y at second hand,
though no doubt he had seen the negroes whom he describes with such
disgust, and apparently the sheep and the giraffes.

NOTE 2.--These sheep are common at Aden, whither they are imported from
the opposite African coast. They have hair like smooth goats, no wool.
Varthema also describes them (p. 87). In the Cairo Museum, among ornaments
found in the mummy-pits, there is a little figure of one of these sheep,
the head and neck in some blue stone and the body in white agate. (_Note
by Author of the sketch on next page._)

NOTE 3.--A giraffe--made into a _seraph_ by the Italians--had been
frequently seen in Italy in the early part of the century, there being one
in the train of the Emperor Frederic II. Another was sent by Bibars to the
Imperial Court in 1261, and several to Barka Khan at Sarai in 1263; whilst
the King of Nubia was bound by treaty in 1275 to deliver to the Sultan
three elephants, three giraffes, and five she-panthers. (_Kington_, I.
471; _Makrizi_, I. 216; II. 106, 108.) The giraffe is sometimes wrought in
the patterns of mediaeval Saracenic damasks, and in Sicilian ones imitated
from the former. Of these there are examples in the Kensington Collection.

I here omit a passage about the elephant. It recounts an old and
long-persistent fable, exploded by Sir T. Brown, and indeed before him by
the sensible Garcia de Orta.

NOTE 4.--The port of Zanzibar is probably the chief ivory mart in the
world. Ambergris is mentioned by Burton among miscellaneous exports, but
it is not now of any consequence. Owen speaks of it as brought for sale at
Delagoa Bay in the south.

NOTE 5.--Mas'udi more correctly says: "The country abounds with wild
elephants, but you don't find a single tame one. The Zinjes employ them
neither in war nor otherwise, and if they hunt them 'tis only to kill
them" (III. 7). It is difficult to conceive how Marco could have got so
much false information. The only beast of burden in Zanzibar, at least
north of Mozambique, is the ass. His particulars seem jumbled from various
parts of Africa. The camel-riders suggest the _Bejas_ of the Red Sea
coast, of whom there were in Mas'udi's time 30,000 warriors so mounted,
and armed with lances and bucklers (III. 34). The elephant stories may
have arisen from the occasional use of these animals by the Kings of
Abyssinia. (See Note 4 to next chapter.)

[Illustration: Ethiopian Sheep.]

NOTE 6.--An approximation to 12,000 as a round numbe