In India are very many different countries; and it is called India, from a river which runs through the country called Indus. In that river they find eels thirty feet long and more[368]. And the people that dwell near that water are of evil colour, green and yellow. In India, and about India, are more than five thousand inhabited islands, good and great, besides those that are uninhabitable, and other small islands. Every island has great plenty of cities, and towns, and people without number[369]. For men of India have this condition of nature, that they never go out of their own country, and therefore there is great multitude of people; but they are not stirring or moveable, because they are in the first climate, that is, of Saturn. And Saturn is slow, and little moving; for he tarrieth thirty years to make his course through the twelve signs; and the moon passes through the twelve signs in a month. And because Saturn is so slow of motion, the people of that country, that are under his climate, have no inclination or will to move or stir to seek strange places. Our country is all the contrary; for we are in the seventh climate, which is of the moon, and the moon moves rapidly, and is a planet of progression; and for that reason it gives us a natural will to move lightly, and to go different ways, and to seek strange things and other diversities of the world; for the moon goes round the earth more rapidly than any other planet. Also men go through India by many different countries, to the great Sea of Ocean. And afterwards men find there an island that is called Hermes[370]; and there come merchants of Venice and Genoa, and of other parts, to buy merchandise; but there is great heat in that district. In that country, and in Ethiopia, and in many other countries, the inhabitants lie all naked in rivers and waters, men and women together, from undurn[371] of the day till it be past noon. And they lie all in the water, except the face, for the great heat that there is. And the women have no shame of the men, but lie all together, side by side, till the heat is past. There may men see many foul figures assembled, and chiefly near the good towns. In that island are ships without nails of iron or bonds, on account of the rocks of adamants (loadstones[372]); for they are all abundant thereabout in that sea, that it is marvellous to speak of; and if a ship passed there that had either iron bonds or iron nails, it would perish; for the adamant, by its nature, draws iron to it; and so it would draw to it the ship, because of the iron, that it should never depart from it.