FRIAR BEATUS ODORICUS ad. 



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 silver there like the scales of fishes in great abundance : 

 and I gathered some part thereof into my bosome to 

 shew for a wonder, but my conscience rebuking me, 1 

 cast it upon the earth, reserving no whit at all unto my 

 selfe, and so, by Gods grace I departed without danger. 

 And when the men of the countrey knew that I was 

 returned out of the valley alive, they reverenced me 

 much, saying that I was baptised and holy, and that the 

 foresayd bodies were men subject unto the devils infernall, 

 who used to play upon citherns, to the end they might 

 allure people to enter, and so murther them. Thus 

 much concerning those things which I beheld most 

 certainely with mine eyes, I frier Odoricus have heere 

 written : many strange things also I have of purpose [II. i. 66, 

 omitted, because men will not beleeve them unlesse they 

 should see them. 



Of the honour and reverence done unto the 

 great Can. 



I Will report one thing more, which I saw, concerning 

 the great Can. It is an usuall custome in those parts, 

 that when the forsayd Can travelleth thorow any countrey, 

 his subjects kindle fires before their doores, casting spices 

 thereinto to make a perfume, that their lord passing by 

 may smell the sweet and delectable odours thereof, and 

 much people come foorth to meet him. And upon a 

 certaine time when he was comming towardes Cambaleth, 

 the fame of his approch being published, a bishop of 

 ours with certaine of our minorite friers and my selfe, 

 went two dayes journey to meet him : and being come 

 nigh unto him, we put a crosse upon wood, I my selfe 

 having a censer in my hand, and began to sing with a 

 loud voice : Veni creator spiritus. And as we were 

 singing on this wise, he caused us to be called, com- 

 manding us to come unto him : notwithstanding (as it 

 is above mentioned) that no man dare approch within 

 a stones cast of his chariot, unlesse he be called, but 

 such onely as keepe his chariot. And when we came 



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