Chapter XXVIII (p. 234)
Beyond Muc is Great Cathaya, the inhabitants whereof (as I suppose) were of old time called Seres. For from them are brought most excellent stuffs of silk. And this people is called Seres of a certain town in the same country. I was credibly informed that, in the said country, there is one town having walls of silver, and bulwarks or towers of gold. There be many provinces in that land, the greater part whereof are not as yet subdued unto the Tartars.
MARCO POLO
(The Book of Ser Marco Polo, the Venetian, Col. H. Yule. Edn. 1875)
Rusticiano’s address (p. 1)
Great Princes, Emperors, and Kings, Dukes and Marquises, Counts, Knights and Burgesses and people of all degrees who desire to get knowledge of the various races of mankind, and of the diversities of the sundry regions of the World, take this book and cause it to be read to you....
For let me tell you that since our Lord God did mould with his hands our first father, Adam, even until this day, never hath there been Christian or Pagan, or Tartar or Indian or any man of any nation, who in his own person hath had so much knowledge and experience of the divers parts of the World and its Wonders as hath this Messer Marco....
and I may tell you that in acquiring this knowledge he spent in those various parts of the world good six and twenty years. Now being thereafter an inmate of the Prison at Genoa, he caused Messer Rusticiano of Pisa, who was in the said Prison likewise to reduce the whole to writing; and this befell in the year 1298 from the birth of Jesus.
His Summary