51 i HISTORY OF 



live of countries where the human inbahitants are but little raise.! 

 above the quadruped. The natives of Angola, or CaiTraria, have 

 no other idea of advantage from horses but as they are good for 

 food ; neither the fine stature of the Arabian courser, nor the 

 delicate colourings of the zebra, have any allurements to a race 

 of people, who only consider the quantity of flesh, and not its 

 conformation. The delicacy of the zebra's shape, or the painted 

 elegance of its form, are no more regarded by such, than by the 

 lion that makes it his prey. For this reason, therefore, the ze- 

 bra may hitherto have continued wild, because it is the native of 

 a country where there have been no successive efforts made to 

 reclaim it. All pursuits that have been hitherto instituted 

 against it, were rather against its life than its liberty : the ani- 

 mal has thus been long taught to consider man as its most mortal 

 enemy ; and it is not to be wondered that it refuses to yield obedi- 

 ence where it has so seldom experienced mercy. There is a 

 kind of knowledge in all animals, that I have often considered 

 with amazement ; which is, that tbey seem perfectly to know 

 their enemies, and to avoid them. Instinct, indeed, may teach 

 the deer to fly from the lion ; or the mouse to avoid the cat ; 

 but what is the principle that teaches the dog to attack the dog- 

 butcher wherever he sees him ? In China, where the killing 

 and dressing dogs is a trade, whenever one of those people 

 moves out, all the dogs of the village or the street are sure to be 

 after him. This I should hardly have believed, but that I have 

 seen more than one instance of it among ourselves. I have seen 

 a poor fellow who made a practice of stealing and killing dogs 

 for their skins, pursued in full cry for three or four streets to- 

 gether, by all the bolder breed of dogs, while the weaker flew from 

 his presence with affright. How these animals could thus fin d out 

 their enemy, and pursue him, appears, I own, unaccountable, but 

 such is the fact ; and it not only obtains in dogs, but in several other 

 animals, though perhaps to a less degree. This very probably may 

 have been in some measure a cause that has hitherto kept the zebra 

 in its state of natural wildness ; and in which it may continue, till 

 kinder treatment shall have reconciled it to its pursuers. 



It is vt!ry likely, therefore, as a more civilized people are now 

 iplaceJ at the Cape of Good Hope, which is the chief place 

 where this animal is found, that we may have them tamed and 

 rendered serviceable. Nor is its extraordinary beauty the only 



