August 30, 2025 • 17 mins
14 - The Book of Ser Marco Polo, Volume 2.
14 - Book Third, Chapters 19 to 23. Concerning the kingdom of Mutfili. Concerning the Province of Lar, whence the Brahmins come. Concerning the city of Cail. Of the kingdom of Coilum. Of the country called Comari.
14 - Book Third, Chapters 19 to 23. Concerning the kingdom of Mutfili. Concerning the Province of Lar, whence the Brahmins come. Concerning the city of Cail. Of the kingdom of Coilum. Of the country called Comari.
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Speaker 1 (00:00):
Section fourteen of the Book of Sir Marco Polo 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 or to volunteer, please visit
LibriVox dot org. Recording by Jeremiah Sutherland, Victoria, British Columbia.
(00:21):
The Book of Sir Marco Polo the Venetian concerning the
Kingdoms and Marvels of the East, Volume two by Rusticlo
da Pisa, translated by Henry Yule. Book third, Chapters nineteen
to twenty three, concerning the Kingdom of Mutphili, concerning the
province of Lar, whence the Brahmins come, concerning the city
(00:41):
of Kyle, of the Kingdom of Coelim, of the country
called Komari. Chapter nineteen concerning the Kingdom of Mutphili. When
you leave Maybar and go about one thousand miles in
a northern direction, you come to the Kingdom of Mutphilly.
This was formerly under the rule of a king, and
since his death some forty years past, it has been
(01:02):
under his queen, a lady of much discretion, who for
the great love she bore him never would marry another husband.
And I can assure you that during all that space
of forty years she had administered her realm as well
as ever her husband did, or better. And as she
was a lover of justice, of equity, and of peace,
she was more beloved by those of her kingdom than
(01:23):
ever was lady or Lord of theirs. Before. The people
are idolaters and are tributary to nobody. They live on
flesh and rice and milk. It is in this kingdom
that diamonds are got. And I will tell you how.
There are certain lofty mountains in those parts, and when
the winter rains fall, which are very heavy, the waters
come roaring down the mountains in great torrents. When the
(01:45):
rains are over and the waters from the mountains have
ceased to flow, they search the beds of the torrents
and find plenty of diamonds. In summer, also there are
plenty to be found in the mountains, but the heat
of the sun is so great that it is scarcely
possible to go thither, nor is there then a drop
of water to be found. Moreover, in those mountains, great
serpents are rife to a marvelous degree, besides other vermin,
(02:08):
and this owing to the great heat, the serpents are
also the most venomous in existence, insomuch that any one
going to that region runs fearful peril, for many have
been destroyed by those evil reptiles. Now among these mountains
there are certain great and deep valleys to the bottom
of which there is no access. Wherefore the men who
go in search of the diamonds take with them pieces
(02:30):
of flesh as lean as they can get, and these
they cast into the bottom of a valley. Now there
are numbers of white eagles that haunt those mountains and
feed upon the serpents. When the eagles see the meat
thrown down, they pounce upon it and carry it up
to some rocky hilltop, where they begin to rend it.
But there are men on the watch, and as soon
(02:50):
as they see that the eagles have settled, they raise
a loud shouting to drive them away. And when the
eagles are thus frightened away, the men recover the pieces
of meat and find them full of diamonds which have
stuck to the meat down in the bottom. For the
abundance of diamonds down there in the depths of the
valleys is astonishing, but nobody can get down, and if
one could, it would be only to be incontinently devoured
(03:13):
by the serpents which are so rife there. There is
also another way of getting the diamonds. The people go
to the nests of those white eagles, of which there
are many, and in their droppings they find plenty of diamonds,
which the birds have swallowed in devouring the meat that
was cast into the valleys. And when the eagles themselves
are taken, diamonds are found in their stomachs. So now
(03:34):
I have told you three different ways in which these
stones are found. No other country but this kingdom of
Mutphilly produces them. But there they are found, both abundantly
and of large size. Those that are brought to our
part of the world are only the refuse, as it were,
of the finer and larger stones. For the flower of
the diamonds and other large gems, as well as the
(03:55):
largest pearls, are all carried to the great Khan and
other kings and princesses of those regions. In truth they
possess all the great treasures of the world. In this
kingdom are also made the best and most delicate buckrams
and those of highest price in sooth. They look like
tissue of spider's web. There is no king nor queen
in the world, but might be glad to wear them.
