“Of Paradise I cannot properly speak, for I was not there. It is far beyond; and I repent not going there, but I was not worthy. But as I have heard say of wise men beyond, I shall tell you with good-will. Terrestrial Paradise, as wise men say, is the highest place of the earth; and it is so high that it nearly touches the circle of the moon, there as the moon makes her turn. For it is so high that the flood of Noah might not come to it, that would have covered all the earth of the world all about, and above and beneath, except Paradise. And this Paradise is enclosed all about with a wall, and men know not whereof it is; for the wall is covered all over with moss, as it seems; and it seems not that the wall is natural stone. And that wall stretches from the south to the north; and it has but one entry, which is closed with burning fire, so that no man that is mortal dare enter. And in the highest place of Paradise, exactly in the middle, is a well that casts out four streams, which run by divers lands, of which the first is called Pison or Ganges, that runs through India or Emlak, in which river are many precious stones, and much lignum aloës, and much sand of gold. And the other river is called Nile or Gyson, which goes through Ethiopia, and after through Egypt. And the other is called Tigris, which runs by Assyria and by Armenia the Great. And the other is called Euphrates, which runs through Media, Armenia, and Persia. And men there beyond say that all the sweet waters of the world, above and beneath, take their beginning from the well of Paradise; and out of that well all waters come and go.”[316] The paradise in the existence of which the great traveller so firmly believed is represented in a thirteenth-century map as a circular island lying to the east of India, and the cartographer has not forgotten to introduce even the gate from which our first parents were expelled. A fourteenth-century Icelandic saga describes a voyage undertaken by a prince and his chosen friend in search of the Deathless Land. They first went to Constantinople to consult the Emperor, and were told that the earthly paradise was slightly to the south of India. Arrived in that country they continued the journey on horseback, and came at last to a dense forest, the gloom of which was so great through the interlacing of the boughs that even by day the stars could be seen. Emerging from it they saw, across a strait, a beautiful land, which was unmistakably paradise. The strait was crossed by a stone bridge guarded by a dragon. The prince, in no ways deterred, walked deliberately sword in hand against the dragon, and the next moment, to his infinite surprise and delight, he found himself in paradise. Here he encountered all the joys heart could desire, and exhausted with delight he fell asleep. In his dreams his guardian angel appeared to him and promised to lead him home, but to come for him again and take him away for ever at the expiration of the tenth year.[317]