Read the following account of Marco Polo and answer the questions that follow:

These ships [plying in the Arabian Sea] are wretched affairs, and many of them get lost; for they have no iron fastenings, and are only stitched together with twine made from the husk of the Indian nut. They beat this husk until it becomes like horse-hair, and from that, they spin twine, and with this stitch the planks of the ships together. It keeps well and is not corroded with the sea-water, but it will not stand well in a storm. The ships are not pitched but are rubbed with fish-oil. They have mast, sail and rudder, and have no deck, but only a cover spread over the cargo when loaded. This cover consists of hides, and on the top of these hides, they put the horses, which they take [from Hormuz] to India for sale. They have no iron to make nails off, and for this reason, they use only wooden tree-nails in their ship-building and then stitch the planks with twine as I have told you. Hence it is a perilous business to go on a voyage in one of those ships, and many of them are lost, for in the Sea of India, the storms are often terrible.