Bible Animals

In the various collections of Europe are many specimens of ivory used by the ancient Egyptians, among the chief of which may be mentioned an ivory box in the Louvre, having on its lid the name of the dynasty in which it was carved, and the ivory-tipped lynch-pins of the splendid war-chariot in Florence, from which the illustration on page 260 has been drawn.

The ivory used by the Egyptians was, of course, that of the African Elephant; and was obtained chiefly from Ethiopia, as we find in Herodotus ("Thalia," 114):—"Where the meridian declines towards the setting sun, the Ethiopian territory reaches, being the extreme part of the habitable world. It produces much gold, huge elephants, wild trees of all kinds, ebony, and men of large stature, very handsome and long-lived."

Solomon may have procured from the same source part of the ivory which he used so lavishly, but it is evident that he was also supplied from India. In 1 Kings x. 22 we read: "For the king had at sea a navy of Tharshish with the navy of Hiram: once in three years came the navy of Tharshish, bringing gold, and silver, ivory, and apes, and peacocks." The reader will remark that an opinion has already been expressed that the country whence these articles were brought must be India, and this conjecture is strengthened by the Hebrew names given to the apes, the peacocks, and the ivory, which are almost identical with the words employed in the Cingalese language of the present day.

The usual Hebrew word for ivory is shen, i.e. a tooth, the Israelites being perfectly aware that it was the product of a tooth, and not of a horn. It is true that in one passage the word "horn" is used in connexion with the term "ivory," or "tooth," in such a manner that a reader of the English Version might imagine the sacred writers to think that ivory was obtained from the horn of some animal. This passage occurs in the prophet Ezekiel, xxvii. 15. Speaking of Tyre and her greatness, the prophet uses the following terms: "The men of Dedan were thy merchants; many isles were the merchandise of thine hand: they brought thee for a present horns of ivory and ebony."

If we refer to the Hebrew Bible, we shall find that the literal translation of this passage runs as follows: "The men of Dedan were thy traders; many maritime settlements were the merchandise of thine hand: they offered thee as a price horns of teeth and ebony." It is evident that the word kerenoth, or horns, is used to represent the horn-like shape of the Elephant's tusk, as it appears when imported into the country, the use of the term shen, or tooth, showing that the shape and not material is to be implied by the term.

Now if the reader will look at a passage which has already been quoted (1 Kings x. 22), he will see that the marginal reading translates the word "ivory" as "elephants' teeth." This rendering is undoubtedly the correct one. The Hebrew word is shen-habbim, and there is little, if any, doubt that the term habbim is rightly translated as "elephants." A similar word, Habba, is found in the Assyrian inscriptions, and is thought by Sir H. Rawlinson to have the same signification.

It will be as well to mention here a curious version of Gen. 1. 1, in which Joseph is said to have placed the body of his father upon a bier of shin-daphin, or ivory.

After the passage in 1 Kings, ivory is repeatedly mentioned, sometimes in allusion to its smoothness and whiteness, and sometimes to its use as a luxurious appendage of the palace. For its use in the former sense, we may take the well-known passage in the Song of Solomon: "His hands are as gold rings set with the beryl: his belly is as bright ivory overlaid with sapphires" (Cant. v. 14). Also vii. 4, "Thy neck is as a tower of ivory."

For its use in the second of these senses we may take several passages. See, for example, Ps. xlv. 8: "All thy garments smell of myrrh, aloes, and cassia, out of the ivory palaces, whereby they have made thee glad." It has been suggested that the words "ivory palaces" may signify boxes or chests inlaid with ivory, in which were deposited the royal garments, together with perfumes. Whether or not this be the case, it is evident that the ivory is here mentioned as a costly adjunct of royal luxury.

There are, however, passages in which ivory is distinctly mentioned as forming part of the adornment of houses. For example, see 1 Kings xxii. 39: "Now the rest of the acts of Ahab, and all that he did, and the ivory house which he made, are they not written in the book of the chronicles of the kings of Israel?" The "ivory house" could not, of course, be built wholly of ivory, and it is evident that by the term is signified a palace, the rooms of which were inlaid with ivory. Another mention of such houses is made in Amos iii. 15: "And I will smite the winter house with the summer house; and the houses of ivory shall perish, and the great houses shall have an end, saith the Lord."

