'Some years travels into divers parts of Africa, and Asia the great. Describing more particularly the empires of Persia and Industan: interwoven with such remarkable occurrences as hapned in those parts during these later times. As also, many other rich and famous kingdoms in the oriental India, with the isles adjacent. Severally relating their religion, language, customs and habit: as also proper observations concerning them.' [‎232] (253/448)

Mnfairk or fmall pieces, of checquer'd Marble; arched alfo and fupported by
r^hr^Mv Writers in thofe times, and on whom the great paffionately doted.
x Zhwalfo ennobles this City from the plenty it had ot Springs and pure water ftreaming
into Choajpes ; which for the delight the PtrJIan Monaixhs took to drink of occafioned
the Poet Tihullw to obfcrve that
Ubi Regia lympha Choafpes i " Where Choafpes fprings -f
p ro £ u j tj Which once was fliled, the Delight of Kings.
for no Subjed was permitted to drink thereof, being wholly appropriated to theKings
ufe and his Children, by the Law of Perjia, Herodotus 1. i. Straho I. 15. Geogr. ch.ult.
in whiclxregard it was called aurea aqua-, aqua Regia, <kc. famoufed alio for that Bitu-,
men which fome call Nafhta, on oylie liquid fubftance like clay ^ but fet on fire inflames
the very air : ftiewed Alexander near Ecbatane as one of the rarities of Jifia. The
like is at Hait a hundred fixty nine miles from Bagdat upon Euphrates in the way to Aleppo,
From Babylon, Bchatan and Shujhan it had equidiftancy.
yaldac had form and beauty till Mofes firnamed Askar (Omars kinfman) Anno Bom. 64 j.
Heg> 21. depopulated it. It has now a refemblance of Mofal or Niniveh, nothing but
ruines covering her. Of which, and other fuch noble and now defolate Cities I may fay
with King David, Pfal. 46. Come and behold the Worlds of the Lord, what defolations he hath
made in all the earth! And feeing we arefo near the old local place of Paradife, canlpafs
by without a view and fome remembrance ?
PAR AD I SB or the place of the terreftrial Garden of Eden (Hogea-del-Holan the
Indians name it, Gan-Eden the Hebrews, Geferta now, wherein God placed Adam) is
much controverted; and where it was, no lels doubted : fome making it an Allegory,
others a local place. 5trange it is to confider the variety. Some fay it was in the mid
dle Region of the Air, whence they draw thofe four great ftreams that water Paradife:
Some place it in the Mountains of the Moon *, otherfome in the circle of the Moon, and
others under the circle •, fuppofmg that thence the four Rivers flow under large and
deep Seas into Paradife. Neverthelefs, fome there be that think the four Rivers fignifie
four Cardinal Vertues, the word Paradife being a metaphor of delight^ mans fall the
banifhment *, and the torrid Zone the fiery Sword: fanatick fancies, fuch as made the
brain-fick Hermians and Selemians averr, there never was a Paradife. But fome (and
thofe of the fobereft judgment) imagine that it was ten miles about, that the Province
was Mefopotamia , the place Edento this day retaining both name and memory. St. Ju-
gujiine judges it was in the happy Arabia : Amongft the Tartars dreams Goropim (in Hol
land he might as well have faid,) under the North Pole thinks JPoftellm, in SyriaBeroaldm,
upon the banks of Tygris Xenophon ; Every where before Adam finned thinks Ortelim.
Some fay it comprehended Mesopotamia (that part called Padan or Vadan-Aram and
Aram-Naharaim i. e. Syria fiwvn) Armenia, Mount Taurus, incircling Shynaar. Others
carry it further, as that it included Nilm and Ganges a too great limit for a Garden I
for Nik arifing from Zair in Afric empties it felf into the mid-land Sea^ and Ganges
from Syba near Imamm Scythia into the Qengalan Gulph. The Inhabitants in Ceyloon lay
Paradife was there ; and for proof fhew Adams foot-fteps. Eves tears, d-c. Otherfome
it was in ^£gypt, Syria and Judea ; that the tree of knowledge grew on Mount Calvary,
thefecond Adam futfering where the firft Adam offended. Some alfo dream that it is
in a Mountain above the skie, where Enoch and Elias are referved till this World be de-
ftroyed.
The moft probable is, That Nile nor Ganges had no being there : the Septuagints mif-
take arifing from their fuppofition that Vifon was Ganges and Gihon Nile, MefopotamU
no doubt was Eaft from Arabia where Mofes (the firft that ever wrote Hiftory) about
the year from the Creation 2430. compleated his Pentateuch. And as queftionlefs, the
Garden of £^2 was watered with Euphrates and Tigris $ who in their feveral fluxes, one
from Periardo in Armenia, the other from Lib anus divide themfelves into four branches %
PifononQ ^reaming through Pifo-gard in Perfia and call'd Pifo-Tigris •,) Gihon the other
which alter became a proper name for all great Rivers in Perfia (commixing with Cho
ajpes) both run into the Gulph at Balfora. For, whereas it is faid, Pifon compailes the
Land