The Travels of John Mandeville Essay

From this city now such individuals could access to the most wanted country by the name Cathay by travelling by a river known as Carmona. John in his story portrays the country of Cathay as the most wanted country because of its immense wealth, abundant in good merchandise, it’s also described as the pretty, large and fine region. Merchants from different parts of the world were believed to visit Cathay regularly in a vapor of the sea to search for the trade commodities that were adequate in this country according to Mandeville. The story continues by the writer describing the construction of Cadom city where the palace was geographically placed. The story describes how beautiful the palace of the Great Khan was very attractive and the decorations that were made to maintain the beauty of the palace.

The aim of the treaty was to help king Khan fight his greatest enemy King of Manzi. “we heard a great of gossip about him and we wanted to see the grandeur of his court. To be sure we found it more magnificent and splendid that we had ever heard. ” The happiness of Mandeville is a clear indication that assisting king Khan to fight to conquer his enemies was very beneficial to them as they believed that the treaty will enable them to gain a lot of wealth from the city. The story continues with John trying to describe how King Khan struggled to fight enemies who at some point overrun him, throwing him from the horse he was riding, slaining the horse and forcing him to hide under bushes.

He goes ahead and claims that there is the scarcity of barley and wheat in this region as people depend on millet, rice as well as cheese together with different fruits for their survival. Mandeville seems not to be much interested when he travels to this land since he cannot find the immense wealth of valuable goods emanating from Cathay. From this land of Bactria, John is more conversant with the religious faith of its respective society. He claims that since the king of that land is a Christian, the majority of the people in the land are therefore Christians. Hernan Cortes: From Second Letter to Charles V Cortes letter to Charles V seems to be an issue of glory to their conquering of the Mexico City.

This letter seems to be a sort of thanksgiving to God in the situation Cortes had placed it. Furthermore, the city is described to contain many squares thus making Cortes compare it Seville city in Spain since it was wide and large and provided markets as well as other places for buying and selling goods. He claims the city provided squires that were enough to accommodate sixty thousand souls that engaged in selling and buying. In his letter, he argues that the place all contain all kinds of merchandise that the world could afford, food articles, jewels of silver and gold, lead, copper, brass, bones, snails, feathers as well as tin. Cortes glorifies the presence of shops where the soldiers could buy prepared medicines, ointments, liquids as well as plasters, barber shops, restaurants, all kinds of vegetables, fruits, bee honey and wax, maize etc.