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He induced them to continue, and four days afterwards the cry of "Land! land!" was heard, which kept up their spirits for several days, till, on the 1st October, large numbers of birds were seen. By that time Columbus had reckoned that he had gone some 710 leagues from the Canaries, and if Zipangu were in the position that Tostanelli's map gave it, he ought to have been in its neighbourhood.
The son of one of the Polos, by the name of Marco, had written a book about their adventures, which covered a period of more than twenty years. The astonished world had gaped at his descriptions of the golden towers of the strange island of Zipangu, which was his Italian way of spelling Japan. Many people had wanted to go east, that they might find this gold-land and grow rich.
It is reported of these islanders, that they eat such of their enemies as they take prisoners; esteeming human flesh a peculiar dainty. The sea in which Zipangu lies is called the sea of Chi or Chin, or the sea over against Mangi, which is called Chan or Chint, in the language of that island.
In this passage, in the edition of Harris, the sense seems obscurely to insinuate that this had been occasioned by the sea having broken down or overwhelmed certain lands or islands, producing numbers of smaller islands and extensive shoals. Zipangu, Zipangri, or Cimpagu, is Japan without any doubt. Named Abataa and Yonsaintin by Pinkerton, from the Trevigi edition.
But I will now leave Zipangu, because I never was there, as it is not subject to the khan, and shall now return to Zaitum and the voyage from thence to India.
After this tempest ceased, the people of Zipangu sent over an army, in a fleet of ships, to seize the Tartars; but having landed without any order, the Tartars took the advantage of a rising ground in the middle of the island, under cover, of which, they wheeled suddenly round between the Zipanguers and the ships, which had been left unmanned, with ail their streamers displayed.
After having been employed for a year, these ships are sheathed all over, so that they then have three courses of boards: and they proceed in this manner till they sometimes hare six courses, alter which they are broken up. Zipangu is a very large island on the east, and fifteen hundred miles distant from the shores of Mangi.
Marco Polo, returning from his Asiatic travels, related all that he had learned of a vast island lying to the east of China, and even designated its position on his maps. He called it Zipangu, the name he had heard in China. This narration was not received with much credit, and was, until the sixteenth century, generally forgotten.
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