Full text of "Venetian Adventurer Being An Acount Of The Life And Times And Of The Book Of Messer Marcco Polo"

Venetian gtfoenturer

THE LIFE AND TIMES OF
MARCO POLO

By the Same Author

A CHINESE MARKET
Poems translated from the Chinese

THE HUNDRED NAMES

A short introduction to the study of Chinese poetry,
with illustrative translations

THE WEST CHAMBER

A Medieval Drama

Translated from the original Chinese, with notes and an
introduction to the Chinese Drama and Theater

SEVEN HUNDRED CHINESE PROVERBS

Translated from the Chinese, with an introduction on
"The Proverb and Its Place in Chinese Life"

A GARDEN OF PEONIES

Translations of Chinese poems into English verse,
with biographical notes

Venetian gtobemurer

BEING AN ACCOUNT OF THE LIFE
AND TIMES AND OF THE BOOK OF

jffle&er jtlarco $olo

By HENRY H. HART, F.R.G.S.

frtanforb fflmbetfitp $re**

STANFORD UNIVERSITY, CALIFORNIA
HUMPHREY MILFORD: OXFORD UNIVERSITY PRESS, LONDON

STANFORD UNIVERSITY PRESS, STANFORD UNIVERSITY, CALIFORNIA
HUMPHREY MILFORD: OXFORD UNIVERSITY PRESS, LONDON

THE BAKER AND TAYLOR COMPANY, 55 FIFTH AVENUE, NEW YORK

By the Board of Trustees of the Leland Stanford Junior University. Printed and bound in the
United States of America by Stanford University Press

UXORI

fyttrn

QUAE HIC OMNIBUS VITAE MODIS MIHI FUIT COMES

ATQUE ILLIC EST SEMPERQUE ERIT DUX

HOC AMORIS SEMPITERNI

TESTAMENTUM FERO

What y they lived once thus at Venice where the merchants were the

kings,
Where St. Mark's is, where the Doges used to wed the sea with rings?

BROWNING, "A Toccata of Galuppi's"

HIS BOOK is an attempt to present the entire life of Marco
Polo in relation to his times and his book, as distinguished
from outlines and sketches found in prefaces and introduc-
tions to the various editions of the text of The Description
of the World. It supplements even the fullest and most satisfactory
of these, the scholarly essay of Sir Henry Yule,* prepared many years
ago as an introduction to his two magnificent volumes containing the
annotated text of Polo's book and constituting one of the finest pieces
of English research scholarship ever produced.

Since the publication of Yule's work, many hitherto unknown doc-
uments as well as a number of manuscripts of the Polo text have been
unearthed, deciphered, and studied, and explorations in Europe and
in Asia have supplied new information. Some theories have had to be
revised and some cherished illusions have been dispelled. And the
tale of Messer Marco is even yet not rounded out, nor can any account
of him or his times claim to be complete ; there ever exists the tantaliz-
ing and exasperating possibility, even the probability, that further im-
portant documents and other evidence may be uncovered, and that
additional light may thus be thrown on many of the problems of the
great Venetian traveler's life and times which are still hidden in the
shadows of a poorly documented era.

However, it has been thought well to assemble the material that
has been accumulated and to present it in the light of modern scholar-
ship. The author's concern has been to present the story of Messer

* The Book of Ser Marco Polo, 3d edition, Charles Scribner's Sons, New York,
1921.

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Marco Polo as he has found it in Marco's own book, in documents and
contemporary chronicles, in later books, and as the result of much per-
sonal study in Venice and elsewhere in Europe and the Far East. More
specifically, he aims to release the man Marco from the mass of dusty
documents and weighty scholarly tomes which have tended to obscure
his personality. If Messer Marco has here been brought to the reader
as the vivid and sharply etched personality that he has become to the
writer in the course of long association with him, the purpose of this
book will have been accomplished.

In but few instances has the author obtruded his own opinions, and
then only when the facts as he has found them seem to warrant a de-
parture from traditionally accepted conclusions. There has been no
witting departure at any time from the strict truth as revealed in the
documents and manuscripts, but many lacunae in the traveler's life
have been filled as realistically as possible, following careful investiga-
tion into the life of contemporary Venice and the Mediterranean and
Eastern worlds.

The meticulous scholar may perhaps be disappointed at not finding
here controversial discussions of efforts which have been made to eluci-
date certain of the unsolved problems presented by Marco Polo's life
and book the exact location of the Ca' Polo, the making of mangonels
for the army of Kublai Khan, the exact routes followed by the Polos,
obscure place-identifications, and the like. These problems have been
deliberately omitted because of the author's conviction that they pos-
sess little interest except to the specialist, and for fear that dissertations
on them might weary the reader who is desirous of obtaining a picture
of the man and his times but is in no way concerned with the minutiae
of research.

Every document used has been checked in the original language,
and no reliance has been placed on quotations found in any work on the
subject without verification, except in a few instances where it was im-
possible to consult the original. Except where acknowledgments are
made, the author is responsible for all translations, including quota-
tions from the various editions of the Polo manuscript and from other
books and documents.

The bibliography does not pretend to list all the books covering the
subject of life and travel in medieval Europe or Asia. Instead it covers
those actually used in the preparation of the present work, including

flrrfar* t*

editions of the Polo texts which contain introductions or annotations of
value to the student.

It is with pleasure and gratitude that the author expresses his obli-
gation to the officials of the British Museum, of the Bodleian Library,
and of the Bibliotheque Nationale of France for their active assistance
and kindly co-operation in locating manuscripts and supplying photo-
graphs, and to the Director of the Marcian Library in Venice for per-
mission to examine and have photographed the original will of Marco
Polo.

To the following persons also the author owes a debt of friendship
and appreciation for active assistance. To Dr. Cesare Oelschki of Rome,
for the locating of many very rare books on Venice and on Marco Polo
not otherwise obtainable; to Sig. Eliseo Tealdi of Florence for photo-
graphs and books; to Dr. Lionel Giles and Mr. Edward Lynam, of
the British Museum staff, for maps, photostats, and photographs; to
Harold L. Leupp, Librarian of the University of California Library,
for freely placing at the author's disposal the resources of the Univer-
sity collection and for permission to take certain photographs; to Mrs.
Enid F. Tanner, of the University of California Library, for her in-
valuable assistance in tracing various books and documents; to Miss
Marjorie Macaulay French, of San Francisco, for her patient and often
arduous task of typing and preparing the manuscript of this book for
publication; to his old friends Dr. Leon J. Richardson of Berkeley and
Hon. Percy V. Long of San Francisco, for their constant advice and
encouragement; and to Mr. P. Douglas Anderson, F.R.P.S., for his
kindness and skill in photographing many of the maps and other ma-
terial used in illustrating this volume.

Further it is a pleasure to record and to acknowledge the generosity
of the following publishers for permission to quote or otherwise use
the material indicated: Columbia University Press, for permission to
quote from Edgar Holmes McNeaPs Conquest of Constantinople
(Robert de Clari) ; Harper and Brothers, for the privilege of quot-
ing from Pero Tafur's Travels and Adventures y translated and edited
by Malcolm Letts (Broadway Travellers Series) ; A. C. McClurg &
Company for the use of certain material from Pompeio Molmenti's
Venice , translated by Horatio F. Brown; Messrs. Peaslee, Brigham,
and Albrecht, New York City, for permission to quote from F. Marion
Crawford's Salve Venetia; Charles Scribner's Sons for the privilege of

x 1f*st*ttttst Aftttentsirm lHarrn 9010

quoting and otherwise using material from Yule's The Book of Ser
Marco Polo and Cordier's Ser Marco Polo; The Hakluyt Society of
London for permission to use material from several of its publications 5
Longmans, Green & Co., Limited, London, for the privilege of quoting
from Howorth's History of the Mongols; John Murray, London, for
permission to quote from Alethea WiePs The Navy of Venice; and
George Routledge & Sons, Ltd., London, for the privilege of quoting
material from Moule and Pelliot's Marco Polo. The version of Marco
Polo from which these quotations are made is a version of the French
text (F) with additions, marked by the use of italic type from other
texts inserted. In making the quotations this use of italic type has
naturally been dropped.

HENRY H. HART
SAN FRANCISCO, CALIFORNIA
July 29, 1941

Contents

LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS xiii

CHAPTER ONE. PROLOGUE . 3

CHAPTER Two. THE BOY MARCO . .49

CHAPTER THREE. THE JOURNEY ... 79

CHAPTER FOUR. CATHAY . ..117

CHAPTER FIVE. HOMEWARD BOUND . 141

CHAPTER Six. FROM TABRIZ TO VENICE .... .163

CHAPTER SEVEN. VENICE ... .169

CHAPTER EIGHT. GENOA . 181

CHAPTER NINE. VENICE AGAIN 209

CHAPTER TEN. EPILOGUE . 237

BIBLIOGRAPHY . . ... 265

INDEX . . . . 277

Hist of Itlliistrattons

The will of Marco Polo, photographed from the original in the

Marcian Library in Venice Double frontispiece

PAGE

The capture of Zara by the Crusaders and the Venetians, 1202

(from a painting by Tintoretto) 8

The second conquest of Constantinople by the Latins and the

Venetians, 1203 (from a painting by Tintoretto) 9

Hulaku Khan of Persia, brother of Kublai Khan (from a Persian

manuscript of the sixteenth century) 2O

A detail of the famous Atlas Catalan made in 1375 for Charles V

of France, showing the Polo brothers on their journey 32

Three pictures of the Polo brothers, in Constantinople, at Acre,

and sailing on the Black Sea (from illuminated frontispiece

of Royal MS igDi, folio 58) 44

Kublai Khan presenting the golden tablet of authority to the Polo

brothers (from Royal MS i9Di, folio 59) 45

"The Miraculous Revelation of the Lost Body of Saint Mark"

(from a mosaic of the early twelfth century, St. Mark's,

Venice) 50

Detail of "The Conveying of Saint Mark's Body" (from a mosaic

of the eleventh century, St. Mark's, Venice) . 52

Detail of "The Reception of the Body of Saint Mark" (from a

mosaic of the thirteenth century, St. Mark's, Venice) 54

The bronze horses of St. Mark's, brought to Venice after the

conquest of Constantinople 58

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Carpaccio's "Miracle of the Holy Cross," showing the Rialto
Bridge as it probably was in Marco Polo's time 61

Part of the fagade of the San Giacomo di Rialto (probably fifth
century) . . . . .62

The departure of the Polo brothers from Venice (from the illu-
minated frontispiece of an old folio manuscript) 82

Return of the Polo brothers to Kublai Khan with the holy oil

and letters from Pope Gregory X (from Bodleian MS 264) 1 1 8
Map of East Asia, from Ramusio's Delle Navigation* et Viaggi

(1613 edition) 126

Map of China, from Ptolemy's Atlas (1522 edition) 128

Map of Asia, from Girolami Ruscelli's Exposition et Introduttioni
Universali . . . sopra tutta la Geographia di Tolomeo (Ven-
ice, 1573) 130

Map of China, by Ludovico Giorgio (1584) 132

Map of the world, by Mario Sanudo (ca. 1320), from LelewePs

Geographic du Moyen Age 151

Map of the world, by Fra Mauro (fifteenth century) 153

Map of the world, by Johann Ruysch, in Nova Unvuersalis Or bis

Cogniti Tabula (Rome, 1522) 154-155

Map of the world, from La Geographia di Claudio Tolomeo

(Venice, 1574) 156

Calle di Milione, Venice, in 1940 171

Page of the so-called "Paris Text" used as the basis of the best
modern editions of Marco Polo's text (from MS 1 1 16, Biblio-
theque Nationale, Paris, early fourteenth century) 207

Frontispiece of the first Italian edition (Venice, 1559) of the sec-
ond volume of Ramusio's Delle Navigation* et Viaggi, con-
taining the text of Marco Polo 216

Frontispiece of the first printed edition of Marco Polo's book
(Nuremberg, 1477) 217

Page of Francesco Sansovino's Venetia, Citta Nobilissima et Singo-
lare (Venice, 1581) containing the location of Marco Polo's
tomb . . . . 234

Venetian gUtoenturer

THE LIFE AND TIMES OF
MARCO POLO

Chapter

prologue

SET FORTH from the port of Venice in the year 1253
two brothers, bound for Constantinople on a trading ven-
ture. Probably neither of them dreamed that their voyage
was to bring them fame, and that through them and the
son of one of them European geographical knowledge was to be en-
riched as never before. That their adventures and those of the young
Marco were to be immortalized in one of the most famous books in all
literature could not have entered their minds, nor could they have
known how far from home destiny was to guide them.

These merchants were Maffeo and Nicolo Polo, sons of one Marco
Polo, a descendant of an old Dalmatian family which had come from
Sebenico and settled in Venice in the eleventh century. The two mer-
chants were probably not very wealthy, for they did their own travel-
ing, buying, and selling instead of having agents in the numerous
cities of the Levant where Venetian factories and colonies were to be
found. Their older brother Marco may have been living at the time
in Constantinople j for his will, drawn up in 1280, tells us that he once
lived in Constantinople, in the quarter of St. Severus.

Each man left his wife behind him, for traveling either by sea or
by land was dangerous, the political conditions in the Greek Empire
were none too stable, and they had no way of knowing how long the
journey would last. Nicolo was much concerned about his wife and
loth to leave her, for she was with child and he feared that he would
not be with her when her time of travail was at hand.

As Venetian women of the upper classes were accustomed to re-
main in seclusion, and did not go about the streets and canals, the Polos

4 VftKtiatt Afcuntttttw: Utarra

bade their families a last farewell at their door, where the lapping
waters rose and fell, covering the steps with green ooze and weed. At
their order to push off, their gondola swiftly found its way through
narrow canals and wide, in and out of the shadows of high palaces^
and houses many of which are still standing for Venice has not greatly
changed in its essentials since those adventurous days of the thirteenth
century and under the arches of numerous bridges. At last they
reached the center of the city, the Rialto, near whose old wooden bridge
was the meeting place of all Venice. Mingling with the crowd that
swarmed everywhere in this, the busiest spot of the city, they bade
farewell to their friends and acquaintances, then re-entered their gon-
dolas, and continued on their way to the long quay where their vessel
was berthed.

Long and narrow, built for both speed and fighting, with banks
of long oars on either side and a mast with lateen-rigged sail to take
advantage of every fair wind, the galley was heavily laden with their
goods wood, pig iron and wrought iron, grain, woolen goods, and
salt meat all much in demand in the capital of the Greeks. It was
one of a number sailing, according to Venetian law, in convoy. She
carried crossbowmen and slingers, catapults and balistae, with which to
fight off the pirates who infested the sea. Trading was so perilous
and strange vessels were so liable to attack that they frequently en-
tered port stern foremost, steered by great side-oars, so that the fight-
ing men might gather on the high poop deck to guard against attack.
Moving thus, moreover, reversal and precipitate flight, which were
often necessary, were facilitated. Merchants themselves were expected
to join in the defense of their ships and their goods, for there was danger
at every moment from marauders both on sea and on land.

The crews were freemen, so many of them Slavonians from the
Dalmatian coast that the long quay by St. Marks was (and is) known
as the Riva degli Schiavoni. No seaman could be under eighteen years
of age; each had to carry certain prescribed weapons; and each was
under oath to obey the laws of Venice. Crews were hired for the ship-
ping season from March i through November 30 and were paid in
advance every three months. So thievish were they that passengers
were always warned to deposit their valuables with the captain during
a voyage.

The ship was fitted out with trumpets, drums, and kettledrums,

used for routine calls to duty, to mark the time, and, in case of a fight,
to arouse and sustain the courage of the crew. Each passenger and
sailor was allowed to bring on board bedding, one trunk, also enough
water, wine, and biscuits for the voyage, and his own cooking utensils
and firewood. The foocM or the voyage was simple salt meat, vege-
tables, cheese, onions, garlic, and vinegar. The frying of fish was for-
bidden by statute, in order to prevent fires at sea. The voyage to
Palestine usually lasted from thirty to forty days, and passengers paid
from $45 to $125, according to their accommodations. The time and
rates to Constantinople were probably about the same.

Their gear all safely stowed on board, the two brothers, leaning on
the rail, watched their galley warp out, then glide slowly past vessels
just in from Egypt and Palestine, from the Black Sea and from Crete.
Along the quays and at anchor in the stream, others were busily load-
ing for Spain and France, Holland, and England. At last, after pass-
ing long, low sand banks and the Lido and finally reaching the open
sea, the captain spread his sails, and the voyage that was to be so
momentous for the Polos and the world began.

In accounting for this trading expedition of the Polos we must re-
view the medieval history of Venice.

In the middle of the thirteenth century Venice, Bride of the Adri-
atic, was at the zenith of her power. Her history was already long and
eventful. In the earliest time the site of patrician Roman villas and
the abode of fishermen, pilots, and refiners of salt, and later a refuge
from the invading barbarians from the north, she had rapidly grown
in trade, importance, and power. Her government was unparalleled
in European history for its stability and its permanence. For centuries
she had held the maritime supremacy of the eastern Mediterranean,
and she ruled over a domain greater than had any other state since the

fall of Rome. . .

The early Crusades those oft-recurring waves of activity and
fiery zeal do not seem to have inspired the Venetians to join the
hosts seeking the recovery of the Holy Sepulchre from the infidel.
But they did not remain altogether unmoved or uninfluenced by that
strange unrest which was destined to affect and finally to reshape all
the social, political, and economic ideas of the Western world.

6 Vtttftiatt Atofttttirm iBarro

Keen-minded, and alert for business, the rulers of Venice realized
that unless they were ever on the watch their greatest rivals, Genoa
and Pisa, might win the transport trade of the Crusaders and perhaps
ultimately undermine the mercantile and political position of Venice
in the Near East. A fleet of more than a hundred galleys had set sail
from the lagoons in 1204 under the banner of St. Mark to aid Baldwin,
the Latin king of Jerusalem. In return for their aid, they had received,
or rather extorted, important trade concessions. In the years that fol-
lowed many of the islands of the Aegean Archipelago had fallen into
their hands, as had also several cities of the mainland of Asia Minor.
From a mere trading center Venice gradually became a political power,
the better to control and defend what its people had won by battle,
guile, and shrewd bargaining. Commerce, secured and managed as
it was by the merchants of Venice, inevitably led to empire. It became
necessary to control ever more of the eastern Mediterranean littoral,
and this perforce led to a gradual breach with the Greek Empire of
Constantinople, of which Venice had been for centuries a nominal vas-
sal. The allegiance became more and more of a formality, the quarrels
and differences ever more bitter.

Soon the opportunity of breaking all ties presented itself. The
Venetians seized it and made the most of it even controlling for a
time the destinies of the Byzantine state itself. A fourth Crusade was
preached in France at the opening of the thirteenth century by Folques
of Neuilly-sur-Marne against the Saracens under Saladin, with the
blessing and the active aid of Pope Innocent III. To Venice this meant
that the long-awaited moment to break away entirely from the Greek
Empire and to profit thereby had arrived. Quietly, and deliberately
as ever, she set to work to take full advantage of every opportunity
as it presented itself.

There are few more thrilling narratives in all medieval history
than that of the conquest of Constantinople by the Crusaders and their
allies, the Venetians, as described by an eyewitness, Geoffroy de Ville-
hardouin and few episodes in all history as shameful as that rape of
a helpless and unoffending people. No sooner had Folques and his
followers aroused the flower of the French and Flemish nobility to
take up the Cross and sword against the infidel than they dispatched
six envoys (one of whom was Villehardouin) to Venice to bargain for
the transportation of the Crusaders across the seas to the Holy Land.

Chapter

Enrico Dandolo, one of the most magnificent figures of his or any other
age, was doge of the city. He was a giant both mentally and physically,
by turns merchant and ambassador, soldier and councilor, a typical
Venetian of his time, shrewd, crafty, cautious, and infinitely resource-
ful. When the French messengers arrived in Venice in 1201 with their
petition, Dandolo was eighty-nine years old; but, though almost blind,
he was still erect, handsome, and indomitable as ever. He was the
Ulysses of his age, and well merited the characterization of Ville-
hardouin "mult sages et mult preuz."

After eight days of hard bargaining the Venetians finally agreed
on the terms of a contract with the Frenchmen by which they were to
furnish transportation and provisions for the Crusaders. The French,
however, had reckoned without troubles at home and the oozing of
the courage and enthusiasm of their fellows. The sum of money agreed
upon failed to arrive at the time promised. Meanwhile a large body
of the Crusaders lay about the Lido for months, their camp "a den
of gamesters, harlots, and mountebanks/' Finally, when the Vene-
tians saw that only a part of the contract money was forthcoming, they
presented a shrewd plan to the disappointed Crusaders: They offered
to remit the unpaid remainder if the Crusaders would aid them in re-
conquering some of their rebellious Dalmatian possessions. The French
accepted with alacrity, and the expedition set forth. Dandolo, in spite
of his years and infirmities, led the host in person; and so, for a short
period of time, he and his fellow citizens became Crusaders.

A further agreement was made whereby the Venetians, after Dal-
matia had been pacified, should proceed with their allies to further con-
quests in the lands beyond the seas, where they would divide all the
spoils of conquest equally. The Crusade had thus over night developed
from an expedition against the infidel into a campaign against fellow
Christians. Moreover the Crusaders all too soon became more inter-
ested in spoils and adventure than in the destruction of the Saracens,
and moral and religious aims and ideals were superseded.

After the fall of the rebellious city of Zara in Dalmatia, a trivial
pretext was found to turn the all too willing Crusaders from the re-
demption of the Holy Land, which had been their original goal. The
son of Isaac Comnenus, the deposed and blinded emperor of the Greeks,
sought the aid of the allies in restoring his father to the throne. His
request, reinforced as it was by wily offers of money and loot, was a

The second conquest of Constantinople by the Latins and Venetians, 1203, From a

painting by Tintoretto on the wall of the Maggior Consiglio, in the Doge's Palace,

Venice, (Courtesy of Fratelli Alman, Florence)

10 Bnifttan Aiujpnturrr: iHarra

temptation too strong to resist, especially by the merchant princes of
Venice. They realized at once that by having as an ally the Emperor
of Constantinople they would immeasurably strengthen their position
in the Levant. So they agreed to help Comnenus, and in the spring of
1 203 off they sailed to Constantinople.

What that Eastern capital was like we can determine. Rabbi Ben-
jamin of Tudela in Navarre, who traveled throughout the Mediter-
ranean world and the Levant for thirteen years (1160-1173), has left
us a vivid picture of the capital of the Byzantine Empire in 1 161, just
a few years before it fell a prey to the rapacity of the "Latins" and the
Venetians:

The circumference of the city of Constantinople is eighteen miles ....
Great stir and bustle prevail in Constantinople in consequence of the conflux
of many merchants, who resort thither, both by land and by sea, from all parts
of the world for purposes of trade .... At Constantinople is the place of wor-
ship called St. Sophia .... It contains as many altars as there are days of the
year, and possesses innumerable riches .... It is ornamented with pillars of
gold and silver, and with innumerable lamps of the same precious metals ....
King Manuel has built a large palace for his residence on the seashore ....
The pillars and walls are covered with pure gold, and all the wars of the
ancients, as well as his own wars, are represented in pictures. The throne in this

palace is of gold, and ornamented with precious stones The tribute,

which is brought to Constantinople every year from all parts of Greece, con-
sisting of silks, and purple cloths, and gold, fills many towers. These riches and
buildings are equalled nowhere in the world. They say that the tribute of the
city alone amounts every day to twenty thousand florins (100,000 gold francs)
arising from rents of hostelries and bazaars and from the duties of merchants
who arrive by sea and by land. The Greeks .... are extremely rich, and
possess great wealth in gold and precious stones .... They dress in garments
of silk, ornamented with gold and other valuable materials .... The Greeks
have soldiers of all nations, whom they call barbarians, for the purpose of carry-
ing on their wars .... They have no martial spirit themselves, and, like
women, are unfit for warlike purposes.

Robert de Clari, a French knight who took an active part in the
siege and subsequent pillage of the city, indicates what a magnificent
place it must have been in his description of the division of the spoils:

It was so rich, and there were so many rich vessels of gold and silver and
cloth of gold and so many rich jewels, that it was a fair marvel, the great
wealth that was brought there. Not since the world was made, was there ever
seen or won so great a treasure or so noble or so rich .... Nor do I think my-

self, that in the forty richest cities of the world there had been so much wealth
as was found in Constantinople

He then describes for us in fascinating detail the Great Palace and the
magnificent churches with their numerous relics, the Hippodrome, the
city gates and the statues:

Now about the rest of the Greeks, high and low, rich and poor, about the
size of the city, about the palaces and the other marvels that are there, we shall
leave off telling you. For no man on earth, however long he might have lived,
could number them or recount them to you. And if anyone should recount to
you the hundredth part of the richness and the beauty and the nobility that
was found in the abbeys and in the churches and in the palaces and in the city,
it would seem like a lie and you would not believe it.

This magnificent city, capital of the Byzantine Empire and the re-
pository of the wealth and culture of the ancient and medieval world,
was now destined to become the helpless prey of the greedy, unscrupu-
lous, conscienceless marauders from the West. Villehardouin tells the
sordid story with all its heroic exploits, its trickery, its stratagems, and
its cruelty. His was nothing but a piratical expedition, disguised as a
pious mission to depose a usurper. Dandolo was the leader ; he had
been the Venetian ambassador to Byzantium and knew both country
and people well. Victory came swiftly, and the city opened its gates
to the invaders. The colorful pages of the old French chronicle tell
in words that never pale how the proud city of a million souls, once
mistress of the Western world, fell after a very brief struggle before
the allies, and how the blind Emperor was escorted from his dungeon
to his ancestral throne.

Dandolo and his Latin associates immediately demanded fulfill-
ment of Comnenus' promises and payment of what was due them.
Part was delivered, but the evasive Greek kept postponing payment
of the remainder, and all pleas and threats were unavailing. Impatient
and suspicious after months of waiting, the allies finally demanded an
immediate execution of the bond. A palace revolution ensued, and the
French and Venetians, numbering but forty thousand in all, moved
to attack. After a desperate struggle of nearly two years, again under
the leadership of Dandolo, the allies captured the walls and swarmed
through the streets of the hapless city.

The inhabitants were helpless. The sack of Constantinople that
followed was one of the most terrible in all history. "Humanity

J2 Vntfttfttt A2m*tttiir*r: fMami #010

blushes with shame," writes Romanin, the Jewish historian of the
siege, "and the mind shrinks from recounting the tale of the horrors
committed." Nothing was spared. Palaces and homes were looted,
churches and shrines were despoiled. The church of St. Sophia was
stripped of its priceless treasures, and the drunken soldiers of the
Cross set naked women of the streets on the high altar to dance for
their pleasure. Wanton destruction completed the work. The loss to
art was incalculable, and books beyond all price vanished forever in the
wholesale burning of the libraries. Precious manuscripts in untold
numbers were thrust as fuel into the campfires of the soldiers. Even
the tombs of the Christian emperors and the sarcophagus of Constan-
tine himself were broken open and the bodies despoiled of their pre-
cious raiment and jewels. The helpless women of the city, high and
low alike, became the playthings of the conquerors. The Christian
Crusaders wrought more havoc in the ancient capital of the Christian
world than had the infidels throughout the centuries. Villehardouin
boasts that the plunder exceeded all that had been witnessed since
creation. It was at this time that the four bronze horses adorning St.
Mark's (and attributed to Lysippus) were carried off as part of the
Venetians' share of the booty.

The Greek government was swept away like chaff. The Venetians
had been the real leaders of the conquest, and to Dandolo was offered
the crown by his allies. He wisely refused, and Baldwin of Flanders
was elected Emperor. The Venetians received as their share in the
partition of the once-proud empire of the Caesars a full half of the
loot, many of the Greek islands, and several of the great cities of
the Empire on the coasts of the Hellespont, the Sea of Marmora, and
the Black Sea. The aged Doge received a new and greater title, that of
"Despot and Lord of One Fourth and One Half of the Romanian
Empire." He lived but a short time to enjoy his triumph. Worn out
by campaigning, disease, privation, and old age, Dandolo died in Con-
stantinople in June 1205, and was buried in a chapel in St. Sophia; the
remains of his monument may still be seen there, though they were
almost obliterated in 1493 by the conquering Turks.

The Venetians had ventured forth in search of trade and had found
themselves sharers in the spoils of a fallen empire. They wisely
avoided the precarious title to political power, and instead devoted
themselves assiduously to the developing and expanding of their wide

: Pr0lo0u* 13

commercial interests. The markets, factories, and mercantile estab-
lishments which they controlled in the Eastern Mediterranean and the
Levant, together with the lands which were their share of the profits
of the Conquest, constituted the greatest commercial empire that the
world had ever known. In spite of the weakness of the Latin Em-
perors and their utter incompetence in governing their newly won
state, the Venetians slowly consolidated their own gains, developed
and expanded their quarter in Constantinople, thoroughly organized
their trade by land and by sea, and made themselves as far as possible
independent of the political fortunes and misfortunes of the new rulers
of Constantinople. Thus by conquest, treachery, and shrewd business
enterprise the Republic had become the greatest and most powerful
maritime state in Europe, and incidentally the trading journey of
Mafteo and Nicolo Polo to Constantinople in 1253 was motivated.

Ill

For many long days the Polo brothers and their fellow-travelers
sailed toward their goal, steering by the recently imported magnetic
"nedylle" and the stars. They headed southeast through the sunlit
Adriatic, on past Corfu, rounding the southern coast of the Pelopon-
nesus, then winding in and out among the green islands of Greece,
past Tenedos and Lemnos, ever steering toward the northeast. Pass-
ing through the Hellespont, they saw to their left the long low-lying
sandy coast of the Thracian Chersonese, while far to their right lay
the storied plains of Troy and the high peaks of Ida. Slowly the nar-
row vessel made its way through the strait which Xerxes had spanned
with his bridge of boats in the far-off days of the Persian wars and the
place where the fabled Hero and Leander died. Then on into the Sea
of Marmora, peopled with legends and memories from the beginning
of time. Gods and heroes, generals and statesmen, builders of Empire,
world conquerors all had sailed its blue waters in their day. On the
travelers continued, past the rounded hill of Lybissa, under whose
cypress-crowned top sleeps Hannibal, an exile in death as in life from
the Carthage which he had loved and served so well. And ever they
drew nearer to the city of the Caesars, heir to the mightiest empire of
the Mediterranean.

At last, after weeks that seemed endless, weeks of seasickness, heat,
bad food, sour wine, stale water, and crowded quarters, they sighted

14 Utttrttatt Abitnttttret: iHarra

Constantinople and saw the arches and porticoes of the Great Palace,
the massive curved walls of the Hippodrome, and the high swelling
domes of St. Sophia glittering afar in the sunlight on the Golden Horn.

In 1253 Constantinople was no longer the proud capital described
by Benjamin of Tudela, Villehardouin, and Robert de Clari. After
their successful assault on the walls of the city the Crusaders and Vene-
tians had set fire to its houses in order to drive out the defenders and
to prevent street fighting ; two-thirds of the city had been laid in ashes
by these great conflagrations. Innumerable structures, both public and
private, had never been rebuilt in the interval since 1204. Many that
were still standing had been stripped of their copper roofs, bronze orna-
ments, lead, and tiles. Ruined walls and churches, palaces, and dwell-
ings were on every side. The imperial palaces themselves had been so
befouled and neglected that they were no longer fit for human occu-
pation. Essential public services such as the sewage system had been
entirely neglected, many of the inhabitants of the city had fled, and
most of those who remained were of the poorest classes. Parts of the
walled precincts were a dreary wilderness. The Arab geographer, Abul-
feda, who visited Constantinople in the fifteenth century, recounts that
even then "in the interior of the city are sown fields, gardens, and many
houses in ruins."

However, in spite of rapine and destruction, ruin and neglect Con-
stantinople was still the most important commercial city in the Western
world. To it led the lanes of traffic from the farthermost corners of
the earth. The great caravan routes of Asia converged upon it, and the
water-borne trade of the Eastern Mediterranean and the Black Sea
sought its crowded harbors. Its coin was current everywhere from India
to far-off England.

Such parts of the city as had been spared or rebuilt were crowded
together, hovels and tenements shoulder to shoulder with palaces,
churches, and markets. The streets were narrow, with overhanging
balconies everywhere, for the inquisitive Greek loved to watch his
neighbor's daily life. Constantinople's caravanserais, bazaars, and
squares were the meeting places of Europe and Asia. There men bar-
gained and quarreled, bought and sold, in a hundred different tongues.
Her warehouses were heaped to overflowing with silks and spices,
ebony and ivory. On her streets jostled freeman and slave, Negro
and Tartar, swarthy Egyptian and pale Englishman. Mingling in the

crowd were Jews and Mohammedans, Turks and Armenians. On
every side rose temples to a dozen faiths churches, mosques, and
synagogues. Within her walls swarmed increasing thousands of refu-
gees from the devastating and blighting advance of the Turks, who
were ever drawing tighter their encirclement of the remnant of the
Greek Empire. Constantinople still merited her proud title of "The
City."

The temptations of lucrative trade attracted foreigners from every-
where in great numbers, and it is estimated that in the middle of the
thirteenth century more than 60,000 Westerners were engaged in
business on the shores of the Bosporus. Each nationality had its own
quarter, the largest of all being that of the Venetians. They were in
possession of three of the eight districts of the city, a sort of imperium
in imperio governed by Venetian officials, and surrounded by its own
walls a necessary protection in a city rent throughout its history by
frequent riot and rebellion. They had their own wharves and markets,
and enjoyed special trade privileges. Constantinople had thus become
almost a second fatherland for the merchants of Venice, and was the
center of extensive transactions by land and sea with the whole Black
Sea basin. Such was the capital of the medieval Greek world when the
Polos reached it at the beginning of their memorable travels.

Nicolo and Maffeo Polo sojourned in Constantinople for six long
years. Marco Polo passes over their stay in absolute silence. Appar-
ently they never returned for a visit to their homeland during all this
time, but busied themselves in buying and selling, trafficking and bar-
tering, ever adding to their store of wealth.

Meanwhile politics were moving rapidly in the city. The Latin
usurpers had never succeeded in ingratiating themselves with the
Greeks, who rejected every move at conciliation. Baldwin II (de
Courtenay), on ascending the throne in 1228, found the Empire sink-
ing rapidly into decay and abject poverty. He spent most of his time
abroad, begging at Western courts and at the foot of the Papal throne
in Rome for financial aid. He was even forced to strip off what was
left of the metal in the churches, palaces, and prisons of Constantinople
to support his family, and to order vacant buildings wrecked for fuel.
He obtained a few usurious loans from Italian merchants and once was

IB Vtnttim Atowttttm: JHarra

so hard pressed for money that he pawned his son and heir, Philip, at
Venice as security for a debt.

Finally he was reduced to such dire extremities that his feudal
barons pledged the crown of thorns of Jesus, which had been pre-
served in the Imperial chapel, with Venetian bankers for a loan, send-
ing the priceless relic to be held in Venice as security. When the time
approached for its redemption and for repayment of the loan, Baldwin,
realizing that he would never be able to raise the money to redeem it
and preserve it properly, sent agents to France to negotiate its sale to
Louis IX (Saint Louis). Louis accepted the offer and dispatched
two Dominican monks to Venice to pay the money due on Baldwin's
debt and to convey the holy relic with proper ceremony to Paris. Saint
Louis went to meet the procession with its precious burden in Troyes,
and "it was borne in triumph through Paris by the king himself, bare-
foot, and in his shirt, and a free gift of ten thousand marks of silver
reconciled Baldwin to his loss." To house the crown properly the Sainte
Chapelle, the most magnificent jewel box ever conceived or built by
man, was erected by the Most Christian Monarch within his palace
precincts. It is empty now, stripped of all its sacred treasures; but the
crown, broken into three pieces, and bereft of many of its spines, which
had been sold separately, is still preserved in the treasury of Notre
Dame. Encouraged by the success of this transaction, Baldwin also
"offered" to Saint Louis on the same terms many more holy relics, in-
cluding even "the baby linen of the Son of God, the lance, the sponge
and the chain of His passion, the reed of Moses, and part of the skull
of St. John the Baptist." The king eagerly bought them all, and for
the "reception" of these precious spiritual treasures twenty thousand
marks were sent to Baldwin.

All of these makeshift expedients failed to prevent or even to
postpone for long the inevitable downfall of the Latin Empire of
Constantinople. Venice and Genoa were continually quarreling and
disputing the control of the seas and the commerce of the East. Mi-
chael Paleologus, descendant of the Greek emperor deposed by the
Crusaders, finally entered into an alliance with the Genoese to regain
the throne. A decisive struggle between Latin and Greek, together
with their respective Italian allies, was imminent in 1260.

All this became known to Nicolo and Maffeo Polo. Disturbing
news and rumors were being constantly brought to Constantinople by

<Elf8pt*r

merchants and travelers from every quarter. The brothers consulted
long and earnestly over the matter. They finally decided to collect
their outstanding debts, turn much of their money into jewelry, pur-
chase with the rest merchandise that could be easily transported, and
leave the threatened city before it was too late. Already there were
continual clashes and riots on the streets, in the market places, and on
the quays, between Genoese, Venetians, Greeks, and Latins, and there
was no time to lose.

The place they selected for their new headquarters was Soldaia in
the Crimea. Members of the Polo family apparently had a branch
business house there also, for Nicolo's brother in his will (dated 1280)
left a house which he owned in Soldaia to be occupied by his sons and
daughter during their lives and to be given thereafter to the Franciscan
Friars of the city.

The Polos remained in Soldaia for some time. Business was evi-
dently not as good as they had been led to expect, for one of the manu-
scripts tells us that they "saw after many days in that land that there
was nothing for them, and decided to go farther afield." For the mo-
ment it was impossible to return to Venice; bandits on land, pirates
at sea, marauding bands wandering everywhere were cogent reasons
for continuing toward the east. There the Polos believed that they
would be able to engage in more lucrative trade with the Mongols and
other tribes farther from the beaten paths of commerce. They knew
that there was good business to be done in wood, pitch, skins, salt, furs,
grain, and, last but not least, slaves.

The trade in human beings in the thirteenth and fourteenth cen-
turies was flourishing everywhere in the eastern Mediterranean basin
and around the Black Sea and the mouths of the rivers draining into it.
The Mamelukes of Egypt were regularly in the market for slaves
with which to recruit their armies. Their harems necessitated large
numbers of female slaves, as well as eunuchs. Egyptian purchasing
agents were to be found in every port which could supply their needs.
Europe also was in the market for slaves, and the business was a thriv-
ing and profitable one.

The most prosperous regions for this trade were the shores of the
Black Sea and its hinterland. The Greek emperor Paleologus himself
authorized the trade. Captives taken from the tribes which had refused
to submit to the Mongol yoke were sold without mercy into servitude.

IB VntttUm Aht**ntisr*r: tftarni

Hungarians, Russians, Tartars, and peoples from the Caucasus were
shipped throughout the Moslem world. Moreover, it was not uncom-
mon for the less-civilized peoples of South Russia to sell their own
children, especially their daughters, to slave dealers for shipment to
the West.

The greater part of this business was in the hands of the Italians,
who, we are told, did their best (officially) to restrict the sale of slaves
to those unfortunate human beings who were not Christians. The busi-
ness tempted many, as the profit was great usually at least one thou-
sand per cent and often the despicable rascals engaged in it forced
poor helpless creatures who were Greek Christians to renounce their
faith so that they might be sold within the law. About two thousand
female slaves a year were sold in Alexandria alone. Circassians brought
the highest prices, Serbs the lowest.

Mohammedan slaves were a profitable investment also, and many,
together with those of Tartar origin, were taken to Italy. As a result
of the Crusades and of business ventures in the Levant the numerous
European merchants and other sojourners there became quickly used
to the service of slaves, and conveyed them home with them to take
the places of paid servants. A law of Florence of 1364 expressly per-
mitted the importation of non-Christian slaves of both sexes for resale
or gift by their owners. From 1366 to 1397, there were recorded in
the city of Florence alone three hundred and eighty-nine sales of fe-
male slaves, of whom two hundred and fifty-nine were Tartars, and
Florentine slave dealers did a large business in Ancona and Lucca.

Thousands were imported into Genoa and Venice yearly. In 1368
there were so many slaves in Venice, all shipped in from the Near East,
that they for a time threatened the tranquillity of the state. From the
seaports of Italy the slaves, sometimes entire families, were shipped
throughout the country, and large numbers were re-exported to Spain
and Germany, where the Emperor Frederic III especially authorized
the trade. As males were sought after in the slave markets of Egypt
as soldiers, so young girls were wanted throughout the West, partly for
domestic servants but mostly as concubines for their Christian masters.
Some of the proudest names of Italy appear in contemporary docu-
ments as owners of Eastern slaves. Pretty women brought as high as
$4,OOO each. This tremendous trade in Eastern slaves, though it was
brought to a sudden end by the fall of Constantinople in 1453, has left

<Et}g;pt*r n*: Jlrnhigu* 19

its permanent impress not only on the population of Italy but on that
of all those lands where these slaves were distributed. Every country
from the North Sea to the Mediterranean received a very generous
admixture of Russian, Tartar, Circassian, Turkish, and African blood,
not to mention that of the numberless small tribes which swarmed in
the Black Sea and the Caspian basin and of the peoples of Asia Minor.
Pero Tafur, the Spaniard, in his famous Andan^as y Viajes, written
in the middle of the fifteenth century, describes the slave market of
Kaffa, which was the center of the trade in the time of the Polos:

In this city [Kaffa] they sell more slaves both men and female, than any-
where else in the world .... I bought there two female slaves and a male,
whom I still have in Cordova with their children. The selling takes place as
follows. The sellers make the slaves strip to the skin, males as well as females,
and they put on them a cloak of felt, and the price is named. Afterward they
throw off their coverings, and make them walk up and down to show whether
they have any bodily defect. If there is a Tartar man or woman among them,
the price is a third more, since it may be taken as a certainty that no Tartar ever
betrayed a master.

Again, in speaking of the Venice of his time, Tafur states that "they
say that there are 70,000 inhabitants, but the strangers and serving
people, mostly slaves, are very numerous." We shall find that Marco
Polo expressly manumitted a slave, "Peter the Tartar," in his will,
leaving him therein the sum of $500, and that later the Republic
granted Peter the full rights of Venetian citizenship.

It was in such regions and times that Nicolo and Maffeo traveled
for days on horseback, through strange and unknown country, occu-
pied by many groups of various nationalities, speaking different lan-
guages and dialects Prussians, Tartars, Goths, Greeks, and Genoese.
They often visited and spent much time in the numerous settlements
of traders from their own city of Venice. And everywhere were bar-
gaining and trading in salt and furs and wood and slaves.

Finally they entered the steppe country, and came upon wandering
bands of Mongols living in round tents or yurts. Some of these felt
dwellings were twenty feet or more in diameter, and were transported
on wheels, dragged by oxen. The Polos began to pick up Mongol
words and phrases and to make their way about unaided. They learned
to drink kumiss, the favorite drink of the Mongols, made from fer-
mented mare's milk. The wild horsemen whom they met had a strange

c ^

5 c

<S9n*:

custom when offering kumiss to a guest: to assist him in drinking, his
ears were seized and pulled hard, in order, their interpreter told them,
that his throat would open wider. The Polos learned to like the taste-
less dried meat eaten by the nomads with salt and water, and to sleep
out under the stars. What they did find difficult was close contact with
a people fanatically opposed to bathing or to the washing of their
clothes. We must not imagine Venetians of the thirteenth century to
have been ultra-fastidious either as to bodily cleanliness or to frequent
changes of linen, but there was a vast difference between them and the
unwashed Mongol horde.

Finally, near the junction of the Kama and the Volga, they arrived
at Bolgara, chief town of Barka Khan, grandson of the great Genghis,
who was accustomed to wander with his tribes in summer and to settle
down in one of his towns for the winter. The Polos were so well re-
ceived by Barka that they presented to him all the jewels which they
had brought with them from Constantinople we wonder if the gifts
were voluntary or forced! and, we are told, he gave them in exchange
goods worth more than twice the value of the jewels. These goods the
brothers accepted immediately and set about trading in them and in-
creasing their wealth. During the year of their stay with Barka they
witnessed many strange sights visits of the desert tribes, the changing
phases of seasons that varied greatly from those of sunny Venice, out-
landish heathen customs, different foods, and a social life like that of
another planet. Nicolo and Maffeo had grown accustomed to the Ori-
entalized life of Constantinople, with its peculiar manners and prac-
tices, where women were set apart from the men in church and in home,
and where the custom of veiling the face was prevalent. All was dif-
ferent here among the Mongols.

Business was excellent, and after a prosperous year the Polos pre-
pared to return to Soldaia and thence home to Venice. It was the spring
of 1262. They had been away from home for eight long years, and
were anxious to be back with their families. Just as they were about
to depart, hostilities broke out between Barka, their host, and Hulaku,
his cousin, the brother of Kublai Khan. The war lasted eight months,
during which the brothers found it impossible to return by the usual
route to Constantinople and Venice. Though in times of peace the
Mongols maintained relative tranquillity and safety on the caravan
roads, this supervision was perforce relaxed during their frequent wars.

22 V*n*tt8tt Afcurnturrr: iEarrn

Bandits and highway robbers then took full advantage of the situation,
and merchants and caravans were at their mercy. Lawless bands of
Russians, Tartars, and Hungarians roamed the country. Hiding dur-
ing the day, they attacked at night with their favorite weapons bows
and arrows killed, robbed, and stripped their victims, then vanished
into the wilderness with their spoil. They drove before them bands of
horses as remounts and food, and in this manner could elude pursuit
and remain far away from cities and towns. They were the scourge
of the plains, and Nicolo and Maffeo had good reason to fear them.

The two brothers by this time had learned to speak the Mongol
tongue fluently, and had adopted many of the customs of the country.
Moreover, they had made numerous friendships with the many native
merchants who trafficked with them. So they decided to travel "by the
way of the rising sun," in the hope of finding a route by which they
could at length return to Venice.

They loaded their goods never for an instant did the Polos ever
step out of their character as merchants on arabas> the type of wagon
still used in this region. It has two wheels of great diameter, to nego-
tiate streams and mudholes, and a hood of mats or felt to keep off sun
and rain. Sometimes, in crossing long arid stretches, camels were har-
nessed to the carts instead of the usual horses or donkeys.

After several weeks of rough traveling the Italians entered a
country which was a veritable desert. Its crossing lasted seventeen
long days, and never during the entire time did they sight a town or
even a tiny village. However, they met great numbers of Tartars on
the road. These lived in tents, and drove their flocks and herds before
them from one grazing place to another.

On the seventeenth day the travelers arrived at Bokhara. The city
had been sacked by Genghis Khan, but had been restored by Ogedei,
and was now ruled by Borak Khan. After the monotony of the long
journey from Bolgara, Bokhara was a most welcome sight. It was
surrounded by ramparts, above which rose the blue domes and tiled
walls of mosques, gleaming in the sunshine. On the banks of the River
Zaravshan, its castle rising from a hilltop in the middle of the city,
Bokhara was one of the most attractive trading centers in the Mongol
Empire. Its shops were overflowing with the merchandise of the East
silks, porcelain, ivory, spices, and cunningly wrought metal work.
Its streets, markets, and caravanserais were filled with noisy, jabbering

<ttljapt*r n*: f rnlogue 23

crowds of people from every country of Asia, from the Yellow to the
Black Sea. Chinese and other peoples of Eastern Asia were to be seen
everywhere, drawn far from their own lands by the lure of profit.
Again Nicolo and Maffeo began their trading, ever with the hope of
returning soon to their native land from which they had been absent for
so many years. But when they endeavored to move from Bokhara they
found themselves in even worse straits than before. Not only were
they cut off from the roads leading east to China, but to their dismay
they found the route by which they had come was likewise blocked by
the warring tribes. With that philosophical patience which comes with
much traveling in Asia and in dealing with her peoples, they bowed to
the inevitable and settled down in Bokhara to await better times.

At the end of three years' sojourn in the city, a change in their
fortunes came about in a most unexpected manner. An envoy arrived
in Bokhara, returning from a mission to Hulaku Khan to his brother,
the Great Khan, lord of all the Mongols, "dwelling at the ends of the
earth, between the sunrise and the Greek [N.E.] wind, who had Kublai
Khan for name." Hearing of the presence in the city of two men
from the Far West, the envoy called upon them, marveling much at
them, their strange appearance and ways, and their proficiency in the
Mongol tongue. On their part the Venetians quickly realized that, if
handled tactfully, this visit might be the means of making it possible
not only to leave Bokhara, and eventually to return to Venice, but also
to transact some very profitable business en route. Trade, ever trade,
occupied their minds above all else.

They therefore cultivated the friendship of the Khan's officer most
assiduously with feasting, presents, and flattery, until they succeeded in
receiving a cordial, even a pressing, invitation to accompany the mission
back to its own country and to the capital of the great Kublai. They
were promised protection and a safe journey for themselves and their
"Christian serving-men whom they had brought with them from

Venice."

According to Marco's statement the envoy also told them, curiously
enough, that "the Great Khan hath never seen any Latins, and that
he hath a great desire so to do." Enough accounts have been preserved
for us to indicate that there had been a stream of travelers between
Europe and the court of the Great Khan during the Mongol domina-
tion of China and that the arrival of the Polos was no unprecedented

24 V*n*ii&st Afttt*tttttr*r: tfarni 9010

or unusual event. The friar John of Piano di Carpini had visited
Karakorum in 1245 and had written an account of his two years' jour-
ney. In 1253 William of Rubrouck, also a friar, had visited Mongka
Khan at Karakorum as an envoy of Louis IX of France. He describes
meeting a Greek knight in Karakorum, and, a little later, writes:

.... a woman of Metz, in Lorraine, called Paquette, and who had been a
prisoner in Hungary, found us out and prepared for us a feast of the best she
had .... she was fairly well off, for she had a young Russian husband who
made her the mother of three children, and he was a carpenter .... Among
other things she told us there was in Karakorum a goldsmith, named William,
originally from Paris. His family name was Buchier, the name of his father
Laurant Buchier. She believed, too, that he had a brother who lived on the
Grand Pont and who was called Roger Buchier.

In a subsequent chapter Friar William describes a great tree of sil-
ver, with silver lions spouting mare's milk, made by the same Buchier
for the Great Khan. The tree had branches, leaves, and fruit of silver,
an angel with a trumpet on the topmost branch, and four gilded ser-
pents twined about the tree spouting four different liquors into vases.

These references and many others indicate that Europeans were no
novelty at the Mongol capital in the middle of the thirteenth century.
It seems impossible to accept Marco's statement that Kublai Khan had
never met a "Latin." But perhaps Marco really believed it, and it does
make a better tale.

The Polos were most anxious to terminate their enforced stay in
Bokhara. Influenced largely by the fact that the road home by way of
the West was still cut off, they took their courage into their hands and,
"commending themselves to the care of God," set out on their long
journey to the East. Their road led them across unknown plains and
rivers, deserts and mountains, to the capital of the Great Khan, to that
Kublai, whose grandfather Genghis had made the name "Mongol" a
symbol of death and destruction in the West. They were to stand face
to face with the monarch of all Asia, before whose frown all men
trembled and whose whispered name struck terror into all Europe, from
the Pope and the Emperor on their thrones to the lowliest peasants in
the fields.

Theodore Roosevelt in his introduction to Jeremiah Curtin's The
Mongols has well said that the most stupendous fact of the thirteenth

(St: flralagnr 25

century was the rise of Genghis Khan and the spread of the Mongol
power from the Yellow Sea to the Adriatic and the Persian Gulf: "Un-
heralded and unforeseen, it took the world as completely by surprise as
the rise of the Arab power six centuries before."

The Mongols first appear in history as an obscure people dwelling
south and east of Lake Baikal. They were a nomad race wandering over
the grasslands with their herds, hunting and fighting, stealing cattle
and women with equal coolness and dexterity. Knowing only the law
of the strong against the weak, and acknowledging only the overlord-
ship of their tribal leaders, the Mongols restlessly wandered the plains
of north and central Asia and the Gobi region.

