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The Voiage and Travayle of Sir John Maundeville Knight / Which treateth of the way towards Hierusalem and of marvayles of Inde with other ilands and countreys cover

The Voiage and Travayle of Sir John Maundeville Knight / Which treateth of the way towards Hierusalem and of marvayles of Inde with other ilands and countreys

Chapter 59: CAP. LI.
By Sir John Mandeville
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About This Book

The narrator offers a medieval travelogue that traces routes toward Jerusalem and across regions of Asia, Africa, and India, blending eyewitness-style observations, borrowed reports, and fantastic tales. It catalogs cities, landscapes, animals, plants, trade goods, and unfamiliar customs, alternating itinerary notes with moral and religious commentary. Frequent digressions present marvels and monstrous races alongside practical details about pilgrim routes, local rites, and fortifications, producing a text that shifts between guidebook information and imaginative storytelling. The structure mixes descriptive chapters with episodic anecdotes, inviting readers to weigh veracity while encountering the era's geographical knowledge, commerce, and popular curiosities.

CAP. LI.

Of the lande of Ethiope.

ON the other side of Calde toward the south side is Ethyope a great lande. In this lande on the south are the folke right blacke. In that side is a well that in the daye the water is so colde that no man may drinke thereof, & in the nighte it is so hote that no man may suffer to put his hand in it. In this lande the rivers and all the waters are troublous and some dele salte for the great hete, and men of yt lande are lightly dronken & haue little appetite to meate, and they haue commonly the flixe of body and they live not long. In Ethiope1 are such men that have but one foote, and they go so fast yt it is a great marvaill, & that is a large fote that the shadow thereof covereth ye body from son or rayne when they lye uppon their backes, and when their children be first borne they loke like russet, and when they waxe olde then they be all blacke. In Ethiope is the lande of Saba, of the which one of the three Kings that sought our Lorde at Bethleem was King.

1:  Like many other marvellous stories related by Sir John Mandeville, they were told by Pliny, in his Natural History, nearly 1200 years previously. For instance, in Book 7, chap, li., devoted to Man, he quotes Ctesias as saying that in India is another race of men, who are known as Monocoli, who have only one leg, but are able to leap with surprising agility. The same people are also called Sciapodœ, because they are in the habit of lying on their backs during the time of extreme heat and protect themselves from the sun by the shade of their feet. For other types of these "peculiar people" see Appendix.