Marco PoloA Famous Traveler
You do not need to be told that the world as known to us to-day is very different from the world as it was known—or misknown—to the people of the thirteenth century. Two great inventions broadened the horizon of Europe; these were the mariner’s compass and the printing press. The mariner’s compass made it possible for men to strike boldly across unknown seas instead of clinging to familiar shores; the printing press spread books abroad and conveyed the knowledge of the few to the masses.
To-day, the steamship and the railway unite countries and destroy distance. Even the parts of the world where these do not penetrate, own, to a greater or less extent, the power of the great nations of the world. A citizen of the United States can cross the deserts of Africa or penetrate the wilds of Asia and be protected by his nation’s flag. There is hardly a place so secluded that some hardy traveler has not visited it, describing and picturing the country, people, and customs so as to make them known to all the world.
Very different was the state of affairs in the thirteenth century. The European who started east had an unblazed trail before him. He had to make his way on foot or on horseback, by sail or row boats, through mountain passes, trackless forests, and vast deserts, andacross streams and seas. On the land, he encountered robbers; on the waters, pirates. Everywhere were people with unknown customs and strange languages. The chances were that the adventurous traveler, instead of returning home, would leave his bones to whiten foreign sands.
Yet one traveler encountered and passed through all these dangers, returned safe home, and dictated an account of his travels,—a true story, as wonderful as the tales of the “Arabian Nights.” Perhaps some day you will read the story of Marco Polo’s travels.
Marco Polo began life with three advantages; he was born in the thirteenth century, he was a Venetian, and he was a Polo. Venice, in the Middle Ages, was one of the commercial centers of the world. The great oceans were as yet uncrossed; the Italian cities sent forth merchant-vessels which brought across the Mediterranean the goods conveyed overland by caravans from the East,—the spices, gold, and jewels of Asia. Among the Venetian families made wealthy by commerce—the merchant-princes, as they were called—was the Polo family. About the middle of the thirteenth century, there were three Polo brothers engaged in commerce.
Two of these brothers went to the East, first to the Crimea and thence to Cathay, as China was then called. They were probably the first European travelers who reached China. They went to Cambaluc, or Peking,where they were graciously received by the great emperor, Kublai Khan. He was the grandson of Jenghiz, who had made himself master of northern China. The son and grandson of Jenghiz extended his conquests, so that the kingdom of Kublai Khan embraced China, northern Asia, Persia, Armenia, and parts of Asia Minor and Russia. Under this powerful ruler, the East was not only bound together in one vast empire, it was open to Europeans as it had never been before and has never been since. Kublai Khan welcomed the Polo brothers to his court, and they spent there several years. At last they returned to Venice, where Nicolo had left his wife; his son Marco, born the year of his departure, was now a youth of about eighteen.
The Polo brothers remained in Venice two years and then returned to Cathay. With them went Marco Polo, a brave, intelligent youth. They passed through the country around the sources of the river Oxus and crossed the plateau of Pamir and the great desert of Gobi. Much of this country had never before been visited by Europeans, and we have no record of its being revisited until a few years ago when the Orient was again to some extent opened to the world.
The Polos were welcomed back by Kublai Khan, who was at his winter residence, Cambaluc, where “are to be seen in wonderful abundance the precious stones, the pearls, the silks, and the diverse perfumes of the East.” Marco mastered the four languages most inuse at court. The Khan, seeing that he was both intelligent and discreet, sent him on public business to Kara Korum, Cochin-China, India, and other parts of the great empire. When he returned, he was able to give the Khan information stored in his memory and his note books not only about the business of which he had charge but also about the manners, customs, and peculiarities of the peoples he had visited. He became a great favorite with the Khan and was, we are told, made governor of the great city of Yang-Chow.
At the end of fifteen years, the Polos desired to revisit their home, and the Khan consented on condition that they would return to Cathay. Some idea of the difficulty of the return journey may be gathered from the fact that it took twenty-six months. We are told that their kindred did not recognize the long-absent merchants. They gave a grand feast in oriental style; at the end they donned costumes suiting their rank and ripped apart their travel-worn garments, displaying dazzling wealth of rubies, sapphires, and other gems therein concealed.
