CONCERNING THE NOBLE CITY OF SINJUMATU.
On leaving Tadinfu you travel three days towards the south, always finding
numbers of noble and populous towns and villages flourishing with trade
and manufactures. There is also abundance of game in the country, and
everything in profusion.
When you have travelled those three days you come to the noble city of
SINJUMATU, a rich and fine place, with great trade and manufactures. The
people are Idolaters and subjects of the Great Kaan, and have paper-money,
and they have a river which I can assure you brings them great gain, and I
will tell you about it.
You see the river in question flows from the South to this city of
Sinjumatu. And the people of the city have divided this larger river in
two, making one half of it flow east and the other half flow west; that is
to say, the one branch flows towards Manzi and the other towards Cathay.
And it is a fact that the number of vessels at this city is what no one
would believe without seeing them. The quantity of merchandize also which
these vessels transport to Manzi and Cathay is something marvellous; and
then they return loaded with other merchandize, so that the amount of
goods borne to and fro on those two rivers is quite astonishing.[NOTE 1]
NOTE 1. - Friar Odoric, proceeding by water northward to Cambaluc about
1324-1325, says:
