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| The Book of Ser Marco Polo : vol.2 |
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Citation Information
226
BOOK II.
MARCO POLO
it,
t.
must know they have a kind of fowls which have no
feathers, but hair only, like a cat's fur.' They are black
all over ; they lay eggs just like our fowls, and are very
good to eat.
In the other three days of the six that I have men-
tioned above,? you continue to meet with many towns
and villages, with traders, and goods for sale, and
craftsmen. The people have much silk, and are
Idolaters, and subject to the Great Kaan. There is
plenty of game of all kinds, and there are great and
fierce lions which attack travellers. In the last of those
three days' journey, when you have gone i 5 miles
you find a city called UNKEN, where there is an immense
quantity of sugar made. From this city the Great
Kaan gets all the sugar for the use of his Court, a
quantity worth a great amount of money. [And before
this city came under the Great Kaan these people knew
not how to make fine sugar ; they only used to boil and
skim the juice, which when cold left a black paste. But
after they came under the Great Kaan some men of
Babylonia who happened to be at the Court proceeded
to this city and taught the people to refine the sugar
with the ashes of certain trees.8]
There is no more to say of the place, so now we shall
speak of the splendour of Fu j u. When you have gone
15 miles from the city of Unken, you come to this noble
city which is the capital of the kingdom. So we will
now tell you what we know of it.
NOTE 1.—The vague description does not suggest the root turmeric with which Marsden and Pauthier identify this " fruit like saffron." It is probably one of the species of Gardenia, the fruits of which are used by the Chinese for their colouring properties. Their splendid yellow colour " is due to a body named crocine which appears to be identical with the polychroite of saffron." (Hanbury's Notes on Chinese Mat. Medica, pp. 21-22.) For this identification, I am indebted to Dr. Flückiger of Bern. E' ` Colonel Yule concludes that the fruit of a Gardenia, which yields a yellow colour, is meant. But Polo's vague description might just as well agree with the Bastard Saffron, Carthanzus tinctorius, a plant introduced into China from Western
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