The Polos had been at home only about three years when there arose war between Genoa and Venice, which were commercial rivals. The hostile fleets met in battle and the Venetians were defeated. Among the seven thousand prisoners was Marco Polo, who was an officer on one of the Venetian galleys. He was put in prison in Genoa and there he remained about a year. One of hisfellow-prisoners was Rusticiano of Pisa, an author. The Pisan was much interested in the wonderful adventures of Polo and wrote them down from dictation.
The book consists practically of two parts. The first part, or prologue as it is called, relates the circumstances of the two Polos’ first visit to the Khan’s court, their second voyage accompanied by Marco, and their return home by way of the Indian Seas and of Persia. Polo informed the Europeans, who thought that eastern Asia ended in swamps and fog and darkness, that there was open sea east of Asia and that he, his father, and his uncle had sailed from the southeast coast of Cathay, or China, to the Persian Gulf. The second part of Polo’s “Travels” describes the different states and provinces of Asia, and the court and rule of Kublai Khan. Little is told of the traveler himself, but we gather that he was a brave, shrewd, and prudent man.
After Marco Polo’s release from prison in 1299, he seems to have returned to Venice, married, and lived quietly in his native city until his death in 1324.
“The Book of Marco Polo,” as Rusticiano of Pisa called his work, was read with much interest and was translated into many languages. For many centuries it was the only European description of the far East, written by an eye-witness. Polo was accused of falsehood and exaggeration, but as people learned more about the lands he described, they found that, in the main, he was right; he was truthful and accurate in describingwhat he had seen, but he was sometimes misled by the tales of others to whom he listened. In the prologue, Rusticiano says that he describes things seen by “Messer Marco Polo, a wise and noble citizen of Venice.... Some things indeed there be therein which he beheld not; but these he heard from men of credit and veracity, and we shall set down things seen as seen, and things heard as heard only, so that no jot of falsehood may mar the truth of our book and that all who shall read it or hear it read may put full faith in the truth of all its contents.”
Marco Polo was the first European traveler to make his way across the whole length of Asia, naming and describing the kingdoms which he visited. He was the first to describe the Pamir plateau, “the roof of the world,” the highest level country on the globe, the deserts and flowery plains of Persia, the wealth and size of China, the manners and customs of its people, and the splendid court of its emperor, the great Kublai Khan. He was the first to describe Tibet, and to tell of Burmah, Cochin-China, Siam, Japan, Java, Sumatra, Ceylon, and India, not merely as names but as places he had seen and known. He gave an account of the secluded Christian empire of Abyssinia, of the tropical luxuriance of the far-off islands, of the negroes and ivory of Zanzibar, of vast and distant Madagascar, of Siberia and the Arctic shores with their dog-sledges, white bears, and reindeer. In brief, he described Asiafrom Siberia and the Arctic Ocean, to Ceylon, from the Adriatic Sea to the Pacific Ocean, and to him Europe owes its first geographical knowledge of Asia.
In the time of Marco Polo, the Mongolian Empire was probably the largest in the world. He informed Europeans that in the East, which they thought inhabited by savage and ignorant people, was a wealthy and civilized kingdom, swarming with inhabitants anddotted with huge cities. He described the palaces and pleasure grounds of Cambaluc, or Peking, somewhat as they are to-day. He told how “black stones” were dug out of the earth and burnt for fuel, because they “burn better and cost less” than wood,—whereat Polo marveled. He told about the emperor’s granaries for wheat, barley, millet, and rice, about the wool, silk, hemp, spices, sugar, gold, and salt of the country. At first it seems strange that Polo did not mention tea, for hundreds of years the national drink of the Chinese, but we must remember that he was associated with the Tartar ruling classes and so was to a great extent ignorant of the manners and customs of the subject natives.
Cipangu or Cipango—that is, Japan—was made known to Europeans by Polo. He described it as “an island in the high seas,” and said that the sea around it was studded with thousands of islands rich in spices and perfumes. Cipango was the only country attacked by Kublai Khan which was able to resist his power.Its people were civilized and it was rich in gold and in wonderful pearls, white and rose-colored. Polo says “rubies are found on this island and in no other country in the world but this.”
He described India,—the scanty garments of the people and their magnificent jewels. He gave an interesting account of the diamond mines of Golconda, and of the cotton plant—more valuable even than those rich mines—from which fiber is obtained for clothing. He visited and described the places from which are obtained ginger, pepper, cinnamon, camphor, and other gums and spices.
Seilan, or Ceylon, was another place visited by Polo. He described the pearl fisheries there, much as they are to-day.