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Both entrances were thus protected, and Josephus gives the following description of one of the curtains, which will probably convey a fair idea of either; five ells high and sixteen broad, of Babylonian texture, and wonderfully stitched of blue, white, scarlet and purple representing the universe in its four elements scarlet standing for fire and blue for air by their colours, and the white linen for earth and the purple for sea on account of their derivation, the one, from the flax of the earth and the other from the shellfish of the sea.
Thomas Cocke, of "Pickthorn Farm" and "Malvern Hill," carried on enterprises established by his father, operating at the latter a flour mill, tanneries and looms for making both woolens and linen. For a specimen of linen five ells in length and three-fourths of a yard wide of the first quality, he received an award, in 1695, of 800 pounds of tobacco, offered by the Assembly in 1692.
I find by the ancient records or pancarts, to be seen in the chamber of accounts, or court of the exchequer at Montsoreau, that he was accoutred in manner as followeth. To make him every shirt of his were taken up nine hundred ells of Chasteleraud linen, and two hundred for the gussets, in manner of cushions, which they put under his armpits.
Now, I have often thought that the old Kemp, whose mouldering skull in the Golgotha of Hythe my brother and myself could scarcely lift, must have resembled in one respect at least this Harald, whom Snorro describes as a great and wise ruler and a determined leader, dangerous in battle, of fair presence and measuring in height just five ells, neither more nor less.
For his codpiece were used sixteen ells and a quarter of the same cloth, and it was fashioned on the top like unto a triumphant arch, most gallantly fastened with two enamelled clasps, in each of which was set a great emerald, as big as an orange; for, as says Orpheus, lib. de lapidibus, and Plinius, libro ultimo, it hath an erective virtue and comfortative of the natural member.
In it were earthen jars containing gold dust, lumps of gold piled up like bricks, and ingots of gold in packages. Blocks of silver stored at one side formed, as it were, a wall two ells thick and as high as the ceiling. In niches and on stone tables lay precious stones of every color: rubies, topazes, emeralds, sapphires, diamonds, pearls as large as nuts and even as birds' eggs.
This carelessness seemed to him like indifference, and indicated a general laxness in the temple servants. Therefore he again entered the columned hall. He looked uneasily at the Nilometer, in which the water had sunk. There was no hope of the fifteen ells of water which the earth needed for the harvest of the year.
But as soon as anybody gave him a hand to help him at a crossing, he would instantly jump up with him some six ells or so into the air, and not come to the ground again within a distance of some twelve paces on the other side of the crossing. This rather astonished people, it need not be said, and one or two sprained their legs slightly in the process.
"Dame," answered the mercer, "that is a Cyprus baldekin; it is eight pound the piece of three ells." Lady Foljambe resigned the costly beauty with a sigh. "And this?" she asked, indicating a piece of soft blue. Lady Foljambe's gesture intimated that this was too much for her purse. "Hast any gold cloths of tissue, not over three pound the piece?"
We went on the 10th to the shore, when a canoe came off with a considerable quantity of gold; and after long haggling we at length reduced their measure to a nail less than three ells, and brought up their weight to an angel and twenty grains, after which, in about a quarter of an hour, I sold cloth for a pound and a quarter of an ounce of gold.
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