IIIF Color HighRes
National Institute of Informatics - Digital Silk Road Project
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| IIIF Color HighRes |
| Marco Polo : vol.1 |
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Citation Information
THE DESCRIPTION OF THE WORLD, FROM BELOR TO CASCAR many rivers and many desert places . Nor in all these forty days marches is there VA dwelling nor inn,' nor even food, but the travellers are obliged to carry food which v FB they need with them. And this country is called Belor. And the people live as it were y z scattered in the very high mountains, and they are idolaters and very savage, and y they live by nothing else but only by the chase of animals. And their clothes also are z v FB of the skins of those beasts which they catch, and they are mighty cruel and evil people. LT VA VA [22a] Now let us leave this country and we will tell you of the province of Cascar.
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ERE HE TELLS OF THE KINGDOM OF CASCAR. Cascar was formerly (as is said) R
a kingdom by itself, but now it is subject to the rule of the great Kaan. • VB z z
And the people of it worship Mahomet; and in this province there are towns v V V
and villages enough, & the largest city & the most noble is Cascar; and they are also
between tramontaine,2 the Greek wind, and sunrising. Much cloth and merchandise come LT FB
there ..And in this city they live by trade and by crafts and specially by working in cotton. • y z
And they have very beautiful gardens and vines and beautiful closes of fruit trees. • v LT
The land is fertile and productive of all sorts of necessaries for life, because the place is temperate. z v
And cotton grows there in plenty and flax and hemp & many other things. And from L
this country go out many merchants who go through all the world doing trade.
And they are in truth very mean people there and miserly, for they eat ill and drink TA Z Z
more ill. And in this country aforesaid • beside the Mahometans live some Turks who are R z R z
Nestorian Christians who have their churches and their religion, who observe the z y
Greek rule; • and they are mixed & dwell with the inhabitants, as the Jews in these parts do VB
with Christians. And the people of the province have a tongue for themselves.'
And this province lasts five days journeys. Now let us leave you this country and v
we will talk to you of Samarcan.
HERE HE TELLS OF THE GREAT CITY OF SAMARCAN. Samarcan is a very great city and noble in that region, • where are very beautiful gardens and a plain P R full of all the fruits which a man can wish. The people of it are Christians V and worshippers of Mahomet whom they call Saracens. And they belong to the nephew P VA of the great Kaan & are under the domain of the great Kaan; and he is not his friend v
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erbaiges FA,FB: herbage VA: erba P: herbas VL: herbe R: herba TA': aberghagione TA3: alberghi LT: hospicium Z, V, L omit.
2 The many places where north is substituted for east or for north-east in LT or P have not all been noted when they are not supported by other texts, but this time LT has added the north: tramontanam grecum et leuantem.
3 TA,LT,VB omitting "the people of the province" make this remark apply to the Christians, and may possibly be right. FA, FB, VA, V follow F exactly. Z,R omit the sentence. L inserts it earlier after "worship Mahomet".
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