnesses of the complete success of his art. This, too, had been a troop horse, and it was supposed, not without reason, that after regimental discipline had failed, no other would be found availing. I observed that the animal seemed afraid whenever Sullivan either spoke or looked at him. How that extraordinary ascendancy could have been obtained, it is difficult to conjecture. In common cases this mysterious preparation was unnecessary. He seemed to possess an instinctive power of inspiring awe, the result perhaps of natural intrepidity, in which I believe a great part of his art consisted; though the circumstance of the tete-a-tete shows that upon particular occasions something more must have been added to it. A faculty like this would in other hands have made a fortune, and great offers have been made to him for the exercise of his art abroad; but hunting, and attachment to his native soil, were his ruling passions. He lived at home in the style most agreeable to his disposition, and nothing could induce him to quit Dunhallow and the foxhounds.” Other whisperers have lived since Sullivan, but none of them have attained an equal degree of fame. I met with one some years ago of the name of O’Hara, and I can truly affirm that his performances were indeed wonderful, and precisely similar to those of Sullivan. How O’Hara discovered the secret, I know not; neither am I sure that it was identical with that possessed by Sullivan. On one occasion, while under the influence of liquor, O’Hara was heard to declare that the secret lay in rocking the horse; but on another, when equally tipsy, he mentioned biting the animal’s ear. It is already I believe known to those acquainted with horses, that by grasping the shoulder with one hand just where the mane begins, and laying the other with firmness upon the crupper, and then swaying the animal backwards and forwards, beginning with a very gentle motion and gradually increasing it, you will in a few minutes be able to throw the horse on his side with a comparatively trifling degree of exertion; and it is certain that this treatment is frequently resorted to by knowing jockeys to break the spirit of a stubborn horse; for after having been thrown twice, or at most thrice, the spirit of the animal seems wholly subdued, and he appears possessed with the most unqualified respect and dread of the person who threw him. This was in all probability what O’Hara meant by rocking, and I have little doubt but that this was one of the component parts, at all events, of the treatment resorted to by the whisperers. As to biting the ear, I have seen this tried, and that successfully. If you succeed in getting the ear of the most vicious horse between your teeth, and bite it with all your force, you will find the rage of the animal suddenly subside, his spirit will appear to have forsaken him, and a word or a look from you will cause him to start and tremble with excess of terror. Once the ferocity of an animal is removed, it is an easy matter to conciliate his affections. May not these two modes of treatment combined, or one or the other, as the occasion seemed to require, have constituted the secret of the wonder-working whisperers? The suggestion is at least plausible, and the experiment should be fully tried ere it be rejected.
In an article which appeared lately on the subject of animal taming in the Times newspaper, mention is made of Mr King, owner of the “learned horse” at present exhibiting in London. This person states that his secret depends upon pressing a certain nerve in the horse’s mouth, which he calls the “nerve of susceptibility.” May not the set of whispering have likewise depended upon compressing with the teeth some similar nerve in the ear?
H. D. R.
RELICS.
BY J. U. U.
“Raphael was buried in the Pantheon (Sta. Maria della Rotunda), in a chapel which he had himself endowed, and near the place where his betrothed bride had been laid. The immediate neighbourhood was afterwards selected by other painters as their place of rest. Baldassane Peruzzi, Giovanni da Udine, Pierino del Vaga, Taddeo Zuccaro, and others, are buried near. No question had ever existed as to the precise spot where the remains of the master lay; but a few years since the Roman antiquaries began to raise doubts even respecting the church in which Raphael was buried. In the end, permission was obtained to make actual search; and Vasari’s account was in this instance verified. The tomb was found as he describes it, behind the altar itself of the chapel above mentioned. Four views of the tomb and its contents were engraved from drawings by Cammucini, and thus preserve the appearance that presented itself. The shroud had been fastened with a number of metal rings and points; some of these were kept by the sculptor Fabrio of Rome, who is also in possession of casts from the skull and right hand. Passavant remarks, judging from the cast, that the skull was of a singularly fine form. The bones of the hand were all perfect, but they crumbled into dust after the mould was taken. The skeleton measured about five feet seven inches. The coffin was extremely narrow, indicating a very slender frame. The precious relics were ultimately restored to the same spot, after being placed in a magnificent sarcophagus, presented by the present Pope.”—Quarterly Review.
Ay, there are glorious things even in the dust