Volume 6

Natural history, general and particular / by the Count de Buffon, translated into English. Illustrated with above 300 copper-plates, and occasional notes and observations. By William Smellie.

  • Buffon, Georges Louis Leclerc, comte de, 1707-1788.
Date:
1785
Catalogue details

Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: Natural history, general and particular / by the Count de Buffon, translated into English. Illustrated with above 300 copper-plates, and occasional notes and observations. By William Smellie. Source: Wellcome Collection.

    46/534 (page 34)
    ae PE VEEP ANR very anciently civilized, made the education of ‘the elephant a kind of art, and have inftruéted ‘and modified him according to their own man- ners. But, of all the African nations, the Car- thaginians alone formerly trained the elephants to war; becaule, at the fplendid period of ti tepublic, they were perhaps the moft civilize phants in all that part of Africa on this fide of Mount Atlas! There are even few beyond thefe mountains, till we arrive at the river Senegal. But they are numerous in Senegal *, in Gui- ney T, in Congo Fo} on the Teeth cont §, in the 3 countries * The elephants, of which I daily faw ae numbers along the banks of the river Senegal, no longer | aftonifhed me. On the fifth day of November, T walked into the woods oppofite to the village of Dagana, where I found a number of their frefh tracks, hak I followed near two leagues, and at laft difco- vered five of thefe animals; three of them lay wallowing, like hogs, in their own foil, and the fourth was ftanding with its cub, eating the branches of an acacia tree, which they had broken off, By comparing the animal with the height of the tree, I perceived that its crupper was at leaft eleven or twelve feet high, and its tufks near three feet long. ‘Though my prefence did not difturb them, I thought it proper to retire. “In purfuing my route, I met with the impreflions of their feet, which mea- fared near a foot and a half in diameter. Their dung, which refembled that of a horfe, formed balls feven or eight inches in diameter ; Voyage au Senegal, par mA. ia 2. 75. See alfo Voyage de la Mair, p. 97. + Voyage de ie par Bofman, Pp: 243. Ÿ In the province of Pamba, which belongs t to the kingdom of Conga, there are many elephants,’ on account of the num- ber of rivers and forefts with which that. country abounds ; Drake's Voyages. See likewife, in the Dutch collection of Katt India Voyages, Le voyage de Vander Broeck, tom. 2. p. 319. and Ll Genio vagante del Conte Aurelio, tom. 2. p.473. § The fir country where elephants are frequent is that part of