The following is my translation of an article called: Die Klippschleifer von Hans von Boetticher. It appeared in a German popular science magazine, Kosmos Handweiser für Naturfreunde 1921, Heft 6, Seiten 165-166.
I'm not aware of any previous translations.
Trevor Dykes.

The rock hyrax by Hans von Boetticher
Among the most remarkable figures of the very interesting mammal animal world of Africa can undoubtedly be counted the rock hyrax. Today, this but rabbit-sized animal is the smallest member of the order of ungulates, which we generally imagine as being large to very large animals. And yet it is the giants among those, the elephants and the rhinoceroses, which must be counted as the closest still living relatives of these dwarfs. (Added note: That's no longer the current view. Hyraxes are related with elephants, but neither appears to be ungulates as such, unlike the rhino.) Externally, the rock hyrax resembles the distantly related marmoset (Additional note: Very distantly related, seeing as marmosets are rodents), the body is barrel-shaped, the legs are short, the tail and ears are so small, that they hardly rise above the thick fur. The hyrax lives in a large number of species across the whole of Africa and, to the northeast, continues until as far as Syria. The Ancient Jews already knew the animal they called Saphan, which Luther incorrectly translated as 'rabbit'. Moses included this animal among the ruminants with cleft hooves, and forbid the Jews from consuming its meat, and today they are still not eaten in Abyssinia by Christians and Muslims.

Most species live, roughly in the manner of marmosets, in the cliffs of Africa's so numerous desert and steppeland mountains (genus Procavia), and only a few (the genus of tree hyraxes: Dendrohyrax) live in the dark forests of the tropics, where they "rush up the trunks of trees like kobolds" (Schillings). The actual rock hyrax, which can be found in the mountains up to heights of 3,000 metres and more everywhere, is active and busy during the day. Whole families graze from the juicy plants and grasses growing out from the fractures and crevices of the cliff walls. At the lightest of noises or the smallest passing shadow of some bird flying over, a high-pitched warning whistle is issued by the lead animal and, within a moment, the whole band disappears. The animals can spring as well as they can climb. Particularly remarkable is their ability to hang onto flat cliff walls (or tree trunks for the tree hyraxes) as is known, for example, from the tree frog or Moorish gecko. The naked soles have a numbers of slimy, swollen cushions separated by deep channels, and pressing and relaxing these produces an air-free, or near air-free space on the sole. The sole is also constantly kept sticky by a rich supply of sweat. The 2-3 or very rarely more young are born at a very developed stage, and can climb and spring as well as their seniors withing a very short time. Interestingly, many travellers have observed an association of rock hyraxes with a small, mongoose-like predator, the zebra mongoose, and a reptile, the stellio lizard (? Dorneidechse). Whether this apparent symbiosis is due to coincidence or was sought out deliberately by the relevant animals has not yet been determined.

An index of more of my translations of old Kosmos articles can be found at:

Kosmos Translations Archive

A number of Mesozoic (and post-Mesozoic) location summaries can be found at Localities.