These Pigmies Are Only Three Spans In Height, Yet They Manufacture
Larger And Better Cloths Of Cotton And Silk, Than Any Other People.
Passing
that river, I came to the city of Janzu, in which there is a house for the
friars of our order, and there are also three churches belonging to the
Nestorians.
This Janzu is a great and noble city, having forty-eight tomans
of tributary fires, and abounds in all manner of victuals, flesh, fish, and
fowl. The lord of this city has fifty tomans of balis in yearly revenue
from salt alone; and as every bali is worth a florin and a half of our
money, one toman is worth 15,000 florins, and the salt revenue of this city
is 750,000 florins. This lord has been known to forgive 200 tomans of
arrears at one time to his people, or three millions of florins, lest they
should be reduced to distress. There is a strange fashion in this city,
when any one inclines to give a banquet to his friends: He goes about to
certain taverns or cooks shops, informing each of the landlords, that such
and such of his friends are to come there for entertainment in his name,
and that he will allow a certain sum for the banquet. By this means his
friends are better entertained in divers places, than if all had been
collected into one. Ten miles from the city of Janzu, and at the mouth of
the river Thalay, there is another city named Montu, which has a greater
number of ships than I ever saw in any part of the world.
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