210 THE MAGIC OF JEWELS AND CHARMS
looking,
as he had always been told that those having bezoars were invariably
thin and wretched in appearance. However, the Afghan was shown to be
correct in his conjecture, for when one of the goats was killed and the
body opened four fine bezoars were brought to light.13
About
the beginning of the eighteenth century, Charles Jacques Poncet, a
French physician, was called to the court of the Abyssinian monarch of
that time. One of the favorite remedies of this Frenchman was a kind of
artificial bezoar, which he claims to have used with great success in
cases of intermittent fever. This so-called bezoar he administered to
the sovereign and to two of his children, and he also revealed to the
Abyssinian king the secret of its composition. He tells us that this
"Emperor of Ethiopia," as he terms him, showed great interest in
medical science, and listened eagerly to explanations of the character
and operation of the various remedies.14
The Indians of Peru had their own theory as to the genesis of the bezoar-stone. In relation to this Joseph de Acosta writes:16
The
Indians relate from the traditions and teachings of their ancestors,
that in the province of Xaura, and in other provinces of Peru there are
various poisonous herbs and animals which empoison the waters and
pastures where they [the vicunas, etc.] drink and eat. Of these
poisonous herbs, one is right well known by a natural instinct to the
vicuna and to the other animals which engender the bezoar, and they eat
of this herb and thus preserve themselves from the poison of the
waters and pastures. The Indians also say that the stone is formed in
the stomachs of these animals from this herb, whence comes the virtue
it possesses as an antidote for poisons, as well as its other
marvellous properties.
"The
Tûzuk-i-Jahangîrî or memoirs of Jehangir trans, by Alexander Rogers,
London, 1909, p. 240; Orient. Trans. Fund, N. S., vol. xix.
""Voyage d'Ethiopie"; in Lettres édifiantes et curieuses, IV Recueil, Paris, 1713, p. 103.
" De Acosta, " Histoire Naturelle et Morale des Indes," tr. by Cauxois, Paris, 1600, f. 206 r. and v.
