Chapter XXII.

OF THE ISLAND OF ZIPANGRI, AND OF THE ATTEMPT MADE BY THE TARTARS TO CONQUER IT, AND THEIR MISCARRIAGE IN THEM.

We will now enter into the affairs of India, and begin with their ships, which are made of fir with one deck, on which are twenty cabins, more or less, according to the bigness of the ships, each for one merchant. They have a good rudder, and four masts with four sails, and some two masts, which they either raise or take down at pleasure. Some greater ships have thirteen divisions on the inside, made with boards enchased, so that if by a blow of a whale, or a touch of a rock, water gets in, it can go no farther than that division, and the leak being found, is soon stopped. They are double, that is, have two courses of boards one within the other, and are well caulked with oakum, and nailed with iron, but not pitched, for they have no pitch, but anointed with an oil of a certain tree mixed with lime and hemp, beaten small, which binds faster than pitch or lime. The greater ships have three hundred mariners, the others two hundred, or one hundred and fifty, as they are in bigness and in burthen, from five to six thousand bags of pepper; and they were wont to be larger than now they are, the sea having broken into parts and islands, that the defect of water in some places causeth them to build less. They use also oars in these ships, four men to one oar; and the greater ships have with them two or three less ships, able to carry a thousand bags of pepper, having sixty mariners or upwards on board; which small ships serve sometimes to tow the greater. They have also with them ten small boats for fishing and other services fastened to the sides of the larger ships, and let down when they please to use them. They sheath their ships also after a year’s usage, so that then they have three courses of boards, and they proceed in this manner sometimes till there be six courses, after which they break them up. Having spoken of the ships, we will speak of India, and, first, of certain islands.

Zipangu, i.e. Japan, is an island on the east, one thousand five hundred miles distant from the shores of Mangi, very great, the people of white complexion, of gentle behaviour, in religion idolaters, and have a king of their own. They have gold in great plenty, for few merchants come thither, and the king permits no exportation of it; and they which have carried on commerce there speak of the king’s house covered with gold, as churches here with lead, gilded windows, floors of gold. There are also many pearls. Once the fame of these riches made Cublai-Khan to send to conquer it two of his barons, with a great fleet of ships; one named Abbaca, and the other Vensansin, who, going from Zaitum and Quinsay, arrived there, but falling out between themselves, could take but one city, and there beheaded all they took, except eight persons, which by an enchanted precious stone, enclosed in the right arm between the skin and flesh, could not be wounded with iron; whereupon, with wooden clubs, at the command of the two barons, they were slain. It happened one day that a northern wind blew hard, which was dangerous to the ships riding there, so that some were lost, some put out farther to sea and others, with the two leaders and a few principal persons, returned home. Out of many broken ships some escaped by boards and swimming to an island not inhabited, four miles off Zipangu, and were about thirty thousand, without provision or arms, against whom the Zipanguaners, after the tempest was calmed, sent out a fleet of ships, and an army. These coming on land to seek the wrecked Tartars without order, gave occasion to the Tartars to wheel about, the island being high in the midst, and to get unseen to their ships, which were left unmanned, with the streamers displayed, and in them they sailed to the chief city of Zipangu, where they were admitted without suspicion, and found few others but women. The King of Zipangu besieged them six months, and they, having no relief, yielded themselves, and their lives were saved. This happened A.D. 1264.

The Khan, for the ill-conduct of his two commanders, cut off the head of one, and sent the other to a desert island called Zerga, where he caused offenders to die by sewing them, their hands bound in a new flayed hide of a buffalo, which drying, shrinketh so as it puts them to vast tortures, which lead to a miserable death. The idols in this and the adjoining islands are made with heads of kine, swine, dogs, and in other fashions more monstrous, as with faces on their shoulders, with four, ten, or even a hundred hands; and to these they ascribe most power, and do most reverence, and say, that so they learned of their progenitors. They sometimes eat their enemies which they take with great joy, and for great dainties; at least, so it is reported of them. The sea, in which this island lies, is called the sea of Cin, or Chin, that is, the sea against Mangi, and in the language of that island Mangi is called Chin or Chint, which sea is so large, that the mariners and expert pilots, who frequent it, say that there are seven thousand four hundred and forty islands therein, the most part of them inhabited; that there grows no tree which yields not a good smell, and that there grow many spices of divers kinds, especially lignum aloes, and pepper black and white. The ships of Zaitum are a year in their voyage, for they go in winter and return in summer, having winds of two sorts, which keep their seasons, and this country is far from India; but I will leave them, for I never was there, nor are they subject to the Khan, and return to Zaitum; from hence, sailing south-westward one thousand five hundred miles, passing a gulf called Cheinan, which continues two months sailing to the northward, still confining on the south-east of Mangi, and elsewhere with Ania and Toloman and other provinces before named. Within it are infinite islands all in a manner inhabited: in them is found abundance of gold, and they trade one with another.