1 54
2 C-'abul. Living in his house for three years, I had an opportunity
3 of knowing him well; I therefore, conclude with the proverb,
4 kt I)e mortuis nil nisi bonum particularly so because I am
5 indebted to him for the following important discovery : — During
6 the time I was performing the before-mentioned cures at Wuzeer-
7 abad, 1 lost, on a hunting excursion], a hare in the copses, which
8 we thought to find in a burrow. Wishing to get the hare, I sent
9 to a village for some bels (pokers), in order to enlarge the hole.
10 We succeeded in doing so; but great was our astonishment when,
11 instead of the hare, we caught a musk-deer, which diffused so
12 strong an odour, that I was seized with a headache, which lasted
13 for three days. The man who dragged him out, was so frightened
14 at finding an animal previously unknown to him, that he in-
15 stantly threw it down, and our hounds bit it so violently that it
16 was nearly killed. Having taken it home, I was advised by
17 General Avitabile to cut off' the musk-bag, which I did, and
18 keep to this day ; it being considered that unless that operation
19 is performed previously to the death of the animal, the useful
20 substance of the musk-deer will entirely disappear ; the rest of
21 the animal was regarded as useless, which I now regret, believing
22 that it was the most valuable specimen I ever met with, as I
23 have never heard of such animals being found in the plains of
24 India. Those to whom I showed the musk-bag in Europe,
25 suggested that the animal had found his way there from the
26 Himalaya, and it might have been so; but the odour and appear-
27 ance of the musk of Cashmere and Thibet is quite different.
28 The exterior of the bag of this animal resembles that of the
29 musk of China, it has smooth, soft, and short hair ; but the in-
30 terior is a yellowish brown mass, as hard as bees-wax, whereas,
31 the Chinese musk is of a reddish-brown colour, and in grains of
32 a friable nature. Without having prepared the bag, I put it
33 into an iron box, and found that in the rainy season the insects
34 had destroyed the external hair, without having touched the in-
35 ternal parts. The musk has, like that of China, a strong, agree-
36 able scent.
37 I thought that where one animal was found, more of the same