In Egypt is the city of Heliopolis, that is to say, the city of the Sun, in which there is a temple, made round, after the shape of the temple of Jerusalem. The priests of that temple have all their writings dated by the bird called Phœnix, of which there is but one in the world. It comes to burn itself on the altar of the temple at the end of five hundred years, for so long it lives; and then the priests array their altar, and put thereon spices, and sulphur, and other things that will burn quickly, and the Phœnix comes and burns itself to ashes. The next day they find in the ashes a worm; and the second day after they find a bird, alive and perfect; and the third day it flies away[315]. This bird is often seen flying in those countries; it is somewhat larger than an eagle, and has a crest of feathers on its head greater than that of a peacock; its neck is yellow, its beak blue, and its wings of a purple colour, and the tail is yellow and red. It is a very handsome bird to look at against the sun, for it shines very gloriously and nobly.
Also, in Egypt, there are gardens with trees and herbs which bear fruit seven times in the year. And in that land abundance of fair emeralds are found, which are on that account cheaper than elsewhere. When it rains, once in the summer, in the land of Egypt, the country is all full of great mires. At Cairo they sell commonly in the market, as we do beasts, both men and women of a different religion. And there is a common house in that city, which is all full of small furnaces, to which the townswomen bring their eggs of hens, geese, and ducks, to be put into the furnaces; and they that keep that house cover them with horse-dung, without hen, goose, or duck, or any other fowl, and at the end of three weeks or a month they come again and take their chickens, and nourish them and bring them forth, so that all the country is full of them. And this they do there both winter and summer.