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Digital Archive of Toyo Bunko Rare Books

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MARCO POLO

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d'Empoli also mentions them at Pedir in the beginning of the 16th century ; and see Pasei Chronicle quoted in/. As. sér. I V. tom. ix. pp. 258-259. This speaks of elephants as used in war by the people of Pasei, and of elephant-hunts as a royal diversion. The locus of that best of elephant stories, the elephant's revenge on the tailor, was at Achin.

As Polo's account of the rhinoceros is evidently from nature, it is notable that he should not only call it unicorn, but speak so precisely of its one horn, for the characteristic, if not the only, species on the island, is a two-horned one (Rh. Sumatranus), * and his mention of the buffalo-like hair applies only to this one. This species exists also on the Indo-Chinese continent and, it is believed, in Borneo. I have seen it in the Arakan forests as high as 19° 20' ; one was taken not long since near Chittagong ; and Mr. Blyth tells me a stray one has been seen in Assam or its borders.

[Ibn Khordâdhbeh says (De Goeje's Transl. p. 47) that rhinoceros is to be found

in Kâmeroun (Assam), which borders on China.   It has a horn, a cubit long, and
two palms thick ; when the horn is split, inside is found on the black ground the white figure of a man, a quadruped, a fish, a peacock or some other bird.—H. C.]

[ John Evelyn mentions among the curiosities kept in the Treasury at St. Denis : " A faire unicorne's horn, sent by a K. of Persia, about 7 foote long." Diary, 1643, 12th Nov.—H. C.]

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What the Traveller says of the animals' love of mire and mud is well illustrated by the manner in which the Semangs or Negritoes of the Malay Peninsula are said to destroy him : " This animal . . . is found frequently in marshy places, with its whole body immersed in the mud, and part of the head only visible. . . . Upon the dry weather setting in . . . the mud becomes hard and crusted, and the rhinoceros cannot effect his escape without considerable difficulty and exertion. The Semangs prepare themselves with large quantities of combustible materials, with which they quietly approach the animal, who is aroused from his reverie by an immense fire over him, which being kept well supplied by the Semangs with fresh fuel, soon completes his destruction, and renders him in a fit state to make a meal of." (J. Ind. Arch. IV. 426.)-1- There is a great difference in aspect between the one-horned species (Rh. Sondaicus and Rh. Indicus) and the two-horned. The Malays express what that difference is admirably, in calling the last Bádak-Karbáu, " the Buffalo-Rhinoceros," and the Sondaicus Bádak-Gájah, " the Elephant-Rhinoceros."

The belief in the formidable nature of the tongue of the rhinoceros is very old and wide-spread, though I can find no foundation for it but the rough appearance of the organ. [" His tongue also is somewhat of a rarity, for, if he can get any of his antagonists down, he will lick them so clean, that he leaves neither skin nor flesh to cover his bones." (A. Hamilton, ed. 1727, II. 24. 167. S. Note of Yule.) Compare what is said of the tongue of the Yak, I. p. 277.—H. C.] The Chinese have the belief, and the Jesuit Lecomte attests it from professed observation of the animal in confinement. (Chin. Repos. VII. 137 ; Lecomte, II. 406.) [In a Chinese work quoted by Mr. Groeneveldt ( T'oung Pao, VII. No. 2) abst. p. 19) we read that " the rhinoceros has thorns on its tongue and always eats the thorns of plants and trees, but never grasses or leaves."—II. C.]

The legend to which Marco alludes, about the Unicorn allowing itself to be ensnared by a maiden (and of which Marsden has made an odd perversion in his translation, whilst indicating the true meaning in his note), is also an old and general one. It will be found, for example, in Brunetto Latini, in the ];na,e du 167onde, in the 167irabilia of Jordanus,$ and in the verses of Tzetzes. The latter represents Monoceros as attracted not by the maiden's charms but by her perfumery. So he is

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• Marsden, however, does say that a one-horned species (Rh. sondaicus ?) is also found on Sumatra (3rd ed. of his If. of Sumatra, p. 116).

t An American writer professes to have discovered in Missouri the fossil remains of a bogged mastodon, which had been killed precisely in this way by human contemporaries. (See Lubbock, Preh. Times, 2d ed. 279.)

Tresor, p. 253 ; N. and E., V. 263 ; Jorctanus, p. 43.

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