When this emperor Prester John goes to battle there are (borne) before him three golden crosses full of precious stones and pearls, and (there are) a thousand armed men guarding each of these crosses, and also more than a hundred thousand men on foot; and one cannot count the rest of his army. And when he is travelling privately in his own country he hath before him only a cross of wood, without painting, or gold, or precious stone, in token that on the same sort of cross his Lord died; and there is a golden vessel full of clay before him as a token that at the end he himself will become clay;26 and before him is another golden vessel full of precious stones, in token of his strength and his empery.