whose sides are six miles long; and within
that another of foure miles square, which is
the palace it selfe. Betweene these severall
wals, are walkes, gardens, orchards, fishponds,
places for all manner of exercise, and parkes,
forrests, chases for all manner of game."
Here we have the " stately pleasure-dome"
which Kubla Khan " decreed," as Coleridge
says:

So, twice five miles of fertile ground,
With walls and towers well girdled round;
And here were gardens bright with sinuous rills,
Where blossom'd many an incense-bearing tree;
And here were forests ancient as the hills,
Enfolding sunny spots of greenery.

The Great Cham, or Khan, of Tartary, is
called by the simple vulgar, " the Shadow of
Spirits, and Sonne of the Immortall God;
and by himselfe is reputed to be the monarch
of the whole world. For this cause every
day, as soone as hee hath dined, hee causeth
his trumpets to be sounded: by that signe
giving leave to the other kings and princes
of the earth to goe to dinner. A fine dreame
of universall monarchie." Cathay, it may be
remarked, has been discovered by modern
geographers to be a part of China, and not of
Tartary; but at present we are travelling
with an old geographer, and therefore shall
not heed the impertinences of later scribes.

India, which has now become almost
another England, and has had all its mystery
and romance rubbed off by its connection
with mercantile speculation and shop
interests, was in Heylyn's time an inscrutable and
little-known land, where Fable had it nearly
all her own way, with small fear of being
dispossessed by Reality. " There have bin
attributed to this India," says Heylyn, " the
tales of men with dogge's heads; of men
with one legge onely, yet of great swiftnesse;
of such as live by sent; of men that had but
one eye, and that in their forheads; and of
others whose eares did reach unto the
ground. It is reported also that this people,
by eating a dragon's heart and liver, attaine
to the understanding of the languages of
beasts; that they can make themselves,
when they list, invisible; that they have two
tubbes, whereof the one opened yeelds winde,
the other raine; and the like. But of these
relations and the rest of this straine, I doubt
not but the understanding reader knoweth
how to judge and what to beleeve." All who
please are at liberty to assent to the above,
and also to the assertion that " Bacchus was
the first that entred and conquered this
country; as indeed," adds Peter, " what
regions first or last hath he not brought
under his winie empire? " At Moltan, " the
women ride booted and spurred: a fashion
later imitated by some mimicke dames of
England; " and at Ulna, " if I remember
aright, the women, in a foolish pride, blacke
their teeth: because dogge's teeth (forsooth)
are white."

We have now got into the region of
wonders, and of stately and majestic visions.
The metropolis called Quinsay, in China, is
like a city out of the Arabian Nights—a city
of the Genii, or of the Pre-Adamite sultans.
It " containeth in circuite one hundred miles,
having in the midst of it a lake of thirty
miles compasse, in which are two goodly
ilands, and in them two magnificent palaces,
adorned with all necessaries either for
majestie or convenience, in which are celebrated
the publike feasts and the marriages of the
better sort. The lake is nourished with
divers rivers, the chief being Polysango and
Cacamacan; on which rivers twelve thousand
bridges lift up their stately heads, and under
whose immense arches great ships with sails
spread abroad, and top and top-gallant may
and doe usually passe. This citty, partly by
the fury of warres, and partly by the violence
of earthquakes, hath now lost no small part
of her ancient beauty and renowne." Heylyn's
account of this city appears to be derived
from Marco Polo. Of the diet of the Chinese
our geographer says: "They eate thrice in
a day, but sparingly: their drinke they
drinke hot," [an allusion to tea, perhaps]
"and eate their meate with two sticks of
ivory, ebony, or the like: not touching their
meat with their hands, and therefore no great
filers of linnen. The use of silver forks in
eating, with us, which our sprucer gallants
so much used of late, was no doubt an imitation
of this." The above allusion to the
Chinese " not touching their meat with their
hands," as if it were something strange and
note-worthy, gives us a vivid idea of the
dirty habits of our ancestors, no very long
time ago.

For a few more Eastern wonders, which
will remind the reader of some of the
marvels of Sindbad the Sailor, we will
drop down upon the Moluccas, and other
oriental islands. In the former it is asserted.
"that there is a river, plentifully stored
with fish, whose water is yet so hot that
it doth immediately scald off the skin of
any beast that is cast into it; that some
of the men have tayles, and most of their
swine have homes; that they have oysters,
which they call Bras, the shels whereof are
of so large compasse that they christen
children in them; that in the sea there are
stones which grow and increase like fish, of
which the best lime is made; that there is a
bird called Monicodiata, which, having no
feet, is in continuall motion; and that there
is a hole in the backe of the cock, in which
the henne doth lay her eggs and hatch her
young ones." These statements are made
on the authority of Galvano; but Heylyn
entirely disbelieves them. In some other
Indian and Chinese Islands, travellers relate
that there is " a tree whose westerne part is
ranke poyson, and the easterne part an
excellent preservative against it. They tell us
also of a fruit that whosoever eateth shall for
the space of twelve hours be out of his wits;