“Ca c’est entur la seint Johan Que la chalur tote rien seche En la terre, tele est sa teche.”[792] Benjamin of Tudela’s extensive travels made him familiar with countries of widely different climate. The peculiarities of some of these he notes briefly. Writing of Russia, for example, he remarks that “no one issues forth from his house in winter time on account of the cold. People are to be found there who have lost the tips of their noses by reason of the frost” (Adler’s translation).[793] Similarly it was his belief that in Khulam (or Quilon) in southern India no one left his home all through the summer on account of the sun.[794] A hint of the intensity of the Mesopotamian summer is given in a description of a hospital in Baghdad, which Benjamin had perhaps seen, “where they keep charge of the demented persons who have become insane through the great heat ... and they chain each of them with iron chains until their reason becomes restored to them in the winter time” (Adler’s translation).[795] DISTRIBUTION OF CLIMATES William of Conches, in his usual manner, tried to generalize on climates. He said that our habitable portion of the earth’s surface is not of an even temperature throughout. The parts nearest the torrid zone, Ethiopia and Libya, are hot and dry; the northern parts near the frigid zone are cold and damp. Furthermore, though for us it is less easy to see exactly why, the West is cold and dry, and the East warm and damp. The symmetry of the system is perfect: climates vary in a direct ratio with distance, or, as William puts it, “Aequaliter vero distans, aequaliter est temperata.”[796] CLIMATIC DIFFERENCES BETWEEN EAST AND WEST