"And in another isle are men that have flat faces without nose and without eyes, but they have two small round holes instead of eyes and they have a flat mouth without lips. . . . "And in another isle are men that have the lips about their mouth so great that when they sleep in the sun they cover all their face with the lip." But I must not tell all the "lying wonders of our English knight."* for you must read the book for yourselves. And when you do you will find that it is written with such an easy air of truth that you will half believe in Sir John's marvels. Every now and again, too, he puts in a bit of real information which helps to make his marvels seem true, so that sometimes we cannot be sure what is truth and what is fable. *Colonel Sir Henry Yule, The Book of Sir Marco Polo. Sir John wandered far and long, but at last his journeyings ended. "I have passed through many lands and isles and countries," he says, "and now am come to rest against my will." And so to find comfort in his "wretched rest" he wrote his book. "But," he says, "there are many other divers countries, and many other marvels beyond that I have not seen. Also in countries where I have been there are many marvels that I speak not of, for it were too long a tale." And also, he thought, it was as well to leave something untold "so that other men that go thither may find enough for to say that I have not told," which was very kind of him. Sir John tells us then how he took his book to the holy father the Pope, and how he caused it to be read, and "the Pope hath ratified and affirmed my book in all points. And I pray to all those that read this book, that they will pray for me, and I shall pray for them." BOOKS TO READ The Voyages and Travels of Sir John Mandeville, edited Chapter XXVI BARBOUR--"THE BRUCE," THE BEGINNINGS OF A STRUGGLE WHILE Chaucer was making for us pictures of English life, in the sister kingdom across the rugged Cheviots another poet was singing to a ruder people. This poet was John Barbour, Archdeacon of Aberdeen. An older man than Chaucer, born perhaps twenty years before the English poet, he died only five years earlier. So that for many years these two lived and wrote at the same time. But the book by which Barbour is remembered best is very different from that by which we remember Chaucer. Barbour's best-known book is called The Bruce, and in it, instead of the quiet tales of middle-class people, we hear throughout the clash and clang of battle. Here once again we have the hero of romance. Here once again history and story are mingled, and Robert the Bruce swings his battle-ax and wings his faultless arrow, saving his people from the English yoke.