National Institute of Informatics - Digital Silk Road Project
Digital Archive of Toyo Bunko Rare Books

> > > >
Color New!IIIF Color HighRes Gray HighRes PDF   Japanese English
0114 Cathay and the Way Thither : vol.2
Cathay and the Way Thither : vol.2 / Page 114 (Color Image)

New!Citation Information

doi: 10.20676/00000042
Citation Format: Chicago | APA | Harvard | IEEE

OCR Text

 

354   RECOLLECTIONS OF TRAVEL IN THE EAST,

NARRATIVE CONCERNING THE MOUNTAIN SEYLLAN.

Now, as our subject requires it, and as I deem it both pleasant and for some folks profitable, I propose to insert here an account of Seyllan, provided it please his Imperial Majesty ; and if it please him not he has but to score it out.

First, then, it must be told how, and in what fashion I got there, and after that I will speak of what is to be found

there.

First, then, when we got our dismissal from the Kaam that mighty Emperor, with splendid presents and allowances from him, and as we proposed to travel by India, because the other overland road was shut up by war and there was no possibility of getting a passage that way, it was the Kaam's order that we should proceed through Manzi, which was formerly known as India Maxima.

Now Manzi is a country which has countless cities and nations included in it, past all belief to one who has not seen them, besides great plenty of everything, including fruits quite unknown in our Latin countries. Indeed it has 30,000 great cities, besides towns and boroughs quite beyond count. And among the rest is that most famous city of CAMPSAY, the finest, the biggest, the richest, the most populous, and altogether the most marvellous city, the city of the greatest wealth and luxury, of the most splendid buildings (especially idol temples, in some of which there are 1000 and 2000 monks dwelling together) that exists now upon the face of the earth, or mayhap that ever did exist ! When authors tell of its ten thousand noble bridges of stone, adorned with sculptures and statues of armed princes, it passes the belief

our parents and their tempter from Paradise, Adam fell on the Mountain of Serendib, Eve at Jidda near Mecca, Eblis near Basrah, and the Serpent at Ispahan. Adam after long solitude and penitence was led by Gabriel to Mecca and thence to the Mountain of Arafat (Recognition),

where he was reunited to Eve after a separation of two hundred years. (D'Herbelot; Veil's Bib. Legends.)