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THE INDIAN ANTIQUARY.
(NOVEMBER, 1881.
As we have seen above that the Arian kings general they still bear the stamp of their Indian kept female Kirita slaves and hunters, while the origin. As has been shown, Ktégias cannot bo Pygmies are described as very brave and hunters absolved from the charge of having in some inof wild animals, and even in later times, the people stances adorned the statements he received and of of that race appear in the royal retinue, the Greek having even allowed himself to tell untruths. He report is confirmed in this point also, while it must has also transferred Greek notions to Indian sub. further be correct in stating that, though not all, jecte, at least in the matter of the Pygmies. If yet at least one tribe of this people had adopted we however consider his book in its original and the laws of the Arian Indians.
complete form, then we see that he must have The Pygmies with their battle against the given a tolerably complete representation of the cranes have also been transferred to Ethiopia from products of Western India, and of the customs their original home in India. Whether the legend and usages of the inhabitants, as well as several concerning them had already reached the Greeks notices of the interior of the country. A few at the time when the poems of Homer were com details serve even to elucidate Indian affairs, and posed, may be left undecided.
there were no doubt many such, which have been The preceding examination of the narrative of lost, because after the Greeks had become more Ktësias(which has reached posterity in so abridged closely acquainted with India in the time of and incomplete a form, and the author whereof Alexander the Great, his work had been neglected had been accused by his own countrymen of by his countrymen. But the special significance mendacity) abundantly shows that Ktesias has in of his narrative does not consist in these isolated most cases only repeated statements as he heard elucidations of Indian antiquity, but in the fact them from the mouths of the Persians, who them- that he had communicated to his countrymen the selves bad received them from Indians who mass of the knowledge on Indian matters and the sojourned in their country, and so we have the form which they had assumed among the Persians, reports, not directly from the Indians themselves, and had marked thereby the extent of the knowbut from the Persians. From this circumstance, ledge gained regarding India before the time of it is evident why the names, as far as they have Alexander. His work may have contributed to been explained, are, with a single exception, increase the desire of the Greeks to investigate Persian, and why some names attributed to foreign countries, but it exerted no influence on the Indians are foreign. If we consider the cir- the development of geographical science, and just cuits these accounts have made in reaching Greece as little on the expedition of Alexander, as has from India, we cannot but be surprised that in 'already been remarked.
APPENDIX, ON CERTAIN INDIAN ANIMALS.
which indicates its connexion with ploughing From Kosmas Indikopleustes De Mundo, XI. arising from the configuration of its nose and the 1. The Rhinoceros.
use made of its hide. I have seen a living rhinoThis animal is called the rhinoceros from baving ceros, but I was standing some distance off at horns growing upon its nose. When it walks the time. I have also seen the skin of one, about the horns sbake, but when it looks enraged which was stuffed with straw and stood in the it tightens them, and they become firm and king's palace, and I have thus been enabled to unshaken so that they are able to tear up even delineate the animal accurately.62 trees by the roots, such especially as stand right
2. The Taurelaphos or 0.-deer. in their way. The eyes are placed as low down as This is an animal found in India and in Ethio. the jaws. It is altogether a most terrible animal, pia. But those in India are tame and gentle, and and is especially hostile to the elepbant. Its feet are there used for carrying pepper and other and its skin closely resemble those of the elephant. stuffs packed in bags; these being slung over the Its skin, which is dry and hard, is four fingers back one on each side. Their milk is made into thick-and from this instead of from iron some butter. We eat also their flesh, the Christians make ploughshares wherewith they plough their killing them by cutting their throat, and the lands. The Ethiopians in their language call the Greeks by beating them with cudgels. The rhinoceros arou or harisi, prefixing the rough Ethiopian ox-deer, unlike the Indian, are wild and breathing to the alpha of the latter word, and untameable. adding risi to it, so that the word arou is the
3. The Camelopardalis or Giraffe. name of the animal, while harisi is an epithet This animal is found only in Ethiopia, and is,
• Hekat. Frog. 266, Müller's ed. p. 18.
A monkish traveller of the 7th century.
Referring to the picture of the animal in his book.
