4: HORAPOLLO, Hieroglyphica, lib. i. 23.
5: ÆLIAN, Nat. Hist., lib. v. c. 29, 30, 50. Ælian says that the Romans in recognition of the superior vigilance of the goose on the occasion of the assault on the Capitol, instituted a procession in the Forum in honour of the goose, whose watchfulness was incorruptible; but held an annual denunciation of the inferior fidelity of the dogs, which allowed themselves to be silenced by meat flung to them by the Gauls.—Nat. Hist. lib. xii. ch. xxxiii.
The feeling appears to have spread westward at an early period; the ancient Britons, according to Cæsar, held it impious to eat the flesh of the goose[1], and the followers of the first crusade which issued from England, France, and Flanders, adored a goat and a goose, which they believed to be filled by the Holy Spirit.[2]
1: "Anserem gustare fas non patant."—CÆSAR, Bell Gall., lib. v. ch xii.
2: MILL'S Hist. of the Crusades, vol. i. ch. ii. p. 75. Forster has suggested that it was a species of goose (which annually migrates from the Black Sea towards the south) that fed the Israelites in the desert of Sinai, and that the "winged fowls" meant by the word salu, which has been heretofore translated "quails," were "red geese," resembling those of Egypt and India. He renders one of the mysterious inscriptions which abound in the Wady Mokatteb (the Valley of Writings), "the red geese ascend from the sea,—lusting the people eat to repletion;" thus presenting a striking concurrence with the passage in Numb. xi. 31, "there went forth a wind from the Lord and brought quails (salu) from the sea."—FORSTER'S One Primeval Language, vol. i. p. 90.
It is remarkable that the same word appears to designate the goose in the most remote quarters of the globe. The Pali term "hanza" by which it was known to the Buddhists of Ceylon, is still the "henza" of the Burmese and the "gangsa" of the Malays, and is to be traced in the [Greek: "chên">[ of the Greeks, the "anser" of the Romans, the "ganso" of the Portuguese, the "ansar" of the Spaniards, the "gans" of the Germans (who, PLINY says, called the white geese ganza), the "gas" of the Swedes, and the "gander" of the English.[1]
1: HARDY observes that the ibis of the Nile is called "Abou-Hansa" by the Arabs, (Buddhism, ch. i. p. 17); but BRUCE (Trav. vol. v. p. 172) says the name is Abou Hannes or Father John, and that the bird always appears on St. John's day: he implies, however, that this is probably a corruption of an ancient name now lost.
IN THE PALACE AT KANDY
In the principal apartment of the royal palace at Kandy, now the official residence of the chief civil officer in charge of the province, the sacred bird occurs amongst the decorations, but in such shape as to resemble the dodo rather than the Brahmanee goose.