Curious Creatures in Zoology. Ashton John
earth in bygone times. It seems a pity that there are none of them now living, and that, consequent upon never having seen them, we are apt to imagine that they never existed, but were simply the creatures of the writer’s brain. They were articles of belief until comparatively recent times, and were familiar in Queen Elizabeth’s time, as we learn from Othello’s defence of himself (Act i. sc. 3): —
“And of the Cannibals that each other eat,
The Anthropophagi, and men whose heads
Do grow beneath their shoulders.”
They were thoroughly believed in, a century or two previously, in connection with Geography, and, in the “Mappa Mundi” (one of the earliest preserved English maps), now in Hereford Cathedral, which dates from the very early part of the fourteenth century, nearly the whole of the fanciful men hereafter mentioned are pourtrayed.
Sluper, who wrote in 1572, gives us the accompanying picture of a Cyclope, with the following remarks: —
“De Polipheme & de Ciclopiens
Tout mention Poetes anciens:
On dit encor que ce lignage dure
Auec vn oeil selon ceste figure.”
Pliny places the Cyclopes “in the very centre of the earth, in Italy and Sicily;” and very likely there they might have existed, if we can bring ourselves to believe the very plausible explanation that they were miners, whose lanthorn, or candle, stuck in cap, was their one eye. At all events we may consider Sluper’s picture as somewhat of a fancy portrait.
Among the Scythians, inhabiting the country beyond the Palus Mæotis, was a tribe which Herodotus (although he has been christened “The father of lies”) did not believe in, nor indeed in any one-eyed men, but Pliny, living some 500 years after him, tells afresh the old story respecting these wonderful human beings. “In the vicinity also of those who dwell in the northern regions, and not far from the spot from which the north wind arises, and the place which is called its cave, and is known by the name of Geskleithron,2 the Arimaspi are said to exist, a nation remarkable for having but one eye, and that placed in the middle of the forehead. This race is said to carry on a perpetual warfare with the Griffins,3 a kind of monster, with wings, as they are commonly represented, for the gold which they dig out of the mines, and which these wild beasts retain, and keep watch over with a singular degree of cupidity, while the Arimaspi are equally desirous to get possession of it.”
Milton mentions this tribe in “Paradise Lost,” Book 2.
“As when a Gryphon through the wilderness,
With winged course, o’er hill, or mossy dale,
Pursues the Arimaspian, who, by stealth,
Had from his wakeful custody purloin’d
The guarded gold.”
But there seems every probability that the story of the Gryphon was invented by the goldfinders, in order to deter people from coming near them, and interfering with their livelihood. There were, however, smaller Arimaspians, which probably the Gryphons did not heed, for Pliny tells us about the little thieves of mice. “In gold mines, too, their stomachs are opened for this purpose, and some of the metal is always to be found there, which they have pilfered, so great a delight do they take in stealing!” Livy, also, twice mentions mice gnawing gold.
There were Anthropophagi – cannibals – as there are now, but, of course, they then lacked the luxury of cold missionary – and there were, besides, many wonderful beings. “Beyond the other Scythian Anthropophagi, there is a country called Abarimon, situate in a certain great valley of Mount Imaus (the Himalayas), the inhabitants of which are a savage race, whose feet are turned backwards, relatively to their legs; they possess wonderful velocity, and wander about indiscriminately with the wild beasts. We learn from Beeton, whose duty it was to take the measurements of the routes of Alexander the Great, that this people cannot breathe in any climate except their own, for which reason it is impossible to take them before any of the neighbouring kings; nor could any of them be brought before Alexander himself.
The Anthropophagi, whom we have previously mentioned as dwelling ten days’ journey beyond the Borysthenes (the Dneiper), according to the account of Isogonus of Nicæa, were in the habit of drinking out of human skulls, and placing the scalps, with the hair attached, upon their breasts, like so many napkins. The same author relates that there is, in Albania, a certain race of men, whose eyes are of a sea-green colour, and who have white hair from their earliest childhood (Albinos), and that these people see better in the night than in the day. He states also that the Sauromatæ, who dwell ten days’ journey beyond the Borysthenes, only take food every other day.
Crates of Pergamus relates, that there formerly existed in the vicinity of Parium, in the Hellespont (Camanar, a town of Asia Minor), a race of men whom he calls Ophiogenes, and that by their touch they were able to cure those who had been stung by serpents, extracting the poison by the mere imposition of the hand. Varro tells us, that there are still a few individuals in that district, whose saliva effectually cures the stings of serpents. The same, too, was the case with the tribe of the Psylli, in Africa, according to the account of Agatharcides; these people received their name from Psyllus, one of their kings, whose tomb is in existence, in the district of the Greater Syrtes (Gulf of Sidra). In the bodies of these people, there was, by nature, a certain kind of poison, which was fatal to serpents, and the odour of which overpowered them with torpor; with them it was a custom to expose children, immediately after their birth, to the fiercest serpents, and in this manner to make proof of the fidelity of their wives; the serpents not being repelled by such children as were the offspring of adultery. This nation, however, was almost entirely extirpated by the slaughter made of them, by the Nasamones, who now occupy their territory. This race, however, still survives in a few persons, who are descendants of those who either took to flight, or else were absent on the occasion of the battle. The Marsi, in Italy, are still in possession of the same power, for which, it is said, they are indebted to their origin from the son of Circe, from whom they acquired it as a natural quality. But the fact is, that all men possess, in their bodies, a poison which acts upon serpents, and the human saliva, it is said, makes them take to flight, as though they had been touched with boiling water. The same substance, it is said, destroys them the moment it enters their throat, and more particularly so, if it should be the saliva of a man who is fasting.
Above the Nasamones (living near the Gulf of Sidra), and the Machlyæ, who border upon them, are found, as we learn from Calliphanes, the nation of the Androgyni, a people who unite the two sexes in the same individual, and alternately perform the functions of each. Aristotle also states, that their right breast is that of a male, the left that of a female.
Isigonus and Nymphodorus inform us that there are, in Africa, certain families of enchanters, who, by means of their charms, in form of commendations, can cause cattle to perish, trees to wither, and infants to die. Isigonus adds, that there are, among the Triballi, and the Illyrii, some persons of this description, who, also, have the power of fascination with the eyes, and can even kill those on whom they fix their gaze for any length of time, more especially if their look denotes anger: the age of puberty is said to be particularly obnoxious to the malign influence of such persons.
A still more remarkable circumstance is, the fact that these persons have two pupils in each eye. Apollonides says, that there are certain females of this description in Scythia, who are known as Bythiæ, and Phylarcus states that a tribe of the Thibii in Pontus, and many other persons as well, have a double pupil in one eye, and in the other the figure of a horse. He also remarks, that the bodies of these persons will not sink in water, even though weighed down by their garments. Damon gives an account of a race of people, not very much unlike them, the Pharnaces of Æthiopia, whose perspiration is productive of consumption to the body of every person that it touches. Cicero also, one of our own writers, makes the remark, that the glance of all women who have a double pupil is noxious.
To this extent, then, has nature, when she produced in man, in common with the wild beasts, a taste for human flesh,
γης κλειθρον, meaning the limit or boundary of the earth.
The Gryphon must not be confounded with the Griffin, as will be seen later on.