Chapter X: Prologue (1)

_Page_
3. Remains of the Castle of SOLDAIA or Sudák. After _Dubois de
Montpereux, Voyage autour du Caucase_, Atlas, 3d s. Pl. 64.

7. Ruins of BOLGHAR. After _Demidoff, Voyage dans la Russie
Méridionale_, Pl. 75.

15. The GREAT KAAN delivering a GOLDEN TABLET to the two elder
Polos. From a miniature in the _Livre des Merveilles du
Monde_ (Fr. 2810) in the Library at Paris, fol. 3 verso.

16. Castle of AYAS. After _Langlois, Voyage en Cilicie._

18. Plan of ACRE as it was when lost (A.D. 1291). Reduced and
translated from the contemporary plan in the _Secreta
Fidelium Crucis_ of Marino Sanudo the Elder, engraved in
_Bongars, Gesta Dei per Francos_, vol. ii.

21. Portrait of Pope GREGORY X. After _J. B. de Cavaleriis
Pontificum Romanorum Effigies_, etc. Romæ, 1580.

37. Ancient CHINESE WAR VESSEL. From the Chinese Encyclopædia
called _San-Thsai-Thou-Hoei_, in the Paris Library.

BOOK FIRST.

_Page_
42. Coin of King HETUM I. and Queen ISABEL of Cilician Armenia.
From an original in the British Museum. Engraved by ADENEY.

48. Castle of BAIBURT. After _Texier, L’Arménie_, Pl. 3.

51. Mediæval GEORGIAN FORTRESS. From a drawing by Padre CRISTOFORO
DI CASTELLI of the Theatine Mission, made in 1634, and now in
the Communal Library at Palermo. The name of the place has
been eaten away, and I have not yet been able to ascertain it.

55. View of DERBEND. After a cut from a drawing by M. Moynet in the
_Tour du Monde_, vol. i.

61. Coin of BADRUDDÍN LOLO of Mosul (A.H. 620). After _Marsden’s
Numismata Orientalia_, No. 164. By ADENEY.

76. GHÁZÁN Khan’s Mosque at TABRIZ. Borrowed from _Fergusson’s
History of Architecture._

95. KASHMIR SCARF with animals, etc. After photograph from the
scarf in the Indian Museum.

100. Humped Oxen from the Assyrian Sculptures at Kouyunjik. From
_Rawlinson’s Ancient Monarchies._

102. Portrait of a Hazára. From a Photograph, kindly taken for the
purpose, by M.-Gen. _C. P. Keyes_, C.B., Commanding the
Panjáb Frontier Force.

116– Illustrations of the use of the DOUBLE RUDDER in the Middle
118. Ages. 7 figures, viz., No. 1, The Navicella of Giotto in
the Porch of St. Peter’s. From _Eastlake’s H. of Painting_;
Nos. 2 and 3, from _Pertz, Scriptores_, tom. xviii. after
a Genoese Chronicle; No. 4, Sketch from fresco of Spinello
Aretini at Siena; No. 5, Seal of Port of Winchelsea, from
_Sussex Archæological Collections_, vol. i. 1848; No. 6,
Sculpture on Leaning Tower at Pisa, after _Jal, Archéologie
Navale_; No. 7, from the Monument of Peter Martyr, the
persecutor of the Lombard _Patarini_, in the Church of St.
Eustorgius at Milan, after _Le Tombe ed i Monumenti Illustri
d’Italia_, Mil. 1822–23.

134. The _ARBRE SEC_, and _ARBRES DU SOLEIL ET DE LA LUNE_. From
a miniature in the Prose Romance of Alexander, in the Brit.
Museum MS. called the _Shrewsbury Book_ (Reg. xv. e. 6).

137. The CHINÁR or Oriental Plane, viz., that called the Tree of
Godfrey of Boulogne at Buyukdéré, near Constantinople.
Borrowed from _Le Monde Végétal_ of Figuier.

147. Portrait of H. H. AGHA KHÁN MEHELÁTI, late representative of
the OLD MAN of the MOUNTAIN. From a photograph by Messrs.
SHEPHERD and BOURNE.

159. Ancient SILVER PATERA of debased Greek Art, formerly in the
possession of the Princes of BADAKHSHAN, now in the India
Museum.

167. Ancient BUDDHIST Temple at Pandrethan in KÁSHMIR. Borrowed from
_Fergusson’s History of Architecture_.

176. Horns of the _OVIS POLI_, or Great Sheep of Pamir. Drawn by
the Editor from the specimen belonging to the Royal Asiatic
Society.

177. Figure of the _OVIS POLI_ or Great Sheep of Pamir. From a
drawing by Mr. Severtsof in a Russian publication.

180. Head of a native of KASHGAR. After Verchaguine. From the _Tour
du Monde_.

181. View of KASHGAR. From _Mr. R. Shaw’s Tartary_.

184. View of SAMARKAND. From a Sketch by Mr. D. IVANOFF, engraved
in a Russian Illustrated Paper (kindly sent by Mr. I. to the
editor).

221. Colossal Figure; BUDDHA entering NIRVANA. Sketched by the
Editor at Pagán in Burma.

222. Great LAMA MONASTERY, viz., that at Jehol. After _Staunton’s
Narrative of Lord Macartney’s Embassy_.

224. The _Kyang_, or WILD ASS of Mongolia. After a plate by Wolf in
the _Journal of the Royal Zoological Society_.

229. The Situation of Karákorum.

230. Entrance to the Erdeni Tso, Great Temple. From MARCEL MONNIER’S
_Tour d’Asie_, by kind permission of M. PLON.

244. Death of Chinghiz Khan. From a Miniature in the _Livre des
Merveilles_.

253. Dressing up a Tent, from MARCEL MONNIER’S _Tour d’Asie_, by
kind permission of M. PLON.

255. Mediæval TARTAR HUTS and WAGGONS. Drawn by Sig. QUINTO CENNI,
on a design compiled by the Editor from the descriptions of
mediæval and later travellers.

