From North Pole to Equator: Studies of Wild Life and Scenes in Many Lands

Part 1

BLACKIE & SON, LIMITED, LONDON, GLASGOW AND EDINBURGH.

FROM

NORTH POLE TO EQUATOR

FROM

NORTH POLE TO EQUATOR

STUDIES OF WILD LIFE AND SCENES IN MANY LANDS

BY THE NATURALIST-TRAVELLER

ALFRED EDMUND BREHM AUTHOR OF “BIRD-LIFE”, “TIERLEBEN”, ETC. ETC.

TRANSLATED FROM THE GERMAN BY MARGARET R. THOMSON

EDITED BY J. ARTHUR THOMSON, M.A., F.R.S.E.

WITH EIGHTY-THREE ILLUSTRATIONS FROM ORIGINAL DRAWINGS

LONDON BLACKIE & SON, LIMITED, 50 OLD BAILEY, E.C. GLASGOW AND DUBLIN 1896

PREFACE

TO THE GERMAN EDITION.

Six years have passed since the grave at Renthendorf closed over the remains of my esteemed father, whose death--all too early--was as great a loss to Science as to those who loved and honoured him. It was strange that his eventful and adventurous life, in the course of which he visited and explored four quarters of the globe, should have ended at the little spot in green Thuringia where he was born. He had just reached his fifty-fifth year when his lips, so apt in speech, were silenced, and the pen which he held so masterfully dropped from his hand. He was full of great plans as to various works, and it is much to be regretted that the notes which he had collected towards the realization of these were too fragmentary for anyone but their author to utilize. But the manuscripts which he left contained many a treasure, and it seemed to me a duty, both to the author and to all friends of thoughtful observation, to make these available to the reading public.

The following pages form the first book of the kind, and contain the most valuable part of the legacy--Alfred Edmund Brehm’s lectures, once so universally popular. I believe that, in giving these pages to the world, I am offering a gift which will be warmly welcomed, and I need add no commendatory words of mine, for they speak adequately for themselves. Writing replaces spoken words very imperfectly, and my father, who was never tied down to his paper, may often have delivered the same matter in different forms according to the responsiveness of his audience, abbreviating here, expanding there--yet to anyone who has heard him the following pages will recall his presence and the tones of his sonorous voice; everyone will not only recognize in them the individuality of the author of the Tierleben (Animal Life) and Bird Life, but will learn to know him in a new and attractive side of his character. For it is my father’s lectures almost more than any other of his works which show the wealth of his experiences, the many-sidedness of his knowledge, his masterly powers of observation and description, and not least his delicate kindly humour and the sympathetic interpretation of animate and inanimate nature which arose from his deeply poetic temperament.

Therefore I send these pages forth into the world with the pleasant confidence that they will add many to the author’s already numerous friends. May they also gain new and unprejudiced sympathizers for the animal world which he loved so warmly and understood so thoroughly; and may they, in every house where the love of literature, and of the beautiful is cherished, open eyes and hearts to perceive the beauty of nature, the universal mother; then will the highest and noblest aim of their author be achieved.

So may all success attend these pages, may they receive a joyful welcome, and wherever they gain an entrance may they remain as a prized possession.

HORST BREHM, Doctor of Medicine.

BERLIN, September, 1890.

PREFATORY NOTE

TO THE ENGLISH TRANSLATION.

It has been a privilege to make available to English readers a book which shows a great naturalist at his best--a book that presents the reader with a series of vivid pictures of wild life and scenery, painted from actual observation, and with all the truth and accuracy that belong to the artist and man of science combined. It consists of a number of papers or articles that were originally read as public lectures and were afterwards collected into a volume that has met with much success in Germany. The subjects treated range over a wide and varied field. Some of them are unfamiliar to the ordinary reader, and besides their inherent interest have the added charm of novelty; others, if more familiar, are here invested with a freshness and charm that such a trained observer and practised writer as the author could alone impart.

To the translation of the German original have been added an introductory essay, showing Brehm’s position among naturalist-travellers, an extended table of contents, an appendix containing a number of editorial notes, and an index. The number of pictorial illustrations has also been increased.

For a notice of the Author and his labours see the concluding part of the Introductory Essay.

M. R. T. J. A. T.

UNIVERSITY HALL, EDINBURGH, December, 1895.

CONTENTS.

Part 2

Page

PREFACE TO GERMAN EDITION, v

PREFATORY NOTE TO THE ENGLISH TRANSLATION, vii

INTRODUCTORY ESSAY BY THE EDITOR, xv

THE BIRD-BERGS OF LAPLAND.

The legend of Scandinavia’s origin--The harvest of the sea--The doves of Scandinavia--Eider-holms and bird-bergs--The nesting of the eider-duck--Razor-bills and robber-gulls--Millions of birds--(Notes, pp. 565-566), 33

THE TUNDRA AND ITS ANIMAL LIFE.

High tundra and low tundra--The jewels of the tundra--The flora of the tundra--The Arctic fox--The lemming--The reindeer--The birds of the tundra--Mosquitoes--(Notes, pp. 566-568), 63

THE ASIATIC STEPPES AND THEIR FAUNA.

The steppe in summer and in winter--The coming of spring--The rendezvous in the reeds--The marsh-harrier--The home of larks--Jerboa and souslik--The archar sheep--The kulan and the ancestry of the horse--(Notes, pp. 568-571), 86

THE FORESTS AND SPORT OF SIBERIA.

