And It Is Well A Fifteen Journeys Of
Length, And More Than Two So Much Of Desert, And It Is But Two
Journeys In Largeness.
And between Egypt and Nubia it hath well a
twelve journeys of desert.
And men of Nubia be Christian, but they
be black as the Moors for great heat of the sun.
In Egypt there be five provinces: that one is Sahythe; that other
Demeseer; another Resith, that is an isle in the Nile; another
Alexandria; and another the land of Damietta. That city was wont
to be right strong, but it was twice won of the Christian men, and
therefore after that the Saracens beat down the walls; and with the
walls the tower thereof, the Saracens made another city more far
from the sea, and clept it the new Damietta; so that now no man
dwelleth at the rather town of Damietta. At that city of Damietta
is one of the havens of Egypt; and at Alexandria is that other.
That is a full strong city, but there is no water to drink, but if
it come by conduit from Nile, that entereth into their cisterns;
and whoso stopped that water from them, they might not endure
there. In Egypt there be but few forcelets or castles, because
that the country is so strong of himself.
At the deserts of Egypt was a worthy man, that was an holy hermit,
and there met with him a monster (that is to say, a monster is a
thing deformed against kind both of man or of beast or of anything
else, and that is clept a monster). And this monster, that met
with this holy hermit, was as it had been a man, that had two horns
trenchant on his forehead; and he had a body like a man unto the
navel, and beneath he had the body like a goat. And the hermit
asked him what he was. And the monster answered him, and said he
was a deadly creature, such as God had formed, and dwelt in those
deserts in purchasing his sustenance. And [he] besought the
hermit, that he would pray God for him, the which that came from
heaven for to save all mankind, and was born of a maiden and
suffered passion and death (as we well know) and by whom we live
and be. And yet is the head with the two horns of that monster at
Alexandria for a marvel.
In Egypt is the city of Heliopolis, that is to say, the city of the
Sun. In that city there is a temple, made round after the shape of
the Temple of Jerusalem. The priests of that temple have all their
writings, under the date of the fowl that is clept phoenix; and
there is none but one in all the world. And he cometh to burn
himself upon the altar of that temple at the end of five hundred
year; for so long he liveth. And at the five hundred years' end,
the priests array their altar honestly, and put thereupon spices
and sulphur vif and other things that will burn lightly; and then
the bird phoenix cometh and burneth himself to ashes.
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