258. Tartar IDOLS and KUMIS Churn. Drawn by the Editor after data in
_Pallas_ and _Zaleski_ (_Vie des Steppes Kirghiz_).

273. The _SYRRHAPTES PALLASII; Bargherlac_ of Marco Polo. From a
plate by Wolf in the _Ibis_ for April, 1860.

280. REEVES’S PHEASANT. After an engraving in _Wood’s Illustrated
Natural History_.

293. The RAMPART of GOG and MAGOG. From a photograph of the Great
Wall of China. Borrowed from _Dr. Rennie’s Peking and the
Pekingese_.

307. A PAVILION at Yuen-Ming-Yuen, to illustrate the probable style
of Kúblái Kaan’s Summer Palace. Borrowed from _Michie’s
Siberian Overland Route_.

317. CHINESE CONJURING Extraordinary. Extracted from an engraving in
_Edward Melton’s Zeldzaame Reizen_, etc. Amsterdam, 1702.

320. A MONASTERY of LAMAS. Borrowed from the _Tour du Monde_.

326. A TIBETAN BACSI. Sketched from the life by the Editor.

BOOK SECOND.—PART FIRST.

_Page_
340. NAKKARAS. From a Chinese original in the _Lois des Empereurs
Mandchous_ (_Thai-Thsing-Hoei-Tien-Thou_), in the Paris
Library.

341. NAKKARAS. After one of the illustrations in Blochmann’s edition
of the _Ain-i-Akbari_.

352. Seljukian Coin, with the LION and the SUN (A.H. 640). After
_Marsden’s Numismata Orientalia_, No. 98. Engraved by ADENEY.

355. Sculptured GERFALCON from the Gate of Iconium. Copied from
_Hammer’s Falknerklee_.

357. Portrait of the Great KAAN KÚBLÁI. From a Chinese engraving in
the Encyclopædia called _San Thsai-Thou-Hoei_; in the Paris
Library.

367. Ideal Plan of the Ancient Palaces of the Mongol Emperors at
Khanbaligh, according to Dr. Bretschneider.

369. Palace at Khan-baligh. From the _Livre des Merveilles_.

369. The WINTER PALACE at PEKING. Borrowed from _Fergusson’s History
of Architecture_.

371. View of the “GREEN MOUNT.” From a photograph kindly lent to the
present Editor by Count de SEMALLÉ.

373. The _Yüan ch’eng_. From a photograph kindly lent to the present
Editor by Count de SEMALLÉ.

376. South GATE of the “IMPERIAL CITY” at Peking. From an original
sketch belonging to the late _Dr. W. Lockhart_.

399. The BÚRGÚT EAGLE. After _Atkinson’s Oriental and Western
Siberia_.

409. The TENTS of the EMPEROR K’ien-lung. From a drawing in the
_Staunton Collection_ in the British Museum.

413. Plain of CAMBALUC; the City in the distance; from the hills
on the north-west. From a photograph. Borrowed from _Dr.
Rennie’s Peking_.

458. The Great TEMPLE OF HEAVEN at Peking. From _Michie’s Siberian
Overland Route_.

463. MARBLE ARCHWAY erected under the MONGOL DYNASTY at Kiu-Yong
Kwan in the Nan-k’au Pass, N.W. of Peking. From a photograph
in the possession of the present Editor.

MARCO POLO AND HIS BOOK.

INTRODUCTORY NOTICES.

I. OBSCURITIES IN THE HISTORY OF HIS LIFE AND BOOK.
RAMUSIO’S STATEMENTS.

[Sidenote: Obscurities of Polo’s Book, and personal History.]

1. With all the intrinsic interest of Marco Polo’s Book it may perhaps be doubted if it would have continued to exercise such fascination on many minds through successive generations were it not for the difficult questions which it suggests. It is a great book of puzzles, whilst our confidence in the man’s veracity is such that we feel certain every puzzle has a solution.

And such difficulties have not attached merely to the identification of places, the interpretation of outlandish terms, or the illustration of obscure customs; for strange entanglements have perplexed also the chief circumstances of the Traveller’s life and authorship. The time of the dictation of his Book and of the execution of his Last Will have been almost the only undisputed epochs in his biography. The year of his birth has been contested, and the date of his death has not been recorded; the critical occasion of his capture by the Genoese, to which we seem to owe the happy fact that he did not go down mute to the tomb of his fathers, has been made the subject of chronological difficulties; there are in the various texts of his story variations hard to account for; the very tongue in which it was written down has furnished a question, solved only in our own age, and in a most unexpected manner.

[Sidenote: Ramusio, his earliest biographer. His account of Polo.]

2. The first person who attempted to gather and string the facts of Marco Polo’s personal history was his countryman, the celebrated John Baptist Ramusio. His essay abounds in what we now know to be errors of detail, but, prepared as it was when traditions of the Traveller were still rife in Venice, a genuine thread runs through it which could never have been spun in later days, and its presentation seems to me an essential element in any full discourse upon the subject.

Ramusio’s preface to the Book of Marco Polo, which opens the second volume of his famous Collection of Voyages and Travels, and is addressed to his learned friend Jerome Fracastoro, after referring to some of the most noted geographers of antiquity, proceeds:[1]—

“Of all that I have named, Ptolemy, as the latest, possessed
the greatest extent of knowledge. Thus, towards the North, his
knowledge carries him beyond the Caspian, and he is aware of its
being shut in all round like a lake,—a fact which was unknown
in the days of Strabo and Pliny, though the Romans were already
lords of the world. But though his knowledge extends so far, a
tract of 15 degrees beyond that sea he can describe only as Terra
Incognita; and towards the South he is fain to apply the same
character to all beyond the Equinoxial. In these unknown regions,
as regards the South, the first to make discoveries have been the
Portuguese captains of our own age; but as regards the North and
North-East the discoverer was the Magnifico Messer Marco Polo, an
honoured nobleman of Venice, nearly 300 years since, as may be
read more fully in his own Book. And in truth it makes one marvel
to consider the immense extent of the journeys made, first by the
Father and Uncle of the said Messer Marco, when they proceeded
continually towards the East-North-East, all the way to the Court
of the Great Can and the Emperor of the Tartars; and afterwards
again by the three of them when, on their return homeward, they
traversed the Eastern and Indian Seas. Nor is that all, for one
marvels also how the aforesaid gentleman was able to give such an
orderly description of all that he had seen; seeing that such an
accomplishment was possessed by very few in his day, and he had
had a large part of his nurture among those uncultivated Tartars,
without any regular training in the art of composition. His Book
indeed, owing to the endless errors and inaccuracies that had
crept into it, had come for many years to be regarded as fabulous;
and the opinion prevailed that the names of cities and provinces
contained therein were all fictitious and imaginary, without any
ground in fact, or were (I might rather say) mere dreams.

