REELAIAB (re-el'a-ya), (Heb. reh-ay law-yaw', trembling caused by Jehovah), one of those who returned from Babylon with Zerubbabel and Jeshua (Ezra ii:2); called RAAMIAH vii: 7), B. C. about 545.
REEK (rem), (Heb. reh•ame', unicorn; or wild bull; Vulg. rhinoceros; and in several versions of the Bible, unicorn, R. V. wild ox).
The radical meaning of the Hebrew word fur nishes no evidence that an animal such as is now understood by 'unicorn' was known to exist, or that a rhinoceros is thereby absolutely indicated; and there is no authority whatever for the infer ence that either was at any time resident in West ern Asia.
The 'Indian Rhinocerotes, constituting three species, belong all to the southeastern states of the continent and the Great Austral Islands; and there is no indication extant that in a wild state they ever extended west of the Indus. Early col onies and caravans from the East most probably brought rumors of the power and obstinacy of these animals to Western Asia, and it might have been remarked that under excitement the rhinoc eros raises its head and horn on high, as it were in exultation, though it is most likely because the sense of smelling is more potent in it than that of sight, which is only lateral, and confined by the thickness of the folds of skin projecting be yond the eyeballs. The rhinoceros is not abso lutely untamable—a fact implied even in Job (Job xxxix :9, to). Thus we take this species as the original type of the unicorn; but the active invention of Arabic minds, accidentally, perhaps, in the first instance, discovered a species of Oryx (generically bold and pugnacious rumi nants), with the loss of one of its long, slender and destructive horns. In this animal the teem
of the Hebrews and the far East became personi fied, ?Tent being most probably an Oryx Leucoryx, since individuals of that species have been repeat edly exhibited in subsequent ages as unicorns, when accident or artifice had deprived them of one of their frontal weapons, notwithstanding that the rem is well known to Arabian hunters as a two-horned animal. The spirit of appropriation in Persia and Macedonia, as we have before no ticed, was similarly engaged, and for the same purpose an Ibex, Bouquetin, or mountain goat was taken, but showing only one horn. (See GOAT.) In Africa, however, among three or four known species of rhinoceros, and vague rumors of a Biculcate species of unicorn, probably only the repetition of Arabian reports, there appears to exist between Congo, Abyssinia, and the Cape. precisely the terra incognita of Africa, a real pachydermous animal, which seems to possess the characteristics of the poetical unicorn. In the narratives of the natives of the different regions in question there is certainly exaggeration and error ; but they all incline to a description which would make the animal indicate a pachyderm of the rhinoceros group, with a long and slender horn proceeding from the forehead, perhaps with another incipient behind it, and in general struc ture so much lighter than other rhinocerotes. (See UNICORN.) C. H. S.