History of the World/History of the World (Bureau Development, Inc.)(1992).BIN/dp/0448/04483.txt

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$Title{Travels Of Marco Polo
Part VI}
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$Author{Polo, Marco}
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Title:       Travels Of Marco Polo
Book:        Book Second: Of Kublai Khan, Great Khan Now Reigning, His Great Puissance
Author:      Polo, Marco

Part VI

Chapter XLVII

Concerning The Province Of Chantu

     Chantu is a province lying towards the west, and there is only one king
in it.  The people are idolaters, subject to the great Khan, and they have
plenty of towns and villages.  The chief city is also called Chantu, and
stands at the upper end of the province.  There is a lake here, in which are
found pearls, which are white but not round.  But the great Khan will not
allow them to be fished, for if people were to take as many as they could
find there, the supply would be so vast that pearls would lose their value,
and come to be worth nothing.  Only when it is his pleasure they take from
the lake so many as he may desire; but anyone attempting to take them on his
own account would be incontinently put to death.

     There is also a mountain in this country wherein they find a kind of
stone called turquoise, in great abundance; and it is a very beautiful stone.
These also the emperor does not allow to be extracted without his special
order.

     I must tell you of a custom that they have in this country regarding
their women.  No man considers himself wronged if a foreigner, or any other
man, dishonor his wife, or daughter, or sister, or any woman of his family,
but on the contrary he deems such intercourse a piece of good fortune.  And
they say that it brings the favor of their gods and idols, and great increase
of temporal prosperity.  For this reason they bestow their wives on
foreigners and other people as I will tell you.

     When they fall in with any stranger in want of a lodging they are all
eager to take him in.  And as soon as he has taken up his quarters the master
of the house goes forth, telling him to consider everything at his disposal,
and after saying so he proceeds to his vineyards or his fields, and comes
back no more till the stranger has departed.  The latter abides in the
caitiff's house, be it three days or be it four, enjoying himself with the
fellow's wife or daughter or sister, or whatsoever woman of the family it
best likes him; and as long as he abides there he leaves his hat or some
other token hanging at the door, to let the master of the house know that he
is still there.  As long as the wretched fellow sees that token, he must not
go in.  And such is the custom over all that province.

     The money matters of the people are conducted in this way.  They have
gold in rods which they weigh, and they reckon its value by its weight in
saggi, but they have no coined money.  Their small change again is made in
this way.  They have salt which they boil and set in a mold, flat below and
round above, and every piece from the mold weighs about half a pound.  Now,
eighty molds of this salt are worth one saggio of fine gold, which is a
weight so called.  So this salt serves them for small change.

     The musk animals are very abundant in that country, and thus of musk
also they have great store.  They have likewise plenty of fish which they
catch in the lake in which the pearls are produced.  Wild animals, such as
lions, bears, wolves, stags, bucks and roes, exist in great numbers; and
there are also vast quantities of fowl of every kind.  Wine of the vine they
have none, but they make a wine of wheat and rice and sundry good spices, and
very good drink it is.  There grows also in this country a quantity of clove.
The tree that bears it is a small one, with leaves like laurel but longer and
narrower, and with a small white flower like the clove.  They have also
ginger and cinnamon in great plenty, besides other spices which never reach
our countries, so we need say nothing about them.

     Now we may leave this province, as we have told you all about it.  But
let me tell you first of this same country of Chantu that you ride through it
ten days, constantly meeting with towns and villages, with people of the same
description that I have mentioned.  After riding those ten days you come to
a river called Brius, which terminates the province of Chantu.  In this river
is found much gold dust, and there is also much cinnamon on its banks.  It
flows to the ocean sea.

     There is no more to be said about this river, so I will now tell you
about another province called Karajang, as you shall hear in what follows.

