Yule, pp.

113-20.
12.

Oderic of Pordenone, who was a man before he was a friar, remarks: 'The Chinese are comely enough, but colourless, having beards of long straggling hair like mousers, cats I mean.

And as for the women, they are the most beautiful in the world.' Marco Polo likewise never fails to note when the women of a district are specially lovely, in the same way that that other traveller Arthur Young always notes the looks of the chambermaids at the French inns among the other details of the countryside, and is so much affronted if waited on by a plain girl.
Marco Polo gives the palm for beauty to the women of the Province of Timochain (or Damaghan) on the north-east border of Persia, of which, he says, 'The people are in general a handsome race, especially the women, who, in my opinion, are the most beautiful in the world.'-- Marco Polo, op.cit., p.73.Of the women of Kinsai he reports thus: 'The courtesans are accomplished and are perfect in the arts of blandishment and dalliance, which they accompany with expressions adapted to every description of person, insomuch that strangers who have once tasted of their charms, remain in a state of fascination, and become so enchanted by their meretricious arts, that they can never divest themselves of the impression.

Thus intoxicated with sensual pleasures, when they return to their homes they report that they have been in Kinsai, or the celestial city, and pant for the time when they may be enabled to revisit paradise.' Of the respectable ladies, wives of the master craftsmen he likewise says: 'They have much beauty and are brought up with languid and delicate habits.