Chapter XV: Prologue (6)

This remarkable document is found in the _Book of Lismore_, belonging to the Duke of Devonshire. That magnificent book, finely written on vellum of the largest size, was discovered in 1814, enclosed in a wooden box, along with a superb crozier, on opening a closed doorway in the castle of Lismore. It contained Lives of the Saints, the (Romance) History of Charlemagne, the History of the Lombards, histories and tales of Irish wars, etc., etc., and among the other matter this version of Marco Polo. A full account of the Book and its mutilations will be found in _O’Curry’s Lectures on the MS. Materials of Ancient Irish History_, p. 196 _seqq._, Dublin, 1861. The _Book of Lismore_ was written about 1460 for Finghin MacCarthy and his wife Catharine Fitzgerald, daughter of Gerald, Eighth Earl of Desmond.

The date of the Translation of Polo is not known, but it may be supposed to have been executed about the above date, probably in the Monastery of Lismore (county of Waterford).

From the extracts that have been translated for me, it is obvious that the version was made, with an astounding freedom certainly, from Friar Francesco Pipino’s Latin.

Both beginning and end are missing. But what remains opens thus; compare it with Friar Pipino’s real prologue as we give it in the Appendix![20]

[Irish text] &c.

——“Kings and chieftains of that city. There was then in the city a
princely Friar in the habit of St. Francis, named Franciscus, who
was versed in many languages. He was brought to the place where
those nobles were, and they requested of him to translate the book
from the Tartar (!) into the Latin language. ‘It is an abomination
to me,’ said he, ‘to devote my mind or labour to works of Idolatry
and Irreligion.’ They entreated him again. ‘It shall be done,’ said
he; ‘for though it be an irreligious narrative that is related
therein, yet the things are miracles of the True God; and every one
who hears this much against the Holy Faith shall pray fervently for
their conversion. And he who will not pray shall waste the vigour
of his body to convert them.’ I am not in dread of this Book of
Marcus, for there is no lie in it. My eyes beheld him bringing the
relics of the holy Church with him, and he left [his testimony],
whilst tasting of death, that it was true. And Marcus was a devout
man. What is there in it, then, but that Franciscus translated this
Book of Marcus from the Tartar into Latin; and the years of the
Lord at that time were fifteen years, two score, two hundred, and
one thousand” (1255).

It then describes _Armein Bec_ (Little Armenia), _Armein Mor_ (Great Armenia), _Musul_, _Taurisius_, _Persida_, _Camandi_, and so forth. The last chapter is that on _Abaschia_:—

“ABASCHIA also is an extensive country, under the government of
Seven Kings, four of whom worship the true God, and each of them
wears a golden cross on the forehead; and they are valiant in
battle, having been brought up fighting against the Gentiles of
the other three kings, who are Unbelievers and Idolaters. And the
kingdom of ADEN; a Soudan rules over them.

“The king of Abaschia once took a notion to make a pilgrimage to
the Sepulchre of Jesus. ‘Not at all,’ said his nobles and warriors
to him, ‘for we should be afraid lest the infidels through whose
territories you would have to pass, should kill you. There is a
Holy Bishop with you,’ said they; ‘send him to the Sepulchre of
Jesus, and much gold with him’”——

The rest is wanting.

----------------------------------------------------------------------
[1] In the following citations, the Geographic Text (G. T.) is quoted
by page from the printed edition (1824); the Latin published in
the same volume (G. L.) also by page; the Crusca, as before, from
Bartoli’s edition of 1863. References in parentheses are to the
present translation:—

A. _Passages showing the G. L. to be a translation from the Italian,
and derived from the same Italian text as the_ Crusca.

Page
(1). G.T. 17 (I. 43). Il hi se laborent _le souran tapis_
dou monde.

Crusca, 17 .. E quivi si fanno _i sovrani tappeti_
del mondo.

G.L. 311 .. Et ibi fiunt _soriani et tapeti_
pulcriores de mundo.

(2). G.T. 23 (I. 69). Et adonc le calif mande par tuit les
cristiez ... _que en sa tere estoient_.

Crusca, 27 .. _Ora mandò_ lo aliffo per tutti gli
Cristiani _ch’erano di là_.

G.L. 316 .. _Or misit_ califus pro Christianis
_qui erant ultra fluvium_ (the last
words being clearly a misunderstanding
of the Italian _di là_).

(3). G.T. 198 (II. 313). Ont _sosimain_ (sesamum) de coi il
font le olio.

Crusca, 253 .. Hanno _sosimai_ onde fanno l’olio.

G.L. 448 .. Habent _turpes manus_ (taking _sosimani_
for _sozze mani_ “Dirty hands”!).

(4). Crusca, 52 (I. 158). _Cacciare e uccellare_ v’è lo migliore
del mondo.

G.L. 332 .. Et est ibi optimum _caciare et
ucellare_.

(5). G.T. 124 (II. 36). Adonc treuve ... une Provence _qe est
encore_ de le confin dou Mangi.

Crusca, 162–3 .. L’uomo truova una Provincia _ch’è
chiamata ancora_ delle confine de’
Mangi.

G.L. 396 .. Invenit unam Provinciam _quae vocatur
Anchota_ de confinibus Mangi.

(6). G.T. 146 (II. 119). Les dames portent as jambes et es
braces, braciaus d’or et d’arjent de
grandisme vailance.

Crusca, 189 .. Le donne _portano alle braccia e alle
gambe bracciali d’oro_ e d’ariento
di gran valuta.

G.L. 411 .. Dominæ eorum _portant ad brachia et
ad gambas brazalia de auro_ et de
argento magni valoris.

B. _Passages showing additionally the errors, or other peculiarities
of a translation from a French original, common to the Italian and
the Latin._

(7). G.T. 32 (I. 97). Est celle plaingne mout _chaue_
(chaude).

Crusca, 35 .. Questo piano è molto _cavo_.

G.L. 322 .. Ista planities est multum _cava_.

(8). G.T. 36 (I. 110). Avent por ce que l’eive hi est _amer_.

Crusca, 40 .. E questo è _per lo mare_ che vi viene.

G.L. 324 .. Istud est _propter mare_ quod est ibi.

(9). G.T. 18 (I. 50). Un roi qi est apelés par tout tens
Davit Melic, que veut à dir _en
fransois_ Davit Roi.

