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0434 The Book of Ser Marco Polo : vol.2
The Book of Ser Marco Polo : vol.2 / Page 434 (Color Image)

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doi: 10.20676/00000269
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one of the rivers it will be boiled, before you have had time to go any distance, by the mere heat of the sun!
The merchants from Manzi, and from Arabia, and from the Levant come thither with their ships and their merchandise and make great profits both by what they import and by what they export.
There are in this country many and divers beasts quite different from those of other parts of the world. Thus there are lions black all over, with no mixture of any other colour; and there are parrots of many sorts, for some are white as snow with red beak and feet, and some are red, and some are blue, forming the most charming sight in the world; there are green ones too. There are also some parrots of exceeding small size, beautiful creatures.⁵ They have also very beautiful peacocks, larger than ours, and different; and they have cocks and hens quite different from ours; and what more shall I say? In short, everything they have is different from ours, and finer and better. Neither is their fruit like ours, nor their beasts, nor their birds; and this difference all comes of the excessive heat.
Corn they have none but rice. So also their wine they make from [palm-] sugar; capital drink it is, and very speedily it makes a man drunk. All other necessities of man's life they have in great plenty and cheapness. They have very good astrologers and physicians. Man and woman, they are all black, and go naked, all save a fine cloth worn about the middle. They look not on any sin of the flesh as a sin. They marry their cousins german, and a man takes his brother's wife after the brother's death; and all the people of India have this custom.⁶
There is no more to tell you there; so we will proceed, and I will tell you of another country called Comari.