The Travels Of Marco Polo

By Author: kitty
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Upon leaving Vagiu you pass, in the course of three days' journey, many towns, castles, and villages, all of them well inhabited and opulent1. At the end of three days you reach the noble and magnificent city of Kin-sai, a name that signifies "the celestial city". There are within the city ten principal squares or market -places, besides iBnumerabjjeshops along the streets. Each side of these squares is half a mile in length p"M front of2 them is the main street, forty paces in width, and running in a direcf line from one extremity of the city to the other. There is an abundant quantify of game of all kinds, such as roebucks, Omega Replica stags, fallow deer, hares, and rabbits, togethsa: with partridges, pheasants3, francolins, quails, common fowls, capons, and such numbers of ducks and geese as can scarcely be expressed.

At all seasons there is in the markets a great variety of herbs and fruits, and espec pears of an extraordinary size, weighing ten pounds each, that are white in the inside, like paste, and have a very fragrant smell. ...
... There are peaches also, in their season, both of the yellow and the white kind, and of a delicious flavour. From the sea, which is fifteen miles distant, there is daily brought up the river, to the city, a vast quantity of fish; and in the lake also there is abundance, which gives employment at all times to persons whose sole occupation it is to catch them.

On each side of the principal street, there are houses and mansions of great size, with their gardens, and near to these, the dwellings of the artisans, who work in shops, at their several trades. The inhabitants of the city use paper money as currency. The men as well as the women have fair complexions, and are handsome. The greater part of them are always clothed in silk, in consequence of the vast quantity of that material produced in the territory of Kin -sai. They are friendly towards each other, and persons who inhabit the same street, both men and wq^nen, from the mere circumstance of neighborhoods, appear like one family. In their aomestic manners they are free from jealousy4 or suspicion of their wives, to whom great respect is shown, and any man would be accounted infamous who should presume to use indecent expressions to a married woman. To strangers also, who visit their city in the way of commerce3, they give proofs of cordiality6, inviting them freely to their houses, showing them hospitable attention, and furnishing them with the best advice and assistance in their mercantile transactions.

At the distance of twenty -five miles from this city, in a direction to the northward of east, lies the sea, near to which is a town named Ganpu, where there is an extremely fine port, frequented by all the ships that bring merchandise from India. We went slipping silently Patek Philippe Replica along, between the green and fragrant banks, with a beautiful proses sense of pleasure and contentment that grew, and grew, all the time. Sometimes the banks were overhung with thick masses of willows that wholly hid the ground behind; sometimes we had noble hills on one hand, clothed densely with foliage5 to their tops, and on the other hand open levels blazing with poppies, or clothed in the rich blue of the corn-flower; sometimes we drifted in the shadow of forests, and sometimes along the margin of long stretches of velvety grass, fresh and green and bright, a tireless charm to the eye. And the birds! — they were everywhere; they swept back and forth across the river constantly, and their jubilant music was never stilled.

It was a deep and satisfying pleasure to see the sun create the new morning, and gradually, patiently, lovingly, clothe it on with splendor after splendor, and glory after glory, till the miracle was complete. How different is this marvel observed from a raft, from what it is when one observes it through the dingy windows of a railway-station in some wretched village while he munches6 a petrified sandwich and waits for the train.