CHAPTER IV.

Real but rare Phenomena successfully held up as Prodigies pro- ceeding from the intervention of a Divine Power ; and believed because men were ignorant that a Phenomenon could be local and periodical ; because they had forgotten some natural fact, which would at once have removed all idea of the marvellous ; and finally, because it was often dangerous to disabuse a deceived multitude. — As the ancient authors have adhered to truth in this respect; they may be, also, depended upon in what they relate of magical operations.
Although a great number of the wonders mentioned in the writings of the ancients may have derived impor- tance from enthusiasm, ignorance, and credulity only ; yet others, on the contrary, such as the fall of aerolites have been recognized as real phenomena ; and have not been rejected by enlightened physical science, although it has not always been able to explain them in a satis- factory manner. The natural history of our species details many extraordinary events, the existence of which has been confirmed, but which some observers, whose observations have been circumscribed within their own narrow horizon, have regarded as chimerical.
64 NATURAL PHENOMENA.
Some of the most ancient Greek writers, such as Isi- gonus and Aristeus of Proconesus, have spoken of pigmies two feet and a half in height ; of people con- stituting whole nations whose eyes were in their shoulders; of anthropophagi existing among the nor- thern Scythians ; and of a country named Albania, in which were born men, whose hair was white in childhood, and whose sight was exceedingly weak during the day, but became very strong in the night.
Aulus Gelius* treats these narrations as incredible fables ; nevertheless, in the descriptions of the two first people, we recognize the Laplanders, and the Samoyedes, although the diminutiveness of the one, and the manner in which the heads of the other, are sunk between their shoulders, has been greatly exag- gerated.! Marco Palo asserts, that some tribes of
* A. Gell, Noct. Attic, lib. ix. cap. iv. Solinus, also (cap. lv) doubtless copying the authors whose testimony Aulus Gelius re- jected, speaks of a nation, the men of which had their eyes in their shoulders.
f Sir W. Raleigh in 1595, and Keymis in 1596, received from the inhabitants of Guiana, the most positive assurances of the existence of a race of men, whose eyes were placed upon their shoulders, and their mouths in their chests (The Discovery of Guiana, by Sir W. Raleigh), that is to say, as the French trans- lator has reasonably suggested, that the necks of these men were extremely short and their shoulders very high. P. Lafiteau, (The Manners and Customs of the American Savages, &c. vol. i. p. 58 and 62), observes that the belief in the existence of such a race of men is equally entertained in different parts of America, and among the Tartars in the countries bordering on China. Like the Samoyedes in Asia, the Esquimaux and people observed by Weddel at Cape Horn, and in Terra del Fuego, and the adja-
EXTRAORDINARY STORIES CREDIBLE. 65
Tartars eat the corpses of men condemned to death.* In the inhabitants of Albania we cannot fail to recognize the Albinos. The name of their supposed country is nothing more than the translation of the appellation bestowed on these singular beings, from the whiteness of their hair, and the fairness of their skin. Ktesias has frequently been accused of falsehood upon the authority of the Greeks, whose opinions and pretensions were somewhat inconsistent with his narrations. The pigmies that this author describes as living in the centre of Asia, and having their bodies covered with long hair, recal to our recollection the Ainos of the Kourila islands, who are four feet high, and covered with very long hair. Turner also saw in Boutan, an individual of an exceed-
cent islands, have been the origin of this error respecting the natives of the North and South of America. (A Voyage to the South Pole, performed in the Years 1822 — 1824. Geographical Journal) .
The natives of Bukaw, in central Africa, are of so diminu- tive a stature as to accord completely with the ancient accounts of pigmies. The Bushmen in Southern Africa, also, may be regarded as a race of pigmies, very few male adults rising five feet in height, and the females not so much. The latter are delicately formed, and with remarkably small hands and feet.— Ed.
* Peregrinatio Marci Pauli, lib. i. cap. lxiv. Mémoires de la Société de Géographie, tome i. p. 361.— The New Zealanders are confirmed and avowed cannibals ; so much so, that like the Massagatse, described by Herodotus, (Kb. i. 216) they would eat their own parents. Dr. Martius informs us, that among the ancient Tupis of Brazil, when the chief (Pajé) despaired of a sick man's recovery, he ordered the poor wretch to be killed and eaten. (Lond. Geol. Journ. n. 199). The Battas of Sumatra are also undoubted cannibals. — Ed.
