where Prester John holds his residence. The Moors call him the great King of the Habeshys: he is Christian, and lord of many extensive countries and numerous people, with whom he makes subject many great kings. He is very rich, and possesses more gold than any other prince. This Prester John holds a very large court, and he keeps many men at arms continually in his pay, whom he takes about with him. He goes out very rarely from his dwelling; many kings and great lords come to visit him. In this city a great feast takes place in the month of August, for which so many kings and nobles come together, and so many people that they are innumerable: and on this day of the feast in August they take an image out of a church, which is believed to be that of Our Lady, or that of St. Bartholomew, which image is of gold and of the size of a man; its eyes are of very large and beautiful rubies of great value, and the whole of it is adorned with many precious stones of much value, and placing it in a great chariot of gold, they carry it in procession with very great veneration and ceremony, and Prester John goes in front of this car in another gold car, very richly dressed in cloth of gold with much jewellery. And they begin to go out thus in the morning, and go in procession through all the city with much music of all sorts of instruments, until the evening, when they go home. And so many people throng to this procession, that in order to arrive at the car of the image many die of being squeezed and suffocated; and those who die in this wise are held as saints and martyrs; and many old men and old women go with a good will to die in this manner.
SUEZ.
Leaving this country of Prester John and the coast of the sea of Arabia Felix, and turning to the other part of the Red Sea, which is also called Arabia, and the Moors call it Barra Arab, there is a village, a sea-port called Suez,[43] and thither the Moors of Guida, the port of Mecca, bring all the spices, drugs, precious stones, seed pearl, amber, musk, and other merchandise of great value from the parts about India; and from there they load them on camels to carry them by land to Cairo, and from Cairo other merchants carry them to Alexandria; and from there the Venetians and other Christians usually export them. And this trade now, in a great measure, ceases on account of the Portuguese, whose fleets prohibit the navigation of the Moors from India to the Red Sea.[44] And the Great Sultan, lord of Cairo, who loses most by this, ordered a fleet to be built in the port of Suez, for which he had the wood and artillery, and other equipments transported by land, in which much money was expended; and this fleet was of ships and galleys, in order to pass with it to India and there forbid the Portuguese from cruising. And when this fleet was built many people of different nations went with it to the first India, which is the Kingdom of Cambay; and the Captain of it was Amir Uçen,[45] and with this fleet they met that of Portugal in front of a city named Dyu, and there they fought vigorously, and many people were killed, and at last the Moors, Turks, and Mamelukes were conquered and all their fleet was taken and part of it burned, and on this account and several other victories which the Portuguese gained over the before-mentioned Moors, they lost their navigation in the Red Sea, and the said port of Suez remains without the trade in spices.
MOUNT SINAI.
Near the said city of Suez there is in the country of Arabia on the Red Sea, the mountain of Sinai, where lies the blessed Saint Catharine in a church, in which there are Christian friars, under the lordship of the Sultan, to which building the devout of all Christian countries come in pilgrimage, and the chief part of those that throng thither are from the country of Prester John and Armenia, Babilonia, Constantinople, and Jerusalem.
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