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Digital Archive of Toyo Bunko Rare Books

CHAP. XVIII. p. 97. PERSIA—FAT-TAILED SHEEP.   19

17.  p. 9o. " There are also plenty of veins of steel and

Ondanique."

The ondanique which Marco Polo mentions in his 42nd

chapter is almost certainly the pin t'ieh or ` pin iron ' of the

Chinese, who frequently mention it as coming from Arabia,

Persia, Cophene, Hami, Ouigour-land and other High Asia

States." (E. H. PARKER, yourn. North China Br. Roy. Asiatic

Soc., X X X V I I I ., 1907, p. 225.)

18.   pp. 97, zoo. " The province that we now enter is called

REOBARLES. . . . The beasts also are peculiar. . . . Then there are

sheep here as big as asses ; and their tails are so large and fat, that one

tail shall weight some 3o lbs. They are fine fat beasts, and afford

capital mutton."

Prof. E. H. PARKER writes in the Journ. of the North China

Branch of the Royal Asiatic Soc., XXXVII., 1906, p. 196:

" Touching the fat-tailed sheep of Persia, the Shan-hai-king says

the Yuëh-chï or Indo-Scythy had a ` big-tailed sheep,' the

correct name for which is hien-yang. The Sung History mentions

sheep at Hami with tails so heavy that they could not walk. In

the year Imo some were sent as tribute to China by the King of

Kuché."

" Amo.ng the native products [at Mu lan p'i, Murābit, Southern

Coast of Spain] are foreign sheep, which are several feet high and

have tails as big as a fan. In the spring-time they slit open

their bellies and take out some tens of catties of fat, after which

they sew them up again, and the sheep live on ; if the fat were

not removed, (the animal) would swell up and die." (CHAD

JU-KWA, pp. 142-3.)

" The Chinese of the T'ang period had heard also of the

trucks put under these sheep's tails. ` The Ta-shY have a foreign

breed of sheep (ku-yang) whose tails, covered with fine wool,

weigh from ten to twenty catties ; the people have to put carts

under. them to hold them up. Fan-kuo-chï as quoted in Tung-

si-yang-k'au." (HIRTH and ROCKHILL, p. 143.)

Leo Africanus, Historie of Africa, III., 945 (Hakluyt Soc.

ed.), says he saw in Egypt a ram with a tail weighing eighty

pounds ! :

OF THE AFRICAN RAMME.

„ There is no difference betweene these rammes of Africa and

others, saue onely in their tailes, which are of a great thicknes,

being by so much the grosser, but how much they are more