EVERYMAN S LIBRARY 
EDITED BY ERNEST RHYS 


TRAVEL AND 
TOPOGRAPHY 


MARCO POLO S TRAVELS 

WITH AN INTRODUCTION BY 

JOHN MASEFIELD 


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FIRST ISSUE OF THIS EDITION . . 1908 
REPRINTED ..... 1911, 1914 


INTRODUCTION 

MARCO POLO, the subject of this memoir, was born at Venice 
in the year 1 254. He was the son of Nicolo Polo, a Venetian 
of noble family, who was one of the partners in a trading 
house, engaged in business with Constantinople. In the year 
1260, this Nicolo Polo, in company with his junior partner, 
his brother Maffeo, set out across the Euxine on a trading 
venture to the Crimea. They prospered in their business, 
but were unable to return to their base, owing to the break 
ing out of a Tartar war on the road by which they had come. 
As they could not go back, they went forward, crossing the 
desert to Bokhara, where they stayed for three years. At 
the end of the third year (the fifth of their journey) they were 
advised to visit the Great Khan Kublai, the " Kubla Khan " 
of Coleridge s poem. A party of the Great Khan s envoys 
were about to return to Cathay, and the two brothers there 
fore joined the party, travelling forward, northward and 
northeastward," for a whole year, before they reached the 
Khan s Court in Cathay. The Khan received them kindly, 
and asked them many questions about life in Europe, especi 
ally about the emperors, the Pope, the Church, and " all 
that is done at Rome." He then sent them back to Europe 
on an embassy to the Pope, to ask His Holiness to send a 
hundred missionaries to convert the Cathaians to the Chris 
tian faith. He also asked for some of the holy oil from the 
lamp of the Holy Sepulchre. The return journey of the 
brothers (from Cathay to Acre) took three years. On their 
arrival at Acre the travellers discovered that the Pope was 
dead. They therefore decided to return home to Venice to 
wait until the new Pope should be elected. They arrived at 
Venice in 1269, to find that Nicolo s wife had died during her 
husband s absence. His son Marco, our traveller, was then 
fifteen years old. He had probably passed his childhood in 
the house of one of his uncles at Venice. 

Nicolo and Maffeo Polo remained at Venice for a couple of 
years, waiting for a Pope to be elected, but as there seemed to 

vii 


viii Introduction 

be no prospect of this happening, they determined to return 
to the Great Khan, to tell him how their mission had failed. 
They therefore set out again (in 1271) and Marco, now seven 
teen years old, went with them. At Acre they obtained a 
letter from a Papal Legate, stating how it came about that 
the message had not been delivered. They had already 
obtained some of the holy oil, so that they were free to pro 
ceed. They had not gone very far upon their journey when 
they were recalled to Acre by the above-mentioned Syrian 
Legate, who had just heard that he had been elected Pope. 
The new Pope did not send a hundred missionaries, as 
Kublai had asked, but he appointed instead two preaching 
friars, who accompanied the Polos as far as Armenia, where 
rumours of war frightened them into returning. The Polos 
journeyed on for three years and a half, and arrived at 
the Khan s court (at Shangtu, not far from Pekin) in the 
middle of 1275. The Khan received them "honourably and 
graciously," making much of Marco, " who was then a young 
gallant." In a little while, when Marco had learned the 
speech and customs of the : Tartars," the Khan employed 
him in public business, sending him as a visiting adminis 
trator to several wild and distant provinces. Marco noted 
carefully the strange customs of these provinces, and de 
lighted the Khan with his account of them. On one of these 
journeys Marco probably visited the southern states of India. 
After some seventeen years of honourable service with 
Kublai, the three Venetians became eager to return to Venice. 
They were rich men, and Kublai was growing old, and they 
knew that Kublai s death " might deprive them of that 
public assistance by which alone they could expect to sur 
mount the innumerable difficulties of so long a journey." 
But Kublai refused to allow them to leave the Court, and 
even " appeared hurt at the application." It chanced, how 
ever, that at this time, Arghun, Khan of Persia, had sent 
ambassadors to Kublai to obtain the hand of a maiden "from 
among the relatives of his deceased wife." The maiden, 
aged seventeen, and very beautiful, was about to accompany 
the ambassadors to Persia; but the ordinary overland routes 
to Persia were unsafe, owing to wars among the Tartars. It 
was necessary for her to travel to Persia by ship. The 
envoys begged Kublai that the three Venetians might come 
with them in the ships " as being persons well skilled in 
the practice of navigation." Kublai granted their request, 


Introduction ix 

though not very gladly. He fitted out & jplendid squadron 
of ships, and despatched the three Venetians with the Per 
sians, first granting them the golden tablet or safe-conduct, 
which would enable them to obtain supplies on the way. 
They sailed from a Chinese port about the beginning of 1292. 

The voyage to Persia occupied about two years, during 
which time the expedition lost six hundred men. The Khan 
of Persia was dead when they arrived; so the beautiful 
maiden was handed over to his son, who received her kindly. 
He gave the Venetians safe-conduct through Persia; indeed 
he sent them forward with troops of horse, without which, 
in those troublous days, they could never have crossed the 
country. As they rode on their way they heard that the 
great Khan Kublai, their old master, had died. They arrived 
safely at Venice some time in the year 1295. 

There are some curious tales of their arrival at home. It 
is said that they were not recognised by their relatives, and 
this is not strange, for they returned in shabby Tartar 
clothes, almost unable to speak their native tongue. It was 
not until they had ripped the seams of the shabby clothes, 
producing stores of jewels from the lining, that the relatives 
decided to acknowledge them. (This tale may be read as 
allegory by those who doubt its truth as history.) Marco 
Polo did not stay long among his relatives. Venice was at 
war with Genoa, and the Polo family, being rich, had been 
called upon to equip a galley, even before the travellers 
returned from Asia. Marco Polo sailed in command of this 
galley, in the fleet under Andrea Dandolo, which was de 
feated by the Genoese off Curzola on the jth September 
1296. Marco Polo was carried as a prisoner to Genoa, where 
he remained, in spite of efforts made to ransom him, for about 
three years, during which time he probably dictated his book 
in very bad French to one Rustician of Pisa, a fellow-prisoner. 
He returned to Venice during the year 1299, and probably 
married shortly afterwards. 

Little is known of his life after his return from prison. 
We know that he was nicknamed " II Milione " on account 
of his wonderful stories of Kublai s splendour; but as he was 
rich and famous the slighting nickname was probably partly 
a compliment. Colonel Yule, the great editor of Marco Polo, 
has discovered that he stood surety for a wine-smuggler, 
that he gave a copy of his book to a French noble, and that 
he sued a commission agent for the half profits on the sale of 


x Introduction 

some musk. It was at one time thought that he was the 
Marco Polo who failed (in 1302) to have his water-pipe in 
spected by the town plumber. This sin has now been laid 
upon another man of the same name, who " was ignorant 
of the order on that subject. JJ On the 9th of January, 1324, 
feeling himself to be growing daily feebler, he made his will, 
which is still preserved. He named as his trustees his wife 
Donata and his three daughters, to whom the bulk of his 
estate was left. He died soon after the execution of this will. 
He was buried in Venice without the door of the Church of 
San Lorenzo; but the exact site of the grave is unknown. 
No known authentic portrait of the man exists; but as in 
the case of Columbus, there are several fanciful portraits, of 
which the best dates from the seventeenth century. 

Marco Polo s book was not received with faith by his con 
temporaries. Travellers who see marvellous things, even in our 
own day (the name of Bruce will occur to everyone) are seldom 
believed by those who, having stayed at home, have all the 
consequences of their virtue. When Marco Polo came back 
from the East, a misty, unknown country, full of splendour 
and terrors, he could not tell the whole truth. He had to 
leave his tale half told lest he should lack believers. His 
book was less popular in the later Middle Ages than the 
fictions and plagiarisms of Sir John Mandeville. Marco 
Polo tells of what he saw; the compiler of Mandeville, when 
he does not steal openly from Pliny, Friar Odoric, and others, 
tells of what an ignorant person might expect to see, and 
would, in any case, like to read about, since it is always 
blessed to be confirmed in an opinion, however ill-grounded 
it may be. How little Marco Polo was credited may be 
judged from the fact that the map of Asia was not modified 
by his discoveries till fifty years after his death. 

His book is one of the great books of travel. Even now, 
after the lapse of six centuries, it remains the chief authority 
for parts of Central Asia, and of the vast Chinese Empire. 
Some of his wanderings are hard to follow; some of the 
places which he visited are hard to identify; but the labour 
of Colonel Yule has cleared up most of the difficulties, and 
confirmed most of the strange statements. To the geo 
grapher, to the historian, and to the student of Asiatic life, 
the book of Marco Polo will always be most valuable. To 
the general reader, the great charm of the book is its 
romance. 


Introduction xi 

It is accounted a romantic thing to wander among 
strangers and to eat their bread by the camp-fires of the 
other half of the world. There is romance in doing thus, 
though the romance has been over-estimated by those whose 
sedentary lives have created in them a false taste for action. 
Marco Polo wandered among strangers; but it is open to 
anyone (with courage and the power of motion) to do the 
same. Wandering in itself is merely a form of self-indul 
gence. If it adds not to the stock of human knowledge, or 
if it gives not to others the imaginative possession of some 
part of the world, it is a pernicious habit. The accLuisition 
of knowledge, the accumulation of fact, is noble only in those 
few who have that alchemy which transmutes such clav 

J ___j^. | -** lfrinB * ii^fft&lt;l* * r " l **&gt; n&lt;^i^ M| ^_____^^ai"*** rlnT * *** i*Tir~" " iinim &gt;i,,m ny ^u^yi*&gt;lH^^Ti**&lt;r^M&gt;&gt; 11 ^* J 

to heavenly eterna^gold. It may be thought that many 
travellers have given their readers great imaginative posses 
sions; but the imaginative possession is not measured in 
miles and parasangs, nor do the people of that country write 
accounts of birds and beasts. It is only the wonderful 
traveller who sees a wonder, and only five travellers in the 
world s history have seen wonders. The others have seen 
birds and beasts, rivers and wastes, the earth and the (local) 
fulness thereof. The five travellers are Herodotus, Caspar, 
Melchior, Balthazar, and Marco Polo himself. The wonder 
of Marco Polo is this that _he created Asia for the European 

WHMHI^ ^^^^^-^n*&t&f*&* l *B*Vf*& m * * t *******^t*1 l ^^*** f ^*^** 

mind. 

When Marco Polo went to the East, the whole of Central 
Asia, so full of splendour and magnificence, so noisy with 
nations and kings, was like a dream in men s minds. Euro 
peans touched only the fringe of the East. At Acre, at 
Byzantium, at the busy cities on the Euxine, the merchants 
of Europe bartered with the stranger for silks, and jewels and 
precious balms, brought over the desert at great cost, in 
caravans from the unknown. The popular conception of 
the East was taken from the Bible, from the tales of old 
Crusaders, and from the books of the merchants. All that 
men knew of the East was that it was mysterious, and that 
our Lord was born there. Marco Polo, almost the first 
European to see the East, saw her in all her wonder, more 
fully than any man has seen her since. His picture of the 
East is the picture which we all make in our minds when we 
repeat to ourselves those two strange words, " the East/ 
and give ourselves up to the image which that symbol evokes. 
It may be that the Western mind will turn to Marco Polo for 


xii Introduction 

a conception of Asia long after " Cathay has become an 
American colony. 

It is difficult to read Marco Polo as one reads historical 
facts. One reads him as one reads romance; as one would 
read, for instance, the " Eve of St. Mark," or the " Well at 
the World s End." The East of which he writes is the East 
of romance, not the East of the Anglo-Indian, with his Simla, 
his missions to Tibet, and Renter telegrams. In the East of 
romance there grows " the tree of the sun, or dry tree " (by 
which Marco Polo passed), a sort of landmark or milestone, 
at the end of the great desert. The apples of the sun and 
moon grow upon that tree. Darius and Alexander fought 
in its shade. Those are the significant facts about the tree 
according to Marco Polo. We moderns, who care little for 
any tree so soon as we can murmur its Latin name, have lost 
wonder in losing faith. 

The Middle Age, even as our own age is, was full of talk of 
the Earthly Paradise. It may be that we have progressed, 
in learning to talk of it as a social possibility, instead of as a 
geographical fact. We like to think that the old Venetians 
went eastward, on their famous journey, half believing that 
they would arrive there, just as Columbus (two centuries 
later) half expected to sight land where the golden blossoms 
burn upon the trees forever." They did not find the Earthly 
Paradise ; but they saw the splendours of Kublai, one of the 
mightiest of earthly kings. One feels the presence of 
Kublai all through the narrative, as the red wine, dropped 
into the water-cup, suffuses all, or as the string supports the 
jewels on a trinket. The imagination is only healthy when 
it broods upon the kingly and the saintly. In Kublai, the 
reader will find enough images of splendour to make glorious 
the temple of his mind. When we think of Marco Polo, it 
is of Kublai that we think; and, apart from the romantic 
wonder which surrounds him, he is a noble person, worth our 
contemplation. He is like a king in a romance. It was the 
task of a kingly nature to have created him as he appears in 
the book here. It makes us proud and reverent of the poetic 
gift, to reflect that this king, " the lord of lords," ruler of so 
many cities, so many gardens, so many fishpools, would be 
but a name, an image covered by the sands, had he not wel 
comed two dusty travellers, who came to him one morning 
from out of the unknown, after long wandering over the 
world. Perhaps when he bade them farewell the thought 


Introduction xiii 

occurred to him (as it occurred to that other king in the 
poem) that he might come to be remembered but by this 
one thing," when all his glories were fallen from him, and he 
lay silent, the gold mask upon his face, in the drowsy tomb, 
where the lamp, long kept alight, at last guttered, and died, 
and fell to dust. 

JOHN MASEFIELD. 

December 1907. 


ITINERARY 

THE elder Polos, when they left Constantinople in the year 
1260, had not planned to go far beyond the northern 
borders of the Euxine. They first landed at Soldaia, in the 
Crimea, then an important trading city. From Soldaia they 
journeyed in a northerly and east-northeasterly direction to 
Sara, or Sarra, a vast city on the Volga, where King Cam- 
buscan lived, and to Bolgara, or Bolghar, where they stayed 
for a year. Going south a short distance to Ucaca, another 
city on the Volga, they journeyed direct to the south-east, 
across the northern head of the Caspian, on the sixty days 
march to Bokhara, where they stayed for three years. From 
Bokhara they went with the Great Khan s people north 
ward to Otrar, and thence in a north-easterly direction to the 
Court of the Khan near Pekin. On their return journey, 
they arrived at the sea-coast at Layas, in Armenia. From 
Layas they went to Acre, and from Acre to Negropont in 
Roumania, and from Negropont to Venice, where they stayed 
for about two years. 

