Henry Baker Tristram

**Henry Baker Tristram**

#### English original

UNICORN. Heb. *reém*.—Our translators have unfortunately adopted the rendering of the Septuagint, 'the one-horned' for *reém*, which is no fabled monster, but a two-horned reality, a beast which once roamed freely through the forests of Palestine, but now extinct, 'the Auerochs' of the old Germans, the *Urus* of Cæsar, *Bos primigenius* of naturalists. Its characteristics are clearly set forth in the passages where the *reém* is named. Its prodigious strength si noted by Balaam, speaking of the might of Israel: "He hath, as it were, the strength of an unicorn [Heb. *reém*]" (Numb. xxiii. 22). Again in the prophetic blessing of Joseph by Moses: "His glory is like the firstling of his bullock, and his horns are like the horns of an unicorn [not 'unicorns,' as in the text]: with them he shall push the people together to the ends of the earth, and they [the horns] are the ten thousands of Ephraim, and they are the thousands of Manasseh" (Deut. xxxiii. 17). The marginal reading of our bible, 'an unicorn,' is here undoubtedly correct, so far as regards the singular number, and nothing could prove more clearly than this passage that the unicorn was a *two-horned* animal. For the two horns of the *reém* are the ten thousands of Ephraim, and the thousands of Manasseh, both growing out of *one* head, Joseph. This, then, entirely sets aside the fancy that the rhinoceros, which the Jews could scarcely have known, or any one-horned creature, is intended.

The fierce and dangerous nature of the *reém* is mentioned in Ps. xxii. 21: "Save me from the lion's mouth: for thou hast heard me from the horns of the unicorns." And again: "The unicorns shall come down with them, and the bullocks with the bulls; and their land shall be soaked with blood" (Isa. xxxiv. 7). Its horns were of great size as well as strength: "My horn shalt thou exalt like the horn of an unicorn" (Ps. xcii. 10). In the activity and playfulness of its young it is coupled with the cattle: "He maketh them also to skip like a calf; Lebanon and Sirion like a young unicorn" (Ps. xxix. 6). But in Job we find a yet fuller description of its strength and untameableness: "Will the unicorn [*reém*] be willing to serve thee, or abide by thy crib? Canst thou bind the unicorn with his band in the furrow? or will he harrow the valleys after thee? Wilt thou trust him, because his strength is great? or wilt thou leave thy labour to him? Wilt thou believe him that he will bring home thy seed, and gather it into thy barn?" (Job xxxix. 9–12).

In weighing all these passages together we must note how the *reém* is associated repeatedly with cattle; spoken of by Isaiah as an animal suitable for sacrifice, and as one frequently seen, and with which the Israelites were familiarly acquainted. (See Appendix, Note D.)

There is no difficulty in the fact of there being no living species of wild cattle at the present day in Bible lands, for the larger wild beasts have rapidly waned before the advance of man, and many creatures we hitherto have known only by fossil or semi-fossil remains, seem likely to prove to have been his contemporaries. Bochart and others suppose the *reém* to be the oryx, or white antelope, which has long horns, and which now inhabits the regions adjacent to Palestine. This is chiefly grounded on one of its Arabic names, *rîm*.

But the oryx (see BULL, WILD) no way meets the biblical description, and as to the similarity, but not identity of the Arabic, it is no uncommon case for the popular name of a perishing or extinct species, to be transferred to a smaller animal somewhat resembling it. Thus, the Germans have transferred to the bison the name of the extinct Auerochs; and in our own country, the extirpated crane has transferred its name popularly to the heron, the bustard to the stone-curlew, and the great auk to the northern diver. The timid oryx, which as we know from Egyptian sculptures was frequently tamed by them, can never be the fierce, untameable unicorn of Job.

Neither can the claim of our buffalo be admitted, for the tame buffalo (*Bos bubalis*) was historically introduced from India, and there are no traces of any wild species in Western Asia.