[Sidenote: Ramusio vindicates Polo’s Geography.]

3. “Howbeit, during the last hundred years, persons acquainted
with Persia have begun to recognise the existence of Cathay. The
voyages of the Portuguese also towards the North-East, beyond
the Golden Chersonese, have brought to knowledge many cities and
provinces of India, and many islands likewise, with those very
names which our Author applies to them; and again, on reaching
the Land of China, they have ascertained from the people of that
region (as we are told by Sign. John de Barros, a Portuguese
gentleman, in his Geography) that Canton, one of the chief cities
of that kingdom, is in 30⅔° of latitude, with the coast running
N.E. and S.W.; that after a distance of 275 leagues the said coast
turns towards the N.W.; and that there are three provinces along
the sea-board, Mangi, Zanton, and Quinzai, the last of which is
the principal city and the King’s Residence, standing in 46° of
latitude. And proceeding yet further the coast attains to 50°.[2]
Seeing then how many particulars are in our day becoming known of
that part of the world concerning which Messer Marco has written,
I have deemed it reasonable to publish his book, with the aid of
several copies written (as I judge) more than 200 years ago, in a
perfectly accurate form, and one vastly more faithful than that in
which it has been heretofore read. And thus the world shall not
lose the fruit that may be gathered from so much diligence and
industry expended upon so honourable a branch of knowledge.”

4. Ramusio, then, after a brief apologetic parallel of the marvels related by Polo with those related by the Ancients and by the modern discoverers in the West, such as Columbus and Cortes, proceeds:—

[Sidenote: Ramusio compares Polo with Columbus.]

“And often in my own mind, comparing the land explorations of these
our Venetian gentlemen with the sea explorations of the aforesaid
Signor Don Christopher, I have asked myself which of the two were
really the more marvellous. And if patriotic prejudice delude me
not, methinks good reason might be adduced for setting the land
journey above the sea voyage. Consider only what a height of
courage was needed to undertake and carry through so difficult an
enterprise, over a route of such desperate length and hardship,
whereon it was sometimes necessary to carry food for the supply
of man and beast, not for days only but for months together.
Columbus, on the other hand, going by sea, readily carried with
him all necessary provision; and after a voyage of some 30 or 40
days was conveyed by the wind whither he desired to go, whilst the
Venetians again took a whole year’s time to pass all those great
deserts and mighty rivers. Indeed that the difficulty of travelling
to Cathay was so much greater than that of reaching the New World,
and the route so much longer and more perilous, may be gathered
from the fact that, since those gentlemen twice made this journey,
no one from Europe has dared to repeat it,[3] whereas in the very
year following the discovery of the Western Indies many ships
immediately retraced the voyage thither, and up to the present day
continue to do so, habitually and in countless numbers. Indeed
those regions are now so well known, and so thronged by commerce,
that the traffic between Italy, Spain, and England is not greater.”

[Sidenote: Recounts a tradition of the travellers’ return to Venice.]

5. Ramusio goes on to explain the light regarding the first part or prologue of Marco Polo’s book that he had derived from a recent piece of luck which had made him partially acquainted with the geography of Abulfeda, and to make a running commentary on the whole of the preliminary narrative until the final return of the travellers to Venice:—

“And when they got thither the same fate befel them as befel
Ulysses, who, when he returned, after his twenty years’ wanderings,
to his native Ithaca, was recognized by nobody. Thus also those
three gentlemen who had been so many years absent from their
native city were recognized by none of their kinsfolk, who were
under the firm belief that they had all been dead for many a year
past, as indeed had been reported. Through the long duration and
the hardships of their journeys, and through the many worries and
anxieties that they had undergone, they were quite changed in
aspect, and had got a certain indescribable smack of the Tartar
both in air and accent, having indeed all but forgotten their
Venetian tongue. Their clothes too were coarse and shabby, and of
a Tartar cut. They proceeded on their arrival to their house in
this city in the confine of St. John Chrysostom, where you may
see it to this day. The house, which was in those days a very
lofty and handsome palazzo, is now known by the name of the _Corte
del Millioni_ for a reason that I will tell you presently. Going
thither they found it occupied by some of their relatives, and
they had the greatest difficulty in making the latter understand
who they should be. For these good people, seeing them to be in
countenance so unlike what they used to be, and in dress so shabby,
flatly refused to believe that they were those very gentlemen of
the Ca’ Polo whom they had been looking upon for ever so many years
as among the dead.[4] So these three gentlemen,—this is a story I
have often heard when I was a youngster from the illustrious Messer
GASPARO MALPIERO, a gentleman of very great age, and a Senator
of eminent virtue and integrity, whose house was on the Canal of
Santa Marina, exactly at the corner over the mouth of the Rio di S.
Giovanni Chrisostomo, and just midway among the buildings of the
aforesaid Corte del Millioni, and he said he had heard the story
from his own father and grandfather, and from other old men among
the neighbours,—the three gentlemen, I say, devised a scheme by
which they should at once bring about their recognition by their
relatives, and secure the honourable notice of the whole city; and
this was it:—

