I Have Heard From Mariners And Skilful Pilots, Much Versant In The Indian
Seas, And Have Seen In Their Writings, That These Seas Contain 12,700
Islands, Inhabited Or Desert.
In the Greater India, which is between Moabar or the Coromandel coast on
the east, round to Chesmacoran on the north-west, there are thirteen
kingdoms.
India Minor is from Ziambo to Murfili[5], in which are eight
kingdoms and many islands.
The second or Middle India is called Abascia[6], of which the chief king is
a Christian, who has six other kings subject to his authority, three of
whom are Christians and three of them Mahometans; there are also Jews in
his dominions. St Thomas, after preaching in Nubia, came to Abascia, where
he preached for some time, and then went to Moabar or Coromandel. The
Abyssinians are valiant soldiers, always at war with the sultan of Aden and
the people of Nubia. I was told, that in 1288, the great emperor of the
Abyssinians was extremely desirous to have visited Jerusalem; but being
dissuaded from the attempt, on account of the Saracen kingdoms which were
in the way, he sent a pious bishop to perform his devotions for him at the
holy sepulchre. On his return, the bishop was made prisoner by the sultan
of Aden, and circumcised by force. On this affront, the Abyssinian monarch
raised an army, with which he defeated the sultan and two other Saracen
kings, and took and destroyed the city of Aden. Abyssinia is, rich in gold.
Escier, subject to Aden, is forty miles distant to the south-east, and
produces abundance of fine white frankincense, which is procured by making
incisions in the bark of certain small trees, and is a valuable
merchandize. Some of the people on that coast, from want of corn, use fish,
which they have in great abundance, instead of bread, and also feed their
beasts on fish. They are most abundantly taken in the months of March,
April, and May.
I now return to some provinces more to the north, where many Tartars dwell,
who have a king called Caidu, of the race of Zingis, but who is entirely
independent. These Tartars, observant of the customs of their ancestors,
dwell not in cities, castles, or fortresses, but continually roam about,
along with their king, in the plains and forests, and are esteemed true
Tartars. They have no corn of any kind, but have multitudes of horses,
cattle, sheep, and other beasts, and live on flesh and milk, in great
peace. In their country there are white bears of large size, twenty palms
in length; very large wild asses, little beasts called rondes, from which
we have the valuable fur called sables, and various other animals producing
fine furs, which the Tartars are very skilful in taking. This country
abounds in great lakes, which are frozen over, except for a few months in
every year, and in summer it is hardly possible to travel, on account of
marshes and waters; for which reason, the merchants who go to buy furs, and
who have to travel for fourteen days through the desert, have wooden houses
at the end of each days journey, where they barter with the inhabitants,
and in winter they travel in sledges without wheels, quite flat at the
bottom, and rising semicircularly at the top, and these are drawn by great
dogs, yoked in couples, the sledgeman only with his merchant and furs,
sitting within[7].
Beyond these Tartars is a country reaching to the extremest north, called
the Obscure land, because the sun never appears during the greatest part
of the winter months, and the air is perpetually thick and darkish, as is
the case with us sometimes in hazy mornings. The inhabitants are pale and
squat, and live like beasts, without law, religion, or king. The Tartars
often rob them of their cattle during the dark months; and lest they might
lose their way in these expeditions they ride on mares which have sucking
foals, leaving these at the entrance of the country, under a guard; and
when they have got possession of any booty, they give the reins to the
mares, which make the best of their way to rejoin their foals. In their,
long-continued summer[8], these northern people take many of the finest
furs, some of which are carried into Russia, which is a great country near
that northern land of darkness. The people in Russia have fair complexions,
and are Greek Christians, paying tribute to the king of the Tartars in the
west, on whom they border. In the eastern parts of Russia there is
abundance of fine furs, wax, and mines of silver; and I am told the country
reaches to the northern ocean, in which there are islands which abound in
falcons and ger-falcons.
[1] This concluding section may be considered as a kind of appendix, in
which Marco has placed several unconnected hearsay notices of
countries where he never had been personally. - E.
[2] Mandeigascar in the Trevigi edition, and certainly meant for
Madagascar. - E.
[3] Madagascar has no pretensions to riches or trade, and never had; so
that Marco must have been imposed upon by some Saracen or Arab
mariner. Its size, climate, and soil certainly fit it for becoming a
place of vast riches and population; but it is one almost continued
forest, inhabited by numerous independent and hostile tribes of
barbarians. Of this island, a minute account will appear in an after
part of this work. - E.
[4] There are no elephants in Madagascar, yet these teeth might have been
procured from southern Africa. - E.
[5] By India Minor he obviously means what is usually called farther India,
or India beyond the Ganges, from the frontiers of China to Moabar, or
the north part of the Coromandel coast, including the islands. - E.
[6] Abyssinia, here taken in the most extended sense, including all the
western coast of the Red Sea, and Eastern Africa.
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