Curious Creatures in Zoology

It may be said that these descriptions of men are only the belief about the time of the Christian era, when Pliny lived – but it was the faith of centuries, and we find, 1200 years after Pliny died, Sir John Mandeville confirming his statements, and, as before stated, these wondrous creatures were given in illustrations, both in the Mappa Mundi, and in early printed books. Mandeville writes: “Many divers countreys & kingdoms are in Inde, and it is called Inde, of a river that runneth through it, which is called Inde also, and there are many precious stones in that river Inde. And in that ryver men finde Eles of xxx foote long, & men yt dwell nere that river are of evill colour, yelowe & grene…

“Then there is another yle that men call Dodyn, & it is a great yle. In this yle are maner diverse of men yt have evyll maners, for the father eateth the son, & the son the father, the husband his wyfe, and the wyfe hir husbande. And if it so be that the father be sicke, or the mother, or any frend, the sonne goeth soone to the priest of the law & prayeth him that he will aske of the ydoll if his father shall dye of that sicknesse, or not. And then the priest and the son kneele down before the ydole devoutly, & asketh him, and he answereth to them, and if he say that he shall lyve, then they kepe him wel, and if he say that he shall dye, then commeth the priest with the son, or with the wyfe, or what frende that it be unto him yt is sicke, and they lay their hands over his mouth to stop his breath, & so they sley him, & then they smite all the body into peces, & praieth all his frendes for to come and eate of him that is dead, and they make a great feste thereof, and have many minstrels there, and eate him with great melody. And so when they have eaten al ye flesh, then they take the bones, and bury them all singing with great worship, and all those that are of his frendes that were not at the eating of him, have great shame and vylany, so that they shall never more be taken as frends.

“And the king of this yle is a great lord and mightie, & he hath under him liii greate Yles, and eche of them hath a king; and in one of these yles are men that have but one eye, and that is in the middest of theyr front, and they eat flesh & fishe all rawe. And in another yle dwell men that have no heads, & theyr eyen are in theyr shoulders & theyr mouth is on theyr breste. In another yle are men that have no head ne eyen, and their mouth is in theyr shoulders. And in another yle are men that have flatte faces, without nose, and without eyen, but they have two small round holes in stede of eyen, and they have a flatte mouth without lippes. And in that yle are men that have their faces all flat without eyen, without mouth & without nose, but they have their eyen, and their mouth, behinde on their shoulders.

“And in another yle are foule men that have the lippes about the mouth so greate, that when they sleepe in the sonne they cover theyr face with the lippe. And in another yle are little men, as dwarfes, and have no mouth, but a lyttle rounde hole & through that hole they eate their meate with a pipe, & they have no tongue, & they speake not, but they blow & whistle, and so make signes one to another. And in another yle are wild men with hanging eares unto their shoulders. And in another yle are wild men, with hanging eares & have feete lyke an hors & they run faste, & they take wild beastes, and eate them. And in another yle are men that go on theyr handes & feete lyke beasts & are all rough, and will leape upon a tree like cattes or apes. And in another yle are men that go ever uppon theyr knees marvaylosly, and have on every foote viii Toes…

“There is another yle that men call Pitan, men of this lande till no lande, for they eate nought, and they are smal, but not so smal as Pigmes. These men live with smell of wild aples, & when they go far out of the countrey, they beare apples with them, for anon, as they lose the savour of apples they dye – they are not reasonable, but as wyld beastes. And there is another yle where the people are all fethers,13 but the face and the palmes of theyr handes, these men go as well about the sea, as on the lande, and they eate flesh and fish all raw… In Ethiope are such men that have but one foote, and they go so fast yt it is a great marvaill, & that is a large fote, that the shadow thereof covereth ye body from son or rayne, when they lye upon their backes; and when their children be first borne they loke like russet, and when they waxe olde then they be all black.”

There were also elephant-headed men.

In the olden times were men who did not build themselves houses – but sheltered themselves in caves, fissures of rocks, &c., and many are the remains we find of their flint implements, and the bones, which they used to split in order to extract the marrow of the animals they had slain with their rude flint arrows and spears. These, in classical times, were called Troglodytes (from the Greek τρωγλοδὺται, dwellers in caves). It was a generic term, although particularly applied to uncivilised races on the banks of the Danube – those who dwelt on the western coasts of the Red Sea – and Ethiopia. These latter could not have led a particularly happy life, for Herodotus tells us that the “Garamantes hunt the Ethiopian Troglodytes in four horse chariots; for the Ethiopian Troglodytes are the swiftest of foot of all men of whom we have heard any account given. The Troglodytes feed upon serpents and lizards, and such kind of reptiles; they speak a language like no other, but screech like bats.”