On the second journey to the East, with the young Marco 
Polo, they sailed direct from Venice to Acre towards the end 
of the year 1271. They made a short journey southward to 
Jerusalem, for the holy oil, and then returned to Acre for 
letters from the Papal Legate. Leaving Acre, they got as 
far as Layas, in Armenia, before they were recalled by the 
newly elected Pope. On setting out again, they returned to 
Layas, at that time a great city, where spices and cloth of 
.gold were sold, and from which merchants journeying to the 
East generally started. From Layas they pushed north 
ward into Turcomania, past Casaria and Sivas, to Arzingan, 
where the people wove " good buckrams." Passing Mount 
Ararat, where Noah s Ark was supposed to rest, they heard 
stories of the Baku oil-fields. From here they went to the 
south-eastward, following the course of the Tigris to Band as. 
From Bandas they seem to have made an unnecessary 
journey to the Persian Gulf. The book leads one to suppose 

xiv 


Itinerary xv 

thai they travelled by way of Tauriz (in Persian Irak) Yezd, 
and Kerman, to the port of Ormuz, as though they intended 
to take ship there. They could, however, have progressed 
more swiftly had they followed the Tigris to Busrah, there 
taken ship upon the Gulf, and sailed by way of Keis or Kisi to 
Ormuz. After visiting Ormuz, they returned to Kerman by 
another road, and then pushed on, over the horrible salt 
desert of Kerman, through Khorassan to Balakshan. It is 
possible that their journey was broken at Balakshan, owing 
to the illness of Marco, who speaks of having at some time 
stayed nearly a year here to recover his health. On leaving 
Balakshan they proceeded through the high Pamirs to Kash- 
gar, thence south-eastward by way of Khotan, not yet buried 
under the sands, to the Gobi desert. The Gobi desert, like 
all deserts, had a bad name as being the abode of many 
evil spirits, which amuse travellers to their destruction. 1 
The Polos crossed the Gobi in the usual thirty days, halting 
each night by the brackish ponds which make the passage 
possible. After crossing the desert, they soon entered China. 
At Kan Chau, one of the first Chinese cities which they 
visited, they may have stayed for nearly a year, on account 
of "the state of their concerns," but this stay probably took 
place later, when they were in Kublai s service. They then 
crossed the province of Shen-si, into that of Shan -si, finally 
arriving at Kai-ping-fu, where Kublai had built his summer 
pleasure garden. 

On the return journey, the Polos set sail from the port of 
Zaitum, in the province of Fo-Kien. They hugged the 
Chinese coast (in order to avoid the Pratas and Pracel Reefs) 
and crossed the Gulf of Tong King to Champa in the south 
east of Cambodia. Leaving Champa, they may have made 
some stay at Borneo, but more probably they sailed direct to 
the island of Bintang, at the mouth of the Straits of Malacca, 
and to Sumatra, where the fleet was delayed for five months 
by the blowing of the contrary monsoon. The ships seem 
to have waited for the monsoon to change in a harbour on the 
north-east coast, in the kingdom of Sumatra. On getting, 
a fair wind, they passed by the Nicobar and Andaman Islands, 
and then shaped a course for Ceylon. They put across to 
the coast of Coromandel, and may perhaps have coasted as 
far to the northward upon the Madras coast as Masulipatam. 
On the Bombay side, they would seem to have hugged the 
coast as far as they could, as far perhaps as Surat, in the 


xvi Intinerary 

Gulf of Cambay; but it is just possible that the descriptions 
of these places were taken from the tales of pilots, and that 
his fleet put boldly out to avoid the coast pirates. Marco 
Polo tells us much about Aden, and about towns on the 
Arabian coasts; but the fleet probably never touched at 
them. All that is certainly known is that they arrived at 
Ormuz, in the Persian Gulf, and passed inland to Khorassan. 
On leaving Khorassan they journeyed overland, through 
Persia and Greater Armenia, until they came to Trebizonda 
on the Euxine Sea. Here they took ship, and sailed home 
to Venice, first touching at Constantinople and at Negro- 
pont. " And this was in the year 1 295 of Christ s Incarna 
tion." 

J. M. 


CONTENTS 


BOOK I 

PAGE 

PROLOGUE * . 9 

CHAPTER 

JL. .. 

II. Of Armenia Minor Of the Port of Laiassus And of 

the Boundaries of the Province ... 30 

III. Of the Province called Turkomania, where are the 

Cities of Kogni, Kaisariah, and Sevasta, and of its 
Commerce ....... 32 

IV. Of Armenia Major, in which are the Cities of Arzingan, 

Argiron, and Darziz Of the Castle of Paipurth 
Of the Mountain where the Ark of Noah rested Of 
the Boundaries of the Province And of a remark 
able Fountain of Oil . . . . 34 

V. Of the Province of Zorzania and its Boundaries Of the 
Pass where Alexander the Great constructed the 
Gate of Iron And of the miraculous Circum 
stances attending a Fountain at Tenis . . 37 

VI. Of the Province of Mosul and its different Inhabitants 
Of the People named Kurds And of the Trade 
of this Country . . . . . . 41 

VII. Of the great City of Baldach or Bagadet, anciently 
called Babylon Of the Navigation from thence to 
Balsara, situated in what is termed the Sea of India, 
but properly the Persian Gulf And of the various 
Sciences studied in that City .... 42 

VIII. Concerning the Capture and Death of the Khalif of 
Baldach, and the miraculous Removal of a 
Mountain .... 44 

IX. Of the noble City of Tauris, in Irak, and of its Com 
mercial and other Inhabitants . . 47 

X. Of the Monastery of Saint Barsamo, in the Neighbour 
hood of Tauris ...... 49 

XI. Of the Province of Persia . . . . 50 

XII. Of the Names of the Eight Kingdoms that constitute 
the Province of Persia, and of the Breed of Horses 
and of Asses found therein . . . .51 
XIII. Of the City of Yasdi and its Manufactures, and of the 
Animals found in the Country between that place 
and Kierman ...... 55 

XIV. Of the Kingdom of Kierman, by the Ancients named 
Karmania Of its Fossil and Mineral Productions 
Its Manufactures Its Falcons And of a great 
Descent observed upon passing out of that 
Country ....... 50 


Contents 


CHAPTER PAGE 

XV. Of the City of Kamandu, and District of Reobarle Of 
certain Birds found there Of a peculiar kind of 
Oxen And of the Karaunas, a Tribe of Robbers 58 
XVI. Of the City of Ormus, situated on an Island not far 
from the Main, in the Sea of India Of its Com 
mercial Importance And of the hot Wind that 
blows there ....... 

XVII. Of the Shipping employed at Ormus Of the Season 
in which the Fruits are produced And of the 
Manner of Living and Customs of the Inhabitants 

XVIII. Of the Country travelled over upon leaving Ormus, 
and returning to Kierman by a different Route; 
and of a Bitterness in the Bread occasioned by the 
Quality of the Water ..... 
XIX. Of the desert Country between Kierman and Kobiam, 
and of the bitter Quality of the Water 

XX. Of the Town of Kobiam, and its Manufactures . 

XXI. Of the Journey from Kobiam to the Province of Timo- 
chain on the Northern Confines of Persia And of 
a particular Species of Tree .... 

XXII. Of the Old Man of the Mountain Of his Palace and 
Gardens Of his Capture and his Death 

XXIII. Of a fertile Plain of six Days Journey, succeeded by a 

Desert of eight, to be passed in the Way to the City 
of Sapurgan Of the excellent Melons produced 
there And of the City of Balach 

XXIV. Of the Castle named Thaikan Of the Manners of the 

Inhabitants And of Salt-Hills 

XXV. Of the Town of Scassem, and of the Porcupines found 


XXVI. Of the Province of Balashan Of the Precious Stones 
found there and which become the Property of 
the King Of the Horses and the Falcons of the 
Country Of the salubrious Air of the Mountains 
And of the Dress with which the Women adorn 
their Persons ...... 

Of the Province of Basci lying South of the former 
Of the golden Ornaments worn by the Inhabitants 
in their Ears And of their Manners 


XXVII. 
XXVIII. 


Of the Province of Kesmur situated towards the south 
east Of its Inhabitants who are skilled in Magic 
Oi their Communication with the Indian Sea 
And of a Class of Hermits, their Mode of Life, and 
extraordinary Abstinence .... 

XXIX. Of the Province of Vokhan Of an Ascent for three 

Days, leading to the Summit of a high Mountain 

f a peculiar Breed of Sheep found there Of the 

Effect of the great Elevation upon Fires And of 

the Savage Life of the Inhabitants 

XXX. Of the City of Kashcar, and of the Commerce of its 
Inhabitants ....... 

XXXI. Of the City of Samarcan, and of the Miraculous Column 

in the Church of St. John the Baptist 

XXXII. Of the Province of Karkan, the Inhabitants of which 
are troubled with swollen Legs and with Goitres 
XXXIII. Of the City of Kptan, which is abundantly supplied 
with all the Necessaries of Life 


63 


67 


69 
69 


72 
73 


77 
80 


82 
86 


90 
92 
93 

95 
96 


Contents 3 

CHAPTER PAGE 

XXXIV. Of the Province of Peyn Of the Chalcedonies and 
Jasper found in its River And of a peculiar 
Custom with regard to Marriages ... 97 

XXXV. Of the Province of Charchan Of the kinds of Stone 
found in its Rivers And of the Necessity the 
Inhabitants are under, of flying to the Desert on 
the approach of the Armies of the Tartars . . 98 

XXXVI. Of the Town of Lop Of the Desert in its Vicinity- 
And of the strange Noises heard by those who pass 
over the latter . . . . . -99 

XXXVII. Of the Province of Tanguth Of the City of Sachion 
Of the Custom observed there upon the Birth of a 
Male Child And of the Ceremony of burning the 
Bodies of the Dead. . . . . . 101 

XXXVIII. Of the District of Kamul, and of some peculiar Customs 

respecting the Entertainment of Strangers . 106 

XXXIX Of the City of Chinchitalas 108 

XL. Of the District of Succuir, where the Rhubarb is pro 
duced, and from whence it is carried to all parts of 
the World . . . . . . .no 

XLI. Of the City of Kampion, the principal one of the Pro 
vince of Tanguth Of the nature of their Idols, and 
of the Mode of Life of those amongst the Idolaters 
who are devoted to the services of Religion Of 
the Almanac they make use of And the Customs 
of the other Inhabitants with regard to Marriage 111 
XLII. Of the City of Ezina Of the kinds of Cattle and Birds 
found there And of a Desert extending forty 
Days Journey towards the North . . .114 
XLIII. Of the City of Karakoran, the first in which the 

Tartars fixed their Residence . . . .115 

XLIV. Of the Origin of the Kingdom of the Tartars Of the 
Quarter from whence they came And of their 
former Subjection to Un-khan, a Prince of the 
North, called also Prester John . . .116 
XLV. Concerning Chingis- Khan, first Emperor of the Tartars, 
and his Warfare with Un-khan, whom he over 
threw, and of whose Kingdom he possessed 
himself . . . . . . .118 

XLVI. Of six successive Emperors of the Tartars, and of the 
Ceremonies that take place when they are carried 
for Interment to the Mountain of Altai . . iao 
XLVII. Of the Wandering Life of the TartarsOf their 
Domestic Manners, their Food, and the Virtue and 
useful Qualities of their Women . . .123 
XLVIII. Of the Celestial and Terrestrial Deities of the Tartars, 
and of their Modes of Worship Of their Dress, 
Arms, Courage in Battle, Patience under Priva 
tions, and Obedience to their Leaders . . 126 
XLIX. Of the Tartar Armies, and the manner in which they 
are constituted Of their Order of Marching Of 
their Provisions And of their Mode of attacking 
the Enemy ....... 128 

L. Of the Rules of J ustice observed by these People And 
of an imaginary Kind of Marriage contracted 
between the deceased Children of different 
Families . . . . . . -13* 


Contents 

CHAPTER PAGE 

LI. Of the Plain of Bargu near Kara-koran Of the 
Customs of its Inhabitants Of the Ocean, at the 
Distance of forty Days Journey from thence^ 
Of the Falcons produced in the Country on its 
Borders And of the Bearings of the Northern 
Constellation to an Observer in those Parts . 133 

LII. Of the Kingdom of Erginul, adjoining to that of Kam- 
pion, and of the City of Singui Of a Species of 
Oxen covered with extremely fine Hair Of the 
Form of the Animal that yields the Musk, and the 
Mode of taking it And of the Customs of the 
Inhabitants of that Country, and the Beauty of 
the Women ....... 135 

LIII. Of the Province of Egrigaia, and of the City of Kalacha 
Of the Manners of its Inhabitants And of the 
Camelots manufactured there . . . .139 

LIV. Of the Province of Tenduk, governed by Princes of the 
Race of Prester John, and chiefly inhabited by 
Christians Of the Ordination of their Priests 
And of a Tribe of People called Argon, the most 
personable and the best-informed of any in these 
Countries ..... .140 

LV. Of the Seat of Government of the Princes of the Family 
of Prester John, called Gog and Magog Of the 
Manners of its Inhabitants Of their Manufacture 
of Silk And of the Mines of Silver worked there 141 

LVI. Of the City of Changanor Of different Species of 
Cranes And of Partridges and Quails bred in 
that Part by the Orders of the Grand Khan . 143 

LVII, Of the Grand Khan s beautiful Palace in the City of 
Shandu Of his Stud of White Brood-Mares, 
with whose Milk he performs an Annual Sacrifice 
Of the wonderful Operations of the Astrologers 
on occasions of Bad Weather Of the Ceremonies 
practised by them in the Hall of the Royal Palace 
And of two Descriptions of Religious Mendi 
cants, with their Modes of Living . . .145 


BOOK II 

I. Oi the admirable Deeds of Kublai-Kaan, the Emperor 
now reigning Of the Battle he fought with 
Nay an, his Uncle, and of the Victory he obtained 152 
11. Of the Return of the Grand Khan to the City of Kan- 
balu after his Victory Of the Honour he confers 
on the Christians, the Jews, the Mahometans, and 
the Idolaters, at their respective Festivals And 
the Reason he assigns for his not becoming a 
Christian . . . . . . .158 

III. Of the kind of Rewards granted to those who conduct 

themselves well in Fight, and of the Golden 
Tablets which they receive . . . .161 

IV. Of the Figure and Stature of the Grand Khan Of 

his four principal Wives And of the annual 
Selection of Young W T omen for him in the Pro 
vince of Ungut . . . . . .162 


Contents 


CHAPTER 

V. Of the number of the Grand Khan s Sons by his four 
Wives, whom he makes Kings of different Pro 
vinces, and of Chingis his First-born Also of the 
Sons by his Concubines, whom he creates Lords 

VI. Of the great and admirable Palace of the Grand Khan, 
near to the City of Kanbalu .... 

VII. Of the new City of Tai-du, built near to that of Kanbalu 
Of a Rule observed respecting the Entertain 
ment of Ambassadors And of the nightly Police 
of the City ....... 