Crusca, 20 .. Uno re il quale si chiama _sempre_
David Melic, ciò è a dire _in
francesco_ David Re.

G.L. 312 .. Rex qui _semper_ vocatur David Mellic,
quod sonat _in gallico_ David Rex.

These passages, and many more that might be quoted, seem to me to
demonstrate (1) that the Latin and the Crusca have had a common
original, and (2) that this original was an Italian version from
the French.

[2] Thus the _Pucci_ MS. at Florence, in the passage regarding the
Golden King (vol. ii. p. 17) which begins in G. T. “_Lequel fist
faire_ jadis _un rois qe fu apellés le Roi Dor_,” renders “_Lo
quale fa fare_ Jaddis _uno re_,” a mistake which is not in the
Crusca nor in the Latin, and seems to imply derivation from the
French directly, or by some other channel (_Baldelli Boni_).

[3] In the Prologue (vol. i. p. 34) this class of MSS. alone names the
King of England.

In the account of the Battle with Nayan (i. p. 337) this class
alone speaks of the two-stringed instruments which the Tartars
played whilst awaiting the signal for battle. But the circumstance
appears elsewhere in the G. T. (p. 250).

In the chapter on _Malabar_ (vol. ii. p. 390), it is said that the
ships which go with cargoes towards Alexandria are not one-tenth of
those that go to the further East. This is not in the older French.

In the chapter on _Coilun_ (ii. p. 375), we have a notice of the
Columbine ginger so celebrated in the Middle Ages, which is also
absent from the older text.

[4] See vol. ii. p. 439. It is, however, remarkable that a like mistake
is made about the Persian Gulf (see i. 63, 64). Perhaps Polo
_thought_ in Persian, in which the word _darya_ means either _sea_
or a _large river_. The same habit and the ambiguity of the Persian
_sher_ led him probably to his confusion of lions and tigers (see
i. 397).

[5] Such are Pasciai-_Dir_ and _Ariora_ Kesciemur (i. p. 98.)

[6] Thus the MSS. of this type have elected the erroneous readings
_Bolgara, Cogatra, Chiato, Cabanant_, etc., instead of the
correcter _Bolgana, Cocacin, Quiacatu, Cobinan_, where the G. T.
presents both (_supra_, p. _86_). They read _Esanar_ for the
correct _Etzina_; _Chascun_ for _Casvin_; _Achalet_ for _Acbalec_;
_Sardansu_ for _Sindafu_, _Kayteu, Kayton, Sarcon_ for _Zaiton_ or
_Caiton_; _Soucat_ for _Locac_; _Falec_ for _Ferlec_, and so on,
the worse instead of the better. They make the _Mer Occeane_ into
_Mer Occident_; the wild asses (_asnes_) of the Kerman Desert into
wild geese (_oes_); the _escoillez_ of Bengal (ii. p. 115) into
_escoliers_; the _giraffes_ of Africa into _girofles_, or cloves,
etc., etc.

[7] There are about five-and-thirty such passages altogether.

[8] The Bern MS. I have satisfied myself is an actual _copy_ of the
Paris MS. C.

The Oxford MS. closely resembles both, but I have not made the
comparison minutely enough to say if it is an exact copy of either.

[9] The following comparison will also show that these two Latin
versions have probably had a common source, such as is here
suggested.

At the end of the Prologue the Geographic Text reads simply:—

“Or puis que je voz ai contez tot le fat dou prolegue ensi con voz
avés oï, adonc (commencerai) le Livre.”

Whilst the Geographic Latin has:—

“_Postquam recitavimus et diximus facta et condictiones morum,
itinerum_ et ea quae nobis contigerunt per vias, _incipiemus dicere
ea quae vidimus. Et primo dicemus de Minore Hermenia_.”

And Pipino:—

“_Narratione facta nostri itineris, nunc ad ea narranda quae
vidimus accedamus. Primo autem Armeniam Minorem describemus
breviter_.”

[10] Friar Francesco Pipino of Bologna, a Dominican, is known also
as the author of a lengthy chronicle from the time of the Frank
Kings down to 1314; of a Latin Translation of the French History
of the Conquest of the Holy Land, by Bernard the Treasurer; and of
a short Itinerary of a Pilgrimage to Palestine in 1320. Extracts
from the Chronicle, and the version of Bernard, are printed in
Muratori’s Collection. As Pipino states himself to have executed
the translation of Polo by order of his Superiors, it is probable
that the task was set him at a general chapter of the order which
was held at Bologna in 1315. (See _Muratori_, IX. 583; and _Quétif,
Script. Ord. Praed._ I. 539). We do not know why Ramusio assigned
the translation specifically to 1320, but he may have had grounds.

[11] See _Bianconi_, 1st Mem. 29 _seqq._

[12] C. Dickens somewhere narrates the history of the equivalents
for a sovereign as changed and rechanged at every frontier on
a continental tour. The final equivalent received at Dover on
his return was some 12 or 13 shillings; a fair parallel to the
comparative value of the first and last copies in the circle of
translation.

[13] The Ramusios were a family of note in literature for several
generations. Paolo, the father of Gian Battista, came originally
from Rimini to Venice in 1458, and had a great repute as a jurist,
besides being a littérateur of some eminence, as was also his
younger brother Girolamo. G. B. Ramusio was born at Treviso in
1485, and early entered the public service. In 1533 he became one
of the Secretaries of the Council of X. He was especially devoted
to geographical studies, and had a school for such studies in his
house. He retired eventually from public duties, and lived at
Villa Ramusia, near Padua. He died in the latter city, 10th July,
1557, but was buried at Venice in the Church of S. Maria dell’Orto.
There was a portrait of him by Paul Veronese in the Hall of the
Great Council, but it perished in the fire of 1577; and that
which is now seen in the Sala dello Scudo is, like the companion
portrait of Marco Polo, imaginary. Paolo Ramusio, his son, was the
author of the well-known History of the Capture of Constantinople.
(_Cicogna_, II. 310 _seqq._)

[14] The old French texts were unknown in Marsden’s time. Hence this
question did not present itself to him.

