John EVELYN
Diary
1908 The diary of John Evelyn (1620 to 1706), with an introduction and notes by Austin Dobson. London, MacMillan & Co., pp. i-xl, 1-540.- [1407]
1955 The diary of John Evelyn. Now first printed in full from the manuscripts belonging to Mr. John Evelyn and edited by E.S. de Beer, vol. 4 (Kalendarium, 1672-1689). Oxford, Clarendon Press, pp. i-ix, 1-654. - [2112]
Visit to London
[1955: 389]
22 [October 1684]. Sir William Godolphin and I went to see the Rhinoceros (or Unicorne) being the first that i suppose was ever brought into England: It more resembled a huge enormous swine, than any other beast among us; That which was most particular & extraordinary, was the placing of her small eyes in the very center of her cheekes & head, her eares in her neck, and very much pointed: her leggs neere as big about as an ordinairie mans wast, the feete divided into claws, not cloven, but somewhat resembling the elephants, & very round & flatt, her taile slender and hanging downe over her sex, which had some long haires at the end of it like a cowes, & was all the haire about the whole creature, but what was the most wonderfull, was the extraordinary bulke and circumference of her body, which though very young, (they told us as I remember not above 4 yeares old) could not be lesse than 20 foote in compasse: she had a set of most dreadfull teeth, which were extraordinarily
[390]
broad, & deepe in her throate, she was led by a ring in her nose like a buffalo, but the horne upon it was but newly sprowting, & hardly shaped to any considerable point, but in my opinion nothing was so extravagant as the skin of the beast, which hung downe on her hanches, both behind and before to her knees, loose like so much coach leather, & not adhering at all to the body, which had another skin, so as one might take up this, as one would do a cloake or horse-cloth to a greate depth, it adhering onely at the upper parts: & these lappets of stiff skin, began to be studdied with impenetrable scales, like a target of coate of maile, loricated like armor, much after the manner this animal is usually depicted: she was of a mouse colour, the skin elephantine; tame enough, & suffering her mouth to be open'd by her keeper, who caused her to lie downe, when she appeared like a greate coach overthrowne, for she was much of that bulke, yet would rise as numbly as ever I saw a horse: T'was vertainly a very wonderfull creature, of immense strength in the neck, & nose especially, the snout resembling a boares but much longer; to what stature she may arrive if she live long, I cannot tell; but if she grow proportionable to her present age, she will be a mountaine: they fed her with hay, & oates, & gave her bread. She belonged to a certaine E. India Merchants & was sold for (as I remember) above two-thousand pounds.
