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Full text of "The book of Ser Marco Polo the Venetian, concerning the kingdoms and marvels of the East"

THE BOOK OF 

SER MARCO POLO 

THE VENETIAN CONCERNING THE 

KINGDOMS AND MARVELS OF 

THE EAST 

TRANSLATED AND EDITED, WITH NOTES, BY 

COLONEL SIR HENRY YULE, R.E., C.B , K.C.S.I, 

CORR. INST. FRANCE 

THIRD EDITION, REVISED THROUGHOUT IN THE LIGHT OF 
RECENT DISCOVERIES BY HENRI CORDIER (OF PARIS) 

PROFESSOROFCHIXESEHISTORYATTHEECOLEDES LANGUES ORIENTALFS VIVANTES ; VICE-PRESIDENT 
OF THE GEOGRAPHICAL SOCIETY OF PARIS ; MEMtER OF COUNCIL OF THE SOCI6t6 ASIATIQUE ; HON". 
MEMBER OF THE ROYAL ASIATIC SOCIETY AND OF THE REGIA DEPUTAZIONE VENETA Dl STORIA PATRIA 

WITH A MEMOIR OF HENRY YULE BY HIS DAUGHTER 
AMY FRANCES YULE, L.A.SOC. ANT. SCOT., ETC. 



IN TWO VOLUMES— Vol. I. 
WITH MAPS AND ILLUSTRATIONS 




LONDON 
JOHN MURRAY, ALBEMARLE STREET, W. 

1903 





'AvSpa /xoL ej'veTTC, Mowo-a, ttoAvt/dottov, os /iaAa rroAAa 

IIA-ayi^^T^ 

IIoAAcSv 8' dvOpuiTTWv i8ev acrrea koi vo'ov lyvw. 

Odyssey, I. 

—"i am become a name; 

For always roaming with a hungry heart 
Much have I seen and known ; cities of men, 
And manners, climates, councils, governments, 
Myself not least, but honoured of them all." 

Tennyson. 

"A SEDER CI PON EM MO I VI AMBODUI 

VOLTI A LeVANTE, OND' ERAVAM SALITI ; 

CHk SUOLE A RIGUARDAR GIOVARE ALTRUI." 

Dante, Purgatory, IV. 



\ 




Messer Marco Polo, with Messer Nicolo and Messer MalTco, returned from xxvi years' sojourn 
in the Orient, is denied entrance to the Ca' Polo. (See Int. p. 4.) 



^^ 



DEDICATION. 

TO THE MEMORY OF 
SIR RODERICK I. MURCHISON, BART., K.C.B., G.C.St.A., G.C.St.S. 

ETC. 

THE PERFECT FRIEND 

WHO FIRST BROUGHT HENRY YULE AND JOHN MURRAY TOGETHER 

(HE ENTERED INTO REST, OCTOBER 22ND, 1871,) 

AND TO THAT OF HIS MUCH LOVED NIECE, 

HARRIET ISABELLA MURCHISON, 

WIFE OF KENNETH ROBERT MURCHISON, D.L., J. P., 

(SHE ENTERED INTO REST, AUGUST 9TH, 1902,) 

UNDER WHOSE EVER HOSPITABLE ROOF MANY OF THE PROOF 

SHEETS OF THIS EDITION WERE READ BY ME, 

I DEDICATE THESE VOLUMES FROM 

THE OLD MURCHISON HOME, 

IN THANKFUL REMEMBRANCE OF ALL I OWE TO 

THE ABIDING AFFECTION, SYMPATHY, AND EXAMPLE OF BOTH. 



TARADALE, AMY FRANCES YULE. 

ROSS-SHIRE, September nth, 1902. 

SCOTLAND. 



Ed hda. noi si strano, 
Che quando ne ragiono 

r non trovo nessuno, 
Che I'abbia navicato, 
* * * 'A 
I.e parti del Levante, 

Lk dove sono tante 
Gemme di gran valute 

E di molta salute : 
E sono in quello giro 

Balsamo, e ambra, c tiro, 
E lo pepe, e lo legno 

Aloe, ch' b si degno, 
E spigo, e cardamomo, 

Giengiovo, e cennamomo ; 
E altre molte spezie, 

CiascuiisL in sua spezie, 
E migliore, e piu fina, 

E Sana in medicina. 
Appresso in questo loco 

Mise in assetto loco 
Li tigri, c li grifoni, 

Leofanti, e leoni 
Cammelli, e dragomene, 

Badalischi, e gene, 
E pantere, e castoro, 

Le formiche dell' oro, 
E tanti altri animali, 

Ch' io non so ben dir quali, 
Che son si divisati, 

E si dissomigliati 
Di corpo e di fazione, 

Di si fera ragione, 
E di si strana taglia, 

Ch'io non credo san faglia, 
Ch' alcun uomo vivente 

Potesse veramente 
Per lingua, o per scritture 

Recitar le figure 
Delle bestie, e gli uccelli . . . . 



-From // Tesoretto di Ser Brunetto Latini (circa mdcclx.). 
{^Florence, 1824, PP- 83 seqq^ 



CONTENTS OF VOL. I. 



PAGE 

Dedication iii 

Note by Miss Yule v 

Preface to Third Edition vii 

Preface to Second Edition xi 

Original Preface xxi 

Original Dedication xxv 

Memoir of Sir Henry Yule by Amy Frances Yule, 

L.A.SOC. Ant. Scot xxvii 

A Bibliography of Sir Henry Yule's Writings . . . Ixxv 

Synopsis of Contents Ixxxiii 

Explanatory List of Illustrations to vol. i xcvii 

Introductory Notices 1-144 

The Book of Marco Polo. 



NOTE BY MISS YULE 



I DESIRE to take this opportunity of recording my grateful 
sense of the unsparing labour, learning, and devotion, with 
which my father's valued friend, Professor Henri Cordier, has 
performed the difficult and delicate task which I entrusted to 
his loyal friendship. 

Apart from Professor Cordier's very special qualifications for 
the work, I feel sure that no other Editor could have been more 
entirely acceptable to my father. I can give him no higher 
praise than to say that he has laboured in Yule's own spirit. 

The slight Memoir which I have contributed (for which I 
accept all responsibility), attempts no more than a rough sketch 
of my father's character and career, but it will, I hope, serve 
to recall pleasantly his remarkable individuality to the few 
remaining who knew him in his prime, whilst it may also afford 
some idea of the man, and his work and environment, to those 
who had not that advantage. 



Vi NOTE BY MISS YULE 

No one can be more conscious than myself of its many 
shortcomings, which I will not attempt to excuse. I can, 
however, honestly say that these have not been due to 
negligence, but are rather the blemishes almost inseparable 
from the fulfilment under the gloom of bereavement and amidst 
the pressure of other duties, of a task undertaken in more 
favourable circumstances. 

Nevertheless, in spite of all defects, I believe this sketch 
to be such a record as my father would himself have approved, 
and I know also that he would have chosen my hand to 
write it. 

In conclusion, I may note that the first edition of this 
work was dedicated to that very noble lady, the Queen (then 
Crown Princess) Margherita of Italy. In the second edition the 
Dedication was reproduced within brackets (as also the original 
preface), but net renewed. That precedent is again followed. 

I have, therefore, felt at liberty to associate the present 
edition of my father's work with the Name MURCHISON, 
which for more than a generation was the name most generally 
representative of British Science in Foreign Lands, as of 
Foreign Science in Britain. 

A. F. YULE. 



PREFACE TO THIRD EDITION. 



Little did I think, some thirty years ago, when I 
received a copy of the first edition of this grand work, 
that I should be one day entrusted with the difficult 
but glorious task of supervising the third edition. 
When the first edition of the Book of Ser Marco Polo 
reached "Far Cathay," it created quite a stir in the 
small circle of the learned foreigners, who then resided 
there, and became a starting-point for many researches, 
of which the results have been made use of partly in 
the second edition, and partly in the present. The 
Archimandrite Palladius and Dr. E. Bretschneider, 
at Peking, Alex. Wylie, at Shang-hai — friends of 
mine who have, alas ! passed away, with the exception 
of the Right Rev. Bishop G. E. Moule, of Hang-chau, 
the only survivor of this little group of hard-working 
scholars, — were the first to explore the Chinese sources 
of information which were to yield a rich harvest into 
their hands. 

When I returned home from China in 1876, I 
was introduced to Colonel Henry Yule, at the India 
Office, by our common friend, Dr. Reinhold Rost, and 
from that time we met frequently and kept up a 
correspondence which terminated only with the life of 
the great geographer, whose friend I had become. A 
new edition of the travels of Friar Odoric of Pordenone, 



Vlll PREFACE TO THIRD EDITION 

our "mutual friend," in which Yule had taken the 
greatest interest, was dedicated by me to his memory. 
I knew that Yule contemplated a third edition of his 
Mafco Polo, and all will regret that time was not 
allowed to him to complete this labour of love, to see 
it published. If the duty of bringing out the new 
edition of Marco Polo has fallen on one who considers 
himself but an unworthy successor of the first illustrious 
commentator, it is fair to add that the work could not 
have been entrusted to a more respectful disciple. 
Many of our tastes were similar ; we had the same 
desire to seek the truth, the same earnest wish to 
be exact, perhaps the same sense of humour, and, 
what is necessary when writing on Marco Polo, 
certainly the same love for Venice and its history. 
Not only am I, with the late Charles Schefer, the 
founder and the editor of the Recueil de Voyages et de 
Documents pottr servir a PHistoire de la G dographie 
depuis le XIII ^ jusquct la fin du XVI' siecle, but I 
am also the successor, at the Ecole des langues 
Orientales Vivantes, of G. Pauthier, whose book on 
the Venetian Traveller is still valuable, so the mantle 
of the last two editors fell upon my shoulders. 

I therefore, gladly and thankfully, accepted Miss 
Amy Frances Yule's kind proposal to undertake the 
editorship of the third edition of the Book of Ser Marco 
Polo, and I wish to express here my gratitude to her 
for the great honour she has thus done me.* 

Unfortunately for his successor, Sir Henry 
Yule, evidently trusting to his own good memory, 
left but few notes. These are contained in an inter- 
leaved copy obligingly placed at my disposal by Miss 
Vule, but I luckily found assistance from various other 



Miss Yule has written the Memoir of her father and the new Dedication. 



PREFACE TO THIRD EDITION IX 

quarters. The following works have proved of the 
greatest assistance to me : — The articles of General 
HouTUM-ScHiNDLER in \\\^ Joumal of the Royal Asiatic 
Society, and the excellent books of Lord Curzon and of 
Major P. Molesworth Sykes on Persia, M. Grenard's 
account of DuTREUiLde Rhins' Mission to Central Asia, 
Bretschneider's and Palladius' remarkable papers on 
Mediaeval Travellers and Geography, and above all, the 
valuable books of the Hon. W. W. Rockhill on Tibet 
and Rubruck, to which the distinguished diplomatist, 
traveller, and scholar kindly added a list of notes 
of the greatest importance to me, for which I offer him 
.my hearty thanks. 

My thanks are also due to H.H. Prince Roland 
Bonaparte, who kindly gave me permission to reproduce 
some of the plates of his Recueil de Docu77i£nts de 
lEpoqjie Mongole^ to M. Leopold Delisle, the learned 
Principal Librarian of the Bibliotheque Nationale, who 
^ gave me the opportunity to. study the inventory made 
after the death of the Doge Marino F'aliero, to the 
Count de Semalle, formerly French Charge 
d' Affaires at Peking, who gave me for reproduction a 
number of photographs from his valuable personal 
collection, and last, not least, my old friend Comm. 
Nicol6 Barozzi, who continued to lend me the assistance 
which he had formerly rendered to Sir Henry Yule at 
Venice. 

Since the last edition was published, more than 
twenty-five years ago, Persia has been more thoroughly 
studied ; new routes have been explored in Central 
Asia, Karakorum has been fully described, and Western 
and South-Western China have been opened up to our 
knowledge in many directions. The results of these 
investigations form the main features of this new edition 
of Marco Polo. I have suppressed hardly any of Sir 



X PREFACE TO THIRD EDITION 

Henry Yule's notes and altered but few, doing so only 
when the light of recent information has proved him to 
be in error, but I have supplemented them by what, I 
hope, will be found useful, new information.* 

Before I take leave of the kind reader, I wish to 
thank sincerely Mr. John Murray for the courtesy and 
the care he has displayed while this edition was going 
through the press. 

HENRI CORDIER. 

Paris, ist of October, 1902. 

* Paragraphs which have been altered are marked thus + ; my own additions are 
placed between brackets [ ]. — H. C. 




'S.o'm strike gxjur jSatks -Qtt jrrlla <.<Wjtrtnevs, 
cifor toe ht toxat ivAa it xjaict globe " . . . . 



-The P' aerie Queene, I. xii. 42. 



PREFACE TO SECOND EDITION. 



The unexpected amount of favour bestowed on the 
former edition of this Work has been a great en- 
couragement to the Editor in preparing this second one. 

Not a few of the kind friends and correspondents 
who lent their aid before have continued it to the 
present revision. The contributions of Mr. A. Wylie 
of Shang-hai, whether as regards the amount of labour 
which they must have cost him, or the value of the 
result, demand above all others a grateful record here. 
Nor can I omit to name again with hearty acknowledg- 
ment Signor Comm. G. Berchet of Venice, the 
Rev. Dr. Caldwell, Colonel (now Major-General) 
R. Maclagan, R.E., Mr. D. Hanbury, F.R.S., Mr. 
Edward Thomas, F.R.S. (Corresponding Member of 
[the Institute), and Mr. R. H. Major. 

But besides these old names, not a few new ones 
[claim my thanks. 

The Baron F. von Richthofen, now President of 
[the Geographical Society of Berlin, a traveller who 
lot only has trodden many hundreds of miles in the 
ffootsteps of our Marco, but has perhaps travelled over 
[more of the Interior of China than Marco ever did, and 
I who carried to that survey high scientific accomplish- 



Xll PREFACE TO SECOND EDITION 

meats of which the Venetian had not even a rudimentary 
conception, has spontaneously opened his bountiful stores 
of new knowledge in my behalf. Mr. Ney Elias, 
who in 1872 traversed and mapped a line of upwards 
of 2000 miles through the almost unknown tracts of 
Western Mongolia, from the Gate in the Great Wall 
at Kalghan to the Russian frontier in the Altai, has 
done likewise.* To the Rev. G. Moule, of the Church 
Mission at Hang-chau, I owe a mass of interesting 
matter regarding that once great and splendid city, 
the KiNSAY of our Traveller, which has enabled me, 
I trust, to effect great improvement both in the Notes 
and in the Map, which illustrate that subject. And to 
the Rev. 'Carstairs Douglas, LL.D., of the English 
Presbyterian Mission at Amoy, I am scarcely less 
indebted. The learned Professor Bruun, of Odessa, 
whom I never have seen, and have little likelihood 
of ever seeing in this world, has aided me with zeal 
and cordiality like that of old friendship. To Mr. 
Arthur Burnell, Ph.D., of the Madras Civil Service, 
I am grateful for many valuable notes bearing on these 
and other geographical studies, and particularly for 
his generous communication of the drawing and photo- 
graph of the ancient Cross at St. Thomas's Mount, 
long before any publication of that subject was made 

* It would be ingratitude if this Preface contained no acknowledgment of the 
medals awarded to the writer, mainly for this work, by the Royal Geographical 
Society, and by the Geographical Society of Italy, the former under the Presidence of 
Sir Henry Rawlinson, the latter under that of the Commendatore C. Negri. Strongly 
as I feel the too generous appreciation of these labours implied in such awards, I 
confess to have been yet more deeply touched and gratified by practical evidence 
of the approval of the two distinguished Travellers mentioned above ; as shown by 
Baron von Richthofen in his spontaneous proposal to publish a German version of 
the book under his own ininiediate supervision (a project in abeyance, owing to 
circumstances beyond his or my control) ; by Mr. Ney Elias in the fact of his having 
carried these ponderous volumes with him on his solitary journey across the 
Mongolian wilds ! 



PREFACE TO SECOND EDITION 



Xlll 



on bis own account. My brother officer, Major Oliver 
St. John, R.E., has favoured me with a variety of 
interesting remarks regarding the Persian chapters, 
and has assisted me with new data, very materially 
correcting the Itinerary Map in Kerman. 

Mr. Blochmann of the Calcutta Madrasa, Sir 
Douglas Forsyth, C.B., lately Envoy to Kashgar, M. 
de Mas Latrie, the Historian of Cyprus, Mr. Arthur 
Grote, Mr. Eugene Schuyler of the U.S. Legation 
at St. Petersburg, Dr. Bushell and Mr. W. F. Mayers, 
of H.M.'s Legation at Peking, Mr. G. Phillips of 
Fuchau, Madame Olga Fedtchenko, the widow of 
a great traveller too early lost to the world, Colonel 
Keatinge, V.C, C.S.L, Major-General Keyes, C.B., 
Dr. George Birdwood, Mr. Burgess, of Bombay, my 
old and valued friend Colonel W. H. Greathed, C.B., 
and the Master of Mediaeval Geography, M. D'Avezac 
himself, with others besides, have kindly lent assistance 
of one kind or another, several of them spontaneously, 
and the rest in prompt answer to my requests. 

Having always attached much importance to the 
matter of illustrations,* I feel greatly indebted to the 
liberal action of Mr. Murray in enabling me largely to 
increase their number in this edition. Though many 
are original, we have also borrowed a good many ; f 
a proceeding which seems to me entirely unobjectionable 
^when the engravings are truly illustrative of the text, 
[and not hackneyed. 

I regret the augmented bulk of the volumes. There 



* I am grateful to Mr. de KhanikoflF for his especial recognition of these in a 
|kindly review of the first edition in the Academy. 

t Especially from Lieutenant Garnier's book, mentioned further on ; the only 
fexisting source of illustration for many chapters of Polo. 



Xiv PREFACE TO SECOND EDITION 

has been some excision, but the additions visibly and 
palpably preponderate. The truth is that since the 
completion of the first edition, just four years ago, 
large additions have been made to the stock of our 
knowledge bearing on the subjects of this Book ; and 
how these additions have continued to come in up to 
the last moment, may be seen in Appendix L,* which 
has had to undergo repeated interpolation after being 
put in type. Karakorum, for a brief space the seat 
of the widest empire the world has known, has been 
visited ; the ruins of Shang-tu, the " Xanadu of Cublay 
Khan," have been explored ; Pamir and Tangut have 
been penetrated from side to side ; the famous mountain 
Road of Shen-si has been traversed and described; 
the mysterious Caindu has been unveiled ; the publi- 
cation of my lamented friend Lieutenant Garnier's great 
work on the French Exploration of Indo-China has 
provided a mass of illustration of that Yun-nan for 
which but the other day Marco Polo was well-nigh 
the most recent authority. Nay, the last two years 
have thrown a promise of light even on what seemed 
the wildest of Marco's stories, and the bones of a 
veritable Rue from New Zealand lie on the table of 
Professor Owen's Cabinet ! 

M. Vivien de St. Martin, during the interval of 
which we have been speaking, has published a History 
of Geography. In treating of Marco Polo, he alludes 
to the first edition of this work, most evidently with 
no intention of disparagement, but speaks of it as 
merely a revision of Marsden's Book. The last thing 
I should allow myself to do would be to apply to a 

• [Merged into the notes of the present edition. — H. C] 



PREFACE TO SECOND EDITION XV 

Geographer, whose works I hold in so much esteem, 
the disrespectful definition which the adage quoted 
in my former Preface * gives of the vir qui docet quod 
non sapit ; but I feel bound to say that on this occasion 
M. Vivien de St. Martin has permitted himself to 
pronounce on a matter with which he had not made 
himself acquainted ; for the perusal of the very first 
lines of the Preface (I will say nothing of the Book) 
would have shown him that such a notion was utterly 
unfounded. 

In concluding these "forewords'* I am probably 
taking leave of Marco Polo.f the companion of many 
pleasant and some laborious hours, whilst I have been 
contemplating with him (" vo/^i a levante") that Orient 

in which I also had spent years not a few. 

****** 

And as the writer lingered over this conclusion, his 
thoughts wandered back in reverie to those many 
venerable libraries in which he had formerly made search 
for mediaeval copies of the Traveller's story ; and it 
seemed to him as if he sate in a recess of one of these 
with a manuscript before him which had never till then 
been examined with any care, and which he found with 
delight to contain passages that appear in no version of 
the Book hitherto known. It was written in clear Gothic 
text, and in the Old French tongue of the early 14th 
century. Was it possible that he had lighted on the long- 



* See page xxix. 

t Writing in Italy, perhaps I ought to write, according to too prevalent modem 
Italian custom, Polo Marco. I have already seen, and in the work of a writer of 
reputation, the Alexandrian geographer styled Tolomeo Claudia! and if this pre- 
posterous fashion should continue to spread, we shall in time have Tasso Torquato, 
Jonson Ben, Africa explored by Park Mungo, Asia conquered by Lane Tamer, 
Copperfield David by Dickens Charles, Homer Englished by Pope Alexander^ and 
the Roman history done into French from the orifnnal of Live Titel 



XVi PREFACE TO SECOND EDITION 

lost original of Ramusio's Version ? No ; it proved to be 
different. Instead of the tedious story of the northern 
wars, which occupies much of our Fourth Book, there 
were passages occurring in the later history of Ser Marco, 
some years after his release from the Genoese captivity. 
They appeared to contain strange anachronisms cer- 
tainly ; but we have often had occasion to remark on 
puzzles in the chronology of Marco's story ! * And in 
some respects they tended to justify our intimated 
suspicion that he was a man of deeper feelings and wider 
sympathies than the book of Rusticiano had allowed to 
appear.t Perhaps this time the Traveller had found an 
amanuensis whose faculties had not been stiffened by 
fifteen years of Malapaga ? | One of the most important 
passages ran thus : — 

'"'' Bien est voirs que, apres ce que Messires Marc Pol avoit pris fame et si 
estoit demourd plusours ans de sa vie a Venysse, il avint que mourut 
Messires Mafes qui oncles Monseignour Marc estoit : {et mourut ausi ses 
granz chiens mas tins qu' avoit amenei dou Catai,% et qui avoit non Bayan 
pour Pamour au bon chievetain Bayan Cent-iex) ; adonc riavoit oncques 
puis Messires Marc nullui, fors soft esclave Piere le Tartar, avecques lequel 
pouvoit penre soulas a s'entretettir de ses voiages et des choses dou Levant. 
Car la gent de Venysse si avoit de grant piesce moult anuy pris des loncs 
contes Monseignour Marc ; et quatid ledit Messires Marc issoit de Vuys sa 
m.eson ou Sain Grisostome, souloient li petit marmot es votes dariere-li courir 
en cryant Messer Marco Milion ! cont' a nu un busion ! que veult dire en 
Franqois '•Messires Marcs des millions di-nous Uft de vos gros mensonges.' 
En oultre, la Dame Donate fame anuyouse estoit, et de trop estroit esprit, et 
plainne de couvoitise.W Ansi avint que Messires Marc desiroit es voiages 
rantrer durement. 

" Si se partist de Venisse et chevaucha aux parties d Occident. Et detnoura 
mainz jours es contrees de Provence et de France et puys fist passaige aux 
Ysles de la trcmontaingne et s'en retourna par la Magne, si comme vous 
orrez cy-apres. Etfst-il escripre son voiage atout les devisements Ics contrees; 
mes de la France n^y parloit mie grantment pour ce que maintes genz la 
scevent apertetnent. Et pour ce en lairons ntant, et commencerons d'autres 
chosesy assavoir, de Bretaingne la Grant. 

• Introduction p. 24, ^nd passim in the notes. t Ibid., p. 112. 

X See Introduction, pp. j/, 57. § See Title of present volume. 

II Which quite agrees with the story of the document quoted at p. 77 ol 
Introduction. 



PREFACE TO SECOND EDITION xvil 



(Ej) icbgse ton roiaumt it ^rttamgne la gruut. 

"^/ sachies que quand ten se part de Cales, et Fen nage XX ou XXX 
inilles ct trap p-ant mesaise, si treuve Ten une grandistne Ysle qui s'apelle 
Bretaingne la Grant. Elle est d une grant royne et ti en fait treuage d nulluy. 
Et ensevelissent lor mors, et ont monnoye de cJiartres et dor et d argent, et 
ardent pierres noyres, et vivent de inarchandises et d'ars, et ont toutes choses 
de vivre en grant habondance mais non pas d bon marchie. Et dest une Ysle 
de trap grant richesce, et li marinier de celle partie dient que dest li plus 
riches royaumes qui soit ou monde, et qu'il y a li mieudre marinier dou monde 
et li mieudre coursier et li mieudre chevalier {dins ne cJievauchent mais 
lone com Francois). Ausi ont-il trap bons homes d'armes et vaillans dure- 
ment {bien que maint rfy ait), et les dames et damoseles bonnes et loialles, et 
belles com lys souef florant. Et quoi vous en diroie-je f II y a citez et 
chasteau assez, et tant de fnarcheanz et si riches qui font venir tant d^avoir-de- 
poiz et de toute espece de marchandise qi^il tiest hons qui la veritd en sceust 
dire. Font venir d' Ynde et d'autres parties colon a grant plants, et font venir 
soye de Manzi et de Bangala, et font venir laine des ysles de la Mer Occeane 
et de toutes parties. Et si labourent maintz bouquerans et touailles et autres 
draps de colon et de laine et de soye. Encores sachies que ont vaines deader 
assez, et si en labourent trop soubtivement de tous hemois de chevalier, et de 
toutes choses besoignables a ostj ce sont espees et glaive et esperon et heaume 
et haches, et toute esphe darteillerie et de coutelerie, et en font grant gcuiigne 
et grant marchandise. Et en font si grant habondance que tout li mondes 
eny puet avoir et d bon marchie. 



€ncorc« cj icbisc bou ijot roinumt, et be tt iju'en bist ;|ttcsstres <#ttarc«. 

" Et sachies que tient icelle Royne la seigneurie de /"Ynde majeure et de 
Mutfili et de Bangala, et d'une moitie de Mien. Et moult est saige et noble 
dame et pourveans, si que est elle amee de chascun. Et avoit jadis tnari; et 
depuys qWil moiirut bien Xiv ans avoit ; adonc la royne sa fame I'ama tant 
que oncques puis ne se voult marier a nullui, pour V amour le prince son 
baron, anqois tnoult maine quoye vie. Et tient son royaume ausi bien ou 
miex que oncques le tindrent li roy si aioul. Mes ores en ce royaume li roy 
fiont guieres pooir, ains la poissance commence a trespasser d la menue gent, 
Et distrent aucun marinier de celes parties d Monseignour Marc que hui-et-le 
jour li royaumes soit auques abas tar di come je vous diroy. Car bien est vot7-A 
que ci-arrieres estoit ciz pueple de Bretaingne la Grant bonne et granz et loialle 
gent qui servoit Diex moult volontiers selonc lor usaigej et tuit li labour 
qu'il labcuroient et portoient a vendre estoient honnestement laboure, et dou 
greigneur vaillance, et chose pardurable ; et se vendoient d jouste pris sanz 
barguignier. En tant que se aiicuns labours portoit Pestanpille Bretaingne 
la Grant destoit regardei com pleges de bonne estoffe. Mes orendroit li 
labours tiest mie tousjourz si bons; et quand Fen achate pour un quintal 
pesant de toiles de colon, adonc, par trop souvent, si treuve Fen de chascun 
C pais de colon, bien xxx ou XL pois de piastre de gifs, ou de blanc 
VOL. I. ^ 



XVIU PREFACE TO SECOND EDITION 

d^ Espaigne, ou de choses setJiblables. Et se Ven achate de canuneloz oic de 
tireteinne ou d' autre dras de laine^ cist ne durent mie, ains sont plain d''e)npoise, 
ou de glu et de balieures. 

'■'■ Et bien quHl est voirs que chascutts hons egalement doit de son cars servir 
son seigneur ou sa commune, pour aler en ost en tens de besoingne ; et bien 
que trestuit li autre royaume doccident tieiftgnent ce pour ordenance, ciz 
pueple de Bretaingne la Grant n^ en veult nullejnent, aitis si dient : ' Veez-lh: 
liavons nous pas la Msnche pour foss^ de nostre pourpris, et pourquoy nous 
penerons-nous pour nous faire homes darmes, ett lessiant nos gaaigms et 
nos soulaz ? Cela lairons aus soudaiers.' Or li preudhome e7ttre eulx moult 
scevent bien com Hex paroles sont nyaisesj mes si 07tt paour de lour en dire la 
verite pour ce que cuident desplaire as bourjois et d, la menue gent. 

'■'■Or je vous di sanz faille que, quand Messires Marcs Pols sceust ces 
choses, moult en at pitie de cestui pueple, et il li vint ci remembrance ce que 
avenu estoit, ou tens Monseignour Nicolas et Monseignour Mafe, ct Vore 
quand Alau, frire charnel dou Grant Sire Cublay, ala en ost seur Baudas, et 
pjint le Calife et sa maistre cite, atout son vaste tresor d^or et d'' argent, et 
Tamlre parolle que dist ledit Alau au Calife, com la escripte li Maistres 
Rusticiens ou chief de cestui livre* 

" Car sachies tout voirement que Messires Marc moult se deleitoit cL faire 
appert combien sont pareilles au font les condicions dcs diverses regions dou 
monde, et soloit-il clorre son discours si disant eft soti language de Venisse : 
' Sto mondo xe fato tondo, com uzoit dire mes oncles Mafe's.' 

" Ore vous lairons d. conter de ceste mature et retournerons d, parler de 
la Loy des genz de Bretaingne la Grant. 

Cs Ji«bm ica iib^rs^s txhixitt^ tit Ja gent ^rttaingne la ©rattt z\ be cc 

" // est voirs que li pueples est Crestiens, mes non pour le plus selonc la 
foy de VApostoille Rommain, ains tienfiettt le en mautalent assez. Seule- 
7ncnt il y en a aucun qui sont feoil du dit Apostoille et encore plus forment que 
li nostre prudho7ne de Venisse. Car qua7id dit li Rapes : ' Telle ou telle chose 
est noyre,' toute ladite gent si en jure : ' Noyrc est co7n poivre^ Et puis se 
dira li Rapes de la dite chose : ' Elle est bla7iche,' si en jure7-a toute ladite gent : 
*// est voirs qti'elle est blanche j bla7iche est co7/t noifsJ Et dist Messires 
Marc Pol : ' Nous n^avons 7iulle7nent ta7it de foy d, Venyse, ne li prudho77te 
de Florence non plus, co7n Pen puet savoir bien apertement dou livre 
Monseignour Dantes Aldiguiere, que fay congneu a Padoe le 77ieis7ne an que 
Messires Thibault de Cepoy d. Venisse estoii.\ Mes dest jouste77te7it ce que 
fay veu autre foiz prls le Gra7it Bacsi qui est co7n li Rapes des Ydres.' 

" Encore y a U7ie autre maniere de gent; ce sont de celz qui s'appellent 
filsoufcsj \ et si il disent : ' S'il y a Diex rien scavons nul, t/tes il est voirs 

* Vol. i. p. 64, and p. 67. 

+ I.e. 1306; see Introduction, pp. 6S-6g. 

X The form which Marco gives to this word was probably a reminiscence of the 
Oriental corruption /a/Yj-??/ It recalls to my mind a Hindu who was very fond of the 
word, and especially of applying it to certain of his fellow-servants. But as he used 
it, bara fat'/sii/—" great philosopher" — meant exactly the same as the modern slang 
" Artful Dodser" 1 



PREFACE TO SECOND EDITION XIX 

qt^il est tine certeinne cou ranee des choses laqtiex court devers le bien.^ Et 
fist Messires Marcs ; '■Encore la creance des Bacsi qui dysent que riy a ne 
Diex Eternel ne Juge des homes, ains il est une certeinne chose laquex 
s'apelle Kerma.'* 

" Une autre foiz avint que disoit un des filsoufes d, Monseignour Marc ; 
' Diex n^existe mie jeusqu'ores, aincois il se fait desorendroit^ Et fist encore 
Messires Marcs : ' Veez-la une autre foiz la creance des ydres, car dient que li 
seuz Diex est icil hons qui par force de ses vertuz et de son savoir tant fiour- 
chace que dliome il se face Diex firesentement. Et li Tartar Pappelent 
Borcan. Tiex Diex Sagamoni Borcan estoit, dou quel parte li livres Maistre 
Rusticien.'t 

'•''Encore ont une autre maniere de filsoufes, et dient-il: '• II n^est mie ne 
Diex ne Kerma ne courance vers le bien, ne Providence, ne Creerres, ne 
Sauvours, ne sainteti ne pechies ne conscience de pcchie, ne proyhre ne response 
a proyere, il n'est nulle riens fors que trop minime grain oii paillettes qui 
ont d, nom atosmes, et de tiex grains devient chose qui vive, et chose qui 
vive devient une certeinne creature qui demoure au rivaige de la Mer : et 
ceste creature devient poissons, et poissons devient lezars, et lezars devient 
blayriaus, et blayriaus devient gat-jnaimons, et gat-maimons devient hons 
sauvaiges qui inenjue char dhomes, et hons sauvaiges devient hotts 
crestien.^ 

'•'• Et dist Messires Marc: '' Ejicore une foiz, biaus sires, li Bacsi de 
Tebet et de Kescemir et li prestre de Seilan, qui si dient que tamie vivant 
dole trespasser par tons cez changes de vestemens ; si coin se treuve escript 
ou livre Maistre Rusticien que Sagamoni Borcan mourut iiij vint et\\\]foiz 
et tousjourz resuscita, et a chascune foiz dhine diverse maniere de beste, et 
cL la derreniere foyz mourut hons et devint diex, selonc ce qu^il dient.'X Et 
fist encore Messires Marc : ^ A moy pert-il trop estrange chose se juesques d, 
toutes les cre'ances des ydolastres deust deche'oir ceste grant z et saige nation. 
Ainsi peuent jouer Mi sire li filsoufe at out lour propre perte, mes a Vore 
quand tiex fantaisies se respanderont es joenes bacheliers et parmy la menue 
gent, celz averont pour toute Loy miinitxctmtts rt btbitmus, eras tnim mtrriiimttr ; 
et trop isnellement Pen raccomencera ladescentede teschiele, et d^home crest ien 
deviendra hons sauvaiges, et d^home sauvaige gat-maimons, et de gat-mai- 
mon blayriaus} Et fist encores Messires Marc : ' Maintes contr^es et pro- 
vinces et ysles et cite'z je Marc Pol ay veues et de maintes genz de maintes 
manieres ay les condicionz congneues, et je croy bien que il est plus assez 
dedens Vunivers que ce que li nostre prestre fiy songent. Et puet bien estre, 
biaus sires, que li mondes ria este's cree's a tons poinz com nous creiens, ains 
d^une sorte encore plus merveillouse. Mes cil ri atnenuise nullement nostre 
pensee de Diex et de sa majeste, ains la fait greingnour. Et con tree n^ay veue 
ou Dame Diex ne manifcste apertetitent les granz euvres de sa tout-poissante 
saigesse J gent n'ay congneue esquiex ne se fait sentir li fardels de pechie, et la 
besoingne de Phisicien des itialadies de tarme tiex com est nostre Seignours 
Jhesus Crist, Beni soyt son Non. Pensez doncques d eel qu'a dit uns de ses 

* See for the explanation of Karma, " the power that controls the universe," in 
the. doctrine of atheistic Buddhism, Hardy's Eastern Moimchism, p. 5. 
t Vol. ii. p. 316 (see also i. 348). 
:;: Vol. ii. pp. 318-319. 

VOL. I. b 2 



XX PREFACE TO SECOND EDITION 

Apostres : ^q\\Xz tssc ^jvuicntcs apui bosmct ipsos ; et uns autres : Quonhun 
inulti psfitbo-proijliftiic tximnt; et uns autres: ^uob btntcnt in nobissimis 
bicbiis illusorcs . . . iicrntcs, iJbi tst ^jromtssio? et encores aus fiarolles 
que dist It Signours meismes: Dibctrgo nc lumen xjuob in it ts>\ tcncbrac sint.) 



(!rJinm;mt ^csstrrs <^ai-cs sc parttst be I'jisk be gvctaingne et be la proiitre 

xiue fist. 

'■'■ Et pom-qiioy vous en feroie-je lone contef Si print nef Messires Marcs 
et se partist e?t nageant vers la terre ferme. Or Messires Marc Pol moult 
ama eel roiaume de Bretaingne la grant pour son viex renon et s'ancienne 
franchise, etpour sa saige et bonne Royne {que Diex gart\ et pour les vtainz 
homes de vaillance et bons chaceours et les maintes bonnes et honnestes dames 
qui y estoient. Et sachies tout voirement que en estant delez le bort la nef et 
en esgardant aus roches blanches que fen par dariere-li lessoit, Messires Marc 
prieoit Diex, et disoit-il : ' Ha Sires Diex ay merci de cestuy vieix et noble 
royaumej fay -en pardurable fort ere sse de libertd et de joustice, et garde-le 
de tout meschief de dedens et de dehors j donne ci sa gent droit esprit pour 
ne pas Diex guerroyer de ses dons, ite de richesce ne de savoirj et co?t for te- 
les fermement en tafoy ' . . ." 

A loud Amen seemed to peal from without, and the 
awakened reader started to his feet. And lo ! it was the 
thunder of the winter-storm crashing among the many- 
tinted crags of Monte Pellegrino, — with the wind raging 
as it knows how to rage here in sight of the Isles of 
^olus, and the rain dashing on the glass as ruthlessly as 
it well could have done, if, instead of yEoHc Isles and 
many-tinted crags, the window had fronted a dearer 
shore beneath a northern sky, and looked across the grey 
Firth to the rain-blurred outline of the Lomond Hills. 

But I end, saying to Messer Marco's prayer, Amen. 



Palermo, ^ist December, 1874. 



ORIGINAL PREFACE. 

The amount of appropriate material, and of acquaintance 
with the mediaeval geography of some parts of Asia, 
which was acquired during the compilation of a work of 
kindred character for the Hakluyt Society,* could hardly 
fail to suesrest as a fresh labour in the same field the 
preparation of a new English edition of Marco Polo. 
Indeed one kindly critic (in the Exa^niner) laid it upon 
the writer as a duty to undertake that task. 

Though at least one respectable English edition has 
appeared since Marsden's,t the latter has continued to be 
the standard edition, and maintains not only its reputation 
but its market value. It is indeed the work of a sagacious, 
learned, and right-minded man, which can never be spoken 
of otherwise than with respect. But since Marsden 
published his quarto (1818) vast stores of new know- 
ledge have become available in elucidation both of the 
contents of Marco Polo's book and of its literary history. 
The works of writers such as Klaproth, Abel Remusat, 
D'Avezac, Reinaud, Quatremere, Julien, I. J. Schmidt, 
Gildemeister, Ritter, Hammer- Purgstall, Erdmann, 
D'Ohsson, Defremery, Elliot, Erskine, and many more, 
which throw light directly or incidentally on Marco Polo, 
have, for the most part, appeared since then. Nor, as 
regards the literary history of the book, were any just views 
possible at a time when what may be called the Fontal 
MSS. (in French) were unpublished and unexamined. 

Besides the works which have thus occasionally or inci- 

Cathay and The Way Thither, being a Collection of Minor Medieval Notices of 
China. London, 1866. The necessities of the case have required the repetition in 
the present work of the substance of some notes already printed (but hardly published) 
in the other. 

t Viz. Mr. Hugh Murray's. I mean no disrespect to Mr. T. Wright's editiou, but 
it is, and professes to be, scarcely other than a reproduction of Marsden's, with abridg- 
ment of his notes. 



XXll ORIGINAL PREFACE 

dentally thrown light upon the Traveller's book, various 
editions of the book itself have since Marsden's time been 
published in foreign countries, accompanied by comments 
of more or less value. All have contributed somethino- 
to the illustration of the book or its history ; the last and 
most learned of the editors, M. Pauthier, has so contri- 
buted in large measure. I had occasion some years ago* 
to speak freely my opinion of the merits and demerits of 
M. Pauthier's work ; and to the latter at least I have no 
desire to recur here. 

Another of his critics, a much more accomplished as 
well as more favourable one,t seems to intimate the 
opinion that there would scarcely be room in future for 
new commentaries. Something of the kind was said of 
Marsden's at the time of its publication. I imagine, 
however, that whilst our libraries endure the Iliad will 
continue to find new translators, and Marco Polo — though 
one hopes not so plentifully — new editors. 

The justification of the book's existence must how- 
ever be looked for, and it is hoped may be found, in the 
book itself, and not in the Preface. The work claims 
to be judged as a whole, but it may be allowable, in these 
days of scanty leisure, to indicate below a few instances of 
what is believed to be new matter in an edition of Marco 
Polo ; by which however it is by no means intended that 
all such matter is claimed by the editor as his own.| 

• In the Quarterly Review for July, 1868. t M. Nicolas Khanikoff. 

X In the Preliminary Notices will be found new matter on the Personal and Family 
History of the Traveller, illustrated by Documents ; and a more elaborate attempt 
than I have seen elsewhere to classify and account for the different texts of the work, 
and to trace their mutual relation. 

As regards geographical elucidations, I may point to the explanation of the name 
Cheluchelan (i. p. 58), to the discussion of the route from Kerman to Hormuz, and 
the identification of the sites of Old Hormuz, of Cobinan and Dogana, the establish- 
ment of the position and continued existence of Keshvi, the note on Pein and 
Charchan, on Gog and Magog, on the geography of the route from Sindafu to Carajan, 
on Anin and Coloman, on Mutafili, Cail, and Ely. 

As regards historical illustrations, I would cite the notes regarding the Queens 



ORIGINAL PREFACE XXIU 

From the commencement of the work it was felt that 
the task was one which no man, though he were far 
better equipped and much more conveniently situated 
than the present writer, could satisfactorily accomplish 
from his own resources, and help was sought on special 
points wherever it seemed likely to be found. In 
scarcely any quarter was the application made in vain. 
Some who have aided most materially are indeed very 
old and valued friends ; but to many others who have 
done the same the applicant was unknown ; and some of 
these again, with whom the editor began correspondence 
on this subject as a stranger, he is happy to think that 
he may now call friends. 

To none am I more indebted than to the Comm. 
GuGLiELMO Berchet, of Venice, for his ample, accurate, 
and generous assistance in furnishing me with Venetian 
documents, and in many other ways. Especial thanks 
are also due to Dr. William Lockhart, who has supplied 
the materials for some of the most valuable illustrations ; 
to Lieutenant Francis Garnier, of the French Navy, 
the gallant and accomplished leader (after the death of 
Captain Doudart de la Gr6e) of the memorable expedi- 

Bolgana and Coccuhin, on the Karaunahs, etc., en the title of King of Bengal 
applied to the K. of Biiniia, and those bearing upon the Malay and Abyssinian 
chronologies. 

In the interpretation of outlandish phrases, I may refer to the notes on Ondaniqtie, 
Nona, Barguerlac, Argon, Sensin, Keshican, Toscaol, Bularguchi, Gat-patil, etc. 

Among miscellaneous elucidations, to the disquisition on the Arbre Sol or Sec in 
vol. i. , and to that on Mediaeval Military Engines in vol. ii. 

In a variety of cases it has been necessary to refer to Eastern languages for 
pertinent elucidations or etymologies. The editor would, however, be sorry to fall 
under the ban of the mediaeval adage : 

" Vir qui docet quod non sapit 
Definitur Bestia ! " 

and may as well reprint here what was written in the Preface to Cathay : 

" I am painfully sensible that in regard to many subjects dealt with in the follow- 
ing pages, nothing can make up for the want of genuine Oriental learning. A fair 
familiarity with Hindustani for many years, and some reminiscences of elementary 
Persian, have been useful in their degree ; but it is probable tliat they may sometimes 
also have led me astray, as such slender lights are apt to do." 



Xxiv ORIGINAL PREFACE 

tion up the Mekong to Yun-nan ; to the Rev. Dr. 
Caldwell, of the S. P. G. Mission in Tinnevelly, for 
copious and valuable notes on Southern India ; to my 
friends Colonel Robert Maclagan, R.E., Sir Arthur 
Phayre, and Colonel Henry Man, for very valuable notes 
and other aid ; to Professor A. Schiefner, of St. 
Petersburg, for his courteous communication of very 
interesting: illustrations not otherwise accessible ; to 
Major-General Alexander Cunningham, of my own 
corps, for several valuable letters ; to my friends Dr. 
Thomas Oldham, Director of the Geological Survey 
of India, Mr. Daniel H anbury, F.R.S., Mr. Edward 
Thomas, Mr. James Fergusson, P\R.S., Sir Bartle 
Frere, and Dr. Hugh Cleghorn, for constant interest in 
the work and readiness to assist its progress ; to Mr. A. 
Wylie, the learned Agent of the B. and F. Bible Society 
at Shang-hai, for valuable help ; to the Hon. G. P. 
Marsh, U.S. Minister at the Court of Italy, for untiring 
kindness in the communication of his ample stores of 
knowledge, and of books. I have also to express my 
obligations to Comm. Nicol6 Barozzi, Director of the 
City Museum at Venice, and to Professor A. S. Minotto, 
of the same city ; to Professor Arminius VAmbery, 
the eminent traveller ; to Professor Fluckiger of Bern ; 
to the Rev. H. A. Jaeschke, of the Moravian Mission in 
British Tibet ; to Colonel Lewis Pelly, British Resident 
in the Persian Gulf; to Pandit Manphul, C.S.I, (for a 
most interesting communication on Badakhshan); to my 
brother officer, Major T. G. Montgomerie, R.E., of 
the Indian Trigonometrical Survey ; to Commendatore 
Negri, the indefatigable President of the Italian Geo- 
graphical Society ; to Dr. Zotenberg, of the Great Paris 
Library, and to M. Cn. Maunoir, Secretary-General 
of the Soci^t^ de G^ographie ; to Professor Henry 



ORIGINAL PREFACE XXV 

GiGLiOLi, at Florence ; to my old friend Major-General 
Albert Fytche, Chief Commissioner of British Burma ; 
to Dr. RosT and Dr. Forbes-Watson, of the India 
Office Library and Museum ; to Mr. R. H. Major, and 
Mr. R. K. Douglas, of the British Museum ; to Mr. N. 
B. Dennys, of Hong-kong ; and to Mr. C. Gardner, of 
the Consular Establishment in China. There are not a 
few others to whom my thanks are equally due ; but it 
is feared that the number of names already mentioned 
may seem ridiculous, compared with the result, to those 
who do not appreciate from how many quarters the facts 
needful for a work which in its course intersects so many 
fields required to be collected, one by one. I must not, 
however, omit acknowledgments to the present Earl of 
Derby for his courteous permission, when at the head of 
the Foreign Office, to inspect Mr. Abbott's valuable 
unpublished Report upon some of the Interior Provinces 
of Persia ; and to Mr. T. T. Cooper, one of the most 
adventurous travellers of modern times, for leave to 
quote some passages from his unpublished diary. 

Palermo, 31J/ December^ 1870. 

[Original Dedication.'] 

TO 

her royal highness, 
MARGHERITA, 

Princess of Piedmont, 

THIS ENDEAVOUR TO ILLUSTRATE THE LIFE AND WORK 

OF A RENOWNED ITALIAN 

IS 

BY HER ROYAL HIGHNESS'S GRACIOUS PERMISSION 

WITH THE DEEPEST RESPECT 
BY 

H. YULE. 



AIM 




TO 
HENRY YULE. 

Until you raised dead monarchs from the mould 
And built again the domes of Xanadu, 
1 lay in evil case, and never knew 

The glamour of that ancient story told 

By good Ser Marco in his prison-hold. 
But now I sit upon a thrpne and view 
The Orient at my feet, and take of you 

And Marco tribute from the realms of old. 

If I am joyous, deem me not o'er bold ; 

If I am grateful, deem me not untrue ; 
For you have given me beauties to behold, 

Delight to win, and fancies to pursue, 
Fairer than all the jewelry and gold 

Of Kublai on his throne in Cambalu. 

E. C. B.\BER. 



20th July, 1S84. 



MEMOIR OF SIR HENRY YULE. 

Henry Yule was the youngest son of Major William Yule, 
by his first wife, Elizabeth Paterson, and was born at Inveresk, 
in Midlothian, on ist May, 1820. He was named after an aunt 
who, like Miss Ferrier's immortal heroine, owned a man's name. 

On his father's side he came of a hardy agricultural 
stockji improved by a graft from that highly-cultured tree, 
-Rose of Kilravock.^ Through his mother, a somewhat prosaic 
jrson herself, he inherited strains from Huguenot and Highland 
icestry. There were recognisable traces of all these elements 



^ There is a vague tradition that these Yules descend from the same stock as the 

Scandinavian family of the same name, which gave Denmark several men of note, 

including the great naval hero Niels Juel. The portiaits of these old Danes offer a 

certain resemblance of type to those of their Scots namesakes, and Henry Yule liked 

to play with the idea, much in the same way that he took humorous pleasure in his 

reputed descent from Michael Scott, the Wizard ! (This tradition was more historical, 

however, and stood thus : Yule's great grandmother was a Scott of Ancrum, and the 

^Scotts of Ancrum had established their descent from Sir Michael Scott of Balwearie, 

eputed to be the Wizard. ) Be their origin what it may. Yule's forefathers had been 

ready settled on the Border hills for many generations, when in the time of James VI. 

Ithey migrated to the lower lands of East Lothian, where in the following reign they 

lleld the old fortalice of Fentoun Tower of Nisbet of Dirleton. When Charles IL 

[empowered his Lord Lyon to issue certificates of arms (in place of the Lyon records 

Iremoved and lost at sea by the Cromwellian Government), these Yules were among 

Ithose who took cut confirmation of arms, and the original document is still in the 

Dssession of the head of the family. 

Though Yules of sorts are still to be found in Scotland, the present writer is the 

jnly member of the Fentoun Tower family now left in the countiy, and of the few 

^remaining out of it most are to be found in the Army List. 

^ The literary taste which marked William Yule probably came to him from his 

randfather, the Rev. James Rose, Episcopal Minister of Udny, in Aberdeenshire. 

imes Rose, a non-jurant (/.if. one who refused to acknowledge allegiance to the 

lanoverian King), was a man of devout, large, and tolerant mind, as shown by writings 

ill extant. His father, John Rose, was the younger son of the I4lh Hugh of Kil- 

ivock. He married Margaret Udny of Udny, and was induced by her to sell his 

tpleasant Ross-shire property and invest the proceeds in her own bleak Buchan. 

iWhen George Yule (about 1759) brought home Elizabeth Rose as his wife, the popular 

Heeling against the Episcopal Church was so strong and bitter in Lothian, that all the 

Imen of the family — themselves Presbyterians — accompanied Mrs. Yule as a bodyguard 

ton the occasion of her first attendance at the Episcopal place of worship. Years after, 

|when dissensions had arisen in the Church of Scotland, Elizabeth Yule succoured and 

iprotected some of the dissident Presbyterian ministers from their persecutors. 



XXVlll MEMOIR OF SIR HENRY YULE 1820-28. 

in Henry Yule, and as \yas well said by one of his oldest friends : 
" He was one of those curious racial compounds one finds on 
the east side of Scotland, in whom the hard Teutonic grit is 
sweetened by the artistic spirit of the more genial Celt."^ His 
father, an officer of the Bengal army (born 1764, died 1839)^ 
was a man of cultivated tastes and enlightened mind, a good 
Persian and Arabic scholar, and possessed of much miscellaneous 
Oriental learning. During the latter years of his career in India, 
he served successively as Assistant Resident at the (then 
independent) courts of Lucknow^ and Delhi. In the latter 
office his chief was the noble Ouchterlony. William Yule, 
together with his younger brother Udny,*" returned home in 
1806, "A recollection of their voyage was that they hailed an 
outward bound ship, somewhere off the Cape, through the 
trumpet : ' What news ? ' Answer : ' The King's mad, and 
Humfrey's beat Mendoza' (two celebrated prize-fighters and 
often matched). ' Nothing more ? ' * Yes, Bonapartj's made 
his Mother King of Holland ! ' 

" Before his retirement, William Yule was offered the Lieut.- 
Governorship of St. Helena. Two of the detailed privileges of 
the office were residence at Longwood (afterwards the house of 
Napoleon), and the use of a certain number of the Company's 
slaves. Major Yule, who was a strong supporter of the anti- 
slavery cause till its triumph in 1834, often recalled both of these 
offers with amusement." '^ 



2 General Collinson in Royal Engineers' Journal, ist Feb. 1890. The gifted author 
of this excellent sketch himself passed away on 22nd April 1902. 

* The grave thoughtful face of William Yule was conspicuous in the picture of a 
Durbar (by an Italian artist, but not Zoffany), which long hung on the walls of the 
Nawab's palace at Lucknow. This picture disappeared during the Mutiny of 1857. 

^Colonel Udny Yule, C.B. "When he joined, his usual nomem.nd cognomen 
puzzled the staff-sergeant at Fort-William, and after much boggling on the cadet 
parade, the name was called out Whirly Wheel, which produced no reply, till some 
oneat a venture shouted, 'sick in hospital.'" {Athenccum, 2i,'Cn.'&cp.. 1881.) The ship 
which took Udny Yule to India was burnt at sea. After keeping himself afloat for several 
hours in the water, he was rescued by a passing ship and taken back to the Mauritius, 
whence, having lost everything but his cadetship, he made a fresh start for India, 
where he and William for many years had a common purse. Colonel Udny Yule com- 
manded a brigade at the Siege of Cornelis (181 1), which gave us Java, and afterwards 
acted as Resident under Sir Stamford Raflles. Forty-five years after the retrocession 
of Java, Henry Yule found the memory of his uncle still cherished there. 

^ Article on the Oriental Section of the British Museum Library in Athenceum, 
24th Sept. 1881. Major Yule's Oriental Library was presented by his sons to the 
British Museum a few years after his death. 



Age, 6-8. HIS FATHER— RECOLLECTIONS OF CHILDHOOD xxix 

William Yule was a man of generous chivalrous nature, who 
took large views of life, apt to be unfairly stigmatised as Radical 
in the narrow Tory reaction that prevailed in Scotland during 
the early years of the 19th centuryJ Devoid of literary 
ambition, he wrote much for his private pleasure, and his know- 
ledge and library (rich in Persian and Arabic MSS.) were 
always placed freely at the service of his friends and corre- 
spondents, some of whom, such as Major C. Stewart and Mr. 
William Erskine, were more given to publication than himself 
He never travelled without a little 8vo MS. of Hafiz, which 
often lay under his pillow. Major Yule's only printed work 
was a lithographed edition of the Apothegms of 'Ali, the son of 
Abu Talib, in the Arabic, with an old Persian version and an 
English translation interpolated by himself "This was pri- 
vately issued in 1832, when the Duchesse d'Angouleme was 
living at Edinburgh, and the little work was inscribed to her, 
with whom an accident of neighbourhood and her kindness to 
the Major's youngest child had brought him into relations of 
goodwill."^ 

Henry Yule's childhood was mainly spent at Inveresk. He 
used to say that his earliest recollection was sitting with the 
little cousin, who long after became his wife, on the doorstep 
of her father's house in George Street, Edinburgh (now the 
Northern Club), listening to the performance of a passing piper. 
There was another episode which he recalled with humorous 
satisfaction. Fired by his father's tales of the jungle. Yule 
(then about six years old) proceeded to improvise an elephant 
pit in the back garden, only too successfully, for soon, with 
\ mingled terror and delight, he saw his uncle John ® fall headlong 
into the snare. He lost his mother before he was eight, and almost 
his only remembrance of her was the circumstance of her having 
given him a little lantern to light him home on winter nights 
from his first school. On Sundays it was the Major's custom 



' It may be amusing to note that he was considered an ahuost dangerous person be- 
cause he read the Scotsman newspaper ! 

8 Atkethfum, 24th Sept. i88i. A gold chain given by the last Dauphiness is in 
the writer's possession. 

' Dr. John Yule (b. 176- d. 1827), a kindly old servant. He was one of the earliest 
corresponding members of the Society of Antiquaries of Scotland, and the author of 
some botanical tracts. 



XXX MEMOIR OF SIR HENRY YULE 1828-35. 

to lend his children, as a picture-book, a folio Arabic translation 
of the Four Gospels, printed at Rome in 1591, which contained 
excellent illustrations from Italian originals.^" Of the pictures 
in this volume Yule seems never to have tired. The last 
page bore a MS. note in Latin to the effect that the volume 
had been read in the Chaldaean Desert by Georgius Strachanus, 
Milnensis, Scotus, who long remained unidentified, not to say 
mythical, in Yule's mind. But George Strachan never passed 
from his memory, and having ultimately run him to earth, Yule, 
sixty years later, published the results in an interesting 
article.^^ 

Two or three years after his wife's death. Major Yule 
removed to Edinburgh, and established himself in Regent's 
Terrace, on the face of the Calton Hill.^^ This continued to be 
Yule's home until his father's death, shortly before he went to 
India. " Here he learned to love the wide scenes of sea and 
land spread out around that hill — a love he never lost, at 
home or far away. And long years after, with beautiful 
Sicilian hills before him and a lovely sea, he writes words of 
fond recollection of the bleak Fife hills, and the grey Firth of 
Forth." 13 

Yule now followed his elder brother, Robert, to the famous 
High School, and in the summer holidays the two made ex- 



^^ According to Brunet, by Lucas Pennis after Antonio Tempesta. 

^^ Concerning some little-known Travellers in the East. Asiatic Quarterly, 
vol. V. (1888). 

^^ William Yule died in 1839, and rests with his parents, brothers, and many others 
of his kindred, in the ruined chancel of the ancient Norman Church of St. Andrew, 
at Gulane, which had been granted to the Yule family as a place of burial by the 
Nisbets of Dirleton, in remembrance of the old kindly feeling subsisting for genera- 
tions between them and their tacksmen in Fentoun Tower. Though few know its 
history, a fragrant memorial of this wise and kindly scholar is still conspicuous in 
Edinburgh. The magnificent wall-flower that has, for seventy summers, been a glory 
of the Caslle rock, was originally all sown by the patient hand of Major Yule, the self- 
sowing of each subsequent year, of course, increasing the extent of bloom. Lest the 
extraordinarily severe spring of 1895 should have killed off much of the old stock, 
another (but much more limited) sowing on the northern face of the rock was in that 
year made by his grand-daughter, the present writer, with the sanction and active 
personal help of the lamented General (then Colonel) Andrew Wauchope of Niddrie 
Marischal. In Scotland, where the memory of this noble soldier is so greatly 
revered, some may like to know this little fact. May the wall-flower of the Castle 
rock long flourish a fragrant memorial of two faithful soldiers and true-hearted 
Scots. 

^'Obituary notice of Yule, by Gen. R. Maclagan, R.E. Proceedings, R.G.S. 
i8j90. 



Age, 8-15. SCHOOL DAYS— FIRST TUTORS— SCHOOL-FELLOWS XXXI 

peditions to the West Highlands, the Lakes of Cumberland, and 
elsewhere. Major Yule chose his boys to have every reasonable 
indulgence and advantage, and when the British Association, in 
1834, held its first Edinburgh meeting, Henry received a mem- 
ber's ticket So, too, when the passing of the Reform Bill was 
celebrated in the same year by a great banquet, at which Lord 
Grey and other prominent politicians were present, Henry was 
sent to the dinner, probably the youngest guest there.^* 

At this time the intention was that Henry should go to 
Cambridge (where his name was, indeed, entered), and after 
taking his degree study for the Bar. With this view he was, in 
1833, sent to Waith, near Ripon, to be coached by the Rev. 
H. P. Hamilton, author of a well-known treatise. On Conic 
Sections, and afterwards Dean of Salisbury. At his tutor's 
hospitable rectory Yule met many notabilities of the day. One 
of them was Professor Sedgwick. 

There was rumoured at this time the discovery of the first 

mown (?) fossil monkey, but its tail was missing. " Depend 

ipon it, Daniel O'Conell's got hold of it ! " said ' Adam ' briskly.^^ 

'ule was very happy with Mr. Hamilton and his kind wife, but 

on his tutor's removal to Cambridge other arrangements became 

^necessary, and in 1835 he was transferred to the care of the Rev. 

[ames Challis, rector of Papworth St. Everard, a place which 

'had little to recommend it except a dulness which made 

wading almost a necessity." ^^ Mr. Challis had at this time two 

)ther resident pupils, who both, in most diverse ways, attained 

listinction in the Church. These were John Mason Neale, the 

future eminent ecclesiologist and founder of the devoted Angli- 

m Sisterhood of St. Margaret, and Harv^ey Goodwin, long 

ifterwards the studious and large-minded Bishop of Carlisle. 

""ith the latter, Yule remained on terms of cordial friendship to 

le end of his life. Looking back through more than fifty years 

^o these boyish days, Bishop Goodwin wrote that Yule then 

'showed much more liking for Greek plays and for German 

than for mathematics, though he had considerable geometrical 



" This was the famous " Grey Dinner," of wliich The Shepherd made grim fun 
the Nodes. 

^' Probably the specimen from South America, of which an account was published 
1833. 

^* Rawnsley, Memoir of Harvey Goodhvin, Bishop of Carlisle. 



XXXU MEMOIR OF SIR HENRY YULE 1836-40. 

ingenuity." ^^ On one occasion, having solved a problem that 
puzzled Goodwin, Yule thus discriminated the attainments of 
the three pupils : " The difference between you and me is this : 
You like it and can't do it ; I don't like it and can do it. Neale 
neither likes it nor can do it." Not bad criticism for a boy of 
fifteen.^^ 

On Mr. Challis being appointed Plumerian Professor at 
Cambridge, in the spring of 1836, Yule had to leave him, owing 
to want of room at the Observatory, and he became for a time, 
a most dreary time, he said, a student at University College, 
London. 

By this time Yule had made up his mind that not London 
and the Law, but India and the Army should be his choice, and 
accordingly in Feb. 1837 he joined the East India Company's 
Military College at Addiscombe. From Addiscombe he passed 
out, in December 1838, at the head of the cadets of his term 
(taking the prize sword 1^), and having been duly appointed to 
the Bengal Engineers, proceeded early in 1839 to the Head- 
quarters of the Royal Engineers at Chatham, where, according 
to custom, he was enrolled as a " local and temporary Ensign." 
For such was then the invidious designation at Chatham of the 
young Engineer officers of the Indian army, who ranked as full 
lieutenants in their own Service, from the time of leaving 
Addiscombe.^'' Yule once audaciously tackled the formidable 
Pasley on this very grievance. The venerable Director, after a 
minute's pondering, replied : " Well, I don't remember what the 
reason was, but I have no doubt {staccato) it . . . was ... a 
very . . . good reason." ^^ 

"When Yule appeared among us at Chatham in 1839," said 
his friend Collinson, "he at once took a prominent place in our 
little Society by his slightly advanced age [he was then i8|], 
but more by his strong character. . . . His earlier education . . . 
gave him a better classical knowledge than most of us possessed; 



^"^ '* Biog. Sketch of Yule, by C. Trotter, Proceedings, R.S.E. vol. xvii. 

^® After leaving the army, Yule always used this sword when wearing uniform. 

2" The Engineer cadets remained at Addiscombe a term ( = 6 months) longer than 
the Artillery cadets, and as the latter were ordinarily gazetted full lieutenants six 
months after passing out, unfair seniority was obviated by the Engineers receiving the 
same rank on passing out of Addiscombe. 

'^ Yule, in Memoir 0/ General Becker. 



Age, 15-20. CHATHAM— VOYAGE TO INDIA XXxiii 

then he had the reserve and self-possession characteristic of his 
race ; but though he took small part in the games and other 
recreations of our time, his knowledge, his native humour, and 
his good comradeship, and especially his strong sense of right 
and wrong, made him both admired and respected. . . . Yule was 
not a scientific engineer, though he had a good general knowledge 
of the different branches of his profession ; his natural capacity 
lay rather in varied knowledge, combined with a strong under- 
standing and an excellent memory, and also a peculiar power as 
a draughtsman, which proved of great value in after life. . . . 
Those were nearly the last days of the old regifne, of the 
orthodox double sap and cylindrical pontoons, when Pasley's 
genius had been leading to new ideas, and when Lintorn 
Jimmons' power, G. Leach's energj^, W. Jervois' skill, and 
L. Tylden's talent were developing under the wise example of 
Henry Harness." ^^ 

In the Royal Engineer mess of those days (the present 
anteroom), the portrait of Henry Yule now faces that of his first 
chief. Sir Henry Harness. General Collinson said that the 
pictures appeared to eye each other as if the subjects were 
continuing one of those friendly disputes in which they so often 
engaged.^ 

It was in this room that Yule, Becher, Collinson, and other 
young R.E.'s, profiting by the temporary absence of the austere 
Colonel Pasley, acted some plays, including Pizarro. Yule bore 
the humble part of one of the Peruvian Mob in this performance, 
of which he has left a droll account.-* 

On the completion of his year at Chatham, Yule prepared to 
sail for India, but first went to take leave of his relative. General 
White. An accident prolonged his stay, and before he left he 
had proposed to and been refused by his cousin Annie. This 
occurrence, his first check, seems to have cast rather a gloom 
over his start for India. He went by the then newly-opened 
Overland Route, visiting Portugal, stopping at Gibraltar to see 



"^ Collinson's Memoir of Yule in R.E. Journal. 

^ The picture was subscribed for by his brother officers in the corps, and painted 
in 1880 by T. B. Wirgman. It was exhibited at the Royal Academy in 1881. A 
reproduction of the artist's etching from it forms the frontispiece of this volume. 

^ In Memoir of Gen. John Becher, 

VOL, I, C 



XXXIV MEMOIR OF SIR HENRY YULE 1840-43. 

his cousin, Major (afterwards General) Patrick Yule, R.E>'' He 
was under orders " to stop at Aden (then recently acquired), to 
report on the water supply, and to deliver a set of meteorological 
and magnetic instruments for starting an observatory there. 
The overland journey then really meant so ; tramping across 
the desert to Suez with camels and Arabs, a proceeding not 
conducive to the preservation of delicate instruments ; and on 
arriving at Aden he found that the intended observer was dead, 
the observatory not commenced, and the instruments all broken. 
There was thus nothing left for him but to go on at once" 
to Calcutta,^'' where he arrived at the end of 1 840. 

His first service lay in the then wild Khasia Hills, whither he 
was detached for the purpose of devising means for the trans- 
port of the local coal to the plains. In spite of the depressing 
character of the climate (Cherrapunjee boasts the highest 
rainfall on record), Yule thoroughly enjoyed himself, and 
always looked back with special pleasure on the time 
he spent here. He was unsuccessful in the object of his 
mission, the obstacles to cheap transport offered by the dense 
forests and mighty precipices proving insurmountable, but he 
gathered a wealth of interesting observations on the country and 
people, a very primitive Mongolian race, which he subsequently 
embodied in two excellent and most interesting papers (the first 
he ever published).^^ 

In the following year, 1842, Yule was transferred to the 



25 General Patrick Yule (b. 1795, d. 1873) was a thorough soldier, with the repute 
of being a rigid disciplinarian. He was a man of distinguished presence, and great charm 
of manner to those whom he liked, which were by no means all. The present writer 
holds him in affectionate remembrance, and owes to early correspondence with 
him much of the information embodied in preceding notes. He served on the 
Canadian Boundary Commission of 1817, and on the Commission of National Defence 
of 1859, was prominent in the Ordnance Survey, and successively Commanding R.E. 
in Malta and Scotland. He was Engineer to Sir C. Fellows' Expedition, which gave 
the nation the Lycian Marbles, and while Commanding R.E. in Edinburgh, was 
largely instrumental in rescuing St. Margaret's Chapel in the Castle from desecration 
and oblivion. He was a thorough Scot, and never willingly tolerated the designation 
N.B. on even a letter. He had cultivated tastes, and under a somewhat austere 
exterior he had a most tender heart. When already past sixty, he made a singularly 
happy marriage to a truly good woman, who thoroughly appreciated him. He was 
the author of several Memoirs on professional subjects. He rests in St. Andrew's, 
Gulane. 

^ Collinson's Memoir of Yule. 

^ Notes on the Iron of the Khasia Hills and Notes on the Khasia Hills and People, 
both in Journal of the R. Asiatic Society of Bengal, vols. xi. and xiii, 



AGE, 20-23. THE KHYTUL AFFAIR XXXV 

irrigation canals of the north-west with head-quarters at 
Kurnaul. Here he had for chief Captain (afterwards General 
Sir William) Baker, who became his dearest and most steadfast 
friend. Early in 1843 Yule had his first experience of field 
service. The death without heir of the Khytul Rajah, followed 
by the refusal of his family to surrender the place to the native 
troops sent to receive it, obliged Government to send a larger 
force against it, and the canal officers were ordered to join this. 
Yule was detailed to serve under Captain Robert Napier (after- 
wards F.-M. Lord Napier of Magdala). Their immediate duty 
was to mark out the route for a night march of the troops, 
barring access to all side roads, and neither officer having then 
had any experience of war, they performed the duty " with all the 
elaborate care of novices." Suddenly there was an alarm, a light 
detected, and a night attack awaited, when the danger resolved 
itself into Clerk Sahib's khansamah with welcome hot coffee ! ^ 
Their hopes were disappointed, there was no fighting, and the 
Fort of Khytul was found deserted by the enemy. It " was a 
strange scene of confusion — all the paraphernalia and accumula- 
tion of odds and ends of a wealthy native family lying about 
and inviting loot. I remember one beautiful crutch-stick of 
ebony with two rams' heads in jade. I took it and sent it in to 
the political authority, intending to buy it when sold. There 
was a sale, but my stick never appeared. Somebody had a 
more developed taste in jade. . . . Amid the general rummage 
that was going on, an officer of British Infantry had been put 
over a part of the palace supposed to contain treasure, and they 
— officers and all — .were helping themselves. Henry Lawrence 
was one of the politicals under George Clerk. When the news 
of this affair came to him I was present. It was in a white 
marble loggia in the palace, where was a white marble chair or 
throne on a basement. Lawrence was sitting on this throne in 
great excitement. He wore an Afghan choga, a sort of dressing- 
gown garment, and this, and his thin locks, and thin beard were 



® Mr. (afterwards Sir) George Clerk, Political Officer with the expedition. Was 
twice Governor of Bombay and once Governor of the Cape : " A diplomatist of the 
true English stamp — undaunted in difficulties and resolute to maintain the honour of 
his country." (Sir H. B. Edwardes, Life of Henry Lawreme, i. 267). He died in 
l88q. 

VOL. L C 2 



XXXVl MEMOIR OF SIR HENRY YULE 1843-47. 

streaming in the wind. He always dwells in my memory as a 
sort of pythoness on her tripod under the afflatus." ^^ 

During his Indian service, Yule had renewed and continued 
by letters his suit to Miss White, and persistency prevailing at 
last, he soon after the conclusion of the Khytul affair applied for 
leave to go home to be married. He sailed from Bombay in 
May, 1843, and in September of the same year was married, at 
Bath, to the gifted and large-hearted woman who, to the end, re- 
mained the strongest and happiest influence in his life.^*^ 

Yule sailed for India with his wife in November 1843. The 
next two years were employed chiefly in irrigation work, and do 
not call for special note. They were very happy years, except 
in the one circumstance that the climate having seriously 
affected his wife's health, and she having been brought to death's 
door, partly by illness, but still more by the drastic medical 
treatment of those days, she was imperatively ordered back to 
England by the doctors, who forbade her return to India. 

Having seen her on board ship, Yule returned to duty on the 
canals. The close of that year, December, 1845, brought some 
variety to his work, as the outbreak of the first Sikh War called 
nearly all the canal officers into the field. " They went up to 
the front by long marches, passing through no stations, and 
quite unable to obtain any news of what had occurred, though 
on the 2 1 St December the guns of Ferozshah were distinctly heard 
in their camp at Pehoa, at a distance of 11 5 miles south-east from 
the field, and some days later they came successively on the 
fields of Moodkee and of Ferozshah itself, with all the recent 
traces of battle. When the party of irrigation officers reached 
head-quarters, the arrangements for attacking the Sikh army in 
its entrenchments at Sobraon were beginning (though suspended 
till weeks later for the arrival of the tardy siege guns), and the 
opposed forces were lying in sight of each other." ^^ 

Yule's share in this campaign was limited to the sufficiently 
arduous task of bridging the Sutlej for the advance of the 
British army. It is characteristic of the man that for this 



^ Note by Yule, communicated by him to Mr R. B. Smith and printed by the 
latter in Life of Lord Lawrence. 

^ And when Hearing his own end, it was to her that his thoughts turned most 
constantly. 

^ Yule and Maclagan's Memoir of Sir W. Baker, 



Age, 23-27. SUTLEJ CAMPAIGN— WORK ON THE CANALS XXXVll 

reason he always abstained from wearing his medal for the 
Sutlej campaign. 

His elder brother, Robert Yule, then in the i6th Lancers, took 
part in that magnificent charge of his regiment at the battle of 
Aliwal (Jan. 28, 1846) which the Great Duke is said to have 
pronounced unsurpassed in history. From particulars gleaned 
from his brother and others present in the action, Henry Yule 
prepared a spirited sketch of the episode, which was afterwards 
published as a coloured lithograph by M'Lean (Haymarket). 

At the close of the war, Yule succeeded his friend Strachey 
as Executive Engineer of the northern division of the Ganges 
Canal, with his head-quarters at Roorkce, " the division which, 
being nearest the hills and crossed by intermittent torrents of 
great breadth and great volume when in flood, includes the most 
important and interesting engineering works." ^^ 

At Roorkee were the extensive engineering workshops 
connected with the canal. Yule soon became so accustomed 
to the din as to be undisturbed by the noise, but the un- 
punctuality and carelessness of the native workmen sorely tried 
his patience, of which Nature had endowed him with but a 
small reserve. Vexed with himself for letting temper so often 
get the better of him, Yule's conscientious mind devised a 
characteristic remedy. Each time that he lost his temper, he 
transferred a fine of two rupees (then about five shillings) from 
his right to his left pocket. When about to leave Roorkee, he 
devoted this accumulation of self-imposed fines to the erection 
of a sun-dial, to teach the natives the value of time. The late 
Sir James Caird, who told this legend of Roorkee as he heard it 
there in 1880, used to add, with a humorous twinkle of his 
kindly eyes, "It was a very handsome dial.''^^ 

From September, 1845, to March, 1847, Yule was much 
occupied intermittently, in addition to his professional work, by 
service on a Committee appointed by Government " to investi- 
gate the causes of the unhealthiness which has existed at 
Kurnal, and other portions of the country along the line of 
the Delhi Canal," and further, to report "whether an injurious 



^^ Maclagan's Memoir of Yule, P.R.G.S., Feb. 1890. 

