In These Ships, The Tartars
Sailed To A Principal City Of Zipangu, Into Which They Were Admitted
Without Any Suspicion, Finding Hardly Any Within Its Walls Except Women,
The Men Being All Absent On The Expedition Into The Uninhabited Island.
The
Zipanguers collected a new fleet and army to besiege the city, and the
Tartars receiving no succour, were constrained to surrender, after a
defence of six months, on terms by which their lives were spared.
This
happened in the year 1264[5]. For the bad conduct of the two commanders,
the great khan ordered one to be beheaded, and sent the other to the desert
island of Zerga, in which malefactors are punished, by sewing them up in
the new flayed hide of a buffalo, which shrinks so much in drying, as to
put them to exquisite torture, and brings them to a miserable death.
The idols in Zipangu and the adjoining islands are strangely made, some
having the head of a bull, others of a hog, or a dog, and in other most
monstrous fashions. Some have heads with four faces, others three heads on
one neck, while some have faces on their shoulders. Some have four arms,
others ten, or even an hundred arms; and that idol is reputed the most
powerful, and is held in greatest reverence, which has the greatest number.
When asked the reason of making their idols in such distorted and
ridiculous forms, they answer that such is the custom which has been handed
down from their ancestors. It is reported of these islanders, that they eat
such of their enemies as they take prisoners; esteeming human flesh a
peculiar dainty. The sea in which Zipangu lies is called the sea of Chi
or Chin, or the sea over against Mangi, which is called Chan or
Chint, in the language of that island. This sea is so large, that
mariners who have frequented it, say it contains seven thousand four
hundred and forty islands, most of them inhabited; and that in ail those
islands there is no tree which is not odoriferous, or does not bear fruit,
or is not useful in some other respects. In them likewise there are great
abundance of spices of various kinds, especially black arid white pepper,
and lignum aloes[6]. The ships of Zaitum are a whole year on their voyage
to and from Zipangu, going there during the winter, and returning again in
summer, as there are two particular winds which regularly prevail in these
seasons. Zipangu is far distant from India. But I will now leave Zipangu,
because I never was there, as it is not subject to the khan, and shall now
return to Zaitum and the voyage from thence to India.
[1] In this passage, in the edition of Harris, the sense seems obscurely to
insinuate that this had been occasioned by the sea having broken down
or overwhelmed certain lands or islands, producing numbers of smaller
islands and extensive shoals. - E.
[2] Zipangu, Zipangri, or Cimpagu, is Japan without any doubt.
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