[273] It must be remembered that it is with a blow of its powerful tail that the alligator stuns its prey and knocks it into the water (when any stray animal approaches the bank), and it is with the tail that the dragon, in the fable related by Ælian, chastises, although gently, its mistress, and constricts, according to Pliny, the elephant in its folds.
[274] Nineteenth Century, March 1877, p. 20. Article on “Authority in Matters of Opinion,” by G. Cornewall Lewis. Reviewed by W. E. Gladstone.
[275] From the Daheim, No. 17, Supplement. January 27th, 1883. Leipzig.
[276] 41° Fahrenheit.
[277] A Collection of Voyages, in 4 volumes. J. J. Knapton, London, 1729.
[278] A Voyage to the East Indies, by Francis Leguat. London, 1708.
[279] I find the following note in Maclean’s Guide to Bombay, for 1883: “Since the first edition of this Gazette was published, Captain Dundas, of the P. and O. Company’s steamer Cathay, has informed me that the statements of old travellers regarding these serpents are quite accurate. The serpents are not seen excepting during the south-west monsoon the season in which alone voyages used to be made to India. In Horsburgh’s Sailing Directions, shipmasters are warned to look out for the serpents, whose presence is a sign that the ship is close to land. Captain Dundas says that the serpents are yellow or copper-coloured. The largest ones are farthest out to sea. They lie on the surface of the water, and appear too lazy even to get out of a steamer’s way.”
[280] The Romance of Natural History, P. H. Gosse, F.R.S., First Series, London, 1880, 12th edition; Second Series, 1875, 5th edition.
[281] “At length, in the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries, they were thrown open for examination by the desire which then existed in Germany to possess the ebur fossile, or ‘unicorn’s horn,’ a supposed infallible specific for the cure of many diseases. The unicorn horn was to be found in the caves, and the search for it revealed the remains of lions, hyænas, elephants, and many other tropical and strange animals.” Pop. Sci. Monthly, No. 32.
[282] Book iv. ch. cxci. and cxcii.