merchants of Palestine; and the squires of Crusaders -- pretty,
ringleted boys, swearing like demons. And here and there were
Scots and Irish mercenaries, kilted, sensitive folk, one moment
smiling at you and the next a knife in your gizzard.

And as he went through the courts there were whispers and laughter,
and occasionally a soft voice invited him to enter; but he smiled
and shook his head. Near the Canal de Mestre, which is close by
the Ghetto, he stopped by the wine-shop called The Prince of Bulgaria,
and he could hear great disputation. And some were speaking of
Baldwin II, and how he had no guts to have let Palaeologus take
Constantinople from him. And others were murmuring about Genoa.

"Mark us, they mean trouble, those dogs. Better wipe them off the
face of the earth now." And a group were discussing the chances of
raiding the Jewish Kingdom of the Yemen. "They've got temples there
roofed with gold.". . .And an Irish piper was playing on a little
silver set of pipes, and an Indian magician was doing great sleight
of hand. . .

"I'll go in and talk to the strange foreign people," said Marco Polo.



CHAPTER II

Now, you might be thinking that the picture I'm drawing is out of
my own head. Let you not be thinking of it as it is now, a city
of shadows and ghosts, with a few scant visitors mooning in the
canals. The Pride of the West she was, the Jewel of the East.