manner in which such things are sometimes concocted, as the following
extracts will show:--

"Of _Bats_ they have as big as Hennes about Java and the
neighbor islands. Clusius bought one of the Hollanders, which
they brought from the Island of Swannes (Ilha do Cisne), newly
styled by them Maurice Island. It was about a foot from head
to taile, above a foot about; the wings one and twenty inches
long, nine broad; the claw, whereby it hung on the trees, was
two inches," &c. "Here also they found a Fowle, which they
called Walgh-vogel, of the bigness of a Swanne, and most
deformed shape." (_Purchas his Pilgrimage_, 1616, p. 642.)

And afterward, speaking of the island of Madura, he says,--

"In these partes are Battes as big as Hennes, which the people
roast and eat."

In the _Lettres édifiantes_ (edit. 1781, t. xiii. p. 302.) is a letter
from Père Brown to Madame de Benamont concerning the Isle of Bourbon,
which he calls "_l'Isle de Mascarin_" erroneously saying it was
discovered by the Dutch about sixty years since. (The letter is
supposed to have been written about the commencement of the eighteenth
century.) He then relates how it was peopled by French fugitives
from Madagascar, when the massacre there took place on account of
the conduct of the _French_ king and his court. In describing its
production, he says,--

"Vers l'est de cette Isle il y a une petite plaine au haut
d'une montagne, qu'on appelle la Plaine des _Caffres_, où