[Note 21:  The following passage does not lend itself to admissible translation. Viros autem illos, quos sine feminis in antris relictos diximus, lotum se ad pluviarum acquarum receptacula noctu referunt exiisse; atque una noctium, animalia quaedam feminas aemulantia, veluti formicarum agmina, reptare par arbores myrobolanos a longe vidisse.  Ad feminea ilia animalia procurrunt, capiunt:  veluti anguillae de manibus eorum labuntur.  Consilium ineunt.  Ex senioris consilio, scabiosos leprososque, si qui sint inter eos, conquirunt, qui manos asperas callossasque habeant ut apraehensa facilius queant ritenere.  Hos homines ipsi caracaracoles appellant.  Venatum proficiscuntur:  ex multis quas capiebant quatuor tantum retinent; pro feminis illis uti adnituntur, carere feminea natura comperiunt.  Iterum accitis senioribus, quid facieudum consulunt.  Ut picus avis admittatur, qui acuto rostra intra ipsorum inguina foramen effodiat, constituerunt:  ipsismet caracaracolibus hominibus callosis, feminas apertis cruribus tenentibus.  Quam pulchre picus adducitur!  Picus feminis sexum aperit.  Hinc bellissime habuit insula, quas cupiebat feminas; hinc procreata soboles.  “I cease to marvel,” continues the author, “since it is written in many volumes of veracious Greek history that the Myrmidons were generated by ants.  Such are some of the many legends which pretended sages expound with calm and unmoved visage from pulpits and tribunals to a stupid gaping crowd.”]

Here is a more serious tradition concerning the origin of the sea.[22] There formerly lived in the island a powerful chief named Jaia who buried his only son in a gourd.  Several months later, distracted by the loss of his son, Jaia visited the gourd.  He pried it open and out of it he beheld great whales and marine monsters of gigantic size come forth.  Thus he reported to some of his neighbours that the sea was contained in that gourd.  Upon hearing this story, four brothers born at a birth and who had lost their mother when they were born sought to obtain possession of the gourd for the sake of the fish.  But Jaia, who often visited the mortal remains of his son, arrived when the brothers held the gourd in their hands.  Frightened at being thus taken in the act both of sacrilege and robbery, they dropped the gourd, which broke, and took flight.  From the broken gourd the sea rushed forth; the valley was filled, the immense plain which formed the universe was flooded, and only the mountains raised their heads above the water, forming the islands, several of which still exist to-day.  This, Most Illustrious Prince, is the origin of the sea, nor need you imagine that the islander who has handed down this tradition does not enjoy the greatest consideration.  It is further related that the four brothers, in terror of Jaia, fled in different directions and almost died of hunger because they dared stop nowhere.  Nevertheless, pressed by famine, they knocked at the door of a baker and asked him for cazabi, that is to say, for bread.  The baker spit with such force upon the first who entered, that an enormous tumour was formed, of which he almost died.  After deliberating amongst themselves, they opened the tumour, with a sharp stone, and from it came forth a woman who became the wife of each of the four brothers, one after another, and bore them sons and daughters.