^ On hearing this, Yule said to him, " Your story is quite correct except in one 
particular ; you understated the amount of the fine." 



XXXVIU MEMOIR OF SIR HENRY YULE 1849-52. 

effect on the health of the people of the Doab is, or is not, 
likely to be produced by the contemplated Ganges Canal." 

" A very elaborate investigation was made by the Committee, 
directed principally to ascertaining what relation subsisted 
between certain physical conditions of the different districts, and 
the liability of their inhabitants to miasmatic fevers." The 
principal conclusion of the Committee was, " that in the extensive 
epidemic of 1843, when Kurnaul suffered so seriously . . . the 
greater part of the evils observed had not been the necessary 
and unavoidable results of canal irrigation, but were due to 
interference with the natural drainage of the country, to the 
saturation of stiff and retentive soils, and to natural dis- 
advantages of site, enhanced by excess of moisture. As regarded 
the Ganges Canal, they were of opinion that, with due attention 
to drainage, improvement rather than injury to the general 
health might be expected to follow the introduction of canal 
irrigation."^* In an unpublished note written about 1889, Yule 
records his ultimate opinion as follows : " At this day, and after 
the large experience afforded by the Ganges Canal, I feel sure 
that a verdict so favourable to the sanitary results of canal 
irrigation would not be given." Still the fact remains that 
the Ganges Canal has been the source of unspeakable blessings 
to an immense population. 

The Second Sikh War saw Yule again with the army in 
the field, and on 13th Jan. 1849, he was present at the dismal 
* Victory ' of Chillianwallah, of which his most vivid recollection 
seemed to be the sudden apparition of Henry Lawrence, fresh 
from London, but still clad in the legendary Afghan cloak. 

On the conclusion of the Punjab campaign. Yule, whose 
health had suffered, took furlough and went home to his wife. 
For the next three years they resided chiefly in Scotland, 
though paying occasional visits to the Continent, and about 1850 
Yule bought a house in Edinburgh. There he wrote " The 
African Squadron vindicated" (a pamphlet which was after- 
wards re-published in French), translated Schiller's Kampf 
mit dent Drachen into English verse, delivered Lectures 
on Fortification at the, now long defunct, Scottish Naval and 
Military Academy, wrote on Tibet for his friend Blackwood's 



Yule and Maclagan's Memoir of Baker. 



Age, 29-32. LITERARY PURSUITS WHILST AT HOME XXXIX 

Magazine, attended the 1850 Edinburgh Meeting of the British 
Association, wrote his excellent lines, " On the Loss of the 
Birkenhead" and commenced his first serious study of Marco 
Polo (by whose wondrous tale, however, he had already been 
captivated as a boy in his father's library — in Marsden's edition 
probably). But the most noteworthy literary result of these 
happy years was that really fascinating volume, entitled Fortifi- 
cation for Officers of the Army and Students of Military History y 
a work that has remained unique of its kind. This was published 
by Blackwood in 185 1, and seven years later received the 
honour of (unauthorised) translation into French. Yule also 
occupied himself a good deal at this time with the practice 
of photography, a pursuit to which he never after reverted. 

In the spring of 1852, Yule made an interesting little semi- 
professional tour in company with a brother officer, his accom- 
plished friend, Major R. B. Smith. Beginning with Kelso, " the 
only one of the Teviotdale Abbeys which I had not as yet 
seen," they made their way leisurely through the north of 
England, examining with impartial care abbeys and cathedrals, 
factories, brick-yards, foundries, timber-yards, docks, and rail- 
way works. On this occasion Yule, contrary to his custom, 
kept a journal, and a few excerpts may be given here, as afford- 
ing some notion of his casual talk to those who did not know 
him. 

At Berwick-on-Tweed he notes the old ramparts of the 
town : " These, erected in Elizabeth's time, are 'interesting as 
being, I believe, the only existing sample in England of the 
bastioned system of the i6th century. . . . The outline of the 
works seems perfect enough, though both earth and stone work 
are in great disrepair. The bastions are large with obtuse 
angles, square orillons, and double flanks originally casemated, 
and most of them crowned with cavaliers." On the way to 
Durham, " much amused by the discussions of two passengers, 
one a smooth-spoken, semi-clerical looking person ; the other a 
brusque well-to-do attorney with a Northumbrian burr. Sub- 
ject, among others. Protection, The Attorney all for 'cheap 
bread ' — ' You wouldn't rob the poor man of his loaf,' and so 
forth. ' You must go with the stgheam, sir, you must go with 
the stgheam.' ' I never did, Mr Thompson, and I never will,' said 
the other in an oily manner, singularly inconsistent with the 



xl Memoir of sir henry yule 1S52. 

sentiment." At Durham they dined with a dignitary of the 
Church, and Yule was roasted by being placed with his back to 
an enormous fire. "Coals are cheap at Durham," he notes 
feelingly, adding, " The party we found as heavy as any Edin- 
burgh one. Smith, indeed, evidently has had little experience 
of really stupid Edinburgh parties, for he had never met with 
anything approaching to this before." (Happy Smith!) But 
thanks to the kindness and hospitality of the astronomer, Mr. 
Chevalier, and his gifted daughter, they had a delightful visit to 
beautiful Durham, and came away full of admiration for the 
(then newly established) University, and its grand locale. They 
went on to stay with an uncle by marriage of Yule's, in York- 
shire. At dinner he was asked by his host to explain Foucault's 
pendulum experiment. " I endeavoured to explain it somewhat, 
I hope, to the satisfaction of his doubts, but not at all to that of 
Mr G. M., who most resolutely declined to take in any elucida- 
tion, coming at last to the conclusion that he entirely differed 
with me as to what North meant, and that it was useless to 
argue until we could agree about that ! " They went next to 
Leeds, to visit Kirkstall Abbey, "a mediaeval fossil, curiously 
embedded among the squalid brickwork and chimney stalks of 
a manufacturing suburb. Having established ourselves at the 
hotel, we went to deliver a letter to Mr. Hope, the official 
assignee, a very handsome, aristocratic-looking gentleman, who 
seemed as much out of place at Leeds as the Abbey." At 
Leeds they visited the flax mills of Messrs. Marshall, " a firm 
noted for the conscientious care they take of their workpeople 
. . . We mounted on the roof of the building, which is covered 
with grass, and formerly was actually grazed by a few sheep, 
until the repeated inconvenience of their tumbling through the 
glass domes put a stop to this." They next visited some tile 
and brickworks on land belonging to a friend. " The owner of 
the tile works, a well-to-do burgher, and the apparent model of 
a West Riding Radical, received us in rather a dubious way : 
* There are a many people has come and brought introductions, 
and looked at all my works, and then gone and set up for them- 
selves close by. Now des you mean to say that you be really 
come all the way from Bengal ? ' ' Yes, indeed we have, and we 
are going all the way back again, though we didn't exactly come 
from there to look at your brickworks.' 'Then you're not in 



Age, 32. TOUR WITH MAJOR R. BAIRD SMITH xH 

the brick-making line, are you ? ' ' Why we've had a good deal 
to do with making bricks, and may have again ; but we'll engage 
that if we set up for ourselves, it shall be ten thousand miles 
from you.' This seemed in some degree to set his mind 
at rest. . . ." 

"A dismal day, with occasional showers, prevented our 
seeing Sheffield to advantage. On the whole, however, it is 
more cheerful and has more of a country-town look than Leeds 
— a place utterly without beauty of aspect. At Leeds you have 
vast barrack-like factories, with their usual suburbs of squalid 
rows of brick cottages, and everywhere the tall spiracles of the 
steam, which seems the pervading power of the place. Every- 
thing there is machinery — the machine is the intelligent agent, it 
would seem, the man its slave, standing by to tend it and pick 
up a broken thread now and then. At Sheffield . . . you might 
go through most of the streets without knowing anything of the 
kind was going on. And steam here, instead of being a ruler, 
is a drudge, turning a grindstone or rolling out a bar of steel, 
but all the accuracy and skill of hand is the Man's. J^nd con- 
sequently there was, we thought, a healthier aspect about the 
men engaged. None of the Rodgers remain who founded the 
firm in my father's time. I saw some pairs of his scissors in the 
show-room still kept under the name of Persian scissors," ^' 

From Sheffield Yule and his friend proceeded to Boston, 
"where there is the most exquisite church tower I have ever 
seen," and thence to Lincoln, Peterborough, and Ely, ending 
their tour at Cambridge, where Yule spent a few delightful 
days. 

In the autumn the great Duke of Wellington died, and 
Yule witnessed the historic pageant of his funeral. His furlough 
was now nearly expired, and early in December he again 
embarked for India, leaving his wife and only child, of a few 



^ It would appear that Major Yule had presented the Rodgers with some speci- 
mens of Indian scissors, probably as suggestions in developing that field of export. 
Scissors of elaborate design, usually damascened or gilt, used to form a most important 
item in every set of Oriental writing implements. Even long after adhesive envelopes 
had become common in European Turkey, their use was considered over familiar, if 
not actually disrespectful, for formal letters, and there was a particular traditional 
knack in cutting and folding the special envelope for each missive, which was included 
in the instruction given by every competent Khoja, as the present writer well remem- 
bers in the quiet years that ended with the disasters of 1877. 



xlii MEMOIR OF SIR HENRY YULE 1853. 

weeks old, behind him. Some verses dated " Christmas Day 
near the Equator," show how much he felt the separation. 

Shortly after his return to Bengal, Yule received orders to 
proceed to Aracan, and to examine and report upon the passes 
between Aracan and Burma, as also to improve communications 
and select suitable sites for fortified posts to hold the same. 
These orders came to Yule quite unexpectedly late one Saturday 
evening, but he completed all preparations and started at day- 
break on the following Monday, 24th Jan. 1853. 

From Calcutta to Khyook Phyoo, Yule proceeded by steamer, 
and thence up the river in the Tickler gunboat to Krenggyuen. 
" Our course lay through a wilderness of wooded islands (50 to 
200 feet high) and bays, sailing when we could, anchoring when 
neither wind nor tide served . . . slow progress up the river. 
More and more like the creeks and lagoons of the Niger or a 
Guiana river rather than anything I looked for in India. The 
densest tree jungle covers the shore down into the water. For 
miles no sign of human habitation, but now and then at rare 
intervals one sees a patch of hillside rudely cleared, with the 
bare stems of the burnt trees still standing. . . , Sometimes, too, 
a dark tunnel-like creek runs back beneath the thick vault of 
jungle, and from it silently steals out a slim canoe, manned by 
two or three wild-looking Mugs or Kyens (people of the Hills), 
driving it rapidly along with their short paddles held vertically, 
exactly like those of the Red men on the American rivers." 

At the military post of Bokhyong, near Krenggyuen, he 
notes (5th Feb.) that "Captain Munro, the adjutant, can 
scarcely believe that I was present at the Duke of Wellington's 
funeral, of which he read but a few days ago in the newspapers, and 
here am I, one of the spectators, a guest in this wild spot among 
the mountains — 2\ months since I left England." 

Yule's journal of his arduous wanderings in these border 
wilds is full of interest, but want of space forbids further 
quotation. From a note on the fly-leaf it appears that from the 
time of quitting the gun-boat at Krenggyuen to his arrival at 
Toungoop he covered about 240 miles on foot, and that under 
immense difificulties, even as to food. He commemorated his 
tribulations in some cheery humorous verse, but ultimately fell 
seriously ill of the local fever, aided doubtless by previous 
exposure and privation. His servants successively fell ill, 



Age, 32-33. IN ARACAN— DEFENCES OF SINGAPORE xHii 

some died and others had to be sent back, food supplies 
failed, and the route through those dense forests was uncertain ; 
yet under all difficulties he seems never to have grumbled or 
lost heart. And when things were nearly at the worst. Yule 
restored the spirits of his local escort by improvising a 
wappenshaw, with a Sheffield gardener's knife, which he happened 
to have with him, for prize ! When at last Yule emerged 
from the wilds and on 25th March marched into Prome, he 
was taken for his own ghost ! " Found Fraser (of the Engineers) 
in a rambling phoongyee house, just under the great gilt pagoda. 
I went up to him announcing myself, and his astonishment was 
so great that he would scarcely shake hands ! " It was on this 
occasion at Prome that Yule first met his future chief Captain 
Phayre — " a very young-looking man — very cordial," a descrip- 
tion no less applicable to General Sir Arthur Phayre at the age 
of seventy ! 

After some further wanderings, Yule embarked at Sandong, 
and returned by water, touching at Kyook Phyoo and Akyab, to 
Calcutta, which he reached on ist May — his birthday. 

The next four months were spent in hard work at Calcutta. 
In August, Yule received orders to proceed to Singapore, and 
embarked on the 29th. His duty was to report on the defences 
of the Straits Settlements, with a view to their improvement. 
Yule's recommendations were sanctioned by Government, but 
his journal bears witness to the prevalence then, as since, of the 
penny-wise-pound-foolish system in our administration. On all 
sides he was met by difficulties in obtaining sites for batteries, 
etc., for which heavy compensation was demanded, when by the 
exercise of reasonable foresight, the same might have been 
secured earlier at a nominal price. 

Yule's journal contains a very bright and pleasing picture of 
Singapore, where he found that the "majority of the European 
population "were evidently, from their tongues, from benorth 
the Tweed, a circumstance which seems to be true of four-fifths 
of the Singaporeans. Indeed, if I taught geography, I should 
be inclined to class Edinburgh, Glasgow, Dundee, and Singapore 
together as the four chief towns of Scotland." 

Work on the defences kept Yule in Singapore and its 
neighbourhood until the end of November, when he embarked 
for Bengal. On his return to Calcutta, Yule was appointed 



xliv MEMOIR OF SIR HENRY YULE 1854-55. 

Deputy Consulting Engineer for Railways at Head-quarters. 
In this post he had for chief his old friend Baker, who had 
in 1 85 1 been appointed by the Governor-General, Lord 
Dalhousie, Consulting Engineer for Railways to Government. 
The office owed its existence to the recently initiated great 
experiment of railway construction under Government 
guarantee. 

The subject was new to Yule, " and therefore called for hard 
and anxious labour. He, however, turned his strong sense and 
unbiased view to the general question of railway communication 
in India, with the result that he became a vigorous supporter of 
the idea of narrow gauge and cheap lines in the parts of that 
country outside of the main trunk lines of traffic." ^ 

The influence of Yule, and that of his intimate friends and 
ultimate successors in office, Colonels R. Strachey and Dickens, 
led to the adoption of the narrow (metre) gauge over a great 
part of India. Of this matter more will be said further on ; it is 
sufficient at this stage to note that it was occupying Yule's 
thoughts, and that he had already taken up the position in this 
question that he thereafter maintained through life. The office 
of Consulting Engineer to Government for Railways ultimately 
developed into the great Department of Public Works. 

As related by Yule, whilst Baker "held this appointment, 
Lord Dalhousie was in the habit of making use of his advice in 
a great variety of matters connected with Public Works projects 
and questions, but which had nothing to do with guaranteed 
railways, there being at that time no officer attached to the 
Government of India, whose proper duty it was to deal with 
such questions. In August, 1854, the Government of India sent 
home to the Court of Directors a despatch and a series of 
minutes by the Governor-General and his Council, in which the 
constitution of the Public Works Department as a separate 
branch of administration, both in the local governments and the 
government of India itself, was urged on a detailed plan." 

In this communication Lord Dalhousie stated his desire to 
appoint Major Baker to the projected office of Secretary for the 
Department of Public Works. In the spring of 1855 these re- 
commendations were carried out by the creation of the Depart- 



Colliiison's Memoir of Yule, Royal Engineer J ottntal. 



Age, 34-35. MISSION TO THE COURT OF AVA XlV 

ment, with Baker as Secretary and Yule as Under Secretary for 
Public Works. 

Meanwhile Yule's services were called to a very different 
field, but without his vacating his new appointment, which he was 
allowed to retain. Not long after the conclusion of the second 
Burmese War, the King of Burma sent a friendly mission to the 
Governor-General, and in 1855 a return Embassy was despatched 
to the Court of Ava, under Colonel Arthur Phayre, with Henry 
Yule as Secretary, an appointment the latter owed as much to 
Lord Dalhousie's personal wish as to Phayre's good-will. The 
result of this employment was Yule's first geographical book, 
a large volume entitled Missioti to the Court of Ava in 1855, 
originally printed in India, but subsequently re-issued in an 
embellished form at home (see over leaf). To the end of his 
life, Yule looked back to this " social progress up the Irawady, 
with its many quaint and pleasant memories, as to a bright and 
joyous holiday." ^^ It was a delight to him to work under 
Phayre, whose noble and lovable character he had already 
learned to appreciate two years before in Pegu. Then, too, 
Yule has spoken of the intense relief it was to escape from 
the monotonous scenery and depressing conditions of official 
life in Bengal (Resort to Simla was the exception, not the rule, in 
these days !) to the cheerfulness and unconstraint of Burma, 
with its fine landscapes and merry-hearted population. "It was 
such a relief to find natives who would laugh at a joke," he once 
remarked in the writer's presence to the lamented E. C. Baber, 
who replied that he had experienced exactly the same sense of 
relief in passing from India to China. 

Yule's work on Burma was largely illustrated by his own 
sketches. One of these represents the King's reception of the 
Embassy, and another, the King on his throne. The originals 
were executed by Yule's ready pencil, surreptitiously within his 
cocked hat, during the audience. 

From the latter sketch Yule had a small oil-painting 
executed under his direction by a German artist, then resident 
in Calcutta, which he gave to Lord Dalhousie.^ 



^ Extract from Preface to Ava, edition of 1858. 

^ The present whereabouts of this picture is unknown to the writer. It was lent 
to Yule in 1889 hy Lord Dalhousie's surviving daughter (for whom he had strong 



xlvi MEMOIR OF SIR HENRY YULE 1855-57. 

The Government of India marked their approval of the 
Embassy by an unusual concession. Each of the members of the 
mission received a souvenir of the expedition. To Yule was given 
a very beautiful and elaborately chased small bowl, of nearly 
pure gold, bearing the signs of the Zodiac in relief.^^ 

On his return to Calcutta, Yule threw himself heart and soul 
into the work of his new appointment in the Public Works 
Department. The nature of his work, the novelty and variety 
of the projects and problems with which this new branch of the 
service had to deal, brought Yule into constant, and eventually 
very intimate association with Lord Dalhousie, whom he accom- 
panied on some of his tours of inspection. The two men 
thoroughly appreciated each other, and, from first to last, Yule 
experienced the greatest kindness from Lord Dalhousie. In this 
intimacy, no doubt the fact of being what French soldiers call pays 
added something to the warmth of their mutual regard : their fore- 
fathers came from the same azrt, and neither was unmindful of the 
circumstance. It is much to be regretted that Yule preserved no 
sketch of Lord Dalhousie,nor written record of his intercourse with 
him, but the following lines show some part of what he thought : 
At this time [1849] there appears upon the scene that vigorous 
and masterful spirit, whose arrival to take up the government of 
India had been greeted by events so inauspicious. No doubt 
from the beginning the Governor-General was desirous to let it 
be understood that although new to India he was, and meant to 
be, master ; . . . Lord Dalhousie was by no means averse to 
frank dissent, provided m tJie manner it was never forgotten that 
he was Governor-General. Like his great predecessor Lord 
Wellesley, he was jealous of all familiarity and resented it. . . . 
The general sentiment of those who worked under that ava^ 
avSpwv was one of strong and admiring affection . . . and we 
doubt if a Governor-General ever embarked on the Hoogly amid 
deeper feeling than attended him who, shattered by sorrow and 



regard and much sympathy), and was returned to her early in 1890, but is not named 
in the catalogue of Lady Susan's effects, sold at Edinburgh in 1898 after her death. 
At that sale the present writer had the satisfaction of securing for reverent preser- 
vation the watch used throughout his career by the great Marquess. 

^ Now in the writer's possession. It was for many years on exhibition in the 
Edinburgh and South Kensington Museums, 



Age, 35-37. RETURN TO INDIA— THE MUTINY xlvii 

physical suffering, but erect and undaunted, quitted Calcutta on 
the 6th March 1856."*° * 

His successor was Lord Canning, whose confidence in Yule 
and personal regard for him became as marked as his prede- 
cessor's. 

In the autumn of 1856, Yule took leave and came home. 
Much of his time while in England was occupied with making 
arrangements for the production of an improved edition of his 
book on Burma, which so far had been a mere government re- 
port. These were completed to his satisfaction, and on the eve of 
returning to India, he wrote to his publishers *^ that the correction 
of the proof sheets and general supervision of the publication had 
been undertaken by his friend the Rev. W. D. Maclagan, formerly 
an officer of the Madras army (and now Archbishop of York). 

Whilst in England, Yule had renewed his intimacy with his old 
friend Colonel Robert Napier, then also on furlough, a visitor 
whose kindly sympathetic presence always brought special 
pleasure also to Yule's wife and child. One result of this in- 
tercourse was that the friends decided to return together to 
India. Accordingly they sailed from Marseilles towards the 
end of April, and at Aden were met by the astounding news of 
the outbreak of the Mutiny. 

On his arrival in Calcutta Yule, who retained his appointment 
of Under Secretary to Government, found his work indefinitely 
increased. Every available officer was called into the field, and 
Yule's principal centre of activity was shifted to the great for- 
tress of Allahabad, forming the principal base of operations 
against the rebels. Not only had he to strengthen or create 
defences at Allahabad and elsewhere, but on Yule devolved the 
principal burden of improvising accommodation for the European 
troops then pouring into India, which ultimately meant provid- 
ing for an army of 100,000 men. His task was made the more 
difficult by the long-standing chronic friction, then and long 
after, existing between the officers of the Queen's and the Com- 
pany's services. But in a far more important matter he was 
always fortunate. As he subsequently recorded in a Note for 
Government : " Through all consciousness of mistakes and short- 



*' Article by Yule on Lord Lawrence, Quarterly Review for April, \\ 
■♦1 Messrs. Smith & Elder. 



xlviii MEMOIR OF SIR HENRY YULE 1857-58. 

comings, I have felt that I had the confidence of those whom I 
served, a feeHng which has lightened many a weight." 

It was at Allahabad that Yule, in the intervals of more serious 
work, put the last touches to his Burma book. The preface of the 
English edition is dated, "Fortress of Allahabad, Oct, 3, 1857," 
and contains a passage instinct with the emotions of the time. 
After recalling the "joyous holiday" on the Irawady, he goes 
on: "But for ourselves, standing here on the margin of these 
rivers, which a few weeks ago were red with the blood of our 
murdered brothers and sisters, and straining the ear to catch the 
echo of our avenging artillery, it is difficult to turn the mind to 
what seem dreams of past days of peace and security ; and 
memory itself grows dim in the attempt to repass the gulf 
which the last few months has interposed between the present 
and the time to which this narrative refers." ^^ 

When he wrote these lines, the first relief had just taken 
place, and the second defence of Lucknow was beginning. The 
end of the month saw Sir Colin Campbell's advance to the 
second — the real — relief of Lucknow. Of Sir Colin, Yule wrote 
and spoke with warm regard : " Sir Colin was delightful, and 
when in a good humour and at his best, always reminded me 
very much, both in manner and talk, of the General {i.e. General 
White, his wife's father). The voice was just the same and the 



*2 Preface to Narrative of a Mission to the Court of Ava. Before these words 
were written, Yule had had the sorrow of losing his elder brother Robert, who had 
fallen in action before Delhi (19th June, 1857), whilst in command of his regiment, 
the 9th Lancers. Robert Abercromby Yule (born 1817) was a very noble character 
and a fine soldier. He had served with distinction in the campaigns in Afghani- 
stan and the Sikh Wars, and was the author of an excellent brief treatise 
on Cavalry Tactics. He had a ready pencil and a happy turn for graceful 
verse. In prose his charming little allegorical tale for children, entitled The While 
Rhododendron, is as pure and graceful as the flower whose name it bears. Like both 
Lis brothers, he was at once chivalrous and devout, modest, impulsive, and impetuous. 
No officer was more beloved by his men than Robert Yule, and when some one met 
them carrying back his covered body from the field and enquired of the sergeant : 
•* Who have you got there?" the reply was : " Colonel Yule, and better have lost 
half the regiment, sir." It was in the chivalrous efibrt to extricate some exposed 
guns that he fell. Some one told afterwards that when asked to go to the rescue, he 
turned in the saddle, looked back wistfully on his regiment, well knowing the cost of 
such an enterprise, then gave the order to advance and charge. " No stone marks the 
spot where Yule went down, but no stone is needed to commemorate his valour" 
(Archibald Forbes, in Daily News, 8th Feb. 1876). At the time of his death Colonel 
R. A. Yule had been recommended for the C.B. His eldest son. Colonel J. H. 
Yule, C.B., distinguished himself in several recent campaigns (on the Burma-Chinese 
frontier J in Tirah, and South Africa). 



Age, 37-38. LORD CLYDE— SIR W. BAKER xlix 

quiet gentle manner, with its underlying keen dry humour. 
But then if you did happen to offend Sir Colin, it was like 
treading on crackers, which was not our General's way." 

When Lucknow had been relieved, besieged, reduced, and 
finally remodelled by the grand Roads and Demolitions Scheme 
of his friend Napier, the latter came down to Allahabad, and he 
and Yule sought diversion in playing quoits and skittles, the 
only occasion on which either of them is known to have evinced 
any liking for games. 

Before this time Yule had succeeded his friend Baker as 
de facto Secretary to Government for Public Works, and on 
Baker's retirement in 1858, Yule was formally appointed his 
successor.*^ Baker and Yule had, throughout their association, 
worked in perfect unison, and the very differences in their char- 
acters enhanced the value of their co-operation ; the special 
qualities of each friend mutually strengthened and completed 
each other. Yule's was by far the more original and creative 
mind. Baker's the more precise and, at least in a professional 
sense, the more highly-trained organ. In chi\alrous sense of 
honour, devotion to duty, and natural generosity, the men stood 
equal ; but while Yule was by nature impatient and irritable, and 
liable, until long past middle age, to occasional sudden bursts of 
uncontrollable anger, generally followed by periods of black 
depression and almost absolute silence,** Baker was the very 
reverse. Partly by natural temperament, but also certainly by 
severe self-discipline, his manner was invincibly placid and his 
temper imperturbable.*^ Yet none was more tenacious in main- 
taining whatever he judged right. 

Baker, whilst large-minded in great matters, Wcis extremely 
conventional in small ones, and Yule must sometimes have tried 
his feelings in this respect. The particulars of one such tragic 
occurrence have survived. Yule, who was colour-blind,*" and in 



^ Baker went home in November, 1857, but did not retire until the following year. 

** Nothing was more worthy of respect in Yule's fine character than the energy 
and success with which he mastered his natural temperament in the last ten years of 
his life, when few would have guessed his original fiery disposition. 

^ Not without cause did Sir J. P. Grant officially record that " to his imperturb- 
able temper the Government of India owed much." 

^ Yule's colour-blindness was one of the cases in which Dalton, the original 

investigator of this optical defect, took special interest. At a later date (1859) he 

sent Yule, through Professor Wilson, skeins of coloured silks to name. Yule's elder 

brother Robert had the same peculiarity of sight, and it was also present in two earlier 

VOL. I. d 



1 MEMOIR OF SIR HENRY YULE 1858-59. 

early life whimsically obstinate in maintaining his own view of 
colours, had selected some cloth for trousers undeterred by his 
tailor's timid remonstrance of " Not quite your usual taste, sir." 
The result was that the Under-Secretary to Government startled 
official Calcutta by appearing in brilliant claret - coloured 
raiment. Baker remonstrated : " Claret-colour ! Nonsense, 
my trousers are silver grey," said Yule, and entirely declined to be 
convinced. " I think I did convince him at last," said Baker with 
some pride, when long after telling the story to the present writer. 
" And then he gave them up ? " " Oh, no," said Sir William 
ruefully, " he wore those claret - coloured trousers to the very 
end." That episode probably belonged to the Dalhousie period. 

When Yule resumed work in the Secretariat at Calcutta at 
the close of the Mutiny, the inevitable arrears of work were 
enormous. This may be the proper place to notice more fully 
his action with respect to the choice of gauge for Indian rail- 
ways already adverted to in brief As we have seen, his own 
convictions led to the adoption of the metre gauge over a great 
part of India. This policy had great disadvantages not at first 
foreseen, and has since been greatly modified. In justice 
to Yule, however, it should be remembered that the con- 
ditions and requirements of India have largely altered, alike 
through the extraordinary growth of the Indian export, 
especially the grain, trade, and the development of new 
necessities for Imperial defence. These new features, however, 
did but accentuate defects inherent in the system, but which 
only prolonged practical experience made fully apparent. 

At the outset the supporters of the narrow gauge seemed to 
have the stronger position, as they were able to show that the 
cost was much less, the rails employed being only about frds the 
weight of those required by the broad gauge, and many other 
subsidiary expenses also proportionally less. On the other 



and two later generations of their mother's family — making five generations in all. 
But in no case did it pass from parent to child, always passing in these examples, by a 
sort of Knight's move, from uncle to nephew. Another peculiarity of Yule's more 
difficult to describe was the instinctive association of certain architectural forms or 
images with the days of the week. He once, and once only (in 1843), met another 
person, a lady who was a perfect stranger, with the same peculiarity. About 187S-79 
lie contributed some notes on this obscure subject to one of the newspapers, in connec- 
tion with the researches of Mr. Francis Gallon, on Visualisation, but the particulars 
are not now accessible. 



Age, 38-39. QUESTION OF THE GAUGES— YULE'S SERVICES Jl 

hand, as time passed and practical experience w.as gained, 
its opponents were able to make an even stronger case 
against the narrow gauge. The initial expenses were un- 
doubtedly less, but the durability was also less. Thus much 
of the original saving was lost in the greater cost of 
maintenance, whilst the small carrying capacity of the rolling 
stock and loss of time and labour in shifting goods at every 
break of gauge, were further serious causes of waste, which the 
internal commercial development of India daily made more 
apparent. Strategic needs also were clamant against the 
dangers of the narrow gauge in any general scheme of Indian 
defence. Yule's connection with the Public Works Department 
had long ceased ere the question of the gauges reached its most 
acute stage, but his interest and indirect participation in the 
conflict survived. In this matter a certain parental tenderness 
for a scheme which he had helped to originate, combined with 
his warm friendship for some of the principal supporters of the 
narrow gauge, seem to have influenced his views more than he 
himself was aware. Certainly his judgment in this matter 
was not impartial, although, as always in his case, it was 
absolutely sincere and not consciously biased. 

In reference to Yule's services in the period following the 
Mutiny, Lord Canning's subsequent Minute of 1862 may here 
be fitly quoted. In this the Governor-General writes : " I have 
long ago recorded my opinion of the value of his services in 1858 
and 1859, when with a crippled and overtaxed staff of Engineer 
officers, many of them young and inexperienced, the G.-G. 
had to provide rapidly for the accommodation of a vast English 
army, often in districts hitherto little known, and in which the 
authority of the Government was barely established, and always 
under circumstances of difficulty and urgency. I desire to 
repeat that the Queen's army in India was then greatly indebted 
to Lieut.-Colonel Yule's judgment, earnestness, and ability ; and 
this to an extent very imperfectly understood by many of the 
officers who held commands in that army. 

" Of the manner in which the more usual duties of his office 
have been discharged it is unnecessary for me to speak. It is, I 
believe, known and appreciated as well by the Home Govern- 
ment as by the Governor-General in Council." 

In the spring of 1859 Yule felt the urgent need of a rest, and 
VOL. I. d 2 



Ill MEMOIR OF SIR HENRY YULE 1859-61 

took the, at that time, most unusual step of coming home on 
three months' leave, which as the voyage then occupied a 
month each way, left him only one month at home. He was 
accompanied by his elder brother George, who had not been out 
of India for thirty years. The visit home of the two brothers 
was as bright and pleasant as it was brief, but does not call for 
further notice. 

In i860, Yule's health having again suffered, he took short 
leave to Java. His journal of this tour is very interesting, but 
space does not admit of quotation here. He embodied some of 
the results of his observations in a lecture he delivered on his 
return to Calcutta. 

During these latter years of his service in India, Yule owed 
much happiness to the appreciative friendship of Lord Canning 
and the ready sympathy of Lady Canning. If he shared their tours 
in an official capacity, the intercourse was much more than official. 
The noble character of Lady Canning won from Yule such whole- 
hearted chivalrous devotion as, probably, he felt for no other friend 
save, perhaps in after days. Sir Bartle Frere. And when her 
health failed, it was to Yule's special care that Lord Canning 
entrusted his wife during a tour in the Hills. Lady Canning 
was known to be very homesick, and one day as the party came 
in sight of some ilexes (the evergreen oak). Yule sought to 
cheer her by calling out pleasantly ; " Look, Lady Canning ! 
There are oaks I " " No, no, Yule, noi oaks," cried Sir C. B. 
"They are (solemnly) IBEXES." "No, no^ Ibexes, Sir C, you 

mean SiLEXES," cried Capt. , the A.D.C. ; Lady Canning 

and Yule the while almost choking with laughter. 

On another and later occasion, when the Governor-General's 
camp was peculiarly dull and stagnant, every one yawning and 
grumbling, Yule effected a temporary diversion by pretending to 
tap the telegraph wires, and circulating through camp, what pur- 
ported to be, the usual telegraphic abstract of news brought 
to Bombay by the latest English mail. The news was of the 
most astounding character, with just enough air of probability, in 
minor details, to pass muster with a dull reader. The effect was 
all he could wish — or rather more — and there was a general 
flutter in the camp. Of course the Governor-General and one or 
two others were in the secret, and mightily relished the diversion. 
But this pleasant and cheering intercourse was drawing to its 



Age, 39-41. DEATH AND BURIAL OF LADY CANNING liii 

mournful close. On her way back from Darjeeling, in November, 
1 86 1, Lady Canning (not then in Yule's care) was unavoidably 
exposed to the malaria of a specially unhealthy season. A few 
days' illness followed, and on i8th November, 1861, she passed 
calmly to 

" That remaining rest where night and tears are o'er." *' 

It was to Yule that Lord Canning turned in the first anguish 
of his loss, and on this faithful friend devolved the sad privilege 
of preparing her last resting-place. This may be told in the 
touching words of Lord Canning's letter to his only sister, written 
on the day of Lady Canning's burial, in the private garden at 
Barrackpoor *^ : — 

" The funeral is over, and my own darling lies buried in 
a spot which I am sure she would have chosen of all others, . . . 
From the grave can be seen the embanked walk leading from the 
house to the river's edge, which she made as a landing-place 
three years ago, and from within 3 or 4 paces of the grave 
there is a glimpse of the terrace-garden and its balustrades, 
which she made near the house, and of the part of the grounds 
with which she most occupied herself. ... I left Calcutta 
yesterday . . . and on arriving here, went to look at the precise 
spot chosen for the grave. I could see by the clear full moon 
. . . that it was exactly right. Yule was there superintending 
the workmen, and before daylight this morning a solid masonry 
vault had been completely finished. 

" Bowie [Military Secretary] and Yule have done all this for 
me. It has all been settled since my poor darling died. She 
liked Yule, They used to discuss together her projects of im- 
provement for this place, architecture, gardening, the Cawnpore 
monument, etc., and they generally agreed. He knew her 
tastes well. ..." 

The coffin, brought on a gun-carriage from Calcutta, " was 
carried by twelve soldiers of the 6th Regiment (Queen's), the 
A.D.C.'s bearing the pall. There were no hired men or ordinary 
funeral attendants of any kind at any part of the ceremony, and 
no lookers-on. . . . Yule was the only person not of the house- 



*^ From Yule's verses on her grave. 

^ Lord Canning to Lady Clanricarde : Letter dated Barrackpoor, 19th Nov. i86i, 
7 A.M., printed n Two Noble Lives, by A. J. C. Hare, and here reproduced by Mr. 
Hare's permission. 



liv MEMOIR OF SIR HENRY YULE 1861-62 

hold staff. Had others who had asked " to attend " been allowed 
to do so, the numbers would have been far too large. 

" On coming near the end of the terrace walk I saw that the 
turf between the walk and the grave, and for several yards all 
round the grave, was strewed thick with palm branches and 
bright fresh-gathered flowers — quite a thick carpet. It was a 
little matter, but so exactly what she would have thought of" ^^ 

And, therefore. Yule thought of this for her ! He also 
recorded the scene two days later in some graceful and touching 
lines, privately printed, from which the following may be 
quoted : 

" When night lowered black, and the circling shroud 
Of storm rolled near, and stout hearts learned dismay ; 
Not Hers ! To her tried Lord a Light and Stay 
Even in the Earthquake and the palpable cloud 
Of those dark months ; and when a fickle crowd 
Panted for blood and pelted wrath and scorn 
On him she loved, her courage never stooped : 
But when the clouds were driven, and the day 
Poured Hope and glorious Sunshine, she who had borne, 
The night with such strong Heart, withered and drooped, 
Our queenly lily, and smiling passed away. 
Now ! let no fouling touch profane her clay. 
Nor odious pomps and funeral tinsels mar 
Our grief. But from our England's cannon car 
Let England's soldiers bear her to the tomb 
Prepared byjoving hands. Before her bier 
Scatter victorious palms ; let Rose's bloom 
Carpet its passage . . . ." 

Yule's deep sympathy in this time of sorrow strengthened 
the friendship Lord Canning had long felt for him, and when 
the time approached for the Governor-General to vacate his high 
office, he invited Yule, who was very weary of India, to accom- 
pany him home, where his influence would secure Yule congenial 
employment. Yule's weariness of India at this time was 
extreme. Moreover, after serving under such leaders as Lord 
Dalhousie and Lord Canning, and winning their full confidence 
and friendship, it was almost repugnant to him to begin afresh 
with new men and probably new measures, with which he might 



■"■ Lord Canning's letter to Lady Clanricarde. He gave to Yule Lady Canning's 
own silver drinking-cup, which she had constantly used. It is carefully treasured, 
with other Canning and Dalhousie relics, by the present writer. 



AiE, 41-42. YULE RESIGNS SERVICE— DEATH OF LORD CANNING Iv 

not be in accord. Indeed, some little clouds were already 
visible on the horizon. In these circumstances, it is not surpris- 
ing that Yule, under an impulse of lassitude and impatience, 
when accepting Lord Canning's offer, also ' burnt his boats ' by 
sending in his resignation of the service. This decision Yule 
took against the earnest advice of his anxious and devoted wife, 
and for a time the results justified all her misgivings. She knew 
well, from past experience, how soon Yule wearied in the absence 
of compulsory employment. And in the event of the life in 
England not suiting him, for even Lord Canning's good-will 
might not secure perfectly congenial employment for his talents, 
she knew well that his health and spirits would be seriously 
affected. She, therefore, with affectionate solicitude, urged that 
he should adopt the course previously followed by his friend 
Baker, that is, come home on furlough, and only send in his 
resignation after he saw clearly what his prospects of home 
employment were, and what he himself wished in the matter. 
Lord Canning and Yule left Calcutta late in March, 1862 ; at 
Malta they parted never to meet again in this world. Lord 
Canning proceeded to England, and Yule joined his wife and 
child in Rome. Only a few weeks later, at Florence, came as a 
thunderclap the announcement of Lord Canning's unexpected 
death in London, on 17th June. Well does the present writer 
remember the day that fatal news came, and Yule's deep 
anguish, not assuredly for the loss of his prospects, but for the 
loss of a most noble and magnanimous friend, a statesman whose 
true greatness was, both then and since, most imperfectly realised 
by the country for which he had worn himself out.^ Shortly 
after Yule went to England,^^ where he was cordially received by 
Lord Canning's representatives, who gave him a touching re- 



*" Many years later Yule wrote of Lord Canning as follows : " He had his defects, 
no doubt. He had not at first that entire grasp of the situation that was wanted at 
such a time of crisis. But there is a virtue which in these days seems unknown to 
Parliamentary statesmen in England — Magnanimity. Lord Canning was an English 
statesman, and he was surpassingly magnanimous. There is another virtue which in 
Holy Writ is taken as the t}'pe and sum of all righteousness — ^Justice — and he was 
eminently just. The misuse of special powers granted early in the Mutiny called for 
Lord Canning's interference, and the consequence was a flood of savage abuse ; the 
violence and bitterness of which it is now hard to realise." (^Quarterly Review, April, 
1883, p. 306.) 

" During the next ten years Yule continued to visit London annually for two or 
three months in the spring or early summer. 



Ivi MEMOIR OF SIR HENRY YULE 1862-64 

membrance of his lost friend, in the shape of the silver travelling 
candlesticks, which had habitually stood on Lord Canning's 
writing-table.^^ But his offer to write Lord Canning's Life had 
no result, as the relatives, following the then recent example of the 
Hastings family, in the case of another great Governor-General, 
refused to revive discussion by the publication of any Memoir. 

Nor did Yule find any suitable opening for employment in 
England, so after two or three months spent in visiting old 
friends, he rejoined his family in the Black Forest, where he 
sought occupation in renewing his knowledge of German. But 
it must be confessed that his mood both then and for long after 
was neither happy nor wholesome. The winter of 1862 was spent 
somewhat listlessly, partly in Germany and partly at the Hotel 
des Bergues, Geneva, where his old acquaintance Colonel 
Tronchin was hospitably ready to open all doors. The pictur- 
esque figure of John Ruskin also flits across the scene at this 
time. But Yule was unoccupied and restless, and could neither 
enjoy Mr. Ruskin's criticism of his sketches nor the kindly 
hospitality of his Genevan hosts. Early in 1863 he made another 
fruitless visit to London, where he remained four or five months, 
but found no opening. Though unproductive of work, this year 
brought Yule official recognition of his services in the shape of 
the C.B., for which Lord Canning had long before recommended 
him.^^ 

On rejoining his wife and child at Mornex in Savoy, Yule 
found the health of the former seriously impaired. During his 
absence, the kind and able English Doctor at Geneva had felt 
obliged to inform Mrs. Yule that she was suffering from disease 
of the heart, and that her life might end suddenly at any 
moment. Unwilling to add to Yule's anxieties, she made all 
necessary arrangements, but did not communicate this intel- 
ligence until he had done all he wished and returned, when she 
broke it to him very gently. Up to this year Mrs. Yule, though not 
strong and often ailing, had not allowed herself to be considered 



"2 Now in the writer's possession. They appear in the well-known portrait of 
Lord Canning reading a despatch. 

^2 Lord Canning's recommendation had been mislaid, and the India Office was 
disposed to ignore it. It was Lord Canning's old friend and Eton chum, Lord 
Granville, who obtained this tardy justice for Yule, instigated thereto by that most 
faithful friend, Sir Roderick Murchison. 



A<;e, 42 44 MEDIEVAL TRAVELLERS— LIFE IN TUSCANY Ivii 

an invalid, but from this date doctor's orders left her no choice in 
the matter.^* 

About this time, Yule took in hand the first of his studies of 
mediaeval travellers. His translation of the Travels of Friar 
Jordanus was probably commenced earlier ; it was completed 
during the leisurely journey by carriage between Chambery and 
Turin, and the Dedication to Sir Bartle Frere written during a 
brief halt at Genoa, from which place it is dated. Travelling 
slowly and ^Dleasantly by vetturino along the Riviera di Levante, 
the family came to Spezzia, then little more than a quiet village. 
A chance encounter with agreeable residents disposed Yule 
favourably towards the place, and a few days later he opened 
negotiations for land to build a house ! Most fortunately for 
himself and all concerned these fell through, and the family 
continued their journey to Tuscany, and settled for the winter 
in a long rambling house, with pleasant garden, at Pisa, where 
Yule was able to continue with advantage his researches into 
mediaeval travel in the East. He paid frequent visits to 
Florence, where he had many pleasant acquaintances, not least 
among them Charles Lever (" Harry Lorrequer "), with whom 
acquaintance ripened into warm and enduring friendship. At 
Florence he also made the acquaintance of the celebrated 
Marchese Gino Capponi, and of many other Italian men of 
letters. To this winter of 1863-64 belongs also the com- 
mencement of a lasting friendship with the illustrious Italian 
historian, Villari, at that time holding an appointment at 
Pisa. Another agreeable acquaintance, though less intimate, 
was formed with John Ball, the well-known President of the 
Alpine Club, then resident at Pisa, and with many others, among 
whom the name of a very cultivated German scholar, H. Meyer, 
specially recurs to memory. 



" I cannot let the mention of this time of lonely sickness and trial pass without 
recording here my deep gratitude to our dear and honoured friend, John Raskin. As 
my dear mother stood on the threshold between life and death at Mornex that sad 
spring, he was untiring in all kindly oflSces of friendship. It was her old friend, 
Principal A. J. Scott (then eminent, now forgotten), who sent him to call. He came 
to see us daily when possible, sometimes bringing MSS. of Rossetti and others to read 
aloud (and who could equal his reading ?), and when she was too ill for this, or himself 
absent, he would send not only books and flowers to brighten the bare rooms of the 
hillside inn (then very primitive), but his own best treasures of Turner and W. Hunt, 
drawings and illuminated missals. It was an anxious solace ; and though most grate- 
fully enjoyed, these treasures were never long retained. 



Iviii MEMOIR OF SIR HENRY YULE 1864-66 

In the spring of 1864, Yule took a spacious and delightful old 
villa, situated in the highest part of the Bagni di Lucca/^ and 
commanding lovely views over the surrounding chestnut-clad 
hills and winding river. 

Here he wrote much of what ultimately took form in 
Cathay, and the Way Thither. It was this summer, too, that 
Yule commenced his investigations among the Venetian 
archives, and also visited the province of Friuli in pursuit of 
materials for the history of one of his old travellers^ the Beato 
Odorico. At Verona — then still Austrian — he had the amusing 
experience of being arrested for sketching too near the fortifica- 
tions. However, his captors had all the usual Austrian bonhomie 
and courtesy, and Yule experienced no real inconvenience. He 
was much more disturbed when, a day or two later, the old 
mother of one of his Venetian acquaintances insisted on em- 
bracing him on account of his supposed likeness to Garibaldi ! 

As winter approached, a warmer climate became necessary 
for Mrs. Yule, and the family proceeded to Sicily, landing at 
Messina in Octobsr, 1864. From this point. Yule made a very 
interesting excursion to the then little known group of the 
Lipari Islands, in the company of that eminent geologist, the 
late Robert Mallet, F.R.S., a most agreeable companion. 

On Martinmas Day, the Yules reached the beautiful capital 
of Sicily, Palermo, which, though they knew it not, was to be 
their home — a very happy one — for nearly eleven years. 

During the ensuing, winter and spring, Yule continued the 
preparation of Cathay, but his appetite for work not being 
satisfied by this, he, when in London in 1865, volunteered to 
make an Index to the third decade of the Journal of the Royal 
Geographical Society, in exchange for a set of such volumes as he 
did not possess. That was long before any Index Society 
existed ; but Yule had special and very strong views of his own 
as to what an Index should be, and he spared no labour to 
realise his ideal.^*^ This proved a heavier task than he had 
anticipated, and he ■ got very weary before the Index was 
completed. 

^ Villa Mansi, nearly opposite the old Ducal Palace. With its private chapel, it 
formed three sides of a small place or court. 

"* He also at all times spared no pains to enforce that ideal on other index-makers, 
who were not always grateful for his sound doctrine I 



Age, 44-47. CATHAY— SICILIAN INSURRECTION— MARCO POLO lix 

In the spring of 1866, Cathay and the Way Thither appeared, 
and at once took the high place which it has ever since 
retained. In the autumn of the same year Yule's attention was 
momentarily turned in a very different direction by a local 
insurrection, followed by severe reprisals, and the bombardment 
of Palermo by the Italian Fleet. His sick wife was for some 
time under rifle as well as shell fire ; but cheerfully remarking 
that " every bullet has its billet," she remained perfectly serene 
and undisturbed. It was the year of the last war with Austria, 
and also of the suppression of the Monastic Orders in Sicily ; 
two events which probably helped to produce the outbreak, 
of which Yule contributed an account to The Times, and sub- 
sequently a more detailed one to the Quarterly Review?"^ 

Yule had no more predilection for the J^Ionastic Orders than 
most of his countrymen, but his sense of justice was shocked by 
the cruel incidence of the measure in many cases, and also by the 
harshness with which both it and the punishment of suspected 
insurgents was carried out. Cholera was prevalent in Italy that 
year, but Sicily, which had maintained stringent quarantine, 
entirely escaped until large bodies of troops were landed to quell 
the insurrection, when a devastating epidemic immediately ensued, 
and re-appeared in 1867. In after years, when serving on the 
Army Sanitary Committee at the India Office, Yule more than 
once quoted this experience as indicating that quarantine restric- 
tions may, in some cases, have more value than British medical 
authority is usually willing to admit. 

In 1867, on his return from London, Yule commenced sys- 
tematic work on his long projected new edition of the Travels of 
Marco Polo. It was apparently in this year that the scheme 
; first took definite form, but it had long been latent in his mind. 
The Public Libraries of Palermo afforded him much good 
material, whilst occasional visits to the Libraries of Venice, 
Florence, Paris, and London, opened other sources. But his most 
important channel of supply came from his very extensive private 
I correspondence, extending to nearly all parts of Europe and many 
centres in Asia. His work brought him many new and valued 
friends, indeed too many to mention, but amongst whom, as 

^ He saw a good deal of the outbreak when taking small comforts to a friend, 
the Commandant of the Military School, who was captured and imprisoned by the 
insurgents. 



Ix MEMOIR OF SIR HENRY YULE 1867-72. 

belonging specially to this period, three honoured names must be 
recalled here : Commendatore (afterwards Baron) Cristo- 
FORO Negri, the large-hearted Founder and First President of 
the Geographical Society of Italy, from whom Yule received 
his first public recognition as a geographer, Commendatore 
GUGLIELMO Berchet (affectionately nicknamed il Bello e 
Buono), ever generous in learned help, who became a most 
dear and honoured friend, and the Hon. GEORGE P. MARSH, 
U.S. Envoy to the Court of Italy, a man, both as scholar and 
friend, unequalled in his nation, perhaps almost unique anywhere. 

Those who only knew Yule in later years, may like some 
account of his daily life at this time. It was his custom to rise fairly 
early ; in summer he sometimes went to bathe in the sea,^^ or for 
a walk before breakfast ; more usually he would write until break- 
fast, which he preferred to have alone. After breakfast he looked 
through his notebooks, and before ten o'clock was usually walking 
rapidly to the library where his work lay. He would work there 
until two or three o'clock, when he returned home, read the 
Times, answered letters, received or paid visits, and then resumed 
work on his book, which he often continued long after the rest of 
the household were sleeping. Of course his family saw but little 
of him under these circumstances, but when he had got a chapter 
of Marco into shape, or struck out some newdiscovery of interest, 
he would carry it to his wife to read. She always took great 
interest in his work, and he had great faith in her literary instinct 
as a sound as well as sympathetic critic. 

The first fruits of Yule's Polo studies took the form of a 
review of Pauthier's edition of Marco Polo, contributed to the 
Quarterly Review in 1868. 

In 1870 the great work itself appeared, and received prompt 
generous recognition by the grant of the very beautiful gold 
medal of the Geographical Society of Italy,^^ followed in 1 872 by 
the award of the Founder's Medal of the Royal Geographical 
Society, while the Geographical and Asiatic Societies of Paris, 
the Geographical Societies of Italy and Berlin, the Academy of 
Bologna, and other learned bodies, enrolled him as an Honorary 
Member. 

^ After 1869 he discontinued sea-bathing. 

" This was Yule's first geographical honour, but he had been elected into the 
Athenjeum Club, under " Rule II. ," in January, 1867. 



i 



Age, 47-52. GARNIER'S GEOGRAPHY OF THE OXUS REGION 1x1 

Reverting to 1 869, we may note that Yule, when passing 
through Paris early in the spring, became acquainted, through 
his friend M. Charles Maunoir, with the admirable work of ex- 
ploration lately performed by Lieut. Francis Gamier of the 
French Na\y. It was a time of much political excitement in 
France, the eve of the famous Plebiscite, and the importance of 
Garnier's work was not then recognised by his countrymen. 
Yule saw its value, and on arrival in London went straight to 
Sir Roderick Murchison, laid the facts before him, and suggested 
that no other traveller of the year had so good a claim to one of 
the two gold medals of the R.G.S. as this French naval Lieu- 
tenant. Sir Roderick was propitious, and accordingly in May 
the Patron's medal was assigned to Gamier, who was touchingly 
grateful to Yule ; whilst the French Minister of Marine marked 
his appreciation of Yule's good offices by presenting him with 
the magnificent volumes commemorating the expedition.^ 

Yule was in Paris in 1871, immediately after the suppression 
of the Commune, and his letters gave interesting accounts of the 
extraordinary state of affairs then prevailing. In August, he 
served as President of the Geographical Section of the British 
Association at its Edinburgh meeting. 

On his return to Palermo, he devoted himself specially to the 
geography of the Oxus region, and the result appeared next year 
in his introduction and notes to Wood's Journey. Soon after his 
return to Palermo, he became greatly interested in the plans, 
about which he was consulted, of an English church, the gift to the 
English community of two of its oldest members, Messrs Ingham 
and Whitaker. Yule's share in the enterprise gradually expanded, 
until he became a sort of volunteer clerk of the works, to the 
great benefit of his health, as this occupation during the next 
three years, whilst adding to his interests, also kept him longer in 
the open air than would otherwise hav-e been the case. It was a 
real misfortune to Yule (and one of which he was himself at 
times conscious) that he had no taste for any out-of-door pursuits, 
neither for any form of natural science, nor for gardening, nor for 



^ Gamier took a distinguished part in the Defence of Paris in 1S70-71, after which 
he resumed his naval service in the East, where he was killed in action. His last 
letter to Yule contained the simple announcement " /aipfis Hanoi " a modest terse- 
ness of statement worthy of the best naval traditions. 



Ixii MEMOIR OF SIR HENRY YULE 1872-75. 

any kind of sport nor games. Nor did he willingly ride.^^ He 
was always restless away from his books. There can be no 
doubt that want of sufficient air and exercise, reacting on an im- 
paired liver, had much to do with Yule's unsatisfactory state of 
health and frequent extreme depression. There was no lack of 
agreeable and intelligent society at Palermo (society that the 
present writer recalls with cordial regard), to which every winter 
brought pleasant temporary additions, both English and foreign, 
the best of whom generally sought Yule's acquaintance. Old 
friends too were not wanting ; many found their way to Palermo, 
and when such came, he was willing to show them hospitality 
and to take them excursions, and occasionally enjoyed these. 
But though the beautiful city and surrounding country were 
full of charm and interest, Yule was too much pre-occupied 
by his own special engrossing pursuits ever really to get the 
good of his surroundings, of which indeed he often seemed only 
half conscious. 

By this time Yule had obtained, without ever having sought 
it, a distinct and, in some respects, quite unique position in 
geographical science. Although his Essay on the Geography of 
the Oxus Region (1872) received comparatively little public 
attention at home, it had yet made its mark once for all,"'^ and 
from this time, if not earlier. Yule's high authority in all questions 
of Central Asian geography was generally recognised. He had 
long ere this, almost unconsciously, laid the broad foundations 
of that "Yule metliod," of which Baron von Richthofen has 
written so eloquently, declaring that not only in his own land, 
" but also in the literatures of France, Italy, Germany, and other 
countries, the powerful stimulating influence of the Yule method 
is visible."*'^ More than one writer has indeed boldly com- 



6| One year the present writer, at her mother's desire, induced him to take walks ot 
10 to 12 miles with her, but interesting and lovely as the scenery was, he soon wearied 
for his writing-table (even bringing his work with him), and thus little permanent good 
was effected. And it was just the same afterwards in Scotland, where an old High- 
land gillie, describing his experience of the Yule brothers, said : *' I was liking to 
take out Sir George, for he takes the time to enjoy the hills, but (plaintively), the 
Kornel is no good, for he's just as restless as a water-wagtail ! " If there be any inal 
de rdcriloh-e corresponding to inal du pays, Yule certainly had it. 

62 The Russian Government in 1873 paid the same work the very practical com- 
pliment of circulating it largely amongst their officers in Central Asia. 

f'^' " Auch in den Literaturcn von Frankrcich, Italicn, Deutschland und anderc 
Landern isl der machtig treibende Einfluss der Yuleschen Melhode, welclie 



Agf, 52 55. GEOGRAPHICAL LABOURS— PURSUITS IN SICILY Ixiii 

pared Central Asia before Yule to Central Africa before 
Livingstone ! 

Yule had wrought from sheer love of the work and without 
expectation of public recognition, and it was therefore a great 
surprise as well as gratification to him, to find that the demand 
for his Marco Polo was such as to justify the appearance of a 
second edition only a few years after the first. The preparation 
of this enlarged edition, with much other miscellaneous work 
(see subjoined bibliography), and the superintendence of the 
building of the church already named, kept him fully occupied 
for the next three years. 

Amongst the parerga and miscellaneous occupations of Yule's 
leisure hours in the period 1869-74, may be mentioned an inter- 
esting correspondence with Professor W. W. Skeat on the subject 
of William of Palerne and Sicilian examples of the Werwolf; 
the skilful "analysis and exposure of Klaproth's false geography ; ®* 
the purchase and despatch of Sicilian seeds and young trees 
for use in the Punjab, at the request of the Indian Forestry 
Department ; translations (prepared for friends) of tracts on the 
cultivation of Sumach and the collection of Manna as practised 
in Sicily ; also a number of small services rendered to the 
South Kensington Museum, at the request of the late Sir 
Henry Cole. These latter included obtaining Italian and 
Sicilian bibliographic contributions to the Science and Art 
Department's Catalogue of Books on ^r/, selecting architectural 
subjects to be photographed ; ^ negotiating the purchase of the 
original drawings illustrative of Padre B. Gravina's great work 
on the Cathedral of Monreale ; and superintending the execution 
of a copy in mosaic of the large mosaic picture (in the Norman 
Palatine Chapel, Palermo,) of the Entry of our Lord into 
Jerusalem. 

In the spring of 1875, just after the publication of the second 



\vissenschaflliche Grundiichkeit mit anmatbender Fonn verbindet, bemerkbar." 
( Verhandlungen der Gesdlschaft fiir Erdkunde zu Berlin, Band XVII. Xo. 2.) 

" This subject is too lengthy for more than cursory allusion here, but the patient 
analytic skill and keen venatic instinct with which Yule not only proved the forgery 

of the alleged Travels of Gecrg Ludivig von (that had been already established 

by Lord Strangford, whose last effort it was, and Sir Henrj- Rawlinson), but step by 
step traced it home to the arch-culprit Klaproth, was nothing less than masterly. 

^ This is probably the origin of the odd misstatement as to Yule occupjing himself 
at Palermo with photography, made in the delightful Reminiscences of the late 
Colonel Balcarres Ramsay. Yule never attempted photography after 1852. 



Ixiv MEMOIR OF SIR HENRY YULE 1875-80. 

edition of Marco Polo, Yule had to mourn the loss of his noble 
wife. He was absent from Sicily at the time, but returned a few 
hours after her death on 30th April. She had suffered for many 
years from a severe form of heart disease, but her end was 
perfect peace. She was laid to rest, amid touching tokens of 
both public and private sympathy, in the beautiful camposanto 
on Monte Pellegrino. What her loss was to Yule only his 
oldest and closest friends were in a position to realise. Long 
years of suffering had impaired neither the soundness of her 
judgment nor the sweetness, and even gaiety, of her happy, 
unselfish disposition. And in spirit, as even in appearance, she 
retained to the very last much of the radiance of her youth. 
Nor were her intellectual gifts less remarkable. Few who had 
once conversed with her ever forgot her, and certainly no one 
who had once known her intimately ever ceased to love her.^*' 

Shortly after this calamity. Yule removed to London, and on 
the retirement of his old friend. Sir William Baker, from the 
India Council early that autumn, Lord Salisbury at once selected 
him for the vacant seat. Nothing would ever have made 
him a party-man, but he always followed Lord Salisbury with 
conviction, and worked under him with steady confidence. 

In 1877 Yule married, as his second wife, the daughter of an 
old friend,^^ a very amiable woman twenty years his junior, who 
made him very happy until her untimely death in 1881. From 
the time of his joining the India Council, his duties at the India 
Office of course occupied a great part of his time, but he also 
continued to do an immense amount of miscellaneous literary 
work, as may be seen by reference to the subjoined bibliography, 



^ She was a woman of fine intellect and wide reading ; a skilful musician, who also 
sang well, and a good amateur artist in the style of Aug. Delacroix (of whom she was 
a favourite pupil). Of PVench and Italian she had a thorough and literary mastery, 
and how well she knew her own language is shown by the sound and pure English of 
a story she published in early life, under the pseudonym of Max Lyle [Fair Oaks, or 
The Experiences of Arnold Osborne, M.D., 2 vols., 1856). My mother was partly 
of Highland descent on both sides, and many of her fine qualities were very character- 
istic of that race. Before her marriage she took an active part in many good works, 
and herself originated the useful School for the Blind at Bath, in a room which she 
hired with her pocket-money, where she and her friend Miss Elwin taught such of 
the blind poor as they could gather together. 

In the tablet which he erected to her memory in the family burial-place of St. 
Andrew's, Gulane, her husband described her thus : — " A woman singular in endow- 
ments, in suffering, and in faith ; to whom to live was Christ, to die was gain." 

^^ Mary Wilhelmina, daughter of F. Skipwith, Esq., B.C.S. 



Age, 55-60. THE INDIA COUNCIL— MISS NIGHTINGALE IxV 

(itself probably incomplete). In Council he invariably " showed 
his strong determination to endeavour to deal with questions on 
their own merits and not only by custom and precedent."^ 
Amongst subjects in which he took a strong line of his own in 
the discussions of the Council, may be specially instanced his 
action in the matter of the cotton duties (in which he defended 
native Indian manufactures as against hostile Manchester 
interests) ; the Vernacular Press Act, the necessity for which he 
fully recognised ; and the retention of Kandahar, for which he 
recorded his vote in a strong minute. In all these three cases, 
which are typical of many others, his opinion was overruled, but 
having been carefully and deliberately formed, it remained un- 
affected by defeat. 

In all matters connected with Central Asian affairs, Yule's 
opinion always carried great weight ; some of his most com- 
petent colleagues indeed preferred his authority in this field to 
that of even Sir Henry Rawlinson, possibly for the reason given 
by Sir M. Grant Duff, who has epigrammatically described the 
latter as good in Council but dangerous in counsel.^^ 

Yule's courageous independence and habit of looking at all 
public questions by the simple light of what appeared to him 
right, yet without fads or doctrinairism, earned for him the 
respect of the successive Secretaries of State under whom he 
served, and the warm regard and confidence of his other 
colleagues. The value attached to his services in Council 
was sufficiently shown by the fact that when the period of ten 
years (for which members are usually appointed), was about to 
expire. Lord Hartington (now Duke of Devonshire), caused 
Yule's appointment to be renewed for life, under a special Act of 
Parliament passed for this purpose in 1885. 

His work as a member of the Army Sanitary Committee, 
brought him into communication with Miss Florence Nightingale, 
a privilege which he greatly valued and enjoyed, though he used 
to say : " She is worse than a Royal Commission to answer, and, 
in the most gracious charming manner possible, immediately 
finds out all I don't know ! " Indeed his devotion to the 
" Lady-in-Chief " was scarcely less complete than Kinglake's. 



VOL. I, 



"^ Collinson's Memoir of Yule. 

*^ See Notes from a Diary, 1888-91. 



IXVI MEMOIR OF SIR HENRY YULE 1880-86. 

In 1880, Yule was appointed to the Board of Visitors of the 
Government Indian Engineering College at Cooper's Hill, a 
post which added to his sphere of interests without materially 
increasing his work. In 1882, he was much gratified by being 
named an Honorary Fellow of the Society of Antiquaries of 
Scotland, more especially as it was to fill one of the two vacancies 
created by the deaths of Thomas Carlyle and Dean Stanley. 

Yule had been President of the Hakluyt Society from 1877, 
and in 1885 was elected President also of the Royal Asiatic 
Society. He would probably also have been President of the 
Royal Geographical Society, but for an untoward incident. 
Mention has already been made of his constant determina- 
tion to judge all questions by the simple touchstone of what he 
believed to be right, irrespective of personal considerations. It 
was in pursuance of these principles that, at the cost of great 
pain to himself and some misrepresentation, he in 1878 
sundered his long connection with the Royal Geographical 
Society, by resigning his seat on their Council, solely in 
consequence of their adoption of what he considered a wrong 
policy. This severance occurred just when it was intended to 
propose him as President. Some years later, at the personal 
request of the late Lord Aberdare, a President in all respects 
worthy of the best traditions of that great Society, Yule 
consented to rejoin the Council, which he re-entered as a Vice- 
President. 

In 1883, the University of Edinburgh celebrated its Ter- 
centenary, when Yule was selected as one of the recipients 
of the honorary degree of LL.D. His letters from Edinburgh, 
on this occasion, give a very pleasant and amusing account 
of the festivity and of the celebrities he met. Nor did he omit 
to chronicle the envious glances cast, as he alleged, by some 
British men of science on the splendours of foreign Academic 
attire, on the yellow robes of the Sorbonne, and the Palms 
of the Institute of France ! Pasteur was, he wrote, the one 
most enthusiastically acclaimed of all who received degrees. 

I think it was about the same time that M. Renan was 
in England, and called upon Sir Henry Maine, Yule, and others 
at the India Office. On meeting just after, the colleagues 
compared notes as to their distinguished but unwieldy visitor. 
"It seems that le style tiest pas I'hoimne mime in this instance," 



Age, 60-66. REN AN— DR. JOHN BROWN— BOBSON-JOBSOJV Ixvii 

quoth " Ancient Law " to " Marco Polo." And here it may be 
remarked that Yule so completely identified himself with his 
favourite traveller that he frequently signed contributions to the 
public press as MARCUS Paulus Venetus or M.P.V. His 
more intimate friends also gave him the same sobriquet, and 
once, when calling on his old friend, Dr. John Brown (the 
beloved chronicler oi Rab and his Friends), he was introduced by 
Dr. John to some lion-hunting American visitors as " our Marco 
Polo." The visitors evidently took the statement in a literal 
sense, and scrutinised Yule closely.''^'' 

In 1886 Yule published his delightful Anglo-Indian Glossary, 
with the whimsical but felicitous sub-title of Hobson-Jobson (the 
name given by the rank and file of the British Army in India 
to the religious festival in celebration of Hassan and Husain). 

This Glossary was an abiding interest to both Yule and the 
present writer. Contributions of illustrative quotations came 
from most diverse and unexpected sources, and the arrival 
of each new word or happy quotation was quite an event, and 
gave such pleasure to the recipients as can only be fully understood 
by those who have shared in such pursuits. The volume was 
dedicated in affecting terms to his elder brother, Sir George 
Yule, who, unhappily, did not survive to see it completed. 

In July 1885, the two brothers had taken the last of many 
happy journeys together, proceeding to Cornwall and the Scilly 
Isles. A few months later, on 13th January 1886, the end came 
suddenly to the elder, from the effects of an accident at his own 
door.'^ 

It may be doubted if Yule ever really got over the shock of 
this loss, though he went on with his work as usual, and served 
that year as a Royal Commissioner on the occasion of the 
Indian and Colonial Exhibition of 1886. 

From 1878, when an accidental chill laid the foundations of 
an exhausting, though happily quite painless, malady, Yule's 
strength had gradually failed, although for several years longer 
his general health and energies still appeared unimpaired to a 
casual observer. The condition of public affairs also, in some 



™ The identification was not limited to Yule, for when travelling in Russia many 
years ago, the present writer was introduced by an absent-minded Russian savant to 
his colleagues as Mademoiselle Marco Paulovna ! 

" See Note on Sir George Yule's career at the end of this Memoir. 

VOL. I, e 2 



Ixviii MEMOIR OF SIR HENRY YULE 



1886-89. 



degree, affected his health injuriously. The general trend of 
political events from 1880 to 1886 caused him deep anxiety and 
distress, and his righteous wrath at what he considered the 
betrayal of his country's honour in the cases of Frere, of Gordon, 
and of Ireland, found strong, and, in a noble sense, passionate 
expression in both prose and verse. He was never in any sense 
a party man, but he often called himself " one of Mr. Gladstone's 
converts," i.e. one whom Gladstonian methods had compelled to 
break with liberal tradition and prepossessions. 

Nothing better expresses Yule's feeling in the period referred 
to than the following letter, written in reference to the R. E. 
Gordon Memorial,''^ but of much wider application : " Will you 
allow me an inch or two of space to say to my brother officers, 
' Have nothing to do with the proposed Gordon Memorial.' 

" That glorious -memory is in no danger of perishing and 
needs no memorial. Sackcloth and silence are what it suggests 
to those who have guided the action of England ; and English- 
men must bear the responsibility for that action and share its 
shame. It is too early for atoning memorials ; nor is it possible 
for those who take part in them to dissociate themselves from 
a repulsive hypocrisy. 

" Let every one who would fain bestow something in honour 
of the great victim, do, in silence, some act of help to our soldiers 
or their families, or to others who are poor and suffering. 

" In later days our survivors or successors may look back 
with softened sorrow and pride to the part which men of our 
corps have played in these passing events, and Charles Gordon 
far in the front of all ; and then they may set up our little 
tablets, or what not — not to preserve the memory of our heroes, 
but to maintain the integrity of our own record of the illustrious 
dead." 

Happily Yule lived to see the beginning of better times for 
his country. One of the first indications of that national 
awakening was the right spirit in which the public, for the most 
part, received Lord Wolseley's stirring appeal at the close of 
1888, and Yule was so much struck by the parallelism between 
Lord Wolseley's warning and some words of his own contained 



"Addressed to the Editor, Royal En^ncers' Journal, who did not, however, 
publish it. 



Age, 66-69. FAILING HEALTH— RESIGNS SEAT IN COUNCIL Ixix 

in the pseudo-Polo fragment (see above, end of Preface), that he 
sent Lord Wolseley the very last copy of the 1875 edition of 
Marco Polo, with a vigorous expression of his sentiments. 

That was probably Yule's last utterance on a public question. 
The sands of life were now running low, and in the spring of 1 889, 
he felt it right to resign his seat on the India Council, to which 
he had been appointed for life. On this occasion Lord Cross, then 
Secretary of State for India, successfully urged his acceptance of 
the K.C.S.I., which Yule had refused several years before. 

In the House of Lords, Viscount Cross subsequently referred 
to his resignation in the following terms. He said : " A 
vacancy on the Council had unfortunately occurred through the 
resignation from ill-health of Sir Henry Yule, whose presence on 
the Council had been of enormous advantage to the natives of 
the country. A man of more kindly disposition, thorough 
intelligence, high-minded, upright, honourable character, he 
believed did not exist ; and he would like to bear testimony 
to the estimation in which he was held, and to the services 
which he had rendered in the office he had so long filled." ^^ 

This year the Hakluyt Society published the concluding 
volume of Yule's last work of importance, the Diary of Sir 
William Hedges. He had for several years been collecting 
materials for a full memoir of his great predecessor in the 
domain of historical geography, the illustrious Rennell.^* This 
work was well advanced as to preliminaries, but was not 
sufficiently developed for early publication at the time of Yule's 
death, and ere it could be completed its place had been taken by 
a later enterprise. 

During the summer of 1889, Yule occupied much of his 
leisure by collecting and revising for re-issue many of his miscel- 
laneous writings. Although not able to do much at a time, 
this desultory work kept him occupied and interested, and gave 
him much pleasure during many months. It was, however, 
never completed. Yule went to the seaside for a few weeks 



^ Debate of 27th August, 1889, as reported in The Times of 28th August. 

'* Yule had published a brief but very interesting Memoir of Major Rennell in 
the R. E. Journal in 188 1. He was extremely proud of the circumstance that 
Rennell's survnving grand-daughter presented to him a beautiful wax medallion 
portrait of the great geographer. This wonderfully life-like presentment was 
bequeathed by Yule to his friend Sir Joseph Hooker, who presented it to the Royal 
Society. 



IxX MEMOIR OF SIR HENRY YULE 1889. 

in the early summer, and subsequently many pleasant days 
were spent by him among the Surrey hills, as the guest of 
his old friends Sir Joseph and Lady Hooker. Of their 
constant and unwearied kindness, he always spoke with most 
affectionate gratitude. That autumn he took a great diclike to the 
English climate ; he hankered after sunshine, and formed many 
plans, eager though indefinite, for wintering at Cintra, a place 
whose perfect beauty had fascinated him in early youth. But 
increasing weakness made a journey to Portugal, or even the 
South of France, an alternative of which he also spoke, very in- 
expedient, if not absolutely impracticable. Moreover, he would 
certainly have missed abroad the many friends and multifarious 
interests which still surrounded him at home. He continued to 
take drives, and occasionally called on friends, up to the end of 
November, and it was not until the middle of December that 
increasing weakness obliged him to take to his bed. He was 
still, however, able to enjoy seeing his friends — some to the very 
end, and he had a constant stream of visitors, mostly old friends, 
but also a few newer ones, who were scarcely less welcome. He 
also kept up his correspondence to the last, three attached 
brother R.E.'s, General Collinson, General Maclagan, and Major 
W. Broadfoot, taking it in turn with the present writer to act as 
his amanuensis. 

On Friday, 27th December, Yule received a telegram from 
Paris, announcing his nomination that day as Corresponding 
Member of the Institute of France (Acad^mie des Inscriptions), 
one of the few distinctions of any kind of which it can still be 
said that it has at no time lost any of its exalted dignity. 

