Believed these monstrous creatures to exist in
regions as remote as possible from their own, observes: "It is not that our
reason absolutely rejects the possibility of the existence of the Nesnas
(see vol. i. p. 206) or of the 'Angka, and other beings of that rare and
wondrous order; for there is nothing in their existence incompatible with
the Divine Power; but we decline to believe in them because their existence
has not been manifested to us on any irrefragable authority."
[Illustration: Frontispiece showing the Bird Rukh.]
The circumstance which for the time localized the Rukh in the direction of
Madagascar was perhaps some rumour of the great fossil Aepyornis and its
colossal eggs, found in that island. According to Geoffroy St. Hilaire,
the Malagashes assert that the bird which laid those great eggs still
exists, that it has an immense power of flight, and preys upon the greater
quadrupeds. Indeed the continued existence of the bird has been alleged as
late as 1861 and 1863!
On the great map of Fra Mauro (1459) near the extreme point of Africa
which he calls Cavo de Diab, and which is suggestive of the Cape of Good
Hope, but was really perhaps Cape Corrientes, there is a rubric inscribed
with the following remarkable story:
