marvelous as it was, never became as popular as the spurious memoirs of
Mandeville, who in serving up his monstrosities ransacked almost every
author, classic or mediæval, on whom he could lay his hands.[18] In fact
a class of books arose which bore the significant name of _Mirabilia
Mundi_ and purported to treat of the whole world, and especially of
India. Such are, for instance, _Les Merveilles de l'Inde_ by Jean
Vauquelin, _Fenix de las maravillas del mondo_ by Raymundus Lullius, and
similar works by Nicolaus Donis, Arnaldus de Badeto and others.[19] But
the great store-house of Oriental marvels on which the mediæval poets
drew for material was the Alexander-romance of pseudo-Callisthenes, of
which there were a number of Latin versions, the most important being
the epitome made by Julius Valerius and the _Historia de Preliis_
written by the archpresbyter Leo in the tenth century. The character of
the Oriental lore offered in these writings is best shown by a cursory
examination of the work last mentioned.[20] There we are introduced to a
bewildering array of _mirabilia_, snakes, hippopotami, scorpions,
giant-lobsters, forest-men, bats, elephants, bearded women, dog-headed
people, griffins, white women with long hair and canine teeth,
fire-spouting birds, trees that grow and vanish in the course of a
single day, mountains of adamant, and finally sacred sun-trees and
moon-trees that possess the gift of prophecy. But beyond some vague
reference to asceticism not a trace of knowledge of Brahmanic life can
be found. While the Brahman King Didimus is well versed in Roman and
Greek mythology, he never mentions the name of any of his own gods. Of
real information concerning India there is almost nothing.

* * * * *

From what we have seen thus far we shall not expect in mediæval
literature conscious imitation or reproduction of works from Persian or