The City of Campichu, Etzina, Caracoron

CHAPTER 44. The City of Campichu

Campichu is also a city of Tangut, and a very great and noble one.

It is the capital and place of government of the whole province of Tangut.

The people are Idolaters, Saracens, and Christians, and the latter have 3 very fine churches in the city, whilst the Idolaters have many minsters and abbeys after their fashion.

In these they have an enormous number of idols, both small and great, certain of the latter being a good ten paces in stature; some of them being of wood, others of clay, and others yet of stone.

They are all highly polished, and then covered with gold.

The great idols of which I speak lie at length.{2} And round about them there are other figures of considerable size, as if adoring and paying homage before them.

There are among the idolaters were religious recluses who lead a more virtuous life than the rest. These abstain from all lechery, though they do not indeed regard it as a deadly sin; howbeit if any one sin against nature they condemn him to death. They have an Ecclesiastical Calendar as we have.

There are 5 days in the month that they observe particularly; and on these five days they would on no account either slaughter any animal or eat flesh meat. On those days, moreover, they observe much greater abstinence altogether than on other days.

Among these people a man may take thirty wives, more or less, if he can but afford to do so, each having wives in proportion to his wealth and means; but the first wife is always held in highest consideration. The men endow their wives with cattle, slaves, and money, according to their ability.

If a man dislikes any one of his wives, he just turns her off and takes another. They take to wife their cousins and their fathers’ widows (always excepting the man’s own mother), holding to be no sin many things that we think grievous sins, and, in short, they live like beasts.

Maffeo and Marco Polo dwelt a whole year in this city when on a mission.{5}

Chapter 45: The City of Etzina

When you leave the city of Campichu you ride for 12 days, and then reach a city called Etzina, which is towards the north on the verge of the Sandy Desert.

It belongs to the Province of Tangut.

The people are Idolaters, and possess plenty of camels and cattle, and the country produces a number of good falcons, both Sakers and Lanners.

The inhabitants live by their cultivation and their cattle, for they have no trade.

At this city you must needs lay in victuals for forty days, because when you quit Etzina, you enter on a desert which extends forty days’ journey to the north, and on which you meet with no habitation nor baiting-place.

In the summer-time, indeed, you will fall in with people, but in the winter the cold is too great.

You also meet with wild beasts (for there are some small pine-woods here and there), and with numbers of wild asses.

When you have travelled these forty days across the Desert you come to a certain province lying to the north. Its name you shall hear presently.

CHAPTER 46. The City of Caracoron

Caracoron is a city of some three miles in compass. [It is surrounded by a strong earthen rampart, for stone is scarce there. And beside it there is a great citadel wherein is a fine palace in which the Governor resides.] ’Tis the first city that the Tartars possessed after they issued from their own country. And now I will tell you all about how they first acquired dominion and spread over the world.

Originally the Tartars dwelt in the north on the borders of Chorcha.

Their country was one of great plains; and there were no towns or villages in it, but excellent pasture-lands, with great rivers and many sheets of water.

It was a very fine and extensive region. But there was no sovereign in the land. They did, however, pay tax and tribute to a great prince who was called in their tongue Unc Can, the same that we call Prester John, him in fact about whose great dominion all the world talks.

The tribute he had of them was one beast out of every ten, and also a tithe of all their other gear.

In time, the Tartars multiplied exceedingly.

When Prester John saw how great a people they had become, he began to fear that he should have trouble from them.

So he made a scheme to distribute them over sundry countries, and sent one of his Barons to carry this out. When the Tartars became aware of this they took it much amiss, and with one consent they left their country and went off across a desert to a distant region towards the north, where Prester John could not get at them to annoy 227them.

Thus they revolted from his authority and paid him tribute no longer. And so things continued for a time.