An honour of a different kind that came about the same time, 
and was scarcely less prized by him, was a very beautiful letter of 
farewell and benediction from Miss Florence Nightingale,^^ 
which he kept under his pillow and read many times. On the 
28th, he dictated to the present writer his acknowledgment, 
also by telegraph, of the great honour done him by the Institute. 
The message was in the following words : " Reddo gratias, 



^* Knowing his veneration for that noble lady, I had written to tell her of his con- 
dition, and to ask her to give him this last pleasure of a few words. The response 
was such as few but herself could write. This letter was not to be found after my 
father's death, and I can only conjecture that it must either have been given away by 
himself (which is most improbable), or was appropriated by some unauthorised outsider. 



Age, 69. MESSAGE TO THE INSTITUTE OF FRANCE— THE END IxXl 

Illustrissimi Domini, ob honorestanto nimios quanto immeritos ! 
Mihi robora deficiunt, vita collabitur, accipiatis voluntatem pro 
facto. Cum corde pleno et gratissimo moriturus vos, Illustrissimi 
Domini, saluto. YULE." 

Sunday, 29th December, was a day of the most dense black 
fog, and he felt its oppression, but was much cheered by a 
visit from his ever faithful friend, Collinson, who, with his usual 
unselfishness, came to him that day at very great personal 
inconvenience. 

On Monday, 30th December, the day was clearer, and Henry 
Yule awoke much refreshed, and in a peculiarly happy and even 
cheerful frame of mind. He said he felt so comfortable. He 
spoke of his intended book, and bade his daughter write about 
the inevitable delay to his publisher : " Go and write to John 
Murray," were indeed his last words to her. During the morn- 
ing he saw some friends and relations, but as noon approached 
his strength flagged, and after a period of unconsciousness, he 
passed peacefully away in the presence of his daughter and of 
an old friend, who had come from Edinburgh to see him, but 
arrived too late for recognition. Almost at the same time 
that Yule fell asleep, his "stately message,""^ was being read 
under the great Dome in Paris. Some two hours after Yule had 
passed away, F.-M. Lord Napier of Magdala, called on an 
errand of friendship, and at his desire was admitted to see the 
last of his early friend. When Lord Napier came out, he said to 
the present writer, in his own reflective way : " He looks as if he 
had just settled to some great work." With these suggestive 
words of the great soldier, who was so soon, alas, to follow his old 
friend to the work of another world, this sketch may fitly close. 



The following excellent verses (of unknown authorship) on 
Yule's death, subsequently appeared in the Academy : ^^ 

•' ' Moriturus vos saluto ' 
Breathes his last the dying scholar — 
Tireless student, brilliant writer ; 
He ' salutes his age ' and journeys 
To the Undiscovered Country. 



'« So Sir M. E. Grant Duff well calls it. 
" Academy, 29th March, 1890. 



Ixxii MEMOIR OF SIR HENRY YULE 

"There await him with warm welcome 
All the heroes of old Story — 
The Venetians, the Ck Polo, 
Marco, Nicolo, Mafifeo, 
Odoric of Pordenone, 
Ibn Batuta, MarignoUi, 
Benedict de Goes — ' Seeking 
Lost Cathay and finding Heaven.' 
Many more whose lives he cherished 
With the piety of learning ; 
Fading i-ecords, buried pages, 
P'ailing lights and fires forgotten, ' 
By his energy recovered, 
By his eloquence re-kindled. 
' Moriturus vos saluto ' 
Breathes his last the dying scholar, 
And the far off ages answer : 
Imtnortales te salutant. D. M." 

The same idea had been previously embodied, in very 
felicitous language, by the late General Sir William Lockhart, 
in a letter w^hich that noble soldier addressed to the present 
writer a few days after Yule's death. And Yule himself would 
have taken pleasure in the idea of those meetings with his old 
travellers, which seemed so certain to his surviving friends.''^ 

He rests in the old cemetery at Tunbridge Wells, with his 
second wife, as he had directed. A great gathering of friends 
attended the first part of the burial service which was held in 
London on 3rd January, 1890. Amongst those present were 
witnesses of every stage of his career, from his boyish days at the 
High School of Edinburgh downwards. His daughter, of course, 
was there, led by the faithful, peerless friend who was so soon 
to follow him into the Undiscovered Country.''* She and his 
youngest nephew, with two cousins and a few old friends, followed 
his remains over the snow to the graveside. The epitaph subse- 
quently inscribed on the tomb was penned by Yule himself, 
but is by no means representative of his powers in a kind of 
composition in which he had so often excelled in the service of 
others. As a composer of epitaphs and other monumental 
inscriptions few of our time have surpassed, if any have equalled 
him, in his best efforts. 

'^ He was much pleased, I remember, by a letter he once received from a kindly 
Franciscan friar, who wrote : " You may rest assured that the Beato Odorico will not 
forget all you have done for him." 

^' F.-M. Lord Napier of Magdala, died 14th January, 1890. 



SIR GEORGE UDXY YULE, C.B., K.C.S.I* 

George Udny Yule, bom at Inveresk in 1813, passed through Haileybury 
into the Bengal Civil Service, which he entered at the age of 18 years. For 
twenty-five years his work lay in Eastern Bengal. He gradually became 
known to the Government for his activity and good sense, but won a far 
wider reputation as a mighty hunter, alike with hog-spear and double 
barrel. By 1856 the roll of his slain tigers exceeded four hundred, some of 
them of special fame ; after that he continued sla>nng his tigers, but 
ceased to count them. For some years he and a few friends used 
annually to visit the plains of the Brahmaputra, near the Garrow Hills — an 
entirely virgin country then, and swarming with large game. Yule used to 
describe his once seeing seven rhinoceroses at once on the great plain, 
besides herds of wild buffalo and deer of several kinds. One of the party 
started the theory that Noah's Ark had been shipwrecked there ! In those 
days George Yule was the only man to whom the Maharajah of Nepaul, Sir 
Jung Bahadur, conceded leave to shoot within his frontier. 

Yule was first called from his useful obscurity in 1856. The year before, 
the Sonthals in insurrection disturbed the long unbroken peace of the Delta. 
These were a numerous non-Aryan, uncivilised, but industrious race, driven 
wild by local mismanagement, and the oppressions of Hindoo usurers acting 
through the regulation courts. After the suppression of their rising. Yule 
was selected by Sir F. Halliday, who knew his man, to be Commissioner of 
the Bhagulpoor Division, containing some six million souls, and embracing 
the hill country of the Sonthals. He obtained sanction to a code for the 
latter, which removed these people entirely from the Court system, and its 
tribe of leeches, and abolished all intermediaries between the Sahib and the 
Son thai peasant. Through these measures, and his personal influence, 
aided by picked assistants, he was able to effect, with extraordinary 
rapidity, not only their entire pacification, but such a beneficial change in 
their material condition, that they have risen from a state of barbarous 
penury to comparative prosperity and comfort. 

George Yule was thus engaged when the Mutiny broke out, and it 
soon made itself felt in the districts under him. To its suppression within 
his limits, he addressed himself with characteristic vigour. Thoroughly 
trusted by every class — by his Government, by those under him, by planters 
and by Zemindars— he organised a little force, comprising a small detach- 
ment of the 5th Regiment, a party of British sailors, mounted volunteers 
from the districts, etc., and of this he became practically the captain. 
Elephants were collected from all quarters to spare the legs of his infantry 
and sailors ; while dog-carts were turned into limbers for the small three- 
pounders of the seamen. And with this little army George Yule scoured 
the Trans-Gangetic districts, leading it against bodies of the Mutineers, 
routing them upon more than one occasion, and out-manoeuvring them by 

• This notice includes the greater part of an article written by my father, and published in the St. 
fames' Gazette of i8th January, 1886, but I have added other details from personal recollection and 
other sources. — A. F. V. " 

Ixxiii 



Ixxiv NOTE ON CAREER OF SIR GEORGE UDNY YULE 

his astonishing marches, till he succeeded in driving them across the 
Nepaul frontier. No part of Bengal was at any time in such danger, and 
nowhere was the danger more speedily and completely averted. 

After this Yule served for two or three years as Chief Commissioner of 
Oudh, where in 1862 he married Miss Pemberton, the daughter of a very 
able father, and the niece of Sir Donald MacLeod, of honoured and beloved 
memory. Then for four or five years he was Resident at Hyderabad, where 
he won the enduring friendship of Sir Salar Jung. " Everywhere he showed 
the same characteristic firm but benignant justice. Everywhere he gained 
the lasting attachment of all with whom he had intimate dealings— except 
tigers and scoundrels." 

Many years later, indignant at the then apparently supine attitude of the 
British Government in the matter of the Abyssinian captives, George Yule 
wrote a letter (necessarily published without his name, as he was then on the 
Governor-General's Council), to the editor of an influential Indian paper, 
proposing a private expedition should be organised for their delivery from 
King Theodore, and inviting the editor (Dr. George Smith) to open a list of 
subscriptions in his paper for this purpose, to which Yule offered to contribute 
;^20oo by way of beginning. Although impracticable in itself, it is probable 
that, as in other cases, the existence of such a project may have helped to 
force the Government into action. The particulars of the above incident 
were printed by Dr. Smith in his Memoir of the Rev. John Wilson, but are 
given here from memory. 

From Hyderabad he was promoted in 1867 to the Governor- General's 
Council, but his health broke down under the sedentary life, and he retired 
and came home in 1869. 

After some years of country life in Scotland, where he bought a small 
property, he settled near his brother in London, where he was a principal 
instrument in enabling Sir George Birdwood to establish the celebration of 
Primrose Day (for he also was "one of Mr. Gladstone's converts"). Sir 
George Y'ule never sought ' London Society ' or public employment, but in 
1877 he was offered and refused the post of Financial Adviser to the Khedive 
under the Dual control. When his feelings were stirred he made useful 
contributions to the public press, which, after his escape from official 
trammels, were always signed. The very last of these {St. James' Gazette., 
24th February 1885) was a spirited protest against the snub administered by 
the late Lord Derby, as Secretary of State, to the Colonies, when they had 
generously offered assistance in the Soudan campaign. He lived a quiet, 
happy, and useful life in London, where he was the friend and unwearied 
helper of all who needed help. He found his chief interests in books and 
flowers, and in giving others pleasure. Of rare unselfishness and sweet 
nature, single in mind and motive, fearing God and knowing no other fear, 
he was regarded by a large number of people with admiring affection. He 
met his death by a fall on the frosty pavement at his door, in the very act of 
doing a kindness. An interesting sketch of Sir George Yule's Indian career, 
by one who knew him thoroughly, is to be found in Sir Edward Braddon's 
Thirty Years of Shikar. An account of his share in the origin of Primrose 
Day appeared in the St. Jamas' Gazette during 1891. 






A BIBLIOGRAPHY OF SIR HENRY 
YULE'S WRITINGS 

COMPILED BY H. CORDIER AND A. F. YULE* 



1842 Notes on the Iron of the Kasia 
Hills, {/our. Asiatic Soc. Bengal, 
XI., Part II. July-Dec. 1842. pp. 

853-857-) 

Reprinted in Proceedings of the 
Museum of Economic Geology, 1852. 
1844 Notes on the Kasia Hills and 
People. By Lieut. H. Yule. [Jeur. 
Asiatic Soc. Bengal, XII. Part 
II. July-Dec. 1844, pp. 612- 

631.) 
1846 A Canal Act of the Emperor Akbar, 
with some notes and remarks on 
the History of the Western Jumna 
Canals. By Lieut. Yule. (Jour. 
Asiatic Society Bengal, XV. 1846, 
pp. 213-223.) 

1850 The African Squadron vindicated. 

By Lieut. H. Yule. Second 
Edition. London, J. Ridgway, 
1850, 8vo, pp. 41. 

Had several editions. Reprinted 
in the Colonial Magazine of ilarch, 

L'Escadre Africaine vengee. Par le 

lieutenant H. Yule. Traduit 
du Colonial Magazine de Mars, 
1850. (Revue Coloniale, Mai, 
1850.) 

1851 Fortification for Officers of the Army 

and Students of Military History, 
with Illustrations and Notes. By 
Lieut. H. Yule, Blackwood, 
MDCCCLI. 8vo, pp. xxii.-2io. 
(There had been a pre\nous edition 
privately printed.) 

La Fortification mise a la portee des 

Officiers de I'Armee et des per- 
sonnes qui se livrent ^ I'etude de 
I'histoire militaire (avec Atlas). 
Par H. Vule. Traduit de I'Anglais 
par ^L Sapia, Chef de Bataillon 



d'Arlillerie de Marine et M. 
Masselin, Capitaine du Genie. Paris, 
J. Correard, 1858, 8vo, pp. iii.-263, 
and Atlas. 

1 85 1 The Loss of the Birkeuhecui (Verses). 

(Edinburgh Courant, Dec. 1 85 1.) 

Republished in Henley's Lyra 
Heroica, a Book of Verse for Boys. 
London, D. Nutt, 1890. 

1852 Tibet. (Blacknvood' s Edinburgh 

Magazine, 1852.) 

1856 Narrative of Major Phayre's Mission 

to the Cotirt of Ava, with Notices 
of the Country, Government, and 
People. Compiled by Capt. H. 
Yule. Printed for submission to 
the Government of India. Calcutta, 
J. Thomas, .... 1856, 4to, pp. 
xxix. + I f. n. ch. p. 1. er. -f- 
PP- 315 + PP- cxiv. -t- pp. 
IT. and pp. 70. 

The last pp. iv. -70 contain : 
Notes on the Geoloj^ical features 
of the banks of the River Irawadee 
and on the Country north of the 
Amarapoora, by Thomas Oldham. 
.... Calcutta, 1856. 

A Narrative of the Mission sent by 

the Governor-General of India to 
the Court of Ava in 1855, with 
Notices of the Country, Government, 
and People. By Capt. H. Yule. 
With Numerous Illustrations. 
London, Smith, Elder & Co., 
1858, 4to. 

1857 On the Gec^raphy of Burma and its 

Tributary States, in illustration of 
a New Map of those Regions. 
(Journal, H.G.S., XXVII. 1857, 
pp. 54-108.) 

Notes on the Geography of Burma, 

in illustration of a Map of that 



* This list is based on the excellent preliminary List compiled by E. Delmar Morgan, published in the 
Scottish Geographical Magazine, vol. vi., pp. 97-98, but the present compilers have much more than 
doubled the number of entries. It is, however, known to be still incomplete, and any one able to add to 
the list, will greatly oblige the compilers by sending additions to the Publisher. — A. F. T. 

Izzv 



Ixxvl A BIBLIOGRAPHY OF SIR HENRY YULE'S WRITINGS 



Country. [Proceedhigs R. 6^.^.,vol.i. 
1857, pp. 269-273.) 
1857 An Account of the Ancient Buddhist 
Remains at Pagan on the Iravvadi. 
By Capt. H. Yule. (/our. Asiatic 
Society, Bengal, XXVI. 1857, pp. 

1 86 1 A few notes on Antiquities near 

Jubbulpoor. By Lieut. -Co!. H. 
Yule. {/otirnal Asiatic Society, 
Bengal, XXX. 1861, pp. 211-215.) 

Memorandum on the Countries 

between Thibet, Yunan, and 
Burmah. By the Very Rev. 
Thomine D'Mazure {sic), com- 
municated by Lieut. -Col. A. P. 
Phayre (with notes and a comment 
by Lieut.-Col. II. Yule). With a 
Map of the N. E. Frontier, prepared 
in the Office of the Surveyor-Gen. 
of India, Calcutta, Aug. 1861. 
{four. Asiatic Soc. Bengal, XXX. 
1 86 1, pp. 367-383.) 

1862 Notes of a brief Visit to some of the 

Indian Remains in Java. By 
Lieut.-Col. H. Yule. {/our. Asiatic 
Society, Bengal, XXXI. 1862, pp. 
16-31.) 
Sketches of Java. A Lecture de- 
livered at the Meeting of the 
Bethune Society, Calcutta, 13th 
Feb. 1862. 

Fragments of Unprofessional Papers 

gathered from an Engineer's port- 
folio after twenty-three years 
of service. Calcutta, 1862. 

Ten copies printed for private 
circulation. 

1863 Mirabilia descripta. The Wonders 

of the East. By Friar Jordanus, of 
the Order of Preachers and Bishop 
of Columbum in India the Greater 
{ci7-ca 1330). Translated from the 

Latin original, as published at 
Paris in 1839, in the Recueil de 

Voyages et de Mhnoires, of the 
Society of Geography, with the 
addition of a Commentary, by 
Col. H. Yule, London. 

Printed for the Hakluyt Society, 
M.DCCC.LXIII, 8vo, p. iv.-xvii.- 
68. 

Report on the Passes between Arakan 

and Burma [written in 1853]. {Papers 
on Indian Civil Engineering, vol. i. 
Roorkee. ) 
1866 Notices of Cathay. {Proceedings, 
P.G.S.yX. 1866, pp. 270-278.) _ 

Cathay and the Way Thither, being 

a Collection of Mediaeval Notices of 
China. Translated and Edited by 
Col. H, Yule With a Pre- 

liminary Essay on the Intercourse 



between China and the Western 
Nations previous to the Discovery 
of the Cape route. London, 
printed for the Hakluyt Society. 
M.DCCC.LXVI. 2 vols. 8vo. 

1866 The Insurrection at Palermo. 
{Times, 29th Sep., 1866.) 

Lake People. ( Tke Athenceum, No. 

2042, 15th Dec. 1866, p. 804.) 

Letter dated Palermo, 3rd Dec. 
1866. 

1 067 General Index to the third ten 
Volumes of the Journal of the 
Royal Geographical Society. Com- 
piled by Col. H. Yule. London, 
John Murray, M.DCCCLXVII, 
8vo, pp. 228. 

A Week's Republic at Palermo. 

{Quarterly Review, '^z.n. 1867.) 

On the Cultivation of Sumach {Rhus 

coriaria), in the Vicinity of Colli, 
near Palermo. By Prof. Inzenga. 
Translated by Col. H. Yule. 
Communicated by Dr. Cleghorn. 
From the Trans. Bot. Society, 
vol. ix., 1867-68, ppt. 8vo, p. 15. 
Original first published in the 
Annali di Agricoltura Siciliana, 
redatti per P Istituzionc del Principe 
di Castehiuovo. Palermo, 1852. 
1868 Marco Polo and his Recent Editors. 
{Quarterly Review, vol. 125, July 
and Oct. 1868, pp. 133 and 166.) 

1870 An Endeavour to Elucidate Rashi- 

duddin's Geographical Notices of 
India. {Jotirnal R. Asiatic Society, 
N.S. iv. 1870, pp. 340-356.) 

Some Account of the Senbyu 

Pagoda at Mengiin, near the 
Burmese Capital, in a Memorandum 
by Capt. E. H. Sladen, Political 
Agent at Mandale ; with Remarks 
on the Subject, by Col. H. Yule. 
{Ibid. pp. 406-429.) 

Notes on Analogies of Manners 

between the Indo-Chinese and 
the Races of the Malay Archipelago. 
{Report Fortieth Meeting British 
Association, Liverpool, Sept. 1870, 
p. 178.) 

1 87 1 The Book of Ser Marco Polo, the 

Venetian, Concerning the Kingdoms 
and Marvels of the East. Newly 
translated and edited with notes. 
By C(>1. H. Yule. In two volumes. 
With Maps and other Illustrations. 
London, John Murray, 1871, 2 vols. 
8vo. 

The Book of Ser Marco Polo, the* 

Venetian, concerning the Kingdoms 
and Marvels of the East. Newly 
translated and edited, with Notes, 
Maps, and other Illustrations. By 



A BIBLIOGRAPHY OF SIR HENRY YULE'S WRITINGS Ixxvii 



Col. H. Yule. Second edition. 
London, John Murray, 1875, 2 
vols. 8vo. 

1871 Address by Col. H. Yule. {Report 
Forty-First Meeting- British As- 
sociation, Edinburgh, Aug. 187 1, 
pp. 162-174.) 

1S72 A Journey to the Source of the River 
Oxus. By Captain John Wood, 
Indian Navy. New edition, edited 
by his Son. With an Essay on 
the Geography of the Valley of the 
Oxus. By Col. H. Yule. With 
maps. London, John Murray, 
1872. In-8, pp. XC.-280. 

Papers connected with the Upper 

Oxus Regions. (Journal, xlii. 

1872, pp. 438-481.) 

Letter [on Yule's edition of Wood's 

Ojcus\ {Ocean Highways, Feb. 
1874, p. 475.) 
Palermo, 9th Jan. 1874. 

1873 Letter [about the route of M. Polo 

through Southern Kerman]. {Ocerm 
Highways, March, 1873, p. 385.) 
Palermo, nth Jan. 1873. 

Oq Northern Sumatra and especially 

Achin. {Ocean Highways, Aug. 

1873, pp. 177-183.) 

Notes on Hwen Thsang's Account 

of the Principalities of Tokharistan, 
in which some pre\dous Geographical 
Identifications are reconsidered. 
{Jour. Royal Asiatic Society, N.S. 
vi. 1873, pp. 92-120 and p. 
278.) 

1874 Francis Gamier (In Memoriam). 

{Ocean Highways, pp. 487-491.) 
March, 1874. 

Remarks on Mr. Phillips's Paper 

[Notices of Southern Mangi]. {Jour- 
nal, XLIV. 1874, pp. 103-112.) 
Palermo, 22nd Feb. 1874. 

[Sir Frederic Goldsmid's] " Tele- 

graph and Travel." {Geographical 
Magazine, April, 1874, p. 34 ; 
Oct. 1874, pp. 300-303.) 

Geographical Notes on the Basins of 

the Oxus and the Zarafshan. By 
the late Alexis Fedchenko. {Geog. 
Mag., May, 1874, pp. 46-54.) 

[Mr. Ashton Dilke on the Valley of 

the Ili.] {Geog. Mag.,]vint, 1874, 
P- 1 230 

Palermo, 16th May, 1874. 

The Atlas Sinensis and other Sinen- 

siana. {Geog. Mag., ist July, 1847, 
pp. 147-148.) 

Letter [on Belasaghim]. {Geog. Mag., 

1st July, 1874, p. 167 ; Ibid, ist 
Sept. 1874, p. 254.) 

Palermo, 17th June, 1874; 8th 
Aug. 1874- 



1874 Bala Sagun and Karakorum. By 

Eugene Schuyler. With note by 
Col. Yule. {Geog. Mag., ist Dec. 

1874, p. 389.) 

M. Khanikoft's Identifications of 

Names in Clavijo. {Ibid. pp. 389- 

390- ) 

1875 Notes [to the translation by Eugene 

Schuyler of Palladius's version of 
The Journey of the Chinese Travel- 
ler, Chang Fe-hui\. {Geog. Mag., 
1st Jan. 1875, pp. 7-1 1). 

Some Unscientific Notes on the 

History of Plants. {Geog. Mag., 
ist Feb. 1875, pp. 49-51- ) 

Trade Routes to Western China. 

{Geog. Mag., April, 1875, pp. 
97-101.) 

Gr-rden of Transmigrated Souls 

[Friar Odoric]. {Geog. Mag., ist 
May, 1875, pp. 137-138.) 

A Glance at the Results of the Ex- 

pedition to Hissar. By Herr P. 
Lerch. {Geog. Mag., ist Nov. 

1875. PP- 334-339-) 

Kathay or Cathay. {Johnson's 

American Cyclopcedia.) 

Achfn. {Encycl. Brit. 9th edition, 

1875, I. pp. 95-97- ) 

Afghanistan. {Ibid. pp. 227-741.) 

Andaman Islands. {Ibid. II. 1875, 

pp. II-I3-) 

India [Ancient]. (Map No. 31, 1874, 

in An Atlas of Ancient Geography, 
edited by William Smith and George 
Grave. London, John Murray, 

1875.) 

1876 Mongolia, the Tangut Country, and 

the Solitudes of Northern Tibet, 
being ,1 Narrative of Three Years' 
Travel in Eastern High Asia. By 
Lieut. -Col. N. Prejevalsky, of the 
Russian Staff^ Corps ; Mem. of the 
Imp. Russ. Geog. Soc. Translated 
by E. Delmar Morgan, F.R.G.S. 
With Introduction and Notes by 
Col. H. Yule. With Maps and 
Illustrations. London, Sampson 
Low, 1876, 8vo. 

Tibet . . . Edited by C. R. Mark- 

ham. Notice of. {Times, 1876, 

?) 

Eastern Persia. Letter. {The 

Athenceum, No. 2559, nth Nov. 
1876.) 

Review of H. HowortKs History of 

the Mongols, Part I. ( The Athen- 
ceum. No. 2560, i8th Nov. 1876, 
pp. 654-656. ) Correspondence. 
{Ibid. No. 2561, 25th Nov. 1876.) 

Review of T. E. Gordon's Roof of 

the World. {The Academy, 15th 
July, 1876, pp. 49-50- ) 



Ixxviii A BIBLIOGRAPHY OF SIR HENRY YULE'S WRITINGS 



1876 Cambodia. (Encycl. Brit. IV. 1876, 

pp. 723-726.) 

1877 Champa. {Geog. Mag., ist March, 

1877, pp. 66-67.) 

Article written for the Encycl. 
Brit. 9th edition, but omitted for 
reasons which the writer did not 
clearly understand. 

• Quid, si Mundus evolvatur? {Spec- 
tator, 24th March, 1877.) 

Written in 1875. — Signed Mar- 
cus PaULUS VEiNETUS. 

■ On Louis de Backer's V Extreme- 
Orient au Moyen - Age. ( The 
Athenceum, No. 2598, nth Aug. 
1877, PP- 174-175-) 

On P. Dabry de Thiersant's Catholi- 

cisme e7i Chine. {The Athenatim, 
No. 2599, 1 8th Aug. 1877, pp. 209- 
210.) 

Review of Thomas de Quincey, His 

Lifeattd Writings. ByH.A. Page. 
{Times, 27th Aug. 1877.) 

Companions of Faust. Letter on 

the Claims of P, Castaldi. ( Times, 
Sept. 1877.) 

1878 The late Col. T. G. Montgomerie, 

R.E. (Bengal). {R. E. Journal, 
April, 1878.) 8vo, pp. 8. 

Mr. Henry M. Stanley and the Royal 

Geographical Society ; being the 
Record of a Protest. By Col. 
PI. Yule and H. M. Hyndman 
B.A., F.R.G.S. London: Bickers 
and Son, 1878, 8vo, pp. 48 

Review of -5z<rwa, Past and Present ; 

with Personal Reminiscences of the 
Country. By Lieut. -Gen. Albert 
Fytche. {The Athenceum, No. 
2634, 20th April, 1878, pp. 499- 
500.) 

Kayal. {The Athenceum, No. 2634, 

20th April, 1878, p. 515.) 
Letter dated April, 1878. 

Missions in Southern India. (Letter 

to Pall Mall Gazette, 20th June, 
1878.) 

Mr. Stanley and his Letters of 1875. 

(Letter to Pall Mall Gazette, 30th 
Jan. 1878.) 

Review oi Richthofen^ s China, Bd. I. 

{The Academy, 13th April, 1878, 
pp. 315-316.) 
— - — [A foreshadowing of the Phono- 
graph.] {The Athenceum, No. 
2636, 4th May, 1878.) 

1879 A Memorial of the Life and Services 

of Maj.-Gen. W. W. II. Greathed, 
C.B., Royal Engineers (Bengal), 
(1826-1878). Compiled by a P^iend 
and Brother Officer. London, 
printed for private circulation, 
1879, 8vo, pp. 57. 



{The 
Dec. 



1879 Review of Gaur: its Ruins and 

Inscriptions. By John Henry 
Ravenshaw. ( The Athenceum, No. 
2672, nth Jan. 1879, pp. 42-44.) 

Wellington College. (Letter to Pall 

Mall Gazette, 14th April, 1879.) 

Dr. Holub's Travels. {The 

Athenceum, No. 2710, 4tli Oct. 
1879, pp. 436-437-) 

Letter to Comm. Berchet, dated 

2nd Dec. 1878. {Archivio Veneto 
XVII. 1879. pp. 360-362.) 

Regarding some documents dis- 
covered by the Ab. Cav. V. Zanetti. 

Gaur. {Encyclop. Brit. X. 1879, 

pp. 112-I16.) 

Ghazni. {Ibid. pp. 559-562.) 

• Gilgit. {Ibid. pp. 596-599-) 

Singular Coincidences. 

Athenceum, No. 2719, 6th 
1 879-) 

1880 [Brief Obituary Notice of] General 

W. C. Macleod. {Pall Mall Gazette, 
loth April, 1880.) 

[Obituary Notice of] Gen. W. C. 

Macleod. {Proc. R. Geog. Soc, 
June, 1880.) 

An Ode in Brown Pig, Suggested 

by reading Mr. Lang's Ballades in 
Blue China. [Signed Marcus 
Paulus Venetus.] {St. James' 
Gazette, 17th July, 1880.) 

Notes on Analogies of Manners be- 

tween the Indo-Chinese Races and 
the Races of the Indian Archipel- 
ago. By Col. Yule {Jourti. 
Anthrop. Inst, of Great Britain 
and Ireland, vol. ix., 1880, pp. 
290-301.) 

Sketches of Asia in the Thirteenth 

Century and of Marco Polo's 
~ delivered at Royal 

Institute, i8th Nov. 



Travels, 
Engineer 
1880. 
[This 



Lecture, 



with slight 
modification, was also delivered 
on other occasions both before and 
after. Doubtful if ever fully reported. 
Dr. Holub's Collections. ( The 
Athenceum, No. 2724, loth Jan. 
1880.) 

Prof. Max M tiller's Paper at the 
Royal Asiatic Society. {Tlie 
Athenceum, No. 2731, 28th Feb. 
1880, p. 285.) 

The Temple of Buddha Gaya. 
(Review of Dr. Rafendraldla Mitrds 
Buddha Gaya.) {Sat. Rev., 27th 
March, 1870.) 

Mr. Gladstone and Count Karoiyi. 
(Letter to The Examiner, 22nd 
May, 1880, signed Tristram 
Shandy.) 



A BIBLIOGRAPHY OF SIR HENRY YULE'S WRITINGS Lxxix 



1880 Stiipa of Barhut. [Review of 
Cunningham's work.] 
{Sat. Rev., 5th June, 1880.) 

From Africa : Southampton, Fifth 

October, 1880. 

[Verses to Sir Bartle Frere.] 
{Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, 
Nov. 1880.) 

Review of H. Haworth's History of 

the Mongols, Part II. {The 
AtlientEitm, No. 2762, 2nd Oct. 
1880, pp. 425-427.) 

Verboten ist, a Rhineland Rhapsody. 

(Printed for private circulation 
only. ) 

Hindu-Kiish. {Encyclop. Brit. XI. 

1880, pp. 837-839.) 

The River of Golden Sand, the 

Narrative of a Journey through 
China and Eastern Tibet to Burmah, 
With Illustrations and ten Maps 
from Original Survevs. By Capt. 
W. Gill, Royal Engineers. With 
an Introductory Essay. By Col. H. 
Yule, London, John Murray, 
. . . 1880, 2 vols. 8vo, pp. 95-420, 

11-453- 

The River of Golden Sand : Being 

the Narrative of a Journey through 
China and Eastern Tibet to Burmah. 
By the late Capt. W. Gill, R.E. 
Condensed by Edward Colborne 
Baber, Chinese Secretary to H.M.'s 
Legation at Peking. Edited, with 
a Memoir and Introductory Essav, 
by Col. H, Yule. With 

Portrait, Map,, and Woodcuts. 
London, John Murray, 1883, 8vo., 
pp. 141-332. 

Memoir of Captain W. Gill, R.E., 

and Introductory Essay as prefixed 
to the New Edition of the " River of 
Golden Sand." By Col. H. Yule. 
London, John Murray, . . . 1884, 
8vo, [Paged 19- 141.] 
1881 [Notice on William Yule] in 
Persian Manuscripts in the British 
Museum. By Sir F. J. Goldsmid. 

{The Athenaum, No. 2813, 24th 
Sept. 1 88 1, pp. 401-403.) 

II Beato Odorico di Pordenone, ed i 

suoi Viaggi : Cenni dettati dal Col. 
Enrico Yule, quando s'inaugurava in 
Pordenone il Busto di Odorico il 
giorno, 23° Settembre, MDCCC- 
LXXXI, 8vo. pp. 8. 

Ilwen T'sang. {Encyclop. Brit. 

XII. 1881, pp. 418-419.) 

Ibn Batuta. {Ibid. pp. 607-609.) 

Kafiristan. {Ibid. XIII. 1881, pp. 

820-823.) 

Major James Rennell, F.R.S., of the 

Bengal Engineers. [Reprinted from 



the Royal Engitieer^ JournaI\, Svc, 
pp. 16. 

(Dated 7th Dec. iSSl.) 

1881 Notice of Sir William E. Baker. 

{St. James' Gazette, 2j\h Dec. 
1881.) 

Parallels [Matthew Arnold and de 

Barros]. {The Athemzum, No. 
2790, i6th April, 1881, pp. 536.) 

1882 Memoir of Gen. Sir William 

Erskine Baker, K.C.B., Royal 
Engineers (Bengal). Compiled by 
two old friends, brother officers 
and pupils. London. Printed for 
private circulation, 1882, 8vo., 
pp. 67. 

By H. Y [ule] and R. M. [Gen. 
R. Slaclagan]. 

Etymological Notes. {The Athen- 

ceum. No. 2837, llth March, 1882; 

No. 2840, 1st April, 1882, p. 413.) 
Lhasa. {Etuyclop. Brit. XIV, 1882, 

pp. 496-503- ) 
IFadono. { The Athenau/n, No. 2846, 

13th May, 1882, p. 602.) 

Dr. John 15rown. {The Athenarum, 

No. 2847, 20th May, 1882, pp. 635- 
636.) 

A Manuscript of Marco Polo. ( Tha 

Athemeum, No. 2851, 17th June, 
1882, pp. 765-766.) 

[About Baron Nordenskiold's 
Facsimile Edition.] 

Re\-iew of Ancient India as described 

by Ktesias the Knidian, etc. By 
J. W. M'Crindle. {The Athemeum, 
No. 2860, igih Aug. 1882, pp. 
237-238.) 

The Silver Coinage of Thibet. (Re- 

view of Terrien de Lacouperie's 
Paper. ) ( The Academy ^ 19th Aug. 
1882, pp 140-141.) 

Review of The Indian Balhara and 

the Arabian Intercourse with India. 
By Edward Thomas. {The 
Athenaum, No. 2866, 30th Sept. 
1882, pp. 428-429.) 

The Expedition of Professor Palmer, 

Capt. Gill, and Lieut. Charrington. 
(Letter in The Times, i6th Oct. 
1882.) 

Obituary Notice of Dr. Arthur 

Bumell. {Times, 20th Oct. 1882.) 

Capt. William Gill, R.E. [Notice 

oO- {The Times, 31st Oct. 1882.) 
See supra, first col. of this page. 

Notes on the Oldest Records of the 

Sea Route to China from Western 
Asia. By Col. Yule. Proc. 
of the Royal Geographical Society, 
and Monthly Record of Geography^ 
Nov. No. 1882, 8vo. 

Proceedings, N.S. IV. 1882, pp. 



IxXX A BIBLIOGRAPHY OF SIR HENRY YULE'S WRITINGS 



1885 



649-660. Read at the Geographical 
Section, Brit. Assoc, Soulhamplon 
Meeting, augmented and revised by 
the author. 

Lord Lawrence. [Review of Life 
of Lord Lawrence. By R. Bos- 
worth Smith.] {Quarterly Review, 
vol. 155, April, 1883, pp. 289- 
326.) 

Review of Across ChrysL By A. R. 
Colquhoun. {The Athencetim, No. 
2900, 26th May, 1883, pp. 663-665.) 

La Terra del Fuoco e Carlo Darwin. 
(Extractfrom Letter published by the 
FanfuUa, Rome 2nd June, 1883.) 

How was the Trireme rowed ? { 7/ie 
Academy, 6th Oct. 1883, p. 237.) 

Across ChrysL {The Athenceum, 
No. 2922, 27th Oct. 1883.) 

Political Fellowship in the India 
Council. (Letter in The Times, 
1 5th Dec. 1 883. ) [Heading was not 
Yule's.] 

Maldive Islands. {Encyclop. Brit. 
XV. 18S3, pp. 327-332.) 

Mandeviile. {Ibid. pp. 473-475-) 

A Sketch of the Career of Gen. 
John Reid Becher, C.B., Royal 
Engineers (Bengal). __ By an old 
friend and brother otticer. Printed 
for private circulation, 1884, 8vo, 
pp. 40. 

Rue Quills. {The Academy, No. 
620, 22nd March, 1884, pp. 204- 
205.) Reprinted in present ed. of 
Marco Polo, vol. ii. p. 596. 

Lord Canning. (Letter in The 
Times, 2nd April, 1884.) 

Sir Bartle Frere [Letter respecting 
Memorial of]. {St. James' Gazette, 
27th July, 1884.) 

Odoric. {Encyclop. Brit. XVIII. 
1884, pp. 728-729.) 

Ormus. {Ibid. pp. 856-858.) 

Memorials of Gen. Sir Edward 
Harris Greathed, K.C. B. Com- 
piled by the late Lieut. -Gen. Alex. 
Cunningham Robertson, C.P. 
Printed for private circulation. 
(With a prefatory notice of the 
compiler.) London, Harrison & 
Sons, . . . 1885, 8vo, pp. 95. 

The Prefatory Notice of Gen. 
A. C. Robertson is by II. Yule, 
June, 1885, p. iii.-viii. 

Anglo-Indianisms. (Letter in the 
St. James' Gazette, 30th July, 1885.) 

Obituary Notice of Col. Grant 
Allan, Madras Army. {From the 
Army and Navy Gazette, 22nd 
Aug. 1885.) 

Shameless Advertisements. (Letter 
in The Times, 28th Oct. 1885.) 



1886 Marco Polo. {Encyclop. Brit. XIX. 

1885, pp. 404-409.) 

Prester John. {Ibid. pp. 714-718.) 

— ~ Brief Notice of Sir Edward Clive 

Bayley. Pages ix.-xiv. [Prefixed 
to The History of India as told 
by its own Historians: Gujarat. 
By the late Sir Edward Clive Bay- 
ley.] London, Allen, 1886, 8vo. 

Sir George Udny Yule. In 

Memoriam. {St. James" Gazette, 
i8thjan. 1886.) 

Cacothanasia. [Political Verse, 

Signed M-qviv 'AEIAE {St. James' 
Gazette, ist Feb. 1886.) 

William Kay, D.D. [Notice of]. 

(Letter to The Guardian, 3rd Feb. 
1886.) 

Col. George Thomson, C.B., R.E. 

{Royal Ettgineers' Journal, 1886.) 

Col. George Thomson, C.B. [Note]. 

{St. James' Gazette, i6th Feb. 
1886.) 

Hidden Virtues [A Satire on W. E. 

Gladstone]. (Letter to the St. James' 

Gazette, 21st March, 1886. Signed . 
M. P. V.) 
Burma, Past and Present. {Qtcart. 

Rev. vol. 162, Jan. and April, 1886, 

pp. 210-238.) 
Errors of Facts, in two well-known 

Pictures. 

{The Athenceum, No. 3059, 12th 

June, 1886, p. 788.) 
[Obituary Notice of] Lieut. -Gen. 

Sir Arthur Phayre, C.B., K.C.S.I., 

G.C.M.G. {Proc. R.G.S., N.S. 

1886, VIII. pp. 103-112.) 

" Lines suggested by a Portrait in 

the Millais Exhibition." 

Privately printed and (though 
never published) widely circulated. . 
These powerful verses on Gladstone 
are those several times referred to 
by Sir Mountstuart Grant Duff, in 
his published Diaries. 

Introductory Remarks on The Rock- 
Cut Caves and Statues of Bamian. 
By Capt. the Hon. M. G. Talbot. 
{Journ. R. As. Soc. N.S. XVIII. 
1886, pp. 323-329-) 

Opening Address. {Ibid. pp. i.-v. ) 

Opening Address. {Ibid. xix. pp. 

i.-iii.) 

Hobson-Jobsoniana. By H. Yule 

{Asiatic Quarterly Review, vol. i. . 
1886, pp. 1 19-140.) 

HOBSON-JOBSON : Being a Glossary 

of Anglo- Indian Colloquial Words 
and Phrases, and of Kindred Terms ; 
etymological, historical, geographi- 
cal, and discursive. By Col. H. 
Yule, and the late Arthur Coke 



A BIBLIOGRAPHY OF SIR HENRY YULE'S WRITINGS IxXXl 



Burnell, Ph.D., CLE., author of 
" The Elements of South Indian 
Palaeography," etc., London, John 
Murray, 1886. (All rights reserved), 
8vo, p. xliii.-87o. Preface, etc. 

A new edition is in preparation 
under the editorship of Mr. William 
Crooke ( 1902). 

1886 John Bunyan. (Letter in St. Jame^ 
Gazette, circa 31st Dec. 1886. 
Signed M. P. V.) 

Rennell. {Ettcyclop. Brit. XX. 1886, 

pp. 398-401.) 

Rubruquis [Ibid. XXI. 1886, pp. 46- 

47-) 
18S7 Lieut. -Gen. W. A. Crommelen, 

C.B., R.E. {Royal Engineers' 

Journal, 1887.) 
[Obituary Notice] Col. Sir J. U. 

Bateman Champain. [Times, and 

Feb. 1887). 
"Pulping Public Records." (Notes 

and Queries, 19th March, 1887.) 

A Filial Remonstrance (Political 

Verses). Signed M. P. V. {St. 
James' Gazette, 8th Aug. 1887.) 

Memoir of Major-Gen. J. T. Boileau, 

R.E., F.R.S. By C. R. Low, LN., 
F. R. G. S. With a Preface by Col. H. 
Yule, C.B., London, Allen, 1887. 

The Diary of William Hedges, Esq. 

(afterwards Sir William Hedges), 
during his Agency in Bengal ; as 
well as on his voyage out and return 
overland (168 1 -1687). Transcribed 
for the Press, with Introductory 
Notes, etc., by R. Barlow, Esq., 
and illustrated by copious extracts 
from unpublished records, etc., by 
Col. H. Yule. Pub. for Hakluyt 
Society. London, 1887- 1 889, 3 
vols. 8vo. 

1888 Concerning some little known 
Travellers in the East. {Asiatic 
Quarterly Review, V. 1888, pp. 

3I2-335-) 

No. I. — George Strachan. 

Concerning some little known 

Travellers in the East. {Asiatic 
Quarterly Review, VI. 1888, pp. 
382-398.) 

No. II. — William, Earl of Den- 
bigh ; Sir Henry Skipwith ; and 
others. 

Notes on the St. James's of the 6th 

Jan. [A Budget of Miscellaneous 
interesting criticism.] (Letter to 
St. Janus' Gazette, 9th Jan. 18S8.) 

Deflections of the Nile. (Letter in 

The Times, 15th Oct. 18S8.) 

The History of the Pitt Diamond, 

being an excerpt from Documentary 
Contributions to a Biography of 
VOL. I. 



Thomas Pitt, prepared for issue [in 
Hedges' Diary] by the Hakluyt 
Society. London, 1888, 8vo. pp. 23. 
Fifty Copies printed for private 
circulation. 
1889 The Remains of Pagan. By H. 
Yule. {Triibner's Record, 3rd ser. 
vol. i. pt. i. 1889, p. 2.) 

To introduce notes by Dr. E. 
Forchammer. 

A Coincident Idiom. By 11. Yule. 

{Triibner's Record, 3rd ser. vol. i. 
pt. iii. pp. 84-85.) 

The Indian Congress [a Disclaimer]. 

(Letter to The Times, istjan. 1889.) 
— — Arrowsmith, the Friend of Thomas 
Poole. (Letter in The Academy, 
9th Feb. 1889, p. 96.) 
Biographies of Sir Henry Yule. 

Colonel Sir Henry Yule, K.C.S.I., 

C.B., LL.D., R.E. By General 
'Robert Maclagan, R.E. {Proceed. 
Roy. Geog. Soc. XII. 1890, pp. 
108-I13.) 

Colonel Sir Henry Yule, K.C.S.I., 

C.B., LL.D., R.E., etc. (With a 
Portrait). By E. Delmar Morgan. 
{Scottish Geographical Magazine, 
VI. 1890, pp. 93-98.) Contains a 
very good Biblic^raphy. 

— - Col. Sir H. Yule, R. E. , C. B. , K. C. S . I. , 
by Maj.-Gen. T. B. Collinson, 
R.E., Royal Engineers' Journal, 
March, 1890. [This is the best of 
the Notices of Yule which appeared 
at the time of his death.] 

Sir Henry Yule, K. C.S.I , C.B., 

LL.D., R.E., by E. H. Giglioli. 
Roma, 1890, ppt. 8vo, pp. 8. 

Estratto dal BoUettino della 
Society Geografica Italiana, Marzo, 
1890. 

Sir Henry Yule. By J. S. C[otton]. 

{The Academy, nth Jan. 1890, No. 
923, pp. 26-27. ) 

Sir Henry Yule. {The Athemeum, 

No. 3245, 4th Jan. 1900, p. 17 ; 
No. 3246, nth Jan. p. 53; No. 
3247, 1 8th Jan. p. 88.) 

In Memoriam. Sir Henry Yule. 

By D. M. {The Academy, 29th 
March, 1890, p. 222.) 

See end of Memoir in present 
work. 

Le Colonel Sir Henry Yule. Par M. 

Henri Cordier. Extrait du_/<7«A-Ma/ 
Asiatique. Paris, Imprimerie 
nationale, MDCCCXC, in-8, pp. 
26. 

The same. Bulletin de la Soci^ti de 

G^ographie. Par M. Henri Cordier. 
1890, 8vo, pp. 4. 
Meeting 17th Jan. 1890. 



/ 



Ixxxii A BIBLIOGRAPHY OF SIR HENRY YULE'S WRITINGS 



1889 Baron F. von Richthofen. ( Ver- 
handlungeti der Gesellschaft fur 
Erdkunde zu Berlitt, xvii. 2.) 

■ Colonel Sir Henry Yule, R.E., C.B., 

K. C.S.I. Memoir by General R. 
Ms.Q.\z.ga.T\,Jotirn. R. A sialic Society, 
1890. 

Memoir of Colonel Sir Henry Yule, 

R.E., C.B., K.C.S.L, LL.D., etc. 
By Coutts Trotter. (Proceedi ''gs of 
the Royal Society of Edinburgh, 
1 89 1, p. xliii. to p. Ivi.) 



1889 Sir Henry Yule (1820-1889). By 
Coutts Trotter. {Diet, of National 
Biography, Ixiii. pp. 405-407.) 

1903 Memoir of Colonel Sir Henry Yule, 
R.E., C.B., K.C.S.I., Corn Inst. 
France, by his daughter. Amy 
Frances Yule, L.A.Soc. Ant. Scot., 
etc. Written for third edition of 
Yule's Marco Polo. Reprinted for 
private circulation only. 



SYNOPSIS OF CONTENTS. 



MARCO POLO AND HIS BOOK. 
INTRODUCTORY NOTICES. 



Page 



I. Obscurities in the History of his Life and Book. 

Ramusio's Statements / 

§ I. Obscurities, etc. 2. Ramusio his earliest Biographer ; his Account 
of Polo. 3. He vindicates Polo's Geography. 4. Compares him 
with Columbus. 5. Recounts a Tradition of the Traveller's Return 
to Venice. 6. Recounts Marco's Capture by the Genoese. 7. His 
statements about Marco's liberation and marriage. 8. His accoimt 
of the Family Polo and its termination. 

II. Sketch of the State of the East at the Time of the 

Journeys of the Polo Family 8 

§ 9. State of the Levant. 10. The various Mongol Sovereignties in Asia 
and Eastern Europe, il. China. 12. India and Indo-China. 

III. The Polo Family. Personal Hi.story of the Travel- 
lers TILL their final RETURN FROM THE EAST . IJ 

§ 13. Alleged origin of the Polos. 14. Claims to Nobility. 15. The 
Elder Marco Polo. 16. Nicolo and Maffeo Polo commence their 
Travels. 17. Their intercourse with Kublai Kaan. 18. Their 
return home, and Marco's appearance on the scene. 19. Second 
Journey of the Polo Brothers, accompanied by Marco. (See App. 
L. I.) 20. Marco's Employment by Kublai Kaan; and his 
Journeys. 21. Circumstances of the departure of the Polos 
from the Kaan's Court. 22. They pass by Persia to Venice. 
Their relations there. 
VOL. I. ^"'' / 2 



Ixxxiv SYNOPSIS OF CONTENTS 

Page 

IV. Digression concerning the Mansion of the Polo 

Family at S. Giovanni Grisostomo . ... 26 

§ 23. Probable period of their estal)lishment at S. Giovanni Grisostomo. 
24. Relics of the Casa Polo in the Corte Sabbionera. 24a. Re- 
cent corroboration as to traditional site of the Casa Polo. 

V. Digression concerning the War-Galleys of the Medi- 
terranean States in the Middle Ages . . . j/ 

§ 25. Arrangement of the Rowers in Medijeval Galleys ; a separate Oar 
to every Man. 26. Change of System in 1 6th Century. 27. Some 
detailsof 13th-century Galleys. 28. Fighting Arrangements. 29. 
Crew of a Galley and Staff of a Fleet. 30. Music and miscel- 
laneous particulars. 

VI. The Jealousies and Naval Wars of Venice and 
Genoa. Lamba Doria's Expedition to the Adriatic ; 
Battle of Curzola; and Imprisonment of Marco 
Polo by the Genoese 41 

§ 31. Growing Jealousies and Outbreaks between the Republics. 
32. Battle in Bay of Ayas in 1294. 33. Lamba Doria's Expedi- 
tion to the Adriatic. 34. The Fleets come in sight of each other 
at Curzola. 35. The Venetians defeated, and Marco Polo a 
Prisoner. 36. Marco Polo in Prison dictates his Book to 
Rusticiano of Pisa. Release of Venetian Prisoners. 37. Grounds 
on which the story of Marco Polo's capture at Curzola rests. 

VII. Rusticiano or Rustichello of Pisa, Marco Polo's 
Fellow-Prisoner at Genoa, the Scribe who wrote 
DOWN THE Travels 53 

§ 38. Rusticiano, perhaps a Prisoner from Meloria. 39. A Person known 
from other sources. 40. Character of his Romance Compilations. 
41. Identity of the Romance Compiler with Polo's Fellow- 
Prisoner. 42. Further particulars regarding Rusticiano. 

VIII. Notices of Marco Polo's History after the Termina- ? 
TioN of his Imprisonment at Genoa .... ^64. 

§ 43. Death of Marco's Father before 1300. Will of his Brother Maffeo. 
44. Documentary Notices of Polo at ttiis time. The Sobriquet of 
Milione. 45. Polo's relations with Thibault de Cepoy. 46. His 
Marriage, and his Daughters. Marco as a Merchant. 47. His 
Last Will ; and Death. 48. Place of Sepulture. Professed 
Portraits of Polo. 49. Further History of the Polo Family. 
49 bis. Reliques of Marco Polo. 

IX. Marco Polo's Book; and the Language in which it 

WAS FIRST written 80 

% 50. General Statement of what the Book contains. 51. Language of 
the original Work. 52. Old French Text of the Societe de 
Geographic. 53. Conclusive proof that the Old French Text is 
the source of all the others. 54. Greatly diffused employment of 
French in that age. 



SYNOPSIS OF CONTENTS IXXXV 

Pack 

X. Various Types of Text of Marco Polo's Book . . go 

§ 55. Four Principal Tj-pes of Text. First, that of the Geographic or 
Oldest French. 56. Second, the Remodelled French Text ; 
followed by Pauthier. 57. The Bern MS. and two others form a 
sub-class of this type. 58. Third, Friar Pipino's Latin. 59. The 
Latin of Grj-nseus, a translation at Fifth Hand. 60. Fourth, 
Ramusio's Italian. 61. Injudicious Tamperings in Ramusio. 
62. Genuine Statements peculiar to Ramusio. 63. Hypothesis 
of the Sources of the Ramusian Version. 64. Summary in regard 
to Text of Polo. 65. Notice of a curious Irish Version. 

XI. Some Estimate of the Character of Polo and His 

Book .... 104 

§ 66. Grounds of Polo's Pre-eminence among Mediseval Travellers. 
67. His true claims to glory. 68. His personal attributes seen 
but dimly. 69. Absence of scientific notions. 70. Map con- 
structed on Polo's data. 71. Singular omissions of Polo in 
regard to China ; historical inaccuracies. 72. Was Polo's Book 
materially affected by the Scribe Rusticiano ? 73. Marco's 
reading embraced the Alexandrian Romances. Examples. 
74. Injustice long done to Polo. Singular Modem Example. 

XII. Contemporary Recognition of Polo and his Book . ji6 

§ 75. How far was there diffusion of his Book in his own day ? 76. Con- 
temporary References to Polo. T, de Cepoy ; Pipino ; Jacopo 
d'Acqui ; Giov. Villani. 77. Pietro d'Abano ; Jean le Long of 
Ypres. 78. Curious borrowings from Polo in the Romance of 
Bauduin de Sebourc. 78 bis. Chaucer and Marco Polo. 

XIII. Nature of Polo's Influence on Geographical Know- 

ledge . i2g 

§ 79. Tardy operation, and causes thereof. 80. General characteristics 
of Mediaeval Cosmography. 81. Roger Bacon as a Geographer. 
82. Arab Geography. 83. Marino Sanudd the Elder. 84. The 
Catalan Map of 1 375, the most complete mediaeval embodiment 
of Polo's Geography. 85. Fra Mauro's Map. Confusions in 
Cartography of the i6th Century from the endeavour to combine 
new and old information. 86. Gradual disappearance of Polo's 
nomenclature. 87. Alleged introduction of Block-printed Books 
into Europe by Marco Polo in connexion with the fiction of the 
irivention of Printing by Castaldi of Feltre. 88. Frequent 
opportunities for such introduction in the Age following Polo's. 

XIV. Explanations regarding the Basis adopted for the 

Present Translation 141 

% 89. Texts followed by Marsden and by Pauthier. 90. Eclectic Forma- 
tion of the English Text of this Translation. 91. Mode of render- 
ing Proper Names. 



Ixxxvi SYNOPSIS OF CONTENTS 



THE BOOK OF MARCO POLO. 



PROLOGUE. 

Pack 

Preliminary Address of Rusticiano of Pisa . . i 

Chap. 

I. — How THE Two Brothers Polo set forth from Con- 
stantinople TO traverse the World ... 2 

Notes. — 1. Chronology. 2. " The Great Sea" The Port of Soldaia. 

II. — How THE Two Brothers went on bs:yond Soldaia . 4 

Notes. — l. Site and Ruins of Sarai. 2. City of Bolghar. ^. Alau 
Lord of the Levant {i.e. Hulaku). 4. Ucaca on the Volga. 
5. River Tiger i. 

III. — How THE Two Brothers, after crossing a Desert, 

CAME TO THE CiTY OF BOCARA, AND FELL IN WITH 

CERTAIN Envoys there 9 

Notes. — i. ^' Bocara a City of Persia." 2. The Great Kaans 
Envoys. 

IV. — How THE Two Brothers took the Envoys' counsel, 

AND WENT TO THE COURT OF THE GREAT KAAN . . II 

V, — How THE Two Brothers arrived at the Court of 

THE Great Kaan 11 

VI,— How the Great Kaan asked all about the manners 
OF THE Christians, and particularly about the 
Pope of Rome 12 

Note. — Apostoille. The name Tartar. 

VII. — How the Great Kaan sent the two Brothers as 

his Envoys to the Pope 13 

Notes. — i. The Great KaatH s Letter. 2. The Seven Arts. 3. Re- 
ligious Indiffei-ence of the Mongol Princes. 

VIII.— How the Great Kaan gave them a Tablet of Gold, 

Bearing his Orders in their behalf. . ... 15 
Notes.— I. The Tabled. 2. The Port of Ay as. 

IX. --How THE Two Brothers came to the City of Acre ; 

AND thence 10 Venice 17 

Notes. — i. Names of the deceased Pope and of the Legate. 2. Negro- 
pont. 3. Mark^s age. 

X. — How THE Two Brothers again departed from 
Venice, on their Way back to the Great Kaan, 
and took avith them Mark, the Son of Messer 
NicoLO 19 

Note. — Oil fro tn the Holy Sepulchre. 



SYNOPSIS OF CONTENTS IxxXVli 

Chap. Page 

XI. — How THE Two Brothers set out from Acre, .\nd 

Mark along with them 20 

Note. — Pope Gregory X. and his Election. 

XII. — How the Two Brothers presented themselves 

BEFORE THE NEW POPE 22 

Notes. — i. William of Tripoli. 2. Powers conceded to Missionary 
Friars. 3. Bundukddr and his Invasion of Armenia ; his 
character. 4. The Templars in Cilician Armenia. 

XIII. — How Messer Nicolo and Messer M.\ffeo Polo, 

ACCOMPANIED BY MARK, TRAVELLED TO THE COURT 

OF THE Great Kaan 25 

Note. — The City of Kemenfu, Summer Residence of Kiibldi. 

XIV.— How Messer Nicolo and Messer Maffeo Polo and 
Marco presented themselves before the Great 
Kaan 26 

Notes. — i. Verbal. 2. *' Vostre Homme." 
XV.— How the Lord sent Mark on an Embassy of his 27 

Notes. — l. The four Characters learned by Marco, what? 2. 
Ramusids addition. 3. Nature of Marco's employment. 

XVI. — How Mark returned from the Mission whereon 

he had been sent 30 

XVII.— How Messer Nicolo, Messer Maffeo, and Messer 
Marco, asked Leave of the Great Kaan to go 

their Way 31 

Notes. — i. Risks to Foreigners on a change of Sovereign. 2. The 
Lady Bolgana. 3. Passage from Ramusio. 

XVIII.— How THE Two Brothers and Messer Marco took 
Leave of the Great Kaan, and returned to their 
OWN Country 34 

Notes. — l. Mongol Royal Messengers. 2. Mongol communication 
with the King of England. 3. Mediaval Ships of China. 
4. Passage from China to Sumatra. 5. Mortality among 
the party. 6. The Lady Cocachin in Persian History. 
1, Death of the Kaan. 8. The Princess of Manzi. 



BOOK FIRST. 



Account of Regions Visited or heard of on the Journey from the 
Lesser Armenia to the Court of the Great Kaan at Chandu. 

I. — Here the Book begins ; and first it speaks of 
THE Lesser Hermenia 41 

Notes. — i. Little Armenia. 2. Meaning of Chzs\.&iM3i. 3. Sick- 
liness of Cilician Coast. 4. The phrase "fra terre." 



Ixxxviii SYNOPSIS OF CONTENTS 

Chap. P^cb 

II.— Concerning THE Province OF TuRCOMANiA . . •. 43 

Notes. — I. Brutality of the people. 2. Application of name 'Ymco- 
mania. Turcotnan Hordes. 

III.— Description of the Greater Hermenia ... 45 

Notes. — i. Erzingan. Buckrams, w/iat were they ? 2. Erzrtun. 

3. Baiburt. 4. Ararat. 5. Oil wells of Baku. 

IV.— Of Georgiania and the Kings thereof ... 50 
Notes. — i. Georgian Kings. 2. The Georgians. 3. The Iron 
Gates and Wall of Alexander. 4. Box forests. £. Gos- 
haivks. 6. Fish Miracle. 7. Sea of Ghel or Ghelan. 
Names ending in -an. 8. Names of the Caspian, and 
navigation thereon. 9. Fish in the Caspiaii. 

v.— Of the Kingdom of Mausul 60 

Notes. — l. Atabeks of Mosul. 2. Nestorian and Jacobite 
Christiatis. 3. Mosolins. 4. The Kurds. 5. Mush and 
Mardin. 

VI.— Of the Great City of Baudas, and how it was taken 63 
Notes. — \. Baudas, or Baghdad. 2. Island of Kish. 3. Basra. 

4. Baldachins and other silk textures ; Animal patterns. 

5. 6, Huldk^s Expedition. 7. llie Death of the Khalif 
Mosta'sim. 8. Froissart. 

VII.— How THE Calif of Baudas took counsel to slay all 

the Christians in his Land 68 

Notes. — i. Chronology. 2. "^j Regisles e/ i-^j Casses." 

VIII.— How THE Christians were in great dismay because 

OF what the Calif had said . . . . . .70 

Note. — The word " cralantur." 

IX.— How the One-eyed Cobler was desired to pray for 

THE Christians 71 

X. — How THE Prayer of the One-eyed Cobler caused 

THE Mountain to move 72 

Note. — The Mountain Miracle. 

XI.— Of the Noble City of Tauris 74 

Notes. — i. Tabriz. 2. Cremesor. 3. Traffc at Tabriz. 4. The 
Torizi. 5. Character of City and People. 

XII.— Of the Monastery of Saint Barsamo on the Borders 

OF Tauris yy 

Note. — The Monastery of Barsauma. 

XIII.— Of the Great Country of Persia; with some account 

OF THE Three Kings 78 

Notes. — i. Kald! Atishparastdn. 2. The Three Kings. 

XIV.— How the Three Kings returned to their own 

Country 79 

Notes. — i. The three mystic Gifts. 2. The Worshipped Fire. 3. 
.^dvah and Avah. The Legend in Mas'udi. Embellishments 
of the Story of the Magi. 



SYNOPSIS OF CONTEXTS Ixxxix 

Chap. Page 

XV.— Of the Eight Kingdoms of Persia, and how they are 

NAMED 83 

Notes. — i. Tlu Eight Kingdoms. 2. Export of Horses, and Prices. 
3. Persian Brigands. 4. Persian wine. 

XVI.— Concerning the Great City of Yasdi .... 88 

Notes. — i. Yezd. 2. Yezd to Kerman. The Woods spoken of . 
XVII.— Concerning the Kingdom of Kerman .... 90 

Notes. — i. City and Province of Kerman. 2. Turquoises. 3. On- 
danique or Indian Steel. 4. Manufactures of Kerman. 
5. Falcons. 
XVIII.— Of the City of Camadi and its Ruins; also 

touching the Carauna Robbers 97 

Notes. — i. Products of the warmer plains. 2. Humped oxen and 
fat-tailed sheep. 3. Scarani. 4. The Karaunahs and Nigu- 
darian Bands. 5. Canosalmi. 

XIX.— OF THE Descent to the City of Hormos . . .107 

Notes. — i. Site of Old Hormuz and Geography of the roitte from 
Kerman to Hormuz. 2. Dates and Fish Diet. 3. Stitched 
Vessels. " One rudder," why noticed as peculiar. 4. Great 
heat at Hormuz. 5. The Simum. 6. History of Hormuz, 
and Polo's Ruonudan A com at. 7. Second Koiiti between 
Hormuz atid Kerman. 

XX. — Of the Wearisome and Desert Road that has 

NOW TO BE Travelled 123 

Notes. — l. Kerman to Kubendn. 2. Desert of Lut. 3. Subter- 
raneous Canals. 

XXI.— Concerning the City of Cobinan and the things 

that are made there 125 

Notes. — i. Kuh-Bandn. 2. Production of Tuttd. 

XXII.— Of a certain Desert that continues for eight 

days' Journey 127 

Notes. — l. Deserts of Khorasan. 2. T'/i*; Arbre Sol ^?r Arbre Sec. 

XXIII. — Concerning the Old Man of the Mountain . . 139 

Note. — The Assassins, Hashtshin, or Muldhidah. 

XXIV. — How THE Old Man used to train his Assassins . 142 

Notes. — l. The story widely spread. Notable murders by the 
Sectaries. 2. Their different branches. 

XXV.— How the Old Man came by His End . . . .145 
Note. — History of the apparent Destruction of the Sect by Huldku ; 
its survival to the present time. Castles of Alamut and 
Girdkuh. 

XXVI.— Concerning the City of Sapurgan . . 149 

Note. — Shibrgdn, and the route followed. Dried Melons. 

XXVII.— Of the City of Balc 151 

Notes. — i. Balkh. 2. Country meant by "Do^pins.. -^ Lions in the 
Oxus Valley. 



XC SYNOPSIS OF CONTENTS 

Chap. - p^^,j 

XXVIII.— Of Taican, and the Mountains of Salt. Also of 

THE Province of Casem 153 

Notes. — i. Talikan. 2. Mines of Rock-salt. 3. Eihnological char- 
acteristics. 4. Kislini. 5. Porcupines. 6. Cave dwellings. 
7. Old and Nezv Capitals of Badakhshan. 

XXIX.— Of the Province of Badashan 157 

Notes.— I. Dialects of Badakhshan. Alexandrian lineage of the 
Princes. 2, Badakhshan and the Balas Ruby. 3. Azure 
Mines. 4. Horses of Badakhshan. 5. Naked Barley. 6. 
Wild sheep. 7. Scenery of Badakhshan. 8. Repeated devas- 
tation of the Countiy from War. 9. Amplitude of feminine 
garments. 

XXX. — Of the Province of Pashai 164 

Note. — On the country intended by this name. 
XXXI.— Of the Province of Keshimur 166 

Notes. — i. Kashmir language. 2. Kashmir Conjurers, (See 
App. L. 2.) 3. Importance of Kashmir in Histoty of Budd- 
hism. 4. Character of the People. 5. Vicissitudes of Budd- 
hism in Kashmir. 6. Buddhist practice as to slaughter of 
animals. 7. Coral. 

XXXII. — Of the Great River of Badashan ; and Plain of 

Pamier . 170 

Notes.— I. The Upper Oxus and Wakhan. The title ^ono. (See 
App. L. 3.) 2, The Plateati of Pamir. (See App. L. 4 and 
5.) The Great Wild Sheep. Fire at great altitudes, t^. Bolor. 

XXXIII. — Of the Kingdom of Cascar i8o 

Note. — Kashgar. 

XXXIV.— Of THE Great City OF Samarcan . . . .183 

Notes. — i. Christians in Samarkand. 2. Chagatai's relation to 
Kubldi mis-stated. 3. The Miracle of the Stone. 

XXXV.— Of THE Province OF Yarcan 187 

Note. — Yarkand. Gottre prevalent there. 

XXXVI.— Of a Province called Cotan 188 

Notes. — l. Government. 2. "Adoration of Mahommet." t,. Khotati. 

XXXVII.— Of THE Province OF Pein 191 

Notes. — i. Position of Pein [A.^^^. L. 6.) 2. The Yyx or Jade. 3. 
Temporary marriages. 

XXXVIII.— Of THE Province OF Charchan 194 

Note. — Position of Charchan and Lop. 

XXXIX.— Of THE City of Lop, and the Great Desert . .196 

Notes. — l. Geographical discrepancy. 2. Superstitions as to 
Deserts : their wide diffusion. The Sound of Drums on cer- 
tain sandy acclivities. 3. Sha-chau to Lob-nor. 



SYNOPSIS OF CONTENTS XCl 

Chap. Page 

XL.— Concerning the Great Province of Tangut . ., 203 

Notes. — i. Tangut. 2. Buddhism encountered here. 3. Kabnak 
superstition, the " Heaven's Ram." 4. Chinese customs de- 
scribed here. ^. Mongol disposal of the Dead. 6. Superstitious 
practice of avoiding to carry out the dead by the house-door ; 
its wide diffusion. 

XLI.— Of the Province of Camul 209 

Notes. — i. Kamtil. 2. Character of the people. 3. Shameless 
custom. 4. Parallel. 

XLI I.— Of the Province of Chingintalas . . . .212 

Notes.— i. The Country intended. 2. Ondanique. 3. Asbestos 
Mountain. 4. The four elements. 5 a7id 6. The Story of 
the Salamander. Asbestos fabrics. 

XLIIL— Of THE Province OF SuKCHUR .... 217 

Notes. — i. Explanatory. 2. The City of Suhchau. t^. Rhubarb 
count ly. 4. Poisonous pasture. 

XLIV. — Of the City OF Campichu 219 

Notes. — l. The City of Kanchau. 2. Recumbent Buddhas. 3. 
Buddhist Days of Special Worship. 4. Matrimonial Customs. 
5. Textual. 

XLV. — Of the City of Etzina 223 

Notes. — i. Position of Yetsina. 2. Textual. 3. The Wild 
Ass of Mongolia. 

XLVL— Of the City of Caracoron 226 

Notes. — i. Karakorum. 2. Tartar. 3. Chorcha. 4. Prester John. 

XLVIL— Of Chinghis, and how he became the First Kaan 

OF THE Tartars . 238 

Notes. — l. Chronology. 2. Relations between Chinghiz and Aung 
Khan, the Prester John of Polo. 

XLVIIL— How Chinghis mustered his People to march 

against Prester John . . . . . 240 

XLIX.— How Prester John marched to meet Chinghis . 241 
Notes. — i. Plain of Tanduc. 2. Divination by Twigs and Arrozvs. 

L.— The Battle between Chinghis Kaan and Prester 

John. Death of Chinghis 244 

Note. — Real circumstances and date of the Death of Chinghiz. 

LL— Of those who did Reign after Chinghis Kaan, 

AND OF the Customs of the Tartars . . 245 

Notes. — l. Origin of the Cambuscan of Chaucer. 2. Historical 
Errors. 3. The Place of Sepulture of Chinghiz. 4. Barbar- 
ous Funeral Superstition. 

LIL— Concerning THE Customs OF THE Tartars . -251 

Notes. — l. Tartar Huts. 2. Tartar Waggons. 3. Pharaoh's 
Rat. 4. Chastity of the Women. 5. Polygamy a^ui Marriage 
Customs, 



XCll SYNOPSIS OF CONTENTS 

Chap. P^gb 

LIII. — Concerning THE God OF THE Tartars . . . 256 

Notes. — i. The old Tartar idols. 2. Ktimiz. 

LIV. — Concerning the Tartar Customs of War . . 260 

Notes. — l. Tartar Arms. 2. The Decimal Division of their 
Troops. 3. Textual. 4. Blood-drinking. 5. Kurut, or 
Tartar Curd. 6. The Mongol military rapidity and terror- 
ism. 7. Corruption of their Nomade simplicity. 

LV.— Concerning the Administering of Justice among 

the Tartars 266 

Notes. — i. The Cudgel. 2. Punishment of Theft. '^. Marriage of 
the Dead. 4. Textual. 

LVI. — Sundry Particulars on the Plain beyond Cara- 

coRON 269 

Notes. — l. Texttial. 2. Bargu, the Mecrit, the Reindeer, and 
Chase of Waterfowl. 3. The bird Barguerlac, the Syrr- 
haptes. 4. Gerfalcons. 

LVI I. — Of the Kingdom of Erguiul, and Province of 

SiNju , 274 

Notes. — l. Erguiul. 2. Siningfu. 3. The Yak. 4. The Musk 
Deer. 5. Reeves^ s Pheasant. 

LVIII. — Of THE Kingdom OF Egrigaia 281 

Notes. — l Egrigaia. 2. Calachan 3. White Camels, and 
Camlets: Siclatoun. 

LIX.— Concerning the Province of Tenduc, and the 

Descendants of Prester John . . . .284 

Notes. — i. The name and place Tenduc. King George. 2. Standing 
Marriage Compact. The title Gurgan. 3. Azure. 4. The 
^ijrOTJ' Argon a«^ Guasmul. 7"/^.? Dungens. 5. The Rampart 
of Gog and Magog. 6. Tartary cloths. 7. Siuen-hwafu. 

LX.— Concerning the Kaan's Palace of Chagannor . 296 

Notes. — i. Palace. 2. The word Stsnes. 3 Chagan-nor. 4. The 
five species of Crane described by Polo. 5. The word Gator. 

LXI. — Of the City of Chandu, and the Kaan's Palace 

there 298 

Notes. — l. Two Roads. 2. Chandu, properly Shangtu. 3. Leopards. 
4, The Bamboo Palace. Uses of the Bamboo. 5. KMld€s 
Annual Migration to Shangtu. 6. The White Horses. The 
Oirad Tribe. 7. The Mare's Milk Festival. 8. Weather Con- 
juring. 9. Ascription of Cannibalism to Tibetans, etc. 10. 
The term Bacsi. 11. Magical Feats ascribed to the Lamas, 
12. Lamas. 13. Vast extent of Lama Convents. 14. Married 
Lamas. 15. Brati. 16. I^atarins. 17. The Ascetics called 
Sensin. 18. Textual. 16. l^ao-sze Idols. 



SYNOPSIS OF CONTENTS XCIU 



BOOK SECOND. 



PART I. 

Chap. Pagb 

I. — Of Cublay Kaan, the Great Kaan now reigning, 

AND OF HIS Great Puissance 331 

Note. — Eulogies of Kubldi. 

II.— Concerning the Revolt of Nayan, who was Uncle 

TO the Great Kaan Cublay 332 

Notes. — i. Chrotwlogy. 2. Kubld€s Age. 3. His Wars. 4. 
Nayan and his true relationship to KMldi. 

III. — How the Great Kaan MARCHED against Nayan . 335 

Note. — Addition from Ramusio. 

IV.— Of the Battle that the Great Kaan fought with 

Nayan ... 336 

Notes. — l. The word Bretesche. 2. Explanatory. 3. The 
Nakkdra. 4. Parallel Passages. 5. Verbal. 6. The Story 
of Nayan. (See App. L. 7.) 

v.— How the Great Kaan caused Nayan to be put to 

Death 343 

Notes. — i. The Shedding of Royal blood avoided. 2. Ckorcka, 
Kaoli^ Barskul, Sikintinju. 3. Jews in China. 

VI. — How THE Great Kaan went back to the City of 

Cambaluc 348 

Note. — Passage from Ramusio respecting the Kaatis vinos of 
Religion. Remarks. 

VII. — How THE Kaan rewarded the Valour of his 

Captains 350 

Notes.— I. Parallel from Sanang Setun. 2. The Golden Horwrary 
Tablets or Paizah of the Mongols. 3. Umbrellas. 4. The 
Gerfalcon Tablets. 

VIII.— Concerning the Person of the Gre.\t Kaan . . 356 

Notes.— I. Colour of his Eyes. 2. His Wives. 3. The Kungurat 
Tribe. Competitive Examination in Beauty. 

IX.— Concerning the Great Kaan's Sons . . . .359 

Notes.— I. Kubldts intended Heir. 2. His other Sons. 

X. — Concerning the Palace of the Great Kaan . . 362 

Notes.— I. Palace Wall. 2. The word ^2x05^. 3. Torvers. 4. 
Arsenals of the Palace. 5. The Gates. 6. Various Readings. 
7. Barracks. 8. Wide diffusion of the kind of Palace here 
described. 9. Parallel description. 10. *^ Divine" Park. 11. 
Modem account of the Lake, etc. 12. " Roze de I'acur." 13. 
The Green Mount. 14, Textual. 15. Bridge. 