The story of Temuchin, known to the world as Genghis Khan, has
been the subject of many books, and need not be repeated here. A brief
outline of his campaigns and their effect on trans- Asiatic commerce must
suffice. He was born about 1 162. His father, Yesukai, died while the
future conqueror was a mere boy. The leadership of his clan passed
to another group, inimical to Temuchin's family. Immediately many
of Yesukai's followers left his camp to join them. Hoelun, his widow,
pursued them and brought them back by force, and by her iron will
kept the clan intact and strong during her son's minority.

The young Temuchin, ruthless and daring beyond his years, won
the respect and admiration of his people by leading them fearlessly on
raids and forays against their neighbors. Many of the Mongol tribes
joined him, and the confederation grew ever more powerful. Next
Temuchin attacked his most powerful neighbors, the Naimans, who
fell before his invincible generalship. This caused many other tribes to
hasten to tender their submission and join his banner. In 1206 he was
unanimously acclaimed by an assembly of his chieftains as Genghis
Khan "The Universal Lord."* Thereupon their monarch immediately
ceased payment of the tribute which had been sent by his people for
centuries, first to the government of the Liaos, and later to the Chins.
The Chin emperor sent an envoy to demand immediate resumption
of payment. The Mongol ruler answered by contemptuously spitting
toward the south, where the Chins dwelt. This meant war.

Genghis Khan attacked and won. By 1215 most of the Chin cities
were in the Khan's hands. A chronicler of the period, when describing
*M Paul Pelliot believes that the correct translation of Genghis (or Chingiz) is
"Ocean Great," parallel in meaning to "Dalai Lama."

26 *tt*tfan Afcunttttrrr: fflarro $1010

the capture of a town, remarks again and again, tersely: "The Mongol
general butchered." This meant that the garrison and at least three-
quarters of the people were slain. Caught between the Sungs in the
south and the ever-victorious Mongols in the north, the Chins were
finally crushed. The termination of the campaign in the Far East was
left to Genghis Khan's lieutenants, while he himself in 1223 turned to
further conquests in the West.

The Mongol attack on the West had its origin in a desire for re-
venge rather than lust for conquest, though that soon followed. The
emperor had sent a peaceful mission to negotiate for trade treaties with
Mohammed, ruler of Kivaresm, in Persia. Apparently all was friendly
between the two monarchs. Suddenly several hundred Mongol mer-
chants who had come to Otrar to trade were imprisoned and murdered
by Mohammed's order. The Khan swore dire vengeance and led his
army in person to punish the Sultan. It was a bitter contest between
savage Mongol and half-civilized Moslem. Town after town was
taken, pillaged, and burned, and its inhabitants, men and women and
children, were butchered like sheep. When Termed was taken, it was
reported that some of the people had swallowed their jewels in order
to save them. The Khan then ordered that the whole population be
ripped open one by one to find the jewels and to set an example. In
Herat the looting and destruction lasted a whole week, and when the
Mongol horde swept on to further conquest it left behind it a million
and a half corpses rotting in the ruins of the city.

At this time Genghis received at his headquarters China's most
famous Taoist monk, Ch'ang Ch'un. During his invasion of North
China the conqueror had learned the sage's great reputation, and sent
him an invitation to visit him and communicate to him some of his
wisdom. The invitation was accompanied by a golden tablet in the shape
of a tiger's head, giving Ch'ang Ch'un free passage and assistance
everywhere. Fortunately the correspondence between the two men and
the story of the journey have been preserved for us.

Although seventy-two years old, the monk set out on his long jour-
ney in February 1220, expecting to join the monarch in Karakorum.
Upon his arrival in Yen (Peking), with his retinue of Taoist priests
and a Mongol escort, he learned that Genghis Khan had moved farther
west on his campaign. He was, moreover, very much disturbed to learn
that the caravan was to be joined in Yen by a number of girls who had

been collected for the Khan's harem. Feeling that his age was not a
sufficient protection for him, or else fearing for the morals of his fellow
monks, the old gentleman dispatched a letter of protest to the emperor,
saying, "I am only a mountain savage, but how can you expect me to
travel in the company of harem girls?" We are not told of the result;
but probably the monk was humored.

The caravan continued on its way, and its Chinese chronicler tells of
the people, habitations, manners, and customs of the districts through
which it passed. Here we find full descriptions of the black and white
tents of the Mongols, their clothing of hides and fur, their diet of meat
and fermented mare's milk, the headdresses of the men and the women,
and their lack of writing. Scattered here and there in this serious record
we find descriptions of miracles, all redounding to the reputation of
Ch'ang Ch'un, and some startling tales. We even discover a Mongol
Tarn O'Shanter, Li Chia Nu, who told the Master that once in the
mountains through which they were traveling a goblin had cut off his
back hair.

On the caravan traveled, over hills of sand "so numerous that they
seemed to be rising and falling like ships on the crests of waves." Fi-
nally, after many weary months, the monk arrived at Samarkand in
the winter of 1221. Genghis Khan was again on the march with his
army, and Ch'ang Ch'un had to wait until spring. Then, with an escort
sent to greet him, he set out for the imperial camp near Kabul. There
at last the two men met.

The monarch's first speech with the adept was a request for the
elixir of long life. Though Ch'ang Ch'un could not supply this, the two
became very friendly, and had many discussions on religion and phi-
losophy. After several months' stay the Taoist returned to his faraway
home, the narrator of the journey noting many things of interest seen
and heard on the way, all of it a most valuable contribution to our
knowledge of Central Asia as it was in the thirteenth century.

Meanwhile the all-conquering Khan swept on his way westward,
ever pursuing the fleeing Mohammed. One Persian province after an-
other fell to him. The fugitive Mohammed reached the Caspian Sea,
where he died on a small island on January 10, 1221. His family was
captured, all his sons were killed, and his daughters were given as con-
cubines to various Mongol princes. Having drunk so deeply of the
joys of conquest, Genghis continued westward, slaying, burning, and

2H 1t*n*tttttt Atatntam: IRarm

laying waste. The story of his progress is almost too ghastly for repe-
tition. Never had the earth run so red with human blood. Not even
domestic animals, cats, or dogs were spared. At Nishapur, to be sure
that no one escaped, heads were cut from the dead and wounded alike
and heaped in great pyramids. The city was so utterly wiped out that
the Mongols were able to sow barley on its site.*

Genghis spent the winter of 1222 near the Indus River, and in the
spring returned through Tibet to his homeland in Mongolia, arriving
there in February 1225. Meanwhile two of his generals continued their
way through Armenia and Georgia, overrunning the country between
the Caspian and the Dnieper. The tribes fleeing before them retreated
into the lands of the Greek Empire and on into Russia. The Mongols
followed close on their heels across the Dnieper, and swept through the
Crimea and across the Volga, meeting with no effective resistance any-
where.

On his return to the East, Genghis Khan found that both the
Chin Tartars and the Sung Empire were again increasingly hostile to
him. Negotiations between the Chin Emperor and the Great Khan
failed, and the latter marched on Tangut, ally of the Chins. Before
he had completed the conquest of the Chins, replete with massacre
and slaughter and sacking everywhere, he fell ill, and died at the age
of sixty-six, on August 18, 1227. Dreaming of bloodshed and destruc-
tion to the very end, his last words were instructions to his sons for
completing the subjugation of the Chins.

Thus passed one of history's greatest conquerors a man without
conscience, of supreme executive ability, of merciless cruelty, and with
but one object in life absolute power over his fellow men. Born heir
to a handful of huts on the Kerulon River, at his death he was ruler
over more territory than any man before or since his day. To appease
his insatiable ambition he had destroyed over eighteen million human
lives in Tangut and China alone, besides the unnumbered dead left on
the fields of battle and in the smoking ruins of cities and towns in the
West.

* It is interesting to note that at this time a small group of Turcomans, numbering
but four hundred and forty families, near the city of Merv, fearing the devastating
Tartar hordes, fled with their chieftain Ertogrul to Angora (Ankara) in Asia Minor.
From that small tribal nucleus sprang the Ottoman Turks, destined in a few hundred
years to overthrow the Byzantine Empire and to terrorize Europe for many decades.

tt*: pralnga* 29

At the gathering of the clans after the burial of Genghis, his son
Ogedei was selected as Grand Khan. Immediately the military cam-
paigns, temporarily arrested at the death of Genghis, were resumed. In
the West the Mongols renewed their attacks in Mesopotamia and Syria
with all the ferocity of their race. It is reported that when Bagdad was
destroyed by them in 1257 over eight hundred thousand of its inhabi-
tants were slaughtered.

Meanwhile the Chins had been crushed by the Mongol troops in
1232. In 1234 Ogedei moved southward against the Sung Emperor,
who had refused to acknowledge Mongol suzerainty. In the midst of
his campaign he died of acute alcoholism, on December 1 1, 1 241 . After
much quarreling at the Kuriltais ("meetings of the clan"), the Khanate
was transferred from Ogedei's line to that of his brother Tului, whose
son Mongka succeeded to the sovereignty of the Mongol dominions.
Mongka gave over the military command in part of China to his brother
Kublai, who proceeded at once to subdue the country. He was very
successful, winning the conquered people by his humaneness and jus-
tice. Mongka became jealous and suspicious of his brother and, recalling
him when the subjugation of the Sung Empire was almost complete,
took up the task of finally subduing the Chinese in person. He was
stricken with dysentery while besieging Ho Chu, and died in August
1259. Kublai immediately concluded a temporary peace with the Sung
Emperor, and hastened to the Kuriltai summoned to choose a new
Grand Khan. He was elected before the others of the family could
arrive from their distant capitals and army headquarters, and was placed
on the throne of Genghis Khan in 1260.

Shortly after his accession, civil war broke out between Kublai and
his brothers and cousins. Kublai was able to conquer all China and
Burma, but could not hold the rest of his empire together. He pressed
his campaign against the Sungs relentlessly, however. It was a long,
wearing war, the Sungs being forced ever farther south until a last
stand was made at sea on the coast of Canton Province. Surrounded
by the Mongol fleet, Liu Hsiu Fu, the Chinese commander-in-chief,
seeing that all was lost, forced his wife and children to jump overboard
from the imperial war junk. Then, taking the little boy emperor in his
arms and telling him that death was preferable to capture, he leaped
into the sea with him, and both were drowned. With the death of the
Emperor, all effective resistance of the Chinese came to an end, and

30 9*tt*ttatt Adtttttturtr: JHarm {tain

Kublai Khan, who had mounted the Chinese throne as Shih Tsu, first
emperor of the Yuan (Everlasting) Dynasty, soon ruled supreme over
the Middle Kingdom and its dependencies. He selected Yen, the old
site of one of the chief cities of the Chin Tartars, as his new capital,
renaming it Khanbaligh (Cambaluc) the present Peking.

Such was the state of China under the Great Khan when the Polos
came to court.

The Mongols, continuing their conquest of the West under the
Khan Batu, overran and devastated Russia, taking and sacking Kiev
in 1240. The next year they laid waste Poland, Silesia, and Moravia.
After a long siege Batu captured, pillaged, and burned Pest, the capital
of Hungary, and wiped out all its inhabitants. Pursuing the fleeing
king of Hungary he reached the shores of the Adriatic, where he took
and sacked Cattaro. Only the news of the death of Ogedei caused him
to bring his campaign to a close and return to Mongolia.

The remarkable success of the Mongols in their conquest of the
West was largely due to the fact that the territories attacked by them
were broken up into small, weak, and impotent states, continually en-
gaged in warfare with each other. The Christian world was exhausted
by the drain of its successive crusades to the Holy Land. It was, more-
over, split into two parties, those of the Pope and those of the Emperor
of the Holy Roman Empire, forever quarreling among themselves,
and not realizing the necessity of uniting against the common enemy.
The West was thus at the mercy of the fierce warriors swarming from
the steppes of Central Asia. The Mongols seldom met with vigorous
or united resistance. Moreover, the invading army was remarkably
well organized and disciplined, and the feudal system of the Mongols
bound all the sections of the Empire together, insuring a strict super-
vision over all its parts.

The merchants who carried on the trade between China and the
Mediterranean littoral had for centuries been hampered by the con-
tinual wars of the many kingdoms and principalities which lay across
the caravan routes. The coming of the Mongols, destroying these
petty governments and uniting their peoples into one mighty nation,
strong and at peace, was welcomed and supported most enthusiasti-
cally by these mercantile interests.

At first each Pope in turn preached a crusade against the infidel
invaders. Finding their efforts in this direction unavailing, they

changed their tactics and commenced to send out emissaries to carry the
faith to the barbarian hordes. In this effort numerous monks jour-
neyed East over the caravan routes and brought back reports of the
many peoples they had met and the countries they had traversed. Un-
fortunately most of their records were available and known to the
clergy alone, and were never as widely read or as well known as the
story told by Marco Polo.

With the passing of the years, moreover, the Christian world began
to believe that in the Mongols they had a welcome ally against the
Mohammedans, who were already threatening Europe by land and by
sea and who had held Spain for some centuries. Though this hope
was shattered by the defeat of the Tartars at the hands of the Egyp-
tian Khalifate, and by the gradual breakup of the Mongol Empire
after the death of Ogedei, the changed attitudes of both Tartar and
Christian toward each other facilitated peaceful trading over the cara-
van routes of Asia for many decades.

Genghis Khan himself had issued an order that nothing should be
permitted to interfere with the caravan trade. In fact it will be re-
called that the greatest of his campaigns began as a punishment for
murdering the members of a caravan. He established military posts
along the main routes to protect the merchants and their goods, and
had the roads regularly patrolled by police. For even though the
Mongols were merciless in their military campaigns, they realized that,
when once the conquered countries had been pacified, trade was all-
important.

The principal land routes across Asia were two: One from Little
Armenia, the Empire of Trebizond, passed through Persia; this route
was followed by those who planned to continue their journey to India
and the Far East by sea via the Persian Gulf. The second began in what
is now southern Russia and crossed Central Asia to the Pacific.

And since, at the time when the Polos made their first journey, the
great Western conquests of the Mongols had come to an end and the
conquerors were busy consolidating or ruling the great territories they
had acquired or in settling internecine feuds, from the Pacific to Hun-
gary and from the Arctic Ocean to the Indian frontier there was
a Mongol peace, and traders could proceed unmolested from the
city of the Great Khan to the shores of the Mediterranean and the
Volga.

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n* : flralogu* 33

The pair of Venetians with whom our narrative is concerned trav-
eled north and northeast for an entire year before reaching their desti-
nation. Unfortunately, their son and nephew Marco, who at length
dictated his book or who directed its writing, tells us nothing of this
journey, "because Messer Marco, who saw all these things also will
tell you about them clearly in the book which follows" dealing with his
own subsequent journey. So in due time we too shall read something
of the various countries traversed by the brothers, and of the peoples
whom they encountered.

We of the twentieth century cannot picture to ourselves the terrors
and hardships of a journey over the thousands of miles of the central
Asian plain, desert, and mountain ranges nearly seven centuries ago.
Hunger, thirst, the crossing of snowclad mountain ranges and long
stretches of scorching deserts, threats and attacks of banditti and savage
tribes, discomforts of every kind these were some of the physical
deterrents from such an adventure. But even more terrible were the
superstitions and fears of the unknown, the incredible sensitiveness to
tales of strange inhuman monsters and evil spirits which peopled the
plains and the mountains. Such travel then involved not only ventur-
ing into the regions of an unknown world but conquering deadly fear
by means of sublime faith or stubborn courage or both.

The simple tale of the Polos details nothing of all this. There is
no expatiating on the sufferings or the fears of the brothers, nothing
of their struggles, physical, mental, or emotional. We have their
journey summed up in a few simple lines: They set out, they traveled
a year, they passed through many countries and saw many peoples and
tribes, and finally they reached their destination. Such an unadorned
objective narrative is unusual in the history of travel and exploration.
Perhaps, as Marco himself tells us, he preferred to leave unrecounted
the experiences of his father and his uncle in order to incorporate
similar ones in the account of his own wanderings and observations.
But the fact remains that only an indomitable will, great physical re-
sistance, infinite patience, and an extremely long view in making deci-
sions and plans could have taken the Polos across unknown Asia and
back to their home in Venice with no untoward accident at least none
that has been reported either in writing or in legend.

Even today Central Asia has been almost the last area on earth

34 Brnrtian Ahnrnturrr: JBarrn ?olo

to be penetrated by external influences. Isolated and protected by
mountains and deserts, its people have changed but little, and their
mode of life has not varied in many details. The location of its plains
far from the sea, the unreliability of its water supply, the everlasting
snow on its mountains, the chill winds, the avalanches, the salt steppes
and the deserts had all molded its inhabitants into a people differing
from any others the much-traveled Polos had encountered. Their reli-
gion, their occupations, and their social life were all largely determined
by their physical environment.

As for the seasons in Central Asia, the winters are cruelly cold and
the summers hot and dry, with terrific sandstorms which sometimes
make even breathing a torture. The autumns are bearable but short j
all too soon winter sweeps down, with its air so piercingly cold and
dry that one's skin cracks open and heals with the greatest difficulty.
Snowstorms follow and smother everything in their drifts. Life be-
comes almost unendurable at this season. Spring, even though short,
has always been the happiest season of the year for the Mongols. The
snow melts in the warmth of the sun, hurricanes die down and vanish,
and the streams thaw out in forest and plain. Flowers spring up every-
where. Indeed, the expression "a meadow in full flower" is the highest
praise the Mongols can give to anything they admire, from a fine house
to a young girl in her marriage outfit. Many of the tribes indicate a
lapse of years by the number of times the flowers have bloomed. At
this season tents are rolled up and their contents aired in the sun, the
cattle and horses wax fat on the lush green grass, and all the people
rejoice.

Everywhere on their journey Nicolo and Maffeo mingled with
the natives, of whom it has been said that "their fatherland is the tent
and the back of their horses." By the roadsides and beside the river
banks, among the hills and in the valleys, wherever grass and water
were at hand for their animals, rose the tents of the Mongols. Odd-
looking, round or six-sided, with dome-shaped roofs, the yurts dotted
the landscape. They were of black or gray felt, coated with tallow or
cow's milk to keep the rain out, and tied with horsehair cord or thongs
to well-fastened frames of light wood. The floors were of beaten cow
dung strewn with sand, sometimes boasting also a rug or a carpet. The
furnishings were benches and a few chests, together with a few house-
hold implements hanging on the walls. The smoke from the fire,

(Ufjaptrr *: prala^a* 35

usually of argols ("dried dung"), in the center found its way out
through a hole in the center of the roof. The door was usually at the
south, to avoid the cold north and west winds. The yurts themselves
were generally surrounded by the carts of their owners.

The flocks and herds of the Mongols were both their necessities and
their riches. The skins of their cattle supplied clothes, rugs, and yurt
covers. From them the roughly tanned leather shields, belts, shoes,
and various vessels and implements were made. The bones were used
for innumerable purposes, and the sinews and tendons were twisted
into bowstrings, thread, and cordage. The horns were utilized for
drinking cups and musical instruments and in manufacturing weapons
and glue. Even the dried dung was carefully gathered and used as
fuel, for wood was scarce on the great plains and could not be wasted.

These conditions forced the Mongols to rely almost exclusively
on an animal diet. As they themselves expressed it, "Grass is for
animals, and animals are for man." They let nothing go to waste,
eating even animals which died of disease as readily as those killed
for food. Cats, rats, dogs all were welcome, as long as they furnished
meat. This they consumed in great quantities, roasted, smoked, or
dried. They ate with a knife, biting into a large chunk and cutting
it off at the lips. Then they wiped their fingers on their footgear, thus
keeping the crude leather soft and flexible with a continual supply
of grease. They made a cake somewhat like cheese from milk, drying
it in the sun and later eating it or drinking it dissolved in water or
tea. Their only vegetable food consisted of a bit of millet and gar-
lic, the latter of which grew wild. And always they had their beloved
kumiss.

Cleanliness, far from being a virtue, was positively a vice among
this people, who seemed to venerate filth with religious awe: "They
never wash clothes, since they say God would punish them for pollut-
ing the water j nor do they hang them up to dry in order not to pollute
the air and they believe it would thunder if they did so, to show God's
displeasure."

No one seemed to go afoot in Mongolia. The people, men, women,
and children, may be said to have lived astride their tiny but remark-
ably tough and wiry horses. In the wild century when the Polos wan-
dered in their midst, their two joys in life were war and the hunt.
Otherwise they lay about in their huts and slept or drank.

30 $*tt*timt Afcimtturrr: dKarni

Their measures of material values were a head of cattle, a sheep,
a camel, or a horse. Their moral values had but one standard: "Is it
useful?" What was useful was good; what was not was bad. Loyalty
to friend and ally was observed, but their ethics seem to have stopped
there.

Their religion, conditioned as it was by the environment in which
they lived, could hardly have been highly speculative or idealized.
They accepted the hereafter as a continuation of the life in this world,
and buried horses and implements with their dead to aid them in the
after life. They believed in an invisible supreme being, but asked
him for little. More attention was given to their household gods, who
were more familiar to them and to whom they made offerings of food.

The social life of the nomads was based on the family unit under
the control of the father. The women worked hard, were old at forty,
and were even dirtier than the men. They did most of the drudgery,
reared the children, and in general bore the larger part of the burden
of the household and the care of the flocks. They did fine embroidery
work as well in the little spare time they might find. In return they
were made to sleep in the coldest parts of the tents and received but
little attention from their menfolk. Nevertheless, the Mongol woman
had a certain degree of freedom. Polygamy was common ; but the first
wife was entitled to prior rights in property and inheritance, and her
children likewise. Often on the death of the father the sons married
his wives, though no one espoused his own mother. So, too, a man
often married his brother's widow. The women of the tribe, both mar-
ried and unmarried, were respected j and sexual morality was relatively
high, though on this point there are divergent opinions. On the other
hand, the women of an enemy were entitled to no respect and when
captured were violated and treated with uncontrolled brutality.

As the Polos traveled along the well-beaten caravan track, they
enjoyed watching the Mongols at their various occupations. Some
were busy making the lattice framework of the yurts, others sewing
at saddles or bridles, making arrows, or hammering out rough silver
ornaments. Most of them, however, were only lying idle or looking
after their weapons. Their many recent wars had brought them an
ample number of slaves, and these did most of the men's work.

The two Italians watched the women tanning skins. Some of the
tribes used skimmed milk and salt, others ashes and salt. Some soft-

tt*: Pr01ngnr 37

ened the skins with the putrid livers of cattle or sheep mixed with milk,
others with ewe's milk and salt or with sour cream. Both women and
men amused themselves with archery contests and racing. Often the
women were skilled archers and accompanied their men into battle.
Some little groups made felt, beating the wet sheep's wool with sticks
to tangle the fibers. After the strips had been pressed and finished,
they were tied to the grazing ponies and dragged over the smooth grass,
which gave them the final polish.

Hardly a day passed without encountering detachments of Mongol
soldiers, each with two or three bows at his back, three quivers full of
arrows, and an axe. Their helmets were of leather with a steel or iron
top; and each had at his side a wicker shield. Often they carried long
spears having hooks below the spearheads, with which to jerk their
opponents from their saddles in battle. Many wore chain armor, made
by smiths in the faraway Caucasus.

Around the campfire at night the Venetians were entertained with
music of a kind, drawn from drums, fiddles, and guitars to the accom-
paniment of dancing and the clapping of hands, and with gluttonous
eating and drinking. Wandering minstrels chanted long songs, of war
and love or in praise of their horses, or told endless old legends of the
tribes. The foreigners often sat shivering in the flickering firelight,
chilled to the marrow by horrible tales of rapine and butchery, canni-
balism and blood-drinking.

The whole pageant of Mongol life passed before them as they
traveled onward toward the rising sun. They saw shamans and necro-
mancers at their weird rites, and had their fortunes told with the
shoulder-blades of sheep. They witnessed the consecration of sacred
white horses, and the driving forth of evil spirits from the sick. They
were present at many a marriage ceremony with its bargaining for the
bride and its feasting. They learned that among a great number of the
tribes a man did not deem a woman his wife until she had conceived
by him. Betrothed children often lived together several years before
marriage, and nothing was thought of it. The Venetians soon became
accustomed to the offer of temporary wives when they spent the night
in an encampment or a village; it was simply in accordance with the
custom of the country and one still in full practice among the nomads.

One ceremony never failed to amuse them the first and only
washings of the newborn babe. Seven days after the child's birth, the

30 VttKttatt Afcuettturrr: iSarro

family teapot was rinsed, the water used for this purpose was salted,
and the baby was washed with it. Seven days later he received a bath
of salt water. At the end of the third seven days he was washed in
diluted milk. Finally, twenty-eight days after birth, he was bathed in
his mother's milk to prevent skin trouble. "And with these quadruple
washings the Mongol is contented for the rest of his life."

On their journey they frequently encountered funerals (though
usually interment was in a secret place, to prevent robbery), and saw
that with the dead man were buried food and milk and a horse for his
use in the next world.

For Nicolo and Maffeo traveling was comparatively easy. Were
they not on imperial business, in the company of the envoys of the
Great Khan himself, and did not their hosts' tablets of authority give
them the right to command and to requisition, and to be obeyed every-
where in fear and trembling? At convenient intervals on the road they
found relays of horses awaiting them, maintained at these post stations
throughout the empire by the Great Khan for those traveling on official
business.

Now six full years had passed since the wanderers had left the
great city of Constantinople ; and, unknown to them, many momentous
changes were taking place in the world they had left behind. The
Latin Emperor of Byzantium had been driven out, and Michael Pale-
ologus the Greek once more sat upon the throne of his ancestors. His
allies the Genoese were again in the ascendancy, and Venice was be-
ginning a life-and-death struggle with her commercial rival in the
Levant and the Mediterranean world. The French Pope Urban IV
had died and been laid to rest with imposing pageantry in Perugia's
cathedral, and another Frenchman had ascended the throne of St.
Peter as Clement IV. He in turn was to be gathered to his fathers
before the return of the Venetian brothers to their home in Europe,
and his death was to affect their fortunes profoundly.

All this was unknown to Nicolo and Maffeo, for no news came to
them as they continued slowly on their way. The days lengthened into
weeks, the weary weeks into months, until when they had spent a whole
year in traveling they at last reached Cathay, goal of their dreams and
desires and hopes. A few more days, and they stood before the Great
Khan Kublai, lord of all the Mongols and of China, undisputed despot
of the East.

: ^raln^u* 33

VII

It is important at this point to review the relations of China and
Europe preceding the visit of the Polos. From the earliest period of
human history, since long before the keeping of written records, there
had been trade intercourse between China and Europe. Millet of
Chinese origin has been found in the remains of the prehistoric lake
dwellings of Switzerland, perhaps 25,000 years old. Records of the
Han Dynasty have preserved accounts of Chinese embassies and ex-
ploring expeditions to the lands of the West. During the centuries of
Greek and Roman ascendancy commercial relations were maintained
with varying intensity. By camel caravan and junk, the spices, the
silks, and the precious stones of the Far East reached the great em-
poria of the Western world, and the stuffs and glass of the Mediter-
ranean basin were brought to the land of the sons of Han. In the
oases, at the crossings and termini of the caravan routes, and on rivers
and natural harbors, cities sprang up and flourished, with thronged
streets and market places, temples, and palaces. Some of these trans-
Asiatic paths of commerce remained open for centuries j raids of nomad
tribes and pirates or wars and rebellion cut off all intercourse along
other paths by land and by sea. During such intervals of disorder
certain trading centers were abandoned or were destroyed by ruthless
chieftains. Some of these, containing precious records of a past civili-
zation, have now been excavated; others still lie buried beneath the
desert sands of Central Asia.

The products of the Chinese were well known in the Rome of the
Caesars. Horace refers to the arrows and the silks of the Seres, and
Pliny the Elder speaks of the silk which the Chinese comb from the
leaves of trees. Lucan in his PharsaUa describes Cleopatra, "her bale-
ful beauty painted up beyond all measure. Her white breasts revealed
by the fabric of Sidon .... close woven by the shuttle of the Seres
[the Chinese]." Tacitus has preserved for us a law enacted by the
Senate during the principate of Tiberius "against men disgracing them-
selves with silken garments," and quotes a message from the Emperor
to the Senate urging restriction of the growing commerce with the
East, which was draining the Empire of its gold. The Historia Au-
gusta records that in order to defray the expenses of a campaign against
the Germans, Marcus Aurelius offered at public sale in the Forum of
Trajan, among other things, his wife's gold-embroidered silk robes.

40 Vtttetigtt Aimtnturtt: iBarra flohi

Josephus, in describing a triumph of Vespasian and Titus in Rome,
states that they were both clad in silk. An epigram of Martial speaks
of fine silk sold on the Vicus Tuscus, one of the most fashionable shop-
ping streets of Rome. And there is preserved in the Vatican a frag-
ment of a Roman tombstone inscribed with the name of a woman,
"Thymele, dealer in silk"; and other stones erected to or by siricarii
"sellers of silk" are to be found in the various museums of the
Eternal City.

In the Roman markets many Chinese products were offered for
sale furs, musk, ginger, cinnamon, rhubarb, and rice as well as other
commodities imported into China and re-exported to the peoples of
the West. In exchange the Chinese imported, over the caravan routes
and by sea, glass, dyes, woven stuffs, lead, precious stones, and many
minor products. The balance of trade was always largely in favor of
the Far East. In fact, one of the causes contributing to the weakening
and decay of the Roman Empire was the continual adverse trade
balance and the draining of the precious metals into Asia to pay for
the enormous quantities of goods imported to satisfy the extravagant
tastes and demands of Rome's wealthy classes.

As the changes of the monsoons and the problems of navigation
were gradually learned and understood by seafarers, the maritime
trade between East and West grew ever larger and more important,
though the caravan routes continued to carry a large portion of the
commerce.

As the power of Rome weakened, the expansion, first of the Par-
thian kingdom, then of Persia, threatened and finally seriously inter-
fered with direct commerce between the East and the West, and the
unending struggles of China with the nomad hordes on her frontiers
served to make trade conditions even worse. These restless nomads
were related racially to the Huns who swept in a great flood over Eu-
rope in the fifth century A.D. The contest between the Chinese and
the Mongols (often designated by different names, such as Hsiung
Nit) lasted for centuries. At times the Chinese were able to repel the
barbarian tide breaking on their borders j at times the invader was suc-
cessful, even ruling parts or the whole of China for varying periods
of her history. The Great Wall, built in the third century B.C., was
devised by one of China's greatest rulers to keep the barbarians in
check.

tt*:

With the fall of Rome and the beginning of the so-called Dark
Ages, commercial relations between China and the West gradually de-
clined almost to the vanishing point. The new order of things in the
Western world had elevated to power a rude and unlettered class, with
but little knowledge and limited wants and desires. Their own lands
produced enough to satisfy their physical needs, and under the feudal
system commerce played but a secondary role in Europe. The shrunken
Empire and the new nations that were formed from its fragments and
its neighbors offered a very inconsiderable market for Chinese goods
and they had, in turn, little to offer of interest or value to the Far
East. Under the Emperor Justinian and his successors the cultivation
of the mulberry and the introduction of the silkworm into the By-
zantine Empire established an industry large enough to satisfy the
small demand of the West for silk, which had once been the most
valuable cargo of camel and junk.

In the cultural night which had settled over Europe there was no
place for interest in faraway lands or peoples. The very memory of
the early voyages to the East, and of Asia in general, had died out.
Geographical knowledge was gradually replaced by fantastic ideas and
legends largely inspired by reading or misreading the Bible. Attention
to foreign lands, when there was any, centered on Palestine, because
of its religious associations. In Constantinople alone, where the arts
and sciences were maintained, even though in an attenuated form, and
where decadence never reached the depths that it did in Europe (al-
ways excepting Spain during its eight hundred years of Arab-Moorish
domination), communication and trade with East Asia were maintained.
Scraps of information about China were brought to that Greek capital
from time to time by rare voyagers who had ventured timidly out
upon the wastes of land and sea toward the lands of the rising sun.

China herself never lost touch with the peoples of Central and
Southern Asia. During the flourishing centuries of the T'ang Empire
(618-960), when China was all-powerful in the East, she was united
to the important peoples of Asia by bonds of commerce and social inter-
course. Her merchants penetrated with their goods to the farthest cor-
ners of steppe and desert, mountain and valley. Her Buddhist pilgrims
wandered to India and Ceylon, and even to the islands of the southern
seas. On their return they wrote of their travels and their experiences.
Many of their stories have been preserved to our day invaluable rec-

42 Hftttttan Aimrnturm JHarro

ords of the life, the industry, the politics, and the religions of the
peoples of the East. Chinese embassies visited most of the important
cities of Asia, and treaties of amity and commerce among them were
arranged. Printing flourished in China, spreading knowledge every-
where there. The use of the magnetic compass for navigation spread
rapidly, increasing the trade by sea. The T'ang emperors were the
rulers of a country and a people more civilized than any the world had
known since the fall of the Roman Empire.

Foreigners from every part of Asia came to reside at Ch'ang An,
the capital. In its streets men of every nation rubbed elbows, and
every dialect and language from the Caspian to the Pacific was heard
in its squares and market places. Its universities were crowded with
thousands of students from Japan and Korea, from Tibet and the
South. In the great cities and seaports were colonies of traders Arabs,
Hindus, and even Europeans. Some of these had their own mosques
and churches, so numerous were their inhabitants. In the capital there
stood for centuries a church of the Nestorian Christians, erected A.D.
635 by a wandering remnant of the excommunicated sect. Long and
interesting descriptions of China and its trade have been left us by the
merchant Suleyman and other medieval Arab travelers, for the Arabs
held the monopoly of the sea-borne traffic between the Far East and
the Persian and Red Sea ports and Egypt for many hundreds of years.

The ninth and tenth centuries witnessed the decline and fall of the
T'ang Empire. Weakened morally by luxury and easy living, under-
mined by the rule of unscrupulous and greedy eunuchs or women, this
great period, often called the Golden Age of China, ended in a welter
of blood and disintegration. There ensued fifty years of chaos and
disunion, known as the era of the "Five Dynasties." This period was
finally terminated by an army revolt, which placed the imperial yellow
on the shoulders of Kuang Shun, the first emperor of the Sung Dy-
nasty, which dominated China (960-1126) until its conquest by the
Mongols.

Though not so powerful as the great epoch that had preceded it,
and with frontiers that were continually shrinking under the increasing
pressure and inroads of the Tartar tribes, the era of the Sungs was the
mellow afternoon following the brilliant midday of the T'angs. Its
capital of K'ai Feng Fu was still the center of Far Eastern civilization,
the storehouse of all that was rich and cultured and admired by the

fflfjaptrr tt*: ipralugu* 43

peoples of Asia. Her very riches and civilization, however, caused her
to be coveted by the barbarians. After many failures they finally had
their way, and the Sungs met their end, vanquished by the wild horse-
men of the steppes. Khan succeeded Khan as we have told before, and
when the Polos arrived in Cathay, the great Kublai sat upon the throne
of his fathers.

VIII

Such being the position of China with respect to medieval Europe,
what specifically awaited the Polos on their arrival at the Khan's court?
We are nowhere told where Kublai Khan was holding court on the
arrival of the brothers from Bokhara. In 1263 he had selected Khan-
baligh (Peking), usually called "Cambaluc" in the Western chronicles
of the period, as his capital, and was busily engaged in constructing its
walls and palaces. He may have been there, or in the old capital of
Karakorum, or at his summer palace at Shangtu of which we shall hear
more later.

Wherever he first welcomed the Polo brothers, we are assured that
the Grand Khan "beamed with the greatest graciousness" at the arrival
of the strangers, and that he received them with great honor and joy,
and feasted them well. He was consumed with curiosity about the
West, and promptly asked all manner of questions about the Emperor
of the Romans (the Byzantine ruler), and about other Western kings
and princes and their methods of administration. He also made many
inquiries about their relations, peaceful and warlike, with each other,
and their manners and customs. Most of all, he appeared interested
in "Master the Apostle," which was the usual French expression of
the time for the Pope, and about the Church and its doctrines and

practices.

The Great Khan listened attentively to all that Nicolo and Maffeo
had to tell him of these various matters. He gave much thought to
their statement; he then summoned his nobles and obtained their ap-
proval of a plan to employ the brothers as his messengers to the Pope,
accompanied by Cogotal, one of his "barons." The Italians were called
before him, and the offer was made to them. They quickly perceived
that this was the way offered them by fate to return to their faraway
home. Moreover, they recognized the advantageous position in which
this would place them for further trade with the masters of the Far
East. They accepted with alacrity, and prepared to depart with Cogotal.

Kublai Khan presenting the golden tablet of authority to the

Polo brothers,, here, curiously enough, depicted as tonsured

monk,. From the Rojal MS 19 D 1, folio 59- (Courtesy of

the British Museum)

46 3*tt*tt8tt

Kublai Khan presented to them their symbol of authority, a tablet
of gold bearing his great seal, and engraved with a statement that the
three men were his personal messengers and were to be supplied every-
where en route with horses, escorts, and all needful help and pro-
visions.

The letter to the Pope which the Great Khan entrusted to the Polos
was of the greatest importance, for had the Church complied with its
requests the history of the Far East and perhaps of the entire world
might have been profoundly changed. Kublai requested some manu-
scripts read "commanded" the Pope to send to him a hundred men
learned in the Christian faith and thoroughly acquainted with those
seven arts which embodied the ideal of a liberal education for the
medieval scholar rhetoric, logic, grammar, arithmetic, astronomy,
music, and geometry. Kublai was asking for men of the highest schol-
arly rank to be sent him. He specified that he desired, moreover, men
well trained in argument, fitted to demonstrate to his people the su-
periority of Christianity over idolatry. He pledged his word that if
they could prove their thesis to his satisfaction he and all his subjects
would become Christians and good sons of the Church. He further-
more asked the brothers to bring back to him some of the oil from the
lamp which burned above the sepulchre of Jesus at Jerusalem. This
holy oil, consecrated by the Patriarch, was a prized article of commerce
in the Middle Ages, and most Levantine Christians held it a sovereign
cure for all the maladies of body and soul. The Armenian clergy, as
we shall learn, had a monopoly of its sale in Jerusalem and a most
profitable business it must have been if we can accept the testimony
of many pilgrims of the period.

It was in no way strange that Kublai Khan manifested such a keen
interest in Christianity and the Church. Many Christians of various
sects held various influential positions at his Court as ministers, doctors,
and teachers , and alliances of marriage had united the family of
Genghis Khan with the Christian Tartar tribe of the Keraits. Some of
the manuscripts inform us that Kublai Khan's mother, Siur Kukteni,
was a Christian. This statement is confirmed by contemporary Arab
chronicles, and by a statement in the Yuan Shih, the Chinese dynastic
history of the Yuan period. If true, it was only natural that the alert,
intelligent Great Khan should seek to learn more of his mother's re-
ligion and why it was so powerful in the West. If it had potentialities,

(Et}gpter (0ne: Prologue 47

religious, political, or economic for the advancement of his own people,
he was determined to take advantage of them.

Thus at last the Polos set out upon their long journey of thousands
of miles back to their home in Venice. After only twenty days of travel,
Cogotal, their Mongol companion, fell 511 at least that was his ex-
cuse and could travel no farther. Nicolo and Maffeo, however, tak-
ing with them the gold tablet of Imperial authority, continued on their
way westward. We know nothing whatsoever of their route or their
adventures. Marco simply tells us that the journey lasted three long
years because of bad weather, floods, storms, snow and ice, and the
many other difficulties of the road.

Finally they crossed the frontiers of the Mongol Empire into Ar-
menia and arrived at the coast town of Laias. They were returning
to familiar scenes, and now encountered many Europeans, among them
numerous Genoese, who were thriving mightily everywhere in the Le-
vant as a result of their alliance with the Greek Emperor Michael.

The brothers took passage on the first ship available from Laias
to Acre, the last port on the Syrian coast held by the Crusaders. It
was destined to fall into the hands of the Turks in 1291, but was still
a busy flourishing seaport when Nicolo and Maffeo sailed in past the
lighthouse and sighted its high walls and towers. They immediately
visited their fellow countrymen in the quarter reserved for them and
their trade. There they were able to get once more in touch with what
had been happening in business and in politics. To their dismay they
learned that "Master the Apostle," Clement IV, had died at Viterbo
some months before and that his successor had not yet been elected.
This upset all their plans for presenting Kublai Khan's letters and for
a speedy return to his capital.

Fortunately, the Papal legate for Egypt, Teobaldo of Piacenza,
was in Acre en route to Jerusalem. They sought and obtained an audi-
ence with the learned man, for they knew that he was very influential
in Church affairs and realized that his friendship and counsel could be
of inestimable value. The legate listened with intense interest to the
story of the Polos, for the Imperial letter contained a promise of great
expansion for Mother Church, just as for the brothers it offered an
opportunity to fill their coffers still further. But the Polos' return to
Cathay had to await events beyond their control. Teobaldo's advice was
brief and to the point: "Sirs, you see the Apostle is dead, and because

40 V*tt*ttttts Atottitum: 4Rarr0

of that you must bide your time in patience until another Apostle be
chosen. And when that happens, you will be able to accomplish your

mission."

The two brothers, seeing the wisdom in his words, decided to re-
turn at once to Venice and remain there until a new Pope was seated
upon the throne of St. Peter. They departed from Acre at their earli-
est opportunity, proceeding first to Negropont, on the Greek island of
Euboea, the center of Venetian influence in the East after the expulsion
from Constantinople, and thence home to Venice.

And now, after fifteen years of wandering, the brothers leaned on
the rail and watched the shifting scene as their vessel entered the
familiar harbor. How fast their hearts must have beaten as in turn
the landmarks slowly came into view. First the old church of San
Giorgio Maggiore not the great building of today with its campanile,
but a smaller, far less pretentious building. Then, as they drew nearer,
the two columns of the Piazzetta, the crowds of sailors unloading and
loading vessels with loud cries and curses, the swift gondolas dodging
in and out among the larger vessels and through the side canals and
under the bridges, the mooring posts and the lanterns, the swelling
domes of St. Mark's reminiscent of that Constantinople where they
had dwelt for so long, and, towering above all, dominating the whole
sea-front of the city, the great Campanile, built over two hundred years
before.

When Messer Nicolo arrived at his home he found great changes.
His wife had died, and his son to whom she had given birth after her
husband's departure was a strapping lad of fifteen. He had been bap-
tized Marco, after his uncle, Nicolo's oldest brother: "And it was that
Marco of whom this book speaks."

Chapter

jWarco

HIS BOYHOOD, or of what took place between his birth and
his departure from Venice on his own memorable journey,
Marco Polo tells us nothing. We can, however, glean

enough details from existing genealogies and documents

of the time, as well as from reading between the lines of his book,
to reconstruct it in part if not as a whole. Except in the cases of a few
geniuses and infant prodigies, the life of a man from his birth to his
fifteenth year, even though it be very significant from the psychologi-
cal point of view, is seldom of importance with regard to his external
experiences. Perhaps we need not regret Marco Polo's reticence con-
cerning his early years.

Though his mother had died early and his uncle Marco was prob-
ably away most or all of these years in Constantinople, his aunt Flora
(on his father's side) was living in Venice with her child, and he had
several cousins. Three of these were illegitimate, but that appears to
have been of little consequence in the Venice of the day. Indeed, he
had still another cousin whose father and mother are both unknown
and who in his turn had a "natural" daughter. Probably young Marco
was cared for by his relatives until the return of his father from Asia.
His life was that of the other boys of his age. It included little
schooling, and he acquired his education on the canals and the quays,
the bridges and the open squares of the city. Formal educate was
then reserved for the few, though one may well believe, contrary to
the opinion of many editors and commentators, that Marco could read
and write his own language. In his introductory chapter he tells us
that "he wrote only a few things in his notebooks" because he did not

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(Bam: aty* Boy Harm 51

know that he would ever return home from China. In another chapter
of his book Marco states that when he traveled on missions for the
Great Khan he "would fix his attention, noting and writing all the
novel and strange things which he had heard and seen." We may con-
clude that the boy, who, we are informed, later learned four foreign
languages in Asia, could read and write some Italian. Perhaps he knew
a little French also. Aside from his scant knowledge of letters not
enough, evidently, to enable him to write a long book unaided most of
Marco's education was gathered at the quay-sides and in the Church.

Like other boys he took part in the festivals of the Church and
they were many in Venice. With his friends he must have marched
in the processions and joined in the pageants. St. Mark's, which has
changed but little since the day when Marco Polo played in its porch
as a boy, was a school in itself for both the unlettered and the learned.
Its extensive and magnificent mosaics told in vivid fashion the story
of the world. In the atrium was spread out the whole tale of the crea-
tion of the world and of man the stories of Cain and Abel, of Noah
and the Ark, of the Tower of Babel, of Abraham and other patriarchs,
and of Joseph and Moses. Inside the Church the wondering children
saw unrolled before them the story of Jesus and His passion and, as they
walked about, learned from the simple pictures of gleaming gold and
richest hues the lessons of His ministry on earth. In every corner and
on every available bit of wall or arch was a Bible story. Even the most
ignorant could learn their religious history as in a great picture book,
its leaves those magnificent mosaics which still look down upon us
seven centuries after the master workmen set them in their place, bit
by bit, in fadeless colors and in brightest gold.

The boy would listen open-mouthed and wide-eyed as he stood
before the high altar and heard the legend told of the bringing of the
body of Holy Mark, the city's patron saint, from Alexandria to Venice.
That story, written down in quaint old French by Messer Martino da
Canale during the very years of Marco Polo's boyhood in Venice and
so preserved for us, is well worth the retelling.

Tradition has it that Saint Mark was caught in a storm while on his
preaching mission, and made a forced landing in Venice. There an
angel greeted him, "Peace to thee, O Mark, my evangelist," and fore-
told that some day his body would find its last resting place in a shrine
of the city in the sea.

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<tt!japt*r flam: Sty* Soy JBarra 53

And in the time of Monsignore the Doge Giustiniano [827-829] there
came to Venice the precious body of Monsignore San Marco. It is the truth that
at that time there was a ship of the Venetians in Alexandria. In this city was the
precious body of Monsignore San Marco, whom the unbelievers had killed.
.... Now in the ship of the Venetians .... there were three valiant men,
one named Messer Rustico Torcellese .... and the second valiant man who
was with Messer Rustico was named Messer Buono dal Malamocco, and the
third was named Stauracio. These three valiant men had such great hope and
devotion to convey Monsignore San Marco to Venice that .... they got into
the good graces of him who was guarding the body of Monsignore San Marco
and became his friends. And then it happened that they said to him: "Messer,
if you wish to come with us to Venice and carry away the body of Monsignore
San Marco, we shall make you a very rich man." And when the valiant man
(who was called Messer Teodoro) heard this, he said: "Be silent, signori, speak
not such words. This cannot be for anything in the world, because the pagans
hold it the most precious thing in the world, and if they should spy out that we
have such a desire, all the treasure of the world would not prevent them from
cutting off our heads. And so, I pray you, do not speak such words to me."
Whereupon one of them replied and said: "Then we shall wait until the
blessed Evangelist commands you to come with us," and they spoke no more at
that time. But it came to pass that there entered into the heart of this valiant
man [the desire] to carry off the body of Monsignore San Marco from that
place, and to betake himself with it to Venice. So he said to the valiant men:
"Sirs, how can we carry off from here the Holy Body of Monsignore San Marco
without the knowledge of any person? And one of them said: "We shall do
it well and wisely." And so they went to the sepulchre as quickly as they could,
and raised the body of Monsignore San Marco from the sepulchre where it was,
and they put it into a basket and covered it with cabbages and with pieces of
swine's flesh, and they took another body and placed it in the same sepulchre and
in the cloths from which they had taken the blessed body of Monsignore San
Marco, and sealed the tomb just as it had been sealed before, and the valiant
men took the body of Monsignore San Marco and conveyed it to their ship in
the same basket, as I have told you of before. And because they had fear of
the pagans they placed the Holy Body between two slabs of pork and hung it
[the basket] on the mast of the ship, and they did this because the pagans would
in no way have touched the flesh of swine.

What shall I tell you? At the very moment that they opened the sepulchre
there went forth throughout the city an odor so great and so pleasing that if all
the spice-shops in the world had been in Alexandria they would not have been
sufficient to cause the like. And then the pagans said: "Now Marco is moving
about," because they were wont to smell this fragrance every year. Nevertheless,
some of them went to the sepulchre and opened it, and saw the body of which I
have made mention to you, which the Venetians had placed in the sepulchre in
the cloths of Monsignore San Marco, and they were satisfied. But there were

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pagans who came to the ship and searched it in every part, for they believed
most certainly that the Venetians had therein the body of Monsignore San
Marco. But when they saw the flesh hanging from the mast they commenced
to cry out hanzir, hanzir, that is to say "pork, pork," and departed forthwith
from the ship. The wind was fair and in the right quarter, and they raised the
sails to the wind and went out upon the high sea, and had with them one of the
valiant men who had guarded the body of Monsignore San Marco, and the other

remained in Alexandria and came to Venice a year later

What shall I tell you more? So the vessel continued on its journey from day
to day, until it had brought the blessed body of Monsignore San Marco to Venice.
And it was so well received .... that now that he was come to Venice the
Venetians placed their hope in him and .... carried before them the blessed
figure of the precious Evangelist .... and if any would wish to know the
truth of the matter, just as I have told it to you, let him come to see the fair
church of Monsignore San Marco in Venice, and let him look at all in front
of the fair church, for there is written all this story as I have told it to you, and
he will gain the great pardon of seven years which Monsignore the Apostle has
granted to those who come into this fair church.

This was not the only story young Marco Polo heard about the
patron saint of Venice. The old men sitting in the sun on the Piazza
often told the boys gathered around them, greedy for details, how,
when the Church built to receive the saint's body was to be consecrated
in 1094 the body had vanished, for no one could find any trace of it
after the destruction of the older church in the great fire of 976. The
Republic thereupon decreed a fast and public prayer to God, that He
might reveal the holy body of Saint Mark. As the procession, with
the Doge at its head, wound slowly through the Church, a great light
shone out near one of the pillars, part of the masonry crumbled, and
a hand bearing a gold ring on the middle finger was thrust out through
the hole. At the same moment a sweet fragrance filled the whole
Church. There could be no doubt in anyone's mind that this was the
veritable body of the holy Mark, and the people gave thanks to God
for the miraculous recovery of their lost saint.

The body was placed in a marble crypt, where it lay until 1 8 1 1 . It
was then removed to the high altar of the Church where it now lies.

The boy never wearied of the great cool dark interior of St. Mark's
Church, in many ways the most unusual in all the world. Each pillar
differed from the others, for not one was originally made for the
church in which it stood. Each had a tale to tell of some pagan temple
or some early Christian church for which its sculptors had chiseled it.

55 *tt*ttatt

Every shipmaster returning to Venice brought with him loot from
some ancient building pillars or slabs of finest marble, statues or
other plunder, which had once beheld the glories of ancient Greece or
Rome. Marco was fascinated by the strange smooth panels of the walls,
made by sawing some of the columns in half, polishing the flat surfaces,
and setting them side by side with the grain reversed. In this way their
designs appeared for all the world like those the children used to make
by putting a great blob of ink on a scrap of vellum and folding it down
the center while quite wet, so that the blot spread, producing all kinds
of queer monsters. He saw dragons and trees, rocks, and saints and
angels, as imaginative visitors to the Church still do.

