Walter Ralegh, History of the World (1614)
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For things whereof the perfect knowledge is taken away from us by antiquity, must be described in history, as geographers in their maps describe those countries whereof as yet there is made no true discovery; that is, either by leaving some part blank, or by inserting the land of pigmies … To which purpose I remember a pretty jest of Don Pedro de Sarmiento, a worthy Spanish gentleman, who had been employed by his king in planting a colony upon the straits of Magellan: for when I asked him, being then my prisoner, some questions about an island upon those straits, which methought might have done either benefit or displeasure to his enterprise, he told me merrily that it was to be called the Painter’s Wife’s Island; saying, that whilst the fellow drew that map, his wife sitting by him desired him to put in one country for her, that she, in imagination, might have an island of her own.
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