After finishing the description of the Holy Land and Babylon, and reporting a conversation with the sultan, in which the vices of the Christians, such as drinking at taverns, and fighting, and perpetually changing the fashion of their clothes, were sharply satirized, and giving a synopsis of the Mohammedan creed, which we fear is not altogether authentic, our worthy traveller adds that now is the time, if it please us, to tell of the borders, and isles, and divers beasts, and of various peoples beyond these borders. Accepting his invitation, we bear him company first to the land of Lybia, which must have been a most uncomfortable region in those days, for the sea there was higher than the land, and the sun was so hot that the waters were always boiling. Why the country was not, therefore, soused in a steaming, hissing flood, we do not know; 'Sir John himself evidently thinks it strange. In Little Ermony which we take to be Armenia, he found something almost equally strange. That was the Castle of the Sparrow-hawk, where a sparrow-hawk perpetually sat upon a fair perch and a fair lady of fairie guarded it. Whoever will watch the bird seven days and seven nights without company and without sleep, shall be granted by the fairy the first earthly wish that he shall wish; but if sleep overcome him, he will never more be seen of men. This, adds the careful traveller, hath been proved oftentimes, and he mentions several persons who performed the long task and got their wishes. Mount Ararat is another marvellous feature in this wonderful region; for it is seven miles high, and Noah's ark still rests upon it, and in clear weather may be seen afar off. Some men say that they have been up and touched the ark, and even put their fingers in the parts where the devil went out when Noah said "Benedicite," (unfortunately we do not know the legend to which this refers;) but our traveller warns us not to believe such things, because they are not true! No man ever got up the mountain except one good monk; and he was miraculously favored, and brought down with him a plank which is still preserved in the monastery at the foot of the mountain. It is inexpressibly gratifying to observe that Sir John did not accept all the stories that were told him, but exercised a little judicious discrimination; and we shall therefore pay more respectful attention to the extraordinary things he tells us about the diamonds of India. They are found most commonly, he says, upon rocks of the sea, or else in connection with gold. They grow many together, male and female, and are nourished by the dew of heaven, so that they engender and bring forth small children that multiply and grow all the year. "I have oftentimes tried the experiment," he continues, "that if a man keep them with a little of the rock, and wet them with May-dew often, they shall grow every year, and the small will grow great.... And a man should carry the diamond on his