VIII. Of the treasonable Practices employed to cause the 
City of Kanbalu to rebel, and of the Apprehension 
and Punishment of those concerned 

IX. Of the Personal Guard of the Grand Khan 
X. Of the Style in which the Grand Khan holds his Public 
Courts, and sits at Table with all his Nobles Of 
the Manner in which the Drinking Vessels of Gold 
and Silver, filled with the Milk of Mares and 
Camels, are disposed in the Hall And of the 
Ceremony that takes place when he drinks 

XI. Of the Festival that is kept throughout the Dominions 
of the Grand Khan on the Twenty-eighth of 
September, being the Anniversary of his Nativity 
XII. Of the White Feast, held on the First Day of the 
Month of February, being the Commencement of 
their Year Of the Number of Presents then 
brought And of the Ceremonies that take place 
at a Table whereon is inscribed the Name of the 
Grand Khan ....... 

XIII. Of the Quantity of Game taken and sent to the 
Court, during the Winter Months 

XIV. Of Leopards and Lynxes used for hunting Deer Of 
Lions habituated to the Chase of various Animals 
And of Eagles taught to seize Wolves 
XV. Of two Brothers who are principal Officers of the 
Chase to the Grand Khan , 

XVI. Of the Grand Khan s proceeding to the Chase, with 
his Gerfalcons and Hawks Of his Falconers 
And of his Tents ...... 

XVII. Of the Multitude of Persons who continually resort to 
and depart from the City of Kanbalu And of 
the Commerce of the Place .... 

XVIII. Of the kind of Paper Money issued by the Grand Khan, 
and made to pass current throughout his 
Dominions ....... 

XIX. Of the Council of Twelve great Officers appointed for 
the Affairs of the Army, and of Twelve others, for 
the general Concerns of the Empire . 

XX. Of the Places established on all the great Roads for 
supplying Post-Horses Of the Couriers on Foot 
And of the Mode in which the Expense is 
defrayed ....... 

XXI. Of the Relief afforded by the Grand Khan to all the 
Provinces of his Empire, in Times of Dearth or 
Mortality of Cattle 

XXII. Of the Trees which he causes to be planted at the 
Sides of the Roads, and of the Order in which they 
are kept 


PAGE 
165 

166 


176 
181 


182 
186 


188 
193 

193 
194 

195 
20 1 

202 
205 

207 
212 
2I 4 


Contents 


XXVIII. 

XXIX. 
XXX. 

XXXI. 
XXXII. 

XXXIII. 

XXXIV. 

XXXV. 

XXXVI. 

XXXVII. 

XXXVIII. 

XXXIX. 

XL. 

XLI. 

XLII. 

XLIII. 
XLIV. 

XLV. 

XLVI. 

XLVII 

XLVIII. 

XLIX. 

L. 

LI. 

LII. 

LIII. 

LIV. 

LV. 

LVI. 

LVII. 

LVIII. 

LIX. 

LX. 

LXI. 
LXII. 

LXIII. 

LXIV. 
LXV. 


CHAPTER PAGE 

XXIII. Of the kind of Wine made in the Province of Cathay 

And of the Stones used there for burning in the 
manner of Charcoal . . . . .214 

XXIV. Of the great and admirable Liberality exercised by the 

Grand Khan towards the Poor of Kanbalu, and 
other Persons who apply for Relief at his Court 215 
XXV. Of the Astrologers of the City of Kanbalu . .217 

XXVI. Of the Religion of the Tartars Of the Opinions they 
hold respecting the Soul And of some of their 
Customs ....... 

XXVII. Of the River named Pulisangan, and of the Bridge over 

IT, ..... 

Of the City of Gouza 

Of the Kingdom of Ta-in-fu 

Of the City of Pi-an-fu 

Of the Fortress of Thaigin or Tai-gin 

Of the very large and noble River called the Kara 

moran .... 

Of the City of Ka-chan-fu 
Of the City of Ken-zan-fu 
Of the Boundaries of Cathay and Manji 
Of the Province of Sin- din- fu, and of the great River 

ZV13.il * 

Of the Province of Thebeth ..... 
Of the Province of Kain-du ..... 
Of the great Province of Karaian, and of Yachi its 

principal City ...... 

Of the Province named Karazan .... 

Of the Province of Kardandan and the City of Vochang 
Of the Manner in which the Grand Khan effected the 

Conquest of the Kingdom of Mien and Bangala 
Of an uninhabited Region, and of the Kingdom of Mien 
Of the City of Mien, and of a grand Sepulchre of its 

King ..... 

Of the Province of Bangala 

Of the Province of Kangigu 

Of the Province of Amu . 

Of Tholornan .... 

Of the Cities of Chintigui, Sidin-f u, Gin-gui, and Pazan-fu 264 
Of the City of Chan-glu ..... 267 

Of the City of Chan-gli ...... 268 

Of the City of Tudin-fu . . . . .268 

Of the City of Singui-matu . . . . .270 

Of the great River called the Kara-moran, and of the 

Cities of Koi-gan-zu and Kuan-zu . . .272 
Of the most noble Province of Manji, and of the Manner 

in which it was subdued by the Grand Khan 273 

Of the City of Koi-gan-zu . . . . -277 
Of the Town of Pau-ghin ..... 277 

Of the City of Kain . ... 278 

Of the Cities of Tin-gui and Chin-gui . . .278 
Of the City of Yan-gui, of which Marco Polo held the 

Government ....... 279 

Of the Province of Nan-ghin . . 280 

Of the City of Sa-yan-fu, that was taken by the means 

of Nicolo and Maffeo Polo . . . .280 

Of the City of Sin-gui and of the very great River 

Kiang ....... 283 

Of the City of Kayn-gui ... 285 

Of the City of Chan-ghian-fu . . . 286 


219 

222 
224 
226 
227 
227 

230 

231 
231 
233 

234 
236 

240 

243 
246 

249 
252 

257 

258 
260 
261 
262 
263 


CHAPTER 

LXVI. 

LXVII. 

LXVIII. 

LXIX. 

LXX. 

LXXI. 

LXXII. 

LXXIII. 

LXXIV. 

LXXV. 

LXXVI. 

LXXVII. 


Contents 


Of the City of Tin-gui-gui . 

Of the Cities of Sin-gui and Va-giu 

Of the noble and magnificent City of Kin-sai 

Of the Revenues of the Grand Khan 

Of the City of Ta-pin-zu .... 

Of the City of Uguiu . ... 

Of the Cities of Gen-gui, Zen-gian, and Gie-za . 

Of the Kingdom or Viceroyalty of Kon-cha, and 

capital City named Fu-giu 

Of the City of Kue-lin-fu .... 
Of the City of Un-guen ..... 
Of the City of Kan-giu ..... 
Of the City and Port of Zai-tun, and the City of Tin- 


7 


PAGE 
287 
288 
290 
310 

31* 
3*2 
312 


its 


316 
gui 317 


314 


BOOK III 

I. Of India, distinguished into the Greater, Lesser, and 
Middle Of the Manners and Customs of its 
Inhabitants Of many remarkable and extra 
ordinary Things to be observed there ; and, in the 
first place, of the kind of Vessels employed in 
Navigation ....... 

II. Of the Island of Zipangu ..... 

III. Of the nature of the Idols worshipped in Zipangu, and 

of the People being addicted to eating Human 

IT J vT-SI 1 * 

IV. Of the Sea of Chin, between this Island and the Pro 

vince of Manji ...... 

V. Of the Gulf of Keinan, and of its Rivers 
VI. Of the Country of Ziamba, of the King of that Country, 
and of his becoming tributary to the Grand Khan 

VII. Of the Island of Java 

VIII. Of the Islands of Sondur and Kondur, and of the 

Country of Lochac ..... 

IX. Of the Island of Pentan, and of the Kingdom of 

Malaiur . . . . . 

X. Of the Island of Java Minor ..... 
XI. Of the Kingdom of Felech, in the Island of Java Minor 
XII. Of the Second Kingdom, named Basman 

XIII. Of the Third Kingdom, named Samara 

XIV. Of the Fourth Kingdom, named Dragoian 
XV. Of the Fifth Kingdom, named Lambri 

XVI. Of the Sixth Kingdom, named Fanfur, where Meal is 

procured from a certain Tree 

XVII. Of the Island of Nocueran 
XVIII. Of the Island of Angaman 

XIX. Of the Island of Zeilan . 

XX. Of the Province of Maabar 

XXI. Of the Kingdom of Murphili or Monsul 

XXII. Of the Province of Lac, Loac, or Lar 

XXIII. Of the Island of Zeilan . 

XXIV. Of the City of Kael 
XXV. Of the Kingdom of Koulam 

XXVI. Of Komari . 
XXVII. Of the Kingdom of Dely 
XXVIII. Of Malabar . 
XXIX. Of the Kingdom of Guzzerat 
XXX. Of the Kingdom of Kan an 


321 
323 


327 

329 
330 


334 

335 

336 
337 
338 
339 


343 
344 

345 
347 
347 
348 
350 
366 
368 
372 

375 

376 

379 
380 

38i 
383 
385 


8 


Contents 


CHAPTER 

XXXI. 

XXXII. 

XXXIII. 

XXXIV. 

XXXV. 

XXXVI. 

XXXVII. 

XXXVIII. 

XXXIX. 

XL. 

XLI. 

XLII. 

XLIII. 

XLIV. 

XLV. 

XLVI. 

XLVII. 

XLVIII. 

XLIX. 

L. 

LI. 

LII. 

LIII. 

LIV. 

LV. 

LVI. 

LVII. 

LVIII. 

LIX. 

LX. 

LXI. 
LXII. 

LXIII. 

LXIV. 
LXV. 

LXVI. 

LXVII. 

LXVIII. 

LXIX. 

LXX. 

LXXI. 

APPENDIX 
INDEX . 


Of the Kingdom of Kambaia ..... 

Of the Kingdom of Servenath .... 

Of the Kingdom of Kesmacoran .... 
Of the Islands of Males and of Females . 
Of the Island of Soccotera ..... 
Of the great Island of Madagascar .... 
Of the Island of Zenzibar ..... 
Of the multitude of Islands in the Indian Sea . 
Of the Second or Middle India, named Abascia (or 

Abyssinia) 

Of the Province of Aden 
Of the City of Escier 
Of th3 City of Dulfar 
Of the City of Kalayati 
Of Ormus .... 
Of those Countries which are termed the Region of 

Darkness ....... 

Of the Province of Russia ..... 

Of Great Turkey ....... 

What the Grand Khan said of the Injuries done to him 

by Kaidu ....... 

Of the Daughter of King Kaidu, how strong and valiant 

she was ....... 

How Abaga sent Argon his Son with an Army 
How Argon succeeded his Father in the Sovereignty 
How Acornat went with his Host to fight Argon 
How Argon held Council with his Barons before en 
countering Acomat 
How the Barons replied to Argon 
How Argon sent his Messengers to Acomat 
Acomat s Reply to the Message of Argon 
The Battle between Argon and Acomat . 
How Argon was liberated 
How Argon recovered the Sovereignty 
How Argon caused his Uncle Acomat to be put to 

death ........ 

The Death of Argon ...... 

How Quiacatu seized upon the Sovereignty after the 

Death of Argon ...... 

How Baidu seized upon the Sovereignty after the 

Death of Quiacatu ...... 

Of the Lords of the Tartars of the West . 

Of the War between Alau and Berca, and the Battle 

they fought ....... 

How Berca and his Host went to meet Alau 

Alau s Address to his Men ..... 

Of the great Battle between Alau and Berca 
How Totamangu was Lord of the Tartars of the West 
How Toctai sent for Nogai to Court 
How Toctai proceeded against Nogai 


PAGE 

386 
386 

387 
388 

389 
39i 
395 
397 

398 
401 

402 
404 

405 
406 

411 

4^3 
414 


417 
419 

420 
420 

421 

422 
423 
423 
424 
425 
425 

426 
427 

427 

428 
428 

429 
429 

430 

43i 
432 

433 
434 

435 
439 


THE 

TRAVELS OF MARCO POLO 

BOOK I 

PROLOGUE 1 

YE emperors,, kings, dukes, marquises, earls, and knights, and 
all other people desirous of knowing the diversities of the races 
of mankind, as well as the diversities of kingdoms, provinces, 
and regions of all parts of the East, read through this book, and 
ye will find in it the greatest and most marvellous charac 
teristics of the peoples especially of Armenia, Persia, India, and 
Tartary, as they are severally related in the present work by 
Marco Polo, a wise and learned citizen of Venice, who states 
distinctly what things he saw and what things he heard from 
others. For this book will be a truthful one. It must be 
known, then, that from the creation of Adam to the present 
day, no man, whether Pagan, or Saracen, or Christian, or 
other, of whatever progeny or generation he may have been, 
ever saw or inquired into so many and such great things as 
Marco Polo above mentioned. Who, wishing in his secret 
thoughts that the things he had seen and heard should be made 
public by the present work, for the benefit of those who could 
not see them with their own eyes, he himself being in the year 
of our Lord 1295 2 in prison at Genoa, caused the things which 
are contained in the present work to be written by master 
Rustigielo, a citizen of Pisa, who was with him in the same 
prison at Genoa; and he divided it into three parts. 

1 This prologue, omitted by Marsden, is here translated from the Latin 
text published by the French Geographical Society. It is found in the 
early French version published by the same society, and in some of the 
Italian manuscripts; but is only given in an abridged form in Boni s 
Italian text. 

2 The early French translation gives the date 1298, with which the 
Italian prologues seem to agree. 

9 


io Travels of Marco Polo 


CHAPTER I 

i. It should be known to the reader that, at the time when 
Baldwin II. was emperor of Constantinople/ where a magis 
trate representing the doge of Venice then resided, 2 and in 
the year of our Lord 1250^ Nicolo Polo, the father of the said 
Marco, and Maffeo, the brother of Nicolo, respectable and weli- 

1 Baldwin II. count of Flanders, and cousin of Louis IX. king of France, 
who reigned from 1237 to 1261, was the last of the Latin emperors of 
Constantinople. 

2 The passage which in Ramusio s text is, " dove all* hora soleva stare 
un podesta di Venetia, per nome di messer lo Dose ; " and upon which he 
has written a particular dissertation, has nothing corresponding to it in 
the Latii or French versions, or in the Italian text published by Boni. 
The city of Constantinople and the Greek provinces had been conquered, 
in 1204, by the joint arms of the French and the Venetians, the latter of 
whom were commanded by their doge, the illustrious Henry Dandolo, in 
person. Upon the division of the territory and the immense spoil that 
fell into their possession, a larger share (including the celebrated bronze 
horses of Lysippus) was assigned to the republic than to the emperor 
elected on the occasion, and the aged doge, who had himself declined the 
imperial title, but accepted that of Prince of Romania, maintained an 
independent jurisdiction over three parts out of eight of the city, with a 
separate tribunal of justice, and ended his days at the head of an army 
that besieged Adrianople. It is doubtful whether any of his successors 
in the high office of chief of the republic made the imperial city their 
place of residence. " The doge, a slave of state," says Gibbon, " was 
seldom permitted to depart from the helm of the republic; but his place 
was supplied by the bail, or regent, who exercised a supreme jurisdiction 
over the colony of Venetians." Such was the podesta, sometimes termed 
bailo, and sometimes despoto, whose cotemporary government is here 
spoken of, and whose political importance in the, then degraded state of 
the empire was little inferior to that of Baldwin; whilst in the eyes of 
the Polo family, as Venetian citizens, it was probably much greater. The 
name of the person who exercised the functions at the time of their arrival, 
is said, in the Sorenzo manuscript, to have been Misier Ponte de Veniexia, 
and, in 1261, when the empire, or rather the city, was reconquered from 
the Latins, the podesta was Marco Gradenigo. 

