To Give You An Example Of The Vast Consumption In This City Let Us Take
The Article Of Pepper; And That Will Enable You In Some Measure To
Estimate What Must Be The Quantity Of Victual, Such As Meat, Wine,
Groceries, Which Have To Be Provided For The General Consumption.
Now
Messer Marco heard it stated by one of the Great Kaan's officers of
customs that the quantity of pepper introduced daily for consumption into
the city of Kinsay amounted to 43 loads, each load being equal to 223 lbs.
[NOTE 7]
The houses of the citizens are well built and elaborately finished; and
the delight they take in decoration, in painting and in architecture,
leads them to spend in this way sums of money that would astonish you.
The natives of the city are men of peaceful character, both from education
and from the example of their kings, whose disposition was the same. They
know nothing of handling arms, and keep none in their houses. You hear of
no feuds or noisy quarrels or dissensions of any kind among them. Both in
their commercial dealings and in their manufactures they are thoroughly
honest and truthful, and there is such a degree of good will and
neighbourly attachment among both men and women that you would take the
people who live in the same street to be all one family.[NOTE 8]
And this familiar intimacy is free from all jealousy or suspicion of the
conduct of their women. These they treat with the greatest respect, and a
man who should presume to make loose proposals to a married woman would be
regarded as an infamous rascal.
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