Note {3} — Chapter XLVII

Note 3.—This alleged practice, like that mentioned in the last chapter but one, is ascribed to a variety of people in different parts of the world. Both, indeed, have a curious double parallel in the story of two remote districts of the Himalaya which was told to Bernier by an old Kashmiri. (See Amst. ed. II. 304–305.) Polo has told nearly the same story already of the people of Kamul. (Bk. I. ch. xli.) It is related by Strabo of the Massagetæ; by Eusebius of the Geli and the Bactrians; by Elphinstone of the Hazaras; by Mendoza of the Ladrone Islanders; by other authors of the Nairs of Malabar, and of some of the aborigines of the Canary Islands. (Caubul, I. 209; Mendoza, II. 254; Müller’s Strabo, p. 439; Euseb. Praep. Evan. vi. 10; Major’s Pr. Henry, p. 213.)