The elephant, by some called oliphant, is the largest of all four-footed beasts. The fore-legs are longer than those behind; in the lower part or ancles of which he has joints. The feet have each five toes, but undivided. The trunk or snout is so long and of such form that it serves him as a hand, for he both eats and drinks by bringing his food and drink to his mouth by its means, and by it he helps up his master or keeper, and also overturns trees by its strength. Besides his two great tusks, he has four teeth on each side of his mouth, by which he eats or grinds his food, each of these teeth being almost a span long, as they lie along the jaw, by two inches high and about as much in breadth. The tusks of the male are larger than those of the female. The tongue is very small, and so far within the mouth that it cannot be seen. This is the gentlest and most tractable of all beasts, and understands and is taught many things, so that it is even taught to do reverence to kings, being of acute sense and great judgment. When the female is once seasoned, the male never touches her afterwards. The male lives two hundred years, or at least 120, and the female almost as long; but the flower of their age is reckoned 60 years. They cannot endure our winter or cold weather; but they love to go into rivers, in which they will often wade up to their trunk, snuffing and blowing the water about in sport; but they cannot swim, owing to the weight of their bodies. If they happen to meet a man wandering in the wilderness, they will go gently before him and lead him into the right way. In battle they pay much respect to those who are wounded, bringing such as are hurt or weary into the middle of the army where they may be defended. They are made tame by drinking the juice of barley213.

They have continual war with dragons, which desire their blood because it is very cold; wherefore the dragon lies in wait for the passing of an elephant, winding its tail of vast length round the hind legs of the elephant, then thrusts his head into his trunk and sucks out his breath, or bites him in the ears where he cannot reach with his trunk. When the elephant becomes faint with the loss of blood, he falls down upon the serpent, now gorged with blood, and with the weight of his body crushes the dragon to death. Thus his own blood and that of the elephant run out of the serpent now mingled together, which cooling is congealed into that substance which the apothecaries call sanguis draconis or cinnabar214. But there are other kinds of cinnabar, commonly called cinoper or vermillion, which the painters use in certain colours.

There are three kinds of elephants, as of the marshes, the plains, and the mountains, differing essentially from each other. Philostratus writes, that by how much the elephants of Lybia exceed in bigness the horses of Nysea, so much do the elephants of India exceed those of Lybia, for some of the elephants of India have been seen nine cubits high; and these are so greatly feared by the others, that they dare not abide to look upon them. Only the males among the Indian elephants have tusks; but in Ethiopia and Lybia, both males and females are provided with them. They are of divers heights, as of 12, 13, or 14 dodrants, the dodrant being a measure of 9 inches; and some say that an elephant is bigger than three wild oxen or buffaloes. Those of India are black, or mouse-coloured; but those of Ethiopia or Guinea are brown. The hide or skin of them all is very hard, and without hair or bristles. Their ears are two dodrants, or 18 inches in breadth, and their eyes are very small. Our men saw one drinking at a river in Guinea as they sailed along the coast. Those who wish to know more of the properties of the elephant, as of their wonderful docility, of their use in war, of their chastity and generation, when they were first seen in the triumphs and amphitheatres of the Romans, how they are taken and tamed, when they cast their tusks, and of their use in medicine, and many other particulars, will find all these things described in the eighth book of Natural History, as written by Pliny. He also says in his twelfth book, that the ancients made many goodly works of ivory or elephants teeth; such as tables, tressels or couches, posts of houses, rails, lattices for windows, idols of their gods, and many other things of ivory, either coloured or uncoloured, and intermixed with various kinds of precious woods; in which manner at this day are made chairs, lutes, virginals, and the like. They had such plenty of it in ancient times, that one of the gates of Jerusalem was called the ivory gate, as Josephus reports. The whiteness of ivory was so much admired, that it was anciently thought to represent the fairness of the human skin; insomuch that those who endeavoured to improve, or rather to corrupt, the natural beauty by painting, were said reproachfully, ebur atramento candefacere, to whiten ivory with ink. Poets also, in describing the fair necks of beautiful virgins, call them eburnea colla, or ivory necks. Thus much may suffice of elephants and ivory, and I shall now say somewhat of the people, and their manners, and mode of living, with another brief description of Africa.

The people who now inhabit the regions of the coast of Guinea and the middle parts of Africa, as inner Lybia, Nubia, and various other extensive regions in that quarter, were anciently called Ethiopians and Nigritae, which we now call Moors, Moorens, or Negroes; a beastly living people, without God, law, religion, or government, and so scorched by the heat of the sun, that in many places they curse it when it rises. Of the people about Lybia interior, Gemma Phrysius thus writes: Libia interior is large and desolate, containing many horrible wildernesses, replenished with various kinds of monstrous beasts and serpents. To the south of Mauritania or Barbary is Getulia, a rough and savage region, inhabited by a wild and wandering people. After these follow the Melanogetuli, or black Getulians, and Phransii, who wander in the wilderness, carrying with them great gourds filled with water. Then the Ethiopians, called Nigritae, occupy a great part of Africa, extending to the western ocean or Atlantic. Southwards also they reach to the river Nigritis or Niger, which agrees in its nature with the Nile, as it increases and diminishes like the Nile, and contains crocodiles. Therefore, I believe this to be the river called the Senegal by the Portuguese. It is farther said of the Niger, that the inhabitants on one side were all black and of goodly stature, while on the other side they were brown or tawny and of low stature, which also is the case with the Senegal.215 There are other people of Lybia, called Garamantes, whose women are in common, having no marriages or any respect to chastity. After these are the nations called Pyrei, Sathiodaphintae, Odrangi, Mimaces, Lynxamator, Dolones, Agangince, Leuci Ethiopes, Xilicei Ethiopes, Calcei Ethiopes, and Nubi. These last have the same situation in Ptolemy, which is now given to the kingdom of Nubia, where there are certain Christians under the dominion of the great emperor of Ethiopia, called Prester John. From these towards the west was a great nation called Aphricerones, inhabiting, as far as we can conjecture, what is now called the Regnum Orguene, bordering on the eastern or interior parts of Guinea. From hence westwards and towards the north, are the kingdoms of Gambra and Budamel, not far from the river Senegal; and from thence toward the inland region and along the coast are the regions of Ginoia or Guinea. On the west side of this region is Cabo Verde, caput viride, Cap Verd, or the Green Cape, to which the Portuguese first direct their course when they sail to the land of Brazil in America, on which occasion they turn to the right hand towards the quarter of the wind called Garbino, which is between the west and south.