[15] _Wangcheu_ in the Chinese Annals; _Vanchu_ in Ramusio. I assume
that Polo’s _Vanchu_ was pronounced as in English; for in Venetian
the _ch_ very often has that sound. But I confess that I can adduce
no other instance in Ramusio where I suppose it to have this
sound, except in the initial sound of _Chinchitalas_ and twice in
_Choiach_ (see II. 364).

Professor Bianconi, who has treated the questions connected with the
Texts of Polo with honest enthusiasm and laborious detail, will
admit nothing genuine in the Ramusian interpolations beyond the
preservation of some _oral traditions_ of Polo’s supplementary
recollections. But such a theory is out of the question in face of
a chapter like that on Ahmad.

[16] Old Purchas appears to have greatly relished Ramusio’s comparative
lucidity: “I found (says he) this Booke translated by Master
Hakluyt out of the Latine (_i.e._ among Hakluyt’s MS. collections).
But where the blind leade the blind both fall: as here the corrupt
_Latine_ could not but yeeld a corruption of truth in _English_.
Ramusio, Secretarie to the _Decemviri_ in _Venice_, found a better
Copie and published the same, whence you have the worke in manner
new: so renewed, that I have found the Proverbe true, that it is
better to pull downe an old house and to build it anew, then to
repaire it; as I also should have done, had I knowne that which in
the event I found. The _Latine_ is Latten, compared to _Ramusio’s_
Gold. And hee which hath the _Latine_ hath but _Marco Polo’s_
carkasse or not so much, but a few bones, yea, sometimes stones
rather then bones; things divers, averse, adverse, perverted in
manner, disjoynted in manner, beyond beliefe. I have seene some
Authors maymed, but never any so mangled and so mingled, so present
and so absent, as this vulgar _Latine_ of _Marco Polo_; not so like
himselfe, as the Three _Polo’s_ were at their returne to _Venice_,
where none knew them.... Much are wee beholden to _Ramusio_, for
restoring this _Pole_ and Load-starre of _Asia_, out of that mirie
poole or puddle in which he lay drouned.” (III. p. 65.)

[17] Of these difficulties the following are some of the more
prominent:—

1. The mention of the death of Kúblái (see note 7, p. 38 of this
volume), whilst throughout the book Polo speaks of Kúblái as if
still reigning.

2. Mr. Hugh Murray objects that whilst in the old texts Polo
appears to look on Kúblái with reverence as a faultless Prince, in
the Ramusian we find passages of an opposite tendency, as in the
chapter about Ahmad.

3. The same editor points to the manner in which one of the
Ramusian additions represents the traveller to have visited the
Palace of the Chinese Kings at Kinsay, which he conceives to be
inconsistent with Marco’s position as an official of the Mongol
Government. (See vol. ii. p. 208.)

If we could conceive the Ramusian additions to have been originally
notes written by old Maffeo Polo on his nephew’s book, this
hypothesis would remove almost all difficulty.

One passage in Ramusio seems to bear a reference to the date at
which these interpolated notes were amalgamated with the original.
In the chapter on Samarkand (i. p. 191) the conversion of the
Prince Chagatai is said in the old texts to have occurred “not a
great while ago” (_il ne a encore grament de tens_). But in Ramusio
the supposed event is fixed at “one hundred and twenty-five years
since.” This number could not have been uttered with reference to
1298, the year of the dictation at Genoa, nor to any year of Polo’s
own life. Hence it is probable that the original note contained a
date or definite term which was altered by the compiler to suit the
date of his own compilation, some time in the 14th century.

[18] In the first edition of Ramusio the preface contained the
following passage, which is omitted from the succeeding editions;
but as even the first edition was issued after Ramusio’s own death,
I do not see that any stress can be laid on this:

“A copy of the Book of Marco Polo, as it was originally written
in Latin, marvellously old, and perhaps directly copied from the
original as it came from M. Marco’s own hand, has been often
consulted by me and compared with that which we now publish, having
been lent me by a nobleman of this city, belonging to the Ca’
Ghisi.”

[19] For a moment I thought I had been lucky enough to light on a part
of the missing original of Ramusio in the Barberini Library at
Rome. A fragment of a Venetian version in that library (No. 56 in
our list of MSS.) bore on the fly-leaf the title “_Alcuni primi
capi del Libro di S. Marco Polo, copiati dall esemplare manoscritto
di PAOLO RANNUSIO._” But it proved to be of no importance. One
brief passage of those which have been thought peculiar to Ramusio,
viz., the reference to the Martyrdom of St. Blaize at Sebaste (see
p. 43 of this volume), is found also in the Geographic Latin.

It was pointed out by Lazari, that another passage (vol. i. p. 60)
of those otherwise peculiar to Ramusio, is found in a somewhat
abridged Latin version in a MS. which belonged to the late eminent
antiquary Emanuel Cicogna. (See List in Appendix F, No. 35.)
This fact induced me when at Venice in 1870 to examine the MS.
throughout, and, though I could give little time to it, the result
was very curious.

I find that this MS. contains, not one only, but at least _seven_
of the passages otherwise peculiar to Ramusio, and must have been
one of the elements that went to the formation of his text. Yet of
his more important interpolations, such as the chapter on Ahmad’s
oppressions and the additional matter on the City of Kinsay, there
is no indication. The seven passages alluded to are as follows; the
words corresponding to Ramusian peculiarities are in italics, the
references are to my own volumes.

1. In the chapter on Georgia:

“Mare quod dicitur Gheluchelan _vel ABACU_”....

“Est ejus stricta via et dubia. Ab una parte est mare _quod dixi de
ABACU_ et ab aliâ nemora invia,” etc. (See I. p. 59, note 8.)

2. “Et ibi optimi austures _dicti AVIGI_” (I. 50).

3. After the chapter on Mosul is another short chapter, already
alluded to:

“_Prope hanc civitatem (est) alia provincia dicta MUS e MEREDIEN in
quâ nascitur magna quantitas bombacis, et hic fiunt bocharini et
alia multa, et sunt mercatores homines et artiste_.” (See i. p. 60.)

4. In the chapter on _Tarcan_ (for Carcan, _i.e._ Yarkand):

“_Et maior pars horum habent unum ex pedibus grossum et habent
gosum in gulâ_; et est hic fertilis contracta.” (See i. p. 187.)

5. In the Desert of Lop:

“_Homines trasseuntes appendunt bestiis suis capanullas_ [_i.e._
campanellas] _ut ipsas senciant et ne deviare possint_” (i. p. 197.)