3 There are strong grounds, Marsden says, for believing that this date 
of 1250, although found in all the editions, is incorrect. In the manu 
script, of which there are copies in the British Museum and Berlin 
libraries, the commencement of the voyage is placed in 1252, and some 
of the events related in the sequel render it evident that the departure, 
at least, of our travellers from Constantinople, must have been some 
years later than the middle of the century, and probably not sooner than 
1255. How long they were detained in that city is not stated; but, 
upon any calculation of the period of their arrival or departure, it is sur 
prising that Grynams, the editor of the Basle and Paris edition of 1532, 
and after him the learned Miiller and Bergeron, should, notwithstanding 
the anachronism, introduce into their texts the date of 1269, which was 
eight years after the expulsion of the emperor Baldwin, and was, in fact, 
the year in which they returned to Syria from their first Tartarian 
journey. 


The Brothers Polo 1 1 

informed men, embarked in a ship of their own, with a rich 
and varied cargo of merchandise, and reached Constantinople 
in safety. After mature deliberation on the subject of their 
proceedings, it was determined, as the measure most likely to 
improve their trading capital, that they should prosecute their 
voyage into the Euxine or Black Sea. 1 With this view they 
made purchases of many fine and costly jewels, and taking 
their departure from Constantinople, navigated that sea to a 
port named Soldaia, 2 from whence they travelled on horse 
back many days until they reached the court of a powerful 
chief of the Western Tartars, named Barka, 3 who dwelt in 
the cities of Bolgara and Assara, 4 and had the reputation of 
being one of the most liberal and civilized princes hitherto 
known amongst the tribes of Tartary. He expressed much 
satisfaction at the arrival of these travellers, and received 
them with marks of distinction. In return for which courtesy, 
when they had laid before him the jewels they brought with 
them, and perceived that their beauty pleased him, they pre 
sented them for his acceptance. The liberality of this conduct 

1 The prosperity, riches, and political importance of the state of Venice 
having arisen entirely from its commerce, the profession of a merchant 
was there held in the highest degree of estimation, and its nobles were 
amongst the most enterprising of its adventurers in foreign trade. To 
this illustrious state might have been applied the proud character drawn 
by Isaiah of ancient Tyre, which he describes as " the crowning city, 
whose merchants are princes, whose traffickers are the honourable of 
the earth." 

2 Soldaia was the name given in the middle ages to tne place (the 
Tauro-Scythian port of the ancients) now called Sudak, situated near 
the southern extremity of the Crimea or Tauric Chersonesus. It is de 
scribed in these words: " About the midst of the said province towards 
the south, as it were upon a sharp angle or point, standeth a city called 
Soldaia, directly against Synopolis. And there doe all the Turkic 
merchants, which traffique into the north countries, in their journey 
outward, arrive, and as they return homeward also from Russia, and 
the said northern regions, into Turkic." Purchas, vol. iii. p. 2. 

3 This Tartar prince is usually named Bereke, the successor, and said 
to be the brother, of Batu, the son of Tushi, eldest son of Jengiz-khan; 
who inherited, as his portion of the dominions of his grandfather (al 
though not in full sovereignty), the western countries of Kapchak or 
Kipchak, Allan, Russ, and Bulgar, and died in 1256. 

* The Bolgar, Bulgar, or Bulghar, here spoken of, is the name of a 
town and an extensive district in Tartary, lying to the eastward of the 
Wolga, and now inhabited by the Bashkirs, sometimes distinguished 
from the Bulgaria on the Danube, by the appellation of the Greater 
Bulgaria. Assara is the city of Sarai (with the definitive article pre 
fixed), situated on the eastern arm of the Wolga, or Achtuba. " The 
Astrachan mentioned by Balducci Pegoletti was not on the same spot 
where that town stands now, but the ancient Astrachan was demolished, 
together with Saray, by the emperor Timur, in the winter of 1395. The 
old town of Saray was pretty near the ancient Astrachan." Forster. 


i 2 Travels ot Marco Polo 

on the part of the two brothers struck him with admiration; 
and being unwilling that they should surpass him in generosity, 
he not only directed double the value of the jewels to be paid 
to them, but made them in addition several rich presents. 

The brothers having resided a year in the dominions of this 
prince, they became desirous of revisiting their native country, 
but were impeded by the sudden breaking out of a war be 
tween him and another chief, named Alau, who ruled over the 
Eastern Tartars. 1 In a fierce and very sanguinary battle 
that ensued between their respective armies, Alau was 
victorious, in consequence of which, the roads being rendered 
unsafe for travellers, the brothers could not attempt to return 
by the way they came; and it was recommended to them, as 
the only practicable mode of reaching Constantinople, to pro 
ceed in an easterly direction,, by an unfrequented route, so as 
to skirt the limits of Barka s territories. Accordingly they 
made their way to a town named Oukaka, 2 situated on the 
confines of the kingdom of the Western Tartars. Leaving 
that place, and advancing still further, they crossed the Tigris, 3 
one of the four rivers of Paradise, and came to a desert, the 
extent of which was seventeen days journey, wherein they 

1 These Eastern Tartars, as they are relatively termed, but whose 
country extended no further to the east than the provinces of Persia and 
Khorasan, were so named to distinguish them from the Western (cr 
more properly, North-Western) Tartars mentioned in the preceding 
note, who occupied the countries in the neighbourhood of the Wolga, 
and from thence to the confines, or beyond the confines, of Europe. 
Their chief, here named Ala-u or Hala-u, is the celebrated Hulagu, the 
son of Tuli or Tulvvi, and equally with Batu, Mangu, and Kublai (the 
latter of whom were his brothers), the grandson of Jengiz-khan. Being 
appointed by his elder brother Mangu, to command in the southern pro 
vinces of the empire, he left Kara-korum, a short time before the visit of 
Rubruquis to that Tartar capital, and in the year 1255 crossed the Jihun 
or Oxus, with a large army. In the following year, he destroyed the 
race or sect of the Ismaelians, called also Malahidet, of whom a parti 
cular account will be given hereafter, and then turned his arms against 
the city of Baghdad, which he sacked in 1258; putting to death Mos- 
tasem Billah, the last of the Abbassite khalifs. Upon the death of 
Mangu, in 1259, Hulagu became effectively the sovereign of Persian and 
Babylonian Irak, together with Khorasan; yet he still continued to 
profess a nominal and respectful allegiance to his brother Kublai, who 
was acknowledged as the head of the Moghul family, and reigned in 
China. His death took place in 1265, at Tauris or Tabriz, his capital. 

2 There can be little doubt of this being the Okak of Abulfeda; from 
hence the route of our travellers may be presumed to have lain towards 
the town of Jaik, on the river of that name, and afterwards, in a south 
easterly direction, to the Sihun. 

8 The great river crossed by our travellers, and which from its magni 
tude they might think entitled to rank as one of the rivers of Paradise, 
was evidently the Sihun, otherwise narr.ed the Sirr. 


The Brothers at Bokhara i 3 

found neither town, castle, nor any substantial building, but 
only Tartars with their herds, dwelling in tents on the plain. 1 
Having passed this tract they arrived at length at a well-built 
city called Bokhara, 2 in a province of that name, belonging to 
the dominions of Persia, and the noblest city of that kingdom, 
but governed by a prince whose name was Barak. 3 Here, 
from inability to proceed further, they remained three years. 
It happened while these brothers were in Bokhara, that a 
person of consequence and gifted with eminent talents made 
his appearance there. He was proceeding as ambassador from 
Alau before mentioned, to the grand khan, supreme chief of 
all the Tartars, named Kublai , 4 whose residence was at the 
extremity of the continent, in a direction between north 
east and east. 5 Not having ever before had an opportunity, 

1 The desert here mentioned is that of Karak, in the vicinity of the 
Sihun or Sirr, which travellers from the north must unavoidably pass, 
in order to arrive at Bokhara. 

a This celebrated city, the name of which could not be easily mis 
taken, and has not been disguised by the transcribers, serves materially 
to establish the general direction of their course; for, having proceeded 
northwards from the Crimea, they could not have reached Bokhara 
otherwise than by crossing the several rivers with discharge themselves 
into the upper or northern part of the Caspian. 

3 This appears to be the prince whom Petis de la Croix names Berrac 
Can, and D^Herbelot Barak- khan, great-grandson of Jagatai , the second 
son of Jengiz-khan, who inherited Transoxiana, or the region now pos 
sessed by the Usbek Tartars. Barak is said, by the latter, to have 
attempted to wrest the kingdom of Khorasan from the dominion of 
Abaka the son of Hulagu; but this must be a mistake, as the death of 
Barak is placed by the generality of historians in 1260 (by D Herbelot, 
unaccountably, in 1240), and that of Hulagu in 1265. 

* Mangu appointed Kublai his viceroy in China, and gave to Hulagu 
the government of such of the southern provinces of Asia as he could 
reduce to obedience. Returning himself to China in 1258, he died at 
the siege of Ho-cheu, in the province of Se-chuen, in the following year. 
Kublai was at this time in the province of Hu-kuang, and persevered in 
his efforts to render himself master of Vu-chang-fu, its capital, until he 
was called away to suppress a revolt excited by his younger brother 
Artigbuga, whom Mangu had left as his lieutenant at Kara-korum. 
Contenting himself with exacting from the emperor of the Song, who 
ruled over Manji, or southern China, the payment of an annual tribute, 
he retreated to the northward, and hi 1260 was proclaimed grand khan, 
at Shang-tu, which from that time became his summer residence. We 
are told, however, that he had hesitated for some time to assume the 
title, and did not declare his acquiescence until the arrival of an envoy 
sent by his brother Hulagu (by some supposed to have been the elder), 
who urged him to accept the empire. This envoy we may reasonably 
presume to have been the person who arrived at Bokhara, in his way 
from Persia to Khatai , during the time that Nicolo and Maffeo Polo 
were detained in that city; and the period is thereby ascertained to 
have been about the year 1258. 

6 This vague designation of the place of residence of the grand khan 
must be understood as applying to Khatai, or northern China, from 


14 Travels of Marco Polo 

although he wished it, of seeing any natives of Italy, he was 
gratified in a high degree at meeting and conversing with these 
brothers, who had now become proficients in the Tartar lan 
guage; and after associating with them for several days, and 
finding their manners agreeable to him, he proposed to them 
that they should accompany him to the presence of the great 
khan, who would be pleased by their appearance at his court, 
which had not hitherto been visited by any person from their 
country; adding assurances that they would be honourably 
received, and recompensed with many gifts. Convinced as 
they were that their endeavours to return homeward would 
expose them to the most imminent risks, they agreed to this 
proposal, and recommending themselves to the protection of 
the Almighty, they set out on their journey in the suite of the 
ambassador, attended by several Christian servants whom they 
had brought with them from Venice. The course they took 
at first was between the north-east and north, and an entire 
year was consumed before they were enabled to reach the 
imperial residence, in consequence of the extraordinary delays 
occasioned by the snows and the swelling of the rivers, which 
obliged them to halt until the former had melted and the 
floods had subsided. Many things worthy of admiration were 
observed by them in the progress of their journey, but which 
are here omitted, as they will be described by Marco Polo, in 
the sequel of the book. 

2. Being introduced to the presence of the grand khan, 
Kublai, the travellers were received by him with the conde 
scension and affability that belonged to his character, and as 
they were the first Latins who had made their appearance in 
that country, they were entertained with feasts and honoured 
with other marks of distinction. Entering graciously into 
conversation with them, he made earnest inquiries on the 
subject of the western parts of the world, of the emperor of 
the Romans, 1 and of other Christian kings and princes. He 
wished to be informed of their relative consequence, the extent 
of their possessions, the manner in which justice was ad 
ministered in their several kingdoms and principalities, how 

which, or the adjoining district of Karchin, where Shang-tu was situated, 
he was rarely absent. 

1 By the emperor of the Romans is meant the emperor, whether Greek 
or Roman, who reigned at Constantinople. Those countries which now 
form the dominion of the Turks in Europe and Asia Minor, are vaguely 
designated, amongst the more Eastern people, by the name of Rum, and 
their inhabitants by that of Rumi. 


The Grand Khan Kublai 15 

they conducted themselves in warfare, and above all he ques 
tioned them particularly respecting the pope, the affairs of the 
church, and the religious worship and doctrine of the Chris 
tians. Being well instructed and discreet men, they gave 
appropriate answers upon all these points, and as they were 
perfectly acquainted with the Tartar (Moghul) language, they 
expressed themselves always in becoming terms; insomuch 
that the grand khan, holding them in high estimation, fre 
quently commanded their attendance. 

When he had obtained all the information that the two 
brothers communicated with so much good sense, he expressed 
himself well satisfied, and having formed in his mind the de 
sign of employing them as his ambassadors to the pope, after 
consulting with his ministers on the subject, he proposed to 
them, with many kind entreaties, that they should accompany 
one of his officers, named Khogatal, on a mission to the see of 
Rome. His object, he told them, was to make a request to 
his holiness that he would send to him a hundred men of 
learning, thoroughly acquainted with the principles of the 
Christian religion, as well as with the seven arts, and qualified 
to prove to the learned of his dominions by just and fair argu 
ment, that the faith professed by Christians is superior to, 
and founded upon more evident truth than, any other; that 
the gods of the Tartars and the idols worshipped in their 
houses were only evil spirits, and that they and the people of 
the East in general were under an error in reverencing them 
as divinities. He moreover signified his pleasure that upon 
their return they should bring with them, from Jerusalem, 
some of the holy oil from the lamp which is kept burning over 
the sepulchre of our Lord Jesus Christ, whom he professed to 
hold in veneration and to consider as the true God. 1 Having 

1 We may reasonably suspect (without entertaining any doubt of the 
embassy itself) that the expressions here put into the mouth of the 
emperor, both as they regard the worship of the Tartars and the divinity 
of Christ, have been heightened by the zeal of Christian transcribers. 
The circumstance of Kublai , who is known to have been of an active and 
inquisitive mind, requesting to be furnished with a number of mission 
aries from Europe, to instruct his ignorant Tartar subjects in religion, 
and more especially in the practice of useful arts, is no more than what 
has been frequently done since, by the princes of half-barbarous nations, 
amongst whom the doctrine of the Koran had not already taken root. 
With regard to the holy oil, we find its importance thus stated by 
Chardin: " Ce qu il (le clerge Armenien) vend le plus cher, ce sont les 
saintes huiles, que les Grecs appellent myrone. La plupart des Chretiens 
orieiitaux s imaginent. que c est un baume physiquement salutaire contre 
toutes les maladies de 1 arrie. Le patriarche a seul le droit de la con- 
sacrer. II la vend aux eveques et aux pretres. II y a quelques douze 


1 6 Travels of Marco Polo 

heard these commands addressed to them by the grand khan 
they humbly prostrated themselves before him, declaring their 
willingness and instant readiness to perform, to the utmost of 
their ability, whatever might be the royal will. Upon which 
he caused letters, in the Tartarian language, to be written in 
his name to the pope of Rome, and these he delivered into 
their hands. He likewise gave orders that they should be 
furnished with a golden tablet displaying the imperial cipher, 1 
according to the usage established by his majesty; in virtue 
of which the person bearing it, together with his whole suite, 
are safely conveyed and escorted from station to station by the 
governors of all places within the imperial dominions, and are 
entitled, during the time of their residing in any city, castle, 
town, or village, to a supply of provisions and everything 
necessary for their accommodation. 

