106, 108.) The giraffe is sometimes wrought in
the patterns of mediaeval Saracenic damasks, and in Sicilian ones imitated
from the former. Of these there are examples in the Kensington Collection.
I here omit a passage about the elephant. It recounts an old and
long-persistent fable, exploded by Sir T. Brown, and indeed before him by
the sensible Garcia de Orta.
NOTE 4. - The port of Zanzibar is probably the chief ivory mart in the
world. Ambergris is mentioned by Burton among miscellaneous exports, but
it is not now of any consequence. Owen speaks of it as brought for sale at
Delagoa Bay in the south.
NOTE 5. - Mas'udi more correctly says: "The country abounds with wild
elephants, but you don't find a single tame one. The Zinjes employ them
neither in war nor otherwise, and if they hunt them 'tis only to kill
them" (III. 7). It is difficult to conceive how Marco could have got so
much false information. The only beast of burden in Zanzibar, at least
north of Mozambique, is the ass. His particulars seem jumbled from various
parts of Africa. The camel-riders suggest the Bejas of the Red Sea
coast, of whom there were in Mas'udi's time 30,000 warriors so mounted,
and armed with lances and bucklers (III.
