[90] “Quod vocatur rinocerunta”! The rhinoceros is not now, I believe, found in any part of India south (or west) of the Ganges; but it has become extinct in my own time in the forests of Rajmahl, on the right bank of that river; and very possibly extended at one time much further west, though our author’s statement is too vague to build upon, and scarcely indicates personal knowledge of the animal.
[91] Two-headed and even three-headed serpents might be suggested by the portentous appearance of a cobra with dilated hood and spectacles, especially if the spectator were (as probably would be the case) in a great fright. But for five heads I can make no apology.
[92] This has puzzled me sorely, and I sought it vainly among Tamul and Malayalim synonyms. At the last moment the light breaks in upon me. It is, Fr., cocatrix; Ital., calcatrice; Anglicè, a cockatrice!
[93] Polo says: “Here and throughout all India the birds and beasts are different from ours, except one bird, which is the quail.” (iii, 20.)
[94] A literally accurate description of the great Indian bat, or flying fox. They generally cluster on some great banyan tree. These, I presume, are what Marco Polo quaintly calls “bald owls which fly in the night: they have neither wings (?) nor feathers, and are as large as an eagle.” (iii, 20.) There is a good account of the flying fox, and an excellent cut, in Tennent’s Nat. History of Ceylon. On the Indiarubber trees at the Botanic Gardens near Kandy, they “hang in such prodigious numbers that frequently large branches give way beneath their accumulated weight.” (p. 16.) Shall I be thought to be rivalling my author in the recital of marvels, if I say that in 1845 I saw, near Delhi, large branches which had been broken off by the accumulated weight—of locusts a few days before? So all the peasantry testified.
[95] Probably some kind of jungle-fowl, such as Gallus Sonneratii. Pheasants are not found in southern India.
[96] Spatham, a straight sword (?); but a contemptuous expression is evidently intended. Polo says: “The people go to battle with lance and shield, entirely naked; yet are they not valiant and courageous, but mean and cowardly.”
[97] Is not this short and accurate statement the first account of the Parsis in India, and of their strange disposal of the dead?
[98] The Domra or Dóm, one of the lowest Indian castes, and supposed to represent one of the aboriginal races. They are to this day, in Upper India, the persons generally employed to remove carcases, and to do the like jobs; sometimes also as hangmen. In the Dekkan they seem, according to Dubois (p. 468), who calls them Dumbars, to be often tumblers, conjurors, and the like.
[99] Ginger is cultivated in all parts of India. That of Malabar is best. (Drury.)