and of gode undirstondynge, saf that thei
worschipen an ox for here" (their) "God.
And also everyche of hem" (them) "werethe
an ox of gold" or of sylver in his forhed, in
tokene that they loven well here God. * *
Thei ben grete folk and wel fyghtynge; and
they have a gret Targe, that covereth all the
body, and a spere in here hond to fighte
with.  And zif thei taken ony man in
battayle, anon thei eten him."

Somewhat akin to these dog-headed
gentlemen, though with more humanity in their
countenances, are the people of whom Sir
John also speaks when describing the empire
of Prester John.  "In that Desert," he says,
"were many wylde men, that were hidouse
to looken on; for thei were horned; and
they speken nought, but they gronten, as
Pigges."

Writers on natural history in former days
did not draw such nice distinctions as science
now requires; and, therefore, it is not
surprising to find the attributes of various
families of the Simian race united under one,
the Cynocephalus doing duty as well for the
true baboon as for the African and Oriental
varieties of the Chimpanzee, or Troglodytes
Niger.  Of the habits of these quadrumana,
when tamed, enough has been recorded: how
they sit at table, eat and drink (as people say)
"like Christians," and exhibit other
accomplishments, more or less polite; but it is their
savage state which more closely allies them
to monsters.  Think of the Pongo, a dog-
headed party, which in its native African
forests attains the stature of a giant, and goes
about with a tremendous club in his hand,
knocking down elephants (so Battel says)—a
fellow whom you can't manage to capture
alive, since he has the strength and agility
ten ordinary men!  Spring-heeled Jack, the
British monster of his day, was nothing to
this Pongo of Sierra Leone, who, according to
Purchas, is stout enough to turn the scale
against two men of common size. "On the
shores of the river Gambia," says Frazer
(cited by Buffon), "the Pongos are larger
and fiercer than in any other part of Africa;
the negroes are greatly afraid of them, and
dare not go into the woods for fear of being
attacked by these animals (who invite them
to a kind of duel, offering them the choice of
sticks to fight with)!"

These creatures are held—and very justly
held—to be extremely maleficent, but in the
parts of Nubia between the White and Blue
Niles, they bear an entirely opposite
character, if we are to credit the statement of
Ahdallah ben Ahmed ben Solaïm, an Arabic
author, a native ot the city of Assouau, who
endows them with the properties of genii.
'In the district between the two rivers there
dwells a people called Kersa, occupying a
spacious territory fertilised by the waters
of the Nile.  In seed-time, each inhabitant
brings all the grain he has, and traces an
outline proportioned to the quantity he has
sow.  Having thrown a little of the grain
into the four corners of the marked enclosure,
he places the rest in the middle with a vessel
of beer, and then withdraws; returning the
next day, he finds the beer gone and the seed
sown.  In like manner, at the season of
harvest, the farmer (who must be a very lazy
fellow) takes a few ears of wheat, and places
them, with the beer, in a convenient spot,
and next day discovers that his corn is all
cut and placed in shocks.  The same method
is employed in winnowing the grain, but if
weeding his field a blade of wheat is
accidentally included, the whole of the corn is
torn up in the course of the night."  This
beer-drinking African brownie is conjectured
by Monsieur Étienne Quatremère, who tells
the story, and does not doubt it, to be only a
very intelligent monkey!

Egypt is the habitat of the Troglodytes, or
dwellers in caves, of Sir John Maundevile;
but they differ, in the article of diet at least,
from the Trogs of the Arabian historian,
though our own famed traveller has no
suspicion that they can be other than men.
"Thei eten," he says, "flesche of serpentes;
and thei eten but litille, and thei speken
nought; but thei hissen as serpentes don."
With regard to the barking propensities of
the Cynocephali, we learn from Allamand
that a certain Mr. Harwood possessed a
female orang-outang, given him by the King
of Ashantee, "which pronounced frequently
and successively the syllables yaa-hou,
accenting and dwelling very forcibly on the
last."

The writers whose forte was the
prodigious, did not confine themselves to the
enumeration of accidental monstrosities.  It
was not sufficient for them to meet with an
occasional lusus naturæ; they dealt in such
commodities wholesale.  Thus, on certain
eastern shores, the whereabouts of which is
unfortunately not specified, "dwelt a race of
men fifteen feet high, whose ears were so
enormous, that when they lay down at night
they wrapped themselves completely up in
them."  The narrator of this marvel adds
"that when they encountered strangers they
fled rapidly away through the desert, with
their wonderful ears erect."  Sir John
Maundevile matches these large-eared people in
the following passage:  "And in another
Yle ben folk of foul fasceon and schapp, that
have the lippe above the mouthe so gret, that
when thei slepen in the sonne, thei keveren
all the face with that lippe."

The Sciapodes, or umbrella-legged, were a
people of Africa (or India) according to
Pline, Solinus, Saint Augustine, Isidore of
Seville, and others, who, to shelter themselves
from the burning rays of a too tropical sun,
lay on their backs, and holding up their leg
(they have but one), make it serve the
purpose of a large parasol.  They are described
as being very swift of foot (sunt celerrimæ
naturæ), though how they get over the ground