Part 20 (2/2)

Then she would come out of the cave and he should kiss her on the mouth. And she bade him have no dread, for she would do him no harm. Although she seemed hideous to him she said it was done by enchantment, for, she said, she was really such as he saw her then. She said, too, that if he kissed her he should have all the treasure, and be her lord, and lord of all these isles.

”Then he departed from her and went to his fellows in the s.h.i.+p, and made him knight, and came again on the morrow for to kiss the damsel. But when he saw her come out of the cave in the form of a Dragon, he had so great dread that he fled to the s.h.i.+p. She followed him, and when she saw that he turned not again she began to cry as a thing that had much sorrow, and turned back again.

”Soon after the knight died, and since, hitherto, might no knight see her but he died anon. But when a knight cometh that is so hardy to kiss her, he shall not die, but he shall turn that damsel into her right shape and shall be lord of the country aforesaid.”

When Sir John reaches Palestine he has very much to say of the wonders to be seen there. At Bethlehem he tells a story of how roses first came into the world. Here it is:

”Bethlehem is but a little city, long and narrow, and well walled and enclosed with a great ditch, and it was wont to be called Ephrata, as Holy Writ sayeth, 'Lo, we heard it at Ephrata.' And toward the end of the city toward the East, is a right fair church and a gracious. And it hath many towers, pinnacles and turrets full strongly made. And within that church are forty- four great pillars of marble, and between the church the Field Flowered as ye shall hear.

”The cause is, for as much as a fair maiden was blamed with wrong, for the which cause she was deemed to die, and to be burnt in that place, to the which she was led.

”And as the wood began to burn about her, she made her prayer to our Lord as she was not guilty of that thing, that He would help her that her innocence might be known to all men.

”And when she had this said she entered the fire. And anon the fire went out, and those branches that were burning became red roses, and those branches that were not kindled became white roses. And those were the first roses and rose-trees that any man saw. And so was the maiden saved through the grace of G.o.d, and therefore is that field called the Field of G.o.d Flowered, for it was full of roses.”

Although Sir John begins his book as a guide to Palestine, he tells of many other lands also, and of the wonder there. Of Ethiopia, he tells us: ”On the other side of Chaldea toward the South is Ethiopia, a great land. In this land in the South are the people right black. In that side is a well that in the day the water is so cold that no man may drink thereof, and in the night it is so hot that no man may suffer to put his hand in it.

In this land the rivers and all the waters are troublous, and some deal salt, for the great heat. And men of that land are easily made drunken and have little appet.i.te for meat. They have commonly great illness of body and live not long. In Ethiopia are such men as have one foot, and they walk so fast that it is a great marvel. And that is a large foot that the shadow thereof covereth the body from sun and rain when they lie upon their backs.”

Sir John tells us, too, of a wonderful group of islands, ”and in one of these isles are men that have one eye, and that in the midst of their forehead. And they eat not flesh or fish all raw.

”And in another isle dwell men that have no heads, and their eyes are in their shoulders and their mouth is in their breast. . . .

”And in another isle are men that have flat faces without nose and without eyes, but they have two small round holes instead of eyes and they have a flat mouth without lips. . . .

”And in another isle are men that have the lips about their mouth so great that when they sleep in the sun they cover all their face with the lip.”

But I must not tell all the ”lying wonders of our English knight.”* for you must read the book for yourselves. And when you do you will find that it is written with such an easy air of truth that you will half believe in Sir John's marvels. Every now and again, too, he puts in a bit of real information which helps to make his marvels seem true, so that sometimes we cannot be sure what is truth and what is fable.

*Colonel Sir Henry Yule, The Book of Sir Marco Polo.

Sir John wandered far and long, but at last his journeyings ended. ”I have pa.s.sed through many lands and isles and countries,” he says, ”and now am come to rest against my will.”

And so to find comfort in his ”wretched rest” he wrote his book.

”But,” he says, ”there are many other divers countries, and many other marvels beyond that I have not seen. Also in countries where I have been there are many marvels that I speak not of, for it were too long a tale.” And also, he thought, it was as well to leave something untold ”so that other men that go thither may find enough for to say that I have not told,” which was very kind of him.

Sir John tells us then how he took his book to the holy father the Pope, and how he caused it to be read, and ”the Pope hath ratified and affirmed my book in all points. And I pray to all those that read this book, that they will pray for me, and I shall pray for them.”

BOOKS TO READ

The Voyages and Travels of Sir John Mandeville, edited

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