No 3.
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No. 1. Plan of a Fang or Square.
No. 2. Plan of a Fang or Square in the South of the Imperial City
of Si-ngan fu.
No. 3. Arrangement of Two-Fang Square, with four streets and 8 gates.
a. The Market place.
b. The Official Establishment.
c. Office for regulating Weights.
Compare Polo's statement that in each of the squares at Kinsay, where the
markets were held, there were two great Palaces facing one another, in
which were established the officers who decided differences between
merchants, etc.
The double lines represent streets, and the ++ are gates.
NOTE 4. - There is no mention of pork, the characteristic animal food of
China, and the only one specified by Friar Odoric in his account of the
same city. Probably Mark may have got a little Saracenized among the
Mahomedans at the Kaan's Court, and doubted if 'twere good manners to
mention it. It is perhaps a relic of the same feeling, gendered by Saracen
rule, that in Sicily pigs are called i neri.
"The larger game, red-deer and fallow-deer, is now never seen for sale.
Hog-deer, wild-swine, pheasants, water-fowl, and every description of
'vermin' and small birds, are exposed for sale, not now in markets, but at
the retail wine shops. Wild-cats, racoons, otters, badgers, kites, owls,
etc., etc., festoon the shop fronts along with game." (Moule.)
NOTE 5. - Van Braam, in passing through Shan-tung Province, speaks of very
large pears. "The colour is a beautiful golden yellow. Before it is pared
the pear is somewhat hard, but in eating it the juice flows, the pulp
melts, and the taste is pleasant enough." Williams says these Shan-tung
pears are largely exported, but he is not so complimentary to them as
Polo: "The pears are large and juicy, sometimes weighing 8 or 10 pounds,
but remarkably tasteless and coarse." (V. Braam, II. 33-34; Mid.
Kingd., I. 78 and II. 44). In the beginning of 1867 I saw pears in Covent
Garden Market which I should guess to have weighed 7 or 8 lbs. each. They
were priced at 18 guineas a dozen!
["Large pears are nowadays produced in Shan-tung and Manchuria, but they
are rather tasteless and coarse. I am inclined to suppose that Polo's
large pears were Chinese quinces, Cydonia chinensis, Thouin, this fruit
being of enormous size, sometimes one foot long, and very fragrant. The
Chinese use it for sweet-meats." (Bretschneider, Hist. of Bot. Disc. I.
p. 2.) - H.C.]
As regards the "yellow and white" peaches, Marsden supposes the former to
be apricots. Two kinds of peach, correctly so described, are indeed common
in Sicily, where I write; - and both are, in their raw state, equally good
food for i neri! But I see Mr. Moule also identifies the yellow peach
with "the hwang-mei or clingstone apricot," as he knows no yellow peach
in China.
NOTE 6. - "E non veggono mai l'ora che di nuovo possano ritornarvi;" a
curious Italian idiom.
