Indian Antiquary Vol 10

SR No.: 032502
Original Sutra Author: N/A
Author: Jas Burgess
Publisher: Swati Publications
Publication Year: 1984
Total Pages: 440
Language: English
Classification: Book_English
File Size: 19 MB

Page 350

306
THE INDIAN ANTIQUARY.
[OCTOBER, 1881.
relates.
when dry it turns hard so as to become like hot season by the oxen of India, but they fight amber; and this it does not."
these assailants and overcome them, as Któsias (B) From the same, towards the end of the 3rd Book of his History of Animals.
(B) Ælian, De Animal. Nat. IV, 32. What Ktësias has written regarding the seed
It is worth while learning what like are the of the elephant is false.
cattle of the Indians. Their goats and their (C) Ælian, De Animal. XVI, 2. Cocks (in India) are of immense size, and
sheep are, from what I hear, bigger than the their crests are not red like the crests of our
biggest asses, and they produce four young ones own cocks, but many-hued, like a floral garland;
at a time, and never fewer than three. The tails their rump feathers are neither curved nor
of the sheep reach down to their feet, and the wreathed, but broad, and these they trail after
tails of the goats are so long that they almost them in the way the peacock drags his tail when
touch the ground. The shepherds cut off the he does not make it stand erect. The feathers
tails of those ewes that are good for breeding of the Indian cocks are partly golden, and
to let them be mounted by the rams, and these partly of a gleaming azure like the smaragdus
tails yield an oil which is squeezed out from stone."
their fat. They cut also the tails of the rams, FRAG. VI.
and having extracted the fat, sew them up (A) Ælian, De Animal. Nat. XVI, 31.
again so carefully that no trace of the incision Ktêsias in his account of India says that the
is afterwards seen. people called the Kynamolgoi rear many
FRAG. VII. dogs as big as the Hyrkanian breed, and this Tzetzen, Chil. VII, v. 739, from the Third Book of the Knidian writer tells us also why they keep so
'Αραβικιον of Uranias.
If any one thinks that the size of the Arabian many dogs, and this is the reason: From the time of the summer solstice on to mid-winter
reeds has been exaggerated, who, asks Tzetzos,
would believe what Ktësias says of the Indian they are incessantly attacked by herds of wild oxen, coming like a swarm of bees or a flight
reeds-that they are two orguiai in breadth, and
that a couple of cargo-boats could be made from of angry wasps, only that the oxen are more
& single joint of one of these reeds.100 numerous by far. They are ferocious withal and proudly defiant, and butt most viciously
FRAG. VIII. with their horns. The Kynamolgoi, unable
Aristotle, De Hist. Anim. II, 1. to withstand them otherwise, let loose their No animals of these species have a double dogs upon them, which are bred for this express row of teeth, though, if we are to believe purpose, and these dogs easily overpower the Ktésias, there is one exception to the rule, for oxen and worry them to death. Then come he asserts that the Indian beast called the the masters, and appropriate to their own use Martikhora has a triple row of teeth in each of such parts of the carcases as they deem fit for its jaws. He describes the animal as being food, but they set apart for their dogs all the equal in size to the lion, which it also resembles rest, and gratitude prompts them to give this in its claws and in having shaggy hair, though share cheerfully. During the season when its face and its ears are like those of a human they are left unmolested by the oxen, they being. Its eyes are blue and its hair is of the employ their dogs in hunting other animals colour of cinnabar.101 Its tail, which resembles They milk the bitches, and this is why they that of the land scorpion, contains the sting, and are called Kynamolgoi (dog-milkers). They
is furnished with a growth of prickles which it drink this milk just as we drink that of the has the power of discharging like shafts shot sheep or the goat.
from a bow. Its voice is like the sound of the (B) Polydeukes (Pollux), Onomastic. V, 5, 41, p. 497. pipe and the trumpet blended together. It
The Kynamolgoi are dogs living about runs fast, being as nimble as a deer. It is the lakes in the south of India and subsisting very ferocious and has a great avidity for upon cows' milk. They are attacked in the human flesh.
Ktesias, however, probably referred to the matter 37; Plin. Hist. Nat. VII, 2; Curtits, IX, 1. 31. which issued from the orifice in the temples,
180 Conf. Pliny, Hist. Nat. XVI, 36 VII, 2, Theo A kind of phenannt is meant-the Impeyanum Lophop.1 phrast. Plant. Hist. IX. 11; Herodot. III. 98; Strabo, Conf. Diod. III, 31; Megasthenes in Strabo, x, Xv, 21. 101 . e. vermilion.