Page:First Voyage Round the World.djvu/199

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CURIOUS ANIMALS.
119

the thickets, as the ground was covered with briars and thorny shrubs, and we had no shoes.

In this island there are some very large wild boars. Whilst we were in a boat we killed one which was crossing from one island to another. Its head was two and a half spans long, and its tusks were exceedingly long.[1] Here also are crocodiles; those of the land are larger than those of the sea-coast. There are oysters and very large turtles; of these we caught two. The flesh alone of one of them weighed twenty pounds, and of the other forty-four pounds. We caught a kind of fish with a head like that of a pig, and which had two horns; its body was all covered with bone, and on its back it had a kind of saddle: this was a small one. In this island are also found certain trees, the leaves of which, when they fall, are animated, and walk. They are like the leaves of the mulberry tree, but not so long; they have the leaf stalk[2] short and pointed, and near the leaf stalk they have on each side two feet. If they are touched they escape, but if crushed they do not give out blood.[3] I kept one for nine days in a box. When I opened it the leaf went round the box. I believe they live upon air. The island in which we were is called Pulaoan.

On leaving this island—that is to say, the port which is at the extremity of it—we met a junk which was coming from Borneo. We made signals to it to strike its sails; but as it would not obey we overtook it, captured and pillaged it. It had on board the Governor of Pulaoan, with a son and a brother of his. We made them all prisoners, and put them to ransom to give within seven days four hundred measures of rice, twenty pigs, as many goats, and four hun-

  1. The Babi-ruan or hog deer.
  2. "Picciulo."
  3. Other travellers have seen similar leaves, and being more versed in natural history than our Pigafetta, soon knew that the motion of these leaves came from the insect which lived inside. (Hist. Gén des Voy.. tom. xv, p.58.) Note, Milan edition.