[Footnote 336: Colonel Yule gives a list of fourteen important passages taken bodily from Odoric by Mandeville. _Op. cit._ i. 28. It is very doubtful if that famous book, "Sir John Mandeville's Travels," was written by a Mandeville, or by a knight, or even by an Englishman. It seems to have been originally written in French by Jean de Bourgogne, a physician who lived for some years at Liege, and died there somewhere about 1370. He may possibly have been an Englishman named John Burgoyne, who was obliged some years before that date to flee his country for homicide or for some political offence. He had travelled as far as Egypt and Palestine, but no farther. His book is almost entirely cribbed from others, among which may be mentioned the works of Jacques de Vitry, Plano Carpini, Hayton the Armenian, Boldensele's Itinerary, Albert of Aix's chronicle of the first crusade, Brunetto Latini's _Tresor_, Petrus Comestor's _Historia scholastica_, the _Speculum_ of Vincent de Beauvais, etc., etc. It is one of the most wholesale and successful instances of plagiarism and imposture on record. See _The Buke of John Mandevill, from the unique copy (Egerton MS. 1982) in the British Museum. Edited by G. F. Warner._ Westminster, 1889. (Roxburghe Club.)] [Footnote 337: One piece of Pegolotti's advice is still useful for travellers in the nineteenth century who visit benighted heathen countries afflicted with robber tariffs: "And don't forget that if you treat the custom-house officers with respect, and make them something of a present in goods or money, they will behave with great civility and always be ready to appraise your wares below their real value." _Op. cit._ ii. 307.] [Footnote 338: The works of all the writers mentioned in this paragraph, or copious extracts from them, may be found in Yule's _Cathay_, which comprises also the book of the celebrated Ibn Batuta, of Tangier, whose travels, between 1325 and 1355, covered pretty much the whole of Asia except Siberia, besides a journey across Sahara to the river Niger. His book does not seem to have attracted attention in Europe until early in the present century.] [Sidenote: First rumours of the Molucca islands and Japan.]