VOL. I. F
66 EXTRAORDINARY STORIES CREDIBLE.
ingly small race. The Cynocephali of Ktesias, (Aelian, de Nat. Anim. lib. iv. cap. xlvi.) may possibly have been the Oceanic negroes, Alphourians or Haraforas of Borneo and the Malay Islands ; and the monkeys against which, according to the sacred books of the Hindoos, Rama made war in the island of Ceylon.*
In the Argippeans or " bald heads" of Herodotus, we recognize the Mongols or Kalmucs, a nation among whom the monks or Ghelongs have their heads closely shaved. When among this nation, Herodotus was told of a still more northern people, who slept six months of the year. He refused to believe this assertion, which was, after all, nothing more than an allusion to the day and night of the Polar regions.f
The ancients supposed that pigmies existed in Africa. A French traveller found some of them in the Tenda Maia, on the banks of the Rio-Grande. " There," said he, " dwells a race of people remarkable for the diminutiveness of their figures, and the weakness of their limbs.]: If we descend from generalities to details, we still find that facts of an extraordinary nature, the recollection of which antiquity has preserved with so religious a fidelity, have been too often depreciated. To
* Malte-Brun, Mémoire sur VInde septentrionale d'Hérodote et de Ktesias, etc. ; Nouvelles Annales des Voyages, tome n. p. 335 — 357. lu El Rami, an island, near to Serendib (Ceylon), are to be seen men who are but a metre in height, and who speak an unintelligible language, Géographie d'Edrisi, trad. fr. tome i, p. 75.
f Malte-Brun, ibid, p. 372 — 373. Herodotus.
X Mollien, Voyage dans l'Intérieur de l'Afrique, etc. (Paris, 1840), tome n. p. 210.
EXTRAORDINARY STORIES CREDIBLE.
67
suppose, says Larcher, that Roxana should have had a child without a head, is an absurdity alone sufficient to throw discredit on Ktesias.* Every medical dictionary, however, would have shown Larcher, that the birth of a headless, or acephalus, child is not so impossible.!
The respect to which the genius of Hippocrates is entitled has been, I suppose, the only reason why he has not been taxed with falsehood, when he speaks of a disease prevalent among the Scythians, which changed them into women.]: M. Jules Klaproth has seen men among the Nogais Tartars, who, losing their beards and their skin becoming wrinkled, have all the appear- ance of old women ; and such among the ancient Scy- thians were considered as old women, and no longer treated as men. ||
The history of animals, such as the ancients have transmitted to us, is filled with details apparently chimerical; but which are sometimes only the con- sequence of a defective nomenclature. The name Onocentaur, which seems to designate a monster, uniting the forms of a man and an ass, was given to a quadrumanus which runs sometimes on four paws, but at other times uses its fore paws only as hands ; merely an immense monkey covered with grey hair, particu- larly on the lower part of the body.§ It is only very
* Traduction d'Hérodote, 22e edit, tome vi. p. 266, note 35. f Diet, des Sciences Médicales, art. Acéphale. X Hippocrat. de Aère, Aquis et Locis.
|| Jules Klaproth, Voyage au Mont Caucase et en Géorgie, en 1807, 1808. Bibl. Univ. Littérature, tome vi. p. 40.
§ Aelian de Nat. Animal, lib. xvn. — This description
F 2
68 EXTRAORDINARY STORIES CREDIBLE.
recently that we have recognised the jerboa, in the description of those Lybian rats, who walked upon their hind legs ;* and detected in the ErJcoom or Abbagumba of Bruce, that African bird which bears a horn upon its fore- head.f But what was the Catopleba,| that animal of the wild sheep or bull species, said to be endowed like the asp or basilisk, with a breath and glance of a deadly nature ? It was the Gnoo described by Aelian ; and the fact is placed beyond all doubt, by the examination
accords well with that of the Chimpanzee, which, in much of its organization, bears a close resemblance to man, but dif- fers from him in many important points. In the first place, the Chimpanzee, like all the troglodyte ape tribe, is a qua- drumanus, or four handed animal : the jaws are much more developed than in the lowest tribes of the human species ; the nasal bones are consolidated into one ; the lumbar vertebrae are only four instead of five ; and the length of the upper and the shortness of the lower extremities, is a marked distinction. The circumstance, however, of the Chimpanzee walking often erect ; arming itself with weapons and living in huts ; the form of the head ; the long erect ears ; and the hairy body ; might easily have afforded the idea of the Onocentaur described by Aelian. — Ed.
