Sir William Ouseley, in his _Travels_, 1819, speaking of an
island in the Persian Gulf, relates, on the authority of a Persian MS.,
that "in the tenth century, one Keis, the son of a poor widow in Siraf,
embarked for India with a cat, his only property. There he fortunately
arrived at a time when the palace was so infested by mice or rats that
they invaded the king's food, and persons were employed to drive them
from the royal banquet. Keis produced his cat; the noxious animals soon
disappeared, and magnificent rewards were bestowed on the adventurer of
Siraf, who returned to that city, and afterwards, with his mother and
brothers, settled on the island, which from him has been denominated
Keis, or according to the Persians Keisch." Mr. Halliwell-Phillipps
quotes from the _Description of Guinea_ (1665) the record of "how
Alphonso, a Portuguese, being wrecked on the coast of Guinney, and being
presented by the king thereof with his weight in gold for a cat to kill
their mice; and an oyntment to kill their flies, which he improved
within five years to 6000l. in the place, and, returning to Portugal
after fifteen years traffick, became the third man in the kingdom."[1]
Keightley also quotes two similar stories from Thiele's _Danish Popular
Traditions_ and another from the letters of Count Magalotti, a
Florentine of the latter half of the seventeenth century.
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