Mr. St. John in Borneo
met with a trader who had seen and felt the tails of such a race
inhabiting the north-east coast of that Island. The appendage was 4 inches
long and very stiff; so the people all used perforated seats. This Borneo
story has lately been brought forward in Calcutta, and stoutly maintained,
on native evidence, by an English merchant. The Chinese also have their
tailed men in the mountains above Canton. In Africa there have been many
such stories, of some of which an account will be found in the Bulletin
de la Soc. de Geog. ser. IV. tom. iii. p. 31. It was a story among
mediaeval Mahomedans that the members of the Imperial House of Trebizond
were endowed with short tails, whilst mediaeval Continentals had like
stories about Englishmen, as Matthew Paris relates. Thus we find in the
Romance of Coeur de Lion, Richard's messengers addressed by the "Emperor
of Cyprus": -
"Out, Taylards, of my palys!
Now go, and say your tayled King
That I owe him nothing."
- Weber, II. 83.
The Princes of Purbandar, in the Peninsula of Guzerat, claim descent from
the monkey-god Hanuman, and allege in justification a spinal elongation
which gets them the name of Punchariah, "Taylards."
(Ethe's Kazwini, p. 221; Anderson, p. 210; St. John, Forests of the
Far East, I. 40; Galvano, Hak.