6. “Ciagannor, _quod sonat in Latino STAGNUM ALBUM_.” (i. p. 296.)

7. “Et in medio hujus viridarii est palacium sive logia, _tota
super columpnas. Et in summitate cujuslibet columnæ est draco
magnus circundans totam columpnam, et hic substinet eorum
cohoperturam cum ore et pedibus_; et est cohopertura tota de cannis
hoc modo,” etc. (See i. p. 299.)

[20] My valued friend Sir Arthur Phayre made known to me the passage
in _O’Curry’s Lectures_. I then procured the extracts and further
particulars from Mr. J. Long, Irish Transcriber and Translator
in Dublin, who took them from the Transcript of the _Book of
Lismore_, in the possession of the Royal Irish Academy. [Cf.
_Anecdota Oxoniensia. Lives of the Saints from the Book of
Lismore, edited with a translation ... by_ Whitley Stokes, Oxford,
1890.—_Marco Polo_ forms fo. 79 a, 1–fo. 89 b, 2, of the MS., and
is described pp. xxii.–xxiv. of Mr. Whitley Stokes’ Book, who has
since published the Text in the _Zeit. f. Celtische Philol._ (See
_Bibliography_, vol. ii. p. 573.)— H. C.]

XI. SOME ESTIMATE OF THE CHARACTER OF POLO AND HIS BOOK.

[Sidenote: Grounds of Polo’s pre-eminence among mediæval travellers.]

66. That Marco Polo has been so universally recognised as the King of Mediæval Travellers is due rather to the width of his experience, the vast compass of his journeys, and the romantic nature of his personal history, than to transcendent superiority of character or capacity.

The generation immediately preceding his own has bequeathed to us, in the Report of the Franciscan Friar William de Rubruquis,[1] on the Mission with which St. Lewis charged him to the Tartar Courts, the narrative of one great journey, which, in its rich detail, its vivid pictures, its acuteness of observation and strong good sense, seems to me to form a Book of Travels of much higher claims than _any one series_ of Polo’s chapters; a book, indeed, which has never had justice done to it, for it has few superiors in the whole Library of Travel.

Enthusiastic Biographers, beginning with Ramusio, have placed Polo on the same platform with Columbus. But where has our Venetian Traveller left behind him any trace of the genius and lofty enthusiasm, the ardent and justified previsions which mark the great Admiral as one of the lights of the human race?[2] It is a juster praise that the spur which his Book eventually gave to geographical studies, and the beacons which it hung out at the Eastern extremities of the Earth helped to guide the aims, though scarcely to kindle the fire, of the greater son of the rival Republic. His work was at least a link in the Providential chain which at last dragged the New World to light.[3]

[Sidenote: His true claims to glory.]

67. Surely Marco’s real, indisputable, and, in their kind, unique claims to glory may suffice! _He was the first Traveller to trace a route across the whole longitude of_ ASIA, _naming and describing kingdom after kingdom which he had seen with his own eyes; the Deserts of_ PERSIA, _the flowering plateaux and wild gorges of_ BADAKHSHAN, _the jade-bearing rivers of_ KHOTAN, _the_ MONGOLIAN _Steppes, cradle of the power that had so lately threatened to swallow up Christendom, the new and brilliant Court that had been established at_ CAMBALUC: _The first Traveller to reveal_ CHINA _in all its wealth and vastness, its mighty rivers, its huge cities, its rich manufactures, its swarming population, the inconceivably vast fleets that quickened its seas and its inland waters; to tell us of the nations on its borders with all their eccentricities of manners and worship; of_ TIBET _with its sordid devotees; of_ BURMA _with its golden pagodas and their tinkling crowns; of_ LAOS, _of_ SIAM, _of_ COCHIN CHINA, _of_ JAPAN, _the Eastern Thule, with its rosy pearls and golden-roofed palaces; the first to speak of that Museum of Beauty and Wonder, still so imperfectly ransacked, the_ INDIAN ARCHIPELAGO, _source of those aromatics then so highly prized and whose origin was so dark; of_ JAVA _the Pearl of Islands; of_ SUMATRA _with its many kings, its strange costly products, and its cannibal races; of the naked savages of_ NICOBAR _and_ ANDAMAN; _of_ CEYLON _the Isle of Gems with its Sacred Mountain and its Tomb of Adam; of_ INDIA THE GREAT, _not as a dream-land of Alexandrian fables, but as a country seen and partially explored, with its virtuous Brahmans, its obscene ascetics, its diamonds and the strange tales of their acquisition, its sea-beds of pearl, and its powerful sun; the first in mediæval times to give any distinct account of the secluded Christian Empire of_ ABYSSINIA, _and the semi-Christian Island of_ SOCOTRA; _to speak, though indeed dimly, of_ ZANGIBAR _with its negroes and its ivory, and of the vast and distant_ MADAGASCAR, _bordering on the Dark Ocean of the South, with its Ruc and other monstrosities; and, in a remotely opposite region, of_ SIBERIA _and the_ ARCTIC OCEAN, _of dog-sledges, white bears, and reindeer-riding Tunguses_.

That all this rich catalogue of discoveries should belong to the revelations of one Man and one Book is surely ample ground enough to account for and to justify the Author’s high place in the roll of Fame, and there can be no need to exaggerate his greatness, or to invest him with imaginary attributes.[4]

[Sidenote: His personal attributes seen but dimly.]

