Messer Marco Polo | Page 7

here were Moorish captains, Othello's men, great giants of
black marble; and swarthy, hook-nosed merchants of Palestine; and the
squires of Crusaders -- pretty, ringleted boys, swearing like demons.
And here and there were Scots and Irish mercenaries, kilted, sensitive
folk, one moment smiling at you and the next a knife in your gizzard.

And as he went through the courts there were whispers and laughter,
and occasionally a soft voice invited him to enter; but he smiled and
shook his head. Near the Canal de Mestre, which is close by the Ghetto,
he stopped by the wine-shop called The Prince of Bulgaria, and he
could hear great disputation. And some were speaking of Baldwin II,
and how he had no guts to have let Palaeologus take Constantinople
from him. And others were murmuring about Genoa.
"Mark us, they mean trouble, those dogs. Better wipe them off the face
of the earth now." And a group were discussing the chances of raiding
the Jewish Kingdom of the Yemen. "They've got temples there roofed
with gold.". . .And an Irish piper was playing on a little silver set of
pipes, and an Indian magician was doing great sleight 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 find cloves and
nutmegs, mace and ebony from Moluccas, that had come by way of
Alexandria and the Syrian ports; sandalwood from Timor, in Asia;
camphor from Borneo. Sumatra and Java sent benzoin to her markets.
Cochin China sent bitter aloes-wood. From China and Japan and from
Siam came gum, spices, silks, chessmen, and curiosities for the parlor.
Rubies from Peru, fine cloths from Coromandel, and finer still from
Bengal. They got spikenard from Nepaul and Bhutan. Their diamonds
were from Golconda. From Nirmul they purchased Damascus steel for
their swords. Nor is that all you'd see, and you'd be going down by the
markets on a sunny morning, and a fine- thinking, low-voiced woman
on your arm. You'd see pearls and sapphires, topaz and cinnamon from
Ceylon; lac and agates, brocades and coral from Cambay; hammered
vessels and inlaid weapons and embroidered shawls from Cashmere.
As for spices, never would your nostrils meet such an odor: bdellium
from Scinde, musk from Tibet, galbanum from Khorasan; from
Afghanistan, asafetida; from Persia, sagapenum; ambergris and civet
from Zanzibar, and from Zanzibar came ivory, too.