It eats grass
and flesh, and swallows men. In the History of the T'ang (618-907) the
camel-bird is again mentioned as a bird of Persia. It is also stated there
that the ruler of T'u-huo-lo (Tokharestan) sent a camel-bird to the
Chinese emperor. The Chinese materia medica, Pen ts'ao Kang mu, written
in the 16th century, gives (ch. xlix.) a good description of the ostrich,
compiled from ancient authors. It is said, amongst other things, to eat
copper, iron, stones, etc., and to have only two claws on its feet. Its
legs are so strong that it can dangerously wound a man by jerking. It can
run 300 li a day. Its native countries are A-dan (Aden) Dju-bo (on
the Eastern African coast). A rude but tolerably exact drawing of the
camel-bird in the Pen-ts'ao proves that the ostrich was well known to the
Chinese in ancient times, and that they paid great attention to it. In the
History of the Ming Dynasty, ch. cccxxvi., the country of Hu-lu-mo-sz'
(Hormuz on the Persian Gulf) is mentioned as producing ostriches." - H.C.]
[1] Reinaud (Abulf. I. 81) says the word Interior applied by the Arabs
to a country, is the equivalent of citerior, whilst by exterior
they mean ulterior. But the truth is just the reverse, even in the
case before him, where Bolghar-al-Dakhila, 'Bulgari Interiores,' are
the Volga Bulgars. So also the Arabs called Armenia on the Araxes
Interior, Armenia on Lake Van Exterior (St. Martin, I. 31).
[2] Thus (2) the Homeritae of Yemen, (3) the people of Axum, and Adulis or
Zulla, (5) the Bugaei or Bejahs of the Red Sea coast, (6) Taiani or
Tiamo, appear in Salt's Axum Inscription as subject to the King of Axum
in the middle of the 4th century.
[3] Muir's Life of Mahomet, I. cclxiii.
[4] Ritter, Africa, p. 605. The statement appears to be taken from
Burckhardt's Nubia, but the reference is not quite clear. There is
nothing about this army in Quatremere's Mem. sur la Nubie. (Mem. sur
l'Egypte, vol. ii.)
[5] Armandi indeed quotes a statement in support of such use from a
Spaniard, Marmol, who travelled (he says) in Abyssinia in the
beginning of the 16th century. But the author in question, already
quoted at pp. 368 and 407, was no traveller, only a compiler; and the
passage cited by Armandi is evidently made up from the statement in
Poggio and from what our traveller has said about Zanjibar. (Supra, p.
422. See Marmol, Desc. de Affrica, I. f. 27, v.)
[6] 834 for 836.
[7] On Aufat, see De Sacy, Chrestom.
