Marco Polo
translation: Henry Yule, Henri Cordier

THE TRAVELS OF MARCO POLO
Volume I.
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CHAPTER XXXI.

OF THE PROVINCE OF KESHIMUR.

Keshimur also is a Province inhabited by a people who are Idolaters and have a language of their own.[NOTE 1] They have an astonishing acquaintance with the devilries of enchantment; insomuch that they make their idols to speak. They can also by their sorceries bring on changes of weather and produce darkness, and do a number of things so extraordinary that no one without seeing them would believe them.[NOTE 2] Indeed, this country is the very original source from which Idolatry has spread abroad.[NOTE 3]

In this direction you can proceed further till you come to the Sea of
India.

The men are brown and lean, but the women, taking them as brunettes, are very beautiful. The food of the people is flesh, and milk, and rice. The clime is finely tempered, being neither very hot nor very cold. There are numbers of towns and villages in the country, but also forests and desert tracts, and strong passes, so that the people have no fear of anybody, and keep their independence, with a king of their own to rule and do justice.[NOTE 4]

There are in this country Eremites (after the fashion of those parts), who dwell in seclusion and practise great abstinence in eating and drinking. They observe strict chastity, and keep from all sins forbidden in their law, so that they are regarded by their own folk as very holy persons. They live to a very great age.[NOTE 5]

There are also a number of idolatrous abbeys and monasteries. [The people of the province do not kill animals nor spill blood; so if they want to eat meat they get the Saracens who dwell among them to play the butcher.[NOTE 6]] The coral which is carried from our parts of the world has a better sale there than in any other country.[NOTE 7]

[Illustration: Ancient Buddhist Temple at Pandrethan in Káshmir]

Now we will quit this country, and not go any further in the same direction; for if we did so we should enter India; and that I do not wish to do at present. For, on our return journey, I mean to tell you about India: all in regular order. Let us go back therefore to Badashan, for we cannot otherwise proceed on our journey.

NOTE 1.—I apprehend that in this chapter Marco represents Buddhism (which is to be understood by his expression Idolatry, not always, but usually) as in a position of greater life and prosperity than we can believe it to have enjoyed in Káshmir at the end of the 13th century, and I suppose that his knowledge of it was derived in great part from tales of the Mongol and Tibetan Buddhists about its past glories.

I know not if the spelling Kesciemur represents any peculiar Mongol pronunciation of the name. Plano Carpini, probably the first modern European to mention this celebrated region, calls it Casmir (p. 708).

"The Cashmeerians," says Abu'l Fazl, "have a language of their own, but their books are (...)

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