The cocks and hens of China are very big, bigger in fact than our geese. The hen's egg also there is bigger than our goose eggs ; whilst their goose on the other hand is a very small one. I one day bought a hen which I wanted to boil, but one pot would not hold it, and I was obliged to take two ! As for the cocks in China they are as big as ostriches ! Sometimes one sheds his feathers and then the great red object is a sight to see ! The first time in my life that I saw a China cock was in the city of Kaulam. I had at first taken it for an ostrich, and I was looking at it with great wonder, when the owner said to me, "Pooh ! there are cocks in China much bigger than that!" and when I got there I found he had said no more than the truth.
The Chinese are infidels and idolaters, and they burn their dead after the manner of Hindus.' Their king is a Tartar of the family of Tankiz Khan.N In each of their cities a special quarter is assigned to the Mahomedans, where these latter dwell by themselves, and have their mosques for prayer, and for Friday and other services. They are treated with consideration and respect. The flesh of swine and dogs is eaten by the Chinese pagans, and it is sold publicly in their markets. They are generally well-to-do opulent people, but they are not sufficiently particular either in dress or diet. You will see one of their great merchants, the ` owner of uncountable treasure, going about in a dirty cotton frock.3 The Chinese taste is entirely for the accumulation of gold and silver plate.
chin in the province of Kiangsi. I have no account of the manufacture, such as enables me to trace the basis of anything here related by Ibn. Batuta, but it looks like crude gossip ; as if he had heard of the porcelain clay of China, and of the Coal of China, and had, like one of Dickens's illustrious characters, " combined the information."
1 This has already been noticed at p. 247. Though no longer the practise, we see by Marco Polo and other authors that it was formerly very general in some parts of China.
2 So Ibn Batuta always calls Chinghiz ; I know not why.
3 " The great sin of the Chinese costume is the paucity of white linen and consequently of washing" (Davis's Chinese).
IIIFカラー高解像度