* Jerboa, Dipus JEgypticus, belongs to the muridœ or mouse tribe, an extensive section of the rodentia, or gnawers. They have the head and body of a mouse, and a long tail bushy at the end. Their fore legs are remarkably short, the hind proportionally longer than in any other known quadruped. Theophrastus adds, correctly, " they do not walk upon their fore feet, but use them as hands ; and when they flee, they leap." It is found in India, as well as in Egypt, and is eaten by one of the Hindoo tribes, called Kunjers. — Ed.
f N. Mouraviev, Voyage dans la Turcomanie et à Khiva, p. 224 à 225.
I Le Constitutionnel du 7 Septembre, 1821.
EXTRAORDINARY STORIES CREDIBLE. 69
of the form of the head of one of those animals that killed Marius' soldiers.* The head of the Gnoo is always declined ; its eyes are small, but quick, and seem almost covered by the thick mane which grows upon its forehead. It is scarcely possible, unless it is very nearly approached, to perceive its glance or to feel its breath ; near enough, in fact, to hazard being struck by this timid, yet savage animal.f The proverbial expression of danger to which one would, therefore, be exposed, has, by the love of the marvellous, been transformed into a physical phenomenon.
Cuvier| has pointed out this resemblance; and in discussing the ancient accounts of animals regarded as fabulous, has expressed his opinion that what we have found so incredible in them, is only the result of incor- rect descriptions. These descriptions may have been exact at first, but afterwards vitiated by details imper- fectly preserved by traditions, or badly translated in
* Catoblepus Gorgon, the brindled Gnoo, an inhabitant of Southern Africa, in the country near the Orange River, where it is found in vast herds. The eyes, which are said to have so deadly a glance, are small, black, piercing, wild, and sinister, and placed very high in the forehead. In his general aspect, the animal is singularly grotesque ; having the head of a bull, the neck and mane of a horse, and the slender, muscular legs of the antelope. " His snort," says Capt. Harris, " resembling the roar of the lion, is repeated with energy and effect." (Wild Sports of Southern Africa, p. 27, plate iv.) — Ed.
t Athenœ. Deip. loc. cit. Aelian, de Nat. Anim. loc. cit.
X Analyse des Travaux de la Classe des Sciences de l'Institut de France en 1815. Magasin Êncyclop. Année 1816, tome i. p. 44.
70 EXTRAORDINARY STORIES CREDIBLE.
memoirs written in a foreign language, and probably abounding in figurative expressions. They may have been corrupted also by the inclination which the ancients indulged in for drawing men and animals closer together, and for connecting physical facts with causes of a moral nature. Geoffroy St. Hilaire saw the little ring plover, or dottrel,* free the crocodile from the insect suckers, which attach themselves to the interior of its mouth, exactly as the ancient Egyptians have described it. The moderns considered their recital as a fable, because it was supposed that there existed between the two animals a compact of mutual obligation, which could not be believed. It does not appear that the bird is ever imprudent enough to enter the mouth of the amphibious animal.
After these observations, may we not respectfully recommend to the learned the examination of those prodigies formerly exhibited to Princes and people, as omens of the future ; as signs of the will of the Gods, and undoubted tokens of their favour or their indigna- tion ? Natural history might thence be enriched by some interesting suggestions, and physiology find many rare instances which, by this examination, would become less problematical, and more easily connected with the general scheme of nature. I shall first of all quote from the collection of Julius Obsequens. This author seems to have confined himself to the task of extracting from the regis- ters to which the Roman Pontiffs annually consigned the
* Revue Encyclop. Mai, 1828, p. 300—301.