Chapter XLVIII

Concerning The Province Of Karajang

     When you have passed that river you enter on the province of Karajang,
which is so large that it includes seven kingdoms.  It lies towards the west;
the people are idolaters, and they are subject to the great Khan.  A son of
his, however, is there as king of the country, by name Essen-timur; a very
great and rich and puissant prince; and he well and justly rules his
dominion, for he is a wise man, and a valiant.
     After leaving the river that I spoke of, you go five days' journey
towards the west, meeting with numerous towns and villages.  The country is
one in which excellent horses are bred, and the people live by cattle and
agriculture.  They have a language of their own which is passing hard to
understand.  At the end of those five days' journey you come to the capital,
which is called Yachi, a very great and noble city, in which are numerous
merchants and craftsmen.

     The people are of sundry kinds, for there are not only Saracens and
idolaters, but also a few Nestorian Christians.  They have wheat and rice in
plenty.  However they never eat wheat bread, because in that country it is
unwholesome.  Rice they eat, and make of it sundry messes, besides a kind of
drink which is very clear and good, and makes a man drunk just as wine does.

     Their money is such as I will tell you.  They use for the purpose white
porcelain shells that are found in the sea, such as are sometimes put on
dogs' collars; and eighty of these porcelain shells pass for a single weight
of silver, equivalent to two Venice groats.  Also eight such weights of
silver count equal to one such weight of gold.

     They have brine wells in this country from which they make salt, and all
the people of those parts make a living by this salt.  The king, too, I can
assure you, gets a great revenue from this sale.

     There is a lake in this country of a good hundred miles in compass, in
which are found great quantities of the best fish in the world; fish of great
size, and of all sorts.

     They reckon it no matter for a man to have intimacy with another's wife,
provided the woman be willing.

     Let me tell you also that the people of that country eat their meat raw,
whether it be of mutton, beef, buffalo, poultry, or any other kind.  Thus the
poor people will go to the shambles, and take the raw liver as it comes from
the carcass and cut it small, and put it in a sauce of garlic and spices, and
so eat it; and other meat in like manner, raw, just as we eat meat that is
dressed.

     Now I will tell you about a further part of the province of Karajang, of
which I have been speaking.

Chapter XLIX

Concerning A Further Part Of The Province Of Karajang

     After leaving that city of Yachi of which I have been speaking, and
traveling ten days towards the west, you came to another capital city which
is still in the province of Karajang, and is itself called Karajang.  The
people are idolaters and subject to the great Khan; and the king is Hukaji,
who is a son of the great Khan.

     In this country gold dust is found in great quantities; that is to say
in the rivers and lakes, whilst in the mountains gold is also found in pieces
of larger size.  Gold is indeed so abundant that they give one saggio of gold
for only six of the same weight in silver.  And for small change they use
porcelain shells as I have mentioned before.  These are not found in the
country, however, but are brought from India.

     In this province are found snakes and great serpents of such vast size
as to strike fear into those who see them, and so hideous that the very
account of them must excite the wonder of those who hear it.  I will tell you
how long and big they are.

     You may be assured that some of them are ten paces in length; some are
more and some less.  And in bulk they are equal to a great cask, for the
bigger ones are about ten palms in girth.  They have two forelegs near the
head, but for foot nothing but a claw like the claw of a hawk or that of a
lion.  The head is very big, and the eyes are bigger than a great loaf of
bread.  The mouth is large enough to swallow a man whole, and is garnished
with great pointed teeth.  And in short they are so fierce looking and so
hideously ugly, that every man and beast must stand in fear and trembling of
them.  There are also smaller ones, such as of eight paces long, and of five,
and of one pace only.

     The way in which they are caught is this.  You must know that by day
they live underground because of the great heat, and in the night they go out
to feed, and devour every animal they can catch.  They go also to drink at
the rivers and lakes and springs.  And their weight is so great that when
they travel in search of food or drink, as they do by night, the tail makes
a great furrow in the soil as if a full tun of liquor had been dragged along.
Now the huntsmen who go after them take them by certain gin which they set in
the track over which the serpent has past, knowing that the beast will come
back the same way.  They plant a stake deep in the ground and fix on the head
of this a sharp blade of steel made like a razor or a lance point, and then
they cover the whole with sand so that the serpent cannot see it.  Indeed the
huntsman plants several such stakes and blades on the track.  On coming to
the spot the beast strikes against the iron blade with such force that it
enters his breast and rives him up to the navel, so that he dies on the spot
and the crows on seeing the brute dead begin to caw, and then the huntsmen
know that the serpent is dead and come in search of him.

