582 



MEDIEVAL HISTORY. 



[Part V. 



ing numerous exaggerations and assertions altogether 

 incredible, exhibit a superiority over the productions 

 of the Greeks and Eomans. To avoid the fault of 

 dulness, both the latter were accustomed to enUven 

 their topographical itineraries, not so much by " moving 

 accidents," and "hair-breadth 'scapes," as by minghng 

 fanciful descriptions of monsters and natural pheno- 

 mena, with romantic accounts of the gems and splen- 

 dours of the East. Hence from Ctesias to Sir John 

 Mandeville, every early traveller in India had his " hint 

 to speak," and each strove to embelhsh his story by 

 incorporating with the facts he had witnessed, im- 

 probable reports collected from the representations of 

 others. Such were their excesses in this du^ection, that 

 the Greeks formed a class of " paradoxical " htera- 

 ture, by collecting into separate volumes the marvels 

 and wonders gravely related by their voyagers and his- 

 torians.^ 



The Arabs, on the contrary, with sounder discretion, 

 generally kept their " travellers' histories " distinct from 

 their sober narratives, and whilst the marvellous in- 

 cidents related by adventurous seamen were received 

 as materials for the story-tellers and romancers, the staple 

 of their geographical works consisted of truthful de- 

 scriptions of the countries visited, their forms of govern- 

 ment, their institutions, their productions, and their 

 trade. 



In illustration of this matter-of-fact character of the 

 Arab topographers, the most familiar example is that 

 known by the popidar title of the Voyages of the 



' Such are tlie Blirahiles Aus- 

 cultationes of Ajristotle, the In- 

 credihilia of Palephates, the His- 

 toriarum 3IirahUmni Collectio of An- 

 TIGONUS Caeystiits, t\\& Histori(P. 3Ii- 

 rahiles of Apolloniits the Meagee, 

 and the Collectious of Phlegon of 



Tralles, Michael Belixjs, and many 

 other Greeks of the Lower Empire. 

 For a succinct account of these 

 compilers, see Westerman's Uapn- 

 £ot6ypa(poi, Scrijjtores Merum Mira- 

 hilimn Greed. Brunswick, 1839. 



