THE NATURAL HISTORY OF DISTANT LANDS 5T 



Turks in the days wlieii they threatened all Christen- 

 dom. Being not only learned, but urged by an 

 unbounded curiosity, Busbecq inquired into strange 

 facts of every kind. His love of gardening caused him 

 to send some plants, cultivated by the Turks but un- 

 familiar in Europe, to his correspondents in Vienna. 



Gilles, in Latin Gillius^ (1490-1554), was a naturalist 

 who made the same venture as Belon, and like him, 

 was unkindly treated by fortune, for his calamities 

 hindered him from bringing home the fruits of his toil. 

 He was a native of Alby in Languedoc, who betook 

 himself to the study of the ancient naturalists, but 

 gained practical experience of zoological research by 

 examining the fishes of the Mediterranean and Adriatic. 

 He was patronised by a celebrated free-thinking bishop,. 

 Armagnac, and commissioned by the king, Francis I., 

 to visit the Levant in quest of ancient or modern know- 

 ledge. His necessities were not duly provided for, and 

 he found himself left destitute in Asia Minor. All his 

 collections were lost, and he was compelled to enlist in 

 the Turkish army for the sake of a subsistence. At last 

 he made his escape to France (1550), and rejoined his 

 patron, now a cardinal, at Eome. Before setting out on 

 his travels Gilles published ^lian in Latin, rearranging 

 his matter, and identifying the species where possible ; 

 after his return he wrote on the topography of Con- 

 stantinople. Among his publications is a description of 

 an elephant sent from Persia to the sultan.^ Gilles met 

 with it and its Hindoo mahout at Aleppo, where the 

 elephant died. He notes the gentleness of the animal,^ 



' This Petrus Gillius must not be confounded with Petrus Gillius or JEgidius 

 of Antwerp (1486?-1533), who was the friend of Erasmus and Sir Thomas 

 More, and edited the first edition of the Utopia. 



^ Elephanti Descriptio, missa ad R. cardinalem Armagnacum ex urbe Serrhcect 

 Syriaca, auihore Petro Gillio, 8vo. Lyon. 1562. 



