ese 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.[NOTE
3]

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. And 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.[NOTE 4]

Messer Maffeo and Messer Marco Polo dwelt a whole year in this city when
on a mission.[NOTE 5]

Now we will leave this and tell you about other provinces towards the
north, for we are going to take you a sixty days' journey in that
direction.

NOTE 1.--Campichiu is undoubtedly Kanchau, which was at this time, as
Pauthier tells us, the chief city of the administration of _Kansuh_
corresponding to Polo's Tangut. _Kansuh_ itself is a name compounded of
the names of the two cities _Kan_-chau and _Suh_-chau.

[Kanchau fell under the Tangut dominion in 1208. (_Palladius_, p. 10.) The
Musulmans mentioned by Polo at Shachau and Kanchau probably came from
Khotan.--H. C.]

The difficulties that have been made about the form of the name
_Campiciou_, etc., in Polo, and the attempts to explain these, are
probably alike futile. Quatremere writes the Persian form of the name
after Abdurrazzak as _Kamtcheou_, but I see that Erdmann writes it after
Rashid, I presume on good grounds, as _Ckamidschu_, i.e. _Kamiju_ or
_Kamichu_. And that this _was_ the Western pronunciation of the name is
shown by the form which Pegolotti uses, _Camexu_, i.e. Camechu. The _p_ in
Polo's spelling is probably only a superfluous letter, as in the
occasional old spelling of _dampnum_, _contempnere_, _hympnus_,
_tirampnus_, _sompnour_, _Dampne Deu_. In fact, Marignolli writes Polo's
_Quinsai_ as _Campsay_.

It is worthy of notice that though Ramusio's text prints the names of
these two cities as _Succuir_ and _Campion_, his own pronunciation of them
appears to have been quite well understood by the Persian traveller Hajji
Mahomed, for it is perfectly clear that the latter recognized in th