, OR PAINTED PIG OF THE CAMAROON.[200]

The other day we revisited the Zoological Gardens, and found that two
old friends had got--the one, a companion, the other, a neighbour. The
latter was the bulky hippopotamus, now most bearish, and more and more
unmistakably showing the minute accuracy of those master lines in the
Book of Job, in which Behemoth's portrait, pose, and character are
depicted. The former was the subject of this article--evidently, as far
as colour goes, "the chieftain of the _porcine_ race."

The poet tells us, however, "Nimium ne crede colori;" and observation,
as well as the Scripture, shows us daily that "fair havens" in summer
are but foul places to "winter in;" that fair speeches, and a flattering
tongue, and the kisses of an enemy, "are deceitful;" and that beneath a
fine spotted or barred coat, the jaguar and the tiger, the cobra and the
hornet, conceal both the power and the propensity for mischief. So with
our old friend Potamochoerus. The pretty creature,--beauty is
relative--the Cameroon pig is the prettiest, the gaudiest of the
race,--the pretty creature, we repeat, is of a fine bay red, made to
look more bright from the circumstance of the face, ears, and front of
the legs being black, while the red is relieved, and the black is
defined, by the pencilled lines of white which edge the ears, streak
over and under the eye, and ornament the long whiskers, another long
white line traversing the middle of the back; a very attractive
combination of colour--the painting of "Him who made the world"--and one
which must make the _Potamochoerus penicellatus_ most conspicuous
among the bright green shrubs and dark marshes of the rivers of
equinoctial Africa, on whose banks the race has been planted. The
present largest specimen was taken, when a "piggie," by a trading
captain, as it was swimming across the Cameroon River. He brought it to
Liverpool; Dr Gray, of the British Museum, gave an account of it in the
"Illustrated Proceedings of the Zoological Society of London for
1852"--an excellent work--where its figure, drawn and coloured by the
hand of Wolf, shows the condition of the African sow four years ago. It
was then a round, comfortable, kind-looking creature, which one might
almost have fondled as a pet. The pig now looks rather a dangerous
beast, and its beauty is not increased by its face having grown longer,
and by the bump and hollow on each cheek being larger and deeper; nor is
its mouth s