Chambers thus decorated are to be seen at the present day, and it is remarkable that ivory is still used, together with ebony, in panelling the walls of rooms—a combination which is mentioned in several of the passages which have already been quoted.

The use of ivory as an article of luxury is also mentioned in Amos vi. 4: "Woe to them … that lie upon beds of ivory, and stretch themselves upon their couches." And in Ezekiel xxvii. 6, the overwhelming wealth and luxury of Tyre are pictured by the costly materials of which the Assyrians built their ships—the planks of Senir fir, the masts of cedar, the oars of Bashan oak, the sails of fine linen, and the very benches on which the rowers sat, inlaid with ivory. How accurate was the prophet in the details of his bodings, is shown by the research of Mr. Layard, who found among the buried ruins of Nineveh great quantities of ivory, some manufactured, and some in its original state as imported—the uncut tusks, or "horns of ivory," to which reference has already been made.

The classical reader need scarcely be reminded of the parallel between passages of Scripture and those of profane authors, in which ivory is mentioned as a costly ornament. See, for example, the Iliad, book v. 484:—

"From his numbed hands the iv'ry studded reins,Dropped in the dust, are trailed along the plains."(Lines 712, 713, Pope's Version.)

In ancient Greece, as well as in Assyria, the beds of the wealthy were adorned with ivory. Ulysses, for example (see Odyssey, book xxi.), king as he was, made his own bridal bed of hide thongs interlaced, and inlaid the posts with gold, ivory, and silver. And, in the beginning of the same book, we find that the key of the royal armoury was made of brass inlaid with ivory.

There is only one passage in the New Testament in which ivory is mentioned: "And the merchants of the earth shall weep and mourn over her, for no man buyeth their merchandise any more; the merchandise of gold, and silver, and precious stones, … and all manner vessels of ivory." (Rev. xviii. 11, 12.)

Having now examined the passages in which ivory is mentioned, we turn to those in which the Elephant itself is named. These are only to be found in the Apocrypha, and in all of them the Elephant is described as an engine of war. If the reader will refer to the First Book of the Maccabees, he will find that the Elephant is mentioned at the very commencement of the book. "Now when the kingdom was established before Antiochus, he thought to reign over Egypt, that he might have the dominion of two realms.

"Wherefore he entered into Egypt with a great multitude, with chariots, and elephants, and horsemen, and a great navy." (i. 16, 17.)

Here we see that the Elephant was considered as a most potent engine of war, and, as we may perceive by the context, the King of Egypt was so alarmed by the invading force, that he ran away, and allowed Antiochus to take possession of the country.

After this, Antiochus Eupator marched against Jerusalem with a vast army, which is thus described in detail:—"The number of his army was one hundred thousand footmen, and twenty thousand horsemen, and two and thirty elephants exercised in battle.

"And to the end that they might provoke the elephants to fight, they showed them the blood of grapes and mulberries.

"Moreover, they divided the beasts among the armies, and for every elephant they appointed a thousand men, armed with coats of mail, and with helmets of brass on their heads; and, besides this, for every beast were ordained five hundred horsemen of the best.

"These were ready at every occasion wheresoever the beast was; and whithersoever the beast went they went also, neither departed they from him.

"And upon the beasts were there strong towers of wood, which covered every one of them, and were girt fast unto them with devices; there were also upon every one two and thirty strong men that fought upon them, beside the Indian that ruled him.

"As for the remnant of the horsemen, they set them on this side and that side at the two fronts of the host, giving them signs what to do, and being harnessed all over amidst the ranks." (1 Macc. vi. 30, &c.)

It is evident from this description that, in the opinion of the writer, the Elephants formed the principal arms of the opposing force, these animals being prominently mentioned, and the rest of the army being reckoned as merely subsidiaries of the terrible beasts. The thirty-two Elephants appear to have taken such a hold of the narrator's mind, that he evidently looked upon them in the same light that the ancient Jews regarded chariots of war, or as at the present day savages regard artillery. According to his ideas, the thirty-two Elephants constituted the real army, the hundred thousand infantry and twenty thousand cavalry being only in attendance upon these animals.