XCIV SYNOPSIS OF CONTENTS 

Chap. Page 

XI. — Concerning the City of Cambaluc .... 374 
Notes — i. Ch7'onology, etc., of Peking. 2. The City Wall. 3. 

Changes i7i the Extent of the City . 4. Its ground flan. 5. 

Aspect. 6. Public Towers. 7. Addition from Raniusio. 

XII. — How THE Great Kaan maintains a Guard of 
Twelve Thousand Horse, which are called 

Keshican 379 

Note. — 77^^ ^^rw Quescican. 

XIII.— The Fashion of the Great Kaan's Table at his 

High Feasts 381 

Notes. — l. Order of the Tables. 2. The word "^ exma^Q. 3. The 
Buffet of Liquors. 4. The superstition of the Threshold. 5. 
Chinese Etiquettes. 6. Jugglers at the Banquet. 

XIV. — Concerning the Great Fp:ast held by the Grand 

Kaan every year on his Birthday . . . 386 
Notes. — i. The Chinese Year. 2. "Beaten Gold," 3. Texttial. 
Festal changes of costume. 4. Festivals. 

XV. — Of the Great Festival which the Kaan holds on 

New Year's Day 390 

Notes. — i. The White Month. 2. Mystic value of the number 9. 
3. Elephants at Peking. 4. Adoration of Tablets. K'o-tow. 

XVI.— Concerning the Twelve Thousand Barons who 
RECEIVE Robes of Cloth of Gold from the 
Emperor on the Great Festivals, thirteen 

CHANGES A-PIECE • . 394 

Notes. — i. Textual. 2. The words Gamut and Borgal. 3. Tame 
Lions. 

XVII. — How the Great Kaan enjoineth his People to 

SUPPLY him with Game 396 

Note. — Parallel Passage. 

XVIII.— Of the Lions and Leopards and Wolves that the 

Kaan keeps for the Chase 397 

Notes. — i. The Cheeta or Hunting Leopard. 2. Lynxes, 3. The 
Tiger, termed Lion by Polo. 4. The Bthgiit Eagle. 

XIX.— Concerning the Two Brothers who have charge 

OF THE Kaan's Hounds 400 

Note. — The Masters of the Hounds, and their title. 

XX.— How the Emperor goes on a Hunting Expedi- 
tion 402 

Notes. — i. Direction of the 7 our. 2. Hawking Establishments, 
3. The word Toskdiil. 4. The word Bularguchi. 5. 
KubldVs Litter. 6. Kachar Modun. 7. The Kaan^s Great 
Tents. 8. llie Sable and Ermine. 9. PMs de la Croix, 

XXL— How THE Great Kaan, on returning from his 
Hunting Expedition, holds a Great Court and 

Entertainment 410 

Note. — This chapter peculiar to the 2iid Type of MSS. 



SYNOPSIS OF CONTENTS XCV 

Chap. Pack 

XXII.— Concerning the City of Cambaluc, and its Great 

Traffic and Population 412 

Notes. — i. Suburbs of Peking. 2. The word Yoxi'd2s:o, 

XXIII.— [Concerning the Oppressions of Achmath the 
Bailo, and the Plot that was formed against 
Him] 415 

Notes. — i. Chapter peculiar to Ramusio. 2. Ktibldi's Adminis- 
tration. Tlu Rise of Ahmad. 3. The term Bailo. 4. 
The Conspiracy against Ahmad as related by Gaubil from the 
Chinese. 5. Marcd s presence cmd upright conduct commemor- 
ated in the Chinese Annals. The Kaaris prejudice against 
Mahomedans. 

XXIV.— How THE Great Kaan causeth the Bark of Trees, 
made into something like Paper, to pass for 
Money over all his Country .... 423 

Note. — Chinese Paper Currency. 

XXV.— Concerning the Twelve Barons who are set over 

all the Affairs of the Great Kaan . . . 430 

Note. — The Ministers of the Mongol Dynasty. The term Sing. 

XXVI.— How THE Kaan's Posts and Runners are sped 

through many Lands and Provinces . . 433 

Notes. — i. Textual. 2. The word Yam. 3. Gor-emment 
Hostelries. 4. Digression from Ramusio. 5. Posts Extra- 
ordinary. 6. Discipline of the Posts. 7. Antiquity of 
Posts in China, etc. 



XXVII. — How THE Emperor bestows Help on his People, 

WHEN they are AFFLICTED WITH DEARTH OR 

Murrain 



439 



Note. — Kubldt's remissions, and justice. 

XXVIII.— How THE Great Kaan causes Trees to be Planted 

BY THE Highways 440 

Note. — Kubld^s Avenues. 



XXIX.— Concerning the Rice-Wine drunk by the People 
OF Cathay 



441 



Note. — Rice-wine. 

XXX.— Concerning the Black Stones that are dug in 

Cathay, and are burnt for Fuel . . . 442 

Note. — Distribution and Consumption of Coal in China. 

XXXI. — How THE Great Kaan causes Stores of Corn to 
be made, to help his People withal in time of 
Dearth 443 

Note.— r-i^ Chinese Public Gratmries. 

XXXII. — Of the Charity of the Emperor to the Poor . 444 

Note. — Buddhist influence, and Chinese Charities. 



XCVl SYNOPSIS OF CONTENTS 

Chap. Page 

XXXIII. — [Concerning the Astrologers in the City of 

Cambaluc] 446 

Notes. — i. The word Tacuin. — The Chinese Almanacs. The 
Observatory. 2. The Chinese and Mongol Cycle. 

XXXIV. — [Concerning the Religion of the Cathayans ; 
their views as to the soul ; and their 
Customs] 456 

Notes. — i. Textual. 2, Do. 3. Exceptions to the general charge 
of Irreligion brought against the Chinese. 4. Politeness. 
5. Filial Piety. 6. Pocket Spitoons. 



EXPLANATORY LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS 
TO VOLUME I. 



INSERTED PLATES AND MAPS. 

To face Title . . Portr.\it of Sir Henry Yule. From the Painting by Mr. 

T. B. Wirgman, in the Royal Engineers' Mess House at 

Chatham. 
Illuminated Title, with Medallion representing the Polos 

Arriving at Venice after 26 years' absence, and being 

refused admittance to the Family Mansion ; as related by 

Ramusio, p. 4 of Introductory Essay. Drawn by Signor 

QuiNTO Cenni, No. 7 Via Solferino, Milan ; from a Design 

by the Editor. 
,, page I. Doorway of the House of Marco Polo in the Corte Sab- 

bionera at Venice (see p. zy). Woodcut from a drawing by 

Signor L. Rosso, Venice. 
,, ,, 26. Ccrte del Mi I tone, \enice. 

„ ,, 2S. Malibran Theatre, Venice. 

,, ,, 30. Entrance to the Corte del Milione, Venice. From photographs 

taken for the present editor, by Signor Naya. 
,, ,, 42. Figures from St. Sabba's, sent to Venice. From a photograph of 

Signor Naya. 
,, ,, 50. Church of San Matteo, at Genoa. 
, , , , 62. Palazzo di S. Giorgio, at Genoa. 

,, ,, 68. Miracle of S. Lorenzo. From the Painting by V. Carpaccio. 

,, ,, 70. FACSiMiLEof the Will of Marco Polo, preserved in St. Mark's 

Library. Lithographed from a photograph specially taken by 

Bertani at Venice. 
„ „ y4. Pavement in front of S. Lorenzo. 

,, ,, 76. Mosaic Portrait of Marco Polo, at Genoa. 

,, ,, 7<?. The Pseudo Marco Polo at Canton. 

„ ,, 80. Porcelain Incense-Bumer, from the Louvre. 

.. ,, 82. Temple of 500 Genii, at Canton, after a drawing by Felix 

Regamey. 
,, ,, J 08. Probable %-iew of Marco Polo's own Geography : a Map of 

the World, formed as far as possible from the Traveller's own 

data. Drawn by the Editor. 
,, ,, 134. Part of the Catalan Map of 1375. 



VOL. I, '"^^ g 



XCviii EXPLANATORY LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS 

7o face page I. Marco Polo's Itineraries, No. I. Western Asia. This includes 

also "Sketch showing the chief Monarchies of Asia, in the 

latter part of the 13th century." 

TMap illustrating the geographical position of the City of Sarai. 

,, >) 4- I rian of part of the remains of the same city. Reduced from a 

I Russian plan published by M. Grigorieff. 
,, „ 29 & 30. Reduced Facsimile of the Buddhist Inscription of the 
Mongol Era, on the Archway at Kiu-YONG KWAN in the 
Pass of Nan-k'au, north-west of Peking, showing the characters 
in use under the Mongol Dynasty. Photogravure from the 
Recueil des documetits de PEpoque Mo7igole, by H.H. Prince 
Roland Bonaparte. See an Article by Mr. Wyhe in the 
J. R. A. S.for 1870,/. 14. 
/-Plan of Ayas, the Laias of Polo. From an Admiralty Chart. 

„ ,, 41.-! Plan of position of DilAwar, the supposed site of the Dilavar 

I of Polo. Ext. from a Survey by Lt. -Col. D. G. Robinson, R.E. 

,, ,, 114. Marco Polo's Itineraries, No. II. Routes between Kerman 

and Hormuz. 

„ ,, 178. Marco Polo's Itineraries, No. HI. Regions on and near the 

Upper Oxus. 

,, ,, 305. Heading, in the old Chinese seal-character, of an Inscription 
on a Memorial raised by Kublai Kaan to a Buddhist Eccles- 
iastic, in the vicinity of his summer-palace at Shangtu in 
Mongolia. Reduced from a facsimile obtained on the spot by 
Dr. S. W. Bushell, 1872, and by him lent to the Editor. 

,, ,, 319. The Cho-Khang. The grand Temple of Buddha at Lhasa, 

from The Journey to Lhasa, by Sarat Chandra Das, by kind 
permission of the Royal Geographical Society. 

,, ,, 352. ^^ Tabled Or de Comtnandement ;" the Paiza of the Mongols, 

from a specimen found in Siberia. Reduced to one-half the scale 
of the original, from an engraving in a paper by I. J. Schmidt 
ill the Bulletin de la Classe Historico-Philologique de I'Acad. 
Imp. des Sciences, St.-Petersbourg, tom. iv. No. 9. 

,, ,, 355. Second Example of a Mongol Pai'za with superscription in the 

Uighiir character, found near the Dnieper River, 1845. From 
Trans, of the Oriental Section, Imp. Soc. of Archeology of St. 
Petersburg, vol. v. The Inscription on this runs: '^ By the 
strength of Eternal Heaven, and thanks to Its Great Power, 
the Man who obeys not the order of Abdullah shall be guilty, 
shall die." 

,,■ ,, 376. Plan of Peking as it is, and as it was about A. D. 1290. 

,, ,, 426. Bank-note of the Ming Dynasty, on one-half the scale of the 

original. Reduced from a genuine note in the possession of 
the British Museum. Was brought back from Peking after the 
siege of the Legations in 1900. 

,, ,, 448. Mongol " Compendium Instrument." 

,, ,, 450. Mongol Armillary Sphere. 

,, ,, 452. Observatory Terrace. 

, , , , 454. Observatory Instruments of the Jesuits. All these from photo- 

graphs kindly lent to the present Editor by Count de Semall6. 

„ last page Marco Polo's Itineraries. No. IV. Eastern Asia. This 

includes also Sketch Map of the Ruins of Shangtu, after 
Dr. Bushell ; and Enlarged Sketch of the Passage of the 
Hwang-ho or Karamoran on the road to Si-ngan fu (see vol. ii. 
pp. 25-27) from the data of Baron von Richthofeu, 



EXPLANATORY LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS xcix 

WOODCUTS PRINTED WITH THE TEXT. 

Introductory Notices. 

Page X. A Medi/EVal Ship. 
,, xxvi. Coat of Arms of Sir Henry Yule. 
„ 7. Arms of the Polo family, according to Priuli. 

,, 8. Arms of the Polo family, according to Marco Barbaro. (See p. 7, note.) 

,, 7j. Autograph of Hethum or Hayton I. King of (Cicilian) Armenia ; copied 
from Codice Diplomatico del Sacro Mil Hare Or dine Gerosolemitano, I. 
135. The signature is attached to a French document without date, 
granting the King's Daughter "Damoiselle Femie" (Euphemia) in 
marriage to Sire Juhan, son of the Lady of Sayete (Sidon). The words 
run : Thagdvor Haiivetz (" Rex Armenorum"), followed by the King's 
cypher or monograpi ; but the initial letter is absent, probably worn off 
the original document. 
,, 18. The PiAZZETTA at Venice in the 14th century. From a portion of the 
Frontispiece Miniature of the MS. of Marco Polo in the Bodleian. 
(Borrowed from the National Miscellany, published by J. H. Parker, 
Oxford, for 1853-55; ^nd see Street's Brick and Marble, etc, 1855, 
pp. 150-151.) [See vol. ii. IV 529.] 
„ zg. Three extracts from Maps of Venice, showing the site of the Ca' Polo 
at three different periods, (i) From the great woodcut Map or View 
of Venice, dated 1500, and commonly called Albert Diirer's. (2) 
From a Plan by Cav. Ludovico Ughi, 1729. (3) From the Modern 
Official Plan of the City. 

„ 34. Diagram of arrangement of oars in galleys. 

,, jj. Extract from a fresco by Spinello Aretini, in the Municipal Palace at 
Siena, representing a Galley-fight (perhaps imaginary) between 
the Venetians and the fleet of the Emperor Frederick Barbarossa, 
and illustrating the arrangements of mediseval galleys. Drawn from 
a very dim and imperfect photograph, after personal study of the 
original, by the Editor. 

,, J7. Extract firom a picture by DomenicoJIintoretto in the Ducal Palace at 
Venice, representing the same Galley-fight. After an engraving in 
the Theatrum Venetum. 

,, 4g Marco Polo's Galley going into action at Curzola. Drawn by 
Signor Q. Cenni, from a design by the Editor. 

,, 50. Map to illustrate the Sea-fight at Curzola, where Marco Polo was 
taken prisoner. 

„ 57. Seal of the Pisan Prisoners in Genoa, after the battle of Meloria 
(1284). From Manni, Osservazioni Storiche sopra Sigilli Antichi, 
torn. xiL Engraved by T. Adeney. 

„ 7j. Ti.e Convent and Church of S. Lorenzo, the burial-place of Marco 
Polo, as it existed in the 15th century. From the Map of 1500 (see 
above). Engraved by the same. 

,, 7<?. Arms of the Trevisan family, according to Priuli. 

„ 120. Tailed Star near the Antarctic, as Marco Polo drew it for -Pietro 
d'Abano. From the Conciliator of Pietro d'Abano. 



VOL. I, 



EXPLANATORY LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS 



Prologue. 

Page 3. Remains of the Castle of Soldaia or Sudak, After Dubois de MontpereiiXy 
Voyage autour du Caucase, Atlas, 3d s. PI. 64. 
7. Ruins of BOLGHAR. After Demidoff, Voyage dans la Russie Miridionale, 

PI- 75- 

15. The Great Kaan delivering a Golden Tablet to the two elder Polos. 
From a miniature in the Livre des Merveilies du Monde (Fr. 2810) in 
the Library at Paris, fol. 3 verso. 

16. Castle of Ayas. Aiier Lang; lots. Voyage en Cilicie. 
18. Plan of Acre as it was when lost (a.d. 1291). Reduced and translated 

from the contemporary plan in the Secreta Fidelium Crticis of \iarino 

Sanudo the Elder, engraved in Bongars, Gesta Dei per Francos, vol. ii. 
21. Portrait of Pope Gregory X. After J. B. de Cavalcriis Pontificuvi 

Romanonim Effigies, etc. Romae, 1580. 
37. Ancient Chinese War Vessel. From the Chinese Encyclopedia called 

San-Thsai'Thou-Hoei, in the Paris Library. 



Book First. 

Page 42. Coin of King Hetum I. and Queen Isabel of Cilician Armenia. From 
an original in the British Museum. Engraved by Adeney. 

48. Castle of Baiburt. After Texier, L'Armc'nie, PI. 3. 

51. Mediaeval Georgian Fortress. From a drawing by Padre Cristoforo 
Di Castelli of the Theatine Mission, made in 1634, and now in the 
Communal Library at Palermo. The name of the place has been eaten 
away, and I have not yet been able to ascertain it. 

55. View of Derbend. After a cut from a drawing by M. Moynet in the 
Toiir dii Alonde, vol. i. 

61. Coin of Badruddin Lolo of Mosul (a.ii. 620). After Marsden's Nuinis- 
mata Orientalia, No. 164. By Adeney. 

76. GhAzan Khan's Mosque at Tabriz. Borrowed from Fergussot^s History 
of Architecture. 

95. Kashmir Scarf with animals, etc. After photograph from the scarf in 

the Indian Museum. 
100. Humped Oxen from the Assyrian Sculptures at Kouyunjik. From Rawlin- 

son's Ancient Monarchies. 
102. Portrait of a Hazara. From a Photograph, kindly taken for the purpose, 
by M.-Gen. C. P. Keyes, C.B., Commanding the Panjab Frontier Force. 
116-118. Illustrations of the use of the double rudder in the Middle Ages. 
7 figures, viz., No. I, The Navicello of Giotto in the Porch of 
St. Peter's. From East lake'' s H. of Painting; Nos. 2 and 3, from 
Pertz, Scriptores, torn, xviii. after a Genoese Chronicle ; No. 4, Sketch 
from fresco of Spinello Aretini at Siena ; No. 5, Seal of Port of 
Winchelsea, from Sussex Archaological Collections, vol. i. 1848 ; 
No. 6, Sculpture on Leaning Tower at Pisa, after Jal, Archiologie 
Navale; No. 7, from the Monument of Peter Martyr, the persecutor of 
the Lombard Patarini, in the Church of St. Eustorgius at Milan, after 
Le Tombe ed i Monumenti J llusiri d'' Italia, Mil. 1822-23. 



EXPLANATORY LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS CI 

Page 134. The ARBRE SEC, and ARBRES DU SOLEIL ET DE LA I.UNE. 

From a miniature in the Prose Romance of Alexander, in the Brit. 

Museum MS. called the Shrewsbury Book (Reg. xv. e. 6). 
„ 137. The ChinAr or Oriental Plane, viz., that called the Tree of Godfrey of 

Boulogne at Bnyukdere, near Constantinople. Borrowed from Le 

Monde Vigital of Figuier. 
,, 147. Portrait of H. H. Agha Khan Mehelati, late representative of the 

Old Man of the Mountain. From a photograph by Messrs. Shep- 
herd and Bourne. 
,, 159. Ancient Silver Patera of debased Greek Art, formerly in the possession 

of the Princes of Badakhshan, now in the India Museum. 
,, 167. Ancient Buddhist Temple at Pandrethan in Kashmir. Borrowed from 

Fergussoji s History of Architecture. 
,, 176. Horns of the Oy/S POL/, or Great Sheep of Pamir. Drawn by the 

Editor from the specimen belonging to the Royal Asiatic Society. 
„ 177. Figure of the O^/S POLI, or Great Sheep of Pamir. From a drawing by 

Mr. Severtsof in a Russian pubUcation. 
„ 180. Head of a native of Kashgar. After Verchaguine. From the Tour du 

Monde. 
„ 181. View of Kashgar. From Mr. R. Shcrafs Tariary. 
„ 184. View of Samarkand. From a Sketch by Mr. D. Ivanoff, engraved in a 

Russian Illustrated Paper (kindly sent by Mr. I. to the editor). 
„ 221. Colossal Figure ; Buddha entering Nirvana. Sketched by the Editor 

at Pagan in Burma. 
,, 222. Great Lama Monastery, viz., that at Jehol. After Staunton^ s Narrative 

of Lord Macarttuys Embassy. 
,, 224. The Kyang, or Wild Ass of Mongolia. After a plate by Wolf in the 

Joumcd of the Royal Zoologiccd Socitty. 
,, 229. The Situation of Karakorum. 
„ 230. Entrance to the Erdeni Tso, Great Temple. From Marcel Monnier's 

Tour d^Asie, by kind permission of M. Plon. 
„ 244. Death of Chinghiz Khan. From a Miniature in the Livre des Meroeilles. 
„ 253. Dressing up a Tent, from Marcel Monnier's Tottr d'Asie, by kind 

permission of M. Plon. 
,, 255. Mediaeval Tartar Huts and Waggons. Drawn by Sig. Quinto Cenni, 

on a design compiled by the Editor from the descriptions of mediaeval 

and later travellers. 
., 258. Tartar Idols and KuMis Chum. Drawn by the Editor after data in 

Pallas and Zaleski ( Vie des Steppes JCirghiz). 
„ 273. The SYRRHAPTES PALLASII ; Bargherlac of Marco Polo. From a 

plate by Wolf in the Ibis for April, i86a 
, , 280. Reeves's Pheasant. After an engraving in Woo^s Illustrated Natural 

History. 
„ 293. The Rampart of Gog and Magog. From a photograph of the Great 

Wall of China. Borrowed from Dr. Pennies Peking and the Pekingese. 
„ 307. A Pavilion at Yuen-Ming- Yuen, to illustrate the probable style of Kublai 

Kaan's Summer Palace. Borrowed from Michies Siberian Overland 

Route. 
,, 317. Chinese Conjuring Extraordinary. Extracted from an engraving in 

Edward Meltori s Zeldzaame Reisen, c\.c. Amsterdam, 1702. 
, , 320. A Monastery of Lamas. Borrowed from the Tour du Monde. 
,, 326. A Tibetan Bacsi. Sketched from the life by the Editor. 



cli EXPLANATORY LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS 



Book Second. — Part First. 

Page 340. Nakkaras. From a Chinese original in the Lois des Empereurs 

Mandchotis {Thai-Thsing-Hoei-Tien-Thou), in the Paris Library. 
341. Nakkaras. After one of the illustrations in Blochmann's edition of the 

Ain-i-Akbari. 
352. Seljukian Coin, with the LiON and the Sun (a.h. 640). M.\.&x Marsde7i' s 

Numismata Orietttalia, No. 98. Engraved by Adeney. 
355. Sculptured Gerfalcon from the Gate of Iconium. Copied from 

Hammer's Falknerklee. 
357. Portrait of the Great Kaan KublAi. From a Chinese engraving in 

the Encyclopaedia called San-Thsai-Thou-Hoei ; in the Paris Library. 
367. Ideal Plan of the Ancient Palaces of the Mongol Emperors at KJianbaligh, 

according to Dr. Bretschneider. 
369. Palace at Khan-baligh. From the Livre des Merveilles. 
369. The Winter Palace at Peking. Borrowed from Fergussoiis History 

of A rch itedure. 
371. View of the "Green Mount." From a photograph kindly lent to 

the present Editor by Count de Semall^. 
373. The Yilan cKeng. From a photograph kindly lent to the present Editor 

by Count de Semall^. 
376. South Gate of the "Imperial City "at Peking. From an original 

sketch belonging to the late Dr. W. Lockhart. 
399. The BOrgiJt Eagle. After Atkinson^ s Oriental and Western Siberia. 
409. The Tents of the Emperor K'ien-lung. From a drawing in the Stauntoii 

Collection in the British Museum. 
413. Plain of Cambaluc ; the City in the distance ; from the hills on the 

north-west. From a photograph. Borrowed from Dr. Rennie's Peking. 
458. The Great Temple of Heaven at Peking. From Michie's Siberian 

Overland Route. 
463. INIarble Archway erected under the Mongol Dynasty at Kiu-Yong 

Kwan in the Nan-k'au Pass, N.W. of Peking. From a photograph in 

the possession of the present Editor. 



(%lli 






MARCO POLO AND HIS BOOK, 



INTRODUCTORY NOTICES. 



\V 




jjoorway ot the House ot Marco I'olo in the Corte babbionera, at Venice, 



[To /ace p. I. 



MARCO POLO AND HIS BOOK. 



INTRODUCTORY NOTICES. 



I. Obscxjrities in the History of his Life and Book. 

Ramusio's Statements. 

I. With all the intrinsic interest of Marco Polo's Book it 
may perhaps be doubted if it would have continued to exer- 
cise such fascination on many minds through succes- Obscurities 

; , i-r/- , • of Polo's 

sive s^enerations were it not for the difficult questions Book, and 

" , personal 

which it suggests. It is a great book of puzzles, History, 
whilst our confidence in the man's veracity is such that we feel 
certain every puzzle has a solution. 

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



'm- 



2 INTRODUCTION 

2. The first person who attempted to gather and string 
Ramusio, the facts of Marco Polo's personal history was his 

his earliest ^ ^ 

biographer, countrvman, the celebrated John Baptist Ramusio, 

His account _ "^ _ •' ^ 

ofPoio. His essay abounds in what we now know to be errors 
.of detail, but, prepared as it was when traditions of the Tra- 
veller were still rife in Venice, a genuine thread runs through 
it which could never have been spun in later days, and its 
presentation seems to me an essential element in any full 
discourse upon the subject. 

Ramusio's preface to the Book of Marco Polo, which opens 
the second volume of his famous Collection of Voyages and 
Travels, and is addressed to his learned friend Jerome Fra- 
castoro, after referring to some of the most noted geographers 
of antiquity, proceeds : * — 

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



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



' RAMUSIO'S BIOGRAPHICAL STATEMENTS 3 

3. "Howbeit, during the last hundred years, persons acquainted with 
Persia have begun to recognise the existence of Cathay. The 
voyages of the Portuguese also towards the North-East, beyond vindicates 
the Golden Chersonese, have brought to knowledge many cities |^phy^**^ 
and provinces of India, and many islands likewise, with those 
very names which our Author applies to them ; and again, on reaching 
the Land of China, they have ascertained from the people of that region 
(as we are told by Sign. John de Barros, a Portuguese gentleman, in his 
Geography) that Canton, one of the chief cities of that kingdom, is in 30!° 
of latitude, with the coast running N.E. and S.W. ; that after a distance of 
275 leagues the said coast turns towards the N.W. ; and that there are 
three provinces along the sea-board, Mangi, Zanton, and Quinzai, the last 
of which is the principal city and the King's Residence, standing in 46° of 
latitude. .A.nd proceeding yet further the coast attains to 50°.* Seeing 
then how many particulars are in our day becoming known of that part 
of the world concerning which Messer Marco has written, I have deemed 
it reasonable to publish his book, with the aid of several copies written 
(as I judge) more than 200 years ago, in a perfectly accurate form, and 
one vastly more faithful than that in which it has been heretofore read. 
And thus the world shall not lose the fruit that may be gathered from so 
much diligence and industry expended upon so honourable a branch of 
knowledge." 

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

" And often in my own mind, comparing the land explorations of these 
oiu: Venetian gentlemen with the sea explorations of the aforesaid Signor 
Don Christopher, I have asked myself which of the two were 
really the more marvellous. And if patriotic prejudice delude compares 
me not, methinks good reason might be adduced for setting the columbus. 
land journey above the sea voyage. Consider only what a 
height of courage was needed to undertake and carry through so difficult 
an enterprise, over a route of such desperate length and hardship, 
whereon it was sometimes necessary to carry food for the supply of man 
and beast, not for days only but for months together. Columbus, on the 
other hand, going by sea, readily carried with him all necessary provision ; 
and after a voyage of some 30 or 40 days was conveyed by the wind 
whither he desired to go, whilst the Venetians again took a whole year's 
time to pass all those great deserts and mighty rivers. Indeed that the 
difficult)' of travelling to Cathay was so much greater than that of reach- 
ing the New World, and the route so much longer and more perilous, may 
be gathered from the fact that, since those gentlemen twice made this 



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



4 INTRODUCTION 

journey, no one from Europe has dared to repeat it,* whereas in the very 
year following the discovery of the Western Indies many ships imme- 
diately retraced the voyage thither, and up to the present day continue to 
do so, habitually and in countless numbers. Indeed those regions are 
now so well known, and so thronged by commerce, that the traffic between 
Italy, Spain, and England is not greater." 

5. Ramusio goes on to explain the light regarding the first 
part or prologue of Marco Polo's book that he had derived 
Recounts a from a reccnt piece of luck which had made him 

tradition of . . i-.i 

the travel, partially acquamted with the geography of Abulfeda, 
to Venice, and to make a running commentary on the whole 
of the preliminary narrative until the final return of the 
travellers to Venice : — 

" And when they got thither the same fate befel them as befel Ulysses, 
who, when he returned, after his twenty years' wanderings, to his native 
Ithaca, was recognized by nobody. Thus also [those three gentlemen 
who had been so many years absent from their native city were recog- 
nized by none of their kinsfolk, who were under the firm belief that they 
had all been dead for many a year past, as indeed had been reported. 
Through the long duration and the hardships of their journeys, and 
through the many worries and anxieties that they had undergone, they 
were quite changed in aspect, and had got a certain indescribable smack 
of the Tartar both in air and accent, having indeed all but forgotten their 
Venetian tongue. Their clothes too were coarse and shabby, and of a 
Tartar cut. They proceeded on their arrival to their house in this city in 
the confine of St. John Chrysostom, where you may see it to this day. 
The house, which was in those days a very lofty and handsome palazzo, 
is now known by the name of the Corte del Millioni for a reason that I 
will tell you presently. Going thither they found it occupied by some of 
their relatives, and they had the greatest difficulty in making the latter , 
understand who they should be. For these good people, seeing them to 
be in countenance so unlike what they used to be, and in dress so shabby, 
flatly refused to believe that they were those very gentlemen of the Ca' 
Polo whom,t|iey had been looking upon for ever so many years as among 
the dead.t -/ So these three gentlemen,— this is a story/l have often heard - 
when I was a youngster from the illustrious Messer Gasparo Malpiero, r 
a gentleman of very great age, and a Senator of eminent virtue and ' 
integrity, whose house was on the Canal of Santa Marina, exactly at the ^ 1^ 
corner over the mouth of the Rio di S. Giovanni Chrisostomo, and just '-'^ 
midway among the buildings of the aforesaid Corte del Millioni, and he 
said he had heard the story from his own father and grandfather, and 
from other old men among the neighbours, — the three gentlemen, I say, 
devised a scheme by which they should at once bring about their recog- 



* A grievous error of Ramusio' s. 

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



RAMUSIO'S BIOGRAPHICAL STATEMENTS / 

nition by their relatives, and secure the honourable notice of the whole 
city ; and this was it : — 

"They invited a number of their kindred to an entertainment, which 
they took care to have prepared with great state and splendour in that 
house of theirs ; and when the hour arrived for sitting down to table they 
came forth of their chamber all three clothed in crimson satin, fashioned in 
long robes reaching to the ground such as people in those days wore 
within doors. And when water for the hands had been served, and the 
guests were set, they took off those robes and put on others of crimson 
damask, whilst the first suits were by their orders cut up and divided 
among the servants. Then after partaking of some of the dishes they went 
out again and came back in robes of crimson velvet, and when they had 
again taken their seats, the second suits were divided as before. When 
dinner was over they did the like with the robes of velvet, after they had put 
on dresses of the ordinary fashion worn by the rest of the company.* 
These proceedings caused much wonder and amazement among the guests. 
But when the cloth had been drawn, and all the servants had been ordered 
to retire from the dining hall, Messer Marco, as the youngest of the three, 
rose from table, and, going into another chamber, brought forth the 
three shabby dresses of coarse stuff which they had worn when they first 
arrived. Straightway they took sharp knives and began to rip up some of 
the seams and welts, and to take out of them jewels of the greatest value in 
vast quantities, such as rubies, sapphires, carbuncles, diamonds and emeralds, 
which had all been stitched up in those dresses in so artful a fashion that 
nobody could have suspected the fact. For when they took leave of 
the Great Can they had changed all the wealth that he had bestowed upon 
them into this mass of rubies, emeralds, and other jewels, being well aware 
of the impossibility of carrying with them so great an amount in gold over 
a journey of such extreme length and difficulty. Now this exhibition of 
such a huge treasure of jewels and precious stones, all tumbled out upon 
the table, threw the guests into fresh amazement, insomuch that they 
seemed quite bewildered and dumbfounded. And now they recognized that 
in spite of all former doubts these were in truth those honoured and worthy 
gentlemen of the Ca' Polo that they claini^ to be ; and so all paid them 
the greatest honour and reverence. -^A«4' when the story got wind in 
Venice, straightway the whole city, gentle and simple, flocked to the house 
to embrace them, and to make much of them, with every conceivable 
demonstration of affection and respect. On Messer Maflfio, who was the 
eldest, they conferred the honours of an office that was of great dignity in 
those days ; whilst the young men came daily to visit and converse with the 
ever pol'ite and gracious Messer Marco, and to ask him questions about 
Cathay and the Great Can, all which he answered with such kindly courtesy 
that every man felt himself in a manner his debtor. And as it happened 
that in the story, which he was constantly called on to repeat, of the 
magnificence of the Gjsat Can, he would speak of his revenues as 
/ * -" ■- ^ • 

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



6 INTRODUCTION 

amounting to ten or fifteen millions of' gold ; and in like manner, when 
recounting other instances of great wealth in those parts, would always 
make use of the term millions^ so they gave him the nickname of Messer 
Marco Millioni : a thing which I have noted also in the Public Books of 
this Republic where mention is made of him.* The Court of his House, 
too, at S. Giovanni Chrisostomo, has always from that time been popularly 
known as the Court of the Millioni.'^ 

6. " Not many months after the^rrival of the travellers at Venice, news 
came that Lampa Doria, Captain of the Genoese Fleet, had advanced 
with 70 galleys to the Island cf Curzola, upon which orders were issued by 
the Prince of the Most Illustrious Signory for the arming of 90 galleys with 
_ all the expedition possible, and Messer Marco Polo for his valour 

Recounts , 

Marco's cap- was put m charge of one of these. So he with the others, under 
Genoese'^^ the Command of the Most Illustrious Messer Andrea Dan- 
DOLO, Procurator of St. Mark's, as Captain General, a very 
brave and worthy gentleman, set out in search of the Genoese Fleet. They 
fought on the September feast of Our Lady, and, as is the common hazard 
of war, our fleet was beaten, and Polo was made prisoner. For, having 
pressed on in the vanguard of the attack, and fighting with high and 
worthy courage in defence of his country and his kindred, he did not receive 
due support, and being wounded, he was taken, along with Dandolo, and 
immediately put in irons and sent to Genoa. 

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

"To this day the Genoese for the most part write what they have to 
write in that language, for there is no possibility of expressing their natural 
dialect with the pen.t Thus then it came to pass that the Book was put 
forth at first by Messer Marco in Latin ; but as many copies were taken, 
and as it was rendered into our vulgar tongue, all Italy became filled with it, 
so much was this story desired and run after. ' 



* This curious statement is confirmed by a passage in the records of the Great 
Council, which, on a late visit to Venice, I was enabled to extract, through an 
obliging communication from Professor Minotto. (See below, p. 67.) 

t This rather preposterous skit at the Genoese dialect naturally excites a remon- 
strance from the Abate Spotorno. [Ston'a Letteraria della Liguria, II. 217.) 



R.\MUSIO'S BIOGRAPHICAL STATEMENTS 7 

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

" When at a later date his father died, like a good and dutiful son he 
caused to be erected for him a tomb of ver>' honourable kind for those days, 
being a great sarcophagus cut from the solid stone, which to this day may 
be seen under the portico before the Church of S. Lorenzo in this city, on 
the right hand as you enter, with an inscription denoting it to be the tomb of 
Messer Nicolo Polo of the contrada of S. Gio. Chrisostomo. The arms of 
his family consist of a Bend with three birds on it, and the colours, accord- 
ing to certain books of old histories in which you see all the coats of the 
gentlemen of this city emblazoned, are the field azure., the bend argent, and 
the three birds sable. These last are birds of that kind \-ulgarly termed 
Pole,* or, as the Latins call them, Gracculi. 

8. "As regards the after duration of this noble and worthy family, I 



* Jackdaws, I believe, in spite of some doubt from the imbecility of ordinary 
dictionaries in such matters. 

They are under this name made the object of a similitude by /^■^•^''^^^ 

Dante (surely a most unhappy one) in reference to the resplendent ^^^Jkk: . -X 

spirits flitting on the celestial stairs in the sphere of Saturn : — / S ^ ^ •^ \ 

" E come per lo natural costume F^-^;^ ^!! ^^ ' .'^Vk I 

Le Pole insieme, al cominciar del giomo, r -S ^== =^| ' "^^ I 

Si muovono a s<aldar le fredde piume : I - . . '." ^ y , > L • ' 7 

Poi altre vanno vii senza ritomo, I.- •H-.'^'^g \- / 

Altre rivolgon se, onde son mosse, V J^k. ' "^^^^^B^ 

Ed altre roteando fan soggiomo." — Parad. XXI. 34. V^^i^^ "■ ^ S- — ^ 

There is some difference among authorities as to the details of V." : ;^^Btr^^ 
the Polo blazon. According to a MS. concerning the genealogies \ • " '^. / 
of Venetian families written by Marco Barbaro in 1566, and of \ • • • / 

which there is a copy in the Museo CiNaco, the field '\% gules, the bend \/ 

or. And this I have followed in the cut. But a note bj- S. Stefani Arms of the P0I0.1 

1 [This coat of arms is reproduced from the Genealogies of Priuli, Archivio di Stato, 
Vcn-cc— H. C) 



8 INTRODUCTION 

find that Messer Andrea Polo of San Felice had three sons, the first of 

whom was Messer Marco, the second Maffio, the third Nicolo. 

Ramusio's -pj-jg j^q jg^gj ^ere those who went to Constantinople first, and 

account of •, t 

the Family afterwards to Cathay, as has been seen. Messer Marco the elder 
termination! being dead, the wife of Messer Nicolo who had been left at home 
with child, gave birth to a son, to whom she gave the name of 
Marco in memory of the deceased, and this is the Author of our Book. Of 
the brothers who were born from his father's second marriage, viz. Stephen, 
John, and Matthew, I do not find that any of them had children, except 
Matthew. He bad five sons and one daughter called Maria ; and she, after 
the death of her brothers without offspring, inherited in 1417 all the pro- 
perty of her father and her brothers. She was honourably married to 
Messer Azzo Trevisano of the parish of Santo Stazio in this city, and 
from her sprung the fortunate and honoured stock of the Illustrious Messer 
DoMENico Trevisano, Procurator of St. Mark's, and valorous Captain 
General of the Sea Forces of the Republic, whose virtue and singular good 
qualities are represented with augmentation in the person of the Most 
Illustrious Prince Ser Marc' Antonio Trevisano, his son.* 

" Such has been the history of this noble family of the Ca' Polo, which 
lasted as we see till the year of our Redemption 141 7, in which year died 
childless Marco Polo, the last of the five sons of Maffeo, and so it came to 
an end. Such be the chances and changes of human affairs ! " 




Arms of the Ca' Polo. 



II. Sketch of the State of the East at the time of the 
Journeys of the Polo Family. 

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

Christendom had recovered from the alarm into which it had 

of Venice, with which I have been favoured since the cut was made, informs me that 
a fine I5th-cenlury MS. in his possession gives the field as argent, with no bend, 
and the three birds sable with beaks ^</t-'J-, disposed thus *^*. 

* Marco Antonio Trevisano was elected Doge, ^lli June, 1553, but died on the 
31st of May following. We do not here notice Ramusio's numerous errors, which will 
be corrected in the sequel. [See p. 7^.] 



SKETCH OF THE STATE OF THE EAST 9 

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

10. In Asia and Eastern Europe scarcely, a dog might bark 
without Mongol leave, from the borders of Poland and the Gulf 



* See Hcyd, Le ColonU Cotntiurciali degli Italiani, etc., passim. 
VOL. I. k 



to INTRODUCTION 

of Scanderoon to the Amur and the Yellow Sea. The 
The various vast empire which Chinghiz had conquered still owned 
sovefdgn- a nominally supreme head in the Great Kaan,* but 
and Eastern practically it was splitting up into several great monar- 
""^"^^^ chies under the descendants of the four sons of Chinghiz^ 
Juji, Chaghatai, Okkodai, and Tuli ; and wars on a vast scale 
were already brewing between them, Hulaku, third son of 
Tuli, and brother of two Great Kaans, Mangku and Kubldi, had 
become practically independent as ruler of Persia, Babylonia, 
Mesopotamia, and Armenia, though he and his sons, and his 
sons' sons, continued to stamp the name of the Great Kaan 
upon their coins, and to use the Chinese seals of state which he 
bestowed upon them. The Seljukian Sultans of Jconium, 
whose dominion bore the proud title of Rum (Rome), were now 
but the struggling bondsmen of the Ilkhans. The Armenian 



* We endeavour to preserve throughout the book the distinction at was made 
in the age ol the Mongol Empire between Khan and Kadn (/^L^ and tlV as 

written by Arabic and Persian authors). The former may be rendered Lord, and 
was apph'ed generally to Tartar chiefs whether sovereign or not ; it has since become 
in Persia, and especially in Afghanistan, a sort of " Esq.," and in India is now a 
common affix in the names of (Musulman) Hindustanis of all classes ; in Turkey 
alone it has been reserved for the Sultan, Kadn, again, appears to be a form of 
Khdkdn, the Xaydvo^ of the Byzantine historians, and was the peculiar title of the 
supreme sovereign of the Mongols; the Mongol princes of Persia, Chaghatai, etc., 
were entitled only to the former affix (Kh^n), though Kadn and Kkakdn are sometimes 
applied to them in adulation. Polo always writes Kaajt as applied to the Great 
Khan, and does not, I think, use Khan in any form, styling the subordinate princes 
by their name only, as Argon, Alau, etc. llkhan was a special title assumed by 
Hulaku and his successors in Persia ; it is said to he compounded from a word //, 
signifying tribe or nation. The relation between Khdtt and Khakdn seems to be 
probably that the latter signifies " Khdn of Khdns,^^ Lord of Lords. Chinghiz, it is 
said, did not take the higher title ; it was first assumed by his son Okkodai, But 
there are doubts about this, (See Quatremire's Rashid, pp. lo seqq., and Pavet de 
Courieilh, Diet. Turk- Oriental.) The tendency of swelling titles is always to 
degenerate, and when the value of Khan had sunk, a new form, Khdn-khdndn, was 
devised at the Court of Delhi, and applied to one of the high officers of state, 

[Mr, Rockhill writes {Rubruck, p, io8, note) : "The title Khan, though of very 
great antiquity, was only used by the Turks after A,D, 560, at which time the use of 
the word Khatun came in use for the wives of the Khan, who himself was termed 
llkhan. The older title of ,S'/ia«-j}'« did not, however, completely disappear among 
them, for Albiruni says that in his time the chief of the Ghuz Turks, or Turkomans, 
still bore the title oi Jenuyeh, which Sir Henry Rawlinson {Proc. R. G. S., v. 15) 
takes to be the same word as that transcribed Shan-yil by the Chinese (see CKien 
Han shu, Bk. 94, and Chou shu, Bk. 50, 2), Although the word Khakhan occurs 
in Menander's account of the embassy of Zemarchus, the earliest mention I have 
found of it in a Western writer is in the Chronicon of Albericus Trium Fontiuni, 
where (571), under the year 1239, he uses it in the form Cacamis." — Cf, Terrien de 
Lacotiperie, Khan, Khakan, and other Tartar Titles. Lond,, Dec, 1888. — H, C] 



SKETCH OF THE STATE OF THE EAST it 

Hayton in his Cilician Kingdom had pledged a more frank 
allegiance to the Tartar, the enemy of his Moslem enemies. 

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

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

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

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

II. For about three centuries the Northern provinces of 
China had been detached from native rule, and subject to 
foreign dynasties; first to the Khitan, a people from 
the basin of the Sungari River, and supposed (but 
doubtfully) to have been akin to the Tunguses, whose rule 
subsisted for 200 years, and originated the name of Khitai, 
Khata, or Cathay, by which for nearly 1000 years China 
has been known to the nations of Inner Asia, and to those 



"China is a sea that salts all the rivers that flow into it"—/'. Parrmin in 
Litt. Edif. XXIV. 58. 

VOL. I. h 2 



Ti INTRODUCTION 

whose acquaintance with it was got by that channel.* The 
Khitan, whose dynasty is known in Chinese history as the 
Liao or "Iron," had been displaced in 1123 by the Churches 
or Niu-chen, another race of Eastern Tartary, of the same 
blood as the modern Manchus, whose Emperors in their 
brief period of prosperity were known by the Chinese name 
of T3i\-Km, by the Mongol name of the Altun Kaans, both 
signifying "Golden." Already in the lifetime of Chinghiz 
himself the northern Provinces of China Proper, including 
their capital, known as Chung-tu or Yen-King, now Peking, 
had been wrenched from them, and the conquest of the dynasty 
was completed by Chinghiz's successor Okkodai in 1234. 

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

12. In India the most powerful sovereign was the Sultan 

of Delhi, Nassir-uddin Mahmud of the Turki House of Iltit- 

mish;+ but, though both Sind and Bengal acknow- 

India, r -n • i t i • 

and ledged his supremacy, no part of Penmsular India 

had yet been invaded, and throughout the long period 
of our Traveller's residence in the East the Kings of Delhi 
had their hands too full, owing to the incessant incursions 
of the Mongols -across the Indus, to venture on extensive 
campaigning in the south. Hence the Dravidian Kingdoms 
of Southern India were as yet untouched by foreign conquest, 
and the accumulated gold of ages lay in their temples and 
treasuries, an easy prey for the coming invader. 

In the Indo-Chinese Peninsula and the Eastern Islands 
a variety of kingdoms and dynasties were expanding and 
contracting, of which we have at best but dim and shifting 
glimpses. That they were advanced in wealth and art, far 



* E.g., the Russians still call it Khitai. The pair of names, Khitai and 
Machiyi, or Cathay and China, is analogous to the other pair, Seres and Sinae. 
Seres was the name of the great nation in the far East as known by land, Sinae as 
known by sea ; and they were often supposed to be diverse, just as Cathay and 
China were afterwards. 

t There has been much doubt about the true form of this name. Iltitmish is 
that sanctioned by Mr. Blochmann (see Pioc. As. Soc. Bengal, 1870, p. 181). 



THE POLO FAMILY /j 

beyond what the present state of those regions would suggest, 
is attested by vast and magnificent remains of Architecture, 
nearly all dating, so far as dates can be ascertained, from 
the 1 2th to the 14th centuries (that epoch during which an 
architectural afflatus seems to have descended on the human 
race), and which are found at intervals over both the Indo- 
Chinese continent and the Islands, as at Pagan in Burma, 
at Ayuthia in Siam, at Angkor in Kamboja, at Borobodor 
and Brambanan in Java. All these remains are deeply 
marked by Hindu influence, and, at the same time, by strong 
peculiarities, both generic and individual. 

Autograph of Hayton, King of Armenia, circa A.V. 1243. 

" . . . t fax SO qni ustts Ittttts saimt f crmes t tstsilis ci abnns cscrit I'tscrit 
ht natxt nmitt bermoU e sagcll it turtrt cent |renb»nt . . . ." 



III. The Polo Family. Personal History of the Travellers 
DOWN to their final Return from the East. 

13. In days when History and Genealogy were allowed to 
draw largely on the imagination for the origines of states and 
families, it was set down by one Venetian Antiquary 

• Alleeed 

that among the companions of King Venetus, or of orig&of 
Prince Antenor of Troy, when they settled on the ' "^ 
northern shores of the Adriatic, there was one LUCIUS POLUS, 
who became the progenitor of our Traveller's Family ;♦ whilst 
another deduces it from PAOLO the first Doge t (Paulus Lucas 
Anafestus of Heraclea, A.D. 696). 

* Zurla, I. 42, quoting a MS. entitled Petrus Ciera S. R. E. Card, de Origine 
Verutorum et de Civitate Venetiarum. Cicogna says he could not find this MS. as 
it had been carried to England ; and then breaks into a diatribe against foreigners 
who purchase and carry away such treasures, " not to make a serious study of them, 
but for mere vain-glory .... or in order to write books contradicting the very MSS. 
that they have bought, and with that dishonesty and untruth which are so notorious ! " 
(IV. 227.) 

t Campidoglio Veneto of Cappellari (MS. in SL Mark's Lib.), quoting "the Venetian 
Annals of Giulio Faroldi." 



14 INTRODUCTION 

More trustworthy traditions, recorded among the Family 
Histories of Venice,- but still no more it is believed than 
traditions, represent the Family of Polo as having come from 
Sebenico in Dalmatia, in the nth century,* Before the end of 
the century they had taken seats in the Great Council of 
the Republic ; for the name of Domenico Polo is said to be 
subscribed to a grant of 1094, that of Pietro Polo to an act 
of the time of the Doge Domenico Michiele in 11 22, and that of 
a Domenico Polo to an acquittance granted by the Doge 
Domenico Morosini and his Council in ii53.t 

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

Two branches of the Polo Family were then recognized, 
distinguished by the confini or Parishes in which they lived, as 
Polo of S. Geremia, and Polo of S. Felice. Andrea Polo of 
S. Felice was the father of three sons, Marco, NiCOLO, and 
Maffeo. And Nicolo was the Father of our Marco. 

14. Till quite recently it had never been precisely ascer- 
tained whether the immediate family of our Traveller belonged 
to the Nobles of Venice properly so called, who had 
be styled seats in the Great Council and were enrolled in the 
Libro d'Oro. Ramusio indeed styles our Marco Nobile 
and Magnifico, and Rusticiano, the actual scribe of the 
Traveller's recollections, calls him ^' safes et noble citaiens de 
Venece," but Ramusio's accuracy and Rusticiano's precision were 
scarcely to be depended on. Very recently, however, since the 
subject has been discussed with accomplished students of the 
Venice Archives, proofs have been found establishing Marco's 
personal claim to nobility, inasmuch as both in judicial decisions 
and in official resolutions of the Great Council, he is designated 
Nobilis Vir, a formula which would never have been used in such 
documents (I am assured) had he not been technically noble. J 



* The Genealogies of Marco Barbaro specify 1033 as the year of the migration to 
Venice ; on what authority does not appear (MS. copy in Miiseo Civico at Venice). 

t Cappellari, M.S., 2iadi Barbaro. In the same century we find (1125, 1 195) indi- 
cations of Polos at Torcello, and of others (1160) at Equileo, and (1179, 1206) Lido 
Maggiore ; in 1154a Marco Polo of Rialto. Contemporary with these is a family of 
Polos (1139, 1 183, 1 193, 1201) at Chioggia (Documents atid Lists of Doctiments 
from various Archives at Venice). 

X See Appendix C, Nos. 4, 5, and 16. It was supposed that an autograph of 
Marco as member of the Great Council had been discovered, but this proves to be a 



PERSONAL HISTORY OF THE TRAVELLERS ij 

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

16. Nicolo Polo, the second of the Brothers, had two legi- 
timate sons, Marco, the Author of our Book, born in I254,§ 
and Maffeo, of whose place in the family we shall Nicolo and 
have a few words to say presently. The story opens, ^^e^^tSS" 
as we have said, in 1260, when we find the two '"""^'^ 
brothers, Nicolo and Maffeo the Elder, at Constantinople. 
How long they had been absent from Venice we are not dis- 
tinctly told. Nicolo had left his wife there behind him ; 
Maffeo apparently was a bachelor. In the year named they 
started on a trading venture to the Crimea, whence a succes- 
sion of openings and chances, recounted in the Introductor}'^ 
chapters of Marco's work, carried them far north along the 
Volga, and thence first to Bokhara, and then to the Court 
of the Great Kaan Kublai in the Far East, on or within the 
borders of Cathay. That a great and civilized country so 
called existed in the extremity of Asia had already been 
reported in Europe by the Friars Piano Carpini (1246) and 
William Rubruquis (1253), who had not indeed reached its 



mistake, as will be explained further on (see p. 7^, note). In those days the demarcation 
between Patrician and non-Palrician at Venice, where all classes shared in commerce, 
all were (generally speaking) of one race, and where there were neither castles, domains, 
nor trains of horsemen, formed no wide gulf. Still it is interesting to establish the 
verity of the old tradition of Marco's technical nobility. 

* Marco's seniority rests only on the assertion of Ramusio, who also calls Maffeo 
older than Nicolo. But in Marco the Elder's Will these two are always (3 times) 
specified as " Nicolaus et Mai hens." 

t This seems implied in the Elder Marco's Will (1280) : ^^ Item de bonis qtue me 
habere contingunt de fraterna Compagnia a suprascriptis Nicolao et Malheo Paulo" etc. 

X In his Will he terms himself " Ego Marcus Polo quondam de Constantinopoli." 

§ There is no real ground for doubt as to this. All the extant MSS. agree in 
making Marco fifteen years old when his father returned to Venice in 1269. 



s6 INTRODUCTION 

frontiers, but had met with its people at the Court of the 
Great Kaan in Mongolia ; whilst the latter of the two with 
characteristic acumen had seen that they were identical with 
the Seres of classic fame. 

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

18. The Brothers arrived at Acre in April,* 1269, and 
found that no Pope existed, for Clement IV. was dead the 
Their return year bcfore, and no new election had taken place. 

home, and r- i t t • i i • 

Marco's ap- ^o they Went home to Venice to see how thmgs 

pearance on 

the scene. stood there after their absence of so many years. 

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

The best and most authentic MSS. tell us no more than 
this. But one class of copies, consisting of the Latin version 
made by our Traveller's contemporary, Francesco Pipino, and 
of the numerous editions based indirectly upon it, represents 
that Nicolo had left Venice when Marco was as yet unborn, 
and consequently had never seen him till his return from the 
East in i26g.-f 



* Baldelli and Lazari say that the Bern MS. specifies 30th April ; but this is 
a mistake. 

+ Pipino's version runs : " Invenit Dominus Nicolaus Paulus uxorem suam esse de- 
functam, quae in recessu siio fuit praegnans. Invenitque filium, Marcum nomine, qui 
jam annos xv. habebat aetatis, qui post discessum ipsius de Venetiis natus fuerat de uxore 



PERSONAL HISTORY OF THE TRAVELLERS 17 

We have mentioned that Nicolo Polo had another legiti- 
mate son, by name Maffeo, and him we infer to have been 
younger than Marco, because he is named last {Marcus et 
Matkeiis) in the Testament of their uncle Marco the Elder. 
We do not know if they were by the same mother. They 
could not have been so if we are right in supposing Maffeo 
to have been the younger, and if Pipino's version of the 
history be genuine. If however we reject the latter, as I 
incline to do, no ground remains for supposing that Nicolo 
went to the East much before we find him there viz., in 1260, 
and Maffeo may have been born of the same mother during the 
interval between 1254 and 1260. If on the other hand Pipino's 
version be held to, we must suppose that Maffeo (who is 
named by his uncle in 1280, during his father's second absence 
in the East) was born of a marriage contracted during Nicolo's 
residence at home after his first journey, a residence which 
lasted from 1269 to 127 1.* 

sua praefata." To this Ramusio adds the further particular that the mother died 
in gi\'ing birth to Mark. 

The interpolation is older even than Pipino's version, for we find in the rude 
Latin published by the Societe de Geographie " quam cum Venetiis primo recessit 
praegnantem dimiserat." But the statement is certainly an interpolation, for it does 
not exist in any of the older texts ; nor have we any good reason for believing that 
it was an authorised interpolation. I suspect it to have been introduced to harmonise 
with an erroneous date for the commencement of the travels of the two brothers. 

Lazari prints : " Messer Nicol6 trovo che la sua donna era morta, e n'era 
rimasto un fanciuUo di dodici anni per nome Marco, che il padre noti avea veduto mai, 
perchi non era ancor nato quando egli parti." These words have no equivalent in 
the French Texts, but are taken from one of the Italian MSS. in the Maglia- 
becchian Library, and are I suspect also interpolated. The dodici is pure error 
(see p. 21 infra). 

* The last view is in substance, I find, su^ested by Cicogna (ii. 389). 

The matter is of some interest, because in the Will of the younger Maffeo, 
which is extant, he makes a bequest to his uncle {Avunculus) Jordan Trevisan. 
This seems an indication that his mother's name may have been Trevisan. The 
same Maffeo had a daughter Fiordelisa. And Marco the Elder, in his Will (1280), 
appoints as his executors, during the absence of his brothers, the same Jordan 
Trevisan and his own sister-in-law Fiordelisa ("Jordanum Trivisanum de confinio 
S. Antonini : et Flordelisam cognatam meam "). Hence I conjecture that this 
cognata Fiordelisa (Trevisan ?) was the wife of the absent Nicolo, and the mother of 
Maffeo. In that case of course Maffeo and Marco were the sons of different mothers. 
With reference to the above suggestion of Nicolo's second marriage in 1269 there 
is a curious variation in a fragmentary Venetian Polo in the Barberini Librar)^ at 
Rome. It runs, in the passage corresponding to the latter part of ch. ix. of 
Prologue : "i qual do fratelli steteno do anni in Veniezia aspettando la elletion de 
nuovo Papa, nel qual tempo Mess. Nicolo si tolse moier et si la lasd grat'cda." I 
believe, however, that it is only a careless misrendering of Pipino's statement about 
Marco's birth. 



j8 



INTRODUCTION 



19. The Papal interregnum was the longest known, at 
least since the dark ages. Those two years passed, and -yet 




The Piazzetta at Venice. (From the Bodleian MS. of Polo.) 

the Cardinals at Viterbo had come to no agreement. The 
Second brothers were unwilling to let the Great Kaan think 
the"poio°^ them faithless, and perhaps they hankered after the 
acc°ompanied virgltt field of Speculation that they had discovered ; 
by Marco. gQ jj^gy started again for the East, taking young 
Mark with them. At Acre they took counsel with an 
eminent churchman, Tedaldo (or Tebaldo) ViSCONTi, Arch- 



PERSONAL HISTORY OF THE TRAVELLERS ig 

deacon of Liege, whom the Book represents to have been 
Legate in Syria, and who in any case was a personage of 
much gravity and influence. From him they got letters to 
authenticate the causes of the miscarriage of their mission, 
and started for the further East But they were still at the 
port of i\yas on the Gulf of Scanderoon, which was then 
becoming one of the chief points of arrival and departure for 
the inland trade of Asia, when they were overtaken by the 
news that a Pope was at last elected, and that the choice had 
fallen upon their friend Archdeacon Tedaldo. They imme- 
diately returned to Acre, and at last were able to execute the 
Kaan's commission, and to obtain a reply. But instead of the 
hundred able teachers of science and religion whom Kublai 
is said to have asked for, the new Pope, Gregory X., could 
supply but two Dominicans; and these lost heart and drew 
back when they had barely taken the first step of the journey. 

Judging from certain indications we conceive it probable 
that the three Venetians, whose second start from Acre took 
place about November 1271, proceeded by Ayas and Sivas, and 
then by Mardin, Mosul, and Baghdad, to Hormuz at the mouth 
of the Persian Gulf, with the view of going on by sea, but that 
some obstacle arose which compelled them to abandon this 
project and turn north again from Hormuz.* They then 



* [Major Sykes, in his remarkable book on Persia, ch. xxiii. pp. 262-263, does not 
share Sir Henry Yule's opinion r^[arding this itinerary, and he writes : 

"To return to our travellers, who started on their second great journey in 127 1, 
Sir Henry Vule, in his introduction,^ makes them travel via Sivas to Mosul and 
Baghdad, and thence by sea to Hormuz, and this is the itinerary shown on his sketch 
map. This view I am unwilling to accept for more than one reason. In the first 
place, if, with Colonel Yule, we suppose that Ser Marco visited Baghdad, is it not 
unlikely that he should term the River Volga the Tigris,^ and yet leave the river of 
Baghdad nameless? It may be urged that Marco believed the legend of the re- 
appearance of the Volga in Kurdistan, but yet, if the text be read with care and the 
character of the traveller be taken into account, this error is scarcely expUcable in 
any other way, than that he was never there. 

" Again, he gives no description of the striking buildings of Baudas, as he terms 
it, but this is nothing to the inaccuracy of his supposed onward journey. To quote 
the text, ' A very great river flows through the city, .... and merchants descend 
some eighteen days from Baudas, and then come to a certain city called Kisi,^ where 
|they enter the Sea of India.' Siuely Marco, had he travelled down the Persian Gulf, 
[would never have given this description of the route, which is so untrue as to point 



1 Page 19. 

2 Vide Yule, vol. i- p. 5. It is noticeable that John of Pian de Carpine, who travelled 1245 to 
£1247, names it correctly. 
t * The modem name is Keis, an island lying off Linga. 



so INTRODUCTION 

traversed successively Kerman and Khorasan, Balkh and 
Badakhshan, whence they ascended the Panja or upper Oxus to 
the Plateau of Pamir, a route not known to have been since 
followed by any European traveller except Benedict Goes, till 
the spirited expedition of Lieutenant John Wood of the Indian 
Navy in 1838* Crossing the Pamir highlands the travellers 
descended upon Kashgar, whence they proceeded by Yarkand 
and Khotan, and the vicinity of Lake Lob, and eventually 
across the Great Gobi Desert to Tangut, the name then applied 
by Mongols and Persians to territory at the extreme North-west 
of China, both within and without the Wall. Skirting the 



to the conclusion that it was vague information given by some merchant whom he 
met in the course of his wanderings. 

" Finally, apart from the fact that Baghdad, since its fall, was rather off the main 
caravan route, Marco so evidently travels east from Yezd and thence south to 
Hormuz, that unless his journey be described backwards, which is highly improbable, 
it is only possible to arrive at one conclusion, namely, that the Venetians entered 
Persia near Tabriz, and travelled to Sultania, Kashan, and Yezd. Thence they pro- 
ceeded to Kerman and Hormuz, where, probably fearing the sea voyage, owing to 
the manifest unseaworthiness of the ships, which he describes as ' wretched 
affairs,' the Khorasan route was finally adopted. Hormuz, in this case, was not 
visited again until the return from China, when it seems probable tha the same route 
was retraced to Tabriz, where their charge, the Lady Kokachin, 'moult bele dame 
et avenant,' was married to Ghazan Khan, the son of her fiance Arghun. It remains 
to add that Sir Henry Yule may have finally accepted this View in part, as in the 
plate showing Probable View of Marco Polo's own Geography,^ the itinerary is not 
shown as running to Baghdad." 

I may be allowed to answer that when Marco Polo started for the East , Baghdad 
was not rather off the main caravan route. The fall of Baghdad was not immediately 
followed by its decay, and we have proof of its prosperity at the beginning of the 
14th century. Tauris had not yet the importance it had reached when the Polos 
visited it on their return journey. We have the will of the Venetian Pietro Viglioni, 
dated from Tauris, loth December, 1264 {Archiv. Veneto, xxvi. 161-165), which 
shows that he was but a pioneer. It was only under Arghun Khan (1284-1291) that 
Tauris became the great market for foreign, especially Genoese, merchants, as Marco 
Polo remarks on his return journey ; with Ghazan and the new city built by that 
prince, Tauris reached a very high degree of prosperity, and was then really the chief 
emporium on the route from Europe to Persia and the far East. Sir Henry Yule 
had not changed his views, and if in the plate showing Probable View of Alarco Polo^s 
own Geography, the itinerary is not shown as running to Baghdad, it is mere neglect 
on the part of the draughtsman. — H. C] 

* It is stated by Neumann that this most estimable traveller once intended to have 
devoted a special work to the elucidation of Marco's chapters on the Oxus Provinces, 
and it is much to be regretted that this intention was never fulfilled. Pamir has 
been explored more extensively and deliberately, whilst this book was going through 
the press, by Colonel Gordon, and other officers, detached from Sir Douglas Forsyth's 
Mission. [We have made use of the information given by these officers and by more 
recent travellers. — H. C] 

1 Vol. i. p. //o (Introduction). 



PERSONAL HISTORY OF THE TRAVELLERS at 

northern frontier of China they at last reached the presence of 
the Kaan, who was at his usual summer retreat at Kai-ping fu, 
near the base of the Khingan Mountains, and nearly lOO miles 
north of the Great Wall at Kalgan. If there be no mistake in 
the time (three years and a half) ascribed to this journey in all 
the existing texts, the travellers did not reach the Court till 
about May of 1275.* 

20. Kublai received the Venetians with great cordiality, 
and took kindly to young Mark, who must have been by this 
time one-and-twenty. The foenne Bacheler, as the ^, 

. Marcos 

story calls him, applied himself to the acquisition of ^^°^'°' 
the languages and written characters in chief use ^*^ : ^nd 

•-> *-> his journeys. 

among the multifarious nationalities included in the 
Kaan's Court and administration ; and Kublai after a time, 
seeing his discretion and abilitj% began to employ him in the 
public service. M. Pauthier has found a record in the Chinese 
Annals of the Mongol Dynasty, which states that in the year 
1277, a certain PoLO was nominated a second-class com- 
missioner or agent attached to the Privy Council, a passage 
which we are happy to believe to refer to our young traveller.f 

His first mission apparently was that which carried him 
through the provinces of Shan-si, Shen-si, and Sze-ch'wan, and 
the wild country on the East of Tibet, to the remote province of 
Yun-nan, called by the Mongols Karajang, and which had been 
partially conquered by an army under Kublai himself in 1253, 
before his accession to the throne.:!: Mark, during his stay at 
court, had obser\^ed the Kaan's delight in hearing of strange 
countries, their marvels, manners, and oddities, and had heard 



• Half a year eailier, if we suppose the three years and a half to count from 
Venice rather than Acre. But at that season (November) Kublai would not have 
been at Kai-ping fa (otherwise Shang-tu). 

t PcuUhier, p. ix., and p. 361. 

% That this was Marco's first mission is positively stated in the Ramusian edition ; 
and though this may be only an editor's gloss it seems well-founded. The French 
texts say only that the Great Kaan, " I'envoia en un message en une terre ou bien 
avoit vj. mois de chemin." The traveller's actual Itinerar)- affords to Vochan 
(Yung-ch'ang), on the frontier of Burma, 147 days' journey, which with halts might 
well be reckoned six months in round estimate. And we are enabled by various 
circumstances to fix the date of the Yun-nan journey between 1277 and 12S0. The 
former limit is determined by Polo's account of the battle with the Burmese, near 
Vochan, which took place according to the Chinese Annals in 1277. The latter is 
fixed by his mention of Kiiblai's son, Mangalai, as governing at Kenjanfa (Si-ngan fn), 
a prince who died in 12S0. (See vol. ii. pp. 24, 31, also 64, 80.) 



S2 INTRODUCTION 

his Majesty's frank expressions of disgust at the stupidity of his 
commissioners when they could speak of nothing but the official 
business on which they had been sent. Profiting by these 
observations, he took care to store his memory or his note-books 
with all curious facts that were likely to interest Kiibldi, and 
related them with vivacity on his return to Court. This first 
journey, which led him through a region which is still very 
nearly a terra incognita, and in which there existed and still 
exists, among the deep valleys of the Great Rivers flowing down 
from Eastern Tibet, and in the rugged mountain ranges 
bordering Yun-nan and Kwei-chau, a vast Ethnological Garden, 
as it were, of tribes of various race and in every stage of 
uncivilisation, afforded him an acquaintance with many strange 
products and eccentric traits of manners, wherewith to delight 
the Emperor, 

Mark rose rapidly in favour, and often served Kubldi again 
on distant missions, as well as in domestic administration, but 
we gather few details as to his employments. At one time we 
know that he held for three years the government of the great 
city of Yang-chau, though we need not try to magnify this ofifice, 
as some commentators have done, into the viceroyalty of one of 
the great provinces of the Empire ; on another occasion we 
find him with his uncle Maffeo, passing a year at Kan-chau in 
Tangut ; again, it would appear, visiting Kara Korum, the old 
capital of the Kaans in Mongolia ; on another occasion in 
Champa or Southern Cochin China ; and again, or perhaps as a 
part of the last expedition, on a mission to the Indian Seas, 
when he appears to have visited several of the southern states of 
India. We are not informed whether his father and uncle 
shared in such employments ; * and the story of their services 
rendered to the Kaan in promoting the capture of the city of 
Siang-yang, by the construction of powerful engines of attack, is 
too much perplexed by difficulties of chronology to be cited 
with confidence. Anyhow they were gathering wealth, and 
after years of exile they began to dread what might follow old 
KubMi's death, and longed to carry their gear and their own 
grey heads safe home to the Lagoons. The aged Emperor 

* Excepting in the doubtful case of Kan-chau, where one reading says that the 
three Polos were there on business of their own not necessary to mention, and 
another, that only Maffeo and Marco were there, " ^m l^^aiion." 



PERSONAL HISTORY OF THE TRAVELLERS 23 

growled refusal to all their hints, and but for a happy chance we 
should have lost our mediaeval Herodotus. 

21. Arghiin Khan of Persia, Kublai's great-nephew, had 
in 1286 lost his favourite wife the Khatun Bulughan ; and, 
mourning her sorely, took steps to fulfil her dying cirtnim- 

• • 1 1 1 1 111 r-iii 11 stances of 

iniunction that her place should be filled only by a theDepar- 

■' . •' ■^ tureofthe 

lady of her own kin, the Mongol Tribe of Bavaut. Poiosfrom 

^ 1,1, theKaan's 

Ambassadors were despatched to the Court of Kaan- Cou«- 
baligh to seek such a bride. The message was courteously 
received, and the choice fell on the lady Kokachin, a maiden 
of ly," moult bele dame et avenant." The overland road from 
Peking to Tabriz was not only of portentous length for such a 
tender charge, but was imperilled by war, so the envoys desired 
to return by sea. Tartars in general were strangers to all 
navigation ; and the envoys, much taken with the Venetians, 
and eager to profit by their experience, especially as Marco had 
just then returned from his Indian mission, begged the Kaan as 
a favour to send the three Firinghis in their company. He 
consented with reluctance, but, having done so, fitted the party 
out nobly for the voyage, charging the Polos with friendly 
messages for the potentates of Europe, including the King of 
England. They appear to have sailed from the port of Zayton 
(as the Westerns called T'swan-chau or Chin-cheu in Fo-kien) 
in the beginning of 1292. It was an ill-starred voyage, involving 
long detentions on the coast of Sumatra, and in the South of 
India, to which, however, we are indebted for some of the best 
chapters in the book ; and two years or upwards passed before 
they arrived at their destination in Persia.* The three hardy 



* Persian history seems to fix the arrival of the lady Kokachin in the North of 
Persia to the winter of 1293-1294. The voyage to Sumatra occupied three months (vol. 
i. p. 34) ; they were five months detained there (ii. 292) ; and the remainder of the 
voyage extended to eighteen more (i. 35), — twenty-six months in all. 

The data are too slight for unexceptional precision, but the following adjustment 
will fairly meet the facts. Say that they sailed from Fo-kien in January 1292. 
In April they would be in Sumatra, and find the S.W. Monsoon too near to admit 
of their crossing the Bay of Bengal. They remain in port till September (five months), 
and then proceed, touching (perhaps) at Ceylon, at Kayal, and at several ports of 
Western India. In one of these, e.g. Kayal or Tana, they pass the S.W. Monsoon 
of 1293, and then proceed to the Gulf. They reach Hormuz in the winter, and the 
camp of the Persian Prince Ghazan, the son of Arghiin, in March, twenty-six months 
from their departure. 

I have been unable to trace Hammer's authority (not Wassaf I find), which 



24 INTRODUCTION 

Venetians survived all perils, and so did the lady, who had come 
to look on them with filial regard ; but two of the three envoys, 
and a vast proportion of the suite, had perished by the way.* 
Arghun Khan too had been dead even before they quitted 
China ; t his brother Kaikhatu reigned in his stead ; and his son 
Ghdzdn succeeded to the lady's hand. We are told by one who 
knew both the princes well that Arghun was one of the hand- 
somest men of his time, whilst Ghazdn was, among all his host, 
one of the most insignificant in appearance. But in other 
respects the lady's change was for the better, Ghazan had some 
of the highest qualities of a soldier, a legislator and a king, 
adorned by many and varied accomplishments ; though his reign 
was too short for the full development of his fame. 

22. The princess, whose enjoyment of her royalty was brief, 
wept as she took leave of the kindly and noble Venetians. 
They went on to Tabriz, and after a long halt there proceeded 
They pass homewards, reaching Venice, according to all the texts 

by Persia 

to Venice, somc time m 1 295. J 

tions there. We havc related Ramusio's interesting tradition, 

like a bit out of the Arabian Nights, of the reception that the 
Travellers met with from their relations, and of the means that 
they took to establish their position with those relations, and 



perhaps gives the precise date of the Lady's arrival in Persia (see ittfra, p. 38). 
From his narrative, however [Gesch. der Ilchane, ii. 20), March 1294 is perhaps too 
late a date. But the five months' stoppage in Sumatra must have been in the 
S.W. Monsoon ; and if the arrival in Persia is put earlier, Polo's numbers can 
scarcely be held to. Or, the eighteen months mentioned at vol. i. p. 35, must include 
the five months' stoppage. We may then suppose that they reached Hormuz about 
November 1293, and Ghazdn's camp a month or two later. 

* The French text which forms the basis of my translation says that, excluding 
mariners, there were 600 souls, out of whom only 8 survived. The older MS. which 
I quote as G. T., makes the number 18, a fact that I had overlooked till the sheets 
were printed off. 

t Died 1 2th March, 1291. 

% All dates are found so corrupt that even in this one I do not feel absolute con- 
fidence. Marco in dictating the book is aware that Ghazan had attained the throne of 
Persia (see vol. i. p. 36, and ii. pp. 50 and 477), an event which did not occur till 
October, 1295. The date assigned to it, however, by Marco (ii. 477) is 1294, or the 
year before that assigned to the return home. 

The travellers may have stopped some time at Constantinople on their way, or even 
may have visited the northern shores of the Black Sea ; otherwise, indeed, how did 
Marco acquire his knowledge of that Sea (ii. 486-488) and of events in Kipchak (ii. 496 
seqq.)'i If 1296 was the date of return, moreover, the six-and- twenty years assigned 
in the preamble as the period of Marco's absence (p. 2) would be nearer accuracy. 
For he left Venice in the spring or summer of 127 1. 



