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
—1
THE DESCRIPTION OF THE WORLDS THE ISLAND OF SCOTRA • I 89.
there. to buy it, and specially the ambergris; • & they make great profit from these fish. • And those R P V
of this island they have no king nor temporal lord except a bishop' who again is subject L
to the court of the archbishop of another island which is named Scotra. And they have a VA FB ~
language for themselves. And you may know that it is about thirty miles from
this island to that where their wives stay. And for this reason they do not stay
all the year with their wives according to what they say, because they could not live if z
they were to stay with them all the year. And their children which are born their
mothers nourish in their island,2 & if it is a girl then the mother keeps her there • till she FB VB
is of the age to be married, & then at the season marries her to one of the men of the island.
Yet it is true that as soon as they are weaned and the male child has fourteen3 years, y
so soon does his mother send him to his father [hod] in their island. And this is
the custom and the usage of these two islands as you have heard. Yet it is true
that their wives do nothing else but nourish their children, for the men supply them FB FB
with what they need. • Whcn the men conic to the wonicns islands they sow grain, and then the z
women cultivate and reap it; and the women also gather any fruit, which they have of many z z
kinds in that island. Now we have told you all the affair of this matter. There is
nothing else which does to mention and so we will depart from these two islands
and proceeding farther will tell you of the island of Scotra. z
HERE HE TELLS OF THE ISLAND OF SCOTRA. When one sets out from these • 190
two islands aforesaid. which arc called Male & Female and goes about 500 z FB
miles over the sea toward midday then one finds the island of Scotra. G •
And you may know that all those of this island are again baptized Christians and VB TA
have an archbishop in this island. • And ambergris is produced there in great quantity. VA V
And it is found in the belly of the whale fish and in the capdoille;4 now they are the two largest z
fishes which are in the sea. And we will tell you the way in which the whale is caught in those parts. They have much of the tunny fish which they catch for the reason written below alone. The tunny is very fat, and they cut it into pieces and place it in large vases or jars and put in salt and make much brine. This done there will be perhaps twelve who will take a small ship and, putting on board this fish with all the brine or salt broth of the fish, will go out to sea. And then they will have some remnants of torn pieces or of other cast off things, and they will soak these leavings tied in a bundle in the aforesaid brine which will be very fat, and afterwards they will throw them into the water; and they will be tied to the little ship with a rope. Then they will boise sail and will go all day wandering through the high sea hither and
1 L: archiepiscopum
2 Z: suis insuilis and see just below.
3 Z,VB,R: "twelve" G: "thirteen"
4 Sperm whale or cachalot.
VL: "seven"
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