Philippines,
reaches from 9 deg. 30' N. to 5 deg. 30', and from long. 122 deg. to 126 deg. 20' E.
being about 300 miles long, by 270 miles broad.--E.

[104] The Philippines, exclusive of Mindanao and Palawa, extend from Lat.
9 deg. to 18 40' both N. and are in E. long. 122 but their present
geographical names, Luzon, Samar, Leyte, Zebu, Negros, Pany, Mindora,
and several other smaller isles, have no resemblance whatever with
those of the text.--E.

[105] Gomar. H.G. IV. xiv.

[106] Probably Morty, the most north-easterly of the Moluccas.--E.

CHAPTER II.

THE JOURNEY OF AMBROSE CONTARINI, AMBASSADOR FROM THE REPUBLIC OF VENICE
TO UZUN-HASSAN, KING OF PERSIA, IN THE YEARS 1473, 4, 5, AND. 6, WRITTEN
BY HIMSELF.

INTRODUCTION.

This relation of a journey into Persia, between the years 1473 and 1477,
is from a collection of voyages and travels, principally in Asia, made in
the _twelfth, thirteenth, fourteenth_, and _fifteenth centuries_, which
was published at the Hague, in the French language, in 1735. That
collection usually goes under the name of _Bergeron_, whose name appears
on the title somewhat equivocally as the author; but who is mentioned in
the advertisement as a writer belonging to the middle of the preceding
century; and the only part of the work that can, be attributed to him, is
a _Treatise of Navigation, and of the Modern Voyages of Discovery and
Conquest, especially those made by the French, &c._ which serves as an
introduction to this compilement. The editor of this collection gives no
account of himself, or of the sources from whence he has derived his
different articles; and only says, that the journal of Contarini was
translated into French, that it might be published along with the other
contents of his volume. From the _Bibliotheque Universelle des Voyages_,
by G. Boucher de la Richarderie, a new work of great research, published
at Paris in 1808, we learn that the journal of Contarini was published in
Italian at Venice, in a duodecimo volume, in 1543. So far as is known to
us, it now appears for the first time in an English translation. This
article might have been more aptly placed towards the close of _first_
part of the present collection, but escaped notice in proper time and it
appears of too much importance, both in itself, and as an early document,
to be omitted from punctilious attention to rigid systematic arrangement.

PREFACE OF THE AUTHOR.

"The