Taken as a whole, the description of the war Elephant is a good one, though slightly exaggerated, and is evidently written by an eye-witness. The mention of the native mahout, or "Indian that guided him," is characteristic enough, as is the account of the howdah, or wooden carriage on the back of the animal.

The number of warriors, however, is evidently exaggerated, though not to such an extent as the account of Julius Cæsar's Elephants, which are said to have carried on their backs sixty soldiers, beside the wooden tower in which they fought. It is evident that, in the first place, no Elephant could carry a tower large enough to hold so many fighting men, much less one which would afford space for them to use their weapons.

A good account of the fighting Elephant is given by Topsel (p. 157):—"There were certain officers and guides of the Elephants, who were called Elephantarchæ, who were the governors of sixteen Elephants, and they which did institute and teach them martial discipline were called Elephantagogi.

"The Military Elephant did carry four persons on his bare back, one fighting on the right hand, another fighting on the left hand, a third, which stood fighting backwards from the Elephant's head, and a fourth in the middle of these, holding the rains, and guiding the Beast to the discretion of the Souldiers, even as the Pilot in a ship guideth the stem, wherein was required an equall knowledge and dexterity; for when the Indian which ruled them said, Strike here on the right hand, or else on the left, or refrain and stand still, no reasonable man could yield readier obedience."

This description is really a very accurate as well as spirited one, and conveys a good idea of the fighting Elephant as it appeared when brought into action.

Strangely enough, after giving this temperate and really excellent account of the war Elephant, the writer seems to have been unable to resist the fascination of his theme, and proceeds to describe, with great truth and spirit, the mode of fighting adopted by the animal, intermixed with a considerable amount of the exaggeration from which the former part of his account is free.

"They did fasten iron chains, first of all, upon the Elephant that was to bear ten, fifteen, twenty, or thirty men, on either side two panniers of iron bound underneath their belly, and upon them the like panniers of wood, hollow, wherein they placed their men at armes, and covered them over with small boards (for the trunck of the Elephant was covered with a mail for defence, and upon that a broadsword, two cubits long); this (as also the wooden Castle, or pannier aforesaid) were fastened first to the neck and then to the rump of the Elephant.

"Being thus armed, they entered the battel, and they shewed unto the Beasts, to make them more fierce, wine, liquor made of Rice, and white cloth, for at the sight of any of these his courage and rage increaseth above all measure. Then at the sound of the Trumpet, he beginneth with teeth to strike, tear, beat, spoil, take up into the air, cast down again, stamp upon men under feet, overthrow with his trunck, and make way for his riders to pierce with Spear, Shield, and Sword; so that his horrible voice, his wonderful body, his terrible force, his admirable skill, his ready and inestimable obedience, and his strange and seldom-seen shape, produced in a main battel no mean accidents and overturns."

In this account there is a curious mixture of truth and exaggeration. As we have already seen, the number of soldiers which the animal was supposed to carry is greatly exaggerated, and it is rather amusing to note how the "towers" in which they fought are modified into "panniers." Then the method by which the animal is incited to the combat is partly true, and partly false. Of course an Elephant is not angered by seeing a piece of white cloth, or by looking at wine, or a liquor made of rice.

But that the wine, or the "liquor made of rice," i.e. arrack, was administered to the Elephant before it was brought into the battle-field, is likely enough. Elephants are wonderfully fond of strong drink. They can be incited to perform any task within their powers by a provision of arrack, and when stimulated by a plentiful supply of their favourite drink they would be in good fighting condition.

