M.DCCC.LXIII.
LONDON: T. RICHARDS, 37, GREAT QUEEN STREET.
THE HAKLUYT SOCIETY.
| SIR RODERICK IMPEY MURCHISON, G.C.St.S., F.R.S., D.C.L., Corr. Mem. Inst. F., Hon. Mem. Imp. Acad. Sc. St. Petersburg, etc., etc., President. | ||
| Rear-Admiral C. R. DRINKWATER BETHUNE, C.B. | } | Vice-Presidents. |
| The Rt. Hon. Sir DAVID DUNDAS, M.P. | } | |
| J. BARROW, Esq., F.R.S. | ||
| Rt. Hon. LORD BROUGHTON. | ||
| Captain CRACROFT, R.N. | ||
| Sir HENRY ELLIS, K.H., F.R.S. | ||
| JOHN FORSTER, Esq. | ||
| R. W. GREY, Esq., M.P. | ||
| T. HODGKIN, Esq., M.D. | ||
| JOHN WINTER JONES, Esq., F.S.A. | ||
| His Excellency the COUNT DE LAVRADIO. | ||
| R. H. MAJOR, Esq., F.S.A. | ||
| Sir CHARLES NICHOLSON, Bart. | ||
| Sir ERSKINE PERRY. | ||
| Major-General Sir HENRY C. RAWLINSON, K.C.B | ||
| WILLIAM STIRLING, Esq., M.P. | ||
| CLEMENTS R. MARKHAM, Esq., Honorary Secretary. | ||
DEDICATION.
TO
HIS EXCELLENCY
SIR H. B. E. FRERE, K.C.B.,
GOVERNOR OF BOMBAY.
Dear Sir Bartle Frere,
There is no time to ask your assent to this dedication. But I have trust enough in your love for old travellers, and in your good-will to the editor, to venture it without permission. I have some hope too that I introduce to you a new acquaintance in the Bishop of Columbum, whose book seems little known.
Like many other old travellers of more fame, whilst endeavouring to speak only truth of what he has seen, Jordanus retails fables enough from hearsay. What he did see in his travels was so marvellous to him, that he was quite ready to accept what was told him of regions more remote from Christendom, when it seemed but in reasonable proportion more marvellous. If there were cats with wings in Malabar, as he had seen,[1] why should there not be people with dogs’ heads in the Islands of the Ocean?[2] If black men cut off their own heads before their gods at Columbum,[3] why should not “white and fat men” be purchased as delectable food in Java?[4] If there were rats nearly as big as foxes in India Major,[5] why should there not be rocs that could fly away with elephants in India Tertia?[6]
Apart from this credulity, it might be well if the heads of some of our modern sojourners in India could be endowed with a little more of that Organ of Wonder which gave these old story-tellers such a thorough enjoyment of the real marvels of the East, and could by its help see something worthier there than a howling wilderness, affording no consolation but that silver fruit, which, like the coco-nut described by our author, is borne twelve times in the year.[7]