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A French translation of it was given by Thevenot, in the 4th part of his collection, published at Paris, 1673, an abridgement of which was inserted in Harris's collection.
The naturalist Turner says that on the river Plata near the Brazilian coast he saw naked savages 12 feet high; and in his description of America, Thevenot confirms this by saying that on the coast of Africa he saw on a boat the skeleton of an American giant who had died in 1559, and who was 11 feet 5 inches in height. He claims to have measured the bones himself.
He would almost listen to nothing more about the marvels of Nature, and an express order from the Pope in virtute sanctae obedientiae was needed to extract from him the observations M. Thévenot asked of him.
Already the elder Thévenot has accented this contrast when he says: "These cause the teeth to be equal, those file them to points, giving them the shape of a saw." This difference appears to have held on till the present; at least no skull of an Indio is known to me with similar deformation of the teeth.
Sauveur, at the corner of the street of that name, from which a street communicates with the Rue Thevenot, and about here was the Cour des Miracles, cited by Dulaure, and afterwards by Victor Hugo, as the resort of thieves and beggars, where five hundred families lived huddled together in the greatest state of filth that could be imagined; it was not until the year 1667 that they were partly dispersed.
The practical illustration of the possibility of Leander's feat by Lord Byron is too well known to need particular reference. The accurate Thevenot walked in one hour and three-quarters round two of the sides of the triangle, from the Kiosk of the Seraglio to the seven towers.
The probation of Dieudonne is said to have been somewhat longer than the poem represents, but after the claims of discipline had been established, he became a great favorite with stern old Villeneuve, and the dragon's head was set up over the gate of the city, where Thèvenot professed to have seen it in the seventeenth century, and said that it was larger than that of a horse, with a huge mouth and teeth and very large eyes.
The description given in the text of this Chinese pagoda has much the air of a fiction; yet we can hardly conceive the author would venture to report to Shah-Rokh what must have been contradicted by his ambassadors, if false. Astl. This is called Lam in the French of Thevenot, and is the same with the Lamb of Marco Polo. Astl.
In my first publication I cited a passage in Thévenot where he says, on the testimony of a priest, that the natives on some islands had the custom of compressing the head of a newborn child between two boards, so that it would be no longer round, but lengthened out; also they flattened the forehead, which they looked upon as a special mark of beauty. This is, therefore, an ancient example.
Thévenot mentions "Solomon's ant" as among the "beasts which shall enter paradise." Indeed, the human saint as well as sluggard may "go to the ant" for many suggestive hints and commentaries. These are only a few of the more notable parallelisms which suggest themselves. But others are not wanting if we care to follow the subject.
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