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.
It is their practice that every one, male and female, do wash the whole
body twice every day; and those who do not wash are looked on much as we
look on the Patarins.