     This then is the way these beasts are taken.  Those who take them
proceed to extract the gall from the inside, and this sells at a great price;
for you must know it furnishes the material for a most precious medicine.
Thus if a person is bitten by a mad dog, and they give him but a small penny-
weight of this medicine to drink, he is cured in a moment.  Again if a woman
is hard in labor they give her just such another dose and she is delivered at
once.  Yet again if one has any disease like the itch, or it may be worse,
and applies a small quantity of this gall he shall speedily be cured.  So you
see why it sells at such a high price.

     They also sell the flesh of this serpent, for it is excellent eating,
and the people are very fond of it.  And when these serpents are very hungry,
sometimes they will seek out the lairs of lions or bears or other large wild
beasts, and devour their cubs, without the sire and dam being able to prevent
it.  Indeed if they catch the big ones themselves they devour them too; they
can make no resistance.

     In this province also are bred large and excellent horses which are
taken to India for sale.  And you must know that the people dock two or three
joints of the tail from their horses, to prevent them from flipping their
riders, a thing which they consider very unseemly.  They ride long like
Frenchmen, and wear armour of boiled leather, and carry spears and shields
and crossbows, and all their arrows are poisoned.  And I was told as a fact
that many persons, especially those meditating mischief, constantly carry
this poison about with them, so that if by any chance they should be taken,
and be threatened with torture, to avoid this they swallow the poison and so
die speedily.  But princes who are aware of this keep ready dog's dung, which
they cause the criminal instantly to swallow, to make him vomit the poison.
And thus they manage to cure those scoundrels.

     I will tell you of a wicked thing they used to do before the great Khan
conquered them.  If it chanced that a man of fine person or noble birth, or
some other quality that recommended him, came to lodge with those people,
then they would murder him by poison, or otherwise.  And this they did, not
for the sake of plunder, but because they believed that in this way the
goodly favor and wisdom and repute of the murdered man would cleave to the
house where he was slain.  And in this manner many were murdered before the
country was conquered by the great Khan.  But since his conquest, some
thirty-five years ago, these crimes and this evil practice have prevailed no
more; and this through dread of the great Khan who will not permit such
things.

Chapter L

Concerning The Province Of Zardandan

     When you have left Karajang and have traveled five days westward, you
find a province called Zardandan.  The people are idolaters and subject to
the great Khan.  The capital city is called Wanchen.

     The people of this country all have their teeth gilt; or rather every
man covers his teeth with a sort of golden case made to fit them, both the
upper teeth and the under.  The men do this, but not the women. The men also
are wont to gird their arms and legs with bands or fillets pricked in black,
and it is done thus; they take five needles joined together, and with these
they prick the flesh till the blood comes, and then they rub in a certain
black coloring stuff, and this is perfectly indelible.  It is considered a
piece of elegance and the sign of gentility to have this black band.  The men
are all gentlemen in their fashion, and do nothing but go to the wars, or go
hunting and hawking.  The ladies do all the business, aided by the slaves who
have been taken in war.

     And when one of their wives has been delivered of a child, the infant is
washed and swathed, and then the woman gets up and goes about her household
affairs, while the husband takes to bed with the child by his side, and so
keeps his bed for forty days; and all the kith and kin come to visit him and
keep up a great festivity.  They do this because, say they, the woman has had
a hard bout of it, and it is but fair the man should have his share of
suffering.

