158 THE TRAVELS OF
were marvellously played upon. And so great was the noise thereof that very great fear came upon me. Now, this valley is seven or eight miles long; and if any unbeliever enter therein he quitteth it never again, but perisheth incontinently. Yet I hesitated not to go in that I might see once for all what the matter was. And when I had gone in I saw there, as I have said, such numbers of corpses as no one without seeing it could deem credible. And at one side of the valley, in the very rock, I beheld as it were the face of a man very great and terrible, so very terrible indeed that for my exceeding great fear my spirit seemed to die in me. Wherefore I made the sign of the cross, and began continually to repeat ltrbttm taro factum, but I dared not at all to come nigh that face, but kept at seven or eight paces from it. And so I. came at length to the other end of the valley, and there I ascended a hill of sand and looked around me. But nothing could I descry, only I still heard those nakers to play which were played so marvellously. And when I got to the top of that hill I found there a great quantity of silver heaped up as it had been fishes' scales, and some of this I put into my boom. But as I cared nought for it, and was at the same time in fear lest it should be a snare to hinder my escape, I cast it all down again to the ground.
the story, and describes the awe which certain such images in the defiles of Asia Minor were calculated to impress.
One would almost think that John Bunyan had been reading this bit of Odoric in Hakluyt's version when he wrote his account of Christian's passage through the Valley of the Shadow of Death. E.g., This frightful sight was seen, and those dreadful noises were heard by him for several days together; and coming to a place where he thought he heard a company of fiends coming to meet him, he stopt and began to muse
what he had best do but when they were come even almost at him he
cried out with a most vehement voice, ` I will walk in the strength of the Lord God;' so they gave back and came no further," etc. (Journ. R. A. S., vii, p. 78-83 ; Burnes, ii, 174 ; Wood's Journey to the Oxus, pp. 180-182 ; Foe Koue Si, p. 2 ; Rubruquis, p. 295 ; Polo, ii, 34 ; Macfarlane's Rom. of Travel, 1846, ii, 22 and 70; Elphinstone's Caubul, 1839, i, 291; Erskine's
Baber, p. 145, 146.)
IIIF Color HighRes
