Where Any Thing Like
Modern Appears, It Is Some Childish Fable, As That The Ark Of Noah Was
Still Visible On Mount Ararat.
He even gives the ancient fable of the
Amazons, whom he represents as an existing female nation.
He next makes a transition to India, without any notice of his journey
thither; arid gravely asserts that he has often experienced, that if
diamonds be wetted with May-dew, they will grow to a great size in a course
of years. This probably is an improvement upon the Arabian philosophy or
the production of pearls by the oysters catching that superlative seminal
influence. The following singular article of intelligence respecting India,
may be copied as a specimen of the work: "In that countree growen many
strong vynes: and the women drynken wyn, and men not: and the women shaven
hire berdes, and the men not." From India he proceeds to the island of
Lamary, the Lambri of Marco Polo; and by using the Italian term "the star
transmontane," at once betrays the source of his plagiarism. His
descriptions seem disguised extracts from Polo, with ridiculous
exaggerations and additions; as of snail shells so large as to hold many
persons. His account of the pretended varieties of the human race, as of
nations of Hermaphrodites, and others equally ridiculous, which he places
in separate islands of the Indian ocean, are mere transcripts from Pliny.
His accounts of Mangi and Kathay, or southern and northern China, are most
inaccurately stolen from Marco Polo, and disguised or rather disfigured to
conceal the theft.
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