Cochin-China in later medieval European literature, but here perhaps some more westerly portion of Indo-China); a month's voyage from Ciampa brought him to _Coloen_, doubtless Kulam or Quilon, in the extreme south-west of India. Thence he continued his homeward route, touching at Cochin, Calicut and Cambay, to Sokotra, which he describes as still mainly inhabited by Nestorian Christians; to the "rich city" of Aden, "remarkable for its buildings"; to _Gidda_ or Jidda, the port of Mecca; over the desert to _Carras_ or Cairo; and so to Venice, where he arrived in 1444. As a penance for his (compulsory) renunciation of the Christian faith during his wanderings, Eugenius IV. ordered him to relate his history to Poggio Bracciolini, the papal secretary. The narrative closes with Conti's elaborate replies to Poggio's question on Indian life, social classes, religion, fashions, manners, customs and peculiarities of various kinds. Following a prevalent fashion, the Venetian divides his Indies into three parts, the first extending from Persia to the Indus; the second from the Indus to the Ganges; the third including all beyond the Ganges; this last he considered to excel the others in wealth, culture and magnificence, and to be abreast of Italy in civilization. We may note, moreover, Conti's account of the bamboo in the Ganges valley; of the catching, taming and rearing of elephants in Burma and other regions; of Indian tattooing and the use of leaves for writing; of various Indian fruits, especially the jack and mango; of the polyandry of Malabar; of the cockfighting of Java; of what is apparently the bird of Paradise; of Indian funeral ceremonies, and especially _suttee_; of the self-mutilation and immolation of Indian fanatics; and of Indian magic, navigation ("they are not acquainted with the compass"), justice, &c. Several venerable legends are reproduced; and Conti's name-forms, partly through Poggio's vicious classicism, are often absolutely unrecognizable; but on the whole this is the best account of southern Asia by any European of the 15th century; while the traveller's visit to Sokotra is an almost though not quite unique performance for a Latin Christian of the middle ages. The original Latin is in Poggio's _De varietate Fortunae_, book iv.; see the edition of the Abbe Oliva (Paris, 1723). The Italian version, printed in Ramusio's _Navigationi et viaggi_, vol. i., is only from a Portuguese translation made in Lisbon. An English translation with short notes was made by J. Winter Jones for the Hakluyt Society in the vol. entitled _India in the Fifteenth Century_ (London, 1857); an introductory account of the traveller and his work by R. H. Major precedes. (C. R. B.)