Pliny, as we have seen, speaks of an adder eating people, whose food enables them to achieve extraordinary longevity, and Mandeville tells us that “From this yle, men go to an yle that is called Tracota, where all men are as beastes, & not reasonable, they dwell in caves, for they have not wyt to make them houses – they eate adders, and they speake not, but they make such a noyse as adders doe one to another, and they make no force of ryches, but of a stone that hath forty colours, and it is called Traconyt after that yle, they know not the vertue thereof, but they covete it for the great fayreness.”

This stone was probably some kind of agate. It could not possibly have been a topaz, as some have thought, as the context from Pliny will show. “Topazos is a stone that is still held in very high estimation for its green tints; indeed, when first it was discovered, it was preferred to every other kind of precious stone. It so happened that some Troglodytic pirates, suffering from tempest and hunger, having landed upon an island off the coast of Arabia, known as Cytis, when digging there for roots and grass, discovered this precious stone; such, at least, is the opinion expressed by Archelaüs. Juba says that there is an island in the Red Sea called Topazos, at a distance of three hundred stadia from the mainland; that it is surrounded by fogs, and is often sought by navigators in consequence; and that, to this, it received its present name, the word Topazin14 meaning “to seek” in the language of the Troglodytæ… At a later period a statue, four cubits in height, was made of this stone… Topazos is the largest of all the precious stones.”

This shows that the Troglodytæ of Ethiopia had some commercial energy, and they did a good trade in myrrh and other condiments. Pliny says that the Troglodytæ traded among other things in cinnamon. They “after buying it of their neighbours, carry it over vast tracts of sea, upon rafts, which are neither steered by rudder nor drawn or impelled by oars or sails. Nor yet are they aided by any of the resources of art, man alone, and his daring boldness, standing in the place of all these; in addition to which, they choose the winter season, about the time of the equinox, for their voyage, for then a south-easterly wind is blowing; these winds guide them in a straight course from gulf to gulf, and after they have doubled the promontory of Arabia, the north-east wind carries them to a port of the Gebanitæ, known by the name of Ocilia. Hence it is that they steer for this port in preference, and they say that it is almost five years before the merchants are able to effect their return, while many perish on the voyage. In return for their wares, they bring back articles of glass and copper, cloths, buckles, bracelets, and necklaces; hence it is that this traffic depends more particularly upon the capricious tastes and inclinations of the female sex.”

This shows that some, at least, of the Troglodytes had a commercial spirit, and were in a comparative state of civilisation; in fact the latter is thoroughly proved, when, a little later on, Pliny speaks of Myrobalanum, “Among these various kinds, that which is sent from the country of the Troglodytæ is the worst of all,” thus showing that they had reached the civilised pitch of adulteration! There are also several notices of peculiarities connected with this people, which deserve a passing glance. They had turtles with horns (or more probably fore-feet) which resembled the branches of a lyre; with these they swam. These were in all likelihood the tortoise-shell turtles, for they called them Chelyon. The Troglodytæ worshipped them. Their cattle were not like other oxen, for their horns pointed downwards to the ground, so that they were obliged to feed with their heads on one side. These oxen should have been crossed with those of Phrygia, whose horns were as mobile as their ears. And they were the happy possessors of a lake, called the Unhealthy Lake, which thrice a day became salt and bitter, and then again fresh, and this went on both day and night. We can hardly wonder that this Lacus Insanus was full of white serpents thirty feet long.

