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 WORLDS THE FLOUR FROM TREES • z 7 0•
a kind of trees which are very thick and large and old, •which make flour which is very VB FB
good to eat. And these trees are all full of flour inside. For you may know that these
trees have very thin bark and their wood round about is perhaps three fingers thick, and all z
the pith found inside the wood is flour which is like the dust of the timber worm, [and] z vii VB VB
the pith is like the pith of sambuk.' • And those trees are as thick as two men could embrace z
round. And this four• they take from those trees, and it • is put in • things like • tubs full of hater VB z VB z
and is stirred into the water with a stick; then the chaff and husks float to the top of the water • and vB
are thrown away •and the pure flour sinks to the bottom. This done the water is let out and the z
clean flour is left in a lump at the bottom, and then it is made up • into dough with water. VB
And they make of it many cakes of dough which are very good to eat and other VB
eatables of theirs, as we do of wheat four. For I the said Master Marc Pol who saw all this FB
tell you that we ourselves tried them sufficiently, for we often ate them. And I took VB
some of this flour to Venese with pie. And the bread of that flour is like barley bread and of
that taste. •But the wood of this sort of trees is equal in weight to iron, and thrown into water z
sinks like iron. This wood might be split from top to bottom straight by line like a reed cane,
for when the tree is emptied of flour the wood, as has been said, remains perhaps three inches
thick. Those people make of this wood lances, short and not long, because if they were long rione
could carry them, not to say use them, on account of the too great heaviness of the wood. They
sharpen the lances themselves at the end and then burn the point a little at the fire; and these
lances so prepared surpass any iron lances in piercing any kind of armour. • There is nothing FB
else which does to tell. Now we have told you of this kingdom which is one of the parts of z
this isle and of these six kingdoms which are on this side of this isle. And we will FB
tell you nothing at present of the other two kingdoms on the other side, because we r. FB
were not there at all, and therefore we will leave telling you it then since we have FB FB
indeed told and described the greater part of this Lesser isle of Java, and will tell you of the FB
two little islands, of a very small island which is called Gauenispola2 and the other FB
Necuveran • by name. z
HERE HE TELLS OF THE ISLAND OF NECUVERAN. When one sets out from • 171
the Lesser isle cf Java of which I have told you and from the kingdom of FB FB Lambri and he goes by tramontaine about 150 miles, then one finds •
two islands which, the one is called Necuveran, of which I wish to speak, • and the VB VA
other Angaman.3 And in this island they have no king nor any lord, and the people of it FB Z
are like wild beasts. And I tell you that they all go naked both males and women TA
and cover themselves with nothing whatever in the world. They use carnally together vL
1 The words "[and] ... sambuk" are not in VW' cf. B. p. 175.
2 Z: necuueran (p. lxviii)
3 FB: que len appelle gauenispola et necoram
377
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