Constantinople nor another worthy to be named in the same
breath with Sugui. The Chinese indeed, seeing the riches and
beauty of these two cities, doubted whether even the pleasant
courts of heaven could show their equal and proudly quoted
the proverb:

_Shang yeu t'ien t'ang,
Hia yeu Su Hang_.

(There's Paradise above, 'tis true,
But here below we've Hang and Su.)[13]

Kinsai seems far enough away in all conscience from Venice in
the year 1268, and Venice was all unwitting of its existence,
far beyond the sunrise. Yet there was in the city of the
lagoons that year, watching the same procession of the gilds
which Canale watched, a boy who was destined to link them for
ever in the minds of men--a lean lad of fourteen, Marco Polo
by name, who was always kicking his heels on the quay and
bothering foreign sailors for tales of distant lands. He
heard all they had to tell him very willingly, storing it up
in that active brain of his, for his curiosity was
insatiable; but always the tales that he heard most willingly
were about the Tartars.

At this time the Tartars were at the height of their power in
the West and the East. Tartars ruled at Peking all over
northern China, Corea, Mongolia, Manchuria, and Tibet, and
took tribute from Indo-China and Java. Tartars were spread
over central Asia, holding sway in Turkestan and Afghanistan.