Amazons

The race of Amazons or fighting women, is not yet extinct, as the chronicles of every police court can tell, and as an organised body of warlike soldiers – the King of Dahomey still keeps them up, or did until very recently. According to Herodotus, the Greeks, after having routed the Amazons, sailed away in three ships, taking with them as many Amazons, as they had been able to capture alive – but, when fairly out at sea, the ladies arose, stood up for women’s rights, and cut all the Greeks in pieces. But they had not reckoned on one little thing, and that was, that none among them had the slightest idea of navigation; they couldn’t even steer or row – so they had to drift about, until they came to Cremni (supposed to be near Taganrog), which was Scythian territory. They signalised their landing by horse-stealing, and the Scythians, not appreciating the joke, gave them battle, thinking they were men; but an examination of the dead proved them to be of the other sex. On learning this, the Scythians were far too gentlemanly to continue the strife, and, little by little, they established the most friendly relations with the Amazons. These ladies, however, objected to go to the Scythians’ homes, for, as they pertinently put it, “We never could live with the women of your county, because we have not the same customs with them. We shoot with the bow, throw the javelin, and ride on horseback, and have never learnt the employments of women. But your women do none of the things we have mentioned, but are engaged in women’s work, remaining in their wagons, and do not go out to hunt, or anywhere else; we could not therefore consort with them. If, then, you desire to have us for your wives, and to prove yourselves honest men, go to your parents, claim your share of their property, then return, and let us live by ourselves.”

This the young Scythians did, but, when they returned, the Amazons said they were afraid to stop where they were, for they had deprived parents of their sons, and besides, had committed depredations in the country, so that they thought it but prudent to leave, and suggested that they should cross the Tanais, or Don, and found a colony on the other side. This their husbands acceded to, and when they were settled, their wives returned to their old way of living – hunting, going to war with their husbands, and wearing the same clothes – in fact they enjoyed an actual existence, of which many women nowadays, fondly, but vainly dream. There was a little drawback however – the qualification for a young lady’s presentation at court, consisted of killing a man, and, until that was effected, she could not marry.

Sir John Mandeville of course knew all about them, although he does not pretend to have seen them, and this is what he tells us. “After the land of Caldee, is the land of Amazony, that is a land where there is no man but all women, as men say, for they wil suffer no man to lyve among them, nor to have lordeshippe over them. For sometyme was a kinge in that lande, and men were dwelling there as did in other countreys, and had wives, & it befell that the kynge had great warre with them of Sychy, he was called Colopius, and he was slaine in bataill and all the good bloude of his lande. And this Queene, when she herd that, & other ladies of that land, that the king and the lordes were slaine, they gathered them togither and killed all the men that were lefte in their lande among them, and sithen that time dwelled no man among them.

“And when they will have any man, they sende for them in a countrey that is nere theyr lande, and the men come, and are ther viii dayes, or as the woman lyketh, & then they go againe, and if they have men children they send them to theyr fathers, when they can eate & go, and if they have maide chyldren they kepe them, and if they bee of gentill bloud they brene15 the left pappe16 away, for bearing of a shielde, and, if they be of little bloud, they brene the ryght pappe away for shoting. For those women of that countrey are good warriours, and are often in soudy17 with other lordes, and the queene of that lande governeth well that lande; this lande is all environed with water.”

Pygmies

The antitheses of men – Dwarfs, and Giants – must not be overlooked, as they are abnormal, and yet have existed in all ages. Dwarfs are mentioned in the Bible, Leviticus xxi. 20, where following the injunction of “Let him not approach to offer the bread of his God” – are mentioned the “crookbackt or dwarf.” Dwarfs in all ages have been made the sport of Royalty, and the wealthy; but it is not of them I write, but of a race called the Pygmies, very small men who were descended from Pygmæus. They are noted in the earliest classics, for even Homer mentions them in his Iliad (B. 3, l. 3–6), which Pope translates: —

“So, when inclement winter vex the plainWith piercing frosts, or thick descending rain,To warmer seas, the Cranes embody’d fly,With noise, and order, through the mid-way sky;To pigmy nations, wounds and death they bring,And all the war descends upon the wing.”

Homer also wrote a poem, “Pygmæogeranomachia,” about the Pygmies and Cranes. The accompanying illustration is from a fresco at Pompeii.

Aristotle says that they lived in holes under the earth, and came out in the harvest time with hatchets, to cut down the corn, as if to fell a forest, and went on goats and lambs of proportionable stature to themselves to make war against certain birds, called Cranes by some, which came there yearly from Scythia to plunder them. Pliny mentions them several times, but especially in B. 7, c. 2. “Beyond these people, and at the very extremity of the mountains, the Trispithami,18 and the Pygmies are said to exist; two races, which are but three spans in height, that is to say, twenty-seven inches only. They enjoy a salubrious atmosphere, and a perpetual spring, being sheltered by the mountains from the northern blasts; it is these people that Homer has mentioned as being waged war upon by Cranes. It is said that they are in the habit of going down every spring to the sea-shore, in a large body, seated on the backs of rams and goats, and armed with arrows, and there destroy the eggs and the young of those birds; that this expedition occupies them for the space of three months, and that otherwise it would be impossible for them to withstand the increasing multitudes of the Cranes. Their cabins, it is said, are built of mud, mixed with feathers and egg shells.”

