ORIGIN OF THE AMERICAN NEGRO. 
127 
ious things in tlie lands that have never been visited, aUhougli very 
likely if we were to go there we would hnd things (juite as natural 
as they are here. But that was the way the ancient geographers 
displayed their ignorance, and their acceptance of all sorts of tra¬ 
ditions and travelers’ tales that circulated from mouth to mouth 
very freely. 
Even the stories of Gullivers travels, with his dwarfs and 
giants and talking horses, found believers, where, on the other hand; 
the stories of Marco Polo, Sir John Mandeville, and other earliest 
THE ELEPHANT AND RHINOCEROS. 
travelers to the Orient, who reported things which are now known 
to be mostly true, were hardly believed at all. 
Strangely enough, there are discoveries made at times, with 
the advance of exploration in the present day, which go far to 
verify some of the most extravagant stories of the past. Africa 
has done much to justify some of these old-fashioned myths. 
In Africa, for instance, was found the rhinoceros, which, with 
its horn, is a clumsy sort of substitute for the unicorn of the ancients. 
In Africa, too, have been discovered races of man extremely back- 
