Note 110 — TRAVELS OF JOSAFA BARBARO. (continued 2)

Ramusio has here—“While I was still in that country there came an Armenian to procure some of the water, who had been sent by the King of Cyprus long before I began my journey to those parts, and returning while I was in the country with some of the water in a tin flask, came to Tauris two months after I had arrived there. He staid with me two days, and then started on his way to Cyprus, where, on my return, I saw the same flask of water hanging up on a pole placed outside a kind of tower, and was told by the people of the place that, by virtue of that water, they had not been troubled with grasshoppers. I also saw there certain black and red birds, called birds of Mahomet, which fly in flocks like starlings; and, from what I heard, destroy all the grasshoppers they meet with. It is asserted by the country people that, wherever these birds know there is water of that particular kind, they fly towards it.”