27. There are many marvellous things in the cycle of those [heavenly bodies] to delight a good astronomer.[1]
2S. In this India, and in India the Less, men who dwell a long way from the sea, under the ground and in woody tracts, seem altogether infernal; neither eating, drinking, nor clothing themselves like the others who dwell by the sea.[2]
29. There serpents too be numerous, and very big, of all colours in the world; and it is a great marvel that they be seldom or never found to hurt anybody unless first attacked.
30. There is there also a certain kind of wasps, which make it their business to kill very big spiders whenever they find them, and afterwards to bury them in the sand, in a
- ↑ "Astrologo."
- ↑ Perhaps the good bishop by infernales does not mean infernal, but only inferior. Yet the expression reminds us of the constant strain of oriental tradition, which represents the aborigines under the aspect of Rakshasas or Demons. The reference is to the various forest tribes of the Peninsula, who represent either the Dravidian races unmodified by civilization, (whether Hindu or pre-Hindu), or some yet antecedent races. Dubois, speaking generally of the wild forest tribes of the south, says, "In the rainy season they shelter themselves in caverns, hollow trees, and clefts of the rocks; and in fine weather they keep the open field. They are almost entirely naked. The women wear nothing to conceal their nakedness but some leaves of trees stitched together, and bound round their waists," etc. (473.) And Mr. Markham describes the Poliars, a race of wild and timid men of the woods in the Pulney Hills, east of Cochin, who are possibly the very people whom Jordanus had in his eye, as being said to have no habitations, but to run through the jungle from place to place, to sleep under rocks, and live on wild honey and roots. They occasionally trade with the peasantry, who place cotton and grain on some stone, and the wild creatures, as soon as the strangers are out of sight, take these and put honey in their place. But they will let no one come near them. (Peru and India, p. 404.) These wild races were no doubt in the mind's eye of a little Hindu, who, during the examination of a native school by a late governor of Madras (now again occupying an eminent position in India), on being asked what became of the original inhabitants of Britain at the Saxon conquest? replied, "They fled into Wales and Cornwall, and other remote parts, where they exist as a wild and barbarous people to this day!" The little Hindu was not aware that—
"By Pol, Tre, and Pen
You may know the Cornish men."
