AURORA PARIiOT* 



505 



with his usual plainness and dryness in talk, there 

 was something true, but a great deal raise, of what 

 had been reported. I desired to know of him 

 what there was of the first; he told me short and 

 coldly, that he had heard of such an old Parrot 

 when he came to Brasil, and though he believed 

 nothing of it, and 'twas a good way off, yet he had 

 so much curiosity as to send for it; that 'twas a 

 very great and a very old one; and when it came 

 first into the room where the Prince was, with a 

 great many Dutchmen about him, it said presently. 

 What a company of zvhite men are here I They 

 asked it what he thought that man was; pointing 

 at the Prince. It answered Some General or other. 

 When they brought it close to him, he asked it, 

 ^ou xienes mus? It answered De Marinnan, The 

 Prince. A qui estes mus? The Parrot. A un 

 Portugais, Prince. Que fais tula? Parrot. Je 

 garde les poulles. The Prince laughed and said, 

 Vous gardez les poulles? The Parrot answered, 

 Ouy, moy S^je scay bien faire; and made the chuck 

 four or five times that people use to make to 

 chickens when they call them." " I set down," 

 adds Sir William Temple, " the words of this 

 worthy dialogue in French just as Prince Maurice 

 said them to me. I asked him, in what language 

 the Parrot spoke, and he said in Brasilian. I 

 asked whether he understood Brasilian. He said 

 no, but he had taken care to have two interpreters 

 by him, the one a Dutchman that spoke Brasilian, 

 and the other a Brasilian that spoke Dutch : that 

 he asked them separately and privately, and both 



