Heliopolis: a round city in Tartary with streets like Amsterdam
Editorial contextFrom the top of a column like London's Monument, the narrator surveys Heliopolis. It is round, about three miles across, ringed by a moat fed by rivers, with no building over two storeys. It has three wards named after the Sun, the Council and the Schools, and wide, clean, straight streets like Amsterdam's, lined with trees and flushed by running water.
It is divided into three Quarters or Wards, of which the first in the heart of the City, derives its name from the Sun; the second from the Council; and the third from the Schools. The Streets are wide, clean and streight, like those of Amsterdam
About The 'Heliopolitans', a fictional people
Keep in mind
Almost certainly fiction: the city is an ideal community in the manner of Campanella's City of the Sun, not a place any traveller recorded.
Mass weddings by lot 'toward Tartary'
Editorial contextMendoza passes on a story that in the provinces toward Tartary, and in Tartary itself, governors set an age by which men and women must either enter religion or marry. At the appointed time all who are to marry gather in a designated city, where twelve elders record their names and wealth; if there are more men than women, they draw lots, and the surplus wait until next year. He introduces it with 'they say'.
They say that in the provinces toward Tartary, and in Tartary itself, a certain very strange manner of marrying is customary, which is that the viceroys or governors have set a time for both men and women, so that on reaching a certain age they are obliged either to enter religion or to marry.
Working translation
Original wording
Dizen que en las Prouincias hazia la Tartaria, y en la mesma Tartaria, se acostumbra vna cierta manera de casar muy estraña, y es que los Virreyes, o Gouernadores tienen señalado tiempo, assi a los hombres como a las mugeres paraque hasta llegar a tal edad tengan obligacion, o de meterse en Religion, o de casarse.
About Peoples of the northern provinces and 'Tartary itself'
Keep in mind
Hearsay introduced with 'they say'; the story echoes older European tales (such as Herodotus's Babylonian bride market) and has no clear Asian source.
Transcribed from the page image; long s normalized.
Philosophers protected by the Great Kam
Editorial contextThe book explains how its peaceful city survives among the Tartars: the Great Kam admires the citizens' honesty and lets them live in peace, and in return they send him a volunteer regiment of 300 young men. That service, the author says, is how they learn the 'Tartarian Language' needed for trade at their fair.
Now altho' they lye surrounded by the Tartarians, yet are they not at War with any body : For the Great Kam, who has always had a high esteem for them, by reason of their Integrity, permits them to live in Peace and Tranquillity one among another.
About 'Tartarians' and their 'Great Kam'
Keep in mind
Fiction; the 'Great Kam' is the stock European name for a Tartar emperor, used here without any real ruler in view.
Why can't there be another Heliopolis, in Tartary?
Editorial contextIn his preface the author answers readers who doubted his story. Many cities share a name, he argues (two Frankforts, two Lyons, two Chalons), so why deny that besides Heliopolis in Egypt there could be the one he describes in Tartary? He also compares his doubters to those who laughed at the idea of the Antipodes before Columbus.
Why must it be deny'd, but that besides Heliopolis in Egypt, there may be that other of which I have given the Relation in Tartary.
Keep in mind
The protest of truth is a standard device of imaginary voyages.
'Like wind and water': Katib Celebi on the Tatar character
Editorial contextContinuing from the European source, Katib Celebi describes the Tatars as steel-natured among mankind, restless as wind and water, with the strength of Ahriman and the might of demons. They roam the deserts like the wind; they neither eat bread nor build houses, their horses need neither shoes nor nails, and they cross rivers by swimming. It is the classic European literary picture of the steppe nomad, translated into Ottoman.
Qualities of the Tatars: this people are of steel nature among mankind, and like water and wind their nature is used to motion; they have the strength of Ahriman and the power of demons … they run like the wind; neither do they tire nor do their horses; the horses they ride need neither shoe nor nail.
Working translation
Original wording
واوصاف تاتار بوقوم بنی نوع انسان میانهده پولاد نهادلر وآب وباد کبی طبیعتلری حرکته معتاد اهرمن قوت ودیو زورلو ... ایل کبی یلرلر نه کندولر یورولور نه اتلری درلر بندکلری آته نه نعل حاجت نه میخ
About Tatars (generic)
Keep in mind
A stereotype copied from European books, not observation; a few words at the line breaks are uncertain in the print.
Transcribed from the page image (corpus OCR of this facsimile is garbled).
