12 - The Book of Ser Marco Polo, Volume 2.

12 - The Book of Ser Marco Polo, Volume 2.  
12 - Book Third, Chapters 11 to 15. Of the knigdoms of Lambri and Fasur. Concerning the island of Necuveran. Concerning the island of Angamanain. Concerning the island of Seilan. The history of Sagamoni Borcan and the beginning of idolatry.

Episode Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:00):
Section twelve of the Book of Sir Marco Polo, the
Venetian concerning the Kingdoms and Marvels of the East, Volume two.
This is a LibriVox recording. All LibriVox recordings are in
the public domain. For more information are to volunteer, please
visit LibriVox dot org. Recording by Lynn Thompson. The Book

(00:24):
of Sir Marco Polo, the Venetian concerning the Kingdoms and
Marvels of the East, Volume two by Rusticello da Pisa,
translated by Henry Yule, Book third, Chapters eleven to fifteen,
Chapter eleven of the kingdoms of Lambrey and Fansur. When

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you leave that kingdom you come to another, which is
called Lambrey. The people are idolators and call themselves the
subjects of the Great Khan. They have plenty of camphor
and all sorts of other spices. They also have brazil
in great quantities. This they sow, and when it is

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grown to the size of a small shoot, they take
it up and transplant it. Then they let it grow
for three years, after which they tear it up by
the root. You must know that Messer Marco Polo aforesaid
brought some seed of the Brazil, such as they sow
to venice with him and had it sown there, But

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never a thing came up, and I fancy it was
because the climate was too cold. Now you must know
that in this kingdom of Lamboree there are men with tails.
These tails are of a palm in length and have
no hair on them. These people live in the mountains
and are a kind of wild men. Their tails are

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about the thickness of a dog's. There are also plenty
of unicorns in that country, and abundance of game in
birds and beasts. Now, then I have told you about
the king of lambre You then come to another kingdom,
which is called Fansor. The people are idolatous and also

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call themselves subjects of the Great carn And understand they
are still on the same island that I have been
telling you of. In this kingdom of Fansor grows the
best camphor in the world, called Camphora Fansori. It is
so fine that it sells for its weight in fine gold.

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The people have no wheat, but have rice, which they
eat with milk and flesh. They also have wine from trees.
Much as I have told you of and I will
tell you another great marvel. They have a kind of
trees that produce flour and excellent flowerages for food. These
trees are very tall and thick, but have a very

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thin bark, and inside the bark they are crammed with flour.
And I tell you that Messa Marco Polo, who witness
all this, relate how he and his party did sundry
times partake of this flower made into bread and found
it excellent. There is now no more to relate, for
out of those eight kingdoms we have told you about

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six that lie at this side of the island, I
shall tell you nothing about the other two kingdoms that
are at the other side of the island, for the
said Messer Marco Polo never was there. Howbeit, we have
told you about the greater part of this island of
the lesser Java. So now we will quit it, and

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I will tell you of a very small island that
is called Guanisipola Chapter twelve, concerning the island of Necuvan.
When you leave the island of Java the less and
the Kingdom of Lambrie, you sail north about one hundred
and fifty miles, and then you come to two islands,

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one of which is called Necuveran. In this island they
have no king nor chief, but live like beasts. And
I tell you they go all naked, both men and women,
and do not use the slightest covering of any kind.
They are idolators. Their woods are all of noble and

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valuable kinds of trees, such as red sanders, and Indian nut,
and cloves, and brazil and sundry other good spices. There
is nothing else worth relating, And so we will go on,
and I will tell you of an island called Angermnaine.
Chapter thirteen concerning the Island of Angermenaine. Angermnaine is a

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very large island. The people are without a king and
are idolators, and no better than wild beasts. And I
assure you all the men of this island of Angermanaine
have heads like dogs, and teeth and eyes likewise. In fact,
in the face they are all just like beas mastiff dogs.

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They have a quantity of spices, but they are the
most cruel generation and eat to everybody that they can catch,
if not of their own race. They live on flesh
and rice and milk, and have fruits different from any
of ours. Now that I have told you about this
race of people, as indeed it was highly proper to do.

