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| The Book of Ser Marco Polo : vol.2 |
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Citation Information
CHAP. XXXIII. TIIE RUKH
42I
Cagle. But although its size and swiftness are so extraordinary, it has much trouble in procuring food, on account of the density of the forests with which all that region is clothed. Its own dwelling is in cold and desolate tracts such as the Mountains of Teroa, i.e. of the Moon ; and in the valleys of that range it shows itself at certain periods. Its black feathers are held in very high estimation, and it is with the greatest difficulty that one can be got from the natives, for one such serves to fan ten people, and to keep off the terrible heat from them, as well as the wasps and flies " (Ludolf, Hist. Aethiop. Comment. p. 164.)
Abu Mahomed, of Spain, relates that a merchant arrived in Barbary who had lived long among the Chinese. He had with him the quill of a chick Rukh, and this held nine skins of water. He related the story of how he came by this,—a story nearly the same as one of Sindbad's about the Rukh's egg. (Bockart, II. 854.)
Another story of a seaman wrecked on the coast of Africa is among those collected by M. Marcel Devic. By a hut that stood in the middle of a field of rice and durra there was a trough. " A man came up leading a pair of oxen, laden with 12 skins of water, and emptied these into the trough. I drew near to drink, and folind the trough to be polished like a steel blade, quite different from either glass or pottery. ` It is the hollow of a quill,' said the man. I would not believe a word of the sort, until, after rubbing it inside and outside, I found it to be transparent, and to retain the traces of the barbs." (Comptes Rendus, etc., ut supra; and Livre des Illerveilles de 1' hide, p. 99.)
Fr. Jordanus also says : " In this India Tertia (Eastern Africa) are certain birds which are called Roc, so big that they easily carry an elephant up into the air. I have seen a certain person who said that he had seen one of those birds, one wing only of which stretched to a length of So palms " (p. 42).
The Japanese Encyclopaedia states that in the country of the Tsengsz' (Zinjis) in the South-West Ocean, there is a bird called pheng, which in its flight eclipses the sun. It can swallow a camel ; and its quills are used for water-casks. This was probably got from the Arabs. (f As., sèr. 2, tom. )(ii. 235-236.)
I should note that the Geog. Text in the first passage where the feathers are spoken of says : " e ce qe je en vi voz dirai en autre leu, por ce qe it convient ensi faire d nostre livre,"—" that which I have seen of them I will tell you elsewhere, as it suits the arrangement of our book." No such other detail is found in that text, but we have in Ramusio this passage about the quill brought to the Great Kaan, and I suspect that the phrase, " as I have heard," is an interpolation, and that Polo is here telling ce qe it en vit. What are we to make of the story ? I have sometimes thought that possibly some vegetable production, such as a great frond of the Ravenala, may have been cooked to pass as a Rukh's quill. [See App. L.]
NOTE 7.—The giraffes are an error. The Eng. Cyc. says that wild asses and zebras (?) do exist in Madagascar, but I cannot trace authority for this.
The great boar's teeth were indubitably hippopotamus-teeth, which form a considerable article of export from Zanzibar * (not Madagascar). Burton speaks of their reaching 12 lbs in weight. And Cosmas tells us : " The hippopotamus I have not seen indeed, but I had some great teeth of his that weighed thirteen pounds, which I sold here (in Alexandria). And I have seen many such teeth in Ethiopia and in Egypt." (See/ R. G. S. XXIX. 444 ; Cathay, p. clxxv.)
* The name as pronounced seems to have been Zangibár (hard g), which polite Arabic changed into Zanjibár, whence the Portuguese made Zanzibar.
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