(04:17):
The people also have the largest sheep in the world
and great abundance of all the necessaries of life. There
is now no more to say, so I will tell
you about a province called Lar, from which the Abriaman
come Chapter twenty concerning the Province of Lar, whence the
Brahmins come. Lar is a province lying towards the west.
When you quit the place where the body of Saint
(04:38):
Thomas lies, and all the Abriamen in the world come
from that province. You must know that these Obriamen are
the best merchants in the world, and the most truthful,
for they would not tell a lie for anything on earth.
If a foreign merchant who does not know the ways
of the country applies to them and entrusts his goods
to them, they will take charge of these and sell
(04:59):
them in the most loyal man, seeking zealously the profit
of the foreigner, and asking no commission except what he
pleases to bestow. They eat no flesh and drink no wine,
and live a life of greater chastity, having intercourse with
no woman except with their wives, nor would they on
any account take what belongs to another. So their law commands,
(05:20):
and they are all distinguished by wearing a thread of
cotton over one shoulder and tied under the other arm,
so that it crosses the breast in the back. They
have a rich and powerful king who is eager to
purchase precious stones and large pearls. And he sends these
obrim and merchants into the kingdom of Mabar called Soli,
which is the best and noblest province of India, and
(05:41):
where the best pearls are found, to fetch him as
many of these as they can get, and he pays
them double the cost price for all. So in this
way he has a vast treasure of such valuables. These
obriam and are idolaters, and they pay greater heed to
signs and omens than any people that exists. I will
mention as an example one of their customs to every
(06:02):
day of the week they assign in augury of this sort.
Suppose that there is some purchase in hand, he who
proposes to buy, when he gets up in the morning
takes note of his own shadow in the sun, which
he says ought to be on that day, of such
and such a length. And if his shadow be of
the proper length for the day, he completes his purchase.
If not, he will on no account do so, but
(06:25):
waits till his shadow corresponds with that prescribed. For there
is a length established for the shadow for every individual
day of the week, and the merchant will complete no
business unless he finds his shadow of the length set
down for that particular day. Also, to each day in
the week, they assign one unlucky hour, which they term choyach,
(06:46):
for example, on Monday, the hour of half tears on Tuesday,
that of tears on Wednesday, knowns, and so on again.
If one of them is in the house and is
meditating a purchase, should he see tarantula such as are
very common in that country on the wall, provided it
advances from a quarter that he deems lucky, he will
(07:07):
complete his purchase at once. But if it comes from
a quarter that he considers unlucky, he will not do
so on any inducement. Moreover, if in going out he
hears anyone sneeze, if it seems to him a good omen,
he will go on, but if the reverse, he will
sit down on the spot where he is as long
as he thinks that he ought to tarry before going
(07:27):
on again. Or if in traveling along the road he
sees a swallow flyby, should its direction be lucky, he
will proceed, but if not, he will turn back again.
In fact, they are worse in these whims than so
many paterns. These obriaman are very long lived, owing to
their extreme abstinence in eating, and they never allow themselves
(07:48):
to be let blood in any part of the body.
They have capital teeth, which is owing to a certain
herb they chew, which greatly improves their appearance and is
also very good for the health. There is another other
class of people called Chugi, who are indeed properly a brieman,
but they form a religious order devoted to the idols.
They are extremely long lived, every man of them living
(08:10):
to one hundred and fifty or two hundred years. They
eat very little, but what they do eat is good
rice and milk chiefly. And these people make use of
a very strange beverage, for they make a potion of
sulfur and quicksilver mixed together, and this they drink twice
every month. This, they say, gives them long life, and
(08:30):
it is a potion they are used to take from
their childhood. There are certain members of this order who
lead the most ascetic life in the world, going stark naked,
and these worship the ox. Most of them have a
small ox of brass or pewter or gold, which they
wear tied over the forehead. Moreover, they take cow dung
and burn it, and make a powder thereof, and make
(08:52):
annointment of it, and daub themselves withal, doing this with
as great devotion as Christians do show in using holy water. Also,
if they meet anyone who treats them well, they daub
a little of this powder on the middle of his forehead.
