Ball — On the Colloquies of Garcia Be Orta, 407 
Garcia' s account of this famous fruit resembles tliose now often 
recorded which represent it as most agreeable to some and repulsive 
to others. Some persons are infatuated about it, while others, he 
says, describe it as suggestive of rotten onions. The Malays regard it 
as an aphrodisiac. 
[References. — Clusius (Acosta), p. 65; Linschoten, ii., p. 34; 
Bontius and Fiso, lib. vi., p. 118, fig.] 
COLLOQUY XXI. 
Do EBUE OJJ MAEFIM E DO ELEFANTE. 
[Ivory and Elephants.] 
Called Jil by the Arabs ; afi by the Deccanis ; acetihy the Canarese ; 
ane by the Malabars ; ytemho by the Caffres of Ethiopia. 
Garcia denies that the bones of elephants are used for any useful 
purpose. He states, with less than his usual accuracy, that the 
elephant has only two teeth (by which perhaps he meant tusks, 
ignoring altogether the molars), and relates a story of an elephant in 
Malabar, which not only could speak two words, but that when 
ordered by its naire {nair), keeper, to take a kettle to be mended, ob- 
serving that on the first occasion it was done imperfectly, on the 
second it, of its own accord, tested for leaks by dipping the kettle in 
water. 
Six thousand quintals of ivory were imported into India annually 
from Sofala and Melinda in Ethiopia. There were a few elephants 
in Malabar, many in Ceylon, and the latter were considered the 
best in India. Elephants were also to be found in Orissa, Bengal, 
and Patna, and on the borders of the Deccan (Cotamulco) — i.e. the 
mulh (country) of Qutab — in Pegu, Martaban, and Siam. Garcia 
seems to be doubtful as to the existence of a white elephant in Siam, 
and that- the king was called "lord of the white elephant." Cambay 
alone consumed nearly the whole of the six thousand quintals of ivory 
brought from Africa, this being due to the fact, as Garcia puts it, that 
"the demon infuses a certain superstition into the women and girls of 
the Banyans, who are those that live according to the Pythagorean 
I custom. It is, that when any relative dies the women burn all the 
bracelets on their arms, which are twenty at least, and then they 
make other new ones, &c." 
