[6] _Atlantis; the Antediluvian World._ J. Donelly, New York, 1882. The
author has amassed, with untiring labour, a large amount of evidence to
prove that the island of Atlantis, in place of being a myth or fable of
Plato, really once existed; was the source of all modern arts and
civilization; and was destroyed in a catastrophe which he identifies with
the Biblical Deluge.
[7] So also, Father Stanislaus Arlet, of the Society of Jesus, writing to
the General of the Society in 1698 respecting a new Mission in Peru, and
speaking of a Peruvian tribe calling themselves Canisian, says: "Having
never before seen horses, or men resembling us in colour and dress, the
astonishment they showed at our first appearance among them was a very
pleasing spectacle to us, the sight of us terrifying them to such a degree
that the bows and arrows fell from their hand; imagining, as they
afterwards owned, that the man, his hat, his clothes, and the horse he
rode upon, composed but one animal."
[8] _The Voyages and Adventures of Ferdinand Mendez Pinto_, done into
English by H. C. Gent, London, 1653, p. 109. The vindication of Pinto's
reputation for veracity will doubtless one day be, to a great extent,
effected, for although his interesting narrative is undoubtedly
embroidered with a rich tissue of falsity, due apparently to an
exaggerated credulity upon his part, and systematic deception upon that of
his Chinese informants, he certainly is undeserving of the wholesale
condemnation of which Congreve was the reflex when he made Foresight,
addressing Sir Sampson Legend, say: "Thou modern Mandeville, Ferdinand
Mendez Pinto was but a type of thee, thou liar of the first
magnitude."--_Love for Love_, Act. 2, Scene 1. There are many points in
his narrative which are corroborated by history and the accounts of other
voyages; and it must be remembered that, although the major part of the
names of places and persons which he gives are now unrecognisable, yet
this may be due to alterations from the lapse of time, and from the
difficulty of recognising the true original Chinese or Japanese word under
those produced by the foreign mode of transliteration in vogue in those
days. Thus the Port Liampoo of Pinto is now and has been for many years
past only known as Ningpo, the first name being a term of convenience,
used by the early Portuguese voyagers, and long since abandoned. Just as
the wonderful Quinsay of Marco Polo (still known by that name in Pinto's
time) has been only successfully identified (with Hangchow-fu) through the
antiquarian research of Colonel Yule. So also the titles of Chaems,
Tutons, Chumbins, Aytons, Anchacy's, which Pinto refers to (p. 108), are
only with difficulty recognisable in those respectively of Tsi‘ang (a
Manchu governor), Tu-tung (Lieutenant-General), Tsung-ping
(Brigadier-General), Tao-tai [??] (Intendant of Circuit) and Ngan-ch‘a
She-sze (Provincial Judge), as rendered by the modern sinologue Mayers in
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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