68. What manner of man was Ser Marco? It is a question hard to answer. Some critics cry out against personal detail in books of Travel; but as regards him who would not welcome a little more egotism! In his Book impersonality is carried to excess; and we are often driven to discern by indirect and doubtful indications alone, whether he is speaking of a place from personal knowledge or only from hearsay. In truth, though there are delightful exceptions, and nearly every part of the book suggests interesting questions, a desperate meagreness and baldness does extend over considerable tracts of the story. In fact his book reminds us sometimes of his own description of Khorasan:—“_On chevauche par beaus plains et belles costieres, là où il a moult beaus herbages et bonne pasture et fruis assez.... Et aucune fois y treuve l’en un desert de soixante milles ou de mains, esquels desers ne treuve l’en point d’eaue; mais la convient porter o lui!_”

Still, some shadowy image of the man may be seen in the Book; a practical man, brave, shrewd, prudent, keen in affairs, and never losing his interest in mercantile details, very fond of the chase, sparing of speech; with a deep wondering respect for Saints, even though they be Pagan Saints, and their asceticism, but a contempt for Patarins and such like, whose consciences would not run in customary grooves, and on his own part a keen appreciation of the World’s pomps and vanities. See, on the one hand, his undisguised admiration of the hard life and long fastings of Sakya Muni; and on the other how enthusiastic he gets in speaking of the great Kaan’s command of the good things of the world, but above all of his matchless opportunities of sport![5]

Of humour there are hardly any signs in his Book. His almost solitary joke (I know but one more, and it pertains to the οὐκ ἀνήκοντα) occurs in speaking of the Kaan’s paper-money when he observes that Kúblái might be said to have the true Philosopher’s Stone, for he made his money at pleasure out of the bark of Trees.[6] Even the oddest eccentricities of outlandish tribes scarcely seem to disturb his gravity; as when he relates in his brief way of the people called Gold-Teeth on the frontier of Burma, that ludicrous custom which Mr. Tylor has so well illustrated under the name of the _Couvade_. There is more savour of laughter in the few lines of a Greek Epic, which relate precisely the same custom of a people on the Euxine:—

————“In the Tibarenian Land
When some good woman bears her lord a babe,
’Tis _he_ is swathed and groaning put to bed;
Whilst _she_, arising, tends his baths, and serves
Nice possets for her husband in the straw.”[7]

Lit. Frauenfelder, Palermo]

[Sidenote: Absence of scientific notions.]

69. Of scientific notions, such as we find in the unveracious Maundevile, we have no trace in truthful Marco. The former, “lying with a circumstance,” tells us boldly that he was in 33° of South Latitude; the latter is full of wonder that some of the Indian Islands where he had been lay so far to the south that you lost sight of the Pole-star. When it rises again on his horizon he estimates the Latitude by the Pole-star’s being so many _cubits_ high. So the gallant Baber speaks of the sun having mounted _spear-high_ when the onset of battle began at Paniput. Such expressions convey no notion at all to such as have had their ideas sophisticated by angular perceptions of altitude, but similar expressions are common among Orientals,[8] and indeed I have heard them from educated Englishmen. In another place Marco states regarding certain islands in the Northern Ocean that they lie so very far to the north that in going thither one actually leaves the Pole-star a trifle behind towards the south; a statement to which we know only one parallel, to wit, in the voyage of that adventurous Dutch skipper who told Master Moxon, King Charles II.’s Hydrographer, that he had sailed two degrees beyond the Pole!

[Sidenote: Map constructed on Polo’s data.]

70. The Book, however, is full of bearings and distances, and I have thought it worth while to construct a map from its indications, in order to get some approximation to Polo’s own idea of the face of that world which he had traversed so extensively. There are three allusions to maps in the course of his work (II. 245, 312, 424).

In his own bearings, at least on land journeys, he usually carries us along a great general traverse line, without much caring about small changes of direction. Thus on the great outward journey from the frontier of Persia to that of China the line runs almost continuously “_entre Levant et Grec_” or E.N.E. In his journey from Cambaluc or Peking to Mien or Burma, it is always _Ponent_ or W.; and in that from Peking to Zayton in Fo-kien, the port of embarkation for India, it is _Sceloc_ or S.E. The line of bearings in which he deviates most widely from truth is that of the cities on the Arabian Coast from Aden to Hormuz, which he makes to run steadily _vers Maistre_ or N.W., a conception which it has not been very easy to realise on the map.[9]

[Sidenote: Singular omissions of Polo in regard to China; Historical inaccuracies.]

71. In the early part of the Book we are told that Marco acquired several of the languages current in the Mongol Empire, and no less than four written characters. We have discussed what these are likely to have been (i. pp. 28–29), and have given a decided opinion that Chinese was not one of them. Besides intrinsic improbability, and positive indications of Marco’s ignorance of Chinese, in no respect is his book so defective as in regard to Chinese manners and peculiarities. The Great Wall is never mentioned, though we have shown reason for believing that it was in his mind when one passage of his book was dictated.[10] The use of Tea, though he travelled through the Tea districts of Fo-kien, is never mentioned;[11] the compressed feet of the women and the employment of the fishing cormorant (both mentioned by Friar Odoric, the contemporary of his later years), artificial egg-hatching, printing of books (though the notice of this art seems positively challenged in his account of paper-money), besides a score of remarkable arts and customs which one would have expected to recur to his memory, are never alluded to. Neither does he speak of the great characteristic of the Chinese writing. It is difficult to account for these omissions, especially considering the comparative fulness with which he treats the manners of the Tartars and of the Southern Hindoos; but the impression remains that his associations in China were chiefly with foreigners. Wherever the place he speaks of had a Tartar or Persian name he uses that rather than the Chinese one. Thus _Cathay_, _Cambaluc_, _Pulisanghin_, _Tangut_, _Chagannor_, _Saianfu_, _Kenjanfu_, _Tenduc_, _Acbalec_, _Carajan_, _Zardandan_, _Zayton_, _Kemenfu_, _Brius_, _Caramoran_, _Chorcha_, _Juju_, are all Mongol, Turki, or Persian forms, though all have Chinese equivalents.[12]

In reference to the then recent history of Asia, Marco is often inaccurate, _e.g._ in his account of the death of Chinghiz, in the list of his successors, and in his statement of the relationship between notable members of that House.[13] But the most perplexing knot in the whole book lies in the interesting account which he gives of the Siege of Sayanfu or Siang-yang, during the subjugation of Southern China by Kúblái. I have entered on this matter in the notes (vol. ii. p. 167), and will only say here that M. Pauthier’s solution of the difficulty is no solution, being absolutely inconsistent with the story as told by Marco himself, and that I see none; though I have so much faith in Marco’s veracity that I am loath to believe that the facts admit of no reconciliation.

Our faint attempt to appreciate some of Marco’s qualities, as gathered from his work, will seem far below the very high estimates that have been pronounced, not only by some who have delighted rather to enlarge upon his frame than to make themselves acquainted with his work,[14] but also by persons whose studies and opinions have been worthy of all respect. Our estimate, however, does not abate a jot of our intense interest in his Book and affection for his memory. And we have a strong feeling that, owing partly to his reticence, and partly to the great disadvantages under which the Book was committed to writing, we have in it a singularly imperfect image of the Man.

