bear the force of the cold seas of the
region about the Cape of Good Hope,.. they never dared to attempt the
exploration of the regions to the westward of the Cape of Currents,
although they greatly desired to do so." (Dec. I. viii. 4; and see also
IV. i. 12.) Kazwini says of the Ocean, quoting Al Biruni: "Then it extends
to the sea known as that of Berbera, and stretches from Aden to the
furthest extremity of Zanjibar; beyond this goes no vessel on account of
the great current. Then it extends to what are called the Mountains of the
Moon, whence spring the sources of the Nile of Egypt, and thence to
Western Sudan, to the Spanish Countries and the (Western) Ocean." There
has been recent controversy between Captain A.D. Taylor and Commodore
Jansen of the Dutch navy, regarding the Mozambique currents, and
(incidentally) Polo's accuracy. The currents in the Mozambique Channel
vary with the monsoons, but from Cape Corrientes southward along the coast
runs the permanent Lagullas current, and Polo's statement requires but
little correction. (_Ethe_ pp. 214-215; see also _Barbosa_ in _Ram._ I.
288; _Owen_, I. 269; _Stanley's Correa_, p. 261; _J.R.G.S._ II. 91;
_Fra Mauro_ in _Zurla_, p. 61; see also _Reinaud's Abulfeda_, vol. i. pp.
15-16; and _Ocean Highways_, August to November, 1873.)

[Illustration: The Rukh (from Lane's "Arabian Nights"), after a Persian
drawing.]

NOTE 5.--The fable of the RUKH was old and widely spread, like that of the
Male and Female Islands, and, just as in that case, one accidental
circumstance or another would give it a local habitation, now here now
there. The _Garuda_ of the Hindus, the _Simurgh_ of the old Persians, the
_'Angka_ of the Arabs, the _Bar Yuchre_ of the Rabbinical legends, the
_Gryps_ of the Greeks, were probably all versions of the same original
fable.

Bochart quotes a bitter Arabic proverb which says, "Good-Faith, the Ghul,
and the Gryphon (_'Angka_) are three names of things that exist nowhere."
And Mas'udi, after having said that whatever country he visited he always
found that the people believed these monstrous creatures to exist in
regions as remote as possible from their own, observes: "It is not that our
reason absolutely rejects the possibility of the existence of the _Nesnas_
(see vol. i. p. 206) or of the _'Angka_, and other beings of that rare and
wondrous order; for there is nothing in their existence incompatible with
the Divine Power; but we decline to believe in