Two Islands Called Male and Female

Speaking of the fabulous countries of women, Chau Ju-kwa, p. 151, writes: “The women of this country [to the south-east (beyond Sha-hua kung?) Malaysia] conceive by exposing themselves naked to the full force of the south wind, and so give birth to female children.”

“In the Western Sea there is also a country of women where only three females go to every five males; the country is governed by a queen, and all the civil offices are in the hands of women, whereas the men perform military duties. Noble women have several males to wait upon them; but the men may not have female attendants. When a woman gives birth to a child, the latter takes its name from the mother. The climate is usually cold. The chase with bow and arrows is their chief occupation. They carry on barter with Ta-t’sin and T’ien-chu, in which they make several hundred per cent. profit.”

Cf. F. Hirth, China and the Roman Orient, pp. 200–202.

XXXII., pp. 406–7. Speaking of Scotra, Marco (II., p. 406) says: “The ambergris comes from the stomach of the whale, and as it is a great object of trade, the people contrive to take the whales with barbed iron darts, which, once they are fixed in the body, cannot come out again. A long cord is attached to this end, to that a small buoy which floats on the surface, so that when the whale dies they know where to find it. They then draw the body ashore and extract the ambergris from the stomach and the oil from the head.”

Chau Ju-kwa, at Chung-li (Somali Coast), has (p. 131): “Every year there are driven on the coast a great many dead fish measuring two hundred feet in length and twenty feet through the body. The people do not eat the flesh of these fish, but they cut out their brains, marrow, and eyes, from which they get oil, often as much as three hundred odd töng (from a single fish). They mix this oil with lime to caulk their boats, and use it also in lamps. The poor people use the ribs of these fish to make rafters, the backbones for door leaves, and they cut off vertebræ8 to make mortars with.”