Page:Notes upon Russia (volume 1, 1851).djvu/81

Rh The narrative bears the title—

See d’Avezac, already quoted, pp. 25-26.

Sir John Mandeville belonged to an ancient and distinguished English family. He was born at Saint Alban’s, and received a careful education. His favourite studies were mathematics, surgery, and theology. His busy spirit urged him at the same time to inquire into the nature and condition of foreign countries; and with this intention he went, in 1322, through France on a journey to the Holy Land, served several years under the Sultan of Egypt and the Grand Chan of Cathay. After thirty-three years’ wanderings in Asia, he returned to Europe, and died, in 1371, in Liège, where his monument is still to be seen. In the year 1356, as he says himself, in the thirty-fourth year after his departure, he drew up a narrative of his travels, in the French language apparently, but translated it himself soon after into Latin. This narrative, according to his own acknowledgment, included many of the chronicles, adventures, and romances of chivalry, so much admired in that age; but in almost every allusion to such romances he refers to them as merely matters of hearsay. This acknowledgment, we conceive, ought to be allowed to clear this early traveller