t the king of Mangi.
Leaving Cathay he goes into Tharsis, Turquescen, Corasine, and Kommania, in
which he seems to have transcribed from Oderic; and makes Prester John
emperor of India, a country divided into many islands by the great torrents
which descend from Paradise! He gives also an account of a sea of sand and
gravel, entirely destitute of water, the Mare arenosum of Oderic; to which
he adds that it moves in waves like the ocean. Though he makes Prester John
sovereign of India, he assigns Susa in Persia for his residence; constructs
the gates of his palace of sardonyx, its bars of ivory, its windows of rock
crystal, and its tables of emeralds; while numerous carbuncles, each one
foot in length, served infinitely better than lamps to illuminate the
palace by night. To many absurdities, apparitions, and miracles, copied and
disguised from Oderic, he adds two islands in the middle of the continent,
one inhabited by giants thirty feet high, while their elder brethren in the
other are from forty-five to fifty feet.

He borrows many fabulous stories from Pliny, and from the romances of the
middle, ages, yet so ignorantly as to reverse the very circumstances of his
authors. Andromeda is not the lady who was rescued by Perseus, but the
monster by which she was to have been devoured. Two _islands_ in India, one
called Brahmin, and the other Gymnosophist. And a thousand other fictions
and absurdities, too ridiculous even for the credulity of children. Of this
worse than useless performance, the foregoing analysis is perhaps more than
sufficient for the present work.--E.

[1] Forst. Voy. and Disc. in the Nerth, p. 148. Pinkert. Mod. Geogr. II.
xxxvi. Hakluyt, II. 76.

CHAP. XIV.

_Itinerary of Pegoletti, between Asof and China, in_ 1355[1].

In the year 1355, Francisco Balducci Pegoletti, an Italian, wrote a system
of commercial geography, of great importance, considering the period in
which it was written. Its title translated into English, is, "Of the
Divisions of Countries, and of their Measures, Merchandize, and other
things useful to be known by the Merchants of various parts of the World."
All of this curious work which has any reference to our present
undertaking, is the chapter which is entitled, "Guide or the Route from
Tana to Kathay, with Merchandize, and back again." This is published entire
by J. R. Forster, with several learned notes and illustrations, and is here
reprinted.

*