EXTRAORDINARY STORIES CREDIBLE. 71
prodigies declared to them. In the unfortunately short fragment of his work, which remains to us, we find, beside the mention of frequent showers of stones, the assertion four times repeated, that the sterility of mules is not an immutable law of nature ; also the account of a spontaneous human combustion, which it was thought might have been caused by the reflection of a burning glass; and two examples of an extra-natural accouchement, the possibility of which has been discussed and undeniably proved in the present day.# Above all we may mention the observations made upon an animal presenting a similar phenomenon to that of the young boy of Verneuil (Amédée Bissieux) in 1814.f In 1826, a young Chinese, without being much inconvenienced, had a headless fcetusj attached to his chest and breast bone. In the body of a stag
* Servio Flacco, Q. Calpurnio, Coss. Romœ puer solidus poste- rior naturœ parte genitus. Sergio Galba, M. Scauro, Coss. Idem (puer) posteriore nature solidus natus, qui, voce missa, expiravit. Julius Obsequens, de Prodigiis.
t C. Valerio, M. Herennio, Coss. Maris Vituli cum exta deme- rentur, gemini vitelli in alvo ejus inventi. Julius Obsequens, de Pro- digiis.
t Séance de l'Académie de Paris, 28 Août, 1826. — These mal- formations and deviations from ordinary nature are still re- garded as the result of supernatural agency, or as prodigies by the ignorant; but the researches of physiology have demon- strated, that they are merely arrestments, or perversions of the ordinary process of development. In these cases, some organs may be either altogether absent, or defective in parts ; or they may be redundant both in number and in parts. In all such cases, the individuals are termed monsters. The varieties of monstrosities are very numerous ; but a few only require to be here noticed, in
72 EXTRAORDINARY STORIES CREDIBLE.
captured by Otto Henri in the sixteenth century, there was found, if we may believe the physician, Jean Lange, a
addition to those mentioned in the text. Thus individuals have been born without arms, whilst the head and trunk are natural ; others in whom both hands and feet have been produced, without arms and legs ; and the hands inserted upon the trunk, causing such a similitude to the seal, as to give the name of phocomeles, to such unfortunate beings. A man, aged sixty-two, of this formation, was exhibited in Paris in 1800. In other cases, both legs, or both arms have been, as it were, soldered together, so as to form one member, giving the name symoles or siren to the person. In some instances, the eyes approach and unite, so as to give the appearance of a single eye only ; hence the name cyclopia ; but these and the symoles, seldom live many hours after birth. Children have been born, and have lived for years with two heads, and in one case, the accessory head was planted on the summit of the natural head.a Many instances have occurred, in which otherwise perfect individuals are born united together, by some part of their bodies, but free in all the others. Two remarkable cases of this description are well known. One was of two sisters, who were born united in Hungary, in 1701. They were christened Helen and Judith, and lived to the age of twenty- two, when Helen was attacked with disease of the lungs ; soon after which Judith, who was in perfect health, also became ill ; and both expired at the same instant. The second case was that of the Siamese twins, who were exhibited in London in 1829 — 30. They were fine looking boys of twelve years of age ; but united by a production of the navel of each. The writer of this note saw them ; and found them intelligent boys. He is uncertain whether they are alive. In all such cases, the forma- tion of twins was the intention of nature, had not disturbing causes interfered with the development. In no instance has the monstrosity been of such a description, as to place the being out
a This child was born at Bengal in 1753, lived four years, and died from the bite of a serpent. (Phil. Trans, vol. lxxx. p. 296. Hume's Comp. Anat.)
EXTRAORDINARY STORIES CREDIBLE. 73
well formed fœtus. Did the frequency of these hetera- delphic monsters (the expression used by M. Geoffroy de Saint-Hilaire to designate the union of two beings, one of which is not completely developed) formerly originate the belief in hermaphroditism, or the alternate change of sex, in the hare and hyena ? We may believe it, since a single observation of this kind made upon the Mus Caspium (probably the marten) has been also converted into a general fact.* It would not be unin- teresting to ascertain whether martens, hysenas, and hares, present this singularity more frequently than other animals.
In the fabulous times of Greece, Iphis and Caenis were both seen suddenly to change their sex by the beneficence of a divinity. The ancients have related similar metamorphoses in less uncertain periods. Pliny quotes four instances, and relates one as having been confirmed by himself.f Accurate observations have proved to the moderns, that in some human beings the development of the sexual organs is so tardy, as to offer the appearance of such a transforma- tion.