They eat not from bowls or trenchers, but put their
victuals on leaves of the Apple of Paradise and other
(09:12):
big leaves. These, however, they use dry, never green, for
they say the green leaves have a soul in them,
and so it would be a sin, and they would
rather die than do what they deem their law pronounces
to be a sin. If anyone asks how it comes
that they are not ashamed to go start naked as
they do, they say, we go naked, because naked we
came into the world, and we desire to have nothing
(09:35):
about us that is of this world. Moreover, we have
no sin of the flesh to be conscious of, and
therefore we are not ashamed of our nakedness any more
than you are to show your hand or your face.
You who are conscious of the sins of the flesh,
do well to have shame and to cover your nakedness.
They would not kill an animal on any account, not
(09:55):
even a fly or a flea, or a louse, or
anything in fact that has life, for they say these
have all souls, and it would be sinned to do so.
They eat no vegetable in a green state, only such
as are dry, and they sleep on the ground stark, naked,
without a scrap of clothing on them or under them,
so that it is a marvel. They don't all die
(10:15):
in place of living, so long as I have told you.
They fast every day in the year, and drink nought
but water. And when a novice has to be received
among them, they keep him awhile in their convent and
make him follow their rule of life. And then when
they desire to put him to the test, they send
for some of those girls who are devoted to the idols,
and make them try the continents of the novice with
(10:37):
their blandishments. If he remains indifferent, they retain him, but
if he shows any emotion, they expel him from their society,
for they say they will have no man of loose
desires among them. They are such cruel and perfidious idolaters
that it is very devilry. They say that they burn
the bodies of the dead, because if they were not burnt,
(10:57):
worms would be bread which would eat the body. And
when no more food remained for them, these worms would die,
and the soul belonging to that body would bear the
sin and the punishment of their death. And that is
why they burn their dead. Now I have told you
about a great part of the people of the great
province of Mabar and their customs. But I have still
other things to tell of the same province of Mabar.
(11:19):
So I will speak of a city thereof which is
called Kyle. Chapter twenty one concerning the City of Kyle.
Kyle is a great and noble city and belongs to Ashar,
the eldest of the five brother kings. It is at
this city that all the ships touched that come from
the west, as from Hormos, and from Kies, and from
Aden and all Arabia, laden with horses and with other
(11:42):
things for sale. And this brings a great concourse of
people from the country round about, and so there is
great business done in this city of Kyle. The king
possesses vast treasures and wears upon his person great store
of rich jewels. He maintains great state, and favors his
kingdom with great equity, and extends great favor to merchants
and foreigners, so that they are very glad to visit
(12:05):
his city. This king has some three hundred wives, for
in those parts the man who has most wives is
most thought of. As I have told you before, there
are in this great province of Mabar five crowned kings
who are all own brothers, born of one father and
of one mother, and this king is one of them.
Their mother is still living. And when they disagree and
(12:27):
go forth to war against one another, their mother throws
herself between them to prevent their fighting. And should they
persist in desiring to fight, she will take a knife
and threaten that if they will do so, she will
cut off the paps that suckle them and rip open
the womb that bear them, and so perish before their eyes.
In this way has she full many a time brought
(12:48):
them to desist. But when she dies, it will most
as surely happen that they will fall out and destroy
one another. All the people of this city, as well
as the rest of India, have a custom of perpetual
keeping in the mouth a certain leaf called temble, to
gratify a certain habit and desire. They have continually chewing
it and spitting out the saliva that it excites. The
(13:10):
lords and gentlefolks in the king have these leaves prepared
with camphor and other aromatic spices, and also mixed with quicklime.
And this practice was said to be very good for
the health. If any one desires to offer a gross
insult to another, when he meets him, he spits this
leaf or its juice in his face. The other immediately
runs before the king relates the insult that has been
(13:33):
offered him and demands leave to fight the offender. The
king supplies the arms, which are sword and target, and
all the people flock to sea, and there the two
fight till one of them is killed. They must not
use the point of the sword. For this the king
forbids Chapter twenty two of the Kingdom of Coilum. When
you quit Mabar and go five hundred miles towards the southwest,
(13:56):
you come to the Kingdom of Coilum. The people are Idolaters,
but there are also some Christians and some Jews. The
natives have a language of their own and a king
of their own, and our tributary to no one. A
great deal of Brazil is got here, which is called
Brazil Coilumine from the country which produces it, tis of
very fine quality. Good ginger also grows here, and it
(14:18):
is known by the same name of coilumin after the country. Pepper,
too grows in great abundance throughout this country, and I
will tell you how. You must know that the pepper
trees are not wild, but cultivated, being regularly planted and watered,
and the pepper is gathered in the months of May,
June and July. They have also abundance of very fine indigo.
