Page:The Captivity of Hans Stade of Hesse.pdf/126

This page has been proofread, but needs to be validated.
IN EASTERN BRAZIL.
7

And this is to me a sound argument that his account and the description of this history is truthful, inasmuch as he states the time, country and place where Heliodorus,[1] son of the learned and widely known Eoban of Hesse, who has now been long absent on discovery in foreign lands, and was by us here believed to be dead, was with this Hans Stade in the country of the savages, and saw how pitifully he was captured and led away. This Heliodorus, I say, may sooner or later (as is hoped shall happen) return home, and if Hans Stade's story be false or lying, he will put him to shame and denounce him as a worthless man.

From these and similar strong arguments and conjectures towards defending and sustaining the truthfulness of Hans Stade, I will now turn aside, and further briefly point out the reasons for which this and similar such-like histories gain but little credence and belief.

Firstly, travellers have, with their unlimited lies and spreading of false and invented stories, brought matters to such a pass, that but little belief is accorded, even to those honest and truthful men who come from foreign lands. Moreover, it has become a general saying: "Whosoever would lie, let him lie about things far off and out of the country," for nobody will go thither to verify his statements, nay, rather than take this trouble he (the listener) will believe them .

Nothing, however, is gained by discrediting truth on account of lies. Here it is to be noted that though to the

  1. ↑ Also mentioned in the conclusion of this book as "one of the sons of the late Eoban of Hesse." Helias (originally Elias, a Jew) Eoban, born in A.D. 1488, died in A.D. 1540, was a German poet of distinction in his day (Southey 1, 45 note and 191), but as he wrote in Latin, he was presently forgotten. According to Monsignor Pizarro (Memorias historicas do Rio de Janeiro, viii, 309), the son of this Eliodoro Ebano was Theodoro Ebano Pereira, captain of the war canoes, who, after reestablishing Rio de Janeiro founded Iguápe of São Paulo in A.D. 1554, and Coritygbe, the modern Curitiba, capital of the province of Paraná.
This article is issued from Wikisource. The text is available under Creative Commons Attribution-Share Alike 4.0 unless otherwise noted. Additional terms may apply for the media files.