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Updated: June 21, 2025
A mile beyond this city, the road divides into two; that to the west leading through the province of Kathay, and that to the south-east towards the province of Mangi, from Gouza to the kingdom of Tain-fu . In this journey, you ride for ten days through Kathay, always finding many fair and populous cities, well cultivated fields, and numerous vineyards, from whence all Kathay is supplied with wine; and many plantations of mulberry trees, for rearing silk worms.
This plain is so high and cold that no birds are to be found; and it is even said, that fires do not burn so bright in this place, and do not so effectually boil or dress victuals as in other places . From hence, the way to Kathay leads, for forty days journey, between the east and the north-east, through mountains, hills, and vallies, in which there are many rivers, but no villages, neither any verdure, except that some huts and cottages are to be seen among the mountains; but the inhabitants are savage and wicked idolaters, who live by hunting, and are clothed in the skins of wild beasts; the country is called Palow . After this you come to the province of Caschar , which is inhabited by Mahometans, who are tributary to the great khan of the Mongals or Tartars.
Then the hunters come and bind them, after which they draw a few drops of blood from the veins of the neck of each of these creatures, and let them go free; and this blood is the most precious purple dye. He told me, likewise, that there is a province beyond Kathay, into which, if a man enters, he always continues of the same age at which he entered; but this I do not believe .
Zaitum is a famous port, and much frequented by ships with rich cargoes from India, for the supply of Mangi and Kathay, and from this port the productions of these regions are dispersed all over India. At this port such quantities of pepper are imported, that what comes through Alexandria into our western world is not to be compared to it, being hardly an hundredth part.
Going south-east from this place towards Kathay, we come to the famous city of Cinguy , situated in a province of the same name, which is tributary to the great khan, and is contained in the kingdom of Tangut. Some of the people are Christians, some of them Mahometans, and others are idolaters.
This evidently points out the use of coal in northern China. Some Account of the Provinces of Kathay, or Northern China, and of other neighbouring Countries subject to the Great Khan .
Inquiring the cause, he told them privately that the emperor had been thrown in hunting from the horse they had presented him from Shah Rokh, and had given orders that they should be carried in chains to certain cities in the east of Kathay. The ambassadors were much afflicted at this news, and continued their journey for about twenty miles to the emperors camp.
We learn from this narrative, that the paper money of the former Mogul Khans of Kathay was no longer in use, and that silver money, under the same denomination of Balishes, had been substituted in its place. Astley IV. 621. Forst. Voy. and Disc. 158. I suspect this learned Dutchman has been sometimes quoted in Latin, by the name of Candidius.
Once a priest of Kathay sat by me, clothed in red, of whom I asked how that colour was procured. He told me that on certain high; craggy rocks in the east of Kathay there dwelt certain creatures like men, not above a cubit long, and all hairy, who leapt rather than walked, and dwelt in inaccessible caves.
The great central plain of Tangut, then traversed by the imperial horde of the Mongals, and now by the Eluts and Kalkas, must be prodigiously elevated above the level of the ocean. The information here seems corrupted, or at least is quite incorrect. Kathay or northern China is due east, or east south-east from the great plain to the south of Karakum.
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