Things to remember while reading the excerpt from The Book of Ser Marco Polo the Venetian

•The passage that follows contains Marco Polo's description of a city in eastern China that he called Kinsay (kin-SY), but which is known today as Hangzhou (hahng-ZHOH). That city had been the capital of China prior to the Mongol conquest. He also used the term Manzi (mahn-ZEE) to describe southern China, and Cathay (kah-THY) for China as a whole. As for the port he described at Ganfu (gahn-FOO), that city has since been covered by ocean. Marco's use of the term "Ocean Sea" reflects a pre-modern European belief that all the world's land was surrounded by a single body of water.

•  When Marco referred to "miles," he was probably using a Chinese unit called a li (LEE), equal to about two-fifths of a mile. He also used an alternative spelling of khan, kaan. Other spellings in this document, such as armour or honour, however, are not necessarily Marco's but those of the translator, who was British. This also explains the use of the British term burgess for "citizen."

•  Europeans during the Middle Ages did not bathe on a regular basis, thinking it was unhealthy to do so; but Marco could not help being impressed—understandably so—by the cleanliness of the Chinese. In the latter part of this passage, he reveals the ill-will of the Chinese toward their Mongol conquerors, who they regarded both as outsiders and as barbarians, or uncivilized people; yet to judge from this account at least, they did not seem to treat Marco with similar scorn.

•One fact that makes Marco's history of his journeys so entertaining is that he was more open-minded than most Europeans of his time; one would have to be to travel so far from home. Yet it was sometimes hard to keep his prejudices from showing through, as for instance when

He referred to the Chinese as idol-worshipers. In fact the people of China subscribed to a number of religions, few of which could be considered any more idolatrous than the worship of saints practiced by European Christians at the time.