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.
The Golden Horde ruled the Caucasus, a large part of Russia, and a piece of Siberia.