Marco Polo
translation: Henry Yule, Henri Cordier

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

Nové Literární doupě!

Literární doupě bylo modernizováno a přechází pod novou doménu literdo.com!.

Nový web LD vám přínáší ještě více knih s možností výhodného stahování většího množství e-knih podle vlastního výběru (tedy nejen jednotlivých knih nebo balíčků podle autorů) ve formátech ePub , PDF  a MOBI.

 Přejít na nový web Literární doupě

 

CHAPTER LXIV.

CONCERNING THE CITY OF SIJU, AND THE GREAT RIVER CARAMORAN.

When you leave Piju you travel towards the south for two days, through beautiful districts abounding in everything, and in which you find quantities of all kinds of game. At the end of those two days you reach the city of SIJU, a great, rich, and noble city, flourishing with trade and manufactures. The people are Idolaters, burn their dead, use paper-money, and are subjects of the Great Kaan. They possess extensive and fertile plains producing abundance of wheat and other grain.[NOTE 1] But there is nothing else to mention, so let us proceed and tell you of the countries further on.

On leaving Siju you ride south for three days, constantly falling in with fine towns and villages and hamlets and farms, with their cultivated lands. There is plenty of wheat and other corn, and of game also; and the people are all Idolaters and subjects of the Great Kaan.

At the end of those three days you reach the great river CARAMORAN, which flows hither from Prester John's country. It is a great river, and more than a mile in width, and so deep that great ships can navigate it. It abounds in fish, and very big ones too. You must know that in this river there are some 15,000 vessels, all belonging to the Great Kaan, and kept to transport his troops to the Indian Isles whenever there may be occasion; for the sea is only one day distant from the place we are speaking of. And each of these vessels, taking one with another, will require 20 mariners, and will carry 15 horses with the men belonging to them, and their provisions, arms, and equipments.[NOTE 2]

Hither and thither, on either bank of the river, stands a town; the one facing the other. The one is called COIGANJU and the other CAIJU; the former is a large place, and the latter a little one. And when you pass this river you enter the great province of MANZI. So now I must tell you how this province of Manzi was conquered by the Great Kaan.[NOTE 3]

NOTE 1.—SIJU can scarcely be other than Su-t'sien (Sootsin of Keith Johnston's map) as Murray and Pauthier have said. The latter states that one of the old names of the place was Si-chau, which corresponds to that given by Marco. Biot does not give this name.

The town stands on the flat alluvial of the Hwang-Ho, and is approached by high embanked roads. (Astley, III. 524-525.)

[Sir J.F. Davis writes: "From Sootsien Hien to the point of junction with the Yellow River, a length of about fifty miles, that great stream and the canal run nearly parallel with each other, at an average distance of four or five miles, and sometimes much nearer." (Sketches of China, I. p. 265.)—H.C.]

[Illustration: Sketch Map, exhibiting the VARIATIONS of the TWO GREAT
RIVERS OF CHINA Within the Period of History]

NOTE 2.—We have again arrived on the banks of the Hwang-Ho, which was (...)

(......)