the `` vast untrammeled serpentine hordes '' of the orient are become a byword in the west , feared and admired at once , thanks in no small part to the well-known accounts of pilgrims from an earlier and more credulous era , which , while of inestimable value at the time of their publication in shedding light upon the perfect darkness which preceded them , to the modern scholar can hardly be of any use , suffering as they do from the regrettable exaggeration which was in earlier days the mode , either from sincere belief on the part of the author or the less innocent yet understandable desire to satisfy a broader audience , anticipatory of monsters and delights incalculable in any tales of the orient .