Chap-books of the Eighteenth Century / With Facsimiles, Notes, and Introduction

by John Ashton

This Caan is great, and may expend forty millions yearly; but his money is made of leather, for he builds his palaces of silver: in his presence chamber is a gold pillar, in which is fixed a carbuncle that gives continual light in the dark; his subjects have as many wives as they please: some have forty, fifty, an hundred, or more; and they marry their relations, except mothers, sisters, and daughters. Men and women go all in one sort of apparel. When the Emperor dies he is put in a cart, and placed in the midst of a tent, and they set before him a table furnished with meat and mare's milk and close by it a horse saddled and bridled, loaded with gold and silver; and having dug a deep pit, they lay him in it, with all the stuff about him, and also the horse, mare and colt, that he may not want for horses in another world, and one of his Chamberlains is buried alive with him, that he may do him service in another world.

Chap. 7.
Of the Lands of Gorgy and Bactrine.

Travelling from thence I came to the land of Gorgy, where dwell many Christians. A great part of this Country is hid with perpetual darkness; nevertheless they have often heard the crowing of cocks, the cries of men, the trampling of horse, and clashing of arms, though none know what sort of people they are; but it is said, a bloody minded Emperor who pursued the Christians to put them to death, and was opposed by the hand of heaven, and the land covered with darkness, so that he could pursue them no longer; but remains with his host in continual darkness.

Then I travelled to the land of Bactrine, where are many marvels. Trees bearing wool, with which they make Cloth. Likewise creatures that are half horses, living sometimes in water, and sometimes on land, and they devour men when they meet with them. There I have seen griffins, and the fore part like an eagle, and the hinder parts like a lion. There is likewise another kind of griffin much larger and stronger than the former; also a great number of wild animals of all kinds.

Chap. 8.
Of the Land of Prestor John, and Parts adjacent; and
Sir John Mandeville's happy return to England, &c.

From thence I went to the Country of Prestor John, who is a noble Lord and wedded the only daughter of the Great Caan. Such plenty of rich stones and diamonds there is in this country that they make them into Cups and dishes. In this land is a gravelly sea, which ebbs and flows like the ocean, yet not one drop of water is to be seen therein, yet never the less men catch fishes in it. A sand runs in three days in a week, among which are found many rubbies. Trees grow from sun rising to mid day, bearing apples that are harder than iron, which fall into the earth at noon successfully each day. Here are wild men, who are very hairy, with horns on their heads, they speak not but roar like swine.

At Pitan, a place in this Kingdom, are men very small, but not so small as the Pigmies. They live on the smell of Apples. On another island are men overgrown with feathers, like the fowls of the air. Near the river Poison there is an enchanted valley between two hills; here are tempests and storms like shrieks and cries so that they call it the Valley of Devils; both day and night the sound of musick and much feasting is heard in it; it also contains great store of gold and silver, for the lucre of which, many have gone into it but never came back again. Beyond this valley is the isle of Girty, where men are 40 feet high, and sheep bigger than oxen.

The Emperor Prestor John when he goes to battle hath three golden Crosses carried before him, set with precious stones, and each cross guarded by One Thousand fighting men. He has a most superb palace, and seven Kings, seventy two Dukes, three hundred Earls, and thirty two bishops to wait upon him every day.

Beyond this place is a large wilderness, in which grow speaking Trees, called The Trees of the Sun and Moon; and whoever eats of the fruit thereof live four or five hundred years; and some never die. These trees foretold Alexander his death. I would willingly have gone to see them, but was prevented by lions, dragons, etc.

The reason of this Emperor's being called Prestor John was as follows; He happened in his progress to go into a Christian Church in Egypt, on the Saturday after Whitsunday, when the Bishop gave Orders; and he asked who they were that stood before the Bishop? the answer was, They are priests. Then said he, I will no longer be called Emperor, but according to the name of the first that comes forth, whose name was John. Therefore the Emperors of that country ever since have been called Prestor John.