246 
REVIEW. 
* Tar TRAVELS OF PIETRO DELLA VALLE IN Inpra. 
Pietro DELLA VALLE, a noble Roman, travelled much in Asia in 
the early sixteen hundreds and wrote log-letters to his friend Dr, 
Mario Schipano, of which he published those relating to the Ottoman 
Empire himself and his sons those about Persia and India, 
The present volumes contain only the eight letters about India, and 
induce one to hope that the Hakluyt Society will some day give 
us the others; for these before us fully justify the high praise 
bestowed on the author by no less authorities than Gibbon, Southey, 
and (a more competent judge than either) Sir Henry Yule. 
Tn this place we can only deal with his remarks upon Natural His- 
tory, chiefly botany. 
Della Valle sailed from Gombroon, near what we now call Bandar 
Abbas, on the 19th January, 1628, aboard “ the ship called The Whale,” 
commanded by Captain Nicholas Woodcock, whose consort, as be- 
fitted, was called The Dolphin, Master Matthew Willis. Of these ships 
and their commanders it may be noted that they were cheerful and 
hospitable. Captain Woodcock had a pair of Persian greyhounds on 
board, and sometimes, when becalmed near land, took them ashore 
for sport. 
He had ranged as wide as his totem-bird, having sailed to Green- 
land, and Della Valle greatly praises him as a navigator. Woodcock 
showed him a “ chart or draught of the whole straight of Ormuz made 
by himself with the highest exactness,” including shoal soundings, 
And he held every day at noon a navigation class of “ twenty or thirty 
mariners ; masters, boys (? masters’ boys, which seems more likely), 
young men, and of all sorts.” The italics are the Reviewer’s. Some of 
our sea-faring members may perhaps add a manuscript note of deserved 
admiration. Della Valle does not spare his, and contrasts the English 
practice strongly with the childish selfishness of the Portuguese pilots who 
made their art a mysterious monopoly. “ This,” says he, “is the reason 
that their ships frequently miscarry,” and goes on to say worse of the 
i aE a 
* The Travels of Pietro Della Valle in India from the old English translation 
of 1664, by G. Havers; in two volumes. Edited, witha life of the author, an intro- 
duction and notes, by Edward Grey, late B.C.8., London, Hakluyt Society, 1892. 