Next we find the writer describing the Elephant as being furnished with a coating of mail armour on its proboscis, the end of which was armed with a sword a yard in length. Now any one who is acquainted with the Elephant will see at once that such offensive and defensive armour would deprive the animal of the full use of the proboscis, and would, therefore, only weaken, and not strengthen, its use in battle. Accordingly we find that the writer, when describing with perfect accuracy the mode in which the Elephant fights, utterly omits all mention of the sword and the mailed proboscis, and describes the animal, not as striking or thrusting with the sword, but as overthrowing with the trunk, taking up into the air, and casting down again—acts which could only be performed when the proboscis was unencumbered by armour. The use of weapons was left to the soldiers that fought upon its back, the principal object of the huge animal being to trample its way through the opposing ranks, and to make a way for the soldiers that followed.

It may be easily imagined that, before soldiers become familiarized with the appearance of the Elephant, they might be pardoned for being panic-struck at the sight of so strange an animal. Not only was it formidable for its vast size, and for the armed men which it carried, but for the obedience which it rendered to its keeper, and the skill with which it wielded the strange but powerful weapon with which Nature had armed it.

At first, the very approach of so terrible a foe struck consternation into the soldiers, who knew of no mode by which they could oppose the gigantic beast, which came on in its swift, swinging pace, crushing its way by sheer weight through the ranks, and striking right and left with its proboscis. No other method of checking the Elephant, except by self-sacrifice, could be found; and in 1 Macc. vi. 43-46, we read how Eleazar, the son of Mattathias, nobly devoted himself for his country.

"Eleazar also, surnamed Savaran, perceiving that one of the beasts, armed with royal harness, was higher than all the rest, and supposing that the king was upon him.

"Put himself in jeopardy, to the end he might deliver his people, and get him a perpetual name.

"Whereupon he ran upon him courageously, through the midst of the battle, slaying on the right hand and on the left, so that they were divided from him on both sides.

"Which done, he crept under the elephant, and thrust him under, and slew him; whereupon the elephant fell down upon him, and he died."

I may here mention that the surname of Savaran, or Avaran, as it ought to be called, signifies one who pierces an animal from behind, and was given to him after his death, in honour of his exploit.

At first, then, Elephants were the most formidable engines of war that could be brought into the battle-field, and the very sight of these huge beasts, towering above even the helmets of the cavalry, disheartened the enemy so much that victory became easy.

After a while, however, when time for reflection had been allowed, the more intellectual among the soldiers began to think that, after all, the Elephant was not a mere engine, but a living animal, and, as such, subject to the infirmities of the lower animals. So they invented scheme after scheme, by which they baffled the attacks of these once dreaded foes, and sometimes even succeeded in driving them back among the ranks of their own soldiery, so maddened with pain and anger, that they dealt destruction among the soldiers for whom they were fighting, and so broke up their order of battle that the foe easily overcame them.

The vulnerable nature of the proboscis was soon discovered, and soldiers were armed with very sharp swords, set on long handles, with which they continually attacked the Elephants' trunks. Others were mounted on swift horses, dashed past the Elephant, and hurled their darts before the animal could strike them. Others, again, were placed in chariots, and armed with very long and sharply-pointed spears. Several of these chariots would be driven simultaneously against an Elephant, and sometimes succeeded in killing the animal. Slingers also were told off for the express purpose of clearing the "castles," or howdahs, of the soldiers who fought on the Elephants' backs, and their especial object was the native mahout, who sat on the animal's neck.

Sometimes they made way for the Elephant as it pressed forward, and then closed round it, so as to make it the central mark, on which converged a hail of javelins, arrows, and stones on every side, until the huge animal sank beneath its many wounds. By degrees, therefore, the Elephant was found to be so uncertain an engine of war, that its use was gradually discontinued, and finally abandoned altogether.

The Elephant which was employed in these wars was the Indian species, Elephas Indicus, which is thought to be more susceptible of education than the African Elephant. The latter, however, has been tamed, and, in the days of Rome's greatest splendour, was taught to perform a series of tricks that seem almost incredible. As, however, the Indian species is that with which we have here to do, I have selected it for the illustration.

It may be at once distinguished from its African relative by the comparatively small ears, those of the African Elephant reaching above the back of the head, and drooping well below the neck. The shape of the head, too, is different. In the Indian species, only the males bear tusks, and even many of them are unarmed. In the African species, however, both sexes bear tusks, those of the male furnishing the best ivory, with its peculiar creamy colour and beautiful graining, and those of the female being smaller in size, and producing ivory of a much inferior quality.

