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, OF PEM AND OF CIARCIAN ' 5 5.
HERE HE TELLS OF THE PROVINCE OF PEM. Pem is a small province which TA is five days marches long between sunrising and the Greek wind. And v the people of that province worship Mahomet and belong likewise to the LT P great Kaan. And there are towns and villages enough under it, and the most noble V VB
city in all this province, which is head of the realm, is called Pem. There is a river y
running through it where precious stones are found which one calls jasper and chalcedony z LT
in great plenty. They have in the province .great abundance of all necessary things. And y z VB Z v
again there grows cotton enough. And they live for the more part by trade and by v vB
crafts. And again I tell you that they of that province have such a custom as I shall VA LT
tell you. For when a woman has a husband and it happens that he leaves her to go z
on a journey to another place. and does not know where he must go, and provided that he z VA
must stay away from twenty or thirty' days upwards, the woman who stays at home, VL VA
as soon as her husband is set out from home to go on a journey, she takes another v z
husband till his return . And this by their local erroneous usage she can well do f she VL P z
wishes. And likewise the men [23a] wherever they go may f they wish to do so take z VA
wives also. And you may know that all these provinces which I have told you from
Cascar to here, that is Cascar, Cotan, Peril, and yet others in front' as far as the city R R
of Lop, • all belong to the great Turquie. Now let us leave you this province, and we FB V
will tell you of another province which is called Ciarcian. FB
HERE HE BEGINS OF THE PROVINCE OF CIARCIAN. Ciarcian is a large province TA • 56
of the great Turquie and between the Greek wind and sunrising. VA Formerly it was a noble country and fertile, but is much laid waste by the Tartars. z The people of that province worship Mahomet and have a language for themselves. And FB VL
there are towns and villages enough under it; and the master city & head of the VB L
whole realm is also called Ciarcian. And there also are many large rivers which bring much v FB VB Z R R
jasper and chalcedony, which precious stones the merchants they carry to sell to Catai VA
and have great profit from them, for they have plenty of them and very good. VA
And almost all this province is sandy; and from Cotan to Pem it is also sandy, and VB
from Pem here it is still sandy, and for this reason there are many bad and bitter FB
waters; and yet again there are in several places sweet waters and good. And when L V
the summer conies, when it happens that an army of Tartars, as well friends as enemies, R
passes through the country of Ciarcian, • if they are enemies they carry off all their goods, P R
and if they are friends they kill and eat all their cattle. And therefore, provided that they
1 S: 15 or 3o or more or less
2 encore alara auant FA, FB: et de cí en auant B. prints oltre
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