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0113 Cathay and the Way Thither : vol.2
Cathay and the Way Thither : vol.2 / Page 113 (Color Image)

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doi: 10.20676/00000042
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BY JOHN DE' MARIGNOLLI.   353

made themselves girdles to hide their shame.... Then God pronounced sentence after the confession of their sin, first against the serpent that he should go upon his belly creeping on the earth (but I must say that I have seen many serpents, and very big ones too, that went with half the body quite erect, like women when they walk in the street, and very graceful to look upon, but not to be sure keeping this up for any length of time). . . .

And he made them coats of skins : so at least we commonly have it, pelliceas, " of fur," but we should do better to read filiceas, " of fibre ;" because they were no doubt of a certain fibrous substance which grows like net-work between the shoots of the coco-palm ;1 I wore one of these myself till I got to Florence, where I left it. And God forbade Adam to eat of the Tree of Life. See, said He to the Angels, that they take not of the Tree of Life, and so live for ever. And straightway the Angel took Adam by the arm and set him down beyond the lake on the Mountain Seyllan, where I stopped for four months. And by chance Adam planted his right foot upon a stone which is there still, and straightway by a divine miracle the form of the sole of his foot was imprinted on the marble, and there it is to this very day. And the size, I mean the length, thereof is two and a half of our palms, or about half a Prague ell. And I was not the only one to measure it, for so did another pilgrim, a Saracen of Spain ; for many go on pilgrimage to Adam. And the Angel put out Eve on another mountain, some four short days' journey distant. And as the histories

of those nations relate (and indeed there is nothing in the relation that contradicts Holy Scripture), they abode apart

from one another and mourning for forty days, after which the Angel brought Eve to Adam, who was waxing as it were desperate, and so comforted them both.2

' " Nargillorum," from Pers. Nargil.

° The usual Mussulman tradition runs, that on the violent expulsion of

?3