Taken from: نزهت‌نامه علایی by ابن ابی‌الخیر

P51

(When talking about the lion)

…………………. Haemorrhoids can be cured by drying Lion's meat, sprinkling it with coriander, crushing it into small pieces, and dipping it in palm wine (nabid). If you apply it to yourself [body], the paralysis will heal. If you apply lion fat to your body, you won't catch a cold. Those who eat the lion's heart become brave. Applying lion fat to warts will cure it. [When bitten by a lion] Break the belly of a rooster and hit the wound to heal ……………….

P75

Hippo – They are in the Nile River in Egypt. Alligators overcome and catch and eat them. Wherever you see him next to the Nile, know that when the water will come it will go there in times of flood.

As slow as a donkey, he goes at the ends of cultivation and feeds on it and goes back to the Nile.   And this water-horse eats the seeds and grinds it. His face and forehead are bent and he walks around on short legs. And the water-horse is a slow horse and stays around with a few donkeys and it has a hard skin and it is used to make many things of it.

The skin - Heat her skin and leave it swollen, it rises and will be inert and have benefit.

Bones- Burn the bones make a paste of it; put it on a swelling that has arisen for three after which the total effect is seen.

Tooth - The people who live on fish keep the teeth of the water-horse with them to repel the harmfulness of the dark water and not to harm them.

P79-80

Wild donkey -

One of the wonders of the wild nature is that the male does not leave any male that is in his herd and bites it with his teeth, - For this reason, it should be very special – until the other male has left forever.  The female will bring several children to a difficult covered place. They are like butter and flour, let them grow strong with hard hooves and be able to escape. Then (they are brought) in the middle of the flock, if it is female, they bring it sooner………..And in the city of Basra …….. (the hunters) they wait until the zebra passes between the men who tear open (the animals) stomachs who then come together and run away.

Note: as it is here hunting zebra in the area of Basra this must be wild donkey instead of zebra.

P98-99

Giraffe- The movement of the four legs goes off with the right front leg forward, then the left rear leg, the left front leg and then the rear right leg, like the Berbera camel, they are accustomed to what it is like to each other. The place (where they live) has little water (2). The nose and legs of the camel remained and the skin of the leopard, but its pattern are cut in, which is not on the skin of a leopard. And teeth and hooves are like cattle but there is no knee on the front leg. On its top there are no horns and it (the head) looks like a deer. Its young ones are said to start eating grass when they put their heads out of their mother’s womb (5). They eat grass until satisfied. Then the young ones return to their habitation (the womb). And this can be more accurate - that for three or four months - his neck and front legs come out to eat grass, and that is why his neck and front legs are long and it has short rear legs. And when he separates from his mother, he runs away from her in time to escape the sharp and untouchable tongue of his mother, if the mother’s tongue starts (to lick) it takes off the skin.

P176

(When talking about snakes – he tells a story)

It is said it is from among the Bedouin. The other person is the snake, which is wicket and prudent and like the one who feeds and beats the man and destroys him. And I heard that he found the prudent snake on the road! And it ruined the people so much that you avoided it. And it was proud of that position.

When an Arab passed by, there was a Zanj there. This slave slept there. The Arab was awake and watched as the snake struck the slave and the snake fell and the man and the slave stood up. The Arab left until the slave fell asleep again, then he took up the sword and killed the slave. The slave after that bite, was stronger and harder than the snake wound. And the power of the Zangi was so great that it overcame the coldness of the snake's venom and killed it, it is as if a camel is on fire and it does not affect it.

P178

Parastuj - Every year they come from the farthest reaches of Zangistan and they say also from China, as far as this the fish comes, the distance is more than that, from Basra to China and following it, and for this reason it is called both Hatat and Parastuj. And these are the wonders of how they migrate.   And it takes a lot for the fishermen to come and go on time, and then there will be no fish of this kind in Basra, and just as going to Basra is nothing at all, coming and going from there will be nothing at all.