“They invited a number of their kindred to an entertainment, which
they took care to have prepared with great state and splendour
in that house of theirs; and when the hour arrived for sitting
down to table they came forth of their chamber all three clothed
in crimson satin, fashioned in long robes reaching to the ground
such as people in those days wore within doors. And when water
for the hands had been served, and the guests were set, they took
off those robes and put on others of crimson damask, whilst the
first suits were by their orders cut up and divided among the
servants. Then after partaking of some of the dishes they went
out again and came back in robes of crimson velvet, and when
they had again taken their seats, the second suits were divided
as before. When dinner was over they did the like with the robes
of velvet, after they had put on dresses of the ordinary fashion
worn by the rest of the company.[5] These proceedings caused much
wonder and amazement among the guests. But when the cloth had
been drawn, and all the servants had been ordered to retire from
the dining hall, Messer Marco, as the youngest of the three, rose
from table, and, going into another chamber, brought forth the
three shabby dresses of coarse stuff which they had worn when
they first arrived. Straightway they took sharp knives and began
to rip up some of the seams and welts, and to take out of them
jewels of the greatest value in vast quantities, such as rubies,
sapphires, carbuncles, diamonds and emeralds, which had all been
stitched up in those dresses in so artful a fashion that nobody
could have suspected the fact. For when they took leave of the
Great Can they had changed all the wealth that he had bestowed
upon them into this mass of rubies, emeralds, and other jewels,
being well aware of the impossibility of carrying with them so
great an amount in gold over a journey of such extreme length
and difficulty. Now this exhibition of such a huge treasure of
jewels and precious stones, all tumbled out upon the table, threw
the guests into fresh amazement, insomuch that they seemed quite
bewildered and dumbfounded. And now they recognized that in spite
of all former doubts these were in truth those honoured and worthy
gentlemen of the Ca’ Polo that they claimed to be; and so all paid
them the greatest honour and reverence. And when the story got
wind in Venice, straightway the whole city, gentle and simple,
flocked to the house to embrace them, and to make much of them,
with every conceivable demonstration of affection and respect.
On Messer Maffio, who was the eldest, they conferred the honours
of an office that was of great dignity in those days; whilst the
young men came daily to visit and converse with the ever polite and
gracious Messer Marco, and to ask him questions about Cathay and
the Great Can, all which he answered with such kindly courtesy that
every man felt himself in a manner his debtor. And as it happened
that in the story, which he was constantly called on to repeat, of
the magnificence of the Great Can, he would speak of his revenues
as amounting to ten or fifteen _millions_ of gold; and in like
manner, when recounting other instances of great wealth in those
parts, would always make use of the term _millions_, so they gave
him the nickname of MESSER MARCO MILLIONI: a thing which I have
noted also in the Public Books of this Republic where mention
is made of him.[6] The Court of his House, too, at S. Giovanni
Chrisostomo, has always from that time been popularly known as the
Court of the Millioni.

[Sidenote: Recounts Marco’s capture by the Genoese.]

6. “Not many months after the arrival of the travellers at Venice,
news came that LAMPA DORIA, Captain of the Genoese Fleet, had
advanced with 70 galleys to the Island of Curzola, upon which
orders were issued by the Prince of the Most Illustrious Signory
for the arming of 90 galleys with all the expedition possible, and
Messer Marco Polo for his valour was put in charge of one of these.
So he with the others, under the command of the Most Illustrious
MESSER ANDREA DANDOLO, Procurator of St. Mark’s, as Captain
General, a very brave and worthy gentleman, set out in search of
the Genoese Fleet. They fought on the September feast of Our Lady,
and, as is the common hazard of war, our fleet was beaten, and Polo
was made prisoner. For, having pressed on in the vanguard of the
attack, and fighting with high and worthy courage in defence of his
country and his kindred, he did not receive due support, and being
wounded, he was taken, along with Dandolo, and immediately put in
irons and sent to Genoa.

“When his rare qualities and marvellous travels became known
there, the whole city gathered to see him and to speak with him,
and he was no longer entreated as a prisoner but as a dear friend
and honoured gentleman. Indeed they showed him such honour and
affection that at all hours of the day he was visited by the
noblest gentlemen of the city, and was continually receiving
presents of every useful kind. Messer Marco finding himself in
this position, and witnessing the general eagerness to hear all
about Cathay and the Great Can, which indeed compelled him daily to
repeat his story till he was weary, was advised to put the matter
in writing. So having found means to get a letter written to his
father here at Venice, in which he desired the latter to send the
notes and memoranda which he had brought home with him, after the
receipt of these, and assisted by a Genoese gentleman, who was a
great friend of his, and who took great delight in learning about
the various regions of the world, and used on that account to spend
many hours daily in the prison with him, he wrote this present book
(to please him) in the Latin tongue.

“To this day the Genoese for the most part write what they have to
write in that language, for there is no possibility of expressing
their natural dialect with the pen.[7] Thus then it came to pass
that the Book was put forth at first by Messer Marco in Latin; but
as many copies were taken, and as it was rendered into our vulgar
tongue, all Italy became filled with it, so much was this story
desired and run after.

[Sidenote: Ramusio’s account of Marco’s liberation and marriage.]

7. “The captivity of Messer Marco greatly disturbed the minds
of Messer Maffio and his father Messer Nicolo. They had decided,
whilst still on their travels, that Marco should marry as soon as
they should get to Venice; but now they found themselves in this
unlucky pass, with so much wealth and nobody to inherit it. Fearing
that Marco’s imprisonment might endure for many years, or, worse
still, that he might not live to quit it (for many assured them
that numbers of Venetian prisoners had been kept in Genoa a score
of years before obtaining liberty); seeing too no prospect of being
able to ransom him,—a thing which they had attempted often and
by various channels,—they took counsel together, and came to the
conclusion that Messer Nicolo, who, old as he was, was still hale
and vigorous, should take to himself a new wife. This he did; and
at the end of four years he found himself the father of three sons,
Stefano, Maffio, and Giovanni. Not many years after, Messer Marco
aforesaid, through the great favour that he had acquired in the
eyes of the first gentlemen of Genoa, and indeed of the whole city,
was discharged from prison and set free. Returning home he found
that his father had in the meantime had those three other sons.
Instead of taking this amiss, wise and discreet man that he was,
he agreed also to take a wife of his own. He did so accordingly,
but he never had any son, only two girls, one called Moreta and the
other Fantina.

