VOL. XI.] PHILOSOPHICAL TRANSACTIONS. 345 



the patient can bear it : and for this purpose they count the flesh and fat of 

 horses best of all. — Those that are troubled with the colic, are ordered to eat 

 horse-flesh; which they say cures many. — Near the isle of Baharen, they fetch 

 fresh water from the bottom of the sea; and about Cape Comorin, and along 

 the coast of Coromandel and Malabar, where there is no sweet water, the peo- 

 ple come with their vessels at the time of low water as near to the sea as they 

 can, and digging about two feet in the sand, they meet with fresh water fit for 

 drinking. 



Camels go with young 1 1 months, and can be without drink many days, even 

 to nine; and the larger sort of them are able to carry a 1000 or 1500 pound 

 weight. Their milk is a sovereign remedy against the dropsy. — ^The cows about 

 Balsara, having no grass to feed on, are fed with the heads of fishes and dates 

 boiled together. — The palm trees in the country of Balsara are thus propagated. 

 They dig a hole in the earth, in which they range 250 or 300 date-kernels, one 

 a-top of another pyramid wise, with the point upwards, so that the pyramid 

 ends in one kernel: which being covered with earth, the tree grows up. — Craw 

 fish creep up the white mulberry trees about sun-set, eating the fruit; and at 

 break of day come down again into the rivers, near which those trees grow. — 

 Porcupines kill lions, by darting their quills into their body.* — All along the 

 Gulph of Persia there are vast numbers of a kind of locusts, which are eatable, 

 and of which our traveller affirms that he opened one that was six inches long, 

 and found 1 7 little ones in its belly, all of them moving.-^ 



There is a talc in Persia, which being beaten into pieces, as small as lentils, 

 and tinged with any colour, they mix it with chalk well slaked, and rubbing 

 their walls with it, make them shine like jasper, which is very agreeable to the 

 eye. — On the west of the Caspian Sea, a little above Chimaki, there is a rock 

 whence drops an oil, of which the Persians make a varnish, by infusing in it 

 some drops of mastic. This oil whilst issuing out of the rock, is as clear as 

 water ; but afterwards thickens gradually. — ^The best glue in the world is made 

 of sturgeon ; it being so strong that you may sooner break the matter thus 

 glued any where else than in the place where it is glued. The method of the 

 Turks in preparing it is this : when they have gutted the fish, they meet with a 

 certain skin that covers the flesh ; X and this they pull away from about the head 

 to the end of the belly. This skin is very glutinous, and of the thickness of 



* This is a vulgar error. 



f Might not these " 17 little ones" have been the maggots of some other genus, or worms j sine© 

 locusts are oviparous ? 



J M. Tavernier is not accurate in matters which relate to natviral history; which, indeed, was not 

 to be expected from a merchant. This " certain skin" is tlie air-bladder of the sturgeon. 



VOL. II. y Y 



