ow the fact, for their whole life is
spent in navigating that sea. And there is not one of those Islands but
produces valuable and odorous woods like the lignaloe, aye and better too;
and they produce also a great variety of spices. For example in those
Islands grows pepper as white as snow, as well as the black in great
quantities. In fact the riches of those Islands is something wonderful,
whether in gold or precious stones, or in all manner of spicery; but they
lie so far off from the main land that it is hard to get to them. And when
the ships of Zayton and Kinsay do voyage thither they make vast profits by
their venture.[NOTE 2]

It takes them a whole year for the voyage, going in winter and returning
in summer. For in that Sea there are but two winds that blow, the one that
carries them outward and the other that brings them homeward; and the one
of these winds blows all the winter, and the other all the summer. And you
must know these regions are so far from India that it takes a long time
also for the voyage thence.

Though that Sea is called the Sea of Chin, as I have told you, yet it is
part of the Ocean Sea all the same. But just as in these parts people talk
of the Sea of England and the Sea of Rochelle, so in those countries they
speak of the Sea of Chin and the Sea of India, and so on, though they all
are but parts of the Ocean.[NOTE 3]

Now let us have done with that region which is very inaccessible and out
of the way. Moreover, Messer Marco Polo never was there. And let me tell
you the Great Kaan has nothing to do with them, nor do they render him any
tribute or service.

So let us go back to Zayton and take up the order of our book from that
point.[NOTE 4]

NOTE 1.--"Several of the (Chinese) gods have horns on the forehead, or
wear animals' heads; some have three eyes.... Some are represented in the
Indian manner with a multiplicity of arms. We saw at Yang-cheu fu a
goddess with thirty arms." (_Deguignes_, I. 364-366.)

The reference to any particular form of idolatry here is vague. But in
Tibetan Buddhism, with which Marco was familiar, all these extravagances
are prominent, though repugnant to the more orthodox Buddhism of the
South.

When the Dalai Lama came to visit the Altun Khan, to secure the
reconversion of the Mongols in 1577, he appeared as a manifest embodiment
of the Bodhisatva Avalokitecvara, with _four hands_, of which two were
always folded across the breast! The same Bodhisatv