payments in port charges, so that 'tis said he is one of
the richest princes in the world.[NOTE 3]

And it is a fact that when the Soldan of Babylon went against the city of
Acre and took it, this Soldan of Aden sent to his assistance 30,000
horsemen and full 40,000 camels, to the great help of the Saracens and the
grievous injury of the Christians. He did this a great deal more for the
hate he bears the Christians than for any love he bears the Soldan of
Babylon; for these two do hate one another heartily.[NOTE 4]

Now we will have done with the Soldan of Aden, and I will tell you of a
city which is subject to Aden, called Esher.

NOTE 1.--This is from Pauthier's text, which is here superior to the G.T.
The latter has: "They put the goods in small vessels, which proceed _on a
river_ about seven days." _Ram._ has, "in other smaller vessels, with
which they make a voyage on a gulf of the sea for 20 days, more or less,
as the weather may be. On reaching a certain port they load the goods on
camels, and carry them a 30 days' journey by land to the River Nile, where
they embark them in small vessels called _Zerms_, and in these descend the
current to Cairo, and thence by an artificial cut, called _Calizene_, to
Alexandria." The last looks as if it had been _edited_; Polo never uses
the name _Cairo_. The canal, the predecessor of the _Mahmudiah_, is also
called _Il Caligine_ in the journey of Simon Sigoli (_Frescobaldi_ p.
168). Brunetto Latini, too, discoursing of the Nile, says:--

"Cosi serva su' filo,
Ed e chiamato Nilo.
D'un su' ramo si dice,
Ch' e chiamato _Calice_."
--_Tesoretto_, pp. 81-82.

Also in the _Sfera_ of Dati:--

--"Chiamasi il _Caligine_
Egion e Nilo, e non si sa l'origine." P. 9.

The word is (Ar.) _Khalij_, applied in one of its senses specially to the
canals drawn from the full Nile. The port on the Red Sea would be either
Suakin or Aidhab; the 30 days' journey seems to point to the former.
Polo's contemporary, Marino Sanudo, gives the following account of the
transit, omitting _entirely_ the Red Sea navigation, though his line
correctly represented would apparently go by Kosseir: "The fourth haven is
called AHADEN, and stands on a certain little island joining, as it were,
to the main, in the land of the Saracens. The spices and other goods from
India are landed there, loaded on camels, and so carried by a journey of
nine days to a place on the River Nile, called _Chus_ (_