3 3 4 INDIA. 



crossed over to the India shore ; lie sailed down the coast 

 of Malabar from city to city, and from port to port. He 

 was astounded and bewildered by what he saw : the ac- 

 tivity and grandeur of the commerce ; the magnificence 

 of the courts ; the half-naked kings blazing with jewels, 

 saying their prayers on rosaries of precious stones, and 

 using golden goblets as spittoons ; the elephants with pic- 

 tures drawn in bright colours on their ears, and with jug- 

 glers in towers on their backs : the enormous temples 

 filled with lovely girls ; the idols of gold with ruby eyes ; 

 the houses of red sandal wood ; the scribes who wrote 

 on palm leaves with iron pens ; the pilots who took 

 observations with instruments unknown to Europeans ; 

 the huge bundles of cinnamon or cassia in the ware- 

 houses of the Arab merchants ; the pepper vines trail- 

 ing over trees ; and drugs, which were priceless in 

 Europe, growing in the fields like corn. 



He returned to Cairo, and there found two Jews, 

 Rabbi Abraham and Joseph the Shoemaker, whom 

 the king had sent to look after him. To them he 

 gave a letter for the king, in which he wrote that 

 " the ships which sailed down the coast of Guinea 

 might be sure of reaching the termination of the Con- 

 tinent by keeping on to the South ; and that when 

 they arrived in the Eastern ocean, they must ask for 

 Sofala and the Island of the Moon." 



Covilham himself did not return. He had accom- 

 plised one part of his mission ; he had traced the 

 Venetian commerce to its source ; but he had now 

 to find out Prester John. 



A fable had arisen, in the dark ages, of a great 

 Christian king in Central Asia ; and when it was 

 clearly ascertained that the Grand Khan was not a 

 Christian, and that none of the Tartar princes could 



