The Heate Is Here So Great, That Men Are In Maner Dryed Up Therewith.

[P.357] And therefore there is euer a great number of sicke folkes.

The citie conteyneth about fyue hundred houses.

After fyftiene dayes were past, I couenaunted with a pilot, who was ready to departe from thence into Persia, and agreed of the price, to goe with him. There lay at anker in the hauen almost a hundred brigantines and foistes,[FN#51] with diuers boates and barkes of sundry sortes, both with ores and without ores. Therefore after three days, gyuyng wynde to our sayles, we entered into the Redde Sea, otherwise named Mare Erythræum.

[FN#1] I have consulted the “Navigation and Voyages of Lewes Wertomannus to the Regions of Arabia, Egypt, Persia, Syria, Ethiopia, and East India, both within and without the River of Ganges, &c., conteyning many notable and straunge things both Historicall and Natural. Translated out of Latine into Englyshe by Richarde Eden. In the year of our Lord, 1576.”—(Hakluyt’s Voyages, vol. iv.) The curious reader will also find the work in Purchas (Pilgrimmes and Pilgrimage, vol. ii.) and Ramusio (Raccolta delle Navigasioni e Viaggi, tom. i.). The Travels of Bartema were first published at Milan, A.D. 1511, and the first English translation appeared in Willes and Eden’s Decades, 4to. A.D. 1555. [FN#2] The number of pilgrims in this Caravan is still grossly exaggerated. I cannot believe that it contains more than 7000 of both sexes, and all ages. [FN#3] This may confirm Strabo’s account of [Æ]lius Gallus’ loss, after a conflict with a host of Arabs—two Roman soldiers. Mons. Jomard, noticing the case, pleasantly remarks, that the two individuals in question are to be pitied for their extreme ill-luck. [FN#4] This venerable form of abuse still survives the lapse of time. One of the first salutations reaching the ears of the “Overlands” at Alexandria is some little boys— Ya Nasrani Kalb awani, &c., &c.— O Nazarene, O dog obscene, &c., &c. In Percy’s Reliques we read of the Knight calling his Moslem opponent “unchristen hounde,”—a retort courteous to the “Christen hounde,” previously applied to him by the “Pagan.” [FN#5] For a full account of the mania fit I must refer the curious reader to the original (Book ii. chap. v.) The only mistake the traveller seems to have committed, was that, by his ignorance of the rules of ablution, he made men agree that he was “no sainct, but a madman.” [FN#6] He proceeds, however, to say that “the head is lyke a hart’s,” the “legges thynne and slender, lyke a fawne or hyde, the hoofs divided much like the feet of a goat”; that they were sent from Ethiopia (the Somali country), and were “shewed to the people for a myracle.” They might, therefore, possibly have been African antelopes, which a lusus naturæ had deprived of their second horn. But the suspicion of fable remains. [FN#7] This is a tale not unfamiliar to the Western World.

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