[Sidenote: Was Polo’s Book materially affected by the Scribe Rusticiano?]

72. A question naturally suggests itself, how far Polo’s narrative, at least in its expression, was modified by passing under the pen of a professed littérateur of somewhat humble claims, such as Rusticiano was. The case is not a singular one, and in our own day the ill-judged use of such assistance has been fatal to the reputation of an adventurous Traveller.

We have, however, already expressed our own view that in the Geographic Text we have the nearest possible approach to a photographic impression of Marco’s oral narrative. If there be an exception to this we should seek it in the descriptions of battles, in which we find the narrator to fall constantly into a certain vein of bombastic commonplaces, which look like the stock phrases of a professed romancer, and which indeed have a strong resemblance to the actual phraseology of certain metrical romances.[15] Whether this feature be due to Rusticiano I cannot say, but I have not been able to trace anything of the same character in a cursory inspection of some of his romance-compilations. Still one finds it impossible to conceive of our sober and reticent Messer Marco pacing the floor of his Genoese dungeon, and seven times over rolling out this magniloquent bombast, with sufficient deliberation to be overtaken by the pen of the faithful amanuensis!

[Sidenote: Marco’s reading embraced the Alexandrian Romances. Examples.]

73. On the other hand, though Marco, who had left home at fifteen years of age, naturally shows very few signs of reading, there are indications that he had read romances, especially those dealing with the fabulous adventures of Alexander.

To these he refers explicitly or tacitly in his notices of the Irongate and of Gog and Magog, in his allusions to the marriage of Alexander with Darius’s daughter, and to the battle between those two heroes, and in his repeated mention of the _Arbre Sol_ or _Arbre Sec_ on the Khorasan frontier.

The key to these allusions is to be found in that Legendary History of Alexander, entirely distinct from the true history of the Macedonian Conqueror, which in great measure took the place of the latter in the imagination of East and West for more than a thousand years. This fabulous history is believed to be of Græco-Egyptian origin, and in its earliest extant compiled form, in the Greek of the Pseudo-Callisthenes, can be traced back to at least about A.D. 200. From the Greek its marvels spread eastward at an early date; some part at least of their matter was known to Moses of Chorene, in the 5th century;[16] they were translated into Armenian, Arabic, Hebrew, and Syriac; and were reproduced in the verses of Firdusi and various other Persian Poets; spreading eventually even to the Indian Archipelago, and finding utterance in Malay and Siamese. At an early date they had been rendered into Latin by Julius Valerius; but this work had probably been lost sight of, and it was in the 10th century that they were re-imported from Byzantium to Italy by the Archpriest Leo, who had gone as Envoy to the Eastern Capital from John Duke of Campania.[17] Romantic histories on this foundation, in verse and prose, became diffused in all the languages of Western Europe, from Spain to Scandinavia, rivalling in popularity the romantic cycles of the Round Table or of Charlemagne. Nor did this popularity cease till the 16th century was well advanced.

The heads of most of the Mediæval Travellers were crammed with these fables as genuine history.[18] And by the help of that community of legend on this subject which they found wherever Mahomedan literature had spread, Alexander Magnus was to be traced everywhere in Asia. Friar Odoric found Tana, near Bombay, to be the veritable City of King Porus; John Marignolli’s vainglory led him to imitate King Alexander in setting up a marble column “in the corner of the world over against Paradise,” _i.e._ somewhere on the coast of Travancore; whilst Sir John Maundevile, with a cheaper ambition, borrowed wonders from the Travels of Alexander to adorn his own. Nay, even in after days, when the Portuguese stumbled with amazement on those vast ruins in Camboja, which have so lately become familiar to us through the works of Mouhot, Thomson, and Garnier, they ascribed them to Alexander.[19]

Prominent in all these stories is the tale of Alexander’s shutting up a score of impure nations, at the head of which were Gog and Magog, within a barrier of impassable mountains, there to await the latter days; a legend with which the disturbed mind of Europe not unnaturally connected that cataclysm of unheard-of Pagans that seemed about to deluge Christendom in the first half of the 13th century. In these stories also the beautiful Roxana, who becomes the bride of Alexander, is _Darius’s_ daughter, bequeathed to his arms by the dying monarch. Conspicuous among them again is the Legend of the Oracular Trees of the Sun and Moon, which with audible voice foretell the place and manner of Alexander’s death. With this Alexandrian legend some of the later forms of the story had mixed up one of Christian origin about the Dry Tree, _L’Arbre Sec_. And they had also adopted the Oriental story of the Land of Darkness and the mode of escape from it, which Polo relates at p. 484 of vol. ii.

[Sidenote: Injustice long done to Polo. Singular modern instance.]

74. We have seen in the most probable interpretation of the nickname _Milioni_ that Polo’s popular reputation in his lifetime was of a questionable kind; and a contemporary chronicler, already quoted, has told us how on his death-bed the Traveller was begged by anxious friends to retract his extraordinary stories.[20] A little later one who copied the Book “_per passare tempo e malinconia_” says frankly that he puts no faith in it.[21] Sir Thomas Brown is content “to carry a wary eye” in reading “Paulus Venetus”; but others of our countrymen in the last century express strong doubts whether he ever was in Tartary or China.[22] Marden’s edition might well have extinguished the last sparks of scepticism.[23] Hammer meant praise in calling Polo “_der Vater orientalischer Hodogetik_,” in spite of the uncouthness of the eulogy. But another grave German writer, ten years after Marsden’s publication, put forth in a serious book that the whole story was a clumsy imposture![24]

---------------------------------------------------------------------- [1] M. d’Avezac has refuted the common supposition that this admirable traveller was a native of Brabant.

The form _Rubruquis_ of the name of the traveller William de Rubruk
has been habitually used in this book, perhaps without sufficient
consideration, but it is the most familiar in England, from its
use by Hakluyt and Purchas. The former, who first published the
narrative, professedly printed from an imperfect MS. belonging to
the Lord Lumley, which does not seem to be now known. But all the
MSS. collated by Messrs. Francisque-Michel and Wright, in preparing
their edition of the Traveller, call him simply Willelmus de Rubruc
or Rubruk.

