[99] Gomar.  H.G.  VI. xviii. and xix.

[100] In other writers Liampa and Siampa, or Tsiompa, are synonimous; but
    that place is in lat. 12 deg.  N. The latitude of the text would lead us to
    the eastern coast of China, between Ningpo and Nankin.—­E.

[101] Gomez, H. G. VI. xviii.  This story, which Galvano has reported from
    Genoa, seems altogether unworthy of credit.—­E.

[102] The Matelots are laid down in our modern maps, in lat. 9 deg.  N. Long
    137 deg.  E. not far E.N.E. of the Pelew, or Pillelew islands.—­E.

[103] This great inland of Mindanao, to the south of the Philippines,
    reaches from 9 deg. 30’ N. to 5 deg. 30’, and from long. 122 deg. to 126 deg. 20’ E.
    being about 300 miles long, by 270 miles broad.—­E.

[104] The Philippines, exclusive of Mindanao and Palawa, extend from Lat.
    9 deg. to 18 40’ both N. and are in E. long. 122 but their present
    geographical names, Luzon, Samar, Leyte, Zebu, Negros, Pany, Mindora,
    and several other smaller isles, have no resemblance whatever with
    those of the text.—­E.

[105] Gomar.  H.G.  IV. xiv.

[106] Probably Morty, the most north-easterly of the Moluccas.—­E.

CHAPTER II.

THE JOURNEY OF AMBROSE CONTARINI, AMBASSADOR FROM THE REPUBLIC OF VENICE
TO UZUN-HASSAN, KING OF PERSIA, IN THE YEARS 1473, 4, 5, AND. 6, WRITTEN
BY HIMSELF.

INTRODUCTION.

This relation of a journey into Persia, between the years 1473 and 1477, is from a collection of voyages and travels, principally in Asia, made in the twelfth, thirteenth, fourteenth, and fifteenth centuries, which was published at the Hague, in the French language, in 1735.  That collection usually goes under the name of Bergeron, whose name appears on the title somewhat equivocally as the author; but who is mentioned in the advertisement as a writer belonging to the middle of the preceding century; and the only part of the work that can, be attributed to him, is a Treatise of Navigation, and of the Modern Voyages of Discovery and Conquest, especially those made by the French, &c. which serves as an introduction to this compilement.  The editor of this collection gives no account of himself, or of the sources from whence he has derived his different articles; and only says, that the journal of Contarini was translated into French, that it might be published along with the other contents of his volume.  From the Bibliotheque Universelle des Voyages, by G. Boucher de la Richarderie, a new work of great research, published at Paris in 1808, we learn that the journal of Contarini was published in Italian at Venice, in a duodecimo volume, in 1543.  So far as is known to us, it now appears for the first time in an English translation.  This article might have been more aptly placed towards the close of first part of the present collection, but escaped notice in proper time and it appears of too much importance, both in itself, and as an early document, to be omitted from punctilious attention to rigid systematic arrangement.