1394. N. AND A. ZENO. 21 



narrator, " that the book and various other writ- 

 ings concerning these things should so lamentably 

 have been destroyed ; for being but a child when 

 they fell into my possession, and not knowing of 

 what importance they were, I tore them in pieces, 

 as the manner of children is, which I cannot call 

 to remembrance without the deepest grief"* 



The more the narrative of the two Zenos has 

 been scrutinized, the stronger has the internal 

 evidence appeared in favour of its general veracity. 

 The heating of the monastery, the cooking of the 

 friars' victuals, and watering their gardens with hot 

 water, were considered, however, by many as things 

 utterly incredible. But we are now " wiser than 

 of yore," and manage these things in the same 

 manner as the monks of St. Thomas were wont to 

 do in the fourteenth century. The great difficulty, 

 however, among geographers was that of assigning 

 a proper position for the island of Frisland ; a name 

 which occurs in the life of Christopher Columbus, 

 and is placed by Frobisher as the southern extre- 

 mity of Greenland. Ortelius maintained that it 

 was a certain part of the coast of North America. 

 Delislef and some others supposed that Buss 

 island, to the south of Iceland, was the remains of 

 Friesland, which had been swallowed up by an 



* Dello Scoprimento del Tlsole Frisland, Sec. per Fran. 

 IVIarcolini, 1558. 



t Hemisphere Occidental, 1720. 



c 3 



