THERE are more eastward two other yles--y^e one is called Orell and the other Argete of whom all the land is mine of gold & silver. In those yles many men se no sters[1] clere shining, but one starre y^t is called Canapos[2] and there many men se not y^e Mone but in the last quarter. In that yle is a great hyll of golde that pismyres[3] kepe, & they do fine golde from the other that is not fine golde, and the pismyres are as great as houndes, so that no man dare come there for dread of pismyres that should assayle them so that men may not worke in that gold nor get thereof but by subtiltie, and therefore when it is righte hote the pismyres hide them in the earth from undern[4] to none of the daye, and then men of the countrey take Cameles and dormedaries and other beastes & go thither and charge them with gold and go away fast or the pismyres come out of the earth. And other times when it is not so hot y^t the pismyres hide them not, they take mares that haue foles, and they lay upon these mares two long vessels as it were two small barels and the mouth upwards and drive them thether and holde theyr foles at home, and when the pismyres se these vessels they spring therein, for they haue[5] of kinde to leue no hole nor pyt open, and anone they fyl these vessels with golde, and when men think that the vessels be full they take the foles and bring them as nere as they dare, and then they whine, and the mares heare them, and anone they come to theyr foles and so they take the gold, for these pismyres will suffer beastes for to go among them, but no men. [Footnote 1: Stars.] [Footnote 2: Canopus, a star of the first magnitude, in the rudder of the constellation _Argo_.] [Footnote 3: Ants.] [Footnote 4: See footnote, _ante_, p. 125.] [Footnote 5: For it is their habit.] CAP. CII. _Of the darke countrey and hils and roches of stone nigh to Paradise._ BEYOND the yles of the lande of Prester John and his lordeship of wildernesse to go right East, men shall not finde but hils, great rocks and other myrke[1] lande, where no man may see a day or night as men of the countrey say, and this wildernesse and myrke land lasteth to Paradise terrestre, where Adam and Eve were sette, but they were there but a lyttle while, and that is toward the East at the beginning of the earth, but that is not our East that we call where the Son ryseth in those countreys towarde Paradise, and then it is midnight in our countrey for the roundnesse of the earth, for our Lorde made the earth all rounde in the middest of y^e fyrmament. Of Paradise can I not speake properly for I haue not bene there, but that I haue heard I shall tell you. Men say that Paradise terrestre is the highest lande in all the worlde, and it is so high that it toucheth nere to the cyrcle of the Mone, for it is so high y^t Noes floude might not come thereto which covered all the earth about. [Footnote 1: Dark, murky.] CAP. CIII.