One reads
in some books that the Borus have dogs' faces; it is a way of saying
that they are very brave" Ibn Batuta describes an Indo-Chinese tribe on
the coast of Arakan or Pegu as having dogs' mouths, but says the women
were beautiful. Friar Jordanus had heard the same of the dog-headed
islanders. And one odd form of the story, found, strange to say, both in
China and diffused over Ethiopia, represents the males as actual dogs
whilst the females are women. Oddly, too, Pere Barbe tells us that a
tradition of the Nicobar people themselves represent them as of canine
descent, but on the female side! The like tale in early Portuguese days
was told of the Peguans, viz. that they sprang from a dog and a Chinese
woman. It is mentioned by Camoens (X. 122). Note, however, that in Colonel
Man's notice of the wilder part of the Nicobar people the projecting
canine teeth are spoken of.
Abraham Roger tells us that the Coromandel Brahmans used to say that the
Rakshasas or Demons had their abode "on the Island of Andaman lying on
the route from Pulicat to Pegu," and also that they were man-eaters. This
would be very curious if it were a genuine old Brahmanical Saga; but I
fear it may have been gathered from the Arab seamen. Still it is
remarkable that a strange weird-looking island, a steep and regular
volcanic cone, which rises covered with forest to a height of 2150 feet,
straight out of the deep sea to the eastward of the Andaman group, bears
the name Narkandam, in which one cannot but recognise [Script], Narak,
"Hell"; perhaps Naraka-kundam, "a pit of hell." Can it be that in old
times, but still contemporary with Hindu navigation, this volcano was
active, and that some Brahman St. Brandon recognised in it the mouth of
Hell, congenial to the Rakshasas of the adjacent group?
"Si est de saint Brandon le matere furnie;
Qui fu si pres d'enfer, a nef et a galie,
Que deable d'enfer issirent, par maistrie,
Getans brandons de feu, pour lui faire hasquie."
- Bauduin de Seboure, I. 123.
(Ramusio, III. 391; Ham. II. 65; Navarrete (Fr. Ed.), II. 101;
Cathay, 467; Bullet. de la Soc. de Geog. ser. IV. tom iii. 36-37;
J.A.S.B. u.s.; Reinaud's Abulfeda, I. 315; J. Ind. Arch., N.S.,
III. I. 105; La Porte Ouverte, p. 188.) [I shall refer to my edition of
Odoric, 206-217, for a long notice on dog-headed barbarians; I
reproduce here two of the cuts. - H.C.]
CHAPTER XIV.
CONCERNING THE ISLAND OF SEILAN.
When you leave the Island of Angamanain and sail about a thousand miles in
a direction a little south of west, you come to the Island of SEILAN,
[NOTE 1] which is in good sooth the best Island of its size in the world.
You must know that it has a compass of 2400 miles, but in old times it was
greater still, for it then had a circuit of about 3600 miles, as you find
in the charts of the mariners of those seas.
