Nights, 1859, III. 479.)
The same story is related by a missionary in the Lettres Edifiantes of
certain unknown islands supposed to lie south of the Marian group.
Pauthier, from whom I derive this last instance, draws the conclusion: "On
voit que le recit de Marc Pol est loin d'etre imaginaire." Mine from the
premises would be different!
Sometimes the fable took another form; in which the women are entirely
isolated, as in that which Mela quotes from Hanno (III. 9). So with the
Isle of Women which Kazwini and Bakui place to the South of China. They
became enceinte by the Wind, or by eating a particular fruit [or by
plunging into the sea; cf. Schlegel, l.c. - H.C.], or, as in a Chinese
tradition related by Magaillans, by looking at their own faces in a well!
The like fable is localised by the Malays in the island of Engano off
Sumatra, and was related to Pigafetta of an island under Great Java called
Ocoloro, perhaps the same.
(Magail. 76; Gildem. 196; N. et Ex. II. 398; Pigafetta, 173;
Marsden's Sumatra, 1st ed. p. 264.)
CHAPTER XXXII.
CONCERNING THE ISLAND OF SCOTRA.
When you leave those two Islands and go about 500 miles further towards
the south, then you come to an Island called SCOTRA. The people are all
baptized Christians; and they have an Archbishop.
