I. 12.) Kazwini says of the Ocean, quoting Al Biruni: "Then it extends
to the sea known as that of Berbera, and stretches from Aden to the
furthest extremity of Zanjibar; beyond this goes no vessel on account of
the great current. Then it extends to what are called the Mountains of the
Moon, whence spring the sources of the Nile of Egypt, and thence to
Western Sudan, to the Spanish Countries and the (Western) Ocean." There
has been recent controversy between Captain A.D. Taylor and Commodore
Jansen of the Dutch navy, regarding the Mozambique currents, and
(incidentally) Polo's accuracy. The currents in the Mozambique Channel
vary with the monsoons, but from Cape Corrientes southward along the coast
runs the permanent Lagullas current, and Polo's statement requires but
little correction. (Ethe pp. 214-215; see also Barbosa in Ram. I.
288; Owen, I. 269; Stanley's Correa, p. 261; J.R.G.S. II. 91;
Fra Mauro in Zurla, p. 61; see also Reinaud's Abulfeda, vol. i. pp.
15-16; and Ocean Highways, August to November, 1873.)
[Illustration: The Rukh (from Lane's "Arabian Nights"), after a Persian
drawing.]
NOTE 5. - The fable of the RUKH was old and widely spread, like that of the
Male and Female Islands, and, just as in that case, one accidental
circumstance or another would give it a local habitation, now here now
there. The Garuda of the Hindus, the Simurgh of the old Persians, the
'Angka of the Arabs, the Bar Yuchre of the Rabbinical legends, the
Gryps of the Greeks, were probably all versions of the same original
fable.
