Of the darke countrey and hils and roches of stone nigh to Paradise.

BEYOND the yles of the lande of Prester John and his lordeship of wildernesse to go right East, men shall not finde but hils, great rocks and other myrke¹ lande, where no man may see a day or night as men of the countrey say, and this wildernesse and myrke land lasteth to Paradise terrestre, where Adam and Eve were sette, but they were there but a lyttle while, and that is toward the East at the beginning of the earth, but that is not our East that we call where the Son ryseth in those countreys towarde Paradise, and then it is midnight in our countrey for the roundnesse of the earth, for our Lorde made the earth all rounde in the middest of y^e fyrmament. Of Paradise can I not speake properly for I haue not bene there, but that I haue heard I shall tell you. Men say that Paradise terrestre is the highest lande in all the worlde, and it is so high that it toucheth nere to the cyrcle of the Mone, for it is so high y^t Noes floude might not come thereto which covered all the earth about.

1: Dark, murky.