Note 3 — Chapter I
Reading edition
The English Cyclopædia of Natural History gives a description by Ctesias of the Indian ass. He says that these animals are as large as horses, and larger, having a horn on the forehead, one cubit long, which for the extent of two palms from the forehead is entirely white; above, it is pointed and red, being black in the middle. Of this horn drinking-cups are formed, and those who use them are said not to be subject to spasm or epilepsy, nor to the effects of poison, provided, either before or after taking the poison, they drink out of the cup wine, water, or any other liquid.
One of the Arabian annalists, El Kazwini, has much to say about the magical and curative properties of these cups; and a yet fuller notice of them appears in Lane’s “Arabian Nights,” chap. xx. note 32. It is also stated that most of the Eastern potentates possessed one of these cups. In Hyder Ali’s treasury at Tanjore was found a specimen.
In “Uganda and the Egyptian Soudan,” by the Rev. C. T. Wilson and R. W. Felkin, vol. ii. p. 275, we read:—
“Cups made of rhinoceros horn are supposed to have the peculiar virtue of detecting poison in coffee and sherbet. Often, when drinking for the first time in a strange house, one of these cups is offered to assure the visitor that no foul play is contemplated. These are considered most valuable presents and a mark of lasting friendship and esteem.” Back