I will suppose, therefore, in spite of geographical skepticism, that Kinsai fell very little short of the magnitude which the Chinese, not Marco Polo, attributed to it. The city was nearly surrounded by water, having on one side a great river, and on the other side a lake, while innumerable canals, intersecting it in all directions, rendered the very streets navigable, as it were, like those of Venice, and floated away all filth into the channel of the river. Twelve thousand bridges, great and small, were thrown over these canals, beneath which barks, boats, and barges, bearing a numerous aquatic population, continually passed to and fro; while horsemen dashed along, and chariots rolled from street to street, above. Three days in every week the peasantry from all the country round poured into the city, to the number of forty or fifty thousand, bringing in the productions of the earth, with cattle, fowls, game, and every species of provision necessary for the subsistence of so mighty a population. Though provisions were so cheap, however, that two geese, or four ducks, might be purchased for a Venetian groat, the poor were reduced to so miserable a state of wretchedness that they gladly devoured the flesh of the most unclean animals, and every species of disgusting offal. The markets were supplied with an abundance of most kinds of fruit, among which a pear of peculiar fragrance, and white and gold peaches, were the most exquisite. Raisins and wine were imported from other provinces; but from the ocean, which was no more than twenty-five miles distant, so great a profusion of fish was brought, that, at first sight, it seemed as if it could never be consumed, though it all disappeared in a few hours.
Around the immense market-places were the shops of the jewellers and spice-merchants; and in the adjoining streets were numerous hot and cold baths, with all the apparatus which belong to those establishments in eastern countries. These places, as the inhabitants bathed every day, were well frequented, and the attendants accustomed to the business from their childhood exceedingly skilful in the performance of their duties. A trait which marks the voluptuous temperament of the Chinese occurs in the account of this city. An incredible number of courtesans, splendidly attired, perfumed, and living with a large establishment of servants in spacious and magnificent houses, were found at Kinsai; and, like their sisters in ancient Greece, were skilled in all those arts which captivate and enslave enervated minds. The tradesmen possessed great wealth, and appeared in their shops sumptuously dressed in silks, in addition to which their wives adorned themselves with costly jewels. Their houses were well built, and contained pictures and other ornaments of immense value. In their dealings they were remarkable for their integrity, and great suavity and decorum appeared in their manners. Notwithstanding the gentleness of their disposition, however, their hatred of their Mongol conquerors, who had deprived them of their independence and the more congenial rule of their native princes, was not to be disguised.
All the streets were paved with stone, while the centre was macadamized, a mark of civilization not yet to be found in Paris, or many other European capitals, any more than the cleanliness which accompanied it. Hackney-coaches with silk cushions, public gardens, and shady walks were among the luxuries of the people of Kinsai; while, as Mr. Kerr very sensibly remarks, the delights of European capitals were processions of monks among perpetual dunghills in narrow crooked lanes. Still, in the midst of all this wealth and luxury, poverty and tremendous suffering existed, compelling parents to sell their children, and when no buyers appeared, to expose them to death. Twenty thousand infants thus deserted were annually snatched from destruction by the Emperor Fanfur, and maintained and educated until they could provide for themselves.
Marco Polo’s opportunities for studying the customs and manners of this part of the empire were such as no other European has ever enjoyed, as, through the peculiar affection of the Great Khan, he was appointed governor of one of its principal cities, and exercised this authority during three years. Yet, strange to say, he makes no mention of tea, and alludes only once, and that but slightly, to the manufacture of porcelain. These omissions, however, are in all probability not to be attributed to him, but to the heedlessness or ignorance of transcribers and copyists, who, not knowing what to make of the terms, boldly omitted them. The most remarkable manufacture of porcelain in his time appears to have been at a city which he calls Trinqui, situated on one branch of the river which flowed to Zaitum, supposed to be the modern Canton. Here he was informed a certain kind of earth or clay was thrown up into vast conical heaps, where it remained exposed to the action of the atmosphere for thirty or forty years, after which, refined, as he says, by time, it was manufactured into dishes, which were painted and baked in furnaces.
Having now remained many years in China, the Polos began to feel the desire of revisiting their home revive within their souls; and this desire was strengthened by reflecting upon the great age of the khan, in the event of whose death it was possible they might never be able to depart from the country, at least with the amazing wealth which they had amassed during their long residence. One day, therefore, when they observed Kublai to be in a remarkably good-humour, Nicolo, who seems to have enjoyed a very free access to the chamber of the sovereign, ventured to entreat permission to return home with his family. The khan, however, who, being himself at home, could comprehend nothing of that secret and almost mysterious power by which man is drawn back from the remotest corners of the earth towards the scene of his childhood, and who, perhaps, imagined that gold could confer irresistible charms upon any country, was extremely displeased at the request. He had, in fact, become attached to the men, and his unwillingness to part with them was as natural as their desire to go. To turn them from all thoughts of the undertaking, he dwelt upon the length and danger of the journey; and added, that if more wealth was what they coveted, they had but to speak, and he would gratify their utmost wishes, by bestowing upon them twice as much as they already possessed; but that his affection would not allow him to part with them.
