71v

Mecca

The aforementioned sea is about four hundred miles wide
and four times as long.^{1This does not seem like a reasonable measurement, but it is what Dati says.}
No other place compares to it in wealth
or in the precious stones
and pearls it yields—a great abundance
already gathered and yet to be gathered.
On the opposite shore is the continent of India
which extends up toward the East.

Ethiopia lies in the south,
in the torrid zone^{2A technical term for the tropics, the equatorial region between the Tropics of Cancer and Capricorn.} that extends to the west.
Down to the right
is Arabia, which closely borders
the Red Sea and the lands of the Sultan,
where Mecca is. There are many people there,
where the cursed Mohammed is buried
in an iron sarcophagus.

Below the Red Sea, along the river
Nile until it ends at the Sea of Damietta,
is the region of Egypt, which shone because of
astrology, which was discovered here.
Science and all good customs
flourished here long ago;
it was filled to its borders with
the ancient fathers and saintly hermits.^{3A dual reference to the desert fathers, like St Anthony of Egypt.}