   But we have strong evidence of the former existence in Palestine of two great species of wild bovine animals the Auerochs (*Bos primigenius*), now extinct all over the world: and the bison (*Bison bonasus*, or *Bos urus*), which even now lingers in scanty numbers rigidly preserved in one of the forests of Lithuania, and in some recesses of the Caucasus. One great distinction between those two enormous beasts is the size of the horns, which are of prodigious length and extent in the true Auerochs; short and stout in the bison, which is now commonly called the Auerochs. The Auerochs, *i.e.*, the yore-ox, or ox of yore, was corrupted into *urus* by the Romans, who first saw it when Cæsar penetrated into the Hercynian forest. His description is as follows:—"These *uri* are scarcely less than elephants in size, but in their nature, colour, and form, are bulls. Great is their strength, and great their speed: they spare neither man nor beast when once they have caught sight of them. The hunters are more careful to kill those which they take in pitfalls, while the young men exercise themselves in this sort of hunting, and grow hardened by the toil. Those who kill most receive great praise when they exhibit in public the horns as trophies of their success. These *uri*, however, even young, cannot be habituated to man or made tractable. The size and shape of their horns are very different from those of our oxen."—*Cæsar Bell. Gall.* iv. 29.
But not only have we thus evidence of the existence of the mighty Auerochs in Germany down to the Christian era; the monuments of Assyria represent a wild ox or bison among the wild animals chased by the compeers of Semiramis and Sennacherib. "The wild bull, from its frequent representation in the bas-relief," says Mr. Layard, "appears to have been considered scarcely less formidable and noble game than the lion. The king is seen contending with it, and warriors pursue it on horseback and on foot. In the embroideries on the garments of the principal figures it is introduced in the hunting scenes, and in groups which appear to have a mythic or symbolical meaning. I was at one time inclined to believe that the bull of the sculptures might represent the unicorn or *raim*, so often alluded to in the Scriptures as an animal renowned for its strength and ferocity, and typical of power and might." After stating that he understands that *reém* is generally taken for an antelope, the author proceeds:—"The bull of the bas-reliefs of Nimroud is evidently a wild animal, which inhabited Mesopotamia or Assyria. Its form is too faithfully delineated to permit of the supposition that it is an antelope. It is distinguished from the domestic ox by a number of small marks covering the body, and probably intended to denote long and shaggy hair... The mention in the Bible of the wild ox, confirms the conjecture that it was at some ancient period an inhabitant of Assyria or of the adjacent countries, although it has long since become extinct. Had it been found in the Plains of Mesopotamia, in the time of Xenophon, he would probably have described it when speaking of the wild animals of that province. As it is only seen in the oldest monuments of Nimroud, and not in those of Khorsabad or Konyunjik, it is possible that when the country became more thickly peopled in the latter period of the Assyrian Empire, it became extinct."—*Layard's Nineveh*, ii. 429-30.

Mr. Layard was undoubtedly right in the conclusion which he scarcely ventures to express against the criticism of writers who knew nothing of the physical geography of the country. The urus and the bison were spread anciently from the extreme west of Europe to China, and existed in Thrace and Asia Minor, while the bison is still found in the Caucasus, the wild yak in Mongolia, and perhaps in Siberia and the forests of Persia. In the old pile dwellings of the lakes of Switzerland the bones of the urus are found, and also relics which show that at a period perhaps not long before the Roman conquest it was reclaimed by the inhabitants. Sir C. Lyell observes that in a tame state its bones were somewhat less massive and heavy, and its horns were somewhat smaller, than in wild individuals.

Still more direct evidence of the former existence of the Auerochs in Palestine was afforded by our discovery of a mass of bone breccia in the Lebanon, the flooring of an ancient cave. This breccia was composed entirely of teeth, bones, and sharp flints, conglomerated into a hard mass by the percolation of lime water, and it had been cut through by Rameses, king of Egypt, when he constructed his military road across the mountain. The bones are all in fragments; the remains, in all probability, of the feasts of the makers of the rude flint implements. Four of the teeth we collected have belonged to an ox, which cannot be discriminated from the Auerochs, or ox of our peat mosses (*Bos primigenius*); and one of the probably to a bison. Of the others, some may be assigned to the red-deer or rein-deer, and another to an elk. These discoveries bring down the range of these now northern animals further south than they have hitherto been traced; and there is no necessity to put back to any date of immeasurable antiquity the deposition of these remains in a limestone cavern. [See *Land of Israel*, pp. 9-13.]

The great-horned *Auerochs* probably became extinct only in the middle ages, and the bison, within comparatively modern times, was found in Pomerania and other parts of Germany. The only descendants of the former, if any, are in our breeds of long-horned cattle, and in the half wild race preserved in one or two parks, but they have sadly dwindles in size from their terrible ancestors. The wild cattle Chillingham are probably from *Bos longifrons*.

After a careful examination of the subject, there cannot now remain a doubt on the identity of the *reém*, or unicorn, with the historic *urus*, or Auerochs, now, indeed, the 'ox of yore.'