1. Now I will mention in a brief statement the distances of the countries. Know ye, then, that from this place to Constantinople 'tis about three thousand miles or more.

2. From Constantinople to Tanan or Tartary is a thousand miles, going always towards the east, and by sea.

3. The empire of Persia beginneth at Trebizond, which is a city of the Greeks, situated in the furthest bight of the Moorish Sea. And that empire extendeth far; for it includeth Lesser Asia, Cilicia, Media, Cappadocia, Lycia, Greater Armenia, Caldea, Georgiana, part of the Caspian Hills and Mogan,–whence came those three kings to worship Christ,–even to the Iron Gates, and all Persia, with some part of Lesser India; so that the empire extendeth across from the Black Sea to the Indian Sea, and so great is the distance as to equal lxxxx days of ordinary journey with cattle, or more.

4. Then Lesser India extendeth four-square over LX days' journey, and is entirely level.

5. But the Greater India extendeth over more than CLXX days' journey, excluding the islands, of which there be more than XII thousand inhabited, and more than VIII thousand uninhabited, as those say who navigate that sea. And [this India also] is nearly all a plain.

6. But the vessels of these Indies be of a marvellous kind. For although they be very great, they be not put together with iron, but stitched with a needle, and a thread made of a kind of grass.