 Reference Base  A new account of East-India and Persia, in eight letters ... |
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Fryer, J., 1698. A new account of East-India and Persia, in eight letters being nine years travels, begun 1672 and finished 1682. London, Ri. Chiswell, pp. i-viii, i-xiv, 1-427, i-xxiv
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| Location: |
Asia - South Asia - India |
| Subject: |
History |
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Indian Rhino |
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1698 – Fryer, New account of East-India and Persia
John Fryer, ca.1650-1733
Physician from Cambridge. FRS.
1698 A new account of East-India and Persia, in eight letters being nine years travels, begun 1672 and finished 1681. Containing observations made of the moral, natural, and artificial estate of those countries : namely, of their government, religion, laws, customs. Of the soil, climates, seasons, health, diseases. Of the animals, vegetables, minerals, jewels. Of their housing, cloathing, manufactures, trades, commodities. And of the coins, weights, and measures, used in the principal places of trade in those parts. London: Printed by R.R. for Ri.Chiswell, pp. [i-viii], i-xiv, 1-427, i-xxiv; folio.
[new edition in Hakluyt Society, 2nd series, vols. 19, 20, 39] see vol. 2, p. 297
Fryer, J., 1912. A new account of East India and Persia being nine years' travel 1672-1681, edited with notes and introduction by William Crooke. London, Hakluyt Society, Works Second Series, vol. 20, vol. 2, pp. 1-371
Translation:
1700 Negenjaarige Reyse door Oostindien en Persien: Behelsende eenige nauwkeurige aanmerkingen over den staat van het zeedelijke, natuurlijke, en artificiele derselver landschappen; begonnen met den jaare 1672 en geeyndigt met den jaare 1681; in agt brieven beschreven. Uyt het Engels vertaalt. ‘s Gravenhage: Abraham De Hondt, Jacobus Van Ellinkhuysen, Meyndert Uytwerf, pp. i-vi, 1-566, i-xiii; 4to. [Name misspelled Freyer.]
About Fryer:
Fryer, G. 1979. John Fryer, F.R.S. and his scientific observations, made chiefly in India and Persia between 1672 and 1682. Notes and records of the Royal Society of London, 33: 175-206.
English text of London, 1698
Near Palace of Emperor in Ispahaun, Persia
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The first whereof was the Rhinoceros, who is a cruel beast, of a large size, there coming from his nose an horn a cubit long, (brown towards the bottom, whiter near the point) and six inches diameter, whence the derivation of his name from , nasus, a nose, and , cornu, an horn; between this animal and the elephant, is a mortal strife, for which nature seems to have armed it on purpose; it being a four-footed beast, with three partings of the hoof, built on thick thighs, but short, considering the great bulk of its body, which presses them; it is tall enough to reach the bowels of its antagonist with its horn, with which it gores him to death; not has she given him less firm bones, to the trunk, if by chance it should be crushed by the elephant, descending its very hide with a coat of mail; wherefore before on the neck and shoulders and behind in the quarters, the skin lies in folds like fish scales, over one another; the face bears much of
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an hogs countenance, unless the upper lip, which resemble a cows, and the lower, the form of a whales; the mouth discovers a mishaped tongue, set about with two rows of teeth; it is of the same mouse colour, and tailed as an elephant is, and feeds of the same fodder, and is kept facing two mighty, but lean elephants.
Whether the Rhinoceros be the Unicorn, I suspend my belief, since I have seen an Horn turned with furrows and ridges from the basis to the point, and tapering like that of our King's Arms: But what Petrus Angelius relates concerning the Onager, or Indian Ass can have no congruity with this, unless in respect of the virtues; for though his verfes are most Elegant in his 5. lib. Cyneget, yet the description is very wide:
--- Quos India passit Onagros,
Jam primum niveo corpus candore teguntur,
Infecti Assyrio circum caput omne colore
Caeruleis oculis, unoque in fronte superbi
Cornu, &c.
His words in profe are these; ‘The Wild Asses of India are as big,' or bigger than horses, whose heads are of a purple die, their eyes blew, the rest of their body white; on their foreheads they have an horn a cubit in length, whose lower part for two hands breadth is white, and the top, which is sharp, inclining to a bright red, but the middle part is blood red of these they make
cups, out of which whosoever drinks, neither cramp nor falling sickness seizes them ; nor has any manner of poison any force, if that immediately before or after takingof the same, either water, wine, or other liquid thing be taken out of these cups.’
That this opinion is taken up upon the account of the rhinoceros his horn, I can certainly verify, and that great preces are offered for those that are inadulterate; which they in India pretend to try by the liquors presently fermenting in them; but not withstanding that experiment they are often deceived by false horns made into drinking cups; thus much is true of the Rhincoeros, but the other part of it holds not water; they come from Bengala, and are esteemed terrible and indomitable creatures: and these must be (or none) what this author calls Asses, there being no other beast in these parts with but one horn; and I am afraid he is mistaken as to the African Ass also, some writers having called Africa India, which might have been urged in his excuse, whose skin I having formerly admired when in India, you will easily be convinced it is no such creature, it having never an horn; Two Live ones were sent hither from the Abassin Emperor, as an Expresion of respect to this court; which, with other valuable rarities brought by his Ambassadors, were lately graciously received.
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