Feb. 4. 1854.] 



NOTES AND QUERIES. 



101 



person to whom the care and government of so 

 weighty an office should be intrusted, considering 

 this dignity to be especially worthy of you and 

 your spirit of Religion, we cannot but sincerely 

 be glad ; and rejoice especially if, by your eminent 

 virtues, it shall be effected that only such matters 

 6hall be undertaken, and presided over by the 

 strength and counsels of the Order of Jerusalem, 

 as are most in accordance with the True Religion 

 of Christ our Redeemer, and best adapted to the 

 propagation of his doctrine and Faith. And if 

 you shall seriously apply your mind to this, as 

 you are especially bound to, we shall by no means 

 repent of the favours which we have bestowed 

 neither seldom nor secretly upon this your Order, 

 nay rather this object shall be attained that you 

 shall have no reason to think that you have been 

 foiled in that your confidence, and in our protec- 

 tion and the guardianship which we extend over 

 your concerns through reverence for the Almighty 

 God. And we shall not find that this guardian- 

 ship and protection of your Order, assumed by us, 

 has been borne for so long a period by us without 

 any fruit. 



Those things which the Reverend Prior of our 

 Kingdom, and the person who brought your Re- 

 verend Lordship's letter to us, have listened to 

 with attention and kindness, and returned an 

 answer to, as we doubt not will ba intimated by 

 them to your Reverend Lordship. 



May all happiness attend you. 



From our Palace at Westminster, 

 The 17th day of November, 1534. 

 Henry Rex. 



From the date and superscription of the above 

 truly Catholic letter, it will be seen that it was 

 written about the period of the Reformation in 

 England, and addressed to the Grand Master of an 

 Order, which for four centuries had been at all 

 times engaged in Paynim war ; and won for itself 

 among the Catholic powers of Europe, by its many 

 noble and daring achievements, the style and title 

 of being the "bulwark of the Christian faith." 

 Bound as the Knights of St. John of Jerusalem 

 were in all ages to pay a perfect obedience to the 

 Roman Pontiffs, it is not surprising that this should 

 be the last letter which we have found filed away 

 in the archives of their Order, bearing the auto- 

 graph of Henry VIII. William Winthrop. 



La Valet ta, Malta. 



ENAREANS. 



When Psammeticus turned back the conquering 

 Scythians from their contemplated invasion of 

 Egypt, some stragglers of the rear-guard plun- 

 dered the temple of Venus Urania at Ascalon. 

 The goddess punished this sacrilege by inflicting 



on the Scythian nation the " female disease." 

 Herodotus, from whom we learn this, says : 



" The Scythians themselves confess that their coun- 

 trymen suffer this malady in consequence of the above 

 crime ; their condition also may be seen by those who 

 visit Scythia, where they are called Enareae." — Beloe's 

 Translation, vol. i. p. 112., ed. 8vo. 



And again, vol. ii. p. 261., Hippocrates says : 



" There are likewise among the Scythians, persons 

 who come into the world as eunuchs, and do all the 

 work of women; they are called - Enara?ans, or wo- 

 manish," &c. 



It would occupy too much space to detail here all 

 the speculations to which this passage has given 

 rise ; sufficient for us be the fact, that in Scythia 

 there were men who dressed as, and associated 

 with, the women ; that they were considered as 

 victims of an offended female deity ; and yet, 

 strange contradiction ! they were revered as 

 prophets or diviners, and even acquired wealth by 

 their predictions, &c. (See Universal History, 

 xx. p. 15., ed. 8vo.) 



The curse still hangs over the descendants of 

 the Scythians. Reineggo found the " female dis- 

 ease" among the Nogay Tatars, who call persons 

 so afflicted " Choss." In 1797-8, Count Potocki 

 saw one of them. The Turks apply the same 

 term to men wanting a beard. (See Klaproth's 

 Georgia and Caucasus, p. 160., ed. 4to.) From 

 the Turkish use of the word " choss," we may infer 

 that Enareans existed in the cradle of their race, 

 and that the meaning only had suffered a slight 

 modification on their descent from the Altai. De 

 Pauw, in his HecTieixJies sur les Americains, without 

 quoting any authority, says there are men in Mo- 

 gulistan, who dress as women, but are obliged to 

 wear a man's turban. 



It must be interesting to the ethnologist to 

 find this curse extending into the New World, 

 and actually now existing amongst Dr. Latham's 

 American Mongolida. It would be doubly in- 

 teresting could we trace its course from ancient 

 Scythia to the Atlantic coast. In this attempt, 

 however, we have not been successful, a few 

 isolated facts only presenting themselves as pro- 

 bably descending from the same source. The re- 

 lations of travellers in Eastern Asia offer nothing 

 of the sort among the Tungusi, Yakuti, &c. The 

 two Mahometans (a.d. 833, thereabout), speaking 

 of Chinese depravity, assert that it is somehow 

 connected with the worship of their idols, &c. 

 (Harris' Collection, p. 443., ed. fol.) Bauer men- 

 tions boys dressed as females, and performing all 

 the domestic duties in common with the women, 

 among the Kodiaks ; and crossing to the American 

 coast, found the same practised by the inhabitants 

 of Oonalashka (ed. 4to., pp. 160. 176.). More 

 accurate observation might probably detect its 

 existence amongst intermediate tribes, but want 



