Marco Polo, had he confined himself to a sober narration of his travels,
would have left to posterity a valuable record of the political
institutions and national customs of the peoples of his day in the Far
East. He was not satisfied with doing this, but added to his narrative a
number of _on-dit_ more or less marvellous in character, which he
collected from credulous or inventive persons with whom he came into
contact, principally from mariners and from other travellers.
Of these addenda to his story not one is more incredible than that of
the rukh, and yet that addendum may be regarded as indicating the
transition from the utterly incredible to the admixture of truth with
fiction in bird-lore. For, whilst the rukh possessed some
characteristics which are utterly fabulous, others are credible enough.
We are told, for example, that it resembled an eagle, that it was
carnivorous, that it possessed remarkable powers of flight, and that it
visited islands which lay to the south of Zanzibar, within the influence
of an ocean current which rendered difficult or impossible a voyage from
these regions to India, and which therefore must have tended in a
southerly direction. In this current we have no difficulty in
recognising that of Mozambique. On the other hand, that the rukh had an
expanse of wing of thirty paces, and that it could lift an elephant in
its talons, are of course utterly incredible assertions.
The rukh therefore holds a position in bird-lore intermediate between
that of the phoenix and that of the pelican fed upon the blood of its
mother whose beak is tipped with red, or that of the barnacle goose, of
which the name suggests the mollusc,[1] the barnacle, and which was said
to proceed from the mollusc or that of the bird of paradise, the feet of
which were cut off by the Malay traders who sold the skins, and which
were commonly reported never to have had feet, but to float perpetually
in the air.
Thus two streams united into one floated the conception of the rukh--a
mythological stream taking its rise from the simourgh of the Persians
and a stream of fact taking its rise in the observation of a real bird
which visited certain islands off the south-east coast of Africa, and
which is said to have resembled an eagle and may have been a sea-eagle.
With commendable reticence lexicographers tell us that 'rukh' was the
name of a bird of mighty wing.
[1] I.e., a fabulous mollusc; the barnacle is not now regarded as a
mollusc.
THE PENGUINS AND THE SEALS
OF THE ANGRA DE SAM BRÀS
There exists an anonymous narrative of the first voyage of Vasco da Gama
to India under the title _Roteiro da Viagem de Vasco da Gama em
MCCCCXCVII_. Although it is called a roteiro, it is in fact a purely
personal and popular account of the voyage, and does not contain either
sailing directions or a systematic description of all the ports which
were visited, as one might expect in a roteiro. There is no reason to
believe that it was written by Vasco da Gama. An officer in such high
authority would not be likely to write his narrative anonymously. The
faulty and variable orthography of the roteiro also renders improbable
the hypothesis that Vasco da Gama was the author.
The journal of the first voyage of Columbus contains many allusions to
the birds which were seen in the course of it by the great discoverer.
In this respect the roteiro of the first voyage of Vasco da Gama
resembles it. The journal of Columbus is the earliest record of an
important voyage of discovery which recognises natural history as an aid
to navigators, the roteiro is the next.
The author of the roteiro notes that birds resembling large herons were
seen in the month of August, 1497, at which time, I opine, the vessels
of Da Gama were not far from the Gulf of Guinea, or were, perhaps,
making their way across that gulf. On the 27th of October, as the
vessels approached the south-west coast of Africa, whales and seals
were encountered, and also 'quoquas.'
'Quoquas' is the first example of the eccentric orthography of our
author. 'Quoquas' is, no doubt, his manner of writing 'conchas,' that is
to say 'shells'; the _til_ over the o is absent; perhaps that is a
typographical error; probably the author wrote or intended to write
quõquas. These shells may have been those of nautili.
On the 8th of November the vessels under the command of Vasco da Gama
cast anchor in a wide bay which extended from east to west, and which
was sheltered from all winds excepting that which blew from the
north-west. It was subsequently estimated that this anchorage was sixty
leagues distant from the Angra de Sam Bràs; and as the Angra de Sam Bràs
was estimated to be sixty leagues distant from the Cape of Good Hope,
the sheltered anchorage must have been in proximity to the Cape.
The voyagers named it the Angra de Santa Elena, and it may have been the
bay which is now known as St. Helen's Bay. But it is worthy of note that
the G. de Sta. Ellena of the Cantino Chart is laid down in a position
which corresponds rather with that of Table Bay than with that of St.
Helen's Bay.
