[1] Should be "year" no doubt.
CHAPTER XIX.
CONCERNING THE KINGDOM OF MUTFILI.
When you leave Maabar and go about 1,000 miles in a northerly direction
you come to the kingdom of MUTFILI. This was formerly under the rule of a
King, and since his death, some forty years past, it has been under his
Queen, a lady of much discretion, who for the great love she bore him
never would marry another husband. And I can assure you that during all
that space of forty years she had administered her realm as well as ever
her husband did, or better; and as she was a lover of justice, of equity,
and of peace, she was more beloved by those of her kingdom than ever was
Lady or Lord of theirs before. The people are Idolaters, and are tributary
to nobody. They live on flesh, and rice, and milk.[NOTE 1]
It is in this kingdom that diamonds are got; and I will tell you how.
There are certain lofty mountains in those parts; and when the winter
rains fall, which are very heavy, the waters come roaring down the
mountains in great torrents. When the rains are over, and the waters from
the mountains have ceased to flow, they search the beds of the torrents
and find plenty of diamonds. In summer also there are plenty to be found
in the mountains, but the heat of the sun is so great that it is scarcely
possible to go thither, nor is there then a drop of water to be found.
Moreover in those mountains great serpents are rife to a marvellous
degree, besides other vermin, and this owing to the great heat. The
serpents are also the most venomous in existence, insomuch that any one
going to that region runs fearful peril; for many have been destroyed by
these evil reptiles.
Now among these mountains there are certain great and deep valleys, to the
bottom of which there is no access. Wherefore the men who go in search of
the diamonds take with them pieces of flesh, as lean as they can get, and
these they cast into the bottom of a valley. Now there are numbers of
white eagles that haunt those mountains and feed upon the serpents. When
the eagles see the meat thrown down they pounce upon it and carry it up to
some rocky hill-top where they begin to rend it. But there are men on the
watch, and as soon as they see that the eagles have settled they raise a
loud shouting to drive them away. And when the eagles are thus frightened
away the men recover the pieces of meat, and find them full of diamonds
which have stuck to the meat down in the bottom. For the abundance of
diamonds down there in the depths of the valleys is astonishing, but
nobody can get down; and if one could, it would be only to be
incontinently devoured by the serpents which are so rife there.
