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
,r1
III
I I
Í
~;I
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155. THE BRIDGES OF QUENLINFU & SILKY FOWLS ,MARCO POLO
z carry lances and swords and are the most cruel men that may be found in the world, z for I tell you that they go all day killing men and when they are killed, first they z drink the blood, and then they all eat them. And they are always eager about this z to go to kill men to drink the blood and afterwards to eat the flesh. Now we will z leave you this and will tell you of another thing. For you may know that at the end of the third days march of the six of which I have told you above one finds the z z city by the name of Quenlinfu, which is a very great city and noble, whose people worship
V idols and are responsible to the city of Fugiu, and they are subject to the rule of the great FB P Kaan, and have money of notes. This city is set on a river; it has three bridges of the
L z LA greatest and most beautiful and of the best to be found in the world, which are founded on one side in the walls of the city.' For they are quite one mile long and quite nine paces P VA wide,' and they are all of stone and adorned above with beautiful pillars of marble. They are so beautiful and so wonderful that they would need a great treasure to z make one. The people, they live by trading and by crafts. They have silk enough R which they weave into different sorts of cloth. Ginger and galingale grow there in plenty. z So much cotton cloth of twisted' thread is made there that it is to be had in the whole province z P z R of Mangi. They have very fair men and ladies in this city. and they live very delicately. And again there is a strange thing which does well to mention. For I tell you R that I was told (but I did not see them) that there are hens which have no feathers but P R VL R have hairs on the head and skins with black hair like cats, and are quite black (fat, • so P that it is a strange thing to see them. They make excellent eggs too like those of our VA country, and are very good [fob] to eat.' There are many lions, on account of which it R is very dangerous to pass through those regions • unless people go in great numbers. There is no other thing which does to mention and so we will set out and will go forward.
I tell you moreover that in the other three days journeys, that is of the six days
FB R journeys of which I have told you above, one sees and finds again many cities and many villages where there are merchants and merchandise enough and craftsmen. They
z have silk enough and are idolaters and subject to the great Kaan. They have also chase and hunting enough. There are large and fierce lions which do much harm to
1 G : di c.zu beydin endin . . .
2 FB,Z,L,VA,P,G: "eight" For the length, the MSS. vary between one mile and 10o
paces. VL says " ` four bridges". 3 R: tinto
4 Odoric says of these silky hens : Galline vero suet albe ut nix non habentes pennas sed solum lanarn sunt portantes ut pecus. cf. A. Van den WYNGAERT Sinica Franciscana I., 1929, p. 461. Though silkies are usually white, a black variety is known, and in any case the Chinese call them wu ku chi, "black boned fowls", or even wu chi, "black fowls". cf. The New China Review III, 1921, pp. 2.13-2A5.
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