The Book of Ser Marco Polo : vol.1 / Page 406 (Color Image)

0406	The Book of Ser Marco Polo : vol.1

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BOOK I.

MARCO POLO

salt-fish (tunny, to wit) and onions, and this kind of diet

they maintain in order to preserve their health.2

Their ships are wretched affairs, and many of them

get lost ; for they have no iron fastenings, and are only

stitched together with twine made from the husk of the

Indian nut. They beat this husk until it becomes like

horse-hair, and from that they spin twine, and with this

stitch the planks of the ships together. It keeps well,

and is not corroded by the sea-water, but it will not stand

well in a storm. The ships are not pitched, but are

rubbed with fish-oil. They have one mast, one sail, and

one rudder, and have no deck, but only a cover spread

over the cargo when loaded. This cover consists of

hides, and on the top of these hides they put the horses

which they take to India for sale. They have no iron

to make nails of, and for this reason they use only

wooden trenails in their shipbuilding, and then stitch

the planks with twine as I have told you. Hence 'tis a

perilous business to go a voyage in one of those ships,

and many of them are lost, for in that Sea of India the

storms are often terrible.'

The people are black, and are worshippers of

Mahommet. The residents avoid living in the cities,

for the heat in summer is so great that it would kill

them. Hence they go out (to sleep) at their gardens in

the country, where there are streams and plenty of

water. For all that they would not escape but for one

thing that I will mention. The fact is, you see, that in

summer a wind often blows across the sands which en-

compass the plain, so intolerably hot that it would kill

everybody, were it not that when they Perceive that

wind coming they plunge into water up to the neck, and

so abide until the wind have ceased.' [And to prove

the great heat of this wind, Messer Mark related a case

that befell when he was there. The Lord of Hormos,

not having paid his tribute to the King of Kerman the

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