Civet

“ The fact is that both this and the domestic cat were kept by the ancients; and the genet is still used as a cat by the peasants of Greece and Southern Italy.
The African Civet and Indian Civet are large species. The former is common almost throughout Africa. Neither of them seems to climb trees, but they find abundance of food by catching small ground-dwelling animals and birds. They are good swimmers. The Indian civet has a handsome skin, of a beautiful grey ground-colour, with black collar and markings. It is from these civets that the civet-scent is obtained. ”

“ The African civet (Viverra civetta) is from 2 to 3 ft. in length, exclusive of the tail, which is half the length of the body, and stands from 10 to 12 in. high. It is covered with long hair, longest on the middle line of the back, where it is capable of being raised or depressed at will, of a dark-grey colour, with numerous transverse black bands and spots. In habits it is chiefly nocturnal, and by preference carnivorous, feeding on birds and the smaller quadrupeds, in pursuit of which it climbs trees, but it is said also to eat fruits, roots and other vegetable matters. ”

“ When hunted it makes a determined resistance, and emits a scent so strong as even to sicken the dogs, who nevertheless are exceedingly fond of the sport, and cannot be got to pursue any other game while the stench of the zibeth is in their nostrils. In confinement, it becomes comparatively tame, and yields civet in considerable quantity. In preparing this for the market it is usually spread out on the leaves of the pepper plant in order to free it from the hairs that have become detached from the pouch. ”

“ In fine, if we add this positive testimony of Fernandes, to that of all the travellers, who mention that civets are very common in the Philippine Islands, in the East Indies, and in Africa, not one of whom intimates having seen this animal in America, every doubt will vanish of what we advanced in our enumeration of the animals of the two continents, and it will be admitted that the civet is not a native of America, but an animal peculiar to the warm climates of the old continent, and that he was never found in the new, until after he had been transported thither. ”

“ Palm-civets are mostly about the size of the domestic cat, or rather larger, chiefly arboreal in habits, with dark uniform, spotted or striped fur. The common Indian palm-civet (P. niger) ranges throughout India, wherever there are trees, frequently taking up its abodes in roof-thatch. Its diet consists of small mammals and reptiles, birds and their eggs, fruit and vegetables. From four to six young are brought forth at a litter, and are easily tamed. ”

“ Sub-Fam. 4. Viverrinae.—Viverra includes the true Civets. The genus, save for one African species, is Oriental in range. The molar formula is the complete one for the Viverridae, viz. Pm 4/4 M 2/2. The secretion of the prescrotal gland of V. civetta yields the civet of commerce.
The "Rasse," genus Viverricula, has been separated generically from the true Civets. It is, remarkably enough, common to both Madagascar [12] and many parts of the Oriental region. It is, moreover, capable of climbing trees, which its relatives are not. It has no mane like Viverra and is of slighter build. ”

“ Civet and Hog said, “We must eat!” They ate up the corn, and finished the plantains.
One day, a Man of another town, was wandering in the forest. As he journeyed, he was looking from side to side on the way, peering for what he might find. And he saw many tracks of Beasts. Examining them closely, he said, “This track looks like that of a tortoise! Yes, and this like a hog’s! And, here, O! this other is of a civet! And, ha! [148] ha! a trail of a boa is this!” He exclaimed, “How many Beasts this place has! I will call the townspeople to come and kill these Beasts; for, there must be many.” ”

“ Early in the morning, they prepared for their journey. And Tortoise said to them, "I have here another thing to say; my last word. That is: As we go, no one of us is to start any new affair on the way; only steadily down to the Seacoast." They all said, "Yes! we are agreed."
So, they started through the forest, going on their journey. They went, and they went, on and on, expecting to go a long way, until they should by evening come to their camping-place for the night. But, on the way, Civet began to say, "Ah! my stomach aches! Ah! my stomach aches!" ”

