When They Go Into The Fields, They Shave To The
Ears, And Paint Their Faces With Azure.
All their soldiers serve on foot,
except the captains, who are on horseback, and their arms are swords and
lances.
They are very cruel, and when they kill an enemy, they immediately
drink his blood, and afterwards eat his flesh.
After six days journey is Quelinfu, a great city with three bridges, each
of which is eight paces broad, and above an hundred paces long. The men are
great merchants and manufacturers, and the women are fair and delicately
shaped. The country produces plenty of ginger and galingal, and great
abundance of silk and cotton. I was told, but saw them not, that they have
hens without feathers, hairy like cats, which yet lay eggs, and are good to
eat[16]. In this part of the country there are many lions, which make the
ways very dangerous. After three days journey, we arrive in a populous
country inhabited by idolaters, who make great quantities of silk stuffs.
The chief city is Unguem, near which abundance of sugar is produced, and
sent from thence to Cambalu. Before the reduction of this country by the
great Khan, the inhabitants of this country could only manufacture a bad
kind of sugar, by boiling down the juice of the cane into a black paste;
but certain inhabitants from Babylonia, taught them refine it by means of
the ashes of a certain tree[17]. Fifteen miles farther is the city of
Cangiu, still in the province of Concha, and here the Khan has always an
army in readiness for keeping the country under subjection.
Enter page number
PreviousNext
Page 587 of 810
Words from 160679 to 160954
of 222093