Being thus honourably commissioned they took their leave 
of the grand khan, and set out on their journey, but had not 
proceeded more than twenty days when the officer, named 
Khogatal, their companion, fell dangerously ill, in the city 
named Alau. 2 In this dilemma it was determined, upon con 
sulting all who were present, and with the approbation of the 
man himself, that they should leave him behind. In the pro 
secution of their journey they derived essential benefit from 
being provided with the royal tablet, which procured them 
attention in every place through which they passed. Their 
expenses were defrayed, and escorts were furnished. But 
notwithstanding these advantages, so great were the natural 
difficulties they had to encounter, from the extreme cold, the 
snow, the ice, and the flooding of the rivers, that their pro 
gress was unavoidably tedious, and three years elapsed before 
they were enabled to reach a sea-port town in the lesser 

ans que celui de Perse se mit en tete d empecher les ecclesiastiques 
Armeniens de tout Forient, de se pourvoir des saintes huiles ailleurs que 
chez lui. Ceux de Turquie s en fournissent depuis long- terns a Jeru 
salem, aupres du patriarche Armenien qui y reside, et qui est le chef de 
tous les Chretiens Armeniens de I empire Ottoman." Voy. en Perse, 
torn. i. p. 170, 4to. 

1 Frequent mention is made in the Chinese writings of the tchikouei, 
or tablet of honour, delivered to great officers on their appointment; 
upon which their titles are set forth in gold letters, and which entitles 
them to considerable privileges in travelling. That which is here spoken 
of may be supposed to have been of nearly the same kind. In the vulgar 
European dialect of Canton, it is termed the emperor s grand chop, a 
word used to express " seal, mark, warrant, licence, or passport." 

2 The name of the place where Khogatal was left is omitted in Marsden, 
and in the French and some of the Italian texts. 


Return of the Brothers 17 

Armenia,, named Laiassus. 1 Departing from thence by sea, 
they arrived at Acre 2 in the month of April, 1269, and there 
learned, with extreme concern, that pope Clement the Fourth 
was recently dead. 3 A legate whom he had appointed, named 
M. Tebaldo de Vesconti di Piacenza, was at this time resident 
in Acre, 4 and to him they gave an account of what they had in 
command from the grand khan of Tartary. He advised them 
by all means to wait the election of another pope, and when 
that should take place, to proceed with the object of their 
embassy. Approving of this counsel, they determined upon 
employing the interval in a visit to their families in Venice. 
They accordingly embarked at Acre in a ship bound to Negro- 
pont, and from thence went on to Venice, where Nicolo Polo 
found that his wife, whom he had left with child at his de 
parture, was dead, after having been delivered of a son, who 
received the name of Marco, and was now of the age of nineteen 
years. 5 This is the Marco by whom the present work is com- 

1 We have given the name Laiassus from the Latin text, instead of 
Giazza, given in Marsden s text, which is an evident corruption. The 
place meant is a port on the northern side of the gulf of Scandaroon, or 
Issus, which in our modern maps and books of geography has the various 
appellations of Lajazzo, Aiazzo, Aiasso, L Aias, and Layassa. 

* Acre, properly Akka, the ancient Ptolemais, a maritime city of Pales 
tine, was taken from the Saracens, in mo, by the Crusaders. In 1187 
it fell into the hands of Saladin or Salah-eddin; and in 1191 it was 
wrested from him by the Christian forces, under Philippe Auguste, king 
of France, and Richard Coeur de Lion, king of England. In 1265, and 
again in 1269 (about the period at which our travellers arrived there), 
it was unsuccessfully attacked by Bibars, sultan of Egypt. In 1291 it 
was finally conquered from the Christians, and in great part demolished, 
by Khalil, another Egyptian sultan, of the dynasty of Mameluk Baha- 
rites. In modern days, it suddenly arose from the obscurity in which 
it had lain for five centuries, and once more became celebrated for the 
determined and triumphant resistance there made, in 1798 and 1799, by 
Jezzar Pasha, assisted by a small British squadron and the gallantry of 
its distinguished commander, against the furious and sanguinary efforts 
of the invader of Egypt. 

3 Clement IV. died on the 29th of November, of the year 1268. The 
event was consequently a recent one when our travellers arrived at 
Acre ,in April, 1269. It may be observed that the date of their arrival 
is differently stated in the MSS., some reading 1260, the Latin text having 
1270, and others 1272. Some MSS. specify the 3oth of April as the day 
of their arrival. 

4 That Acre was the residence of a legate from the papal see about 
this period is proved by other records. 

6 The Basle, as well as the earlier Latin version, and the Italian 
epitomes, state the age of Marco, who was to become the historian of the 
family, to have been then only fifteen years. If this reading be correct, 
as probably it is, the father, who arrived at Acre in 1269, and may be 
presumed to have reached Venice in 1270, must have left home about 
the year 1255. (See Note :J , on p. 10.) The age of nineteen seems to have 
been assigned in order to make it consistent with the supposed departure 
in 1250 


i 8 Travels of Marco Polo 

posed, and who will give therein a relation of all those matters 
of which he has been an eye-witness. 

3. In the meantime the election of a pope was retarded by 
so many obstacles, that they remained two years in Venice,, 
continually expecting its accomplishment; 1 when at length, 
becoming apprehensive that the grand khan might be dis 
pleased at their delay, or might suppose it was not their inten 
tion to revisit his country, they judged it expedient to return 
to Acre; and on this occasion they took with them young 
Marco Polo. Under the sanction of the legate they made a 
visit to Jerusalem, and there provided themselves with some 
of the oil belonging to the lamp of the holy sepulchre, con 
formably to the directions of the grand khan. As soon as 
they were furnished with his letters addressed to that prince 
bearing testimony to the fidelity with which they had en 
deavoured to execute his commission, and explaining to him 
that the pope of the Christian church had not as yet been 
chosen, they proceeded to the before-mentioned port of 
Laiassus. Scarcely however had they taken their departure, 
when the legate received messengers from Italy, despatched 
by the college of cardinals, announcing his own elevation to 
the papal chair; and he thereupon assumed the name of 
Gregory the Tenth. 2 Considering that he was now in a situa 
tion that enabled him fully to satisfy the wishes of the Tartar 
sovereign, he hastened to transmit letters to the king of 
Armenia, 3 communicating to him the event of his election, 

1 A vacancy in the papal see, for a period of nearly three years, occurred 
on this occasion, in consequence of the cabals existing in the Sacred 
College ; when, at length, it was determined to refer the choice of a pope 
to six of the cardinals, who elected Tebaldo of Piacenza, on the first day 
of September, 1271. In order to prevent the inconvenience and scandal 
of such delays for the future, the institution of the Conclave (upon a 
principle that resembles the impanelling of our English juries) was 
established. 

2 In the list of sovereign pontiffs we find him styled " B. Gregorius X. 
Placentinus." His election, as has been mentioned, took place on the 
ist of September, 1271. He was then acting as legate in Syria; but, 
having early notice of the event, he was enabled to take his departure 
from thence so soon as the i8th November following, and landed at 
Brindisi, near Otranto, in January, 1272. 

8 At this time Leon, or Livon II., reigned in the lesser Armenia, the 
capital of which was Sis, and Ai as, or Ai azzo, its chief port. His father, 
whom we call Haiton, and the Arabian writers Hatem, had acted a con 
spicuous part in the late transactions, having accompanied Hulagu from 
the court of Mangu-khan to Persia, and assisted in his wars with the 
Mussulmans. In 1270 he had obtained the consent of Abaka the son of 
Hulagu, then his liege sovereign, for transferring the crown of Armenia, 
on account of his age and infirmities, to his son Leon. The principal 
actions of his life are recorded by his namesake, relation and cotein- 


Election of Pope Gregory X. 1 9 

and requesting, in case the two ambassadors who were on their 
way to the court of the grand khan should not have already 
quitted his dominions,, that he would give directions for their 
immediate return. These letters found them still in Armenia, 
and with great alacrity they obeyed the summons to repair 
once more to Acre; for which purpose the king furnished them 
with an armed galley ; sending at the same time an ambassador 
from himself, to offer his congratulations to the sovereign 
pontiff. 

Upon their arrival, his holiness received them in a distin 
guished manner, and immediately despatched them with letters 
papal, accompanied by two friars of the order of Preachers, 
who happened to be on the spot; men of letters and of science, 
as well as profound theologians. One of them was named Fra 
Nicolo da Vicenza, and the other, Fra Guielmo da Tripoli. 
To them he gave licence and authority to ordain priests, to 
consecrate bishops, and to grant absolution as fully as he 
could do in his own person. He also charged them with 
valuable presents, and among these, several handsome vases 
of crystal, to be delivered to the grand khan in his name, and 
along with his benediction. Having taken leave, they again 
steered their course to the port of Laiassus, 1 where they landed, 
and from thence proceeded into the country of Armenia. 
Here they received intelligence that the soldan of Babylonia, 
named Bundokdari, had invaded the Armenian territory with 
a numerous army, and had overrun and laid waste the country 
to a great extent. 2 Terrified at these accounts, and appre- 

porary, who, having long distinguished himself as a soldier, became an 
ecclesiastic. His work was edited by Grynasus, at Basle and Paris, in 
1532, under the title of " Haithonis Armeni de Tartaris liber," and again, 
by Andreas Miiller, in 1671, under that of " Haithoni Armeni Historia 
Orientalis: quae eadem et de Tartaris inscribitur." See also Abul- 
Pharajii Hist. pp. 328 357; and De Guignes, Hist. Gen. liv. xv. pp. 
125249. 

1 As it may be presumed that our travellers commenced their journey 
about the time of the sailing of Pope Gregory from Acre, the period is 
fixed by authority that will scarcely admit dispute, to the end of the 
year 1271, or beginning of 1272. 

2 This soldan was Bibars, surnamed Bundokdari, Mameluk sultan of 
Egypt (which is meant by Babylonia), who had conquered the greater 
part of Syria, and had already (in or about 1266) invaded Armenia, 
and plundered the towns of Sis and Ai s. In 1270 he made himself 
master of Antioch, slew or made captives of all the Christian inhabitants, 
and demolished its churches, the most magnificent and celebrated in the 
East. It must have been about the beginning of the year 1272 that our 
travellers entered Armenia; and, although it is not stated specifically 
that any irruption by the soldan took place at that time, it is evident 
that he had not ceased to harass the neighbouring country of Syria; and, 


2o Travels of Marco Polo 

hensive for their lives, the two friars determined not to proceed 
further, and delivering over to the Venetians the letters and 
presents entrusted to them by the pope, they placed themselves 
under the protection of the master of the knights templars, 1 
and with him returned directly to the coast. Nicolo, Maffeo, 
and Marco, however, undismayed by perils or difficulties (to 
which they had long been inured), passed the borders of 
Armenia, and prosecuted their journey. After crossing 
deserts of several days march, and passing many dangerous 
defiles, they advanced so far, in a direction between north-east 
and north, that at length they gained information of the grand 
khan, who then had his residence in a large and magnificent 
city named Cle-men-fu. 2 Their whole journey to this place 
occupied no less than three years and a half; but, during the 
winter months, their progress had been inconsiderable. 3 The 
grand khan having notice of their approach whilst still remote, 
md being aware how much they must have suffered from 
fatigue, sent forward to meet them at the distance of forty 
days journey, and gave orders to prepare in every place 
through which they were to pass, whatever might be requisite 
to their comfort. By these means, and through the blessing 
of God, they were conveyed in safety to the royal court. 

notwithstanding the formidable combination just mentioned, we find 
him again, in 1276, invading the province of Rum, immediately border 
ing on the lesser Armenia to the northward. The alarms must have 
been perpetual, and these alone may have been sufficient to deter the two 
theologians from proceeding with their more adventurous companions; 
who did not, however, meet with the enemy. 

1 It is well known that the knights of the hospital of St. John of Jeru 
salem, and the knights of the Temple, were two great monastic military 
orders that arose from the fanaticism of the crusades, and became the 
most regular and effective support of the Christian cause in Asia." It is 
not unlikely that a body of the latter may have been stationed in this 
part of Armenia (which we should term the pashalic of Marash), for its 
defence, and the ecclesiastics would naturally seek the protection of its 
commander, who may have been the master, but was more probably 
only a knight of the order. 

2 The ordinary residence of Kublai at this period must have been Yen- 
king (near the spot where Peking now stands), whilst he was employed 
in laying the foundations of his new capital of Ta-tu, of which particular 
mention will be made in the sequel. The operations of war, or the regu 
lations of newly-conquered provinces, might, however, occasion his visit 
ing other cities; and our travellers may have found him in the western 
part of his dominions. " II etablit sa cour d abord," says Du Halde, 
" a Tai-yuen-fou, capitale de la province de Chan-si, et ensuite il la 
transporta a Peking."- -Descript, de la Chine, torn. i. p. 496. 

