THE NATURAL HISTORY OF DISTANT LANDS 55 



celebrated naturalist Clusius, as well as into German. 

 A portrait prefixed to the Latin translation shows Belon 

 as a strong and handsome man w^ith short curly hair and 

 full beard ; he was only thirty-two when he returned 

 from the east. 



The Turks were then at the height of their power. 

 Belon, like Busbecq (p. 56), admired their hardihood 

 and temperance in this season of conquest and glory. 

 He describes the menagerie of the sultan, which was 

 kept in an ancient temple at Constantinople. Lions 

 were tied each to its own pillar ; sometimes they were 

 let loose. Besides lions there were wolves, onagers, 

 porcupines, bears and lynxes. Genets were kept in 

 the houses like cats. Belon says that the Turks loved 

 flowers, and were skilful in gardening. Parsley was 

 called macedonico in the market of Constantinople ; 

 hence perhaps the macedoine of modern cookery. 

 Smilax aspera and Tamus communis were used as 

 salads. The giraffe, buffalo, gazelle, chameleon and 

 Egyptian crocodiles are described, some of them being 

 figured. Belon refutes the popular fable that the 

 chameleon lives on air, but was induced to figure a 

 mummied serpent with wings and clawed feet, which, 

 he tells us, was able to fly from Arabia into Egypt. 

 Much to his surprise, he found the skin of a six- banded 

 armadillo, which must have come, he knew, from South 

 America, in the hands of a troop of wandering Turkish 

 drug-sellers ; he secured the specimen and figures it. 



We find a particularly interesting description of 

 Crete. Belon begins by lamenting that the Greeks, 

 to whom the arts and learning owe so much, held not 

 a foot of ground as their own, the Turks dominating 

 the inland parts, and the Venetians the shores of what 

 had been the Greek empire. The ancient language was 



