When you have travelled those 20 days westward through the mountains, as I
have told you, then you arrive at a plain belonging to a province called
Sindafu, which still is on the confines of Manzi, and the capital city of
which is (also) called SINDAFU. This city was in former days a rich and
noble one, and the Kings who reigned there were very great and wealthy. It
is a good twenty miles in compass, but it is divided in the way that I
shall tell you.
You see the King of this Province, in the days of old, when he found
himself drawing near to death, leaving three sons behind him, commanded
that the city should be divided into three parts, and that each of his
three sons should have one. So each of these three parts is separately
walled about, though all three are surrounded by the common wall of the
city. Each of the three sons was King, having his own part of the city, and
his own share of the kingdom, and each of them in fact was a great and
wealthy King. But the Great Kaan conquered the kingdom of these three
Kings, and stripped them of their inheritance.[NOTE 1]
Through the midst of this great city runs a large river, in which they
catch a great quantity of fish. It is a good half mile wide, and very deep
withal, and so long that it reaches all the way to the Ocean Sea, - a very
long way, equal to 80 or 100 days' journey. And the name of the River is
KIAN-SUY. The multitude of vessels that navigate this river is so vast,
that no one who should read or hear the tale would believe it. The
quantities of merchandize also which merchants carry up and down this river
are past all belief. In fact, it is so big, that it seems to be a Sea
rather than a River![NOTE 2]
Let us now speak of a great Bridge which crosses this River within the
city. This bridge is of stone; it is seven paces in width and half a mile
in length (the river being that much in width as I told you); and all
along its length on either side there are columns of marble to bear the
roof, for the bridge is roofed over from end to end with timber, and that
all richly painted. And on this bridge there are houses in which a great
deal of trade and industry is carried on. But these houses are all of wood
merely, and they are put up in the morning and taken down in the evening.
Also there stands upon the bridge the Great Kaan's Comercque, that
is to say, his custom-house, where his toll and tax are levied.[NOTE 3]
And I can tell you that the dues taken on this bridge bring to the Lord a
thousand pieces of fine gold every day and more.
