Page:The Indian Antiquary, Vol. 4-1875.djvu/244

 THE TEU.ITION OF THE GOLD-DIGGING ANTS. 281 iar or converse confusion may have taken place at a much earlier period. fc, setting aside the giant dogs of Tibet, we only to recall what has been said about the furs b which the Tibetan miners mnffle them- selves in winter, in order to arrive at the most natural explanation of the account given by Nearclins, the friend of Alexander s boyhood. When 2-Tearchus emitted India he was com- ioned, as is well known, to descend the Indus and proceed by sea from the mouth of that river to that of the Euphrates. It appears that he wrote an account of his voyage entitled napajrXous, in which, according to S t r a- bo and Arrian, he stated that although he hod not, while in India, succeeded in me with a living specimen of the gold-digging ants, he had yet seen Gil- skin* of one of them, and that it resembled the hide of a panther. Many of these skins were brought to the Mace- donian oamp.f The description of the gold-digging ants con- taius yet another peculiarity, the explanation of which has hitherto been a great perplex! I refer to Pliny's assertion that the horns of an Indian ant were preserved as a curiosity in the temple of Hercules at Erythrro.J S a in u l ■ I W a h 1, whose idea was that the gold- digging ants were hyenas, in the face of this passage of Pliny, is driven to defend his theory in the following language: — ^The horns men- y as belongiug to an animal which, fcojpa 6he descriptions of unci writers, cannot have hail horns, may be ac- counted for by supposing that they belonged to ire species, or to an individual that was a lus ", as sometimes occurs with other hornless animals : but I am inclined to the belief of Pliny is corrupt, and that i we ought to read coria or prepared, or else that onld ho taken in the sense of teetV <<• case of elephants."§ own wholly interpretation of this passage of Pliny will, I hope, be cons: a more probable one. It rests upon a < tare I- med by me upon the dross of the Tibetan miners, but which has developed, loopttnl of q • f Strali • .U. X P § Yfahi, Erdb*$ehrm Ostindkn, I!. I84-& thanks to the testimony of an eye-witness, into a certainty. It is to Mrs. Frederick Severin that I am indebted for a piece of information which has been of the greatest value to me in my researches into the tradition of the gold-digging ants. Mrs. Severin is married to a Danish gen- tleman who has for many years been the pro- prietor of a tea -plantation in Assam bearing the name of ' Q r 6 n I u n d .' She is the daughter of Mr. William Robinson, fori; Inspector of Government Schools in A- author of a book on Assam, and of several memoirs on the Tibetan tribes adjoining that ot f| It was during a visit recentlv paid by her to Denmark that I obtained from her the information I had so long sought. The province of Assam, as is well known, is not less remarkable than the Caucasus as the meeting-place of different races. A variety of tribes flock thither from the most distant quarters,— from the west the Aryan Hi fromthe south the T ran 8-6 an get icHii. from the East the Chinese, and from the north the Tibetans, who inhabit the adjoining dis- trict of Bhotan,. y themselves call it, Lb op a to. -On one occasion when Mr. Robinson made a tour in Upper Assam, he took with him his daugh only fourteen;. to visit a family friend. Colonel Bol- pointment in the district. Colonel Holroyd took occasion to present to his guests some ins who had just cn> Hima- laya clothed in their costume, and Miss Robinson v. p 1 • to satisfy herself that there are Tibetans who wear Y a k skins with the horns attached and projecting from their 3t-.;:'.'U Wfl may tairly conclude that it is to this costume of the Tibetans that allusion is i in the Muluih- -:oeaks of the "hairy, horned Kan kas" who brought pre- sents to king Yndhi sh thi ra. These K a n- kas we know for certain to have been the iahalv. m Tibet. ^f And then can be little doubt that this characteristic Tibetan beadn I in view in the story told to I who visited the temple of Erylhr is, a el rol xvnr. XXIV. "' i:."!trivit iii i ■ •-/. VfIL
 * IV ■ ounce, tlio snow-
 * i, who held an iraportai nent ap-
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