11) 



KANGUROO. 



that the animal is susceptible of scarcely any culti- 

 vation. 



This is exactly the case with the kaneuroo ; so that 

 after the first wonder at its strange shape and unique 

 style of motion is over, there is no more interest 

 about it ; for there is no disposition in it which can 

 be drawn out as the basis of that sort of attachment, 

 which can be formed with almost any placenta! ani- 

 mal, by a careful study of its disposition, and due at- 

 tention to its comfort. The kanguroo is, therefore, in 

 its very nature, an animal of savage climes ; and it is 

 not a little singular that, in a large portion of the 

 earth's surface, which is as peculiar in most of its pro- 

 ductions as it is large, the principal four-footed ani- 

 mal and the aboriginal human being should be at the 

 very bottom of their respective races. Such, how- 

 ever, is the fact ; and it appears to be just as hopeless 

 to attempt civilising the native New Hollander, as to 

 attempt taming the kanguroo. Some of those natives 

 have been educated, some of them have been treated 

 with kindness, some have been employed in various 

 offices; but in almost every case the result has been only 

 an increase of cunning, and a deepening of vice ; so 

 that the parties were in the end no more to be trusted 

 than their naked brethren, who lie in wait in the bush 

 for the purpose of spearing every living creature, 

 human or not human, which happens to pass by. This 

 is a very curious point in physiology ; but it is one, 

 upon the discussion of which, we, for obvious reasons, 

 cannot in the meantime enter. But still we may 

 remark, that no people have ever been civilised by 

 intercourse with other people, except such as had 

 previously shown some disposition to civilise them- 

 selves. So, also, among the other animals, there is no 

 hope of taming, into anything like attachment, any 

 animal which does not show some resource and stra- 

 tagem in a state of nature ; but if the human being, 

 or the other animal, evinces the requisite capacity, 

 there is always a way of turning that capacity to the 

 very best advantage, how much soever it may be mte- 

 used, or turned to vice, before the treatment is applied 

 to it. If, however, there is no capacity, mere brute 

 placidity is no recommendation ; and it is from its 

 total want of this capacity, together with its indis- 

 criminate disposition to do mischief without any ap- 

 parent cause, that we have described the kanguroo as 

 an unpleasant animal to be kept in parks or pleasure 

 grounds. Indeed, we have direct evidence of this 

 fact ; for some which were in the royal parks in this 

 country were so very vicious, without any obvious 

 cause, that it became necessary to remove them ; and 

 we believe that some of those in the menagerie of 

 the museum at Paris weie very prone to attack and 

 lacerate the keepers ; and the wounds which are 

 inflicted by their claws, are far more formidable than 

 single cuts given by almost any other animal. 



In addition to this, we mentioned the inutility of 

 the kanguroo as a domestic animal. From its struc- 

 ture, it cannot be employed in any species of work ; 

 and the useful products which it furnishes are few in 

 number. Its skin is of some value, though perhaps 

 not equal to that of most ruminant animals, and cer- 

 tainly not at all to be compared with the skin of the 

 horse. From its peculiarity of structure, and the 

 mode in which it rears its young, it can be of no use 

 whatever as a milk animal ; and its hair is neither lit, 

 for spinning nor for felting into a fabric of any consis- 

 teucy ; so that the only part of it which has value, is 

 its body in substance. The principal part of that is 



the flesh of the hind quarters, as already stated ; and 

 this flesh is wholly unmixed with fat. There is, in- 

 deed, a sort of soft fat which accumulates in the rump 

 and the upper part of the tail, to which Australian 

 epicures give some praise ; but it is almost, if not en- 

 tirely, destitute of stearine, and thus unfit for those 

 purposes in the arts, to which the surplus fat of our 

 domestic animals is applied. The portion of the 

 carcass, too, which is n't for food, is so small that, in a 

 country where land and its produce are of much value, 

 the kanguroo could not be bred so as to anything 

 like repay the expense of its keep. These circum- 

 stances put the use of it, in an economical point of 

 view, entirely out of the question ; and from what we 

 have already stated, it is not more desirable con- 

 sidered as an ornament ; and, therefore, the only pur- 

 pose which it can answer with us, or in any other 

 European country, is that of being kept in zoological 

 collections of living animals, as an object of science 

 or simply of curiosity ; and certainly, in both of these 

 respects, it is highly interesting, and deserving of its 

 place. 



It is a singular fact, and one which, while noticing 

 this animal, we can hardly pass over, that, in every 

 country where the inhabitants have been found in a 

 low state of savagcism, there is hardly any animal 

 available for domestic purposes. When America 

 was discovered, there was not, with the exception of 

 the lama and alpaca, in the central mountains, any 

 animal calculated to be of service to man ; and in 

 Mexico, and more especially in Peru, where those 

 animals were kept in a state of domestication, and 

 partially, at least, used as beasts of burden, there was 

 an incipient civilisation, rude indeed, but still forming 

 a wonderful contrast with the condition of the people 

 in other, and naturally far richer, parts of the Ameri- 

 can continent. In all the points of their character, 

 the native inhabitants of many of those districts in 

 which, when first visited by Europeans, there were no 

 domestic animals, were not only superior to the Pe- 

 ruvians, and especially to the Mexicans, by whom 

 civilisation had been begun, but many of them, those 

 of the north especially, and also some of those of 

 Paraguay and Bolivia, are superior to the average of 

 European peasantry, both in energy and in mental 

 recourses. Yet they had not become civilised even 

 when people of less natural endowments had made 

 some advances ; and we can account for this appa- 

 rent anomaly only in the fact of those superior people 

 having no animals which they could tame and turn to 

 account in their domestic economy. 



This is a very important fact, as showing the 

 dependence which the development of the human 

 powers has upon the situation in which human beings 

 happen to be placed, and from this we may, without 

 impropriety, infer, that the people of the east owe 

 their advances in civilisation more to the possession 

 of the ox, the sheep, the horse, the ass, and the camel, 

 than to any mental superiority on their part. The 

 coincidence of elevated character with the possession 

 of those animals, and of the absence of that character 

 with the want of them, are too general, we may say 

 too universal, for admitting us to suppose that they 

 are owing to accidental circumstances ; and this con- 

 sideration should teach us not only not to be wantonly 

 cruel to those animals, but to look upon them with 

 kindness, and pay every attention to their comforts, 

 as they are unquestionably our benefactors. This is 

 a subject upon which little has been said, though 



