Page:Popular Science Monthly Volume 36.djvu/466

450 who told him the story. He gives full details of the phœnix rising from its own ashes. But all culminates at the Dead Sea.

He tells us that masses of fiery matter are every day thrown up from it as large as a horse; that, though it contains no living thing, it has been shown that men thrown into it can not die; and finally, as if to prove the worthlessness of devout testimony to the miraculous, he says: "And whoever throws a piece of iron therein, it floats; and whoever throws a feather therein, it sinks to the bottom; and, because that is contrary to nature, I was not willing to believe it until I saw it."

He of course mentions Lot's wife, and says that the pillar of salt "stands there to-day," and "has a right salty taste."

Great injustice has been done to Maundeville in holding him a liar of the first magnitude. Never was man further from the thought of lying. He simply abhorred skepticism, and thought it meritorious to believe all pious legends. The ideal Maundeville was a man of overmastering faith, and resembled Tertullian in believing things "because they are impossible"; he was entirely conscientious; the solemn ending of the book shows that he listened, observed, and wrote under the deepest conviction, and those who re-edited his book were probably just as honest in adding the later stories of pious travelers.

The "Travels of Sir John Maundeville," thus appealing to the popular heart, were most widely read in the monasteries and repeated among the people. Innumerable copies were made in manuscript, and finally in print, and so the old myths received a new life.

In the fifteenth century wonders were increased. In 1418 we have the Lord of Caumont, who makes a pilgrimage and gives us