The Commentary of Father Monserrate 1.6

1.6

Everything relating to the journey of the Fathers, to their stay at the King's court, and to the Afghan campaign, I have written down exactly as it happened, and as I saw it with my own eyes. But whatever pertains to digressions from the direct course of my narrative (for instance the references at the end of the first book to Cinguiscanus, Temurbegus, the Scythians, the Mongols, etc.), I have gathered primarily from King Zelaldinus himself, or else from a diary of travel written by a certain ambassador sent by King Henry the Fourth of Castile to Timur, or lastly from many other writers whose authority is to be relied upon. Finally, I have divided my work into two books, of which this first forms an account of the first journey to the court of the King of the Mongols, whilst the second is, as it were, an appendix and commentary upon the first; in this I have collected facts bearing on the condition and natural history of India (within the Ganges), of its ancient aborigines and present-day inhabitants.