18 THE RHINOCEROS. 



and a people's lust for the cruel combats and wholesale 

 slaughter of the Amphitheatre. 



The history of the remarkable quadruped with which the 

 present work commences in some measure exemplifies this 

 anomalous fact, and the rhinoceros is a still stronger proof 

 of it. This quadruped, which is second in bulk to the ele- 

 phant alone, is peculiar to the Old World ; yet of the five or 

 six distinct species which inhabit Africa and Asia, only one 

 has been exhibited in modern Europe, and that at rare and 

 distant intervals ; while the knowledge of the rest has been 

 chiefly acquired in our own times. 



The first rhinoceros of which any mention is made in an- 

 cient history, was that which appeared at the celebrated fes- 

 tival of Ptolemaeus Philadelphus, and which was made to 

 march the last of all the strange animals exhibited at that 

 epoch, as being apparently the most curious and rare. It 

 was brought from Ethiopia. 



The first which appeared in Europe graced the triumph 

 and games of Pompey. Pliny states that this animal had but 

 one horn, and that that number was the most common. 



Augustus caused two to be slain, together with a hippo- 

 potamus, when he triumphed after the death of Cleopatra : 

 and these, also, are described as having each but one horn. 



Strabo very exactly describes a one-horned rhinoceros 

 which he saw at Alexandria, and mentions the folds in its 

 skin. But Pausanias gives a detailed account of the position 

 of the two horns, on a species having that number, which he 

 terms the Ethiopian Bull. 



Of this latter kind two appeared at Rome under Domitian, 

 and were engraved on some of the medals of that emperor ; 

 these occasioned some of the epigrams of Martial, which 

 modern commentators, from ignorance of the species with 

 two horns, found so much difficulty in comprehending. 



The emperors Antoninus, Heliogabalus, and Gordian, 

 severally exhibited the rhinoceros : and Cosmus expressly 

 speaks of the Ethiopian species as having two horns : there 

 is abundant evidence, therefore, that the ancients possessed 

 a degree of knowledge respecting these animals, of which the 

 moderns were for a long period destitute. 



The first rhinoceros which was exhibited in Europe after 

 the revival of literature, was a specimen of the one-horned 

 species. It was sent from India to Emmanuel king of Por- 

 tugal, in the year 1513. This sovereign made a present of 

 it to the Pope ; but the animal being seized during its passage 

 with a fit of fury, occasioned the loss of the vessel in which 

 it was transported. A second rhinoceros was brought to 