Providence, however, which under the name of chance or accident so frequently befriends the perplexed, now came to their aid. Not long after the unsuccessful application of Nicolo, ambassadors arrived at the court of the Great Khan, from Argûn, Sultan of Persia, demanding a princess of the imperial blood for their master, whose late queen on her deathbed had requested him to choose a wife from among her relations in Cathay. Kublai consented; and the ambassadors departed with a youthful princess on their way to Persia. When they had proceeded eight months through the wilds of Tartary, their course was stopped by bloody wars; and they were constrained to return with the princess to the court of the khan. Here they heard of Marco, who had likewise just returned from an expedition into India by sea, describing the facility which navigation afforded of maintaining an intercourse between that country and China. The ambassadors now procured an interview with the Venetians, who consented, if the permission of the khan could be obtained, to conduct them by sea to the dominions of their sovereign. With great reluctance the khan at length yielded to their solicitation; and having commanded Nicolo, Maffio, and Marco into his presence, and lavished upon them every possible token of his affection and esteem, constituting them his ambassadors to the pope and the other princes of Europe, he caused a tablet of gold to be delivered to them, upon which were engraven his commands that they should be allowed free and secure passage through all his dominions; that all their expenses, as well as those of their attendants, should be defrayed; and that they should be provided with guides and escorts wherever these might be necessary. He then exacted from them a promise that when they should have passed some time in Christendom among their friends, they would return to him, and affectionately dismissed them.
Fourteen ships with four masts, of which four or five were so large that they carried from two hundred and fifty to two hundred and sixty men, were provided for their voyage; and on board of this fleet they embarked with the queen and the ambassadors, and sailed away from China. It was probably from the officers of these ships, or from those with whom he had made his former voyage to India, that Marco Polo learned what little he knew of the great island of Zipangri or Japan. It was about fifteen hundred miles distant, as he was informed, from the shores of China. The people were fair, gentle in their manners, and governed by their own princes. Gold, its exportation being prohibited, was plentiful among them; so plentiful, indeed, that the roof of the prince’s palace was covered with it, as churches in Europe sometimes are with lead, while the windows and floors were of the same metal. The prodigious opulence of this country tempted the ambition or rapacity of Kublai Khan, who with a vast fleet and army attempted to annex it with his empire, but without success. It was Marco’s brief description of this insular El Dorado which is supposed to have kindled the spirit of discovery and adventure in the great soul of Columbus. Gentle as the manners of the Japanese are said to have been, neither they nor the Chinese themselves could escape the charge of cannibalism, which appears to be among barbarians what heresy was in Europe during the middle ages, the crime of which every one accuses his bitterest enemy. The innumerable islands scattered through the surrounding ocean were said to abound with spices and groves of odoriferous wood.
The vast islands and thickly-sprinkled archipelagoes which rear up their verdant and scented heads among the waters of the Indian ocean, now successively presented themselves to the observant eye of our traveller, and appeared like another world. Ziambar, with its woods of ebony; Borneo, with its spices and its gold; Lokak, with its sweet fruits, its Brazil wood, and its elephants;—these were the new and strange countries at which they touched on the way to Java the less, or Sumatra. This island, which he describes as two thousand miles in circumference, was divided into eight kingdoms, six of which he visited and curiously examined. Some portion of the inhabitants had been converted to Mohammedanism; but numerous tribes still roamed in a savage state among the mountains, feeding upon human flesh and every unclean animal, and worshipping as a god the first object which met their eyes in the morning. Among one of these wild races a very extraordinary practice prevailed: whenever any individual was stricken with sickness, his relations immediately inquired of the priests or magicians whether he would recover or not; and if answered in the negative, the patient was instantly strangled, cut in pieces, and devoured, even to the very marrow of the bones. This, they alleged, was to prevent the generation of worms in any portion of the body, which, by gnawing and defacing it, would torture the soul of the dead. The bones were carefully concealed in the caves of the mountains. Strangers, from the same humane motive, were eaten in an equally friendly way.
Here were numerous rhinoceroses, camphor, which sold for its weight in gold, and lofty trees, ten or twelve feet in circumference, from the pith of which a kind of meal was made. This pith, having been broken into pieces, was cast into vessels filled with water, where the light innutritious parts floated upon the top, while the finer and more solid descended to the bottom. The former was skimmed off and thrown away, but the latter, in taste not unlike barley-bread, was wrought into a kind of paste, and eaten. This was the sago, the first specimen of which ever seen in Europe was brought to Venice by Marco Polo. The wood of the tree, which was heavy and sunk in water like iron, was used in making spears.
From Sumatra they sailed to the Nicobar and Andaman islands, the natives of which were naked and bestial savages, though the country produced excellent cloves, cocoanuts, Brazil wood, red and white sandal wood, and various kinds of spices. They next touched at Ceylon, which appeared to Marco Polo, and not altogether without reason, to be the finest island in the world. Here no grain, except rice, was cultivated; but the country produced a profusion of oil, sesamum, milk, flesh, palm wine, sapphires, topazes, amethysts, and the best rubies in the world. Of this last kind of gem the King of Ceylon was said to possess the finest specimen in existence, the stone being as long as a man’s hand, of corresponding thickness, and glowing like fire. The wonders of Adam’s Peak Marco Polo heard of, but did not behold. His account of the pearl-fishery he likewise framed from report.