362 On some Quadrupeds supposed to be extinct 



Javans. — (See Marsden's Sumatra, third edition.) With 

 respect to the gigantic tapir, it is as probable that those regions 

 (apparently less known to modems, as regards zoology, than to 

 the Greeks and Romans) may contain gigantic tapirs as ouran- 

 outangs, near eight feet high, so lately discovered. 



Unicorn. 



Many reasons have been given, in another place *, to prove 

 the probability of the existence of the unicorn, since which the 

 following description of two has been met with. 



♦* On the other part of the temple of Mecca are parks or 

 places enclosed, where are seen two unicorns : they are show^n 

 to the people as a miracle ; and not without good reason, for 

 their rareness and strange nature. One of them, which is 

 much higher than the other, is not much unlike a colt of thirty 

 months of age : in the forehead groweth one horn, in manner 

 right forth, of the length of three cubits. The other is only 

 one year of age, and like a young colt : the horn of this is of 

 the length of four handfuls. This beast is of that colour of a 

 horse called weasel, and hath a head like a hart, but not a 

 long neck, and a thin mane, hanging on one side. Their legs 

 are thin and slender, hke a fawn or hind : the hoofs of the 

 fore feet are divided in two, much like the feet of a goat : the 

 outer part of the hinder feet is very full of hair. This beast 

 seemeth wild or fierce, yet tempereth that fierceness with a 

 certain comeliness. These unicorns were given to the Sultan 

 of Mecca as a most precious and rare gift. They were sent 

 him out of Ethiopia by a king of that country, who was 

 desirous by such a present to gratify the Sultan f." 



So lately as the year 1799, a Mahomedan African prince is 

 said to have sent two of them to Mecca. — (Rees's Cyclopedia, 

 ** Monoceros.") Bell of Antermony describes one which was 

 killed in Siberia, near the Irtish, in 1713. Tamerlane slew 

 unicorns and rhinoceroses on the frontier of Cashmere, {Sheref- 

 eddin, b. 4., ch. xxx.) and there have recently been reports of 

 unicorns in Nepaxdy which are rendered more probable to be 



* Wars and Sports, p. 335. 



t Travels of Lewis Vertomanus to Egypt, Arabia, &c., a.d. 1503, in 

 palvano's collection, Hakluyt, vol. iv., p. 162. 



