They ride on great animals, which carry them with the speed of the wind.

When they fight they use weapons which twenty men could not lift, which make a noise like thunder, and destroy their foes at two or three miles' distance.
But I was not permitted to bring, at present, any of these wonders from the far-distant country.

I wanted to come myself, and I have come; but as I have said, I had to come alone and empty handed.

In time these wonderful things will be brought to your shores, but the time has not come yet." The nobles listened with respectful attention.

It seemed to them probable enough that a supernatural personage might convoy himself vast distances through the air, but that he could not burden himself with mortal appliances--if, indeed, such things were the work of merely mortal men.
"I could bring with me," Roger went on, "but one small specimen of the metal most used in that distant country." Then the merchants advanced, and handed to Roger his knife, which they had purchased of the cazique of Tabasco in exchange for two accomplished slaves, and he presented it to the nobles.
"You see it is a metal of extraordinary hardness.