PERSONAL HISTORY OF THE TRAVELLERS 25 

with Venetian society.* Of the relations, Marco the Elder had 
probably been long dead ; f Maffeo the brother of our Marco 
was alive, and we hear also of a cousin {consanguineus) Felice 
Polo, and his wife Fiordelisa, without being able to fix their 
precise position in the family. We know also that Nicolo, who 
died before the end of the century, left behind him two illegiti- 
mate sons, Stefano and Zannino. It is not unlikely that these 
were born from some connection entered into during the long 



* Marco Barbaro, in his account of the Polo family, tells what seems to be the 
same tradition in a different and more mythical version : — 

*' From ear to ear the story has past till it reached mine, that when the three 
Kinsmen arrived at their home they were dressed in the most shabby and sordid 
manner, insomuch that the wife of one of them gave away to a beggar that came to 
the door one of those garments of his, all torn, patched, and dirty as it was. The next 
day he asked his wife for that mantle of his, in order to put away the jewels that 
were sewn up in it ; but she told him she had given it away to a poor man, whom she 
did not know. Now, the stratagem he employed to recover it was this. He went to 
the Bridge of Rialto, and stood there turning a wheel, to no apparent purpose, but as 
if he were a madman, and to all those who crowded round to see what prank was this, 
and asked him why he did it, he answered : ' He'll come if God pleases.' So after 
two or three days he recognised his old coat on the back of one of those who came to 
stare at his mad proceedings, and got it back again. Then, iiideed, he was judged to 
be quite the reverse of a madman ! And from those jewels he built in the contrada of S. 
Giovanni Grisostomo a very fine palace for those days ; and the family got among the 
vulgar the name of the Cd Million, because the report was that they had jewels to the 
value of a million of ducats; and the palace has kept that name to the present day — 
viz., 1566." ^Genealogies, MS. copy in Museo Civico ; quoted also hy Baldelli Boni^ 
Vita, p. xxxi.) 

t The Will of the Elder Marco, to which we have several times referred, is dated 
at Rialto 5th August, 1280. 

The testator descrilies himself as formerly of Constantinople, but now dwelling in 
the confine of S. Severo. 

His brothers Nicolo and Maffeo, if at Venice, are to be his sole trustees and 
executors, but in case of their continued absence he nominates Jordano Trevisano, 
md his sister-in-law Fiordelisa of the confine of S. Severo. 

The proper tithe to be paid. All his clothes and furniture to be sold, and from 
:he proceeds his funeral to be defrayed, and the balance to purchase masses for his 
soul at the discretion of his trustees. 

Particulars of money due to him from his partnership with Donato Grasso, now 
of Justinople {Capo d'Istria), 1200 lire in all. (Fifty-two lire due by said partner- 
ship to Angelo di Tumba of S. Severo. ) 

The above money bequeathed to his son Nicolo, living at Soldachia, or failing him, 
to his beloved brothers Nicolo and Maffeo. Failing them, to the sons of his said 
brothers {sic) Marco and Maffeo. Failing them, to be spent for the good of his soul at 
he discretion of his trustees. 

To his son Nicolo lie bequeaths a silver-wrought girdle of vermilion silk, two 
silver spoons, a silver cup witliout cover (or saucer? sine cembalo), his desk, two 
pairs of sheets, a velvet quilt, a counterpane, a feather-bed — all on the same con- 
ditions as above, and to remain with the trustees till his son returns to Venice. 

Meanwhile the trustees are to invest the money at his son's risk and benefit, but 
only here in Venice {investiant sen investire faciant). 

VOL. L % 



at INTRODUCTION 

residence of the Polos in Cathay, though naturally their presence 
in the travelling company is not commemorated in Marco's 
Prologue.* 



IV. Digression concerning the Mansion of the Polo Family 

AT Venice. 

23. We have seen that Ramusio places . the scene of the 
story recently alluded to at the mansion in the parish of 
S. Giovanni Grisostomo, the court of which was known in 
his time as the Corte del Millioni ; and indeed he speaks of 
Probable ^he Travcllcrs as at once on their arrival resorting 
thei°es°Ib- to that mansion as their family residence. Ramusio's 
sf'c^ovanni details have so often proved erroneous that I should 
Grisostomo. ^^^ ^^^ surpriscd if this also should be a mistake. 
At least we find (so far as I can learn) no previous intimation 
that the family were connected with that locality. The grand- 
father Andrea is styled of San Felice. The will of Maffeo 
Polo the. younger, made in 1300, which we shall give hereafter 
in abstract, appears to be the first document that connects the 
family with S. Giovanni Grisostomo. It indeed styles the 
testator's father " the late Nicole Paulo of the confine of 
St. John Chrysostom," but that only shows what is not dis- 
puted, that the Travellers after their return from the East 
settled in this locality. And the same will appears to indicate 
a surviving connexion with S. Felice, for the priests and clerks 
who drew it up and witness it are all of the church of S. Felice, 
and it is to the parson of S. Felice and his successor that Maffeo 
bequeaths an annuity to procure their prayers for the souls of 



From the proceeds to come in from his partnership with his brothers Nicolo and 
Maffeo, he bequeaths 200 Kre to his daughter Maroca. 

From same source lOO lire to his natural son Antony. 

Has in his desk {capsella) two hyperperae (Byzantine gold coins), and three 
golden florins, which he bequeaths to the sister-in-law Fiordelisa. 

Gives freedom to all his slaves and handmaidens. 

Leaves his house in Soldachia to the Minor Friars of that place, reserving life- 
occupancy to his son Nicolo and daughter Maroca. 
The rest of his goods to his son Nicolo. 

* The terms in which the younger Maffeo mentions these half-brothers in his Will 
(1300) seem to indicate that they were still young. 



yi' 




JM. 



»::"^ 




THE CORTE DEL MILLIONl arj 

his father, his mother, and himself, though after the successor 
the annuity is to pass on the same condition to the senior 
priest of S. Giovanni Grisostomo. Marco Polo the Elder is 
in his will described as of S. Severo, as is also his sister-in- 
law Fiordelisa, and the document contains no reference to 
S. Giovanni. On the whole therefore it seems probable that 
the Palazzo in the latter parish was purchased by the Tra- 
vellers after their return from the East.* 

24. The Court which was known in the i6th century as the 
Corte del Millioni has been generally understood to be that now- 
known as the Corte Sabbionera, and here is still pointed jj^,j^ ^^ ^j,^ 
out a relic of Marco Polo's mansion. [Indeed it is f^^orte "* 
called now (1899) Corle del Milione ; see p. jo.— H. C] Sabbionera. 
M. Pauthier's edition is embellished with a good engraving 
which purports to represent the House of Marco Polo. But 
he has been misled. His engraving in fact exhibits, at 
least as the prominent feature, an embellished representation 
of a small house which exists on the west side of the Sabbionera, 
and which had at one time perhaps that pointed style of 
architecture which his engraving shows, though its present 
decoration is paltry and unreal. But it is on the 7iorth side 
of the Court, and on the foundations now occupied by the 
Malibran theatre, that Venetian tradition and the investigations 
of Venetian antiquaries concur in indicating the site of the 
Casa Polo. At the end of the i6th century a great fire 
destroyed the Palazzo,f and under the description of " an old 

' Marco Barbaro's story related at p. 23 speaks of the Ca' Million as built by the 
travellers. 

From a list of parchments existing in the archives of the Casa di Ricavero, or Great 
Poor House, at Venice, Comni. Berchet obtained the following indication : — 

''^ No. 94. Marco Galetti invests Marco Polo S. ^Nicolo with the ownership of his 
possessions (beni) in S. Giovanni Grisostomo ; 10 September, 1319; drawn up by the 
Notary Nicolo, priest of S. Canciano." 

This document would perhaps have thrown light on the matter, but unfortunately 
recent search by several parties has failed to trace it. [The document has been dis- 
covered since : see vol. ii., Calendar, No. 6. — H. C] 

+ "Sua casa che era posta nel confin di S. Giovanni Chrisostomo, che horfh 

Tanno s'abbrugio totalmente, con gran danno di molti." (Doglionl, Hist. Venetiana, 
Ven. 1598, pp. 161-162.) 

" 1596. 7 Nov. Senaio (Arsenal .... ix c. 159 t). 

" Essendo conveniente usar qualche ricognizione a quelli della maestranza del- 
1' Arsenal nostro, che prontamente sono concorsi all' incendio occorso ultimamente a 
S. Zuane Grizostomo nelli stabeli detti di Ca' Milion dove per la relazion fatta nell 
collegio nostro dalli patroni di esso Arsenal lianno nell' estinguere il foco prestato 
(^ni buon servitio. . . ." — (Comm. by Cav. Cecchetti through Comm. Berchet) 
VOL. L 12 



28 ' INTRODUCTION 

mansion ruined from the foundation " it passed into the hands 
of one Stefano Vecchia, who sold it in 1678 to Giovanni 
Carlo Grimani. He built on the site of the ruins a theatre 
which was in its day one of the largest in Italy, and was 
called the Theatre of S. Giovanni Grisostomo ; afterwards 
the Teatro Emeronitio. When modernized in our own day the 
proprietors gave it the name of Malibran, in honour of that 
famous singer, and this it still bears.* 

[In 1881, the year of the Venice International Geographical 
Congress, a Tablet was put up on the Theatre with the 
following inscription : — 

QVI FURONO LE CASE 

DI 

MARCO POLO 

CHE VIAGGI6 LE PitJ LONTANE REGIONI DELL' ASIA 

E LE DESCRISSE 



PER DECRETO DEL COMUNE 
MDCCCLXXXI]. 

There is still to be seen on the north side of the Court an 
arched doorway in Italo-Byzantine style, richly sculptured 
with scrolls, disks, and symbolical animals, and on the wall 
above the doorway is a cross similarly ornamented.^ The 
style and the decorations are those which were usual in 
Venice in the 13th century. The arch opens into a passage 
from which a similar doorway at the other end, also retaining 
some scantier relics of decoration, leads to the entrance of the 
Malibran Theatre. Over the archway in the Corte Sabbionera 
the building rises into a kind of tower. This, as well as the 
sculptured arches and cross, Signor Casoni, who gave a good 
deal of consideration to the subject, believed to be a relic of 
the old Polo House. But the tower (which Pauthier's view 
does show) is now entirely modernized.^ 

Other remains of Byzantine sculpture, which are probably 

* See a paper by G. C. (the Engineer Giovanni Casoni) in Teatro Emeronitio^ 
Almanacco per FAnno 1835. 

t This Cross is engraved by Mr. Ruskin in vol. ii. of the Stones of Venice : see 
p. 139, and PL xi. Fig. 4. 

X Casoni's only doubt was whether the Corte del Millioni was what is now the 
Sabbionera, or the interior area of the theatre. The latter seems most probable. 

One Illustration of this volume, p. /, shows the archway in the Corte Sabbionera, 
and also the decorations of the soffit, 



THE CORTE DEL MILLlONl 



^ 



The site of the ' '^ ''^ 

CA' POLO. 




Fig. A. 

From the Durer Map 

A. D. 1300. 



Fig. B. 
From Map by Ludovico Ughi- 
A.D. 1729. Scale I to 2300. 




30 INTRODUCTION 

fragments of the decoration of the same mansion, are found 
imbedded in the walls of neighbouring houses.* It is im- 
possible to determine anything further as to the form or 
extent of the house of the time of the Polos, but some slight 
idea of its appearance about the year 1500 may be seen in 
the extract (fig a) which we give from the famous pictorial 
map of Venice attributed erroneously to Albert Diirer. The 
state of the buildings in the last century is shown in (fig. B) an 
extract from the fine Map of Ughi ; and their present condition 
in one (fig. c) reduced from the Modern Official Map of the 
Municipality. 

[Coming from the Church of S. G. Grisostomo to enter the 
calle del Teatro on the left and the passage {Sottoportico) 
leading to the Corte del Milione, one has in front of him a 
building with a door of the epoch of the Renaissance ; it was 
the office of the provveditori of silk ; on the architrave are 
engraved the words : 

PROVISORES SERICI 

and below, above the door, is the Tablet which] in the year 
1827 the Abate Zenier caused to be put up with this inscription : — 

AEDES PROXIMA THALIAE CVLTVI MODO ADDICTA 

MARCI POLO P. V. ITINERVM FAMA PRAECLARI 

JAM HABITATIO FVIT. 

24«. I believe that of late years some doubts have been 

thrown on the tradition of the site indicated as that of the 

Casa Polo, though I am not aware of the grounds of 

Recent cor- ' " o 

roboration g^,]^ doubts. But a document recently discovered 

as to the tra- •' 

of'the Casa ^^ Vcnice by Comm. Barozzi, one of a series relating 
^''^°- to the testamentary estate of Marco Polo, goes far 

to confirm the tradition. This is the copy of a technical defini- 
tion of two pieces of house property adjoining the property of 
Marco Polo and his brother Stephen, which were sold to 
Marco Polo by his wife Donataf in June 1321. Though the 
definition is not decisive, from the rarity of topographical re- 
ferences and absence of points of the compass, the description 



* See Riiskin, iii. 320. 

t Comm. Barozzi writes : " Among us, contracts between husband and wife are 
and were very common, and recognized by law. The wife sells to the husband 
property not included in dowry, or that she may have inherited, just as any third 
person might." 




Entrance to the Corte del Milione, Venice. 



[ To face p. 30. 



ON MEDIAEVAL WAR-GALLEYS 3' 

of Donata's tenements as standing on the Rio (presumably that 
of S. Giovanni Grisostomo) on one side, opening by certain 
porticoes and stairs on the other to the Court and common 
alley leading to the Church of S. Giovanni Grisostomo, and 
abutting in two places on the Ca' Polo, the property of her 
husband and Stefano, will apply perfectly to a building occupy- 
ing the western portion of the area on which now stands the 
Theatre, and perhaps forming the western side of a Court of 
which Casa Polo formed the other three sides.* 

We know nothing more of Polo till we find him appearing 
a year or two later in rapid succession as the Captain of a 
Venetian Galley, as a prisoner of war, and as an author. 



V. Digression concerning the War-Galleys of the Medi- 
terranean States in the Middle Ages. 

25. And before entering on this new phase of the Traveller's 
biography it may not be without interest that we say Arrange- 
something regarding the equipment of those galleys RowerelS* 
which are so prominent in the mediaeval history of the caiie^ta 
Mediterranean."!- T^^^°^ 

Eschewing that " Serbonian Bog, where armies "^ 
whole have sunk" of Books and Commentators, the theory 
of the classification of the Biremes and Triremes of the 
Ancients, we can at least assert on secure grounds that in 
medicBval armament, up to the middle of the i6th century or 
thereabouts, the characteristic distinction of galleys of different 
calibres, so far as such differences existed, was based on the 
number of rowers that sat on one bench pulling each his separate 
oar, but through one portella or rowlock-port.X And to the classes 



* See Appendix C, No. 16. 

t I regret not to have had access to JaFs learned memoirs {ArchMogie Navmle, 
Paris, 1S39) whilst writing this section, nor since, except for a hasty look at his Essay 
on the difficult subject of the oar arrangements. I see that he rejects so great a 
number of oars as I deduce from the statements of Sanudo and others, and that he 
regards a large number of the rowers as supplementary. 

X It seems the more desirable to elucidate this, because writers on mediaeval 
subjects so accomplished as Buchon and Capmany have (it would seem) entirely mis- 
conceived the matter, assuming that all the men on one bench pulled at one oar. 



^2 Introduction 

of galleys so distinguished the Italians, of the later Middle Age 
at least, did certainly apply, rightly or wrongly, the classical 
terms o^Bifevie, Trireme, and Quinguereme, in the sense of galleys 
having two men and two oars to a bench, three men and three 
oars to a bench, and five men and five oars to a bench.* 

That this was the mediaeval arrangement is very certain 
from the details afforded by Marino Sanudo the Elder, con- 
firmed by later writers and by works of art. Previous to 
1290, Sanudo tells us, almost all the galleys that went to the 
Levant had but two oars and men to a bench ; but as it had 
been found that three oars and men to a bench could be em- 
ployed with great advantage, after that date nearly all galleys 
adopted this arrangement, which was called ai Terzaruoli.^ 

Moreover experiments made by the Venetians in 13 16 had 
shown that four rowers to a bench could be employed still more 
advantageously. And where the galleys could be used on 
inland waters, and could be made more bulky, Sanudo would 
even recommend five to a bench, or have gangs of rowers on two 
decks with either three or four men to the bench on each 
deck. 

26. This system of grouping the oars, and putting only one 
man to an oar, continued down to the i6th century, during the 
Chan eof ^''^^ half of which Came in the more modern system of 
fhe'iTh" using great oars, equally spaced, and requiring from 
century. f-Q^j. ^q sevcn men each to ply them, in the manner 
which endured till late in the last century, when galleys became 
altogether obsolete. Captain Pantero Pantera, the author of a 
work on Naval Tactics (1616), says he had heard, from veterans 



* See Coronelli, Atlante Veneio, I. 139, 140. Marino Sanudo the Elder, though 
not using the term trireme, says it was well understood from ancient authors that the 
Romans employed their rowers ikree to a bench (p. 59). 

t " Ad terzarolos " (Secreta Fidelium Cruets, p. 57). The Catalan Worthy, 
Ramon de Muntaner, indeed constantly denounces the practice of manning all the 
galleys with terzariwli, or tersols, as his term is. But his reason is that these thirds- 
men were taken from the oar when crossbowmen were wanted, to act in that capacity, 
and as such they were good for nothing ; the crossbowmen, he insists, should be men 
specially enlisted for that service and kept to that. He would have some 10 or 20 
per cent, only of the fleet built very light and manned in threes. He does not seem 
to have contemplated oars three-banked, and crossbowmen besides, as Sanudo does. 
(See below ; and Muntaner, pp. 288, 323, 525, etc.) 

In Sanudo we have a glimpse worth noting of the word soldiers advancing towards 
the modern sense ; he expresses a strong preference for soldati (viz. paid soldiers) over 
crusaders (viz. volunteers), p. 74. 



ON MEDIAEVAL WAR-GALLEYS SJ 

who had commanded galleys equipped in the antiquated fashion, 
that three men to a bench, with separate oars, answered better 
than three men to one great oar, but four men to one great oar 
(he says) were certainly more efficient than four men with 
separate oars. The new-fashioned great oars, he tells us, were 
styled Remi di Scaloccio, the old grouped oars Remi a Zenzile, — 
terms the etymology of which I cannot explain.* 

It may be doubted whether the four-banked and five-banked 
galleys, of which Marino Sanudo speaks, really then came into 
practical use. A great five-banked galley on this system, built 
in 1529 in the Venice Arsenal by Vettor Fausto, was the 
subject of so much talk and excitement, that it must evidently 
have been something quite new and unheard off So late as 
1567 indeed the King of Spain built at Barcelona a galley of 
thirty-six benches to the side, and seven men to the bench, with 
a separate oar to each in the old fashion. But it proved a 
failure. % 

Down to the introduction of the great oars the usual system 
appears to have been three oars to a bench for the larger galleys, 
and two oars for lighter ones. The fuste or lighter galleys of 
the Venetians, even to about the middle of the i6th century, had 
their oars in pairs from the stern to the mast, and single oars 
only from the mast forward. § 

27. Returning then to the three-banked and two-banked 
galleys of the latter part of the 13th century, the number of 
benches on each side seems to have run from twenty- ^^^ deuiis 
five to twenty-eight, at least as I interpret Sanudo's ^Jjj^^''' 
calculations. The lOO-oared vessels often mentioned <^^i«>'*- 
e.g. by Muntaner, p. 419). were probably two-banked vessels 
with twenty- five benches to a side. 

The galleys were very narrow, only 15J feet in beam.(| 



* n Armata NavaU, Roma, 1616, pp. 1 50-1 51. 

t See a work to which I am indebted for a good deal of light and information, the 
Engineer Giovanni Casoni's Essay: ^' Dei Navigli Poliremi usati tielia Marina dagli 
Antichi Vetuziani," in " Esercitazioni delF Ateneo Veneio," vol. ii. p. 338. This 
^! eat Qtiinquerenie, as it was styled, is stated to have been struck by a fire-arrow, and 
blown up, in Januaiy 1570. 

+ Pant era, p. 22. 

§ Lazarus Bayfitis de Re Navali Veicm/n, in Gronovii Thesaurus, Yen. 1737, vol. 
xi. p. 581. This writer also speaks of the Quinquereme mentioned above (p. 577)- 
Marintis Santitius, p. 65. 



34 



INTRODUCTION 





Fore, 






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But to give room for the play of the oars and the passage of the 

fighting-men, &c., this width was 
largely augmented by an opera-morta, 
or outrigger deck, projecting much 
beyond the ship's sides and sup- 
ported by timber brackets.* I do 
not find it stated how great this pro- 
jection was in the mediaeval galleys, 
but in those of the 17th century it 
was on each side as much as |ths of 
the true beam. And if it was as 
great in the 1 3th-century galleys the 
total width between the false gunnels 
would be about 22;| feet. 
In the centre line of the deck ran, the whole length of the 
vessel, a raised gangway called the corsia'iox passage clear of the 
oars. 

The benches were arranged as in this diagram. The part of 
the bench next the gunnel was at right angles to it, but the 
other two-thirds of the bench were thrown forward obliquely. 
a, by c, indicate the position of the three rowers. The shortest 
oar a was called Terlicchio, the middle one b Posiiccio, the long 
oar c Piainero.\ 

I do not find any information as to how the oars worked on 
the gunnels. The Siena fresco (see p. jj) appears to show 
them attached by loops and pins, which is the usual practice in 
boats of the Mediterranean now. In the cut from D. 
Tintoretto (p. j/) the groups of oars protrude through regular 
ports in the bulwarks, but this probably represents the use of a 
later day. In any case the oars of each bench must have 
worked in very close proximity. Sanudo states the length of 
the galleys of his time (1300- 1 3 20) as 117 feet. This was 
doubtless length of keel, for that is specified ( " da ruoda a 
ruoda " ) in other Venetian measurements, but the whole oar 
space could scarcely have been so much, and with twenty-eight 
benches to a side there could not have been more than 4 feet 



* See the woodcuts opposite and at p. J7 ; also Pantera, p. 46 (who is here, how- 
ever, speaking of the great-oared galleys), and CoronelH, i. 140. 

t Casoni, p. 324. He obtains these particulars from a manuscript work of the 
1 6th century by Cristoforo Canale. 



ON MEDI/EVAL WAR-GALLEYS 



SS 




J6 INTRODUCTION 

gunnel-space to each bench. And as one of the objects of the 
grouping of the oars was to allow room between the benches for 
the action of cross-bowmen, &c., it is plain that the rowlock 
space for the three oars must have been very much compressed.* 

The rowers were divided into three classes, with graduated 
pay. The highest class, who pulled the poop or stroke oars, 
were called Portolati ; those at the bow, called Prodieri, formed 
the second class.f 

Some elucidation of the arrangements that we have tried to 
describe will be found in our cuts. That at p. jj is from a draw- 
ing, by the aid of a very imperfect photograph, of part of one of 
the frescoes of Spinello Aretini in the Municipal Palace at 
Siena, representing a victory of the Venetians over the Emperor 
Frederick Barbarossa's fleet, commanded by his son Otho, in ii 76; 
but no doubt the galleys, &c., are of the artist's own age, the 

* Signor Casoni (p. 324) expresses his belief that no galley of the 14th century 
had more than icx) oars. I differ from him with hesitation, and still more as I find 
M. Jal agrees in this view. I will state the grounds on which I came to a different 
conclusion. (l) Marino Sanudo assigns 180 rowers for a galley equipped at 
Terzaruoli {t^. 75). This seemed to imply something near 180 oars, for I do not find 
any allusion to reliefs being provided. In the French galleys of the i8th century there 
were no reliefs except in this way, that in long runs without urgency only half the oars 
were pulled. (See Mdm. cCun Protestant condamni mix Galcres, etc., Reimprimes, 
Paris, 1865, p. 447.) If four men to a bench were to 'be employed, then Sanudo 
seems to calculate for his smaller galleys 220 men actually rowing (see pp. 75-78). 
This seems to assume 55 benches, i.e., 28 on one side and 27 on the other, which 
with 3-banked oars would give 165 rowers. (2) Casoni himself refers to Pietro 
Martire d'Anghieria's account of a Great Galley of Venice in which he was sent 
ambassador to Egypt from the Spanish Court in 1503. The crew amounted to 200, 
of whom 150 were for working the sails and oars, that being the number of oars in each 
galley, one man to each oar and three to each bench. Casoni assumes that this 
vessel must have been much larger than the galleys of the 14th century ; but, however 
that may have been, Sanudo to his galley assigns the larger crew of 250, of whom 
almost exactly the same proportion (180) were rowers. And in \hc galeazza described 
by Pietro Martire the oars were used only as an occasional auxiliary. (See his Legationis 
Babyloniccc Libri Tres, appended to his 3 Decads concerning the New World; Basil. 
I533> f- 77 'ver.) (3) The galleys of the i8th century, with their great oars 50 feet 
long pulled by six or seven men each, had 25 benches to the side, and only 4*6" 
(French) gunnel-space to each oar. (See Alt^in. cTun Protest., p. 434.) I imagine that 
a smaller space would suffice for the 3 light oars of the mediaeval system, so that this 
need scarcely be a difficulty in the face of the preceding evidence. Note also the 
three hundred rowers in Joinville's description quoted at p. 40. The great galleys of 
the Malay Sultan of Achin in 1621 had, according to Beaulieu, from 700 to 800 
rowers, but I do not know on what system. 

t Marinus Sanutius, p. 78. These titles occur also in the Documenti cTAinore 
of Fr. Barberino referred to at p. 117 of this volume : — 

" Convienti qui manieri 
Portolatti e prodieri 
E presti galeotti 
Aver, e foiti e dotiJ. 



ON MEDIEVAL WAR-GALLEYS 



37 



middle of the 14th century.* In this we see plainly the 
projecting opera-ntorta, and the rowers sitting two to a bench, 
each with his oar, for these are two-banked. We can also dis- 
cern the Latin rudder on the quarter. (See this volume, p. 1 19.) 
In a picture in the Uffizj, at Florence, of about the same date, by 
Pietro Laurato (it is in the corridor near the entrance), may be 
seen a small figure of a galley with the oars also very distinctly 
coupled. f Casoni has engraved, after Cristoforo Canale, a 
pictorial plan of a Venetian trireme of the i6th centur}^ which 
shows the arrangement of the oars in triplets very plainly. 

The following cut has been sketched from an engraving of a 




Part of a Sea Fight, after Dom. Tintoretto. 

picture by Domenico Tintoretto in the Doge's palace, repre- 
senting, I believe, the same action (real or imaginary) as 
Spinello's fresco, but with the costume and construction of 
a later date. It shows, however, very plainly, the projecting 
opera-inorta, and the arrangement of the oars in fours, issuing 
through row-ports in high bulwarks. 

28. Midships in the mediaeval galley a» castle was erected, of 



* Spinello's works, according toVasari, extended from 1 334 till late in the century. 
A religious picture of his at Siena is assigned to 1385, so the frescoes may probably 
be of about the same period. Of the battle represented I can find no record. 

t Engraved in Jal, i. 330 ; with other mediaeval illustrations of the same points. 



3S INTRODUCTION 

the width of the ship, and some 20 feet in length; its platform 

being elevated sufficiently to allow of free passage 

arrange- Under it and over the benches. At the bow was the 

inents. . . - , , i .. 

battery, consistmg of mangonels (see vol, n. p. 
161 seqq^ and great cross-bows with winding gear,* whilst 
there were shot-portsf for smaller cross-bows along the gunnels 
in the intervals between the benches. Some of the larger galleys 
had openings to admit horses at the stern, which were closed 
and caulked for the voyage, being under water when the vessel 
was at sea.| 

It seems to have been a very usual piece of tactics, in attack- 
ing as well as in awaiting attack, to connect a large number of 
galleys by hawsers, and sometimes also to link the oars together, 
so as to render it difficult for the enemy to break the line or run 
aboard. We find this practised by the Genoese on the defensive 
at the battle of Ayas {infra, p. ^j), and it is constantly resorted to 
by the Catalans in the battles described by Ramon de 
Muntaner.§ 

Sanudo says the toil of rowing in the galleys was excessive, 
almost unendurable. Yet it seems to have been performed by 
freely-enlisted men, and therefore it was probably less severe 
than that of the great-oared galleys of more recent times, 



* To these Casoni adds Sifoni for discharging Greek fire ; but this he seems to 
take from the Greek treatise of the Emperor Leo. Though I have introduced Greek 
fire in the cut at p. ^9, I doubt if there is evidence of its use by the Italians in the 
thirteenth century. Joinville describes it like something strange and new. 

In after days the artillery occupied the same position, at the bow of the 
galley. 

Great beams, hung like battering rams, are mentioned by Sanudo, as well as iron 
crow's-feet with fire attached, to shoot among the rigging, and jars of quick-lime and 
soft soap to fling in the eyes of the enemy. The lime is said to have been used by 
Doria against the Venetians at Curzola [infra, p. 48), and seems to have been a 
usual provision. Francesco Barberini specifies among the stores for his galley : — 
" Calcina, con lancioni, Pece, pietre, e ronconi " (p. 259.) And Christine de Pisan, 
in her Faiz dii Sage Roy Charles (V. of France), explains also the use of the soap : 
^^ Item, on doit avoir pluseurs vaisseaulx legiers a rompre, corame poz plains de chauls 
ou pouldre, et gecter dedens ; et, par ce, seront comme avuglez, au brisier des poz. 
Item, on doit avoir autres/^3 de niol savon et gecter es nefzs des adversaires, et quant 
les vaisseaulx brisent, le savon est glissant, si ne se peuent en piez soustenir et 
chi6ent en I'eaue " (pt. ii. ch. 38). 

t Balistarice, whence no doubt Balistrada and our Balustrade. Wedgwood's 
etymology is far-fetched. And in his new edition (1872), though he has shifted his 
ground, he has not got nearer the truth. 

X Sanutius, p. 53 ; Joinville, p. 40 ; Muntaner, 316, 403. 

% See pp. 270, 288, 324, and especially 346. 



ON MEDIEVAL WAR-GALLEYS 39 

which it was found impracticable to work by free enlistment, or 
otherwise than by slaves under the most cruel driving.* I 
am not well enough read to say that war-galleys were never 
rowed by slaves in the Middle Ages, but the only doubtful 
allusion to such a class that I have met with is in one passage of 
Muntaner, where he says, describing the Neapolitan and Catalan 
fleets drawing together for action, that the gangs of the galleys 
had to toil like "forcats" (p. 313). Indeed, as regards Venice 
at least, convict rowers are stated to have been first introduced 
in 1549, previous to which the gangs were of galeotti 
assoldati.\ 

29. We have already mentioned that Sanudo requires for his 
three-banked galley a ship's company of 250 men. cSkyMd 
They are distributed as follows : — li^t"*^* 



Cotnito or Master 

Quartermasters 

Carpenters 

Caulkers .... 

In charge of stores and arms 



Orderlies 2 

Cook I 

Arblasteers .... 50 

Rowers 180 



2!;o: 



This does not include the Sopracomito^ or Gentleman-Commander, 
who was expected to be valens hmno et probtis, a soldier and a 
gentleman, fit to be consulted on occasion by the captain- 
general. In the Venetian fleet he was generally a 
noble.§ 

The aggregate pay of such a crew, not including the sopra- 
comito, amounted monthly to 60 lire de' grossi, or 600 florins, 
equivalent to 280/. at modem gold value ; and the cost for a 
year to nearly 3160/., exclusive of the victualling of the vessel 
and the pay of the gentleman-commander. The build or 
purchase of a galley complete is estimated by the same author 
at 15,000 florins, or 7012/. 

We see that war cost a good deal in money even then. 

Besides the ship's own complement Sanudo gives an estimate 
for the general staff of a fleet of 60 galleys. This consists of a 
captain-general, two (vice) admirals, and the following : — 



* See the Protestant, cited above, p. 441, et seqq. 

t Vetiezia e le stte Lagune, ii. 53. J Alar. Santtt. p. 75. 

§ Mar. Sannt., p. 30. 



40 



INTRODUCTION 



6 Probi homines^ or gentlemen of 
character, forming a council to the 
Captain-General ; 

4 Commissaries of Stores ; 

2 Commissaries over the Arms ; 

3 Physicians ; 
3 Surgeons ; 

5 Master Engineers and Carpenters ; 



15 Master Smiths ; 
12 Master Fletchers ; 
5 Cuirass men and Helmet-makers ; 
1 5 Oar-makers and Shaft-makers ; 
10 Stone cutters for stone shot ; 
10 Master Arblast-makers ; 
20 Musicians ; 
20 Orderlies, &c. 



30. The musicians formed an important part of the equip- 
ment. Sanudo says that in going into action every vessel should 

make the greatest possible display of colours ; gon- 
otherpar- falons and broad banners should float from stem to 

stern, and gay pennons all along the bulwarks ; whilst 
it was impossible to have too much of noisy music, of pipes, 
trumpets, kettle-drums, and what not, to put heart into the crew 
and strike fear into the enemy.* 

So Joinville, in a glorious passage, describes the galley of 
his kinsman, the Count of Jaffa, at the landing of St. Lewis in 
Egypt :— 

" That galley made the most gallant figure of them all, for it was painted 
all over, above water and below, with scutcheons of the count's arms, the 
field of which was or with a cross pate'e gules.^ He had a good 300 rowers 
in his galley, and every man of them had a target blazoned with his arms in 
beaten gold. And, as they came on, the galley looked to be some flying 
creature, with such spirit did the rowers spin it along ;— or rather, with the 
rustle of its flags, and the roar of its nacaires and drums and Saracen horns, 
you might have taken it for a rushing bolt of heaven."J 

The galleys, which were very low in the water,§ could not 
keep the sea in rough weather, and in winter they never 
willingly kept the sea at night, however fair the weather might 



* The Catalan Admiral Roger de Loria, advancing at daybreak to attack the 
Proven9al Fleet of Charles of Naples (1283) in the harbour of Malta, " did a thing 
which should be reckoned to him rather as an act of madness," says Muntaner, 
" than of reason. He said, ' God forbid that I should attack them, all asleep as they 
are ! Let the trumpets and nacaires sound to awaken them, and I will tarry till they 
be ready for action. No man shall have it to say, if I beat them, that it was by 
catching them asleep.'" {Mtmt, p. 287.) It is what Nelson might have done ! 

The Turkish admiral Sidi 'All, about to engage a Portuguese squadron in the 
Straits of Ilormuz, in 1553, describes the Franks as " dressing their vessels with flags 
and coming on." (_/. As. ix. 70.) 

+ A cross pait'e, is one with the extremities broadened out into feet as it were. 

t Page SO. 

§ The galley at p. ^9 is somewhat too high ; and I believe it should have had no 
shrouds. 



WARS OF VP:NICE and GENOA 41 

be. Yet Sanudo mentions that he had been with armed galleys 
to Sluys in Flanders. 

I will mention two more particulars before concluding this 
digression. VV^hen captured galleys were towed into port it was 
stern foremost, and with their colours dragging on the surface of 
the sea.* And the custom of saluting at sunset (probably by 
music) was in vogue on board the galleys of the 13th 
century.-|- 

We shall now sketch the circumstances that led to the 
appearance of our Traveller in tlie command of a war- 
galley. 



\ 



VI. The Jealousies and Naval Wars of Venice and Genoa. 
Lamba Doria's Expedition to the Adriatic; Battle of 
Curzola; and Imprisonment of Marco Polo by the 
Genoese. 

31. Jealousies, too chafacteristic of the Italian communities, 
were, in the case of the three great trading republics of Venice, 
Genoa, and Pisa, aggravated by commercial rivalries, q^^^-^^„ 
whilst, between the two first of those states, and also {^^"out" 
between the two last, the bitterness of such feelings J*^^^,^' 
ad been augmenting during the whole course of the R«p«''1'<^ 
13th century .J 

The brilliant part played by Venice in the conquest of 
Constantinople (1204), and the preponderance'' she thus 
acquired on the Greek shores, stimulated her arrogance and 
the resentment of her rivals. The three states no longer stood 
on a level as bidders for the shifting favour of the Emperor of 
the East. By treaty, not only was Venice established as the 
most important ally of the empire and as mistress of a large 
fraction of its territory, but all members of nations at war with 
her were prohibited from entering its limits. Though the 
Genoese colonies continued to exist, they stood at a great 



See Mimtaner, passim, e.g. 271, 286, 315, 349. t Ibid. 346. 

In this part of these notices I am repeatedly indebted to Heyd. (See supa, p. g.) 
VOL. I, A 



42 INTRODUCTION 

disadvantage, where their rivals were so predominant and en- 
joyed exemption from duties, to which the Genoese remained 
subject. Hence jealousies and resentments reached a climax in 
the Levantine settlements, and this colonial exacerbation re- 
acted on the mother States. 

A dispute which broke out at Acre in 1255 came to a head 
in a war which lasted for years, and was felt all over Syria. It 
began in a quarrel about a very old church called St. Sabba's, 
which stood on the common boundary of the Venetian and 
Genoese estates in Acre,* and this flame was blown by other un- 
lucky occurrences. Acre suffered grievously.^ Venice at this 
time generally kept the upper hand, beating Genoa by land and 
sea, and driving her from Acre altogether.-;- Four ancient porphyry 
figures from St. Sabba's were sent in triumph to Venice, and 
with their strange devices still stand at the exterior corner of 
St. Mark's, towards the Ducal Palace.J 

But no number of defeats could extinguish the spirit of 
Genoa, and the tables were turned when in her wrath she allied 
herself with Michael Palaeologus to upset the feeble and tottering 
Latin Dynasty, and with it the preponderance of Venice on the 
Bosphorus. The new emperor handed over to his allies the 
castle of their foes, which they tore down with jubilations, and 
now it was their turn to send its stones as trophies to Genoa. 
Mutual hate waxed fiercer than ever ; no merchant fleet of either 
state could go to sea without convoy, and wherever their ships 
met they fought.§ It was something like the state of things 
between Spain and England in the days of Drake, 

The energy and capacity of the Genoese seemed to rise with 



* On or close to the Hill called Monjoie ; see the plan from Marino Sanudo at 
p. 18. 

t " Throughout that year there were not less than 40 machines all at work upon 
the city of Acre, battering its houses and its towers, and smashing and overthrowing 
everything within their range. There were at least ten of those engines that shot 
stones so big and heavy that they weighed a good 1500 lbs. by the weight of Cham- 
pagne ; insomuch that nearly all the towers and forts of Acre were destroyed, and 
only the religious houses were left. And there were slain in this same war good 
20,ocx> men on the two sides, but chiefly of Genoese and Spaniards." (Lettre dejean 
Pierre Sarrasin, in MicheVs /oinville, p. 308. ) 

+ The origin of these columns is, however, somewhat uncertain. [See Cicogna, 

I- P- 379] 

§ In 1262, when a Venetian squadron was taken by the Greek fleet in alliance 
with the Genoese, the whole of the survivors of the captive crews were blinded by 
order of Palaeologus. (Roman, ii. 272.) 



V 




Figures from St. Sabb.is, sent to Venice. 



[ To face p. 42. 



WARS OF VENICE AND GENOA 43 

their success, and both in seamanship and in splendour they 
began almost to surpass their old rivals. The fall of Acre (1291), 
and the total expulsion of the Franks from Syria, in great 
measure barred the southern routes of Indian trade, whilst the 
predominance of Genoa in the Euxine more or less obstructed 
the free access of her rival to the northern routes by Trebizond 
and Tana. 

32. Truces were made and renewed, but the old fire still 
smouldered. In the spring of 1294 it broke into flame, in 
consequence of the seizure in the Grecian seas of three 
Genoese vessels by a Venetian fleet This led to an BayofA>-as 
action with a Genoese convoy which sought redress. 
The fight took place off Ayas in the Gulf of Scanderoon,* and 
though the Genoese were inferior in strength by one-third they 
gained a signal victory, capturing all but three of the Venetian 
galleys, with rich cargoes, including that of Marco Basilio (or 
Basegio), the commodore. 

This victory over their haughty foe was in its completeness 
evidently a surprise to the Genoese, as well as a source of 
immense exultation, which is vigorously expressed in a ballad of 
the day, written in a stirring salt-water rhythm.t It represents 
the Venetians, as they enter the bay, in arrogant mirth reviling 
the Genoese with very unsavoury epithets as having deserted 
their ships to skulk on shore. They are described as saying : — 

" ' Off they've slunk ! and left us nothing ; 

We shall get nor prize nor praise ; 

Nothing save those crazy timbers 

Only fit to make a blaze.' " 

So they advance carelessly — 

" On they come I But lo their blunder ! 
When our lads start up anon, 
Breaking out like unchained lions, 
\W'\\h a roar, ' Fall on ! Fall on ! '" t 

* See pp. 16, 41, and Plan of Ayas at beginning of Bk. I. 
t See Archivio Storico Italiano, Appendice, torn. iv. 



Niente m resta a prender 
Se tu> li corpi de It legni : 

Pretjri som senza difender; 
De bruxar som tutt degni ! 



Conn? li/om aproximai 

Queii si Uvan lantor 
Coino Uon descaenai 

Tuti criando " Alor ! Alor ! ' 



This A/<fr! Alor! ("Up, Boys, and at 'em"), or something similar, appears to 
have been the usual war-cry of both parties. So a triunpel-like poem of the 
VOL. I. k 2 



44 INTRODUCTION 

After relating the battle and the thoroughness of the victory, 
ending in the conflagration of five-and-twenty captured galleys, 
the poet concludes by an admonition to the enemy to moderate 
his pride and curb his arrogant tongue, harping on the obnoxious 
epithet/(?m/(^r^;ir/, which seems to have galled the Genoese.* 
He concludes : — 

" Nor can I at all remember 
Ever to have heard the story 
Of a fight wherein the Victors 
Reaped so rich a meed of glory ! " f 

The community of Genoa decreed that the victory should be 
commemorated by the annual presentation of a golden pall to 
the monastery of St German's, the saint on whose feast (28th 
May) it had been won.J 

The startling news was received at Venice with wrath and 
grief, for the flower of their navy had perished, and all energies 
were bent at once to raise an overwhelming force.§ The Pope 
(Boniface VIII.) interfered as arbiter, calling for plenipotentiaries 
from both sides. But spirits were too much inflamed, and this 
mediation came to nought. 



Troubadour warrior Bertram de Born, whom Dante found in such evil plight below 
(xxviii. 118 seqq.), in which he sings with extraordinary spirit the joys of war : — 

"I« us iw S{\\t tan no m'a eabor 
JHanjars, ni bsaxt, ni iiovinir, 
Cum a quant aug rriftar, Alor ! 
g'ainbaa la part^ ; tt aug aentc 

ffiabals )ooxiz :pcv I'ombratQt. . . ." 
" I tell you a zest far before 

Aught of slumber, or drink, or of food, 
I sn.itch when the shouts of Alor 

Ring from both sides : and out of the wood 
Comes the neighing of steeds dimly seen. . . ." 

In a galley fight at Tyre in 1258, according to a Latin narrative, the Genoese shout 
" Ad arma, ad arma ! ad ipsos, ad ipsos!" The cry of the Venetians before engaging 
the Greeks is represented by Martino da Canale, in his old French, as '^ or d. yaus ! 
or ayaus !" that of the Genoese on another occasion as Aur! Atir ! and this last ig 
the shout of the Catalans also in Ramon de Muntaner. ( Villemain, Litt. du Moyen 
■^S^y !• 99 > Archiv. Star. Ital. viii. 364, 506 ; Periz, Script, xviii. 239 ; Muntaner, 
269, 287.) Recently in a Sicilian newspaper, narrating an act of gallant and 
successful reprisal (only too rare) by country folk on a body of the brigands who are 
such a scourge to parts of the island, I read that the honest men in charging the 
villains raised a shout of '■^ Ad iddi! Ad iddi! " 

* A phrase curiously identical, with a similar sequence, is attributed to an 
Austrian General at the battle of Skalitz in 1866. {StoffePs Letters,) 

T • E no me posso aregordar 

Dalcuno roiiianzo 7'erfadi 
Dcnde oyse uncha cointar 

AlcuH trium/o si sobri ! 
J Stella in Muratori, xvii. 984, § Dandulo, Ibid. xii. 404-405. 



WARS OF VENICE AND GENOA 4S 

Further outrages on both sides occurred in 1296. The 
Genoese residences at Pera were fired, their great alum works 
on the coast of AnatoHa were devastated, and Cafifa was stormed 
and sacked ; whilst on the other hand a number of the 
Venetians at Constantinople were massacred by the Genoese, 
and Marco Bembo, their Bailo, was flung from a house-top. 
Amid such events the fire of enmity between the cities waxed 
hotter and hotter. 

33. In 1298 the Genoese made elaborate preparations for a 
great blow at the enemy, and fitted out a powerful fleet which 
they placed under the command of Lamba Doria, a ijimhz. Do- 
younger brother of Uberto of that illustrious house, dftfoifr<fthe 
under whom he had served fourteen years before in the ^'^'^"*=- 
great rout of the Pisans at Meloria. 

The rendezvous of the fleet was in the Gulf of Spezia, as we 
learn from the same pithy Genoese poet who celebrated Ayas. 
This time the Genoese were bent on bearding St. Mark's Lion 
in his own den ; and after touching at Messina they steered 
straight for the Adriatic : — 

" Now, as astern Otranto bears, 

Pull with a will I and, please the Lord, 
Let them who bragged, with fire and sword. 
To waste our homesteads, look to theirs I " * 

On their entering the gulf a great storm dispersed the fleet. 
The admiral with twenty of his galleys got into port at Antivari 
on the Albanian coast, and next day was rejoined by fifty-eight 
more, with which he scoured the Dalmatian shore, plundering 
all Venetian property. Some sixteen of his galleys were still 
missing when he reached the island of Curzola, or Scurzola as 
the more popular name seems to have been, the Black Corcyra 
of the Ancients — the chief town of which, a rich and flourishing 



Or entrant con gran vigor. 

En De sperando aver triumpho, 
Qveli zerchando inter lo Gorfo 
Chi menazeram zercha lor '. 

And in the next verse note the pure Scotch use of the word bra : — 

Sichi da Otranto se patHtn 
Quella bra compagnia. 
Per assar in Ihavonia, 
D'Avosto a vinte nove di. 



46 INTRODUCTION 

place, the Genoese took and burned.* Thus they were engaged 
when word came that the Venetian fleet was in sight. 

Venice, on first hearing of the Genoese armament, sent 
Andrea Dandolo with a large force to join and supersede Maffeo 
Quirini, who was already cruising with a squadron in the Ionian 
sea ; and, on receiving further information of the strength of 
the hostile expedition, the Signory hastily equipped thirty-two 
more galleys in Chioggia and the ports of Dalmatia, and 
despatched them to join Dandolo, making the whole number 
under his command up to something like ninety-five. Recent 
drafts had apparently told heavily upon the Venetian sources 
of enlistment, and it is stated that many of the complements 
were made up of rustics swept in haste from the Euganean hills. 
To this the Genoese poet seems to allude, alleging that the 
Venetians, in spite of their haughty language, had to go begging 
for men and money up and down Lombardy. " Did we do like 
that, think you ? " he adds : — 

" Beat up for aliens ? We indeed ? 

When lacked we homeborn Genoese ? 
Search all the seas, no salts like these. 
For Courage, Seacraft, Wit at need. " t 

Of one of the Venetian galleys, probably in the fleet which 
sailed under Dandolo's immediate command, went Marco Polo 
as Sopracomito or Gentleman-Commander. | 



* The island of Curzola now counts about 4000 inhabitants ; the town half the 
number. It was probably reckoned a dependency of Venice at this time. The King 
of Hungary had renounced his claims on the Dalmatian coasts by treaty in 1244. 
{Romanin, ii. 235.) The gallant defence of the place against the Algerines in 1571 
won for Curzola from the Venetian Senate the honourable title in all documents of 
fedelissima. {Patotis Adriatic, I. 47.) 



Ma si si gran colmo avea 
Perchi andava mendigando 



No, 711(1 piil ! ajamo omi nostrar 
Destri, valenti, e avisti, 
Che mai par de lor «' o visti 

In tuti officj de mar. 



Per terra de Lombardia 

Peccunia, gente a sodif 

Pone mente tu che t'odi 

Se noi tegnamo guesta via ? 

X In July 1294, a Council of Thirty decreed that galleys should be equipped by 

the richest families in proportion to their wealth. Among the families held to equip 

one galley each, or one galley among two or more, in this list, is the Ca' Polo. But 

this was before the return of the travellers from the East, and just after the battle of 

Ayas. {Romanin, ii. 332 ; this author misdates Ayas, however.) When a levy was 

required in Venice for any expedition the heads of each contrada divided the male 

inhabitants, between the ages of twenty and sixty, into groups of twelve each, called 

duodene. The dice were thrown to decide who should go first on service. He who 

went received five lire a month from the State, and one lira from each of his colleagues in 



.^J 



DORIA'S EXPEDITION TO THE ADRIATIC ^ 

34. It was on the aftern(X)n of Saturday the 6th September 
that the Genoese saw the Venetian fleet approaching, J^^^ pj^^^^ 
but, as sunset was not far off, both sides tacitly agreed ^^^^^hoiheJ 
to defer the engagement* atCurzoia. 

The Genoese would appear to have occupied a position near 
the eastern end of the Island of Curzola, with the Peninsula 
of Sabbioncello behind them, and Meleda on their left, whilst 
the Venetians advanced along the south side of Curzola. (See 
map on p. 50). 

According to Venetian accounts the Genoese were staggered 
at the sight of the Venetian armaments, and sent more than 
once to seek terms, offering finally to surrender galleys and 
munitions of war, if the crews were allowed to depart. This 
is an improbable story, and that of the Genoese ballad seems 
more like truth. Doria, it says, held a council of his captains 
in the evening at which they all voted for attack, whilst the 
Venetians, with that overweening sense of superiority which at 
this time is reflected in their own annals as distinctly as in those 
of their enemies, kept scout-v^essels out to watch that the 
Genoese fleet, which they looked on as already their own, did 
not steal away in the darkness. A vain imagination, says the 
poet : — 

" Blind error of vainglorious men 

To dream that we should seek to flee 
After those weary leagues of sea 
Crossed, but to hunt them in their den ! " t 



the duodena. Hence his pay was sixteen /ire a month, about 2s. a day in silver value, 
if these were Nre at grossi, or is. ^d. if /ire dei picco/i. (See Romanin, ii. 393-394.) 

Money on such occasions was frequently raised by what was called an Estimo or 
Facion, which was a forced loan levied on the citizens in proportion to their estimated 
wealth ; and for which they were entitled to interest from the State. 

* Several of the Italian chroniclers, as Ferreto of Vicenza and Navagiero, whom 
Muratori has followed in his " Annals," say the battle was fought on the 8th September, 
the so-called Birthday of the Madonna. But the inscription on the Church of St. 
Matthew at Genoa, cited further on, says the 7th, and with this agree both Stella and 
the Genoese poet. For the latter, though not specifpng the day of the month, says 
it was on a Sunday : — 

" Lo di de Domenga era 
Passa prima en I'ora bona 
Stormezam fin provo nona 
Con bataio forte e fera." 

Now the 7th September, 1298, fell on a Sunday. 

T Ma li pensavant grande error 

Che in/uga sejussem tuti tnetiii 
Che de si ionzi eram 7'egnui 
Per cerchali a casa lor. 



48 INTRODUCTION 

35. The battle began early on Sunday and lasted till the 

afternoon. The Venetians had the wind in their favour, but 

the morning sun in their eyes. They made the attack, 

The Vene- i • 1 • • • ^-1 

tiansde- and With great impetuosity, capturing ten Genoese 
Marco Polo gal ley s ; but they pressed on too wildly, and some of 
their vessels ran aground. One of their galleys too, 
being taken, was cleared of her crew and turned against the 
Venetians. These incidents caused confusion among the 
assailants ; the Genoese, who had begun to give way, took fresh 
heart, formed a close column, and advanced boldly through the 
Venetian line, already in disorder. The sun had begun to 
decline when there appeared on the Venetian flank the fifteen 
or sixteen missing galleys of Doria's fleet, and fell upon it with 
fresh force. This decided the action. The Genoese gained 
a complete victory, capturing all but a few of the Venetian 
galleys, and including the flagship with Dandolo. The Genoese 
themselves lost heavily, especially in the early part of the action, 
and Lamba Doria's eldest son Octavian is said to have fallen on 
board his father's vessel.* The number of prisoners taken was 
over 7000, and among these was Marco Polo.t 

The prisoners, even of the highest rank, appear to have been 
chained. Dandolo, in despair at his defeat, and at the prospect 
of being carried captive into Genoa, refused food, and ended by 
dashing his head against a bench. | A Genoese account asserts 

* "Note here that the Genoese generally, commonly, and by nature, are the most 
covetous of Men, and the Love of Gain spurs them to every Crime. Yet are they 
deemed also the most valiant Men in the \\'orld. Such an one was Lampa, of that 
very Doria family, a man of an high Courage truly. For when he was engaged in a 
Sea-Fight against the Venetians, and was standing on the Poop of his (jalley, his Son, 
fighting valiantly at the Forecastle, was shot by an Arrow in the Breast, and fell 
wounded to the Death ; a Mishap whereat his Comrades were sorely shaken, and 
Fear came upon the whole Ship's Company. But Lampa, hot with the Spirit of 
Battle, and more mindful of his Country's Service and his own Glory than of his Son, 
ran forward to the spot, loftily rebuked the agitated Crowd, and ordered his Son's Body 
to be cast into the Deep, telling them for their Comfort that the Land could never 
have afforded his Boy a nobler Tomb. And then, renewing the Fight more fiercely 
than ever, he achieved the Victory." {Benventi/o of Ii/iola, in Comment, on Dante, 
in Miiratori, Antiq. i. II46. ) 

(" Yet like an English General will I die, 

And all the Ocean make my spacious Grave ; 
Women and Cowards on the Land may lie, 
The Sea's the Tomh that's proper for the Brave ! " — Annus Mirabilis.) 

t The particulars of the battle are gathered from Ferrettis Vicentinus, in Mural, 
ix. 985 seqq. ; And. Dandulo, in xii. 407-408; Navagiero, in xxiii. 1009- loio; an! 
the Genoese Poem as before. 

% Navagiero, u. s. Dandulo says, "after a few days he died of grief"; Ferreius, 
that he was killed in the action and buried at Curzola. 



BATTLE OF CURZOLA 



49 




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INTRODUCTION 



that a noble funeral was given him after the arrival of the fleet 
at Genoa, which took place on the evening of the i6th October.* 
It was received with great rejoicing, and the City voted the 
annual presentation of a pallium of gold brocade to the altar of 
the Virgin in the Church of St. Matthew, on every 8th of 
September, the Madonna's day, on the eve of which the Battle 
had been won. To the admiral himself a Palace was decreed. 
It still stands, opposite the Church of St. Matthew, though it has 
passed from the possession of the Family. On the striped 
marble facades, both of the Church and of the Palace, inscriptions 
of that age, in excellent preservation, still commemorate Lamba's 




Scene of the Battle of Curzola. 

achievement.f Malik al Mansur, the Mameluke Sultan of Egypt, 



* For the funeral, a MS. of Cibo Recco quoted hy Jacopo Doria in La Chiesa di 
San Matteo descritta, etc., Genova, i860, p. 26. For the date of arrival the poem so 

often quoted : — 

' ' De Oitover, a zoia, a seze di 
Lo nostro ostel, con gran festa 
Kn nostro porto, a or di sesta 
Domine De restitui. '' 

t S. Matteo was built by Martin Doria in 1125, but pulled down and rebuilt by 
the family in a slightly different position in 1278. On this occasion is recorded a 
remarkable anticipation of the feats of American engineering : "As there was an 
ancient and very fine picture of Christ upon the apse of the Church, it was thouglit a 
great pity that so fine a work should be destroyed. And so they contrived an 
ingenious method by which the apse bodily was transported without injury, picture 
and all, for a distance of 25 ells, and firmly set upon the foundations where it now 
exists." (Jacopo de Varaginc in Mttratori, vol. ix. 36.) 




Church of San Matteo, Genoa. 



{To /dee />. JO. 



CAPTIVITY OF MARCO POLO 51 

as an enemy of Venice, sent a complimentary letter to Doria 
accompanied by costly presents.* 

The latter died at Savona 17th October, 1323, a few months 
before the most illustrious of his prisoners, and his bones were 
laid in a sarcophagus which may still be seen forming the sill of 
one of the windows of S. Matteo (on the right as you enter). 
Over this sarcophagus stood the Bust of Lamba till 1797, when 
the mob of Genoa, in idiotic imitation of the French proceedings 
of that age, threw it down. All of Lamba's six sons had fought 
with him at Meloria. In 1291 one of them, Tedisio, went forth 
into the Atlantic in company with Ugolino Vivaldi on a voyage 
of discovery, and never returned. Through Caesar, the youngest, 
this branch of the Family still survives, bearing the distinctive 
surname of Lainba-Doria.\ 

As to the treatment of the prisoners, accounts differ ; a thing 
usual in such cases. The Genoese Poet asserts that the hearts 
of his countrymen were touched, and that the captives were 
treated with compassionate courtesy. Navagiero the Venetian, 
on the other hand, declares that most of them died of 
hunger. I 



The inscription on S. Matteo regarding the battle is as follows : — " Ad Honoretn 
DeietBeate Virginis Marie Anno MCCLXXXXVIII Die Dominica VII Septem- 
bris iste Angehis capitis fuit in Gulfo Venetiaruvi in Civitate Scttrsole et ibidem f nit 
prelium Galearum LXXVI Januensium cum Galeis LXXXXVI Veneciartim. 
Capte fuernnt LXXXIIII per Nobilem Virtim Dominum Lattibam Aurie Capi- 
taneum et Armiratum tunc Comunis et Populi Janue cum omnibus existentibus in 
eisdtm, de quihus conduxit Janue homines vivos carceratos VII cccc et Galeas XVIII, 
reliquas LX VI fecit cutnburi in dicto Gulfo Veneciarum. Qui obiit Sagotie I, 
MCCCXXIII." It is not clear to what the Attgelus refers. 

* Rainpoldi, Ann. Mtcsulm. ix. 217. \ Jacopo Doria, p. 280. 

X Murat. xxiii. loio. I learn from a Genoese gentleman, through my friend 
Professor Henry Giglioli (to whose kindness I owe the transcript of the inscription just 
given), that a faint tradition exists as to the place of our traveller's imprisonment. 
It is alleged to have been a massive building, standing between the Grazie and the 
Mole, and bearing the name of the Malapaga, which is now a barrack for Doganieri, 
but continued till comparatively recent times to be used as a civil prison. "It is 
certain," says my informant, "that men of fame in arms who had fallen into the 
power of the Genoese were imprisoned there, and among others is recorded the name 
of the Corsican Giudice dalla Rocca and Lord of Cinarca, who died there in 1312 ; " 
a date so near that of Marco's imprisonment as to give some interest to the hypothesis, 
slender as are its grounds. Another Genoese, however, indicates as the scene of 
Marco's captivity certain old prisons near the Old Arsenal, in a site still known as the 
Vico degli Schiavi. (Celesia, Dante in Liguria, 1 865, p. 43.) [Was not the place of 
Polo's captivity the basement of the Palazzo del Capitan del Popolo, afterwards Palazzo 
del Comune al Mare, where the Customs (Dogana) had their office, and from the 15th 
centurj- the Casa or Palazzo di S. Giorgio?— W. C.J 



S2 INTRODUCTION 

36. Howsoever they may have been treated, here was Marco 
Polo one of those many thousand prisoners in Genoa ; and here, 
Marco Polo before long, he appears to have made acquaintance 

in prison ... 

dictates his With a man of literary propensities, whose destiny had 
Rusticiano brought him into the like plight, by name RUSTICIANO 

of Pisa. i o 

Release of or RusTlCHELLO of Pisa. It was this person perhaps 

Venetian ^ 1 i 1 

prisoners. who persuaded the Traveller to defer no longer the 
reduction to writing of his notable experiences ; but in any case 
it was he who wrote down those experiences at Marco's dictation ; 
it is he therefore to whom we owe the preservation of this record, 
and possibly even that of the Traveller's very memory. This 
makes the Genoese imprisonment so important an episode in 
Polo's biography. 

To Rusticiano we shall presently recur. But let us first 
bring to a conclusion what may be gathered as to the duration 
of Polo's imprisonment. 

It does not appear whether Pope Boniface made any new 
effort for accommodation between the Republics ; but other 
Italian princes did interpose, and Matteo Visconti, Captain- 
General of Milan, styling himself Vicar-General of the Holy 
Roman Empire in Lombardy, was accepted as Mediator, along 
with the community of Milan. Ambassadors from both States 
presented themselves at that city, and on the 25th May, 1299, 
they signed the terms of a Peace. 

These terms were perfectly honourable to Venice, being 
absolutely equal and reciprocal ; from which one is apt to 
conclude that the damage to the City of the Sea was rather to 
her pride than to her power ; the success of Genoa, in fact, 
having been followed up by no systematic attack upon Vene- 
tian commerce.* Among the terms was the mutual release of 
prisoners on a day to be fixed by Visconti after the completion 
of all formalities. This day is not recorded, but as the Treaty 
was ratified by the Doge of Venice on the 1st July, and the latest 
extant document connected with the formalities appears to be 
dated i8th July, we may believe that before the end of August 



* The Treaty and some subsidiary documents are printed in the Genoese Liber 
Jurium, forming a part of the Monumenta Historiae Patriae, published at Turin. 
(See Lib. Jur. II. 344, seqq.) Muratori in his Annals has followed John Villani 
(Bk. VIII. ch. 27) in representing the terms as highly unfavourable to Venice. But 
for this there is no foundation in the documents. And the terms are stated with 
sub.startial accuracy in Navagiero. [Mural. Script, xxiii. loii.) 



I 



CAPTIVITY OF MARCO POLO S3 

Marco Polo was restored to the family mansion in S. Giovanni 
Grisostomo. 

37. Something further requires to be said before quitting this 
event in our Traveller's life. For we confess that a critical reader 
may have some justification in asking what evidence Grounds on 
there is that Marco Polo ever fought at Curzola, and story of 
ever was carried a prisoner to Genoa from that unfor- capture at 

Curzola 

tunate action ? rests. 

A learned Frenchman, whom we shall have to quote freely 
in the immediately ensuing pages, does not venture to be more 
precise in reference to the meeting of Polo and Rusticiano than 
to say of the latter : " In 1298, being in durance in the Prison of 
Genoa, he there became acquainted with Marco Polo, whom the 
Genoese had deprived of his liberty front motives equally 
nnknownr* 

To those who have no relish for biographies that round the 
meagre skeleton of authentic facts with a plump padding of 
what might have been, this sentence of Paulin Paris is quite 
refreshing in its stern limitation to positive knowledge. And 
certainly no contemporary authority has yet been found for the 
capture of our Traveller at Curzola. Still I think that the fact 
is beyond reasonable doubt. 

Ramusio's biographical notices certainly contain many errors 
of detail ; and some, such as the many years' interval which he 
sets between the Battle of Curzola and Marco's return, are errors 
which a very little trouble would have enabled him to eschew. 
But still it does seem reasonable to believe that the main fact of 
Marco's command of a galley at Curzola, and capture there, was 
derived from a genuine tradition, if not from documents. 

Let us then turn to the words which close Rusticiano's 
preamble (see post, p. 2) : — " Lequel (Messire Marc) puis demo- 
rant en le charthre de Jene, fist retraire toutes cestes chouses a 
Messire Rustacians de Pise que en celle meissme charthre estoit, 
au tens qu'il avoit 1298 anz que Tezu eut vesqui." These words 
are at least thoroughly consi-stent with Marco's capture at 
Curzola, as regards both the position in which they present him, 
and the year in which he is thus presented. 

There is however another piece of evidence, though it is 
curiously indirect. 

• Paulin Paris, Les Manuscrits Francois de la Bibliothique du Roi, ii. 355. 



S4 INTRODUCTION 

The Dominican Friar Jacopo of Acqui was a contemporary 
of Polo's, and was the author of a somewhat obscure Chronicle 
called Imago Mundi* Now this Chronicle does contain 
mention of Marco's capture in action by the Genoese, but 
attributes it to a different action from Curzola, and one fought 
at a time when Polo could not have been present. The passage 
runs as follows in a manuscript of the Ambrosian Library, 
according to an extract given by Baldelli Boni : — 

"In the year of Christ MCCLXXXXVI, in the time of Pope Boniface 
VI., of whom we have spoken above, a battle was fought in Arminia, at the 
place called Layaz, between xv. galleys of Genoese merchants and xxv. of 
Venetian merchants ; and after a great fight the galleys of the Venetians 
were beaten, and (the crews) all slain or taken ; and among them was taken 
Messer Marco the Venetian, who was in company with those merchants, and 
who was called Milono, which is as much as to say ' a thousiind thousand 
pounds,' for so goes the phrase in Venice. So this Messer Marco Milono 
the Venetian, with the other Venetian prisoners, is carried ofif to the 
prison of Genoa, and there kept for a long time. This Messer Marco was 
a long time with his father and uncle in Tartary, and he there saw many 
things, and made much wealth, and also learned many things, for he was a 
man of ability. And so, being in prison at Genoa, he made a Book con- 
cerning the great wonders of the World, i.e., concerning such of them as he 
had seen. And what he told in the Book was not as much as he had really seen, 
because of the tongues of detractors, who, being ready to impose their own 
lies on others, are over hasty to set down as lies what they in their perversity 
disbelieve, or do not understand. And because there are many great and 
strange things in that Book, which are reckoned past all credence, he was 
asked by his friends on his death-bed to correct the Book by removing 
everything that went beyond the facts. To which his reply was that he had 
not told one-half oi what he had really seen ! " t 

This statement regarding the capture of Marco at the Battle of 
Ayas is one which cannot be true, for we know that he did not 
reach Venice till 1295, travelling from Persia by way of 
Trebizond and the Bosphorus, whilst the Battle of Ayas of which 
we have purposely given some detail, was fought in May, 1 294. 



* Though there is no precise information as to the birth or death of this writer, 
who belonged to a noble family of Lombardy, the Bellingeri, he can be traced with 
tolerable certainty as in life in 1289, 1320, and 1334. (See the Introduction to his 
Chronicle in the Turin Monumenia, Scriptores III.) 

t There is another MS. of the Imago Mundi at Turin, which has been printed in 
the Monumenta. The passage about Polo in that copy differs widely in wording, 
is much shorter, and contains no date. But it relates his capture as having taken 
place at La Glaza, which I think there can be no doubt is also intended for Ayas 
(sometimes called Giazza), a place which in fact is called Glaza in three of the MSS. of 
which various readings are given in the edition of the Soci6t^ de Geographic (p. 535). 



CAPTI\aTY OF MARCO POLO S5 

The date MCCLXXXXVI assigned to it in the preceding extract 
has given rise to some unprofitable discussion. Could that date 
be accepted, no doubt it would enable us also to accept this, the 
sole statement from the Traveller's own age of the circumstances 
which brought him into a Genoese prison ; it would enable us to 
place that imprisonment within a few months of his return from 
the East, and to extend its duration to three years, points which 
would thus accord better with the general tenor of Ramusio's 
tradition than the capture of Curzola. But the matter is not 
open to such a solution. The date of the Battle of Ayas is not 
more doubtful than that of the Battle of the Nile. It is 
clearly stated by several independent chroniclers, and is 
carefully established in the Ballad that we have quoted above.* 
We shall see repeatedly in the course of this Book how uncertain 
are the transcriptions of dates in Roman numerals, and in the 
present case the LXXXXVI is as certainly a mistake for LXXXXIV 
as is Boniface VI. in the same quotation a mistake for 
Boniface VIII. 

But though we cannot accept the statement that Polo was 
taken prisoner at Ayas, in the spring of 1294, we may accept the 
passage as evidence from a contemporary source that he was 
taken prisoner in some sea-fight with the Genoese, and thus admit 
it in corroboration of the Ramusian Tradition of his capture in 
a sea-fight at Curzola in 1 298, which is perfectly consistent with 
all other facts in our possession. 



VII. RUSTICIAKO OR RUSTICHELLO OF PiSA, MaRCO PoLO'S FeLLOW- 

Prisoner at Genoa, the Scribe who wrote down the 
Travels. ^ 

38. We have now to say something of that Rusticiano to 
whom all who value Polo's book are so much indebted. 

The relations between Genoa and Pisa had long been so 



" E per meio esse are^ordenti 
De si grande scacho mato 
Correa mille duxenti 
Zonio ge navaHta e qvatro." 



The Armenian Prince Hayton or Hethum has put it under 1293. (See Langtois, Mim. 
iur Ics Relations de Gents avec In Petite- Arm4nie.') 



S6 INTRODUCTION 

hostile that it was only too natural in 1298 to find a Pisan in 
Rusticiano ^^^ ^^^^ °^ Gcnoa. An unhappy multitude of such 
prUonerfrom P^soners had bccn carried thither fourteen years before, 
Meioria. ^^^ ^j-^g survivors still lingered there in vastly dwindled 
numbers. In the summer of 1284 was fought the battle from 
which Pisa had to date the commencement of her long decay. In 
July of that year the Pisans, at a time when the Genoese had no 
fleet in their own immediate waters, had advanced to the very 
port of Genoa and shot their defiance into the proud city in the 
form of silver-headed arrows, and stones belted with scarlet* 
They had to pay dearly for this insult. The Genoese, recalling 
their cruisers, speedily mustered a fleet of eighty-eight galleys, 
which were placed under the command of another of that 
illustrious House of Doria, the Scipios of Genoa as they have 
been called, Uberto, the elder brother of Lamba. Lamba him- 
self with his six sons, and another brother, was in the fleet, 
whilst the whole number of Dorias who fought in the ensuing 
action amounted to 250, most of them on board one great galley 
bearing the name of the family patron, St. Matthew, f 

The Pisans, more than one-fourth inferior in strength, came 
out boldly, and the battle was fought off the Porto Pisano, in 
fact close in front of Leghorn, where a lighthouse on a remark- 
able arched basement still marks the islet of Meloria, whence 
the battle got its name. The day was the 6th of August, the 
feast of St. Sixtus, a day memorable in the Pisan Fasti for 
several great victories. But on this occasion the defeat of Pisa 
was overwhelming. Forty of their galleys were taken or sunk, 
and upwards of 9000 prisoners carried to Genoa. In fact so 
vast a sweep was made of the flower of Pisan manhood that it 
was a common saying then : " Che vuol veder Pisa, vada a 

* B. Marangone, Croniche delta C. di Pisa, in Renim Hal, Script, of Tartini, 
Florence, 1748, i. 563 ; Dal Borgo, Dissert, sopra VIstoria Pisana, ii. 287. 

t The list of the whole number is preserved in the Doria archives, and has been 
published by Sign. Jacopo D'Oria. Many of the Baptismal names are curious, and 
show how far sponsors wandered from the Church Calendar. Assan, Aiton, Turco, 
Soldan seem to come of the constant interest in the East. Alaoiie, a name which 
remained in the family for several generations, I had thought certainly borrowed from 
the fierce conqueror of the Khalif {infra, p. 63). But as one Alaone, present at this 
battle, had a son also there, he must surely have been christened before the fame of 
Ilulaku could have reached Genoa. (See La Chiesa di S. Malteo, pp. 250, seqq.) 

In documents of the kingdom of Jerusalem there are names still more anomalous, 
e.g., Gualterius Baff'umeth, Joannes Mahomet. (See Cod. Dipt, del Sac. Milit. Ord. 
Gerosol. I. 2-3, 62.) 



RUSTICIEN DE PISE 



57 



Genova!" Many noble ladies of Pisa went in large companies 
on foot to Genoa to seek their husbands or kinsmen : " And when 
they made enquiry of the Keepers of the Prisons, the reply 
would be, ' Yesterday there died thirty of them, to-day there 
have died forty ; all of whom we have cast into the sea ; and so 
it is daily.' " * 

A body of prisoners so numerous and important naturally 
exerted themselves in the cause of peace, and through their efforts, 
after many months of ne- 
gotiation, a formal peace was 
signed (15th April, 1288)- 
But through the influence, as 
was alleged, of Count Ugo- 
lino (Dante's) who was then 
in power at Pisa, the peace 
became abortive ; war almost 
immediately recommenced, 
and the prisoners had no re- 
lease.! And, when the 6000 
or 7000 Venetians were 
thrown into the prisons of 
Genoa in October 1 298, they 
would find there the scanty surviving remnant of the 
Pisan Prisoners of Meloria, and would gather from them dismal 
forebodings of the fate before them. 

It is a fair conjecture that to that remnant Rusticiano of 
Pisa may have belonged. 

We have seen Ramusio's representation of the kindness 
shown to Marco during his imprisonment by a certain Genoese 
gentleman who also assisted him to reduce his travels to writing. 
We may be certain that this Genoese gentleman is only a dis- 
torted image of Rusticiano, the Pisan prisoner in the gaol of 




Seal of the Pisan Prisoners. 



* Memorial. Potest at. Regiens. in iMuratori, viii. 1162. 

t See Fragm. Hist. Pisan. in Mtiraiori, xxiv. 651, seqq. ; and Caffaro, id. vj. 
5S8, 594-595. The cut in the text represents a striking memorial of those Pisan 
Prisoners, which perhaps still survives, but which at any rate existed last century in 
a collection at Lucca. It is the seal of the prisoners as a body corporate : Sigillum 
Universitatis Carcekatorum Pisanorum Janue detentorum, and was 
doubtless used in their negotiations for peace with the Genoese Commissioners. It 
represents two of the prisoners imploring the Madonna, Patron of the Duomo at Pisa. 
It is from J/(7««/, Osserv. Stor. sopra Sigilli Antichi, etc., Firenze, 1739, torn, xii- 
The seal is also engraved in Dal Borgo, op. cit. ii. 316. 

VOL. I. / 



SS INTRODUCTION 

Genoa, whose name and part in the history of his hero's book 
Ramusio so strangely ignores. Yet patriotic Genoese writers in 
our own times have striven to determine the identity of this 
their imaginary countryman ! * 

39. Who, then, was Rusticiano, or, as the name actually is 
read in the oldest type of MS., " Messire Rustacians de Pise"? 
Rusticiano, Our knowledge of him is but scanty. Still some- 

known from thing is known of him besides the few words con- 
sources, eluding his preamble to our Traveller's Book, which 
you may read at pp. 1-2 of the body of this volume. 

