In 'History of the Unicorn', Odell Shepard writes...

HE first point that research into a doubtful matter should try to determine, as Andrea Bacci wisely observes, is whether the thing in question really exists; and if we were concerned in this book with the unicorn itself rather than with unicorn lore there could be no excuse for having postponed for so long the question concerning the animal's actuality. That question cannot be entirely ignored because the doubts that have been expressed and the affirmations made in reply are themselves an important part of unicorn lore.

"To anyone not instructed in comparative anatomy the unicorn is so credible a beast that it is difficult to understand why anyone should ever have doubted him. Compared with him the giraffe is highly improbable, the armadillo and the ant-eater are unbelievable, and the hippopotamus is a nightmare. The shortest excursion into palaeontology brings back a dozen animals that strain our powers of belief far more than he does. What may be called the normality of the unicorn is just as evident when we set him beside the creatures of fancy. Compared with him the griffin is precisely what Sir Thomas Browne calls it, "a mixed and dubious animal".

"The most important of all descriptions of the unicorn given by the few who claim to have seen the animal is that of Lewis Vartoman (Ludovico Barthema), of Bologna, who travelled in 1503 through the countries of the Near East. Vartoman's Itinerario is a book of sustained interest and some historical value, although the modern reader is unlikely to share Scaliger's opinion that its author was a man worthy of trust.

t the city of Zeila in Ethiopia he saw certain cattle with single horns about a palm and a half in length rising from their brows and bending backward, but much more important than these were the unicorns in a park adjoining the temple at Mecca.

There were two of these animals, "shewed to the people for a miracle, and not without reason for the seldomenesse and strange nature. The one of them, which is much hygher than the other, yet not much unlyke to a coolte of thyrtye moneths of age, in the forehead groweth only one horne, in maner ryght foorth, of the length of three cubites.

The other is much younger, of the age of one yeere, and lyke a young coolte: the horne of this is of the length of foure handfuls. This beast is of the coloure of a horse of weesel coloure, and hath the head lyke an hart, but no long necke, a thynne mane hangynge only on the one syde. Theyr legges are thyn and slender, lyke a fawne or hynde. The hoofes of the fore feete are divided in two, much lyke the feet of a Goat. The outwarde part of the hynder feete is very full of heare. This beast doubtlesse seemeth wylde and fierce, yet tempereth that fiercenesse with a certain comelinesse. These Unicornes one gave to the Soltan of Mecha as a most precious and rare gyfte. They were sent hym out of Ethiope by a kyng of that Countrey, who desired by that present to gratifie the Soltan of Mecha."

"Another Oriental traveller, Dr. Leonard Rauchwolf, who saw the countries visited by Le Blanc a few years after him was told by a Persian "that the Sophi King of Persia had several Unicorns at Samarcand . . . and also in two islands . . . which lay from Samarcand nine Days journey, some Griffins which were sent him out of Africa from Prester John."