he country of the Troglodytes, _i.e._
dwellers in subterraneous caves.

Now it was necessary for our sailors, who have recently returned,
who knew more about Ethiopia than about other countries, to sail round
the whole world and that in a very wide circuit, before they discovered
these islands and returned to Europe; and, since this voyage was a very
remarkable one, and neither in our own time, nor in any former age, has
such a voyage been accomplished, or even attempted, I have determined
to send your Lordship a full and accurate account of the expedition.

I have taken much care in obtaining an account of the facts from the
commanding officer of the squadron, [221] and from the individual
sailors who have returned with him. They also made a statement to
the emperor, and to several other persons, with such good faith and
sincerity, that they appeared in their narrative, not merely to have
abstained from fabulous statements, but also to contradict and refute
the fabulous statements made by ancient authors.

For who ever believed that the Monosceli, or Sciapodes [one-legged
men], the Scyrites, the Spithamaei [persons a span--seven and one-half
inches--high], the Pigmies [height thirteen and one-half inches], and
such-like were rather monsters than men? Yet, although the Castilians
in their voyages westwards, and the Portuguese sailing eastwards,
have sought out, discovered, and surveyed so many places even beyond
the Tropic of Capricorn, and now these countrymen of ours have sailed
completely round the world, none of them have found any trustworthy
evidence in favor of the existence of such monsters; and therefore
all such accounts ought to be regarded as fabulous, and as old wives'
tales, handed down from one writer to another without any basis of
truth. But, as I have to make a voyage round the world, I will not
extend my prefatory remarks, but will come at once to the point.

Some thirty years ago, when the Castilians in the West, and the
Portuguese in the East, had begun to search after new and unknown
lands, in order to avoid any interference of one with the other,
the kings of these countries divided the whole world between them,
by the authority probably of Pope Alexander VI, on this plan, that a
line should be drawn from the north to the south pole through a point
three hundred and sixty leagues west of the Hesperides which they now
call Cape Verde Islands, which would divide the earth's surface into
two equa