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| The Book of Ser Marco Polo : vol.2 |
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Citation Information
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MARCO POLO -4.
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markets were held, there were two great Palaces facing one another, in which were established the officers who decided differences between merchants, etc. The double lines represent streets, and the $ are gates.
NOTE 4.--There is no mention of pork, the characteristic animal food of China, and the only one specified by Friar Odoric in his account of the same city. Probably Mark may have got a little Saracenized among the Mahomedans at the Kaan's Court, and doubted if 'twere good manners to mention it. It is perhaps a relic of the same feeling, gendered by Saracen rule, that in Sicily pigs are called i neri.
" The larger game, red-deer and fallow-deer, is now never seen for sale. Ilogdeer, wild-swine, pheasants, water-fowl, and every description of ` vermin ' and small birds, are exposed for sale, not now in markets, but at the retail wine shops. Wild-cats, racoons, otters, badgers, kites, owls, etc., etc., festoon the shop fronts along with game." (Mottle.)
NOTE 5.—Van Braam, in passing through Shan-tung Province, speaks of very large pears. "The colour is a beautiful golden yellow. Before it is pared the pear is somewhat hard, but in eating it the juice flows, the pulp melts, and the taste is pleasant enough." Williams says these Shan-tung pears are largely exported, but he is not so complimentary to them as Polo : " The pears are large and juicy, sometimes weighing 8 or Io pounds, but remarkably tasteless and coarse." ( V. Brawn, II. 33-34 ; Mid. Kingd., I. 78 and II. 44). In the beginning of 1867 I saw pears in Covent Garden Market which I should guess to have weighed 7 or 8 lbs. each. They were priced at i8 guineas a dozen !
E" Large pears are nowadays produced in Shan-tung and Manchuria, but they are rather tasteless and coarse. I am inclined to suppose that Polo's large pears were Chinese quinces, Cydonia chine;zsis, Thouin, this fruit being of enormous size, sometimes one foot long, and very fragrant. The Chinese use it for sweet-meats." (Bretsclzneider, Hist. of Bet. Disc. I. p. 2.)—H. C.]
As regards the " yellow and white " peaches, Marsden supposes the former to be apricots. Two kinds of peach, correctly so described, are indeed common in Sicily, where I write ;—and both are, in their raw state, equally good food for i neri ! But I see Mr. Moule also identifies the yellow peach with " the hwang-nzei or clingstone apricot," as he knows no yellow peach in China.
NOTE 6.—" E non vegono mai l'ora the di nuovo possano ritornarvi ; " a curious Italian idiom. (See Vocab. It. Univ., sub. v. "vedere".)
NOTE 7.—It would seem that the habits of the Chinese in reference to the use of pepper and such spices have changed. Besides this passage, implying that their consumption of pepper was large, Marco tells us below (eh. lxxxii.) that for one shipload of pepper carried to Alexandria for the consumption of Christendom, a hundred went to Zayton in Manzi. At the present day, according to Williams, the Chinese use little spice ; pepper chiefly as a febrifuge in the shape of pepper-tea, and that even less than they did some years ago. (See p. 239, infra, and Mid. Kingd., II. 46, 408.) On this, however, Mr. Moule observes : " Pepper is not so completely relegated to the doctors. A month or two ago, passing a portable cookshop in the city, I heard a girl - purchaser cry to the cook, ' Be sure you put in pepper and leeks !' "
NOTE 8.—Marsden, after referring to the ingenious frauds commonly related of Chinese traders, observes : " In the long continued intercourse that has subsisted between the agents of the European companies and the more eminent of the Chinese merchants . . . . complaints on the ground of commercial unfairness have been extremely rare, and on the contrary, their transactions have been marked with the most perfect good faith and mutual confidence." Mr. Consul Medhurst bears similar strong testimony to the upright dealings of Chinese merchants. His remark that, as a rule, he has found that the Chinese deteriorate by intimacy with foreigners
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