broad street. That the emperor,
his chief ministers, the supreme judge, the eunuchs, the soldiery, and all
belonging to the imperial household, dwelt in that part of the city which
is on the right hand eastward; and that the people were not admitted into
that part of the city, which is watered by canals from different rivers,
the borders of which are, planted with trees, and adorned by magnificent
palaces. That portion of the city on the left hand, westwards from the
great street, is inhabited by the ordinary kind of people, and the
merchants, where also are great squares and markets for all the necessaries
of life. At day-break every morning, the officers of the royal household,
with the inferior servants, purveyors, and the domestics of the grandees of
the court, come into that division of the city, some on horseback, and
others on foot, to the public markets, and the shops of those who deal in
all sorts of goods, where they buy whatever they want, and do not return
again till their occasions call them back next morning. The city is very
pleasantly situate in the midst of a most fertile soil, watered by several
rivers, and hardly deficient in any thing except palm trees, which grow not
there.

In our time a discovery has been made, of a circumstance quite new and
unknown to our ancestors. No one ever imagined that the great sea which
extends from the Indies to China had any communication with the sea of
Syria. Yet we have heard, that in the sea of Rum, or the Mediterranean,
there was found the wreck of an Arabian ship, which had been shattered by a
tempest, in which all her men had perished. Her remains were driven by the
wind and weather into the sea of the Chozars, and thence by the canal of
the Mediterranean sea, and were at last thrown upon the coast of Syria.
Hence it is evident, that the sea surrounds all the country of China and
Sila or Cila, the uttermost parts of Turkestan, and the country of the
Chozars, and that it communicates by the strait with that which washes the
coast of Syria. This is proved by the structure of the wreck; of which the
planks were not nailed or bolted, like all those built in the
Mediterranean, or on the coast of Syria, but joined together in an
extraordinary manner, as if sewed, and none but the ships of Siraff are so
fastened. We have also heard it reported, that ambergris has been found on
the coast of Syria, which seems hard to believe, and was unknown to former
times. If this be