The Road to Cathay Summary and Analysis

Six days travel east leads through hillsides with herbs, pastures, fruit and abundance of everything including villages and town where inhabitants worship Mahomet. Shibarghan is a city where the best melons in the world are found and when dried become sweeter. Balkh is the last city at the frontier of Persia and the limit of the Tartar lordship of the Levant. Twelve days travel east without dwellings requires the traveler bring his own supplies since all the people relocated to the mountains. Talikhan has a corn-market and mountains nearby with salt, almonds and pistachios. Three days east-northeast are unpleasant murderous people addicted to drinking boiled wine and hunting. Inhabitants tend their herds and live in the mountains in earthen caves.

Badakhshan is a country that runs twelve days journey in length governed by kings from...