hfulness that appealed to the
public, as strangeness and fancifulness. Thus Marco Polo's narrative,
marvelous as it was, never became as popular as the spurious memoirs of
Mandeville, who in serving up his monstrosities ransacked almost every
author, classic or mediaeval, on whom he could lay his hands.[18] In fact
a class of books arose which bore the significant name of _Mirabilia
Mundi_ and purported to treat of the whole world, and especially of
India. Such are, for instance, _Les Merveilles de l'Inde_ by Jean
Vauquelin, _Fenix de las maravillas del mondo_ by Raymundus Lullius, and
similar works by Nicolaus Donis, Arnaldus de Badeto and others.[19] But
the great store-house of Oriental marvels on which the mediaeval poets
drew for material was the Alexander-romance of pseudo-Callisthenes, of
which there were a number of Latin versions, the most important being
the epitome made by Julius Valerius and the _Historia de Preliis_
written by the archpresbyter Leo in the tenth century. The character of
the Oriental lore offered in these writings is best shown by a cursory
examination of the work last mentioned.[20] There we are introduced to a
bewildering array of _mirabilia_, snakes, hippopotami, scorpions,
giant-lobsters, forest-men, bats, elephants, bearded women, dog-headed
people, griffins, white women with long hair and canine teeth,
fire-spouting birds, trees that grow and vanish in the course of a
single day, mountains of adamant, and finally sacred sun-trees and
moon-trees that possess the gift of prophecy. But beyond some vague
reference to asceticism not a trace of knowledge of Brahmanic life can
be found. While the Brahman King Didimus is well versed in Roman and
Greek mythology, he never mentions the name of any of his own gods. Of
real information concerning India there is almost nothing.

* * * * *

From what we have seen thus far we shall not expect in mediaeval
literature conscious imitation or reproduction of works from Persian or
Sanskrit literature. Whatever influence these literatures exerted in
Europe was indirect. If a subject was transmitted from East to West it
was as a rule stripped of its Oriental names and characteristics, and
even its Oriental origin was often forgotten. This is the case with the
greater part of the fables and stories that can be traced to Eastern
sources and have found their way into such works as the _Gesta
Romanorum_, or the writings of Boccac