F41r

We have already said that the latitude of this first climate, starting from the region near the scorched earth, goes as far as the land of Serendib (Taprobane, Ceylon). The inhabitants of this climate, that is to say, from the farthest China on the side of the land of Orient to the extremity of the region of the West, have a peculiarity: they are bare like animals , ugly and terrible in appearance and form. Most of them come from the tribes of Cham (1) children. They have many mysteries and knew magic and other things well; their life is long. In this climate we find beasts and large animals with dreadful bodies, hideous in appearance, of extremely ugly shape, large birds, some of which have forms of animals, for example, the ostrich, the giraffe, the griffin and a bird called an elephant snatcher (16), who throws himself on the great elephant and takes it; there are great elephants and other animals that you do not see and do not hear about elsewhere. There are also all kinds of large snakes, large dragons, ordinary snakes and hideous reptiles.

In this climate men are experts in magic and know aromatic plants and stones, whose quality and nature make them effective remedies for the cure of diseases; they treat all those who suffer from the bite of these hideous and dreadful reptiles, and heal them. Its length, as we have already described, is, from the region of the East to the region of the West, of 5,600 parasanges (2), and its breadth, from the region of the South to the region of the North, is 285 parasanges (2).

F49r-v

Chapter seas, bays and islands.

... ..this Sea contains a Gulf close to the country of Abyssinia, which extends to the region of the Berbers and is called

the Gulf of the Berbers; its length is 500 miles and the width of its side is 100 miles. The other is the Gulf side of Aylah (3);

its length is 1,400 miles and its width at the beginning is 700 miles, and its end, that is to say the nearest site called the

Red Sea, is 200 miles. The sea still contains towards Persia the Persian Gulf; has a length of 1,400 miles, its width at the

top is 500 miles and at its end is 150 miles.

F58v 

Chapter of the countries and cities of the earth, called after the Zodiac signs.

...... .The Sign of Cancer (4): Land of the Berbers (Barbary), Africa, Bithynia (5), which is in the land of the Greeks, Phrygia (6), and Lydia (7) Ladikiyah (8). …..

The sign of Aquarius (9): Sarmathia (10), the river Balch (11), Sogdiana (12), Ferghanah (13), as-Schasch (?), al-Balkah (14) and Azania (15) in the center of Abyssinia.

(1) Cham: one of the children of Noa.

(2) Parasanges: 1 parasangs or farsakhs = 2.8 nautical miles/ about 5km.

(3) Aylah: Eilah: on the Gulf of Aqaba or Gulf of Eilat.

(4) Cancer: in the Northern celestial hemisphere. Its name is Latin for crab.

(5) Bithynia: Roman province in the northwest of Asia Minor.

(6) Phrygia: in the west central part of Anatolia, in what is now Asian Turkey.

(7) Lydia: western Asia Minor in the modern western Turkish provinces of Usak, Manisa and inland İzmir.

(8) Ladikiyah: on the Syrian coast.

(9) Aquarius: constellation whose name is Latin for "water-carrier" or "cup-carrier".

(10) Sarmathia: present-day Ukraine.

(11) river Balch: is a river in northern Afghanistan.

(12) Sogdiana: in parts of present-day Uzbekistan, Tajikistan, Kazakhstan, and Kyrgyzstan.

(13) Ferghanah: eastern Uzbekistan, southern Kyrgyzstan and northern Tajikistan

(14) al-Balkah: there are several places with this name in the Middle East.

(15) Azania:  the Azania of Ptolemy in East Africa.

(16) This is the Roc or Rokh of Madagascar. See my webpages on Buzurg (955) and Marco Polo (1295).