Some old authors, apparently without the slightest ground, having
called him _Risbroucke_ and the like, it came to be assumed that he
was a native of Ruysbroeck, a place in South Brabant.

But there is a place still called _Rubrouck_ in French Flanders.
This is a commune containing about 1500 inhabitants, belonging to
the Canton of Cassel and _arrondissement_ of Hazebrouck, in the
Department du Nord. And we may take for granted, till facts are
alleged against it, that _this_ was the place from which the envoy
of St. Lewis drew his origin. Many documents of the Middle Ages,
referring expressly to this place Rubrouck, exist in the Library
of St. Omer, and a detailed notice of them has been published by
M. Edm. Coussemaker, of Lille. Several of these documents refer
to persons bearing the same name as the Traveller, _e.g._, in 1190,
Thierry de Rubrouc; in 1202 and 1221, Gauthier du Rubrouc; in
1250, Jean du Rubrouc; and in 1258, Woutermann de Rubrouc. It is
reasonable to suppose that Friar William was of the same stock.
See _Bulletin de la Soc. de Géographie_, 2nd vol. for 1868, pp.
569–570, in which there are some remarks on the subject by M.
d’Avezac; and I am indebted to the kind courtesy of that eminent
geographer himself for the indication of this reference and the
main facts, as I had lost a note of my own on the subject.

It seems a somewhat complex question whether a native even of
_French_ Flanders at that time should be necessarily claimable
as a Frenchman;[A] but no doubt on this point is alluded to by
M. d’Avezac, so he probably had good ground for that assumption.
[See also _Yule’s_ article in the _Encyclopædia Britannica_, and
_Rockhill’s Rubruck_, Int., p. xxxv.—H. C.]

That cross-grained Orientalist, I. J. Schmidt, on several occasions
speaks contemptuously of this veracious and delightful traveller,
whose evidence goes in the teeth of some of his crotchets. But I am
glad to find that Professor Peschel takes a view similar to that
expressed in the text: “The narrative of Ruysbroek [Rubruquis],
almost immaculate in its freedom from fabulous insertions, may
be indicated on account of its truth to nature as the greatest
geographical masterpiece of the Middle Ages.” (_Gesch. der
Erdkunde_, 1865, p. 151.)

[A] The County of Flanders was at this time in large part a fief of
the French Crown. (See _Natalis de Wailly_, notes to Joinville,
p. 576.) But that would not much affect the question either one
way or the other.

[2] High as Marco’s name deserves to be set, his place is not beside
the writer of such burning words as these addressed to Ferdinand
and Isabella: “From the most tender age I went to sea, and to
this day I have continued to do so. Whosoever devotes himself to
this craft must desire to know the secrets of Nature here below.
For 40 years now have I thus been engaged, and wherever man has
sailed hitherto on the face of the sea, thither have I sailed also.
I have been in constant relation with men of learning, whether
ecclesiastic or secular, Latins and Greeks, Jews and Moors, and
men of many a sect besides. To accomplish this my longing (to
know the Secrets of the World) I found the Lord favourable to my
purposes; it is He who hath given me the needful disposition and
understanding. He bestowed upon me abundantly the knowledge of
seamanship: and of Astronomy He gave me enough to work withal,
and so with Geometry and Arithmetic.... In the days of my youth
I studied works of all kinds, history, chronicles, philosophy,
and other arts, and to apprehend these the Lord opened my
understanding. Under His manifest guidance I navigated hence to the
Indies; for it was the Lord who gave me the will to accomplish that
task, and it was in the ardour of that will that I came before your
Highnesses. All those who heard of my project scouted and derided
it; all the acquirements I have mentioned stood me in no stead;
and if in your Highnesses, and in you alone, Faith and Constancy
endured, to Whom are due the Lights that have enlightened you as
well as me, but to the Holy Spirit?” (Quoted in _Humboldt’s Examen
Critique_, I. 17, 18.)

[3] Libri, however, speaks too strongly when he says: “The finest
of all the results due to the influence of Marco Polo is that
of having stirred Columbus to the discovery of the New World.
Columbus, jealous of Polo’s laurels, spent his life in preparing
means to get to that Zipangu of which the Venetian traveller had
told such great things; his desire was to reach China by sailing
westward, and in his way he fell in with America.” (_H. des
Sciences Mathém._ etc. II. 150.)

The fact seems to be that Columbus knew of Polo’s revelations only
at second hand, from the letters of the Florentine Paolo Toscanelli
and the like; and I cannot find that he _ever_ refers to Polo by
name. [How deep was the interest taken by Colombus in Marco Polo’s
travels is shown by the numerous marginal notes of the Admiral in
the printed copy of the latin version of Pipino kept at the Bib.
Colombina at Seville. See _Appendix H_. p. 558.—H. C.] Though to
the day of his death he was full of imaginations about Zipangu and
the land of the Great Kaan as being in immediate proximity to his
discoveries, these were but accidents of his great theory. It was
the intense conviction he had acquired of the absolute smallness
of the Earth, of the vast extension of Asia eastward, and of the
consequent narrowness of the Western Ocean, on which his life’s
project was based. This conviction he seems to have derived
chiefly from the works of Cardinal Pierre d’Ailly. But the latter
borrowed his collected arguments from Roger Bacon, who has stated
them, erroneous as they are, very forcibly in his _Opus Majus_ (p.
137), as Humboldt has noticed in his _Examen_ (vol. i. p. 64). The
Spanish historian Mariana makes a strange jumble of the alleged
guides of Columbus, saying that some ascribed his convictions
to “the information given by _one Marco Polo, a Florentine
Physician!_” (“como otros dizen, por aviso que le dio _un cierto
Marco Polo, Medico Florentin_;” _Hist. de España_, lib. xxvi. cap
3). Toscanelli is called by Columbus _Maestro Paulo_, which seems
to have led to this mistake; see Sign. _G. Uzielli_, in _Boll.
della Soc. Geog. Ital._ IX. p. 119. [Also by the same: _Paolo dal
Pozzo Toscanelli iniziatore della scoperta d’America_, Florence,
1892; _Toscanelli_, No. 1; _Toscanelli_, Vol. V. of the _Raccolta
Colombiana_, 1894.—H. C.]

[4] “C’est diminuer l’expression d’un éloge que de l’exagérer.”
(_Humboldt, Examen_, III. 13.)

