The Life and Deeds of the Ever-Remembered Despot Stefan

(the readers) with the telling - it is enough (only) to indicate it.

2. Likewise many vineyards have been planted - and nowhere with such ease as in this land, (which) is overflowing with seeds, plantings and fruits. In it are the sources of rivers and wells, and its regions fit one into another; they are an image of beauty, and surpass one another in loveliness and fruitfulness. And when winter and foul weather leave the land and summer is at hand, the air is well purified and fair, as someone truly said, that he had seen exceedingly much (of all) this and that nowhere could (anything) better be found.

3. It is needful to say (something) also of the birds and of all else that the Lord gave, such as (are) the greens for human nourishment, of which (here) there is abundance everywhere, while (somewhere) else there is not (so much). Much food goes forth not only to uninhabited but also to inhabited (places), (as well as) many other fruits, fish and other things that are needful, (and) that the Lord gave to men to delight in, as well as all (that) the Creator put under their feet.

4. Should (anyone) ask how this land is protected - it is girded with exceedingly high mountains (and) with such cities as can be found only in small number in many lands. They are exceptional for their lofty towers and fortifications, and (are supplied) with water, which is called the gladness of cities.

5. Nor should one overlook the most glorious work of God, which even the great Moses did not overlook in the book of the creation of the world, that is, one of the four rivers of paradise,²⁸ the Pishon /the Danube/, as the geographical books say; it is also called the Ister and the Gaz, and the Thracians call it the Ister and the Danube. And this (Pishon), going out from paradise, sinks into the depth of the earth and appears in the west, toward the Paeonian /Apennine/ mountain, which (stretches) from the Sicilian sea to the Germans toward the northern ocean, and from there (the Danube) goes toward the east and flows into the Euxine /Black/ Sea in five branches; (this river) is known to the Czechs, going from the north and west toward the east, and it divides Hungary and waters the excellent Serbian land; then, passing the Vlachs and the Bulgarians, it flows into the open waters of the Black Sea.

6. And one should reflect a little on this too, that God, by His providence, sent four rivers out of paradise into the inhabited world. It was fitting that the western lands should have one of them. For the Gihon /the Nile/ is in Egypt; one (of its) branches goes into Libya, and two into upper Ethiopia; when they meet, the water increases and waters Egypt in the month of August. The Egyptians call it Astapus, which means dark water.

7. The Tigris and the Euphrates are born of the fruit of paradise; then they sink into the earth and appear again beyond the Taurus mountain. And the Euphrates has a bright course; flowing from the northern regions toward the southern, it approaches the Persian ocean, forming marshes and lakes overgrown with reeds, and in them it imperceptibly vanishes. And the Tigris comes forth imperceptibly from an eastern lake and flows toward the southern regions, and cuts through the Trikonian mountain near Masavat, unites with the Euphrates and, dividing Babylon,²⁹ goes out and approaches Peridon /Teredon/ and flows into the Persian Gulf. Before it unites with the Euphrates, they flow apart from one another and form Mesopotamia, of 428 stadia. And the Pishon, then, is mentioned in the Book of Genesis, and it encompasses the land of Havilah and so comes to us. There, it says, is gold, "and the gold of that