Court: And in order to make all poſſible advantages of this voyage, he obtain’d leave to go on board that Ship, which was order’d to touch at Siam, that thereby he might have an opportunity of feeing alſo that Kingdom. The obſervations he made in the courſe of this voyage, in the Kingdom of Siam, and afterwards during two years abode in the Empire of Japan, being the ſubject of this preſent work, it is needleſs here to enlarge on the ſame. Japan was not only the laſt Eaſtern Country he intended to viſit, but alſo that which he had been long deſirous to ſee, and always looked upon as a deſerving ſubject for a laborious enquiry. The ſcarce ſuperable difficulties, enough to deter even the moſt induſtrious, ſpurr’d him on to more painful ſearches, and he willingly ſacrificed his time, art and money, to procure, for himſelf and others, a thoroughly information of a Country, of which, till then, no ſatisfactory account had been given: With what ſucceſs he hath done it, is left to the publick to determine.
He quitted Japan, in order to his return into Europe, in November 1692, and Batavia in February 1693. He ſtaid near a month at the Cape of Good Hope, and arrived at Amſterdam in the month of October following. In April 1694, he took his degree of Doctor in Phyſick at the Univerſity of Leyden, and on this occaſion, as it is cuſtomary in foreign Univerſities, for Gentlemen aſpiring to the like promotions, to give a publick proof of their ability, by what they call Inaugural Theſes, he communicated to the learned world ten very ſingular and curious obſervations, he had made in foreign Countries, on the celebrated Agnus Scythica, or Borometz, a pretended Plant-Animal, which he ſhews to be a mere figment, occaſioned, perhaps, by ſome affinity of the name Borometz, with Borannetz in the Ruſſian, and Borannek in the Poliſh Language, whereby is denoted a particular kind of ſheep about the Caſpian Sea, in the Bulgarian Tartary and Choraſmia: On the bitter taſte of the waters in the Caſpian Sea: On the true Perſian Native Mummy, called Muminahi: On the Torpedo, a ſingular fiſh, which benumbs the fingers of thoſe who touch it: On the Sanguis Draconis made out of the fruit of a Coniferous Palm: On the Dracun-
culus,
