Note 33 — Chapter XXXIV · AND LAST (continued 3)

Astley (iv. p. 620): “The next Traveller we meet with into Tartary, and the Eastern Countries, after Marco Polo, is Friar Odoric, of Udin in Friuli, a Cordelier; who set-about the Year 1318, and at his Return the Relation of it was drawn-up, from his own Mouth, by Friar William of Solanga, in 1330. Ramusio has inserted it in Italian, in the second Volume of his Collection; as Hakluyt, in his Navigations, has done the Latin, with an English Translation. This is a most superficial Relation, and full of Lies; such as People with the Heads of Beasts, and Valleys haunted with Spirits: In one of which he pretends to have entered, protected by the Sign of the Cross; yet fled for Fear, at the Sight of a Face that grinned at him. In short, though he relates some Things on the Tartars and Manci (as he writes Manji) which agree with Polo’s Account; yet it seems plain, from the Names of Places and other Circumstances, that he never was in those Countries, but imposed on the Public the few Informations he had from others, mixed with the many Fictions of his own. He set out again for the East in 1331; but warned, it seems, by an Apparition a few Miles from Padua, he returned thither, and died.” And a final blow in the index: “Oderic, Friar, Travels of, iv. 620 a. A great liar!!”