Came to make precisely this point. People are dumb to believe that's what Africa was like. Europeans had been going into Africa since before 1AD. Trade was common. Trade for slaves was even more common. White slaves were everywhere. And in Africa and the Middle East, white slaves were especially prestigious. By the time these books were written people brought back stories and they were illustrated for public consumption. The artists had no concept of what things looked like. In general few people were well traveled and in fact the vast majority (>90%) of people never traveled further than 20 miles from where they were born. So they drew what they believe the story meant, through the lens of their only life experience - European civilization. A town meant at least a steeple, gates, buildings, and so on. A king and kingdom meant a castle and turrets. So on and so on. Some of the clothing may have been right as Africans were trading for textiles too. Now we have dumb asses attempting to reinterpret these fantasy illustrations. If this is wrong, as you rightly point out, it means animals like elephants, lions, and monkeys, only a few hundred years ago, looked absolutely nothing like they do today. It means they have drastically evolved into completely different animals in appearance. Either the books are wrong, or there is an amazing and completely unknown genetic mutation which has massively afflicted and completely changed most animals spanning the world within the several hundred years. Hmmm... If only we could know which it was... https://www.boredpanda.com/medieval-animal-paintings-that-dont-look-real-daniel-holland/