(14:38):
This is made of a certain herb which is gathered,
and after the roots have been removed, is put into
great vessels upon which they pour water and then leave
it till the whole of the plant is decomposed. They
then put this liquid in the sun, which is tremendously
hot there, so that it boils and coagulates and becomes
such as we see it. They then divide it into
(14:58):
pieces of four ounces each, and in that form it
is exported to our parts. And I assure you that
the heat of the sun is so great there that
it is scarcely to be endured. In fact, if you
put an egg into one of the rivers, it will
be boiled before you have had time to go any
distance by the mere heat of the sun. The merchants
from Mansi and from Arabia and from the Levant come
(15:20):
thither with their ships and their merchandise, and make great profits,
both by what they import and by what they export.
There are in this country many and diverse beasts, quite
different from those of other parts of the world. Thus
there are lions black all over, with no mixture of
any other color. And there are parrots of many sorts.
For some are white as snow, with red beak and feet,
(15:43):
and some are red, and some are blue, forming the
most charming site in the world. There are green ones too.
There are also some parrots of exceeding small size, beautiful creatures.
They have also very beautiful peacocks, larger than ours and different.
And they have cocks and hens quite different from ours.
And what more shall I say? In short, everything they
(16:04):
have is different from ours, and finer and better. Neither
is there fruit like ours, nor their beasts, nor their birds.
And this difference all comes of the excessive heat. Corn
they have none but rice. So also their wine they
make from palm sugar. Capital drink it is, and very
speedily it makes a man drunk. All other necessaries of
man's life they have in great plenty and cheapness. They
(16:27):
have very good astrologers and physicians, man and woman. They
are all black and go naked, all save a fine
cloth worn about the middle. They look not on any
sin of the flesh as a sin. They marry their
cousins German, and a man takes his brother's wife after
the brother's death. And all the people of India have
this custom. There is no more to tell you there,
(16:47):
so we will proceed, and I will tell you of
another country called Komari. Chapter twenty three of the country
called Komari. Komari is a country belonging to India, and
there you can see something of the North Star, which
we had not been able to see from the lesser
Java thus far. In order to see it you must
go some thirty miles out to sea, and then you
see it about a cubit above the water. This is
(17:10):
a very wild country, and there are beasts of all
kinds there, especially monkeys of such peculiar fashion that you
would take them for men. There are also gut poles
in wonderful diversity, with bears, lions, and leopards in abundance.
And of Section fourteen
Section fourteen of the Book of Sir Marco Polo 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 or to volunteer, please visit
LibriVox dot org. Recording by Jeremiah Sutherland, Victoria, British Columbia.
(00:21):
The Book of Sir Marco Polo the Venetian concerning the
Kingdoms and Marvels of the East, Volume two by Rusticlo
da Pisa, translated by Henry Yule. Book third, Chapters nineteen
to twenty three, concerning the Kingdom of Mutphili, concerning the
province of Lar, whence the Brahmins come, concerning the city
(00:41):
of Kyle, of the Kingdom of Coelim, of the country
called Komari. Chapter nineteen concerning the Kingdom of Mutphili. When
you leave Maybar and go about one thousand miles in
a northern direction, you come to the Kingdom of Mutphilly.
This was formerly under the rule of a king, and
since his death some forty years past, it has been
(01:02):
under his queen, a lady of much discretion, who for
the great love she bore him never would marry another husband.
And I can assure you that during all that space
of forty years she had administered her realm as well
as ever her husband did, or better. And as she
was a lover of justice, of equity, and of peace,
she was more beloved by those of her kingdom than
(01:23):
ever was lady or Lord of theirs. Before. The people
are idolaters and are tributary to nobody. They live on
flesh and rice and milk. It is in this kingdom
that diamonds are got. And I will tell you how.
There are certain lofty mountains in those parts, and when
the winter rains fall, which are very heavy, the waters
come roaring down the mountains in great torrents. When the
(01:45):
rains are over and the waters from the mountains have
ceased to flow, they search the beds of the torrents
and find plenty of diamonds. In summer, also there are
plenty to be found in the mountains, but the heat
of the sun is so great that it is scarcely
possible to go thither, nor is there then a drop
of water to be found. Moreover, in those mountains, great
serpents are rife to a marvelous degree, besides other vermin,
(02:08):
and this owing to the great heat, the serpents are
also the most venomous in existence, insomuch that any one
going to that region runs fearful peril, for many have
been destroyed by those evil reptiles. Now among these mountains
there are certain great and deep valleys to the bottom
of which there is no access. Wherefore the men who
go in search of the diamonds take with them pieces
(02:30):
of flesh as lean as they can get, and these
they cast into the bottom of a valley. Now there
are numbers of white eagles that haunt those mountains and
feed upon the serpents. When the eagles see the meat
thrown down, they pounce upon it and carry it up
to some rocky hilltop, where they begin to rend it.
