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TO THE MOST ILLUSTRIOUS AND MOST EXCELLENT LADY THE COUNTESS OF ALBI AND DUCHESS OF TAGLIACOZZO, MADAME AGNESINA FELTRIA COLONNA, LUDOVICO DI VARTHEMA OF BOLOGNA WISHES HEALTH.

THERE have been many men who have devoted themselves to the investigation of the things of this world, and by the aid of divers studies, journeys, and very exact relations, have endeavoured to accomplish their desire. Others, again, of more perspicacious understandings, to whom the earth has not sufficed, such as the Chaldeans and Phoenicians, have begun to traverse the highest regions of Heaven with careful observations and watchings; from all which I know that each has gained most deserved and high praise from others and abundant satisfaction to themselves. Wherefore I, feeling a very great desire for similar results, and leaving alone

the Heavens as a burthen more suitable for the shoulders of Atlas and of Hercules, determined to investigate some small portion of this our terrestrial globe; and not having any

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inclination (knowing myself to be of very slender understanding) to arrive at my desire by study or conjectures, I determined, personally, and with my own eyes, to endeavour to ascertain the situations of places, the qualities of peoples, the diversities of animals, the varieties of the fruit-bearing and odoriferous trees of Egypt, Syria, Arabia Deserta and Felix, Persia, India and Ethiopia, remembering well that the testimony of one eye-witness is worth more than ten heard-says. Having then, by Divine assistance, in part accomplished my object and examined various provinces and foreign nations, it appeared to me that I had done nothing if I kept hidden within myself the things I had witnessed and experienced, instead of communicating them to other studious men. Wherefore I bethought myself to give a very faithful description of this my voyage, according to my humble abilities, thinking thereby to do an action which would be agreeable to my readers; for that, whereas I procured the pleasure of seeing new manners and customs by very great dangers and insupportable fatigue, they will enjoy the same advantage and pleasure, without discomfort or danger, by merely reading. Reflecting, then, to whom I might best address this my laborious little work, you, Most Illustrious and Most Excellent Lady, occurred to me as being a special observer of noteworthy things, and a lover of every virtue. Nor did my judgment appear to me vain, considering the infused learning transferred by the radiant light of that Most Illustrious and Excellent Lord the Duke of Urbino your Father, being as it were to us a sun of arms and of science.

I do not speak of the very Excellent Lord your Brother, who (although still a young man) has so distinguished himself in his Latin and Greek studies as to be spoken of as almost a Demosthenes and a Cicero. Wherefore, having derived every virtue from such broad and clear streams, you cannot do other than take pleasure in honourable works and entertain a great desire for them. He who can justly appreciate them, would willingly go with his corporeal feet where he flies with the wings of his mind, remembering that one of the praises awarded to the most wise and eloquent Ulysses was, that he had seen many customs of men and many countries. But as your Ladyship is occupied with the affairs of your Most Illustrious Lord and Consort (whom, like another Artemisia, you love and respect), and about the distinguished family which, with admirable rule, you adorn by your graces, I say it will suffice if amongst your other good works mind with this fruitful, although, will feed you perhaps, unpolished reading, not acting like many other ladies who lend their ears to light songs and vain words, taking no account of time, unlike the angelic mind of your Ladyship, which allows no moment to pass without some good fruit. Your kindness will easily supply all want of skill in the connection of the narrative, grasping only the truth of the facts. And if these, my labours, should prove agreeable to you and meet with your approbation, I shall consider that I have received sufficient praise and satisfaction for my long wanderings, my rather fearful exile, during which I have endured, innumerable times, hunger and

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thirst, cold and heat, war, imprisonment, and an infinite number of other dangerous inconveniences, and shall gain fresh courage for that other journey which I hope to undertake in a short time; for having examined some parts of the countries and islands of the east, south, and west, I am resolved, if it please God, to investigate those of the north. And thus, as I do not see that I am fit for any other pursuit, to spend in this praiseworthy exercise the remainder of my fleeting days.

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