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| IIIF Color HighRes |
| The Book of Ser Marco Polo : vol.2 |
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Citation Information
CHAP. LXXVI. THE GREAT CITY OF KINSAY
185
of VUGHIN ; and, in that supposition, IIu-chau must be considered the object of a digression from which the Traveller returns and takes up his route to Hang-chau via Wukiang. A iahizzg would then best answer to Cia,zz; Jz, or Caingan, as it is written in the following chapter of the G.T.
CHAPTER LXXVI.
DESCRIPTION OF THE GREAT CITY OF KINSAY, WHICH IS THE CAPITAL OF THE WHOLE COUNTRY OF MANZI.
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WHEN you have left the city of Changan and have tra-
velled for three days through a splendid country, passing
a number of towns and villages, you arrive at the most
noble city of KINSAY, a name which is as much as to say
in our tongue " The City of Heaven," as I told you
before.'
And since we have got thither I will enter into parti-
culars about its magnificence ; and these are well worth
the telling, for the city is beyond dispute the finest and
the noblest in the world. I n this we shall speak according
to the written statement which the Queen of this Realm
sent to Bayan the conqueror of the country for trans-
mission to the Great Kaan, in order that he might be
aware of the surpassing grandeur of the city and might
be moved to save it from destruction or injury. I will
tell you all the truth as it was set down in that .document.
For truth it was, as the said Messer Marco Polo at a
later date was able to witness with his own eyes. And
now we shall rehearse those particulars.
First and foremost, then, the document stated the city
of Kinsay to be so great that it hath an hundred miles of
compass. And there are in it twelve thousand bridges
of stone, for the most part so lofty that a great fleet
could pass beneath them. And let no man marvel that
there are so many bridges, for you see the whole city
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