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.
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