Mandeville thus describes them. “When men passe from that citie of Chibens, they passe over a great river of freshe water, and it is nere iiii mile brode, & then men enter into the lande of the great Caan. This river goeth through the land of Pigmeens, and there men are of little stature, for they are but three span long, and they are right fayre, both men and women, though they bee little, and they live but viii19 yeare, and he that liveth viii yeare is holden right olde, and these small men are the best workemen in sylke, and of cotton, in all maner of thing that are in the worlde; and these smal men travail not, nor tyl land, but they have amonge them great men, as we are, to travaill for them, & they have great scorne of those great men, as we would have of giaunts, or, of them, if they were among us.”

Ser Marco Polo warns his readers against pseudo Pygmies. Says he: “I may tell you moreover that when people bring over pygmies which they allege to come from India, ’tis all a lie and a cheat. For those little men, as they call them, are manufactured on this Island (Sumatra), and I will tell you how. You see there is on the Island a kind of monkey which is very small, and has a face just like a man’s. They take these, and pluck out all the hair, except the hair of the beard, and on the breast, and then dry them, and stuff them, and daub them with saffron, and other things, until they look like men. But you see it is all a cheat; for nowhere in India, nor anywhere else in the world, were there ever men seen so small as these pretended pygmies.”

But there are much more modern mention of these small folk. Olaus Magnus not only reproduces the classical story, but tells of the Pygmies of Greenland – the modern Esquimaux. These are also mentioned in Purchas his Pilgrimage, as living in Iceland, “pigmies represent the most perfect shape of man; that they are hairy to the uttermost joynts of the fingers, and that the males have beards downe to the knees; but, although they have the shape of men, yet they have little sense or understanding, nor distinct speech, but make shew of a kinde of hissing, after the manner of geese.”

But to bring the history of pygmies down to modern times – I quote from “Giants and Dwarfs,” by E. J. Wood, 1868, and I am thus particular in giving my authority, as the news comes from America, whence, sometimes, fact is mixed with fiction (pp. 246, 247, 248). “It is alleged by contemporary newspapers, that in 1828 several burying-grounds, from half an acre to an acre and a half in extent, were discovered in the county of White, state of Tennessee, near the town of Sparta, wherein very small people had been deposited in tombs or coffins of stone. The greatest length of the skeletons was nineteen inches. The bones were strong and well set, and the whole frames were well formed. Some of the people appeared to have lived to a great age, their teeth being worn smooth and short, while others were full and long. The graves were about two feet deep; the coffins were of stone, and made by laying a flat stone at the bottom, one at each side, or each end, and one over the corpse. The dead were all buried with their heads toward the east, and in regular order, laid on their backs, and with their hands on their breasts. In the bend of the left arm was found a cruse, or vessel, that would hold nearly a pint, made of ground stone, or shell, of a grey colour, in which were found two or three shells. One of these skeletons had about its neck ninety-four pearl beads. Near one of these burying-places was the appearance of the site of an ancient town.

Webber, in his ‘Romance of Natural History,’ refers to the diminutive sarcophagi found in Kentucky and Tennessee; and he describes these receptacles to be about three feet in length, by eighteen inches deep, and constructed, bottom, sides, and top, of flat, unhewn stones. These he conjectures to be the places of sepulture of a pigmy race, that became extinct at a period beyond reach even of the tradition of the so-called Indian aborigines.

Newspapers for 1866 tell us that General Milroy, who had been spending much time in Smith County, Tennessee, attending to some mining business, discovered near Watertown in that county some remarkable graves, which were disclosed by the washing of a small creek in its passage through a low bottom. The graves were from eighteen inches to two feet in length, most of them being of the smaller size, and were formed by an excavation of about fifteen inches below the surface, in which were placed four undressed slabs of rock – one in the bottom of the pit, one on each side, and one on the top. Human skeletons, some with nearly an entire skull, and many with well-defined bones, were found in them. The teeth were very diminutive, but evidently those of adults. Earthen crocks were also found with the skeletons. General Milroy could not gain any satisfactory information respecting these pigmy graves. The oldest inhabitants of the vicinity knew nothing of their origin or history, except that there was a large number of similar graves near Statesville in the same county, and also a little burial-ground at the mouth of Stone River, near the city of Nashville. General Milroy deposited the bones found by him in the State Library at Nashville.”

