458 A. D. 1295. 



(the fouth part of China) are continually covered with veflels, which 

 carry on a vaft inland trade throughout the whole empire. At Trigui 

 there is a great manufadlure of porcelain dilhes, eight of which may 

 be bought for the value of a Venetian groat. Many of the ports are 

 frequented by vefTels from India, which pay a duty of ten per cent to 

 the khan. At Zaitum, a famous port of Mangi, fhips arrive from all 

 quarters with merchandize, which is there refhipped for every part of 

 India. The quantity of pepper to be found thei-e is an hundred times 

 as much as all that comes to the Weft by the way of Alexandria. Ships 

 from Zaitum trade to an ifland (never feen by Marco) producing fpices, 

 lignum aloes, and pepper. They are a year upon the voyage out and 

 in, having winds of two forts (monfoons) which keep their regular 

 feafons. 



Zipangu (fuppofed to be Japan) is a large ifland, which the khan's 

 forces were not able to fubdue. 



Java is fuppofed the largeft ifland in the world. The merchants of 

 Zaitum and other parts of Mangi import a great quantity of gold and 

 fpices from it. 



Another ifland, called the Leffer Java, contains eight kingdoms, fix 

 of which Marco traveled through. In one of them called Felh the 

 people are converted to the religion of Mohamed by the vaft number 

 of Saracens trading to that country. In another of them there are nuts, 

 as large as a man's head, containing within them a liquor preferable to 

 wine *. Lambrai, another of thofe kingdoms, produces trees from 

 which meal is made f . 



One thoufand miles weft from Java is Zelan (Ceylon), 2,400 miles in 

 circuit, but formerly 3,600, as appears in antient maps : but the north 

 winds have made great changes, and funk much of it under the fea J. 

 Between Zelan and the main land of India there is a great fifhery for 

 pearls. 



Sixty miles weft from Zelan is Malabar in the Greater India. The 

 kings of that country are fupplied with horfes from Ormus and other 

 places. 



In Murftili, or Monful, lying north from Malabar, there are moun- 

 tains containing diamonds. 



On the weft coaft of Malabar and in Guzerat there are many pirates, 

 who fometimes attack the merchants with fleets of a hundred veffels. 

 (We may thence infer, that the merchant veffels were very numerous, 

 and failed in ftrong fleets, as the pirates thought fo large a force necef- 

 fary to attack them.) In Guzerat there is abundance of cotton ; in 



• Could coco-nuts be unknown to him till he J Marco, in his veneration for Ptolemy, rather 



was in that counti y ? iuppofcs a very improbable event, than that his 



I He proceeds to dcfcribc the procefs of mak- geography might be erroneous, 

 iiig tliis meal, which is f.igo. 



