thought they would be sufficiently visible on the perusal.

Ctesias the Cnidian, son of Ctesiochus, wrote an account of India
and of things there, which he never saw himself, nor heard from
anybody else. Iambulus also has acquainted us with many wonders
which he met with in the great sea, and which everybody knew to be
absolute falsehoods: the work, however, was not unentertaining.
Besides these, many others have likewise presented us with their own
travels and peregrinations, where they tell us of wondrous large
beasts, savage men, and unheard-of ways of living. The great leader
and master of all this rhodomontade is Homer's "Ulysses," who talks
to Alcinous about the winds {75} pent up in bags, man-eaters, and
one-eyed Cyclops, wild men, creatures with many heads, several of
his companions turned into beasts by enchantment, and a thousand
things of this kind, which he related to the ignorant and credulous
Phaeacians.

These, notwithstanding, I cannot think much to blame for their
falsehoods, seeing that the custom has been sometimes authorised,
even by the pretenders to philosophy: I only wonder that they
should ever expect to be believed: being, however, myself incited,
by a ridiculous vanity, with the desire of transmitting something to
posterity, that I may not be the only man who doth not indulge
himself in the liberty of fiction, as I could not relate anything
true (for I know of nothing at present worthy to be recorded), I
turned my thoughts towards falsehood, a species of it, however, much
more excusable than that of others, as I shall at least say one
thing true, when I tell you that I lie, and shall hope to escape the
general censure, by acknowledging that I mean to speak not a word of
truth throughout. Know ye, therefore, that I am going to write