For Then May No Man Travail To Plough
The Lands For The Great Moisture, And Therefore Is There Dear Time
In That Country.
And also, when it waxeth little, it is dear time
in that country, for default of moisture.
And when the sun is in
the sign of Virgo, then beginneth the river for to wane and to
decrease little and little, so that when the sun is entered into
the sign of Libra, then they enter between these rivers. This
river cometh, running from Paradise terrestrial, between the
deserts of Ind, and after it smiteth unto land, and runneth long
time many great countries under earth. And after it goeth out
under an high hill, that men clepe Alothe, that is between Ind and
Ethiopia the mountance of five months' journeys from the entry of
Ethiopia; and after it environeth all Ethiopia and Mauritania, and
goeth all along from the land of Egypt unto the city of Alexandria
to the end of Egypt, and there it falleth into the sea. About this
river be many birds and fowls, as sikonies, that they clepen ibes.
CHAPTER VII
OF THE COUNTRY OF EGYPT; OF THE BIRD PHOENIX OF ARABIA; OF THE CITY
OF CAIRO; OF THE CUNNING TO KNOW BALM AND TO PROVE IT; AND OF THE
GARNERS OF JOSEPH
EGYPT is a long country, but it is straight, that is to say narrow,
for they may not enlarge it toward the desert for default of water.
And the country is set along upon the river of Nile, by as much as
that river may serve by floods or otherwise, that when it floweth
it may spread abroad through the country; so is the country large
of length. For there it raineth not but little in that country,
and for that cause they have no water, but if it be of that flood
of that river. And forasmuch as it ne raineth not in that country,
but the air is alway pure and clear, therefore in that country be
the good astronomers, for they find there no clouds to letten them.
Also the city of Cairo is right great and more huge than that of
Babylon the less, and it sitteth above toward the desert of Syria,
a little above the river above-said.
In Egypt there be two parts: the height, that is toward Ethiopia,
and the lower, that is toward Arabia. In Egypt is the land of
Rameses and the land of Goshen. Egypt is a strong country, for it
hath many shrewd havens because of the great rocks that be strong
and dangerous to pass by. And at Egypt, toward the east, is the
Red Sea, that dureth unto the city of Coston; and toward the west
is the country of Lybia, that is a full dry land and little of
fruit, for it is overmuch plenty of heat, and that land is clept
Fusthe. And toward the part meridional is Ethiopia. And toward
the north is the desert, that dureth unto Syria, and so is the
country strong on all sides.
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