for that they bee very good cheape there, I my selfe bought a horse there for 11. akens, and solde him after in Alepo for 30. duckets.  Also we bought a Tent which did vs very great pleasure:  we had also amongst vs 32.  Camels laden with marchandise:  for the which we paid 2. duckets for euery camels lading, and for euery 10. camels they made 11, for so is their vse and custome.  We take also with vs 3. men to serue vs in the voyage, which are vsed to goe in those voyages for fiue D d. a man, and are bound to serue vs to Alepo:  so that we passed very well without any trouble:  when the camels cried out to rest, our pauilion was the first that was erected.  The Carouan maketh but small iourneis about 20. miles a day, and they set forwards euery morning before day two houres, and about two in the afternoone they sit downe.  We had great good hap in our voyage, for that it rained:  For which cause we neuer wanted water, but euery day found good water, so that we could not take any hurt for want of water.  Yet we caried a camel laden alwayes with water for euery good respect that might chance in the desert, so that wee had no want neither of one thing, nor other that was to bee had in the countrey.  For wee came very well furnished of euery thing, and euery day we eat fresh mutton, because there came many shepheards with vs with their flocks, who kept those sheepe that we bought in Babylon, and euery marchant marked his sheepe with his owne marke, and we gaue the shepheards a Medin, which is two pence of our money for the keeping and feeding our sheep on the way and for killing of them.  And beside the Medin they haue the heads, the skinnes, and the intrals of euery sheepe they kil.  We sixe bought 20. sheepe, and when we came to Alepo we had 7. aliue of them.  And in the Carouan they vse this order, that the marchants doe lende flesh one to another, because they will not cary raw flesh with them, but pleasure one another by lending one one day and another another day.

[Sidenote:  36.  Dayes iourney ouer the wildernes.] From Babylon to Alepo is 40. dayes iourney, of the which they make 36. dayes ouer the wildernes, in which 36. dayes they neither see house, trees nor people that inhabite it, but onely a plaine, and no signe of any way in the world.  The Pilots goe before, and the Carouan followeth after.  And when they sit downe all the Carouan vnladeth and sitteth downe, for they know the stations where the wells are.  I say, in 36. dayes we pass ouer the wildernesse.  For when wee depart from Babylon two dayes we passe by villages inhabited vntil we haue passed the riuer Euphrates.  And then within two dayes of Alepo we haue villages inhabited. [Sidenote:  An order how to prouide for the going to Ierusalem.] In this Carouan there goeth alway a Captaine that doth Iustice vnto all men:  and euery night they keepe watch about the Carouan, and comming to Alepo we went to Tripoli, whereas Master Florin, and Master Andrea Polo, and I with a Frier, went and hired a barke to