And Albeit, That The Others Be Departed From Him After
That They Have Performed Their Service, Yet There Abideth
Continually
With him in court 50,000 men at horse and 200,000 men a
foot, without minstrels and those that
Keep wild beasts and divers
birds, of the which I have told you the number before.
Under the firmament is not so great a lord, ne so mighty, ne so
rich as is the great Chan; not Prester John, that is emperor of the
high Ind, ne the Soldan of Babylon, ne the Emperor of Persia. All
these ne be not in comparison to the great Chan, neither of might,
ne of noblesse, ne of royalty, ne of riches; for in all these he
passeth all earthly princes. Wherefore it is great harm that he
believeth not faithfully in God. And natheles he will gladly hear
speak of God. And he suffereth well that Christian men dwell in
his lordship, and that men of his faith be made Christian men if
they will, throughout all his country; for he defendeth no man to
hold no law other than him liketh.
In that country some men hath an hundred wives, some sixty, some
more, some less. And they take the next of their kin to their
wives, save only that they out-take their mothers, their daughters,
and their sisters of the mother's side; but their sisters on the
father's side of another woman they may well take, and their
brothers' wives also after their death, and their step-mothers also
in the same wise.
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