“When at a later date his father died, like a good and dutiful son
he caused to be erected for him a tomb of very honourable kind for
those days, being a great sarcophagus cut from the solid stone,
which to this day may be seen under the portico before the Church
of S. Lorenzo in this city, on the right hand as you enter, with
an inscription denoting it to be the tomb of Messer Nicolo Polo of
the contrada of S. Gio. Chrisostomo. The arms of his family consist
of a _Bend_ with three birds on it, and the colours, according to
certain books of old histories in which you see all the coats of
the gentlemen of this city emblazoned, are the field _azure_, the
bend _argent_, and the three birds _sable_. These last are birds of
that kind vulgarly termed _Pole_,[8] or, as the Latins call them,
_Gracculi_.

[Sidenote: Ramusio’s account of the Family Polo and its
termination.]

8. “As regards the after duration of this noble and worthy family,
I find that Messer Andrea Polo of San Felice had three sons,
the first of whom was Messer Marco, the second Maffio, the third
Nicolo. The two last were those who went to Constantinople first,
and afterwards to Cathay, as has been seen. Messer Marco the elder
being dead, the wife of Messer Nicolo who had been left at home
with child, gave birth to a son, to whom she gave the name of Marco
in memory of the deceased, and this is the Author of our Book. Of
the brothers who were born from his father’s second marriage, viz.
Stephen, John, and Matthew, I do not find that any of them had
children, except Matthew. He had five sons and one daughter called
Maria; and she, after the death of her brothers without offspring,
inherited in 1417 all the property of her father and her brothers.
She was honourably married to Messer AZZO TREVISANO of the parish
of Santo Stazio in this city, and from her sprung the fortunate
and honoured stock of the Illustrious Messer DOMENICO TREVISANO,
Procurator of St. Mark’s, and valorous Captain General of the Sea
Forces of the Republic, whose virtue and singular good qualities
are represented with augmentation in the person of the Most
Illustrious Prince Ser MARC’ANTONIO TREVISANO, his son.[9]

“Such has been the history of this noble family of the Ca’ Polo,
which lasted as we see till the year of our Redemption 1417, in
which year died childless Marco Polo, the last of the five sons of
Maffeo, and so it came to an end. Such be the chances and changes
of human affairs!”

----------------------------------------------------------------------
[1] The Preface is dated Venice, 7th July, 1553. Fracastorius died
in the same year, and Ramusio erected a statue of him at Padua.
Ramusio himself died in July, 1557.

[2] The Geography of De Barros, from which this is quoted, has never
been printed. I can find nothing corresponding to this passage in
the Decades.

[3] A grievous error of Ramusio’s.

[4] See the decorated title-page of this volume for an attempt to
realise the scene.

[5] At first sight this fantastic tradition seems to have little
verisimilitude; but when we regard it in the light of genuine
Mongol custom, such as is quoted from Rubruquis, at p. 389 of
this volume, we shall be disposed to look on the whole story with
respect.

[6] This curious statement is confirmed by a passage in the records of
the Great Council, which, on a late visit to Venice, I was enabled
to extract, through an obliging communication from Professor
Minotto. (See below, p. _67_.)

[7] This rather preposterous skit at the Genoese dialect naturally
excites a remonstrance from the Abate Spotorno. (_Storia Letteraria
della Liguria_, II. 217.)

[8] _Jackdaws_, I believe, in spite of some doubt from the imbecility
of ordinary dictionaries in such matters.

They are under this name made the object of a similitude by Dante
(surely a most unhappy one) in reference to the resplendent spirits
flitting on the celestial stairs in the sphere of Saturn:—

“E come per lo natural costume
_Le Pole_ insieme, al cominciar del giorno,
Si muovono a scaldar le fredde piume:
Poi altre vanno vià senza ritorno,
Altre rivolgon sè, onde son mosse,
Ed altre roteando fan soggiorno.”—_Parad._ XXI. 34.

There is some difference among authorities as to the details of
the Polo blazon. According to a MS. concerning the genealogies of
Venetian families written by Marco Barbaro in 1566, and of which
there is a copy in the Museo Civico, the field is _gules_, the bend
_or_. And this I have followed in the cut. But a note by S. Stefani
of Venice, with which I have been favoured since the cut was made,
informs me that a fine 15th-century MS. in his possession gives the
field as _argent_, with no _bend_, and the three birds _sable_ with
beaks _gules_, disposed thus ∵.

]

[A] [This coat of arms is reproduced from the Genealogies of
Priuli, Archivio di Stato, Venice.—H. C.]

[9] Marco Antonio Trevisano was elected Doge, 4th June, 1553, but died
on the 31st of May following. We do not here notice Ramusio’s
numerous errors, which will be corrected in the sequel. [See p.
78.]

II. SKETCH OF THE STATE OF THE EAST AT THE TIME OF THE
JOURNEYS OF THE POLO FAMILY.

9. The story of the travels of the Polo family opens in 1260.

[Sidenote: State of the Levant.]

Christendom had recovered from the alarm into which it had been thrown some 18 years before when the Tartar cataclysm had threatened to engulph it. The Tartars themselves were already becoming an object of curiosity rather than of fear, and soon became an object of hope, as a possible help against the old Mahomedan foe. The frail Latin throne in Constantinople was still standing, but tottering to its fall. The successors of the Crusaders still held the Coast of Syria from Antioch to Jaffa, though a deadlier brood of enemies than they had yet encountered was now coming to maturity in the Dynasty of the Mamelukes, which had one foot firmly planted in Cairo, the other in Damascus. The jealousies of the commercial republics of Italy were daily waxing greater. The position of Genoese trade on the coasts of the Aegean was greatly depressed, through the predominance which Venice had acquired there by her part in the expulsion of the Greek Emperors, and which won for the Doge the lofty style of Lord of Three-Eighths of the Empire of Romania. But Genoa was biding her time for an early revenge, and year by year her naval strength and skill were increasing. Both these republics held possessions and establishments in the ports of Syria, which were often the scene of sanguinary conflicts between their citizens. Alexandria was still largely frequented in the intervals of war as the great emporium of Indian wares, but the facilities afforded by the Mongol conquerors who now held the whole tract from the Persian Gulf to the shores of the Caspian and of the Black Sea, or nearly so, were beginning to give a great advantage to the caravan routes which debouched at the ports of Cilician Armenia in the Mediterranean and at Trebizond on the Euxine. Tana (or Azov) had not as yet become the outlet of a similar traffic; the Venetians had apparently frequented to some extent the coast of the Crimea for local trade, but their rivals appear to have been in great measure excluded from this commerce, and the Genoese establishments which so long flourished on that coast, are first heard of some years after a Greek dynasty was again in possession of Constantinople.[1]

[Sidenote: The various Mongol Sovereignties in Asia and Eastern Europe.]

10. In Asia and Eastern Europe scarcely a dog might bark without Mongol leave, from the borders of Poland and the Gulf of Scanderoon to the Amur and the Yellow Sea. The vast empire which Chinghiz had conquered still owned a nominally supreme head in the Great Kaan,[2] but practically it was splitting up into several great monarchies under the descendants of the four sons of Chinghiz, Juji, Chaghatai, Okkodai, and Tuli; and wars on a vast scale were already brewing between them. Hulaku, third son of Tuli, and brother of two Great Kaans, Mangku and Kúblái, had become practically independent as ruler of Persia, Babylonia, Mesopotamia, and Armenia, though he and his sons, and his sons’ sons, continued to stamp the name of the Great Kaan upon their coins, and to use the Chinese seals of state which he bestowed upon them. The Seljukian Sultans of Iconium, whose dominion bore the proud title of Rúm (Rome), were now but the struggling bondsmen of the Ilkhans. The Armenian Hayton in his Cilician Kingdom had pledged a more frank allegiance to the Tartar, the enemy of his Moslem enemies.

Barka, son of Juji, the first ruling prince of the House of Chinghiz to turn Mahomedan, reigned on the steppes of the Volga, where a standing camp, which eventually became a great city under the name of Sarai, had been established by his brother and predecessor Batu.

The House of Chaghatai had settled upon the pastures of the Ili and the valley of the Jaxartes, and ruled the wealthy cities of Sogdiana.

Kaidu, the grandson of Okkodai who had been the successor of Chinghiz in the Kaanship, refused to acknowledge the transfer of the supreme authority to the House of Tuli, and was through the long life of Kúblái a thorn in his side, perpetually keeping his north-western frontier in alarm. His immediate authority was exercised over some part of what we should now call Eastern Turkestan and Southern Central Siberia; whilst his hordes of horsemen, force of character, and close neighbourhood brought the Khans of Chaghatai under his influence, and they generally acted in concert with him.

The chief throne of the Mongol Empire had just been ascended by Kúblái, the most able of its occupants after the Founder. Before the death of his brother and predecessor Mangku, who died in 1259 before an obscure fortress of Western China, it had been intended to remove the seat of government from Kara Korum on the northern verge of the Mongolian Desert to the more populous regions that had been conquered in the further East, and this step, which in the end converted the Mongol Kaan into a Chinese Emperor,[3] was carried out by Kúblái.

[Sidenote: China.]

11. For about three centuries the Northern provinces of China had been detached from native rule, and subject to foreign dynasties; first to the _Khitan_, a people from the basin of the Sungari River, and supposed (but doubtfully) to have been akin to the Tunguses, whose rule subsisted for 200 years, and originated the name of KHITAI, Khata, or CATHAY, by which for nearly 1000 years China has been known to the nations of Inner Asia, and to those whose acquaintance with it was got by that channel.[4] The Khitan, whose dynasty is known in Chinese history as the _Liao_ or “Iron,” had been displaced in 1123 by the Chúrchés or Niu-chen, another race of Eastern Tartary, of the same blood as the modern Manchus, whose Emperors in their brief period of prosperity were known by the Chinese name of Tai-_Kin_, by the Mongol name of the _Altun_ Kaans, both signifying “Golden.” Already in the lifetime of Chinghiz himself the northern Provinces of China Proper, including their capital, known as Chung-tu or Yen-King, now Peking, had been wrenched from them, and the conquest of the dynasty was completed by Chinghiz’s successor Okkodai in 1234.

Southern China still remained in the hands of the native dynasty of the Sung, who had their capital at the great city now well known as Hang-chau fu. Their dominion was still substantially untouched, but its subjugation was a task to which Kúblái before many years turned his attention, and which became the most prominent event of his reign.

[Sidenote: India, and Indo-China.]

12. In India the most powerful sovereign was the Sultan of Delhi, Nassir-uddin Mahmud of the Turki House of Iltitmish;[5] but, though both Sind and Bengal acknowledged his supremacy, no part of Peninsular India had yet been invaded, and throughout the long period of our Traveller’s residence in the East the Kings of Delhi had their hands too full, owing to the incessant incursions of the Mongols across the Indus, to venture on extensive campaigning in the south. Hence the Dravidian Kingdoms of Southern India were as yet untouched by foreign conquest, and the accumulated gold of ages lay in their temples and treasuries, an easy prey for the coming invader.

In the Indo-Chinese Peninsula and the Eastern Islands a variety of kingdoms and dynasties were expanding and contracting, of which we have at best but dim and shifting glimpses. That they were advanced in wealth and art, far beyond what the present state of those regions would suggest, is attested by vast and magnificent remains of Architecture, nearly all dating, so far as dates can be ascertained, from the 12th to the 14th centuries (that epoch during which an architectural afflatus seems to have descended on the human race), and which are found at intervals over both the Indo-Chinese continent and the Islands, as at Pagán in Burma, at Ayuthia in Siam, at Angkor in Kamboja, at Borobodor and Brambánan in Java. All these remains are deeply marked by Hindu influence, and, at the same time, by strong peculiarities, both generic and individual.