In Sir Walter Scott's "Essay on Romance," when he speaks 
of the new mould in which the subjects of the old metrical 
stories were cast by the school of prose romancers which arose 
in the 1 3th century, we find the following words : — 

" Whatever fragments or shadows of true history may yet remain hidden 
under the mass of accumulated fable which had been heaped upon them 
during successive ages, must undoubtedly be sought in the metrical romances 

But those prose authors who wrote under the imaginary names of 

RUSTICIEN DE Pise, Robert de Borron, and the like, usually seized upon the 
subject of some old minstrel ; and recomposing the whole narrative after 
their own fashion, with additional character and adventure, totally obliterated 
in that operation any shades which remained of the original and probably 
authentic tradition," &c.t 

•Evidently, therefore, Sir Walter regarded Rustician of Pisa 
as a person belonging to the same ghostly company as his own 
Cleishbothams and Dryasdusts. But in this we see that he was 
wrong. 

In the great Paris Library and elsewhere there are manuscript 
volumes containing the stories of the Round Table abridged and 
somewhat clumsily combined from the various Prose Romances 
of that cycle, such as Sir Tristan, Lancelot, Palamedes, Giron le 
Courtois, &c., which had been composed, it would seem, by 
various Anglo-French gentlemen at the court of Henry III., 
styled, or styling themselves, Gasses le Blunt, Luces du Gast, 



* The Abate Spotorno in his Storia Letteraria della Ligtiria, II. 219, fixes on 
a Genoese philosopher called Andalo del Negro, mentioned by Boccaccio. 

1 1 quote from Galignani's ed. of Prose Works, v. 712. This has " Rusticien de 
Puise." In this view of the fictitious character of the names of Rusticien and the 
rest, Sir Walter seems to have been following Ritson, as I gather from a quotation in 
Dunlop's II. of Fiction. {Liebrechf s German Version, p. 63.) 



RUSTICIEN DE PISE S9 

Robert de Borron, and Hdlis de Borron. And these abridg- 
ments or recasts are professedly the work of Le Maistre Rusticien 
de Pise. Several of them were printed at Paris in the end of 
the 15 th and beginning of the i6th centuries as the works of 
Rusticien de Pise ; and as the preambles and the like, especially 
in the form presented in those printed editions, appear to be due 
sometimes to the original composers (as Robert and Helis de 
Borron) and sometimes to Rusticien de Pise the recaster, there 
would seem to have been a good deal of confusion made in 
regard to their respective personalities. 

From a preamble to one of those compilations which un- 
doubtedly belongs to Rustician, and which we shall quote at 
length by and bye, we learn that Master Rustician " translated " 
(or perhaps transferred T) his compilation from a book belonging 
to King Edward of England, at the time when that prince went 
beyond seas to recover the Holy Sepulchre. Now Prince 
Edward started for the Holy Land in 1270, spent the winter of 
that year in Sicily, and arrived in Palestine in May 1271. He 
quitted it again in August, 1272, and passed again by Sicily, 
where in January, 1273, he heard of his father's death and his own 
consequent accession. Paulin Paris supposes that Rustician 
was attached to the Sicilian Court of Charles of Anjou, and that 
Edward "may have deposited with that king the Romances 
of the Round Table, of which all the world was talking, but the 
manuscripts of which were still very rare, especially those of the 
work of Helye de Borron * . . . . whether by order, or only 
with permission of the King of Sicily, our Rustician made 
haste to read, abridge, and re-arrange the whole, and when 
Edward returned to Sicily he recovered possession of the 
book from which the indefatigable Pisan had extracted the 
contents." 

But this I believe is, in so far as it passes the facts stated in 
Rustician's own preamble, pure hypothesis, for nothing is cited 
that connects Rustician with the King of Sicily, And if there 
be not some such confusion of personality as we have alluded to, 
in another of the preambles, which is quoted by Dunlop as an 
utterance of Rustician's, that personage would seem to claim to 
have been *a comrade in arms of the two de Borrons. We 



• Giron I* Cotirtois, and the conclusion of Tristan. 
VOL. I. / 2 



6o INTRODUCTION 

might, therefore, conjecture that Rustician himself had accom- 
panied Prince Edward to Syria.* 

40. Rustician's Hterary work appears from the extracts and 
remarks of Paulin Paris to be that of an industrious simple 
Character of man, without mcthod or much judgment. "The haste 
Romance with which he worked is too perceptible ; the adven- 
tions. tures are told without connection ; you find long stories 

of Tristan followed by adventures of his father Meliadus." 
For the latter derangement of historical sequence we find a 
quaint and ingenuous apology offered in Rustician's epilogue to 
Giron le Courtois : — 

" Cy fine le Maistre Rusticien de Pise son conte en louant et regraciant le 
P^re le Filz et le Saint Esperit, et ung mesme Dieu, Filz de la Benoiste 
Vierge Marie, de ce qu'il m'a done grace, sens, force, et memoire, temps et 
lieu, de me mener k fin de si haulte et si noble mati^re come ceste-cy dont j'ay 
traicte les faiz et proesses recitez' et recordez k mon livre. Et se aucun me 
demandoit pour quoy j'ay parle de Tristan avant que de son pere le Roy 
Meliadus, le respons que ma matiere n'estoist pas congneue. Car je ne puis 
pas scavoir tout, ne mettre toutes mes paroles par ordre. Et ainsi fine mon 
conte. Amen." t 

In a passage of these compilations the Emperor Charlemagne 
is asked whether in his judgment King Meliadus or his son 
Tristan were the better man ? The Emperor's answer is : "I 
should say that the King Meliadus was the better man, and I 
will tell you why I say so. As far as I can see, everything that 
Tristan did was done for Love, and his great feats would never 
have been done but under the constraint of Love, which was his 



* The passage runs thus as quoted (from the preamble of the Meliadics — I suspect 
in one of the old printed editions) : — 

" Aussi Luces du Gau (Gas) translata en langue Fran9oise une partie de I'Hystoire 
de Monseigneur Tristan, et moins assez qu'il ne deust. Moult comraen9a bien son 
livre et si ny mist tout les faicts de Tristan, ains la greigneur partie. Apres s'en 
entremist Messire Gasse le Blond, qui estoit parent au Roy Henry, et divisa I'Hystoire 
de Lancelot du Lac, et d'autre chose ne parla il mye grandement en son livre, 
Messire Robert de Borron s'en entremist et Helye de Borron, par la priere du dit 
Robert de Borron, et pource que compaignofts feusmes cC amies longiiemcnt, je com- 
niencay mon livre," etc. {Liebrechf s Dunlop, p. 80.) If this passage be authentic 
it would set beyond doubt the age of the de Borrons and the other writers of Anglo- 
French Round Table Romances, who are placed by the Hist. Littiraire de la France, 
and apparently by Fr. Michel, under Henry II. I have no means of pursuing the 
matter, and have preferred to follow Paulin Paris, who places them under Henry 
IH. I notice, moreover, that the Hist. Lift. (xv. p. 498) puts not only the de Borrons 
but Rustician himself under Henry II. ; and, as the last view is certainly an error, 
the first is probably so too. 

t Transc. from MS. 6975 (now Fr. 355) of Paris Library. 



RUSTICIEN DE PISE 6m 

spur and goad. Now that never can be said of King Meliadus ! 
For what deeds he did, he did them not by dint of Love, but 
by dint of his strong right arm. Purely out of his own good- 
ness he did good, and not by constraint of Love." " It will be 
seen," remarks on this Paulin Paris, "that we are here a long 
way removed from the ordinary principles of Round Table 
Romances. And one thing besides will be manifest, viz., that 
Rusticien de Pise was no Frenchman ! " * 

The same discretion is shown even more prominently in a 
passage of one of his compilations, which contains the romances 
of Arthur, Gyron, and Meliadus (No. 6975 — see last note but 
one) : — 

" No doubt," Rustician says, " other books tell the story of 
the Queen Ginevra and Lancelot differently from this ; and 
there were certain passages between them of which the Master, 
in his concern for the honour of both those personages, will say 
not a word," Alas, says the French Bibliographer, that the copy 
of Lancelot, which fell into the hands of poor Francesca of 
Rimini, was not one of those expurgated by our worthy friend 
Rustician ! f 

41. A question may still occur to an attentive reader as to 
the identity of this Romance-compiler Rusticien de Pise with 
the Messire Rustacians de Pise, of a solitary' MS. of uenjjt.of 
Polo's work (though the oldest and most authentic), comliS"*^ 
a name which appears in other copies as Rusta Pisan^ feiio«^°'°^ 
Rasta Pysan, RusticJulus Civis Pisanus, Rustico, Restazio P'^'^oner. 
da Pisa, Stazio da Pisa, and who is stated in the preamble to 
have acted as the Traveller's scribe at Genoa. 

M. Pauthier indeed J asserts that the French of the MS. 
Romances of Rusticien de Pise is of the same barbarous character 
as that of the early French MS. of Polo's Book to w^hich we have 
just alluded, and which we shall show to be the nearest present- 
ation of the work as originally dictated by the Traveller. The 
language of the latter MS. is so peculiar that this would be 
almost perfect evidence of the identity of the writers, if it were 
really the fact. A cursory inspection which I have made of two 
of those MSS. in Paris, and the extracts which I have given 



* MSS. Frati^ois, iii. 60-61. t Ibid. 56-59. 

X Introd. pp. lxxxvi.-vii. note. 



6a) INTRODUCTION 

and am about to give, do not, however, by any means support 
M. Pauthier's view. Nor would that view be consistent with 
the judgment of so competent an authority as Paulin Paris, 
impHed in his calling Rustician a nom recommandable in old 
French literature, and his speaking of him as "versed in the 
secrets of the French Romance Tongue." * In fact the difference 
of language in the two cases would really be a difficulty in the 
way of identification, if there were room for doubt. This, how- 
ever, Paulin Paris seems to have excluded finally, by calling 
attention to the peculiar formula of preamble which is common 
to the Book of Marco Polo and to one of the Romance compila- 
tions of Rusticien de Pise. 

The former will be found in English at pp. i, 2, of our 
Translation ; but we give a part of the original below \ for com- 
parison with the preamble to the Romances of Meliadus, Tristan, 
and Lancelot, as taken from MS. 6961 (Fr. 340) of the Paris 
Library : — 

" Seigneurs Empereurs ef Princes^ Dues et Contes et Barons et 
Chevaliers et Vavasseurs et Bourgeois^ et tous les preudommes de cestui 
monde qui avez talent de vous deliter en roninians, si prenez cestui {livre) et 
le faites lire de chief en chief, si orrez toutes les grans aventure qui 
advindrent entre les Chevaliers errans du temps au Roy Uter Pendragon, 
jusques k le temps au Roy Artus son fils, et des compaignons de la Table 
Ronde. Et sachiez tout vraiment que cist livres fust translatez du livre 
Monseigneur Edouart le Roy d'Engleterre en cellui temps qu'il passa oultre 
la mer au service nostre Seigneur Damedieu pour conquester le Sant 
Sepulcre, et Maistre Rusticiens de Pise, lequel est ymaginez yci dessus,J 
compila ce rommant, car il en translata toutes les merveilleuses nouvelles et 
aventures qu'il trouva en celle livre et traita tout certainement de toutes les 
aventures du monde, et si sachiez qu'il traitera plus de Monseigneur 
Lancelot du Lac, et Mons^ Tristan le fils au Roy Meliadus de Leonnoie 
que d'autres, porcequ'ilz furent sans faille les meilleurs chevaliers qui k 
ce temps furent en terre ; et li Maistres en dira de ces deux pluseurs choses et 
pluseurs nouvelles que Ten treuvera escript en tous les autres livres ; et 
porce que le Maistres les trouva escript au Livre d'Engleterre." 

" Certainly," Paulin Paris observes, " there is a singular 



* See four. As. ser. II. torn. xii. p. 251. 

t Seignors Enperaor, C Kois, Dux C- Marquois, Cuens, Chevaliers t Bargions 
[for Borgiois] C totUes gens qe uoles sauoir les deiierses jenerasions des homes, C les 
deuersit^s des deuerses region dou monde, si prennis cestui litireXi le feites lire C 
chi troueris toutes les grandismes meruoilles" etc. 

X The portrait of Rustician here referred to would have been a precious illustra- 
tion for our book. But unfortunately it has not been transferred to MS. 6961, nor 
apparently to any other noticed by Paulin Paris. 




Palazzo Ui S. Giorgio, Genoa. 



[To /one p. 62. 



RUSTICIEN DE PISE 63 

analogy between these two prefaces. And it must be re- 
marked that the formula is not an ordinary one with translators, 
compilers, or authors of the 13th and 14th centuries. Perhaps 
you would not find a single other example of it" * 

This seems to place beyond question the identity of the 
Romance-compiler of Prince Edward's suite in 1270, and the 
Prisoner of Genoa in 1298. 

42. In Dunlop's History of Fiction a passage is quoted from 
the preamble of Meliadus, as set forth in the Paris printed 
edition of 1528, which gives us to understand that Further par- 
Rusticien de Pise had received as a reward for some of "o'^^raing 
his compositions from King Henry HI. the prodigal ^"^"cian. 
gift of two chateaux. I gather, however, from passages in the 
work of Paulin Paris that this must certainly be one of those 
confusions of persons to which I have referred before, and that 
the recipient of the chateaux was in reality Helye de Borron, 
the author of some of the originals which Rustician mani- 
pulated.f This supposed incident in Rustician's scanty history 
must therefore be given up. 

We call this worthy Rustician or RusticianOy as the nearest 
probable representation in Italian form of the Rusticien of the 
Round-Table MSS. and the Rustacians of the old text of Polo. 
But it is highly probable that his real name was Rustichello, as 
is suggested by the form Rustichelus in the early Latin version 
published by the Society de Geographic. The change of one 
liquid for another never goes for much in Italy ,J and Rustichello 
might easily Gallicize himself as Rusticien. In a very long list 
of Pisan officials during the Middle Ages I find several bearing 
the name of Rustichello or Rustichelli, but no Rusticiano or 
Rustigiano.\ 

Respecting him we have only to add that the peace 
between Genoa and Venice was speedily followed by a 
treaty between Genoa and Pisa. On the 31st July, 1299, a 
truce for twenty-five years was signed between those two 



* Jour. As. as above. 

t See Liebrechfs Dunlop, p. 77 ; and MSS. Francois, II. 349, 353. The 
alleged gift to Rustician is also put forth by D'lsraeli the Elder in his Amenities 0/ 
Literature, 1841, I. p. 103. 

t E.g. Geronimo, Girolamo ; and garofalo, garofano ; Cristoforo, Cristovalo ; 
gonfalone, gonfanone, etc. 

§ See the List in Archivio Star. Ital. VI. p. 64, seqq. 



64 INTRODUCTION 

Republics. It was a very different matter from that between 
Genoa and Venice, and contained much that was humihating 
and detrimental to Pisa. But it embraced the release of 
prisoners; and those of Meloria, reduced it is said to less 
than one tithe of their original number, had their liberty 
at last Among the prisoners then released no doubt Rustician 
was one. But we hear of him no more. 



VIII. Notices of Marco Polo's History, after the Termination 
OF HIS Imprisonment at Genoa. 

43. A few very disconnected notices are all that can be col- 
lected of matter properly biographical in relation to the quarter 
Death of century during which Marco Polo survived the Genoese 

Marco's . . 

Father CaptlVlty. 

Will of his' We have seen that he would probably reach Venice 

Maffeo. in the course of August, 1299. Whether he found his 
aged father alive is not known ; but we know at least that a year 
later (31st August, 1300) Messer Nicolo was no longer in life. 

This we learn from the Will of the younger Maffeo, Marco's 
brother, which bears the date just named, and of which we give 
an abstract below.* It seems to imply strong regard for the 



* I. The Will is made in prospect of his voyage to Crete. 

2. He had drafted his will with his own hand, sealed the draft, and made it over 
to Pietro Pagano, priest of S. Felice and Notary, to draw out a formal testament in 
faithful accordance therewith in case of the Testator's death ; and that which follows 
is the substance of the said draft rendered from the vernacular into Latin. (" Ego 
Matheus Paulo . . . volens ire in Cretam, ne repentinus casus hujus vite fragilis me 
subreperet intestatum, mea propria manu meum scripsi et condidi testamentum, 
rogans Petrum Paganum ecclesie Scti. Felicis presbiterum et Notarium, sana mente et 
integro consilio, ut, secundum ipsius scripturam quam sibi tunc dedi meo sigillo 
munitam, meum scriberet testamentum, si me de hoc seculo contigeret pertransire ; 
cujus scripture tenor translato vulgari in latinum per omnia talis est.") 

3. Appoints as Trustees Messer Maffeo Polo his uncle, Marco Polo his brother, 
Messer Nicolo Secreto (or Sagredo) his father-in-law, and Felix Polo his cousin 
{consang u ineuni ) . 

4. Leaves 20 soldi to each of the Monasteries from Grado to Capo d'Argine ; and 
150 lire to all the congregations of Rialto, on condition that the priests of these 
maintain an annual service in behalf of the souls of his father, mother, and self. 

5. To his daughter Fiordelisa 2000 lire to marry her withal. To be invested in 
safe mortgages in Venice, and the interest to go to her. 

Also leaves her the interest from 1000 lire of his funds in Public Debt (? de nieis 
imprestitis) to provide for her till she marries. After her marriage this 1000 lire and 
its interest shall go to his male heir if he has one, and failing that to his brother 
Marco. 



WILL OF MAFFEO POLO THE YOUNGER ig 

testator's brother Marco, who is made inheritor of the bulk of 
the property, failing the possible birth of a son. I have already 
indicated some conjectural deductions from this document. I 
may add that the terms of the second clause, as quoted in the 
note, seem to me to throw considerable doubt on the genealogy 
which bestows a large family of sons upon this brother Maffeo. 
If he lived to have such a family it seems improbable that the 
draft which he thus left in the hands of a notary, to be converted 
into a Will in the event of his death (a curious example of the 
validity attaching to all acts of notaries in those days), should 
never have been superseded, but should actually have been so 
converted after his death, as the existence of the parchment 



6. To his wife Catharine 400 lire and all her clothes as they stand now. To the 
Lady Maroca 100 lire. 

7. To his natural daughter Pasqua 400 lire to marry her withal. Or, if she likes 
to be a nun, 200 lire shall go to her convent and the other 200 shall purchase securities 
for her benefit. After her death these shall come to his male heir, or failing that be sold, 
and the proceeds distributed for the good of the souls of his father, mother, and self. 

8. To his natural brothers Stephen and Giovannino he leaves 500 lire. If one 
dies the whole to go to the other. If both die before marrying, to go to his male heir ; 
failing such, to his brother Marco or his male heir. 

' 9. To his uncle Giordano Tre\4sano 200 lire. To Marco de Tumba loa 
To FiordeKsa, wife of Felix Polo, loo. To Maroca, the daughter of the late 
Pietro Trevisano, living at Negropont, 100. To Agnes, wife of Pietro Lion, 100 ; 
and to Francis, son of the late Pietro Tre\-isano, in Negropont, loa 

10. To buy Public Debt producing an annual 20 lire at grossi to be paid yearly to 
Pietro Pagano, Priest of S. Felice, who shall pray for the souls aforesaid : on death of 
said Pietro the income to go to Pietro's cousin Lionardo, Clerk of S. Felice ; and after 
him always to the senior priest of S. Giovanni Grisostomo with the same obligation. 

1 1. Should his wife prove with child and bear a son or sons they shall have his 
whole property not disposed of. If a daughter, she shall have the same as Fiordelisa. 

1 2. If he have no male heir his Brother Marco shall have the Testator's share of 
his Father's bequest, and 2000 lire besides. Cousin Nicolo shall have 500 lire, and 
Uncle Maffeo 500. 

13. Should Daughter Fiordelisa die uimiarried her 2000 lire and interest to go 
to his male heir, and failing such to Brother Marco and his male heir. But in that 
case Marco shall pay 500 lire to Cousin Nicolo or his male heir. 

14. Should his wife bear him a male heir or heirs, but these should die under age, 
the whole of his undisposed property shall go to Brother Marco or his male heir. 
But in that case 500 lire shall be paid to Cousin Nicolo. 

15. Should his wife bear a daughter and she die unmarried, her 2000 lire and 
interest shall go to Brother Marco, with the same stipulation in behalf of Cousin Nicolo. 

16. Should the whole amount of his property between cash and goods not amount 
to 10,000 lire (though he believes he has fully as much), his bequests are to be ratably 
diminished, except those to his own children which he does not wish diminished. 
Should any legatee die before receiving the bequest, its amount shall fall to the 
Testator's heir male, and failing such, the half to go to Marco or his male heir, and 
the other half to be distributed for the good of the souls aforesaid. 

The witnesses are Lionardo priest of S. Felice, Lionardo clerk of the same, and 
the Notary Pietro Pagano priest of the same. 



6b INTRODUCTION 

seems to prove. But for this circumstance we might suppose 
the Marcolino mentioned in the ensuing paragraph to have 
been a son of the younger Maffeo. 

Messer Maffeo, the uncle, was, we see, alive at this time. 
We do not know the year of his death. But it is alluded to 
by Friar Pipino in the Preamble to his Translation of the 
Book, supposed to have been executed about 1315-1320; and 
we learn from a document in the Venetian archives (see p. 
77) that it must have been previous to 13 18, and subsequent 
to February 1309, the date of his last Will. The Will itself 
is not known to be extant, but from the reference to it in this 
document we learn that he left ICX)0 lire of public debt* {? im- 
prestitoruiii) to a certain Marco Polo, called Marcolino. The 
relationship of this Marco to old Maffeo is not stated, but we 
may suspect him to have been an illegitimate son. [Marcolino 
was a son of Nicolo, son of Marco the Elder ; see vol. ii.. 
Calendar, No. 6. — H. C] 

44. In 1302 occurs what was at first supposed to be a glimpse of 
Marco as a citizen, slight and quaint enough ; being a resolution 
Documen- on the Books of the Great Council to exempt the 

tary notices i • i 

of Polo at respectable Marco Polo from the penalty mcurred 

this time. , , . ... 

Thesobri- by him on account of the omission to have his water- 

quet of _ _ 

Miiione. pipe duly inspected. But since our Marco's claims to 
the designation of Nobilis Vir have been established, there is a 
doubt whether the providus vir or prud'-homme here spoken of 
may not have been rather his namesake Marco Polo of 
Cannareggio or S. Geremia, of whose existence we learn 
from another entry of the same year.f It is, however, possible 

* According to Ronianiu (I. 321) the lira dei grossi was also called Lira 
dimprestidi, and if the lire here are to be so taken, the sum will be 10,000 ducats, 
the largest amount by far that occurs in any of these Polo documents, unless, indeed, 
the 1000 lire in § 5 of Maffeo Junior's Will be the like ; but I have some doubt if 
such lire are intended in cither case. 

t "(Resolved) That grace be granted to the respectable Marco Paulo, relieving 
him of the penalty he has incurred for neglecting to have his water-pipe examined, 
seeing that he was ignorant of the order on that subject." (See Appendix C. No. j.) 
The other reference, to M. Polo, of S. Geremia, runs as follows : — 

\_MCCCII. indie. XV. die VII F. Macii q fiat grd GUilld aurifici q ipe absolvat 
a pena t qua dicit icurisse p uno spolono sibi iueto veuiedo de Mestre ppe doinU Mad 
Pauli de Canareglo ui descenderat ad bibendu.'\ 

"That grace be granted to William the Goldsmith, relieving him of the penalty 
which he is staled to have incurred on account of a spontoon (spottlono, a loaded 
bludgeon) found upon him near the house of Marco Paulo of Cannareggio, 
where he had landed to drink on his way from Mestre." (See Cicogna, V. p. 606.) 



NOTICES OF MARCO POLO IN LATER LIFE 67 

that Marco the Traveller was called to the Great Council after 
the date of the document in question. 

We have seen that the Traveller, and after him his House 
and his Book, acquired from his contemporaries the surname, or 
nickname rather, of // Milione. Different writers have given 
different explanations of the origin of this name ; some, beginning 
with his contemporary Fra Jacopo d'Acqui {supra, p. 5^), 
ascribing it to the family's having brought home a fortune of a 
million of lire, in fact to their being jnillionaires. This is the 
explanation followed by Sansovino, Marco Barbaro, Coronelli, 
and others.* More far-fetched is that of Fontanini, who 
supposes the name to have been given to the Book as 
containing a great number of stories, like the Cento Novelle or 
the Thousand and One Nights I But there can be no doubt 
that Ramusio's is the true, as it is the natural, explanation ; 
and that the name was bestowed on Marco by the young wits of 
his native city, because of his frequent use of a word which 
appears to have been then unusual, in his attempts to convey 
an idea of the vast wealth and magnificence of the Kaan's 
Treasury and Courtf Ramusio has told us {supra, p. 6) that 
he had seen Marco styled by this sobriquet in the Books of the 
Signory ; and it is pleasant to be able to confirm this by the 
next document which we cite. This is an extract from the 
Books of the Great Council under loth April, 1305, condoning 
the offence of a certain Bonocio of Mestre in smuggling wine, 
for whose penalty one of the sureties had been the NOBILIS ViR 
Marchus Paulo Milioni.J 

It is alleged that long after our Traveller's death there was 
always, in the Venetian Masques, one individual who assumed 
the character of Marco Milioni, and told Munchausenlike stories 



* Samoviiw, Venesia, Cittil Nobilissimae Singolare, Descritta, etc., Ven. 1581, f. 
236 V. ; Barbaro, Alb^ ; Coronelli, Atlante Veneto, I. 19. 

t The word Alillio occurs several times in the Chronicle of the Doge Andrea 
Dandolo, who wrote about 1342 ; and Milton occurs at least once (besides the appli- 
cation of the term to Polo) in the History of Giovanni Villani ; viz. when he speaks 
of the TreasuT)- of A\'ignon : — " diciotto milioni di fiorini d'oro ec. che ogni milione 
i vtille migliaja di fiorini d" oro la valuta." (xi. 20, § I ; Ditcange, and Vocab. Univ. 
Ital.). But the definition, thought necessary by Villani, in itself points to the use 
of the word as rare. Domilion occurs in the estimated value of houses at Venice in 
1367, recorded in the Cronaca Ma^na in St. Mark's Library, (Romanin, III. 385). 

X " Also ; that Pardon be granted to Bonocio of Mestre for that 152 lire in which 
he stood condemned by the Captains of the Posts, on account of wine smuggled by 
him, in such wise : to wit, that he was to pay the said fine in 4 years by annual 



68 - INTRODUCTION 

to divert the vulgar. Such, if this be true, was the honour of our 
prophet among the populace of his own country.* 

45. A little later we hear of Marco once more, as present- 
ing a copy of his Book to a noble Frenchman in the service of 
Charles of Valois. 

This Prince, brother of Philip the Fair, in 1301 had married 
Catharine, daughter and heiress of Philip de Courtenay, titular 
Polo's reia- Emperor of Constantinople, and on the strength of 
TWbauit^de ^^'^ marriage had at a later date set up his own claim 
Cepoy. ^Q |-|^g Empire of the East. To this he was prompted 
by Pope Clement V., who in the beginning of 1306 wrote to 
Venice, stimulating that Government to take part in the enter- 
prise. In the same year, Charles and his wife sent as their envoys 
to Venice, in connection with this matter, a noble knight called 
Thibault de Cepoy, along with an ecclesiastic of Chartres 
called Pierre le Riche, and these two succeeded in executing a 
treaty of alliance with Venice, of which the original, dated 14th 
December, 1306, exists at Paris. Thibault de Cepoy eventu- 
ally went on to Greece with a squadron of Venetian Galleys, 
but accomplished nothing of moment, and returned to his 
master in i3io.-|- 

During the stay of Thibault at Venice he seems to have 
made acquaintance with Marco Polo, and to have received from 
him a copy of his Book. This is recorded in a curious note 
which appears on two existing MSS. of Polo's Book, viz., that 



instalments of one fourth, to be retrenched from the pay due to him on his journey in 
the suite of our ambassadors, with assurance that anything then remaining deficient 
of his instalments should be made good by himself or his securities. And his securities 
are the Nobles Pietro Morosini and Marco Paulo Milion." Under Miliou is 
written in an ancient hand " mortuus.^' (See Appendix C, No. 4.) 

* Humboldt tells this [Examen, II. 221), sWtgxng Jacopo cCAcqui as authority; 
and Libri {H. des Sciences Alathimatiques, II. 149), quoting Doglioni, Historia 
Veneziana. But neither authority bears out the citations. The story seems really 
to come from Amoretti's commentary on the Voyage du Cap. L. F. Maldonado, 
Plaisance, 1812, p. 67. Amoretti quotes as authority Pignoria, Degli Dei Antichi. 

An odd revival of this old libel was mentioned to me recently by Mr. George 
Mofiatt. When he was at school it was common among the boys to express incredulity 
by the phrase : " Oh, what a Marco Polo ! " 

t Thibault, according to Ducange, was in 1307 named Grand Master of the 
Arblasteers of France ; and Buchon says his portrait is at Versailles among the 
Admirals (No. 1 170). Ramon de Muntaner fell in with the Seigneur de Cepoy in 
Greece, and speaks of him as " but a Captain of the Wind, as his Master was King 
of the Wind." (See Ducange, H. de V Empire de Const, sous les Emp. Francois, 
Venice ed. 1729, pp. 109, no; Buchon, Chroniques Etrangires, pp. Iv. 467-470.) 



NOTICES OF MARCO POLO IN LATER LIFE 6g 

of the Paris Library (10,270 or Fr. 5649), and that of Bern, 
which is substantially identical in its text with the former, and is, 
as I believe, a copy of it.* The note runs as follows : — 

" Here you have the Book of which My Lord Thiebault, Knight and 
Lord of Cepoy, (whom may God assoil !) requested a copy from Sire 
>L\RC Pol, Burgess and Resident of the City of Venice. And the said Sire 
Marc Pol, being a very honourable Person, of high character and respect in 
many countries, because of his desire that what he had witnessed should be 
known throughout the World, and also for the honour and reverence he bore 
to the most excellent and puissant Prince my Lord Charles, Son of the 
King of France and Count of Valois, gave and presented to the aforesaid 
Lord of Cepoy the first copy (that was taken) of his said Book after he had 
made the same. And very pleasing it was to him that his Book should be 
carried to the noble country of France and there made known by so worthy 
a gentleman. And from that copy which the said Messire Thibault, Sire de 
Cepoy above-named, did carry into France, Messire John, who was his eldest 
son and is the present Sire de Cepoy,! after his Father's decease did have a 
copy made, and that very first copy that was made of the Book after its 
being carried into France he did present to his very dear and dread Lord 
Monseigneur de Valois. Thereafter he gave copies of it to such of his 
friends as asked for them. 

" And the copy above-mentioned was presented by the said Sire Marc 
Pol to the said Lord de Cepoy when the latter went to Venice, on the part 
of Monseigneur de Valois and of Madame the Empress his wife, as Vicar 
General for them both in all the Territories of the Empire of Constanti- 
nople. And this happened in the year of the Incarnation of our Lord 
Jesus Christ one thousand three hundred and seven, and in the month of 
August." 

Of the bearings of this memorandum on the literary historj'' 
of Polo's Book we shall speak in a following section. 

46. When Marco married we have not been able to ascertain, 

but it was no doubt early in the 14th century, for in 1324, we 

find that he had two married daughters besides one un- „. 

o His mar- 

married. His wife's Christian name was Donata, but ^l^\. 

of her family we have as yet found no assurance. I all^mer-^"''^" 

suspect, however, that her name may have been *^^^'" 

Loredano {yide infra, p. 77). 

Under 1311 we find a document which is of considerable in- 



* The note is not found in the Bodleian MS., which is the third known one of 
this precise type. 

t Messjje Jean, the son of Thibault, is mentioned in the accounts of the latter in 
the Chambre des Comptes at Paris, as having been with his Father in Romania. And 
in 1344 he commanded a confederate Christian armament sent to check the rising 
power of the Turks, and beat a great Turkish fleet in the Greek seas. [Heyd. I. 377 ; 
Buchon, 468.) 



70 INTRODUCTION 

terest, because it is the only one yet discovered which exhibits 
Marco under the aspect of a practical trader. It is the judgment 
of the Court of Requests upon a suit brought by the Noble 
Marco Polo of the parish of S. Giovanni Grisostomo against 
one Paulo Girardo of S. Apollinare. It appears that Marco had 
entrusted to the latter as a commission agent for sale, on an 
agreement for half profits, a pound and a half of musk, priced at 
six lire of grossi (about 22/. \os. in value of silver) the pound. 
Girardo had sold half-a-pound at that rate, and the remaining 
pound which he brought back was deficient of a saggio, or, one- 
sixth of an ounce, but he had accounted for neither the sale nor 
the deficiency. Hence Marco sues him for three lire of Grossi, 
the price of the half-pound sold, and for twenty grossi as the 
value of the saggio. And the Judges cast the defendant in the 
amount with costs, and the penalty of imprisonment in the 
common gaol of Venice if the amounts were not paid within a 
suitable term.* 

Again in May, 1323, probably within a year of his death, 
Ser Marco appears (perhaps only by attorney), before the Doge 
and his judicial examiners, to obtain a decision respecting a 
question touching the rights to certain stairs and porticoes in 
contact with his own house property, and that obtained from his 
wife, in S. Giovanni Grisostomo. To this allusion has been 
already made {supra, p. jz). 

47. We catch sight of our Traveller only once more. It is 
Marco °^ ^^^ 9^^ °^ January, 1324; he is labouring with 

Win an^^^' disease, under which he is sinking day by day ; and he 
Death. j^g^g ggj^^ fQj. Giovanni Giustiniani, Priest of S. Proculo 
and Notary, to make his Last Will and Testament. It runs 
thus : — 

" In the Name of the Eternal God Amen ! 

" In the year from the Incarnation of our Lord Jesus Christ 1323, on the 

* The document is given in Appendix C, No. 5. It was found by Comm. 
Barozzi, the Director of the Museo Civico, when he had most kindly accompanied me 
to aid in the search for certain other documents in the archives of the Casa di 
Ricovero, or Poor House of Venice. These archives contain a great mass of testa- 
mentary and other documents, wliich probably have come into that singular depository 
in connection with bequests to public charities. « 

The document next mentioned was found in as strange a site, viz., the Casa degli 
Esposti or Foundling Hospital, which possesses similar muniments. This also I owe 
to Comm. Barozzi, who had noted it some years before, when commencing an 
arrangement of the archives of the Institution. 



MARCO POLO'S LAST WILL 71 

9th day of the month of January, in the first half of the 7th Indiction,* at 
Rialto. 

" It is the counsel of Di\-ine Inspiration as well as the judgment of a 
proNndent mind that every man should take thought to make a disposition 
of his property before death become imminent, lest in the end it should 
remain without any disposition : 

" Wherefore I Marcus Paulo of the parish of St. John Chrysostom, 
finding myself to grow daily feebler through bodily ailment, but being by 
the grace of God of a sound mind, and of senses and judgment unimpaired, 
have sent for JOHN GiUSTlxiANi, Priest of S. Proculo and Notary, and have 
instructed him to draw out in complete form this my Testament : 

" WTiereby I constitute as my Trustees Donata my beloved wife, and 
my dear daughters Fantina, Bellela, and MORETA,t in order that after 
my decease they may execute the dispositions and bequests which I am 
about to make herein. 

'• First of all : I will and direct that the proper Tithe be paid. J And over 
and above the said tithe I direct that 2000 lire of Venice denari be dis- 
tributed as follows : § 

" Viz., 20 soldi of Venice grossi to the Monastery of St. Lawrence where 

I desire to be buried. 



* The L^al Year at Venice b^an on the ist of March. And 1324 was 7th of 
the Indiction. Hence the date is, according to the modem Calendar, 1324. 

+ Marsden says of Moreta and Fantina, the only daughters named by Ramasio, 
that these may be thought rather familiar term? of endearment than baptismal names. 
This is a mistake however. Fantina is from one of the parochial saints of Venice, 
S. Fantino, and the male name was borne by sundry Venetians, among others by a 
son of Henry Dandolo's. Moreta is perhaps a variation of Maroca, which seems to 
have been a family name among the Polos. We find also the male name of Bellela, 
written Bdkllo, Bellero, Belktto. 

X The Decinia went to the Bishop of Castello (eventually converted into Patriarch 
of Venice) to di^^de between himself, the Clergy, the Church, and the Poor. It 
became a source of much bad feeling, which came to a head after the plague of 1348, 
%vhen some families had to pay the tenth three times within a very short space. The 
existing Bishop agreed to a composition, but his successor Paolo Foscari (1367) 
claimed that on the death of everj- citizen an exact inventory should be made, and a 
fall tithe levied. The Signorj' fought hard with the Bishop, but he fled to the Papal 
Court and refused all concession. After his death in 1376 a composition was made 
for 5500 ducats yearly. {Romanin, II. 406; III. 161, 165.) 

§ There is a difficulty about estimating the value of these sums from the varietj- of 
Venice pounds or lire. Thus the Lira dei piccoli was reckoned 3 to the ducat or 
zecchin, the Lira ai grossi 2 to the ducat, but the Lira da grossi or Lira dimprestidi 
was equal to 10 ducats, or (allowing for higher value of silver then) about 3/. 15^. ; 
a little more than the equivalent of the then Pound sterling. This last money is 
specified in some oi the bequests, as in the 20 soldi (or I lira) to St. Lorenzo, and in 
the annuity of 8 lire to Polo's wife ; but it seems doubtful what money is meant when 
libra only or libra denarioriim venetortim is used. And this doubt is not new. 
Gallicciolli relates that in 1232 Giacomo ^Menotto left to the Church of S. Cassiano 
as an annuity libras denariorum venetorum quatuor. TUl 1427 the church received • 
the income as of lire dei piccoli, but on bringing a suit on the subject it was adjudged 
that lire ai grossi vteie to be understood. {Delle Mem. Vemt. Ant. II. 18.) This 
>'0T\, however, cuts both ways, and does not decide our doubt. 



\ 



7» INTRODUCTION 

"Also 300 lire of Venice denari to my sister-in-law Ysabeta QuiRiNO,* 
that she owes me. 

"Also 40 soldi to each of the Monasteries and Hospitals all the way from 
Grado to Capo d'Argine.t 

"Also I bequeath to the Convent of SS. Giovanni and Paolo, of the Order 
of Preachers, that which it owes me, and also 10 lire to Friar Renier, and 
5 lire to Friar Benvenuto the Venetian, of the Order of Preachers, in 
addition to the amount of his debt to me. 

" I also bequeath 5 lire to every Congregation in Rialto, and 4 lire to 
every Guild or Fraternity of which I am a member.^ 

"Also I bequeath 20 soldi of Venetian grossi to the Priest Giovanni 
Giustiniani the Notary, for his trouble about this my Will, and in order that 
he may pray the Lord in my behalf 

"Also I release Peter the Tartar, my servant, from all bondage, as com- 
pletely as I pray God to release mine own soul from all sin and guilt. And 
I also remit him whatever he may have gained by work at his own house ; 
and over and above I bequeath him 100 lire of Venice denari.§ 



* The form of the name Ysabeta aptly illustrates the transition that seems so 
strange from Elizabeth into the Isabel that the Spaniards made of it. 

t I.e. the extent of what was properly called the Dogado, all along the Lagoons 
from Grado on the extreme east to Capo d'Argine (Cavarzere at the mouth of the 
Adige) on the extreme west. 

J The word rendered Guilds is '' Sckolamm." The crafts at Venice were united 
in corporations called Fragile or Scholae, each of which had its statutes, its head 
called the Gastald, and its place of meeting under the patronage of some saint. 
These acted as societies of mutual aid, gave dowries to poor girls, caused masses 
to be celebrated for deceased members, joined in public religious processions, etc., 
nor could any craft be exercised except by members of such a guild. {Romanin, I. 

390- ) 

§ A few years after Ser Marco's death (1328) we find the Great Council granting 
to this Peter the rights of a natural Venetian, as having been a long time at Venice, 
and well-conducted, (See App. C, Calendar of Documents, No. 13.) This might give 
some additional colour to M. Pauthier's supposition that this Peter the Tartar was a 
faithful servant who had accompanied Messer Marco from the East 30 years before. 
But yet the supposition is probably unfounded. Slavery and slave-trade were very 
prevalent at Venice in the Middle Ages, and V. Lazari, a writer who examined a 
great many records connected therewith, found that by far the greater number of 
slaves were described as Tartars. There does not seem to be any clear information 
as to how they were imported, but probably from the factories on the Black Sea, 
especially Tana after its establishment. 

A tax of S ducats per head was set on the export of slaves in 1379, and as the 
revenue so received under the Doge Tommaso Mocenigo (1414-1423) amounted 
(so says Lazari) to 50,000 ducats, the startling conclusion is that 10,000 slaves yearly 
were exported ! This it is difficult to accept. The slaves were chiefly employed in 
domestic service, and the records indicate the women to have been about twice as 
numerous as the men. The highest price recorded is 87 ducats paid for a Russian 
girl sold in 1429. All the higher prices are for young women ; a significant circum- 
stance. With the existence of this system we may safely connect the extraordinary 
frequence of mention of illegitimate children in Venetian wills and genealogies. (See 
Lazari, Del Traffico degli Schiavi in Venezia, etc. , in Aliscellanea di Storia Italiana, 
I. 463 seqq.) In 1308 the Khan Toktai of Kipchak (see Polo, II. 496), hearing that 
the Genoese and other Franks were in the habit of carrying off Tartar children to sell, 



MARCO POLO'S LAST WILL yj 

"And the residue of the said 2000 lire, free of tithe, I direct to be dis- 
tributed for the good of my soul, according to the discretion of my trustees. 

"Out of my remaining pioperty I bequeath to the aforesaid Donata, my 
Wife and Trustee, 8 lire of Venetian grossi annually during her life, for her 
own use, over and above her settlement, and the linen and all the household 
utensils,* with 3 beds garnished. 

" .And all my other property movable and immovable that has not been 
disposed of [here follow some lines of mere technicality] I specially and ex- 
pressly bequeath to my aforesaid Daughters Fantina, Bellela, and Moreta, 
freely and absolutely, to be divided equally among them. And I constitute 
them my heirs as regards all and sundry my property movable and im- 
movable, and as regards all rights and contingencies tacit and expressed, of 
whatsoever kind as hereinbefore detailed, that belong to me or may fall to 
me. Save and except that before division my said daughter Moreta shall 
receive the same as each of my other daughters hath received for dowry and 
outfit [here follow many lines of technicalities, ending] 

" And if any one shall presume to infringe or violate this Will, may he 
incui the malediction of God Almighty, and abide bound under the anathema 
of the 318 Fathers ; and farthermore he shall forfeit to my Trustees afore- 
said five pounds of gold ; t and so let this my Testament abide in force. 
The signature of the above named Messer Marco Paulo who gave instruc- 
tions for this deed. 

" + I Peter Grifon, Priest, Witness. 

"* I Humfrey Barberi, Witness. 

" t I John Giustiniani, Priest of S. Proculo, and Notary, 

have completed and authenticated (this testament)." i 

sent a force against Caffa, which was occupied without resistance, the people taking 
refuge in their ships. The Khan also seized the Genoese property in Sarai. {Heyd. 
II. 27.) 

* *^ Stracium et onine capud niassaridorum" ', in Scotch phrase ^' napery and 
plenishing." A Venetian statute of 1242 prescribes that a bequest oi massariticum 
shall be held to carry to the legatee all articles of common family use except those of 
gold and silver plate or jeweller's work. (See Ducange, sub voce.) Stracci is still used 
technically in Venice for "household linen." 

t In the original aureas libras quinque. According to Marino Sanudo the 
Younger (Vite dei Dogi in Muratori^ xxii. 521) this should be pounds or lire of 
aureole, the name of a silver coin struck by and named after the Doge Aurio 
Maslropietro (1178-1192) : " Ancora fu fatta una Moneta d'argento che si chiamava 
Aureola per la casata del Doge ; i quella Moneta che i Xotai de Venezia nuttevatio 
di pena sot to i loro instrumenti." But this was a vulgar error. An example of the 
penalty of 5 pounds of gold is quoted from a decree of 960 ; and the penalty is 
sometimes Expressed '^^ auri purissimi librae 5." A coin called the lira d'oro or 
redonda is alleged to have been in use before the ducat was introduced. (See 
Gallicciolli, II. 16.) But another authority seems to identify the lira a oro with the 
lira dei grossi. (See Zanetli, Nuova Race, delle Morute b'c. d' Italia, \TJ<i. I. 
308.) 

% We give a photographic reduction of the original document. This, 

and the other two Polo Wills already quoted, had come into the possession of 

the Noble Filippo Balbi, and were by him presented in our own time to the St. 

' llf ^^ Library. They are all on parchment, in writing of that age, and have been 

;xially examined and declared to be originals. They were first published by 

VOL. I. m 



U INTRODUCTION 

We do not know, as has been said, how long Marco survived 
the making of this will, but we know, from a scanty series of 
documents commencing in June of the following year (1325), 
that he had then been some time dead.* 

48. He was buried, no doubt, according to his declared wish, 
Place of in the Church of S. Lorenzo; and indeed Sansovino 

Sepulture. , . , - . _ , . _ 

Professed bcars testimony to the fact m a confused notice of our 

Portraits of rr-. , , , -n i 

Polo. 1 raveller.-]- But there does not seem to have been any 

monument to Marco, though the sarcophagus which had been 
erected to his father Nicolo, by his own filial care, existed till near 
the end of the i6th century in the porch or corridor leading 
to the old Church of S. Lorenzo, and bore the inscription : 
"Sepultura Domini Nicolai Paulo de contrata S. 
lOANNIS GrisOSTEMI." The church was renewed from its 
foundations in 1592, and then, probably, the sarcophagus was 
cast aside and lost, and with it all certainty as to the position 
of the tomb.j 

Cicogna, Iscrizioni Veneziane, III. 489-493. We give Marco's in the original 
language, line for line with the facsimile, in Appendix C. 

There is no signature, as may be seen, except those of the Witnesses and the 
Notary. The sole presence of a Notary was held to make a deed valid, and from 
about the middle of the 13th century in Italy it is common to find no actual signa- 
ture (even of witnesses) except that of the Notary. The peculiar flourish before 
the Notary's name is what is called the Tabellionato, a fanciful distinctive monogram 
which each Notary adopted. Marco's Will is unfortunately written in a very cramp 
hand with many contractions. The other two Wills (of Marco the Elder and Maffeo) 
are in beautiful and clear Gothic penmanship. 

* We have noticed formerly (pp. /^-/J, 7tote) the recent discovery of a document bear- 
ing what was supposed to be the autograph signature of our Traveller. The document 
in question is the Minute of a Resolution of the Great Council, attested by the 
signatures of three members, of whom the last is Marcus Pauli.o. But the date 
alone, iith March, 1324, is sufficient to raise the gravest doubts as to this signature 
being that of our Marco. And further examination, as I learn from a friend at 
Venice, has shown that the same name occurs in connection with analogous entries on 
several subsequent occasions up to the middle of the century. I presume that this 
Marco Polo is the same that is noticed in our Appendix B, II. as a voter in the 
elections of the Doges Marino FaHero and Giovanni Gradenigo. I have not been 
able to ascertain his relation to either branch of the Polo family ; but I suspect that 
he belonged to that of S. Geremia, of which there was certainly a Marco about the 
middle of the century. 

t " Under the angiporta (of S. Lorenzo) [see plate] is buried that Marco Polo sur- 
named Milione, who wrote the Travels in the New World, and who was the first 
before Christopher Columbus to discover new countries. No faith was put in him 
because of the extravagant things that he recounted ; but in the days of our Fathers 
Columbus augmented belief in him, by discovering that part of the world which 
eminent men had heretofore judged to be uninhabited." {Venezia .... Descritta, 
etc., f. 23 V.) Marco Barbaro attests the same inscription in his Genealogies (copy 
in Museo Civico at Venice). 

X Cicogna t II. 385. 



LAST NOTICES OF THE FAMILY 



75 



There is no portrait of Marco Polo in existence with any claim 
to authenticity. The quaint figure which we give in the Biblio- 
graphy^ vol. ii, p. 555, extracted from the earliest printed edition 
of his book, can certainly make no such pretension. The oldest 
one after this is probably a picture in the collection of Monsignor 
Badia at Rome, of which I am now able, by the owner's courtesy, 
to give a copy. It is set down in the catalogue to Titian, but 
is probably a work of 1600, or thereabouts, to which the aspect 
and costume belong. It is inscribed '^Marcus Polvs Venetvs 
Totivs Or bis et Indie Peregrator Primus^ Its history unfortunately 
cannot be traced, but I believe it came from a collection at 




S. Lorenzo as it was in the 15th century. 

Urbino. A marble statue was erected in his honour by a family 
at Venice in the 17th century, and is still to be seen in the 
Palazzo Morosini-Gattemburg in the Campo S. Stefano in that 
city. The medallion portrait on the wall of the Saladello Sctido 
in the ducal palace, and which was engraved in Bettoni's 
"Collection of Portraits of Illustrious Italians," is a work of 
imagination painted by Francesco Griselini in 1761.* From 
this, however, was taken the medal by Fabris, which was struck 
in 1847 in honour of the last meeting of the Italian Congress© 
Scientifico ; and from the medal again is copied, I believe, the 
elegant woodcut which adorns the introduction to M. Pauthier's 



Lazari, xxxi. 



VOL. I. 



7n 2 



^6 INTRODUCTION 

edition, though without any information as to its history. A 
handsome bust, by Augusto Gamba, has lately been placed 
among the illustrious Venetians in the inner arcade of the Ducal 
Palace.* There is also a mosaic portrait of Polo, opposite the 
similar portrait of Columbus in the Municipio at Genoa. 

49. From the short series of documents recently alluded to,*!* 
we gather all that we know of the remaining history of Marco 
Further Polo's immediate family. We have seen in his will an 
thePok)°^ indication that the two elder daughters, Fantina and 
Family. Bellcla, were married before his death. In 1333 we 
find the youngest, Moreta, also a married woman, and Bellela 
deceased. In 1336 we find that their mother Donata had died 
in the interval. We learn, too, that Fantina's husband was 
Marco Bragadino, and Moreta's, Ranuzzo Dolfino.| The 
name of Bellela's husband does not appear. 

Fantina's husband is probably the Marco Bragadino, son of 
Pietro, who in 1346 is mentioned to have been sent as 
Provveditore-Generale to act against the Patriarch of Acqui- 
leia.§ And in 1379 we find Donna Fantina herself, pre- 
sumably in widowhood, assessed as a resident of S. Giovanni 
Grisostomo, on the Estimo or forced loan for the Genoese war, 
at 1300 lire, whilst Pietro Bragadino of the same parish — her son 
as I imagine — is assessed at 1500 //r^. || [See vol. ii., Calendar.'] 

The documents show a few other incidents which may be 
briefly noted. In 1326 we have the record of a charge against 
one Zanino Grioni for insulting Donna Moreta in the Campo 
of San Vitale ; a misdemeanour punished by the Council of 
Forty with two months' imprisonment. 



* In the first edition I noticed briefly a statement that had reached me from China 
that, in the Temple at Canton vulgarly called "of the 500 gods," there is a foreign 
figure which from the name attached had been supposed to represent Marco Polo ! 
From what I have heard from Mr. Wylie, a very competent authority, this is 
nonsense. The temple contains 500 figures of Arhans or Buddhist saints, and one of 
these attracts attention from having a hat like a sailor's straw hat. Mr. Wylie had 
not remarked the name. [A model of this figure was exhibited at Venice at the 
international Geographical Congress, in 188 1. I give a reproduction of this figure 
and of the Temple of 500 Genii {Fa I.uni Sze) at Canton, from drawings by Felix 
Regamey made after photographs sent to me by my late friend, M, Camille Imbauh 
Huart, French Consul at Canton. — H. C] 

t These documents are noted in Appendix C, Nos. 9-12, 14, 17, 18. 

J I can find no Ranuzzo Dolfino among the Venetian genealogies, but several 
Keniers. And I suspect Ranuzzo may be a form of the latter name. 

§ Caplellari (see p. 77, J) under Bragadino. \\ Ibid, and Gallicciolli, II. 146. 




u^ 



.^s:r^^^r^-g<g^sr<f^sT>.''r<:^ 



s^^»»>^>.>»^myA^gi 



Mosaic Portrait of Marco Polo at Genoa. 



[ Jo /ace p. 76. 



LAST NOTICES OF THE FAMILY Tf 

In March, 1328, Marco Polo, called Marcolino, of St. John 
Chrysostom (see p. 66), represents before the Domini Advo- 
catores of the Republic that certain iinprestita that had belonged 
to the late Maffeo Polo the Elder, had been alienated and trans- 
ferred in May, 13 18, by the late Marco Polo of St. John Chry- 
sostom and since his death by his heirs, without regard to the 
rights of the said Marcolino, to whom the said Messer Maffeo 
had bequeathed 1000 lire by his will executed on 6th February, 
1308 {i.e. 1309). The Advocatores find that the transfer was 
to that extent unjust and improper, and they order that to the 
same extent it should be revoked and annulled. Two months 
later the Lady Donata makes rather an unpleasant figure before 
the Council of Forty, It would seem that on the claim of 
Messer Bertuccio Quirino a mandate of sequestration had been 
issued by the Court of Requests affecting certain articles in the 
Ca' Polo ; including two bags of money which had been tied and 
sealed, but left in custody of the Lady Donata. The sum so 
sealed was about 80 lire of grossi (300/. in silver value), but 
when opened only 45 lire and 22 grossi (about 170/.) were found 
therein, and the Lady was accused of abstracting the balance 
nan bono viodo. Probably she acted, as ladies sometimes do, on 
a strong sense of her own rights, and a weak sense of the claims 
of law. But the Council pronounced against her, ordering 
restitution, and a fine of 200 lire over and above "«/ ceteris 
iranseat in exemplum." * 

It will have been seen that there is nothing in the amounts 
mentioned in Marco's will to bear out the large reports as to his 
wealth, though at the same time there is no positive ground for 
a deduction to the contrary-. j- 

The mention in two of the documents of Agnes Loredano as 
the sister of the Lady Donata suggests that the latter may have 
belonged to the Loredano family, but as it does not appear 
whether Agnes was maid or wife this remains uncertain.^ 

The /ire of the fine are not specified ; but probably ai grossi, which would be = 
37/. I05. ; not, we hope, dei grossi ! 

t Yet, if the family were so wealthy as tradition represents, it is strange that 
Marco's brother ^Iafieo, after receiving a share of his father's property, should have 
possessed barely 10,000 lire, probably equivalent to 5000 ducats at most (See p. 
6), supra.) 

t An Agnes Loredano, Abbess of S. Maria delle Vergini, died in 1397. (Cicogna, 
V. 91 and 629.) The interval of 61 years makes it somewhat improbable that it 
should be the same. 



78 



INTRODUCTION 



Respecting the further history of the family there is nothing- 
certain, nor can we give unhesitating faith to Ramusio's state- 
ment that the last male descendant of the Polos of S. Giovanni 
Grisostomo was Marco, who died Castellano of Verona in 1417 
(according to others, 141 8, or 1425),* and that the family 
property then passed to Maria (or Anna^ as she is styled in a 
MS. statement furnished to me from Venice), who was married 
in 1 40 1 to Benedetto Cornaro, and again in 1414 to Azzo 
Trevisan. Her descendant in the fourth generation by the latter 
was Marc Antonio Trevisano,! who was chosen Doge in 1553. 




Arms of the Trevisan family. 

The genealogy recorded by Marco Barbaro, as drawn up 
from documents by Ramusio, makes the Castellano of Verona a 
grandson of our Marco by a son Maffeo, whom we may safely 
pronounce not to have existed, and makes Maria the daughter of 
Maffeo, Marco's brother — that is to say, makes a lady marry in 
1414 and have children, whose father was born in 1271 at the 
very latest ! The genealogy is given in several other ways, but 
as I have satisfied myself that they all (except perhaps this of 
Barbaro's, which we see to be otherwise erroneous) confound to- 
gether the two distinct families of Polo of S. Geremia and Polo 
of S. Giov. Grisostomo, I reserve my faith, and abstain from 
presenting them. Assuming that the Marco or Marcolino Polo, 
spoken of in the preceding page, was a near relation (as is 

* In the Museo Civico (No. 2271 of the Cicogna collection) there is a commission 
addressed by the Doge Michiel Steno in \i,o'i,'' NobiliViro Marcho PMth,'\\o\\\\\\:^\:m.g 
him Podesta of Aroslica (a Castello of the Vicentino). This is probably the same Marco. 

t The descent runs: (i) Azzo = Maria Polo; (2) Febo, Ca'ptain at Padua; 
(3) Zaccaria, Senator ; (4) Domenico, Procurator of St. Mark's ; (5) Marc' Antonio, 
'Doge. (Cappellari, Campidoglio Veiicto, MS. St. Mark's Lib.). 

Marc' Antonio nolebat ducari and after election desired to renounce. His friends 
persuaded him to retain office, but he lived scarcely a year after. {Cicogna, lY. 566,) 
[Seep. <?.] 




The I\eudo -Marco Polo at Canton. \,To/ace p. 7S. 



RELIQUES OF MARCO POLO jg 

probable, though perhaps an illegitimate one), he is the only male 
descendant of old Andrea of San Felice whom we can indicate as 
having survived Marco himself; and from a study of the links in 
the professed genealogies I think it not unlikely that both Marco 
the Castellano of Verona and Maria Trevisan belonged to the 
branch of S. Geremia.* [See vol. ii., App. C, p. 510.] 

[49. bis. — It is interesting to note some of the reliqucs left 
by our traveller. 

I. The unfortunate Doge of Venice, Marino Faliero, seems to 
have possessed many souvenirs of Marco Polo, and among them 
two manuscripts, one in the handwriting of his celebrated fellow- 
citizen (?), and one adorned with miniatures. M. Julius von 
Schlosser has reprinted {Die dltesten Medaillen und die Antike, 
Bd. XVIII., Jahrb. d. Kunsthist. Sainnil. d. Allerhochsten 
Kaiserhauses, Vienna, 1897, pp. 42-43) from the Biilletitio di arti, 
industrie e curiosita veneziane, III., 1880-81, p. ioi,t the inventory 
of the curiosities kept in the " Red Chamber " of Marino Faliero's 
palace in the Parish of the SS. Apostles ; we give the following 
abstract of it : — 

Anno ab incarnacione domini nostri Jesu Christi 1351° indictione sexta 

* In Appendix B will be found tabulated all the facts that seem to be positively 
ascertained as to the Polo genealc^es. 

In the Venetian archives occurs a procuration executed by the Doge in favour of 
the Nobilis Vir Ser Marco Paulo that he may present himself before the king of 
Sicily ; under date, Venice 9th November, 1342. And some years later we have in 
the Sicilian Archives an order by King Lewis of Sicily, directed to the Maestri 
Procuratori of Messina, which grants to Marco Poi.o of Venice, on account of 
services rendered to the king's court, the privilege of free import and export at the 
port of Messina, without payment of customs of goods to the amount annually of 20 
ounces. Dated in Catania 13th January, 1346(1347?). 

For the former notice I am indebted to the courtesy of Signer B. Cecchetti of the 
Venetian Archives, who cites it as "transcribed in the Commemor. IV. p. 5" ; for 
the latter to that of the Abate Carini of the Reale Archivio at Palermo ; it is in 
Archivio della Regia Cancellaria 1343- 1357, f- 58. 

The mission of this Marco Polo is mentioned also in a rescript of the Sicilian 
king Peter II., dated Messina, 14th November, 1340, in reference to certain claims 
of Venice, about which the said Marco appeared as the Doge's ambassador. This is 
printed in F. Testa, £>e Vitd et Reims Gestis Fedeiici II., SicilicB Regis, Panormi, 
1775, pp. 267 secjq. The Sicilian Antiquary Rosario Gregorio identifies the Envoy 
with our Marco, dead long before. (See Oj>ere scelte del Canon Ros. Gregorio, 
Palermo, 1845, 3za ediz., p. 352.) 

It is possible that this Marco, who from the latter notice seems to have been 
engaged in mercantile affairs, may have been the Marcolino above mentioned, but 
it is perhaps on the whole more probable that this nobilis vir is the Marco spoken of 
in the note at p. 7^. 

t La CoUezione del Doge Marin Faliero e i Tesori di Marco Polo, pp. 98-103. I 
have seen this article. — H. C. 



8o INTRODUCTION 

mensis aprilis. Inuentarium rerum qui sunt in camera rubea domi 
habitationis clarissimi domini Marini Faletro de confinio SS. 
Apostolorum, scriptum per me Jobannem, presbiterum, dicte ecclesie. 

Item alia capsaleta cum ogiis auri et argenti, inter quos unum anulum 
con inscriptione que dicit : Ciuble Can Marco Polo, et unum torques cum 
multis animalibus Tartarorum sculptis, que res donum dedit predictus 
Marcus cuidam Faletrorum. 

Itetn 2 capsalete de corio albo cum variis rebus auri et argenti, quas 
habuit praedictus Marcus a Barbarorum rege. 

Item I ensem mirabilem, qui habet 3 enses simul, quem habuit in suis 
itineribus praedictus MARCUS. 

Itetn I tenturam de pannis indicis, quam habuit praedictus MARCUS. 
Item de itineribus Marci praedicti liber in corio albo cum multis figuris. 
Item aliud volumen quod vocatur de locis init'abilibus Tartarorum^ 
scriptum matiu praedicti Marci. 

II. There is kept at the Louvre, in the very valuable 
collection of China Ware given by M. Ernest Grandiclier, a white 
porcelain incense-burner said to come from Marco Polo. This 
incense-burner, which belonged to Baron Davillier, who received 
it, as a present, from one of the keepers of the Treasury of 
St, Mark's at Venice, is an octagonal ting from the Fo-kien 
province, and of the time of the Sung Dynasty. By the kind 
permission of M. P. Grandidier, we reproduce it from PI. II. 
6, of the Ceramique chinoise, Paris, 1894, published by this 
learned amateur. — H. C] 



IX. Marco Polo's Book ; and the Language in which it was 

FIRST WRITTEN. 

50. The Book itself consists essentially of Two Parts. 
First, of a Prologue, as it is termed, the only part which is 
General actual pcrsonal narrative, and which relates, in a very 
wha^t"the ° interesting but far too brief manner, the circumstances 
tl'ins.''""' which led the two elder Polos to the Kaan's Court, 
and those of their second journey with Mark, and of their return 
to Persia through the Indian Seas. Secondly, of a long series of 
chapters of very unequal length, descriptive of notable sights and 
products, of curious manners and remarkable events, relating to 
the different nations and states of Asia, but, above all, to the 




Porcelain Incense-Bumer, from the Louvre. 



Vfo/ace p. So. 



ORIGINAL LANGUAGE OF THE BOOK 8i 

Emperor Kubldi, his court, wars, and administration. A series 
of chapters near the close treats in a verbose and monotonous 
manner of sundry wars that took place between the various 
branches of the House of Chinghiz in the latter half of the 1 3th 
century. This last series is either omitted or greatly curtailed in 
all the copies and versions except one ; a circumstance perfectly 
accounted for by the absence of interest as well as value in the 
bulk of these chapters. Indeed, desirous though I have been to 
give the Traveller's work complete, and sharing the dislike that 
every man who uses books must bear to abridgments, I have 
felt that it would be sheer v/aste and dead-weight to print these 
chapters in full. 

This second and main portion of the Work is in its oldest 
forms undivided, the chapters running on consecutively to the 
end.* In some very early Italian or Venetian version, which 
Friar Pipino translated into Latin, it was divided into three 
Books, and this convenient division has generally been adhered 
to. We have adopted M. Pauthier's suggestion in making 
the final series of chapters, chiefly historical, into a Fourth. 

51. As regards the language in which Marco's Book was first 
committed to writing, we have seen that Ramusio assumed, 
somewhat arbitrarily, that it was Latin : Marsden , 

•' ' ' Language 

supposed it to have been the Venetian dialect ; Bal- "[/^In^, 
delli Boni first showed, in his elaborate edition ^°^^- 
(Florence, 1827), by arguments that have been illustrated 
and corroborated by learned men since, that it was French. 

That the work was originally written in some Italian dialect 
was a natural presumption, and slight contemporary evidence 
can be alleged in its favour; for Fra Pipino, in the Latin 
version of the work, executed whilst Marco still lived, describes 
his task as a translation de vulgari. And in one M^ copy of 
the same Friar Pipino's Chronicle, existing in the library at 
Modena, he refers to the said version as made " ex vulgari 
idiomate Lombardico." But though it may seem improbable 
that at so early a date a Latin version should have been made 
at second hand, I believe this to have been the case, and that 
some internal evidence also is traceable that Pipino translated 
not from the original but from an Italian version of the original. 

* 232 chapters in the oldest French which we quote as the Geographic Text (or 
G. T.), 200 in Pauthier's Text, 183 in the Crusca Italian. - ' 



8i INTRODUCTION 

The oldest MS. (it is supposed) in any Italian dialect is one 
in the Magliabecchian Library at Florence, which is known in 
Italy as L'Oitima, on account of the purity of its Tuscan, and as 
Delia Crusca from its being one of the authorities cited by that 
body in their Vocabulary.* It bears on its face the following 
note in Italian : — 

" This Book called the Navigation of Messer Marco Polo, a noble 
Citizen of Venice, was written in Florence by Michael Ormanni my great 
grandfather by the Mother's side, who died in the Year of Grace One 
Thousand Three Hundred and Nine ; and my mother brought it into our 
Family of Del Riccio, and it belongs to me Pier del Riccio and to my 
Brother; 1452." 

As far as I can learn, the age which this note implies is 
considered to be supported by the character of the MS. itselff 
If it be accepted, the latter is a performance going back to 
within eleven years at most of the first dictation of the Travels. 
At first sight, therefore, this would rather argue that the original 
had been written in pure Tuscan. But when Baldelli came to 
prepare it for the press he found manifest indications of its 
being a Translation from the French. Some of these he has 
noted ; others have followed up the same line of comparison. 
We give some detailed examples in a note.J 



* The MS. has been printed by Baldelli as above, and again by Bartoli in 1863. 

t This is somewhat peculiar. I traced a few lines of it, which with Del Riccio's 
note were given in facsimile in the First Edition. 

% The Crusca is cited from Bartoli's edition. 

French idioms are frequent, as I'uomo for the French on ; qttattro-vmti instead of 
oltanta ; etc. 

We have at p. 35, " Questo piano i molto cavo," which is nonsense, but is 
explained by reference to the French (G. T. ) " Voz di qt^ il est celle plaingne mout 
chaue" {chaude). 

The bread in Kerman is bitter, says the G. T. '^ for ce que Ceive hi est amer," 
because the water there is bitter. The Crusca mistakes the last word and renders 
(p. 40) "<? questi i per lo mare che vi viene.^' 

^^ Sachids de voir qe endi*tm&n\.\exs,'" know for a tiuth that whilst , by some 

misunderstanding of the last word becomes (p. 129) " Sappiate di vero sanza 
mentire." 

^^ Mis de sel ioxi'i-W. monoie" — "They make money of salt," becomes (p. 168) 
" tnafannole da loro," sel being taken for a pronoun, whilst in another place set 
is transferred bodily without translation. 

" Chevoil,'" "hair" of the old French, appears in the Tuscan (p. 20) as cavagli, 
"horses." — "Za Grant Provence Jereraus," the great general province, appears 
(p. 68) as a province whose proper name is lenaraus. lu describing Kiibhii's 
expedition against Mien or Burma, Polo has a story of his calling on the Jugglers at 
bis court to undertake the job, promising them a Captain and other help, " Cheveiiain 




^ 



THE OLD FRENCH TEXT 83 

52. The French Text that we have been quoting, published 
by the Geographical Society of Paris in 1824, affords on the 
other hand the strongest corresponding proof that it is q,j p^g„^,j 
an original and not a Translation. Rude as is the u'^e/by' 
language of the manuscript (Fr. 11 16, formerly No. de^c^e?-*'^ 
7367, of Paris Library), it is, in the correctness of the ^p^'^' 
proper names, and the intelligible exhibition of the itineraries, 
much superior to any form of the Work previously published. 

The language is very peculiar. We are obliged to call it 
French, but it is not " Frenche of Paris." "Its style," says 
Paulin Paris, " is about as like that of good French 
authors of the age, as in our day the natural accent of 
a German, an Englishman, or an Italian, is like that of a 
citizen of Paris or Blois." The author is at war with all the 
practices of French grammar ; subject and object, numbers, 
moods, and tenses, are in consummate confusion. Even 
readers of his own day must at times have been fain to 
guess his meaning. Italian words are constantly introduced, 
either quite in the crude or rudely Gallicized.* And words 



et aide." This has fairly puzzled the Tuscan, who converts these (p. 186) into two 
Tartar tribes, ^' quegli d' Aide e quegli di Caveita." 

So also we have lievre for hare transferred without change ; lait, milk, appearing 
2&laido instead ol latte ; tris, rendered as " three" ; b»e, "mud," Italianised as btioi, 
"oxen," and so forth. Finally, in various places when Polo is explaining Oriental 
terms we find in the Tuscan MS. " cioe a dire in Francesco." 

The blunders mentioned are intelligible enough as in a version ^Ti^wj the French ; 
but in the description of the Indian pearl-fishery we have a startling one not so easy 
to account for. The French says, " the divers gather the sea-oysters {hostrige de 
Mer), and in these the pearls are found." This appears in the Tuscan in the 
extraordinary form that the divers catch those fishes called Herrings (Aringhe), and 
in those Herrings are found the Pearls ! 

* As examples of these Italianisms : " Et ont del olio de la lanpe dau sepolchro de 
Crist " ; '^V Angel ven en vision pour mesaj'es de Deu h un Veschevo qe viout estoient 
home de sante vite"; "i? certes il estoit bien beizongno"; "«« trap caut ne trop 
fredo"; "/a crense" {credei.zx) % "remort" for noise (rumore)', "invemo"; 
"jorno"; "dementique" (dinienticato') ; "enferme" for sickly; "leign" {Jegno); 
"devisee" (dcvizia); "ammalaide" (ammalato), etc. etc. 

Professor Bianconi points out that there are also traces of Venetian dialect, as Pare 
ioi pere; Mojer for wife ; Zabater, cobbler ; cazaor, huntsman, etc. 

I have not been able to learn to what extent books in this kind of mixed language 
are extant. I have observed one, a romance in verse called Alacaire {Altfranzbsische 
Gedichte aus Venez. Handschriften, von Adolf Mussafia, Wien, 1864), the language 
of which is not unlike this jargon of Rustician's, e.g. : — 

" ' Dama,' fait-il, ' molto me poso merviler 
* De ves enfant quant le fi batecer 

De un signo qe le vi sor la spal'a droiturer 
Qe non ait nul se no filz d'inperer.'" — (p. 41) 



84 INTRODUCTION 

also, we may add, sometimes slip in which appear to be 
purely Oriental, just as is apt to happen with Anglo-Indians 
in these days.* All this is perfectly consistent with the 
supposition that we have in this MS. a copy at least of 
the original words as written down by Rusticiano a Tuscan, 
from the dictation of Marco an Orientalized Venetian, in 
French, a language foreign to both. 

But the character of the language as French is not its only 
peculiarity. There is in the style, apart from grammar or 
vocabulary, a rude angularity, a rough dramatism like that 
of oral narrative ; there is a want of proportion in the style 
of different parts, now over curt, now diffuse and wordy, with 
at times even a hammering reiteration ; a constant recurrence of 
pet colloquial phrases (in which, however, other literary works 
of the age partake) ; a frequent change in the spelling of the 
same proper names, even when recurring within a few lines, 
as if caught by ear only ; a literal following to and fro of the 
hesitations of the narrator ; a more general use of the third 
person in speaking of the Traveller, but an occasional lapse 
into the first. All these characteristics are strikingly indicative 
of the unrevised product of dictation, and many of them would 
necessarily disappear either in translation or in a revised copy. 

Of changes in representing the same proper name, take as 
an example that of the Kaan of Persia whom Polo calls 
Quiacatu (Kaikhatu), but also Acatu, Catu, and the like. 

As an example of the literal following of dictation take the 
following : — 

" Let us leave Rosia, and I will tell you about the Great Sea (the Euxine), 
and what provinces and nations lie round about it, all in detail ; and we will 

begin with Constantinople^ First, however, I should tell you about a 

province, etc. . , . There is nothing more worth mentioning, so I will 
speak of other subjects, — but there is one thing more to tell you about 
Rosia that I had forgotten. . . . Now then let us speak of the Great 
Sea as I was about to do. To be sure many merchants and others have 

* As examples of such Orientalisms : Bomts, "ebony," and calainanz, "pencases," 
seem to represent the Persian abnus and kalamdhn ; the dead are mourned by les 
meres et les Araines, the Harems ; in speaking of the land of the Ismaelites or 
Assassins, called Mulhete, i.e. the Arabic Muldhidah, "Heretics," he explains this 
term as meaning "des Aram" {Hardm, "the reprobate"). Speaking of the 
Viceroys of Chinese Provinces, we are told that they rendered their accounts yearly 
to the Safators of the Great Kaan. This is certainly an Oriental word. Sir II. 
Rawlinsonhas suggested that it stands for dafdtir (" registers or public books"), pi. of 
daftar. This seems probable, and in that case the true reading may have been dafators. 



THE OLD FRENCH TEXT 83 

been here, but still there are many again who know nothing about it, so it 
will be well to include it in our Book. We will do so then, and let us begin 
first with the Strait of Constantinople 

"At the Straits leading into the Great Sea, on the West Side, there is a 

hill called the Faro. But since beginning on this matter I have changed 

my mind, because so many people know all about it, so we will not put it in 
our description but go on to something else." (See vol. ii. p. 487 seqq^ 

And so on. 

