of hand...

"I'll go in and talk to the strange foreign people," said Marco Polo.

CHAPTER II

Now, you might be thinking that the picture I'm drawing is out of my
own head. Let you not be thinking of it as it is now, a city of
shadows and ghosts, with a few scant visitors mooning in the canals.
The Pride of the West she was, the Jewel of the East. Constantinople
was her courtyard. Greece, Egypt, Abyssinia, Bulgaria, and Muscovy,
her ten-acre fields. The Crusaders on their way to fight the Saracen
stopped to plead for her help and generosity. There were no soldiers
more chivalrous, not even the French. There were no better fighters,
not even the Highland clans. Sailors? You'd think those fellows had
invented the sea. And as for riches and treasures, oh! the wonder of
the world she was! Tribute she had from everywhere; the four great
horses of Saint Mark they came from Constantinople. The two great
marble columns facing the Piazetta, sure, they came from Acre. When
foreign powers wanted the loan of money, it was to Venice they came.
Consider the probity of Venetian men. They once held as pledge the
Crown of Thorns itself. King Louis IX of France redeemed it.

The processions of the tradespeople were like a king's retinue, and
they marching in state on the election of a doge. Each in their
separate order they'd come, the master smiths first, as is right, every
one garlanded like a conqueror, with their banner and their buglers.
The furriers next in ermine and taffeta; the tanners, with silver cups
filled with wine; the tailors in white, with vermilion stars; the
wool-workers, with olive branches; the quilt-makers in cloaks trimmed
with fleur-de-lis; the cloth-of-gold weavers, with golden crowns set
with pearls; the shoemakers in fine silk, while the silk-workers were
in fustian; the cheese-dealers and pork-butchers in scarlet and purple;
the fish-mongers and poulterers, armed like men-of-war; the
glass-makers, with elegant specimens of their art; the comb-makers,
with little birds in cages; the barber-surgeons on horseback, very
dignified, very learned, and with that you'd think there'd be an end to
them, but cast your eye back on that procession and you'd find guilds
as far as your sight would reach...

Let you be going down the markets, and what would you see for sale?
Boots, clothes, bread? No, they were out of sight; but scattered on
the booths, the like of farls of bread on a fair-day, you'd fin