An ice-wilderness or not--The forest zone--Axe and fire--The pines--Hunting and trapping--The elk, the wolf, and the lynx--Sable and other furred beasts--Bear-hunting and bear-stories--(Notes, pp. 571-573), 120

THE STEPPES OF INNER AFRICA.

The progress of the seasons--A tropical thunderstorm--Night in the steppes--Spiders, scorpions, and snakes--Mudfish and other sleepers--Cleopatra’s asp--Geckos--The children of the air--The bateleur eagle--The ostrich--The night-jar--The mammals of the steppe--Stampede before a steppe-fire--(Notes, pp. 573-576), 168

THE PRIMEVAL FORESTS OF CENTRAL AFRICA.

Spring in the forest--The beautiful Hassanie--The baobab--Climbers and twiners--The forest birds and their voices--Sociable birds--Conjugal tenderness--Salt’s antelope--River monsters--A rain-lake--Hosanna in the highest--(Notes, pp. 576-578), 201

MIGRATIONS OF MAMMALS.

Black rats and brown--Cousin man’s kindness to the monkeys--Migration of mountain animals--The restlessness of the reindeer--Wandering herds of buffaloes--The life of the kulan--Travellers by sea--Flights of bats--The march of the lemmings--(Notes, pp. 578-581), 234

LOVE AND COURTSHIP AMONG BIRDS.

Are birds automata?--The battles of love--Different modes of courtship--Polygamy--Life-long devotion--(Notes, p. 581), 259

APES AND MONKEYS.

Sheikh Kemal’s story--The monkey question--A general picture of monkey life--Marmosets and other New World monkeys--Dog-like and man-like Old World monkeys--Monkeys as pets--The true position of monkeys--(Notes, pp. 581-583), 282

DESERT JOURNEYS.

An appreciation of the desert--The start of the caravan--The character of the camel--A day’s journey--Oases--Simoom and sand storms--Fata morgana--The peace of night--(Note, p. 583), 318

NUBIA AND THE NILE RAPIDS.

Egypt and Nubia contrasted--Wady Halfa and Philæ--The three great cataracts--Journey up and down stream--The Nile boatmen--History of Nubia--(Notes, pp. 583-584), 356

A JOURNEY IN SIBERIA.

Russian hospitality--A tedious journey--An excursion into Chinese territory--Sport among the mountains--Journeying northwards--On the track of splenic fever--(Notes, p. 584), 390

Part 3

THE HEATHEN OSTIAKS.

Racial affinities--Christians and heathen--The dress of the Ostiaks--The tshum of the wandering Ostiaks--The life of the herdsmen--A fishing village--The Ostiak at the fair--An Ostiak wedding--An interview with a Shaman--Funeral rites--(Notes, pp. 584-585), 416

NOMAD HERDSMEN AND HERDS OF THE STEPPES.

The name Kirghiz--Conditions of life on the steppe--Winter dwellings--Breaking up the camp--In praise of the yurt--The herds of the Kirghiz--The Kirghiz horse--Summer wanderings--“A sheep’s journey”--Returning flocks--Evening in the aul--(Note, p. 585), 451

FAMILY AND SOCIAL LIFE AMONG THE KIRGHIZ.

The Kirghiz as horsemen--Racing and wrestling--Hunting with eagles and greyhounds--A sheep-drive--The “red tongue”--Kirghiz bards--Education and character--Kirghiz etiquette--The price of a bride--The children--Funeral ceremonies, 482

COLONISTS AND EXILES IN SIBERIA.

Mistaken impressions--Impartial observation--The emancipation of the serfs--The Altai--Compulsory service--Condition of the peasants--The superabundant harvest--Romance in Siberia--Domestic life open to the convicts--The way of sighs--General picture of Siberian life--Runaways--(Notes, pp. 585-586), 510

AN ORNITHOLOGIST ON THE DANUBE.

Twenty eyries--The voyage down the river--The woods on the banks--A heronry--Sea-eagles--A paradise of birds--The marsh of Hullo--The black vultures of Fruškagora--Homeward once more--(Note, p.586), 540

INDEX, 587

LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS.

FIG. Page

PORTRAIT OF ALFRED EDMUND BREHM, Frontispiece.

1. Scene on the Sogne Fjord, Norway, 35

2. Colony of Eider-ducks, 44

3. The Bird-bergs of Lapland, 51

4. Razor-bills, 61

5. The High Tundra in Northern Siberia, 65

6. Peregrine Falcons and Lemmings, 70

7. The White or Arctic Fox (Canis lagopus), 73

8. The Reindeer (Tarandus rangifer), 76

9. Skuas, Phalathrope, and Golden Plovers, 80

10. View in the Asiatic Steppes, 89

11. A Salt Marsh in the Steppes, 90

12. A Herd of Horses during a Snowstorm on the Asiatic Steppes, 94

13. Lake Scene and Waterfowl in an Asiatic Steppe, 99

14. The Souslik (Spermophilus citillus), 108

Part 4

15. The Jerboa (Alactaga jaculus), 108

16. Archar Sheep or Argali (Ovis Argali), 111

17. Pallas’s Sand-grouse (Syrrhaptes paradoxus), 113

18. The Kulan (Equus hemionus), 118

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