And such women as do this have great praise from all.[NOTE 9]
The people are Idolaters, and many of them worship the ox, because (say
they) it is a creature of such excellence. They would not eat beef for
anything in the world, nor would they on any account kill an ox. But there
is another class of people who are called Govy, and these are very
glad to eat beef, though they dare not kill the animal. Howbeit if an ox
dies, naturally or otherwise, then they eat him.[NOTE 10]
And let me tell you, the people of this country have a custom of rubbing
their houses all over with cow-dung.[NOTE 11] Moreover all of them, great
and small, King and Barons included, do sit upon the ground only, and the
reason they give is that this is the most honourable way to sit, because
we all spring from the Earth and to the Earth we must return; so no one
can pay the Earth too much honour, and no one ought to despise it.
And about that race of Govis, I should tell you that nothing on
earth would induce them to enter the place where Messer St. Thomas is - I
mean where his body lies, which is in a certain city of the province of
Maabar. Indeed, were even 20 or 30 men to lay hold of one of these
Govis and to try to hold him in the place where the Body of the
Blessed Apostle of Jesus Christ lies buried, they could not do it! Such is
the influence of the Saint; for it was by people of this generation that
he was slain, as you shall presently hear.[NOTE 12]
No wheat grows in this province, but rice only.
And another strange thing to be told is that there is no possibility of
breeding horses in this country, as hath often been proved by trial. For
even when a great blood-mare here has been covered by a great blood-horse,
the produce is nothing but a wretched wry-legged weed, not fit to ride.
[NOTE 13]
The people of the country go to battle all naked, with only a lance and a
shield; and they are most wretched soldiers. They will kill neither beast
nor bird, nor anything that hath life; and for such animal food as they
eat, they make the Saracens, or others who are not of their own religion,
play the butcher.
