lve-pence for a sheep, and 3s. 6d. for a
cow. They asked beads into the bargain, for which alone they would give
nothing except a little milk, which they brought down very sweet and
good in gourds.

Their cattle have great bunches on their fore-shoulders, in size and
shape like sugar-loaves, which are of a gristly substance and excellent
eating. Their beef is not loose and flabby like that at Saldhana, but
firm and good, little differing from that of England. Their mutton also
is excellent, their sheep having tails weighing 28 pounds each, which
therefore are mostly cut off from the ewes, not to obstruct propagation.
In the woods near the river there are great numbers of monkeys of an
ash-colour with a small head, having a long tail like a fox, ringed or
barred with black and white, the fur being very fine.[212] We shot some
of these, not being able to take any of them alive. There are bats also,
as large almost in the bodies as rabbits, headed like a fox, having a
close fur, and in other respects resembling bats, having a loud shrill
cry. We killed one whose wings extended a full yard. There are plenty of
herons, white, black, blue, and divers mixed colours; with many
_bastard_ hawks, and other birds of an infinite variety of kinds and
colours, most having crests on their heads like peacocks. There are
great store of lizards and camelions also, which agree in the
description given by Pliny, only it is not true that they live on air
without other food; for having kept one on board for only a day, we
could perceive him to catch flies in a very strange manner. On
perceiving a fly sitting, he suddenly darts out something from his
mouth, perhaps his tongue, very loathsome to behold, and almost like a
bird-bolt, with which he catches and eats the flies with such speed,
even in the twinkling of an eye, that one can hardly discern the action.
In the hills there are many spiders on the trees, which spin webs from
tree to tree of very strong and excellent silk of a yellow colour, as if
dyed by art. I found also hanging on the trees, great worms like our
grubs with many legs, inclosed within a double cod of white silk.

[Footnote 212: Called the _beautiful beast_ in Keeling's
voyage.--_Purch._]

There grows here great store of the herb producing aloes, and also
tamarind trees by the water side. Here also is great abundance of a
strange plant which I deem a wild species of cocoa-nut, seldom growing
to the height of a tree, but