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
goers and comers, but these thirty thousand persons spend not so much as
twelve thousand of our country. This emperor Prester John has evermore
seven kings with him, to serve him, who share their service by certain
months; and with these kings serve always seventy-two dukes and three
hundred and sixty earls. And all the days of the year, twelve
archbishops and twenty bishops eat in his household and in his court.
And the patriarch of St. Thomas is there what the pope is here. And the
archbishops, and the bishops, and the abbots in that country, are all
kings. And each of these great lords knows well the attendance of his
service. One is master of his household, another is his chamberlain,
another serveth him with a dish, another with a cup, another is steward,
another is marshal, another is prince of his arms; and thus is he full
nobly and royally served. And his land extends in extreme breadth four
months' journey, and in length out of measure, including all the isles
under earth, that we suppose to be under us.
Near the isle of Pentexoire, which is the land of Prester John, is a
great isle, long and broad, called Milsterak, which is in the lordship
of Prester John. That isle is very rich. There was dwelling not long
since a rich man, named Gatholonabes, who was full of tricks and subtle
deceits. He had a fair and strong castle in a mountain, so strong and
noble that no man could devise a fairer or a stronger. And he had caused
the mountain to be all walled about with a strong and fair wall, within
which walls he had the fairest garden that might be imagined; and
therein were trees bearing all manner of fruits, all kinds of herbs of
virtue and of good smell, and all other herbs also that bear fair
flowers. And he had also in that garden many fair wells, and by them he
had made fair halls and fair chambers, painted all with gold and azure,
representing many divers things and many divers stories. There were also
beasts and birds which sung full delectably, and moved by craft, that it
seemed that they were alive. And he had also in his garden all kinds of
birds and beasts, that men might have play or sport to behold them. And
he had also in that place the fairest damsels that might be found under
the age of fifteen years, and the fairest young striplings that men
might get of that same age; and they were all clothed full richly in
clothes of gold; and he said they were angels. And he had also caused to
be made three fair and noble wells, all surrounded with stone of jasper
and crystal, diapered with gold, and set with precious stones and great
orient pearls. And he had made a conduit under the earth, so that the
three wells, at his will, should run one with milk, another with wine,
and another with honey. And that place he called Paradise. And when any
good knight, who was hardy and noble, came to see this royalty, he would
lead him into Paradise, and show him these wonderful things, for his
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