HE WHOLE
COUNTRY OF MANZI.

When you have left the city of Changan and have travelled for three days
through a splendid country, passing a number of towns and villages, you
arrive at the most noble city of Kinsay, a name which is as much as to say
in our tongue "The City of Heaven," as I told you before.[NOTE 1]

And since we have got thither I will enter into particulars about its
magnificence; and these are well worth the telling, for the city is beyond
dispute the finest and the noblest in the world. In this we shall speak
according to the written statement which the Queen of this Realm sent to
Bayan the conqueror of the country for transmission to the Great Kaan, in
order that he might be aware of the surpassing grandeur of the city and
might be moved to save it from destruction or injury. I will tell you all
the truth as it was set down in that document. For truth it was, as the
said Messer Marco Polo at a later date was able to witness with his own
eyes. And now we shall rehearse those particulars.

First and foremost, then, the document stated the city of Kinsay to be so
great that it hath an hundred miles of compass. And there are in it twelve
thousand bridges of stone, for the most part so lofty that a great fleet
could pass beneath them. And let no man marvel that there are so many
bridges, for you see the whole city stands as it were in the water and
surrounded by water, so that a great many bridges are required to give
free passage about it. [And though the bridges be so high the approaches
are so well contrived that carts and horses do cross them.[NOTE 2]]

The document aforesaid also went on to state that there were in this city
twelve guilds of the different crafts, and that each guild had 12,000
houses in the occupation of its workmen. Each of these houses contains at
least 12 men, whilst some contain 20 and some 40,--not that these are all
masters, but inclusive of the journeymen who work under the masters. And
yet all these craftsmen had full occupation, for many other cities of the
kingdom are supplied from this city with what they require.

The document aforesaid also stated that the number and wealth of the
merchants, and the amount of goods that passed through their hands, was so
enormous that no man could form a just estimate thereof. And I should have
told you with regard to those masters of the different crafts who are at
the head of such houses as I have mentioned, that neither they nor th