The Preface.
I could wiſh Apollonius had been more able to deal with them, but ſo ſhort was he of Philoſophy, that he knew not what to ask them, and that ample Liberty which they gave him, was all of it to no purpoſe. This is clear to ſuch as know any thing out of his former Queries, which we have already mentioned: but if we look on the reſt of his Problems, they are moſt of them but ſo many Hiſtorical Fables, which he brought with him out of Greece, and now he begins to ſhake his Budget. The firſt thing comes out, is the Μας τιχόοας, a Monſter, which Mandevil could never meet withall: and then he queſtions Jarchas ὧεὶ τῦ χς υσοῦύδατθ, concerning a certain Water of the colour of Gold, and this indeed might ſignifie ſomething, but that he underſtood it literally, of common, ordinary Well-ſprings: and therefore Jarchas tells him, that he never heard of his Martichora, neither was it ever known, that any Fountains of golden Waters did ſpring in India. But this is not all: In the Rear of this ſtrange Beaſt march the Pygmies, the Sciapodes, and the Macrocephali: to which might be added all the Animals in Lucian’s Hiſtory. But as
we