[3] Cathay seems here to denote northern China. - E.
[4] This is obviously the Quinsay of Marco Polo. - E.
[5] Mangi or southern China. - E.
[6] The island Antilia, the name of which has been since adopted by the
French for the smaller West India islands, was, like the more modern
Terra Australia incognita, a gratuitous supposition for preserving the
balance of the earth, before the actual discovery of America. Cipango
was the name by which Japan was then known in Europe, from the
relations of Marco Polo. - E.
[7] Such appeared to the early travellers the richly gilt and lackered
tile used in Japan and other parts of India. - E.
[8] This report must have proceeded from some very erroneous account of
Iceland, as it is the only place in the northern part of the Atlantic
which contains a volcano. - E.
[9] Don Ferdinand, or his translator, has forgot here that, in the extract
from Ferrarius, beyond the straits, and in the Atlantic, are the
distinctly expressed situation of the island. - E.
[10] There is a good deal more in the original, totally uninteresting to
the reader, in the same querulous strain of invective against Oviedo,
but which is here abridged as conveying no information. - E.
[11] Our author falls into a mistake in this chapter, supposing the Azores
to have been the Cassiterides of the ancients, well known to have been
the Scilly islands.