Title
A Voyage to the East Indies: Page 92
Description
and rips up the Belly of the unfortunately fall’n Rider. Leopards are plenty in this Country and furious if attack’d. Elephants are useful Animals to the Country Powers, but we see few of them employ’d by the English. All heavy Carriages are drawn by Bullocks or Buffaloes, which last are in great plenty in this Country, very large, wild & mischievous. . The Horses at Calcutta are beautiful Creatures, but very mettlesome. They do excellently for Coaches Phaetons etc. . . . Dogs are in great Numbers but good for Nothing but to assist in carrying away Flesh and Nastiness left in the Streets in the Night, and a Parcel of them have been known to attack People and kill them. There are Foxes and Jackalls in this Country in Prodigious Numbers, the latter perform the same Office as the Dogs. The lesser Quadrupeds found in other Countries are to be met with in Bengal, there being such vast Tracks of Land, uncultivated, and otherwise uninhabited. . . There is a great Vanity of Snakes and Serpents, and some exceedingly venomous, but I had not Time to enquire sufficiently minute into their Names, and Species to give a just Account of them. Alligators frequent all the Rivers and Creeks about the Country Scorpions about in Calcutta and Centipeds some of which [end page 92]
