Colonists carried the Old World’s Muslim monster fantasies into the New World

Evidence

During the American colonial era, stories of monsters were not uncommon. This is not surprising, given that early colonists were from the very places that invented or sustained the fantasies of monsterdom: “They were all at home in an intellectual terrain that was literally swarming with monsters.” Lands far away or recently discovered by Europeans were thought to be especially ripe for encounters with non-human creatures. Familiar Muslim characters, including monsters, also continued to reappear in the later centuries of modernity. In 1727, a popular Portuguese book described a frightening Turkish monster—a gargantuan figure whose breath caused a giant, eerie light to appear. — Sophia Rose Arjana, Muslims in the Western Imagination, 587

Categorization

• XREF: Shows the image-travels-before-contact pattern the reader is tracing across chapters; corroborates the fear-without-object thesis with the Turkish monster reappearing in 1727 Portuguese text.
• QUESTION: Which 1727 Portuguese book, and what does its gargantuan Turkish monster’s ‘breath causing light’ derive from in older bestiary traditions?