3 When the Teshu Lama of Tibet visited (in 1779-80) the late emperor 
of China, at Peking, his journey (although from what we consider a 
neighbouring country, and which has since been garrisoned by Chinese 
troops) occupied ten months, during four of which he was detained at 
one place by the snow, 


The Brothers Reach China 21 

4. Upon their arrival they were honourably and graciously 
received by the grand khan, in a full assembly of his principal 
officers. When they drew nigh to his person, they paid their 
respects by prostrating themselves on the floor. He imme 
diately commanded them to rise, and to relate to him the 
circumstances of their travels, with all that had taken place 
in their negotiation with his holiness the pope. To their 
narrative, which they gave in the regular order of events, and 
delivered in perspicuous language, he listened with attentive 
silence. The letters and the presents from pope Gregory 
were then laid before him, and, upon hearing the former read, 
he bestowed much commendation on the fidelity, the zeal, 
and the diligence of his ambassadors ; and receiving with due 
reverence the oil from the holy sepulchre, he gave directions 
that it should be preserved with religious care. Upon his 
observing Marco Polo, and inquiring who he was, Nicolo made 
answer, This is your servant, and my son; upon which the 
grand khan replied, " He is welcome, and it pleases me much," 
and he caused him to be enrolled amongst his attendants of 
honour. And on account of their return he made a great 
feast and rejoicing; and as long as the said brothers and 
Marco remained in the court of the grand khan, they were 
honoured even above his own courtiers. Marco was held in 
high estimation and respect by all belonging to the court. He 
learnt in a short time and adopted the manners of the Tartars, 
and acquired a proficiency in four different languages, which 
he became qualified to read and write. 1 Finding him thus 
accomplished, his master was desirous of putting his talents for 
business to the proof, and sent him on an important concern of 
state to a city named Karazan, 2 situated at the distance of six 

1 Perhaps the Moghul or Mungal, Ighor, Marichu, and Chinese. The 
last will be thought the least probable; but no inference should be 
drawn from his orthography of Chinese names in European characters, 
and particularly in the corrupted state of the text. The Latin text says 
that Marco learnt " the iartar and four other languages; " the French 
text says, " their language and four different characters " of writing. 

2 Having here the name merely, without any circumstance but that of 
its remoteness from the capital of China, we must presume it to be in 
tended for a city of Khorasan; to which there is no objection but the 
probability of his having passed through that province when he first 
visited Tartary, and that it is not here spoken of as a place with which 
he had been previously acquainted. It was then (together with Persia) 
under the dominion of the second son of Hulagu, who succeeded his 
brother Abaka, and took the name of Ahmed Khan, upon his embracing 
the Mahometan religion. It would, perhaps, be taking a liberty with 
the orthography to suppose that the name might be intended for Khor- 
asmia, the Kharism of modern geographers. 


22 Travels of Marco Polo 

months journey from the imperial residence; on which occa 
sion he conducted himself with so much wisdom and prudence 
in the management of the affairs entrusted to him, that his 
services became highly acceptable. On his part, perceiving 
that the grand khan took a pleasure in hearing accounts of 
whatever was new to him respecting the customs and manners 
of people, and the peculiar circumstances of distant countries, 
he endeavoured, wherever he went, to obtain correct informa 
tion on these subjects, and made notes of all he saw and heard, 
in order to gratify the curiosity of his master. In short, 
during seventeen years : that he continued in his service, he 
rendered himself so useful, that he was employed on confi 
dential missions to every part of the empire and its depen 
dencies; and sometimes also he travelled on his own private 
account, but always with the consent, and sanctioned by the 
authority, of the grand khan. Under such circumstances it 
was that Marco Polo had the opportunity of acquiring a know 
ledge, either by his own observation, or what he collected from 
others, of so many things, until his time unknown, respecting 
the eastern parts of the world, and which he diligently and 
regularly committed to writing, as in the sequel will appear. 
And by this means he obtained so much honour, that he pro 
voked the jealousy of the other officers of the court. 

5. Our Venetians having now resided many years at the 
imperial court, and in that time having realized considerable 
wealth, in jewels of value and in gold, felt a strong desire to 
revisit their native country, and, however honoured and 
caressed by the sovereign, this sentiment was ever predomi 
nant in their minds. It became the more decidedly their 
object, when they reflected on the very advanced age of the 
grand khan, whose death, if it should happen previously to 
their departure, might deprive them of that public assistance 
by which alone they could expect to surmount the innumerable 
difficulties of so long a journey, and reach their homes in 

1 In Rarnusio s text the period is said to be ventisei annt, " twenty-six 
years," and Purchas endeavours to explain in what sense this number 
should be understood ; but I prefer, in this instance, the reading of the 
Latin version, which has " xvii annos," as more consistent with the fact. 
It is certain that the family did not leave Acre, on their return to China, 
before the end of 1271; and as there is reason to believe that they did 
not reach the emperor s court before 1273 or 1274, nor remain there 
beyond 1291, it follows that the period of Marco s service could not have 
exceeded seventeen years by more than a few months. Twenty-six 
years include the whole of the period elapsed since the first visit of his 
father and uncle in 1264 or 1265. 


Queen Bolgana 23 

safety; which on the contrary, in his lifetime, and through his 
favour, they might reasonably hope to accomplish. Nicolo 
Polo accordingly took an opportunity one day, when he 
observed him to be more than usually cheerful, of throwing 
himself at his feet, and soliciting on behalf of himself and his 
family to be indulged with his majesty s gracious permission 
for their departure. But far from showing himself disposed 
to comply with the request, he appeared hurt at the applica 
tion, and asked what motive they could have for wishing to 
expose themselves to all the inconveniences and hazards of a 
journey in which they might probably lose their lives. If gain, 
he said, was their object, he was ready to give them the double 
of whatever they possessed, and to gratify them with honours 
to the extent of their desires; but that, from the regard he 
bore to them, he must positively refuse their petition. 

It happened, about this period, that a queen named Bolgana, 1 
the wife of Arghun, 2 sovereign of India, died, and as her last 
request (which she likewise left in a testamentary writing) 
conjured her husband that no one might succeed to her place on 
his throne and in his affections, who was not a descendant of her 
own family, now settled under the dominion of the grand khan, 3 

1 Although we do not find in the histories of this period that have 
come to our hands, any mention of the consort of Arghun-khan, yet the 
name that is here written Bolgana, and in the Latin of the Basle edition, 
as well as that of the British Museum manuscript, Balgana occurs, with 
little difference of orthography, amongst the females of the family. The 
daughter of Jagata i, son of Jengiz-khan and uncle of Hulagu, was named 
Bolghan-khatun, as appears from the " Rouzat alsafa " of Mirkhond. 
The Latin and French texts, and the Italian text in Boni s edition, call 
the queen Bolgara. 

2 Arghun-khan, the son of Abaka-khan, and grandson of Hulagu-il- 
khan, succeeded his uncle Ahmed-khan Nikodar on the throne of Persia, 
Khorasan, and other neighbouring countries, in 1284; and his first act, 
as we are informed by De Guignes (Liv. xvii. p. 265) was to send to the 
emperor Kublai , as the head of the family and his liege sovereign, to 
demand the investiture of his estates. The death of his queen, here 
spoken of, must, from the circumstances mentioned in the sequel, have 
taken place about the year 1287, and he himself died in 1291. The 
name in all the versions of the work is uniformly written Argon, which 
approaches extremely near to the Persian orthography. 

3 The grand khan, at whose court the family of this queen is said to 
have resided in Kataia, was the grand- uncle of Arghun, her husband, 
and the queen herself was probably of the same royal Moghul family, 
from the common stock of Jengiz-khan. Her anxiety therefore was, 
that her husband should not degrade himself and her memory, by con 
tracting a marriage with any person of less noble lineage than their own. 
Viewing the circumstances therefore in their proper light, it will be found 
that what might at first be thought a romantic story, of a king of India 
sending an embassy to an emperor of China, for the purpose of obtaining 
a wife, resolves itself into the simple and natural transaction, of one of 
the younger members of a great family applying to the head of the house 


24 Travels of Marco Polo 

in the country of Kathay. 1 Desirous of complying with 
this solemn entreaty, Arghun deputed three of his nobles, 
discreet men, whose names were Ulatai, Apusca, and Goza, 2 
attended by a numerous retinue, as his ambassadors to the 
grand khan, with a request that he might receive at his hands 
a maiden to wife, from among the relatives of his deceased 
queen. The application was taken in good part, and under 
the directions of his majesty, choice was made of a damsel 
aged seventeen, extremely handsome and accomplished, whose 
name was Kogatin, 3 and of whom the ambassadors, upon her 
being shown to them, highly approved. When everything 
was arranged for their departure, and a numerous suite of 
attendants appointed, to do honour to the future consort of 
king Arghun, they received from the grand khan a gracious 
dismissal, and set out on their return by the way they came. 
Having travelled for eight months, their further progress was 

to be allowed to strengthen the connexion, by marrying from amongst 
those who were probably his cousins in the second degree; for we may 
presume that if this female had not been one of Kublai s own immediate 
race, (a granddaughter, perhaps, as he was then advanced in years,) 
there would not have existed a necessity for making so formal a demand. 
In regard to the distance between Persia and China, which might be con 
sidered an objection to the probability of the fact, it is well known that 
amongst all the branches of this Moghul family, however remote from 
each other, a continual intercourse had, up to that period, been main 
tained, and Arghun himself had applied for and received his investiture 
from the same monarch. In the event, however, it proved that the 
difficulties attending the returning journey, over land, had become 
insuperable. 

1 The situation of Khata i, or Kataia, (or as it was usually called by the 
medieval writers, Cathay,) has been a subject of much discussion amongst 
the learned; but it cannot, I think, be doubted by those who consult 
the eastern geographers and historians rather than the Greek, that they 
apply the name to the northern provinces of what we call China, which 
were conquered by Jengiz-khan, and his son, Okta i, not from a Chinese 
government, but from a race of eastern Tartars, called Niu-che and Kin, 
by whom they had been subdued about one hundred and twenty years 
before. Whether they confine it strictly to these provinces, or include 
some of the adjoining parts of Tartary, without-side the wall, it is not 
easy to determine, as their accounts of these regions are far from being 
precise; but the former I should judge to be the case. 

8 These names vary considerably in the different versions and editions, 
where they appear in the forms of Ulatai and Gulatay, Apusca, Apusta, 
and Ribusca, Goza, and Coyla; all of them, probably, much disfigured 
by transcribing from indistinct manuscripts. The Latin text calls them 
Oulata, Alpusca, and Cor. They are not, however, of any historical 
importance. 

3 One of the wives of Hulagu, and mother of Ahmed-khan Nikodar 
(the uncle of Arghun), was named Kutai-khatun, of which Kogatin, 
(otherwise written Gogatim and Koganyn) may perhaps be a corruption. 
The word khatun, which signifies "lady," is very frecjuently annexed 
to, or forms parts of proper names, borne by Persian and Tartar women 
of rank. 


Return of the Brothers 25 

obstructed and the roads shut up against them, by fresh wars 
that had broken out amongst the Tartar princes. 1 Much 
against their inclinations, therefore, they were constrained to 
adopt the measure of returning to the court of the grand khan, 
to whom they stated the interruption they had met with. 

About the time of their reappearance, Marco Polo happened 
to arrive from a voyage he had made, with a few vessels under 
his orders, to some parts of the East Indies, 2 and reported to 
the grand khan the intelligence he brought respecting the 
countries he had visited, with the circumstances of his own 
navigation, which, he said, was performed in those seas with 
the utmost safety. This latter observation having reached 
the ears of the three ambassadors, who were extremely anxious 
to return to their own country, from whence they had now 
been absent three years, they presently sought a conference 
with our Venetians, whom they found equally desirous of 
revisiting their home; and it was settled between them that 
the former, accompanied by their young queen, should obtain 
an audience of the grand khan, and represent to him with what 
convenience and security they might effect their return by sea, 
to the dominions of their master; whilst the voyage would be 
attended with less expense than the journey by land, 3 and be 
performed in a shorter time; according to the experience of 
Marco Polo, who had lately sailed in those parts. Should his 
majesty incline to give his consent to their adopting that mode 
of conveyance, they were then to urge him to suffer the three 
Europeans, as being persons well skilled in the practice of 
navigation, to accompany them until they should reach the 

1 These wars must have taken place about the year 1289, and pro 
bably in the country of Mawara lnahr, or Transoxiana, amongst the 
descendants of Jagatai or Zagatai, whose history is particularly obscure; 
but there is reason to believe that they (or any of the Moghul princes) 
were seldom in a state of tranquillity. Troubles were also excited, 
nearer to China, by a younger brother of Kubla i, who attempted to dis 
pute with him the right to the empire. 

2 What are here termed the East Indies must not be understood of the 
continent of India, but of some of the islands in the eastern archipelago, 
perhaps the Philippines, or possibly the coast of Tsiampa, or Champa, 
which, in another part of the work, our author speaks of having visited. 
The voyage here mentioned was subsequent to the grand and disastrous 
expedition which the active genuis of Kublai led him to fit out against 
the kingdom of Japan. It should be observed that the Latin and French 
texts, and the Italian published by Boni, say nothing of the ships, but 
merely state that he was returning from an embassy to India. 

3 The suggestion of this economical motive may seem extraordinary, 
but attachment to money was one of the weak parts of Kublai s char 
acter, and the practices he adopted, or connived at, for raising it. have 
been the subject of much reprehension. 


26 Travels of Marco Polo 

territory of king Arghun. The grand khan upon receiving 
this application showed by his countenance that it was exceed 
ingly displeasing to him, averse as he was to parting with the 
Venetians. Feeling nevertheless that he could not with pro 
priety do otherwise than consent, he yielded to their entreaty. 
Had it not been that he found himself constrained by the im 
portance and urgency of this peculiar case, they would never 
otherwise have obtained permission to withdraw themselves 
from his service. He sent for them, however, and addressed 
them with much kindness and condescension, assuring them of 
his regard, and requiring from them a promise that when they 
should have resided some time in Europe and with their own 
family, they would return to him once more. With this object 
in view he caused them to be furnished with the golden tablet 
(or royal chop), which contained his order for their having free 
and safe conduct through every part of his dominions, with 
the needful supplies for themselves and their attendants. He 
likewise gave them authority to act in the capacity of his 
ambassadors to the pope, the kings of France and Spain, and 
the other Christian princes. 1 

At the same time preparations were made for the equipment 
of fourteen ships, each having four masts, and capable of being 
navigated with nine sails, 2 the construction and rigging of 
which would admit of ample description; but, to avoid pro 
lixity, it is for the present omitted. Among these vessels there 
were at least four or five that had crews of two hundred and 
fifty or two hundred and sixty men. On them were embarked 
the ambassadors, having the queen under their protection, 

1 In the Latin version it is said that he appointed ambassadors of his 
own to these monarchs to accompany the expedition; but as no allusion 
is afterwards made to such personages, although an obvious occasion 
(that of the mortality) presents itself, the Italian reading is considered 
as preferable. 

2 For the modern practice, in the northern part of China, and parti 
cularly on the Pe-ho, of rigging vessels intended to be employed in foreign 
voyages, with four masts, we have the authority of Barrow, who says: 
" It is impossible not to consider the notices given by this early traveller 
(Marco Polo) as curious, interesting, and valuable; and as far as they 
regard the empire of China, they bear internal evidence of their being 
generally correct. He sailed from China in a fleet consisting of fourteen 
ships, each carrying four masts, and having their holds partitioned into 
separate chambers. . . . We observed many hundreds of a larger de 
scription, that are employed in foreign voyages, all carrying four masts." 

Travels in China, p. 45. In the Latin version the words are, " quarum 

quaslibet habebat quatuor malos, et multas ex illis ibant cum duodecim 

veils," " of which each had four masts, and many of them went with 

twelve sails." It is well known that now Chinese vessels do not carry 
any kind of topsail. 


