National Institute of Informatics - Digital Silk Road Project
| |||||||||
|
The Book of Ser Marco Polo : vol.2 |
204 MARCO POLO BOOK II.
how, on every market-day, all those squares are thronged
and crammed with purchasers, and with the traders who
have brought in stores of provisions by land or water ;
and everything they bring in is disposed of.
To give you an example of the vast consumption in
this city let us take the article of yelper; and that will
enable you in some measure to estimate what must be
the quantity of victual, such as meat, wine, groceries,
which have to be provided for the general consumption.
Now Messer Marco heard it stated by one of the Great
Kaan's officers of customs that the quantity of pepper
introduced daily for consumption into the city of Kinsay
amounted to 43 loads, each load being equal to 223 lbs.7
The houses of the citizens are well built and elabor-
ately finished ; and the delight they take in decoration,
in painting and in architecture, leads them to spend in
this way sums of money that would astonish you.
The natives of the city are men of peaceful character,
both from education and from the example of their kings,
whose disposition was the same. They know nothing of
handling arms, and keep none in their houses. You
hear of no feuds or noisy quarrels or dissensions of any
kind among them. Both in their commercial dealings
and in their manufactures they are thoroughly honest and
truthful, and there is such a degree of good will and
neighbourly attachment among both men and women
that you would take the people who live in the same
street to be all one family.'
And this familiar intimacy is free from all jealousy or
suspicion of the conduct of their women. These they
treat with the greatest respect, and a man who
should presume to make loose proposals to a married
woman would be regarded as an infamous rascal. They
also treat the foreigners who visit them for the sake of
trade with great cordiality, and entertain them in the
|
Copyright (C) 2003-2019 National Institute of Informatics and The Toyo Bunko. All Rights Reserved.