. of China_, II. 301.) Lane
quotes a like tale about a horde of Cossacks whose wives were said to live
apart on certain islands in the Dnieper. (_Arab. Nights_, 1859, III. 479.)
The same story is related by a missionary in the _Lettres Edifiantes_ of
certain unknown islands supposed to lie south of the Marian group.
Pauthier, from whom I derive this last instance, draws the conclusion: "On
voit que le recit de Marc Pol est loin d'etre imaginaire." Mine from the
premises would be different!

Sometimes the fable took another form; in which the women are entirely
isolated, as in that which Mela quotes from Hanno (III. 9). So with the
Isle of Women which Kazwini and Bakui place to the South of China. They
became enceinte by the Wind, or by eating a particular fruit [or by
plunging into the sea; cf. _Schlegel_, l.c.--H.C.], or, as in a Chinese
tradition related by Magaillans, by looking at their own faces in a well!
The like fable is localised by the Malays in the island of Engano off
Sumatra, and was related to Pigafetta of an island under Great Java called
Ocoloro, perhaps the same.

(_Magail._ 76; _Gildem._ 196; _N. et Ex._ II. 398; _Pigafetta_, 173;
_Marsden's Sumatra_, 1st ed. p. 264.)

CHAPTER XXXII.

CONCERNING THE ISLAND OF SCOTRA.

When you leave those two Islands and go about 500 miles further towards
the south, then you come to an Island called SCOTRA. The people are all
baptized Christians; and they have an Archbishop. They have a great deal
of ambergris; and plenty also of cotton stuffs and other merchandize;
especially great quantities of salt fish of a large and excellent kind.
They also eat flesh and milk and rice, for that is their only kind of
corn; and they all go naked like the other Indians.

[The ambergris comes from the stomach of the whale, and as it is a great
object of trade, the people contrive to take the whales with barbed iron
darts, which, once they are fixed in the body, cannot come out again. A
long cord is attached to this end, to that a small buoy which floats on
the surface, so that when the whale dies they know where to find it. They
then draw the body ashore and extract the ambergris from the stomach and
the oil from the head.[NOTE 1]]

There is a great deal of trade there, for many ships come from all
quarters with goods to sell to the natives. The merchants also purchase
gold there, by which they make a great profit; and all the vessels bound
for Aden touch at this Isla