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The Book of Ser Marco Polo : vol.2 |
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markets were held, there were two great Palaces facing one another, in which were
established the officers who decided differences between merchants, etc.
The double lines represent streets, and the ‡ are gates.
Note 4.—There is no mention of pork, the characteristic animal food of China,
and the only one specified by Friar Odoric in his account of the same city. Prob-
ably Mark may have got a little Saracenized among the Mahonedans at the Kaan's
Court, and doubted if 'twere good manners to mention it. It is perhaps a relic of
the same feeling, gendered by Saracen rule, that in Sicily pigs are called i neri.
"The larger game, red-deer and fallow-deer, is now never seen for sale. Hog-
deer, wild-swine, pheasants, water-fowl, and every description of 'vermin' and small
birds, are exposed for sale, not now in markets, but at the retail wine shops.
Wild-cats, racoons, otters, badgers, kites, owls, etc., etc., festoon the shop fronts
along with game." (Moule.)
Note 5.—Van Braam, in passing through Shan-tung Province, speaks of very
large pears. "The colour is a beautiful golden yellow. Before it is pared the pear
is somewhat hard, but in eating it the juice flows, the pulp melts, and the taste is
pleasant enough." Williams says these Shan-tung pears are largely exported, but he
is not so complimentary to them as Polo: "The pears are large and juicy, some-
times weighing 8 or 10 pounds, but remarkably tasteless and coarse." (V. Braam,
II. 33-34; Mid. Kingd., I. 78 and II. 44.) In the beginning of 1867 I saw pears
in Covent Garden Market which I should guess to have weighed 7 or 8 lbs. each.
They were priced at 18 guineas a dozen!
["Large pears are nowadays produced in Shan-tung and Manchuria, but they
are rather tasteless and coarse. I am inclined to suppose that Polo's large pears
were Chinese quinces, Cydonia chinensis, Thouin, this fruit being of enormous size,
sometimes one foot long, and very fragrant. The Chinese use it for sweet-meats."
(Bretschneider, Hist. of Bot. Disc. I. p. 2.)—H. C.]
As regards the "yellow and white" peaches, Marsden supposes the former to be
apricots. Two kinds of peach, correctly so described, are indeed common in Sicily,
where I write;—and both are, in their raw state, equally good food for i neri! But
I see Mr. Moule also identifies the yellow peach with "the hwang-mei or clingstone
apricot," as he knows no yellow peach in China.
Note 6.—"E non veggono mai l'ora che di nuovo possano ritornavi;" a curious
Italian idiom. (See Vocab. It. Univ., sub. v. "cedere".)
Note 7.—It would seem that the habits of the Chinese in reference to the use of
pepper and such spices have changed. Besides this passage, implying that their
consumption of pepper was large, Marco tells us below (ch. lxxxii.) that for one ship-
load of pepper carried to Alexandria for the consumption of Christendom, a hundred
went to Zayton in Manzi. At the present day, according to Williams, the Chinese
use little spice; pepper chiefly as a febrifuge in the shape of pepper-tea, and that
even less than they did some years ago. (See p. 239, infra, and Mid. Kingd., II. 46,
408.) On this, however, Mr. Moule observes: "Pepper is not so completely
relegated to the doctors. A month or two ago, passing a portable cookshop in the
city, I heard a girl-purchaser cry to the cook, 'Be sure you put in pepper and
leeks!'"
Note 8.—Marsden, after referring to the ingenious frauds commonly related of
Chinese traders, observes: "In the long continued intercourse that has subsisted
between the agents of the European companies and the more eminent of the Chinese
merchants . . . . complaints on the ground of commercial unfairness have been
extremely rare, and on the contrary, their transactions have been marked with the
most perfect good faith and mutual confidence." Mr. Consul Medhurst bears
similar strong testimony to the upright dealings of Chinese merchants. His remark
that, as a rule, he has found that the Chinese deteriorate by intimacy with foreigners
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731
732
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