146 ON OLD PICTURES OF THK ZKURA. [Mar. 7, 



is greatly to be desired. The passage from Dion Cassiiis (77. 6), 

 Tiypiv (cai [■KTzoTiypiv . . . (povevfievovs kv tm decirpu), is quoted m 

 Dindorf s ' Thesaurus,' and tlie Avord is thus rendered : — " Est 

 major tigris species, similis onagro, \\t ait anonymus, in cod. 

 Augustano, cap. X." Liddell & Scott looked upon the first element 

 as qualitative — they seem to have thought that a hippotigris was 

 a tiger as big as a horse, not a horse-like beast with tiger-like 

 stripes. Camelopard and leopai-d, which have Greek forms, do 

 not favour their definition. One would think that " hippotigris " 

 must have occurred in Low Latin ; it is not, however, entered in 

 Ducange or Forcellini. 



One sentence in Ludolphvis ofiiers some difiiculty : " Attamen 

 caput equino aliquanto longius habent, quod hie vidi." It is not 

 clear whether he saw a living animal or a picture. It is not im- 

 possible that a zebra may ha,ve been sent to Rome ; but Ludolphus 

 probably refers to a pictiu^e. Aldrovandus (De Quadrup. i. 416) 

 mentions " figura quse in libro Romse impresso patet," and it is 

 certain that Father Tellez, S.J., sent home a picture of which one 

 would like to know moi'e. 



In 1678, apparently in reply to some inqiiiries, Ludolphus 

 received a letter from Emanuel Nawendorf, a native of Altenburg, 

 then resident in Batavia. He had seen two of these wild asses, 

 brought by an Arab envoy from the Emperor of Abyssinia to the 

 Governor of the Dutch East India Company. This personage 

 utilised the royal gifts in a strange way. He sent them to the 

 Emperor of Japan, getting in return ten thovisand silver taels and 

 thii'ty Japanese garments. 



Jean de Thevenot left Rome on his eastern journey in 1655, 

 and after some stay in Constantinople went to Cairo, where he 

 saw one of these zebras * : — 



" Au mois d'Octobre il arrive au Caire un ambassadeur d'Ethi- 

 opie, qui avait plusieurs presents pour le Grand Seigneur, entre 

 les autres, un ^ne qui avait une peau fort belle, pourvu qu'elle f ut 

 naturelle, car je n'en voudrais pas repondre, ne I'ayant point ex- 

 aminee ; cet ane avait le raye du dos noire, et tout le reste du 

 corps etait bigarre de rayes blanches et rayes tannees alternative- 

 ment, larges chacun d'un doigt, qui lui ceignaient tout le corps, 

 sa tete etait extremement longue et bigarree comme le corps, les 

 oreilles fort larges par en haut, commes celles d'un buffle, et noires, 

 jaunes, et blanches, ses jambes bigarrees de meme que le corps, 

 non pas en longue des jambes, mais a I'entour jusqu'au bas, en 

 faQon de jarreti^re le tout avec tant d'ordre et de mesure qu'il n'y 

 a point Alagia t si bien varie et proportionne, ni de peau de tigre 

 ou de leopard si belle. II mourut a cet ambassadeur deux ^nes 



* ' Relatious d'un Voyage,' i. cli. Ixviii. (Paris, 1664). 



f The only suggestion 1 can offer is that this word signifies some fabric with a 

 regular pattern [from Turk. aZa7a= spotted, streaked]. The ' Century Dictionary ' 

 has aZa4;«, defined as "nearly the same na a latcJia." Under this, one reads: "A 

 cotton stuflt' made in Central Asia, dyed in the thread, and woven with white stripes 

 ou a blue ground." This has reference to E. Schuyler's " Turkestan." And in 

 ' La Grande Encyclopedic' this entry occurs : — " Aladja (Comm.). Sorte de bourre 

 de soie que Ton fabrique a Magn^sie, et qu'on emploie surtout pour les velours 

 d'Orient." 



