A few days ago a man brought me an animal which he had caught in the jungle on the hills. At first sight I said it was an armadillo, but now I feel some doubt whether it was not some unknown animal. I wanted to buy it, in order to send the skin, or rather the shell, home, but the man asked ten rupees for it, which I could not afford. It was nearly three feet long, covered with thick hard scales of a dirty yellow colour, the tail the same length as the body, and equally broad, which I do not think is the case with the armadillo. The shape of its whole back was a long oval. When frightened it rolled itself up into a ball, but it appeared very lethargic and stupid. The feet were armed with long, powerful claws, but it walked with the lower joints turned down under the feet, as if I were to walk on my ankles with the feet and toes turned under and behind. It burrowed a hole in a wall, pulling out the bricks and mortar very easily. I tried it with various kinds of food, but the only thing I could get it to eat was white ants. The man who brought it said he had never seen one like it before.
Not long ago the doctor at Pooree saw a number of natives running to the beach. He inquired what was the matter: "A great fish, sir." So down he went to join the crowd, and there he found a large fish indeed: a whale, measuring forty-eight feet in length, had been washed on shore; the body was rolling about in the surf, with great numbers of the natives clinging to it.
Then the doctor and the only other European present took off their shoes and stockings, turned up their trowsers, and climbed on the enormous animal's back; they got well wetted for their pains. The other gentleman that I mentioned is not a very learned man, and he said that their climbing up the sides of the whale reminded him of the "Lally prussians" climbing on to Gulliver. This same person once said that his wife had had a "historical" fit, in consequence of eating "aromatically" sealed salmon.
Khoutah, 30 miles from Cuttack, December 16, 1844.
[Sidenote: ANTIQUITY OF INDIAN RELIGIONS.]
I am now writing in a tent in which, with the exception of Christmas week, I expect to spend the next month or two, travelling in search of health. The cool weather has refreshed me much, and I feel far better than I did. A question has been asked me respecting the antiquity of the religions of this country. I believe the Buddhist religion to be more ancient than the Brahminical in India; though I think that the latter is the older in reality, as I imagine it to have existed almost in its present form in ancient Egypt. The Hindus burn their dead, the Mohammedans bury them: but there are very many of the former who are too poor to purchase wood; in this case the bodies are simply thrown out for the jackals and vultures.