But there are men on the watch, and as soon
(02:50):
as they see that the eagles have settled, they raise
a loud shouting to drive them away. And when the
eagles are thus frightened away, the men recover the pieces
of meat and find them full of diamonds which have
stuck to the meat down in the bottom. For the
abundance of diamonds down there in the depths of the
valleys is astonishing, but nobody can get down, and if
one could, it would be only to be incontinently devoured
(03:13):
by the serpents which are so rife there. There is
also another way of getting the diamonds. The people go
to the nests of those white eagles, of which there
are many, and in their droppings they find plenty of diamonds,
which the birds have swallowed in devouring the meat that
was cast into the valleys. And when the eagles themselves
are taken, diamonds are found in their stomachs. So now
(03:34):
I have told you three different ways in which these
stones are found. No other country but this kingdom of
Mutphilly produces them. But there they are found, both abundantly
and of large size. Those that are brought to our
part of the world are only the refuse, as it were,
of the finer and larger stones. For the flower of
the diamonds and other large gems, as well as the
(03:55):
largest pearls, are all carried to the great Khan and
other kings and princesses of those regions. In truth they
possess all the great treasures of the world. In this
kingdom are also made the best and most delicate buckrams
and those of highest price in sooth. They look like
tissue of spider's web. There is no king nor queen
in the world, but might be glad to wear them.
(04:17):
The people also have the largest sheep in the world
and great abundance of all the necessaries of life. There
is now no more to say, so I will tell
you about a province called Lar, from which the Abriaman
come Chapter twenty concerning the Province of Lar, whence the
Brahmins come. Lar is a province lying towards the west.
When you quit the place where the body of Saint
(04:38):
Thomas lies, and all the Abriamen in the world come
from that province. You must know that these Obriamen are
the best merchants in the world, and the most truthful,
for they would not tell a lie for anything on earth.
If a foreign merchant who does not know the ways
of the country applies to them and entrusts his goods
to them, they will take charge of these and sell
(04:59):
them in the most loyal man, seeking zealously the profit
of the foreigner, and asking no commission except what he
pleases to bestow. They eat no flesh and drink no wine,
and live a life of greater chastity, having intercourse with
no woman except with their wives, nor would they on
any account take what belongs to another. So their law commands,
(05:20):
and they are all distinguished by wearing a thread of
cotton over one shoulder and tied under the other arm,
so that it crosses the breast in the back. They
have a rich and powerful king who is eager to
purchase precious stones and large pearls. And he sends these
obrim and merchants into the kingdom of Mabar called Soli,
which is the best and noblest province of India, and
(05:41):
where the best pearls are found, to fetch him as
many of these as they can get, and he pays
them double the cost price for all. So in this
way he has a vast treasure of such valuables. These
obriam and are idolaters, and they pay greater heed to
signs and omens than any people that exists. I will
mention as an example one of their customs to every
(06:02):
day of the week they assign in augury of this sort.
Suppose that there is some purchase in hand, he who
proposes to buy, when he gets up in the morning
takes note of his own shadow in the sun, which
he says ought to be on that day, of such
and such a length. And if his shadow be of
the proper length for the day, he completes his purchase.
If not, he will on no account do so, but
(06:25):
waits till his shadow corresponds with that prescribed. For there
is a length established for the shadow for every individual
day of the week, and the merchant will complete no
business unless he finds his shadow of the length set
down for that particular day. Also, to each day in
the week, they assign one unlucky hour, which they term choyach,
(06:46):
for example, on Monday, the hour of half tears on Tuesday,
that of tears on Wednesday, knowns, and so on again.
