the Vale of Hebron, that dureth nigh to Jerusalem. There the angel
commanded Adam that he should dwell with his wife Eve, of the which
he gat Seth; of which tribe, that is to say kindred, Jesu Christ
was born.

In that valley is a field, where men draw out of the earth a thing
that men clepe cambile, and they eat it instead of spices, and they
bear it to sell. And men may not make the hole or the cave, where
it is taken out of the earth, so deep or so wide, but that it is,
at the year's end, full again up to the sides, through the grace of
God.

And two mile from Hebron is the grave of Lot, that was Abraham's
brother.

And a little from Hebron is the mount of Mamre, of the which the
valley taketh his name. And there is a tree of oak, that the
Saracens clepe DIRPE, that is of Abraham's time: the which men
clepe the Dry Tree. And they say that it hath been there since the
beginning of the world, and was some-time green and bare leaves,
unto the time that our Lord died on the cross, and then it dried:
and so did all the trees that were then in the world. And some
say, by their prophecies, that a lord, a prince of the west side of
the world, shall win the Land of Promission that is the Holy Land
with help of Christian men, and he shall do sing a mass under that
dry tree; and then the tree shall wax green and bear both fruit and
leaves, and through that miracle many Saracens and Jews shall be
turned to Christian faith: and, therefore, they do great worship
thereto, and keep it full busily. And, albeit so, that it be dry,
natheles yet he beareth great virtue, for certainly he that hath a