On great holidays Marco used to worm his way through the crowd
dressed in its best silks and furs but reeking of garlic and onions and
fish and none too clean beneath all its holiday finery that he might
catch a glimpse of the Pala d j Oro, that wonderful altar piece of gold
and silver-gilt which had been a hundred years in the making in Con-
stantinople. A murmur of wonder and delight, not unmixed with awe,
swept through the crowd of assembled worshipers each time the cur-
tains were drawn aside; and the shining-eyed lad beheld scenes from
the life of Jesus, the Madonna, and the saints, all in colored enamels,
set with six thousand pearls, garnets, sapphires, rubies, and emeralds,
while neighbor whispered to neighbor that there were thirty pounds of
gold and three hundred pounds of silver in the shrine and that the
jewels were beyond price.*

On the altar before the Pala stood massive vessels and candlesticks
of gold, and behind it was the altar of the Holy Cross adorned with
two slender twisted columns of alabaster. As a sacristan passed between
the columns with his lighted candle, the marble glowed with, diffused
light and Marco heard someone above his head whisper that those
columns had been brought to honor Holy Mark from the great temple
built by King Solomon himself in Jerusalem.

At other times Marco loved to wander in the galleries and watch
the master mosaic workers at their labors for you must know that St.
Mark's was many years in the making, and work on it has not ceased
even to this day. And the laborers would stop gladly and talk to the
bright-eyed boy who was even then ever curious and anxious "to seek

* This was before the masterpiece was looted by the French under Napoleon, and
before the great cabochons were stolen and replaced by cheaper cut stones.

Qtom: Sty* Sag iBarrn 57

out the causes of things," as Vergil had put it many centuries before.
He heard how the bits of stone and glass were made, and marveled to
learn that the gold was real gold leaf laid on between two red-hot
panes of glass, and then cut up into tiny squares and inlaid, tens of
thousands of square feet of it so that it gleamed from every wall and
corner, a background for all the storied pageant of the ages.

When he grew weary of the gloom of the Church and its heavy
clinging fumes of incense and its intoned prayers and chants, he and
his friends played about the porticoes and on the steps, and found never-
ending fun in looking for new pictures carved on the seven arches of
the entrance. They found a child in the yawning mouth of a lion, an
eagle about to eat a lamb, all kinds of animals, real and fanciful, a
farmer reaping corn, a man and woman riding on dragons, men hunt-
ing, boys quarreling and stealing eggs, and many other things. They
all knew by heart the stones of the months and their symbols. They
had been told that the carving of the little lame man with crutches,
with his finger at his mouth, was the portrait of the architect, whose
name was never known. They could all repeat the legend of how he
appeared from nowhere before the Doge Pietro Orseolo, who was
anxious to rebuild the Church after its destruction by fire in 976, and
how he had offered to make the new Church more beautiful than any
other in the world if only his statue would be set up in a conspicuous
place. Unfortunately, he was once overheard to say that the Church
would, after all, not be so beautiful as he might have made it. The
Doge did not forget the remark, and so, the boys were told, the statue
had been placed in a very inconspicuous position.

How they loved to look up at the four great gilded bronze horses,
which had traveled far and wide since first they were cast! Some said
they were Greek, others that they belonged to an arch erected in Rome
in honor of Nero and had been carried off to the imperial hippodrome
of Byzantium by Constantine. Dandolo had claimed them as part of
the Venetian spoil in 1204, and they had been brought over the sea
in triumph and set high on the outer gallery of the Church. Little could
Marco Polo and his friends know that when many centuries had passed,
and the glory of the Queen of the Adriatic was dimmed and tarnished,
they would be carried off by Napoleon and set up in Paris; nor that
after Waterloo they were to travel back once more to the city set in the
sea, and there gaze out again over its people. Nor could they foresee

ffltjaptrr Sum: ZZIfye Bog iHarra 50

that the horses would be hidden once again a hundred years thereafter,
this time in far-off Rome, to save them from wanton destruction hurled
from the skies.

The Piazza is no longer quite the same as when the Polos lived.
The pavement has been raised, and new buildings have sprung up j but
many landmarks still stand as they were in the thirteenth century. Al-
ways against the southern sky Marco could see from the Piazza the two
great pillars near the water's edge, one of red, the other of gray granite.
There once had been three, brought with other spoil from far-off Tyre
a hundred years before. One had fallen into the sea and had never been
recovered. The two others had lain for years on the shore, for no one
could be found to raise them. Finally, in 1172, Nicolo Barattieri, an
engineer from Lombardy, offered to erect the columns. On the top of
one was placed the statue of Saint Theodore, once patron saint of the
Venetians, standing on a crocodile. Marco must have wondered, as all
men do still, why he stands ever with his face to the city, his back
turned to the sea whence Venice drew all her wealth and glory. The
second pillar had not yet received its proper crown, the Lion of St.

Mark.

The columns held another interest for Marco and his friends, for
between them gambling tables were set up, and crowds of patrons were
always crowded about them. Men said that the concession for the tables
was the reward granted Barattieri for his work. The pillars had still
another attraction, grim and tragic j for with the granting of Nicolo
Barattieri's petition the city fathers had issued an order that thence-
forth public executions were to take place between the columns ; and
the stones of the Piazzetta could tell many a tale of men and women
done to death or tortured there.

Everywhere as the boy walked in the streets or rowed about in the
canals he saw changes going on the tearing down of old houses, the
building of newer, richer, more luxurious palaces. For the wealth of
the East was pouring into Venice and she was expanding in every direc-
tion. Though the gondola was the favorite conveyance, horses were
still to be seen in some of the streets and alleys, and beyond the Piazza
of St. Mark's, where now the Royal Gardens flourish, the Doge had

his stables.

The favorite haunts of the boys were the Rialto and the quays.
The Rialto was the center of Venetian life. Thither converged bridges,

60 Vtnttitttt Aftttttttiirm tffarro ?oln

canals, and streets. There were the shops and crowded markets. The
oldest church in Venice San Giacomo di Rialto stood there. Accord-
ing to tradition it was built in the fifth century. Its colonnades were
adorned with frescoes, and there merchants and brokers gathered, to
hear and exchange the latest news arrivals and departures of vessels,
political moves on the mainland, and all the multifarious gossip of
metropolitan Venice. On its gable was carved the inscription now fa-
mous throughout the world but probably as little heeded as are the
sententious inscriptions over halls of justice and civic monuments
everywhere. Marco Polo, as an old man, saw the Church moved from
the spot where it stood when he was a boy. The Rialto had to be en-
larged and a loggia built to provide more shelter. So the ancient Church
was moved and much of it was destroyed or extensively renovated.
But passers-by can still read the original inscription beneath the cross:
Hoc circum tenvplwm sit ius mercawtibus aequit/m^ yondera nee vergant
nee sit conventio prava ["About this temple let the merchants' law be
just, let not their weights be false, nor their covenant unfaithful"].

In the Campo of the Rialto thronged merchants and visitors from
every corner of the world from the Levant and Greece, from Spain
and France, and from cold northern Germany and England. Business
was on everyone's lips. Venice seemed to live only on business and
for business, and the boy Marco grew up in its atmosphere. To be a
great merchant was every Venetian's ambition, and Marco dreamed of
the day when he, too, like the father and the uncle whom he had never
seen, would fare out into the unknown world of the East and become
a merchant prince and build a fine palace on one of the canals and, who
knows, even be elected Doge. Nothing was impossible for a Venetian
in those prosperous, rollicking days of the middle twelve-hundreds.

A busy street has always fascinated small boys the ideal place
to play, the ideal place to see all, the ideal place in which to get into
every sort of mischief. Still more attractive to them were the streets
and canals of Venice, the crossroads of the world, where the East met
the West, where Byzantine silks and satins rubbed shoulders with the
furs and coarse clothes of the visitors from the north, and where faces
and costumes from the four corners of the Mediterranean mingled
and jostled from dawn to dusk. From the ringing of the marangona
bell, summoning artisans to their labors, until the rialtina sounded the
curfew three hours after sundown, the narrow streets and campi were

Carpaccio's "Miracle of the Holy Cross," showing the Rialto Bridge as it

probably was in Marco Polo's lifetime, Painting in the Royal Academy

of Venice. (Courtesy of Fratelli Alinari, Florence)

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OUptpttr atom: 8ty* Hog marrn 63

thronged. The city was a great center of world trade, attracting every
sort of stranger, rascal, and adventurer.

Manners and morals were anything but strict, and boys on the
streets were soon old far beyond their age. The women of the city
were notorious throughout Italy for their easy virtue. The chronicles
and verses of the time, with their descriptions of the daughters of
Venice, read like the vitriolic lines of Martial and Juvenal and Petro-
nius. Women were not safe on the streets or even in the churches
themselves. A Latin document still in existence records how the Coun-
cil of Forty tried and condemned Zanino Grioni, of the quarter of St.
Eustacio, to imprisonment for three months for having assaulted and
abused Moreta, the daughter of Marco Polo, in the Campo San Vitale.
A decree of the Great Council of March 1315 declares that "multa
inonesta et turpis committuntur in ecclesia et porticu et platea Santi
Marci"; and Marco Grimiani, a patrician, was ejected from St. Mark's
not long after for attempting to rape a young girl in the very atrium
of the Church itself. It is interesting to note that when he was tried
and found guilty and fined three hundred lire, one-third of the fine
was paid to the girl. The archives of the period are full of trials and
convictions of men of the finest families, for abduction, rape, bigamy,
and worse, all seemingly carried on quite shamelessly and in the open.

In an age when cursing and blasphemy were common it is strange
how many of men's curses have remained unaltered through the cen-
turies the Venetians were so notorious for their foul language that
Petrarch complains of it, and the archives of the city reveal formal
decrees against cursing and blasphemy. One declared, in the vile Latin
of the law books, that anyone, either man or woman, who injured
another by calling him a "vermum canem" should be penalized in the
amount of twenty soldi. Gambling was so rife that laws were continu-
ally being passed for its control. It was necessary to enact a statute pro-
hibiting gaming in the portico of St. Mark's itself, in the courtyards,
and in the chambers or doorways of the Doge's palace. Professional
gamblers were flogged and branded.

Purity and simplicity of life, incorruptibility in politics or business,
or an exalted and rigid standard of morals and virtue were hardly to
be expected in the Venice of the thirteenth century. It was ever seeth-
ing and throbbing with business and pleasure, passion and vice. People
of every nation and of every type were drawn there. The city was on

64 Venetian Ahtmttitrrr: dtarra

one of the main routes to the Holy Land. Pilgrims, men and women
of every age and every condition, adventurers, thieves, honest men,
priests, prostitutes, confidence men, merchants, all thronged her canals,
her streets, and her market places. The poor found lodging in her
hospices, the rich in her hotels and taverns. A German bishop of Pas-
sau, Volger von Ellenbrechtskirchen, has left us a vivid description
of the Venetian inns of the period: The travelers could admire beau-
tiful marble work everywhere, but there were no stoves, no drainage,
and absolutely no sanitary conveniences. He tells us that the beds, or
rather pallets, were miserable, and the furniture rickety and broken.
But, he adds, the Venetian innkeepers have "the delightful custom of
adorning the bedrooms with flowers."

In early days Venice was shocked at the way in which the inns
offered feminine attractions openly to their guests, and passed laws
against the practice in vain. In 1226 the city fathers resigned them-
selves (one can hear them sighing virtuously) to the idea that "le mere-
trici fossero omnino necessarie in terra ista." They thereupon simply
forbade them to reside in the homes of private citizens, and segregated
them in a restricted area. These women were allowed by the same
statute to mingle with the crowds in the Rialto and around the taverns,
but "when commenced to sound the first evening bell of San Marco"
all had to retire to their quarter in Castelletto. Some of these bright-
eyed ladies' names are preserved for us Maria Gfeca, Lena de Flo-
rentia, Isabeta de Francia, etc., indicating that, ever and everywhere,
articles bearing labels of foreign origin have been more attractive than
home products.

The segregation laws proved ineffective, and the prostitutes scat-
tered and plied their trade in many other parts of the city. Quaint
drawings of these women, modestly dressed but most assiduously en-
gaged in seducing a very timid young man, have survived in the famous
manuscript of "The First Decade of Livy," and Carpaccio has pictured
two of them, richly dressed and bejeweled in the height of fashion,
surrounded by pet dogs and birds, in his "Due Cortigiane" in the
Correr Gallery of Venice.*

* This is the picture which Ruskin considered the finest painting in the world.
"I know," he says, "no other which writes every nameable quality of painters and in so
intense a degree breadth with tenderness, brilliancy with quietness, decision with

minuteness, color with light and shade I know no other picture in the world

which can be compared with it."

<Et|ttpt*r Sam: 2Hf* Boy fflarrn 55

Venetian manners and morals were crude, and the strangers who
thronged her streets and canals, with their violent emotions and de-
sires, made them worse. In that motley crowd love rubbed shoulders
with lust, religious fanaticism with atheism, charity with boundless
greed, virtue with vice, courage with cowardice, hypocrisy with sanc-
tity, and blackest iniquity with spotless purity. The gradations and
refinements of men's natures were not to be found in Venice, where,
in Marco Polo's lifetime, an old world was dying and a new one was
passing through the painful travail of birth.

Crime was rife everywhere, and an ever increasing number of
statutes were enacted in an effort to control it. These laws throw an
interesting and revealing light on Venetian character and life. Crimes
against property were punished with far more severity than those
against the person. Theft was the most heinous crime of all. For
stealing the value of twenty soldi a man was flogged and branded. For
a second offense his eyes were torn out. If the amount exceeded twenty
soldi, the culprit was hanged. If a thief caught in the act attempted
to defend himself with weapons, or wounded anyone, he was con-
demned to lose his eyes and his right hand. Murderers were decapi-
tated, hanged between the columns of the Piazzetta, or burned j and
a poisoner, if his victim did not die, had either one or both hands
chopped off or his eyes destroyed with a white-hot brazier. Before
his execution a particularly dangerous criminal was conducted on a
long boat through the Grand Canal from the Church of San Marco to
Santa Croce, stripped to the waist, and tortured with red-hot pincers
the while. From Santa Croce, after having had his right hand cut off,
he was dragged along the street tied to a horse's tail. Then, after being
brought in this fashion to the Piazzetta, he was decapitated between
the two columns and his body was quartered and exposed to public view.

Minor offenders, especially priests, were placed in wooden cages
hung from a wooden pole halfway up the campanile of St. Mark's,
fed on bread and water, and exposed to the insults of the mob. One
was kept there over a year. For lesser crimes the culprit carried a
board describing his crime hung about his neck.

These crowded streets, this open immorality, this cruelty and in-
humanity, this filth and vice, strangely mingled with beauty and
pageantry, were the forces which molded the character and shaped the
mind of the boy Marco during the long years while his father, Messer

fifi V*tt*tt8tt

Nicolo, and his uncle, Messer Maffeo, were in Constantinople and
Bokhara, traveling across the deserts and steppes of Central Asia, and
sojourning with the Great Khan Kublai in his capital at Khanbaligh,
many thousands of miles from Venice.

But all was not black and ugly in thirteenth-century Venice. Its
people seem to have been then, as now, essentially lighthearted, pleas-
ure-loving, and blithe. Their year was punctuated with many cheer-
ful, colorful saints' days and festivals. Then all the populace would
turn out in best doublet and hose, in silk and fur and cloth of gold, to
eat and drink and dance and make merry. They would throw off the
dull gray cares of everyday life, and revel in living under intense blue
skies and beside waters sparkling in the sun. Some of these festivals
are still part of Venetian life, but many passed away with the downfall
of the Republic.

The one loved best by Marco and his friends was "La Sensa," the
great feast of Ascension Day, during which Venice was transformed
into a pageant of blazing color, and when all its citizens came forth to
witness the annual wedding of Venice and the sea. This day was the
greatest, the most solemn, and the most dignified and impressive of all
the festivals of the year. It had its origin in the conquest of Dalmatia
by the Doge Pietro Orseolo II in the year 1000. On his triumphal
return it had been decreed that the Doge, the clergy, and the people
should go on each Ascension Day the day on which he had set sail
for Dalmatia to assist in the benediction of the Adriatic.

In that far-off time the ceremony was simple. The clergy in full
vestments were rowed out on a barge draped in crimson and bearing
water, salt for purification, and an olive branch. On the route to the
Lido they were joined by the state barge of the Doge. The whole
procession then continued on to the Lido, chanting litanies and the
psalm, Exaudi nos Domine. The bishop then offered a solemn prayer
to God to calm all troubled hearts and to remove all sin. He closed the
prayer with the Latin invocation, "We pray thee, O Lord, to grant
unto us this sea, and that thou wilt vouchsafe unto all who sail upon it
peace and quiet." After blessing the water, and chanting verse 7 of
Psalm 51 "Purge me with hyssop, and I shall be clean" the prelate
sprinkled the Doge and his retinue with a portion of the consecrated
water and poured the rest of it into the sea. High mass was then cele-
brated at the Church of St. Nicholas, and the Doge returned home.

Chapter Ohio: (Zty* Bag Harm *?

With the passing of time the festival became much more of a
pageant and a show, and a new ceremony, the sposalizio, or marriage,
marked the day. On the occasion of his state visit to Venice in 1177
Pope Alexander III presented a consecrated ring to Doge Ziani with
these words: "Receive this as a pledge of the sovereignty which you
and your successors shall have in perpetuity over the sea." Thenceforth
the feast of "La Sensa" became the most magnificent of all Venetian
pageants.

The Doge appeared with his retinue in his most gorgeous robes of
state and was rowed in his barge by young nobles. Followed by thou-
sands of boats and gondolas he was escorted to the Lido. As he ap-
proached he was met by the Bishop of Castello, who offered him
peeled chestnuts, red wine, and a bunch of roses in a silver vase. After
the usual prayers the bishop blessed a gold ring. The Doge, rising
from his seat, threw the ring into the open Adriatic, with the solemn
words: Desponsamus te, mare, in signum veri ferfetuique dominii Se-
renisiimae Reyublicae Venetae ["We wed thee, O sea, in token of the
true and perpetual dominion of the Most Serene Venetian Republic"].
After the customary mass the Doge held a great reception and state
dinner. St. Mark's square was converted into a great fair filled with
booths for the occasion, and reveling and merrymaking, buying and
selling, eating and drinking continued without hindrance for eight
days. It became the great annual fair of the city, where all things were
bought and sold. To it flocked people from the neighboring cities and
towns. For there were displayed the wares of the East and the West
as nowhere else in all Europe. And, to add a further attraction for
visitors, indulgences were granted to all those who came to the churches
during this period of rejoicing.

The pageant which impressed young Polo most was the installation
of the Doge Lorenzo Tiepolo in 1268. Martino da Canale was there
and saw it all, and wrote it down for us in his "Cronique des Veni-
ciens." The future author of the most famous of all travel tales and
Venice's greatest medieval chronicler may well have rubbed shoulders
in the crowd and perhaps have exchanged remarks on that occasion.

Canale begins the story of the great day by telling us that the
Doge's first act was to invite to him all those with whom he was not
on good terms; these he embraced and they became his friends. Then
the pageant began. The first display was on the water. Messer Piero

60 Vtttfttatt Ai*tr*ntttr*r: iitarni 9010

Michele, the captain of the fleet of galleys, led his vessels in review
before the ducal palace,

and sang the praises of Monsignore the Doge in this manner: "Christ conquers,
Christ reigns, Christ rules; to our Signore Lorenzo Tiepolo, to God be offered
thanks, to you, O illustrious Doge of Venice, Dalmatia and Croatia ....
salvation, honor, life and victory, and may St. Mark aid you!"

Then all the sailors raised their voices in cheers and cries of praise,
and the galleys were steered through the canals of the city.

Next came the boats bearing citizens of the other islands of the
lagoons, the men of Murano being especially noticeable with live
roosters in their barges and great banners flying from their masts.

The guilds of the crafts, marching two by two, then paraded in
their gorgeous costumes, each guild in a different garb. They marched
past their Doge and Dogaressa on foot, each guild with its master
craftsmen in the van. The smiths led the procession, with banners and
trumpets and other musical instruments, and wearing garlands on their
heads. As they passed in review before the palace they saluted the
Doge and wished him long life and victory and good fortune. Next
came the furriers clad in ermine and other rich furs; they marched past
two by two, shouting and cheering. They were followed by the weavers
with their music and songs, also ten master sailors dressed in white
clothes decorated with vermilion stars and with musicians leading.
After them came long lines of clothworkers with trumpets and cups
of silver and jars of wine, wearing olive wreaths on their heads and
carrying olive branches in their hands. The several crafts followed in
turn workers in cotton and woolen cloth, and quilt makers, in white
cloaks decorated with fleurs-de-lis and with garlands of gilt beads on
their heads, and preceded by banners and music. And also there
marched before them, two by two, little girls and boys singing songs.
And everywhere were heard cheers and cries: "Viva il nostro Signore
Lorenzo Tiepolo, nostro Doge."

Now I shall tell you of the master- workers in cloth of gold. Know then
that they had robed their bodies richly in cloth of gold and they had arrayed
their apprentices, some in cloth of gold and some in purple and taffeta, their
heads wreathed with garlands of pearls with borders of gold.

The procession seemed endless. Following the clothworkers came
the other guilds the shoemakers and the mercers and the sellers of
provisions and cheese, all in scarlet and violet ; and the sellers of birds

(Etjaptrr 21 ut o: 3% Sng iKarrn 63

and fish, their robes trimmed with fur j and the master bankers, wear-
ing garlands of pearls, and in their midst two men on horseback dressed
like knights-errant and leading four women dressed in strange gar-
ments, two on foot and two on horseback. Then, following the barbers,
came the master glassworkers, dressed in scarlet trimmed with fur and
wearing gold-bordered pearl garlands on their heads, with music
marching before them, and bearing in their hands flasks and goblets
and other fine specimens of their craft. Next came the comb and lan-
tern makers, the latter carrying lanterns full of birds of many kinds.
"To rejoice Monsignore the Doge they opened the doors, through
which the birds all flew out, and departed flying hither and thither,
each according to its desire." Then came the goldsmiths richly dressed,
"wearing garlands and necklaces of gold and silver, pearls, and rich
and precious stones, sapphires, emeralds, diamonds, topazes, jacinths,
amethysts, rubies, jasper and carbuncles of great value/'

So they marched by the Doge and Dogaressa, each band playing
music and cheering their new Doge. Canale concludes: "I shall remain
silent about the other crafts .... Know ye that Monsignore the Doge
was installed .... on a Monday, and until Sunday the people of Venice
did nothing but go to see their Signore and their Lady in the manner
which I have related."

It was a spectacle which Marco Polo doubtless remembered often,
lying out under the stars in the deserts of Central Asia, surrounded by
ill-smelling sheepskin-clad Mongols, telling interminable tales of
foray and of love by the flickering firelight and piping on their high-
pitched Tartar flutes.

The streets taught Marco and his friends many other lessons. The
rites of the Catholic Church were usually employed in Venetian wed-
dings j but women schemed to marry to escape payment of debts, often
seemingly without benefit of clergy, and sometimes not having met
their future husbands before their union. Such marriages could be
annulled, and many men had several wives in this way. Some of these
affairs ended in the law courts, and reports of many such trials have
been preserved in their strange mixture of local dialect and bad Latin.
A few sentences from two of the trials are worth repeating. Though
the incidents took place in 1443, they illustrate the frank ideas and
practices of the thirteenth century.

A certain Pietro of Trent, a broom peddler, passing one evening

70 *n*tt8tt Ato*tttur*r:

through the parish of S.S. Gervasio e Protasio, stopped in front of
the house of Cataruzza, widow of Giovanni Banco. Seeing the lady at
her window, he called to her:

"Madonna, find me a pretty girl."

"You beast, you drunkard. What are you trying to do, make a
procuress of me?" she screamed at him.

"Pm not saying that at all. I mean that I want you to find me
a girl for a wife."

"Good, if that's it," replied Cataruzza, thinking immediately of a
girl of her acquaintance. "By the faith of God Pll get you one. Come
back here tomorrow."

The next day Pietro came back, and there was a pretty girl named
Maria, also a certain Domenico Moxe, who asked of Pietro and Maria
if they wished to be united "as commanded God and Holy Church."
They answered in the affirmative, took each other by the hand, "fecero
colassion de brigada e poi consumaverunt matrimonium," and that was
all there was to it!

Another musty old volume recites the tale of one Beatrice Franci-
gena. On her way home from a visit to Treviso she stopped at the
house of a relative named Zanina, where by chance there was a man
named Falcon, one of Beatrice's old acquaintances. The two seem to
have come to an understanding very speedily, as Zanina most naively
states in her testimony:

While they were standing conversing, the said Falcon spoke to the said
Beatrice thus:

"Beatrice, will you do me the great honor? You know that I offer you my
hand, and are you going to give your hand to another?"

And she replied:

"I thought you were making sport of me, and that you were jesting."

And the said Falcon answered:

"What I have promised you I wish to promise you again."

And both of the aforesaid persons went into the room of the house of the
said witness and spoke there, saying:

"Beatrice, you know that you are my wife."

And she replied:

"But yes, by God."

And then he touched Beatrice's hand saying:

"I take no other wife but you."

And she replied:

"And as for me, I take no other husband but you."

Stow: Oty* Hag Marro 71

Marriage was cheap, lightly taken on and as lightly laid aside by
the good citizens of Venice. They did not seem to be guided by the
dictates of European chivalry and idealized love. They appear rather
to have had much of the older Asiatic attitude toward women, and
selected their wives primarily as breeders of children and housekeep-
ers. Fra Paolino, in an interesting document written when Marco
Polo was an old man, gives his fellow Venetians advice on how to
select a wife: She should not be under eighteen, nor her husband under
twenty-one. "The husband should not be guided by the advice of his
wife, who has not sound judgment, because she has neither a sound or
strong constitution, but one poor and weak, and the mind naturally
inclines according to the disposition of the body." Moreover, the wide-
spread ownership of female slaves with their lack of moral sense, and
the open relations with their masters, tended to drag or force the free
women down to their level to hold or to recover the affections of their
husbands. The chronicles of the time are full of lurid tales of domestic
revenge, stabbings and poisonings, caused by the intrigues of wives,
slaves, concubines, and lovers. Madness from poisoning was so com-
mon that it had a name of its own "erberia." And much of all this
was common street talk in Marco's time.

The boys in their play and their wanderings could hardly escape
funerals, which in many ways resembled the rites of Egypt and the
ancient East. The dying person was laid on the floor, which was cov-
ered with ashes. A bell was rung to summon the mourners, and priests
chanted the Miserere and psalms in the street before the door. A sur-
viving spouse was expected to exhibit the most extravagant display of
grief in public, rolling on the ground, screaming, tearing out hair by
the handful, and howling and moaning unceasingly, in true Oriental
fashion.

When friends tried to carry out the body, wrapped in a sheet or in
matting, the husband or chief mourner threw himself on the threshold
as if to prevent the removal of the body, and had to be dragged away.
The family and friends followed the corpse to the parish church,
screaming and howling through the streets, and keeping up their wail-
ing and noise during the whole funeral service. The same senseless
performance was enacted at the grave. This barbarous custom contin-
ued for centuries. The Church struggled against it in vain, and threats
of excommunication had finally to be invoked before it was stopped.

7Z Vnttttati Ato*ntttr*r: JRgrro

Poor people often left their dead exposed for several days in the
street so as to touch the hearts of passers-by and elicit alms from them.

The boys had their best times at the quays and along the water
front. The homes of most of them were dark, with a few narrow
windows fitted with iron gratings. On many of the smaller canals
scarcely any light entered the houses, so that they were chilly and
gloomy and damp. Hardly any had sanitary drainage, but relied on
the rise and fall of the tide for flushing. True, there were fireplaces
and sometimes ovens; but the furniture was solid and hard and there
were few comforts, so that the youngsters were glad to escape promptly
each morning into the warm sunshine.

Dressing did not consume much time. Like nearly everyone in
Europe of that period, the Venetians, both men and women, slept
naked. Bathing was a practice not followed by many. If indulged in,
men and women bathed together, or scrubbed each other in turn with
none of our present-day sense of modesty. Underwear was seldom
worn, and if worn was practically never changed. It was considered
such a luxury that we find a widow, one Sofia Banbarigo, leaving in her
will "one of her new chemises to dona Reni and one to dona Donado."
Elsewhere we find included in the pay of a maidservant "one chemise
a year." Cleanliness was entirely subordinated to outward appear-
ance y and the Venetians, both men and women, went about, like their
fellow-Europeans, in gorgeous silks and furs and jewels, with un-
washed bodies and absolutely filthy undergarments or none at all.

So the boys, with bobbed hair, wearing short tunics, and shoes or
sandals of leather or wood, ate their meal of vegetables, fruit, and fish
or sometimes meat the latter highly spiced, especially in summer,
when food spoiled easily and its taste had to be disguised and fared
forth.

Such streets as the city boasted were unpaved and muddy. The
women wore high pattens or clogs to keep their skirts out of the mud.
Sometimes the clogs were more than three feet high, almost like stilts,
and a fall while walking was highly dangerous, particularly in the case
of a pregnant woman. In fact the government some years later forbade
the use of these extremely high clogs, declaring that such accidents
caused expectant mothers to give birth to premature or misshapen
children. No efforts were made to keep the streets clean, and house-
wives threw refuse out before their doors. The scavengers were the

Sty* Bag Harm 73

pigs of the monastery of St. Anthony of Padua, which wandered at
will throughout the city.

On their way to the water front Marco Polo and his friends often
stopped to watch the glassworkers at their furnaces. They never ceased
to marvel at the dexterity with which the master-worker dipped his
blowpipe into the pot of glowing liquid, twisting and turning it as he
blew, and, swinging the incandescent bubble in the air, produced any
shape he desired as though by magic. They watched the workers
change the shape of the lump or bubble by dexterous movements of
their wrists, building complicated pieces by adding lumps or strips
from the furnace, then clipping off here and twisting there with their
steel shears and pincers, until they had evolved pieces of every con-
ceivable shape and color. The work was all done by the corporation
or guild of glassworkers, who guarded jealously the secrets of manu-
facture. The boys loitered, too, before the open workshops of the
weavers of silk and cloth of gold and silver and crimson damask, and
of the makers of the embroidered work for which Venice was famous
throughout Europe. The goldsmiths and leatherworkers and jewelers
all plied their trade in the open, and the boys watched with fascinated
eyes the artisans working on ornaments, rings, chains, filigree work,
plate and enamel panels, which were shipped to every corner of
Europe. They loved, too, to visit the bronze founders and workers in
metal, as well as the armorers and makers of weapons and chain-mail
for the pilgrims and soldiers and adventurers who were continually
passing through the city on their way to the East. The best examples
of the work of these craftsmen were saved for exhibition at festivals
and fairs, where they brought high prices, and advertised to the whole
world the magnificence and the eminence of the Queen of the Adriatic
in commerce, in riches, and in the arts and crafts of both East and West.

Finally, after many twistings and turnings and crossings of bridges
and following narrow footpaths, the boys reached the Arsenal, in the
eastern part of the city. It was rapidly becoming the greatest industrial
plant in the Western world. The centers of Venice's power and wealth
were the Rialto and St. Mark's and the palace of the Doge, but the
backbone of that power and wealth was the Arsenal. Built on two
islands, it had but one access to the lagoon, and at the time when Marco
and his young friends played about it massive walls were being built
to protect it.

74 Vittrtiittt Afcumittrwr: JHanro

The Arsenal manufactured every part needed in shipbuilding, as
well as complete war and merchant vessels. Anchors, rivets, cordage,
canvas, cannon, and castings all were produced within its walls, un-
der strict supervision of the state. The workmen, a carefully selected
group, had to undergo a certain amount of military training. From
among them were selected as well the police and the firemen of the
city, and to them went the honor of carrying the Doge around the
Piazza of St. Mark's after his election, and of serving as guards at
the ducal palace during the sessions of the Grand Council. The finest
workman was given the title of "High Admiral," and was the director
of all the laborers in the Arsenal. He had many privileges, wore spe-
cial state robes, and at a later day was the pilot of the Doge's barge
during the Ascension Day cercmcu -

The yards were heaped with all kinds of lumber fir for masts,
spans, and planks; larch for beams; walnut for rudders; elm for cap-
stans all brought from the forests of the mainland near by. Oak for
keels and ribs and planking was brought in from Istria and the Roma-
gna, and was stored under water for ten years after it had been cut and
shaped, in order to harden it and render it impervious to changes in
temperature. Smithies and workshops, ropewalks and foundries were
in continual operation, with ships in every stage of construction the
whole a playground paradise for small boys. It was an attraction to
their elders, too. To it came the poet Dante, and the place impressed
him so profoundly that he introduced it into the Divina Commedia,
comparing the lake of boiling pitch reserved for extortioners to the
boiling of pitch in the Venetian Arsenal.*

*lnjerno, XXI, 7-15:

Quale nelParsena de'Viniziani
Bolle Pinverno la tenace pece
A rimpalmar li legni lor non sani
Che navicar non ponno, e in quella vece
Chi fa il suo legno nuovo, e chi ristoppa
Le coste a quel che pui viagge fcce,
Chi ribatte di proda, e chi da poppa,
Altri fa remi, ed altri volge sarte,
Chi terzuolo id artimon rintoppa,
Tal, non per fuoco, ma per divina arte
Bollia laggiuso una pergola spessa,
Che inviscava la ripa da ogni parte.

<!Ltl*pttr atom: Sty* Bng fltarm 75

We are very proud of our mass production and look upon the
assembly lines of our great factories as one of the wonders of modern
industry. Yet all these methods were known to the arsenalotti of Ven-
ice. Pero Tafur, who visited the city in 1436, left the following vivid
picture of the speed with which war galleys were equipped once the
hull had been built:

And as one enters the gate there is a great street on either hand with the sea
in the middle,* and on one side are windows opening out of the houses of the
Arsenal, and the same on the other side. And out came a galley towed by a
boat, and from the windows they handed out to them, from one the cordage,
from another the bread, from another the arms, and from another the balistas
and mortars, and so from all sides everything that was required. And when the
galley had reached the end of the street all the men required were on board,
together with the complement of oars, and she was equipped from end to end.
In this manner there came out ten galleys fully armed, between the hours of
three and nine. I know not how to describe what I saw there, whether in the
manner of its construction or in the management of the workpeople, and I do
not think there is anything finer in the world.

It may be noted in passing that the speed with which the Venetians
could build ships was phenomenal. In 1570, during the Turkish War,
100 galleys were built and outfitted in as many days. We are told that
Henry III, King of France, during a visit to Venice in the summer
of 1574, inspected the Arsenal. A galley was shown him of which the
keel and ribs alone were in position. He then sat down to a two-hour
banquet. During that time the galley was fully constructed, com-
pletely equipped, armed, and launched in his presence.

From the Arsenal young Marco would often make his way along
the water front to the quays and piers where the activities of Venice,
the greatest commercial port of the Middle Ages, were centered.

The wharves were heaped high with Venetian products being
loaded for export salt, glass, salted fish, wooden utensils, and
wrought iron. Together with them were goods for reshipment to the
East, wares from other Italian cities, Germany, Hungary, and Dal-
matia, and even from France, Spain, and faraway England. Great
galleys, both long and round, lay at the docks disgorging their cargoes
newly arrived from the East: neatly stacked heaps of reddish sandal-
wood from Timor, filling the air with its heavy odor ; bales of silks and
cotton goods, cloth of every texture and color, from Damascus and

* Probably the Rio dell'Arsenale, which was the entrance to the Old Arsenal.

76 Hfttrttan Aim*tttttr*r: iBarrn 9010

Bagdad and Alexandria. Alongside lay bags of gums and medicines
gum arabic, cinnamon, cassia, rhubarb, and myrrh. Standing about
were busy ships' clerks and warehouse assistants, checking off goods,
weighing and measuring, arguing and comparing ; while merchants
stood by and watched carefully the unloading of the more precious
cargo precious stones, pearls, coral, gold and silver bars, and coin.
Heaped up in confusion were sacks and bales of sweet-smelling cloves
and nutmegs, camphor in bamboo tubes, pepper and ginger, ivory and
satinwood. Lying all about were columns and architraves, pedestals
and panels of stone and of polished marble loot from some long-
fallen temple on Syrian or Greek or Egyptian shore, brought to en-
rich and embellish St. Mark's or the other churches in course of erec-
tion everywhere in the city or to beautify the palace of some noble or
merchant prince.

These stones made convenient seats for the boys, who sat and
watched the busy scene about them much as young Dante sat a few
years later on a rough-hewn block of stone hard by the old Baptistery
and watched the Duomo, the cathedral of his beloved Florence, slowly
grow under the magic hand of the master builder. Though Dante came
to Venice shortly before his death in 1321, he and Marco Polo appar-
ently never met. One of them was destined to recount the undying
tale of the most wondrous journey of all time by land and sea to the
Golden East and back to Europe; the other was to become immortal
as the narrator of the greatest journey of the soul of man upward
through the realms of the spirit.

The picture was kaleidoscopic. There were ever new sights and
sounds. Here were long lines of women, interspersed with a few men,
all of a strange aspect and in outlandish garb, looking fiercely and sul-
lenly about them. They were slaves, just landed under guard from
the Levant, far from the lands where they were born, and en route to
the market and the auction block. There were sailors wandering aim-
lessly about, speaking in every known language, pushing, jostling,
laughing, joking, with an eye ever keen for a pretty form or face after
their many long weeks at sea.

Mingling in the crowd were often a handful of Jews, who had
come in their boats from Spinalunga, the island across the channel from
the Piazzetta. The Jews of Venice were gradually becoming very im-
portant in the Levantine trade, and though they were forced to live

Sum: JEty Sag dlarm 77

apart from their Christian neighbors, their value to the maritime in-
terests of the Republic was fully realized, and they were not molested.
To the boys, intent on all that went on, these Jews were just another
element in the motley throng that peopled the water front from dawn
to dusk and even far into the night.

Venetian boats sailed every sea and river in Europe. The flag of
the Lion of St. Mark was a familiar sight in every harbor worthy of
the name. Treaties and pacts bound the city in amicable relations with
Moslem and Christian alike. Venice dealt with the Sultan of Egypt
and the Khan of Tartary, with her sister cities of Italy and the Em-
peror of Germany.

Young Marco doubtless loved to watch the galleys enter and leave
the harbor, some under sail, some rowed by slaves or freemen. He was
fascinated by the many shapes and sizes of the vessels lying alongside
or at anchor. There were small boats for trade in the estuaries, larger
ones which ascended the rivers, great galleys to sail the high seas, and
ships of war, long and powerful, with their castelli amidships guarded
by slingers and bowmen, their decks laden with catapults, balistae, and
heaps of stone missiles, their bulwarks covered with im-pavesata or
bucklers of leather to keep off the Greek fire thrown by attackers, and
their prows armed with great beaks for ramming the enemy. All
about the water front and canals moved guard boats with men in armor,
on the watch for smugglers. Interspersed with the larger boats, mov-
ing swiftly hither and thither among the islands and beyond the lagoon,
were fishing boats, flat-bottomed, swift and easily steered, their sails
of red and orange glowing in the sunlight and casting strange bird-like
shadows on the water. Sometimes they passed, heaped high with sar-
dines and other fish , at others they narrowly missed boats coming to
market, heavily laden with pumpkins, grapes, figs, and pomegranates.
The boys knew the cut of every sail, the lines of every vessel of the
lagoons, and could tell from which island each came.

But Marco took most delight in listening to the sailors as they sat
about at their noonday meal or when they were loafing off duty. He
heard endless tales of war and piracy, of smuggling and shipwreck, of
weird happenings and amorous adventures in the far lands of the earth.
He absorbed and stored up in his active young brain divers odd bits
of knowledge, sea stories and legend, words and phrases of strange
tongues, practical points of nautical lore, the places whence came cer-

70 *tt*tt8tt Aittttnturrr: IKarro

tain goods, and where others fetched the best prices. Little did he
dream that some day he, the Venetian boy who sat hugging his knees
in round-eyed excitement at the tales of these common seafaring men,
would travel thousands of miles beyond the farthest traveled man of
them all and that the story of what he saw there would surpass any-
thing that the tired old ears of the world had ever heard before. And
still less did he dream that his tale, translated into all tongues, would
hold boys and men entranced and breathless six hundred long years
after he had gone to his rest in the city of his fathers.

Such was the Venice into which Marco Polo was born in the year
1254$ such were its men and women, its streets and its houses, its
palaces and churches, its customs and manners and morals, all of which
shaped his plastic young mind through its formative years.

And so Messer Nicolo Polo, landing with Messer Maffeo, his
brother, after their long absence from home in the far lands of the
earth, found his "son of fifteen years who had for name Marco," and
saw that the boy was comely and good.

Chapter

HE ARRIVAL of Nicolo and Maffeo in Venice marked a turn-
ing point in Marco's life. He now listened eagerly to his
elders' tales of the strange lands through which they had
traveled and the many peoples with whom they had dwelt,
their appearance, their dress, their manners and customs, and how their
lives and habits differed from those of the Venetians. The boy was
alert, intelligent, and insatiably curious. And his father took a great de-
light in answering his questions, so that Marco began to feel at last as
though he knew the countries of Asia and their peoples personally. He
even began to pick up some of the words and phrases in the Tartar and
Turkish and other strange languages in which his father and uncle often
conversed and which they even frequently interspersed in their Venetian
speech. He learned of the commodities which the various tribes and
peoples bought and sold, their various currencies, where each group
lived along the great caravan routes, what they ate and drank, how they
were born and married and buried, their religious beliefs and supersti-
tions. He was unconsciously storing up practical knowledge which was
to prove invaluable in the days to come.

Nicolo and his brother found it very difficult to settle down to the
comparatively humdrum existence of the city on the sea. The effect of
fifteen years of travel and life in faraway countries and amid strange
peoples had entered their blood, and they chafed at the restraint and
confinement in one place for long. Moreover, they felt that their stay
was but temporary, and that the time of their return to the East de-
pended only upon the election of a new Pope, which seemed endlessly
delayed.

BO ttt*titttt AJmrttturrr: JBarro |I010

Nicolo took unto himself a new wife and Marco found himself with
what he had never known before parents, and a home in which he was
more than a mere cousin or nephew.

The patience of Messer Nicolo and Messer Maffeo grew ever
shorter as month followed month. Two long years passed, with never
a sign of agreement on the man who should succeed to the throne of
St. Peter. The Polo brothers decided to wait no longer, for they feared
that the Great Khan would be disturbed at their failure to appear and
would believe that they did not intend to return. The greatest oppor-
tunity of their life would be lost if they delayed too long. Fortune
beckoned insistently, and they obeyed her urging.

One day Nicolo called Marco to him, and announced that they
had decided to take him along with them. Marco was now a man in
his father's eyes. In 1271 a Venetian youth of seventeen was fully
grown and ready to take his place in the world. He could hardly be
left at home as an apprentice or a clerk in some counting house when
a fortune awaited him in far Cathay. The boy could hardly believe
his ears. He, Marco Polo, was going to travel! No, not on a petty
unimportant voyage to the Dalmatian coast, or to Alexandria or Con-
stantinople or Syria or the Black Sea. These would have been more
than enough to make him the envy of every boy and young man in
Venice. He was going to the other end of the earth, to visit and live
in the cities of his recent dreams, those cities hardly ever seen by Euro-
pean eyes. He was to cross the whole world and see the shores of the
boundless ocean on the other side. He was setting out for the lands
of gold and silk and ivory and spices and precious stones. He was to
dwell in the capital of the Great Khan, who was a personal friend of
his father and his uncle.

Marco was one of the fortunate mortals of this earth, or perhaps
one of the most unfortunate: Fortunate because Fate granted him his
dearest wishes travel and wealth and distinction; unfortunate because
all these came to him in youth and early manhood. The evening of
his years, instead of being a glorious sunset after a brilliant day, seems
to have been a fading into a dull and gloomy twilight, deepening into
night, far from the lands where he had spent his youthful years and
where he had found joy and happiness and excitement and prominence,
and perhaps love. Destiny decreed that people were not to believe
his later tales of wonder, that his townsfolk were to make a mock and

Chapter Otyr**: gty* Jourttrij HI

a byword of him, and that his book, born of the heat and fire of the
adventures of his best years, was to be accepted as nothing more than a
romance and a pleasant tale to read or hear by the fireside of a cold
winter's night, along with tales of King Arthur and Huon of Bordeaux
and Tristan and Iseult. But all this was in the womb of time, and the
young Marco knew only the joy of living, the thrilling anticipatory
delights of travel and new scenes and adventures.

Again the Polos prepared to travel toward the rising sun, and again
Nicolo left his wife with child. Once more they made the rounds of
visits to their friends and, this time with Marco, heaped their luggage
into their gondolas and after a last farewell to their families wound
their way through echoing canals, between the shadowy high-walled
palaces and tenements, past markets and dark shops, and under the
arched bridges.

At last they reached the familiar docks. There were the Piazza and
the Piazzetta, with young Marco's friends the stone masons still pa-
tiently laying the pavement. There were the great bronze horses gleam-
ing in the sunlight, and the statue of St. Theodore smiling down at him
from the top of his lofty pillar as he passed. All the world seemed to
be singing in Venice that bright summer day of 1271, aglow with warm
marbles, blue sky, and sparkling water. Marco's heart sang with it as
he drew alongside the ship, clambered up on her deck, and looked back
upon the city he was leaving and south, beyond the Lido and the la-
goons, to the new world to which he was faring forth, news of which
he was destined to bring back to his fellow countrymen and the whole
world after many long weary years.

Never was the city which he was leaving to be so fair, so rich, so'
powerful again as when Marco left it on that day in all the impatience
and insouciance of youth. Da Canale, who has given us the description
of the installation of the Doge Lorenzo Tiepolo, has left us his vivid
impression of the city at the beginning of his chronicle:

Venice, today the most beautiful and the pleasantest city in all the world,
full of beauty and of all good things. Merchandise flows through this noble
city even as the water flows from the fountains. Venice is enthroned upon the
sea, and the salt water flows through it and about it and in all places, save in
the houses and on the streets, and when the citizens go forth, they can return
to their homes either by sea or by the streets. From every place come mer-
chandise and merchants, who buy the merchandise as they will and cause it to
be taken to their own countries. Within this city is found food in great abun-

The departure of the Polo brothers from Venice, Illuminated frontispiece of the
old folio manuscript (end of the fourteenth century, probably from Flanders or
England), Bodleian MS 264, This miniature represents the Polos on shore, embark-
ing in their small boat, then sailing away in their galley,
(Courtesy of the Bodleian Library)

aflfr**: Qty* Kaurtifg H3

dance, bread and wine, chickens and river fowls, meat, both fresh and salt, the
great fish both of the sea and of the rivers, and merchants of every country who
sell and buy. You may find in plenty within this beautiful city men of good
breeding, old and middle-aged and young, much to be praised for their noble
character, and merchants who sell and buy, and money changers and citizens
of every craft, and seafaring men of every sort, and vessels to carry [goods]
to every port, and galleys to destroy their enemies. Moreover, in this beautiful
city are fair ladies and damsels and young maidens in great number, and ap-
parelled very richly.

As the vessel slowly moved out from the wharves toward San
Giorgio Maggiore and the Lido, the boy could see a familiar high
building on the Riva degli Schiavoni, near the ducal palace. Torn
down long ago to make room for improvements, it was then known
from its two high towers as the Palazzo delle due Torri. It was a
prominent landmark in its day, and is pictured in a vividly colored
miniature in an early fifteenth-century manuscript of "the book of
Marco Polo" now in the Bodleian Library at Oxford. The miniature
represents the departure of the three Polos from Venice.

In this palace, in the year 1362, some forty years after the death
of Marco Polo, dwelt the poet Petrarch. From it he sent letters to a
friend, the secretary of the Pope, and in them Petrarch describes the
busy water front as he saw it and as it must have been a few short years
before on that memorable day when the Polos set sail from Venice:

See the innumerable vessels which set out from the Italian shore .... one
turning its prow to the east, the other to the west; some carrying our wine to
foam in British cups, our fruits to flatter the palates of the Scythians, and, still
more hard to believe, the wood of our forests to the Aegean and the Achaian
isles; some to Syria, to Armenia, to the Arabs and Persians, carrying oil and
linen and saffron, and bringing back all their divers goods to us Rest-
ing on their anchors close to the marble banks which serve as a mole to the vast
palace which this free and liberal city has conceded to me for my dwelling,
several vessels have passed the winter, exceeding with the height of their masts
and spars the two towers which flank my house. The larger of the two was at
this moment .... leaving the quay and setting out upon its voyage. If you
had seen it, you would have said it was no ship, but a mountain swimming upon
the sea, although under the weight of its immense wings a great part of it was
hidden in the waves.

The skyline of church and palace and tower sank swiftly below the
horizon, and even the slender campanile of St. Mark had faded and
vanished in the pale yellow gold of the twilight when the young man

04 3}*tt*ttatt Afctmtturm M&rto 9010

finally left the rail to unpack his baggage and settle down for the long
voyage.

Even though the Mediterranean had been traversed by countless
vessels since man first dwelt on its shores, men still feared it and its
storms. Not only were they in terror of these natural dangers, but they
ventured forth fearsomely because of their dread of unknown mon-
sters. Ludolph Von Suchem, a German churchman, has told of the
perils of Mediterranean sea-travel in his "Description of the Holy
Land" written about A.D. 1350:

I have often been in sundry storms at sea beyond all description .... In-
deed I know it to be true that there is no stone or sand at the bottom of the sea
that is not moved, if it can be moved, when the sea rages and raves thus, and
this is often proved among islands, where the sea is narrow, where an exceeding
great number of stones are cast from one shore to another in storms.

After describing strange winds and shoals and rocks and coral, we are
told of the sea-swine

which is greatly to be feared by small ships, for this same fish seldom or never
does any mischief to great ships unless pressed by hunger. Indeed, if the sailors
give it bread, it departs, and is satisfied; but if it will not depart, then it may
be terrified and put to flight by the sight of a man's angry and terrible face
.... Howbeit, the man must be exceedingly careful when he is looking at
the fish not to be afraid of it, but to stare at it with a bold and terrible counte-
nance, for if the fish sees that the man is afraid it will not depart, but bites
and tears the ship as much as it can.

Another fish men feared was the melar, which lurks near the coast
of Barbary. Ludolph was told that one of these fish bit a certain ship,
thinking it was good to eat :

And straightway the mariners, the servants of the ship, went down into the
hold, wishing to see where the ship was broken. They found that a fish's tooth,
as thick as a beam, and three cubits long, had pierced the ship .... As I was
wondering at the length and breadth of such a fish, the same sailor told me not
to wonder, because there was in the sea a fish a mile long.

And Ludolph saw whales spouting, and speculated about flying fish,
and wondered how far they could maintain their flight:

I have diligently inquired of knowing seamen whence these fish come, and
they have answered me that in England and Ireland there grow on the seashore
exceedingly beauteous trees, which bear fruit like apples. In these apples there
is bred a worm, and when the apples are ripe they fall to the ground, are broken
in the fall, and the worms fly out, having wings like bees. Those of them who

first touch the land become creatures of the air, and fly about with the other
fowls of the heavens; but such worms as first touch the water become creatures
of the water, and swim like fish, but yet sometimes wander into the other ele-
ment and exercise themselves by flight.

Ludolph was a bit cautious, for he added: "Whether they do so grow
upon trees I do not know beyond having the story, but they are eaten
like fish, and are seen to fly by men voyaging at sea." The "knowing
seamen" certainly had much amusement at the expense of the simple,
credulous pilgrim from far-off Germany.

These stories indicate how the sea was still feared by man. Marco
must have heard many such tales, and even taller ones from his friends
among the sailors on the water front of Venice and on the very boat
which took him to Syria. How he must have drawn his blanket just a
little closer over his head at night, when the wind rose and the tempest
roared and the lightning flashed and the little vessel rocked and tossed
as it was buffeted by the great seas and all the monsters of the deep
reached up with greedy clawing hands from the depths or screeched
and howled in the rigging, enraged at being cheated of their prey!

At last the long voyage came to an end. The coast of Syria was
sighted, and a few hours later Nicolo and his boy and Maffeo arrived
in the great city of Acre.

The same Ludolph, though he arrived in the city after it had been
taken and sacked by the Moslems, describes it as it must have appeared
to the eyes of the Venetian travelers in 1271:

This glorious city of Acre stands, as I have said, on ,the seashore, built of
square hewn stones .... with lofty and exceedingly strong towers ....
Each gate of the city stood between two towers.

