PREFACE. 



" TRAVELLERS see strange things," more especially when 

 their writing about, or delineation of, them is not put 

 under the microscope of modern scientific examination. 

 Our ancestors were content with what was given them, 

 and being, as a rule, a stay-at-home race, they could 

 not confute the stories they read in books. That age 

 of faith must have had its comforts, for no man could 

 deny the truth of what he was told. But now that 

 modern travel has subdued the globe, and inquisitive 

 strangers have poked their noses into every portion of 

 the world, " the old order changeth, giving place to 

 new," and, gradually, the old stories are forgotten. 



It is to rescue some of them from the oblivion into 

 which they were fast falling, that I have written, or 

 compiled, this book. I say compiled it, for I am fonder 

 of letting old authors tell their stories in their old- 

 fashioned language, than to paraphrase it, and usurp 

 the credit of their writings, as is too much the mode 

 now-a-days. 



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