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In this our book, I will go on to tell
you about an island called Silan, as you shall hear
chapter fourteen concerning the island of Silan. When you leave
the island of Agamanain and sail about a thousand miles
in a direction a little south of west, you come

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to the island of Silan, which is, in good sooth,
the best island of its size in the world. You
must know that it has a compass of two thousand,
four hundred miles, but in old times it was greater still,
for it then had a circuit of about three six
hundred miles, as you find in the charts of the

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mariners of those seas. But the north wind there blows
with such strength that it has caused the sea to
submerge a large part of the island. And that is
the reason why it is not so big now as
it used to be. For you must know that on
the side where the north wind strikes the island is
very low and flat, insomuch that in approaching on board

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ship from the high seas, you do not see the
land till you are right upon it. Now I will
tell you all about this island. They have a king
there who may call Sendermain, and are tributary to nobody.
The people are idolatus and go quite naked, except that
they cover the middle. They have no wheat, but have

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rice and cessamum, of which they make their oil. They
live on flesh and milk, and have tree wine such
as I have told you of. And they have brazilwood,
much the best in the world. Now I will quit
these particulars and tell you of the most precious article
that exists in the world. You must know that rubies

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are found in this island, and in no other country
in the world, but this they find. There also sapphires,
and topazes, and amethysts, and many other stones of price.
And the king of this island possesses a ruby, which
is the finest and biggest in the world. I will
tell you what it is like. It is about a

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palm in length and as thick as a man's arm.
To look at, it is the most resplendent object upon earth.
It is quite free from flow, and as red as fire.
Its value is so great that a price for it
in money could hardly be named at all. You must
know that the great Khan sent an embassy and begged

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the King, as a favor greatly desired by him, to
sell him this ruby, offering to give for it the
ransom of the city, or in fact what the king would.
But the king replied that on no account whatever would
he sell it, for it had come to him from
his ancestors. The people of Silan are no soldiers, but

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poor cowardly creatures, and when they have need of soldiers,
they get Saracen troops from foreign parts. Chapter fifteen the
same continued the history of Sagamoni Borcan and the beginning
of Idolatry. Furthermore, you must know that in this island
of Silan there is an exceeding high mountain. It rises

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right up, so steep and precipitous, that no one could
ascend it, were it not that they have taken and
fixed to it several great and massive iron chains, so
disposed that by help of these men are able to
mount to the top. And I tell you they say
that on this mountain is a sepulcher of Adam, our
first parent. At least that is what the Saracens say.

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But the idolators say that it is the sepulcher of
Sagomoni Borcan, before whose time there were no idols. They
hold him to have been the best of men, a
great sent in fact, according to their fashion, and the
first in whose name idols were made. He was the son,

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as the story goes, of a great and wealthy king,
And he was of such unholy temper that he would
never listen to any worldly talk, nor would he consent
to be king. And when the father saw that his
son would not be king, nor yet take any part
in affairs, he took it sorely to heart. At first,

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he tried to tempt him with great promises, offering to
crown him king and to render all authority into his hands.
The son, however, would none of his offers. So the
father was in great trouble, and all the more that
he had no other son but him, to whom he
might bequeath the kingdom at his own death. So, after

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taking thought on the matter, the king caused a great
palace to be built, and placed his son therein, and
caused him to be waited on there by a number
of maidens, the most beautiful that could anywhere be found,
and he ordered them to divert themselves with the prince
night and day, and to sing and dance before him,

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and so to draw his heart towards worldly enjoyments. But
was all of no avail, for none of those maidens
could ever tempt the King's son to any wantonness, and
he only abode the firmer in his chastity, leading a
most holy life after their manner thereof. And I assure
you he was so staid a youth that he had

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never gone out of the palace, and thus he had
never seen a dead man, nor any one who was
not hail and sound, for the Father never allowed any
man that was aged or infirmed to come into his presence.
It came to pass, however, one day, that the young
gentleman took a ride, and by the roadside he beheld

