It Has A Horn, A
Cubit Long, And Two Palms Thick; When The Horn Is Split, Inside Is Found
On The Black Ground The White Figure Of A Man, A Quadruped, A Fish, A
Peacock Or Some Other Bird.
- H.C.]
[John Evelyn mentions among the curiosities kept in the Treasury at St.
Denis: "A faire unicorne's horn, sent by a K. of Persia, about 7 foote
long." Diary, 1643, 12th Nov. - H.C.]
What the Traveller says of the animals' love of mire and mud is well
illustrated by the manner in which the Semangs or Negritoes of the Malay
Peninsula are said to destroy him: "This animal ... is found frequently
in marshy places, with its whole body immersed in the mud, and part of the
head only visible.... Upon the dry weather setting in ... the mud
becomes hard and crusted, and the rhinoceros cannot effect his escape
without considerable difficulty and exertion. The Semangs prepare
themselves with large quantities of combustible materials, with which they
quietly approach the animal, who is aroused from his reverie by an immense
fire over him, which being kept well supplied by the Semangs with fresh
fuel, soon completes his destruction, and renders him in a fit state to
make a meal of." (J. Ind. Arch. IV. 426.)[5] There is a great difference
in aspect between the one-horned species (Rh. Sondaicus and Rh.
Indicus) and the two-horned. The Malays express what that difference is
admirably, in calling the last Badak-Karbau, "the Buffalo-Rhinoceros,"
and the Sondaicus Badak-Gajah, "the Elephant-Rhinoceros."
The belief in the formidable nature of the tongue of the rhinoceros is
very old and wide-spread, though I can find no foundation for it but the
rough appearance of the organ. ["His tongue also is somewhat of a
rarity, for, if he can get any of his antagonists down, he will lick them
so clean, that he leaves neither skin nor flesh to cover his bones." (A.
Hamilton, ed. 1727, II. 24. M.S. Note of Yule.) Compare what is said of
the tongue of the Yak, I. p. 277. - H.C.] The Chinese have the belief, and
the Jesuit Lecomte attests it from professed observation of the animal in
confinement. (Chin. Repos. VII. 137; Lecomte, II. 406.) [In a Chinese
work quoted by Mr. Groeneveldt (T'oung Pao, VII. No. 2, abst. p. 19) we
read that "the rhinoceros has thorns on its tongue and always eats the
thorns of plants and trees, but never grasses or leaves." - H.C.]
The legend to which Marco alludes, about the Unicorn allowing itself to be
ensnared by a maiden (and of which Marsden has made an odd perversion in
his translation, whilst indicating the true meaning in his note), is also
an old and general one. It will be found, for example, in Brunetto Latini,
in the Image du Monde, in the Mirabilia of Jordanus,[6] and in the
verses of Tzetzes. The latter represents Monoceros as attracted not by the
maiden's charms but by her perfumery.
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