Marco Polo
translation: Henry Yule, Henri Cordier

THE TRAVELS OF MARCO POLO
Volume II.
complete book, e-book

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CHAPTER XLVIII.

CONCERNING THE PROVINCE OF CARAJAN.

When you have passed that River you enter on the province of CARAJAN, which is so large that it includes seven kingdoms. It lies towards the west; the people are Idolaters, and they are subject to the Great Kaan. A son of his, however, is there as King of the country, by name ESSENTIMUR; a very great and rich and puissant Prince; and he well and justly rules his dominion, for he is a wise man, and a valiant.

After leaving the river that I spoke of, you go five days' journey towards the west, meeting with numerous towns and villages. The country is one in which excellent horses are bred, and the people live by cattle and agriculture. They have a language of their own which is passing hard to understand. At the end of those five days' journey you come to the capital, which is called YACHI, a very great and noble city, in which are numerous merchants and craftsmen.[NOTE 1]

The people are of sundry kinds, for there are not only Saracens and Idolaters, but also a few Nestorian Christians.[NOTE 2] They have wheat and rice in plenty. Howbeit they never eat wheaten bread, because in that country it is unwholesome.[NOTE 3] Rice they eat, and make of it sundry messes, besides a kind of drink which is very clear and good, and makes a man drunk just as wine does.

Their money is such as I will tell you. They use for the purpose certain white porcelain shells that are found in the sea, such as are sometimes put on dogs' collars; and 80 of these porcelain shells pass for a single weight of silver, equivalent to two Venice groats, i.e. 24 piccoli. Also eight such weights of silver count equal to one such weight of gold. [NOTE 4]

They have brine-wells in this country from which they make salt, and all the people of those parts make a living by this salt. The King, too, I can assure you, gets a great revenue from this salt.[NOTE 5]

There is a lake in this country of a good hundred miles in compass, in which are found great quantities of the best fish in the world; fish of great size, and of all sorts.

They reckon it no matter for a man to have intimacy with another's wife, provided the woman be willing.

Let me tell you also that the people of that country eat their meat raw, whether it be of mutton, beef, buffalo, poultry, or any other kind. Thus the poor people will go to the shambles, and take the raw liver as it comes from the carcase and cut it small, and put it in a sauce of garlic and spices, and so eat it; and other meat in like manner, raw, just as we eat meat that is dressed.[NOTE 6]

Now I will tell you about a further part of the Province of Carajan, of which I have been speaking.

NOTE 1.—We have now arrived at the great province of CARAJAN, the KARÁJÁNG of the Mongols, which we know to be YUN-NAN, and at its capital YACHI, which—I was about to add—we know to be (...)

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