Note: this much repeated story has its origin with (see my webpage): Al Jahiz Kitab al Hayawan (d869)(4)

P179

(When talking about the whale)

Wal… a fish which sometimes exceed fifty gaz in length (one gaz is 40 inches)… And as time passes, he opens his mouth and swallows whatever he finds. And sometimes they eat amber and die from it, and when he falls to the side and they look in his stomach, they will find it. When it happens that a whale is carried by the tide among the streams of Basrah from their narrowness he cannot turn back, or extricate himself. Then the people come and having killed him with arrows and great swords, cut the body in pieces and fill many vessels with oil extracted from the head; but this fish is not eaten by any besides the Zingians… sometimes it yields ambergris.

Note: this much repeated story has its origin with (see my webpage): Al Masudi (916)

P309

(When talking about the first Clime -on the equator)

And when you cross from the south, you reach the heat and bitterness of boiling water it is hardly inhabited but there are animals in it. People only come out from holes in the ground and come out at night and search for a living; And they have a human face and shape, and they are up to 12 yards long and are black. They are very black and have no hair on their body.  And God made them, and their work is nothing but hunting and being with their mates; and their lifespan is three times longer than that of human beings.

Note: this entry is influenced by (see my webpage): Umayr ibn Qatadah (694)

P435

(when talking about mirrors)

And the other thing is that whenever this water was hard, he saw the shape of things he cannot see and the color of it; realize it as if he were a Zangi looking in the mirror and seeing literally himself and he had no knowledge of the shape of his face. (3)

P546

(after explaining the harvesting of Musk some special recommendations are given for Musk from the Sudan.)(1)

Different Aspects of Musk Sudan -

You must have knowledge and experience of handling it. And, of course, the hair of the navel should be in the middle of it, so that if it has two branches, you will lose some, which is normal (the glands) should not be shaken when they shine, and it should give off the scent of ginger.

(1) Note: other works mentioning the civet from Africa are (see my webpage:) Al-Jahiz Al-Fakhar al-Sudan (869); Shah Mardan Ibn Abi al-Khayr (11th); Yakut al Hamawi (1220); Nur al-ma'arif (1295); al-Watwat (1318); Ibn Battuta and the African Diaspora (1331); Joseph ibn Abraham (1137); Al-Saghani (1252); Nur al-ma'arif (1295); Friar Jordanus; (1329); Cowar el-aqalim (1347); From the Court of Al-Zahir (1439); Ibn al-Ahdal (1451); Ibn Madjid: As-Sufaliyya (1470); Ibn al-Dayba (1496).

(2) And the giraffe: in areas with little water: This is also repeated by many authors; Abu Hayyan al-Tawhidi (d1023); Ibn Sida (1066); Shah Mardan Ibn Abi al-Khayr (11th); Al Marvazi: (1120); Ibn Manzur: (1290).

(3) This racist story is present in many versions: Shah Mardan Ibn Abi al-Khayr (11th); Hakim Sana’i (1131); Mawlana Jalal al-Din Rumi(1273); Khajavi Kermani (1352); Nur ad-Din Abd ar-Rahman Jami (1485).

(4) The migrating fish at Basra…..  The barastouj …… : these paragraphs are repeated by many authors: Jahiz's Kitab al-Hayawan (869); Ibn al-Fakih al Hamadhani (903); Shah Mardan Ibn Abi al-Khayr: (11th); Mohammad ebn Mahmud ebn Ahmad Tusi (1160); Al-Zamakhshari (d1144); Al-Qazwini(d. 1283); Qadi Ibn Sasri Al-Shafi’I (around 1300); al-Watwat (d1318) ); Rukneddin Ahmed (1420). These fish in reality only immigrate from the open sea to the coast.

(5) This is also found in Ibn Bakhtishu; Manafi-I-Hayawan (1295)

Under: taken fom: website of NYPL

The people of Nasnas. (Half humans half animals or jinn found in the neighbourhood of Yemen and in the islands in the Ocean.) and a giraffe.

Under: taken from the copy at McGill University website