Voyage Scientijique en Moree. 351 



of filling the bags at the expense of the rayas or infidel inhabitants, 

 especially the Jews of the towns in the line of march, who were 

 called on to make up the deficiency. In case of operations being- 

 carried on in any of the jmrts in which this conformation existed, it 

 would have afforded an excellent means, by keeping the measurements 

 of the ears of the respective tribes, to check the accounts and state- 

 ments of the pachas, and be the means of preventing innocent and 

 guilty being placed in the same situation, as was too often the 

 case. 



The Commission are too generous to deprive the author of this 

 speculation of the merit justly his due. It is stated to proceed from 

 ' 5 un de nos consuls generaux." However lightly we may be in- 

 clined to treat this lucubration of the worthy consul, we cannot but 

 applaud the zeal which has induced him to attend to such subjects, 

 and we wish him success in his future communications. We only 

 wish we had similar instances to report from our consular and diplo- 

 matic bodies, who are, with some exceptions, singularly deficient in 

 imparting information on such subjects. 



One more observation on the jackal of the Morea. Are we to 

 consider them of the early inhabitants, prior to the first civilization, 

 and contemporary of the lions and other larger ferae, which we have 

 historical testimony to bear out the belief, that they did really inha- 

 bit the Peloponnesus ? or may they not have followed the train of 

 the Asiatic hordes, who at various times have crossed the Bosphorus 

 or the Hellespont under Xerxes and others ? Leaving out the possi- 

 bility of their crossing by the bridge of that monarch, it is by no means 

 a rash supposition, that the abundant provender to be obtained by 

 following such bodies of men would impel animals to make an un- 

 usual exertion, in order to keep in a train so advantageous, and the 

 swimming the Hellespont is quite within the power of such a qua- 

 druped as the jackal. We have seen the shoals of sharks, one of 

 which was accustomed to follow each Guinea or slave-ship to the 

 West Indies from the coast of Africa, at the time that trade was per- 

 mitted, impelled by a similar motive. It is possible this may be the 

 origin of the present breed of jackals; but we should rather incline to 

 the belief that they were aboriginal, and co-existent with the Ne- 

 msean lion and the Erymanthian boar, both which races have disap- 

 peared, and that, by retreating to the fastnesses of Taygetus, or of 

 Pindus and Parnassus, they lived in seclusion during the period of 

 civilization, and escaped the extermination in which the larger fera> 

 were involved, — advancing again by natural progression, as the Turks 



