[1] Hakluyt Endeavours To Explain This On The Margin By Malasmi.

It is possible the river Banjar, and the port of Masseen, otherwise called Bendermassin, or Banjar-massin, in the great island of Borneo, may be here indicated.

Panten, Petan, or perhaps Bentam, is perhaps a small woody island mentioned by Marco Polo, near great Java or Borneo. The names of places, however, in these early travellers, have been so confounded by ignorant transcribers as often to defy all criticism. - E.

[2] This seems an ill-collected account of Sago. - E.

[3] The Pacific Ocean, the navigation of which was then so much unknown, that those who ventured to navigate it never returned. - E

[4] Probably Siampa, called likewise Ciampa, and Tsiompa. - E.

[5] In the Latin, this number is decies millesies et quatuor, which may even be read 14,000; certainly a vast exaggeration either way. - E.

SECTION VIII.

Of vast multitudes of Fish, which throw themselves on the dry Land.

The following most wonderful circumstance is to be observed in this country of Siampa. All the kinds of fishes which frequent those seas, swim towards the shore at certain times in such abundance, that nothing can be seen for a great way but the backs of fishes. The fish throw themselves upon the shore, and for the space of three days allow the people to take up as many of them as they please. At the end of these three days this shoal returns again to sea, and a different kind comes to the shore in the same manner, and remains for a similar period.

Enter page number Go  Previous Next
Page 650 of 810
Words from 177927 to 178193 of 222093