138 
The Animal-Lore of ShaJcspeare’s Time. 
like goats homes, which are very smooth and glistrin, and inclining 
to blacke, whereof they make divers pretie knackes, as they doe like¬ 
wise of the buffes homes. They have their heads and their haires like 
the heads and haires of oxen, and their skins are of great estimation; 
and therefore they are carried into Portugall and from thence into 
Germanie to be dressed, and then they are called dantes. The king of 
Congo is very desirous to have some men that had skill to cleanse 
them, and dresse them, and to make them fit for use, to the end he 
might employ them for armour of defence. There are besides these 
other beasts, called empalanga which are in bignesse and shape like 
oxen, saving that they hold their head and necke aloft, and have their 
homes broad and crooked, three hand-breadths long, divided into 
knots, and sharpe at the ends, whereof they might make very faire 
cornets to sound withall: and although they are in the forrests, yet are 
they not noysome nor harmefull; the skins of their necks are used for 
shoo-soles, and their flesh for meate. They might likewise be brought 
to draw the plough, and doe good service in any other labour, and 
tilling of the ground.” ( Purchas , vol. ii. p. 1002.) 
The eland, a large bovine antelope, seems in shape and 
size to correspond with these descriptions, but it cannot 
be called a fleet animal. Attempts have been made in 
recent times to introduce the eland into English parks, 
but without much success. 
As the word chamois occurs in the authorized version 
of the Bible, the animal must have been known to 
English naturalists in the sixteenth century. Canon 
Tristram, however, considers that this animal is incor¬ 
rectly placed in the catalogue of Arabian quadrupeds. 
He writes:— 
“ In the list of the clean animals permitted as food in Deut. xiv. 5, 
the zemer occurs, and nowhere else in Scripture. From the Arabic 
zamar we conclude that some leaping animal is intended. It cannot 
be the chamois, of the existence of which there is no trace in Bible 
lands. Nor can it be the giraffe or camelopard, an animal of Central 
Africa, which is the interpretation of some ancient commentators. As 
other words designate the rock-goats or ibex, and the various antelopes, 
it is probable that zemer is applied to the wild mountain sheep, called 
kebsch in Arabia, very like the mouflon of Sardinia.” (Natural 
Bistoi y of the Bible , 1873, p. 73.) 
