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2. Meanwhile we come to a gate, where, instead of gate-keepers, there stood some with drums, who asked each one who wished to enter whether he had a purse. Then when he showed and opened it, they put some silver into it, and said: "Let this hide be considered as paid for." Then they bid the man enter what appeared to be a vault, and afterwards again conducted him out, loaded with iron and fire-arms; then they ordered him to proceed farther into the market-place.

And now becoming desirous to see what was in this vault, I immediately enter it. And behold, there lay there on the ground an endless mass of cruel weapons that thousands of carts could not have transported. There were weapons for stabbing, chopping, cutting, pricking, hacking, stinging, cutting down, tearing, burning; there were altogether so many instruments destined to destroy life, fashioned out of iron, lead, wood, and stone, that terror befell me, and I exclaimed: "Against what wild beasts are they preparing all these things?" "Against men," the interpreter answered. "Against men!" quoth I. "Alas! I had thought it was against some mad animal, or wild, furious beasts. But, in the name of God, what cruelty this is that men should devise such