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A dice-box was always at hand upon the mantel. He had portraits of celebrated racers, both quadruped and biped, and he could tell the fastest time ever made by either. His manipulation of cards was, as his friends averred, one of the fine arts; and in all the games he had wrought out problems of chances, and knew the probability of every contingency.
Mr. Mitchell's whole bearing was confident and assured; his step, for all those fifty afore-said years, was light and elastic, even in sauntering; he took the office stairs with the inimitable sprightly gallop of the town-bred. Man is a quadruped who has learned to use his front legs for other things than walking. Some hold that he has learned to use his head.
Set out early this morning. previous to our departure saw a large herd of the Bighorned anamals on the immencely high and nearly perpendicular clift opposite to us; on the fase of this clift they walked about and hounded from rock to rock with apparent unconcern where it appared to me that no quadruped could have stood, and from which had they made one false step they must have been precipitated at least a 500 feet. this anamal appears to frequent such precepices and clifts where in fact they are perfectly secure from the pursuit of the wolf, bear, or even man himself. at the distance of 21/2 miles we passed the entrance of a considerable river on the Stard. side; about 80 yds. wide being nearly as wide as the Missouri at that place. it's current is rapid and water extreamly transparent; the bed is formed of small smooth stones of flat rounded or other figures. it's bottoms are narrow but possess as much timber as the Missouri. the country is mountainous and broken through which it passes. it appears as if it might be navigated but to what extent must be conjectural. this handsome bold and clear stream we named in honour of the Secretary of war calling it Dearborn's river. as we were anxious now to meet with the Sosonees or snake Indians as soon as possible in order to obtain information relative to the geography of the country and also if necessary, some horses we thought it better for one of us either Capt.
All were destined ere long to make practical acquaintance with the haunts and habits of this huge quadruped, that to them had now become the most interesting of all the animal creation. Next day was one of severe, but joyful labour. It was spent in "curing" the elephant, not in a medical sense, but in the language of the provision-store.
They knew that Swartboy intended to whisper that he had seen "da oliphant;" so both peeped silently around the bush, and with their own eyes looked upon the mighty quadruped. The elephant was standing in a grove of mokhala trees. These, unlike the humbler mimosas, have tall naked stems, with heads of thick foliage, in form resembling an umbrella or parasol.
But everybody does not know that there are two distinct kinds of this gigantic quadruped the African and Asiatic. Until a late period they were thought to be of the same species. Now they are acknowledged to be, not only distinct, but very different in many respects.
How this one in particular, as ordinary a quadruped as ever breathed, had contrived to impose thus upon his infatuated proprietors, I never could understand, but so it was; he even engrossed the chief part of the conversation, which after any lull seemed to veer round to him by a sort of natural law.
I think of his physical evolution as completed when he assumed the upright attitude or passed from a quadruped to a biped, which must of itself have been a long, slow process. Probably our whole historic period would form but a fraction of this cycle of unrecorded time.
Up to 1857 all the mammalian remains discovered in secondary rocks had consisted solely of single branches of the lower jaw, but in that year Mr. Beckles obtained the upper portion of a skull, and on the same slab the lower jaw of another quadruped with eight molars, a large canine, and a broad and thick incisor.
"At the earliest period of its existence the embryon would seem to consist of a living filament with certain capabilities of irritation, sensation, volition, and association, and also with some acquired habits or propensities peculiar to the parent; the former of these are in common with other animals; the latter seem to distinguish or produce the kind of animal, whether man or quadruped, with the similarity of feature or form to the parent."
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