[Footnote 1: Pigmies, dwarfs. Homer, in the third book of the Iliad, has immortalized the Pigmies and their battles with the Cranes. (See Appendix for a curious engraving.) Pliny, in his 7th Book, cap. 2, speaks thus of them: "Beyond these people, and at the very extremity of the mountains, the Trispithami (_from_ [Greek: treis], _three, and_ [Greek: spithamai], _spans_), and the Pigmies are said to exist; two races that are but three spans in height--that is to say, twenty-seven inches only. They enjoy a salubrious atmosphere and a perpetual spring, being sheltered by the mountains from the northern blasts: it is these people that Homer has mentioned as being waged war upon by cranes. It is said that they are in the habit of going down, every spring, to the sea shore in a large body, seated on the backs of rams and goats, and armed with arrows, and there destroy the eggs and the young of those birds; that this expedition occupies them for the space of three months, and that otherwise it would be impossible for them to withstand the increasing multitudes of the cranes. Their cabins, it is said, are built of mud, mixed with feathers and egg-shells. Aristotle, indeed, says that they dwell in caves; but, in other respects, he gives the same details as other writers."] [Footnote 2: Other editions say six or seven years.] [Decoration] CAP. LXV. _Of the citie of Menke where is a great navy._ FROM this land men go through many countreys cities & towns, till they come to a citie that men call Menke. In that citie is a great navy of ships and they are as white as snow of the kind of the wod that they are made of & they are made as it were great houses with halles and chambres and other easements.[1] [Footnote 1: Conveniences.] CAP. LXVI. _Of the land named Cathay and of the great riches thereof._ AND from thence men go uppon a river that men call Ceremosan, and this river goeth throughe Cathay[1] & doth many times harme when it waxeth great. Cathay is a faire countrey & rich, ful of goods and merchandises, thether come marchauntes everye yeare for to fetch spices and other marchandises more commonly than they do in other countreys. And ye shall understand that marchaunts that come from Venice or from Gene or from other places of Lombardy, or of Italy, they go by sea and land, xi monthes and more or they may come to Cathay. [Footnote 1: Northern China.] CAP. LXVII. _Of a great citie named Cadon therein is the great Caanes palaice and sege._