Marco polo book of travels free#

But the King replied that on no account whatever would he sell it, for it had come to him from his ancestors. You must know that the Great Kaan sent an embassy and begged the King as a favour greatly desired by him to sell him this ruby, offering to give for it the ransom of a city, or in fact what the King would.

Its value is so great that a price for it in money could hardly be named at all.

Marco polo book of travels free#

It is about a 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 flaw and as red as fire. 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. They find there also sapphires and topazes and amethysts, and many other stones of price. You must know that rubies are found in this Island and in no other country in the world but this. Now I will quit these particulars, and tell you of the most precious article that exists in the world. And they have brazil-wood, much the best in the world. They live on flesh and milk, and have tree-wine such as I have told you of. They have no wheat, but have rice, and sesamum of which they make their oil. The people are Idolaters, and go quite naked except that they cover the middle. They have a king there whom they call SENDEMAIN, and are tributary to nobody. Now I will tell you all about this Island. 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 ship from the high seas you do not see the land till you are right upon it. 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. You must know that it has a compass of 2400 miles, but in old times it was greater still, for it then had a circuit of about 3600 miles, as you find in the charts of the mariners of those seas. When you leave the Island of Angamanain and sail about a thousand miles in a direction a little south of west, you come to the Island of SEILAN, which is in good sooth the best Island of its size in the world.