“ For forty years yonder man has prayed to us, and yet there be only a few grains of rice and some broken cowries before him after all. Men’s hearts will be hardened by this thing.” And Shiv said, “It shall be looked to,” and so he called to the temple which was the temple of his son, Ganesh of the elephant head, saying, “Son, there is a mendicant without who is very poor. What wilt thou do for him?” Then that great elephant-headed One awoke in the dark and answered, “In three days, if it be thy will, he shall have one lakh of rupees.” Then Shiv and Parbati went away. ”

“ On this southward-looking slope the cypresses attain a symmetry, a slenderness, a height, a thickness of texture and richness of colour unmatched in Stamboul. They grow in squares, many of them, or in magic circles. The stones under them are older than the others, and more like things of nature in the flowered grass. On certain happy afternoons, when the sun brings a fairy depth and softness of green out of the cypresses, when their shadows fall lance-like across bare or mossy aisles, and the note of a solitary bird echoes between them, it is hard not to imagine oneself in an enchanted wood. ”

“ No other tree darkens in evening silhouette so impressively as the two queen trees of the Dismal Swamp, the juniper and cypress. With the low sun behind them, the clear-cut delicacy of their foliage reminds one of the exquisite fineness of dried sea mosses on a tinted page. But when the sun has gone down, and the sky is still flushed with its glory, the cypress takes on a mystery of dark and refined beauty that is all its own. It rises still blacker than the dark underwood, the tallest among the trees, lonely, like a plume. ”

“ It attains to a great age and immense size. The trunk and branches of an old cypress are smooth and white as ivory, while its light, feathery foliage is of the most dazzling golden-green; and rising, as it often does, amid clumps of dark varnished evergreens,—bay and magnolia and myrtle,—it has a singular and beautiful effect. The long swaying draperies of the gray moss interpose everywhere their wavering outlines and pearl tints amid the brightness and bloom of the forest, giving to its deep recesses the mystery of grottoes hung with fanciful vegetable stalactites. ”

“ So it had come to pass that the Cibots had passed the prime of life, and saw themselves on the threshold of old age without a hundred francs put by for the future. Well clad and well fed, they enjoyed among the neighbors, it is true, the respect due to twenty-six years of strict honesty; for if they had nothing of their own, they "hadn't nothing belonging to nobody else," according to La Cibot, who was a prodigal of negatives. "There wasn't never such a love of a man," she would say to her husband. ”

“ Cibot, therefore, was struck dumb with amazement to be confronted with a little old man in a great-coat too shabby for Cibot to mend, standing watching a painter at work upon an old picture in the chilly room on the vast ground floor. The old man's eyes, full of cold feline malignance, were turned upon her, and La Cibot shivered.
"What do you want, Remonencq?" asked this person.
"It is a question of valuing some pictures; there is nobody but you in Paris who can tell a poor tinker-fellow like me how much he may give when he has not thousands to spend, like you." ”

“ He worked still, though he was fifty-eight years old, but fifty-eight is the porter's golden age; he is used to his lodge, he and his room fit each other like the shell and the oyster, and "he is known in the neighborhood."
Mme. Cibot, sometime opener of oysters at the Cadran Bleu, after all the adventures which come unsought to the belle of an oyster-bar, left her post for love of Cibot at the age of twenty-eight. The beauty of a woman of the people is short-lived, especially if she is planted espalier fashion at a restaurant door. ”

“ So I turned aside among the cypresses. They will calm me, I thought. Their whisperings are so grave. They flaunt not their joy at the sun’s kisses, like the shameless trees along the roadside. They keep their hearts unmoved in sun and in storm; they are the true stoics of Nature. And their calm is sympathetic; it comes not of a soul immovable; it comes of strength in trial.
And the cypresses wrapped me round in their scent—the grave, penetrating odour in which the battered spirit folds its wings to rest, and [181] the heart-beats grow quieter, and the brow smooths itself out in peace. ”

“ One evening, by the light of a splendid moon, which was reflected from the sea of Marmora, and the violet summits of Mount Olympus, I sat alone under the cypresses of the 'Ladders of the Dead;' those cypresses which overshadow innumerable tombs of Mussulmans, and descend from the heights of Pera to the shores of the sea. No one ever passes at that hour: you would suppose yourself an hundred miles from the capital, if a confused hum, wafted by the wind, was not occasionally heard, which speedily died away among the branches of the cypress. ”