“... =e por so qui cestes lettres soient fermes e establis ci avuns
escrit l’escrit de notre main vermoil e sayelé de notre ceau
pendant=....”]

---------------------------------------------------------------------- [1] See Heyd, _Le Colonie Commerciali degli Italiani_, etc., passim.

[2] We endeavour to preserve throughout the book the distinction
that was made in the age of the Mongol Empire between _Khán_ and
_Ḳaán_ (خان and قآان, as written by Arabic and Persian authors).
The former may be rendered _Lord_, and was applied generally to
Tartar chiefs whether sovereign or not; it has since become in
Persia, and especially in Afghanistan, a sort of “Esq.,” and in
India is now a common affix in the names of (Musulman) Hindustanis
of all classes; in Turkey alone it has been reserved for the
Sultan. _Ḳaán_, again, appears to be a form of _Kháḳán_, the
Χαγάνος of the Byzantine historians, and was the peculiar title
of the supreme sovereign of the Mongols; the Mongol princes of
Persia, Chaghatai, etc., were entitled only to the former affix
(Khán), though _Ḳaán_ and _Ḳhaḳán_ are sometimes applied to them
in adulation. Polo always writes _Kaan_ as applied to the Great
Khan, and does not, I think, use _Khan_ in any form, styling the
subordinate princes by their name only, as _Argon_, _Alau_, etc.
_Ilkhan_ was a special title assumed by Huláku and his successors
in Persia; it is said to be compounded from a word _Il_, signifying
tribe or nation. The relation between _Khán_ and _Khaḳán_ seems to
be probably that the latter signifies “_Khán of Kháns_,” Lord of
Lords. Chinghiz, it is said, did not take the higher title; it was
first assumed by his son Okkodai. But there are doubts about this.
(See _Quatremère’s Rashid_, pp. 10 _seqq._ and _Pavet de
Courteille, Dict. Turk-Oriental._) The tendency of swelling titles
is always to degenerate, and when the value of Khan had sunk, a new
form, _Khán-khánán_, was devised at the Court of Delhi, and applied
to one of the high officers of state.

[Mr. Rockhill writes (_Rubruck_, p. 108, note): “The title _Khan_,
though of very great antiquity, was only used by the Turks after
A.D. 560, at which time the use of the word _Khatun_ came in use
for the wives of the Khan, who himself was termed _Ilkhan_. The
older title of _Shan-yü_ did not, however, completely disappear
among them, for Albiruni says that in his time the chief of the
Ghuz Turks, or Turkomans, still bore the title of _Jenuyeh_, which
Sir Henry Rawlinson (_Proc. R. G. S._, v. 15) takes to be the same
word as that transcribed _Shan-yü_ by the Chinese (see _Ch’ien
Han shu_, Bk. 94, and _Chou shu_, Bk. 50, 2). Although the word
_Khakhan_ occurs in Menander’s account of the embassy of Zemarchus,
the earliest mention I have found of it in a Western writer is in
the _Chronicon_ of Albericus Trium Fontium, where (571), under
the year 1239, he uses it in the form _Cacanus_”—Cf. _Terrien de
Lacouperie, Khan, Khakan, and other Tartar Titles_. Lond., Dec.
1888.—H. C.]

[3] “China is a sea that salts all the rivers that flow into it.”—_P.
Parrenin_ in _Lett. Édif._ XXIV. 58.

[4] _E.g._ the Russians still call it Khitai. The pair of names,
_Khitai_ and _Machin_, or Cathay and China, is analogous to the
other pair, _Seres_ and _Sinae_. _Seres_ was the name of the great
nation in the far East as known by land, _Sinae_ as known by sea;
and they were often supposed to be diverse, just as Cathay and
China were afterwards.

[5] There has been much doubt about the true form of this name.
_Iltitmish_ is that sanctioned by Mr. Blochmann (see _Proc. As.
Soc. Bengal_, 1870, p. 181).

III. THE POLO FAMILY. PERSONAL HISTORY OF THE TRAVELLERS
DOWN TO THEIR FINAL RETURN FROM THE EAST.

[Sidenote: Alleged origin of the Polos.]

13. In days when History and Genealogy were allowed to draw largely on the imagination for the _origines_ of states and families, it was set down by one Venetian Antiquary that among the companions of King Venetus, or of Prince Antenor of Troy, when they settled on the northern shores of the Adriatic, there was one LUCIUS POLUS, who became the progenitor of our Traveller’s Family;[1] whilst another deduces it from PAOLO the first Doge[2] (Paulus Lucas Anafestus of Heraclea, A.D. 696).

More trustworthy traditions, recorded among the Family Histories of Venice, but still no more it is believed than traditions, represent the Family of Polo as having come from Sebenico in Dalmatia, in the 11th century.[3] Before the end of the century they had taken seats in the Great Council of the Republic; for the name of Domenico Polo is said to be subscribed to a grant of 1094, that of Pietro Polo to an act of the time of the Doge Domenico Michiele in 1122, and that of a Domenico Polo to an acquittance granted by the Doge Domenico Morosini and his Council in 1153.[4]

The ascertained genealogy of the Traveller, however, begins only with his grandfather, who lived in the early part of the 13th century.

Two branches of the Polo Family were then recognized, distinguished by the _confini_ or Parishes in which they lived, as Polo of S. Geremia, and Polo of S. Felice. ANDREA POLO of S. Felice was the father of three sons, MARCO, NICOLO, and MAFFEO. And Nicolo was the Father of our Marco.

[Sidenote: Claims to be styled noble.]

