One Of
These, Though Much Higher Than The Other, Is Not Unlike A Colt Of Thirty
Months Old, And Has A Horn In Its Forehead, Growing Straight Forwards
And The Length Of Three Cubits.
The other is much younger, resembling a
colt of one year old, and its horn is only four hand
Breadths long.
These singular animals are of a weasel chesnut colour, having a head
like that of a hart, but the neck is not near so long, with a thin mane,
hanging all to one side. The legs are thin and slender, like those of a
fawn or hind, and the hoofs are cleft much like those of a goat, the
outer parts of the hind feet being very full of hair. These animals
seemed wild and fierce yet exceedingly comely. They were sent out of
Ethiopia by a king of that country, as a rare and precious gift to the
sultan of Mecca[46].
[Footnote 46: The unicorn is an unknown, or rather a fabulous animal,
and the most charitable interpretation that can be made of the
description in the text is, that Verthema was mistaken, or that one of
the horns of some species of antelope had either been removed, or was
wanting by a lusus naturae. The only real _Monoceros_, or one horned
animal, known to naturalists, is the rhinoceros monoceros, or one-horned
rhinoceros, which bears its horn on the nose, a little way above the
muzzle, not on the forehead. - E.]
It may seem proper to mention here certain things which happened to me
at Mecca, in which may be seen the sharpness of wit in case of urgent
necessity, which according to the proverb, has no law; for I was driven
to the extent of my wits how I might contrive to escape privately from
Mecca.
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