DOI Seite / Zitierlink:
https://doi.org/10.11588/diglit.11637#0150
and lower egypt. 135
them disappear. Their lightness and celerity are
unparalleled. Nature has bestowed on them long
legs, slender and tendinous, which, while they
protect their liberty, seem to be another obstacle
to the desire men might form of subjugating them.
In fact, their legs are so slender, and brittle at the
same time, that they break in the attempt to con-
vey the animal from place to place, or even when
it is kept on a pavement, or a floor which is
smooth enough to be slippery. The Arab, however,
mounted on his courser, overtakes these swift-
footed animals, and throws a stick at them, by
which their legs are most commonly entangled .
and broken ; so that it is very rare you can procure
one alive, without its being so crippled, that it is
impossible to keep it.
But a still more dangerous enemy, for a nume-
rous race of light and elegantly shaped animals, is
the tiger. Under this generic name I comprehend
all the quadrupeds of Africa, that have mottled
skins, as the panther, ounce, leopard, Sec. ; so that
the tiger with a striped skin*, which, as is well
known, is found onlv in the East Indies, is not in-
cluded. This whole genus is known in Egypt by
the Arabic name of memmira, and I cannot say,
whether there be any particular denominations in
* Feli s tigrit, Lin.—The tiger, properly so called.
k 4 use,
them disappear. Their lightness and celerity are
unparalleled. Nature has bestowed on them long
legs, slender and tendinous, which, while they
protect their liberty, seem to be another obstacle
to the desire men might form of subjugating them.
In fact, their legs are so slender, and brittle at the
same time, that they break in the attempt to con-
vey the animal from place to place, or even when
it is kept on a pavement, or a floor which is
smooth enough to be slippery. The Arab, however,
mounted on his courser, overtakes these swift-
footed animals, and throws a stick at them, by
which their legs are most commonly entangled .
and broken ; so that it is very rare you can procure
one alive, without its being so crippled, that it is
impossible to keep it.
But a still more dangerous enemy, for a nume-
rous race of light and elegantly shaped animals, is
the tiger. Under this generic name I comprehend
all the quadrupeds of Africa, that have mottled
skins, as the panther, ounce, leopard, Sec. ; so that
the tiger with a striped skin*, which, as is well
known, is found onlv in the East Indies, is not in-
cluded. This whole genus is known in Egypt by
the Arabic name of memmira, and I cannot say,
whether there be any particular denominations in
* Feli s tigrit, Lin.—The tiger, properly so called.
k 4 use,