14. Till quite recently it had never been precisely ascertained whether the immediate family of our Traveller belonged to the _Nobles_ of Venice properly so called, who had seats in the Great Council and were enrolled in the Libro d’Oro. Ramusio indeed styles our Marco _Nobile_ and _Magnifico_, and Rusticiano, the actual scribe of the Traveller’s recollections, calls him “_sajes et noble citaiens de Venece_,” but Ramusio’s accuracy and Rusticiano’s precision were scarcely to be depended on. Very recently, however, since the subject has been discussed with accomplished students of the Venice Archives, proofs have been found establishing Marco’s personal claim to nobility, inasmuch as both in judicial decisions and in official resolutions of the Great Council, he is designated _Nobilis Vir_, a formula which would never have been used in such documents (I am assured) had he not been technically noble.[5]

[Sidenote: Marco the Elder.]

15. Of the three sons of Andrea Polo of S. Felice, Marco seems to have been the eldest, and Maffeo the youngest.[6] They were all engaged in commerce, and apparently in a partnership, which to some extent held good even when the two younger had been many years absent in the Far East.[7] Marco seems to have been established for a time at Constantinople,[8] and also to have had a house (no doubt of business) at Soldaia, in the Crimea, where his son and daughter, Nicolo and Maroca by name, were living in 1280. This year is the date of the Elder Marco’s Will, executed at Venice, and when he was “weighed down by bodily ailment.” Whether he survived for any length of time we do not know.

[Sidenote: Nicolo and Maffeo commence their travels.]

16. Nicolo Polo, the second of the Brothers, had two legitimate sons, MARCO, the Author of our Book, born in 1254,[9] and MAFFEO, of whose place in the family we shall have a few words to say presently. The story opens, as we have said, in 1260, when we find the two brothers, Nicolo and Maffeo the Elder, at Constantinople. How long they had been absent from Venice we are not distinctly told. Nicolo had left his wife there behind him; Maffeo apparently was a bachelor. In the year named they started on a trading venture to the Crimea, whence a succession of openings and chances, recounted in the Introductory chapters of Marco’s work, carried them far north along the Volga, and thence first to Bokhara, and then to the Court of the Great Kaan Kúblái in the Far East, on or within the borders of CATHAY. That a great and civilized country so called existed in the extremity of Asia had already been reported in Europe by the Friars Plano Carpini (1246) and William Rubruquis (1253), who had not indeed reached its frontiers, but had met with its people at the Court of the Great Kaan in Mongolia; whilst the latter of the two with characteristic acumen had seen that they were identical with the Seres of classic fame.

[Sidenote: Their intercourse with Kúblái Kaan.]

17. Kúblái had never before fallen in with European gentlemen. He was delighted with these Venetians, listened with strong interest to all that they had to tell him of the Latin world, and determined to send them back as his ambassadors to the Pope, accompanied by an officer of his own Court. His letters to the Pope, as the Polos represent them, were mainly to desire the despatch of a large body of educated missionaries to convert his people to Christianity. It is not likely that religious motives influenced Kúblái in this, but he probably desired religious aid in softening and civilizing his rude kinsmen of the Steppes, and judged, from what he saw in the Venetians and heard from them, that Europe could afford such aid of a higher quality than the degenerate Oriental Christians with whom he was familiar, or the Tibetan Lamas on whom his patronage eventually devolved when Rome so deplorably failed to meet his advances.

[Sidenote: Their return home, and Marco’s appearance on the scene.]

18. The Brothers arrived at Acre in April,[10] 1269, and found that no Pope existed, for Clement IV. was dead the year before, and no new election had taken place. So they went home to Venice to see how things stood there after their absence of so many years.

The wife of Nicolo was no longer among the living, but he found his son Marco a fine lad of fifteen.

The best and most authentic MSS. tell us no more than this. But one class of copies, consisting of the Latin version made by our Traveller’s contemporary, Francesco Pipino, and of the numerous editions based indirectly upon it, represents that Nicolo had left Venice when Marco was as yet unborn, and consequently had never seen him till his return from the East in 1269.[11]

We have mentioned that Nicolo Polo had another legitimate son, by name Maffeo, and him we infer to have been younger than Marco, because he is named last (_Marcus et Matheus_) in the Testament of their uncle Marco the Elder. We do not know if they were by the same mother. They could not have been so if we are right in supposing Maffeo to have been the younger, and if Pipino’s version of the history be genuine. If however we reject the latter, as I incline to do, no ground remains for supposing that Nicolo went to the East much before we find him there viz., in 1260, and Maffeo may have been born of the same mother during the interval between 1254 and 1260. If on the other hand Pipino’s version be held to, we must suppose that Maffeo (who is named by his uncle in 1280, during his father’s second absence in the East) was born of a marriage contracted during Nicolo’s residence at home after his first journey, a residence which lasted from 1269 to 1271.[12]

[Sidenote: Second Journey of the Polo Brothers, accompanied by Marco.]

19. The Papal interregnum was the longest known, at least since the dark ages. Those two years passed, and yet the Cardinals at Viterbo had come to no agreement. The brothers were unwilling to let the Great Kaan think them faithless, and perhaps they hankered after the virgin field of speculation that they had discovered; so they started again for the East, taking young Mark with them. At Acre they took counsel with an eminent churchman, TEDALDO (or Tebaldo) VISCONTI, Archdeacon of Liège, whom the Book represents to have been Legate in Syria, and who in any case was a personage of much gravity and influence. From him they got letters to authenticate the causes of the miscarriage of their mission, and started for the further East. But they were still at the port of Ayas on the Gulf of Scanderoon, which was then becoming one of the chief points of arrival and departure for the inland trade of Asia, when they were overtaken by the news that a Pope was at last elected, and that the choice had fallen upon their friend Archdeacon Tedaldo. They immediately returned to Acre, and at last were able to execute the Kaan’s commission, and to obtain a reply. But instead of the hundred able teachers of science and religion whom Kúblái is said to have asked for, the new Pope, Gregory X., could supply but two Dominicans; and these lost heart and drew back when they had barely taken the first step of the journey.