Babu Rajendralal Mitra has published a learned article on Beef in ancient India, showing that the ancient Brahmans were far from entertaining the modern horror of cow-killing.  We may cite two of his numerous illustrations. Goghna, “a guest,” signifies literally “a cow-killer,” i.e. he for whom a cow is killed.  And one of the sacrifices prescribed in the Sutras bears the name of Sula-gava “spit-cow,” i.e. roast-beef. (J.A.S.B. XLI.  Pt.  I. p. 174 seqq.)

NOTE 11.—­The word in the G.T. is losci dou buef, which Pauthier’s text has converted into suif de buef—­in reference to Hindus, a preposterous statement.  Yet the very old Latin of the Soc.  Geog. also has pinguedinem, and in a parallel passage about the Jogis (infra, ch. xx.), Ramusio’s text describes them as daubing themselves with powder of ox-bones (l’ossa).  Apparently l’osci was not understood (It. uscito).

NOTE 12.—­Later travellers describe the descendants of St. Thomas’s murderers as marked by having one leg of immense size, i.e. by elephantiasis.  The disease was therefore called by the Portuguese Pejo de Santo Toma.

NOTE 13.—­Mr. Nelson says of the Madura country:  “The horse is a miserable, weedy, and vicious pony; having but one good quality, endurance.  The breed is not indigenous, but the result of constant importations and a very limited amount of breeding.” (The Madura Country, Pt.  II. p. 94.) The ill success in breeding horses was exaggerated to impossibility, and made to extend to all India.  Thus a Persian historian, speaking of an elephant that was born in the stables of Khosru Parviz, observes that “never till then had a she-elephant borne young in Iran, any more than a lioness in Rum, a tabby cat in China (!), or a mare in India.” (J.A.S. ser.  III. tom. iii. p. 127.)

[Major-General Crawford T. Chamberlain, C.S.I., in a report on Stud Matters in India, 27th June 1874, writes:  “I ask how it is possible that horses could be bred at a moderate cost in the Central Division, when everything was against success.  I account for the narrow-chested, congenitally unfit and malformed stock, also for the creaking joints, knuckle over futtocks, elbows in, toes out, seedy toe, bad action, weedy frames, and other degeneracy:  1st, to a damp climate, altogether inimical to horses; 2nd, to the operations being intrusted to a race of people inhabiting a country where horses are not indigenous, and who therefore have no taste for them...; 5th, treatment of mares.  To the impure air in confined, non-ventilated hovels, etc.; 6th, improper food; 7th, to a chronic system of tall rearing and forcing.” (MS. Note.—­H.Y.)]