[5] See vol. ii. p. 318, and vol. i. p. 404.

[6] Vol. i. p. 423.

[7] Vol. ii. p. 85, and _Apollonius Rhodius, Argonaut_. II. 1012.

[8] Chinese Observers record the length of Comets’ tails by _cubits_!

[9] The map, perhaps, gives too favourable an idea of Marco’s
geographical conceptions. For in such a construction much has to
be supplied for which there are no data, and that is apt to take
mould from modern knowledge. Just as in the book illustrations of
ninety years ago we find that Princesses of Abyssinia, damsels of
Otaheite, and Beauties of Mary Stuart’s Court have all somehow a
savour of the high waists, low foreheads, and tight garments of
1810.

We are told that Prince Pedro of Portugal in 1426 received from the
Signory of Venice a map which was supposed to be either an original
or a copy of one by Marco Polo’s own hand. (_Major’s P. Henry_, p.
62.) There is no evidence to justify any absolute expression of
disbelief; and if any map-maker with the spirit of the author of
the Carta Catalana then dwelt in Venice, Polo certainly could not
have gone to his grave uncatechised. But I should suspect the map
to have been a copy of the old one that existed in the Sala dello
Scudo of the Ducal Palace.

The maps now to be seen painted on the walls of that Hall, and on
which Polo’s route is marked, are not of any great interest. But in
the middle of the 15th century there was an old _Descriptio Orbis
sive Mappamundus_ in the Hall, and when the apartment was renewed
in 1459 a decree of the Senate ordered that such a map should be
repainted on the new walls. This also perished by a fire in 1483.
On the motion of Ramusio, in the next century, four new maps were
painted. These had become dingy and ragged, when, in 1762, the Doge
Marco Foscarini caused them to be renewed by the painter Francesco
Grisellini. He professed to have adhered closely to the old maps,
but he certainly did not, as Morelli testifies. Eastern Asia looks
as if based on a work of Ramusio’s age, but Western Asia is of
undoubtedly modern character. (See _Operetti di Iacopo Morelli_,
Ven. 1820, I. 299.)

[10] “Humboldt confirms the opinion I have more than once expressed
that too much must not be inferred from the silence of authors. He
adduces three important and perfectly undeniable matters of fact,
as to which no evidence is to be found where it would be most
anticipated: In the archives of Barcelona no trace of the triumphal
entry of Columbus into that city; _in Marco Polo no allusion to
the Chinese Wall_; in the archives of Portugal nothing about
the voyages of Amerigo Vespucci in the service of that crown.”
(_Varnhagen_ v. _Ense_, quoted by Hayward, _Essays_, 2nd Ser. I.
36.) See regarding the Chinese Wall the remarks referred to above,
at p. 292 of this volume.

[11] [It is a strange fact that Polo never mentions the use of _Tea_
in China, although he travelled through the Tea districts in Fu
Kien, and tea was then as generally drunk by the Chinese as it
is now. It is mentioned more than four centuries earlier by the
Mohammedan merchant Soleyman, who visited China about the middle of
the 9th century. He states (_Reinaud, Relation des Voyages faits
par les Arabes et les Persans dans l’Inde et à la Chine_, 1845,
I. 40): “The people of China are accustomed to use as a beverage
an infusion of a plant, which they call _sakh_, and the leaves of
which are aromatic and of a bitter taste. It is considered very
wholesome. This plant (the leaves) is sold in all the cities of the
empire.” (_Bretschneider, Hist. Bot. Disc._ I. p. 5.)—H. C.]

[12] It is probable that Persian, which had long been the language of
Turanian courts, was also the common tongue of foreigners at that
of the Mongols. _Pulisanghin_ and _Zardandan_, in the preceding
list, are pure Persian. So are several of the Oriental phrases
noted at p. _84_. See also notes on _Ondanique_ and _Vernique_ at
pp. 93 and 384 of this volume, on _Tacuin_ at p. 448, and a note
at p. _93_ _supra_. The narratives of Odoric, and others of the
early travellers to Cathay, afford corroborative examples. Lord
Stanley of Alderley, in one of his contributions to the Hakluyt
Series, has given evidence from experience that Chinese Mahomedans
still preserve the knowledge of numerous Persian words.

[13] Compare these errors with like errors of Herodotus, _e.g._,
regarding the conspiracy of the False Smerdis. (See Rawlinson’s
Introduction, p. 55.) There is a curious parallel between the two
also in the supposed occasional use of Oriental state records, as
in Herodotus’s accounts of the revenues of the satrapies, and of
the army of Xerxes, and in Marco Polo’s account of Kinsay, and of
the Kaan’s revenues. (Vol. ii pp. 185, 216.)

[14] An example is seen in the voluminous _Annali Musulmani_ of _G.
B. Rampoldi_, Milan, 1825. This writer speaks of the Travels of
Marco Polo with his _brother_ and uncle; declares that he visited
_Tipango_ (_sic_), Java, Ceylon, and the _Maldives_, collected all
the geographical notions of his age, traversed the two peninsulas
of the Indies, examined the islands of _Socotra, Madagascar,
Sofala_, and traversed with _philosophic eye_ the regions of
Zanguebar, Abyssinia, Nubia, and Egypt! and so forth (ix. 174).
And whilst Malte-Brun bestows on Marco the sounding and ridiculous
title of “_the Humboldt of the 13th century_,” he shows little real
acquaintance with his Book. (See his _Précis_, ed. of 1836, I. 551
_seqq._)

[15] See for example vol. i. p. 338, and note 4 at p. 341; also vol.
ii. p. 103. The descriptions in the style referred to recur in all
seven times; but most of them (which are in Book IV.) have been
omitted in this translation.

[16] [On the subject of Moses of Chorene and his works, I must refer to
the clever researches of the late Auguste Carrière, Professor of
Armenian at the École des Langues Orientales.—H. C.]

[17] _Zacher, Forschungen zur Critik, &c., der Alexandersage_, Halle,
1867, p. 108.

[18] Even so sagacious a man as Roger Bacon quotes the fabulous letter
of Alexander to Aristotle as authentic. (_Opus Majus_, p. 137.)

[19] _J. As._ sér. VI. tom. xviii. p. 352.

[20] See passage from Jacopo d’Acqui, _supra_, p. _54_.