“ I do not wonder that the ancients, even aside from their superstitions, selected the cypress as an emblem of death and mourning—for no one can behold that tree in its native solitude and state without thinking of all the friends he had lost, and would be likely to lose for the next hundred years.—Picture to yourself, gentle reader, the bed of a sluggish stream, enriched by the accumulations of vegetable mould for unknown ages, until the water forced itself through a deep, narrow channel, winding hither and thither ”

“ And it sang as it flitted from bough to bough, until it reached the quiet churchyard where the grass grows green upon the graves, where the roses bloom living on the breast of death, and the cypress points to the immortal skies. There on the cypress' topmost twig it perched and sang a song so rich and rare, so far-reaching, that it touched the heart of Death sitting on the chest of the emperor,—for, after all, Death has a tender heart. Filled with a longing for his own garden, melted by the Nightingale's song, he vanished in a cold, grey mist,—out at the window. ”

“ There is a sort of freemasonry among the porter tribe, and, indeed, among the members of every profession; for each calling has its shibboleth, as well as its insulting epithet and the mark with which it brands its followers.
"Ah! madame, you are the portress here," began La Cibot. "I myself am a portress, in a small way, in a house in the Rue de Normandie. M. Pons, your conductor, lodges with us. Oh, how glad I should be to have your place, and see the actors and dancers and authors go past. It is the marshal's baton in our profession, as the old actor said." ”

“ The moon climbed higher into the heavens and the clouds were blown away. The shadow of the cypress was thrown toward them, and the dense night of it concealed the half-open door.
"See," breathed Evelina, "the shadow of the cypress is long."
"Aye," answered Piper Tom, "the shadow of the cypress is long and the rose blooms but once a year. 'T is the way of the world." ”

“ Save this, all around there were only broken fragments of crosses, withered tufts of box, and old slabs split and moss-eaten. There were not two burials a year. Death seemed to make no dwelling in that waste spot, whither La Teuse came every evening to fill her apron with grass for Desirée’s rabbits. A gigantic cypress tree, standing near the gate, alone cast shadow upon the desert field. This cypress, a landmark visible for nine miles around, was known to the whole countryside as the Solitaire. ”

“ Two days' journey from here, in the path of the setting sun, there stands a cypress tree, larger than any other cypress that grows upon the earth. Sit down where the shadow is darkest, close to the trunk, and keep very still. By-and-by you will hear a mighty rushing of wings, and all the birds in the world will come and nestle in the branches. ”

“ In a moment they were crowding back in behind Hector Civek's grand entrance.
"Oh, no," Alis said. "Don't tell me he made it this time!"
Civek was wearing the trappings of royalty. He walked with dignity down the aisle, an ermine robe on his shoulders, a crown on his head and a scepter in his right hand.
He nodded benignly about him. "Good morning, Judge," he said. To the clerk he said, "Frank, see to our horses, will you?"
"Horses?" the clerk said, blinking.
"Our royal coach is without, and the horses need attending to," Civek said patiently. "You don't think a king walks, do you?" ”

“ Tall are the camels, heavy are the kine,
But this was Least of Little Things, O little son of mine!
When the dole was ended, laughingly she said,
'Master, of a million mouths is not one unfed?'
Laughing, Shiv made answer, 'All have had their part,
Even he, the little one, hidden 'neath thy heart.'
From her breast she plucked it, Parbati the thief,
Saw the Least of Little Things gnawed a new-grown leaf!
Saw and feared and wondered, making prayer to Shiv,
Who hath surely given meat to all that live. ”

“ In the dark, mindful silence and inflection of the cypress trees, lost races, lost language, lost human ways of feeling and of knowing. Men have known as we can no more know, have felt as we can no more feel. Great life-realities gone into the darkness. But the cypresses commemorate. In the afternoon, Aaron felt the cypresses rising dark about him, like so many high visitants from an old, lost, lost subtle world, where men had the wonder of demons about them, the aura of demons, such as still clings to the cypresses, in Tuscany. ”