If one of them is in the house and is
meditating a purchase, should he see tarantula such as are
very common in that country on the wall, provided it
advances from a quarter that he deems lucky, he will
(07:07):
complete his purchase at once. But if it comes from
a quarter that he considers unlucky, he will not do
so on any inducement. Moreover, if in going out he
hears anyone sneeze, if it seems to him a good omen,
he will go on, but if the reverse, he will
sit down on the spot where he is as long
as he thinks that he ought to tarry before going
(07:27):
on again. Or if in traveling along the road he
sees a swallow flyby, should its direction be lucky, he
will proceed, but if not, he will turn back again.
In fact, they are worse in these whims than so
many paterns. These obriaman are very long lived, owing to
their extreme abstinence in eating, and they never allow themselves
(07:48):
to be let blood in any part of the body.
They have capital teeth, which is owing to a certain
herb they chew, which greatly improves their appearance and is
also very good for the health. There is another other
class of people called Chugi, who are indeed properly a brieman,
but they form a religious order devoted to the idols.
They are extremely long lived, every man of them living
(08:10):
to one hundred and fifty or two hundred years. They
eat very little, but what they do eat is good
rice and milk chiefly. And these people make use of
a very strange beverage, for they make a potion of
sulfur and quicksilver mixed together, and this they drink twice
every month. This, they say, gives them long life, and
(08:30):
it is a potion they are used to take from
their childhood. There are certain members of this order who
lead the most ascetic life in the world, going stark naked,
and these worship the ox. Most of them have a
small ox of brass or pewter or gold, which they
wear tied over the forehead. Moreover, they take cow dung
and burn it, and make a powder thereof, and make
(08:52):
annointment of it, and daub themselves withal, doing this with
as great devotion as Christians do show in using holy water. Also,
if they meet anyone who treats them well, they daub
a little of this powder on the middle of his forehead.
They eat not from bowls or trenchers, but put their
victuals on leaves of the Apple of Paradise and other
(09:12):
big leaves. These, however, they use dry, never green, for
they say the green leaves have a soul in them,
and so it would be a sin, and they would
rather die than do what they deem their law pronounces
to be a sin. If anyone asks how it comes
that they are not ashamed to go start naked as
they do, they say, we go naked, because naked we
came into the world, and we desire to have nothing
(09:35):
about us that is of this world. Moreover, we have
no sin of the flesh to be conscious of, and
therefore we are not ashamed of our nakedness any more
than you are to show your hand or your face.
You who are conscious of the sins of the flesh,
do well to have shame and to cover your nakedness.
They would not kill an animal on any account, not
(09:55):
even a fly or a flea, or a louse, or
anything in fact that has life, for they say these
have all souls, and it would be sinned to do so.
They eat no vegetable in a green state, only such
as are dry, and they sleep on the ground stark, naked,
without a scrap of clothing on them or under them,
so that it is a marvel. They don't all die
(10:15):
in place of living, so long as I have told you.
They fast every day in the year, and drink nought
but water. And when a novice has to be received
among them, they keep him awhile in their convent and
make him follow their rule of life. And then when
they desire to put him to the test, they send
for some of those girls who are devoted to the idols,
and make them try the continents of the novice with
(10:37):
their blandishments. If he remains indifferent, they retain him, but
if he shows any emotion, they expel him from their society,
for they say they will have no man of loose
desires among them. They are such cruel and perfidious idolaters
that it is very devilry. They say that they burn
the bodies of the dead, because if they were not burnt,
(10:57):
worms would be bread which would eat the body. And
when no more food remained for them, these worms would die,
and the soul belonging to that body would bear the
sin and the punishment of their death. And that is
why they burn their dead. Now I have told you
about a great part of the people of the great
province of Mabar and their customs. But I have still
other things to tell of the same province of Mabar.
(11:19):
So I will speak of a city thereof which is
called Kyle. Chapter twenty one concerning the City of Kyle.
Kyle is a great and noble city and belongs to Ashar,
the eldest of the five brother kings. It is at
this city that all the ships touched that come from
the west, as from Hormos, and from Kies, and from
Aden and all Arabia, laden with horses and with other
(11:42):
things for sale. And this brings a great concourse of
people from the country round about, and so there is
great business done in this city of Kyle. The king
possesses vast treasures and wears upon his person great store
of rich jewels. He maintains great state, and favors his
kingdom with great equity, and extends great favor to merchants
and foreigners, so that they are very glad to visit
(12:05):
his city. This king has some three hundred wives, for
in those parts the man who has most wives is
most thought of. As I have told you before, there
are in this great province of Mabar five crowned kings
who are all own brothers, born of one father and
of one mother, and this king is one of them.