Return of the Brothers 27 

together with Nicolo, Maffeo, and Marco Polo, when they had 
first taken their leave of the grand khan, who presented them 
with many rubies and other handsome jewels of great value. 
He also gave directions that the ships should be furnished with 
stores and provisions for two years. 1 

6. After a navigation of about three months, they arrived 
at an island which lay in a southerly direction, named Java, 2 
where they saw various objects worthy of attention, of which 
notice shall be taken in the sequel of the work. Taking their 
departure from thence, they employed eighteen months in the 
Indian seas before they were enabled to reach the place of their 
destination in the territory of king Arghun; 3 and during this 
part of their voyage also they had an opportunity of observing 
many things, which shall, in like manner, be related hereafter. 
But here it may be proper to mention, that between the day of 
their sailing and that of their arrival, they lost by deaths, of 
the crews of the vessels and others who were embarked, about 
six hundred persons ; and of the three ambassadors, only one, 
whose name was Goza, survived the voyage; whilst of all the 
ladies and female attendants one only died. 4 

Upon landing they were informed that king Arghun had 
died some time before, 5 and that the government of the 
country was then administered, on behalf of his son, who was 
still a youth, by a person of the name of Ki-akato. 6 From 

1 The sailing of this remarkable expedition from the Pe-ho, or river of 
Peking, we may infer, from circumstances mentioned in different parts 
of the work, to have taken place about the beginning of 1291, three 
years before the death of the emperor Kubla i, and four years previous 
to the arrival of the Polo family at Venice, in 1295. 

2 Some details of this part of the voyage are given in book iii. chap, 
x., where the island here called Java, is termed Java minor, and is evi 
dently intended for Sumatra. It will appear that they wanted the 
change of the monsoon in a northern port of that island, near the western 
entrance of the straits of Malacca. 

3 The place where the expedition ultimately arrived is not directly 
mentioned in any part of the work; but there are strong grounds for 
inferring it to have been the celebrated port of Ormuz. With respect 
to the prince named Arghun-khan, see Note 2 , on p. 23. 

4 This mortality is no greater than might be expected in vessels 
crowded with men unaccustomed to voyages of such duration, and who 
had passed several months at an anchorage in the straits of Malacca; 
and although it should have amounted to one- third of their whole 
number, the proportion would not have exceeded what was suffered by 
Lord Anson and other navigators of the seventeenth and eighteenth 
centuries. 

6 Arghun-khan, according to the authorities followed by De Guignes, 
died in the third month of the year 690 of the hejrah, answering to Maxell 
in the year of our Lord 1291. 

The person here named Ki-akato, or Chiacato in the. Italian ortho 
graphy, and described as the ruler of the country in the name of the late 


2 8 Travels of Marco Polo 

him they desired to receive instructions as to the manner in 
which they were to dispose of the princess, whom, by the 
orders of the late king, they had conducted thither. His 
answer was, that they ought to present the lady to Kasan, 1 
the son of Arghun, who was then at a place on the borders of 
Persia, which has its denomination from the Arbor secco, 2 
where an army of sixty thousand men was assembled for the 
purpose of guarding certain passes against the irruption of 
the enemy. 3 This they proceeded to carry into execution, 
and having effected it, they returned to the residence of Ki- 
akato, because the road they were afterwards to take lay in 
that direction. 4 Here, however, they reposed themselves for 

king s son, was Kai-khatu, the second son of Abaka-khan, and conse 
quently the brother of Arghun, upon whose death he is said to have 
seized the throne (although perhaps only as regent or protector), to the 
prejudice of his nephew, then a minor. 

1 The prince whose name is here written Kasan, or Casan, and by De 
Guignes Cazan, was Chazan-khan, the eldest son of Arghun. He did not 
succeed to the throne of Persia until the end of the year 1295, nearly 
five years after the death of his father, who had sent him to reside in 
Khorasan, under the tutelage of an atabeg, or governor, named Nu- 
roz, by whose persuasion he afterwards embraced the Mussulman faith, 
and took the name of Mahmud. It does not appear that he was molested 
in that province by his uncle Kai-khatu, and this recommendation, that 
the princess should be conveyed to him as the representative of his 
father, serves to show that they were not upon terms of actual hostility. 
It is further proved by the circumstance, that when, upon the murder 
of Kai-khatu, the government fell into the hands of Baidu (a grandson 
of Hulagu in a different line), and Ghazan marched with an army to 
Rey (Rages) to assert his hereditary claims, the first demand he made 
was, that the assassins of his uncle should be delivered up to him. After 
a doubtful struggle maintained during a period of eight months, the 
defection of his principal officers led to the destruction of the usurper, 
and Ghazan ascended the throne of Persia, about two years subsequently 
to the arrival of the princess, of whom nothing further is recorded. 

2 More circumstantial mention is made of this district, and of the tree 
from whence it is said to derive its appellation, in chap. xx. of this book. 

8 This is the important pass known to the ancients by the appellation 
of Portae Caspiae or Caspian Straits (to be distinguished from those of 
Derbend, as well as of Rudbar), and termed by Eastern geographers 
the Straits of Khowar, or Khawr, from a Persian word, signifying a 
valley between two mountains, or from a small town near the eastern 
entrance which bears the same name. " This remarkable chasm," says 
Rennell, " is now called the strait or passage of Khowar (Chora of the 
ancients), from a town or district in the neighbourhood. It is situated 
at the termination of the great Salt Desert, almost due north from 
Ispahan, and about fifty miles to the eastward of the ruins of Rey (or 
Rages). Alexander passed through it in his way from Rages towards 
Aria and Bactria. Delia Valle and Herbert amongst the moderns, and 
Pliny amongst the ancients, have described it particularly. It is eight 
miles through, and generally forty yards in breadth." Geographical 
System of Herodotus examined and explained, p. 174, note. 

4 From the preceding part of the narrative we might be led to suppose 
the residence of Kai-khatu to have been in one of the southern provinces 


The Brothers in Persia 29 

the space of nine months. 1 When they took their leave he 
furnished them with four golden tablets, each of them a cubit 
in length, five inches wide, and weighing three or four marks of 
gold. 2 Their inscription began with invoking the blessing of 
the Almighty upon the grand khan, 3 that his name might be 
held in reverence for many years, and denouncing the punish 
ment of death and confiscation of goods to all who should 
refuse obedience to the mandate. It then proceeded to direct 
that the three ambassadors, as his representatives, should be 
treated throughout his dominions with due honour, that their 
expenses should be defrayed, and that they should be pro 
vided with the necessary escorts. All this was fully complied 
with, and from many places they were protected by bodies of 
two hundred horse; nor could this have been dispensed with 
as the government of Ki-akato was unpopular, and the people 
were disposed to commit insults and proceed to outrages, 
which they would not have dared to attempt under the rule 
of their proper sovereign. 4 In the course of their journey our 

of Persia; but here, on the contrary, we find, that, conformably with 
the histories of the times, it lay in the route between the place where 
Ghazan was encamped, on the eastern side of the Caspian straits, and 
the country of Armenia, towards which our travellers were advancing. 
By D Herbelot, De Guignes, and others, we are accordingly told that 
the capital of the princes of this dynasty was the city of Tauris or Tabriz, 
in Aderbijan, but that they frequently resided (especially in summer) at 
Hamadan, in Aljebal, in order to be nearer to the Syrian frontier. 

1 From what has been said in the preceding note, we may presume 
this place to have been Tabriz. 

2 The mark being eight ounces, the tablets must have been unneces 
sarily expensive and inconveniently ponderous. The other versions do 
not specify either weight or size, and some state them to be only two 
additional tablets. 

3 This shows that the sovereignty of the head of the family was still 
acknowledged by these branches, and Kai-khatu might have particular 
motives for courting its sanction. Ghazan is said to have been the first 
who renounced this slight species of vassalage, and probably did not 
send an ambassador to China to demand the investiture. 

4 In the conduct here described we have a proof of the general doubt 
entertained respecting his right to the throne, although the Moghul 
chiefs affected to consider it as dependent upon their election. The 
historians all agree in reprobating his habits as debauched and infamous, 
and these chiefs, indignant at being governed by a prince so corrupt, 

equally hated by his subjects and despised by foreigners," resolved to 
remove him, and made an offer of the crown, not to Ghazan, whom 
they might think still too young, or too feeble in bodily frame, for their 
purpose, but to Baidu, a grandson of Hulagu, and cousin of the late 
king, who was then governor of Baghdad. A battle was fought, in 
which Kai-khatu, personally brave, found himself deserted by a principal 
officer who commanded a wing of his army, was defeated, and subse 
quently strangled. For a circumstantial detail of these transactions on 
the authority of Khondernir, see the Bibliptheque Orientale, under the 
article Baidu. See also the article Gangiatu, " que 1 on trouve aussi 


30 Travels of Marco Polo 

travellers received intelligence of the grand khan (Kublai) 
having departed this life ; l which entirely put an end to all 
prospect of their revisiting those regions. Pursuing, therefore, 
their intended route, they at length reached the city of Trebi- 
zond, from whence they proceeded to Constantinople, then to 
Negropont, 2 and finally to Venice, at which place, in the en 
joyment of health and abundant riches, they safely arrived in 
the year 1295. On this occasion they offered up their thanks 
to God, who had now been pleased to relieve them from such 
great fatigues, after having preserved them from innumerable 
perils. The foregoing narrative may be considered as a pre 
liminary chapter, the object of which is to make the reader 
acquainted with the opportunities Marco Polo had of acquiring 
a knowledge of the things he describes, during a residence of so 
many years in the eastern parts of the world 


CHAPTER II 

OF ARMENIA MINOR OF THE PORT OF LAIASSUS AND OF THE 

BOUNDARIES OF THE PROVINCE. 

IN commencing the description of the countries which Marco 
Polo visited in Asia, and of things worthy of notice which he 

nomme Caictu, et Caicatu." " Khondemir remarque que le veritable nom 
de ce prince stoit Aicatu, ou Gaicatu." We should learn from hence to 
hesitate before we condemn the orthography of our author, whose mode of 
writing this uncouth name differs so little, if at all, from some of these 
high authorities. It is a circumstance extremely remarkable, that one of 
the principal motives assigned for the revolt of the Moghul chiefs against 
this prince, was his having attempted to establish in his dominions a 
system of paper-money, like that of China. De Guignes, Hist, des Huns, 

* Kublai , whose name the Chinese pronounce Hupili or Hupile, whilst 
in their annals they bestow on him that of Chi-tsu, was proclaimed grand 
khan in the year 1260, became emperor of China upon the destruction of 
the dynasty of the Song, who reigned ill Manji or the provinces south 
of the great river Kiang, in 1280, and died in the beginning of 1294, at 
the age of eighty years. It is not surprising that the news of an event 
so important to all the tribes of Moghuls or Tartars should have found 
its way to the court of Persia, and consequently to our travellers, with 
extraordinary expedition. 

2 Their most direct route from Tabriz would have lain through Bedl 
in Kurdistan to Aleppo, but at this time the sultans of Egypt, with whom 
the kings of Persia were continually at war, had possession of all the 
seaports of Syria, and would pay little respect to their passports. By 
the way of Georgia to Trebisond, on the Euxine, their land-journey was 
shorter and more secure, and when at that place they were under the 
protection of the Christian prince, whose family reigned in the small 
independent kingdom of Trebisond, from 1204 to 1462. 


Account of Armenia 3 i 

observed therein, it is proper to mention that we are to dis 
tinguish two Armenias, the Lesser and the Greater. 1 The 
king of the Lesser Armenia dwells in a city called Sebastoz, 2 
and rules his dominions with strict regard to justice. The 
towns, fortified places, and castles are numerous. There is 
abundance of all necessaries of life, as well as of those things 
which contribute to its comfort. Game^Jpoth of beasts and 
birds . is in plenty. It must be said. howeveivtEa/ttli^aif oTthe 

"*O^ v _ f * * * * 

country is not remarkably healthy. In former times its gentry 
were esteemed expert and brave soldiers; but at the present 
day they are great drinkers, pusillanimous, and worthless. 
On the sea-coast there is a city named Laiassus, 3 a place of 
considerable traffic. Its port is frequented by merchants from 
Venice, Genoa, and many other places, who trade in spiceries 
and drugs of different sorts, manufactures of silk and of wool, Nk 
and other rich commodities. Those persons who design to 

1 This distinction of the Armenias into the Greater and the Lesser, is 
conformable to what we find in Ptolemy and the geographers of the 
middle ages; although other divisions have taken place since that 
part of Asia has been subject to the Ottoman empire. The Lesser 
Armenia is defined by Biisching as comprehending that part of Cap- 
padocia and Cilicia which lies along the western side of the Create! 
Armenia, and also on the western side of the Euphrates. That in the 
days of Haiton it extended south of Taurus, and included Cilicia (cam- 
pestris), which was not the case in more ancient times, we have the 
unexceptionable authority of that historian. 

2 As it appears from the passage quoted in the preceding note, as well 
as from other authorities, that Sis was the capital of the Lesser Armenia 
during the reigns of the Leons and Haitons, we are led to suppose the 
Sebastoz here mentioned to have been the ancient name of that city, or 
of one that stood on the same site. It is obvious, indeed, from the geo 
graphy of Ptolemy, that there were many places in Asia Minor that bore 
the names of Sebastia, Sebaste, and Sebastopolis (besides one in Syria) 
and in his enumeration of the towns of Cilicia, we find a Sebaste, to which] 
in the Latin translation, published at Venice in 1562, the epithet of 

augusta is annexed. Upon the foundations of this, Leon I. (from 
whom the country is called by the Arabians, Belan Leon, as well as Belad 
Sis), may have built the modern city, and the Greek name may have been 
still prevalent. We are told, however, that the city which preceded Sis 
as the capital of Armenia Minor, was named Messis, Massis, or Massissa 
the ancient Mopsuestia, and it must be confessed that if authority was 
not in opposition to conjecture, the sound of these names might lead us 
to suppose that the modern name was only an abbreviation of Mes-sis 
and Sebastoz a substitution for Mopsueste. In a subsequent part of 
the chapter the city of Sevasta or Sevaste, the modern Siwas or Sivas is 
spoken of under circumstances that appear to distinguish it entirely from 
the Armenian capital; having been recently conquered by the Moghuls 
from the Seljuk princes. 

1 Lajazzo, or Aias, is situated in a low, morassy country, formed by 
the alluvion of the two rivers Sihon and Jihon (of Cilicia) and fas 
observed to me by Major Rennell) at the present mouth of the latter 
Its trade has been transferred to Alexanclretta or Scancleroon oil the 
opposite or Syrian side of the gulf. 


32. Travels of Marco Polo 

travel into the interior of the Levant/ usually proceed in the 
first instance to this port of Laiassus. The boundaries of the 
Lesser Armenia are, on the south, the Land of Promise, now 
occupied by the Saracens; 2 on the north, Karamania, in 
habited by Turkomans; towards the north-east lie the cities 
of Kaisariah, Sevasta, 3 and many others subject to the Tar 
tars; and on the western side it is bounded by the sea, which 
extends to the shores of Christendom. 