There were "notable walls" all about the city.

The streets within the city were exceeding neat, all the walls of the houses
being of the same height and all alike built of hewn stone, wondrously adorned
with glass windows and paintings .... The streets of the city were covered
with silken cloths, or other fair awnings, to keep out the sun's rays.

The various kings, princes, and nobles of the Crusaders' kingdom
were there, and they

walked about the streets in royal state, with golden coronets on their heads, each
of them like a king, with his knights, his followers, his mercenaries and his
retainers, his clothing and his warhorse wondrously bedecked with gold and
silver, all vying one with another in beauty and novelty of device, and each man
apparelling himself with the utmost care.

06 BrtwtUm A&urntnrrr: JBarni

The pilgrim describes in great detail the castles and palaces and
the dwellings of the Knights Templars and other orders of chivalry.
Fortunately for our tale, Ludolph mentions the foreign merchants'
quarter in his description of the city of Acre:

There also dwelt in Acre the richest merchants under heaven, who were
gathered together therein out of all nations; there were Pisans, Genoese, and
Lombards .... There dwelt therein also exceeding rich merchants of other
nations, for from sunrise to sunset all parts of the world brought merchandise
thither, and everything that can be found in the world that is wondrous or
strange used to be brought thither because of the nobles and princes who dwelt
there.

After taking lodgings in the Venetian quarter, the Polos imme-
diately sought out their friend Teobaldo of Piacenza, and consulted
with him as to their future movements. They desired to fulfill as
many of the requests of Kublai Khan as possible, so as not to return
to him empty-handed. They therefore asked Teobaldo's permission
to proceed to Jerusalem to obtain some holy oil from the lamp ever
burning above the sepulchre of Jesus. Having received his consent to
the journey, the Polos again boarded ship and sailed south to Joppa and
thence made the journey of thirteen leagues overland to the Holy City.

Jerusalem and the surrounding country were as a magnet to the
medieval world. Sacred to three religions, the city of David had been
the center of strife and pilgrimage for centuries. Crusader and Mos-
lem were continually at war over it, and the poor townsfolk were sel-
dom at peace. It was the goal of countless pilgrimages from all over
Europe, and many of these pious travelers of the Middle Ages have
left remarkable tales of what they saw and believed about the "sights"
of the city. In their naivete they accepted every tale or legend told
them with unquestioning credulity. There was something to be shown
to convince the visitor of the absolute truth of nearly every verse in
both the Old and the New Testament, though most of the pilgrims took
great interest in the scenes of the life and passion of their Lord. Seem-
ingly nothing had been lost or destroyed since the beginning of the
world. Evidences of the veracity of every phrase of the Gospels were
to be seen on all sides, and the city swarmed with guides eager to con-
duct the visitors from place to place.

Burchard of Mount Sion, a German Dominican monk, came to
Palestine about 1282. At the foot of the Mount of Olives he visited

fflfjaptrr Uftirtti ^t Snurtteg 07

the Garden of Gethsemane and there saw the imprint of Jesus' head
and hair and knees on a rock so hard that a chisel could not remove
even a little dust. Burchard has described also the place where Marco
and his father and uncle obtained the holy oil:

The cave wherein is the Lord's sepulchre is eight feet long and likewise
eight feet wide. It is entirely cased with marble on the outside, but within it
is bare rock, even as it was at the time of His burial. The doorway into this
cave is entered from the east, and is very low and small.

On the right hand as one enters is the tomb of the holy sepulchre, against
the north wall. It is of gray-colored marble, and is three palms above the sur-
face of the pavement, and eight feet long, even as is the crypt or cave itself*
within, and is closed on every side. No light from without can be had inside,
because there is no window to bring light into it; but nine lamps hang above
the Lord's sepulchre, which give light within.

Burchard describes the stone at the entrance to the cave as part of
the very one which was rolled away from the entrance after the death
of Jesus. He also saw the hole where the cross was erected, still red
with blood, and part of the stone pillar where Jesus was scourged, and
the spot where St. Helena found the true cross.*

Marino Sanudo, a noble Venetian who visited Palestine in 1321,
wrote several chapters describing the country in a book with the quaint
title, Secrets for True Crusaders to Help Them to Recover the Holy
Land. He was shown, among other things, the prison where Jesus was
confined, the chamber of the Last Supper, and the basin in which the
disciples' feet were washed and "hard by are the tombs of Solomon,
David and the other Kings of Judah." At the south of Mount Zion
he saw "the field that was bought for the thirty pieces of silver for
which Christ was sold by Judas." Sanudo was shown also Pilate's
house and that "of the traitor Judas, where he dwelt with his wife and
children."

The same Ludolph who has described for us the perils of a pilgrim
at sea also visited the holy places in and about Jerusalem. He saw a
pit in Bethlehem where

the Blessed Virgin lay hid for three days for fear of Herod, and suckled the
Child Jesus there. In her fear she chanced to let fall some of her milk upon a
stone in that place, which milk is there even to this day. The milk oozes out

* It is interesting to note that the Colonna family of Rome derives its name from
the fact that one of its ancestors carried off a part of this same column to the Eternal
City.

Bfi Vrttrtitttt AZm*tttr*r: iN*rra

of the stone like moisture, and is a milky colour with a tinge of red. The more
of the milk is scraped off, the more is restored in the same quantity, and no more.
This is the milk which may be seen, and is shown in many different churches;
for it is taken away hither and thither by the pilgrims.

He saw, too, the rocky cave into which many of the bodies of the
slaughtered Innocents were cast, and he tells us sadly that "this rock
has been almost entirely carried away by pilgrims."

Ludolph visited the tomb of Rachel and "the pit into which Joseph
was cast by his brethren, and sold to the Ishmaelites." He also saw the
Dome of the Rock, and believed that he was gazing upon the Temple
of Solomon. He made a pilgrimage in his turn to the Church of the
Holy Sepulchre. He tells how the sepulchre itself is covered with
white marble:

The stone which covers it on the front side has three holes pierced through
it, and through those holes one can kiss the true stone thereof. This stone where-
with the sepulchre is cased is so cunningly joined on to the sepulchre that to the

ignorant it seems to be all one stone It is and ever has been kept most

carefully guarded. Indeed, if Christ's sepulchre could be carried away in grains
of sand it would have been so carried away long ago, even had it been a great
mountain, so that scarce one grain of sand would have remained on the spot.

Ludolph gives us also a bit of interesting information about the
exact place where the Polos bought their oil:

Now, as for the lamps and candlesticks which are said to be round about the
Holy Sepulchre, I declare that there is no lamp or candlestick whatever round
about the sepulchre; but there dwell in the Church of the Holy Sepulchre
ancient Georgians who have the key of the Chapel of the Holy Sepulchre, and
food, alms, candles, and oil for lamps to burn round about the Holy Sepulchre
are given them by pilgrims through a little window in the south door of the
church.

A pilgrim of the twelfth century tells of seeing a beautifully
adorned lamp which burned over the sepulchre, one which went out
of itself at the ninth hour each Good Friday and lighted itself again
on Easter Sunday at the hour of Jesus 7 resurrection. He was told that
this lamp had been placed there by Martha and her brother Lazarus.
Possibly some vague report of this miracle was the reason for Kublai's
desire to possess some of the oil. It was evidently quite a usual custom
for visitors to take away with them some of the blessed oil, for an early
pilgrim who visited the sepulchre describes the lamp at the head of the
sepulchre as having been placed there when Jesus was laid in the grave,

(ttfjapter QHpr**: 3Hj* Sxwrtttg H3

and asserts that it has burned on the same spot day and night ever since.
He also informs us that he took some of the oil away with him as a
blessing, and replenished the lamp with fresh oil.

After obtaining the blessed oil the Polos returned at once to Acre.
There they again appeared before Teobaldo, and declared that, even
though no Pope had been elected and no early election was indicated,
they felt it their duty to return at once to the court of the Mongol
Emperor. At their earnest request Teobaldo gave them official letters
to him. These letters certified that the brothers had made every effort
to do Kublai's bidding, but that the death of the Pope and the con-
tinued failure of the cardinals to elect another had prevented their re-
turn sooner. Teobaldo, as the representative of the Church, assured
the Lord of the Mongols that he would be informed when a new
Pope had been elected and that every effort would then be made to
carry out his wishes.

As soon as the Polos received the documents they packed their goods
and set forth from Acre. They had proceeded only as far as Laias
when they were delayed by a rebellion led by one of the grandsons
of the Great Khan. Troops and refugees blocked the caravan routes
and made further progress impossible. Before the roads were cleared,
a courier arrived from Acre to notify the travelers that their friend
Teobaldo had himself been elected Pope and that the newly elevated
Apostle, who had taken the title Gregory X, had summoned them to
return at once to him at Acre. The King of Armenia, who regarded
the brothers as official papal ambassadors, sent them back to the city on
an armed galley with Gregory's messenger. On their arrival they im-
mediately presented themselves before the Pope to felicitate him on
his elevation to the throne of St. Peter and to receive his orders.

Marco tells us that they were welcomed with great honor and
feasting, and that they received a special blessing; for Gregory hoped
to spread the teachings of the Church through them to the far-off
heathen land of Cathay. The new Pope evidently found a great dearth
of priests capable of teaching and willing to venture into the unknown
lands of the East, for he selected but two to go with the Venetians-
Brother Nicolas of Vicenza and Brother William of Tripoli. These
men belonged to the Order of Preaching Friars; and one of them,
William, was well known in his day as the author of a book on Mo-
hammed and the Saracens. Gregory conferred on the Friars plenary

90 *tt*ttett Aft tmt turn*: JRarra

power to ordain bishops and priests and to act in his place, gave them
jewels and other gifts to take to the Great Khan on his behalf, and sent
them forth on their mission with his papal blessing.

After all this had been done, the three Venetians and the two Friars
returned to Laias and set out on their long journey toward the East.
No sooner had they entered Armenia than they heard that Baybars,
"the Arbalaster," who had risen from slavery to the throne of the
Mamelukes, was invading the land with his Saracen host, sacking and
laying waste the countryside far and wide. The danger to the travelers
was very real, but they determined to push on. The two Friars, how-
ever, were terrified beyond all measure, and were sure that they were
going to lose their precious lives. They would not go on, and cast about
for some way in which they could return to the greater safety of the
seacoast. Evidently they were not fired with that white-hot zeal for
the faith which had impelled so many of their fellows to cross burning
sands and snowclad mountains in order to convert the heathen in the
uttermost lands of the earth. Comfort, good food, and a pleasant life
among their own people meant far more to them. Even the fact that
they were traveling with men protected by the letters of the Pope and
the golden tablet of the Mongol Emperor did not reassure them.

Very fortunately for the Friars there happened to be in the neigh-
borhood a company of Templars on their way back to Acre by sea. The
Knights Templars, or the "Poor Knights of Christ and the Temple of
Solomon," were not unknown to the Venetians, as they had often met
with them elsewhere on their travels. Shortly after Baldwin I of Jeru-
salem had ascended his throne in the year noo he had granted the
Knights part of his palace next to the so-called "Temple of Solomon,"
whence they had taken their name. Their power spread rapidly, and
they maintained establishments in almost every city of the West. Not
only did they fulfill the original aims of the Order the guarding of
the roads to the Holy Land and constant battling with the infidel
but during the thirteenth century they became a real financial power
in both Europe and the Levant. Their commanderies were in constant
correspondence with each other, and their prestige and their military
power combined to make them the natural depositaries of the wealth
of the nobles for safety and for transmission from one city to another.
Gradually even kings used them as their agents. "They wear white
mantles with a red cross, and when they go to the wars a standard of

OHptptrr 3ttpr**: 3ty

two colours called balzaus [bauceant] is borne before them

These Templars live under a strict religious rule, obeying humbly,
having no private property, eating sparingly, dressing meanly, and
dwelling in tents." Thus they are described by a pilgrim who saw
them in Jerusalem in 1185. Beside their land in Syria and Palestine
they had property and political influence in Cilicia, and, as Marco's
narrative indicates, in Armenia also.

The Friars, mindful of the opportunity to return to Acre well-
guarded and free from all danger to their pious skins, refused to go a
step farther. They threw themselves on the mercy of the Master of
the Templars and pleaded to be allowed to return under his protection
to Acre. This was granted, and the two men departed, after handing
over to the Polos the letters and gifts destined by the Pope for the
Great Khan. Campi, the writer of the "Ecclesiastical History of Pia-
cenza," with a malicious gleam in his eye closes his account of the
incident by stating that they returned without making any report of
the matter to Pope Gregory, who believed them to be still on their
journey with the Polos.

Nicolo and Maffeo were in no way daunted by the defection of
cowardly Brother Nicolas and Brother William. They had traveled
the road before; they spoke the languages of the country; they bore
letters and gifts from the Supreme Pontiff of the Western world to
the greatest monarch of the East; and, most important and valuable
of all, they had in their possession the gold tablet sealed with the sign
manual of the great Kublai himself. This in itself was a safe-conduct,
an "open sesame" and a guaranty of food, shelter, and protection
throughout practically all the territory which they were about to trav-
erse.

There have been countless arguments and many books written in
an effort to trace the route followed by the three Polos from Laias
to the place where they at last met Kublai Khan. Marco does not out-
line the journey in the first part of his book. One brief page covers
the long journey from Venice to Shangtu. He stated that he inten-
tionally omitted making any mention of the places, peoples, and ad-
ventures met en route "because we shall tell it to you in order in its
proper place below." However, he does say that they traveled through
many perils and hardships with unflagging courage for three years and
a half. They traversed burning deserts many days' journey in length,

32 VrttetUm Afctmtturm iHarm

and crossed many difficult mountain passes, "always in the direction of
the Greek wind [the northeast] and the Tramontana [the Pole-star,
hence the north] ." He explains that the excessive length of the journey
was caused by heavy snows and ice, the necessity of crossing great rivers,
and by contrary winds which interfered with traveling. Moreover, he
points out, they could in no wise proceed as swiftly or as easily in winter
as in summer.

Even though we cannot follow with certainty the exact route of
the travelers, references by Marco throughout his book and vivid de-
scriptions of some of his personal experiences give us a general idea of
the itinerary and of what he and his father and his uncle encountered
on their long journey to the East and back to Venice.

The first country through which they passed was "Little Armenia"
(Cilicia), of which Laias was the port. It was the center of a very large
and flourishing trade in cotton and spices. In his detailed description
of the very first country of the domains of the Great Khan which he
visited, Marco indicates his interests and gives us the attitude of mind
that we shall find throughout his work. He discusses trade, hunting,
the religion and politics of the country, and the manners and customs
of the people. Of the latter he sadly tells us that though they are
Christians they are not good Christians, for they are not "as the Ro-
mans are." He asserts that once they were doughty and valiant war-
riors, but now "they are without any good qualities, but are the best
sort of drinkers."

From Cilicia the travelers passed through modern Anatolia, which
he calls "Turcomania." Marco informs us that the Turcomans weave
the finest and most beautiful rugs in the world. One Latin manuscript
of this chapter contains a most interesting and significant paragraph,
contrasting as it does the bigoted, fanatical, narrow-minded religious
ideas of thirteenth-century Europe with the tolerant, broadminded out-
look of the Mongol monarchs, rulers of broad domains and peoples of
most diverse faiths:

Those Tartars have no concern as to what god is worshipped in their terri-
tories. As long as you are faithful to the Khan, and very submissive, and thus
give the tribute which is fixed by decree, and justice is well served, you may do
as you please about your soul. Nevertheless they are unwilling that you speak
evil of their souls, or that you should interfere with their acts. Do whatsoever
you will about God and about your soul, whether you be Jew or pagan or
Saracen or Christian who dwell among the Tartars.

OHyaptnr Qtyrm 31j* 3tettrtt*g 33

With such far-seeing wisdom did the Tartars grant freedom of thought
to all within their borders, and keep religious peace among the diverse
inhabitants of their dominions.

After passing through Turcomania, the travelers reached Great
Armenia. There, the Venetian tells us, stands Noah's ark on the top
of Mount Ararat. According to the Armenian Prince Hayton, who,
while he was Prior of the monastery of the Premontres de Poitiers
in 1307, wrote a history of his country, "this mountain is higher than
any other in the world." Both Marco and Hayton tell the same tale
that the mountain cannot be ascended because of the heavy snows
which blanket it both summer and winter, but that at the top some-
thing black (the ark) protrudes from the snow and can be seen at all
times.

Among other things seen by .the travelers in this region, the most
noteworthy was what Marco called "a fountain from which oil flows
in such a great abundance that a hundred shiploads [camel-loads?]
of it may be taken from it at one time. This oil is not fit to use as food,
but it is excellent for burning and for anointing camels which have the
mange or the itch. People come from far distant places to obtain it,
for in all the countries round there is no other oil."

This brief reference by Marco to petroleum, the use of which has
revolutionized the industries of the entire world, is a striking example
of the neglect by the peoples of the Middle Ages of products and
processes used extensively by the ancient Mediterranean peoples and
then entirely forgotten again until our own times. Forms of both bitu-
men and petroleum had been used by the Egyptians, the Mesopotamian
peoples, the Persians, and the Romans. Their employment ranged
from mummy preservation to burning for both heat and light, and
much use was made of them for waterproofing, for binding brickwork,
and on roads. Our deep-drilling methods were, of course, unknown
except by the Chinese, who drilled as early as 200 B.C., and went to
a depth of 3,500 feet with crude bronze drills and bamboo casings.
Many of the classical writers mention both bitumen and petroleum
and describe their properties fairly accurately.

Crude petroleum was an article of commerce in the Roman Im-
perial era. In 624 the Emperor Heraclius invaded the Baku region
and destroyed many temples where the Persians prayed before burn-
ing wells of natural gas. Agricola, in his famous De Re Metallica,

94 Vnttttan Ato*tttttr*r: Harm {tain

so wonderfully translated by Herbert Hoover and his wife, speaks of
the collection of "liquid bitumen" and gives a woodcut of the process.
The ancient Babylonians used torches soaked in crude oil, and the Ro-
mans burned it in lamps. The later Romans used it as fuel in their
central heating plants and in their great baths. Gradually, however,
after the decay of the Empire and the destruction of great homes and
public buildings, the use of petroleum as a fuel among the peoples of
the Mediterranean area was discontinued and was not revived until
the eighteenth century, in the district around Baku described by Marco
Polo.

A limited use of petroleum did survive through medieval times in
several ways, in addition to its use in warfare. We are solemnly as-
sured by Aethicus Istricus, writing in the eighth century, that if armor
is dipped in a mixture of petroleum and the blood of a child, it will
become impenetrable by any known weapon. "Mummy," a sovereign
medieval medicine for many ailments, was obtained from the scrapings
of the bitumen-saturated clothes and visceral cavity-fillings of mum-
mies of the Ptolemaic era in Egypt.

If Marco Polo was not aware of the use of petroleum in battle,
it was not because he had not seen the finished product in action. The
famous "Greek fire" was employed in warfare for hundreds of years
after its invention, or development, probably by a Greek architect,
Kallinikos, who lived in Constantinople about 650 A.D. It is supposed
to have been a mixture of petroleum and quicklime. It was ignited
spontaneously by the simple addition of water, and was projected
against the enemy from pumps or siphon-like structures at the prows
of war galleys. A quaint picture of the fleet of Michael II (826-
829) spraying the vessels of the rebel Joannes with this terrible sub-
stance appears in Vatican Code No. 1605. Its use rapidly spread as far
as China in the eighth century another evidence of the intercourse
between East and West in the Middle Ages. A variant way of using
Greek fire was to load it into pottery hand-grenades, which were
then flung upon the enemy's decks or into the midst of his advancing
host. The Arab armies of the fourteenth century had special "naf-
fatyn" or "naphtha throwers," who, wearing fireproof clothes, threw
jars of burning naphtha from catapults. Finally, because of the great
suffering and useless loss of life entailed by the use of Greek fire, the
Second Lateran Council decreed in 1139 that it should no longer be

SUpr**: Qty* Sournrg 05

used in European warfare. This ruling of the Supreme Pontiff was
obeyed for several centuries, and after 1400 Greek fire is seldom if
ever mentioned in accounts of warfare.

The next city mentioned by the Venetian travelers is Mosul, where
"all the most beautiful cloths of gold and silk which are called <mo-
sulin' are made." Mosul stands on the western bank of the Tigris,
opposite the site of ancient Nineveh, and was so famous for the fine
stuffs woven on its looms that we still use the word "muslin" to desig-
nate certain finely woven textiles.

In describing Mosul, Marco mentions the Nestorian Christian
Church. This sect took its name from Nestorius, Patriarch of Con-
stantinople, who had been deposed in 43 1 as a heretic by the Council
of Ephesus. His heresy consisted in his belief that in Jesus there were
two persons, one the divine, the other the man, the one dwelling in
the other. After the deposition of their Patriarch, many of Nestorius'
followers wandered out over Asia, teaching, converting, and founding
churches as they went. In the year 735 a band of them under A-lo-pen
reached Ch'ang-an, the capital of the T'ang Dynasty. There they pe-
titioned the Emperor T'ai Tsung for permission to build a church. The
broad-minded, tolerant Chinese monarch generously granted their re-
quest, and for many decades they taught and obtained converts. They
later set up a tablet inscribed in both Chinese and Syriac, reciting part
of the Old and New Testament versions of world history and Christian
origins, and describing the coming of A-lo-pen and his band to China.

During the religious persecutions of the later T'ang era (ended in
907), the community was evidently dispersed and its church destroyed.
The so-called "Nestorian Tablet" was buried, perhaps by the priests,
who hoped for better times, when they could restore the shrine of their
faith. It was not heard of again until 1625, when it was unearthed
during some excavation work being done on the foundations for a new
viceregal yamen. News of the find, with rubbings of the inscription,
was then brought to the Jesuits at Peking. Further investigations were
made, and the inscription was translated. Though controversies raged
for many years as to the authenticity of the relic, scholars are now gen-
erally agreed that the stone is genuine and that it constitutes one of
the most unique religious monuments of the world. It still stands
very near the place where it was brought to light over three hundred
years ago.

56 Vtttttian Afcttnttitm: Jfiarro

It is not at all certain that the Polos visited Bagdad, as Marco's
description of the city is most vague. Bagdad had been destroyed by
Hulaku Khan in 1268, and, as it was rapidly losing its commercial im-
portance, it was perhaps no longer on the main caravan route. Be this
as it may and scholars are by no means in full agreement Marco
tells us the wondrous tale of a miracle which occurred "between Bag-
dad and Mosul."

It appears that about the year 1275 there was a very cruel Caliph
ruling in Bagdad. He hated the Christians and wished to do them great
evil. His wise men informed him that in the Christian Gospels was a
passage which stated that if a man had as much faith as a mustard seed
he could command a mountain to move and it would move. The Sara-
cens perceived in this the opportunity they had been seeking. The
Caliph summoned the Christians before him and demanded that such
a miracle be performed by someone among them under pain of exter-
mination, "by an evil death," of all the worshipers of Jesus. He offered
them but one alternative if the miracle were not performed conver-
sion to Mohammedanism and granted them a respite of ten days in
which to prepare. The Christians were terrified, and prayed most stren-
uously that they might be delivered from such a cruel fate. They fasted
and prayed, "both men and women for eight days and eight nights."
And at the end of that time an angel from Heaven appeared in a vision
to one of the bishops, "a man of very holy life." The angel spoke and
commanded the bishop to seek out a certain Christian cobbler who had
but one eye. He described the cobbler and where he lived. Thereupon,
with the assurance that the miracle would be wrought, the divine mes-
senger vanished into thin air. The same vision appeared unto the good
bishop several times before he accepted it and bestirred himself.

Now I must tell you of this cobbler, and why he came to have but
one eye. He was very honorable and lived a chaste and pure life. He
fasted much, committed no sin, and had perfect faith. He went to serv-
ices every day and prayed often, and gave of his food and his earnings
to charity. He had often heard in church the admonition that if a man's
hand sinned he should cut it off and cast it from him, and that if a man's
eye sinned it should be plucked out or blinded, "because," as one manu-
script has it, "it is better to enter Paradise with one eye than hell with
two."

Now it happened one day, before the Caliph had issued his cruel

3firorn?jj 97

and inhuman decree, that a comely and beautiful young woman entered
the cobbler's shop to purchase a pair of shoes. The cobbler beheld her
beauty, and asked to see her foot and leg in order to fit her properly.
The young woman thereupon unhesitatingly lifted her skirt, removed
her shoe, and revealed her leg and foot. One could not ask to see any-
thing more beautiful, and the simple cobbler was seized with carnal
desire at the sight and was sorely tempted to sin. But after a moment's
weakness he recovered his self-control and purity of mind and let the
woman go without even selling her any shoes. And then, alas, the poor
man remembered the Gospel teaching, as his naive mind interpreted it.
His conscience smote him, for he felt that he had grievously sinned with
his eye. So he seized an awl from his workbench, sharpened it to a fine
point, and plunged it into his right eye, so that its sight was totally
destroyed. In this way did the good man purge himself of his sin and
regain his pristine virtue.

So the bishop and his followers summoned the holy cobbler to them
and told him of the vision. After many protestations and lamentations
on both sides, the cobbler finally consented to pray for the miracle to
happen. On the tenth day the whole congregation went forth to the
mountain, and the cobbler fell on his knees and prayed and cried aloud
to the mountain to move. And, behold, the mountain moved forth-
with of itself with a great roar and rumble and trembling of the earth,
and betook itself bodily to the spot designated by the Caliph, a full
mile from its original position. Whereupon the Caliph was amazed,
and many of his followers became Christians. And in an epilogue
Marco tells us that the Caliph himself was baptized, but in secret, lest
the Saracens revolt. Moreover, when he died a gold cross was found
hanging about his neck, and he was buried apart from his ancestors,
who were heathens.

The traveler's next important stop was at Tabriz, a very large trade
center, where men gathered from all parts of the earth and where the
Genoese had a flourishing colony of merchants. The Spaniard, Clavijo,
who visited Tabriz not long after the Polos, has left an interesting
description of it. It was a city without walls, lying in a valley among
mountains, some of which were snow-covered.

The city has many beautiful streets and lanes and great market places whose
entrances resemble shops. And inside the markets are houses and stores laden
with goods, as well as passages and gates which lead from one street to the

00 Urnrttan Afctmtturrr: fBarrn

other, and there are sold there woven stuffs of silk and cotton, sandalwood, taffe-
tas, silk and pearls. In one of the arcades of the market place are merchants who
sell perfumes and cosmetics for the women, who come themselves to buy these
products. The women are wrapped in white veils and wear horsehair nets
before their eyes. In the streets and squares of this city there are many wells
and fountains. In the spring lumps of ice are put in these, and goblets of copper
or pewter are placed on the well curbs, so that all who pass may quench their
thirst.

In Tabriz Marco beheld for the first time the world's greatest pearl
market, for thither were brought the great stores of pearls obtained
from the fisheries on the Persian Gulf. There they were polished,
matched, bored, and strung, and from there were distributed through-
out the world. The youth he was now very rapidly approaching man's
estate, even by our standards of maturity was fascinated by the strange
method employed in buying pearls: After appraising the precious ob-
jects with the eyes of experts, the buyer and the seller would squat
opposite each other, throw a cloth over their hands, and then argue
price and quality by pressure of the hidden fingers and wrists, thus
keeping bystanders ignorant of the terms of the transaction.*

So the Polos continued on their way, buying, selling, gathering in
profits, and making the stock of money and merchandise which they
had brought with them from faraway Venice turn over and over to
their advantage. And all along the way Marco was learning the ways
of men, of travel, and of trafficking. He gradually acquired enough
words to express himself adequately in the Tartar dialect used by Ni-
colo and Maffeo, not only in transacting business, but more and more
among themselves. He picked up, too, words and phrases of Arabic
and Persian, and of the other tongues spoken along the great Asiatic
highways.

Our Marco was rapidly becoming a man of the world, and his re-
marks show that women were no longer objects of indifference to his

* This method of bargaining is common in the Orient today. At the auctions of
jade in Canton, from where most of the jade mined in Yunnan and Burma is distributed
through China for carving and sale, something of the same procedure is followed. The
auction is conducted in silence. After the piece of jade to be auctioned has been
examined, each bidder steps up to the auctioneer, thrusts his hand into the latter's
wide sleeves, and by pressure of different finger-combinations on his arm makes known
his bid. After these have all been made and entered on paper, the auctioneer looks
over the list and without further ado announces the successful bidder. The practice
of silent, hidden bidding within the sleeve still obtains throughout China in many
mercantile transactions where prices are not fixed.

: lj* Snurnry 00

keen-seeing, all-appraising, young eyes. His greatest joy, however, was
in hunting, and he had his fill of the sport in a land swarming with
game. Many a fine day he spent on horseback with bow and arrow
and falcons while his father and uncle were busy with their eternal
bargaining.

Slowly the caravan wound its way along the well-worn, age-old
road, leaving Venice and the sea ever farther behind. In Saba he saw
the tombs of the three Magi who had set out from there to visit the
infant Jesus in the manger at Bethlehem. He assures us that the bodies
of Balthasar, Caspar, and Melchior were still preserved just as they
had been in life, with hair and beard intact. Whereupon he weaves
a weird, involved, and vague tale to prove that the fire-worship of the
Persians (still surviving among the Parsis of India) grew out of the
visit of the Magi to Palestine. For the infant Jesus gave the Three
Kings a stone to remind them to be as strong and firm in their faith
as it was when they departed from him. In mockery they flung the
stone down a well, and forthwith fire came down from heaven and
entered the well, and a great flame sprang up therefrom. And the
Magi took of the fire and carried it home with them and set it up in
their churches and worshiped it.

Marco tells at length of the industries of the country, and the fruits
and grains and birds and beasts, and of the cunning embroidery of the
women. There, too, he saw much turquoise (the "Turkish stone")
brought from the mines of Kerman. It was a stone much valued by
the ancient peoples of Persia, and is still mined in the region. The
common people considered it a stone of evil omen and believed that it
came from the bones of peoples who had died from unrequited love.
Therefore, they reasoned, the stone would bring bad luck in love to
the wearer. Marco also mentions the fine steel of the region. He, in
common with most of the people of the Middle Ages, believed steel to
be an entirely different metal from iron and not derived from the same
ore.

On the travelers rode for seven days from Kerman to the top of a
mountain pass. This took them two days to traverse, and they suffered
much from intense cold. Thereafter they crossed a great and fruitful
plain, where Marco saw and described the white-humped cattle and the
.great fat-tailed sheep "and their tails are so large and fat that one
tail may weigh thirty pounds."

100 Vtttrtiatt Atatttturtr: Utarro

Now the Venetians were entering a dangerous region, for this part
of Persia was infested with bandits, called Caraunas. Marco states that
they are the sons of Indian mothers by Tartar fathers. Because of them
the merchants nearly lost their lives and the world one of its most
fascinating books. Nogodar, leader of the banditti, fell upon their cara-
van with his men in one of the fogs prevalent in the region (but which
Marco ascribes to the black magic of the Caraunas). The members of
the party, taken unaware, fled in every direction. Marco, together with
his relatives and some of his men, seven in all, escaped to a village near
by. All the others were caught and put to death or sold into slavery.
"Thus," says Marco in the simple, reserved, impersonal style with
which he refers to so many of his most exciting adventures, "I have
recounted the matter to you just as it occurred. And now we shall go on
to tell you of other things."

After collecting such of their belongings as had been left behind
by the bandits, and reorganizing their caravan, the indomitable Vene-
tians pushed on toward their goal, the city of Hormuz, on the Persian
Gulf. There they planned to embark for China, as that medieval city
was the terminus of the maritime trade between the Far East and
Persia. The journey lasted seven days, of which the first part was a
steep descent from the Iranian plateau through a mountain pass in-
fested (and still infested) by bandits. The remainder of the journey
to Hormuz was over a beautiful well-watered plain, full of dates,
pomegranates, oranges, and other fruits, and swarming with bird life.

Hormuz was situated on the mainland during the time of the Polos'
visits. It was later destroyed by raiding tribes, and "the inhabitants
moved their city to an island five miles distant from the mainland" as
it is described by Odoric de Pordenone, who visited the place in 1321.
It was an ancient city; there Nearchus, the leader of Alexander the
Great's forces, had beached his fleet to allow his sailors to rest on the
return from the great Indian expedition of 327-325 B.C. Long after
Marco visited Hormuz it was captured (in 1507) by the Portuguese
under Affonso Albuquerque, the founder of Portugal's Eastern Em-
pire. With the discovery of new sea routes to India it rapidly lost its
importance, and became a tiny, obscure town.

The Polos found Hormuz, where they had planned to take ship
for China, not at all to their liking. The heat was excessive and the
land unhealthy. If a foreign merchant happened to die in the country,

QUyaptrr JF^rrr: Qty* 3/imrnrg 101

the king seized all his possessions for himself. The wine made from
dates and spices was good to drink, but it acted as a violent purgative
upon those who, like the Polos, were not used to it. "The people do
not eat bread or meat when they are well, as it will make them ill. If
they are ill then only do they partake of meat and bread. Their custo-
mary diet consists of dates, dried tunny fish, garlic, and onions." Ibn
Batuta, who visited the place about the year 1325, tells us that the
people of the city had a proverb to the effect that "fish and dates make
a meal fit for an emperor." But Marco and his companions found the
diet monotonous and unwholesome.

He describes the people as black worshipers of Mahomet. He found
the hot winds in summer intolerable, and tells of the way in which the
inhabitants, when such a wind sweeps down upon them, stand neck deep
in water until the wind passes by. Marco further recounts that during
his stay in the city a force of 6,500 men sent by the King of Kerman
arrived to enforce the collection of tribute. They were caught by the
dread simoon or hot wind while encamped in the wilderness not far from
the city, and every man of them was suffocated. In connection with
this he recites the curious fact, corroborated by later travelers, that the
bodies of people who die thus decompose so rapidly that it is almost
impossible to handle them for burial.

The light-hearted Italian was much disturbed by the elaborate
mourning of the widows of Hormuz for their husbands, and notes that
they met with their kinf oik every day for four years to indulge in loud
wails and lamentations. In addition they hired professional women
mourners to help them.

Probably Marco Polo would not have expatiated as he did on the
unpleasantness of Hormuz had it not been that all his plans and those
of his father and uncle were upset, and much time thus lost, by what
they found in the city. Their abrupt return inland after arriving at
the seaport, and the consequent loss of months of time, plainly indicate
that something happened to cause them to renounce the journey to
China by sea. The probable reason is to be found in the contemptuous
description given by Marco of the ships in which the Chinese trade was
carried on in the Indian Ocean.

"Their ships are very bad and dangerous for navigation, exposing
the merchants .... to great hazards." He describes in some detail
the way in which they were built. "No iron nails are used, as the

102 Vtttittan Aim*ntar*r: JRarni

wood is too hard and splits and breaks. The planks are bored with
augers of iron at the ends, and fastened together with wooden pegs.
They are then sewn together with a kind of yarn made from the
fibers of coconut husks, thick as horsehair. This fiber is soaked in water
until the softer parts rot away, and the threads are then spun. These
threads are not affected by seawater, but cannot weather a storm."
These ships had one mast, one sail, and one rudder. They had no
decks, but the cargo was loaded on the ship and covered with hides.
They used no iron anchors, so that in bad weather they were often
driven up on the shore and lost. "And because of this it is a very dan-
gerous venture to set sail in these ships, and I tell you that many of
them are lost, for great storms often occur in the Sea of India." These
stitched vessels of Hormuz have been described by many authors of the
ancient and medieval world.

/ The travelers evidently came to the conclusion that the risks of a
long voyage by sea on such a frail craft, particularly as a cargo of
horses was often carried loaded on top of the hide-covered merchandise,
were too great ; and they turned back northeastward into the country,
heading for the Pamirs.

The road to the northeast led through a desert country of bitter
green waters for over a week to Kuhbanan, "the hill of the wild
pistachio," then on again for days across the desert wastes to Tunocain.
Marco found the people thereabout much to his liking. The spring
of life was stirring within him, and he here makes the first of many
observations about women. The impression made upon him by the
women of Tunocain must have been very profound, for when he wrote
his reminiscences twenty-five years later, after having visited many
countries, having known many women, and doubtless having had many
a romance in his life, he still could say that the Mohammedan maidens
of Tunocain were beautiful beyond measure, or, as Ramusio's version
has it, "in my opinion the most beautiful in the world."

At this point in his narrative Marco pauses to tell the strange tale
of the "Old Man of the Mountain" and his murderous sect of Assassins.
As the Polos do not appear to have come into personal contact with the
band which has given the English language its word "assassin" their
story need not delay us here. Marco speaks of the Assassins as though
they no longer existed in his day. He was sadly mistaken. After their
strongholds had been destroyed in 1256 by Hulaku the Tartar, they

(Etjrrr: Sty* ifnurnrg 103

fled into the neighboring mountains, and have maintained a precarious
existence ever since. In fact their titular leader today is the Agha Khan,
a graduate of Oxford, and the head of the pan-Islamic league.

The Venetians continued for many days on their journey across
parched deserts and fertile lands, to the city of Sapurgan (Shiburgan),
where Marco found plenty of game and good hunting. From Sapurgan
the caravan continued on to Balkh, in northern Afghanistan. It was
one of the oldest cities in Asia, once the capital of Bactriana. Although
it had surrendered without resistance to the Mongol conqueror, Gen-
ghis Khan, its young people had been sold into slavery, the older mem-
bers of the population had been done to death with unspeakable cruelty,
and the city had been burned to the ground. The Polos found the
place blackened and in ruins, though such of its inhabitants as had sur-
vived the Tartar scourge had begun to creep back and settle in their
old abode.

This was the city where, according to the legend, Alexander the
Great took Roxana, daughter of the Persian King Darius, to wife. And
amid the smoke-blackened ruins and calcined marble palace walls the
travelers still could read the mocking words of an ancient Moslem in-
scription: "This city was erected to the glory of God. By the will of
the sultan it was converted into a veritable paradise." A gloomy silence
reigned in the city. Grass was growing in the deserted, debris-strewn
streets, and wild goats and other animals browsed in the abandoned
fields and orchards all about.

From Balkh the travelers continued on for many days through a
region teeming with game, rich in fruits, nuts, and vines, salt mines,
and corn. After leaving this pleasant land they again crossed desert
country for several days, finally arriving in Badakhshan (Balashan), a
Mohammedan province near the River Oxus. There they saw the
great mines of spinel rubies, called "balas rubies" after the name of the
country, the sapphire workings, and the veins of lapis lazuli, for all
of which the district of Badakhshan has been famous through the
centuries.

The Ramusio edition of Marco Polo and the Zelada Latin manu-
script have preserved a passage which does not appear elsewhere, but
which is admitted as authentic by later editors. It is one of the few
passages in the entire book touching on Marco's personal adventures.
In describing the mountains of Badakhshan he tells in it that the cities

104

of the country are built in high places for protection. He then con-
tinues: "They [the mountains] are so high that a man must travel from
morning even until evening to reach their summits. On the tops are
broad plains and a great abundance of grass and trees, and abundant
springs of the purest water which flow down through rocks and ravines.
In these streams are found trout and many other delicate fish, and the
air is so pure on these heights, and living there is so health-giving, that
if the people who dwell in the city, on the plain, and in the valleys,
are seized with a fever of any sort, or by chance are afflicted with any
other sort of sickness, they immediately ascend the mountain and re-
main there two or three days and find themselves well again, because
of the excellence of the air; and Marco says that he proved this, be-
cause while in these regions he was sick nearly a year, and that after he
was advised to ascend the mountain [and did so] he recovered his health
at once."

This brief statement all in one long sentence in Ramusio's Italian
text throws a tiny ray of light on the personal experiences of Marco
Polo and indicates but one of the many hardships that he and his father
and uncle must have suffered on that long thirteenth-century journey
across Asia. It also accounts for a whole year of the three years con-
sumed in going from Venice to Peking. The caravan was delayed either
because of the sickness of the young man or because the Polos had
decided to remain in the healthful climate of Badakhshan to assure his
complete recovery.

Marco's illness, however, did not cause him to avert his eyes long
from the ladies of Badakhshan. He was particularly taken with a cer-
tain peculiarity of their dress, one which has remained the fashion from
ancient times down to the present, if we may accept the testimony of
coins. The men of Badakhshan were enamored of women with amply
developed buttocks. This predilection, which from time to time has
brought the bustle into style in the West, caused the women of the
region to make their customary breeches or trousers so voluminous that
they often swathed themselves in two hundred and fifty to four hun-
dred feet of cotton or silk, thickly pleated and scented with musk.
When they did so, "she who appears more stout below the girdle is
reputed the most glorious."

From Badakhshan our travelers continued on up over the Pamirs,
ascending ever higher, and following the course of the river Oxus,

Chapter Otym: Sty* 3tmrn*$ 105

finally passing through part of the vale of Kashmir. According to
Marco, who seems to have been deeply impressed by what he saw, the
inhabitants practiced sorcery and the other black arts. He believed that
they could make idols speak, vary the weather according to their desire,
and change the darkness into sunshine or vice versa. Though the
people of Kashmir have always been notorious for their depravity,
fraud, and trickery, Marco found their women "very beautiful for
dark women." As a matter of fact the beauty of the Kashmiri women
has been famous throughout India for centuries, and they were much
sought after as wives and concubines. Dr. Frangois Bernier, who trav-
eled extensively in the Mogul Empire in 1656-1 668, in a curious para-
graph notes:

The people of Kachemir are proverbial for their clear complexions and
fine forms. They are as well made as Europeans .... The women especially

are very handsome I had recourse to a little artifice, often practiced by

the Mogols to obtain a sight of these hidden treasures, the women [of Lahore]
being the finest brunettes in all the Indies and justly renowned for their fine
and slender shapes. I followed the steps of some elephants, particularly one
richly harnessed, and was sure to be gratified with the sight I was in search of,
because the ladies no sooner hear the tinkling of the silver bells suspended from
both sides of the elephants than they all put their heads to the windows ....
The indulgence of my curiosity .... left no doubt in my mind that there
are as handsome faces in Kachemir as in any part of Europe.

The Venetian of the thirteenth century and the Frenchman of the
seventeenth seem to have had much in common.

Leaving Kashmir, the caravan traveled northeast, reaching the sum-
mit of the Pamirs, which Marco was assured by his guides was the
highest place in the world. He noted that at the time of his visit the
air was so cold that no birds could be seen flying anywhere in the region.
The tales of numerous early Chinese pilgrims who have crossed this
same country confirm Marco's recital, and it has been corroborated by
modern explorers. The Venetian's powers of observation were keen,
and his memory of the ascent to the eaves of the world was so vivid
that he recalled when preparing his narrative in far-off Genoa nearly
thirty years later that the fires lighted by the travelers at these great
heights did not burn as brightly as elsewhere, nor with the same color,
and that it was far more difficult to cook food there than it was in the
lower altitudes.

Here also Marco saw and first described the great wild sheep which

106 Untttiatt Afou*nttin>r: iHarro

have been named Ow Po// in his honor. He describes them as having
great horns, from four to six palms in length, from which the shep-
herds made bowls and other vessels. The sheep were so plentiful in
spite of the depredations of wolves that the shepherds built sheepfolds
and huts for themselves from the great horns, and bones were heaped
in high mounds along the roads to guide travelers when snow was on
the ground and hid the path from view.

Descending from the Pamirs through the defile of the River Gez,
the Polos reached the broad plains of Eastern Turkestan, or, as it is
now called, Sinkiang. The region is partly desert, partly rich oasis
fertilized by the many rivers flowing from the south and west.

The Polos first visited Kashgar, which Marco found temperate in
climate and productive "of all sorts of necessaries of life." From Kash-
gar they continued onward toward the northeast. Though his father
and uncle Maffeo had probably visited Samarkand on their previous
journey, there is no evidence that Marco was ever there. Since he was
not in a position to describe it accurately, he filled the lacuna with an-
other of his tales of Christian miracles. The story goes that in the
eleventh century Chagatai, lord of the country, was converted and bap-
tized by Christian missionaries in Samarkand. In their rejoicing over
the conversion, the Christians of the city built "a very great and noble
round church .... to the honor of Master Saint John Baptist." In its
construction they used as the base of one of the marble columns "a very
beautiful and great square marble stone which belonged to the Sara-
cens," and the Church was made in such a way that this column sup-
ported the whole roof of the Church ! This proceeding greatly angered
the infidels j and, as they were obliged to remain silent through fear,
they hated their Christian neighbors the more. At his destined hour
Chagatai was called to his fathers, and his minor son was placed on the
throne under the regency of Chagatai's nephew, a Saracen. Thereupon
his co-religionists, who had patiently bided their time, raised a great
clamor and demanded the immediate return of their stone. They re-
fused to compromise for money, for they wished to tear away the stone
and cause the whole Church to fall into ruins, that the hated Christians
might suffer grievously thereby. An order Was issued by the regent
that in two days' time the stone was to be given back to the Saracens.
The good Christians "prayed devoutly and with many tears to Blessed
John Baptist that he must help them in this their great trouble." And

behold, when the Saracens came to the Church on the appointed day
to remove the stone, they found the column which rested on the stone
had "lifted itself from the stone . . . . , and was raised up quite three
palms" and that it carried its heavy load suspended in the air with no
apparent support from below.

It is curious to note that a Chinese description of Sinkiang written
in the fourteenth century states that "there is a temple [in Samarkand]
supported by four very large wooden pillars, each forty feet in height.
One of these pillars is in a hanging position, and fits base] is more than
a foot from the floor."

The whole story recalls the Corn Exchange which was built by Sir
Christopher Wren at Windsor. The architect designed the building
without interior columns supporting the roof, but the good people of
the town insisted that columns be used. Sir Christopher acceded to
their request; however, not only do the columns which run the length
of the chamber bear no load, but there is a space of a couple of inches
between the tops of the columns and the roof whose weight they are
supposed to support. Mayhap some future credulous age will tell of
some miracle which caused the roof of the Windsor Corn Exchange
to lift and maintain itself with no visible columnar support.

From Kashgar our travelers proceeded through Yarkand, where
the keen-eyed, observant Polo noted that a large proportion of the
population suffered from goiter. He hazarded the guess that the dis-
ease was caused by the water which the people used for drinking. This
keen observation has been corroborated by every later traveler. Both
Sir Percy Sykes and Sven Hedin make special mention of the prevalence
of the disease in the Yarkand region, the latter ascribing it, as did Marco
Polo, to the bad quality of the drinking water supply of the district.

The next place of note on the route was the ancient city of Khotan,
where for hundreds of years emeralds have been found. But a far more
important trade was in jade, which Khotan has supplied to the Chinese
market for many centuries. The travelers could see the workers digging
for the precious boulders in the dry river beds as they do to this very
day. From Khotan the jade was taken by caravan over the deserts to
Peking and Soochow, there to be carved and polished into objects both
sacred and profane. The Chinese could never obtain enough of this, to
them the most precious substance in the whole world, the very quin-
tessence in tangible form of the Yang principle of the universe.

100 Vtttttt&n Aito*ntur*r: Harm

From Khotan the Polos traveled on through the monotonous
heaped-up desert dunes, camping at the rare oases and wells. Marco
was impressed with the morals and manners of the oases towns, which
have changed no whit since his day. For he tells us that when a woman's
husband is forced to journey to another place, and is to be away for
twenty days or more, the woman at once takes another husband until
his return, and the husband is likewise allowed to take a temporary
wife. One wonders why Marco, after all that he must have witnessed,
both in his own city and everywhere among the merchants en route,
found this custom strange enough for even a brief comment in his
book. In this connection it may also be of interest to notice a fascinat-
ing Italian guidebook to Eastern countries written in the first half of
the fourteenth century. This book, entitled "La Pratica della Mer-
catura," was written by one Francesco Balducci Pegolotti, a much-
traveled Florentine employee of the banking house of the Bardi of
Florence.* In chapter ii of this curious work, the merchant who
planned to travel to Cathay, "to go there and to return with merchan-
dise," was advised to let his beard grow long and not to shave. Then,
after admonishing the prospective traveler not to try and save money
in the matter of a dragoman, Pegolotti adds:

and if the merchant wishes to take a woman with him from Tana, he may do
so, and if he does not wish to do so it is not obligatory; but indeed if he does
take one he will be cared for in a much better manner than if he does not take
one. But if he does take one it would be advantageous if she as well as the serv-
ant were acquainted with the Cumanian tongue.

Such being the usual custom of Europeans traveling to Cathay in the
days of the Polos, it is strange that Marco should have been surprised
at a like custom indulged in by an obscure Central Asian barbarian tribe.
The region through which the caravan was now passing consisted
of wide stretches of desert, sparsely sprinkled with oases and inhabited
by Mohammedan Tartar tribes. It became necessary to carry enough
food and water to last several days from one oasis to another. At Lop
(the modern Charklik) the travelers remained a week to rest and
prepare themselves for the crossing of the Gobi, which is Mongol for
"desert." Their camels and asses were laden with great quantities of
food. It was customary, Marco tells us, either to eat the draught ani-
mals if other food was exhausted before the fertile country, China,

* The husband of Dante's Beatrice was a Bardi.

(ZFlym: JZty* 3fiwrtt*g

on the far side of the desert was reached, or to turn them loose so as not
to have to feed them. Camels were preferred "because they eat little
and carry great burdens." The Venetian was informed, moreover, that
to cross the desert at its widest part was a journey of at least a year,
and that even in the narrower parts it was unwise to travel in a company
of more than fifty persons, as sufficient water to supply a greater num-
ber was not procurable anywhere en route. He tells us, too, that neither
birds nor beasts are to be found there because of the lack of food and
drink.

At this point we learn from Marco that in the Gobi dwell evil
spirits, who devise illusions mirages, and the like to lead the un-
wary traveler to destruction if he lags behind or becomes separated
from his companions. The spirits will surround the luckless wight,
calling upon him by name, and, speaking with the voices of his com-
panions, lure him on to his death from thirst, starvation, or exhaustion.
This happens not only during the night but even in the broad daylight.
And not voices alone but the beating and throbbing of drums, and the
sounds of other musical instrument as Well, are heard. To escape this
calamity all the caravan animals wear bells that tinkle and announce
the whereabouts of each.

The Gobi's reputation as a place of terror and the abode of evil
spirits is far older than the tale of Marco Polo. The Chinese monk
Fa Hsien, who passed through the region in A.D. 399, records that "in
this desert there are numerous evil spirits and also hot winds ....
Wherever one looks, as far as the eye can reach, the only guides in
following the path are the decaying bones of men who have died along
the way." Hsiian Tsang, another Buddhist monk, while journeying
across the desert in 629, encountered "all sorts of demon shapes and
strange goblins, which seemed to surround him behind and before."
And in the night "the demons and goblins raised firelights as many as
the stars."

After thirty days' journey the caravan reached Shachou ("Sand
^District") on the edge of the desert. Here it was that Marco first
came in contact with essentially Chinese manners and customs. What
particularly impressed him in Shachou were the funeral customs the
method of making coffins, the keeping of the coffined body in the home,
the offerings made to the spirit of the dead, the burning of paper
images, and the like. These age-old customs, unchanged since the days

110 Vttstttest Abtttttittrrr: Mutto

of the Polos, are observed in every Chinese town and village on such
days as have been designated for such ceremonies by the feng shut
practitioners. Marco also describes the custom of breaking a hole
through the wall of the house for the removal of the coffin, to avoid
the bad luck that would be caused by carrying it through the main door.
Though this custom is not universal in China, it is mentioned by several
travelers and is still followed in many places.*

It is very questionable whether or not Marco visited Kamul, the
next province mentioned by him. Perhaps his father and his uncle had
been there on their earlier journey. He refers to it only long enough
to discuss quite at length the moral laxity of its inhabitants. He found
that the generous hospitality of the good folk of Kamul included the
free offering of the wife, daughters, or sisters of the host. Moreover,
if a stranger came to a man's house to sojourn for some days he would
leave his home and go to work elsewhere, leaving the field open to the
traveler and not returning until the latter had departed. This custom
was believed to bring the people of Kamul much wealth, fine crops,
and healthy children. The Venetian recounts further that the Great
Khan Mongka tried to abolish this free and easy reception of the
stranger but met with such opposition that he revoked his edict angrily
in the following sentence (according to the quaint text of Ramusio) :
" 'Go, and live according to your customs, and act so that your women
may be charitable gifts to wayfarers! ' And with this response [to their
petition] they returned home with the greatest rejoicing of all -the
people, and so they observe this custom up to the present time."f
Marco then dismisses the whole subject with the words: "now let us
leave Kamul, and we shall tell you of the others" but not without
making the statement, in one of the old French texts, that "les femes
sunt beles et gaudent et de soulas."

