Beef-eaters, or yeomen of the guard, are stationed by the sideboard at great royal dinners. The term is a corruption from the French buffetiers, from buffet, sideboard.
A Lion Killer.—Lions abound in the west of India. A gentleman assured Captain Skinner that he had, in one season, killed forty-five in the province of Hissar, alone. None of them were large, but he mentioned having met with one of uncommon beauty; its skin was of the usual tawny colour, but its mane a rich glossy black, as was also the tuft on the tail.
Vultures.—On passing the carcass of a bullock (says Captain Skinner,) we had a proof of the keenness of the vulture's scent. An hour before not one was seen; nor was the place, being so wild and far removed from all habitations, likely to be haunted by them: yet now they thronged every tree in the neighbourhood. There could not have been less than four or five hundred.
Jackalls.—In some parts of India the howling of innumerable jackalls is never out of your ear, from the minute night falls to the first dawn of day. Captain Skinner says, until he became familiar to the screaming sound, he used to start from his sleep, and fancy some appalling calamity had driven the inhabitants of a neighbouring town to rash forth in fear and madness from their homes. Such frightful clamour might attend an earthquake or a deluge. The animals come up close to your very doors in large packs, and roar away without any apparent object, frequently standing a longtime in one place, as a dog does when "baying the moon."
Narrow Streets.—In grand Cairo, if you unfortunately meet a string of masked beauties upon donkies, you must make a rapid retreat, and resign yourself to be squeezed to a mummy against the wall for daring to stand in their course, if your curiosity should tempt you to do so.
Mussulman and Hindoo Religion.—"Where the same village is inhabited by people of both religions, they occupy opposite portions of it: and the circumstance may always be known by there being a well at each end of it; for the Hindoos would not draw water from the same fountain as the Mahomedans, for all the wealth of this world."
The only Favour.—At the battle of Spires, a regiment had orders not to grant any quarter; an unhappy enemy, wounded and disarmed, begged hard for his life from one of its officers, who touched with his situation, replied, "I pity your misfortune, and—ask anything else but that, and upon my honour I will grant your request."
Footnote 1:[(return)]
The new-born Elephant is about three feet long. Between fifteen and twenty years of age, Elephants may be said to be adult. In India it is thought that they live three centuries.
The natural history of the Elephant would occupy many pages. A few points, however, are peculiarly interesting in connexion with the individuals from India, in the Zoological Gardens. The Indian Elephant appears, when fully grown, to attain a larger size than the African, the females commonly measuring from seven to eight, and the males from eight to ten, feet in height; though we find in old accounts the height of the Asiatic Elephant stated at fifteen or sixteen feet. The head of the Indian is more oblong than that of the African Elephant; and the forehead of the former has a deep concavity, while the head of the African is round and convex in all its parts. The teeth of the Indian species consist of narrow transverse bands of equal size, while those of the African are larger in the middle than at the ends, and are lozenge shaped. The ears of the Asiatic are smaller, and descend only to his neck, while in the African species the ears cover the shoulders. The former has four distinct toes, and the latter but three, on his hind feet. The Elephants of Ceylon are much prized for size, beauty, and hardihood. If the small Elephant in the Gardens be a native of Ceylon, it is by no means a beautiful specimen of the variety.
Footnote 2:[(return)]
From him descended the late Dukes of Bridgewater of that surname.