3^4 
TRAVELS IN 
exiftence of a living original. Among the feveral thoufand 
figures of animals that, in the courfe of the journey, we had 
met with, none had the appearance of being monftrous, none 
that could be confidered as works of the imagination, " crea- 
" tures of the brain ;" on the contrary, they were generally as 
faithful reprefentations of nature as the talents of the artift 
would allow. An inftance of this appeared in the cavern we 
laft vifited. The back fhell of the tejludo geometrica was lying 
on the ground ; and the regular figures with which it is 
marked, and from which it takes its name, had been recently, 
and very accurately, copied on the fide of a fmooth rock. It 
was thought, indeed, from feveral circumftances, that the 
favages had flept in the cavern the preceding night. 
The unicorn, as it is reprefented in Europe, is unqueftion- 
ably a work of fancy ; but it does not follow from thence that 
a quadruped with one horn, growing out of the middle of the 
forehead, fhould not exift. The arguments, indeed, that might 
be offered are much ftronger for its exiftence than the objec- 
tions are againft it. The firft idea of fuch an animal feems to 
have been taken from Holy Writ ; and from the defcription 
there given, a reprefentation of the unicorn, very illy con- 
ceived, has been alTumed as a fupporter to regal arms. The 
animal, to which the writer of the Book of Job, who was no 
mean natural hiftorian, puts into the mouth of the Almighty a 
poetical allufion, has been fuppofed, with great plaufibility, to 
be the one-horned rhinofceros : " Canft thou bind the unicorn 
with his band in the furrow ? or will he harrow the vallies 
'* after tkee ? Wilt thou truft him becaufe his ftrength is great. 
