All along the main street that we have spoken of, as running from end to end of the city, both sides are lined with houses and great palaces and the gardens pertaining to them, whilst in the intervals are the houses of tradesmen engaged in their different crafts.  The crowd of people that you meet here at all hours, passing this way and that on their different errands, is so vast that no one would believe it possible that victuals enough could be provided for their consumption, unless they should see how, on every market-day, all those squares are thronged and crammed with purchasers, and with the traders who have brought in stores of provisions by land or water; and everything they bring in is disposed of.

To give you an example of the vast consumption in this city let us take the article of pepper; and that will enable you in some measure to estimate what must be the quantity of victual, such as meat, wine, groceries, which have to be provided for the general consumption.  Now Messer Marco heard it stated by one of the Great Kaan’s officers of customs that the quantity of pepper introduced daily for consumption into the city of Kinsay amounted to 43 loads, each load being equal to 223 lbs. [NOTE 7]

The houses of the citizens are well built and elaborately finished; and the delight they take in decoration, in painting and in architecture, leads them to spend in this way sums of money that would astonish you.

The natives of the city are men of peaceful character, both from education and from the example of their kings, whose disposition was the same.  They know nothing of handling arms, and keep none in their houses.  You hear of no feuds or noisy quarrels or dissensions of any kind among them.  Both in their commercial dealings and in their manufactures they are thoroughly honest and truthful, and there is such a degree of good will and neighbourly attachment among both men and women that you would take the people who live in the same street to be all one family.[NOTE 8]

And this familiar intimacy is free from all jealousy or suspicion of the conduct of their women.  These they treat with the greatest respect, and a man who should presume to make loose proposals to a married woman would be regarded as an infamous rascal.  They also treat the foreigners who visit them for the sake of trade with great cordiality, and entertain them in the most winning manner, affording them every help and advice on their business.  But on the other hand they hate to see soldiers, and not least those of the Great Kaan’s garrisons, regarding them as the cause of their having lost their native kings and lords.