Elephants are greatly used in battle. The men on foot are sent first, the Khorassanians being mounted in full armour, man as well as horse. Large scythes are attached to the trunks and tusks of the elephants, and the animals are clad in ornamental plates of steel. They carry a citadel, and in the citadel twelve men in armour with guns and arrows.
There is a place Shikhbaludin Peratyr, a bazaar Aladinand, and a fair once a year, where people from all parts of India assemble and trade for ten days. As many as 20,000 horses are brought there for sale from Beder, which is 20 kors distant, and besides every description of goods; and that fair is the best throughout the land of Hindostan. Everything is sold or bought in memory of Shikhbaludin, whose fête falls on the Russian festival of the Protection of the Holy Virgin (1st October).
In that Aland (Aladinand?) there is a bird, gukuk, that flies at night and cries gukuk, and any roof it lights upon, there the man will die; and whoever attempts to kill it will see fire flashing from its beak. Wild cats rove at night and catch fowls; they live in the hills and among stones. As to monkeys, they live in the woods and have their monkey knyaz, who is attended by a host of armed followers. When any of them is caught they complain to their knyaz, and an army is sent after the missing; and when they come to a town they pull down the houses and beat the people; and their armies, it is said, are many. They speak their own tongues and bring forth a great many children; and when a child is unlike its father or its mother, it is thrown out on the highroad. Thus they are often caught by the Hindoos, who teach them every sort of handicraft, or sell them at night, that they might not find their way home, or teach them dancing.—From India in the Fifteenth Century, in the Hakluyt Society Publications, London, 1857.
FOOTNOTES:
[113] A thousand-man of the Russian army.
[114] Probably a mistake for Kaffa in the Crimea.
Apocryphal Legends about King Solomon. (XV. century.)
Among the many apocryphal stories of the Old Testament that were current in Russia the largest number centre about King Solomon. They are mostly derived from Byzantine sources which, in their turn, are often based on Jewish apocryphal accounts; thus the Story of Kitovrás (evidently transformed from Centaurus) is also given in the Talmud. Kitovrás is mentioned in Russian literature in the fourteenth century, but the following passage is from a manuscript of the fifteenth.
THE STORY OF KITOVRÁS
Then came Solomon’s turn to learn about Kitovrás. He found out that his habitation was in a distant wilderness. Solomon, in his wisdom, prepared a steel rope and a steel hoop, and on this he wrote an incantation in the name of God. And he sent his best boyár with his men, and ordered them to take with them wine and mead, and the fleece of sheep. And they came to the appointed place, and behold, there were three wells, but he was not there. By the instruction of Solomon, they emptied the three wells, and closed the springs with the fleeces of the sheep, and filled two of the wells with wine, and the third one with mead, but they themselves hid themselves nearby, for they knew that he would come to the wells to drink water. And he came, for he was very thirsty, and he lay down to drink, but seeing the wine, he said: “Nobody becomes wise from drinking wine.” But as he was very thirsty, he said again: “You are the wine that gladdens the hearts of men,” and he emptied all three wells, and lay himself down to sleep. The wine heated him up, and he fell into a deep sleep. Then the boyár approached him, put the hoop upon his neck, and tied the steel rope to him. When Kitovrás awoke, he wanted to tear himself loose. But Solomon’s boyár said to him: “The name of the Lord is upon you with a prohibition”; and he, seeing the name of the Lord upon him, went meekly along.