Travels Of Marco Polo: Eighty Five

There are within the city ten market places, besides which numberless shops run along the streets.  These squares are each half a mile in length, and have in front of the main street, forty paces wide, and reaching in a straight line from one end of the city to the other.  Thus they are altogether two miles in circuit, and four miles distant from each other.  The street is crossed by many low and convenient bridges.  Parallel to it, but upon the opposite side to the squares, is a very large canal, and on its bank, capacious warehouses, built of stones, to accommodate the merchants from India and other countries, and receive their goods; this situation being chosen as convenient with regard to market squares.  Each of these, on three days every week contains an assemblage of 40000 to 50000 persons, who bring for sale every desirable article of provisions.  There appears abundance of all kinds of game- roebucks, stags, fallow deer, hares and rabbits, partridges, pheasants, francolins, quails, common fowls, capons, ducks, and geese almost innumerable; these last being so easily bred on the lake, that for a Venetian silver grosso you may buy a couple of geese and two pairs of ducks. In the same place are also shambles, where cattles as oxen, calves, kids, and lambs, are killed for the tables of rich and of magistrates.

These markets afford at all seasons a great variety of herbs and fruits; in particular, uncommonly large pears, weighing each ten pounds, white in the inside like paste, and very fragrant.  The peaches also, both yellow and white, are in their season of delicious flavour.  Grapes are not cultivated, but very good ones are brought dried from their districts.  Wine is not esteemed by the natives, who are accustomed to their own liquor, prepared from rice and various spices.  From the sea, twenty five miles distant, a vast supply of fish is conveyed on the river; and lake also  contains abundance, the taking of which affords constant employment to numerous fishermen.  The species vary according to season and the offal carried tither from the city renders them large and rich.  In short, the quantity in the market is so immense, that you would think it impossible to find purchasers, but in a few hours it is all disposed of, so many inhabitants are there who can afford to indulge in such luxuries.  They eat fish and flesh at one meal.  Each of the ten squares is surrounded with lofty dwelling houses, the lower part being.made into shops, where manufactures of every kind are carried on and imported articles are sold, as spices, drugs, toys, and pearls.  In some shops is only country wine is kept, which is constantly made fresh, and served at moderate price. In several streets connected with the squares are numerous baths, attended by servants of both sexes to perform functions of ablution for male and female visitors, who from their childhood are accustomed to bathe in the cold water, as being highly conducive to health.  How too are apartments provided with warm water for the use of strangers, who cannot endure cold water.  All are in the daily habit of washing their persons, before meals.

In other streets reside females of bad character, in good numbers; and they appear not only in the squares appropriated for them, but in other quarters too, highly dressed and perfumed.  They are perfectly skilled in art of seduction, which they can adapt to persons of every description, so strangers who have once yielded to them are bewitched, and can never get rid of the impression.  Intoxicated with these unlawful pleasures, they long to revisit these ladies.  In other streets reside physicians and astrologers, who also teach reading and writing, along with many other arts.  On opposite side of the squares are two large edifices, where officers appointed by his majesty promptly decide any differences that arise between foreign merchants and inhabitants.  They are bound to oversee that the guards are duly stationed on the neighbouring bridges.

On each side of the principal street, reaching accross the whole city, are large houses and mansions with gardens; and in the vicinity are the abode and shops of artisans.  At all hours you observe multitude of people passing forward and backward on their various avocations, that it might seem impossible to supply them with food. Every market-day the squares are 

with people and covered with provisions brought in for sale by carts and boats.  To give some idea of the quantity of meat, wine and spices, and other articles brought for consumption of the people of Kinsai, I shall instance the single article of pepper.  Marco Polo was informed by an officer employed in the customs, that the daily amount was forty three loads, weighing 243 pounds.

The houses of citizens are well built, and richly adorned with carving, in which, as well as in painting and ornamental buildings, they take great delight, and lavish enormous amount.  Their natural disposition is pacific and the example of their unwarlike kings.  They keep no arms in their houses, and are unacquainted with their use.  Their mercantile transactions are conducted in upright and honourable way.  They behave in friendly manner to each other, so that the inhabitants of the same neighborhood appear like one family.  In their domestic relations, they show no jealousy, or suspicions of their wives, but treat them with great respect.  Anyone would be held as infamous that should address indecent expressions to married women.  They behave cordially to strangers, who visit the city for commercial purposes, hospitably entertain them and afford their best assistance in their business.  On the other hand they hate the very sight of soldiers, even the guards of great Khan; recollecting their role in deprivation of their native sovereigns.

On the lake above mentioned are a number of pleasure barges, of twenty paces long, of broad bottom, that moves steadily on the water; and capable of conveying ten to twenty travellers. They are provided with cabins having seats and tables inside. These boats are used for water excursions and provide a long view of either shores of the lake.  Citizens can hire them.  The main street is paved with stone and brick to the width of ten paces, and gravels are spread on both sides beyond ten paces.  The roads are provided with drainage.

The palace had a wall.  The inner court and the outer court of the palace is seperated by a passage. It had six paces width.  There are ten courts on each side with separate entrances, and each court has fifty private rooms, gardens attached; the residence of a thousand young females, whom the king maintained in his service.  In the company of either his queen or the party of those ladies he used to seek amusement on the lake, visiting the idol temples on its banks. The other two portions of this harem were laid out in groves, water bodies, beautiful orchards, or enclosures for animals suited for chase as deers and rabbits.  Here too the king amused himself: his damsels accompanying him in carriages or on horseback. No men were allowed to be the part of them. But females are skilled in chasing and hunting.  When tired, they retire into the groves on the margin of the lake, undress, and rush into the water, the king witnessing as the naked females swim.  All these entertainment of the king were related to me by a rich merchant of Kinsai. The merchant was very old, and had been the confidential servant of king Facfur.

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1. Reference of bad character is an indoctrinated view of the author based on the concept of chastity and virginity of women.

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