INDIAN ELEPHANT.

"They brought thee for a present horns of Ivory"—Ez. xxvii. 15.

The Talmudical writers have not much to say about the Elephant, and what they do say is rather ludicrous than otherwise. The proboscis, say they, gives the animal a very ugly look, so that to dream of the trunk of an Elephant is a bad omen. Indeed, it is so odd a substitute for a nose, that when people look at it they say, "Praised be He who can thus transform His creatures."

Largest and strongest of earth's inhabitants, the Elephant is yet afraid of the smallest. The gnat attacks him, flies into the open end of the proboscis, and sucks his blood at its ease.

It is rather remarkable that there is an ironical adage respecting the Elephant and the eye of the needle, exactly similar to the familiar proverb of the camel and the needle's eye.

THE CONEY, OR HYRAX

The Shaphan of Scripture, and the correct meaning of the word—Identification of the Shaphan with the Syrian Hyrax—Description of the animal—Its feet, teeth, and apparent rumination—Passages in which the Coney is mentioned—Habits of the animal—Its activity and wariness—The South African Hyrax, and its mode of life—Difficulty of procuring it—Similarity in appearance and habits of the Syrian species—Three species of Hyrax known to naturalists—The Talmudical writers on the Shaphan—The jerboa and the rabbit—A curious speculation and a judicious compromise.

Among the many animals mentioned in the Bible, there is one which is evidently of some importance in the Jewish code, inasmuch as it is twice named in the Mosaic law.

That it was also familiar to the Jews is evident from other references which are made to its habits. This animal is the Shaphan of the Hebrew language, a word which has very wrongly been translated in the Authorized Version as Coney, i.e. Rabbit, the creature in question not being a rabbit, nor even a rodent. No rabbit has ever been discovered in Palestine, and naturalists have agreed that the true Coney or Rabbit has never inhabited the Holy Land. There is no doubt that the Shaphan of the Hebrew Scripture, and the Coney of the Vulgate, was the Syrian Hyrax (Hyrax Syriacus). This little animal is rather larger than an ordinary rabbit, is not unlike it in appearance, and has many of its habits. It is clothed with brown fur, it is very active, it inhabits holes and clefts in rocks, and it has in the front of its mouth long chisel-shaped teeth, very much like those of the rabbit. Consequently, it was classed by naturalists among the rodents for many years, under the name of Rock Rabbit. Yet, as I have already mentioned, it is not even a rodent, but belongs to the pachydermatous group of animals, and occupies an intermediate place between the rhinoceros and the hippopotamus.

THE HYRAX.

"The Conies are but a feeble folk, yet make they their houses in the rocks."—Prov. xxx. 26.

If it be examined carefully, the rodent-like teeth will be seen to resemble exactly the long curved tusks of the hippopotamus, with their sharp and chisel-edged tips; the little feet, on a close inspection, are seen to be furnished with a set of tiny hoofs just like those of the rhinoceros; and there are many other points in its structure which, to the eye of a naturalist, point out its true place in nature.

In common with the rodents, and other animals which have similarly-shaped teeth, the Hyrax, when at rest, is continually working its jaws from side to side, a movement which it instinctively performs, in order that the chiselled edges of the upper and lower teeth may be preserved sharp by continually rubbing against each other, and that they may not be suffered to grow too long, and so to deprive the animal of the means whereby it gains its food. But for this peculiar movement, which looks very like the action of ruminating, the teeth would grow far beyond the mouth, as they rapidly deposit dental material in their bases in order to supply the waste caused at their tips by the continual friction of the edges against each other.

It may seem strange that an animal which is classed with the elephant, the rhinoceros, and the hippopotamus, all bare-skinned animals, should be clothed with a furry coat. The reader may perhaps remember that the Hyrax does not afford a solitary instance of this structure, and that, although the elephants of our day have only a few bristly hairs thinly scattered over the body, those of former days were clad in a thick and treble coat of fur and hair.