Following the account of Kamul is a short description of the district

* The writer remembers seeing, during a residence in Hong Kong, a hole cut in
a second-story wall and the coffined body lifted through it and lowered by ropes to
the ground, where it was received by the funeral cortege waiting on the street below.
This was on the crowded main thoroughfare of the city.

f "Andate, & vivete secondo i vostri costumi, & fate, che le donne vostre siano
limosinarie verso i viadanti & con questa risposta tornarono a casa con grandissima
allegrezza de tutto il popolo & cosi fino al presente osservano la prima consuetudine."

"And the women are beautiful and sprightly and complaisant, and derive much
pleasure from this custom."

<2Uptpt*r atyr**: QHp Sournrg 111

of Bankul. The principal product of this district was asbestos, and
Marco takes great delight in exploding the current medieval belief
that asbestos was the wool of the salamander, a lizard-like creature.
In his desire to convince his readers he assures them that "io stesso ne
fui testimonio" and Marco seldom speaks of himself in the first
person. He adds an interesting detail, one of the few direct references
to the earlier voyage of his father and uncle:

And I shall tell you, moreover, that there is one of these napkins [of asbes-
tos] at Rome, a magnificent gift sent by the Great Kahn to the Pontifex when
he sent as ambassadors the two Polo brothers, that it might serve to wrap the
holy handkerchief [sudarium] of our Lord Jesus Christ. And on this napkin
are written in gold the following words: "Tu es Petrus et sufer hanc petram
edificabo ecclesiam meant"

On the caravan route Marco found the extensive cultivation of
rhubarb most interesting. The next city of importance reached was
Canpichu (Kanchau). Here again he was disturbed by the lax morals
of the people. He tells of the manner in which the inhabitants of
Kanchau salved their consciences in case they fell from grace: "nam hec
est eorum conscientia ut si mulier eos amore requirat fossunt cum ea
absque yeccato coire si vero if si primo mulierem requirant tune reyutant
ad 'peccatum" The Polos subsequently had much time to study the
manners and customs of Kanchau, for Marco notes that later on, he,
his father, and his uncle Maffeo lived in the city about a year "trans-
acting their business, which is not worth the mentioning." Here we
find the Venetian showing that same reluctance to disclose the details of
his private affairs which is so characteristic of his whole narrative.

Several chapters of Marco's book following the description of
Kanchau consist of digressions and interesting notes about the peoples,
manners, and customs of many Central Asian districts not visited by
the Polos, at least on their second journey. We are also given a sketch
of the war waged between Genghis Khan and "Prester John." This
historical dissertation far from correct is followed by several in-
teresting notes on the manners and customs of the Tartars, their re-
ligion, etc. As these may be found in full in every edition of Marco
Polo, there is no need to quote them here.

One paragraph, however, which appears in a single Venetian manu-
script, is of great value. Since there are no contemporary documents
which have preserved for us the physical and mental characteristics of

HZ Vtttjettatt Afttftntam: JRarra

Marco Polo, it is largely necessary to seek for such light as may be
thrown on him by his own statements or by comments in his text. We
must ever keep in mind that the book was dictated or written some
years after his return to Venice, where he found the ways of life far
different from those which he had known for nearly a quarter of a
century in East Asia. All was strange to him, and toward some of the
social practices of his native city he shows a very great resentment,
particularly in the matter of the conduct of women. The gentleness,
discipline, reserve, and modest dignity of the women he had known
or observed in the realm of the Great Khan contrasted most sharply
with the bold, impudent, flaunting manners of the Italian women of
his day. The loose morals of his native city shocked him as they never
would if he had lived all his years in Venice. So we get a glimpse of
Marco's attitude of mind in the following passage:

In my judgment they [the Tartar women] are those women who most in
the world deserve to be commended for their very great virtue; and they are
all the more worthy .... because the men are allowed to be able to take as
many wives as they please, to the very great confusion of the Christian women
(I mean in these our parts). For when one man has only one wife, in which
marriages there ought to be a most singular faith and chastity, or [else] con-
fusion of so great a sacrament of 'marriage, I am ashamed when I look at the
unfaithfulness of the Christian women, [and call] those happy who being a
hundred wives to one husband keep [their virtue] to their own most worthy
praise, to the very great shame of all the other women in the world.

From Kanchou the travelers continued on their way to what is now
the city of Liang Chou Fu. The yaks encountered on the route im-
pressed Marco because of their great size and economic value. The
valuable little musk deer, which is still found in great numbers in this
region, was of such interest to him that he carried with him on his re-
turn voyage all the thousands of miles to Venice "the head and feet
of the said animal, dried."

The Venetians were rapidly approaching the regions where the in-
habitants were pure Chinese ; he observed that the people had small
noses and black hair, and "they have no beard, save four hairs on the
chin. The honorable ladies are hairless, save for the hair of the head,
and are white, and of fair flesh, and well-formed in all their members,
but are most voluptuous." Our Marco has grown up, and seems to be
more observing of the women at this period of the journey than of
trade and the profit therefrom.

The road now passed through a country belonging to the Great
Khan but supposedly the domain of the legendary Prester John. At
this point of the narrative, scholars, in great wonderment that Marco
Polo never mentions the Great Wall of China, which he must have
seen again and again, try to find a reference to it in Marco's allusion
to "Gog and Magog." Their conclusions are based on the famous
Catalan map of 1375, where Gog and Magog are located, shut up
behind a wall built by Alexander the Great, in the northeast corner of
the world.

At last the Polos were nearing the end of their travels across the
plains, mountains, and deserts of Asia. They had been traveling for
three and a half long, wearisome years, and Marco had seen much,
experienced much, and learned much. The callow boy of seventeen
had rounded out and developed both physically and mentally. His
faculties had ripened, his intelligence was keen, and he missed nothing
of all that went on about him. But now he, like Messer Nicolo and
Messer Maffeo, was heartily sick of the seemingly never-ending jour-
ney. It was with unbounded joy, therefore, that one day they saw a
great cloud of dust appear afar on the horizon, draw ever nearer, and
resolve itself into a body of horsemen sent by the Great Khan to escort
the Venetians to his court. From the leader of the band they learned
that they were still "forty days marches" from the great monarch
presumably at Shangtu, his summer residence and that he had been
charged to see to it that the travelers were safely conducted to Kublai's
presence. "After all," said the officer, "were not the noble Messer
Nicolo and Messer Maffeo his lord's own accredited envoys to Master
the Apostle, and should not they be received in the manner befitting
their rank and station?"

The remainder of the journey passed quickly, for at every stage
they found royal entertainment awaiting them and generous supplies
of all things needful. On the fortieth day the city of Shangtu appeared
on the horizon, and ere long the travel-stained caravan entered its
high gates. Marco must have visited the city often during his seven-
teen summers in the service of the Great Khan. The palace especially
impressed itself on his memory, and he has left a very vivid descrip-
tion of it:

It was built of stone and marble, with halls and rooms gilded and
painted with hunting scenes and landscapes, birds and beasts, trees and

114 VntttUw Afttfttttism: tftttra

flowers. The great surrounding wall embraced an area of sixteen square
miles, which could be entered only by the palace gates. Therein were
rivers and fountains and fair stretches of lawn and groves of beautiful
trees. And in it were kept beasts for the chase, but only such as were
not dangerous to men; and there the Great Khan went hunting at least
once a week with his falcons or tame leopards. In the middle of the park
was set a palace or pavilion built of bamboo, its columns lacquered and
gilded, with dragon capitals, and its lofty roof of gilded and varnished
bamboo tiles. The pavilion was braced against the wind with more than
two hundred ropes of twisted silk, and it was so constructed that the
whole could be taken down and moved hither and thither at the will
of the monarch. And the Lord of the Mongols came from Cambaluc,
his capital, to dwell in one or the other of these palaces that he might
escape the great heat of the three months of summer. In order to in-
sure perfect weather during his sojourn at Shangtu Kublai employed
"wise astrologers." At the first sign of storm cloud or mist they
mounted the roof of the palace and there by means of their incanta-
tions drove off the evil influences, so that, whatever bad storms there
might be all about, the palaces and the surrounding park enjoyed noth-
ing but the finest weather, with warm suns and tempering winds.

Samuel Purchas, in his ponderous Purchas His Pilgrimage, written
in 1616, paraphased the description of Shangtu (Xandu) from the
text of Ramusio. One day in the summer of 1798 Samuel Taylor
Coleridge, the English poet, who had taken a large dose of laudanum
to relieve the raging pain of an aching tooth, sat in his garden at Por-
lock. On his lap was a copy of Purchas His Pilgrimage, open at the
passage which begins: "In Xandu did Cublai Can build a stately Palace,
encompassing sixteen miles of plain grounde with a wall, wherein are
fertile Meddowes, pleasant Springs, delightfull Streames, and all sorts
of beasts of chase and game, and in the middest thereof a sumptuous
house of pleasure, which may be removed from place to place." As he
was reading this chapter, he was gradually overcome by the opiate, his
head sank on his breast, and he slept profoundly for three hours and
dreamed. On awaking, the images of his dream were still before him.
Paper was at hand 5 he seized his pen, and, while the vision was still
vivid and etched clear in his mind's eye, he hastily scribbled the im-
mortal lines of "Kubla Khan."

The vision of the poet lives for us, and will live on; but Shangtu

3tt?r**: aWj* Journey 115

and its palaces are naught but heaps of ruins. During the rebellions
against Mongol rule in China which terminated in the victory of the
Ming dynasty, the magnificent summer palace of Kublai was looted
and burned to the ground. The capital has been deserted for centuries,
and the site of all the pomp and ceremony of the most magnificent of
the Mongol monarchs is "the abode of foxes and owls." The dilapi-
dated walls of the city are still standing, together with the remains of
its six great gates. The Mongols of the region still cherish memories
of the Great Khan and regard the place with awe and reverence, though
they wander at will with their flocks and herds over the plain strewn
with the remains of palaces and temples. And amid the tangled weeds
and shattered stones a solitary broken inscription stands, erected long
ago by Kublai Khan, and telling the tale of the abbot of a monastery
which once reared its proud towers there. All else is forgotten in silence
and decay, a mournful reminder of the brief material glory of men that
swiftly passes and is not.

Marco's description of the traveler's reception by Kublai Khan
is surprisingly simple and restrained. Elsewhere he does not hesitate
to expatiate on the magnificence of the Great Khan's receptions and
banquets, processions and festivals. But though he never forgets to
place himself, Marco, in the center of the stage the welcome accorded
the Venetians is recorded in one short unadorned chapter. Upon their
arrival at Shangtu the Venetians "go off immediately to the chief palace,
where they find the Great Khan with a very great company of all his
barons." They knelt and prostrated themselves flat upon the earth
before the Emperor. Kublai graciously bade them rise, received them
with "the greatest honor, and makes very great rejoicing and great
feasting for them."

After the formal reception the monarch engaged the brothers in a
long conversation, for he was desirous of learning about their adven-
tures since they had left the Mongol court so many years before. They
then presented to him the gifts and documents with which they had
been entrusted by Pope Gregory (and by the two timid Friars who
had turned back), and placed in his hands the vessel of sacred oil which
they had obtained at his behest from the Church of the Holy Sepulchre
at Jerusalem and had zealously guarded through all the vicissitudes
and dangers of the long journey from the Mediterranean coast.

Kublai, after all these matters had been settled, looked about him

HE Vttttitatt Atotftttam: dfarni $1010

and perceived the young Marco, who had, as was proper, been stand-
ing apart, silent and respectful while his elders conversed, one Vene-
tian manuscript adding at this point that Marco "was a young bachelor
of very great and noble aspect." Upon the Emperor's inquiring as to
who the youthful stranger might be, Messer Nicolo replied: "Sire, he
is my son and your man, whom, as the dearest thing in the world, I
have brought with great peril and ado from such distant lands to pre-
sent him to thee for thy slave." "Let him be welcome," said the Great
Khan, and forthwith had the young man inscribed in the list of the
members of his household, and, adds the same Venetian manuscript,
"he was held of great account and value by all those at the court."

There was great rejoicing and feasting at the court in honor of
these distinguished foreigners from a distant land, and thereafter they
held a high place in the esteem of their Mongol lord. Marco closes
this short account of his reception modestly enough with the remark:
"and why should I make you a long story?"

Chapter Jf our

Catfjap

$ARCO has left a very interesting description of the personal
appearance of Kublai Khan. "The great lord of lords who is
called Kublai is like this. He is of a fair size, neither short
nor tall but of middle size. He is covered with flesh in a
beautiful manner, not too fat or too lean; he is more than well formed
in all parts. He has his face white and partly shining red like the color
of a beautiful rose the eyes black and beautiful, the nose very beauti-
ful, well made and well set on the face."

After describing the Great Khan, Marco gives a detailed and inti-
mate account of the method of selecting his wives and concubines, and
of his marital relations. As all this may be read in Messer Marco's
book it would be imposing on the reader's good will to recount it here.
And so it is with the description of the Khan's palace and the magnifi-
cence of his capital of Cambaluc. The things which most impressed the
Venetian were those which differed from what he had observed in his
home city and in the places visited en route. He marveled at the way
the capital was laid out in a geometric pattern, the main streets of
which "from one side to the other of the town are drawn out straight
as a thread and in this way all the city inside is laid out by squares,
as a chess-board is." How different all this was from the narrow, twist-
ing, dark streets with their overhanging houses which he had seen in
the towns of Italy and the Levant. He describes the bell and drum
towers which are still standing in Peking, though to the south of the
places where they were erected by the Mongol emperor. Until very re-
cent years they daily boomed out the curfew and the alarm, just as
when Marco Polo trod the streets and lanes of the city. He informs us

Return of the Polo brothers to Kublai Khan with the holy oil and letters

from Pope Gregory X, Bodleian MS 264, folio 224. (Courtesy of

the Bodleian Library)

<ZHf&pt*r Jfanr: (Katljag 119

that when the curfew sounded three times from the bell tower none
might go forth nor dare leave his dwelling, until daylight, "except the
nurses who go for the needs of women in childbirth and physicians who
go for the needs of sick men ; and those who go for this good purpose
must carry lights with them."

And why should I fill these pages and tell you of the Great Khan's
feasts and overflowing riches, and the ceremonies of his court, and of
his going hunting with his barons and his court, when Messer Marco
has woven it into his book in a wondrous tapestry of scarlet and purple
and many brilliant colors, all shot with threads of gold and silver, the
like of which had never been revealed to Western men before?

An interesting account is given by Marco of the women "che servono
gli huomini per danari."* In this account he appears to compare the
severe regulations of prostitution in the realm of the Khan with the
open, flagrant promiscuity displayed in the Venice of his day. He tells
us that they numbered twenty thousand, and assures us that indeed they
were necessary because of the vast number of merchants and foreigners
who entered the city every day. But no such woman dared live inside
the city (unless it be secretly) but all dwelt in the borghi (suburbs).
And he naively adds that all twenty thousand of them "find a living."
There was a "captain" appointed for each hundred and each thousand,
and they were all responsible to a "general captain." The reason for
this was that when ambassadors came to the court of the Great Khan
and were lodged at his expense, this captain general was obliged to sup-
ply to the ambassador and to each of his retinue "one harlot each night;
and they are changed every night, and they have no pay because this is
the tax which they pay to the great Khan."

It would appear from the great number of Marco's references to
women the intimate descriptions of their persons, their various apti-
tudes in sex-relations, and many other details not usually told even by
hardy travelers of a later day (unless it be those having the courage
and wide knowledge of a Sir Richard Burton) that they were largely,
if not entirely, called forth by the frank curiosity and continual ques-
tionings of the stay-at-home Italians for whom his tale was told and
set down in writing. Travelers from foreign lands are still plied in-
sistently with inquiries to which the answers are not set forth in books

* "The women who serve men for money" the prostitutes of Cambaluc.

Ht*tian Aimntium: JRgrra |taki

for the masses. We may be very sure that human nature has not greatly
changed, and that not all, or even the greater number, of Marco's
listeners were interested in the prices of musk and rhubarb, or the di-
mensions of the palace of the Khan, or the quality of the goods sold in
the markets of far-distant China. They asked other questions, nearer
their own interests and experiences, and Messer Marco accommodated
them, and set down for them the facts they desired most to know. As to
his own diversity of interests, we may note that in this same long para-
graph describing the feme -pecherise, or "sinful woman," as a French
manuscript has it, Marco tells of the burial places of Cambaluc, of the
hunting and hawking of Kublai and his barons, of the precious mer-
chandise brought into the capital for sale, and of the villages surround-
ing the city.

All of this calls to Marco's mind the matter of the Khan's mint
and his paper money, which he tells us he will describe in his next
chapter, with the assurance that he will not recount all of the wealth
and spending of "the great lord," since no one would believe that he
is speaking "truth and reason." This remark seems to be an intimation
that Marco himself realized that his tale would not be entirely accept-
able to his fellow- Venetians. Not being able to conceive of the richness
and magnificence of the Mongol ruler and his empire, they would
dismiss simple statements of sober fact as staggering inventions of the
author's active imagination.

The mint of the great lord of all the Tartars stood in Cambaluc,
and there Marco saw the paper currency of the country printed and
issued.

The Chinese were the first people to use banknotes. Setting aside
the stories of the use of deerskin and other materials as currency, Chi-
nese authorities agree that the Chinese Imperial Treasury issued the
earliest paper money about the year 650. This currency bore the de-
lightfully suggestive name of fei ch'ien (flying money). It soon fell
into disuse, and we hear no more of it until the tenth century, when it
was re-introduced by banking guilds of Szechuan Province. Shortly
thereafter the state suppressed these private issues and printed its own
notes. Their use continued throughout the Sung Dynasty, and the
amount of paper currency in circulation was swelled enormously by the
Mongols. Kublai Khan went so far as to prohibit the use of metal coin
altogether, in order to accustom the people to accept his notes. At first

(Eljaptrr Jfcmr: QIatljaij 121

they were partly guaranteed by metal reserves. When these were ex-
hausted, however, more notes were issued without any metal backing
whatsoever. This, of course, caused a disastrous depreciation in their
value, though Marco Polo, evidently not understanding such a com-
plicated financial system, makes no mention of it, and implies that the
notes were equivalent to their face value in metal.

Marco was not the only medieval traveler who noted the paper
money of Cathay. Friar William of Rubruck, who was in the country
some twenty-five years before the Venetians' arrival there, recounts
that "the common money of Cathay is a paper of cotton, in length and
breadth a palm, and on it they stamp lines like those on the seal of
Mongka [Khan]." Odoric de Pordenone, who was in China at the
time of Marco Polo's death (1324)), speaks of a certain tax being paid
in "five pieces of paper like silk." Elsewhere Odoric tells the reader
not to wonder too much at the magnificence of the ruler of Cathay,
"for there is nothing spent as money in his whole kingdom but certain
pieces of paper which are there current as money." Ibn Batuta, the
great medieval Arab traveler (1304-1378) says: "the people of China
do not use either gold or silver coin in their commercial dealings ....
Their buying and selling is carried on by means of pieces of paper about
as big as the palm of the hand, carrying the mark or seal of the Em-
peror." Pegolotti in his guidebook (ca. 1340) tells the would-be trav-
eler to Cathay that in that country "the money is made of paper."

When Marco told of the use of paper money in China, his account
was looked upon as another of his fables j and William of Rubruck's
remarks remained long buried in ecclesiastical records. No advantage
appears to have been taken of this method of state finance by the Ital-
ians of the period.

Marco has described the method of manufacturing Kublai Khan's
paper money in detail, prefacing his remarks with the quaint observa-
tion that "the great lord has the alchemy perfectly." The most in-
genious device in the whole financial scheme was in manufacturing the
notes of such flimsy material that they soon wore out and fell to pieces.
When the notes were torn or spoiled they could be exchanged for new
and clean ones, a fee of three per cent being charged by the mint for
the exchange. This method of redemption, which netted the Imperial
treasury a handsome profit at a trifling cost that of printing the notes
is confirmed by a document preserved in the Bibliotheque Nationale at

122

Paris. It is a French translation (by John the Long of Ypres) of a lost
Latin letter supposedly written by John de Cora, Archbishop of Sul-
tanieh, about the year 1330. This letter, replete with interesting in-
formation, records, among other things, that on

the Estate and Governance of the Great Caan of Cathay, the Emperor Suzerain
of the Tartars, the Grand Caan there maketh money of paper. And this hath a
red token right in the middle, and round about there be letters in black. And this
money is of greater or of less value according to the token that is thereon ....
And they fix the value of their money of gold and silver with reference to their
paper money .... The emperor above mentioned hath very great treasuries;
indeed it is a marvel to see them ; and these are for this paper money. And when
the said money is too old and worn so that it cannot well be handled, it is carried
to the King's chamber, where there be moneyers appointed to this duty. And if
the token or the king's name is at all to be discerned thereon, then the moneyer
giveth new paper for the old, deducting three in every hundred for this renewal.

Continuing his narrative, Marco describes some of the foods con-
sumed by the subjects of the Great Khan. The statement is often made
that the Venetian introduced macaroni (or spaghetti) into Italy on his
return. This erroneous information is based (as far as the writer can
ascertain) on the following paragraph found in complete form only in
Ramusio's edition of Marco's narrative:

As for foodstuffs, they have plenty of them for they use for the most part
rice, panic and millet .... They do not use bread, these people, but they simply
boil these three kinds of grain with milk or meat, and eat them .... And
wheat with them does not give such increase [as in the case of the three grains
mentioned], but what they reap they eat only in strips of macaroni (lasagne]
and other kinds of paste.

In like manner the ridiculous claims that Marco brought the knowl-
edge of ice cream to Europe is probably derived from his description
of the use of dried milk by the Mongols, also told in detail in Ra-
musio:

Moreover they have dried milk like unto paste. And it is dried in this man-
ner: They boil the milk and then the richest part which floats at the top is put
into another vessel, and from this they make butter, for as long as it remains
in the milk it cannot be dried. They next place the milk in the sun, and thus
it is dried. And when they go forth to war they carry with them about ten
pounds of this milk. And in the morning each takes of it half a pound, and
puts it in a small leather flask, made like a bottle, with as much water as he
pleases. And as he rides his horse the milk in the bottle is churned up and be-
comes like syrup. This they drink, and it is their meal.

Gtyapttr Jtfimr: QIatljag 123

Coal was another product of China at which Marco marveled
greatly. Though coal was mentioned by Theophrastus about 371 B.C.
and probably was burned by the Romans in Britain, its first common
use as fuel in the West is recorded in the Saxon Chronicle of the Ab-
bey of Peterborough in 862. Marco had probably never seen it burned
before his arrival in Asia or he would not have described it as "a kind
of large black stones which are dug from the mountains .... which
burn and make flames like logs and .... keep up the fire and cook
better than wood does." Aeneas Sylvius Piccolomini (Pope Pius II,
1405-1464) relates, as a "miracle" which he beheld with his own eyes
in Scotland, that the beggars at the churches rejoiced when they were
given stones, which they burned, in a country where there was no wood.
The Chinese, on the other hand appear to have used coal as fuel at least
one hundred years before the Christian era, according to a historian of
the Early Han period.

The almanac used by the Chinese from very ancient times is de-
scribed in great detail. Besides the usual astronomical data for the year
drawn up by the Board of Astronomy, the official almanac contained
a carefully compiled list of dies fasti et nefasti, like that of the ancient
Romans. This list indicated which days were favorable for certain en-
terprises, and others where specified acts or undertakings should be
zealously avoided. In the words of Ramusio's version:

Thus, if anyone has proposed in his mind to undertake some important work
or to go to some far place for trade or for some personal business, and wishes
to know the outcome of the affair, he will go to find one of these Astrologers
and will say to him: "Inquire into your books how the sky is now, for I desire
to go to enter upon such and such an affair or business transaction." The As-
trologer will speak to him, informing him moreover that he should tell him
the year, the month, and the hour of his birth, and when this is told him he will
see how the constellations of his birth correspond with those which are in the
sky at the hour of his request, and so he will predict what will happen to him
in the future of good or of ill, according to the way in which the sky is dis*
posed.

The Zelada manuscript adds that by this means the astrologer can advise
his client whether or not he should await a more propitious moment for
his business or his journey, by which gate he should go out of the city,
where he may expect to meet with robbers, where he may encounter
bad weather, where his horse will break a leg, and whether the busi-
ness contemplated will result in a profit or a loss.

124 3*n*tt8tt A&ttnttur*r: Harm

These almanacs with their forecasts of days good and evil are still
in use in China, though the republican government has made strenuous
efforts to suppress them. However, until the fall of the Empire the
government itself published the almanac annually in the name of the
Son of Heaven, in several editions, large and small. They were issued
in enormous quantities, and existing records of the Yuan Dynasty for
1328 contain a notation of the printing and sale of 3,123,185 copies
of the almanac and a further 5,267 especially issued for the Hw Hui,
the Mohammedans of the Empire.

Following this interesting sketch, Messer Marco goes into more or
less scattered details about the Chinese religion and the etiquette fol-
lowed by the nobles when they appear before their monarch. After
describing their wearing of "certain beautiful slippers of white leather,"
which they carried with them and put on when they entered the audi-
ence chamber, so as not to soil the beautiful carpets of silk and gold, he
makes an observation in which he seems mentally to compare the nicety
of the manners of the Chinese with the vulgarities and grossness com-
mon in his own Venice: "Each baron or noble carries with him continu-
ally a vase, very small and beautiful, into which he spits while he is in
the [audience] chamber, because no one would dare to spit on [the floor
of] the [audience] chamber. And when he has spit he covers it and
keeps it by him."

We are told in the same paragraph of the quaint decree by which
Kublai Khan forbade gambling in his dominions: "I have vanquished
you arms in hand, and all that you possess is mine. And if you gamble
you are gambling with my property."

At this point in his narrative Marco makes an end for the moment
of his desultory notes which, strangely enough, fail to mention many
common things in Chinese daily life, such as tea, f ootbinding, and print-
ing remarking-

And now that there has come an end to telling of the government and adminis-
tration of the province of Cathay, and of the city of Cambaluc and of the mag-
nificence of the great Can, you will be told of the other regions into which
Messer Marco went on the official business of the Empire of the great Can.

For [and here we quote from the Latin edition of 1671]

when the great Chan sent me, Marco, to remote regions on certain business of
his realm (which kept me on the road for a period of four months), I observed
all things diligently which came to my attention either in going or in returning.

ffifjaptrr Jtanr: (ttailyag

This paragraph definitely marks the end of one part of the narrative
and the beginning of another. The mission which Messer Marco de-
scribes appears to be the one referred to by him in the very brief
outline of his travels at the beginning of his book. There he modestly
says that he was "of a very distinguished mind" and that he learned
the languages, manners, and customs of the Tartars so thoroughly "that
it seemed a wonder to all." Other manuscripts record that "Dominus
Marco," while he was in the court of the Great Khan, learned the
Tartar language and four other diverse languages in such a manner
that he could read and write in any of those languages. "No other
surpassed him in virtue and noble manners," they state. "He was wise
and prudent beyond measure." Such phrases as these may well be inter-
polations of later editors; for although Messer Marco nowhere seems
to be too anxious to hide his light under a bushel, it is difficult to believe
that he would use such fulsome praise of himself in his book. More-
over, the paragraph in question varies in many details and in its phrase-
ology, no two manuscripts seeming to agree on more than a phrase or
two. What does appear clear is that the young Venetian very speedily
'brought himself to the attention of Kublai by his keen wit and intelli-
gence, as well as by the speed and facility with which he made himself
thoroughly familiar with economic and political affairs at court and
throughout the Empire. He had observed with what avidity the mon-
arch seized upon any information about his subject states, their people,
products, and ways of life, and had also noted his impatience with
returned envoys who seemed to have carried out their missions suc-
cessfully without noting or observing anything aside from the strict
demands of their duties. Shrewdly making use of this knowledge,
Marco set about acquiring and accumulating information and making
note of each place he visited, and never hesitated to acquaint his master
with these details. To his diligence and zeal in these investigations
Marco owed his success at court, and to them the great value and inter-
est of his book are due.

According to Marco's own statement, the Great Khan decided to try
out his abilities as a "messenger" and sent him to the distant city of
Caragian (in Yunnan Province), a place so far from Cambaluc that "he
can hardly make the journey in six months." The young man carried
out his commission most satisfactorily, and brought back in addition
much information of great interest to his lord. His report was fascinat-

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<&tptpt*r Jour: fflattfttg 127

ing and detailed: "To the lord this noble youth seemed to have divine
rather than human understanding, and the love of the lord increased
.... until by the lord and the whole court there was nothing more
wonderful told than of the wisdom of the noble youth. " And practi-
cally every manuscript adds that the nobles told each other that if he,
Marco, should live for long, "he could not fail to be a man of much
sense and great valor." Then follows the naive rhetorical question
which Marco uses so frequently and so delightfully, as though to take
breath before continuing his narrative: "Et que vous en diroie? [And
what shall I tell you of it?]" We are told in the next sentence that
thenceforth the young man was called "Messer" Marco Polo ("Mesere
Marc Pol" in the French texts) : "and thus our book will henceforth
call him. And this is indeed very right, for he was Wise and experi-
enced."

"And for what reason should I make you a long tale?" we are
asked, and are told in the same breath that after that Messer Marco
remained in the service of the Great Khan for seventeen years. The
Elizabethan translation of a Spanish manuscript (made by John Framp-
ton in 1579) recites:

He [Marco] was in the greate CANES Court XVIJ yeares, and when anye
L r reat EmbaJJage or bujine/je Jhoulde be done in any of hys Countreys or
Provinces, he was alwayes sente, wherefore, divers great men of the Court did
envie him, but he alwayes kepte thys order, that whatjoever he Jawe or heard,
were it good or evill, hee alwayes wrote it, and had it in minde to declare to the
great CANE in order.

The narrative takes occasion to point out that Marco's notes, investiga-
tions, and reports on these missions explain "why Messer Marco knows
more of these things of this country than any other man, because he ex-
plores more of these strange regions than any other man who was ever
born, and moreover because he gave his particular attention to learn
this." And, adds Ramusio, "The things which Marco thus learned are
those about which he has written so carefully and in order in his book."
Nowhere in his narrative does Marco inform the reader specifically
of the nature or number of the missions on which he was sent at various
times during the seventeen years of his service as an official of Kublai
Khan. It is thus impossible for us to reconstruct his itineraries. Since
this is so, we are not at all sure when or how information given us about
any particular country or region was acquired. It may have been from

W-i

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jfanr: (ttattjag

notes jotted down during his numerous journeyings back and forth on
diplomatic or other missions, on expeditions made by him when engaged
in his own private affairs, or from observations made during the long
journey home. The information is usually given under the heading
of the particular place, with no remarks on how it was obtained. We
must not cavil at Marco's failure to recount what was evidently unim-
portant in his eyes eyes which looked out upon the world with thir-
teenth-century selectivity and interests for what he has given us is
precious material about Asia, which is still full of rich unexplored veins
and pockets of golden ore.

The accounts given of the peoples and tribes of China and the neigh-
boring countries, the strange ideas of the Tibetans in the realm of
morals, the descriptions of the aborigines of Yunnan and other prov-
inces, the existence of the widespread custom of the couvade among the
"Gold-teeth" people on the Burmese frontier, and countless other bits
of information have been of inestimable value to successive generations
of ethnologists and anthropologists. Everywhere we marvel at the ob-
serving eye, the keen intelligence, and the accuracy of the descriptions
of the untrained mind of the medieval Venetian. It makes us accept
as valid the death-bed declaration attributed to him by Jacopo of Acqui
that "he had not told one-half of what he had really seen."

As for regions represented in his account of the raw-meat eaters
of Yunnan, the age-old use of cowrie-shells for money, the crocodiles
of the south (which Marco believed were serpents with two legs) and
the way in which they were captured, fill one interesting chapter. An-
other section describes the conquest of Burma and a description of that
country together with adjacent Indian states. It is not certain that
Marco visited all of these places in person. Among the diverse notes
on Yunnan is the observation that the natives dock their horses' tails
so that they cannot swish them and injure their riders. Marco also
describes a custom of the Yiinnanese: If a handsome or "gentle"
stranger, or one "who had a good shadow and good influence and valor"
came to lodge in the house of one of the natives, he was killed during
the night by poison or otherwise; and "this they used to do, not for
money or for any hatred which they had against him" but in order that
his soul might remain in the house where he had died to bring it good
luck. The natives believed, moreover, that the handsomer and more
noble the murdered stranger the more fortunate would they be there-

Map of Asia from Girolamo Rubcelli's Esfosttwni d Introfattmi Univev*

wli . , , . sofra tutta la Gtografhia i\ Tolmco (Venice, 1573), From

the author's collection

-JBmir: (Eatljag

after because of the presence of his soul in their house. But, adds our
author, "indeed the great Khan, when he conquered the kingdom and
brought it under his dominion, drove out that impiety and that ex-
ceeding folly."

A full description of Burmese tattooing is given, with details of
how the victim was bound hand and foot and held motionless while
the master tattooer, with an instrument holding five needles arranged
in a square, pricked the pattern on him and then rubbed in indelible
ink on the design. Marco adds that the person undergoing the opera-
tion suffers so that "it might be thought enough for them for purga-
tory" and that many die from loss of blood j and he ends by telling us
that he will "leave you then from this province and from the men
who are painted with flowers and with animals."

After describing the countries bordering China on the south as
no one had ever done before his day and as no other single traveler has
since, Marco continues with China proper and describes some of its
provinces. In the Zelada manuscript, lately discovered, there is a
unique and lengthy discussion of manners and customs of the Chinese,
many of which are identical with those of today.

The first is a tribute to the grace and virtue of the women of China,
famous through the ages:

You should know also that the maidens observe decorum. They indeed do
not skip and dance about, or leap or burst into a passion. They do not hang out
the windows scanning the faces of the passers-by or exhibiting their own faces
to them. They do not lend a ready ear to unseemly conversation, and they do
not frequent feasts or celebrations. And if it happens that they go to any decent
place, such as by chance to the temples of the idols, or to visit the homes of their
blood relations or other kinsmen, they go in the company of their mothers, not
gazing boldly at people, but wearing on their heads certain beautiful hats which
prevent a glance upwards, so that always in walking they cast their eyes on the
road before their feet. They are indeed demure in the presence of their elders,
and never utter empty words, indeed none save when questions are asked of them;
and they remain in their rooms at their tasks and seldom appear in the sight of
their fathers and brothers and the elders of the household. And to suitors they
give no ear.

It is difficult not to perceive the expression of Marco's personal
attitude of mind in these sentences. After twenty-three years in Asia,
most of them spent in China, he had learned to know and respect
Chinese customs and manners. He had observed the position of women

J3*

3F0ur: fflatlyag 133

in Chinese society, and was deeply impressed by their sweetness, dig-
nity, modesty, and retiring disposition. On his return to Venice, thor-
oughly Orientalized as he must have been after his long sojourn, he
could not avoid observing the daily life of his fellow citizens from a
new viewpoint. His keen mind made mental comparisons at every turn,
and here, as in numerous other instances in his book, he appears to reach
the conclusion that his townsfolk had much to learn of gentility, breed-
ing, and ethical attitudes from the peoples of Eastern Asia.

In like manner he observed the conduct of the boys and young men.

And likewise we may say of the boys and young gentlemen that they never
presume to speak in the presence of their elders unless they are asked. And
what more? So great is the modesty among them, that is to say among blood
relations and kindred, that in no way would two attempt to go together to the
cold or hot baths.

Here follows a long and interesting discussion of the Chinese ways of
marrying and giving in marriage, with guaranties, tests, and proofs
of the virginity of the bride. In this intimate description, reminiscent of
the customs of many ancient or primitive peoples, and throwing light
on certain age-old methods of practicing deceit, Marco may refer to
the practice of footbinding, not otherwise mentioned by him, in the
remark:

And you should know that for the preserving of this virginity the maidens walk
so gently in their progress on the road that one foot is never advanced before
the other by more than the measure of a finger .... In like manner it is to be
understood that this [custom] is of those whose origin is Cathayan, for the
Tartars do not care for this kind of convention.

It may be observed that Marco is more nearly correct in his inference
as to the origin of footbinding than are most of the dissertations writ-
ten on it 5 and it is further to be noted that footbinding appears to be
entirely a Chinese custom, never adopted by their Mongol or their
Manchu conquerors.

In this same section, also preserved in the Zelada manuscript, is a
very interesting description of a temple erected to two "idols" who pre-
sided over the finding of lost things. These idols were small statues of
boys, covered with ornaments, and the temple was presided over by an
ancient dame whom Marco calls the "sacristan." If a person loses any-
thing, by theft or otherwise, he comes to the temple and tells his tale
to the old woman, who orders him to burn incense before the gods.

134 Srnrttan Aimrnturrr: JHarra P010

Then the sacristan asks the gods about the thing lost, and they tell her
what will be the outcome. Then she will direct the petitioner where
to look if the article has been misplaced. If, however, it has been stolen,
she tells him to whom to go, instructing him to warn the thief to restore
the thing, with the admonition that "otherwise I shall bring it about
that he shall cut his hand or break an arm or leg by falling, or in some
other manner he will come to harm, so that he will be compelled to
restore it to you." And we are assured that this always happens, be
the thief a man or a woman: "And because by experience people know
that this may happen to them because of their denials of thefts, they
immediately restore the stolen goods." At times, however, the gods
do not respond at once, in which case the sacristan announces that they
(the gods) are not present, and requests the petitioner to return at a
certain hour. At that time she has the answer, "which answer they [the
spirits] give in a gentle, low voice, whispering after the manner of a
hissing [or whistling]." The old woman thanks the spirits in ritualistic
fashion, and conveys the necessary information to the petitioner, who
upon recovering his property is expected to make an offering to the idol
of fine cloth or silk.

In the midst of his notes Marco admonishes his reader that he
should not "believe that we have treated in orderly fashion of the
whole province of Cathay, indeed not of the twentieth part [thereof]
and only according to the journeys that I, Marco, used to make across
the province. Thus the cities are described which are on the way across,
omitting those which are at the sides or in the middle, to tell of which
would be too long."

As a reward for his faithfulness, his administrative ability, and his
knowledge of the country, Marco was appointed by Kublai Khan gov-
ernor of Yang Chou, in Kiangsu Province, on the Grand Canal, near
its junction with the Yangtze River.

This city was an important trade center from earliest times until
its destruction by the T'ai P'ing rebels in the middle of the nineteenth
century. Yang Chou must have been the rendezvous of many Euro-
pean merchants during the thirteenth and fourteenth centuries ; for
the monk Odoric de Pordenone informs us in his "Travels" that he
found there "a house and a convent of our minor friars" and also "in
this city one finds all things necessary for the bodies [i.e., the living]
of Christians."

(Cfjaptrr JToitr: Catlyaif 135

In view of the commercial importance of Yang Chou and his long
residence there, it is most surprising that Marco devotes but one short
paragraph to the city. After stating that "the said Messer Marco Polo,
he of whom this book speaks, ruled this city for three full years" (ap-
proximately from 1284 to 1287), he informs us tersely that its inhabi-
tants "live by trades and crafts" especially in the manufacture of arms
and armor. That is all, together with the remark that "there is nothing
else which is worth mentioning." This failure to enter into a more de-
tailed description of the great city it was estimated to contain over two
hundred and fifty thousand families in his time which he must have
come to know well is one of the lacunae in Messer Marco's book.

Continuing his desultory notes on China, Marco describes the Yang-
tze River most vividly as "the greatest river in the world, requiring a
journey of one hundred and twenty days to its outlet in the sea." As a
matter of fact, it was the greatest river ever seen by any European be-
fore the discovery of the Americas. He was amazed at its size, remark-
ing that it was so broad that it seemed to be the sea, rather than a river,
and that he himself saw at one single time in Wu Chang (?) fifteen
thousand boats. And, he adds: "this shipping is not sufficient to trans-
port the aforesaid [goods], but indeed much merchandise is carried on
rafts." He also describes the towing of boats upstream by means of
ropes of twisted bamboo strips a practice still pursued in the same
manner on the upper reaches of the river.

Some paragraphs are devoted to Soochow and many pages to Hang-
chow, which he calls Quinsai. His description, enthusiastic as it is, is
but a faint echo of that voiced by generations of Chinese writers, who
never wearied of singing the praises of both cities in prose and in verse.
One of the best-known Chinese proverbs is: "Shang, T'ien t'ang, hsia,
Su Hang" ["Above, the halls of Heaven, below, Soochow and Hang-
chow"]. The women of Soochow have been famed down through the
centuries as the most beautiful in all China. Even the boatmen on its
canals have been entranced by them, as in the "Song of Soochow" by
Chang Min Piao:

A boat goes by, The passing boatmen

Poling slowly to the east. Heed not each other;

Another comes, They have eyes only

Faring its way to the west. For the girls of Ku Su T'ai.*

* A Garden of Peonies, by Henry H. Hart (Stanford University Press, 1938).

130 Vttttttati Aimentarrr: JHarrn

It may be added that Ku Su T'ai was the terrace at Soochow's water-
side, where the "green houses" stood, and where the young women
were wont to walk to solicit and entice strangers into their abodes.

Marco too pays his tribute to the beauty and gentility of Hang-
chow's women, as witness the testimony of Ramusio and some of the
other editions of Marco Polo :

And their ladies and wives are also most delicate and angelique things, and
raised gently, and with great delicacy, and they clothe themselves with so many
ornaments of silk and of jewels, that the value of them cannot be estimated
.... And they love one the other in such a manner that a district of the city,
because of the amiability which exists among the men and the women of the
neighborhood, may be counted as a single household. So great is the familiarity
that it exists among them with no jealousy or suspicion of their women, for
whom they have the greatest respect, and he would be considered a most in-
famous person who would dare to address improper words to a married woman.

Ramusio has preserved an interesting note not appearing in other
early editions:

In other streets dwell the "donne da partido" ["courtesans"] in such num-
bers that I would not dare state it .... And they live in a most showy manner,
with great perfumes and many maidservants, and the houses all adorned. These
women are very clever and versed in knowing how to flatter, and caressing with
ready words, and suited to every kind of person, in such fashion that foreigners
who have once partaken of their favors remain, as it were, in a sort of ecstasy,
and so much are they taken by their sweetness and charm that they can never
forget them. And from this it happens that when they return home they say
they have been in Quinsai, that is, in the city of Heaven, and cannot [wait to]
see the hour when they may again return there.

It is in speaking of Hangchow, too, that Marco gives us further
interesting details of Chinese life, some of them customs peculiar to
that city, others prevalent throughout the Empire. The Great Khan
tolerated neither beggars nor vagabonds in Hangchow, for if the city
guards "by day .... see any poor man who because of being crippled
cannot work, they make him go to stay in the hospitals, of which there
is an infinitely large number throughout the city, built by the ancient
kings, [and] which have great incomes. And if he be sound of body
they compel him to do some work."

Another custom of the people of Hangchow, and one which Marco
asserted was followed throughout China, rendered the locating of
any citizen comparatively easy and facilitated the taking of the census.

QHyapter 3F0r: (Eatljag 137

Each person inscribed over the door his own name and those of his
family and slaves, as well as the number of horses owned by him.
Names of deceased persons were erased and those of newborn children
added. Another statute required innkeepers to write on the doors of
their houses the names of all who came to lodge with them, with the
date of their arrival and the day and the hour of their departure, so
that the officers of the law could know the whereabouts of all travelers
throughout the land. "And," adds Marco, "this is a good thing, and
one that befits wise men."

After describing Hangchow and the surrounding district, many
entertaining details are given of Fukien Province. Of these the most
interesting is the sketch of a numerous Christian sect then living in the
province. This is not only of value in itself, but it throws light on
Marco's extensive wanderings in the domain of the Great Khan which
are not mentioned elsewhere. The description begins with the statement
that the discovery of these Christians was made "when indeed Master
Maffeo, uncle of Master Marco Polo, and Master Marco himself were
in the said city of Foochow and in their company a certain wise Saracen."

That Marco Polo was speaking, as far as China is concerned, mainly
from knowledge gained from personal observation and experience is
proved by his frank statement that he had described three of the nine
provinces of "Manzi"

because Master Marco made his crossing through them, for his way led thither.
Indeed he heard and learned much about the other six, but since he did not travel
through them he could not have told as fully about the others. Therefore we
shall cease about them.

At this point Marco terminates his discursive description of China, its
people, government, religions, economics, manners, and customs.

His journeyings to and fro, his government service, and his wan-
derings in his own behalf seem to have been unceasing from the time
of his first arrival at the court of the Great Khan. Meanwhile many
months and seasons had come and fled. The boy had become a youth,
and the youth had developed into a stalwart man, intelligent, alert,
self-reliant, and wise in the ways of the world. Seventeen long years
had slipped by, and the Venetians began to long for home. After all,
they were strangers in a strange land, and dreaded the thought of never
returning to the home of their fathers. Memories of faraway Venice
haunted their dreams, and, happy though the years had been, bringing

138 V*tt*titttt Aimrntttrrr: IHarra

them riches and high honors, the Polos began to seek for a plan by
which they could return to Italy and their families.

Other considerations, too, weighed heavily with them, and made
a departure from the court of the Cheat Khan advisable. They had
found great preferment at the hands of the mighty monarch, and had
waxed rich and powerful in his service. But the sunshine of the imperial
favor had bred jealousy and envy of them and their good fortune, and
the number of their enemies at court became ever greater. With troubled
minds they watched the great Kublai growing ever older and more
feeble. They dreaded his approaching end, for their experience and
observation had taught them too well that with his passing the strong
wall of his protection would fall. They would be helpless in the pres-
ence of their foes, and their accumulated wealth would mark them the
more certainly as victims, once their lord had "mounted on high" on
the dragon.

That this fear was not without good foundation is attested by Fran-
cesco Pegolotti, who in 1340 in his Practica delta Mercatura warned
the would-be traveler to China that one of the dangers of the journey
was that

when the lord [the Khan of the Mongols] dies, and until the other lord who
should rule is proclaimed, in this interim sometimes irregular acts have been done
to the Franks and to other foreigners .... And the road will not be safe until
the other lord who is to reign in the place of him who is dead is proclaimed.

Departure from the court of Cathay was not as simple as was the
arrival there. The trials and tribulations of their long, wearisome
journey eastward were as nothing compared to the network of interests
which bound them close to Kublai's throne. Moreover, the Venetians
feared greatly, and with good reason, that rebellion might break out all
over the dominions of the Mongols, once the hand that controlled from
Cambaluc was relaxed in death. Then the caravan routes would again
be beset with a hundred perils, and even if they succeeded in leaving the
court it was very doubtful if they could escape the dangers that would
threaten them on their long journey homeward.

Ever wise, ever shrewd, well-versed in the moods of the aged
Emperor, the elder Polos bided their time.

And so, Messer Nicolo one day, seeing the Great Khan in high good humor,
seized the occasion, and, on bended knee begged him, in the name of all three,
for permission to depart. At these words he [the Emperor] was much disturbed.

<HJjajit*r Jfatir: fflattjag 139

And he spoke to him, asking him what reason moved him to desire to set out on
such a long and perilous journey, during which they could all easily die. And
if it were because of wealth [goods] or of anything else, he would gladly give
them the double of what they had at their home, and heap upon them as many
honors as they might desire. And, for the great love which he bore them, he
refused them flatly the right to depart.

A Venetian manuscript records a further plea by Messer Nicolo.
For he assured the Great Khan that he did not desire to leave for want
of gold, "but it is because in my land I have a wife and by the Christian
law I cannot forsake her while she lives." This from the man who
had remained away from home on his first journey fifteen years in the
pursuit of gain, and who, after he had taken unto himself a second wife
on his return to Venice, had left her after two short years to answer the
call of the East, and who had bestirred himself with thoughts of his
homeland only after a life of riches and honor for seventeen years in
China and then seemingly from motives of personal safety!

But the Great Khan was obdurate perhaps he saw through the
flimsy pretext and told them that, though they might wander where
they pleased in his realm, "on no condition in the world could they
leave it." We are given no reason for this harsh ruling except, as re-
iterated by Marco, that "the Great Khan loved them so much." And
repeated petitions met with the same refusal.

But again the good fortune which seemed ever to watch over the
Polos rescued them in this dire emergency. It came in an altogether
unforeseen and unexpected manner, and just at the right moment, too.
When they could least foresee it, kind fate placed in their hands the
long and eagerly awaited opportunity to return to Venice.

C&apter Jf toe

E VAST EMPIRE of the Mongols was very loosely knit to-
gether in the last quarter of the thirteenth century, and the
descendants of the great Genghis Khan held a vague sort
of sovereignty over many vassal states or virtually inde-
pendent territories by ties of marriage only. The giving of a princess
royal (for the most part adopted) to a distant sovereign in marriage
was often the only political bond between outlying parts of the empire
and the capital.

Death had robbed Arghun, Khan of Persia and grand-nephew of
the Great Kublai, of his wife. There was a strange custom among the
Mongol-Persians of the time, by which a Khan upon ascending the
throne took his mother to wife. Thus the Khatun (Lady) Bolgana who
had died was both mother and wife to Arghun. She was of Mongol
lineage, and "This Queene ordeyred in hir teltamente, that hyr Hus-
bande Jhoulde not marrie, but with one of hyr bloud and kynred." She
died on April 7, 1286, in Georgia, and shortly thereafter Arghun dis-
patched three envoys, Uladai, Apushka, and Koja, to his great-uncle in
Cambaluc, with a large retinue, asking him to select and send him a
wife from among the women of the line of the deceased Bolgana.

The three ambassadors arrived in due time at the court of the Great
Khan, where they were received with much pomp and ceremony and
feasting. The Emperor then set about selecting a successor to Bolgana
from among her relatives. His choice fell upon a young girl of seven-
teen named Cocachin, "the whyche was verye fayre," amiable, and
charming. She was summoned to court and presented to the three
ambassadors as his selection as wife to fill the place of the dead Bolgana.

141

142 Vntrttgtt Atmrttturm Astra

The envoys on meeting her expressed themselves as well pleased with
the woman chosen as their future queen, and forthwith prepared to
depart overland with her on the long return journey to Persia.

Leaving the city of Cambaluc, escorted by a great retinue sent to
do honor to Arghun's new bride, the caravan crossed the Great Wall
and started with its precious charge on its long and arduous journey
over the desert highway to Persia by which they had come to the court
of the Great Khan. Many weary months dragged by en route, and the
envoys were looking forward with joy to beholding their homes again,
when war suddenly flared up among the Tartar tribes of Central Asia.
Attacks on travelers and raids on towns along the caravan route inevi-
tably followed. The ambassadors found it impossible to continue on
their way, and were forced to turn back to China. After eight months
of absence they again beheld against the sky the crenelated walls and
high towers of Cambaluc. Once more the cortege wound its way
through the streets of the capital city, which the Persians had never
expected to see again, and a second time they sought and obtained an
audience with the Khan of all the Mongols.

Kublai heard the tale of the dangerous journey and its unfortunate
interruption, and was sorely perplexed as to how he could send the
maid, Cocachin, with speed and safety to his kinsman in distant Persia.
By a stroke of good fortune Messer Marco had just returned from an
expedition by sea to India "as the Lord's ambassador" one manuscript
states that he was accompanied by his father and uncle and had made
a detailed report to the Great Khan concerning his mission and all the
peoples and things he had observed en route. At that time the three
"barons" saw the Venetians "and had great wonder" because of their
wisdom. They were particularly interested because they realized that
the Polos must have a knowledge of the sea route for at least part of
the way to their own country of Persia.

