“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’oeng’ 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’oeng birds which so mask the sun in their flight that the shade on the sundial is shifted.  If the great p’oeng finds a wild camel it swallows it, and if one should chance to find p’oeng’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 thirteenth 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 An-si-tsio ‘Parthian bird.’  See Hou Han Shu, 88, and Hirth, China and Roman Orient, 39.  In the Wei shu, 102, 12b, no name is given them, they are simply ’big birds which resemble a camel, which feed on herbs and flesh and are able to eat fire.  In the T’ang shu, 221, 7a, it is said that this bird is commonly called ‘camel-bird.’  It is seven feet high, black of colour, its feet like those of the camel, it can travel three hundred li a day, and is able to eat iron.  The ostrich is called by the Persians ushturmurgh and by the Arabs teir al-djamal, both meaning ‘camel birds.’”

Dr. Bretschneider in his Notes on Chinese Mediaeval Travellers to the West (1875), p. 87, n. 132, has a long note with a figure from the Pen ts’ao kang mu on the “camel-bird” (p. 88).

Cf.  F. Hirth, Die Laender des Islam, Supp.  Vol.  V. of T’oung Pao, 1894, p. 54.  Tsuboi Kumazo, Actes XII’e Cong, Int.  Orient., Rome, 1899, II., p. 120.

XXXIII., p. 421.

GIRAFFES.

Speaking of Pi p’a lo (Berbera Coast) Chau Ju-kwa (p. 128) says:  “There is also (in this country) a wild animal called tsu-la; it resembles a camel in shape, an ox in size, and is of a yellow colour.  Its fore legs are five feet long, its hind legs only three feet.  Its head is high up and turned upwards.  Its skin is an inch thick.”  Giraffe is the iranised form of the arabic zuraefa.  Mention is made of giraffes by Chinese authors at Aden and Mekka.  Cf.  FERRAND, J.  Asiatique, July-August, 1918, pp. 155-158.