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 that isle men are very just, and they do just judgments in every
cause, both of rich and poor, small and great, according to their
trespasses. And the king may not judge a man to death without assent of
his barons and other wise men of council, and unless all the court agree
thereto. And if the king himself do any homicide or crime, as to slay a
man, or any such case, he shall die for it; but he shall not be slain as
another man; but they forbid, on pain of death, that any man be so bold
as to make him company or to speak with him, or give or sell him meat or
drink; and so shall he die disgracefully. They spare no man that has
trespassed, either for love, or favour, or riches, or nobility; but that
he shall have according to what he has done.
Beyond that isle is another, where is a great multitude of people, who
will not eat flesh of hares, hens, or geese; and yet they breed them in
abundance, to see and behold them only; but they eat flesh of all other
beasts, and drink milk. In that country they take their daughters and
their sisters to wife, and their other kinswomen. And if there be ten or
twelve men, or more, dwelling in a house, the wife of each of them shall
be common to them all that dwell in that house; so that every man may
lie with whom he will of them on one night, and with another another
night. And if she have any child, she may give it to what man she list
that has kept company with her; so that no man knows there whether the
child be his or another's. And if any man say to them that they nourish
other men's children, they answer that so do other men theirs. In that
country, and in all India, are great plenty of cockodrills, a sort of
long serpent, as I have said before; and in the night they dwell in the
water, and in the day upon the land, in rocks and caves; and they eat no
meat in winter, but lie as in a dream, as do serpents. These serpents
slay men, and they eat them weeping; and when they eat, they move the
upper jaw, and not the lower jaw; and they have no tongue. In that
country, and in many others beyond, and also in many on this side, men
sow the seed of cotton; and they sow it every year, and then it grows to
small trees, which bear cotton. And so do men every year, so that there
is plenty of cotton at all times. In this isle also, and in many others,
there is a manner of wood, hard and strong; and whoever covers the coals
of that wood under the ashes thereof, the coals will remain alive a year
or more. And among other trees there are nut trees, that bear nuts as
great as a man's head[412]. There are also animals called orafles, which
are called, in Arabia, gerfauntz. They are spotted, and a little higher
than a horse, with a neck twenty cubits long; and the croup and tail are
like those of a hart; and one of them may look over a high house[413].
And there are also in that country many cameleons; and there are very
great serpents, some one hundred and twenty feet long, of divers
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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