turn late to Heaven, whose vertuous and holy Presence alleviates the Miseries of our Age.
As to the Greek Books which you enquire after, and the Rarities, and the wild Beasts of a strange Kind, which you hear I have brought back, they are hardly worth mentioning: Among them, there is one Ichneumon very gentle, which is known for its deadly Quarrels with the Crocodile and the Asp. I had also a Weesel of that kind they call an Ermine, very beautiful; but I lost it on the Way. I have many brave Horses, such as no Man ever brought from thence before, and six She-Camels. I brought back no Shrubs nor Herbs, but in Painting, which I left to the Care of Matthiolus, with some other Things, many Years ago. I sent him Tapestry and Linnen after the Babylonian Fashion, with Swords, Bows, and other Trappings: I have also many other Things made of Horses-hides, curiously wrought after the Turkish Fashion, or rather I may say, I had them; for in so great an Assembly of principal Men and Women at Francfort, one beg'd one Thing, and another another; so that I have but a small Matter left. The rest of my Gifts was well bestowed; but I am very sorry that I was lavish of one Balsam, because Physicians call the Truth of it in question, as not answering all the Marks that Pliny gives of it: Whether it be that the Virtue of those ancient Plants from whence it flows, be weakned by Age, or from any other Cause; this I know for certain, that it trickles down from Shrubs in the Mattarcan Gardens near Cairo.
Before I left Constantinople, I sent one Albacarus, a Spanish Physican, into Lemnos, on the sixth Day of August, to be present at the digging out that famous Earth, desiring him to write me the Certainty of its Place, Origin, manner of Extracting and Use; which I know he will do, if
