THE MONKE Y FA MIL Y. 149 



It happened that one of Mynheer's cows, which was accustomed to 

 range in the adjoining forest, where sometimes a tapir had been seen 

 to stray, produced a calf. It was misshapen from its birth, and it 

 soon began to attract attention. Mynheer's wife would often invite 

 her female friends who were located in the neighbourhood, and who 

 were known to be exceedingly clever in the breeding line, to see the 

 little stranger. To a matron, they all agreed that it was a compound 

 half bush-cow and half domestic cow its mother, no doubt what- 

 ever, having got married clandestinely to a tapir, which she must 

 have met in one of her excursions through the mazes of the forest. 

 This sage opinion soon spread like wildfire. Everybody who went 

 to see the prodigy confirmed its genealogy, and nothing was talked 

 of, far and near, but the prodigy to be seen at the abode of Mynheer 

 Laing. When I would occasionally remark that such a union of 

 animals so opposite in their nature could not be, and that I could 

 not compromise myself by patronising such a preposterous deformity, 

 the men pitied my incredulity, and the matrons said that I had better 

 attend to my own business. These last affirmed that the animal in 

 question was half cow and half bush-cow in spite of all -that I could 

 say to the contrary. Determined to see with my own eyes this won- 

 derful production, I went up the river Demerara with my friend Mr 

 Edmonstone, to pay a visit to its owner. The Dutch gentleman 

 received us with his usual courtesy, and after partaking of a cup of 

 excellent coffee with him not mixed with chicory, which, so far back 

 as the days of Don Quixote, was in no great repute we proceeded 

 to the stable where the phenomenon was kept, Mynheer observing, 

 as we went along, that such a curiosity had never been seen since 

 his countryman had felled the first tree on the wooded banks of the 

 beautiful river Demerara. On entering the place, I saw standing 

 there an animal, certainly of most curious form and dimensions, but 

 not a particle of tapir or bush- cow could I detect in it. It was a 

 bull calf of the common breed of domestic cows, and was awfully 

 misshapen. So ended the investigation, and in a few weeks after- 

 wards the report of such a hybrid gradually died away, and nothing 

 more was said about it. 



The second anecdote fairly outdoes the first. 



Some years ago, I formed an acquaintance with a most benevolent 