A carefully devised scheme was speedily worked out between the
Venetians and the Persians. The former were shrewd enough to see
in the predicament of the envoys the long-sought opportunity to re-
turn to their home. The officers of Arghun on their side perceived a way
of reaching their home by sea, thus avoiding the necessity of waiting
an indefinite time at Kublai's court until the land route should be safe
enough for their return by caravan. They had already been on their
journey three years, and had no stomach for further delays. The Per-

Jtftt**: $iim*w8r& Vxmnb 143

sians and the Polos thus found that their interests were identical, and
after much discussion it was agreed that the envoys and Cocachin should
present themselves before the Great Khan and point out that it was far
safer to proceed to Persia by sea than by land. Moreover, they were
to point out that the journey would be both cheaper and shorter by
water than by caravan. Finally, and most important to the Venetians,
the envoys were to ask that the Polos be ordered to accompany them
"to the lands of the lord Arghun" because of their knowledge and ex-
perience in sailing the southern seas, "and especially Messer Marco. "
Moreover, the sending of such prominent men as the Venetians would
show that much honor was being paid Arghun, lord of Persia, by his
great-uncle, Kublai.

The Great Khan "showed great displeasure on his countenance"
at their request, for the three Latins were of real value to him because
of their ability and wide experience in his service. (This is far more
likely to have been the reason for his desire to retain them than "the
great love" which Marco repeatedly says he bore them.) Arghun,
however, was a powerful ruler, and one whom Kublai could ill afford to
offend or neglect. In fact Marco (in the Ramusio version) frankly
admits that "as he could not do otherwise, he consented to as much as
they requested of him, and had not the reason been so great and cogent
that compelled him, never would the said Latins have departed."

Kublai then summoned to his presence Marco, his father, and his
uncle,

and spoke unto them many gracious words of the great love which he bore them,
and that they should promise him that after having been some time in the land
of Christians and at their own home they would wish to return to him. And he
caused them to be given a tablet of gold whereon was written a command that
they should be free [from all interference] and secure throughout all his do-
mains, and that in every place all their expenses should be provided for and for
their retinue also, and that they should be given an escort, in order that they
might pass in safety, decreeing also that they should be his ambassadors to the
Pope, the King of France, [the King] of Spain, and to other Christian Kings.

One manuscript even includes the King of England!

At the command of the Great Khan fourteen great ships were fitted
out for the expedition, probably at Zaiton (Chilian Chou), each having
four masts and such a spread of sails that it was a marvel to Marco as
it was to all medieval travelers to the Far East. Marco was so impressed

144 VntrtUra Atamttttrrr: tftarrii

by "the great ships in which merchants go and come into India by sea"
that he has given full and very interesting descriptions of them.

They were built of fir and of pine, and though they had but one deck
the larger vessels contained as many as sixty cabins, "and in each can a
merchant dwell alone at his ease." In this description appears the first
mention of watertight compartments in ships, a device seemingly entirely
unknown to European shipbuilders until modern times. The larger ships
had thirteen divisions in their holds, made of closely fitted planks,

so if by chance it happens that the [hull of the] ship is damaged in any place
either if it strikes on a rock or a whale fish .... the water entering through
the hole will run to the bottom, which is never filled with any other things.
Then the sailors seek out in what compartment the ship is damaged, and then
that compartment [i.e., the goods stored therein] where the break occurs is emp-
tied into others, for the water cannot pass from one compartment into the other,
so strongly are they enclosed. And then they repair the ship there and replace
[therein] the goods which have been removed.

The ships were manned by from two hundred to three hundred
sailors. This remark of Marco Polo taken together with others of the
period seems to indicate that these Chinese vessels were far larger than
the ships used at the time in European sea-borne commerce. It confirms
similar information left by Odoric de Pordenone, Friar Jordanus, and
numerous other travelers. Ibn Batuta, in his description of Chinese
shipping, states that the largest junks the ships were called "junks"
or "gonk" as early as his time carried

six hundred sailors and four hundred warriors .... The sailors have their
children who live in the cabins, and they sow kitchen herbs, vegetables, and
ginger in tubs of wood .... The captain of the ship resembles a great emir;
when he disembarks the archers and Abyssinians [African slaves?] march be-
fore him with spears, swords, drums, horns and trumpets.

Before describing the long voyage from China to Persia, with
notes on the islands and countries visited en route, Marco devotes an
entire chapter to Japan. He did not visit the islands himself, and his
account of the country, which he called Cipango (or Cipingu), is a
farrago of fact and fancy which need not detain us long here. Suffice
it to note that he placed the islands on the high seas fifteen hundred
miles from the mainland of China. "The people are white." They
have much gold; in fact the roof of the palace of their king is covered
with plates of gold and the floors within are of gold tiles two fingers
thick. And great pearls of red and white colors abound, so that the dead

: ^am*umr& fiomtb 145

are buried each with a pearl in his mouth. These were some of tfre
stories which fired Columbus with such zeal for discovery that he carried
a copy of Marco Polo, which is still in existence with copious marginal
notes in his own handwriting, with him on his first voyage. Of course
the incorrect distances noted by Marco Polo upset all his calculations
and conjectures as to locations and mileages.

Following the fantastic description of the islanders we are given a
hasty sketch of Kublai Khan's historic efforts to subdue the Japanese
in several successive expeditions, the last one terminated in its pre-
liminary stages only by his death.* Again into this story of the defeat
of the Mongols Marco weaves a tale of men who could not be wounded
by the sword because of the magical protection afforded them by cer-
tain precious stones inserted in the right arm between skin and flesh.
And this stone, "enchanted by the devil's art," rendered them immune
from death or wound by iron. However, we are told, their precious
stones availed them nothing, for "the barons caused them to be beaten
with clubs of thick wood, and they died at once." Friar Odoric tells of
the same custom in one of the islands of the Indies (Borneo?), where,
he says, certain stones are found in reeds that grow along the ground:
"And they take their sons and cut deep wounds in their arm, and in these
wounds they place these stones .... and by the virtue of these stones
.... they know that iron cannot injure them." Marco ends his account
of the Japanese by describing the delightful way in which one captured
an enemy, invited all his friends to come to his home, and cooked and
served the flesh of the enemy as "the best flesh which there is on earth."

The first country described by Marco Polo after sailing from China
is the kingdom of Champa (in Indo-China), a tributary to the Great
Khan. Marco states that he visited the kingdom in the year 1285
(in some manuscripts the dates vary from 1275 to 1288). He found
prevailing in the kingdom the droit seigneurial or ius primae noctis,
that much-debated medieval European custom which Beaumont and
Fletcher held up to such derision in their The Custom of the Country.

Marco had learned during his earlier visit that the king of Champa
had three hundred and twenty-six children, of whom more than one
hundred and fifty were men capable of bearing arms. This statement

* A very full and interesting account of this unsuccessful effort of the Mongols to
bring Japan under their domination will be found in Nakaba Yamada, Ghcnko: the
Mongol Invasion of Jafan (John Murray, London, 1916).

146 V*tt*tta*t Abtt*ttttir*r:

is corroborated by Odoric de Pordenone, who was informed when he
visited the country that the king had two hundred children and fourteen
thousand elephants. Such a great number of children is not an un-
common phenomenon, at least in Asia. One of the recent kings of
Persia was reputed to have had nearly three thousand children. The
Chinese emperor K'ang Hsi had twenty-four sons, and Ch'ien Lung
abdicated in favor of his fifteenth son.

The accounts given of Java and the islands and countries passed on
the journey to Sumatra need not detain us. The fleet made a long stay at
different ports on that island, which Marco calls "Java the Less," and
several pages of the tale are devoted to it. He informs us that he himself
visited six of the eight kingdoms into which the island was divided.

Marco first records his astonishment at discovering that the island
lies so far to the south that the North Star is to be seen "neither little
or much." He found the inhabitants of the kingdom of Ferlac (Par-
lak) all converted to the "abominable law" of Mohammed, and that
many of them were cannibals. This custom still prevails among some
of the hill people of this region. In Bassa (Pasei) the animal which
most attracted the interest of Marco was the rhinoceros, which he de-
scribes so accurately that he must have seen specimens himself, though
in spite of the fact that he calls it a "unicorn" the Sumatra species is the
only one which bears two horns. Marco assures us that the animal is not
at all like the unicorn of which the tales of his day declared that it could
be ensnared by a "pucelle vierge."

At this point Marco Polo waxes so wroth over the deceptions of the
Arabs and other traders who offered for sale in Europe preserved bodies
which they represented as the mummies of a pigmy people that he
describes the whole process of preparing them:

And we shall tell the method. On this island there is a type of monkey which
is very small, and they have faces like the faces of men. And when the men
capture them they remove all the hair from them with a certain unguent and fix
certain long hairs on their chin in place of a beard, and while the skin is drying
the openings where the hairs are fixed shrink so that it appears as though they
had grown there naturally. And the feet and hands and other members which
do not conform to human members they stretch and shorten and by handling
make conform to human likeness. And then they cause them to be dried, and
then they treat them with camphor and other things so that they appear to have
been men. And they sell them to merchants, who carry them throughout the
world and cause men to believe that they are such small men. And this is a

ffifjapttr JFtti*: ifomrwari Bounb 147

great deception [deceverie], for they are made in such fashion as you have
heard. For not in all India nor in any other more savage parts were there ever
seen men so small as those appear to be.

From the description of the kingdom of Basman, Marco passes to
the kingdom called Sumatra, which was not then the name of the entire
island. There, we are told, the expedition was detained for five months
because of bad weather and contrary winds. They built five "towers"
of logs, surrounded by ditches, as a defense against the man-eating
natives j and all these appear to have been constructed under the direc-
tion of Marco himself. The members of the expedition remained in
these shelters until the changing winds permitted their departure.
While here Marco saw and described the making of palm wine, also the
coconut and its uses for both food and drink.

After describing in disgusting detail the cannibalistic habits of the
people of Dagroian, Marco retails an account of the "tailed men" of
Lambri. Probably these were orangutans. As all people from China
to England have their legends of tailed men, this matter need not
detain us. More interesting is the description given of the cultivation of
the sago tree and the way in which its flour is produced. Marco informs
us that not only did he often eat cakes made of sago but that he took
some of the flour with him to Venice.

The ships finally departed from Java the Less and passed near the
Andaman Islands, whose inhabitants, according to Marco, had heads
and features like dogs, and who indulged in cannibalism. From the
Andamans the expedition continued on its route to Ceylon, where a
landing was made and where Marco beheld "the largest ruby that is
to be found in all the world." The story of this ruby was current
throughout the whole East in the Middle Ages. Friar Jordanus, who
visited East Asia in 1321-1324, tells of two rubies owned by the King
of Ceylon: "He wears one of them hung about his neck, and the other
[he carries] in the hand with which he wipes his lips and his beard.
And it [the ruby] is longer than it is broad, and when it is held
in the hand it can be seen a finger's breadth on either side." Hsiian
Tsang, the Chinese monk (602664), records that on the top of the
pagoda of the Sacred Tooth of the Buddha in Ceylon there was an
arrow surmounted by a stone of great value, called "Padmaraga"
ruby. This precious stone, he says, constantly gives out a brilliant flash-
ing light. Day and night gazing on its from afar, one thinks he is look-

14H Henrtlatt Aim*nturm JHarm

ing at a luminous star. It will be recalled that when Sinbad the Sailor
visited Sarandib (Ceylon) on his sixth voyage, the king presented to
him a ruby cup a span high, adorned inside with precious pearls.

From Ceylon the ships proceeded to the mainland of India, touch-
ing first on the Malabar (Coromandel) Coast. There Marco visited
and described the pearl fisheries in detail. The industry seems to have
changed its methods but little since he wrote of it six hundred and fifty
years ago. The Hindu princes with their retinues and attendants, their
wives and concubines, their practice of burning the dead, suttee, self-
decapitation with a two-handled curved knife, and sacredness of the
cow, and the non-eating of beef these and many more customs of
the Indian peoples are described in fascinating detail, the more interest-
ing since many of these customs still survive in whole or in part in
various parts of India.

Interspersed with this more or less impersonal account are anecdotes
of Messer Marco's own adventures among the people. One delightful
remark is about suretyship: "He who drinks wine is not accepted as a
witness, nor is he who navigates upon the sea. For they say that [a
drinker of wine] and he who navigates upon the sea is a desperate
fellow and therefore they do not receive him as a witness or place any
value on his testimony."

The descriptions of the superstitions of the country, the nautch girls,
the "brides" of the temples, and many of the matters which are found
only in the Zelada manuscript have preserved for us most valuable
records of the medieval customs of southern India. One interesting
paragraph describes the method of placating the angry gods:

Then indeed the aforesaid maidens [i.e., the nautch girls] go to the monastery
in the aforesaid manner, and they are all of them naked except that they cover
their natural parts, and they sing before the god and goddess .... and then
those maidens come thither to pacify them [the gods] and when they are there
they sing, dance, leap about, and tumble and make various diversions .... and
the maiden [who has addressed the god] .... will lift her leg above her neck
and will execute a spin about .... and when they [the gods] have been molli-
fied enough they go home .... Indeed those maidens (while they are maidens)
are so firm of flesh that none can in any way seize them or pinch them in any
part. And for a small coin [denario] they will allow a man to pinch them as
much as he is able. When they are married they are then also firm of flesh, but
not so much.

Messer Marco's eyes missed nothing.

(Kfjaptrr JTttr*: $am*mar2i B0unb 149

In spite of his acute powers of observation and his shrewd judg-
ment, the Venetian was sometimes "taken in" by weird tales, as in his
sober explanation of why the skins of the natives of southern India
are dark. At least, according to one of the manuscripts, he solemnly
asseverates that when the Indian infants are born they are fair, but
their parents anoint them weekly with sesame oil, so that they become
si noirs comme dyables ("as black as devils").

Returning to speak again of the island of Ceylon, Marco gives a
rather detailed account of the life of the Buddha, whom he calls Saga-
moni Burcan (Sakyamuni Buddha). He must have found the tale most
fascinating, for the account is lengthy and circumstantial and indicates
a genuine interest on the part of the narrator. Marco is most generous
in his estimate of the character of the great sage of the Sakyas, which
impressed him profoundly. He treats him very gently, and declares,
most boldly for a European of the thirteenth century, that "most cer-
tainly if he [the Buddha] had been Christian, he would have been a
great saint, because of the good and honest life which he led." Messer
Marco did not know that a century before his time the Buddha had
already been enshrined as a saint in the Catholic Church under the name
of Saint Josaphat of India, and his date on the ecclesiastical calendar
was November 27.

Marco also describes the mythical "male and female" islands. His
story is seemingly a variant of the age-old fable of the Amazons, which
was accepted even by Sir Walter Raleigh over three hundred years
later, and which was related by him as truth in his Discoverie of Guiana.
Indeed, this belief gave the Amazon River its name.

Messer Marco mentions ambergris as one of the products of this
island, and of others in the Indian Ocean. He records that it is found
in the belly of the whale a fact now proved by science and the fre-
quency of his references to it as an article of commerce shows that there
must have been a considerable traffic in it in his day. There is no early
evidence of the use of this strange pathological intestinal secretion of
the whale in the manufacture of perfumes, but other medieval uses of
it are known. The Chinese called it "Lung Yen" dragon's saliva
and it was in great demand by them as a medicine, especially as an
aphrodisiac. The Hindus used it so, and Burton found it used for the
same purpose, mixed with coffee, among the Arabs of the African coast.
Arabian medieval medicine held it a valuable heart stimulant as well

150 Venetian Aimentrtrrr: Astra

as a distinct and delectable flavor in cooking, and even Western medi-
cine once placed great faith in its healing properties.

In the chapter on Socotra, lying according to Marco Polo about
five hundred miles south of the "male and female" islands, the Zelada
manuscript has preserved a long and very interesting description of the
taking of whales by harpoon in the Indian Ocean. The medieval meth-
ods of whaling seem to have differed in only a few details from those
of modern times.

The next description of interest in the tale of the wanderings of
the three Venetians on their journey homeward is of a place they did
not visit the great island of Madagascar. Though it is noteworthy
that Marco is the first traveler who mentions and describes the island,
the narration is full of errors, probably the result of the hearsay in-
formation on which he draws for his notes. He speaks of the entire
population as "Saracens who adore Mohammet," and mentions lions,
elephants, giraffes, camels, etc. Much of this information is either
incorrect or an indication of a confusion in his mind of Madagascar
with other African coastal regions about which he had been told. In
discussing Madagascar he tells of the "grifons" the mythical roc or
rukh of the Arabian Nights to which reference is made by numerous
writers of medieval Europe, Asia, and Africa. Though the form of the
tale would make it appear that Messer Marco had heard it together
with many others, from Arab seafarers, he informs us in all serious-
ness that the Great Khan himself had sent messengers to inquire about
the giant birds. He further states (according to one Venetian manu-
script) that the messengers had brought a wing feather of the rukh
to the Great Khan, and solemnly deposes that he, Marco Polo, meas-
ured it himself and found it ninety handbreadths long and two of
his palms in circumference. What the object which he thus saw and
measured with his own hands at the court of Kublai Khan actually
was we shall probably never know. Perhaps it was in the class of the
dwarf mummies of the Malay Archipelago which had incensed him
so much.

After the description of Madagascar and its wonders, the next
notes of the traveler concern Zanzibar, a place most likely never seen
or visited by him. It was a very important center of the ivory trade, as
it still is. Marco's description of the African Negroes is so vivid that
there is no doubt that he saw some of them in the course of his voyages:

Map of the world by Marino Sanudo (ca. 1320), from Lclcwel's G^o-
hve du Moyen Age. (Courtesy of the Library of the University of
California)

152 Urttrttatt Adtf*tttur*r: Utarm

And they are all black and go naked (except for a small covering) ....
And they have the hair curly and black so like unto pepper-corns that even
with water could it hardly be straightened. They have so large a mouth and
the nose so flat and turned up and the lips and the eyes so large and so bloodshot
and so red that they are a very horrible thing to behold .... For whosoever
should see them in another land would say of them that they are devils. And
again I tell you that the women of this island are a most ugly thing to behold.
For they have great mouths and large eyes and large noses. They have breasts
four times as large as have other women. They are a very ugly thing to behold.

Our adventurer then bids farewell to Zanzibar with a most intimate,
amusing, and altogether erroneous account of the love life of the ele-
phant, a description of the way in which the elephants are used in war,
and how the natives make them drunk before riding on them into battle.

Marco realized that his survey of the lands visited by him was a
cursory and insufficient one, for he says: "y u should know truly that
we have not told you of the isles of India except of the most noble
provinces and kingdoms and isles which are there, for there is no man
on earth who can tell the truth about all the lands of India."

The land next described is Abyssinia, which, curiously enough is
designated as part of "Middle India." This confusion of parts of the
northeastern portion of Africa was common from classic times down to
the time when the various regions were finally explored and mapped.

In describing Abyssinia, "ostriches hardly smaller than an ass"
are mentioned, with no further description or exclamation of surprise.
Evidently the Venetians of the period were well acquainted with the
bird, or Marco had seen them so often that they were no longer note-
worthy enough for him to describe them at length.

The expedition was finally drawing near its destination, and the
third division of the book closes with a summary sketch of Aden and
the southern regions of the Arabian Peninsula. The final notation of
the voyage consists of a very short additional description of Hormuz,
that Persian port which the Polos had found so distasteful and disap-
pointing on the outward journey. Then follows a fourth division of
the narrative, introduced by the words, as found in several fourteenth-
century Latin manuscripts: "now I shall touch upon certain noble and
especially fine provinces and regions which are in the farthest parts of
the north, about which, for the sake of brevity, I omitted to tell in its
proper place above in the first part of the book."

The opening pages of this book consist of an account of several

Map of the world by Fra Mauro (middle of the fifteenth century), in
San Michele di Murano, Venice. From the author's collection

m^^^:^W^^'\ , "WX" J >*"" " " ' '"' "' '"."; v " W

RUYSCH, UNfVERSALIOR COGNITI OR8IS TABULA

PTOLEM/LUS

Map of the world by Johann Ruysch, from the Nova Umversalis Or bis
Cogniti Tabula (Rome, 1522). Reprinted from A. E. Nordenskiold,

EX RECENTIBUS CONFECTA QBSERVATiONlBUS

ROMA. 1508

Facsimile Atlas to the Early History of Cartography (Stockholm,
1889). (Courtesy of the Library of the University of California)

GUjaptrr JFtti*: ^nmnuarb Brmttii 157

obscure wars of the Tartars, all of which adds but little to the interest
of the tale and throws no light either on Marco himself or on the lands
actually visited by him. Following this outline of the Tartar wars is
a description of Russia and Siberia. Though there is absolutely no evi-
dence that Marco Polo visited Russia, the chapter is full of detail,
partly accurate, partly quite erroneous. A large section of this account
remained unknown until the recent discovery of the Zelada manuscript.
This section supplies, together with a scabrous story quite unworthy of
Marco Polo, some interesting information on the customs of the medie-
val Russians. After a further account of some long-forgotten Tartar
wars, Marco's story ends very abruptly in all manuscripts except one
early Tuscan copy, which contains an additional paragraph possibly
ascribable to some anonymous translator. This paragraph reads:

Now you have heard all the facts, as much as can be told of them, of the
Tartars and of the Saracens, and of their customs, and of the other countries
which are throughout the world, as much as is possible to search out and to know,
except that of the Greater Sea we have spoken or said nothing, nor of the prov-
inces which are around it, although we have visited it all well. Therefore I
omit telling of it, for it appears to me that it would be wearisome to recount
that which would be neither necessary nor useful, nor that which others know
each day, for there are so many who explore and navigate [on] it every day,
as is well known, such as the Venetians and Genoese and Pisans and many other
folk who make that voyage often, that everyone knows what is there; and there-
fore I remain silent and tell you nothing of that. Of our departure, how we
took our leave of the Great Khan, you have heard in the beginning of the book
in one chapter where it is told of the trouble and weary time which Messer
Maffeo and Messer Nicolo and Messer Marco had in asking of the Great Khan
permission to depart, and in that chapter is told the good fortune we had in
our leaving. And know that if that good fortune had not come to pass, we
should [not?] have ever gotten away [even] with great weariness and much
trouble, so that hardly should we have ever returned to our country. But I be-
lieve that it was the pleasure of God, our return, in order that the things which
are in the world might be known. For according to the account which we have
given in the beginning of the book under the first title, there was never a man,
either Christian or Saracen or Tartar or pagan, who ever explored so much of
the world as did Messer Marco, a son of Messer Nicolo Polo, noble and great
citizen of the city of Venice. Thanks to God .... Amen Amen.

/- Thus ends the story of Marco Polo's travels through Asia and the
Indies, together with the descriptions of the people and countries visited
by him or about which he heard along the African coast.

QHjapirr JFtttr: $om*war& Vnmtft

Now you have heard all the facts, as much as can be told of them, of the
Tartars and of the Saracens, and of their customs, and of the other countries
which are throughout the world, as much as is possible to search out and to know,
except that of the Greater Sea we have spoken or said nothing, nor of the prov-
inces which are around it, although we have visited it all well. Therefore I
omit telling of it, for it appears to me that it would be wearisome to recount
that which would be neither necessary nor useful, nor that which others know
each day, for there are so many who explore and navigate [on] it every day,
as is well known, such as the Venetians and Genoese and Pisans and many other
folk who make that voyage often, that everyone knows what is there; and there-
fore I remain silent and tell you nothing of that. Of our departure, how we
took our leave of the Great Khan, you have heard in the beginning of the book
in one chapter where it is told of the trouble and weary time which Messer
MafFeo and Messer Nicolo and Messer Marco had in asking of the Great Khan
permission to depart, and in that chapter is told the good fortune we had in
our leaving. And know that if that good fortune had not come to pass, we
should [not?] have ever gotten away [even] with great weariness and much
trouble, so that hardly should we have ever returned to our country. But I be-
lieve that it was the pleasure of God, our return, in order that the things which
are in the world might be known. For according to the account which we have
given in the beginning of the book under the first title, there was never a man,
either Christian or Saracen or Tartar or pagan, who ever explored so much of
the world as did Messer Marco, a son of Messer Nicolo Polo, noble and great
citizen of the city of Venice. Thanks to God .... Amen Amen.

s- Thus ends the story of Marco Polo's travels through Asia and the
Indies, together with the descriptions of the people and countries visited
by him or about which he heard along the African coast.

158 V*tt*tt*tt Ato*ttttsr*r: Jiarro f olo

For our knowledge of the arrival of the expedition in Persia and
the subsequent adventures of the three Polos we must rely on the short
and extremely meager account in the introductory chapters of Marco's
book, supplemented by such information as may be gleaned elsewhere.
He says: "I tell you that they sailed the sea of India a full eighteen
months before the arrival there where they wished to go . . . ." The
whole journey from China had consumed two years and a half, and
the travelers had suffered much from adverse winds, sickness, and other
misfortunes, which Marco, with his customary reticence about his trials
and tribulations, omits to mention. When the ships sailed from China
they carried six hundred souls, in addition to the hundreds of sailors.
Of these passengers all had perished but eighteen by the time the ships
arrived at the Persian port of Hormuz. And only one of the three am-
bassadors who had journeyed so long and striven so faithfully to bring
home a bride for their king had survived the hardships of the voyage.

The landing at Hormuz was far different from the earlier visit
of the Venetians on their outward journey, when, for some unknown
reason, they had changed their minds about sailing from Hormuz to
China. Arriving as envoys from the Grand Khan, the Polos saw the
city through rosier glasses. They marveled at the great number of
vessels loading and unloading in the gulf ports Chinese junks, Per-
sian vessels of all kinds and sizes, and swift Arab boats, which were
gradually monopolizing all the sea-borne traffic between the Red Sea
and the China Coast.

The streets of Hormuz were swarming with people from every
quarter of Asia, and now and then even Genoese, Pisans, and Vene-
tians were to be seen. Every tongue of Asia could be heard Persian,
Arabic, Hindu, Chinese for mainland Hormuz, in these last years of
its glory, was one of the busiest entrepots for the sea trade between
India and Europe. Heaped high on the wharves and along the shores
of the port, or drawn in wagons with creaking wheels slow-moving
through the hot, dusty narrow streets of the water front could be seen
the wares of the Indies and the Levant. There were spices and drugs
and pepper, dates and raisins and sulphur, nutmeg and cloves, cinnamon
and ginger, sandalwood and saffron, sugar, rice, mace, and camphor.
The bazaars were heaped to overflowing with musk and rhubarb, tur-
quoises and emeralds, rubies, sapphires and amethysts, topazes, hya-
cinths and zircons, porcelains, gum benzoin, and quicksilver. Traffic was

: ^omnuarfc Vnmtft 159

brisk in brocades and silks, vermilion and attar of roses, pearls and
chrysolites. From hand to hand passed rich cotton cloths and fine
gauzes, daggers and knives and swords, all inlaid and decorated with
gold and silver. And over the crowded streets and shops hung the acrid
dust, the heavy odors of incense and sweltering humanity, of animals
and garbage, which pervade every market town in the East an odor
once experienced never forgotten, an odor ever nostalgic to the traveler
and the wanderer.

How the crowds must have amused him the Persians, very white
and fair, fat and luxurious, with their beautiful dark-eyed women, the
dark Arabs from the Yemen and the desert, tall, thin, nervous, aquiline
of nose, sharp of eye, often wearing proudly the green turban of a
hadji, or one who had made the ritual pilgrimage to Mecca. There
were people of every color tall tribesmen from Abyssinia, Copts
from Egypt, Jews from every land, Hindus with their caste marks,
Mongols from the steppes, and to Marco like a glimpse from home
Chinese ; also sailors gathered from every port between Canton and
Alexandria, slaves, soldiers, water carriers, fruit vendors, and mer-
chants.

The travelers were met by an escort of soldiers in long white cotton
shirts, with thick sashes wound about their waists, and wearing daggers
and knives and heavy short swords. They were equipped with large
round shields and powerful Turkish bows of hard wood, re-inforced
with laminated strips of buffalo-horn. Some carried maces, others
battle-axes, all inlaid or enameled. They made a fine show, and never
had the Polos felt so much at home since they had left the imperial
guard of honor which bade them farewell at faraway Zaiton.

Upon landing at Hormuz the Venetians learned of many events
which had taken place during their long absence. They were much dis-
tressed at the news that death had carried off the Lord Arghun before
they had sailed from Cathay, even that Arghun who had dispatched
the three ambassadors from Persia to his kinsman Kublai to seek a
wife to succeed the Lady Bolgana. The maid Cocachin was thus be-
reft of her affianced bridegroom, and the Venetians were sorely puzzled
what to do with her.

Arghun's brother Kaikhatu was ruling as regent in his stead, for
Arghun's young son, Ghazan, an insignificant-looking youth but one
well endowed with energy and intelligence. The leaders of the expedi-

160 Vnttttatt A2m*tttttr*r: dfarra Jain

tion presented themselves before the sovereign and gave a report of
their journey from far-off Cathay. After a state reception and the usual
wearisome Oriental exchange of amenities, Kaikhatu directed the Polos
to escort the maid Cocachin to Ghazan, who was away with his army
guarding the passes on the Khorasan frontier. The young girl was far
more suited to be the wife of the youthful Ghazan than of his father.
They were evidently satisfied with each other, for they were married
shortly thereafter.*

There is a curious additional passage at this point in two of the old-
est manuscripts of Marco Polo's narrative. This passage informs us
(although she is mentioned nowhere else in his book) that in addition
to Cocachin the Venetians had been entrusted with the daughter of the
King of Manzi (perhaps a daughter of the conquered Sung monarch)
and that she, too, had been brought by them safely to Persia. Perhaps
she also had been sent as an additional wife to the Khan Arghun. We
know nothing further of her subsequent fate.

And I tell you indeed that these two great ladies were in the care of these
three messengers [the Polos], for they caused them to be saved and protected
as though they were their daughters, and the ladies who were very young and
beautiful held these three as their fathers and obeyed them thus. And these
three placed them in the hands of their lord. And indeed I tell you in all truth
that .... Cocachin .... who is wife to Ghazan .... wished such great
good to the messengers that there is nothing that she would not do for them, as
her father himself. For you should know that when these three messengers de-
parted from her to return to their country she shed tears for grief at their depart-
ure. Now I have recounted to you a thing which is well worthy to be praised,
how unto these three messengers were entrusted two such ladies, to be escorted
to their lord from so distant a place. Now we shall leave you with this, and will
continue to tell you our story.

And in these few short, simple, unadorned, and dispassionate pages
Marco dismissed his account of what must have been a long and ar-
duous voyage, one crowded with perils of shipwreck, hunger, thirst,
heat, and the attacks of savage and unfriendly tribes. Nowhere in the
annals of exploration is there such a terse, impersonal record of so ad-
venturous a journey by land and by sea. The entire story of the ven-

* In 1295 Ghazan succeeded to the throne of his father after his uncle Kaikhatu
had been murdered in a revolt. His reign, though short, was one of distinction and
progress for his country. Poor Cocachin did not survive to enjoy her throne long. She
died in 1296, just about the time the Polos finally reached Venice.

turesome voyage with its dangers and its inconveniences is told in half
a dozen pages, all in that quiet, impersonal fashion so characteristic of
those portions of Marco's tale which refer to his personal affairs.

Marco concludes these few paragraphs, which so reticently tell of
a journey with which many another traveler would fill a closely writ-
ten volume, plentifully sprinkled with the pronoun "I," with "Et que
vous on diroie?" "and what shall I tell you of it?"

After having safely delivered the Lady Cocachin into the hands of
her future husband Ghazan, the three Venetians returned to Kaikhatu,
who was probably residing at the time in his city of Tabriz. The city
lay on their route homeward, and they were glad to take advantage of
its comparative security and comfort to recuperate from the long sea
journey. We are nowhere told why they postponed their return home-
ward to Venice, but their sojourn in Tabriz lasted nine months. It may
be that they were retained by Kaikhatu for reasons of state. It may be
that they were awaiting the arrival of their goods or servants on other
boats from China. Perhaps local wars were blocking the caravan routes
over which they would have to pass. It may be that they were awaiting
letters from Venice or elsewhere, or that there was sickness among
them. Perhaps the keenness of all three of the Polos for trade and
bargaining made them unwilling to forego another opportunity of
adding to their capital or of exchanging bulky possessions for wealth
which could be more easily carried on their persons or more surely con-
cealed from marauders. One may speculate on these or other reasons
for the delay at Tabriz; but nothing certain is known, nor is the exact
reason ever likely to be revealed to us.

However, one event of their stay has been recorded. From a clause
in Messer Maffeo's will we learn that his servant Marcheto died during
the stay at Tabriz, and that he entrusted to Messer Maffeo certain
moneys to be taken with him back to Venice, a part for his natural son
Maygo, a part for the mother of the boy, one Juga.

Finally, however, the Polos decided to resume their journey toward
Venice and appeared before Kaikhatu to bid him farewell. As part of
the reward for their great services the regent presented to them "four
golden tablets of authority," two decorated with gerfalcons, one with
the figure of a lion, and the fourth plain. And each "was a cubit long
and five fingers wide, and weighed from twenty-four to thirty-two
ounces." These tablets were worth far more to the Venetians than their

162 *tt*!tatt

mere weight in gold, for they bore inscriptions which notified all sub-
jects of the Khan "that by the power of the eternal God the name of
the Great Khan must be honored and praised for many years, and that
every person who does not obey shall be put to death and his goods
confiscated, and, moreover, that these three ambassadors should be
honored and served throughout all the lands and countries as though
they were his [the Khan's] own person, and that their expenses should
be met, and horses given them, and such escorts as might be necessary."

These tablets proved to be of inestimable value to the Polos; for,
adds Marco, "through the land they were treated most liberally, and
were supplied with horses and all else required for the journey. More-
over, escorts, sometimes numbering over two hundred horsemen, ac-
companied them" through the parts of the country where danger
threatened. This was the more necessary because Kaikhatu's authority
was not accepted unquestioningly in all parts of Persia and a strong
guard was often needful to insure the safety of the merchants and their
retinue.

It was perhaps during this part of their journey that news was
brought to the Venetians that their great and good friend Kublai Khan,
Lord of all the Tartars, "was cut off from this life," information which
snatched away from them all hope of being able to return to those parts.
They were mightily disturbed and genuinely grieved at this bad news,
for the all-powerful monarch had consistently been their protector and
patron from the day of their arrival in his domains many years before.
They had grown rich in his service, and he had showered upon them
honors and distinctions with a liberal hand. But mingled with their
perturbation was a note of self -congratulation and thankfulness that
they had escaped the evil fate which would surely have overtaken them
had they remained in the Great Khan's service. Their good fortune
seemed to have served them well once more, and to have contrived
their escape with their lives and their fortunes when they had given up
all hope of being able to return to the West again.*

* That this information was brought to the Polos while on their homeward journey,
or if they received it later, or ever, is questionable. Marco everywhere in his book
speaks of Kublai Khan as though he were alive when the book was compiled. It is an-
other of the numerous small difficulties in the Polo story which have not been elucidated,
for the manuscripts differ, and without doubt suffered the usual interpolations, excisions,
revisions, etc., of the copyists and editors of the Middle Ages. Moreover, in some cases
the statements of the manuscript reveal anachronisms which are at present inexplicable.

Chapter

Jfrom Safari? to Venice

CONTINUAL PETTY WARS between Persia and Egypt made the
caravan route impassable from Tabriz to the Syrian coast,
where the Venetians had planned to take ship for Italy.
The Sultan of Egypt at the moment held all of the Syrian
seaports, and it would have been folly to proceed thither. The Polos
therefore chose the well-traveled caravan route which led in a more
northerly region. This itinerary brought Marco into regions which he
had not visited before, and his description of the country fills several
interesting chapters of his book. As the caravan slowly drew nearer
the Euxine the Venetians crossed historic ground with each day's march,
the battlegrounds of ancient empires, and the sites of long-dead cities.
Their anxiety and longing to reach home grew ever more intense as they
traversed country which was more or less familiar, at least to the two
elder Polos. They were now in the lands where since the beginning of
man's struggle on earth the East had come in contact with the West
and one merged into the other almost imperceptibly.

Though Marco had probably never heard of Xenophon and the
famous march of the Ten Thousand, he and his caravan were hastening
over the territory traversed by the ancient Greek mercenaries, and with
the same aim in view to reach their native land as quickly as possible,
and with whole skins. So too, though he and his companions did not
cry "thalassa! thalassa!" when they beheld the sea from the mountain-
tops, they must have been uncommonly thrilled at the first sight of the
waters of the Black Sea and at the realization that at last they were
really drawing near the land of their birth, to which they had been
complete strangers for more than twenty-five years.

183

164 Urnritan Atonttttrrr: JBarrn

Finally, after much time and many difficulties, "by the grace of
God they came to Trebizond," the ancient Greek colony on the Euxine,
the city where Xenophon had rested his weary troops full seventeen
hundred years before. Trebizond was more nearly like Europe than
any other city upon which they had laid eyes for many a year. It was
spread out before them on a tableland beside the sea, a Byzantine wall
encircled both it and the sloping hills behind it, and all about stretched
fertile orchards and a smiling land. It had been the dwelling place of
the Greek emperors after their flight from Constantinople when the
city was stormed by Baldwin and Dandolo, and was still cherished by
them. Their Genoese allies had been granted a special quarter and a
great castle with high walls, and Genoa's merchants controlled the
greater part of the city's trade. Though under Greek rule, the town
was full of Turks, and Turkish influences could be seen everywhere in
the people's manners and customs and dress. Even the Emperor's sol-
diers carried Turkish shields and bows and swords, and rode their horses
short-stirruped after the fashion of the Ottoman Turks.

Venetian merchants still dwelt and trafficked in Trebizond, and
the Polos met many on the great broad main business thoroughfare
which skirted the seashore on the city's lower edge. They learned from
them what had occurred in Europe and in the Levant since they had left
it all behind in 1271 when they had turned eastward to further their
fortunes in Cathay. They picked up, too, all the current news of poli-
tics and of business.

The three travelers must have remained for a considerable time at
Trebizond, or at least in the adjacent Black Sea regions, for Marco
acquired much knowledge of the territory and told of it in his book.
Perhaps it was a trading venture, or the delayed arrival of a ship, or
political matters which again postponed for a time the resumption of
their journey homeward. As before, we are left with nothing but
speculation and mere surmise. During their stay at Trebizond, how-
ever, the Polos seem to have had some serious difficulty and to have
suffered a heavy monetary loss. Marco does not refer to this matter
in any way in his own narrative, and the knowledge of it comes from
an unexpected source the will of his uncle Maffeo.

It will be remembered that the short-lived Latin kingdom of Con-
stantinople had been established by Baldwin with the help of the
Venetians and that their overthrow was accomplished by an alliance

&tx: 3Ur0m Tabriz tn Vtnitt 165

between the Greeks and the Genoese, Venice's most powerful and most
hated commercial rivals in the Eastern Mediterranean world. The
Genoese were now in the ascendancy in all the Levantine ports, and the
ousted Venetians were probably most harshly treated by both Greeks
and Genoese though probably not more harshly than they had treated
the Genoese, the Pisans, and the merchants of Amalfi in the days gone
by. Perhaps this unfriendliness of the Greeks and Genoese was to
blame for the disaster which befell the Polos. Messer Maffeo's testa-
ment, dated February 6, 1310, and making Marco Polo one of his
executors, records that he has

satisfied the aforesaid Marco Polo my nephew .... finally with reference to
those three hundred and thirty-three and one-third pounds which were owing
to me from those thousand pounds which the aforesaid Marco Polo received
from the Lord Doge and from the Commune of the Venetians for a part of
the loss inflicted on us by the Lord Comnenos of Trebizond as well as in the
territory of the same Lord Comnenos and also in others of our transactions, and
I testify with regard to all other accounts which I might have to adjust with the
said Marco Polo that I have reimbursed him in full, and, as for the rest, that I
ought to have a third part of all that which may be received or recovered in
whatsoever way or title, and I testify that the aforesaid loss inflicted on us as
well by the aforesaid Lord Comnenos of Trebizond as in his territory was in
the sum of about four thousand hyperpera.*

Thus the will of one of the travelers, written fifteen years after the
return to Venice, and studied but recently, has brought new light to
bear on the lives of the Polos, about which we know as yet far too

little.

The journey from Trebizond to Constantinople was made by sea.
After a brief stay at the Byzantine capital, where the Venetians were
neither as powerful nor as welcome as in the days when the elder Polos
had lived there thirty-five years before, the travelers again embarked
with their servants, their merchandise, and their numerous slaves. It
was the last stage of their arduous journey, begun in 1292, and they
were impatient of each delay, of every unfavorable wind which might
hold them back. After a short stopover made by their vessel at the
Venetian trading port of Negropont, in Euboea, the weary Polos con-
tinued on their way, past the foam-girt green isles of the Aegean,
skirting the rocky headlands of the Greek coast, and on past Corfu,

*The hyperpera, or solidus, was a gold coin of the period worth about $3.00 in
United States money.

160 Vnttiiatt Aimrnturm tfgtra

their prow pointed north, their keel now cleaving the home waters of
the Adriatic.

At last the day of days arrived. There lay Venice before them, the
home of which they had so long dreamed, the home so often en-
visioned by them in the chill long watches of the night, under strange,
bright stars and amid alien folk. Venice, glorified and exalted in their
homesick hearts by years of absence and seen through the golden mist
of tender memories. Venice, their mother-city, which had given birth
to them, and nurtured them and set their feet upon the path. There
she lay in the distance, a jewel set in a sparkling sea, proud and arrogant
as ever, with her innumerable high palaces and tall towers, St. Mark's
swelling domes reflecting the sun's hot glare, San Giorgio seen as
though afloat on the water inside the Lido, the Campanile appearing
to reach to the very heavens, and far away the faint blue mountains in
the north. There was the harbor, now that they drew nearer and could
distinguish things more clearly. It was as busy as ever: ships moving
to and fro, coming in like their own or departing heavy laden for
foreign lands, or rocking at their anchors as though impatient to be off.
The same small boats and gondolas moved swiftly about the port or
appeared and disappeared in the canals and about the quays, the same
familiar odor, the same musical voices and cries borne to them on the
soft wind. Somehow they had expected to find their city different,
changed with the passing years. Yet there she was, the same tight
cluster of islands, bright in her blue and gray and silver garments, the
same beautiful and seductive bride of the Adriatic, her vows renewed
each year by her Doge, still undisputed mistress of the seas and of the
hearts of men.

Then the Polos realized that they had expected a change in their
city because they themselves had changed. A quarter of a century had
passed over their heads since last they had seen the unfinished top of
the Campanile sink swiftly beneath the northern horizon. Nicolo and
Messer Maffeo had grown old. Now they sadly realized it, gazing
furtively one at the other. Marco, too, had become a sober, grave-eyed
man past forty, heavier, preoccupied, made older and wiser than his
years by what he had experienced and learned. For he had beheld
what was given to but few human beings to behold, and now he was
coming back to the home of his childhood, a stranger. His boyhood
friends had probably forgotten him how many of our companions of

(Ctjaptrr fttx: JPr0m Tabriz 10 Vtnitt 167

fifteen are still our friends in the forties? His real friends, those of his
youth and his mature manhood, were far away, many thousands of
miles away, dwelling in strange lands, speaking strange tongues, living
strange lives. The men, and the women too, who had shaped his char-
acter and who had set his standards of life and of action were now but
wraiths of the past. He was cut off from them forever j return was
impossible.

Yet Marco feared this city of his, this great Venice, proudly sil-
houetted against the sky. It too was strange. Removed from all
contacts with her and her people since boyhood, speaking his mother
tongue with a thick accent born of years of disuse of the Venetian and
the constant use of the language of the Tartars even in converse with
his father and his uncle, Venice seemed almost as foreign to him as did
Cambaluc when first he rode in through its high gates and past its bas-
tioned walls in the morning of his years. A vague feeling of resent-
ment crept over him, for arrival in Venice meant beginning a new life
among unknown people whose ways were no longer his ways, whose
thoughts were no longer his thoughts. He may have had a premonition
that the curtain had fallen on the better part of his life, that thereafter
would come anticlimax and decline, that shortly the tide would turn
and ebb. What would it mean to begin life anew at forty, to settle in a
sea-girt town after wandering up and down on the winds of the world
for years, to draw the curtain irrevocably on the glittering pageant of
the medieval Orient with its vivid memories of life and perhaps of
love? Surely these thoughts and questions must have surged in upon
the mind of Messer Marco, as he stood at the ship's prow and watched
her slowly creep in past the Lido and finally drop anchor in the shal-
lows.

The wearisome voyage was over, the longest journey ever made
and recorded by any man in all the world's history. As that anchor
sank to the bottom in the tidal channel of Venice, the gates of his life
in Asia clanged to with its splash, even as the great city gates of far-
away Cambaluc were swung shut when the drums boomed out the hour
of twilight and the coming of the night, and just as the great bars were
dropped in their sockets by the Mongol guards inside, so in Marco's
soul the bars dropped which locked out from his life forevermore that
dream-world of his youth which had become the real world of his
manhood, and now was once more become a land of dreams, but this

Ififi ]fon*tt&tt Aim*ntur*r: JHarr0

time irrevocable, irretrievable, all belonging to the past. One wonders
if his joy at arriving at Venice in safety with a fortune in his hands was
not shot through and made somber by an aching homesickness for the
lands he had left in the Far East with his dead youth.

And so "they returned unharmed to Venice, with great riches and
with an honorable retinue. Which was the year of the Lord 1295, giv-
ing thanks unto God, who had conducted them to their home safe, and
rescued from many dangers."

DISILLUSIONMENT

Slowly and sadly

The river flows

On its long journey

To the sea.

A solitary wild goose

Calls under the moon,

And the night

Is agleam with frost.

If for ten long years

You have wandered

In the distant lands

Of the earth,

Be not in too much haste

To seek

News of your faraway home.*

WANcTso (fl. ca. 1368)
* A Garden of Peonies^ by Henry H. Hart (Stanford University Press, 1938).

Chapter ftetoen

Venice

HISTORY has recorded nothing of the landing of the
Polos in Venice, nor of their reception by their family and
fellow citizens. But legend and editors and commentators
have preserved some pretty stories to ornament the won-
drous tale of the wanderers. If they are not true, well then as Gior-
dano Bruno has it se non e vero, e ben trovato. So let us recount the
incidents. They may have happened. Who knows? The skeptic is not
half so happy, nor perhaps half so wise, as he who accepts with reserva-
tions, in lack of further proof of what is false and what is true.

Followed by their slaves and servants carrying their gear and
merchandise, Messer Maffeo, Messer Nicolo, and his son Marco dis-
embarked and once again set foot upon the stones of their native city.
As they did so they may have recalled the ancient Venetian proverb,
"Beware of three things in Venice: slippery steps of stone, priests, and
women of easy virtue." Their legs were stiff and aching from long
days in cramped quarters, and the pavement seemed to heave up toward
them like the deck of a ship at sea. Once more seated in the familiar
gondolas how unlike the "shoe-boats" of old China they were
conveyed swiftly through the dark canals and under the low bridges
how unlike the quaint structures that arched the canals and streams of
Soochow and Quinsai the magnificent to the old family residence.
Could they see nothing without recalling the sights and odors and
sounds of old Cathay? Would they never be able to speak or think
or even breathe in this Venice of their fathers without mental com-
parisons with the lands and peoples and customs of the gorgeous East?
Would they always be haunted by clamoring ghosts of the past?

160

170 Vrnrttan Aimntturn*: JRarro

At last they reached their home, which was, as Ramusio quaintly
states,

in the district of San Giovanni Chrisostomo, as today it can still be seen, which
at that time was a most beautiful and very high place .... and when they
arrived there the same fate befell them as befell Ulysses, who, when after
twenty years he returned from Troy to Ithaca, his native land, was recognized
by none.

They knocked at the door, for they had learned that some of their
relatives had moved in and were dwelling there comfortably as in their
own homes. Those who responded to their summons did not know
them. The travelers had been away nearly twenty-six years, and,
though vague reports of their wanderings may have drifted back to
Venice during the earlier part of their protracted absence, as the years
had rolled by and they had never returned they had long been given
up as dead.

The Polos found it almost impossible to convince their kinsfolk
of their identity. The long duration of their absence, the many hard-
ships and worries that they had suffered, had changed their faces and
their appearance entirely. "They had an indescribable something of
the Tartar in their aspect and in their way of speech, having almost
forgotten the Venetian tongue. Those garments of theirs were much
the worse for wear, and were made of coarse cloth, and cut after the
fashion of the Tartars." The dwellers in their house refused to believe
that these rough men, who in no way resembled the handsome, well-
dressed gentlemen who had sailed from Venice to Acre in 1271, were
Messer Nicolo Polo, his brother Messer Maffeo, and his son Marco.
No, they were too shabby, too down-at-the-heels, and all in all too dis-
reputable to be taken at their word. One of these who met them at
the door was most likely Maffeo, the young half-brother of Marco.
They had never seen each other, nor did Marco know that Maffeo
existed. For Maffeo, like Marco himself, had been born after his
father had left Venice. Finally, with much misgiving and doubt, the
doors were grudgingly thrown open, and the three adventurers were
hesitatingly permitted to set foot once again in their own house.

"And what should I tell you?" For strange tales like unto those
of "The Thousand and One Nights" are told of the homecoming of
the three.

The story has been handed from father to son that the sordid and
tattered clothes of Messer Maffeo sorely irked his neat wife who must

Calle dei Milione, Venice, in 1940. From the author's collection

172 Vmttttttt A&tt*ntttr*r: tfarra

after all have recognized and received him as her husband. One day,
even though he seemed to treasure and watch over them as something
most precious, she gave his Tartar rags in disgust to a beggar who had
come to her door and moved her to pity. And when Messer Maffeo
asked that evening for his clothes for you must know that all his
jewels were sewn therein, in the seams and under the patches thereof
she confessed that she had given them away to an unknown beggar.
Messer Maffeo flew into a towering rage and became as one possessed.
He tore his hair and beat his breast and paced the floor for hours, think-
ing up some stratagem whereby he might recover his lost riches. At
last he decided upon a plan. Early the next morning he betook himself
to the Bridge of the Rialto, where the stream of Venetian life pulsed
back and forth at every hour and where one could, if one waited long
enough, be sure of finding his man. Messer Maffeo carried a wheel
with him, and sat him down in a corner and set about spinning the wheel
aimlessly, like unto one whose brain is addled. And all the while the
crowd milled around him and men cried, "What do you thus, and
why?" and his only reply seemed inane and meaningless, the echo of
an empty brain. "He will come, God willing," he answered unto each
of his questioners only that. And from mouth to mouth and ear to
ear the word flew through the canals of Venice, and into the market
places and the churches, and wherever men and women gathered to
talk one to the other. For Venetians have been wont of old to gossip,
and scandal and tittle-tattle are the life-breath of idle folk. And all
the city flocked to see the strange sight at the Rialto. But Messer
Maffeo was neither dolt nor idiot. On the third day one came in his
turn to see the foolery of the madman spinning his wheel ; and, be-
hold, it was the same beggar to whom Messer Maffeo's wife had shown
charity, and on his back were the very Tartar garments that she had
given him! With a cry of triumph Messer Maffeo leaped up and seized
the hapless man, and so recovered his coat still intact, with the treasures
it contained all untouched. Then indeed did Venice learn that in Mes-
ser Maffeo they had no mad fellow citizen but one well versed in the
ways of men and in wiles to ensnare them.

Of all the fascinating tales of the return of the Polos, the best
known is that told so delightfully by Ramusio. The preface to his
Venetian edition of Marco Polo, dated July 7, 1553, gives it as a story
told him

&*tim: Vtnitt 173

by the magnificent Messer Gasparo Malpiero, a very old gentleman, and of
singular goodness and integrity, who had his house on the Canal of Santa
Marina, at the corner of the mouth of the Rio di San Giovan Chrisostomo,
exactly at the middle point of the said Corte di Milioni [where the Polos lived,
as we shall learn later] , and he stated that he had heard it in turn from his own
father and grandfather, and from some other old men, his neighbors.

And so Ramusio, having thus valiantly defended his fair name from
all imputation of fabrication or exaggeration, sets down the story as he
received it.

The kinsfolk of the Polos were, it would seem, still skeptical of the
identity of the returned travelers and, even if no longer in doubt as to
who they were, appeared to be in no way proud of their seedy, sorry-
looking relatives. So the two elder Polos and Marco contrived a strata-
gem whereby they would secure immediate and unequivocal recogni-
tion from the family and at the same time win "the honor" (i.e., the
honorable notice) of all the city in a word, properly and profoundly
impress their fellow Venetians.

They sent out invitations to their kinsmen the most important,
we may be sure requesting them to honor the three returned travelers
with their company at a banquet and an entertainment. In all this they
were most particular, and all was prepared with great care and splen-
dor, in fact "in most honorable fashion, and with much magnificence in
that aforesaid house of theirs." At the appointed hour the canals about
the house of the Polos were crowded with gondolas, filled with invited
guests in their best finery. They were received with due ceremony, and
each was assigned his place for the coming feast. All were curious and
expectant, for perhaps the Polos were going to show some of the
precious goods which they had brought back with them, or perhaps
who knows? they were going to distribute gifts of value to their
invited guests. You may be sure that none failed to come and greet the
two elder Polos and Marco, who were in the great hall to welcome each
guest as he arrived. Then they vanished.

When the hour for seating themselves at the table was come, the
three came forth from their chamber each clad in long satin robes of
crimson hue, reaching even to the ground as was the custom in the
Venice of those days. And when the perfumed water had been brought
for rinsing the hands, and the guests were all in their proper places at
the table, Messer Nicolo and Messer Maffeo and Messer Marco rose

174 Vnttttan Atantttsrtr: IRarra

from their chairs, retired, divested themselves of the costly satin robes,
donned others, of similar cut but of crimson damask, and reappeared.
Then, to the horror and dismay of the invited kinsfolk what wanton
waste, with deserving relatives so close at hand! they gave the order
that the costly robes which they had just removed should be cut in
pieces and the pieces distributed among the servants. And this was
forthwith done.

A short time later, after some of the viands under which the well-
set table groaned had been consumed and the guests had tossed the bones
under the table and wiped their hands on the fine tablecloth, and after
much wine had been drunk, the three rose once more and retired to
their chamber. They emerged after a few moments, this time clad in
expensive robes of crimson velvet. And when they had seated them-
selves once more at the table among their guests they ordered the
damask robes which they had just removed to be brought out and cut
to pieces before the whole company and the pieces given to the servants.
More indignation and shocked and protesting murmurs, more meaning-
ful glances for kinsfolk are thus everywhere and in every age. But
the order was forthwith obeyed, and each servitor received his piece of
precious cloth.

The meal proceeded; but by now the family party was full of won-
derment as to what might happen next. A buzz of conversation filled
the room from end to end: It must be so. These three men rich enough
to throw away a fortune in clothes in a few short hours must be their
long-lost relatives. There was no doubt about it. The kinsfolk were
convinced, and hailed the three by their names and tried to revive talk
of old times and ancient reminiscences. The Polos smiled in their
beards, looked grave, but said nothing. The dinner drew near its close,
and it came time to set forth the sweets and pastries on the tables.
Whereupon uprose the three men and retired once again to their cham-
ber. There their servants removed the velvet robes, and the Polos
re-entered the banquet hall dressed in the same kind of clothes as were
worn by their invited guests. Again the order was given to cut up and
distribute the costly velvet fabrics, and again the order was obeyed.
"This thing made [all] marvel, and all the invited guests were as
though struck by lightning." The cloths were then removed and the
servants were ordered to leave the banquet hall.

As soon as they had retired and the doors were closed, Messer Marco

QUptptrr &*n*tt: Vtnlrt 175

again rose from the table and entered his chamber. He returned with-
out delay, bearing the well-worn garments of coarse cloth in which the
three had been clad on the day when they had landed in Venice and
sought admission to their home. All present held their breath, for none
knew what these eccentric men might do next. Forthwith the three
seized sharp knives and without more ado started to rip seams and
linings,

and to bring forth from them enormous quantities of most precious gems such
as rubies, sapphires, carbuncles, diamonds, and emeralds which had been sewn
up in each of the said garments with much cunning and in such fashion that
none would have been able to imagine that they were there. For when they
took their departure from the Great Khan, they changed all the riches which
he had given them into so many rubies, emeralds, and other precious stones,
knowing well that had they done otherwise it would never have been possible
for them to carry so much gold with them over such a long, difficult, and far-
reaching road.

This magnificent and wholly unexpected display of a seemingly
inexhaustible amount of precious stones spread so carelessly on the
table caused more stir and excitement than ever, and the guests stood
about dumbfounded and seemingly bereft of their senses. The tale
ends on a sarcastic note, for Messer Giovanni Battista Ramusio appears
to have had a rare sense of humor and to have known human frailties
full well. His own words are best:

And now they [the kinsmen] knew in truth that those whom they had for-
merly doubted were indeed those honored and valorous gentlemen of the House
^f Polo, and they did them great honor and reverence. And when this thing
became known throughout Venice, straightway did the whole city, the gentry
is^well as the common folk, flock to their house, to embrace them and to shower
therewith caresses and show demonstrations of affection and reverence, as great
is you can possibly imagine.

Now that the city folk realized how rich the three returned mer-
chants really were, they outdid themselves in bestowing upon them
public dignities and civic offices. They created Maffeo, who according
to Ramusio was the oldest, a greatly honored magistrate. What was
done for Nicolo we know not. As for Marco, we are told that "all the
young men went every day continuously to visit and to converse with
Messer Marco, who was most charming and gracious, and to ask of
him matters concerning Cathay, and the Great Khan, and he responded
with so much kindness that all felt themselves to be in a certain manner
indebted to him."

176 Senrttatt Atattttum: tfarrii Join

But a little time and the hubbub and excitement and stir that had
been caused by the return of the Polos and by their extravagant and
impressive banquet with its dramatic climax gradually died away.
Their fellow citizens went about their business, and no longer did
passers-by in gondolas or on the bridges or fondamenta nudge each
other and whisper about them or point them out to strangers. Life
settled down again to its normal routine.

Within the city itself the changes, though gradual, had been many.
An earthquake had shaken down a number of buildings, new ones were
rising in their places, and new parts had been added to many buildings
which had been weakened by floods caused by especially high winds.
Work on the Campanile in the Piazza had been continuous, and it was
even higher than when they had left. St. Mark's seemed unchanged
from without, but many more spaces within had been filled with mosaic
in gold and gleaming colors.

To the young Marco St. Mark's had all seemed glorious and spa-
cious and brilliant, the most marvelous building in all the world. Now
it appeared cramped and low-ceiled and tawdry, and within there was
no peace or quiet for the worshiper. He recalled his visits to the high-
vaulted Buddhist temples, dark and cool, enwrapped in a silence which
became even deeper at the booming of a distant bell. In his mind's
eye he saw himself climbing the steep winding path to a Taoist retreat,
high in the hills, silent and at peace under ancient whispering trees and
by a swift-flowing stream. Again he seemed to stand in the Temple of
Confucius in far-off Cambaluc. Though comparatively new he had
often watched the workmen erecting its walls and tiling its roof as he
rode to and from the palace in his chair it was like hundreds that he
had seen in other cities. Venerable in their grass-grown courtyards,
surrounded by gnarled and ancient trees, the nesting place of innumer-
able crows, removed from the noisy chatter of the streets, empty save
for the tablets of the Great Sage and his disciples, the only movement
the lazy curl of smoke from the incense sticks ascending slowly until
it merged in a faint blue-grey mist about the blackened gilt inscriptions
on the walls, they had often received Marco in their silence and ritual
calm. There in the heathen temples, in the faraway lands beyond the
deserts and the mountains of Asia, his soul had often sought and found
peace, deep, all-understanding, all-soothing peace. But here, in the
church of his own faith, all was confusion and bustle and noise the

hammering of workmen, the chatter of children, the gossip of knots of
idlers, while masses and prayers were being conducted in several chap-
els at once. How was it possible for a man to look inward or to find a
few quiet moments for contemplation and self-communion in great
St. Mark's?

And the Piazza which had seemed so vast when he played in it
as a boy had shrunk and diminished in comparison with the great spaces
of the courts of the Mongol Emperor. Marco had often climbed the
steep steps of the Bell Tower and the Drum Tower of Kublai's capital.
He had seen the sun rise and set over the miles of upturned roofs and
glistening tiles and great parks and gardens of Cambaluc. How small
just a handful of houses surrounded by the sea seemed Venice.

Would the past never cease to rear its head, would the ghosts which
haunted him and made him unhappy here in his native city, where all
should have been joy and pleasure, never be laid? Marco had lived
too long in East Asia. Though maybe he did not yet realize it fully,
never could life be the same again. Never could he re-create the Venice
of his boyhood. The break had been too great, the time of separation
too long. And never could Messer Marco reconcile his two lives, never
could he be as his fellow Venetians. The Orient had laid slim and
gentle but firm and irresistible hands upon his heart and brain and soul,
and had taken him to herself a mistress whom he could never forget
or desert, for her magic was too heady and too potent.

He would roam the streets alone at night, and look up at the moon,
swinging in the sky like a lantern, and at the stars, pale silver and gold.
And they recalled to him the joy and color of the Feast of Lanterns
in Cathay. And when the waters were still and black as velvet, the
twinkling reflections of the stars were like the fireflies glowing in the
far-off temple camphor trees, or as he had often seen them carried
along the streets in tiny cages and boxes by the boys in the hot nights
of the Chinese summer. When the rain pattered on the windows and
in the canals below, it whispered of those soft rains in Hangchow
through which the slender willows and plums and tall bamboos were
seen as through gauze, of those hours when life was good, and of
whole days passed seated in some sheltered rock garden drinking tea
with old friends. And even the canals sometimes became those of
Soochow, with their high-arched bridges and their close-crowded boats.

Somehow this strange Venice seemed naked to him, with no en-

17fl Brnettan Aftvmtiim: JHarrn $010

circling walls to shield her beauties from the stranger. In China one
dwelt always behind walls, and life could be lived where houses did not
crowd one against the other and there was breathing space quite un-
like Venice, where land was scarce, and every foot was needed for
dwellings or for trade.

The territories of the Republic had expanded, in spite of the de-
bacle of 1261 in Constantinople, and the government, which had under-
gone some changes, was ever busy in Eastern Mediterranean politics,
gaining here by a petty war, there by setting neighbors at each other's
throats, and elsewhere by treaties of commerce and friendship.

In his boyhood Marco had never seen gold coins; but during his
absence Venice in her pride had ordered struck off ducats of fine gold
at the Zecca (the Venetian mint). They had quickly gained currency
throughout the East, where they soon became standard and where they
were called zecchini. The word has remained, though the coin has dis-
appeared, and "sequin" is known in all languages. The word Zecca in
itself told of Venice's long commerce with the East, for the city bor-
rowed for its mint the Arabic word sikkah a "stamp" or a "seal" or
a "die."

Commerce with the West had expanded, too. The quarrels of Eu-
ropean princes and kings, the oppression of the people, the scorn and
disdain of the nobles for any profession but that of a soldier all these
offered a free field for the Venetian shipmasters and merchants, who
had no rivals but the Genoese and the Tuscans. The ways of trade with
the feudal lords of the West were strange, for they did not hesitate to
rob and pillage whenever they could. Large escorts were necessary
at all times. In order to put these feudal barons, their best customers, in
good humor, the Venetians took with them on their trading ventures
corps of musicians, clowns, acrobats, and rare animals, and thus amused
the hosts with whom they would do business or through whose lands
they sought safe passage. They wandered everywhere. The Danube
was visited from its mouth to its source. Venetian vessels were to be
seen in every Atlantic port from the farthest north to the south. Venice
bound itself by treaties to Marseilles, to Antwerp, to London, and to
other cities where its citizens could sell goods. A curious provision in
these treaties of Marco Polo's day was that which exempted the Doge
from all customs duties on goods in which he was personally trading.
In a time when trade was despised by nobles and kings, the head of

179

Europe's greatest commercial empire was publicly taking advantage
of his high office to satisfy his desire for personal profit.

Anxiety for trade linked Venice even with the infidel who was
harrying the coasts and the Christian cities of Asia. Finally the Vene-
tians went so far as to begin their written contracts made with the Sara-
cens with the phrase, "In the name of the Lord and of Mohammed."
This was too much for Rome, and in 1 307 Clement V forbade all trad-
ing with the Moslems. The bull was ineffective but had unexpected
consequences. Though willing to violate the decree of the Church,
many merchants of Venice repented of their sin at the point of death,
especially as their confessor often refused absolution. In order to die
in peace the sinner would then will his property to the Church, "so
that in less than fifteen years the apostolic government was the creditor
of all the commercial capital in the richest city in the universe."

Venice was busier than ever at home, too. For industries were
springing up everywhere to satisfy the foreign demand for her goods,
and foreign workmen were being brought in, until Venice was one vast
workshop, the very names of her streets attesting the diverse occupa-
tions of their inhabitants. Her own citizens could not suffice for her
needs; Dalmatia furnished soldiers for her and her colonies, while
sailors from the islands manned her innumerable ships. Marco looked
in vain for the glass factories which he had haunted as a boy. They
had vanished under the pressure of progress and by order of the Con-
siglio Maggiore had been removed to Murano, across the lagoon from
Venice.

Little by little Marco realized that he must renounce all thought
of wandering back to foreign lands if he was to have any peace of
mind. Quiet walks along the quays or in the squares, accepting the
clamorous pigeons of St. Mark's in place of those which he used to
loose from his windows in Cambaluc with light whistles attached to
their feathers how sweet the sound as they soared high in the air
these were to be his pleasures and his excursions henceforth. His fel-
low Venetians knew nothing of the refinements of living as he had
learned them in China, but he would have to learn to dwell among
them on their terms, not his. Gradually he settled down into Venetian
life and activities. He was too young to retire, and conditions were not
favorable for a return to the Levant. Ever since 1291, when the Sara-
cens had routed the Christians at Acre, commerce at the eastern end

VtttttUra Atofttittm: tfarrn

of the Mediterranean had become increasingly difficult. But Marco was
not the man to sit back and take no part in affairs about him. In a short
time he found himself leading the life of a wealthy bachelor of the
city, buying, selling, examining goods and samples in the warehouses
or on the quays.

Chapter

^CARCELY HAD Messer Marco Polo begun to adjust himself
to his new life in Venice when ominous rumblings of war
| began to be heard over sea and land. Ever since Genoa had
aided the Greeks to recapture Constantinople from the hap-
less Baldwin, an ever increasing tension fraught with great danger had
been developing between the two rival Italian cities ; and now the
trouble appeared to be approaching a crisis.

Venice and Genoa had been foes for decades. Even though both
cities were Italian, separated by but a few hundred miles of land, the
paramount importance of their sea-borne trade and the fierce determi-
nation that each possessed to become the dominant power in the East-
ern Mediterranean rendered lasting peace between them impossible.
The center of the interests of each city lay in the East, and uninter-
rupted commercial intercourse with the Levant was the life-blood of
their prosperity. These interests clashed at every point. Each of the
two rivals was isolated from the remainder of Italy, the one by her
lagoons, the other by her mountains j and internal Italian politics and
the squabbles of the various other city-states concerned them but sec-
ondarily, that is, only when they affected their own interests.

The jealousy and hatred between Genoa and Venice were aug-
mented and made still more bitter by the recapture of Constantinople
by the Greeks and their Genoese allies. Rivalry over trade and the
control of the Eastern emporia apparently made this enmity incurable
except by a decisive war in which one would inevitably be forced to
crush the other. It was all an unhappy repetition of the commercial
warfare and tragic struggle between Rome and Carthage, enacted on

101

102 Utttrtian Ahurnturrr: Harro

the same stage the Mediterranean Sea nearly fifteen centuries be-
fore.

When the Latins and their allies had been circumvented at Con-
stantinople, the Emperor Michael Paleologus had made the serious
mistake of presenting to the Genoese the palace of the Pantocratore,
where the Venetian representatives had formerly resided in Constanti-
nople. This was a direct insult to the Venetians, for the building was
not even in the Genoese quarter. And the Genoese, in order to heap
scorn and derision on the Venetians, demolished the palace carefully
and shipped its red stones to Genoa, where they were incorporated into
the Palazzo del Capitano now called the Palazzo San Giorgio
which was then in course of construction. Thus they were able to flaunt
in the faces of their Venetian foes a permanent trophy of victory their
communal palace, whose lions' heads, once carved for Venice's proud
fortress in far-off Constantinople, still gaze down on the passer-by in
Genoa as they have for nearly seven hundred years.

This incident and numberless other offenses and quarrels were pro-
ductive of continual conflicts, sometimes nothing more than riots where
Venetian and Genoese met in the East, sometimes naval engagements,
in which the Venetians were more often the victors. No conclusive de-
cision had resulted from these fights, and the only lasting effect was a
gradual sapping of the resources and energies of both cities. The Polos
had learned of these constant quarrels from the visitors who from time
to time had come to China by sea and by land. On their voyage home
they had found animosity and hostility whenever they entered the
Genoese quarter of any Levantine city, and, as has been suggested, they
were perhaps the victims of some Genoese attack or intrigue while so-
journing in Trebizond on the Black Sea.

In 1291 Acre fell before the attacks of the Saracens. This brought
the strained relations between Venice and Genoa near the breaking
point, for after the fall of that city Venice concluded a treaty with the
Mohammedans whereby she obtained the exclusive right to receive
armed escorts for the pilgrims who were continually arriving in Pales-
tine in order to visit the spots sacred to the Christians. This treaty,
which bolstered up the waning Eastern trade of Venice, infuriated the
Genoese. In retaliation they attempted to persuade the Greek emperor
to exclude the Venetians entirely from the Dardanelles. Aroused to
fighting pitch by this move, the Venetians hastily raised a fleet of war

(Etjaplrr Ctsljt: (Senna 103

galleys. Under the command of Marco Basegio it set sail on October 7,
1294. Basegio fell in with the Genoese fleet under Nicolo Spinola at
Layas (Lajazzo), on the south coast of Asia Minor, and attacked at
once. Through bad judgment and a mistakenly chivalrous idea of not
attacking the Genoese fleet with fire-ships, the Venetians were decisively
defeated, losing twenty-five ships and many of their men, including
Basegio himself.

This victory encouraged the Genoese to prepare an even larger
fleet, said to have consisted of one hundred and ninety-five war vessels
with a complement of forty-five thousand men, under the command of
Uberto Doria. The first move of the fleet was to swoop down on Crete
and seize and burn Canea. The next disturbing news heard on the
Rialto, soon after Marco's return to Venice, was that the Genoese had
persuaded the Greek Emperor Andronicus to imprison Marco Bembo,
the Venetian bailo of Constantinople, together with all his fellow citi-
zens resident in the city. These unfortunates were handed over to the
Genoese, who first cast Bembo to his death from a housetop and then
put the other helpless Venetians to death without mercy. This news
spread like wildfire through the lagoons of Venice and brought a
realization that some swift and decisive action was necessary to restore
Venetian prestige in the East and to safeguard her shrinking com-
merce.

Rogerio Morosini was dispatched in all haste with forty war galleys
to join the twenty already in Levantine waters. He boldly sailed
through the Dardanelles, reached the Bosporus, burned all the Geno-
ese and Greek ships he could reach, destroyed the Genoese quarter, at-
tacked a Genoese settlement near Smyrna, and returned in triumph to
Venice. Another commander, Giovanni Soranzo, sailed into the Black
Sea, destroyed the Genoese stronghold of Kaffa in the Crimea, and
burned all the Genoese ships gathered there. The Byzantine chron-
iclers of the period speak bitterly of the cruelty and rapacity of Moro-
sini and the other Venetian commanders. But war has ever been war,
and in medieval times there were no limits to the cruelties inflicted by
the conquerors on the conquered. For instance, when a Venetian fleet
was captured in 1262 by the Greeks and Genoese, the Greek emperor
ordered all the captives to be blinded and the order was executed!
Moreover (though the dates in the contemporaneous chronicles are
confused), it would appear that the Venetians felt that their acts were

1H4 V*n*tttttt Atotttturm 4Rarr0

but a just retaliation for the murder of Bembo and his fellow country-
men in Constantinople.

On the Rialto, in the squares, where men gathered in church or in
*he taverns on the quays, all was excitement. No vessel came in under
>ail or propelled by oars that did not bear a story of forays on land or
fea. The mutual hatred of the two cities became more intense than
sver. Ships could no longer venture out on the sea without a convoy,
md it became ever more evident to the citizens of Venice that the fre-
quent truces between her and Genoa were of no avail to postpone the
inevitable war to the death. Fresh news of destruction and disaster
poured into Venice day by day. For once there was less talk of business
md a rising feeling that Venice's back was to the wall, that her very life
was at stake. The decision could be postponed no longer. Grimly the
ntizens of the proud "Queen of the Adriatic" settled down to prepara-
tions. The Arsenal became a hive of activity. Every blacksmith, every
armorer, every shipbuilder began work at top speed. Food and muni-
tions were collected and all Venice talked of nothing but war, war to
the death, with the hated Genoese.

But, though Messer Marco was a Venetian, all these events seemed
foreign to him, far removed from his interests and desires. War was
nothing new to him. He had seen sudden death, battles and sieges,
wholesale slaughter and looting, for too many years in Asia, and the
feverish activities of his fellow citizens seem to have impressed him
but little j for it appears from what follows that he was ever intent upon
his personal affairs and absorbed in his personal problems. Evidently
he soon found life on the Rialto and in his home wearisome, and sought
for a change. He had told his tale again and again. He had shown his
"curios" many times to all his visitors such things as yak hair, sago
flour, "the head and feet [of one of the musk deer] dried, and some
musk in the musk sac," and the like. He had spent time trying to raise
plants from seeds that he had brought home. In this he was not too
successful, for he confesses ruefully, speaking of the brazil ("sappan,"
a thorny tree from which a red dye is obtained) : "And indeed I tell
you in all truth that we brought of this seed to Venice and we sowed it
on the earth ; indeed I tell you that it grew not at all. And this hap-
pened because of the place being cold."

But all these diversions soon palled on him, and he found increas-
ing difficulty in accommodating himself to the ways of business and to

Etgfyt: (fctum IBS

the social life of the Venetians. He was already weary of the dull life
amid the dampness of the canals and lagoons, trafficking with small
traders, hearing petty talk of politics and domestic scandal. He yearned
more and more for the old, free existence in lands beyond the sunrise.

For some reason unknown to us Marco did not marry on his return
to Venice, though he was well past his fortieth year. Perhaps he had
left a wife or some fair almond-eyed mistress or sweetheart behind him
in far Cathay. We know that his father had contracted an alliance or
alliances in the Far East, his two illegitimate sons, Stef ano and Giovan-
nino, having returned with the three travelers to Venice in 1295. But
nothing of all this appears in Marco's own tale, nor is there the slight-
est hint of any love affair in all of its many pages. After all, Marco
was writing a description of the countries of Asia, not an autobiography.
So he probably lived, according to the family records, with his father,
his stepmother, and his half-brothers.

After they had heard the story of his travels and all his reminiscing
and his continual comparison of the grand life and the great riches of
the East with the narrow existence and diminishing grandeur of his own
land, over and over, the tale grew tiresome and boring to Marco's
fellow citizens. Venice was not after all a very populous city at least
as far as free men were concerned and in a short time Marco's ad-
ventures were well known from one end of the city to the other. In
fact, men began to avoid him, to escape being forced to listen to another
marvelous tale of the East. Most of them were frankly skeptical, and
looked upon much of what he told them as romancing and the product
of a prodigal and fertile imagination.

And so, for Marco, action and plenty of it was the only remedy,
the only escape from himself. To feel the heave of a deck under his
feet, to sniff the salt air on the fresh winds of the monsoon, to travel
all the long day on camel-back or donkey, to ride a half-wild Mongol
pony, to doze to the gentle rhythmic sway of a sedan chair, to sleep
out on the great plains under the stars, eyes and nostrils stung by the
acrid smoke of the fires of dried cattle dung, the colorful kaleidoscopic
pageant of Chinese life, the busy existence of a courtier of the world's
greatest potentate, the pomp and ceremony that surrounded an hon-
ored official all these were the nostalgic dreams and longings which
haunted both his sleeping and his waking hours.

To his kinsfolk and friends of the Rialto and the Piazza of St.

Iflfi Vttttttan

Mark's this all appeared most strange and curious. They could not un-
derstand his apathy toward the struggle between their city and Genoa,
the all-absorbing topic of conversation wherever men gathered. But
what could they know of high adventure by land and sea, how could
they thrill to strange stirrings of the blood, whose lives were spent in
the narrow tortuous canals and the high gloomy houses of old Venice?
For Marco it would be a change from darkness into light, a return to
the hazardous full life which had been his from boyhood, and he re-
joiced mightily in the promise of escape from what was becoming an
intolerably humdrum existence.

So once more Messer Marco Polo planned a trading voyage, and in
due time fared forth upon the sea, this time alone, leaving his family be-
hind in Venice. At last he seemed to be his old self again, as he watched
his armed merchant galley draw slowly away from the osier palings
that protected the Venetian quays from the constant eroding and scour-
ing of the tides. At last he was outward bound again, to trade, to meet
new peoples, to see new sights, perhaps to encounter more adventures
to his own liking. Marco was of the breed of those whose whole life
i a search for the unknown. And for them the success, the acquisition,
are far less important than the quest.

But, alas, the good fortune which had guided him and watched
over him all the twenty-six years of his wanderings in Asia seems to
have deserted him the moment he set sail. His new adventure was not
destined to bring him riches or new honors, even though in the end, all
unknown to him, it was to bring him immortal fame long after he had
departed this life.

The seas were swarming with vessels of the Genoese, war galleys
and armed merchantmen, the former ready to swoop down on any ves-
sel flying the Venetian flag, the latter not averse to attacking and looting
any luckless vessel which offered itself as a prize.

From the time of Marco's return home in 1295 to the mention of
his captivity in Genoa the records are silent, except for a few scattered
paragraphs. But those few notices are all-important, even in their
baffling mystery - y for we are here confronted with one of the many
unsolved enigmas of the tale of the life and activities of Messer Marco
Polo. At this point we find two widely divergent stories of the time and
place of his meeting with disaster and captivity at the hands of the
Genoese, and we are forced to choose between them.

OJIjaptrr tgljt: (Srnna 107

A little-known Latin chronicle, the "Imago Mundi," written by a
contemporary of Marco's, the Dominican friar Jacopo d'Acqui, con-
tains several paragraphs concerning the traveler. He recounts:

In the year of Jesus Christ 1296 in the time of the Pope Boniface VIII
a battle took place in the sea of Armenia at a place called Layas between fifteen
galleys of Genoese merchants and twenty-five of Venetian [merchants], and
after a great battle the galleys of the Venetians were defeated, and all [the
crews] were either killed or captured; among them is captured Master Marco
the Venetian, who was with those merchants.

On the other hand, Ramusio's introduction to Marco Polo, written in
1553, over two hundred and fifty years after the event, states that
Messer Marco Polo was appointed a sopracomitOy or commander, on
one of the galleys of the fleet commanded by Andrea Dandolo, and
that he sailed with him in 1298 to attack the Genoese. The fleets,
Ramusio says, met off the Dalmatian island of Curzola, and fought a
battle on the day of Our Lady of September (September 7) and:

(as is commonly the chance of war) our fleet was defeated and [Marco Polo]
was taken prisoner, for having desired to press on with his galley into the van-
guard to attack the enemy's fleet, and, fighting valorously and with great cour-
age for his native land and for the safety of his people, he was not followed by
the others; he was wounded and taken captive, and, having been immediately
put in irons he was sent to Genoa.

No contemporary account contains these statements.

The question arises: which of the two accounts is correct? With-
out exception every historian of Venice since Ramusio's time has ac-
cepted his statement, for which no support is found elsewhere, although
a Frenchman, Paulin Paris, writing in the middle of the nineteenth
century, judiciously remarks that Marco Polo was held prisoner by
the Genoese for unknown motives. Another French biographer,
Charles- Victor Langlois, writing in 1921, goes so far as to say only
that "it is without doubt legitimate to conjecture [italics mine] that
Ser Marco, still of military age, had been captured in this 'clean up\"

The question should be approached from the point of view of the
known facts and the logical deductions possible from them.

Let us admit that the good friar Jacopo was confused in his account
of the supposed battle of Layas and its date. The real battle of Layas
took place May 22, 1294, and, as we have learned, resulted in the
utter rout of the Venetians. Marco, however, could not have taken

Iflfi V*tt*ttttit Aimrttturm JBarra 9010

part in this battle, as he, together with his father and his uncle, did
not return to Venice until 1295. Moreover, if the battle in which
Marco was captured took place during the papacy of Boniface VIII,
it could not have occurred in 1294, for Boniface was elected Decem-
ber 24, 1294, and was installed on the papal throne at the beginning
of 1295. However, as Luigi Benedetto, the great Italian editor and
translator of Marco Polo, significantly remarks, this paragraph of
Jacopo d'Acqui should not go unconsidered. There should also be
weighed in connection with it the statement of Ramusio himself, that
Marco sailed with the fleet non molfi mesi dapoi che furono giunti a
Venetia ("not many months after they had arrived in Venice"). This
statement is inconsistent with Ramusio's account of the capture at Cur-
zola, for the extent of time from an unknown date in 1295 to Sep-
tember 7, 1298, is surely far more than "a few months."

On the face of these meager facts one is inevitably led to two con-
clusions. These are: first, that Jacopo knew of the capture of Marco
in an armed merchantman but that he dated the event too early and
confused an obscure skirmish with the better-known battle of Layas;
second, that either Ramusio is wrong in speaking of the battle in which
Marco was taken by the Genoese as occurring very shortly after his
return or else his statement that Marco was wounded at Curzola and
carried off to Genoa was an error and was perhaps merely the reporting
of hearsay or tradition. In any case Ramusio is inconsistent with him-
self and, if we accept the capture at Curzola, he is also inconsistent with
Marco's contemporary, Jacopo d'Acqui.

Further considerations may contribute to the solution of the prob-
lem. The manuscripts are almost unanimous as to the date of comple-
tion, 1298. Jacopo d'Acqui informs us, in speaking of Marco and the
other Venetians incarcerated in Genoa: "Ibi swnt per tempera multa"
"they were there for a long time." If Marco was captured on Septem-
ber 1 6, 1298, and arrived in Genoa with the other prisoners taken at
Curzola on October 16, it is manifestly impossible for his long book
with all its descriptions and anecdotes to have been written (and that,
too, in a language not his own, necessitating considerations of transla-
tion and correction) and dated in the same year. This possibility allows
less than two and one-half months for the preparation, drafting, and
completing of the work. When we consider, too, that, as some of the
manuscripts state, Marco sent to Venice for notes which he had made

Stglft: Qbtuia IBS

on his travels, in order to incorporate them in his book, we must con-
clude that Ramusio's account must be wrong.

The reasonable conclusions from these facts would then seem to be
those presented so succinctly and so ably by Moule in his monumental
translation of Messer Marco's book. We must henceforth abandon
Ramusio's account of the time and place of Marco's seizure by the
Genoese, even though the error has been repeated through the cen-
turies. The year 1296 is the more reasonable one to accept, and prob-
ably Marco was taken prisoner during some unrecorded conflict between
armed galleys of Genoa and Venice. Many such clashes occurred
throughout the long years of the bitter conflict between the two city-
states, and it is in no way surprising that the chronicles of the period
have not recorded every insignificant chance encounter. History had
not yet singled out Marco Polo as one of the "immortals," so there
was no reason why historians of his time should have made any special
effort to record his every move. His capture would have meant little
to his contemporaries who have, with one or two exceptions, been
silent about him and his activities.

Moule's analysis of the facts of the enigma and his conclusions
constitute an important milestone in our study of Marco Polo, and are
a brilliant refutation of such statements as that made as late as 1934
by an accomplished student of Messer Marco and his book, that "noth-
ing new is likely to be discovered about the man." The tale of Marco
is not yet complete. Little by little missing pieces of the puzzle are
being found and fitted into place. More will be discovered and one
never knows when some hitherto unknown document or bit of infor-
mation even, perhaps, the original manuscript written in the prison
at Genoa may be unearthed and throw a flood of new light into the
many corners which still remain dark in the story of Venice's greatest

And so the proud Messer Marco, merchant of Venice, once a favor-
ite of the Great Khan Kublai, was taken prisoner by the Genoese, who
had captured his galley in some obscure encounter not mentioned by
him in his book. We have no details. All that we are sure of is that
he was carried off to Genoa, there to remain a prisoner until his release
after the signing of the peace between Venice and Genoa in May, 1 299.

Genoa the Proud! So proud that often the historians speak of her
as "la Superba," omitting her name. Every reader would know at once

190 V*tt*ii*n Aimrnturrr: JHarro Jain

what city was meant. Genoa la Superba! So proud that, as recounted
in the fourteenth-century chronicle of the Catalan Muntaner, her ad-
miral, Antonio Spinola, dared in 1305 to sail to Gallipoli with two
galleys and order the famous Catalan Company "in the name of the
Commune of Genoa, to get out of their garden, namely the Empire of
Constantinople, which was the garden of the Commune of Genoa ;
otherwise if we did not get out, that he defied us in the name of the
Commune of Genoa and of all the Genoese in the world."

Genoa from the sea was one of the fairest cities in all the world.
Lying at the foot of a backdrop of mountains, crowned with the bluest
of skies and the whitest of clouds, clad as in a soft gray-green garment
by the broad olive orchards on the slopes about her, her feet bathed
in the warm white foam of the Ligurian Mediterranean coast, she was
a worthy rival in beauty to many-islanded Venice on the Adriatic.

She, like Venice, had a long history reaching back even beyond the
founding of Rome, according to her own chroniclers. At her waterside
had gathered the vast multitudes who first took ship en route to Pales-
tine to regain the Holy City from the Saracens. To her shores came
the seven thousand children, led by a boy of thirteen years, seeking
transportation to the city of Jerusalem, children doomed to death and
slavery, the tale of whose Crusade is one of the most tragic and pathetic
in all history. It was Genoa that gave to Richard of England, sur-
named the Lion-hearted, tke eighty galleys to convey him and his
ally the King of Spain to the IJoly Land. And it was then that in his
joy he took for his own the battle cry of the Genoese "Vive San
Zorzo!" ("Long live St. George!") and brought it to England with
him. It was of Genoa that Petrarch wrote in glowing words of "towers
which seemed to threaten the firmament, hills covered with olives and
oranges, marble palaces perched on the summit of the rocks where
art conquered nature." In Genoa the poet was amazed to find "men
and women right royally adorned, and luxuries abundant in mountain
and in wood unknown elsewhere in royal courts."

To this fair city came Messer Marco Polo, not as a happy visitor
seeking pleasure, not as a merchant adventurer in quest of fortune, not
as a proud warrior of the Cross, but as a humiliated prisoner of war.

From afar he could see the city sweeping up the slope from the sea
and the long curve of the sea westward toward Savona. He could scent
the heavy orange blossoms and the varied odors of the quay-sides tar

<Biptpt*r Etgfjt: (Senna

and dry seaweed and the refuse cast up by the tides. He could see the
deep black shadows cast by the great houses on the narrow streets, and
in the dark arches of the doorways bright glints of color flowers and
clothes of men and women and children. But he had no joy in the
sight. His head hung in shame. For his galley was not entering the
harbor gaily, with oars rising and dipping, flashing happily in the sun-
shine, the banners and long flags so loved by the Venetians snapping
and fluttering in the breeze. He, the companion of great nobles, once
governor of a city of hundreds of thousands, he, Messer Marco Polo
of Venice, was a prisoner, and that, too, of Venice's most hated enemy,
the Genoese. And, to make the Venetian humiliation more complete,
the victors were inflicting the supreme insult, towing the captured gal-
ley shoreward "stern foremost and banners trailing."

Slowly the vessel drew in past the great breakwater, the Molo
Vecchio, which was even then in course of construction, designed to
shelter Genoa's great fleet of war galleys and merchant vessels.

To a man from Venice with its silent canals and swift-gliding gon-
dolas, Genoa's water front seemed all noise and confusion. Strings of
heavy carts heaped high with bales and bags from the vessels at the
quays rattled and rumbled by on the rough stones. Porters and sailors,
peddlers and beggars filled the air with their cries, and here and there
scraggy fowls scratched hopefully in the dust for food.

From the sea front narrow streets zigzagged up the hillsides. Many
of them were flights of stone steps, and in such a maze that a stranger
would quickly lose his way, particularly if he did not understand the
strange dialect of these fierce Genoese. On both sides of the lanes
houses towered eight and nine stories high, making of the streets dark
canyons where the sun could seldom penetrate. Everywhere hung
multi-colored washing on long poles and lines stretched across the
street. Beautiful when seen afar from the galley's deck, Genoa re-
solved itself on landing into a city of ugly houses crowded on narrow
streets, and it seemed as though the inhabitants were intent on shutting
out the light of heaven from their homes and churches. And above all,
like gaunt fingers pointing to the blue sky, rose numerous towers from
the palace fortresses of the nobles of the city. Though in 1143 an< 3
again in 1 196 strict laws had been passed limiting their height to eighty
feet, they still menaced the surrounding buildings, some of them even
dominating the Cathedral itself.

102 Vntrttatt Aburnturrr: JRarta

The greatest humiliation seemed to Marco to be inflicted when his
captors indicated to him the building where he was to be confined. It
was not seemly for a prisoner of Marco's wealth and reputation to be
cast into a dungeon with the common sailors and fighting men of the
Venetian ships. So he was conducted to one of the underground rooms
of the Palazzo del Capitano del Popolo, now called the Palazzo di San
Giorgio, that same building into which the Genoese had incorporated
the stones of the Venetian palace which had once stood so proudly in
Constantinople. Built by the Cistercian Fra Olivieri in 1270, it rose
in all its splendor a short distance from the landing stage; of red stone
and brick, square, with high crenellations on its roof, its arched win-
dows and open arcades at the street level showed the light fantastic
influence of the Gothic Venetian style, probably made necessary by the
employment of the material taken from the Pantocratore. There it
stood, visible to all comers, the dwelling of Genoa's Captain of the
People, an enormous and permanent trophy of the triumph of Genoese
intrigue and arms over the Venetian Republic. And as Marco passed
through its high-arched portals the stone lions, once Venetian, grinned
down on him in sardonic humor, while between them hung a fragment
of the harbor chain of Pisa, placed there as a memorial of victory after
the destruction of Pisa's maritime power by the conquering Genoese in
the year 1290.

'Messer Marco was not alone in prison. He found the rooms
crowded with men who like himself had been taken captive in forays
or battles. There were, besides Venetians, Pisans by the score, and men
of Leghorn and other cities who had dared challenge Genoa's suprem-
acy on the Mediterranean coasts. Not only was the prison crowded
when Marco arrived, but hardly a day passed that he did not see addi-
tional long lines of men, chained together by leg irons, dragging their
way past the Palazzo. Often the doors of his prison were flung open
to admit more unwilling guests of La Superba. At first the prisoners
had difficulty in understanding each other, for every city and every
district had its own dialect. Dante and Petrarch and Boccaccio had not
yet established the classic "Italian" language in their limpid verse and
prose, and these prisoners, though often from towns but a few miles
apart, were as foreigners to each other. All they had in common were
the misery, the bad food, the vermin, the lack of all comforts, and the
longing for freedom and for home.

Etgljt: <K*tt0a 193

Some there were who had traveled in the south and to France, and
many of these could speak more or less French, which even then was
the language of the courts of kings and the lingua franca of diplomats.
Gradually the groups of prisoners became acquainted, exchanged stor-
ies, told of the battles which they had fought, grumbled together, and
cursed the bad food and water. Some of them, developing real friend-
ships, would sit apart and while away the long days in talk of their
home and their wives or sweethearts. And as ever when men gather,
there were the loud-mouthed boasters of exploits, martial or amorous;
and, as ever, they were in good time singled out and shunned by their
fellows.

Marco soon became a great favorite with his fellow prisoners.
Time was heavy on their hands, for ordinary topics of conversation
were few and were soon exhausted. But here was a man who could
spin fascinating yarns of adventure and peril for hours. Had he not
traveled to the uttermost ends of the world? Had he not seen great
marvels of nature? Had he not been the companion of kings and
princes? Had he not traversed all the lands of the paynim and the
seas that bound the world? Did they believe him? Dio mio! Why
should they believe all the marvels which he unrolled before their
eyes? The places he claimed to have seen were peopled with monsters,
some having but a single leg, some with heads in the middle of their
breasts or carried under their arms. Did he not tell of the Isle of Males
and the Isle of Females? Children of their age, knowing but little
beyond their own narrow horizon, hardly one of them able to read or
write, fed on romances of chivalry, going through the forms of re-
ligion often with little or no understanding of the spirit thereof, liv-
ing hard lives, giving blow for blow, cherishing but few illusions
they could in no wise understand or accept even the half of what he
told them. But he was a good teller of tales, one whose humor was
broad enough for their thirteenth-century minds, one not too squeam-
ish, a keen observer of women, not afraid to tell what he knew of them.
So they rejoiced in their living storybook, and Messer Marco never
failed to gather a goodly crowd about him whenever he was in the
mood to tell of his exploits and the far lands in which he had dwelt so
long.

His jailors welcomed him also. There was little chance of escape
for their prisoners, and they had much time on their hands while on

184 V*tt*ti*tt Atottttttrtr: JBarra Polo

guard. The minutes and hours of their long watches flew as they hung
breathless and wide-eyed on his tales of the long trek across the moun-
tains and deserts, of Chinese life and the strange customs and the nomad
Mongols. They never wearied of the stories of Cipango and its roofs
of gold, of the doings of the people of Manzi, and of the long voyage
from Zaitun to Hormuz with the Lady Cocachin.

And the jailors in their turn would speak of him to their officers
and tell of him in their homes and over the wine jugs in the taverns.
So, little by little, Messer Marco Messer Marco Milioni, as men
were beginning to call him, because of his prodigal use of the word in
his narratives became known throughout the great city of Genoa.

Then, in the quaint words of Ramusio, the only source of informa-
tion we have at this point,

because, as may be understood, of his rare qualities and the marvellous voyage
which he had made, the whole City gathered to see him and to talk to him, not
treating him as a prisoner, but as a very dear friend and a greatly honored
gentleman, and showed him so much honor and affection that there was never
an hour of the day that he was not visited by the most noble gentlemen of that
city, and presented with everything necessary for his [daily] life.

This cannot be mere tradition or the fancy of the good Ramusio,
who loved his hero well. The liberty which allowed him to prepare his
book, the permission which was granted him to send to his father in
Venice for his notes, the fact that his fellow prisoner, Rustichello of
Pisa of whom more anon was permitted to help him; moreover the
completion of his book and its circulation while he was most likely still
in prison all these indicate that Marco was not the prisoner chained
in a dungeon as he has so often been pictured but rather a gentleman-
adventurer who had been captured through the fortunes of war but
who because of his talents and "qualities" was granted a generous
amount of freedom.

But even the loquacious Venetian fond as he was of telling his
story and probably enjoying being the center of attraction in Genoese
high society and thus escaping the hardships which might have other-
wise been his lot finally wearied of repeating his adventures over and
over again, and welcomed a chance suggestion to put his tale in writing.
In all justice to Messer Marco we should refer to a line in the "Pro-
hemio Primo" which Giambattista Ramusio placed before his edition
of Marco Polo's narrative and which he states that he found in an

ffifjaptrr Etglft: <K*tuw 195

earlier Latin edition used in preparing his own work. Therein it is
stated expressly of Marco that, "not wishing to remain idle, it appeared
to him that he should put together the things contained in this book
for the enjoyment of readers."

To account for the presence of Rustichello here in Genoa we must
review the history of Pisa. Pisa was one of the oldest cities in Italy.
Her proud citizens dated her foundation from pre-Etruscan times.
Situated on the great Via Aurelia, built in 241 B.C. and still in use,
she was always an important trading city in Roman times. A palace of
Hadrian once stood on the site of its twelfth-century cathedral and
campanile. The city stood on low, marshy ground at the confluence
of the rivers Arno and Serchio, once about two miles from the sea;
the coast line had gradually changed, however, and the city at the
height of its glory was situated about five miles from the ocean, sur-
rounded by extensive pine forests. Pisa early developed a lucrative
sea trade and established commercial centers along the Italian coast.
The attacks of the Saracens in the eleventh century brought together
Pisa and Genoa as allies, but after the common foe had been defeated
the two cities continually quarreled.

The profit accruing from the sale of naval armaments and trans-
port and the establishment of new markets for their trade brought in-
creased riches and influence to Pisa. Her harbor, Porto Pisano, received
and sheltered galleys, great and small, richly laden with the precious
stuffs of East and West. She gradually added to her crown rich jewels
the overlordship of the Balearic Islands, Carthage, Elba, the Liparis,
and Palermo.

Pisa's old city walls could no longer contain her population, and
were finally actually hidden by the houses clustered inside and out,
so that another wall, far greater in extent, was erected. Many beautiful
buildings sprang up everywhere, and stately palaces were mirrored in
the waters of the broad-bosomed Arno, which flowed through the cen-
ter of the ancient city in a perfect crescent. Like most Italian towns,
medieval Pisa was crowded with the inevitable high towers of the quar-
reling noble families, so numerous and so close together that the city
looked from afar like a group of chimneys huddled inside a wall so
close to each other, in fact, that in times of peace balconies and bridges
connected one with another. Four bridges spanned the Arno, and much
of the history of the city was enacted on and about them.

190 *tt*tiiut Aimrntrtrrr: 4K*rr0 9010

The citizens of Pisa had many buildings of which to be proud, and
none more wonderful than their Duomo (Cathedral) with its Baptist-
ery and Campanile. The Duomo was planned in the eleventh century,
when Pisa had risen to her height as a great maritime power. Begun
in 1063 in a corner of the city far from danger of inundation, the great
building was consecrated by Pope Gelasius II in 1 1 1 8. Near by, rising
like the half of a giant bubble one hundred and ninety feet above the
walls of the city, was the Baptistery, begun in 1 1 54 but not finished
until 1278.

Near the Duomo stood one of the strangest buildings ever erected
by man, the Leaning Campanile, famous throughout all Italy. In an
endeavor to outdo the magnificent Campanile of St. Mark's in Venice,
the architect Bonanno made his plans and laid the first foundation
stones of the tower inn 74. He had erected hardly forty feet of the
structure when it was discovered that the building was slowly sinking
in the soft ground and was no longer perpendicular. In spite of the
architect's efforts to place the succeeding three stories nearer the center
of gravity, the subsidence continued. Bonanno ceased his work at this
point, and no one would undertake the completion of the tower until
1234. In the interval the tower had inclined still further, and all the
next architect, Benenato, accomplished was the addition of one more
story the fourth. A third architect had but little more success, and
again the work was abandoned and remained unfinished until well into
the fourteenth century.

Well beloved of the Pisans were these sacred buildings, especially
in the early evening when the fretwork of the ethereal white marble
leaning tower was a mass of lace-like tracery, of light and shade in
arch and columns, and the shadow of its great length made it like the
gnomon of a giant sundial. And near it the alabaster and porphyry and
rich bronze gates of the Duomo and the Baptistery glowed as rich gold
in the radiance of the setting sun. Then all would pale to soft, sub-
dued, delicate grays and rose, enshrined in the hazy curved background
of bluish hills. As the sun sank slowly into the sea by Porto Pisano to
the west, the sound of many full-throated bells would ring out the call
to vespers, the faint odor of smoking incense would come on the soft-
est of breezes, and imperceptibly the twilight shadows would change
from gray to deepest black, and with the coming of night a heavenly
peace seemed to cast its benison over the beautiful city.

Perhaps Monsignore Paolo Tronci, who wrote his famous Memorie
Historiche delta Citta di Pisa in 1682, was right when he remarked
of the Leaning Tower that some people believed that "as sank the
fortunes of the city to a lower ebb, so the fabric [of the Campanile]
was caused to incline and as great buildings fall or decline thus do
also Republics." For all the wealth of Pisa, all her pride in hand-
some men, in beautiful women, in noble buildings and crowded ware-
houses could not save her from her fate as another victim of the suicidal
internecine quarrels of the medieval Italian city-states. Nor could they
rescue her once she came into grim, bitter, and deadly conflict with her
powerful and greedy rival for trade, Genoa la Superba. From the first
she was doomed, and Genoa finally stripped from her all her ancient
glories and reduced her to ignominious servitude.

The final struggle between the two cities began in 1282. The for-
tunes of war alternated with no decisive action for two years. At one
point the Pisan fleet, taking advantage of the absence of the enemy's
war galleys, sailed into the port of Genoa and in derision fired silver-
headed arrows into the town. In 1283 the Genoese won two naval
battles. These defeats aroused the Pisans to greater efforts. Hearing
that they had assembled a fleet of galleys under the command of Ugo-
lino della Gherardesca, the Genoese armed one hundred and thirty
vessels, and, led by Uberto Doria, a soon of one of Genoa's greatest
families, sailed into Pisan waters. On August 6, 1284, Ruggiero, Arch-
bishop of Pisa, boarded a galley to ask God's blessing on the fleet. At
that moment the heavy iron ball surmounted by a silver cross which
was the standard of the Commune fell into the Arno. This evil omen
"struck great terror into the souls of all, as though it were a demonstra-
tion that His Divine Majesty had shown by this sign that He did not
wish to be favorable [to the expedition]." However, it was fished out
of the water and set up on its staff again, and after the prelate had be-
stowed his blessing the people took heart once more. With loud cheers
the vessels, eighty-three in all, sailed out of the Arno and attacked the
Genoese off the islet of Meloria. The Genoese were victorious, cap-
turing forty galleys and slaying thousands of brave men, and between
ten and fifteen thousand Pisans were carried off as prisoners to Genoa.

The seventeenth -century Annals of Pisa by Paoli Tronci closes the
tale in a few bitter lines: "it is certain that the city lost almost all its
nobility and the bravest soldiers that it had, and from this circumstance

198 Vntttistt Ata*ntttr*r: ifflarro

is derived the proverb: c Che vuol veder Pisa, vada a Geneva!' ['Who
wishes to see Pisa, let him go to Genoa.'] .... and there remained
not a house in the city which did not have reason to grieve."

Buried in one of the vellum-bound, musty tomes of another chron-
icler, Ludovico Antonio Muratori, is a piteous account of the sequel.
It is set forth in crabbed, medieval Latin how the women of Pisa came
in great numbers as suppliants to the prisons of Genoa:

for one had there a husband, another a son or a brother or a relative. And when
these women asked the prison guards about their captives, the guards answered
them: "Yesterday the dead were thirty and today forty, the which we have
thrown into the sea, and thus do we each day with the Pisans." .... When
the women heard such things about their dear ones, and could not locate them,
they fell into consternation from too great anguish, and scarcely could they
breathe for the pain in their hearts. When after a bit they had recovered their
breath they lacerated their faces with their fingernails and tore their hair and
wept with loud voices. For the Pisans in the dungeons were dying from im-
proper food and starvation, want and misery, distress and sadness.

The story is inscribed on the worn striped marble fagade of the
Church of San Matteo in Genoa, where many of the Doria family were
buried. There, chiseled in queer, debased, and much-abbreviated Latin,
may still be read the old tale of the naval victory at Meloria and the
humbling of the Pisans.

There, too, may be read on the old stones the story of the destruc-
tion of Porto Pisano by the united power of Genoa and Lucca: "In the
year 1290, on the tenth day of September, Conradus Auria [Corrado
Doria], Captain and Admiral of the Republic of Genoa, took and de-
stroyed Porto Pisano." This battle marked the end of Pisa as a mari-
time power. The victors carried off the harbor chain of Porto Pisano
as a trophy, and portions of it were hung in different prominent build-
ings of La Superba to celebrate the victory in perpetuity.

Ramusio knew of no aid received by Messer Marco in the making
of his book except that "d'un gentiPhuomo Genovese molto suo amico,
che si dilettava grandemente di saper le cose del mondo, e ogni giorno
andava a star seco in prigione per molte hore."* This simple statement,
coupled with the fact that Ramusio's text contains no reference to any

* ". . . .a Genoese gentleman, his close friend, who took great delight in learn-
ing of the various things of the world, and [who] went every day to remain many
hours in prison with him."

: *mm

other collaborator, seems to indicate that the learned editor was igno-
rant of the name of the man who really assisted in the preparation of
the manuscript. It may be he was correct in stating that some unnamed
Genoese gentleman had been of material assistance to Messer Marco
in the preparation of his magnum opus, but the important collaborator
whose name has been revealed in other texts of the book was not from
Genoa.

Living as a prisoner in Genoa at the same time as Marco Polo was
one Rustichello, a Pisan. He had probably been taken captive at the
battle of Meloria and had already been confined for many years when
Marco joined him as an unwilling guest of the Genoese Republic.

Though but little is known of the life of Rustichello of Pisa, a few
facts have been preserved. The catalogue of manuscripts preserved in
the Bibliotheque Nationale in Paris lists several manuscripts of Arthu-
rian romances written by one Rusticien de Pise, some as early as 1271.
That this Rusticien de Pise and the Rustichello of Pisa of Marco Polo's
book are one and the same person has been established beyond doubt
by careful comparisons of his works with the texts of Messer Marco's
book. This comparison reveals incontestable proof that not only is the
style in general the same but that phrases, sentences, and in some cases
entire paragraphs of the Description of the World set down in Genoa
are almost identical with those in various extant French romances writ-
ten by Rustichello. Even the opening paragraph of Marco's book
those famous lines beginning: "Lords, Emperors and Kings, Dukes
and Marquesses, counts, knights and burgesses" corresponds almost
word for word with the opening lines of Rustichello's compilation of
the stories of the Round Table. From these opening lines to the very
end of the Description are to be found so many close correspondences
and similarities of expression largely cliches that there is no longer
any good reason to question the identity of Rusticien of the romances
and Rustichello, Marco's fellow prisoner in Genoa.

No doubt the Pisan accepted with alacrity the suggestion that he
collaborate in writing the Description of the World. He had been a
prisoner for many years. Time hung heavily on his hands, and here
was once again a wonderful opportunity for him to practice his beloved
metier, that of a writer of noble tales. His heroes had heretofore been
men of a dream world, impossible "preux chevaliers" who spent their
lives in deeds of derring-do, killing giants, rescuing and making love to

200 V*tt*iiatt Aimntttsm: fflarm

fair ladies, and sometimes seducing the fair ladies of other less-favored
knights. And now, here to his hand was a hero, a real flesh and blood
hero, who had spent the best years of his life traveling in wondrous
lands and sailing unknown seas. Here was a man who had himself been
the companion of real emperors and princes and who could in a trice
unroll his pack and display before the astonished gaze of his auditors
the whole glittering, dazzling pageant of the mysterious East. And
above all, here was a man with a keen eye, discernment of what was
interesting, exciting, or stimulating, an unerring sense of the unusual
and the essential, and blessed with a prodigious memory, so that the
tale would not fail to be full and rich and well spiced. It would be a
most savory dish to serve to his readers. And he, Rustichello, would
gain great honor and renown therefrom. For it was his good fortune
that this wondrous find, this Venetian wanderer, could speak no French.
Here was his golden opportunity, his chance again to bring his name
before the eyes of men.

Many a conversation did Marco and Rustichello have concerning
the preparation of the book, sketching its form, its headings and sub-
headings, and deciding on what should be included and what omitted.
For this serious task was not to be undertaken without much prelimi-
nary planning. Marco realized that it would be impossible to prepare
such a book, covering, as he intended it should, the geography, history,
manners, and customs of a multitude of Asiatic peoples, tribes, and
countries, without recourse to some aide-memoires. No man, no matter
how brilliant an observer or possessed of how prodigious a memory,
could hope to be able to recall all the strange facts and names of per-
sons and places that were to be discussed in the proposed narratives.
So he bethought himself of those notes which he had taken during his
long sojourn in far Cathay and which he had brought home with him
to Venice. It may well have been, also, that in his leisure time on ship-
board or after his return, he had jotted down in his methodical man-
ner additional observations, names, weights and measures, notations as
to products, prices and the like, intending them for future use in busi-
ness. That many of these notes were made during his residence in China
may be inferred from the first "Prohemio" or "Preface" found by
Ramusio and included in his version. After stating that the matters
set forth in the narrative "are few compared with the many, and almost
infinite [number of] things which he might have been able to write if

(Chapter Ctgtyt: <&?tum 201

he had believed that he would ever have been able to return to these
our parts [of the world]," he continues: "But believing that it would
most likely be impossible for him ever to depart from the service of
the Great Khan, King of the Tartars, he wrote in his notebooks only a
few things, about which he believed that it would be a great pity if
they should pass into oblivion, being so remarkable, and that they had
never been set forth in writing by any other person." In his own intro-
duction Ramusio gives the additional information that Marco found a
way to write to his father in Venice requesting that he should send him
his writings and notebooks which he had brought with him (from the
East?). There are, moreover, many references in the body of Marco's
book to his making notes in writing of matters which he considered
of importance. In fact he attributes the favor in which he found him-
self with the Great Khan Kublai to his noting and reporting things
which he had seen and found interesting to the monarch. He must
have laid by a vast number of these notes, and from the accuracy of
his descriptions of little-known and seldom-visited places and peoples,
we infer that they must have been extraordinarily full and complete.
Sir Aurel Stein, the great modern explorer of Central Asia, one who
has followed the footsteps of Marco Polo on many an arduous journey,
writes in discussing Agror (a district of Kashmir) :

One concluding remark bearing on the value of Marco Polo's own record
will suffice. We have seen how accurately it reproduces information about ter-
ritories difficult of access at all times, and far away from his own route. It ap-
pears to me quite impossible to believe that such exact data, learned at the very
beginning of the great traveller's long wanderings, could have been reproduced
by him from memory alone close on thirty years later, when dictating his won-
derful story to Rusticiano during his captivity at Genoa. Here, anyhow, we
have definite proof of the use of those "notes and memoranda which he had
brought with him," and which, as Ramusio's Preface of 1553 tells us, Messer
Marco while prisoner of war was believed to have had sent to him by his father
from Venice. How grateful must geographers and historical students alike feel
that these precious materials reached the illustrious prisoner safely!

When the notes finally arrived from Venice and that they were
delivered to the prisoner and that he was given the liberty to make use
of them as well as the comparative freedom and leisure necessary to
prepare the book indicates that his imprisonment was not too oppressive
the two men set diligently to work.

202 Vntfiitttt A2ut*tttttr*r: JHarra f olo

Marco states in the beginning of his book that he "caused Rusti-
chello of Pisa to recount all these things." We can perceive that certain
material was drawn up in writing or dictated to Rustichello (and
others?) to be placed in the book in its proper order. Rustichello's
contribution was that of an editor whose duty it was to arrange the
various portions of the tale properly, to insert such passages as were
necessary for smooth transitions from section to section, to knit the
different chapters and divisions into a harmonious whole, and, finally,
to translate the entire book into French. His task was indeed to be a
thankless one, for but few could read and most of those interested
in Marco's work would receive it from the lips of those learned few.
They would be intent on the adventure itself and the descriptions of
strange places and peoples. They would give but little attention to
finely turned phrases and polished sentences. And even the barbarous
French of which Rustichello was so proud was to be largely lost on
readers of the tale, for the book was destined to be translated speedily
into learned Latin, into the vulgar Italian dialects, and into all the
tongues of Europe, even into the Gaelic of far-off Ireland. Hence its
writer was to be deprived of the vicarious immortality that might have
been his reward by the very interest which his written version of the
Description aroused. Marco's name appeared often in the book; Rusti-
chello's appeared but once, and that in the beginning.

Rustichello performed his task well in view of his definite and un-
mistakable limitations as a writer. His cliches, his irrepressible tend-
ency to introduce words and phrases of the romances of chivalry into a
serious account of the countries of Asia, his descriptions of Asiatic battles
in terms of Arthurian legends all these are obvious to the attentive
reader. Toward the end of the book his interest in parts of Marco's
narrative seems to have flagged, for the geographical descriptions grow
briefer and dull accounts of obscure battles, with but little of the fresh-
ness and detail that mark the earlier part of the work, take their place.
Perhaps this was not his fault. Perhaps much of it was due to the in-
accuracies of nodding, weary scribes, whose quill pens faltered and
stumbled and abbreviated or omitted passages in their eagerness to
reach the end of a long narrative. We shall most likely never know,
unless by some chance the original manuscript is discovered.

However, Rustichello succeeded, in spite of great prolixity, much
repetition of detail, discursive paragraphs of little value or interest, and

Chapter Eiglft: *tt0a 203

a stiffness of form which were the inevitable results of his earlier train-
ing and writing, in producing a piece of prose which is not altogether
to be condemned from a literary viewpoint. As Benedetto has well
said, the book is presented in a clear and simple form, the historical
and the story-telling elements alternate in a pleasing manner with the
dry geographical descriptions, and certain pages, such as the legend of
the Buddha, have the primitive power of the most beautiful Romance
prose of the period: "The book of Marco appears from one end to the
other to be [in] the tranquil style of a man of letters who has before
him suitable material and who seeks to make of it a piece of work in
the best manner."

So we must take our leave of Rustichello of Pisa, Messer Marco's
most worthy collaborator. The little we can learn leaves him but a
shadowy personality behind the more glamorous, insistent figure of
Marco the traveler. After he had written the words, "Deo Gratias.
Amen y yy at the end of his long task, and had laid down his weary pen,
we hear of him no more. History has not recorded when or if ever
he was released from his imprisonment or what became of him there-
after or when or where or how he died. We shall never know how
much more he contributed to the book of Messer Marco Polo than ap-
pears in the actual words thereof. We shall never be able to count the
weary hours he must have spent deciphering the crabbed ill-spelt notes
of the Venetian, and in sorting the scattered references into their proper
places. We shall never know how much of what Marco has told us was
elicited by Rustichello's questioning, how much was added, how much
was omitted, how much was changed or modified on his advice. But
without him and the magic touch of his hand on Marco's notes, the
world would have been immeasurably poorer, and Messer Marco him-
self would be for us but another empty name inscribed in the "Golden
Book" of Venice.

There is no longer any serious doubt that the original manuscript
was written in French. Ramusio believed that the book written in the
prison at Genoa was in Latin. Others believed it to have been originally
written in the Venetian or Tuscan dialect. A Latin version was made
from the original very early, perhaps even before the traveler's death j
but convincing internal as well as external evidence all points to French
as the language in which the original text was prepared by Marco and
Rustichello in Genoa. The French is none too good in grammar, vo-

204 Vrnrttstt Aim*ntnr*r: JBarm 9010

cabulary, or style, and abounds in Italian or Italianate words, making
the confusion worse confounded; but French it undoubtedly was.*

One day it was October 16, 1298 as the two men were busy with
their notes and their sheets of vellum, confused shouts and cheers were
heard in the street outside. The hubbub grew ever louder as the crowd
neared the building where Messer Marco sat with Rustichello. The
door was flung open, and several men were thrust into the room by their
jailers. All were unshaven, bedraggled, battle-stained, and weary. A
number were swathed in blood-stained bandages, and all bore evidences
of having just come from a deadly hand-to-hand struggle such as was
usual in the sea fights of the time. To his horror and amazement Marco
saw that they were Venetians. Quills were dropped and the book was
forgotten while the two men heard in consternation the tale of the
terrible disaster which had just befallen the Venetian war fleet.

When the news of Pisa's defeat at Meloria had reached Venice, her
citizens had vowed to treat Genoa as she had treated Pisa. Two years
passed in desultory warfare; then, in the summer of 1298, a great fleet
(the recorded number of galleys varies from 90 to 120) was assembled
by the Venetians under the command of Andrea Dandolo. The Genoese
had not awaited their enemies in home waters but had boldly sailed
sixty or more strong under Lamba Doria, brother of Uberto, victor of
Meloria, into the Adriatic. Doria did not waste his time but thoroughly
sacked and looted the various towns of Venetia on the Dalmatian coast.
He had just finished plundering a settlement on the island of Curzola
when, early on Sunday morning, September 7, 1298, he sighted the
Venetian fleet.

Doria at once arranged his plan of battle. Fifteen galleys were or-
dered to withdraw and hide in reserve, and the other vessels were
maneuvered into a triangle with the flagship at the apex. As the ships
closed in, the Venetians poured flights of arrows on the Genoese, rolled
open kegs of boiling oil upon the decks, and then followed with a rain
of sand and lime and soap. But the wily Doria had swung his fleet
about so that the sun was in the eyes of the Venetians. At first this ad-
vantage was offset by the enemy having the wind behind them, and the
Venetians captured ten Genoese galleys. Excited beyond caution by
their initial success, they pressed on too rapidly and several of their

* See below, pp. 254 ff., as to the later history of the text.

fflfjaptrr CtBlji: <*tui&

ships ran aground. One was captured and turned against them with
an enemy crew. The Genoese, however, were hard pressed and at one
time were at the point of flight.

At the most critical moment in the battle, Doria, who was standing
on the high poop deck of his galley, where he could best see what was
happening, glanced forward to the forecastle, where his young son
Ottavio was bravely fighting in the forefront of the melee. At that
moment a Venetian arrow struck the lad full in the breast, and he fell
dying before his distracted father's eyes. At the sight the whole ship's
company for the moment ceased their defense. But the hapless father,
hesitating not a moment between his love for his beloved son and his
duty to his country, leaped down among his men and rebuked and
rallied them again to fight even more fiercely than before. Then, turn-
ing to some of the sailors, he commanded in a hoarse, grief -stricken
voice:

My men, throw my son overboard into the deep sea. What better resting
place can we give him than this spot where, fighting gallantly for his country,
his death will be atoned for by the victory which will soon be ours? Now back
to your work. Let each of you do his duty and avenge his untimely death with
deeds rather than with lamentations.

And with set face and dry eyes he ascended again to his post and di-
rected the struggle with more vigor than before. As his own ship was
urged forward by its rowers toward that of the Venetian Admiral
Dandolo, he gave the signal for the hidden galleys to attack. As they
broke from cover and bore down on the Venetians, masts lowered for
action, oars flashing in the sun, and men lining their bulwarks with ar-
rows fitted to bowstrings and the crews shouting and singing, terror
struck the hearts of the Venetians. Seized with panic, for they knew not
how many fresh galleys were attacking them, some of the war vessels
turned to flee. The Genoese followed in close pursuit, pressing every
advantage. The battle had lasted all the day, and as the sun lit up the
west with its glory of red and orange and gold the weary, battered Vene-
tian fleet, now thoroughly demoralized and scattered, thought only of
escaping. The proud galleys (far more numerous and powerful than
those of the Genoese) which had sailed out only a few short hours be-
fore, confident that a swift victory would be theirs, were fugitives, and
Venice had suffered her first great defeat at sea.

ZttB Vnstttast Ahttnttstrm tf arm ]falii

The Genoese, flushed with their victory over tremendous odds, re-
solved to crush the enemy, and orders were given to pursue the escaping
galleys. Many of them had been so badly shattered that they were but
leaking, crippled hulks. Sixty-six were burned and eighteen were
carried off to Genoa, to be towed into the harbor stern foremost and
with the defeated battle flags trailing in the sea. Among these was the
flagship of Dandolo, on which he himself had been captured while
fighting desperately. Seven thousand four hundred prisoners were car-
ried to Genoa, among them the men who had been thrust into the room
of Messer Marco and Rustichello.

All this the wounded men recounted, and more. And when the
story had been told and retold, and the edge of grief was dulled and
the maddening monotony of prison life had seized upon newcomers
and old captives alike, Messer Marco and Rustichello sharpened their
quills, stirred the ink in their inkhorns, smoothed out their sheets of
vellum, checked up their notes, and again fell to work on the tale which
had been interrupted on that sad October day.

Diligently they worked, for disease was abroad in the prison. Men
were dying like flies, of starvation and disease and neglect, and none
knew when his turn might come. And none could know what worse fate
might befall them if the war was waged further and more fiercely be-
tween Genoa and Venice.

At last the task was completed, and the book finished, in the year
of grace 1298.

The day of liberation of Messer Marco and his fellow Venetians
was approaching. In 1299 Venice, undaunted by the crushing defeat
of Curzola, fitted out a new fleet of one hundred galleys, and hired a
large body of crossbowmen to man them from Catalonia. Meanwhile,
however, Matteo Visconti, Captain-General of Milan, offered his serv-
ices as mediator, in an effort to negotiate a peace on honorable terms
between the two rival republics. The Venetians, though convinced that
the defeat of Curzola was entirely accidental and that they could easily
win the war eventually, decided nonetheless, since things were going
none too well in their other foreign relationships, to accept the offer of
Visconti. Venice selected the cities of Padua and Verona to represent
it, and Genoa chose Asti and Tortona. The parties met and concluded
a "perpetual peace" at Milan on May 25, 1299. The provisions of
the treaty were surprising in their equality of treatment of both repub-

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lies. No indemnities or compensations were exacted by the Genoese, and
the various clauses of the treaty indicate that the Venetians were by no
means considered to have lost the war.

On July i, 1299, a Genoese delegate was present in Venice at the
solemn ratification of the treaty ; and on August 28 the Venetian cap-
tives held in the prisons of Genoa were released. At almost the same
time, on July 31, a twenty-five years' truce was concluded between
Genoa and Pisa. And it is to be hoped that Marco's collaborator,
Rustichello, was restored to liberty after nearly sixteen years of con-
finement in Genoa.

Chapter

Venice

DO NOT KNOW how Messer Marco returned home from
Genoa to Venice. He may have made the journey overland,
or he may have traveled by sea. But there had been many
changes in the affairs of his family since he had sailed on
his last ill-fated voyage. The imprisonment of Marco had been a
source of great worry to Messer Nicolo his father and Messer Maffeo
his uncle. According to Ramusio they tried several times to ransom
him, but without success, and they were in no way reassured by the
frequent tales they heard of the Genoese retaining Venetians in their
dungeons "for tens of years." Ramusio further states that they had
planned to arrange for him to marry immediately on their return to
Venice, because Maffeo was childless and the two brothers desired to
keep their wealth in the family. This statement can hardly be correct,
for Marco had a number of cousins; moreover, his half-brother,
Maffeo, who had greeted him on his return from China, was still alive.
The branches and twigs of the family tree of the Polos are ex-
tremely difficult to disentangle, for the facts known do not fit exactly
into any rational scheme which can be devised. Every bit of evidence
that we have indicates that Marco was the only child born of Messer
Nicolo's first marriage. Maffeo was evidently younger than Marco,
for he is named second in the will of their uncle Marco, dated Au-
gust 27, 1280. We may speculate that Nicolo perhaps returned home
once or more during his six years' residence in Constantinople and that
Maffeo was begotten before Nicolo and his brother left Constantinople
for the East. If this was so, it is difficult to understand the failure of
Marco to mention his brother in describing his father's return in 1269

203

210 VtttttUm AZmntttim: Harr0

with his uncle. Moreover, at least one manuscript states that on his
return Nicolo took a second wife and had a child by her. No satis-
factory solution of this mystery has ever been presented, and no docu-
ments have been found to elucidate it. Some scribe may have copied the
story of Marco's birth twice, and the error may have been repeated
inadvertently by others.

We cannot therefore take at its face value Ramusio's naive expla-
nation as to how and why Messer Nicolo was supposed to have remar-
ried during Marco's imprisonment in Genoa: "And seeing that they
could not ransom him [Marco] under any condition .... and having
consulted together, they decided that Messer Nicolo, who though he
was very old, was none the less of robust constitution, should take a wife
unto himself." Here we have the two elder Polos, their beards whit-
ened with the frosts of the years, consulting together just as they had
throughout all the years of their travels. In all the annals of men there
is no record of two brothers more closely associated for a whole life-
time and seemingly never making a move without solemnly putting
their heads together. We met them thus in Constantinople when they
took counsel before leaving for the East; and now, in the late evening
of their years, good Ramusio presents them together again in a fashion
that seems most natural to us who have come to know them. Ramusio
fully believed in the "complessione gagliarda" of the aged Messer
Nicolo ; for he continues "and so he married, and at the end of four
years had three sons, one Stef ano, the other Maffeo, and the other Gio-

vannino."

We have seen that Maffeo was born before August 27, 1280. As
for Stef ano and Giovanni no, alas, unless the documents still in existence
are untruthful, they were like Gloucester's son, not "got 'tween the
lawful sheets"; for their older brother, Maffeo, in his will dated Au-
gust 31, 1300, leaves money "to my natural brothers Stef ano and
Giovannino." And the brilliant translator and commentator Yule
states: "it is not unlikely that these were born from some connection
entered into during the long residence in Cathay, though naturally
their presence in the traveling company is not commemorated in
Marco's prologue." Orlandini goes further and states that "they must
have certainly been born in the Orient." In Maffeo the elder's will
their mother's name is given as Maria; and other documents prove that
even the younger, Giovannino (or Giovanni), was born before 1291.

QUf spier Ntttr: Vtnit* Again 211

Thus, in spite of Ramusio's valiant effort to ascribe great prowess
to Nicolo's old age, the veteran traveler must be absolved from a
marriage after his last return from the Far East in 1295 or any off-
spring of that supposed marriage. One may surmise that Giambattista
Ramusio met with the names of Marco's three brothers and, not being
able to find any documents at hand to explain their presence, accepted or
invented a plausible tale to fit them into the frame of the Polo family.

To his father and this oddly assorted trio of half-brothers came
Messer Marco Polo on his release from prison in Genoa. Either dur-
ing his captivity or shortly thereafter the Polos had purchased a mansion
in the parish of San Giovanni Chrisostomo, and there Marco dwelt for
some time, living quietly and endeavoring to take up the threads of his
life where they had been broken off on his capture by the Genoese
galleys.

After the five years of captivity Venice must have seemed to Marco
a haven of rest, a refuge from all that he had seen and undergone on
shipboard and in dungeon. Hand-to-hand fighting at sea, chains, filth,
vermin, bad food and water, pestilence, the sight of death in its most
horrible forms all these had been his lot, relieved only by those
cherished hours of loving labor during which he had watched the pile
of stiff vellum sheets grow under the swiftly moving quill of Rusti-
chello. Arid now here was his written narrative with him in Venice. So
doubtless he paced the bridges and the quays, watching the sea and the
ships that were ever present, no matter where one turned or looked in
Venice.

Now Messer Marco had had much time indeed, too much time
in which to think, during his long years of confinement in Genoa la
Superba. Perhaps, too though this we know not he dreamed of
some fair woman of far Cathay who had won his heart completely with
her clouds of shining black hair, her soft eyes, her dainty hands, and her
exquisite body that swayed like the willow in the wind as she walked
and glanced shyly up at the tall, pale-faced man from the unknown
West who walked by her side. Favorite of the Great Khan as he was,
his must have been the choice of the daughters of the great noblemen
and merchants at the court. Perhaps he had even wooed and won her
and married her after the custom of the country. Perhaps he had lifted
her over the threshold of his home on her arrival on their wedding
day, that no evil influence might enter and mar their happiness. And

212 9*tt*tiatt Atmrnturrr: fllarrn

perhaps, when they had drunk from the jade cups of wine joined by a
frail thread of bright red silk, he had made her his own and loved her
and poured out all his pent-up affection on her he, who had been but a
boy of seventeen when he left Venice with Messer Nicolo, too young to
have known deep love or to have learned much of the ways of women.

Perhaps, too, the woman of an alien race had borne him children
for the daughters of Han were ever prolific. And it may be that when
his father and uncle "took counsel together" and devised the plan by
which they at last returned to Venice Marco had been forced by cir-
cumstances beyond his control or will to bid farewell to his tearful wife
and children, with the promise alas, never to be fulfilled to return
to them when he had accompanied his old father and uncle home and
seen them safe in Venice once more. We shall never know any of
this, for no record has remained. But we read clearly between the lines
of his book that more than half his heart was left behind him in far 1
Cathay; and, surely, intertwined with such a life, with such a nature as
was Marco's, may well have been the love of a woman even more
likely the love of many women.

But now that was all part of a dead life, a life that was his no more
except in dreams and idle speculation. Never more would he cross the
seas, following the red-gold path of the rising sun to that faraway
land which was his own possession more than it has ever been any Euro-
pean's before or since his day. And the memories made him lonely.
He must fight it off. The past was done with, buried deep in his heart
with its enshrined memories. But he was five and forty, well past
middle age in thirteenth-century Venice. He would marry and seek
refuge from himself at a fireside that would be his own. He would
beget children, as so often urged by his father and uncle, that he might
have sons and daughters to comfort his old age and to inherit the for-
tune for which he had toiled so hard and which he had brought back
with such care and caution and stratagem over sea and land, through
countless adventures and dangers, to his countinghouse in Venice. And
so, recites the chronicle, Messer Marco Polo, noble gentleman of Ven-
ice, took unto himself a wife.

The story is set forth here on the authority of Ramusio. However,
no record of the date of the marriage has been discovered, and it may
well be that he had married Donata, daughter of Vitale Badoer, be-
fore he was made captive by the Genoese.

Nine: Vrttfr* Again

The couple plighted their troth in true Venetian style. It may
have been a love match or, as was often the case, it may have been
arranged by matrimonial agents. As in all things Venetian, business
entered even into arrangements for marriage. There had to be pledges
from the future groom to his bride usually a ring, as well as sureties
that the contract would be fulfilled. On the day known as the dies'
desfonsationis the formal promise to fulfill the contract of marriage
was exchanged between the relatives of both parties, and the marriage
was fixed for the next feast day.

In due time the marriage vows were exchanged on the dies tra-
ditionis or dies ntvptiarum in the presence of the relatives and friends
of Marco and his bride. The neighbors as well were invited to the
ceremony. The day before the wedding the bridegroom paid a solemn
visit to his bride and, after the custom inherited from the Romans,
washed her head. Venetian tradition prescribed three solemn wedding
rites, called by their old Latin names. The first was transductio ad
donwm, the conducting of the bride to her husband's home. This was
accompanied by much feasting and merrymaking, and the bridal pair
were followed by the relatives. Next followed the visitatio to the
church and the benedictio or presentation and blessing of the ring. The
bride brought to her husband caskets and coffers containing her jewelry
and trousseau of silks and linens. Donata Badoer also brought with her
to Marco a substantial repromissa or dowry of personal as well as real
property. In fact the first documentary information we have of Donata
Polo is in a legal paper of March 17, 1312, by which her uncle liqui-
dated her dowry in favor of Marco.

Eight days after the wedding came the reventalia or ceremonial visit
of the young matron to her father's house, where a great banquet was
served and rich presents were given to all the guests. Thereafter the
newly married couple settled down to routine existence.

Of this marriage contracted by Messer Marco in his forties there
were born three children. What would his friends in far-off Cathay
have said of a man who could beget but daughters, but no son to worship
before his tablets after he had gone on his last long journey to the
Yellow Springs? For Marco was ever living in the past, and all that
was said and done and heard in Venice was compared with the life
which he had lived and seen so long on the other side of the world:
Three daughters, no sons.

214 Vmrti&tt Atamtam: JBarrn

The daughters were christened Fantina, Bellela, and Moreta. Fan-
tina was named after San Fantino, one of the saints of Venice ; one of
her grandsons bore the name Fantino. Another daughter was named
Moreta, probably another form of Marotha, the name borne by one
of Marco's first cousins. Bellela and Bellello, with variant spellings,
are common enough names in medieval Venetian documents. Of the
three daughters Moreta was possibly the youngest, as the two others
were married when Marco made his will and he left a special provision
therein for her to receive the same amount for her dowry as her sisters
had been given.

When Marco's father, Messer Nicolo Polo, his guide, counselor,
and companion from youth to middle age, died we know not. But in the
testament of Marco's half-brother, Maffeo, made in 1300, Maffeo
describes himself as "Matheus paulo filius condam [quondam] Nicolai
Paulo." In the Latin of the period quondam often meant defunctus or
"deceased." So the old man passed away full of years and adventures.
He had crossed the desert wastes and mountains of Asia three times and
had in addition traveled from East to West by sea. He had been one of
Europe's pioneers in the Far East; and, although Messer Marco did
not hesitate to push him and Uncle Maffeo into the background in his
tale, we must salute him as the venturesome one who, "taking counsel"
with his brother, dared the unknown with intrepid courage year after
year in Russia, in Asia Minor, and along the Tartar caravan routes. He
it was who had set Marco's feet upon the path of fortune and honor,
who had guided him and taught him the ways of Asia and its peoples.
And he it was who in those far-off days had presented the "young
bachelor" to the great Kublai as "my son and your man."

Ramusio in his quaint text tells us that

his father then being dead, he [Marco], as befits a good and pious son, caused
to be made for him a tomb which was very much honored for the conditions of
those times, which was a great sarcophagus of living stone that may be seen to
this day, placed under the portico which is before the Church of San Lorenzo
of this city, on the right-hand side as one enters, with such an inscription as
indicates that it is the tomb of Messer Nicolo Polo of the contrata of San Gio.
Chrisostomo.

Messer Marco and his uncle Maffeo, judging by every indication
and record which has survived, carried on their business buying and
selling, importing, exporting, seemingly playing a considerable part in

Jftnr: Vtnlt* Again 215

the commercial life of Venice. And they Maffeo and his wife, Marco
and his family shared their house in San Giovanni Chrisostomo with
Marco's brother Maffeo and his family and with the young unmarried
Giovannino and with Stefano and his wife and their five children.

The business was still a family affair, and, as suggested by Orlan-
dini, it was most likely for them that Maffeo the younger made a
voyage to Crete. The contemplation of this voyage and its uncertain
outcome caused this Maffeo to write his last will and testament on
August 31, 1300. Therein, in addition to the information about the
decease of his father Nicolo, we learn that his wife was one Caterina
Sagredo, and that he had one legitimate child a daughter named
Fiordalisa, probably after Maffeo's mother and an illegitimate daugh-
ter, Pasqua. It is interesting to note that Maffeo provided that his wife
should receive certain moneys and "all her clothes just as they stand
up to the present." This would seem to imply that a Venetian husband
retained ownership even of his wife's clothes. To Pasqua, his natural
daughter perhaps either because life was really more difficult by
reason of her birth out of wedlock or perhaps because of some expressed
wish Maffeo left 400 lire "for her marriage, and if she herself should
wish to become a nun, I desire that she shall have 200 lire to give to
the convent, and as for the other 200 lire, I desire that securities shall
be bought and that she should have the income from her securities
during her life." But the most interesting clauses of the will are those
which make Messer Marco his brother's residuary heir failing the birth
of a son after his departure for Crete.

Meanwhile Marco plunged into business life, employing all his
talents together with the wisdom born of the many experiences which
had been his during his residence in Asia. He traded in furs from Rus-
sia and tin from Cornwall. He shipped bales of red caps to Asia Minor
and sold glass lamps made in the factories of Murano to the mosques
of the infidel. He brought in the world-famed Florentine cloths and
reshipped them to Barbary, Egypt, Syria, the Aegean Islands, and the
Balkans. At times he even contracted to send shiploads of pilgrims to
the Holy Land a profitable business. They were crowded into the
holds like slaves for they were simple folk, paid little, and were given
miserable quarters and worse food while the master of the ship sat
dining at his ease on deck, using a silver service and entertained by
musicians.

O VOLT ME

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I'A N N O 11 D. LI X.

Frontispiece of the first Italian edition (Venice, 1559) of the second vol-
ume, of Ramubio's Delle Navigation* et Viaggi, containing the text of
Marco Polo, From the author's collection

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Frontispiece of the fin>t printed edition of Marco Polo's book,
Nuremberg, 1477. (Courtesy of the British Museum)

2 IB Vttttttatt Aimrttturrr: IRarra f 010

The medieval period has often been described as the "Dark Ages."
True, in it a different set of values obtained and superstitions and
strange beliefs held sway; but, though the forms of human activity
were not the same as those of later centuries, men's lives, and women's
as well, were rich and varied. In Venice more than elsewhere the days
were full and interesting, for the current of commerce and industry
that flowed through her canals and lagoons ever brought new ideas,
new stimuli, new discoveries and processes.

Each year two galleys went to England heavily laden with spices,
and brought back great sacks of English wool to sell to Lucca, Flor-
ence, and Genoa. Germans from beyond the Alps sent their sons to
Venice "to learn grammar, arithmetic, and the ways of trade." Basle
in Switzerland bought much Venetian glass. So much brocade was
brought in from Bagdad that it was called baldacchini, "goods of Bag-
dad." Much of this was resold to France and England; there it was
fashioned into canopies and drapes called by the same name, baldachin.

Other cities' misfortunes became Venice's opportunities. Shortly
after Messer Marco came home from Tartary, civil strife arose in
Lucca, whose weavers were reputed most cunning in working silk and
velvet. Many of the weavers fled to Venice with the tools of their
trade. They were welcomed by the shrewd Council of La Serenissima,
as Venice was often called, and were allowed to set up their looms hard
by the Rialto Bridge. There they taught their art, and because of their
industry the trade in Venetian silks and velvets waxed greater than
ever throughout the world. Wisely the merchants encouraged the
guilds of weavers to maintain high standards of texture and color, and
many a high plume and puff of smoke arose from the ancient Rialto
Bridge where defective cloth was burned in public to serve as a warning
and to prevent loss of trade through delivery of inferior goods. But
Venetian silks did not of themselves suffice to supply the growing trade
in textiles. Greek silks were imported, and Arabian weavers, and their
goods found their way into the coffers and raiment-chests of prelate,
of monarch, and of merchant prince.

Marco dealt, too, in wrought metal and jewels, for which Venice
was famed far and wide, and glass of every kind; for was it not known
that every Eastern girl of good and wealthy family had to have at least
one Venetian-wrought mirror in her dowry?

All this barter and trade and the use of many foreign moneys were

Chapter Jftn*: Vtnitt A0attt 219

bringing strange innovations into Venice business practices, such things,
for instance, as "bills of exchange," by which one could transfer money
by an order on another who dwelt in some distant city. And such were
the strange ways in which religion was mixed with business that in the
bill were inserted the words: "e che Christo vi guarde" ["and may
Christ watch over you"].

Marco did much of his business with foreigners, and indeed he
found the method complicated. For by Venetian law he could not deal
direct with them but was compelled to call in a sensal or broker. And
the trade with these foreigners was a form of barter. They were not
allowed to receive cash for their merchandise but had to take Venetian
goods in exchange. Cash profits were reserved for the merchants of
Venice, who waxed ever richer.

Meanwhile great deeds were afoot in the city, and the government
of the republic was undergoing many changes. But there is no evidence
that Messer Marco concerned himself with politics. Business ab-
sorbed him business and those inescapable dreams of the past and of
the golden East. Though his book had been written and had been
passed from hand to hand, already re-copied and mutilated and trans-
lated into many tongues, Messer Marco still talked of the places where
he had been and the wonders that he had seen. His family must have
wearied of his tales, and his friends and acquaintances must have
shunned him. He spoke always in extravagant figures, and a nickname
was given him which clung "Messer Marco Milione." He was ever
desirous of interesting his fellow Venetians in the Far Eastern trade,
and approached them times without number with schemes for investing
in trading ventures to the land of the Great Khan, where "millions"
could be made, particularly if under his guidance, the expert guidance
of Messer Marco Polo, who knew those lands as did no other man alive.

But the Venetians turned a deaf ear to his accounts of the great
wealth awaiting them. They had enough trouble on their hands at
home and abroad and were in no mood to listen to fantastic schemes for
getting rich quickly in the Far Eastern trade. For though Venice la
Serenissima was growing ever more wealthy and powerful, quarrels
with the Pope, hostilities with other cities and states, as well as changes
of doges and councils and civil disturbances to boot, all made the mer-
chants on the Rialto look sharply to their accounts and invest only
where their moneys were secure and the returns thereon quick and cer-

220 Vtntlim Aftttrnturrr: JRarrxi

tain. Rapid turnovers and small profits near home were more attrac-
tive than great gains at great risks far from their native land. More-
over, to these hard-headed men of business who had made Venice the
mistress of the sea, Messer Marco Milione seemed, with all his weird
and fantastic tales of the lands of East Asia, to be more than a little
"touched" in the head.

The traveler had not forgotten the book written in his Genoese
prison, and seems to have kept a copy or copies by his side during his
later life in Venice. According to an inscription in copies of a Polo
manuscript preserved in Paris and in Bern, Messer Marco presented a
copy of the book to "Monseigneur Thiebault, chevalier, seigneur de
Cepoy, whom God absolve." This inscription states that the chevalier,
who visited Venice as the representative of Charles of Valois, requested
a copy of Marco's book from the author. Whereupon Marco gave him
the very first copy made of his book, in August 1307. Though Thie-
bault was in Venice at that time, and no doubt obtained a copy of the
book, there is no way of proving that Marco presented it to him. In
fact the inscription states that the book in which we find it is no more
than a copy of the original volume which Thiebault obtained; and this
fact, together with the fulsome flattery of Charles of Valois contained
in the inscription, leaves the matter of the gift by Marco of his first
copy or of any copy open to grave question.

The city of Venice was passing through troubled times at home as
well as abroad, and Marco saw much history made before his very eyes.
But like most witnesses of historic scenes, he was too close to it all, too
much affected by it in his business and social life, to see it in its proper
perspective and in its true relation to the past and future history of his
fatherland. Not all Venetians were satisfied with the rule of Doge
Pietro Gradenigo. The year 1 300 saw the abortive conspiracy of Marco
Bocconio, and when all was over his body and those of ten of his hench-
men were swinging on great gibbets between the high red columns of
the Piazzetta strange landfalls to mariners coming home from the sea.

The crushing of Bocconio's rebellion was but the beginning of more
dissatisfaction and internal trouble in Venice. The streets seemed never
free from rioters or from the militia guarding palaces, churches, fac-
tories, and warehouses. A quarrel with the Church over Ferrara led
to the excommunication of Venice and its people by a Papal Bull, issued
March 27, 1309. All Venetian treaties were declared null and void,

Oltptpttr Nine: Vatfr* Again

Venetian properties abroad were subject to confiscation, commercial re-
lations with La Serenissima were forbidden all sons of the Church, and
the clergy were summoned to leave the doomed city. News came pour-
ing into the Rialto of the burning, sacking, and looting of Venetian
banks, factories, and vessels abroad, even as far away as England. The
city's trade began to suffer as though from creeping paralysis and reli-
gious, civil, and social life on the lagoons began slowly to disintegrate.
At first the Venetians faced the issue bravely; but when their garrison
at Ferrara surrendered to disease and attacks of besiegers, and when
the news came of the destruction of one of the Venetian fleets, growing
hunger and unrest in the city finally forced Doge Gradenigo to send a
mission to the Holy Father at Avignon with a humble petition for
peace. It was granted and the excommunication was revoked, but a large
indemnity was exacted; and as a result Gradenigo became more unpopu-
lar than before.

All of this disturbed the peaceful tenor of Marco's life. But he
was to see more direful things on the streets of the city very soon after.
The discontent of the people with their ruler was seized upon as the
rallying point of many of the noble families who hated the Doge and
his power. The two leaders were Marco Querini and Bajamonte Tie-
polo. The conspirators plotted to seize the Rialto and assassinate the
Doge and the leaders of his party. The time set for the insurrection
was the morning of St. Vito's Day, June 15, 1310. Rain was then fall-
ing in torrents and a howling hurricane was blowing in from the sea.
Thunder crashed, and the lurid flash of lightning lit the narrow Mer-
ceria then as now the main business street of the city. The shouts of
"Liberta!" and "Morte al Doge Gradenigo!" were smothered by the
screeching of the wind and the roar of the rain. The various bands of
conspirators failed to meet as arranged. One group was attacked and
routed on the Piazza by the Doge, who had learned of the plot the
previous night.

As Tiepolo with his contingent marched shouting and brandishing
their weapons down the Merceria, the householders, loving a brawl,
began to attack them from all sides, pelting them with stones and any
missiles that came to hand.

As with Abimelech in the ancient days of Israel, so was panic started
by the death of Tiepolo's standard-bearer. For a certain woman, by
name Giustina Rosso, hearing the blood-curdling cry, "Morte ai ti-

2ZZ Vttttttatt Aikttnttttrrr: iRarro

ranni!" under her window, threw open the casement and looked down
upon the crowd, an action strictly forbidden by Venetian law. Taking
in the situation at a glance she thought not at all of the law but seized
a great stone mortar filled with growing red carnations and flung it with
all her force at the head of Bajamonte Tiepolo. The heavy missile
missed the leader, but struck the head of his standard-bearer. He fell,
and Tiepolo was spattered with his blood and brains. This unforeseen
disaster struck terror into Tiepolo J s men, for they were jammed tightly
in the narrow street between high walls and missiles were now raining
down on them mercilessly from window and rooftop. Terror grew to
panic, and the conspirators turned and fled to the wooden bridge of
the Rialto, where Tiepolo was finally persuaded to lay down his arms.
As a punishment he and some of his ringleaders were banished for four
years to Dalmatia, and their houses were demolished $ others, less in-
fluential, were beheaded and their property confiscated.

In due time Donna Rosso was summoned before the Doge to re-
ceive the thanks of the grateful Republic. Being asked to name her
own reward for her brave deed, she modestly refused recompense but
finally admitted that she would like permission to hang out of her
window a banner of San Marco each St. Vito's Day, and moreover asked
that her rent be never raised above fifteen golden ducats a year. The
story went the round of the canals and squares, and the house was
pointed out to all and sundry as the Casa Giustina, whose tenant would
take no recompense from the Doge for her brave act. To this day she
and her house are not forgotten in old Venice.

Another, a gentler, sweeter tale, one which long lingered in the
hearts of all who heard it, was told in Venice, and passed from lip to
ear wherever pious men and women forgathered. It was the story of
La Eeattina, "the little blessed one." One day in June of 1298 a little
child was born to Countess Elena, wife of Count Pier Tagliapetra, a
soldier of fortune, who dwelt hard by the Campo San Vito. The child
was a girl, beautiful as a flower, gentle as the soft spring winds of Ven-
ice. She was called Maria Beata, and grew up a sweet and saintly child.
Every day at Mass and Vespers the little girl would go to San Mauri-
zio's Church, across the Grand Canal. All the ferrymen knew and loved
her and were her willing slaves.

As she approached the age of marriage her father decided to betroth
her to a wealthy suitor. The maiden refused; and when he forbade

Hint: Vtnlt* Again 223

her visits to her church, she disobeyed. Her father bribed and threat-
ened and cajoled the boatmen, so that finally one day she found no one
who would row her across the canal, for fear of him. Whereupon the
beautiful Maria Beata knelt upon the paving stones and prayed to the
Holy Virgin and San Maurizio to come to her assistance. Having re-
ceived assurances of their aid, she untied her little apron and, throwing
it on the water, set her feet lightly and gently upon it. Lo and behold!
The flimsy fabric bore her weight, and wafted by a gentle breeze and
guided by divine hands, Beata reached the other side in safety. Whereon
all the boatmen cried "Uno miracolo! Uno miracolo!" and swiftly
the news coursed down the narrow streets and sped across the bridges
to the market places and the quays, and no other thing was told but of
the prayer of La Beattina and of her apron. Though many of Venice's
noble sons thereupon flocked to offer their hands and hearts, Maria
Beata would have none of them but became a "Bride of Christ," with
a convent cell for her nuptial chamber. It soon was whispered about
that life held no longer any attraction for her, and that she continually
prayed for death. And Heaven heard her prayers and supplications;
for beautifully and with no pain she passed into the arms of the Father
on the Eve of All Saints' Day of 1308, when she was in her twenty-first
year of life. All Venice followed her bier to the Church of San Vito,
and never did so many candles blaze or sweet incense smoke as on that
day when La Beattina was laid to her rest. Her tomb became at once
a shrine for prayer and pilgrimage, and each year the Doge and Doga-
ressa left gifts upon her altar. In time a strange custom sprang up, and
each All Saints' Day her coffin was uncovered. Then from far and near
mothers would come to let their tiny babies touch the sacred bones, that
they might never drown. This became such a scandal that finally, many
a long day thereafter, the Church sealed up the coffin. But to this day
every All Saints' Day La Beattina is remembered by Venetian mothers
and their children, who throng the Church of San Vito to overflowing
to receive the blessing of the saint.

We do not know when Messer Maffeo Polo died. It must have been
later than February 1310, for his will, still in existence, is dated the
sixth of that month. His death must, on the other hand, have occurred
before the middle of May 1318, as is attested by legal documents of
1328. Moreover, Pipino's introduction to his Latin version of The
Description of the World, bearing the date 1320, speaks of Messer

224 Vnsttttttt A&urntttrm tfttrni 9010

Maffeo as having made certain declarations to his confessor on his
deathbed.

Maffeo and his wife had not been blessed with children, and he left
the greater part of his estate to his nephews. So much was left to
Marco that he had by now come into the control of more than half of
the Polo property. At about the same time his half-brother Matteo
died without male issue, and much of his property, too, came into
Marco's hands.

Indeed, through these and other legacies the shrewd Messer Marco
was rapidly gathering unto himself all of the results of the commercial
investments and travels of the older generation of Polos. But the rapid
manner in which all this wealth became concentrated in his hands does
not seem to have sufficed him. We have seen Marco throughout his
book as a keen, shrewd business man who never missed an opportunity
to add to his wealth. And somehow in his declining years he seems to
have become greedy and rapacious. Perhaps it was the bitterness and
frustration of the latter half of his life that developed in him this un-
happy, unpleasant trait. Successive inheritances and good investments
were not enough. He lent money to his uncle Maffeo and his other
relatives, and always seems to have profited thereby. When they did
not pay, he pressed them hard; and when that did not produce the de-
sired results, he brought suit in the Venetian courts. Thus we have a
judgment of July 2, 1319, whereby Marco recovered from his cousin
Marcolino Polo a debt owed him by his father, the traveler's uncle
Marco, since March 16, 1306. The decree granted Marco the right
to seize his goods to satisfy the judgment plus double the amount due
as a fine and interest at twenty per cent for the thirteen years during
which the debt had remained unpaid. This was a "merchant of Venice,"
and the defendant was his own cousin! A later decree of September
10, 1319, transferred the title of two properties in San Giovanni Chri-
sostomo, belonging to Marcolino, to Marco to satisfy the July judgment.

Several records are in existence which, if they do not refer to a
member of another Polo family, throw light on other appearances of
Messer Marco Polo before courts and other tribunals. On April 13,
1 302, an entry was made in the "Great Book" of the Maggior Consiglio
exempting Marco Polo from the penalty incurred for failing to have a
water conduit examined as provided by law "since he was ignorant of
the ordinance on the subject."

<ttlfapt*r Jftn*: Vtttirr Again 225

Another amusing appearance of Messer Marco is recorded in a reso-
lution of the Maggior Consiglio, dated April 10, 1305. Therein it
appears that one Bonocio of Mestre was tried and found guilty of
smuggling wine (vini per eum fortati contra bam'pnum). He was fined
152 lire, and this entry grants him a pardon on condition that he pay
his fine in four annual instalments and that any deficiencies in the pay-
ments be made good by himself or his sureties. "And his sureties are
the Nobiles Viri Petrus Maureceno [Pietro Morosini] and Marcus
Paulo Milion and several others . . . ." On the stained and yellow
entry some hand turned to dust these many centuries has written under
Marco's name the single word "mortims, dead."

That Marco did not cease his business activities after his return
from Genoa is evidenced by a very interesting legal document which
has survived the ravages and vicissitudes of the years. It is a written
judgment in Latin, as was customary in the Venetian records of the
time of the "Court of Petitions" in a suit brought by the "noble man"
Marco Polo of the district of San Giovanni Chrisostomo against one
Paulo Girardo of the district of San Apollinare. Marco had turned
over to Girardo a pound and a half of musk for sale on commission.
The musk was valued at about $110. Girardo sold one-half pound at
the stipulated price and returned the remainder to Marco. When the
latter weighed it he found it short one-sixth of an ounce. Moreover,
Girardo failed to pay Marco the money for the half-pound sold. Suit
was filed for the price of the amount sold and for the one-sixth missing
ounce. The judges found in favor of Marco, together with the costs
of the suit, and ordered the defendant "to be seized and confined in
the common prison of Venice" if the money was not paid within a rea-
sonable time. So Marco not only brought a sample of the musk deer
with him back to Venice but dealt in the commodity after his return as
well.

The onerous burdens placed upon the dyers of Florence by their
fellow citizens had caused many of them to leave the city on the Arno
so famous for its weaves and the beauty of its colored cloth. The weav-
ers' and clothworkers' guilds kept the Florentine dyers in complete sub-
servience by fixing prices for dyeing, and in many ways treated them
like the poorest laborers. A goodly number of these skilled craftsmen
left in disgust and found their way to Venice. There they were wel-
comed, and their influence was soon felt in the betterment of Venetian

220 Vttttttim Abufttturrr: tfarra ftahi

dyeing. The dyers were divided into three groups. The dyers of black
and other simple colors were organized into a guild, whose members
were recruited from its apprentices. These had to work eleven years
before becoming eligible as master workmen. Their hours were long,
from 4:00 A.M. to 7:00 P.M., and severe practical examinations were
given in dyeing before the candidate was finally admitted as a master.
The other dyers were divided into two groups, that of the dyers in
fine materials and colors and that of dyers in silk. These two latter
groups were not organized as guilds but performed their labor as in-
dependent craftsmen. Many weavers came with them to Venice and
many of their designs, largely from Chinese motifs, found their way
into the markets of the world.

The dyes heaped high in jars and barrels, bales and bundles in
Messer Marco's warehouses were of every sort, and were brought to-
gether from many lands, for the folk of his time loved color and used
it lavishly in their daily life. It was found everywhere, in the stained-
glass windows of the cathedrals, in the painting of the statues and the
interiors of church and castle and home, in bright-colored hangings and
tapestries, in the robes of the women, in the parti-colored or striped
doublet and hose of the craftsmen, and in the luxurious and sumptuous
robes of the nobles. For Venetian workmen were not clad in drab or
solemn garb, but went cheerfully to their work in gray and brown,
yellow and green; and merchants dressed in green and orange, purple
and red. Even the shirts and coats of mail and shoes of the soldiers
and the garments of the visitors to the city from every land were bril-
liantly dyed or stained. To see a crowded street or market place in the
days of the Polos was to witness a brilliant, colorful pageant.

Marco had brought home indigo with him and worked hard to in-
troduce it into the dye markets of Venice and other European towns.
But it competed with the long-established trade in woad, the blue dye-
stuff which had held its own for many centuries, and Marco found it
unprofitable. So he imported dried woad-leaves in great quantities. At
first he could not bear to go near the vats where it was prepared on
account of the foul odor which it gave off, mixed as it was with urine
and allowed to ferment and putrefy in the sun. But he quickly became
accustomed to it and paid it no more attention. And, indeed, many of
the dyes were prepared for use in the same way. Brazilwood from Su-
matra and Ceylon and India was heaped high in the twilight of the

: l*tttr* Again 227

warehouses, and bags of orseille lichen and gallnuts, sumach and mad-
der, saffron and lacmus lichen.

In a secluded, well-protected corner were jars and boxes contain-
ing the dried bodies of the kermes insects, the precious source of the
finest scarlet dye. There was a steady demand for this expensive ar-
ticle, and Marco imported it from Spain and Greece and France. He
also had great stores of dried Polish shield-lice, called also "Polish
cochineal," which he brought in from Germany and Eastern Europe.
Both types of insects were obtained with great effort, women picking
t