THE HYENAS. 107 



great service in many parts of those countries they inhabit, both in 

 Asia and Africa, for they perform the duties of general scavengers, 

 ■which, from the unclean customs of the people, is a most useful 

 ofl&ce, even if to refined notions it is a loathsome one ; and 

 certainly those benefited by these creatures should be just and 

 acknowledge their utility ; for by removing dead animals, garbage, 

 offal, and other abominations, they prevent the atmosphere from 

 being polluted by the rapid decomposition of such matter under 

 the fierce heat of the noonday sun, which would engender pesti- 

 lential odours most detrimental to human health. 



There is such a fact, however, as having too much of a good 

 thing. Bruce, in the appendix forming Volume Y. of his book,* 

 states : " I do not think there is any one that hath hitherto 

 written of this animal who ever saw the thousandth part of them 

 that I have. They were a plague in Abyssinia in every situation, 

 both in the city and in the field, and I think surpassed the sheep 

 in number. Gordar was full of them from the time it turned dark 

 till the dawn of day, seeking the different pieces of slaughtered 

 carcases which this cruel and unclean people expose in the streets 

 without burial, and who firmly believe that these animals are 

 Falasha, from the neighbouring mountains, transformed by magic, 

 and come down to eat human flesh in the dark in safety. Many 

 a time in the night, when the king had kept me late in the palace, 

 and it was not my duty to lie there, in going across the square 

 from the king's house, not many hundred yards distant, I have 

 been apprehensive they would bite me in the leg. They grunted 

 in great numbers about me, though I was surrounded with several 

 armed men, who seldom passed a night without wounding or 

 slaughtering some of them." 



The strength they possess, already spoken of, allows them to 

 easily drag away to a considerable distance the dead bodies of 

 such large animals as donkeys, mules, or oxen. Major Dixon 

 Denham,^ in giving an account of the hysenas who were in legions 

 around Konka, states that they absolutely carried the town by 



* "Travels between the Years 1765 and 1773, &c.," by James Bruce. 

 ^ Author of " Narratives of Travels and Discoveries in Northern and Central 

 Africa," 1826. 



