The Travels of Marco Polo - Tapa blanda

This historic book may have numerous typos and missing text. Purchasers can usually download a free scanned copy of the original book (without typos) from the publisher. Not indexed. Not illustrated. 1845 edition. Excerpt: ... black horn in the middle of the forehead, and beneath the tongue sharp prickles, which can inflict severe wounds. Their heads resemble that of the wild boar, yet they carry them bent to the earth. They are very ugly, and fond of wallowing among mire.* It is not true, as asserted among us, that they allow themselves to be taken by a virgin, but quite the contrary. There are here good and serviceable falcons, black like crows; also a prodigious number of monkeys of various forms and habits. But you must know that those who bring the little men from India practise a great deception. I assure you the figures to which they give that name are manufactured in this island in the following manner:-- There is a species of small monkey, with a face resembling the human, which they catch, skin, and shave off all the hair except on the beard and chin; having then moulded them into a human semblance, they dry and preserve them with camphor and other articles. But it is a gross deception; for neither in India, nor in any other country, however savage, are there men so small as these pretended ones.t Now let us tell of a kingdom called Samara. XII.--Kingdom of Samara. When a man departs from Basman, he finds the kingdom of Samara, in which I myself, Marco Polo, * The rhinoceros, an animal then probably unknown in Europe, is here described with considerable accuracy. We may observe, that the southern part of the east coast, where we suppose our traveller now to be, is described on Mr Marsden's map as funny, and subject to inundation ; the situation best fitted for this animal, which would be out of place amid the mountainous tracts in the north. t We have here a curious mention of the fraud practised on our ignorant ancestors. The belief of a nation of...

Ne a Venise en1254, Marco Polo a dix-sept ans quand son pere l'emmene faire un voyage qui le conduit au bout du monde connu: en Chine. La, il sert l'empereur Koubilai Khan pendant dix-sept ans et visite tout l'Extreme-Orient avant de rentrer chez lui avec beaucoup de choses a raconter. C'est pendant qu'il est en prison a Genes qu'il dicte le recit de ce qu'il a vu: Le Livre des Merveilles. Apres avoir couru mille dangers, Marco Polo est mort dans son lit, a Venise, a l'age de soixante-dix ans.