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0052 Cathay and the Way Thither : vol.2
Cathay and the Way Thither : vol.2 / Page 52 (Color Image)

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doi: 10.20676/00000042
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292   NOTICES OF THE LAND ROUTE TO CATHAY, ETC.

no obligation, only if he does take one he will be kept much more comfortably than if he does not take one. Howbeit, if he do take one, it will be well that she be acquainted with the Cumanian tongue as well as the men.'

And from Tana travelling to Gittarchan you should take with you twenty-five days' provisions, that is to say, flour and salt fish, for as to meat you will find enough of it at all the places along the road. And so also at all the chief stations noted in going from one country to another in the route, according to the number of days set down above, you should furnish yourself with flour and salt fish ; other things you will find in sufficiency, and especially meat.

The road you travel from Tana to Cathay is perfectly safe, whether by day or by night, according to what the merchants say who have used it. Only if the merchant, in going or coming, should die upon the road, everything belonging to him will become the perquisite of the lord of the country in which he dies, and the officers of the lord will take possession of a11.2 And in like manner if he die in Cathay. But if his brother be with him, or an intimate friend and comrade calling himself his brother, then to such an one they will surrender the property of the deceased, and so it will be rescued.

And there is another danger : this is when the lord of the country dies, and before the new lord who is to have the lordship is proclaimed ; during such intervals there have sometimes been irregularities practised on the Franks, and other foreigners. (Tey call Franks all the Christians of these parts from Romania westward) .3 And neither will the

1 The Cumanian was apparently a Turkish dialect.

2 This custom seems to have prevailed very generally (see Sto. Stephano in India in the Fifteenth Century, p. 7). It was also the law of Lesser

Armenia unless a subject of the kingdom was left heir (J. As., ser. v, tom. xviii, 346).

8 Romania means Greece, or nearly so. By Giov. da Uzzano the Morea and the isle of Scio are both spoken of as belonging to Romania (pp. 89