In the writings of the earlier travellers (to mention but three names)—Marco Polo, in Cathay (1254-1323), Ibn Batuta (1304-1377), in Asia; and Joao de Barros (1496-1570), who was considered the greatest authority on Portuguese, African, and Asiatic travels of his time—and in the records of travels contained in collections such as those of Hakluyt (1552-1616), Purchas (1577-1626), and Pinkerton (1758-1826), much ethnological information can be sifted from among the marvellous tales. Sometimes the marvellous tales themselves can, by ethnology, be interpreted in fact, as when the “tailed men” of the Nicobars are found to owe their origin to the tail-like method of wearing the loin-cloth.[82] These were followed by the travellers and explorers of the nineteenth century, who brought back a vast amount of new information, both physical and cultural, from the lands they visited. Among these the names of Admiral Byron, James Bruce, L. A. Bougainville, Sir John Barrow, Captain Cook, de Lesseps, and Pallas may be mentioned. Footnote 82: E. H. Man, _Journ. Anth. Inst._, xv., p. 442. Other sources of information were the works of the Jesuit missionaries of the sixteenth to the eighteenth centuries, such as José d’Acosta (1539-1600), J. F. Lafitau (1670-1740), and F. X. de Charlevoix (1682-1761), who worked among the Canadian Indians, and M. Dobrizhoffer (1717-1791). Next come the missionaries of the nineteenth century, such as William Ellis (1794-1872), who laboured in South Africa and Madagascar, but is best known for his work in Polynesia; John Williams (1796-1839); George Turner (1818-1891); W. Wyatt Gill (1828-1896), and others who also worked in the Pacific. In Africa we may mention Bishop Callaway (1817-1890) and David Livingstone (1813-1873). At the same time the Roman Catholic missionary E. R. Huc (1813-1860) was working in China and Tartary, while the Abbé Dubois (1770-1848) was laboriously investigating the manners, customs, and ceremonies of the Hindus. Besides the missionaries, we owe a deep debt of gratitude to the early explorers and civil servants in all parts of the world, who have provided, consciously or unconsciously, a vast amount of information about the peoples among whom they travelled or over whom they ruled. Scientific expeditions, even before these were undertaken in the interests of anthropology, collected further material. Lastly come the various anthropological expeditions, consisting of trained workers, who, besides amassing fresh evidence, check, correct, or amplify the work of earlier writers.