National Institute of Informatics - Digital Silk Road Project
Digital Archive of Toyo Bunko Rare Books

122   MARCO POLO.   VOL. II. BK. III.

great sorcerer, which caused his Pangayo, which the Factor had

taken against his will, to stand still as it were in defiance of the

Winde, till the Factor had satisfied him, and then to fly forth

the River after her fellowes at his words. He made that a

Portugali which had angered him, could never open his mouth to

speake, but a Cocke crowed in his belly, till he had reconciled

himselfe : with other like sorceries.' "   See PURCHAS, His

Pilgrimes, I X., 254.

" Not twenty years ago, Theo. Bent found that the Somalis

were afraid of the witchcraft of the natives of Socotra. Theo.

BENT, Southern Arabia, p. 361."

XXXIII., p. 412. Speaking of the bird Ruc at Madeigascar, Marco

Polo says : " It is so strong that it will seize an elephant in its talons

and carry him high into the air, and drop him so that he is smashed to

pieces ; having so killed him the bird gryphon swoops down on him

and eats him at leisure."

Chau Ju-kwa writing of K'un lun ts'öng' ki, on the coast of

Africa, writes, p. 149 : " This country is in the sea to the south-

west. It is adjacent to a large island. There are usually (there,

i.e., on the great island) great p'öng birds which so mask the sun

in their flight that the shade on the sundial is shifted. If the

great p'öng finds a wild camel it swallows it, and if one should

chance to find a p'öng's feather, he can make a water-butt of it,

after cutting off the hollow quill."

XXXIII., p. 421.

THE RUKH.

The Chinese traveller Chau Ju-kwa in his work Chu-fan-chi

on the Chinese and Arab trade in the twelfth and thirteen

centuries, speaking of the country of Pi p'a lo (Berbera), says :

" The country brings forth also the (so-called) ` camel crane,'

which measures from the ground to its crown from six to seven

feet. It has wings and can fly, but not to any great height."

The translators and commentators Hirth and Rockhill have

(p. 129) the following notes : " Quotation from Ling wai-tai-ta,

3, 6a. The ostrich was first made known to the Chinese in the

beginning of the second century of our era, when some were

brought to the court of China from Parthia. The Chinese then

called them A n-si-tsio ` Parthian bird.' See Hou Han Shut, 88,

and Hirth, China and Roman Orient, 39. In the We shu, 102,

12b, no name is given them, they are simply ' big birds which