ABSTRACT
This chapter examines the narratives of those travellers like Conti, Nikitin, Varthema, and Barbosa to look at the ways in which knowledge about ‘the east’ began to increase, and how these accounts began to give more accurate information about the lands in Asia and Africa. These accounts also mark the shift in travel itself, from the traveller who went in search of adventure, to the traveller who went as part of the imperial enterprise. The shift in both tone and content has been highlighted here.
