Cambello's sister was fair Canacee,
That was the learnedst lady in her days,
Well seem in every science that mote be,
And every secret work of nature's ways,
In witty riddles, and in wise soothsays,
In power of herbs and tunes of beasts and birds:
but we learn from him no more of the ring than 'Dan Chaucer' tells us:—
The vertue of this ring, if ye woll here,
Is this, that if she list it for to were
Upon her thombe, or in her purse it bere,
There is no foule that fleeth under heven
That she no shall understand his steven,[D]
And know his meaning openly and plaine,
And answer him in his language againe:
as Canace does in her conversation with the falcon in The Squires Tale. Nor is the 'vertue' of the ring confined to bird-intelligence, for the knight who came on the 'steed of brasse,' adds,—
And every grasse that groweth upon root
She shall well know to whom it will do boot,
And be his wounds never so deep and wide.
But we must return from these realms of fancy to a country hardly less wonderful; for Australia presents, in the realities of its quadrupedal forms, a scene that might well pass for one of enchantment.
[Footnote C: Fairy Queen, book iv. cant. 2, et seq.]
[Footnote D: Sound.]
* * * * *
The French Society of Geography have just given their grand gold medal to two brothers, Antoine and Arnaud d'Abadie, for the progress which geography has received from their travels in Abyssinia, which were begun in 1837 and finished in 1848. This period they spent in exploring together, not only Abyssinia, but the whole eastern part of Africa. Their enterprise was wholly at their own expense, and was undertaken from the love of science and adventure.