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a dead man. The sight dismayed him greatly, as he
had never seen such a sight before. Incontinently, he demanded
of those who were with him what thing that was,
And then they told him it was a dead man.
How then, quoth the King's son, do all men die yea? Forsooth?
Said they? Whereupon the young gentleman said, never a word,

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but rode on right pensively, and after he had ridden
a good way, he fell in with a very aged man,
who could no longer walk, and had not a tooth
in his head, having lost all because of his great age.
And when the king's son beheld this old man, he
asked what that might mean, and wherefore the man could
not walk? Those who were with him replied that it

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was through old age. The man could walk no longer
and had lost all his teeth. And so, when the
King's son had thus learned about the dead man and
about the aged man, he turned back to his palace
and said to himself that he would abide no longer
in this evil world, but would go in search of
him who dieth not and who had created him. So

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what did he one night but take his departure from
the palace privily and betake himself to certain lofty and
pathless mountains. And there he did abide, leading a life
of great hardship and sanctity, and keeping great abstinence, just
as if he had been a Christian. Indeed, if he
had but been so, he would have been a great

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saint of our Lord Jesus Christ. So good and pure
was the life he led, and when he died, they
found his body and brought it to his father. And
when his father saw dead before him, that son, whom
he loved better than himself, he was near going distraught
with sorrow. And he caused an image in the similitude

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of his son to be wrought in gold and precious stones,
and cause all his people to adore it, and they
all declared him to be a god. And so they
still say. They tell me moreover that he had died
four score and four times. The first time he died
as a man, and came to life again as an ox,

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And then he died as an ox, and came to
life again as a horse, and so on until he
had died four score and four times, and every time
he became some kind of animal. But when he died
the eighty fourth time, they say he became a god.
And they do hold him for the greatest of all
their gods. And they tell that the aforesaid image of

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him was the first idol that the idolators ever had,
and from that they have originated all other idols. And
this befell in the island of Thailand. In India, the
idolators came thither on pilgrimage from very long distances and
with very great devotion, just as Christians go to the

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shrine of Messers Saint James in Galicia. And they maintain
that the monument on the mountain is that of the
King's son, according to the story I have been telling you,
and that the teeth and the hair and the dishes
that are there were those of the same king's son,
whose name was Sogomoni Borkhan, or Sogomoni the Saint. But

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the Saracens also come thither on pilgrimage in great numbers,
and they say that it is the sepulcher of Adam,
our first father, and that the teeth and the hare
and the dish were those of Adam, whose they were.
In truth God knoweth, Howbeit according to the Holy Scripture
of our Church, the sepulcher of Adam is not in

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that part of the world. Now it befell that the
Great Khan heard how on that mountain there was the
sepulcher of our first father Adam, and that some of
his hair, and of his teeth, and the dish from
which he used to eat was still preserved there. So
he thought he would get hold of them somehow or other,
and dispatched a great embassy for the purpose. In the

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year of Christ twelve eighty four, the ambassadors, with a
great company, traveled on by sea and by land, until
they arrived at the island of Silan, and presented themselves
before the king. And they were so urgent with him
that they succeeded in getting two of the grinder teeth,
which were passing great and thick. And they also got

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some of the hair and the dish from which that
personage used to eat, which is of a very beautiful
green porphyry. And when the Great Khan's ambassadors had attained
the object for which they had come, they were greatly
rejoiced and returned to their lord. And when they drew
near to the great city of Kambalouke, where the Great

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Khan was staying, they sent him word that they had
brought back that for which he had sent them. On
learning this, the Great Khan was passing glad and ordered
all the ecclesiastics and others to go forth to meet
those relics which he was led to believe were those
of Adam. And why should I make a long story
of it? In sooth. The whole population of Kambaluk went

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forth to meet those relics, and the ecclesiastics took them
over and carried them to the Great Khan, who received
them with great joy and reverence. And they find it
written in their scriptures that the virtue of that dish
is such that if food for one man be put therein,
it shall become enough for five men. And the Great

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Khan averred that he had proved the thing and found
that it was really true. So now you have heard
how the Great Khan came by those relics, and a
mighty great treasure it did cost him, the relics being
according to the ideaolators, those of the king's son. End

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of section twelve.