Their mother is still living. And when they disagree and
(12:27):
go forth to war against one another, their mother throws
herself between them to prevent their fighting. And should they
persist in desiring to fight, she will take a knife
and threaten that if they will do so, she will
cut off the paps that suckle them and rip open
the womb that bear them, and so perish before their eyes.
In this way has she full many a time brought
(12:48):
them to desist. But when she dies, it will most
as surely happen that they will fall out and destroy
one another. All the people of this city, as well
as the rest of India, have a custom of perpetual
keeping in the mouth a certain leaf called temble, to
gratify a certain habit and desire. They have continually chewing
it and spitting out the saliva that it excites. The
(13:10):
lords and gentlefolks in the king have these leaves prepared
with camphor and other aromatic spices, and also mixed with quicklime.
And this practice was said to be very good for
the health. If any one desires to offer a gross
insult to another, when he meets him, he spits this
leaf or its juice in his face. The other immediately
runs before the king relates the insult that has been
(13:33):
offered him and demands leave to fight the offender. The
king supplies the arms, which are sword and target, and
all the people flock to sea, and there the two
fight till one of them is killed. They must not
use the point of the sword. For this the king
forbids Chapter twenty two of the Kingdom of Coilum. When
you quit Mabar and go five hundred miles towards the southwest,
(13:56):
you come to the Kingdom of Coilum. The people are Idolaters,
but there are also some Christians and some Jews. The
natives have a language of their own and a king
of their own, and our tributary to no one. A
great deal of Brazil is got here, which is called
Brazil Coilumine from the country which produces it, tis of
very fine quality. Good ginger also grows here, and it
(14:18):
is known by the same name of coilumin after the country. Pepper,
too grows in great abundance throughout this country, and I
will tell you how. You must know that the pepper
trees are not wild, but cultivated, being regularly planted and watered,
and the pepper is gathered in the months of May,
June and July. They have also abundance of very fine indigo.
(14:38):
This is made of a certain herb which is gathered,
and after the roots have been removed, is put into
great vessels upon which they pour water and then leave
it till the whole of the plant is decomposed. They
then put this liquid in the sun, which is tremendously
hot there, so that it boils and coagulates and becomes
such as we see it. They then divide it into
(14:58):
pieces of four ounces each, and in that form it
is exported to our parts. And I assure you that
the heat of the sun is so great there that
it is scarcely to be endured. In fact, if you
put an egg into one of the rivers, it will
be boiled before you have had time to go any
distance by the mere heat of the sun. The merchants
from Mansi and from Arabia and from the Levant come
(15:20):
thither with their ships and their merchandise, and make great profits,
both by what they import and by what they export.
There are in this country many and diverse beasts, quite
different from those of other parts of the world. Thus
there are lions black all over, with no mixture of
any other color. And there are parrots of many sorts.
For some are white as snow, with red beak and feet,
(15:43):
and some are red, and some are blue, forming the
most charming site in the world. There are green ones too.
There are also some parrots of exceeding small size, beautiful creatures.
They have also very beautiful peacocks, larger than ours and different.
And they have cocks and hens quite different from ours.
And what more shall I say? In short, everything they
(16:04):
have is different from ours, and finer and better. Neither
is there fruit like ours, nor their beasts, nor their birds.
And this difference all comes of the excessive heat. Corn
they have none but rice. So also their wine they
make from palm sugar. Capital drink it is, and very
speedily it makes a man drunk. All other necessaries of
man's life they have in great plenty and cheapness. They
(16:27):
have very good astrologers and physicians, man and woman. They
are all black and go naked, all save a fine
cloth worn about the middle. They look not on any
sin of the flesh as a sin. They marry their
cousins German, and a man takes his brother's wife after
the brother's death. And all the people of India have
this custom. There is no more to tell you there,
(16:47):
so we will proceed, and I will tell you of
another country called Komari. Chapter twenty three of the country
called Komari. Komari is a country belonging to India, and
there you can see something of the North Star, which
we had not been able to see from the lesser
Java thus far. In order to see it you must
go some thirty miles out to sea, and then you
see it about a cubit above the water. This is
(17:10):
a very wild country, and there are beasts of all
kinds there, especially monkeys of such peculiar fashion that you
would take them for men. There are also gut poles
in wonderful diversity, with bears, lions, and leopards in abundance.
And of Section fourteen
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