CHAPTER III 

OF THE PROVINCE CALLED TURKOMANIA, WHERE ARE THE 
CITIES OF KOGNI, KAISARIAH, AND SEVASTA, AND OF ITS 
COMMERCE. 

THE inhabitants of Turkomania 4 may be distinguished into 
three classes. The Turkomans, who reverence Mahomet and 
follow his law, are a rude people, and dull of intellect. They 

1 Levant is a translation of the word Anatolia or Anadoli, from the 
Greek avaroXij " ortus, oriens," signifying the country that lies eastward 
from Greece. As the name of a region therefore it should be equivalent 
to Natolia, in its more extensive acceptation; and it is evident that our 
author employs it to denote Asia Minor. Smyrna is at present estee ned 
the principal port in the Levant, and the term seems to be now confined 
to the sea-coast, and to mercantile usage. 

2 For the Land of Promise, or Palestine, which extends no further to the 
north than Tyre, is here to be understood Syria, or that part of itcalled 
Coelo-Syria, which borders on Cilicia or the southern part of Armenia 
Minor. As the more general denomination of Syria includes Palestine, 
and the latter name was, in the time of the Crusades, more familiar to 
Europeans than the former, it is not surprising that they should some 
times be confounded. The Saracens here spoken of were the subjects 
of the Mameluk sultans or soldans of Egypt, who recoverd from the 
Christian powers in Syria, what the princes of the family of Saladin, or of 
the Ayubite dynasty, had lost. In other parts of the work the term is 
employed indiscriminately with that of Mahometan. 

3 The Turkomans of Karamania were a race of Tartars settled in Asia 
Minor, under the government of the Seljuk princes, of whom an account 
will be found in the following note. Kaisariah or Cassarea, and Sevasta or 
Sebaste, the Sebastopolis Cappadocias of Ptolemy and Siwas or Sivas of 
the present day, were cities belonging to the same dynasty, that had 
been conquered by the. Moghuls in the year 1242. 

4 By Turkomania we are to understand, generally, the possessions of 
the great Seljuk dynasty in Asia Minor, extending from Cilicia and 
Painphylia, in the south, to the shores of the Euxine sea, and from 
Pisidia and Mysia, in the west, to the borders of Armenia Minor; includ 
ing the greater part of Phrygia arid Cappadocia, together with Pontus, 
and particularly the modern provinces of Karamania and Rumiyah, or 


Province of Turkoman ia 33 

dwell amongst the mountains and in places difficult of access, 
where their object is to find good pasture for their cattle,, as 
they live entirely upon animal food. There is here an excel 
lent breed of horses which has the appellation of Turki, and 
fine mules which are sold at high prices. 1 The other classes 
are Greeks and Armenians, who reside in the cities and forti 
fied places, and gain their living by commerce and manu 
facture. The best and handsomest carpets in the world are 
wrought here, and also silks of crimson and other rich colours. 2 
Amongst its cities are those of Kogni, Kaisariah, and Sevasta, 
in which last Saint Blaise obtained the glorious crown of 
martyrdom. 3 They are all subject to the great khan, emperor 
of the Oriental Tartars, who appoints governors to them. 4 
We shall now speak of the Greater Armenia. 

the country of Rum. Of the former of these, the capital was Iconium, 
corrupted by the oriental writers to Kuniyah, and by those of the 
Crusades to Kogni; of the latter, Sebaste or Sebastopolis, corrupted 
to Siwas or Sivas. The chief from whom the dynasty of Seljuks derived 
its appellation, was by birth a Turkoman, of Turkistan, on the north 
eastern side of the river Sihon or Jaxartes, but in the service of a prince 
of Khozar, on the Wolga, from which he fled and pursued his fortune in 
Transoxiana; as did some of his family in Khorasan. Having acquired 
great celebrity, they were at length enabled, by the means of numerous 
tribes of Turkomans who joined their standard, to establish a sovereignty, 
or, in point of extent, an empire, the principal seat of which was in Persia. 
Another branch, about the year 1080, wrested the fine provinces of Asia 
Minor from the Greek emperors, and formed the kingdom of which we 
are now speaking. Through its territory the Christian princes repeatedly 
forced their way in their progress to the Holy Land, and it is computed 
by historians that not fewer than six hundred thousand men perished in 
this preliminary warfare. At length the power of the Seljuks yielded to 
the overwhelming influence of the house of Jengiz-khan, and in our 
author s time they were reduced to insignificance; but from their ruins 
sprang the empire of the Ottomans, the founder of which had been in the 
service of one of the last sultans of Iconium. 

1 The pastoral habits of the Turkoman Tartars are preserved to this 
day, even in Asia Minor, and the distinction of their tribes subsists also. 
The Turki breed of horses is esteemed throughout the East, for spirit 
and hardiness. 

2 " Et ibi fiunt soriani et tapeti pulchriores de mundo et pulchrioris 
coloris," are the words of the Latin text. 

Blaise, bishop of Sebasta, in Cappadocia, in the second and third 
centuries," says the Biographical Dictionary, " suffered death under 
Diocletian, by decapitation, after being whipped and having his flesh 
torn with iron combs. ... It is difficult to say how the invention (of 
wool combing) came to be attributed to him; but it had probably no 
better origin than the circumstance of his being tortured with the instru 
ments used in the combing of wool. * 

4 It is the family of Hulagu, and the tribes who followed his standard 
from the north, whom our author always designates by the name of 
Oriental Tartars, to distinguish them from the descendants of Batu, who 
settled near the Wolga, on the north-western side of the Caspian, and 
extended their conquests towards Europe; whilst the former entered 
Persia from the Eastern quarter, by the way of Transoxiana and Khorasan. 

B 


34 Travels of Marco Polo 


CHAPTER IV 

OF ARMENIA MAJOR, IN WHICH ARE THE CITIES OF ARZTNGAN, 
ARGIRON, AND DARZIZ OF THE CASTLE OF PAIPURTH OF 
THE MOUNTAIN WHERE THE ARK OF NOAH RESTED OF THE 
BOUNDARIES OF THE PROVINCE AND OF A REMARKABLE 
FOUNTAIN OF OIL. 

ARMENIA Major is an extensive province, at the entrance of 
which is a city named Arzingan, 1 where there is a manufacture 
of very fine cotton cloth called bombazines, 2 as well as of 
many other curious fabrics, which it would be tedious to 
enumerate. It possesses the handsomest and most excellent 
baths of warm water, issuing from the earth, that are any 
where to be found. 3 Its inhabitants are for the most part 

_-^ wta ^ ^ ^ *H MM ^ 

1 Arzengan, or, as written by the Arabians, who have not the Persian 
g, Arzenjan, is a city near the frontier of Rumiyah, but just within the 
limits of Armenia Major. " Cette ville," says D Herbelot, " appartient 
plutot TArmenie, et fut prise par les Mogols ou Tar tares 1 an 640 de 
I Hegire, de J. C. 1242, apres la defaite de Kaikhosrou, fils d Aladin le 
Selgiucide, aussi bien que les villes de Sebaste et de C6saree." By an 
oriental geographer it is said to be, " Oppidum celeberrimum, elegans, 
amcenum, copiosum bonis rebus, incolisque: pertinens ad Armeniam: 
inter Rumaeas provincias et Chalatam situm, haud procul Arzerroumo: 
esseque incolas ejus maixmam partem Armenios." Alberti Schultens 
Index Geographicus in Vitam Saladini. Josaphat Barbaro, a Venetian, 
who travelled into Persia, in the fifteenth century, speaks of Arsengan 
as a place that had formerly been of consequence, but was then mostly 
in ruins. 

2 The name of a species of cloth which I have here translated " bom 
bazine," is in the Italian of Ramusio, " bochassini di bambagio," and in 
the Latin versions " buchiranus, buchyramis, and bucaramus." Its 
substance or texture is not clearly explained in our dictionaries. That 
of Cotgrave, printed in 1611, defines " boccasin," to be " a kind of fine 
buckeram, that hath a resemblance of taffata, and is much used for 
lining; also the stuffe callimanco." But this, it is evident, cannot apply 
to a manufacture of bombagio or cotton; and the Vocabolario della 
Crusca, as well as the Glossary of Du Cange, speak of " bucherame bian- 
chissima," and " bucherame bambagino," and both of them quote our 
author for the use of the word. All the examples convey the idea of 
fine, white, and soft cotton cloth ; the reverse of what is now called buck 
ram. The early Latin text speaks of boccorame and bambace as two 
distinct things. 

3 Natural warm baths are" found in many parts of Asia Minor, and 
particularly near Ancyra, the modern Angora or Anguri, which are still 
much frequented. Their situation is denoted by the word ThermaB, in 
RennelPs map explanatory of the Retreat of the Ten thousand. They 
are also spoken of at Teflis in Georgia; but of their existence at Arzengan 
I have not been able to find notice in the works of the Eastern geo 
graphers. 


City of Arzingan 35 

native Armenians, but under the dominion of the Tartars. 
In this province there are many cities, but Arzingan is the 
principal,, and the seat of an archbishop; and the next in con 
sequence are Argiron l and Darziz. 2 It is very extensive, and, 
in the summer season, the station of a part of the army of the 
Eastern Tartars, on account of the good pasture it affords for 
their cattle: but on the approach of winter they are obliged 
to change their quarters, the fall of snow being so very deep 
that the horses could not find subsistence, and for the sake of 
warmth and fodder they proceed to the southward. Within 
a castle named Paipurth, 3 which you meet with in going from 
Trebisond to Tauris, there is a rich mine of silver. 4 In the 
central part of Armenia stands an exceedingly large and high 
mountain, upon which, it is said, the ark of Noah rested, and 
for this reason it is termed the mountain of the ark. 6 The 

1 Argiron, or, in the Latin versions, Argyron, is a corruption of Arzerrum, 
Erzerum, or Arzen er-rum, a distinctive name given to a city called Arzen, 
as being the last strong place, in that direction, belonging to the Greek 
empire. " Arzerrum," says Abulfeda, " est extremus finis regionum 
Rumaeorum ab oriente. In ejus orientali et septentrionali latere est 
fons Euphratis." 

2 Darziz, which in the Basle edition is Darzirim, in the older Latin, Arziu, 
and in the Italian epitomes, Arciri and Arziri, is the town now called 
Arjis, situated on the border of the Lake Van, anciently named Arsissa 
palus. Argish," says Macdonald Kinneir, " is a town containing six 
thousand inhabitants, situated on the north-west side of the lake, three 
days journey from Van. There are four islands in the lake, on one of 
which is an Armenian monastery, and three hundred priests." Memoir 
of the Persian Empire, pp. 328, 329. These places, it may be observed, 
lay in pur author s returning route, from Tauris to Trebisond. 

3 Paipurth, the Baiburt of D Anville s and RennelTs maps, is situated 
among the mountains, in a northerly direction from Arzerrum. As the 
word purt signifies a castle in the Armenian language, and as the Arabian 
geographers, from not having the letter p in their alphabet, are obliged 
to substitute the b, it is probable that the former is the more genuine 
orthography. This castle is particularly noted by Josaphat Barbaro, 
who says, * Partendo d essa (Trabisonda) per andar a Thauris . . . il 
primo luogo notabile che si trova, e uno castello in piano in una valle 
d ognitorno circondata da monti, nominate Baiburth, castel forte e 
murato. . . . Cinque giornate piu in la, si trova Arsengan. . . . Poi 
si ritrova un castello nominate Carpurth." Viaggio in Persia, p. 48, ed. 
1545, i2ino. 

* Although this particular mine may have been exhausted, silver 
mines are known to exist in this part of Armenia. 

5 The mountain of Armenia (the Ararat of Scripture) upon which the 
ark is believed by the Christians of that country to have rested, stands 
not far from the city of Erivan or Irwan. The Mahometans, however, 
assign to it a different situation. " L opinion commune des Orientaux," 
says D Herbelot, est que Parche de Noe s arreta sur la montagne de 
Gioudi, qui est une des croupes du mont Taurus ou Gordia3us eri Ar- 
menie, et cette tradition est autorise en ce pays-la par plusieurs his- 
toires qui approchent fort de la fable." " Joudi," says Ibn Haukal, 
is a mountain near Nisibin. It is said that the ark of Noah (to whom 


Travels of Marco Polo 

circuit of its base cannot be compassed in less than two days 
The ascent is impracticable on account of the snow towards 
the summit, which never melts, but goes on increasing by each 
successive fall. In the lower region, however, near the plain, 
the melting of the snow fertilizes the ground, and occasions 
such an abundant vegetation, that all the cattle which collect 
there in summer from the neighbouring country, meet with a 
never-failing supply. 1 Bordering upon Armenia, to the south 
west, are the districts of Mosul and Maredin, which shall be 
described hereafter, and many others too numerous to parti 
cularize. To the north lies Zorzania, near the confines of which 
there is a fountain of oil which discharges so great a quantity 
as to furnish loading for many camels. 2 The use made of it 
is not for the purpose of food, but as an unguent for the cure of 
cutaneous distempers in men and cattle, as well as other com 
plaints ; and it is also good for burning. In the neighbouring 
country no other is used in their lamps, and people come from 
distant parts to procure it. 

be peace,) rested on the summit of this mountain." Ouseley s trans 
lation, p. 60. Major Rennell observes, that Jeudi is the part of the 
Carduchian mountains opposite to the Jezirat ibn Omar, and that the 
dervishes keep a light burning there, in honour of Noah and his ark. 

1 This fertility of the country in the vicinity of the mountains, is 
noticed by Moses Chorenensis, who says, " Habet autem Araratia montes 
camposque, atque omnem foecunditatem." Geographia, p. 361. 

2 Springs of petroleum or earth (properly, rock) oil, are found in many 
parts of the world. The spring or fountain here spoken of is that of 
Baku in Shirvan, on the border of the Caspian. " Near to this place," 
says John Cartwright, in what are termed the Preacher s Travels, " is a 
very strange and wonderful fountain under ground, out of which there 
springeth and issueth a marvellous quantity of black oyl, which serveth 
all parts of Persia to burn in their houses; and they usually carry it all 
over the country upon kine and asses, whereof you shall oftentimes meet 
three or four hundred in company." Oxford Coll. of Voyages, vol. i. 
(vii.) p. 731. Strahlenberg speaks of this as a spring of white naphtha, 
which he distinguishes from the black sort of bitumen; but the most 
satisfactory account of both white and black naphtha in this district is 
given by Kaempfer, in his Amcenitates Exoticae, p. 274 281. 


Situation of Georgia 37 


CHAPTER V 

OF THE PROVINCE OF ZORZANIA AND ITS BOUNDARIES OF THE 
PASS WHERE ALEXANDER THE GREAT CONSTRUCTED THE 
GATE OF IRON AND O