98 Journal of Travel and Natural History 



With or without these swordsmen, alone or in company with 

 others of the natives, Sir Samuel waged for months an unrelenting 

 war upon the wild animals of these countries. No doubt we now 

 and then meet with an instance of occasional self-denial where he 

 refrains from slaughter, on the ground that he had plenty of food 

 in camp ; but we do not observe that these qualms of conscience 

 ever obtruded themselves when the temptation was great, as in the 

 case of an elephant or a rhinoceros, but were usually confined to 

 partridges or antelopes. Still, to find any qualms at all stopping 

 the forefinger of such an enthusiast, is something. 



It is hopeless to attempt to do justice to the narrative of his 

 hair-breadth 'scapes in the short space that we can give for quota- 

 tion. It requires the adjuncts and accessories leading up to, and 

 accompanying them, to enable one fully to appreciate them. We 

 must refer the reader to his book itself for them, and shall now 

 turn and take a short look at its natural history. 



Sir Samuel is not strong in natural history, in fact, he obviously 

 has no scientific knowledge of it at all, and has viewed everything 

 from the sporting stand-point; consequently, scarcely anything is 

 noticed that was not big enough to be shot or eaten. Generally 

 speaking, however, his descriptions of the animals he has met with 

 are sufficiently precise to enable a naturalist, without much diffi- 

 culty, to recognise the species he is speaking of Of mammals, 

 we find that he met with one species of monkey, which, from his 

 description, was probably Cercopithecus griseo-viridis ; also one 

 species of baboon, but which of the four or five reported Abyssinian 

 species, does not appear. It is probable that the present expedi- 

 tion may have the eff'ect of reducing the number of species, as it 

 certainly will the number of individuals. His observations confirm 

 those already made as to the intelligence of these animals, one 

 remarkable instance of which is their digging wells in the sand for 

 water. Sir Samuel gives the credit of this to " the monkeys," but 

 we have no doubt that he used the word in its largest sense, and 

 that, specifically, it was the baboons he meant, because we find 

 Mansfield Parkyns relating the same thing of them : 



" They shew also the same sagacity in searching for water, discovering at 

 once the places where it is most readily found in the sand, and then digging for 

 it with their hands, just as men would, relieving one another in the work if the 

 quantity of sand to be removed be considerable." (Parkyns, p. 230.) 



We would refer those who have not read Mansfield Parkyns's 

 "Life in Abyssinia," to that work for some credible instances of 



