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The Book of Ser Marco Polo : vol.2 |
CHAP. XV. HISTORV OF SAGAMONI BORCAN
319
to life again as an ox ; and then he died as an ox and
came to life again as a horse, and so on until he had
died fourscore and four times ; and every time he
became some kind of animal. But when he died the
eighty-fourth time they say he became a god. And
they do hold him for the greatest of all their gods.
And they tell that the aforesaid image of him was the
first idol that the Idolaters ever had ; and from that
have originated all the other idols. And this befel in the
Island of Seilan in India.
The Idolaters come thither on pilgrimage from very
long distances and with great devotion, just as
Christians go to the shrine of Messer Saint James in
Gallicia. And they maintain that the monument on the
mountain is that of the king's son, according to the story
I have been telling you ; and that the teeth, and the
hair, and the dish that are there were those of the same
king's son, whose name was Sagamoni Borcan, or
Sagamoni the Saint. But the Saracens also come
thither on pilgrimage in great numbers, and /hey say
that it is the sepulchre of Adam our first father, and
that the teeth, and the hair, and the dish were those of
Adam.5
Whose they were in truth, God knoweth ; howbeit,
according to the Holy Scripture of our Church, the
sepulchre of Adam is not in that part of the world.
Now it befel that the Great Kaan heard how on
that mountain there was the sepulchre of our first father
Adam, and that some of his hair and of his teeth, and
the dish from which he used to eat, were still preserved
there. So he thought he would get hold of them
somehow or another, and despatched a great embassy
for the purpose, in the year of Christ, 1284. The
ambassadors, with a great company, travelled on by sea
and by land until they arrived at the island of Seilan,
41.
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