It rises to the clouds with such extraordinary swiftness
that it seems scarcely to stir its wings. In form it is like an eagle.
But although its size and swiftness are so extraordinary, it has much
trouble in procuring food, on account of the density of the forests with
which all that region is clothed. Its own dwelling is in cold and desolate
tracts such as the Mountains of Teroa, i.e. of the Moon; and in the valleys
of that range it shows itself at certain periods. Its black feathers are
held in very high estimation, and it is with the greatest difficulty that
one can be got from the natives, for one such serves to fan ten people,
and to keep off the terrible heat from them, as well as the wasps and
flies" (Ludolf, Hist. Aethiop. Comment, p. 164.)
Abu Mahomed, of Spain, relates that a merchant arrived in Barbary who had
lived long among the Chinese. He had with him the quill of a chick Rukh,
and this held nine skins of water. He related the story of how he came by
this, - a story nearly the same as one of Sindbad's about the Rukh's egg.
(Bochart, II. 854.)
Another story of a seaman wrecked on the coast of Africa is among those
collected by M. Marcel Devic. By a hut that stood in the middle of a field
of rice and durra there was a trough. "A man came up leading a pair of
oxen, laden with 12 skins of water, and emptied these into the trough. I
drew near to drink, and found the trough to be polished like a steel
blade, quite different from either glass or pottery. 'It is the hollow of
a quill,' said the man. I would not believe a word of the sort, until,
after rubbing it inside and outside, I found it to be transparent, and to
retain the traces of the barbs." (Comptes Rendus, etc., ut supra; and
Livre des Merveilles de L'Inde, p. 99.)
Fr. Jordanus also says: "In this India Tertia (Eastern Africa) are
certain birds which are called Roc, so big that they easily carry an
elephant up into the air. I have seen a certain person who said that he
had seen one of those birds, one wing only of which stretched to a length
of 80 palms" (p. 42).
The Japanese Encyclopaedia states that in the country of the Tsengsz'
(Zinjis) in the South-West Ocean, there is a bird called pheng, which in
its flight eclipses the sun. It can swallow a camel; and its quills are
used for water-casks.