In the first place, you must let your beard grow long and not shave. And at Tana [a city on the Sea of Azov, an extension of the Black Sea] you should furnish yourself with a dragoman [interpreter]. And you must not try to save money in the matter of dragomen by taking a bad one instead of a good one. For the additional wages of the good one will not cost you so much as you will save by having him. And besides the dragoman it would be good to take at least two good manservants, who are acquainted with the Cumanian tongue [a Turkic language]. And if the merchant likes to take a woman with him from Tana, he can do so; if he does not like to take one there is no obligation, only if he does take one he will be kept much more comfortably than if he does not take one. If he does take one, it would be good if she were acquainted with the Cumanian tongue as well as the men.

And from Tana traveling to Gittarchan [Astrakhan, north of the Caspian Sea] you should take with you twenty-five days’ provisions, that is to say, flour and salt fish; as for meat, you will find enough of it at all the places along the road. And also at all the chief stations [along the way] . . . , you should replenish yourself with flour and salt fish; other things you will find in sufficient quantities, especially meat.

The road you travel from Tana to Cathay [China] is perfectly safe, whether by day or by night, according to what the merchants say who have used it. But if the merchant, in going or coming, should die enroute, everything belonging to him will become the property of the lord of the country in which he dies, and the officers of the lord will take possession of all. So also if he dies in Cathay. But if his brother is with him, or an intimate friend and comrade calling himself his brother, then they will surrender the property of the deceased to this person, and so it will be rescued.

And there is another danger: this is when the lord of the country dies, and before the new lord who is to have the lordship is proclaimed. During such intervals there have sometimes been irregularities perpetrated on the Franks, and other foreigners. (They call “Franks” all the Christians of these parts from Romania [Byzantine Empire] westward.) And the roads will not be safe to travel until another lord be proclaimed who is to reign in place of him who died.

Cathay is a province that contains a multitude of cities and towns. Among others there is one in particular, that is to say the capital city, to which merchants flock, and in which there is a vast amount of trade; and this city is called Cambalec [present day Beijing, the capital of Mongol-ruled China]. And the said city has a circuit of one hundred miles, and is all full of people and houses and of dwellers in the said city. . . . You may reckon also that from Tana to Sara [a city on the Volga River] the road is less safe than on any other part of the journey; and yet even when this part of the road is at its worst, if there are some sixty men in your company you will go as safely as if you were in your own house.

Anyone from Genoa or from Venice, wishing to go to the places above-named, and to make the journey to Cathay, should carry linens with him, and if he visits Organci [on the Oxus River in Central Asia] he will dispose of these at a profit. In Organci he should purchase . . . silver, and with these he should proceed without making any further investment, unless for some bales of the very finest textiles of small bulk, and that cost no more for transportation than coarser textiles.

Merchants who travel this road can ride on horseback or on asses, or mounted in any way that they choose to be mounted.

Whatever silver the merchants might carry with them as far as Cathay the lord of Cathay will take from them and put into his treasury. And to merchants who bring silver they give that paper money of theirs in exchange. This is of yellow paper, stamped with the seal of the aforementioned lord. And this money is called balisbi; and with this money you can readily buy silk and all other merchandise that you desire to buy. And all the people of the country are bound to receive it. And yet you shall not pay a higher price for your goods because your money is of paper. And there are three kinds of paper money, one being worth more than another, according to the value which has been established for each by that lord.

Source: Henri Yule, ed. and trans., Cathay and the Way Thither, 2nd ed. (revised by H. Cordier), 4 vols. (London: Hakluyt Society, 1913–1916), 3:151–55.