Of the hill Carme.

AND the yle of Grece¹ is right in the mid way, and beside this citie of Acon towarde the sea at viii² hundred furlonges on the righte hande towarde the southe is the hil Carme³ where Elias the prophet dwelled, and there was the ordre of Carme⁴ 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 Ekale⁵ 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 Minon⁶ all round that is a hundred cubytes or shaftments⁷ 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 done⁸ into the gravell tourneth againe into the gravell as it was before & some say that it is a swallow⁹ of the sea gravell.¹⁰

1: Crete.

2: Pynson and others say 120 furlongs.

3: Carmel.

4: Carmelite friars.

5: The scale, or ladder, of Tyre.

6: Meaning the sepulchre of Memnon.

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.

8: Buried.

9: Whirlpool.

10: This story is said to come from Solinus, and is mentioned in MÜnster's Cosmographia, and in other books.