In This Region You Find Quantities Of Canes, Full Three Palms In Girth And
Fifteen Paces In Length, With Some Three Palms' Interval Between The
Joints.
And let me tell you that merchants and other travellers through
that country are wont at nightfall to gather
These canes and make fires of
them; for as they burn they make such loud reports that the lions and
bears and other wild beasts are greatly frightened, and make off as fast
as possible; in fact nothing will induce them to come nigh a fire of that
sort. So you see the travellers make those fires to protect themselves and
their cattle from the wild beasts which have so greatly multiplied since
the devastation of the country. And 'tis this great multiplication of the
wild beasts that prevents the country from being reoccupied. In fact but
for the help of these canes, which make such a noise in burning that the
beasts are terrified and kept at a distance, no one would be able even to
travel through the land.
I will tell you how it is that the canes make such a noise. The people cut
the green canes, of which there are vast numbers, and set fire to a heap
of them at once. After they have been awhile burning they burst asunder,
and this makes such a loud report that you might hear it ten miles off. In
fact, any one unused to this noise, who should hear it unexpectedly, might
easily go into a swound or die of fright.
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