all
things that are needful for human subsistence. For example, you can get
three pounds and eight ounces of sugar for less than half a groat. The
city is twice as great as Bologna, and in it are many monasteries of
devotees, idol-worshippers every man of them. In one of those monasteries
which I visited there were 3000 monks.... The place is one of the best in
the world.... Thence I passed eastward to a certain city called Fuzo....
The city is a mighty fine one, and standeth upon the sea." Andrew of
Perugia, another Franciscan, was Bishop of Zayton from 1322, having
resided there from 1318. In 1326 he writes a letter home, in which he
speaks of the place as "a great city on the shores of the Ocean Sea, which
is called in the Persian tongue _Cayton_ (Cayton); and in this city a rich
Armenian lady did build a large and fine enough church, which was erected
into a cathedral by the Archbishop," and so on. He speaks incidentally of
the Genoese merchants frequenting it. John Marignolli, who was there about
1347, calls it "a wondrous fine sea-port, and a city of incredible size,
where our Minor Friars have three very fine churches; ... and they have a
bath also, and a _fondaco_ which serves as a depot for all the merchants."
Ibn Batuta about the same time says: "The first city that I reached after
crossing the sea was ZAITUN.... It is a great city, superb indeed; and in
it they make damasks of velvet as well as those of satin (_Kimkha_ and
_Atlas_), which are called from the name of the city _Zatuniah_; they are
superior to the stuffs of Khansa and Kharbalik. The harbour of Zaitun is
one of the greatest in the world--I am wrong; it is _the_ greatest! I
have seen there about an hundred first-class junks together; as for small
ones, they were past counting. The harbour is formed by an estuary which
runs inland from the sea until it joins the Great River."

[Mr. Geo. Phillips finds a strong argument in favour of Changchau being
Zayton in this passage of Ibn Batuta. He says (_Jour. China Br.R.A.
Soc._ 1888, 28-29): "Changchow in the Middle Ages was the seat of a great
silk manufacture, and the production of its looms, such as gauzes, satins
and velvets, were said to exceed in beauty those of Soochow and Hangchow.
According to the _Fuhkien Gazetteer_, silk goods under the name of Kinki,
and porcelain were, at the end of the Sung Dynasty, ordered to be taken
abroad and to be bartered against foreign wares, treasure having been
prohi