to touch it, I found it was soft. I walked round it to see if there were an opening, but could find none; and it appeared so even, that it was impossible to get up it. The circumference might be about fifty paces. “The sun was then near setting; the air grew suddenly dark, as if obscured by a thick cloud. I was surprised at this change, but much more so when I perceived it to be occasioned by a bird of a most extraordinary size, which was flying towards me. I recollected having heard sailors speak of a bird called a rock; and I conceived, that the great white ball, which had drawn my attention, must be the egg of this bird. I was not mistaken; for shortly after it lighted on it, and placed itself as if to sit upon it. When I saw it coming I drew near to the egg, so that I had one of the claws of the bird just before me; this claw was as big as the trunk of a large tree. “I tied myself to it with the linen of my turban, in hopes that the rock, when it took its flight the next morning, would carry me with it out of that desert island. My project succeeded; for at the break of day the rock flew away, and carried me to such a height, that I could not distinguish the earth: then it descended with such rapidity, that I almost lost my senses. When the rock had alighted, I quickly untied the knot that confined me to its foot, and had scarcely loosed myself, when it darted on a serpent, of an immeasurable length, and seizing it in its beak, flew away.” “If any one choose, (says Mr. Hole,) to look into Bochart’s Hierozoicon, [d] he may find a more extravagant account of this bird, extracted from Arabian authors, than what is here given by Sindbad. Marco Paulo de Veneto, [e] a celebrated traveller in the 13th century, has a whole chapter “de maximâ ave Ruch.” [f] He there says, that this bird was occasionally found in islands difficult of access, which lie towards the south of Madagascar; that some people, who had seen it, affirmed, that the wing feathers were twelve paces in length, and all the other parts correspondent to them. These birds, he adds, would sometimes seize and fly away with an elephant, on whose flesh they usually fed: and that he acquired his information from an officer of the great Khan, who had been confined many years in one of those islands.