And when he had ended this his prayer to God the Sovereign Father and Giver of all grace, and whilst the Calif and all the Saracens, and other people there, were looking on, the mountain rose out of its place and moved to the spot which the Calif had pointed out!  And when the Calif and all his Saracens beheld, they stood amazed at the wonderful miracle that God had wrought for the Christians, insomuch that a great number of the Saracens became Christians.  And even the Calif caused himself to be baptised in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Ghost, Amen, and became a Christian, but in secret.  Howbeit, when he died they found a little cross hung round his neck; and therefore the Saracens would not bury him with the other Califs, but put him in a place apart.  The Christians exulted greatly at this most holy miracle, and returned to their homes full of joy, giving thanks to their Creator for that which He had done.[NOTE 1]

And now you have heard in what wise took place this great miracle.  And marvel not that the Saracens hate the Christians; for the accursed law that Mahommet gave them commands them to do all the mischief in their power to all other descriptions of people, and especially to Christians; to strip such of their goods, and do them all manner of evil, because they belong not to their law.  See then what an evil law and what naughty commandments they have!  But in such fashion the Saracens act, throughout the world.

Now I have told you something of Baudas.  I could easily indeed have told you first of the affairs and the customs of the people there.  But it would be too long a business, looking to the great and strange things that I have got to tell you, as you will find detailed in this Book.

So now I will tell you of the noble city of Tauris.

NOTE 1.—­We may remember that at a date only three years before Marco related this story (viz. in 1295), the cottage of Loreto is asserted to have changed its locality for the third and last time by moving to the site which it now occupies.

Some of the old Latin copies place the scene at Tauris.  And I observe that a missionary of the 16th century does the same.  The mountain, he says, is between Tauris and Nakhshiwan, and is called Manhuc. (Gravina, Christianita nell’ Armenia, etc., Roma, 1605, p. 91.)

The moving of a mountain is one of the miracles ascribed to Gregory Thaumaturgus.  Such stories are rife among the Mahomedans themselves.  “I know,” says Khanikoff, “at least half a score of mountains which the Musulmans allege to have come from the vicinity of Mecca.”

Ramusio’s text adds here:  “All the Nestorian and Jacobite Christians from that time forward have maintained a solemn celebration of the day on which the miracle occurred, keeping a fast also on the eve thereof.”

F. Goering, a writer who contributes three articles on Marco Polo to the Neue Zuericher-Zeitung, 5th, 6th, 8th April, 1878, says:  “I heard related in Egypt a report which Marco Polo had transmitted to Baghdad.  I will give it here in connection with another which I also came across in Egypt.