The Portuguese came into contact with the inhabitants of the country
adjacent to the anchorage. These people had tawny complexions, and
carried wooden spears tipped with horn--assagais of a kind--and bows and
arrows. They also used foxes' tails attached to short wooden handles. We
are not informed for what purposes the foxes' tails were used. Were they
used to brush flies away, or were they insignia of authority? The food
of the natives was the flesh of whales, seals, and antelopes
(gazellas), and the roots of certain plants. Crayfish or 'Cape lobsters'
abounded near the anchorage.
The author of the roteiro affirms that the birds of the country
resembled the birds in Portugal, and that amongst them were cormorants,
larks, turtle-doves, and gulls. The gulls are called 'guayvotas,' but
'guayvotas' is probably another instance of the eccentric orthography of
the author and equivalent to 'gaivotas.'
In December the squadron reached the Angra de São Bràs, which was either
Mossel Bay or another bay in close proximity to Mossel Bay. Here
penguins and seals were in great abundance. The author of the roteiro
calls the penguins 'sotelycairos,' which is more correctly written
'sotilicarios' by subsequent writers. The word is probably related to
the Spanish _sotil_ and the Latin _subtilis_, and may contain an
allusion to the supposed cunning of the penguins, which disappear by
diving when an enemy approaches.
The sotilicarios, says the chronicler, could not fly because there were
no quill-feathers in their wings; in size they were as large as drakes,
and their cry resembled the braying of an ass. Castanheda, Goes, and
Osorio also mention the sotilicario in their accounts of the first
voyage of Vasco da Gama, and compare its flipper to the wing of a bat--a
not wholly inept comparison, for the under-surface of the wings of
penguins is wholly devoid of feathery covering. Manuel de Mesquita
Perestrello, who visited the south coast of Africa in 1575, also
describes the Cape penguin. From a manuscript of his Roteiro in the
Oporto Library, one learns that the flippers of the sotilicario were
covered with minute feathers, as indeed they are on the upper surface
and that they dived after fish, upon which they fed, and on which they
fed their young, which were hatched in nests constructed of
fishbones.[2] There is nothing to cavil at in these statements, unless
it be that which asserts that the nests were constructed of fishbones,
for this is not in accordance with the observations of contemporary
naturalists, who tell us that the nests of the Cape Penguin (_Spheniscus
demersus_) are constructed of stones, shells, and débris.[3] It is,
therefore, probable that the fishbones which Perestrello saw were the
remains of repasts of seals.
Seals, says the roteiro, were in great number at the Angra de São Bràs.
On one occasion the number was counted and was found to be three
thousand. Some were as large as bears and their roaring was as the
roaring of lions. Others, which were very small, bleated like kids.
These differences in size and in voice may be explained by differences
in the age and in the sex of the seals, for seals of different species
do not usually resort to the same locality. The seal which formerly
frequented the south coast of Africa--for it is, I believe, no longer a
denizen of that region--was that which is known to naturalists as
_Arctocephalus delalandii_, and, as adult males sometimes attain eight
and a half feet in length, it may well be described as of the size of a
bear. Cubs from six to eight months of age measure about two feet and a
half in length.[4] The Portuguese caught anchovies in the bay, which
they salted to serve as provisions on the voyage. They anchored a second
time in the Angra de São Bràs in March, 1499, on their homeward voyage.
Yet one more allusion to the penguins and seals of the Angra de São
Bràs is of sufficient historical interest to be mentioned. The first
Dutch expedition to Bantam weighed anchor on the 2nd of April, 1595, and
on the 4th of August of the same year the vessels anchored in a harbour
called 'Ague Sambras,' in eight or nine fathoms of water, on a sandy
bottom. So many of the sailors were sick with scurvy--'thirty or
thirty-three,' says the narrator, 'in one ship'--that it was necessary
to find fresh fruit for them. 'In this bay,' runs the English
translation of the narrative, 'lieth a small Island wherein are many
birds called Pyncuins and sea Wolves, that are taken with men's hands.'
In the original Dutch narrative by Willem Lodewyckszoon, published in
Amsterdam in 1597, the name of the birds appears as 'Pinguijns.'
[2] _Roteiro da Viagem de Vasco da Gama_. 2da edição. Lisboa, 1861.
Pp. 14 and 105.
[3] Moseley, _Notes by a Naturalist on the 'Challenger,'_ p. 155.
[4] _Catalogue of Seals and Whales in the British Museum_, by J. E.
Gray. 2nd ed., p. 53.