- E.
[2] The fish here alluded to are sharks; and the same custom of employing
bramins to defend the fishermen, by conjuration, against this
formidable enemy, is continued to the present day. - E.
[3] Mr Pinkerton, from the Trevigi edition, has this passage as follows:
"The king of Vor, one of the princes of Nacbabar, purchases about
10,000 horses yearly from the country of Cormos, formerly mentioned,
each horse costing five sazi of gold." - E.
[4] Tarantulas is assuredly, a mistake here for centipedes and scorpions,
which are common all over India. - E.
SECTION XX.
Of the Kingdom of Murfili, and the Diamond Mines, and some other Countries
of India.
Murfili or Monsul[1], is five hundred miles northwards from Moabar, and is
inhabited by idolaters. In the mountains of this country there are
diamonds, which the people search for after the great rains. They
afterwards ascend these mountains in the summer, though with great labour,
on account of the excessive heat, and find abundance of these precious
stones among the gravel; and are on these occasions much exposed to danger
from the vast numbers of serpents which shelter themselves in the holes and
caverns of the rocks, in which the diamonds are found in greatest
abundance. Among other methods of obtaining the diamonds, they make, use of
the following artifice: There are great numbers of white eagles, which rest
in the upper parts of these rocks for the sake of feeding on the serpents,
which are found at the bottom of the deep vallies and precipices where the
men dare not go.
