In referring to this passage it is only fair to recognize that the description (though the suggestion of the greatest part exists in Odoric) displays a good deal of imaginative power; and there is much in the account of Christian's passage through the Valley of the Shadow of Death, in Bunyan's famous allegory, which indicates a possibility that John Bunyan may have read and remembered this episode either in Mandeville or in Hakluyt's Odoric.
Nor does it follow that the whole work is borrowed or fictitious. Even the great Moorish traveller Ibn Batuta, accurate and veracious in the main, seems--in one part at least of his narrative--to invent experiences; and in such works as those of Jan van Hees and Arnold von Harff we have examples of pilgrims to the Holy Land whose narratives begin apparently in sober truth, and gradually pass into flourishes of fiction and extravagance. So in Mandeville also we find particulars not yet traced to other writers, and which may therefore be provisionally assigned either to the writer's own experience or to knowledge acquired by colloquial intercourse in the East.
It is difficult to decide on the character of his statements as to recent Egyptian history. In his account of that country (pp. 37, 38) though the series of the Comanian (i.e. of the Bahri Mameluke) sultans is borrowed from Hetoum down to the accession of _Melechnasser_, i.e. Malik al-Nasir (Nasir ud-din Mahommed), who came first to the throne in 1293, Mandeville appears to speak from his own knowledge when he adds that this "_Melechnasser_ reigned long and governed wisely." In fact, though twice displaced in the early part of his life, Malik Nasir reigned till 1341, a duration unparalleled in Mahommedan Egypt, whilst we are told that during the last thirty years of his reign Egypt rose to a high pitch of wealth and prosperity. Mandeville, however, then goes on to say that his eldest son, _Melechemader_, was chosen to succeed; but this prince was caused privily to be slain by his brother, who took the kingdom under the name of _Melechmadabron_. "And he was Soldan when I departed from those countries." Now Malik Nasir Mahommed was followed in succession by no less than eight of his sons in thirteen years, the first three of whom reigned in aggregate only a few months. The names mentioned by Mandeville appear to represent those of the fourth and sixth of the eight, viz. Salih 'Imad ud-din Isma'il, and Mozaffar (Saif ud-din Hajji); and these the statements of Mandeville do not fit.