33 more devout than the Mouros themselves; all of the latter, who are from Arabia Felix, both men and women, are black and very good fighters. They go naked from the waist up, and cover themselves with cotton cloths from the waist down, and those with a higher status wear large cloths like Mouros capes, and the women are covered with other long ones called chaddars; in this land, it is tradition to sow up a newborn daughters’ genitalia, and they stay like this until they marry and when they are given to their husbands, then they cut that flesh open again, which is welded as when they were born. I saw this with my own eyes, because I was at the taking of Zayla, which I have already mentioned, where we captured many girls in this condition. The Great Kingdom of Prester John Heading inland from these same Mouros villages, one comes to the great kingdom of Prester John, who the Mouros call the Abyssinian, which is very large and has many sheer mountains; many people live here and many surrounding kingdoms are his vassals, under his command and governed by him. This land has a large number of cities; towns; villages and many of them live primitively in the mountains. They are black men and good-humoured, they use their many horses and they are very skillful horsemen and great mounted huntsmen and hunters and their diet comprises a lot of butter; honey and wheat bread, which are plentiful in this land. They wear leathers because cloth is very expensive here, especially in the mountains; there is also a clan of them that can only wear leathers, which they always tan and prepare well; there are also men and women here who have never drunk anything other than milk to quench their thirst in their entire lives; and this is not for lack of water, because the land has plenty, but because milk makes them healthier and tougher, they drink a lot of it and honey, which is plentiful, but those who eat the most are those living in the mountains.
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