_Of the hill Carme._
[Illustration]
AND the yle of Grece[1] is right in the mid way, and beside this citie
of Acon towarde the sea at viii[2] hundred furlonges on the righte
hande towarde the southe is the hil Carme[3] where Elias the prophet
dwelled, and there was the ordre of Carme[4] fyrst founded. This
hyl is not ryghte greate, ne hygh, and at the foote of this hill was
sometime a good citie of chrysten men, that was called Cayphas, for
Cayphas founded it, but it is nowe all wasted. And at the lyfte syde
of the hyll is a Town that men call Saffre, and that is sette upon
another hil, there was Sainct James and saynt John borne, and in the
worshippe of them is there a faire church made. And from Tholomayda
that men now call Acon, to a great hill that men call Ekale[5] de
Tyrreys is an hundred furlongs, and beside that citie of Acon runneth
a lyttle ryver that men call Belyon, and there nere is the fosse of
Minon[6] all round that is a hundred cubytes or shaftments[7] broade,
and it is all full of gravell, cleare shyninge, whereof men make white
glasse cleare, and men come from far countreys by shippe, and by lande
with cartes to take of the gravell & if there be never so much taken
thereof in a daye, on the morow it is full againe as ever it was, and
that is great marvaile, and there is alwaye winde in that fosse that
styreth alway the gravell and maketh it troubled. And if a man put or
do therein any mettal, as sone as it is therein it waxeth glasse,
and the glasse that is made of this gravell if it be done[8] into the
gravell tourneth againe into the gravell as it was before & some say
that it is a swallow[9] of the sea gravell.[10]
[Footnote 1: Crete.]
[Footnote 2: _Pynson_ and others say 120 furlongs.]
[Footnote 3: Carmel.]
[Footnote 4: Carmelite friars.]
[Footnote 5: The scale, or ladder, of Tyre.]
[Footnote 6: Meaning the sepulchre of Memnon.]
[Footnote 7: A shaftment was a measure taken from the top of
the extended thumb to the outmost part of the palm--usually
taken as six inches.]
[Footnote 8: Buried.]
[Footnote 9: Whirlpool.]
[Footnote 10: This story is said to come from Solinus, and is
mentioned in Münster's Cosmographia, and in other books.]