Brick houses and a painters' street under the 'Emperor of the Tartars'
Editorial contextRamusio adds to his Marco Polo commentary what a Persian merchant, Hajji Muhammad ('Chaggi Memet'), told him in Venice about Campion (Ganzhou), a city of idol-worshippers subject to 'Daimir Can, great Emperor of the Tartars'. Its houses were built 'in our manner' of fired brick and stone, two or three storeys high, with painted ceilings, and one whole street was lived in only by painters. He also mentions temples like churches, colossal gilded statues and printing.
The city of Campion is inhabited by peoples who are idolaters, subject to the lordship of Daimir Can, great Emperor of the Tartars ... The buildings of their houses are made in our manner, of fired brick and of living stone, with two and three storeys, which are ceiled and painted with pictures of various and different colours and with figures; there are also countless painters, and there is a quarter where no one lives but painters.
Working translation
Original wording
La città di Campion è habitata da popoli che sono idolatri: soggetta alla signoria de Daimir Can, grande Imperatore de Tartari … Le fabriche delle lor case son fatte al modo nostro di pietre cotte, & di pietre viue, con due & tre solari, quali sono soffittati & dipinti di pittura di varij & diuersi colori, & di figure: vi sono anco infiniti pittori: & vi è vna contrada doue non habita altri, che pittori.
About 'Idolaters' of Campion, subjects of 'Daimir Can, great Emperor of the Tartars'
Keep in mind
Second-hand merchant's report. 'Daimir Can' is probably the Ming emperor ('Dai Ming Khan'), so here 'Tartars' is a loose label for the ruler of China.
Transcribed from the page image (corpus OCR partly garbled); long s and ligatures normalized.
Tartar raiders on the road to the Great Wall
Editorial contextThe Portuguese lay brother Bento de Goes travelled overland from India towards China in 1603 to 1605. On the last stretch he found the country between Cialis and the Chinese wall 'notorious for its Tartar raids': merchants crossed it by night in silence, and the bodies of lone Muslim travellers lay by the road. Goes adds a telling detail (in the sentence that follows this excerpt): the Tartars did not usually kill the local people, whom they treated as their servants and herdsmen and occasionally robbed of their flocks.
"The country between Cialis and the Chinese wall," Goes writes, "is notorious for its Tartar raids, so that traders always cross it in the greatest fear, sometimes even under cover of night and in the strictest silence. One often comes across the dead bodies of Mohammedans who have attempted the journey unaccompanied, though on the other hand the Tartars are not wont to kill the native population
About Tartars (Mongol and Turkic nomads of the steppe)
Keep in mind
Goes died in China in 1607; his account survives through Ricci's reworking of his notes, so the wording is Ricci's.
Walls and fortress towns built against the Tartars
Editorial contextWhere the Great Wall ends in the far north-west, the account explains, there was a gap of some two hundred miles through which the Tartars, shut out by the Wall, kept trying to raid China. To stop them the Chinese built two heavily fortified cities, Kanchou (Zhangye) and Suchou (Jiuquan), with picked troops and their own viceroy. Here the walls and forts are Chinese works built to keep the Tartars out.
At the western part of the kingdom of China, where it bends to the north, those famous walls come to an end, and there was a stretch of about two hundred miles through which the Tartars, shut out by the walls, often tried to break into China, and still try even now, though with less danger: for two very strongly fortified cities have been built to beat back their attacks
Working translation
Original wording
Ad occiduam Sinensis regni partem, qua in Boream flectitur, celebres illi muri finiuntur, & spatium erat ducentorum fere milliariorum, quo spatio Tartari muris exclusi, saepe in Sinarum regnum excurrentes tentabant ingressum, & etiamnunc, sed minore periculo tentant: extructae sunt enim ad retundendos eorum impetus urbes duae munitissimae
About Chinese (Ming) garrisons facing the Tartars (Mongols)
A note on this quote
The scan is too rough to double-check this quote by machine. Compare it with the page.
A wall of iron bricks bound with copper
Editorial contextSallam describes how the wall was built: foundations dug thirty cubits deep and laid in iron and copper, then two great jambs, all of iron bricks sheathed in copper, carrying a 120-cubit iron lintel. He credits the work to Dhu'l-Qarnayn, the Quran's 'two-horned' king, usually identified with Alexander. Nothing here is credited to the Turks.
The wall was built in the following way. First the ground was dug to a depth of 30 cubits and the foundations laid there, built of iron and copper up to ground level … The whole structure is made of iron bricks faced with copper, each a cubit and a half long and wide and 4 inches thick.
Working translation
Original wording
La muraille fut construite de la manière suivante. D'abord on creusa le sol jusqu'à une profondeur de 30 coudées et on y jeta les fondements qu'on construisit en fer et en cuivre jusqu'à ras de terre … Toute la construction se compose de briques de fer, revêtues de cuivre, dont chacune a une coudée et demie en long et en large sur 4 pouces d'épaisseur.
About Unnamed builders credited to Dhu'l-Qarnayn (Alexander)
Keep in mind
Sallam's account as dictated to Ibn Khurradadhbih; the 'history' of the building is legend.