350 THE GREAT UNKNOWN. 



muzzle ; but probably he had not particularly noticed 

 that point. What shall he do ? there is no original before 

 him, a glance at which would decide ; he sketches on a 

 scrap of paper by his side two or three forms of head ; 

 perhaps he shews the paper to a brother officer, with a 

 question, " Which of these do you think most like the 

 head ? " and then he puts the one selected in his sketch, 

 and so of other details. 



Those who are not used to drawing will think I am 

 making a caricature. I am doing no such thing. I have 

 been accustomed for nearly forty years to draw animals 

 from the life; and the public are able to judge of my 

 power of representing what I see ; but I am quite sure 

 that if I were asked to depict an object unfamiliar to 

 me, which I had been looking at for a quarter of an hour, 

 without thinking that 1 should have to draw it, I should 

 do, in fifty points of detail, just what I have supposed 

 the officer to have done. Let my reader try it. Get hold 

 of one of your acquaintances, whom you know to be a 

 skilful, but non-professional artist, whose attention has 

 never been given to flowers ; take him into your green- 

 house, and shew him some very beautiful thing in blossom ; 

 keep him looking at it for some ten minutes without a 

 hint of what you are thinking of, then take him into your 

 drawing-room, put paper and colours before him, and 

 say, " Make me a sketch of that plant you have just seen!" 

 When it is done, take it to a botanist, and ask him to 

 give you the characters of the genus and species from 

 the sketch ; or compare it yourself with the original, and 



