Note 14 — X.—SERPENTS, DRAGONS, FABULOUS ANIMALS AND MONSTERS.

Whilst writing the above my attention has been directed to the following interesting paragraph in the Calcutta Englishman:—“A long discussion is being carried on in the last papers received from the Cape as to the existence or non-existence of the unicorn. Mr. G. R. Blanche, who has travelled extensively in Namaqualand, mentions that in some large stone-caves on the banks of a river called Makapwe, he saw pictures drawn by Bush-men, which included elephants, rhinoceroses, unicorns, and gemsboks, and one old Bushman told him that he had actually seen the animal alive, and that it was very fierce. None, however, had been seen for some years. The Macacas stated that to the north of their town, on the river Teoga, large numbers of unicorns are still to be seen, and Mr. Blanche considers that in the vast region of unexplored territory between the Zambesi and Lebaby’s country they may still be in existence. Mr. Thomas Baines, another well-known African traveller and naturalist, says that the existence of such an animal has never been disproved, and that it might be found in this unexplored country, for else where did the bush-men obtain the subject for the pictures they have drawn?” ↑