All These Nations Are
Poor; Yet They Must All Betake Themselves To Some Employment, As Zingis
Established A Law That None Was To Be Free From Service Till So Old As To
Be Unable For Work.
I was inquisitive about the monstrous men of whom Isidore and Solinus make
mention; but no one had ever seen any such, and I therefore doubt whether
it be true.
Once a priest of Kathay sat by me, clothed in red, of whom I
asked how that colour was procured. He told me that on certain high; craggy
rocks in the east of Kathay there dwelt certain creatures like men, not
above a cubit long, and all hairy, who leapt rather than walked, and dwelt
in inaccessible caves. That those who go to hunt them carry strong drink,
which they leave in holes of the rocks, and then hide themselves. These
little creatures come out from their holes, and having tasted the drink,
call out chin-chin, on which multitudes gather together, and drink till
they are drunk, and fall asleep. Then the hunters come and bind them, after
which they draw a few drops of blood from the veins of the neck of each of
these creatures, and let them go free; and this blood is the most precious
purple dye. He told me, likewise, that there is a province beyond Kathay,
into which, if a man enters, he always continues of the same age at which
he entered; but this I do not believe[4].
Kathay is on the ocean, and I was told by the French goldsmith at
Caracarum, that there is a people or nation called Tante and Manse,
inhabiting certain islands, the sea around which is frozen in winter, so
that the Tartars might invade them; but they sent messengers to the great
khan, offering a tribute of 2000 tuemen or jascots yearly, to permit them
to live in peace[5]. A tuemen, toman, or jascot, is a piece of money equal
to ten marks.
The ordinary money of Kathay is of paper made like pasteboard, the breadth
and length of a hand, on which lines are printed, like the seal of Mangu.
They write with a pencil like that used by our painters, and in one figure
they comprehend many letters, forming one word[6]. The people of Thibet
write as we do, and their characters are very like our own. Those of Tangut
write from right to left, like the Arabs, and multiply their lines
ascending; while the Jugurs write in descending columns. The common money
of the Rutenians or Russians, consists in spotted or grizzled furs.
When our Quinquagesima came, which is the Lent time of all the people of
the east, the lady Cota fasted all that week, and came every day to our
oratory, giving meat to the priests and other Christians, of whom a great
company came daily to attend the service. But the porters of the court,
seeing such multitudes come daily to our chapel, which was within the
precincts of the court, sent one to tell the monk, that they would not
allow such multitudes to come within their bounds; to this the monk made a
sharp reply, and threatened to accuse them to the khan; but they prevented
him, and lodged a complaint before Mangu, that the monk was too full of
words, and gathered too great a multitude to hear him speak.
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