     They eat all kinds of meat, both raw and cooked, and they eat rice with
their cooked meat as their fashion is.  Their drink is wine made of rice and
spices, and excellent it is.  Their money is gold, and for small change they
use pig shells.  And I can tell you they give one weight of gold for only
five of silver; for there is no silver mine within five months' journey.  And
this enduces merchants to go thither carrying a large supply of silver to
change among that people.  And as they have only five weights of silver to
give for one of fine gold, they make immense profits by their exchange
business in that country.

     These people have neither idols nor churches, but worship the progenitor
of their family, "for it is he," say they, "from whom we have all sprung."
They have no letters or writing; and it is no wonder, for the country is wild
and hard of access, full of great woods and mountains which it is impossible
to pass, the air in summer is so impure and bad; and any foreigners
attempting it would die for certain.  When these people have any business
transactions with one another, they take a piece of stick, round or square,
and split it, each taking half.  And on either half they cut two or three
notches.  And when the account is settled the debtor receives back the other
half of the stick from the creditor.

     And let me tell you that in all those three provinces that I have been
speaking of, to wit Karajang, Wanchen, and Yachi, there is never a leech.
But when any one is ill they send for their magicians, that is to say the
devil conjurors and those who are the keepers of the idols.  When these are
come the sick man tells what ails him, and then the conjurors incontinently
begin playing on their instruments and singing and dancing; and the conjurors
dance to such a pitch that at last one of them shall fall to the ground
lifeless, like a dead man.  And then the devil enters into his body.  And
when his comrades see him in this plight they begin to put questions to him
about the sick man's ailment.  And he will reply: "Such or such a spirit hath
been meddling with the man, for that he hath angered the spirit and done it
some despite." Then they say: "We pray thee to pardon him, and to take of his
blood or of his goods what thou wilt in consideration of thus restoring him
to health." And when they have so prayed, the malignant spirit that is in the
body of the prostrate man will mayhap answer: "The sick man has also done
great despite to such another spirit, and that one is so ill disposed that it
will not pardon him on any account"; - this at least is the answer they get,
an the patient be like to die.  But if he is to get better the answer will be
that they are to bring two sheep, or maybe three; and to brew ten or twelve
jars of drink, very costly and abundantly spiced.  Moreover, it shall be
announced that the sheep must be all black faced, or some other particular
color as it may be; and then all those things are to be offered in sacrifice
to such and such a spirit whose name is given.  And they are to bring so many
conjurors, and so many ladies, and the business is to be done with a great
singing of lauds, and with many lights, and store of good perfumes.  That is
the sort of answer they get if the patient is to get well.  And then the
kinsfolk of the sick man go and procure all that has been commanded, and do
as has been bidden, and the conjuror who had uttered all that gets on his
legs again.

     So they fetch the sheep of the color prescribed, and slaughter them, and
sprinkle the blood over such places as have been enjoined, in honor and
propitiation of the spirit.  And the conjurors come, and the ladies, in the
number that was ordered, and when they all are assembled and everything is
ready they begin to dance and play and sing in honor of the spirit.  And they
take fleshbroth and drink and lignaloes, and a great number of lights, and go
about thither and hither, scattering the broth and the drink and the meat
also.  And when they have done this for a while, again shall one of the
conjurors fall flat and wallow there foaming at the mouth, and then the
others will ask if he has yet pardoned the sick man?  And sometimes he shall
answer yea!  and sometimes he shall answer no!  And if the answer be no, they
shall be told that something or other has to be done all over again, and then
he will be pardoned; so this they do.  And when all that the spirit has
commanded has been done with great ceremony, then it shall be announced that
the man is pardoned and shall be speedily cured.  So when they at length
receive such a reply, they announce that it is all made up with the spirit,
and that he is propitiated, and they fall to eating and drinking with great
joy and mirth, and he who had been lying lifeless on the ground gets up and
takes his share.  So when they have all eaten and drank, every man departs
home.  And presently the sick man gets sound and well.

     Now that I have told you of the customs and naughty ways of that people,
we will have done talking of them and their province, and I will tell you
about others, all in regular order and succession.