As a specimen of tautology and hammering reiteration the 
following can scarcely be surpassed. The Traveller is speaking 
of the Chughi, i.e. the Indian Jogis : — 

" And there are among them certain devotees, called Chughi ; these are 
longer-lived than the other people, for they live from 150 to 200 years ; and 
yet they are so hale of body that they can go and come wheresoever they 
please, and do all the service needed for their monastery or their idols, and 
do it just as well as if they were younger ; and that comes of the great 
abstinence that they practise, in eating little food and only what is whole- 
some ; for they use to eat rice and milk more than anything else. And 
again I tell you that these Chughi who live such a long time as I have told 
you, do also eat what I am going to tell you, and you will think it a great 
matter. For I tell you that they take quicksilver and sulphur, and mix them 
together, and make a drink of them, and then they drink this, and they 
say that it adds to their life ; and in fact they do live much longer for it ; 
and I tell you that they do this twice every month. And let me tell you 
that these people use this drink from their infancy in order to live longer, 
and without fail those who live so long as I have told you use this drink 
of sulphur and quicksilver." (See G. T. p. 213.) 

Such talk as this does not survive the solvent of translation ; 
and we may be certain that we have here the nearest approach 
to the Traveller's reminiscences as they were taken down from his 
lips in the prison of Genoa. 

53. Another circumstance, heretofore I believe unnoticed, is 
in itself enough to demonstrate the Geographic Text to be the 
source of all other versions of the Work. It is this. Conclusive 

-,...., f proof that 

In reviewmg the various classes or types of texts theoid 
of Polo's Book, which we shall hereafter attempt to dis- b the source 

• . , . , . r ,- of all the 

criminate, there are certain proper names which we find others, 
in the different texts to take very different forms, each class 
adhering in the main to one particular form. 

Thus the names of the Mongol ladies introduced at pp. 32 and 
36 of this volume, which are in proper Oriental form Bulughdn 
and Kukdchin, appear in the class of MSS. which Pauthier has 
followed as Bolgara and Cogatra ; in the MSS. of Pipino's 



8b INTRODUCTION 

version, and those founded on it, including Ramusio, the names 
appear in the correcter forms Bolgana or Balgmia and Cogacin. 
Now all the forms Bolgana, Balgana, Bolgara, and Cogatra, 
Cocacin appear in the Geographic Text. 

Kaikhdtu Kaan appears in the Pauthier MSS. as Chiato, in 
the Pipinian as Acatu, in the Ramusian as Chiacato. All tJiree 
forms, Chiato, Achatu, and Quiacatu are found in the Geographic- 
Text. 

The city of Koh-banan appears in the Pauthier MSS. as 
Cabanant, in the Pipinian and Ramusian editions as Cobinam or 
Cobinan. Both forms are found in the Geographic Text. 

The city of the Great Kaan (Khanbalig) is called in the 
Pauthier MSS. Cambaluc, in the Pipinian and Ramusian less 
correctly Cambalu. Both forms appear in the Geographic Text. 

The aboriginal People on the Burmese Frontier who received 
from the Western officers of the Mongols the Persian name 
(translated from that applied by the Chinese) of Zardanddn, or 
Gold-Teeth, appear in the Pauthier MSS. most accurately as 
Zardandan, but in the Pipinian as Ardandan (still further 
corrupted in some copies into Arcladam). Now both forms 
are found in the Geographic Text. Other examples might be 
given, but these I think may suffice to prove that this Text was 
the common source of both classes. 

In considering the question of the French original too we must 
remember what has been already said regarding Rusticien de 
Pise and his other French writings ; and we shall find hereafter 
an express testimony borne in the next generation that Marco's 
Book was composed in vulgari Gallico. 

54. But, after all, the circumstantial evidence that has been 
adduced from the texts themselves is the most conclusive. We 
Greatly have then every reason to believe both that the work 

diffused em- . . , , , . . _, , 

pioymentof was wHttcn m P rcuch, and that an existmg rrench 

French in . -. . .... 

that age. Text is a close representation of it as ongmally com- 
mitted to paper. And that being so we may cite some 
circumstances to show that the use of French or quasi-French for 
the purpose was not a fact of a very unusual or surprising nature. 
The French language had at that time almost as wide, perhaps 
relatively a wider, diffusion than it has now. It was still spoken 
at the Court of England, and still used by many English writers, 
of whom the authors or translators of the Round Table 



EMPLOYMENT OF THE FRENCH LANGUAGE 9r 

Romances at Henr>^ III.'s Court are examples* In 1249 
Alexander III. King of Scotland, at his coronation spoke in 
Latin and French; and in 1291 the English Chancellor address- 
ing the Scotch Parliament did so in French. At certain of the 
Oxford Colleges as late as 1328 it was an order that the students 
should converse colloquio latino vel saltern gallico.\ Late in the 
same century Gower had not ceased to use French, composing 
many poems in it, though apologizing for his want of skill 
therein : — 

" Et si jeo nai de Francois la faconde 

• • • « 

Jeo suis Englois ; si quier par tiele voie 
Estre excuse." X 

Indeed down to nearly 1385, boys in the English grammar- 
schools were taught to construe their Latin lessons into French.§ 
St. Francis of Assisi is said by some of his biographers to have 
had his original name changed to Francesco because of his early 
mastery of that language as a qualification for commerce. 
French had been the prevalent tongue of the Crusaders, and was 
that of the numerous Frank Courts which they established in the 
East, including Jerusalem and the states of the Syrian coast, 
Cyprus, Constantinople during the reign of the Courtenays, and 
the principalities of the Morea. The Catalan soldier and 
chronicler Ramon de Muntaner tells us that it was commonly 
said of the Morean chivalry that they spoke as good French as 
at Paris.ll Quasi-French at least was still spoken half a century 
later by the numerous Christians settled at Aleppo, as John 
Marignolli testifies ; H and if we may trust Sir John Maundevile 
the Soldan of Egypt himself and four of his chief Lords " spak 
Frensche righte zvel!"** Ghazan Kaan, the accomplished 
Mongol Sovereign of Persia, to whom our Traveller conveyed a 



* Luces du Gast, one of the first of these, introduces himself thus : — " Je Luces, 
Chevaliers et Sires du Chastel du Gast, voisins prochain de Salebieres, comme 
chevaliers amoureus enprens a translater du Latin en Fran5ois une partie de cette 
estoire, non mie pour ce que je sache gramment de Fran9ois, ainz apartient plus ma 
langue et ma parleure a la maniere de I'Engleterre que k celle de France, comme eel 
qui fu en Engleterre nez, mais tele est ma volentez et mon proposement, que je en 
langue fran^oise le translaterai." {Hist. Lilt, de La France, xv. 494.) 

t Hist. Litt. de la France, xv, 500. + Ibid. 508. 

§ Tyrwhitt's Essay on Lang., etc., of Chaucer, p. xxii. (Moxon's Ed. 1852.) 

II Chroniques Etrangeres, p. 502. 

IT " Loquuntur linguam quasi Gallicam, scilicet quasi de Cipro." (See Cathay, 
P- 332) •• Page 138. 



88 INTRODUCTION 

bride from Cambaluc, is said by the historian Rashiduddin to 
have known something of the Frank tongue, probably French.* 
Nay, if we may trust the author of the Romance of Richard 
CcEur-de-Lion, French was in his day the language of still higher 
spheres ! -j- 

Nor was Polo's case an exceptional one even among writers 
on the East who were not Frenchmen. Maundevile himself tells 
us that he put his book first " out of Latyn into Frensche," and 
then out of French into English.^ The History of the East 
which the Armenian Prince and Monk Hayton dictated to 
Nicolas Faulcon at Poictiers in 1307 was taken down in French. 
There are many other instances of the employment of French 
by foreign, and especially by Italian authors of that age. The 
Latin chronicle of the Benedictine Amato of Monte Cassino was 
translated into French early in the 13th century by another 
monk of the same abbey, at the particular desire of the Count of 
Militree (or Malta), " Pour ce quHl set lire et entendre fransoize et 
sen delittey § Martino da Canale, a countryman and contem- 
porary of Polo's, during the absence of the latter in the East 
wrote a Chronicle of Venice in the same language, as a reason 
for which he alleges its general popularity.|| The like does the 
most notable example of all, Brunetto Latini, Dante's master, 
who wrote in French his encyclopaedic and once highly popular 
work Li Tresor^ Other examples might be given, but in fact 

* Hammer's Jlchan, II. 148. 

t After the capture of Acre, Richard orders 60,000 Saracen prisoners to be 
executed : — 

They sayde : ' Sevnyors, tuez, tuez ! 
' Spares hem nought ! Behedith these ! ' 
Kyng Rychard herde the Aungelys voys, 
And thankyd God, and the Holy Croys." 
— Weber, II. 144. 

Note that, from the rhyme, the Angelic French was apparently pronounced 
" Too-eese! 7'oo-eese!" 

X [Refer to the edition of Mr. George F. Warner, 1889, for the Roxburghe Club, 
and to my own paper in the Tooting Poo, Vol. II., No. 4, regarding the compilation 
published under the name of Maundeville. Also App. L. 13 — H. C] 

§ U Ystoire de li Normand, etc., edited by M. ChampoUion-Figeac, Paris, 1835, 
p. V. 

II ^^ Force que lengiie Frenceise cort parmi le monde, et est la plus dehtable d. lire 
et h oir que nule autre, me sui-je entremis de translater Pancien estoire des Veneciens 
de Latin en Franceis.'^ (Archiv. Stor. Ital. viii. 268.) 

'i^^ Et se auams demandoit por quoi cist livres est escriz en Romans, selonc le langage 
des Francois, puisque nos somes Ytaliens, je diroie que ce est por. ij. raisons : Pwie, 
car nos somes en France ; et r autre porce que la parleure est plus delitable et plus 
commune d. toutes gens," (Li Livres dou Tresor, p. 3.) 



' They wer brought out off the toun, 
Save twenty, he heeld to raunsoun. 
They wer led into the place ful evene : 
Tker they herden A iitigeles off H evene : 



EMPLOYMENT OF THE FRENCH LANGUAGE 8g 

such illustration is superfluous when we consider that Rusticiano 
himself was a compiler of French Romances. 

But why the language of the Book as we see it in the 
Geographic Text should be so much more rude, inaccurate, and 
Italianized than that of Rusticiano's other writings, is a question 
to which I can suggest no reply quite satisfactory to myself. Is 
it possible that we have in it a literal representation of Polo's 
own language in dictating the stor}', — a rough draft which it 
was intended afterwards to reduce to better form, and which was 
so reduced (after a fashion) in French copies of another type, 
regarding which we shall have to speak presently ? * And, if this 
be the true answer, why should Polo have used a French jargon 
in which to tell his story ? Is it possible that his own mother 
Venetian, such as he had carried to the East with him and 
brought back again, was so little intelligible to Rusticiano that 
French of some kind was the handiest medium of communication 
between the two? I have known an Englishman and a 
Hollander driven to converse in Malay ; Chinese Christians of 
different provinces are said sometimes to take to English as the 
readiest means of intercommunication ; and the same is said 
even of Irish-speaking Irishmen from remote parts of the 
Island. 

It is worthy of remark how many notable narratives of the 
Middle Ages have been dictated instead of being written by 
their authors, and that in cases where it is impossible to ascribe 
this to ignorance of writing. The Armenian Hayton, though 
evidently a well-read man, possibly could not write in Roman 
characters. But Joinville is an illustrious example. And the 
narratives of four of the most famous Mediaeval Travellers f 
seem to have been drawn from them by a kind of pressure, and 
committed to paper by other hands. I have elsewhere remarked 
this as indicating how little diffused was literary ambition or 
vanity ; but it would perhaps be more correct to ascribe it to that 
intense dislike which is still seen on the shores of the Mediter- 



* It is, however, not improbable that Rusticiano's hasty and abbreviated original 
was extended by a scribe who knew next to nothing of French ; otherwise it is hard 
to accoimt for such forms as perlinage (pelerinage), peseries (espiceries), proque (see 
voL ii. p. 370), oisi (G. T. p. 208), thochere (toucher), etc. (See Biofuani, 2nd 
Mem. pp. 30-32.) 

t Polo, Friar Odoric, Nicole Conti, Ibn Batuta. 

VOL, I, n 



90 INTRODUCTION 

ranean to the use of pen and ink. On certain of those shores at 
least there is scarcely any inconvenience that the majority of 
respectable and good-natured people will not tolerate — incon- 
venience to their neighbours be it understood — rather than put 
pen to paper for the purpose of preventing it. 



X. Various Types of Text of Marco Polo's Book. 

55. In treating of the various Texts of Polo's Book we must 
FourPrin. Heccssarily go into somc irksome detail. 
ofrlJt^^^^ Those Texts that have come down to us may be 

ffthVceo- classified under Four principal Types. 
^o\7^r' °' I- The First Type is that of the Geographic Text 

French. ^|- ^y|-^j(,]^ ^yg have already said so much. This is found 
nowhere complete except in the unique MS. of the Paris Library, 
to which it is stated to have come from the old Library of the 
French Kings at Blois. But the Italian Crusca, and the old 
Latin version (No. 3195 of the Paris Library) published with the 
Geographic Text, are evidently derived entirely from it, though 
both are considerably abridged. It is also demonstrable that 
neither of these copies has been translated from the other, for 
each has passages which the other omits, but that both have 
been taken, the one as a copy more or less loose, the other as a 
translation, from an intermediate Italian copy.* A special 



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

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

(I. 43). II hi so laborent le soiiran tapis dou monde. 
. . E quivi si fanno i sovraiii tappeti del mondo. 

. . Et ibi fiunt soriani et tapeti pulcriores de mundo. 

(I. 69). Et adonc le calif mande par tuit les cristiez . . . 
que en sa tere estoient. 
. . Ora mando lo aliffo per tutti gli Cristiani ch^ erano 

di !'i. 
. . Or misit califus pro Christianis qui erant ultra fluvium 

(the last words being cle.arly a misunderstanding 
of the Italian dild.). 







Page 


(I). 


G.T. 


17 




Crusca, 


17 




G.L. 


.3" 


(2). 


G.T. 


23 




Crusca, 


27 




G.L. 


316 



VARIOUS TYPES OF THE TEXT 



9^ 



difference lies in the fact that the Latin version is divided into 
three Books, whilst the Crusca has no such division. I shall 
show in a tabular form ^\iQ filiation of the texts which these facts 
seem to demonstrate (see Appendix G). 

There are other Italian MSS. of this type, some of which 
show signs of having been derived independently from the 
French;* but I have not been able to examine any of them 
with the care needful to make specific deductions regarding 
them. 



(3). 


G.T. 

Crusca, 
G.L. 


Page 
198 

448 


(II. 313). 


(4). 
(5)- 


Crusca, 

G.L. 

G.T. 


52 
124 


(I. 158)- 
(IL36). 




Crusca 


162-3 






G.L. 


396 




(6). 


G.T. 


146 


(IL 119. 




Crusca 


189 






G.L. 


411 


, , 



Ont sosimain (sesamum) de coi il font le olio. 

Hanno sosimai onde fanno 1' olio. 

Habent turpes mantis (taking sosimani for sozze mani 

"Dirty hands"!). 
Cacciare e uccellare v' e lo migliore del mondo. 
Et est ibi optimum caciare et ucellare. 
Adonc treuve .... une Provence qe est encore de le 

confin dou Mangi. 
L' uomo truova una Pro^•incia cK i chiamata ancora 

delle confine de' Mangi. 
Invenit unam Provinciam qtiae vacatur Anchota de 

confinibus Mangi. 
Les dames portent as jambes et es braces, braciaus 

d'or et d'arjent de grandisme vailance. 
Le donne portano alle braccia e allegambe bracciali (foro 

e d'ariento di gran valuta. 
Dominse Goxxxm part ant adbrachia et adgambas brazalia 

de aura et de argento magni valoris. 

B. Passages showing additiatially the errors, or other peculiarities of a translaiioti 
from a French original, comment to the Italian and the Latin. 



(7). 



(8) 



(9) 



G.T. 


32 


Crusca, 


35 


G.L. 


322 


G.T. 


36 


Crusca, 


40 


G.L. 


324 


G.T. 


18 



(I. 97.) 



(L no). 



(I. 50). 



Est celle plaingne mout chatie (cbaade). 

Questo piano e molto cavo. 

Ista planities est multum cava. 

Avent por ce que I'eive hi est amer. 

E questo e per lo mare che vi viene. 

Istud est propter mare quod est ibi. 

Un roi qi est apeles par tout tens Davit Melic, que veut 

a dir enfransais Davit RoL 
Uno re il quale si chiama sempre David Melic, cio h a 

dire infrancesco David Re. 
Rex qui semper vocatur David Mellic, quod sonat in 
gallico David Rex. 
These passages, and many more that might be quoted, seem to me to demonstrate 
(i) that the Latin and the Crusca have had a common original, and (2) that this 
original was an Italian version from the French. 

* Thus the Pucci MS. at Florence, in the passage regarding the Golden King 
(vol. ii. p. 17) which begins in G. T. ^'^ Leqtiel fist f aire jadis im rois qe fu apellis 
le Roi Dor," renders " Lo quale fu fare Jaddis utio re," a mistake which is not in the 
Crusca nor in the Latin, and seems to imply derivation from the French directly, or by 
some other channel {Baldelli Boni). 

VOL. I. n 2 



Crusca, 20 
G.L. 312 



gs INTRODUCTION 

56. II. The next Type is that of the French MSS. on which 
M. Pauthier's Text is based, and for which he claims the highest 
Second; authority, as having had the mature revision and 
modelled sanction of the Traveller. There are, as far as I know, 

French 

Text, foi- five MSS. which may be classed together under this 

lowed by i-i/-^t-i»tm t-. 

Pauthier. type, three m the Great Fans Library, one at Bern, and 
one in the Bodleian. 

The high claims made by Pauthier on behalf of this class of 
MSS. (on the first three of which his Text is formed) rest mainly 
upon the kind of certificate which two of them bear regarding 
the presentation of a copy by Marco Polo to Thibault de Cepoy, 
which we have already quoted {supra, p. 6g). This certificate is 
held by Pauthier to imply that the original of the copies which 
bear it, and of those having a general correspondence with them, 
had the special seal of Marco's revision and approval. To 
some considerable extent their character is corroborative of such 
a claim, but they are far from having the perfection which 
Pauthier attributes to them, and which leads him into many 
paradoxes. 

It is not possible to interpret rigidly the bearing of this so- 
called certificate, as if no copies had previously been taken of 
any form of the Book ; nor can we allow it to impugn the 
authenticity of the Geographic Text, which demonstratively 
represents an older original, and has been (as we have seen) the 
parent of all other versions, including some very old ones, 
Italian and Latin, which certainly owe nothing to this revision. 

The first idea apparently entertained by d'Avezac and 
Paulin Paris was that the Geographic Text was itself the 
copy given to the Sieur de Cepoy, and that the differences in 
the copies of the class which we describe as Type II. merely 
resulted from the modifications which would naturally arise in 
the process of transcription into purer French. But closer 
examination showed the differences to be too great and too 
marked to admit of this explanation. These differences consist 
not only in the conversion of the rude, obscure, and half Italian 
language of the original into good French of the period. There 
is also very considerable curtailment, generally of tautology, but 
also extending often to circumstances of substantial interest ; 
whilst we observe the omission of a few notably erroneous 
statements or expressions ; and a few insertions of small im- 



VARIOUS TYPES OF THE TEXT 93 

portance. None of the MSS. of this class contain more than a 
few of the historical chapters which we have formed into Book 

IV. 

The only addition of any magnitude is that chapter which 
in our translation forms chapter xxi. of Book II. It will be 
seen that it contains no new facts, but is only a tedious recapitu- 
lation of circumstances already stated, though scattered over 
several chapters. There are a few minor additions. I have not 
thought it worth while to collect them systematically here, but 
two or three examples are given in a note.* 

There are also one or two corrections of erroneous statements 
in the G. T. which seem not to be accidental and to indicate 
some attempt at revision. Thus a notable error in the account of 
Aden, which seems to conceive of the Red Sea as a river, 
disappears in Pauthier's MSS. A and B.f And we find in 
these MSS. one or two interesting names preserved which are 
not found in the older TexlJ 

But on the other hand this class of MSS. contains many 
erroneous readings of names, either adopting the worse of two 
forms occurring in the G. T. or originating blunders of its 
own.§ 



* In the Prologue (vol. L p. 34) this class of MSS. alone names the King of 
England. 

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

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

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

t See vol. ii. p. 439. It is, however, remarkable that a like mistake is made 
about the Persian Gulf (see i. 63, 64). Perhaps Polo thought in Persian, in which 
the word darya means either sea or a large river. The same habit and the ambiguity 
of the Persian sher led him probably to his confusion of lions and tigers (see L 397). 

X Such are Pasciai -Z>/r and Ariora Kesciemur (i. p. 98.) 

§ Thus the MSS. of this type have elected the erroneous readings Bolgura, 
Cogaira, Chiato, Cabanant, etc., instead of the correcter Bolgana, Cocacin, Quiacaiu, 
Cobitian, where the G. T. presents both (supra, p. 86). They read Esatiar for the 
correct Etzitta ; Chascun for Casvin ; Achalet for Acbalec ; Sardansu for Sindafu , 
Kay ten, Kayton, Sarcon for Zaiton or Caitoft ; Soucat for Locac ; Fake for Ferlec, and 
so on, the worse instead of the better. They make the Mer Occeaue into Mer Occidetit ; 
the wild asses [cisnes) of the Kerman Desert into wild geese {oes) ; the escoillez of 
Bengal (ii. p. 115) into escoliers ; the giraffes of Africa into giraffes, or cloves, 
etc., etc 



04 INTRODUCTION 

M. Pauthier lays great stress on the character of these MSS. 
as the sole authentic form of the work, from their claim to have 
been specially revised by Marco Polo. It is evident, however, 
from what has been said, that this revision can have been only a 
very careless and superficial one, and must have been done in 
great measure by deputy, being almost entirely confined to 
curtailment and to the improvement of the expression, and that 
it is by no means such as to allow an editor to dispense with a 
careful study of the Older Text. 

57, There is another curious circumstance about the MSS. of 
this type, viz., that they clearly divide into two distinct recensions, 
The Bern ^^ which both have so many peculiarities and errors in 
tto Others common that they must necessarily have been both 
daSo/thi's derived from one modification of the original text, 
Type- whilst at the same time there are such differences 

between the two as cannot be set down to the accidents of tran- 
scription. Pauthier's MSS. A and J5 (Nos. 16 and 15 of the 
List in App. F) form one of these subdivisions : his C (No. 
17 of List), Bern (No. 56), and Oxford (No. 6), the other. 
Between A and B the differences are only such as seem 
constantly to have arisen from the whims of transcribers or 
their dialectic peculiarities. But between A and B on the one 
side, and C on the other, the differences are much greater. The 
readings of proper names in C are often superior, sometimes 
worse ; but in the latter half of the work especially it contains a 
number of substantial passages * which are to be found in the 
G. T., but are altogether absent from the MSS. A and B ; whilst 
in one case at least (the history of the Siege of Saianfu, vol. ii. 
p. 159) it diverges considerably from the G. T. as well diS from A 
and B.f 

I gather from the facts that the MS. C represents an older 
form of the work than A and B. I should judge that the latter 
had been derived from that older form, but intentionally modified 
from it. And as it is the MS. C, with its copy at Bern, that 
alone presents the certificate of derivation from the Book given 



* There are about five-and-thirty such passages altogether. 

t The Bern MS. I have satisfied myself is an actual copy of the Paris 
MS. C. 

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



VARIOUS TYPES OF THE TEXT gs 

to the Sieur de Cepoy, there can be no doubt that it is the true 
representative of that recension. 

58. III. The next Type of Text is that found in Friar 
Pipino's Latin version. It is the type of which MSS. are by 
far the most numerous. In it condensation and curtail- Third; 

Friar Pi- 

ment are carried a good deal further than in Type 11. pino's Latin. 
The work is also divided into three Books. But this division does 
not seem to have originated with Pipino, as we find it in the 
ruder and perhaps older Latin version of which we have already 
spoken under Type I. And we have demonstrated that this 
ruder Latin is a translation from an Italian copy. It is probable 
therefore that an Italian version similarly divided was the 
common source of what we call the Geographic Latin and of 
Pipino's more condensed version.* 

Pipino's version appears to have been executed in the later 
years of Polo's life.f But I can see no ground for the idea enter- 
tained by Baldelli-Boni and Professor Bianconi that it was 
executed with Polo's cognizance and retouched by him. 

59. The absence of effective publication in the Middle 
Ages led to a curious complication of translation and The Latin 
retranslation. Thus the Latin version published by °*t^^5^i^„ 
Gryn^us in the Novus Orbis (Basle, 1532) is different ^t fifth hand, 
from Pipino's, and yet clearly traceable to it as a base. In fact it 



* The following comparison will also show that these two Latin versions have 
probably had a common source, such as is here su^ested. 

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

" Or puis que je voz ai contez tot le fat dou prolegue ensi con voz aves ol, adonc 
(commencerai) le Livre." 

Whilst the Geographic Latin has : — 

" Postquam recitaviimis et dixivtus facta et condictiones monim, itinerum et ea 
quae nobis contigerunt per vias, incipiemus dicere ea quae indimus. Et prime dicemus 
de Minore Hermenia'^ 

And Pipino : — 

" Narratiotte facta tiostri itineris, nutu ad ea narranda quae vidimus accedamus. 
Primo atitem Armeniam Minoreni describemus breviter." 

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



9(5 INTRODUCTION 

is a retranslation into Latin from some version (Marsden thinks 
the printed Portuguese one) of Pipino. It introduces many 
minor modifications, omitting specific statements of numbers and 
values, generalizing the names and descriptions of specific animals, 
exhibiting frequent sciolism and self-sufificiency in modifying 
statements which the Editor disbelieved.* It is therefore 
utterly worthless as a Text, and it is curious that Andreas Miiller, 
who in the 17th century devoted himself to the careful editing of 
Polo, should have made so unfortunate a choice as to reproduce 
this fifth-hand Translation. I may add that the French editions 
published in the middle of the i6th century are translations from 
Grynaeus. Hence they complete this curious and vicious circle 
of translation : French— Italian — Pipino's Latin — Portuguese? 
— Grynaeus's Latin — French ! f 

60. IV. We now come to a Type of Text which deviates 
largely from any of those hitherto spoken of, and the history 
Fourth ; and true character of which are involved in a cloud of 

Ramusio's j-rc i ttt- t l 

Italian. ditticulty. We mean that Italian version prepared 
for the press by G. B. Ramusio, with most interesting, though, 
as we have seen, not always accurate preliminary dissertations, 
and published at Venice two years after his death, in the second 
volume of the N avigationi e Viaggi.\ 

The peculiarities of this version are very remarkable. 
Ramusio seems to imply that he used as one basis at least the 
Latin of Pipino ; and many circumstances, such as the division 
into Books, the absence of the terminal historical chapters and of 

* See Bianconi, ist Mem. 29 seqq. 

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

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



RAMUSIO'S ITALIAN VERSION 97 

those about the Magi, and the form of many proper names, 
confirm this. But also many additional circumstances and 
anecdotes are introduced, many of the names assume a new 
shape, and the whole style is more copious and literary in 
character than in any other form of the work. 

Whilst seme of the changes or interpolations seem to carry 
us further from the truth, others contain facts of Asiatic nature 
or history, as well as of Polo's own experiences, which it is 
extremely difficult to ascribe to any hand but the Traveller's 
own. This was the view taken by Baldelli, Klaproth, and 
Neumann ; * but Hugh Murray, Lazari, and Bartoli regard the 
changes as interpolations by another hand ; and Lazari is rash 
enough to ascribe the whole to a rifacimento of Ramusio's own 
age, asserting it to contain interpolations not merely from Polo's 
own contemporary Hayton, but also from travellers of later 
centuries, such as Conti, Barbosa, and Pigafetta. The grounds 
for these last assertions have not been cited, nor can I trace them. 
But I admit to a certain extent indications of modern tampering 
with the text, especially in cases where proper names seem to 
have been identified and more modern forms substituted. In 
days, however, where an Editor's duties Were ill understood, this 
was natural. 

61. Thus we find substituted for the Bastra (or Bascra) of the 
older texts the more modem and incorrect Balsora, dear to 
memories of the Arabian Nights ; among the provinces 
of Persia we have Spaan (Ispahan) where older texts tampering^ 
read Istanit ; for Cormos we have Ormus ; for Herminia 
and Laias, Armenia and Giazza ; Couldm for the older Coilum ; 
Socotera for Scotra. With these changes may be classed the 
chapter-headings, which are undisguisedly modern, and probably 
Ramusio's own. In some other cases this editorial spirit has 
been over-meddlesome and has gone astray. Thus Malabar is 
substituted wrongly for Maabar in one place, and by a grosser 
error for Dalivar in another. The age of young Marco, at the 
time of his father's first return to Venice, has been arbitrarily 
altered from 15 to 19, in order to correspond with a date which 
is itself erroneous. Thus also Polo is made to describe Ormus 



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



gS INTRODUCTION 

as on an Island, contrary to the old texts and to the fact ; for 
the city of Hormuz was not transferred to the island, afterwards 
so famous, till some years after Polo's return from the East. It is 
probably also the editor who in the notice of the oil-springs of 
Caucasus (i, p. 46) has substituted camel-loads for ship-loads, in 
ignorance that the site of those alluded to was probably Baku on 
the Caspian, 

Other erroneous statements, such as the introduction of win- 
dow-glass as one of the embellishments of the palace at Cam- 
baluc, are probably due only to accidental misunderstanding. 

62. Of circumstances certainly genuine, which are peculiar to 
this edition of Polo's work, and which it is difficult to assign to 
Genuine ^'^X °"^ ^^^ himself, we may note the specification of 
peraikr"to ^^^ woods east of Yezd as composed of date trees (vol. 
Ramusio. j pp_ 88-89); the Unmistakable allusion to the sub- 
terranean irrigation channels of Persia (p. 123); the accurate ex- 
planation of the term Mulehet applied to the sect of Assassins 
(pp. 139-142) ; the mention of the Lake (Sirikul ?) on the plateau 
of Pamer, of the wolves that prey on the wild sheep, and of the 
piles of wild rams' horns used as landmarks in the snow (pp. 171- 
177). To the description of the Tibetan Yak, which is in all the 
texts, Ramusio's version alone adds a fact probably not recorded 
again till the present century, viz., that it is the practice to cross 
the Yak with the common cow (p. 274). Ramusio alone notices 
the prevalence of goitre at Yarkand, confirmed by recent 
travellers (i. p. 187); the vermilion seal of the Great Kaan 
imprinted on the paper-currency, which may be seen in our plate 
of a Chinese note (p. 426) ; the variation in Chinese dialects (ii. 
p. 236) ; the division of the hulls of junks into water-tight com- 
partments (ii. p. 249) ; the introduction into China from Egypt of 
the art of refining sugar (ii. p. 226). Ramusio's account of the 
position of the city of Sindafu (Ch'eng-tu fu) encompassed and 
intersected by many branches of a great river (ii. p. 40), is much 
more just than that in the old text, which speaks of but one 
river through the middle of the city. The intelligent notices of 
the Kaan's charities as originated by his adoption of "idolatry" 
or Buddhism; of the astrological superstitionsof the Chinese, and 
of the manners and character of the latter nation, are found in 
Ramusio alone. To whom but Marco himself, or one of his 
party, can we refer the brief but vivid picture of the delicious 



IIAMUSIO'S ITALIAN VERSION ^ 

atmosphere and scenery of the Badakhshan plateaux (i. p. 158), 
and of the benefit that Messer Marco's health derived from a 
visit to them ? In this version alone again we have an account 
of the oppressions exercised by Kubldi's Mahomedan Minister 
Ahmad, telling how the Cathayans rose against him and murdered 
him, with the addition that Messer Marco was on the spot when 
all this happened. Now not only is the whole story in sub- 
stantial accordance with the Chinese Annals, even to the name 
of the chief conspirator,* but those annals also tell of the cour- 
ageous frankness of "Polo, assessor of the Privy Council," in 
opening the Kaan's eyes to the truth. 

Many more such examples might be adduced, but these will 
suffice. It is true that many of the passages peculiar to the 
Ramusian version, and indeed the whole version, show a freer 
utterance and more of a literary faculty than we should attribute 
to Polo, judging from the earlier texts. It is possible, however^ 
that this may be almost, if not entirely, due to the fact that the 
version is the result of a double translation, and probably of an 
editorial fusion of several documents ; processes in which angu- 
larities of expression would be dissolved.-f- 

* Wangcfuif in the Chinese Annals ; Vatuhu in Ramusio. I assume that Polo's 
yamhu was pronounced as in English ; for in Venetian the ch very often has that 
sound. But I confess that I can adduce no other instance in Ramusio where I 
suppose it to have this sound, except in the initial sound of Chinchitalas and twice 
in Choiach (see 11. 364). 

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

t Old Purchas appears to have greatly relished Ramusio's comparative lucidity : 
"I found (says he) this Booke translated by Master Hakluyt out of the Latine {i.e. 
among Hakluyt's MS. collections). But where the blind leade the blind both fall : 
as here the corrupt Latine could not but yeeld a corruption of truth in English. 
Ramusio, Secretarie to the Decemviri in Venice, found a better Copie and published 
the same, whence you have the worke in manner new : so renewed, that I have found 
the Proverbe true, that it is better to pull downe an old house and to build it anew, 
then to repaire it ; as I also should have done, had I knowne that which in fhe event 
I found. The Latine is Latten, compared to Ramusids Gold. And hee which 
hath the Latine hath but Marco Polo's carkasse or not so much, but a few bones, 
yea, sometimes stones rather then bones ; things divers, averse, adverse, perverted 
in manner, disjoynted in manner, beyond beliefe. I have scene some Authors 
maymed, but never any so mangled and so mingled, so present and so absent, 
as this vulgar Latitu of Marco Polo ; not so like himselfe, as the Three Polo's were 

at their returne to Venice, where none knew them Much are wee beholden 

to Ramusio, for restoring this Pole and Load-starre of Asia, out of that mirie poole 
or puddle in which he lay drouned." (III. p. 65.) 



lOO INTRODUCTION 

63. Though difficulties will certainly remain,* the most 

probable explanation of the origin of this text seems to me to be 

. some such hypothesis as the following : — I suppose that 

of the Polo in his latter years added with his own hand 

sources of 

the Ramu- Supplementary notes and reminiscences, marg-inallv or 

sian Version. . ' o y 

otherwise, to a copy of his book ; that these, perhaps in 
his lifetime, more probably after his death, were digested and 
translated into Latin ; f and that Ramusio, or some friend of 
his, in retranslating and fusing them with Pipino's version for 
the Navigationi^ made those minor modifications in names and 
other matters which we have already noticed. The mere facts of 
digestion from memoranda and double translation would account 
for a good deal of unintentional corruption. 

That more than one version was employed in the composition 
of Ramusio's edition we have curious proof in at least one 
passage of the latter. We have pointed out at p. 410 of this 
volume a curious example of misunderstanding of the old French 



* Of these difficulties the following are some of the more prominent : — 

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

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

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

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

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

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

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



RAMUSIO'S ITALIAN VERSION loi 

Text, a passage in which the term Roi des Pelaines, or " King 
of Furs," is applied to the Sable, and which in the Crusca has 
been converted into an imaginary Tartar phrase Leroide pelaviey 
or as Pipino makes it Rondes (another indication that Pipino's 
Version and the Crusca passed through a common medium). 
But Ramusio exhibits both the true reading and the perversion : 
" E li Tartari la chiamano Regina delle pelli " (there is the true 
reading), " E gli animali si chiamano Rondes " (and there the 
perverted one). 

We may further remark that Ramusio's version betrays 
indications that one of its bases either was in the Venetian 
dialect, or had passed through that dialect ; for a good many 
of the names appear in Venetian forms, e.g., substituting the 
z for the sound of ch, j\ or soft g, as in Goza, Zorzania, 
Zagatay, Gonza (for Giogiu), Quenzanfu, Coiganzu, Tapinzu, 
Zipangu, Ziamba. 

64. To sum up. It is, I think, beyond reasonable dispute 
that we have, in what we call the Geographic Text, as nearly as 
may be an exact transcript of the Traveller's words as summary in 
originally taken d^wn in the prison of Genoa. We TStof" 
have again in the MSS. of the second type an edition ^°'°- 
pruned and refined, probably under instructions from Marco 
Polo, but not with any critical exactness. And lastly, I believe, 
that we have, imbedded in the Ramusian edition, the supple- 
mentary recollections of the Traveller, noted down at a later 
period of his life, but perplexed by repeated translation, 
compilation, and editorial mishandling. 

And the most important remaining problem in regard to the 
text of Polo's work is the discovery of the. supplemental manu- 
script from which Ramusio derived those passages which are 
found only in his edition. It is possible that it may still 
exist, but no trace of it in anything like completeness has yet 
been found ; though when my task was all but done I dis- 
covered a small part of the Ramusian peculiarities in a MS. at 
Venice.* 



* For a moment I thought I had been lucky enough to light on a part of the 
missing original of Ramusio in the Barberini Library at Rome. A fragment of a 
Venetian version in that library (No. 56 in our list of MSS. ) bore on the fly-leaf the 
title "Alcutii primi capi del Libra di S. Marco Polo, copiati doll esemplare manc- 
scritto di PAOLO RANNUSIO.''' But it proved to be of no importance. One 
brief passage of those which have been thought peculiar to Ramusio; \-iz., th? 



102 INTRODUCTION 

65. Whilst upon this subject of manuscripts of our Author, 
I will give some particulars regarding a very curious one, con- 
taining a version in the Irish language. 

This remarkable document is found in the Book of Lismore, 
belonging to the Duke of Devonshire. That magnificent book. 
Notice of a ^^6^7 Written on vellum of the largest size, was 
Ve"s°ionof^^ discovercd in 1814, enclosed in a wooden box, along 
Polo- with a superb crozier, on opening a closed door- 

way in the castle of Lismore. It contained Lives of the Saints, 
the (Romance) History of Charlemagne, the History of the 
Lombards, histories and tales of Irish wars, etc., etc., and among 
the other matter this version of Marco Polo. A full account of 
the Book and its mutilations will be found in O' Curry's Lectures 
on the MS. Materials of Ancient Irish History^ p. 196 seqq., 
Dublin, 1 86 1. The Book of Lismore was written about 1460 for 



reference to the Martyrdom of St. Blaize at Sebaste (see p. 43 of this volume), is 
found also in the Geographic Latin. 

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

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

1. In the chapter on Georgia : 

"Mare quod dicitur Gheluchelan z/^/^^^CC^" . . . 

"Est ejus stricta via et dubia. Ab una parte est mare quod dixi de ABACU 
et ab alia nemora invia," etc. (See I. p. 59, note 8.) 

2. " Et ibi optimi austures dicti A VIGV (i. 50). 

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

'■'■ Prope hanc civitatem [est) alia provincia dicta MUS e MEREDIEN in qtiA 
nascitur tnagtia quantitas bombacis, et hie fiuiit bocharini et alia intilta, et sunt mer- 
catores homines et artiste." (See i. p. 60.) 

4. In the chapter on Tarcan (for Carcan, i.e. Varkand) : 

' ' Et maior pars horum habent umtm ex pedibus grossum et habent gosum in 
guld ; et est hie fertilis contracta." (See i. p. 187.) 

5. In the Desert of Lop : 

^^ Homines trasseuntes appendant bestiis suis capanullas \i.e. campanellas] ut ipsas 
senciant et ne deviare possint" (i. p. 197.) 

6. ''Q,\z.gz.ViXiox, quod sonat in Latino STAGNUM ALBUM." (i. p. 296.) 

7. " Et in medio hujus viridarii est palacium sive logia, tota super coluinpnas. 
Et in summitate cujuslibet columncB est draco inagnus circundans totani columpnam, 
et hie substinet eorum cohoperturam cutn ore et pedibus ; et est cohopcrtura tota de 
cannis hoc modo," etc. (See i. p. 299.) 



IRISH VERSION OF POLO'S BOOK 103 

Finghin MacCarthy and his wife Catharine Fitzgerald, daughter 
of Gerald, Eighth Earl of Desmond. 

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

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

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

" rtisuib T T^Airfci) nd cd-cbn fi. b4i b*Tc4 insuj 4n4)b)'c r^n Firer ifi 

C4t;1)ii n)'C4t)ii • ^^ eoluc ta ]f tiAbllbenUjb Ttuntirc) 441111 . b'uri )4"[i 
■cu 4tnb4^ n4 iTiAi^e ucut; icuni^i-c -^i^ nile4bo2 'coclo'6 ^cvXa. 

" Kings and chieftains of that city. There was then in the city a 

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

It then describes Armein Bee (Little Armenia), Armein Mor 
(Great Armenia), Musul, Taurisius, Persida, Camandt, and so 
forth. The last chapter is that on Abaschia : — 

" Ab.\SCHIA also is an extensive country, under the government of Seven 



* My valued friend Sir Arthur Phayre made known to me the passage in O^ Curry s 
Lectures. I then procured the extracts and further particulars from Mr. J. Long, Irish 
Transcriber and Translator in Dublin, who took them from the Transcript of the Book 
of Lismore, in the possession of the Royal Irish Academy. [Cf. Aiiecdota Oxoniensia. 
Lives of the Saints from the Book of Lismare, edited with a translation . ... by 
Whitley Stokes, Oxford, 1890. — Marco Polo forms fo. 79 a, i— fo. 89 b, 2, of the MS., 
and is described pp. xxii.-xxiv. of Mr. Whitley Stokes' Book, who has since published 
the Text in the Zeit. f Celtische Philol. (See Bibliography, vol. ii. p. 573.)— H. C] 



104 INTRODUCTION 

Kings, four of whom worship the true God, and each of them wears a golden 
cross on the forehead ; and they are vaHant in battle, having been brought 
up fighting against the Gentiles of the other three kings, who are Unbelievers 
and Idolaters. And the kingdom of Adp:n ; a Soudan rules over them. 

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

The rest is wanting. 



XL Some Estimate of the Character of Polo and his Book, 

^. That Marco Polo has been so universally recognised as 
the King of Mediaeval Travellers is due rather to the width of 
Grounds of ^^^ expcHence, the vast compass of his journeys, and 
fmlnence^' ^^e romantic nature of his personal history, than to 
m'^drivai transcendent superiority of character or capacity, 
travellers. -pj^g generation immediately preceding his own 

has bequeathed to us, in the Report of the Franciscan 
Friar William de Rubruquis,* on the Mission with which 



* M. d'Avezac has refuted the common supposition that this admirable traveller 
was a native of Brabant. 

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

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

But there is a place still called Rubrouck in French Flanders. This is a commune 
containing about 1500 inhabitants, belonging to the Canton of Cassel and arrondisse- 
ment of IJazebrouck, in the Department du Nord. And we may take for granted, 
till facts are alleged against it, that this was the place from which the envoy of St. 
Lewis drew his origin. Many documents of the Middle Ages, referring expressly to 
this place Rubrouck, exist in the Library of St. Omer, and a detailed notice of them 
has iDcen published by M, Edm. Coussemaker, of Lille. Several of these documents 
refer to persons bearing the same name as the Traveller, e.g., in 1190, Thierry de 
Rubrouc ; in 1202 and 1221, Gauthier du Rubrouc ; in 1250, Jean du Rubrouc ; and 
in 1258, Woutermann de Rubrouc, It is reasonable to suppose that Friar William 
was of the same stock. See Bulletin de la Soc. de G^ographie, 2nd vol. for 1868, 
pp. 569-570, in which there are som? remarks OO the subject by M. d'Avezac ; and 



SOME ESTIMATE OF POLO AND IIIS BOOK. loS 

St. Lewis charged him to the Tartar Courts, the narrative of 
one great journey, which, in its rich detail, its vivid pictures, 
its acuteness of observation and strong good sense, seems to me 
to form a Book of Travels of much higher claims than any one 
series of Polo's chapters ; a book, indeed, which has never had 
justice done to it, for it has few superiors in the whole Library 
of Travel. 

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



I am indebted to the kind courtesy of that eminent geographer himself for the indica- 
tion of this reference and the main facts, as I had lost a note of my own on the 
subject. 

It seems a somewhat complex question whether a native even of French Flanders 
at that time should be necessarily claimable as a Frenchman ;* but no doubt on this 
point is alluded to by M. d'Avezac, so he probably had good ground for that assump- 
tion. [See also Yule's article in the Eiuydopadia Britannica, and RockkilTs Rubruck, 
Int., p. XXXV. — H. C] 

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

* High as Marco's name deserves to be set, his place is not beside the writer of 
such burning words as these addressed to Ferdinand and Isabella : " From the most 
tender age I went to sea, and to this day I have continued to do so. Whosoever devotes 
himself to this craft must desire to know the secrets of Nature here below. For 40 
years now have I thus been engaged, and wherever man has sailed hitherto on the 
face of the sea, thither have I sailed also. I have been in constant relation with men 
of learning, whether ecclesiastic or secular, Latins and Greeks, Jews and Moors, and 
men of many a sect besides. To accomplish this my longing (to know the Secrets of 
the World) I found the Lord favourable to my purposes ; it is He who hath given me 
the needful disposition and understanding. He bestowed upon me abundantly the 
knowledge of seamanship : and of Astronomy He gave me enough to work withal, 
and so with Geometry and Arithmetic. .... In the days of my youth I studied 

* The County of Flanders was at this time in large part a fief of the French Crown. (See 
Natalis de IVailly, notes to Joinville, p. 376.) But that would not much affect the question either 
one way or the other. 

VOL. I. 



I06 INTRODUCTION 

least a link in the Providential chain which at last dragged 
the New World to light* 

6y. Surely Marco's real, indisputable, and, in their kind, 
unique claims to glory may suffice ! He was the first Tra- 
HJstrue velUv to tvace a route across the whole lonntude 

claims to _ ... . 

glory. of Asia, naming and describing kingdom after king- 

dom which he had seen with his own eyes; the Deserts of 
Persia, the flo'cvering plateaux and wild gorges of Badakh- 
SHAN, the jade-bearing rivers of Khotan, the MONGOLIAN 
Steppes, cradle of the power that had so lately threatened to 
swallow up Christendom, the new and brilliant Court that had 
been established at Cambaluc : The first Traveller to reveal 



works of all kinds, history, chronicles, philosophy, and other arts, and to apprehend 
these the Lord opened my understanding. Under His manifest guidance I navigated 
hence to the Indies ; for it was the Lord who gave me the will to accomplish that 
task, and it was in the ardour of that will that I came before your Highnesses. All 
those who heard of my project scouted and derided it ; all the acquirements I have 
mentioned stood me in no stead ; and if in your Highnesses, and in you alone, Faith 
and Constancy endured, to Whom are due the Lights that have enlightened you as 
well as me, but to the Holy Spirit?" (Quoted in Humboldt's Examen Critique, I. 
17,18.) 

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

The fact seems to be that Columbus knew of Polo's revelations only at second 
hand, from the letters of the Florentine Paolo Toscanelli and the like ; and I cannot 
find that he ever refers to Polo by name. [How deep was the interest taken by 
Colombus in Marco Polo's travels is shown by the numerous marginal notes of the 
Admiral in the printed copy of the latin version of Pipino kept at the Bib. Colombina 
at Seville. See Appendix H. p. 558.— H. C] Though to the day of his death he was 
full of imaginations about Zipangu and the land of the Great Kaan as being in 
immediate proximity to his discoveries, these were but accidents of his great theory. 
It was the intense conviction he had acquired of the absolute smallness of the Earth, 
of the vast extension of Asia eastward, and of the consequent narrowness of the Western 
Ocean, on which his life's project was based. This conviction he seems to have 
derived chiefly from the works of Cardinal Pierre d'Aiily. But the latter borrowed 
his collected arguments from Roger Bacon, who has stated them, erroneous as they 
are, very forcibly in his Opus Majtis (p. 137), as Humboldt has noticed in his Examen 
(vol. i. p. 64). The Spanish historian Mariana makes a strange jumble of the alleged 
guides of Columbus, saying that some ascribed his convictions to "the information 
given by one Marco Polo, a Florentine Physician I" ("como "otros dizen, por aviso 
que le dio un cierto Marco Polo, Medico Florentin ;" Hist, de Espana, lib. xxvi. 
cap 3). Toscanelli is called by Columbus Maestro Paulo, which seems to have led 
to this mistake ; see Sign. G. Uzielli, in Boll, delta Soc. Geog. Ital. IX. p. 119. [Also 
by the same : Paolo dal Pozzo Toscanelli iniziatore delta scoperia d' America, Flor- 
ence, 1892 ; Toscanelli, No. i ; l^oscamlli, Vol. V. of the Raccolla Colombiana, 
1894. --H. C] 



SOME ESTIMATE OF POLO AND HIS BOOK itrj 

China in all its wealth and vastness, its mighty rivers, its huge 
cities, its rich mamifactures, its swarming population, the incon- 
ceivably vast fleets that quickened its seas and its inland waters ; 
to tell us of the nations on its borders with all their eccentricities 
of manners and worship ; of TiBET with its sordid devotees ; oj 
Burma with its golden pagodas and their tinkling crowns ; 
of Laos, of Siam, of Cochin China, of Japan, the Eastern 
Thtde, with its rosy pearls and golden-roofed palaces ; the first 
to speak of that Museum of Beauty and Wonder, still so imper- 
fectly ransacked, the INDIAN ARCHIPELAGO, source of those 
aromatics then so highly prized and whose origin was so dark ; 
of Java the Pearl of Islands ; of SUMATRA with its many 
kings, its strange costly products, and its cannibal races ; of the 
naked savages of NiCOBAR and ANDAMAN; of CEYLON 
the Isle of Gems with its Sacred Mountain and its Tomb of 
Adam; of INDIA THE GREAT, not as a dream-land of Alex- 
andrian fables, but as a country seen and partially explored, with 
its virtuous Brahmans, its obscene ascetics, its diamonds and the 
strange tales of their acquisition, its sea-beds of pearl, and its 
powerful sun ; the first in mediceval times to give any distinct 
account of the secluded Christian Empire of ABYSSINIA, and 
the semi- Christian Island of SOCOTRA/ to speak, though indeed 
dimly, of Zangibar with its negroes and its ivory, and of the 
vast and distant MADAGASCAR, bordering on the Dark Ocean oj 
the South, with its Rue and other monstrosities ; and, in a 
remotely opposite region, of Siberia and the ARCTIC OcEAN, 
of dog-sledges, white bears, and reindeer-riding Tunguses. 

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

68. What manner of man was Ser Marco? It is a question 
hard to answer. Some critics cry out against per- ^^ personal 
sonal detail in books of Travel ; but as regards him ^'''b^uT 
who would not welcome a little more egotism ! In *^^'^' 
his Book impersonality is carried to excess ; and we are often 



* " C'est diminuer Texpiession d'un eloge que de I'exagcrer."' {Humboldt, Exainen, 
III. 13.) 

VOL. L 2 



io8 INTRODUCTION 

driven to discern by indirect and doubtful indications alone, 
whether he is speaking of a place from personal knowledge or 
only from hearsay. In truth, though there are delightful 
exceptions, and nearly every part of the book suggests inter- 
esting questions, a desperate meagreness and baldness does 
extend over considerable tracts of the story. In fact his book 
reminds us sometimes of his own description of Khorasan : — 
" On chevauche par beans plains et belles costieres, la oil il a moult 

beaus herbages et bonne pasture et fruis assez Et aucune 

fois y ireuve I' en un desert de soixante milles ou de mains, esquels 
desers ne treuve I'en point d'eaue ; niais la convient porter a 
lui!" 

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

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



• See vol. ii, p. 318, and vol. i. p. 404. t Vol. i. p. 423. 



SOME ESTIMATE OF TOLO AND HIS BOOK log 

"In the Tibarenian Land 

When some good woman bears her lord a babe, 
'Tis he is swathed and groaning put to bed ; 
Whilst she, arising, tends his baths, and serves 
Nice possets for her husband in the straw.''* 

69. Of scientific notions, such as we find in the unvera- 
cious Maundevile, we have no trace in truthful Marco. The 
former, "lying: with a circumstance," tells us boldly 

' J '=> _ _•' Absence of 

that he was in ^^° of South Latitude ; thQ latter is scientific 

"^^ notions. 

full of wonder that some of the Indian Islands 
where he had been lay so far to the south that you lost sight 
of the Pole-star. When it rises again on his horizon he esti- 
mates the Latitude by the Pole-star's being so many cubits 
high. So the gallant Baber speaks of the sun having mounted 
spear-high when the onset of battle began at Paniput Such 
expressions convey no notion at all to such as have had their 
ideas sophisticated by angular perceptions of altitude, but 
similar expressions are common among Orientals,f and indeed 
I have heard them from educated Englishmen. In another 
place Marco states regarding certain islands in the Northern 
Ocean that they lie so very far to the north that in going 
thither one actually leaves the Pole-star a trifle behind towards 
the south ; a statement to which we know only one parallel, 
to wit, in the voyage of that adventurous Dutch skipper who 
told Master Moxon, King Charles II.'s Hydrographer, that he 
had sailed two degrees beyond the Pole ! 

70. The Book, however, is full of bearings and distances, 
and I have thought it worth while to construct a map from its 
indications, in order to get some approximation to 

Polo's own idea of the face of that world which stmctedon 

Polo's data. 

he had traversed so extensively. There are three 
allusions to maps in the course of his work (II. 245, 312, 424). 

In his own bearings, at least on land journeys, he usually 
carries us along a great general traverse line, without much 
caring about small changes of direction. Thus on the great 
outward journey from the frontier of Persia to that of China 
the line runs almost continuously '■^ entre Levant et Grec" or 
E.N.E. In his journey from Cambaluc or Peking to Mien or 



* Vol. ii. p. 85, and Apollonius Rhodius, Argonaut. II. 1012. 
t Chinese Observers record the length of Comets' tails by cubits 1 



no INTRODUCTION 

Burma, it is always Ponent or W. ; and in that from Peking to 
Zayton in Fo-kien, the port of embarkation for India, it is 
Sceloc or S.E. The line of bearings in which he deviates most 
widely from truth is that of the cities on the Arabian Coast 
from Aden to Hormuz, which he makes to run steadily vers 
Maistre or N.W., a conception which it has not been very easy 
to realise on the map.* 

71. In the early part of the Book we are told that Marco 
acquired several of the languages current in the Mongol 
Singular Empire, and no less than four written characters, 
of Polo in We have discussed what these are likely to have 

regard to .. r>s 11 • i-ii •• 

China; His- been (1. pp. 28-29), and have given a decided opinion 

toricalinac , J^, . ^ r \ t, • , ... 

curacies. that Chincse was not one of them. Besides intrinsic 
improbability, and positive indications of Marco's ignorance 
of Chinese, in no respect is his book so defective as in regard 
to Chinese manners and peculiarities. The Great Wall is 
never mentioned, though we have shown reason for believing 
that it was in his mind when one passage of his book was 
dictated.f The use of Tea, though he travelled through the 



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

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

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

t " Humboldt confirms the opinion I have more than once expressed that too 
much must not be inferred from the silence of authors. He adduces three important 
and perfectly undeniable matters of fact, as to which no evidence is to be found where 
it would be most anticipated : In the archives of Barcelona no trace of the triumphal 



SOME ESTIMATE OF POLO AND HIS BOOK tii 

Tea districts of Fo-kien, is never mentioned ; * the compressed 
feet of the women and the employment of the fishing cor- 
morant (both mentioned by Friar Odoric, the contemporary 
of his later years), artificial egg-hatching, printing of books 
(though the notice of this art seems positively challenged in 
his account of paper-money), besides a score of remarkable 
arts and customs which one would have expected to recur to 
his memory, are never alluded to. Neither does he speak of 
the great characteristic of the Chinese writing. It is difficult 
to account for these omissions, especially considering the 
comparative fulness with which he treats the manners of the 
Tartars and of the Southern Hindoos ; but the impression re- 
mains that his associations in China were chiefly with foreigners. 
Wherever the place he speaks of had a Tartar or Persian 
name he uses that rather than the Chinese one. Thus Cathay, 
Cambaluc, Pulisanghin, Tangut, Ckagannor, Saianfu, Ken- 
j'anfu, Tenduc, Acbalec, Carajan, Zardandan, Z ay ton, Kemenfu, 
Brius, Caramoran, Chorcha, Juju, are all Mongol, Turki, or 
Persian forms, though all have Chinese equivalents. j- 

In reference to the then recent history of Asia, Marco is 
often inaccurate, eg. in his account of the death of Chinghiz, 
in the list of his successors, and in his statement of the relation- 



entry of Columbus into that city ; in Marco Polo no allusion to the Chinese Wall ; in 
the archives of Portugal nothing about the voyages of Amerigo Vespucci in the service 
of that crown." {Varnhagen v. Ense, quoted by Hayward, Essays, 2nd Ser. I. 36.) 
See regarding the Chinese Wall the remarks referred to above, at p. 292 of this 
volume. 

* [It is a strange fact that Polo never mentions the use of Tea in China, although 
he travelled through the Tea districts in Fu Kien, and tea was then as generally 
drunk by the Chinese as it is now. It is mentioned more than four centuries earlier 
by the Mohammedan merchant Soleyman, who visited China about the middle of 
the 9th century. He states (Reinaud, Relation des Voyages fails par les Arabes et 
les Persons dans Vlnde et h. la Chine, 1845, !• 4°): "The people of China are 
accustomed to use as a beverage an infusion of a plant, which they call sakh, and 
the leaves of which are aromatic and of a bitter taste. It is considered very whole- 
some. This plant (the leaves) is sold in all the cities of the empire." (Bretschneider, 
Hist. Bot. Disc. I. p. 5.)— H. C] 

t It is probable that Persian, which had long been the language of Turanian 
courts, was also the common tongue of foreigners at that of the Mongols. Puli- 
sanghin and Zardanddn, in the preceding list, are pure Persian. So are several of 
the Oriental phrases noted at p. 84. See also notes on Ondaniqtie and Vemique 
at pp. 93 and 384 of this volume, on Tacuin at p. 448, and a note at p. 9J supra. 
The narratives of Odoric, and others of the early travellers to Cathay, afford cor- 
roborative examples. Lord Stanley of Alderley, in one of his contributions to the 
Hakluyt Series, has given evidence from experience that Chinese Mahomedans still 
preserve the knowledge of numerous Persian words. 



iia INTRODUCTION 

ship between notable members of that House * But the most 
perplexing knot in the whole book lies in the interesting 
account which he gives of the Siege of Sayanfu or Siang-yang, 
during the subjugation of Southern China by Kublai. I have 
entered on this matter in the notes (vol. ii, p. 167), and will 
only say here that M. Pauthier's solution of the difficulty is no 
solution, being absolutely inconsistent with the story as told 
by Marco himself, and that I see none ; though I have so 
much faith in Marco's veracity that I am loath to believe that 
the facts admit of no reconciliation. 

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

72. A question naturally suggests itself, how far Polo's 
Was Polo's riarrative, at least in its expression, was modified by 
riau'^af^'* passing under the pen of a professed litterateur 
the'sidbe of somewhat humble claims, such as Rusticiano 
Rusticiano? ^^g_ 'pj^g ^^^^ jg j^q|. ^ singular one, and in our 

own day the ill-judged use of such assistance has been fatal 
to the reputation of an adventurous Traveller. 

* Compare these errors with like errors of Herodotus, e.g.y regarding the con- 
spiracy of the False Smerdis. (See Rawlinson's Introduction, p. 55.) There is a curious 
parallel between the two also in the supposed occasional use of Oriental state records, 
as in Herodotus's. accounts of the revenues of the satrapies, and of the army of Xerxes, 
and in Marco Polo's account of Kinsay, and of the Kaan's revenues. (Vol. ii 
pp. 185, 216.) 

t An example is seen in the voluminous Annali Mtisulmani of G. B. Rampoldi, 
Milan, 1825. This writer speaks of the Travels of Marco Polo with his brother and 
uncle ; declares that he visited Tipango {sic), Java, Ceylon, and the Maldives, col- 
lected all the geographical notions of his age, traversed the two peninsulas of the 
Indies, examined the islands of Socotra, Madagascar, Sofala, and traversed with 
philosophic eye the regions of Zanguebar, Abyssinia, Nubia, and Egypt ! and so forth 
(ix. 174). And whilst Malte-Brun bestows on Marco the sounding and ridiculous 
title of '■'the Humboldt of the \yh cent my," he shows little real acquaintance with 
his Book. (See his Prc'cis, ed. of 1836, I. 551 seijq.) 



SOME ESTIMATE OK POLO AND HIS BOOK 113 

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

73. On the other hand, though Marco, who had left home 
at fifteen years of age, naturally shows very few signs of read- 
ing, there are indications that he had read romances, ^3^.^.3 
especially those dealing with the fabulous adven- t^^^t^' 
tures of Alexander. Alexandrian 

Komances. 

To these he refers explicitly or tacitly in his ^^^p'^ 
notices of the Irongate and of Gog and Magog, in his allu- 
sions to the marriage of Alexander with Darius's daughter, 
and to the battle between those two heroes, and in his repeated 
mention of the Arbre Sol or Arbre Sec on the Khorasan 
frontier. 

The key to these allusions is to be found in that Legen- 
dary History of Alexander, entirely distinct from the true 
history' of the Macedonian Conqueror, which in great measure 
took the place of the latter in the imagination of East and 
West for more than a thousand years. This fabulous history' 
is believed to be of Graeco-Egyptian origin, and in its earliest 
extant compiled form, in the Greek of the Pseudo-Callisthenes, 
can be traced back to at least about A.D. 200. From the Greek 
its marvels spread eastward at an early date ; some part at 
least of their matter was known to Moses of Chorene, in the 



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



114 INTRCDUCTION 

5th century ;* they were translated into Armenian, Arabic, 
Hebrew, and Syriac ; and were reproduced in the verses of 
Firdusi and various other Persian Poets ; spreading eventually 
even to the Indian Archipelago, and finding utterance in 
Malay and Siamese. At an early date they had been ren- 
dered into Latin by Julius Valerius ; but this work had prob- 
ably been lost sight of, and it was in the loth century that 
they were re-imported from Byzantium to Italy by the Arch- 
priest Leo, who had gone as Envoy to the Eastern Capital 
from John Duke of Campania.f Romantic histories on this 
foundation, in verse and prose, became diffused in all the 
languages of Western Europe, from Spain to Scandinavia, 
rivalling in popularity the romantic cycles of the Round Table 
or of Charlemagne. Nor did this popularity cease till the 
l6th century was well advanced. 

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

Prominent in all these stories is the tale of Alexander's 
shutting up a score of impure nations, at the head of which 
were Gog and Magog, within a barrier of impassable moun- 



* [On the subject of Moses of Chorene and his works, I must refer to the clever 
researches of the late Auguste Carri^re, Professor of Armenian at the Ecole des 
Langues Orientales. — H.C.] 

t Zacher, Forschun^en zur Critik, ^c, der Alexandersage, Halle, 1867, p. 108. 

X Even so sagacious a man as Roger Bacon quotes the fabulous letter of Alexander 
to Aristotle as authentic. {Opus Ma/us, p. 137.) 

§y. As. sir. VI. torn, xviii. p. 352. 



SOME ESTIMATE OF POLO AND HIS BOOK 115 

tains, there to await the latter days ; a legend with which the 
disturbed mind of Europe not unnaturally connected that 
cataclysm of unheard-of Pagans that seemed about to deluge 
Christendom in the first half of the 13th century. In 
these stories also the beautiful Roxana, who becomes the 
bride of Alexander, is Darius's daughter, bequeathed to his 
arms by the dying monarch. Conspicuous among them again 
is the Legend of the Oracular Trees of the Sun and Moon, 
which with audible voice foretell the place and manner of 
Alexander's death. With this Alexandrian legend some of 
the later forms of the story had mixed up one of Christian 
origin about the Dry Tree, LArbre Sec. And they had also 
adopted the Oriental story of the Land of Darkness and the 
mode of escape from it, which Polo relates at p. 484 of vol. ii. 
74. We have seen in the most probable interpretation of 
the nickname Milioni that Polo's popular reputation in his 
lifetime was of a questionable kind ; and a contem- injustice 
porary chronicler, already quoted, has told us how on poIo. sin- 

gular modem 

his death-bed the Traveller was begged by anxious instance. 
friends to retract his extraordinary stories.* A little later one 
who copied the Book ^^ per passare tempo e malinconia" says 
frankly that he puts no faith in itf Sir Thomas Brown is 
content " to carry a wary eye " in reading " Paulus Venetus " ; 
but others of our countrymen in the last century express 
strong doubts whether he ever was in Tartary or China.J 
Marden's edition might well have extinguished the last sparks 
of scepticism.^ Hammer meant praise in calling Polo ^'' der 
Vater orientalischer Hodogetik" in spite of the uncouthness of 

* See passage from Jacopo d'Acqui, supra, p. J4. 

t It is the transcriber of one of the Florence MSS. who appends this terminal 
note, worthy of Mrs. Nickleby :— " Here ends the Book of Messer M. P. of Venice, 
written with mine own hand by me Amalio Bonaguisi when Podestk of Cierreto Guidi, 
to get rid of time and ennui. The contents seem to me incredible things, not lies 
so much as miracles ; and it may be all very true what he says, but I don't believe 
it ; though to be sure throughout the world very different things are found in different 
countries. But these things, it has seemed to me in copying, are entertaining enough, 
but not things to believe or put any faith in ; that at least is my opinion. And I 
finished copying this at Cierreto aforesaid, 1 2th November, A.D. 1392." 

X Vulgar Errors, Bk. I. ch. viii. ; Astkys Voyages, IV. 583. 

§ A few years before Marsden's publication, the Historical branch of the R. S. of 
Science at Gottingen appears to have put forth as the subject of a prize Essay the 
Geography of the Travels of Carpini, Rubruquis, and especially of Marco Polo. (See 
L. of M. Polo, by Zurla, in Collezione di Vite e Ritralii cCIllustri Italiani. Pad. 
1816.) 



ii6 INTRODUCTION 

the eulogy. But another grave German writer, ten years 
after Marsden's pubHcation, put forth in a serious book that 
the whole story was a clumsy imposture ! * 



XII. Contemporary Recognition of Polo and his Book. 

75- But we must return for a little to Polo's own times. 
,^ , Ramusio states, as we have seen, that immediately 

How far ^ ' j 

w^ there after the first commission of Polo's narrative to writing 

diffusion of _ ° 

hi^ ^°°V" (in Latin as he imagined), many copies of it were made, 
it was translated into the vulgar tongue, and in a few 
months all Italy was full of it. 

The few facts that we can collect do not justify this view of 
the rapid and diffused renown of the Traveller and his Book. 
The number of MSS. of the latter dating from the 14th century 
is no doubt considerable, but a large proportion of these are of 
Pipino's condensed Latin Translation, which was not put forth, 
if we can trust Ramusio, till 1320, and certainly not much earlier. 
The whole number of MSS. in various languages that we have 
been able to register, amounts to about eighty. I find it 
difficult to obtain statistical data as to the comparative number 
of copies of different works existing in manuscript. With 



* See Stddtewesen des Mittelalters, by K. D. Hullmami, Bonn, 1829, vol. iv. 

After speaking of the Missions of Pope Innocent IV. and St. Lewis, this author 
sketches the Travels of the Polos, and then proceeds: — "Such are the clumsily 
compiled contents of this ecclesiastical fiction {^Kirchengeschichtlichen Dichtung) 
disguised as a Book of Travels, a thing devised generally in the spirit of the age, 
but specially in the interests of the Clergy and of Trade. . . . This compiler's 
aim was analogous to that of the inventor of the Song of Roland, to kindle 
enthusiasm for the conversion of the Mongols, and so to facilitate commerce through 
their dominions. . . . Assuredly the Poll never got further than Great Bucharia, 
which was then reached by many Italian Travellers. What they have related 
of the regions of the Mongol Empire lying further east consists merely of recol- 
lections of the bazaar and travel-talk of traders from those countries ; whilst the 
notices of India, Persia, Arabia, and Ethiopia, are borrowed from Arabic Works. 
The compiler no doubt carries his audacity in fiction a long way, when he makes 
his hero Marcus assert that he had been seventeen years in Kiibldi's service," etc. 
etc. (pp. 360-362). 

In the French edition of MuIcoIttHs History of Persia (W. 141), Marco is styled 
"pritre Venelien" ! I do not know whether this is di'.e to Sir John or to the 
translator. 

[Polo is also called "a Venetian Priest," in a note, vol. i., p. 409, of the original 
edition of London, 181 5, 2 vols., 4to. — II. C] 



CONTEMPORARY RECOGNITION iij 

Dante's great Poem, of which there are reckoned close upon 500 
MSS.,* comparison would be inappropriate. But of the Travels 
of Friar Odoric, a poor work indeed beside Marco Polo's, I 
reckoned thirty-nine MSS., and could now add at least three 
more to the list. [I described seventy -three in my edition of 
Odoric. — H. C] Also I find that of the nearly contemporary work 
of Brunetto Latini, the Tresor, a sort of condensed Encyclopaedia 
of knowledge, but a work which one would scarcely have expected 
to approach the popularity of Polo's Book, the Editor enumerates 
some fifty MSS. And from the great frequency with which one 
encounters in Catalogues both MSS. and early printed editions 
of Sir John Maundevile, I should suppose that the lying wonders 
of our English Knight had a far greater popularity and more 
extensive diffusion than the veracious and more sober marvels of 
Polo.f To Southern Italy Polo's popularity certainly does not 
seem at any time to have extended. I cannot learn that any 
MS. of his Book exists in any Library of the late Kingdom of 
Naples or in Sicily.J 

Dante, who lived for twenty-three years after Marco's work 



* See Ferrazzi, Manuele Daniesca, Bassano, 1865, p. 729. 

t In Quaritch's catalogue for Nov. 1870 there is only one old edition of Polo; 
there are nine of Maunde\'ile. In 1839 there were nineteen MSS. of the latter 
author catalogued in the British Museum Library-. There are now only six of Marco 
Polo. At least twenty-five editions of Maunde\dle and only five of Polo were 
printed in the 15th century. 

% I have made personal enquiry at the National Libraries of Naples and Palermo, 
at the Communal Library in the latter city, and at the Benedictine Libraries of Monte 
Cassino, Monreale, S. Martino, and Catania. 

In the 15th century, when Polo's book had become more generally difiused 
we find three copies of it in the Catalogue of the Library of Charles VI. of France, 
made at the Louvtc in 1423, by order of the Duke of Bedford. 

The estimates of value are curious. They are in sols parisis, which we shall not 
estimate very wrongly at a shilling each : — 

"No. 295. Item. Marcus Paulus ; en ung cahier escript de lettre formie, en 
fran^ois, d deux coulombes. Conimt. on Of- fo. * deux freres prescheurs,' et 

ou derrenier ' que sa arrieres.' X. s. p. 

• • • 

" No. 334. Item. Marcus Paulus. Convert de drap d'or. Men escript 6* enlumin^, 
de lettre de forme enfranfois, d. deux coulombes. Commt. ou ii*-fol. ; ' il fut 

Roys,' (5^ ou derrenier ' propremen,' i deux fermouers de laton. XV. s. p. 

• « • 

" No. 336. Item. Marcus Paulus ; non enlumin^, escript en fraiicois, de lettre de 
forme. Commt. ou ii^ fo. 'vocata moult grant,' &^ ou derrenier 'ileq dist iL' 
Convert de cuir blanc, a deux fermouers de laton. XII. s. p." 

[^Invent aire de la Bibliotheque du Roi Charles VI., etCi 
Paris, Societe des Bibliophiles, 1867.) 



//<? ■ INTRODUCTION 

was written, and who touches so many things in the seen and 
unseen Worlds, never alludes to Polo, nor I think to anything 
that can be connected with his Book. I believe that no mention 
of Cathay occurs in the Divina Commedia. That distant region 
is indeed mentioned more than once in the poems of a humbler 
contemporary, Francesco da Barberino, but there is nothing in 
his allusions besides this name to suggest any knowledge of 
Polo's work.* 

Neither can I discover any trace of Polo or his work in that 
of his contemporary and countryman, Marino Sanudo the Elder, 
though this worthy is well acquainted with the somewhat later 
work of Hayton, and many of the subjects which he touches in 
his own book would seem to challenge a reference to Marco's 
labours. 

76. Of contemporary or nearly contemporary references to 
„ our Traveller by name, the following are all that I can 

Contempo- •' ' o 

rary refer- produce, and none of them are new. 

ences to '^ ' 

^°'°- First there is the notice regarding his presentation 

of his book to Thibault de Cepoy, of which we need say no more 
{supra^ p. 68). 

Next there is the Preface to Friar Pipino's Translation, which 
we give at length in the Appendix (E) to these notices. The 
phraseology of this appears to imply that Marco was still alive, 
and this agrees with the date assigned to the work by Ramusio. 



* See Del Reggitnento e de' Costumi delle donne di Alesser Francesco da Barberino , 
Roma, 1815, pp. 166 and 271. The latter passage runs thus, on Slavery : — 

" E fu indutta prima da N06, 
E fu cagion lo vin, perche si egge : 
Ch' egli e un paese, dove 
Son molti servi in parte di Cathay : 
Che per questa cagione 
Hanno a nimico il vino, 
E non ne beon, ne vogHon vedere. " 

The author was born the year before Dante (1264), and though he lived to 1348 it 
is probable that the poems in question were written in his earlier years. Cathay wf.s 
no doubt known by dim repute long before the final return of the Polos, both through 
the original journey of Nicolo and Maffeo, and by information gathered by the 
Missionary Friars. Indeed, in 1278 Pope Nicolas III., in consequence of informa- 
tion said to have come from Abaka Khan of Persia, that Kiibldi was a baptised 
Christian, sent a party of Franciscans with a long letter to the Kaan Quobley, as he is 
termed. They never seem to have reached their destination. And in 1289 Nicolas IV. 
entrusted a similar mission to Friar John of Monte Corvino, which eventually led to 
very tangible results. Neither of the Papal letters, however, mentions Cathay. (See 
Mosheim, App. pp. 76 and 94. ) 



CONTEMPORARY RECOGNITION 119 

Pipino was also the author of a Chronicle, of which a part was 
printed by Muratori, and this contains chapters on the Tartar 
wars, the destruction of the Old Man of the Mountain, etc., 
derived from Polo. A passage not printed by Muratori has 
been extracted by Prof Bianconi from a MS. of this Chronicle 
in the Modena Library, and runs as follows : — 

" The matters which follow, concerning the magnificence of the Tartar 
Emperors, whom in their language they call Chain as we have said, are 
related by Marcus Paulus the Venetian in a certain Book of his which has 
been translated by me into Latin out of the Lombardic Vernacular. 
Ha\ing gained the notice of the Emperor himself and become attached 
to his service, he passed nearly 27 years in the Tartar countries."* 

Again we have that mention of Marco by Friar Jacopo 
d'Acqui, which we have quoted in connection with his capture by 
the Genoese, at p. 5^\ And the Florentine historian Giovanni 
VlLLANI,J when alluding to the Tartars, says : — 

" Let him who would make full acquaintance with their history examine 
the book of Friar Hayton, Lord of Colcos in Armenia, which he made at 
the instance of Pope Clement V., and also the Book called Milione which 
|Was made by Messer Marco Polo of Venice, who tells much about their 
)wer and dominion, ha\'ing spent a long time among them. And so let 
quit the Tartars and return to our subject, the History of FIorence."§ 

yj. Lastly, we learn from a curious passage in a medical 
%ork by PiETRO OF Abano, a celebrated physician and philo 
sopher, and a man of Polo's own generation, that he 
was personally acquainted with the Traveller. In a tempo^ 
discussion on the old notion of the non-habitability of "^^""""^ 
the Equatorial regions, which Pietro controverts, he says:|i 



* See Muratori, IX. 583, seqq. ; Biamoni, Mem. I. p. 37. 

t This Friar makes a strange hotch-potch of what he had read, e.g. : " The Tartars, 
when they came out of the mountains, made them a king, s\z., the son of Prester 
John, who is thus vulgarly termed Vetulus de la Montagna!''^ {Mon. Hist. Patr. 
Script. III. 1557.) 

