"
Although Sir John begins his book as a guide to Palestine, he
tells of many other lands also, and of the wonder there. Of
Ethiopia, he tells us: "On the other side of Chaldea toward the
South is Ethiopia, a great land. In this land in the South are
the people right black. In that side is a well that in the day
the water is so cold that no man may drink thereof, and in the
night it is so hot that no man may suffer to put his hand in it.
In this land the rivers and all the waters are troublous, and
some deal salt, for the great heat. And men of that land are
easily made drunken and have little appetite for meat. They have
commonly great illness of body and live not long. In Ethiopia
are such men as have one foot, and they walk so fast that it is a
great marvel. And that is a large foot that the shadow thereof
covereth the body from sun and rain when they lie upon their
backs."
Sir John tells us, too, of a wonderful group of islands, "and in
one of these isles are men that have one eye, and that in the
midst of their forehead.
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