Early Travels in Palestine: Comprising the Narratives of Arculf, Willibald, Bernard, Sæwulf, Sigurd, Benjamin of Tudela, Sir John Maundeville, de la Brocquière, and Maundrell
History
Early Travels in Palestine: Comprising the Narratives of Arculf, Willibald, Bernard, Sæwulf, Sigurd, Benjamin of Tudela, Sir John Maundeville, de la Brocquière, and Maundrell
Middle East -- Description and travel -- Early works to 1800; Palestine -- Description and travel -- Early works to 1800
In passing by the land of Cathay towards Upper India, and towards
Bucharia, men pass by a kingdom called Caldilhe, which is a very fair
country. And there grows a kind of fruit like gourds, which, when they
are ripe, men cut in two, and find within a little beast, in flesh,
bone, and blood, as though it were a little lamb, without wool. And men
eat both the fruit and the beast, and that is a great marvel. Of that
fruit I have eaten; and I told them of as great a marvel to them that is
amongst us, and that was of the barnacles. For I told them that in our
country were trees that bear a fruit that becomes flying birds; and
those that fall in the water live; and those that fall on the earth die
anon; and they are right good for man's meat. And thereof had they also
great marvel, that some of them thought it was an impossibility. In that
country are long apples, of good flavour, whereof there are more than a
hundred in a cluster; and they have great long leaves and large, of two
feet long or more. And in that country, and in other countries
thereabout, grow many trees that bear clove-gylofres and nutmegs, and
great nuts of India, and of canelle, and many other spices. And there
are vines which bear grapes so large, that a strong man would have
enough to do to carry one cluster. In that same region are the mountains
of Caspia, which are called Uber in the country. Between those mountains
are inclosed the Jews of ten lineages, who are called Gog and Magog; and
they may not go out on any side. There were inclosed twenty-two kings,
with their people, that dwelt between the mountains of Scythia. King
Alexander drove them between those mountains, and there he thought to
inclose them through work of his men. But when he saw that he might not
do it, nor bring it to an end, he prayed to the God of Nature that he
would perform that which he had begun. And although he was a Pagan, and
not worthy to be heard, yet God of his grace closed the mountains
together, so that they dwell there fast locked and inclosed with high
mountains all about, except only on one side, and on that side is the
Caspian Sea. Men say they shall come out in the time of Antichrist, and
that they shall make great slaughter of the Christians; and therefore
all the Jews that dwell in all lands learn always to speak Hebrew, in
hope that when the other Jews shall go out, that they may understand
their speech, and so lead them into Christendom, to destroy the
Christians. For the Jews say that they know well, by their prophecies,
that they of Caspia shall go out, and spread through all the world, and
that the Christians shall be under subjection as long as they have been
in subjection to them. And if you will know how they shall find their
way, after what I have heard say I will tell you. In the time of
Antichrist, a fox shall make there his trail, and burrow a hole where
king Alexander made the gates; and so long he shall burrow and pierce
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