PRELIMINARY DISCOURSE

a rejuvenated Ulysses; but fortunately for the Patagonian, no Ulysses was to be found on the vessel. The author alludes to the cunning Greek hero Ulysses to suggest that the indigenous people were lucky the explorers were not as clever or dangerous as the ancient hero.

All the Travelers who, in the sixteenth century, traversed the South Sea, spoke of the existence of the Giants of the Antarctic circle as a recognized truth. The Spanish Privateer Sarmiento (p) agrees on this subject with the English Captain Richard Hawkins (q), and with the...

(p) "The crew soon saw a troop of unarmed Giants appear; they approached our longboat, and immediately the ensign went ashore with some soldiers... About ten Spaniards skillfully surrounded one of the savages and took him, despite his resistance; the others immediately ran for their weapons, and returned upon us so promptly, that we hardly had time to get back into the longboat... The Indian, whom our people had taken, was a Giant among the other Giants, and resembled a Cyclops A one-eyed giant from Greek mythology, used here to emphasize the subject's intimidating size.. His compatriots were three ells high An 'ell' is an archaic unit of measurement; three ells would be roughly 11 to 12 feet tall., large and strong in proportion... A few days later, another landing was made; but the artillery frightened the Giants: they fled with such lightness, that one would have thought they went as fast as a harquebus ball." History of the Conquest of the Moluccas by Leonardo de Argensola, book 3. One must, however, be wary of Sarmiento, who lived in the age of Chivalry, and who had the visionary mind of Don Quixote.

Knivet only adopted this opinion through fear of the Auto-da-fés Portuguese/Spanish: "Acts of Faith." These were the public penances and executions of heretics during the Inquisition.. I do not see at first how an opinion would cease to be true simply because it is accepted by the Inquisitors. Furthermore, fear of the Jacobins The author likely refers to the Dominican friars (often called Jacobins in France) who ran the Inquisition. might well have prevented Knivet from saying what he had seen, but not forced him to say what he could not have seen. The Historian of Cavendish's voyage needed only to keep the truth silent, and not to tell a lie.

(q) "One must be wary of the inhabitants of the Coast of Magellan: they are called Patagonians: they are cruel, treacherous, and of such high stature, that several travelers give them the title of Giants..." See the summary of his account in the Compiler Purchas, volume 4, book 7, chapter 5.