That a race of dwarfs live in Central Africa, is now well known. Ronzo de Leo, who travelled in Africa, for many years with Dr. Livingstone, at one time almost stood alone in his assertion of this fact. But he was supported in his statement by G. Eugene Wolff, who had been in Central Africa with Stanley, and he maintained that, on the southern branches of the Congo, he had seen whole villages of Lilliputians, of whom the men were not over four and a half feet high, whilst the women were a great deal smaller. He described them as being both brave and cunning, expert with bow and arrow, with which they readily bring down the African bison, antelope, and even elephants. As trappers of small animals they are unsurpassed. In a close pinch they use the lance with astonishing dexterity, and an ordinary sling, in their hands, is wielded with wonderful skill.

These dwarfs collect the sap of the palm, with which they make soap. The men are smooth-faced, and of a rich mahogany colour, while the hair is short, and as black as night. Tens of thousands of them live on the south branch of the Congo.

Mr. Stanley in his expedition for the relief of Emin Pacha,20 encountered some tribes of these pigmies, but he does not agree with the account which Mr. Wolff gives of them, who describes them as an affable, kind-hearted people, of simple ways, and devoid of vicious tendencies to a greater degree than most semi-barbaric races. The women are industrious and amiable.

Stanley, on the contrary, found them very annoying, and had a lively recollection of their poisoned arrows – but, at the present writing, he not having returned, and we, having no record but his letters, had better suspend our judgment as to the habits and tempers of these small people.

Wolff says they stand in awe of their bigger neighbours, but are so brave and cunning that, with all the odds of physique against them, the pigmies are masters of the situation.

Giants

This last sentence seems almost a compendium of The History of Tom Thumb, for his wit enabled him to overcome the lubber-headed giants, in every conflict he was engaged in with them – they were no match for him. Take the Romances of Chivalry. Pacolet, and all the dwarfs, were endowed with acute wits, and there was very little they could not compass – but the giants! their ultimate fate was always to be slain by some knight, and their imprisoned knights and damsels set free. A dwarf was a cleanly liver, but a giant was turbulent, quarrelsome, lustful, and occasionally cannibal. Fe Fi Fo Fum was the type of colossal man, and, as it is quite a pleasure to whitewash their characters in these respects, I hasten to do so before further discoursing on the subject of these great men.

It is Olaus Magnus who thus tells us

“Of the sobriety of Giants and Champions.”

“That most famous Writer of the Danish affairs, Saxo, alleged before, and who shall be often alleged hereafter, saith, that amongst other mighty strong men in the North, who were as great as Giants, there was one Starchaterus Thavestus, whose admirable and heroick Vertues are so worthily extolled by him, that there were scarce any like him in those dayes in all Europe, or in the whole World, or hardly are now, or ever shall be. And amongst other Vertues he ascribes to that high-spirited man, he mentions his sobriety, which is principally necessary for valiant men: and I thought fit to annex that peculiarly to this relation, that we may, as in a glass, see more cleerly the luxury of this lustful age. For, as the same Saxo testifies, that valiant Starchaterus loved frugality, and loved not immoderate dainties. Alwayes neglecting pleasure, he respected Vertue, imitating the antient manner of Continency, and he desired a homely provision of his Diet; he hated costly suppers; wherefore hating profusion in Diet, and feeding on smoaked and rank meat, he drove away Hunger, with the greater appetite, as his meat was but of one kind, lest he should remit and abate the force of his true Vertue, by the contagion of outward Delights, as by some adulterate sweetness, or should abrogate the Rule of antient Frugality, by unusual Superstitions for Gluttony. Moreover, he could not endure to spend rost and boyled meat all at one Meal; holding that to be a monstrous Food, that Cookery had tampered with divers things together: Wherefore, that he might turn away the Luxury of the Danes, that they borrowed from the Germans, that made them so effeminate, amongst the rest he made Verses in his Country Language.” Omitting many of them, he sang thus: