The guarded gold”⸺
But the scene has been transferred from the north of Europe to Æthiopia. The rest of the fable I cannot trace.
[152] A dissertation on Prester John, and the confusions which transferred a Christian prince of Central Asia to Central Africa, will be found in M. D’Avezac’s preface to Carpini, in the volume from which we are translating.
[153] For the Roc see Marco, iii. 35; Ibn Batuta (in Lee), p. 222; Sindbad the Sailor, and Aladdin! See also Mr. Major’s preface to India in the Fifteenth Century.
[154] “Etiam et medullâ.”
[155] “Istud ales”!
[156] Viverra Indica, the civet cat, seems to be found over a great part of Asia and Africa. The perfume is secreted from very peculiar glands, existing in both sexes; and in North Africa, where the animals are kept for the purpose, the secretion is scraped from the pouch with an iron spatula, about twice a week (Penny Cyclop.). But the text is confirmed by Sir E. Tennent, who says that the Tamils in Northern Ceylon, who also keep the animal for its musk, collect this from the wooden bars of the cage, on which it rubs itself (Nat. Hist. Ceylon, p. 32).
[157] It is a Ceylonese story, according to Tennent, that the cobra’s stomach sometimes contains a stone of inestimable price. The cerastes or horned adder is now well known.
[158] Ambergris, a substance found chiefly in warm climates, floating on the surface of the sea or thrown on the coasts. It was formerly believed to be the exudation of a tree, but is now considered to be a morbid animal concretion, having been found in the intestinal canal of the sperm whale. It is found usually in small pieces, but some times in lumps of fifty to one hundred pounds weight. The best comes from Madagascar, Surinam, and Java. It is opaque, of a bright grey colour, softish, and when rubbed or heated exhales an agreeable odour. It is inflammable; and is used as a perfume. (Penny Cyclop. and Macculloch’s Commercial Dictionary.)
[159] This strange myth is in Marco Polo (Part iii. c. 23). He represents the islands to be “full five hundred miles out at sea,” south of Mekrán. The people of Sumatra believe that the inhabitants of Engano, a small island south of Bencoolen, are all females, and, like the mares of ancient story, are impregnated by the wind. (Marsden’s Sumatra.)