+ G. Villani died in the great plague of 1348. But his book was begun soon after 
Marco's was written, for he states that it was the sight of the memorials of greatness 
which he witnessed at Rome, during the Jubilee of 1300, that put it into his head to 
write the history of the rising glories of Florence, and that he b^an the work after 
his return home. (Bk. VIII. ch. 36.) § Book V. ch. 29. 

II Petri Apottensis Medici ac Philosophi Celeberrimi, Conciliator, Venice, 1521, 
^o\. 97. Peter was born in 1250 at Abano, near Padua, and was Professor of 
Medicine at the University in the latter city. He twice fell into the claws of the 
Unholy Office, and only escaped them by death in 1316. 




> INTRODUCTION 

" In the country of the ZiNGHi there is seen a star as big as a sack. 

I know a man who has seen it, and he 
told me it had a faint Hght like a piece 
of a cloud, and is always in the south.* 
I have been told of this and other 
matters by Marco the Venetian, the 
most extensive traveller and the most 
diligent inquirer whom I have ever 
known. He saw this same star under 
the Antarctic ; he described it as 
having a great tail, and drew a figure 
Star at the Antarctic as sketched of it thus. He also told me that he 
by Marco Polo (t). saw the Antarctic Pole at an altitude 

above the earth apparently equal to the 
length of a soldier's lance, whilst the Arctic Pole was as much below the 
horizon. 'Tis from that place, he says, that they export to us camphor, 
lign-aloes, and brazil. He says the heat there is intense, and the habita- 
tions few. And these things he witnessed in a certain island at which he 
arrived by Sea. He tells me also that there are (wild ?) men there, and 
also certain very great rams that have very coarse and stiff wool just like 
the bristles of our pigs.^'J 

In addition to these five I know no other contem- 
porary references to Polo, nor indeed any other within 
the 14th century, though such there must surely be, excepting in 
a Chronicle written after the middle of that century by JOHN of 

* The great Magellanic cloud ? In the account of Vincent Yanez Pinzon's Voyage 
to the S.W. in 1499 as given in Ramusio (III. 15) after Pietro Martire d'Anghieria, 
it is said: — "Taking the astrolabe in hand, and ascertaining the Antarctic Pole, 
they did not see any star like our Pole Star ; but they related that they saw another 
manner of stars very different from ours, and which they could not clearly discern 
because of a certain dimness which diffused itself about those stars, and obstructed 
th.e view of them." Also the Kachh mariners told Lieutenant Leech that midway to 
Zanzibar there was a town (?) called Marethee, where the North Pole Star sinks 
below the horizon, and they steer by a fixed clotid in the heavens. (Bombay Govt. 
Selections, No. XV. N.S. p. 215.) 

The great Magellan cloud is mentioned by an old Arab writer as a white blotch 
at the foot of Canopus, visible in the Tehama along the Red Sea, but not in 
Nejd or 'Irak. Humboldt, in quoting this, calculates that in a.d. looo the 
Great Magellan would have been visible at Aden some degrees above the horizon. 
{Examen, V. 235.) 

t [It is curious that this figure is almost exactly that which among oriental carpets 
is called a "cloud." I have heard the term so applied by Vincent Robinson. It 
often appears in old Persian carpets, and also in Chinese designs. Mr. Purdon Clarke 
tells me it is called nebula in heraldry; it is also called in Chinese by a term signifying 
cloud ; in Persian, by a term which he called silen-i-khitai, but of this I can make 
nothing.— iT/5'. Note by Vi//e.] 

X This passage contains points that are omitted in Polo's book, besides the draw- 
ing implied to be from Marco's own hand ! The island is of course Sumatra. The 
animal is perhaps the peculiar Sumatran wild-goat, figured by Marsden, the hair 
of which on the back is "coarse and strong, almost like bristles." {Sumatra, p. 115.) 



CONTEMPORARY RECOGNITION tzi 

Ypres, Abbot of St. Bertin, otherwise known as Friar John the 
Long, and himself a person of xoxy high merit in the history of 
Travel, as a precursor of the Ramusios, Hakluyts and Purchases, 
for he collected together and translated (when needful) into 
French all of the most valuable works of Eastern Travel and 
Geography produced in the age immediately preceding his own.* 
In his Chronicle the Abbot speaks at some length of the 
adventures of the Polo Family, concluding with a passage to 
which we have already had occasion to refer : 

"And so Messers Nicolaus and Maffeus, with certain Tartars, were 
sent a second time to these parts ; but Marcus Pauli was retained by the 
Emperor and employed in his military service, abiding with him for a 
space of 27 years. And the Cham, on account of his ability despatched 
him upon affairs of his to various parts of Tartary and India and the 
Islands, on which journeys he beheld many of the marvels of those regions. 
And concerning these he afterwards composed a book in the French ver- 
nacular, which said Book of Mar\'els, with others of the same kind, we do 
possess." {Thesaur. Nov. Anecdot. III. 747.) 

J^). There is, however, a notable work which is ascribed to a 
rather early date in the 14th century, and which, though it 
contains no reference to Polo by name, shows a thorough 
acquaintance with his book, and borrows themes largely from it. 
This is the poetical Romance of Bauduin de Sebourc, Curious 

. . borrowings 

an exceedmgly clever and vivacious production, par- fromPoio 
taking largely of that bantering, half- mocking Romance of 
spirit which is, I believe, characteristic of many of the Sebourc 



* A splendid example of Abbot John's Collection is the Livre des Merveilles of the 
Great French Library (No. 18 in our A pp. F.). This contains Polo, Odoric, William 
of Boldensel, the Book of the Estate of the Great Kaan by the Archbishop of 
Soltania, Maundevile, Hayton, and Ricold of Montecroce, of which all but Polo and 
Maundevile are French versions by this excellent Long John. A list of the Polo 
miniatures is given in Aj>p. F. of this Edition, p. 527. 

It is a question for which there is sufficient ground, whether the Persian Historians 
Rashiduddin and \Yassaf, one or other or both, did not derive certain information 
that appears in their histories, from Marco Polo personally, he having spent many 
months in Persia, and at the Court of Tabriz, when either or both may have been 
there. Such passages as that about the Cotton-trees of Guzerat (vol. ii. p. 393, and 
note), those about the horse trade with Maabar (id. p. 340, and note), about the brother- 
kings of that country (id. p. 331), about the naked savages of Necuveram (id. 
p. 306), about the wild people of Sumatra calling themselves subjects of the Great Kaan 
(id. pp. 285, 292, 293, 299), have so strong a resemblance to parallel passages in one 
or both of the above historians, as given in the first and third volumes of Elliot, that 
the probability, at least, of the Persian writers having derived their information from 
Polo might be fairly maintained. 

VOL. I. p 



122 INTRODUCTION 

later mediaeval French Romances.* Bauduin is a knight who, 
after a very wild and loose youth, goes through an extraordinary 
series of adventures, displaying great faith and courage, and 
eventually becomes King of Jerusalem. I will cite some of the 
traits evidently derived from our Traveller, which I have met 
with in a short examination of this curious work. 

Bauduin, embarked on a dromond in the Indian Sea, is 
wrecked in the territory of Baudas, and near a city called Falise, 
which stands on the River of Baudas. The people of this city 
were an unbelieving race. 

" II ne creoient Dieu, Mahon, n^ Tervogant, - 
Ydole, cruchefis, deable, ne tirant." P. 300. 

Their only belief was this, that when a man died a great fire 

should be made beside his tomb, in which should be burned all 

his clothes, arms, and necessary furniture, whilst his horse 

and servant should be put to death, and then the dead man 

would have the benefit of all these useful properties in the other 

world. f Moreover, if it was the king that died — 

" Se li rois de la terre i aloit trespassant, 
* * * * * 

Si fasoit-on tuer, .viij. jour en un tenant, 

Tout chiaus c'on encontroit par la chite passant, 

Pour tenir compaingnie leur segnor soffisant. 

Telle estoit le creanche ou pais dont je cant ! "J P. 301. 

Baudin arrives when the king has been dead three days, and 
through dread of this custom all the people of the city are shut 
up in their houses. He enters an inn, and helps himself to a 
vast repast, having been fasting for three days. He is then 
seized and carried before the king, Polibans by name. We 
might have quoted this prince at p. Sy as an instance of the 
diffusion of the French tongue : 

" Polibans sot Fransois, car on le doctrina : 
j. renoies de Franche. vij. ans i demora, 
Qui li aprist Fransois, si que bel en parla." P. 309. 

* Li Romans de Bauduin de Sebourc 11 I« Roy de Jhirusalem ; I'otme du 
XlVe Siecle ; Valenciennes, 1841. 2 vols. 8vo. I was indebted to two references 
of M. Pauthier's for knowledge of the existence of this work. He cites the legends 
of the Mountain, and of the Stone of the Saracens from an abstract, but does not 
seem to have consulted the work itself, nor to have been aware of the extent of its 
borrowings from Marco Polo. M. Genin, from whose account Pauthier quotes, 
ascribes the poem to an early date after the death of Philip the Fair (1314). See 
Pauthier, pp. 57, 58, and 140. 

+ See Polo, vol. i. p. 204, and vol. ii. p. 191. % See Polo, vol. i. p. 246. 



CONTEMPORARY RECOGNITION 123 

Bauduin exclaims against their barbarous belief, and declares 
the Christian doctrine to the king, who acknowledges good 
points in it, but concludes : 

"Vassaus, dist Polibans, k le chi^re bardie, 
Jk ne crerrai vou D ieux, a nul jour de ma vie ; 
Ne vostre Loy ne vaut una pomme pourie ! " P. 31 1. 

Bauduin proposes to prove his Faith by fighting the prince, him- 
self unarmed, the latter with all his arms. The prince agrees, 
but is rather dismayed at Bauduin's confidence, and desires his 
followers, in case of his own death, to bum with him horses, 
armour, etc., asking at the same time which of them would con- 
sent to bum along with him, in order to be his companions in 
the other world : 

" Lk en i ot. ij°. dont cascuns s'escria : 

" Nous morons volentiers, quant vo corps mort sara I "* P. 313. 

Bauduin's prayer for help is miraculously granted ; Polibans is 
beaten, and converted by a vision. He tells Bauduin that in 
his neighbourhood, beyond Baudas— 

"ou. V. liewes, ou. vi. 
Che un felles prinches, orgoellieus et despis ; 
De la Rouge- Montaingne est Prinches et Marchis. 
Or vous dirai comment il a ses gens nouris : 

Je vous di que chius Roys a fait un Paradis 
Tant noble et gratieus, et plain de tels deliis, 

* ♦ ♦ ♦ * 

Car en che Paradis est un riex establis, 
Qui se partist en trois, en che noble pourpris : 
En I'un coert li clares, d'espises bien garnis ; 
Et en I'autre li mies, qui les a resouffis ; 
Et li vins di pieument i queurt par droit avis — 

♦ * » * * 

II n'i vente, ne gele. Che lies est de samis, 
De riches dras de soie, bien ouvres k devis. 
Et aveukes tout che que je chi vous devis, 
I a. ij' puchelles qui moult ont cler les vis, 
Carolans et tresquans, menans gales et ris. 
Et si est li dieuesse, dame et suppellatis. 
Qui doctrine les autres et en fais et en dis, 
Celle est la fiUe au Roy c'on dist des Haus-AssisP^ Pp. 319-320, 

* See Polo, vol. ii. p. 339. 

t See Polo, vol. i. p. 140. Hashishi has got altered into Ham Assis. 
VOL. r. p2 



124 INTRODUCTION 

This Lady Ivorine, the Old Man's daughter, is described among 
other points as having — 

" Les lex vairs com faucons, nobles et agentis."* P. 320. 

The King of the Mountain collects all the young male 
children of the country, and has them brought up for nine or ten 
years : 

" Dedens un lieu oscur : Ik les met-on toudis 
Aveukes males bestes ; kiens, et cas, et soris, 
Culo^res, et lisaerdes, escorpions petis. 
Lk endroit ne peut nuls avoir joie, n€ ris." Pp. 320-321. 

And after this dreary life they are shown the Paradise, and told 
that such shall be their portion if they do their Lord's behest. 

" S'il disoit k son homme : ' Va-t-ent droit k Paris ; 
Si me fier d'un coutel le Roy de Saint Denis, 
Jamais n'aresteroit, ne par nuit ne par dis, 
S'aroit tue le Roy, vo'iant tous ches marchis ; 
Et deuist estre k fources traines et mal mis.'" P. 321. 

Baud u in determines to see this Paradise and the lovely 
Ivorine. The road led by Baudas : 

" Or avoit k che tamps, se I'istoire ne ment. 
En le chit de Baudas Kristiens jusqu' k cent ; 
Qui manonent illoec par treu d'argent. 
Que cascuns cristiens au Roy-Calife rent. 

Li peres du Calife, qui regna longement, 
Ama les Crestiens, et Dieu primi^rement : 
* * * « ♦ 

Et lor fist establir. j. monstier noble et gent, 

Ou Crestien faisoient faire lor sacrement. 

Une mout noble pi6re lor donna proprement, 

Ou on avoit pose Mahon moult longement." t P. 322. 

The story is, in fact, that which Marco relates of Samar- 
kand.! The Caliph dies. His son hates the Christians. His 
people complain of the toleration of the Christians and 
their minister ; but he says his father had pledged him not 
to interfere, and he dared not forswear himself If, without 



Sec vol. i. p. 358, nute. t See vol. i. p. 189, note 2. 

t Vol. i. pp. 183-186. 



CONTEMPORARY RECOGIilTION 12s 

doing so, he could do them an ill turn, he would gladly. The 
people then suggest their claim to the stone : 

" Or leur donna vos peres, dont che fu mesprisons. 
Ceste pierre, biaus Sire, Crestiens demandons : 
II ne le porront rendre, pour vrai le vous disons, 
Si li monstiers n'est mis et par pitches et par mens ; 
Et s'il estoit desfais, jamais ne le larons 
Refaire chi-endroit. Ensement averons 
Faites et acomplies nostres ententions." P. 324- 

The Caliph accordingly sends for Maistre Thumas, the 
Priest of the Christians, and tells him the stone must be 
given up : 

" II a. c. ans ut plus c'on i mist k solas 
Mahon, le nostra Dieu : dont che n'est mie estas 
Que li vous monstiers soit fais de nostre hamas ! " P. 324. 

Master Thomas, in great trouble, collects his flock, mounts the 
pulpit, and announces the calamity. Bauduin and his convert 
Polibans then arrive. Bauduin recommends confession, fasting, 
and prayer. They follow his advice, and on the third day the 
miracle occurs : 

" L'escripture le dist, qui nous achertefie 
Que le pierre Mahon,qui ou mur fut fiquie, 
Sali hors du piler, coi que nul vous en die. 
Droit enmi le monstier, c'onques ne fut brisie. 
Et demoura li traus, dont le piere ert widie. 
Sans piere est sans quailliel, k cascune partie ; 
Chou deseure soustient, par divine maistrie. 
Tout en air proprement, n'el tenes k falie. 

Encore le voit-on en ichelle partie : 
Qui croire ne m'en voelt, si voist ; car je Ten prie ! " P. 327. 

The Caliph comes to see, and declares it to be the Devil's doing. 
Seeing Polibans, who is his cousin, he hails him, but Polibans 
draws back, avowing his Christian faith. The Caliph in a rage 
has him off to prison. Bauduin becomes very ill, and has to 
sell his horse and arms. His disease is so offensive that he 
is thrust out of his hostel, and in his wretchedness sitting on 
a stone he still avows his faith, and confesses that even then 
he has not received his deserts. He goes to beg in the Christian 



I2b INTRODUCTION 

quarter, and no one gives to him ; but still his faith and love to 
God hold out : 

" Ensement Bauduins chelle rue cherqua, 
Tant qu'k .j. chavetier Bauduins s'arresta, 
Qui chavates cousoit ; son pain en garigna : 
Jones fu et plaisans, apertement ouvra. 
Bauduins le regarde, c'onques mot ne parla." P. 334. 

The cobler is charitable, gives him bread, shoes, and a grey coat 
that was a foot too short. He then asks Bauduin if he will not 
learn his trade ; but that is too much for the knightly stomach : 

" Et Bauduins respont, li preus et li membrus : 
J'ameroie trop miex que je fuisse pendus ! " P. 335. 

The Caliph now in his Council expresses his vexation about the 
miracle, and says he does not know how to disprove the faith of 
the Christians. A very sage old Saracen who knew Hebrew, 
and Latin, and some thirty languages, makes a suggestion, 
which is, in fact, that about the moving of the Mountain, as 
related by Marco Polo.* Master Thomas is sent for again, 
and told that they must transport the high mountain of Thir 
to the valley of Joaquin, which lies to the westward. He goes 
away in new despair and causes his clerk to sonner le clocke 
for his people. Whilst they are weeping and wailing in the 
church, a voice is heard desiring them to seek a certain holy 
man who is at the good cobler's, and to do him honour. God 
at his prayer will do a miracle. They go in procession to 
Bauduin, who thinks they are mocking him. They treat him 
as a saint, and strive to touch his old coat. At last he consents 
to pray along with the whole congregation. 

The Caliph is in his palace with his princes, taking his ease 
at a window. Suddenly he starts up exclaiming : 

" ' Seignour, par Mahoumet que j'aoure et tieng chier, 
Le Mont de Thir enportent le deable d'enfeir ! ' 
Li Califes s't^crie : ' Seignour, franc palasin, 
Voi^s le Mont de Thir qui ch'est mis au chemin ! 
Vds-le-lk tout en air, par mon Dieu Apolin ; 
Jk bientost le verrons ens ou val Joaquin ! '" P. 345. 

The Caliph is converted, releases Polibans, and is baptised, 



* Vol. i. pp. 68 seqq. The virtuous cobler is not left out, but is made to play 
second fiddle to the hero Bauduin. 



CONTEMPORARY RECOGNITION 127 

taking the name of Bauduin, to whom he expresses his 
fear of the Viex de la Montagne with his Hauts-Assis, 
telling anew the story of the Assassin's Paradise, and so 
enlarges on the beauty of Ivorine that Bauduin is smitten, 
and his love heals his malady. Toleration is not learned 
however : 

" Bauduins, li Califes, fist baptisier sa gent, 
Et qui ne voilt Dieu crore, li teste on li pourfent ! " P- 350. 

The Caliph gives up his kingdom to Bauduin, proposing 
to follow him to the Wars of Syria. And Bauduin presents the 
Kingdom to the Cobler. 

Bauduin, the Caliph, and Prince Polibans then proceed to 
visit the Mountain of the Old Man. The Caliph professes to 
him that they want help against Godfrey of Bouillon. The 
Viex says he does not give a bouton for Godfrey ; he will send 
one of his Hauts-Assis straight to his tent, and give him a great 
knife of steel between yf^ et poutnon ! 

After dinner they go out and witness the feat of devotion 
which we have quoted elsewhere.* They then see the Paradise 
and the lovely Ivorine, with whose beauty Bauduin is struck 
dumb. The lady had never smiled before ; now she declares 
that he for whom she had long waited was come. Bauduin 
exclaims : 

"'Madame, fu-jou chou qui sui le vous soubgis?' 
Quant la puchelle I'ot, lors li geta. j. ris ; 
Et li dist : ' Bauduins, vous estes mes amis ! '" Pp. 362-363. 

The Old One is vexed, but speaks pleasantly to his daughter, 
who replies with frightfully bad language, and declares herself 
to be a Christian. The father calls out to the Caliph to kill 
her. The Caliph pulls out a big knife and gives him a blow 
that nearly cuts him in two. The amiable Ivorine says she 
will go with Bauduin : / 

" ' Se mes p^res est mors, n'en donne. j. paresis ! ' " P. 364. 

We need not follow the story further, as I did not trace 

beyond this point any distinct derivation from our Traveller, 
with the exception of that allusion to the incombustible cover- 

* Vol. i. p. 144. 



128 INTRODUCTION 

ing of the napkin of St. Veronica, which I have quoted at 
p. 2x6 of this volume. But including this, here are at least 
seven different themes borrowed from Marco Polo's book, on 
which to be sure his poetical contemporary plays the most 
extraordinary variations. 

[78 bis. — In the third volume of The Complete Works of 
Geoffrey Chaucer^ Oxford, 1894, the Rev. Walter W. Skeat gives 
(pp. 372 seqq^ an Account of the Sources of the 
and Marco Canterbury Tales. Regarding The Squieres Tales, he 
says that one of his sources was the Travels of Marco ; 
Mr. Keighley in his Tales and Popular Fictions, published in 
1834, at p. ^6, distinctly derives Chaucer's Tale from the 
travels of Marco Polo. {Skeat, I c, p. 463, note.) I cannot quote 
all the arguments given by the Rev. W. W. Skeat to support his 
theory, pp. 463-477- 

Regarding the opinion of Professor Skeat of Chaucer's in- 
debtedness to Marco Polo, cf. Marco Polo and the Squire's Tale, 
by Professor John Matthews Manly, vol. xi. of the Publications 
of the Modern Language Association of America, 1896, pp. 349- 
362. Mr. Manly says (p. 360) : " It seems clear, upon reviewing 
the whole problem, that if Chaucer used Marco Polo's narrative, 
he either carelessly or intentionally confused all the features of 
the setting that could possibly be confused, and retained not a 
single really characteristic trait of any person, place or event. 
It is only by twisting everything that any part of Chaucer's 
story can be brought into relation with any part of Polo's. To 
do this might be allowable, if any rational explanation could 
be given for Chaucer's supposed treatment of his ' author,' or 
if there were any scarcity of sources from which Chaucer might 
have obtained as much information about Tartary as he seems 
really to have possessed ; but such an explanation would be 
difficult to devise, and there is no such scarcity. Any one of 
half a dozen accessible accounts could be distorted into almost 
if not quite as great resemblance to \\\q Squire's Tale as Marco 
Polo's can." 

Mr. A. W. Pollard, in his edition of The Squire's Tale 
(Lond., 1899) writes : "A very able paper, by Prof J. M. Manly, 
demonstrates the needlessness of Prof Skeat's theory, which 
has introduced fresh complications into an already complicated 
story. My own belief is that, though we may illustrate the 



rOLO'S INFLUENCE ON GEOGRAPHY izg 

Squire's Tale from these old accounts of Tartary, and especially 
from Marco Polo, because he has been so well edited by Colonel 
Yule, there is verj' little probability that Chaucer consulted any 
of them. It is much more likely that he found these details 
where he found more important parts of his story, i.e. in some 
lost romance. But if we must suppose that he provided his 
own local colour, we have no right to pin him down to using 
Marco Polo to the exclusion of other accessible authorities." 
Mr. Pollard adds in a note (p. xiii.) : "There are some features 
in these narratives, e.g. the account of the gorgeous dresses worn 
at the Kaan's feast, which Chaucer with his love of colour could 
hardly have helped reproducing if he had known them." — H. C.J 



XIII. Nature of Polo's Influence on Geographicai 
Knowledge. 

79. Marco Polo contributed such a vast amount of new 
facts to the knowledge of the Earth's surface, that r~ , 

° ' rardy opera 

one might have expected his book to have had a ^"^"^ 
sudden effect upon the Science of Geography : but ''"^reot 
no such result occurred speedily, nor was its beneficial effect 
of any long duration. 

No doubt several causes contributed to the slowness of its 
action upon the notions of Cosmographers, of which the unreal 
character attributed to the Book, as a collection of romantic 
marvels rather than of geographical and historical facts, may 
have been one, as Santarem urges. But the essential causes 
were no doubt the imperfect nature of publication before the 
invention of the press ; the traditional character which clogged 
geography as well as all other branches of knowledge in the 
Middle Ages ; and the entire absence of scientific principle in 
what passed for geography, so that there was no organ com- 
petent to the assimilation of a large mass of new knowledge. 

Of the action of the first cause no examples can be more 
striking than we find in the false conception of the Caspian 
as a gulf of the Ocean, entertained by Strabo, and the opposite 
error in regard to the Indian Sea held by Ptolemy, who regards 
it as an enclosed basin, when we contrast these with the correct 



/JO INTRODUCTION 

ideas on both subjects possessed by Herodotus. The later 
Geographers no doubt knew his statements, but did not appre- 
ciate them, probably from not possessing the evidence on which 
they were based. 

80. As regards the second cause alleged, we may say that 
down nearly to the middle of the 15th century cosmographers, 
General char- as a rulc, made scarcely any attempt to reform their 
of Mediaeval maps by any elaborate search for new matter, or by 

Cosmogra- 
phy, lights that might be collected from recent travellers. 

Their world was in its outline that handed down by the tradi- 
tions of their craft, as sanctioned by some Father of the Church, 
such as Orosius or Isidore, as sprinkled with a combination of 
classical and mediaeval legend ; Solinus being the great authority 
for the former. Almost universally the earth's surface is re- 
presented as filling the greater part of a circular disk, rounded by 
the ocean ; a fashion that already existed in the time of 
Aristotle and was ridiculed by him.* No dogma of false 
geography was more persistent or more pernicious than this. 
Jerusalem occupies the central point, because it was found 
written in the Prophet Ezekiel : " Haec dicit Dominus Deus : 
Ista est Jerusalem^ in medio gentium /^i'^/z eam^ et in circuitu ejus 
terras ;"-f a declaration supposed to be corroborated by the 
Psalmist's expression, regarded as prophetic of the death of 
Our Lord : " Deus autem, Rex noster, ante secula operatus est 
salutem in medio Terrae " (Ps. Ixxiii. \2).\ The Terrestrial 



* "They draw nowadays the map of the world in a laughable manner, for they 
draw the inhabited earth as a circle ; but this is impossible, both from what we see 
and from reason." {Meteorolog. Lib. II. cap. 5.) Cf. Herodotus, iv. 36. 

t In Dante's Cosmography, Jerusalem is the centre of our olKovfiivrj, whilst the 
Mount of Purgatory occupies the middle of the Antipodal hemisphere : — 

" Come ci6 sia, se'I vuoi poter pensare, 
Dentro raccolto immagina Sion 
Con questo monte in su la terra stare, 
Si, ch' ambodue hann' un solo orrizon 

E diversi emisperi " 

—Purs;. IV. 67. 

J The belief, with this latter ground of it, is alluded to in curious verses by 
Jacopo Alighieri, Dante's son : — 
" E ntolti f^an Profeti 



E per la Santa /ede 
Cristiana ancor si vede 
Che' t suo principio Crista 
Nel suo mezzo conquisto 
Per cuiprese morte 
E vi pose la sorte." 

— {Rime Antiche Toscane, III. 9.) 

Though the general meaning of the second couplet is obvious, the expression il 



Filosofi e Poeti 
Fanno il colco dell' Emme 
Dov' e Gerusalemme ; 
Se le loro scritture 
Hanno vere figure : 



POLO'S INFLUENCE ON GEOGRAPHY 131 

Paradise was represented as occupying the extreme East, because 
it was found in Genesis that the Lord planted a garden east 
ward in Eden.* Gog and Magog were set in the far north 01 
north-east, because it was said again in Ezekiel : " Ecce Ego 
super te. Gog Principem capitis Mosoch et Thiibal . . . ei ascendere 
tefaciam de lateribus Aquilonis" whilst probably the topography 
of those mysterious nationalities was completed by a girdle of 
mountains out of the Alexandrian Fables. The loose and 
scanty nomenclature was mainly borrowed from Pliny or Mela 
through such Fathers as we have named ; whilst vacant spaces 
were occupied by Amazons, Arimaspians, and the realm of 
Prester John. A favourite representation of the inhabited earth 

was this (-y) ; a great O enclosing a T, which thus divides the 

circle in three parts ; the greater or half-circle being Asia, the 
two quarter circles Europe and Africa.f These Maps were 
kno\v*n to St. Augustine.^ 

81. Even Ptolemy seems to have been almost unknown; 
and indeed had his Geography been studied it might, with all 
its errors, have tended to some greater endeavours 
alter accuracy. Roger Bacon, whilst lamenting the Bacon as a 
exceeding deficiency of geographical knowledge in the 
Latin world, and purposing to essay an exacter distribution of 
countries, says he will not attempt to do so by latitude and 
longitude, for that is a system of which the Latins have learned 



colco deir Emnie, "the couch of the M," is pozzhng. The best solution that occurs 
to me is this : In looking at the world map of Marino Sanudo, noticed on p. ijj, 
as engraved by Bongars in the Gesta Dei per Francos, you find geometrical lines laid 
down, connecting the N.E., N.W., S.E., and S.W. points, and thus forming a 
square inscribed in the circular disk of the Earth, with its diagonals passing through 
the Central Zion. The eye easily discerns in these a great M inscribed in the circle, 
with its middle angular point at Jerusalem. Geni-asius of Tilbury (with some con- 
fusion in his mind between tropic and equinoxial, like that which Pliny makes in 
speaking of the Indian Mons Malleus) says that " some are of opinion that the Centre 
is in the place where the Lord spoke to the woman of Samaria at the well, 
for there, at the summer solstice, the noonday sun descends perpendicularly into the 
water of the well, casting no shadow ; a thing which the philosophers say occurs at 
Syene" ! {Otia Imperialia, by Liebrecht, p. i.) 

* This circumstance does not, however, show in the Vulgate. 



t " Veggiamo in prima in geceial la terra 
Come risiede e come il mar la sena. 



Un T dentro ad un O mostra il disegno 
Come Lq tre parti fii diviso il Mondo, 
E la superiore e il maggior regno 
Che qtiasi piglia la metk del tondo. 

De Civ. Dei, xvi. 17, quoted by Peschel, 92 



Asia chiamata : il gambo ritto e segno 
Che parte il terzo nome dal secondo 
Affrica dico da Europa : il mare 
Mediterran tra esse in mezzo appare." 

— La S/era, di F. L&xiardo di Sta^ 
Dati, Lib. iiL St. 11. 



1^2 INTRODUCTION 

nothing. He himself, whilst still somewhat burdened by the 
authoritative dicta of " saints and sages " of past times, ven- 
tures at least to criticise some of the latter, such as Pliny and 
Ptolemy, and declares his intention to have recourse to the in- 
formation of those who have travelled most extensively over the 
Earth's surface. And judging from the good use he makes, in 
his description of the northern parts of the world, of the Travels 
of Rubruquis, whom he had known and questioned, besides dili- 
gently studying his narrative,* we might have expected much in 
Geography from this great man, had similar materials been 
available to him for other parts of the earth. He did attempt a 
map with mathematical determination of places, but it has not 
been preserved.^ 

It may be said with general truth that the world-maps 
current up to the end of the 1 3th century had more analogy to 
the mythical cosmography of the Hindus than to any thing 
properly geographical. Both, no doubt, were originally based in 
the main on real features. In the Hindu cosmography these 
genuine features are symmetrised as in a kaleidoscope ; in the 
European cartography they are squeezed together in a manner 
that one can only compare to a pig in brawn. Here and there 
some feature strangely compressed and distorted is just 
recognisable. A splendid example of this kind of map is that 
famous one at Hereford, executed about A.D. 1275, of which a 
facsimile has lately been published, accompanied by a highly 
meritorious illustrative Essay .J 

82. Among the Arabs many able men, from the early days 
of Isldm, took an interest in Geography, and devoted labour to 
geographical compilations, in which they often made use of their 
own observations, of the itineraries of travellers, and of other 
fresh knowledge. But somehow or other their maps were always 
far behind their books. Though they appear to have had an 
early translation of Ptolemy, and elaborate Tables of Latitudes 
and Longitudes form a prominent feature in many of their 
geographical treatises, there appears to be no Arabic map in 



• opus Majus, Venice ed. pp. 142, segq. 

t Peschel, p. 195. This had escaped me. 

+ By the Rev. W. L. Bevan, M.A., and the Rev. H. W. Phillott, M.A. In 
Asia, they point out, the only name showing any recognition of modern knowledge is 
Samarcand. 



POLO'S INFLUENCE ON GEOGRAPHY 133 

existence, laid down with meridians and parallels ; whilst all of 
their best known maps are on the old system of the circular disk. 
This apparent incapacity for map-making appears to have acted 
as a heavy drag and bar upon progress in Geography among the 
Arabs, notwithstanding its early promise among them, and in 
spite of the application to its furtherance of the great intellects 
of some (such as Abu Rihan al-Biruni), and of the indefatigable 
spirit of travel and omnivorous curiosity of others (such as 
Mas'udi). 

83. Some distinct trace of acquaintance with the Arabian 
Geography is to be found in the World-Map of Marino Sanudo 
the Elder, constructed between 1300 and 1320; and 

this may be regarded as an exceptionally favourable Sanudothe 
specimen of the cosmography in vogue, for the author 
was a diligent investigator and compiler, who evidently took a 
considerable interest in geographical questions, and had a strong 
enjoyment and appreciation of a map.* Nor is the map in 
question without some result of these characteristics. His 
representation of Europe, Northern Africa, Syria, Asia Minor, 
Arabia and its two gulfs, is a fair approximation to general facts ; 
his collected knowledge has enabled him to locate, with more or 
less of general truth, Georgia, the Iron Gates, Cathay, the Plain 
of Moghan, Euphrates and Tigris, Persia, Bagdad, Kais, Aden 
(though on the wrong side of the Red Sea), Abyssinia {Habesk), 
Zangibar {Zinz), Jidda (Zede), etc. But after all the traditional 
forms are too strong for him. Jerusalem is still the centre of the 
disk of the habitable earth, so that the distance is as great from 
Syria to Gades in the extreme West, as from Syria to the India 
Interior of Prester John which terminates the extreme East. 
And Africa beyond the Arabian Gulf is carried, according to the 
Arabian modification of Ptolemy's misconception, far to the east- 
ward until it almost meets the prominent shores of India. 

84. The first genuine mediaeval attempt at a geographical 
construction that I know of, absolutely free from the traditional 
idola, is the Map of the known World from the Portulano 



His work, Liber Secretortim Fidelium Crucis, intended to stimulate a new 
Crusade, lias three capital maps, besides that of the World, one of which, translated, 
but otherwise in facsimile, is given at p. 18 of this volume. But besides these maps, 
he gives, in a tabular form of parallel columns, the reigning sovereigns in Europe and 
-'Lsia connected with his historical retrospect, just on the plan presented in Sir Harris 
Nicolas's Chronology of History. 



134 INTRODUCTION 

Mediceo (in the Laurentian Library), of which an extract is 
engraved in the atlas of BaldelH-Boni's Polo. 1 need not 
The Catalan descHbe it, howcver, because I cannot satisfy myself 
Map of 1375, ^|^J^|. j^ makes much use of Polo's contributions, and 

the most ' 

me'dfivai ^^^ facts have been embodied in a more ambitious 
ofPofo?^"' work of the next generation, the celebrated Catalan 
Geography. ^^^ of 1375 in the great Library of Paris. This also, 
but on a larger scale and in a more comprehensive manner, is 
an honest endeavour to represent the known world on the basis 
of collected facts, casting aside all theories pseudo-scientific or 
pseudo-theological ; and a very remarkable work it is. In this 
map it seems to me Marco Polo's influence, I will not say on 
geography, but on map-making, is seen to the greatest advan- 
tage. His Book is the basis of the Map as regards Central 
and Further Asia, and partially as regards India. His names 
are often sadly perverted, and it is not always easy to under- 
stand the view that the compiler took of his itineraries. Still 
we have Cathay admirably placed in the true position of China, 
as a great Empire filling the south-east of Asia. The Eastern 
Peninsula of India is indeed absent altogether, but the Peninr 
sula of Hither India is for the first time in the History of 
Geography represented with a fair approximation to its correct 
form and position,* and Sumatra also {Jaua) is not badly 
placed. Carajan, Vocian, Mien, and Bangala, are located with 
a happy conception of their relation to Cathay and to India. 
Many details in India foreign to Polo's book,f and some in 
Cathay (as well as in Turkestan and Siberia, which have been 
entirely derived from other sources) have been embodied 
in the Map. But the study of his Book has, I conceive, been 
essentially the basis of those great portions which I have 
specified, and the additional matter has not been in mass 
sufficient to perplex the compiler. Hence we really see 



* I do not see that al-I5iruni deserves the credit in this respect assigned to him 
by Professor Peschel, so far as one can judge from the data given by Sprenger 
(Peschel, p. 128; Post unci Reise-Rotiten, 81-82.) 

t For example, Dclli, which Polo does not name ; Diogil (Deogfr) ; on the 
Coromandel coast Setemelti, which I take to L-e a clerical error for Sclte-TempH, the 
Seven Pagodas; round the Gulf of Cambay we have Cambelum (Kambayat), 
Cociiitaya (Kokan-Tana, see vol. ii. p. 396), Goga, Baroche, Neniala (Anharwahi), 
and to the north Moltan. Below Multan are Hocibekh and Bargelidoa, two puzzles. 
The former is, I think, Uch-baligh, showing that part of the information was from 
Perso- Mongol sources. 



-w 




that the Tra- 
bequeathed a 

he Far East in 
las Catalan de 
:onclusion that 
drawn almost 
n ofpartof the 

nt indications 
' now that the 

y Confusions 

d not ^^- 

fU, ^f the i6th 

^^^l- century, 

at inn fromt^e 

dllOIl endeavour 

ncrra *° combine 
"& * ** new and old 
J i.L information. 

Mauro (1459), 

action of facts 

es a consider- 

the Catalan 

t of discovery 

if all attempts 

5,vas most un- 

(t combinations 

I regarding the 

,,; Great Kaan's 

ated its inde- 

and the new 

'ten applied to any 

of the illustrious 
■ignory with a copy 
Major's P. Henry, 

icy of the circular 

_^f>8). The following 

^^<^confusion in verbal 

- "• *' lemy's Tables have 

md the Seres, and 

e \qtundam'\ Marco 



'34 

Mediceo (in th 
engraved in \.\ 

The Catalan ^eSCril 

&fst^^^' that il 

complete \^■^ f^f 

mediseyal ^^^ *'^'- 

embodiment ^Trr^rh- « 

of Polo's WOFK I 

Geography. jyj^p ^ 

but on a larger 
an honest endee 
of collected fac 
pseudo-theologi 
map it seems tc 
geography, but 
tage. His Boo 
and Further As 
are often sadly 
stand the view 
we have Cathay 
as a great Empi 
Peninsula of In 
sula of Hither 
Geography repr 
form and posit 
placed. Carajai 
a happy conce) 
Many details ii 
Cathay (as well 
entirely derive* 
in the Map. Bi 
essentially the 
specified, and 
sufficient to p 

* I do not see th 
by Professor Pesche 
{Peschel, p. 128 ; Poi 

t For example, 
Coromandel coast Se. 
Seven Pagodas ; ro 
Cocintaya (Kokan-T 
and to the north Mot 
The former is, I thi 
Parse- Mongol source 



POLO'S INFLUENCE ON GEOGRAPHY 13s 

in this Map something Hke the idea of Asia that the Tra- 
veller himself would have presented, had he bequeathed a 
Map to us. 

[Some years ago, I made a special study of the Far East in 
the Catalan Map. {L Extreme- Orient dans P Atlas Catalan de 
Charles V., Paris, 1895), and I have come to the conclusion that 
the cartographer's knowledge of Eastern Asia is drawn almost 
entirely from Marco Polo. We give a reproduction of part of the 
Catalan Map.— H. C] 

85. In the following age we find more frequent indications 
that Polo's book was diffused and read. And now that the 
spirit of discovery began to stir, it was apparently confUsions 
regarded in a juster light as a Book of Facts, and not ^p^-^f 
as a mere Romman du Grant Kaan* But in fact ^^t^^ 
this age produced new supplies of crude information en^vour 
in greater abundance than the knowledge of geogra- ne^^dota 
phers was prepared to digest or co-ordinate, and the "^°"°*"°°- 
consequence is that the magnificent Work of Era Mauro (1459), 
though the result of immense labour in the collection of facts 
and the endeavour to combine them, really gives a consider- 
ably less accurate idea of Asia than that which the Catalan 
Map had afforded.f 

And when at a still later date the great burst of discovery 
eastward and westward took effect, the results of all attempts 
to combine the new knowledge with the old was most un- 
happy. The first and crudest forms of such combinations 
attempted to realise the ideas of Columbus regarding the 
identity of his discoveries with the regions of the Great Kaan's 
dominion; J but even after America had vindicated its inde- 
pendent position on the surface of the globe, and the new 



* I see it stated by competent authority that Romman is often applied to any 
prose composition in a Romance language. 

In or about 1426, Prince Pedro of Portugal, the elder brother of the illustrious 
Prince Henry, being on a visit to Venice, was presented by the Signor)' with a copy 
of Marco Polo's book, together with a map already alluded to. (Major's P. Henry, 
pp. 61, 62.) 

t This is partly due also to Era Mauro's reversion to the fancy of the circular 
disk limiting the inhabited portion of the earth. 

X An early graphic instance of this is Ruysch's famous map ( 150S). The following 
extract of a work printed as late as 1533 is an example of the like confusion in verbal 
description : "The Territories which are beyond the limits of Rolemy's Tables have 
not yet been described on certain authority. Behind the Sinae and the Seres, and 
beyond 180° of East Longitude, many countries were discovered by one \£tundarn\ Marco 



/?(5 INTRODUCTION 

knowledge of the Portuguese had introduced China where 
the Catalan Map of the 14th century had presented Cathay, 
the latter country, with the whole of Polo's nomenclature, was 
shoved away to the north, forming a separate system.* Hence- 
forward the influence of Polo's work on maps was simply 
injurious ; and when to his nomenclature was added a 
sprinkling of Ptolemy's, as was usual throughout the 16th century, 
the result was a most extraordinary hotch-potch, conveying no 
approximation to any consistent representation of facts. 

Thus, in a map of I522,-|- running the eye along the north 
of Europe and Asia from West to East, we find the following 
succession of names : Groenlandia, or Greenland, as a great 
peninsula overlapping that of Norvegia and Suecia ; Livonia, 
Plescovia and Moscovia, Tartaria bounded on the South by 
Scithia extra Imaum, and on the East, by the Rivers Ochardes 
and Bautisis (out of Ptolemy), which are made to flow into 
the Arctic Sea. South of these are Aureacithis and Asmirea 
(Ptolemy's Atixaciiis and Asinircea), and Serica Regio. Then 
following the northern coast Balor Regio,\ Judei Clatisi, i.e. 
the Ten Tribes who are constantly associated or confounded 
with the Shut-up Nations of Gog and Magog. These impinge 
upon the River PoHsacus, flowing into the Northern Ocean in 
Lat. 75°, but which is in fact no other than Polo's Puli- 
sanghinl\ Immediately south of this is Tholomon Provincia 
(Polo's again), and on the coast Tangut, Cathaya, the Rivers 



Polo a Venetian and others, and the sea-coasts of those countries have now recently again 
been explored by Columbus the Genoese and Amerigo Vespucci in navigating the 
Western Ocean. ... To this part (of Asia) belong the territory called that of the 
Bachalaos [or Codfish, Newfoundland], Florida, the Desert of Lop, Tangut, Cathay, 
the realm of Mexico (wherein is the vast city of Temistitan, built in the middle of a 
great lake, but which the older travellers styled Quinsay), besides Paria, Uraba, 
and the countries of the Canihals." [Joannis Schoneri Carolostadtii Opuscnhitn 
Geogr., quoted by Humboldt, Exainen, V. 171, 172.) 

* In Robert Parke's Dedication of his Translation of Mendoza's, London, ist of 
January, 1589, he identifies China and Japan with the regions of which Pauliis Venetus 
and Sir John Mandeuill "wrote long agoe." — MS. Note by Yule. 

t " Totius Europae et Asiae Tabula Geographica, Auctore Thoma D. Aucuparto. 
Edita Argentorati, mdxxii." Copied in Witsen. 

X This strange association of Balor (i.e., Bolor, that name of so many odd 
vicissitudes, see pp. 178-179 infra) with the shut-up Israelites must be traced to a 
passage which Athanasius Kircher quotes from P. Abraham Pizol (qu. Peritsol ?) : 
" Regnum, inquit, Belor magnum et excelsuni nittiis,juxta omnes illos qui scripserunt 
Ilistoricos. Sunt in eo Juddcipluriwi incltisi, et illud in latere Orientali et Boreali,'* 
etc. {China Illustrata, p. 49.) § Vol. ii. p. I. 



I 



POLO'S INFLUENCE ON GEOGRAPHY xjj 

Caramordn and Oman (a misreading of Polo's Quian), Quinsay 
and Mangi. 

86. The Maps of Mercator (1587) and Magini (1597) are 
similar in character, but more elaborate, introducing China as 
a separate system. Such indeed also is Blaeu's Map Gradual 

, , ... disappear- 

(1663) excepting that Ptolemy s contributions are anceof 

reduced to one or two. menclamre. 

In Sanson's Map (1659) the data of Polo and the mediaeval 
Travellers are more cautiously handled, but a new element 
of confusion is introduced in the form of numerous features 
derived from Edrisi. 

It is scarcely worth while to follow the matter further. 
With the increase of knowledge of Northern Asia from the 
Russian side, and that of China from the Maps of Martini, 
followed by the surveys of the Jesuits, and with the real 
science brought to bear on Asiatic Geography by such men 
as De risle and D'Anville, mere traditional nomenclature 
gradually disappeared. And the task which the study of 
Polo has provided for the geographers of later days has 
been chiefly that of determining the true localities that his 
book describes under obsolete or corrupted nam.es. 

[My late illustrious friend, Baron A. E. Nordenskiold, who has 
devoted much time and labour to the study of Marco Polo (see 
his Periplus, Stockholm, 1897), and published a facsimile edition 
of one of the French MSS. kept in the Stockholm Royal Library 
(see vol. ii. Bibliography, p. 570), has given to The Geographical 
Journal for April, 1 899, pp. 396-406, a paper on The Influence of 
the " Travels of Marco Polo " on facobo Gasialdi's Maps of Asia. 
He writes (p. 398) that as far as he knows, none " of the many 
learned men who have devoted their attention to the discoveries 
of Marco Polo, have been able to refer to any maps in which 
all or almost all those places mentioned by Marco Polo are given. 
All friends of the history of geography will therefore be glad 
to hear that such an atlas from the middle of the sixteenth 
century really does exist, viz. Gastaldi's ' Prima, seconda e terza 
parte dell Asia.' " All the names of places in Ramusio's Marco 
Polo are introduced in the maps of Asia of Jacobo Gastaldi 
(1561). Cf. Periplus, liv., Iv., and Ivi. 

I may refer to what both Yule and myself say supra of the 
Catalan Map.— H. C] 

VOL. L q 



/?.? INTRODUCTION 

87. Before concluding, it may be desirable to say a few 
words on the subject of important knowledge other than 
Alleged in- geographical, which various persons have supposed 
of°Bbck°" that Marco Polo must have introduced from Eastern 
ef Asia to Europe. 

byNtoco^^ Respecting the mariner's compass and gunpowder 

^°'°" I shall say nothing, as no one now, I believe, imagines 

Marco to have had anything to do with their introduction. 
But from a highly respectable source in recent years we have 
seen the introduction of Block-printing into Europe connected 
with the name of our Traveller. The circumstances are stated 
as follows : * 

" In the beginning of the 15th century a man named Pamphilo Castaldi, of 
Feltre .... was employed by the Seignory or Government of the Republic, 
to engross deeds and public edicts of various kinds .... the initial letters 
at the commencement of the writing being usually ornamented with red 
ink, or illuminated in gold and colours 

" According to Sansovino, certain stamps or types had been invented 
some time previously by Pietro di Natah, Bishop of Aquiloea.t These 
were made at Murano of glass, and were used to stamp or print the outline 
of the large initial letters of public documents, which were afterwards 
filled up by hand. . . . Pamphilo Castaldi improved on these glass types, 
by having others made of wood or metal, and having seen several Chinese 
books which the famous traveller Marco Polo had brought from China, 
and of which the entire text was printed with wooden blocks, he caused 
moveable wooden types to be made, each type containing a single letter ; 
and with these he printed several broadsides and single leaves, at Venice, 
in the year 1426. Some of these single sheets are said to be preserved 
among the archives at Feltre. . . . 

"The tradition continues that John Faust, of Mayence .... became 
acquainted with Castaldi, and passed some time with him, at his Scrip- 
torium, ... at Feltre ;" 

and in short developed from the knowledge so acquired the 
great invention of printing. Mr, Curzon goes on to say that 



* A short Account of Libraries of Italy, by the Hon. R. Curzon (the late Lord 
delaZouche); in Bibliog. and Hist. Miscellanies; Philobiblon Society, vol. i, 1854, 
pp. 6. seqq. 

t P. dei Natali was Bishop of Equilio, a city of the Venetian Lagoons, in the 
latter part of the 14th century. (See Ughelli, Italia Sacra, X. 87. ) There is no ground 
whatever for connecting him with these inventions. The story of the glass types 
appears to rest entirely and solely on one obscure passage of Sansovino, who says 
that under the Doge Marco Corner (1365-1367) : '' certe Natale Veneto lascid un libra 
delta materie delle forme da gitistar intorno alle lettere, ed ilmodo di for marie di veiro." 
There is absolutely nothing more. Some kind of stencilling seems indicated. 



I 



POLO'S INFLUENCE ON GEOGRAPHY ijg 

Panfilo Castaldi was bom in 1398, and died in 1490, and 
that he gives the story as he found it in an article written 
by Dr. Jacopo Facen, of Feltre, in a (Venetian?) newspaper 
called // Gondoliere, No. 103, of 27th December, 1843. 

In a later paper Mr. Curzon thus recurs to the subject :* 

"Though none of the early block-books have dates affixed to them, 
many of them are with reason supposed to be more ancient than any 
books printed with moveable types. Their resemblance to Chinese block- 
books is so exact, that they would almost seem to be copied from the 
books commonly used in China. The impressions are taken off" on one 
side of the paper only, and in binding, both the Chinese, and ancient Ger- 
man, or Dutch block-books, the blank sides of the pages are placed opposite 
each otJier, and sometimes pasted together .... The impressions are 
not taken off with printer's ink, but with a brown paint or colour, of a 
much thinner description, more in the nature of Indian ink, as we call it, 
which is used in printing Chinese books. Altogether the German and 
Oriental block-books are so precisely alike, in almost every respect, that 

. we must suppose that the process of printing then must have been 
copied from ancient Chinese specimens, brought from thatcountry by some 
early travellers, whose names have not been handed down to our times." 

The writer then refers to the tradition about Guttemberg (so it is 
stated on this occasion, not Faust) having learned Castaldi's art, 
etc., mentioning a circumstance which he supposes to indicate 
that Guttemberg had relations with Venice ; and appears to 
assent to the probability of the story of the art having been 
founded on specimens brought home by Marco Polo. 

This story was in recent years diligently propagated in 
Northern Italy, and resulted in the erection at Feltre of a 
public statue of Panfilo Castaldi, bearing this inscription (besides 
others of like tenor) : — 

" To Panfilo Castaldi the illustrious Inventor of Movable 
Printing Types, Italy renders this Tribute of Honour^ 
too long deferred^ 

In the first edition of this book I devoted a special note to 
the exposure of the worthlessness of the evidence for this story .f 
This note was, with the present Essay, translated and published 
at Venice by Comm. Berchet, but this challenge to the supporters 



• History of Printing in China and Europe, in Philobiblon, vol. vi. p. 23. 
t See Appendix L. in First Edition. 

VOL. I. q2 



t4o Introduction 

of the patriotic romance, so far as I have heard, brought none of 
them into the lists in its defence. 

But since Castaldi has got his statue from the printers of 
Lombardy, would it not be mere equity that the mariners of 
Spain should set up a statue at Huelva to the Pilot Alonzo 
Sanchez of that port, who, according to Spanish historians, 
after discovering the New World, died in the house of Columbus 
at Terceira, and left the crafty Genoese to appropriate his 
journals, and rob him of his fame ? 

Seriously ; if anybody in Feltre cares for the real repu- 
tation of his native city, let him do his best to have that 
preposterous and discreditable fiction removed from the base 
of the statue. If Castaldi has deserved a statue on other and 
truer grounds let him stand ; if not, let him be burnt into honest 
lime ! I imagine that the original story that attracted Mr. Curzon 
was more jeu d esprit than anything else ; but that the author, 
finding what a stone he had set rolling, did not venture to 
retract. 

88. Mr. Curzon's own observations, which I have italicised 
about the resemblance of the two systems are, however, very 
Frequent Striking, and seem clearly to indicate the derivation 
mues for ^^ ^^^ ^""^ ffom China. But I should suppose that in 
dicdon'^n the tradition, if there ever was any genuine tradition 
foH^f^fng of the kind at Feltre (a circumstance worthy of all 
Polos. doubt), the name of Marco Polo was introduced merely 

because it was so prominent a name in Eastern Travel. The 
fact has been generally overlooked and forgotten * that, for 
many years in the course of the 14th century, not only were 
missionaries of the Roman Church and Houses of the Franciscan 
Order established in the chief cities of China, but a regular 
trade was carried on overland between Italy and China, by 
way of Tana (or Azov), Astracan, Otrar and Kamul, insomuch 
that instructions for the Italian merchant following that route 
form the two first chapters in the Mercantile Handbook of 
Balducci Pegolotti {circa i34o).-|- Many a traveller besides 
Marco Polo might therefore have brought home the block- 
books. And this is the less to be ascribed to him because 



* Ramusio himself appears to have been entirely unconscious of it, vide supra, 

V' 3- 

t This subject has been fully treated in Cathay and the Way Thither, 



BASIS OF PRESENT TRANSLATION 141 

he SO curiously omits to speak of the art of printing, when his 
subject seems absolutely to challenge its description. 



XIV. Explanations regarding the Basis adopted for the 
PRESENT Translation. 

89. It remains to say a few words regarding the basis 
adopted for our English version of the Traveller's record. 

Ramusio's recension w^as that which Marsden selected for 
translation. But at the date of his most meritorious publica- 
tion nothing was known of the real literary history of 

Text fol- 

Polo's Book, and no one was aware of the peculiar lowed by 

S^Iarsden 

value and originality of the French manuscript texts, and by 
nor had Marsden seen any of them. A translation 
from one of those texts is a translation at first hand ; a trans- 
lation from Ramusio's Italian is, as far as I can judge, the 
translation of a translated compilation from two or more 
translations, and therefore, whatever be the merits of its 
matter, inevitably carries us far away from the spirit and 
style of the original narrator. M. Pauthier, I think, did well 
in adopting for the text of his edition the MSS. which I have 
classed as of the second Type, the more as there had hitherto 
been no publication from those texts. But editing a text in the 
original language, and translating, are tasks substantially different 
in their demands. 

90. It will be clear from what has been said in the preceding 
pages that I should not regard as a fair or full representation of 

P Polo's Work, a version on which the Geographic Text 

did not exercise a material influence. But to adopt fonStlonof 
that Text, with all its awkwardnesses and tautologies, Text of this 
as the absolute subject of translation, would have been 
a mistake. What I have done has been, in the first instance, 
to translate from Pauthier's Text. The process of abridgment 
in this text, however it came about, has been on the whole 
judiciously executed, getting rid of the intolerable prolixities of 
manner which belong to many parts of the Original Dictation, 
but as a general rule preserving the matter. Having translated 
this, — not always from the Text adopted by Pauthier himself, 



//^ INTRODUCTION 

but with the exercise of my own judgment on the various 
readings which that Editor lays before us, — I then compared 
the translation with the Geographic Text, and transferred from 
the latter not only all items of real substance that had been 
omitted, but also all expressions of special interest and character, 
and occasionally a greater fulness of phraseology where conden- 
sation in Pauthier's text seemed to have been carried too far. 
And finally I introduced between brackets everything peculiar 
to Ramusio's version that seemed to me to have a just claim to 
be reckoned authentic, and that could be so introduced with- 
out harshness or mutilation. Many passages from the same 
source which were of interest in themselves, but failed to meet 
one or other of these conditions, have been given in the 
notes.* 

91. As regards the reading of proper names and foreign 
words, in which there is so much variation in the different MSS. 
Mode of ^^^ editions, I have done my best to select what 
proper'"^ Seemed to be the true reading from the G. T. and 
names. Pauthier's three MSS., only in some rare instances 

transgressing this limit. 

Where the MSS. in the repetition of a name afforded a choice 
of forms, I have selected that which came nearest the real name 
when known. Thus the G. T. affords Baldasciain, Badascian, 
Badasciain, Badausiani^ Balasian. I adopt Badascian, or in 
English spelling Badashan, because it is closest to the real 
name Badakhshan. Another place appears as COBINAN, 
Cabanat, Cobian. I adopt the first because it is the truest ex- 
pression of the real name Koh-bendn. In chapters 23, 24 of 
Book I., we have in the G. T. Asisim, Asciscin, Asescin, and in 
Pauthier's MSS. Hasisins, Harsisins, etc. I adopt ASCISCIN, 
or in English spelling ASHlSiilN, for the same reason as before. 



* This "eclectic formation of the English text," as I have called it for brevity 
in the marginal rubric, has been disapproved by Mr. de Khanikoff, a critic worthy of 
high respect. But I must repeat that the duties of a translator, and of the Editor of 
an original text, at least where the various recensions bear so peculiar a relation to 
each other as in this case, are essentially different ; and that, on reconsidering the 
matter after an interval of four or five years, the plan which I have adopted, whatever 
be the faults of execution, still commends itself to me as the only appropriate one. 

Let Mr. de Khanikoff consider what course he would adopt if he were about to 
publish Marco Polo in Russian. I feel certain that with whatever theory he might 
set out, before his task should be concluded he would have arrived practically at the 
same system that I have adopted. 



BASIS OF PRESENT TRANSLATION 143 

So with Creinan, Crerman, Crermain, QuERMAN, Anglice 
Kerman ; Cormos, HORMOS, and many more * 

In two or three cases I have adopted a reading which I can- 
not show literatim in any authority, but because such a form 
appears to be the just resultant from the variety of readings 
which are presented ; as in surveying one takes the mean of a 
number of observations when no one can claim an absolute 
preference. 

Polo's proper names, even in the French Texts, are in the 
main formed on an Italian fashion of spelling.f I see no object 
in preserving such spelling in an English book, so after selecting 
the best reading of the name I express it in English spelling, 
printing Badashan, Pashai, Kerman, instead of Badascian, Pasciai, 
Querman, and so on. 

And when a little trouble has been taken to ascertain the 
true form and force of Polo's spelling of Oriental names and 
technical expressions, it will be found that they are in the main 
as accurate as Italian lips and orthography will admit, and not 
justly liable either to those disparaging epithets^ or to those 
exegetical distortions which have been too often applied to them. 
Thus, for example, Cocacin, Ghel or Ghelan, Tonocain, Cobinan, 
Ondanique, Barguerlac, Argon, Sensin, Quescican, Toscaol, 
Bularguci, Zardandan, Anin, Caugigu, Colotnan, Gauenispola, 
Mutfili, Avarian, Choiach, are not, it will be seen, the ignorant 
blunderings which the interpretations affixed by some commen- 
tators would imply them to be, but are, on the contrary, all but 
perfectly accurate utterances of the names and words intended. 

* In Polo's diction C frequently represents II., e.g., Cormos — ^ovmva.', Camadi 
probably = Hamadi ; Caagiu probably = Hochau ; Cacianfu = Hochangfu, and so on- 
This is perhaps attributable to Rusticiano's Tuscan ear. A true Pisan will absolutely 
contort his features in the intensity of his efforts to aspirate sufficiently the letter C. 
Filippo Villani, speaking of the famous Aguto (Sir J. Hawkwood), says his name in 
English was Kauchmivole. (Murat. Script, xiv. 746.) 

+ In the Venetian dialect ch and j are often sounded as in English, not as in 
Italian. Some traces of such pronunciation I think there are, as in Coja, Carajan, 
and in the Chinese name Vatuhu (occurring only in Ramusio, supra, p. gg). But the 
scribe of the original work being a Tuscan, the spelling is in the main Tuscan. The 
sound of the Qu is, however, French, as in Quescican, Quinsai, except perhaps in the 
case of Qiienianfu, for a reason given in vol. ii. p. 29. 

% For example, that enthusiastic student of mediaeval Gec^aphy, Joachim 
Lelewel, speaks of Polo's "gibberish" (k baragouinage du Venitien) with special 
reference to such names as Zayton and Kinsay, whilst we now know that these names 
were in universal use by all foreigners in China, and no more deserve to be called 
gibberish than Bocca-Tigris, Leghorn, Ratisbon, or Buda. 



J44 



INTRODUCTION 



The -tcheou (of French writers), -choo, -chow^ or -chau * of 
EngHsh writers, which so frequently forms the terminal part in 
the names of Chinese cities, is almost invariably rendered by 
Polo as -giu. This has frequently in the MSS., and constantly 
in the printed editions, been converted into -gui^ and thence into 
-guy. This is on the whole the most constant canon of Polo's 
geographical orthography, and holds in Caagiu (Ho-chau), 
Singiu (Sining-chau), Cui-giu (Kwei-chau), Sin-giu (T'sining- 
chau), Pi-giu (Pei-chau), Coigangiu (Hwaingan-chau), Si-giu 
(Si-chau), Ti-giu (Tai-chau), Tin-giu (Tung-chau), Yan-giu 
(Yang-chau), Sin-giu (Chin-chau), Cai-giu (Kwa-chau), ChingJii- 
giu (Chang-chau), Su-giu (Su-chau), Vu-giu (Wu-chau), and 
perhaps a few more. In one or two instances only (as 
Sinda-ciu, Caiciu') he has -ciu instead of -giu. 

The chapter-headings I have generally taken from 
Panthier's Text, but they are no essential part of the original 
work, and they have been slightly modified or enlarged where it 
seemed desirable. 



"^chijlbl I &n the ^-.tbcn nigh vtt ^janli, 
%a tuhich I incanc mj) tuntric dxrixrsc ia icnb ; 
IJcrc the mitinc (Shcte, nrtti ticai-c xxif tuitb the ^anb, 
"SThc tohkh -Aioxt ia fagrlg to be kcnb, 
(^nb sfcmcth saf« from storms that man oftnb. 

Wcitxt ehc mg ^tthXt garkc a tohilf mag stag, 
^iU mtrg SBgni) anb gMeathcr tall her thence afaiag." 

—The Faerie Queene, I. xii. i. 

* I am quite sensible of the diffidence with which any outsider should touch any 
question of Chinese language or orthography. A Chinese scholar and missionary 
(Mr. Moule) objects to my spelling chau, whilst he, I see, uses chow. I imagine we 
mean the same sound, according to the spelling which I try to use throughout the 
book. Dr. C. Douglas, another missionary scholar, writes chau 




'ilirv,,!""" 



,,«.«^'^""!„„."""""""ii,„„„il,!'" ' • 



THE 



BOOK OF MARCO POLO, 



PROLOGUE. 



Great Princes, Emperors, and Kings, Dukes and 
Marquises, Counts, Knights, and Burgesses ! and People 
of all degrees who desire to get knowledge of the 
various races of mankind and of the diversities of the 
sundry regions of the World, take this Book and cause 
it to be read to you. For ye shall find therein all 
kinds of wonderful things, and the divers histories of 
the Great Hermenia, and of Persia, and of the Land 
of the Tartars, and of India, and of many another 
country of which our Book doth speak, particularly and 
in regular succession, according to the description of 
Messer Marco Polo, a wise and noble citizen of Venice, 
as he saw them with his own eyes. Some things 
indeed there be therein which he beheld not ; but these 
he heard from men of credit and veracity. And we 
shall set down things seen as seen, and things heard 
as heard only, so that no jot of falsehood may mar the 
truth of our Book, and that all who shall read it or hear 
it read may put full faith in the truth of all its contents. 

For let me tell you that since our Lord God did 
mould with his hands our first Father Adam, even until 
this day, never hath there been Christian, or Pagan, or 
VOL. I. A 



2 MARCO POLO Prol. 

Tartar, or Indian, or any man of any nation, who in 
his own person hath had so much knowledge and 
experience of the divers parts of the World and its 
Wonders as hath had this Messer Marco ! And for 
that reason he bethought himself that it would be a 
very great pity did he not cause to be put in writing 
all the- great marvels that he had seen, or on sure 
information heard of, so that other people who had not 
these advantages might, by his Book, get such know- 
ledge. And I may tell you that in acquiring this know- 
ledge he spent in those various parts of the World good 
six-and-twenty years. Now, being thereafter an inmate 
of the Prison at Genoa, he caused Messer Rusticiano 
of Pisa, who was in the said Prison likewise, to reduce 
the whole to writing; and this befell in the year 1298 
from the birth of Jesus. 



CHAPTER I. 



How THE Two Brothers Polo set forth from Constantinople 

TO TRAVERSE THE WORLD. 

It came to pass in the year of Christ 1260, when 
Baldwin was reigning at Constantinople,^ that Messer 
Nicolas Polo, the father of my lord Mark, and Messer 
Maffeo Polo, the brother of Messer Nicolas, were at 
the said city of Constantinople, whither they had gone 
from Venice with their merchants' wares. Now these 
two Brethren, men singularly noble, wise, and provident, 
took counsel together to cross the Greatp:r Sea on a 
venture of trade ; so they laid in a store of jewels and 
set forth from Constantinople, crossing the Sea to 
Soldaia.^ 



Chap. I. 



VENTURE OF THE TWO BROTHERS POLO 



Note i. — Baldwin II. (de Courtenay), the last Latin Emperor of Constantinople, 
reigned from 1237 to 1261, when he was expelled by Michael Palaeolc^us. 

The date in the text is, as we see, that of the Brothers' voyage across the Black 
Sea. It stands 1250 in all the.chief texts. But the figure is certainly wrong. We 
shall see that, wlien the Brothers return to Venice in 1269, they find Mark, who, 
according to Ramusio's version, was born after their departure, a lad of fifteen. 
Hence, if we rely on Ramusio, they must have left Venice about 1253-54. And we 
shall see also that they reached the Volga in 1261. Hence their start from Con- 
stantinople may well have occurred in 1 260, and this I have adopted as the most 
probable correction. Where they spent the interval between 1254 (if they really left 
Venice so early) and 1260, nowhere appears. But as their brother, Mark the Elder, 
in his Will styles himself " ivhilom of Constantinople" their headquarters were 
probablv there. 




Note 2. — In the Middle Ages the Euxine was frequently called Mare Magnum 
or Majtts. Thus Chaucer :— 

"In the Crete See, 
At many a noble Armee hadde he be." 

The term Black Sea (J/ar<f Maiiriim v. Nigrum) was, however, in use, and 
Abulfeda says it was general in his day. That name has been alleged to appear as 
rarly as the loth century, in the form S/coret^^, "The Dark Sea" ; but an examina- 
tion of the passage cited, from Constantine Porphyrogenitus, shows that it refers 
rather to the Baltic, whilst that author elsewhere calls the Euxine simply Pontus. 
{Reinaud's Ahulf I. 38 ; Const. Porph. De Adm. Imp. c. 31, c. 42.) 

-•- Sodaya, Soldaia, or Soldachia, called bv Orientals Stiddk, stands on the S.E, 
VOL. I. ^ ^ 



4 MARCO POLO Prol. 

coast of the Crimea, west of Kaffa. It had belonged to the Greek Empire, and had 
a considerable Greek population. After the P'rank conquest of 1204 it apparently 
fell to Trebizond. It was taken by the Mongols in 1223 for the first time, and a 
second time in 1239, and during that century was the great port of intercourse with 
what is now Russia. At an uncertain date, but about the middle of the century, the 
Venetians established a factory there, which in 1287 became the seat of a consul. In 
1323 we find Pope John XXII. complaining to Uzbek Khan of Sarai that the 
Christians had been ejected from Soldaia and their churches turned intc mosques. 
Ibn Batuta, who alludes to this strife, counts Sudak as one of the four great ports of 
the World. The Genoese got Soldaia in 1365 and built strong defences, still to be 
seen. Kaffa, with a good anchorage, in the 14th century, and later on Tana, took the 
place of Soldaia as chief emporium in South Russia. Some of the Arab Geographers 
call the Sea of Azov the Sea of Sudak. 

The Elder Marco Polo in his Will (1280) bequeaths to the Franciscan P'riars of the 
place a house of his in Soldachia, reserving life occupation to his own son and daughter, 
then residing in it. Probably this establishment already existed when the two 
Brothers went thither. [Ehe de Lapri/iiandaie, passim ; Gold. Horde, 87 ; Mosheiin, 
App. 148 ; Ibn Bat. I. 28, II. 414 ; Calltay, 231-33 ; Heyd, II. passim.) 



CHAPTER II. 

How THE Two Brothers went on beyond Soldaia. 

Having stayed a while at Soldaia, they considered the 
matter, and thought it well to extend their journey 
further. So they set forth from Soldaia and travelled 
till they came to the Court of a certain Tartar Prince, 
Barca Kaan by name, whose residences were at Sara ' 
and at Bolgara [and who was esteemed one of the 
most liberal and courteous Princes that ever was among 
the Tartars.]- This Barca was delighted at the arrival 
of the Two Brothers, and treated them with great 
honour; so they presented to him the whole of the 
jewels that they had brought with them. The Prince 
was highly pleased with these, and accepted the offering 
most graciously, causing the Brothers to receive at least 
twice its value. 

After they had spent a twelvemonth at the court of 
this Prince there broke out a great war between Barca 



MARCO POLO 



To face Prologue .Chap. 2 




ParloftheReraainsoflheClTYofSARAInearTZAREV 
North of the AKHTUBA Branch of the VO LGA 



-1 I u 



3Tie E-gglisKMile 



S Furlongs 



,-<. , '^Jraa:s ofdmslructions 
\ of sorts 

'^ '-:.■ .BarroM-i 

1' Dams 

■^^Z-Traces ofGxnah 




Lit.i'r.a-aenfddei.Palermo . ' 



I To face p. 4. 



Chap. II. JOURNEY TO SARA AND BOLGARA 5 

and Alau, the Lord of the Tartars of the Le\^nt, and 
great hosts were mustered on either side.^ 

But in the end Barca, the Lord of the Tartars of the 
Ponent, was defeated, though on both sides there was great 
slaughter. And by reason of this war no one could travel 
without peril of being taken ; thus it was at least on the 
road by which the Brothers had come, though there was 
no obstacle to their travelling forward. So the Brothers, 
finding they could not retrace their steps, determined to 
go forward. Quitting Bolgara, therefore, they proceeded 
to a city called Ucaca, which was at the extremity of 
the kingdom of the Lord of the Ponent ; * and thence de- 
parting again, and passing the great River Tigris, they 
travelled across a Desert which extended for seventeen 
days' journey, and wherein they found neither town nor 
village, falling in only with the tents of Tartars occupied 
with their cattle at pasture.^ 



Note I. — •- Barka Khan, third son of Jiiji, the first-born of Chinghiz, ruled the OVtis 
of Juji and Empire of Kipchak (Southern Russia) from 1257 to 1265. lie was the 
first Musulman sovereign of his race. His chief residence was at SarAI (Sara of the 
text), a city founded by his brother and predecessor Batii, on the banks of the Akhtuba 
branch of the A'olga. In the next century Ibn Batuta descrilies Sarai as a very hand- 
some and populous cit)', so large that it made half a day's journey to ride through it. 
The inhabitants were Mongols, Aas (or Alans), Kipchaks, Circassians, Russians, and 
Greeks, besides the foreign Moslem merchants, who had a walled quarter. Another 
Mahomedan traveller of the same century sa\-s the city itself was not walled, but, 
" The Khan's Palace was a great edifice surmounted by a golden crescent weighing 
two kan tars oi Egypt, and encompassed by a wall flanked with towers," etc. Pope 
John XXII., on the 26th Februarj- 1322, defined the limits of the new Bishopric of 
Kaflfa, which were Sarai to the east and Varna to the west. 

Sarai became the seat of both a Latin and a Russian metropolitan, and of more 
than one Franciscan convent. It was destroyed by Timur on his second invasion of 
Kipchak (1395-6), and extinguished by the Russians a century later. It is the scene 
of Chaucer's half-told tale of Cambuscan : — 

"At Sarra, in the Londe of Tartarie, 
There dwelt a King that werried Russie." 

[ " MesaUk-al-ahsar (285, 287), says Sarai, meaning 'the Palace,' was founded by 
Bereke, brother of Batu. It stood in a salty plain, and was without walls, though the 
palace had walls flanked by towers. The town was large, had markets, madrasas 
—and baths. It is usually identified with Selitrennoye Gorodok, about 70 miles above 
Astrakhan." {Rockhill, Rttbntck, p. 260, note.) — H. C] 

Several sites exhibiting extensive ruins near the banks of the Akhtuba have 
been identified with Sarai ; two in particular. One of these is not far from the great 



6 MARCO POLO PROL. 

elbow of the Volga at Tzaritzyn : the other much lower down, at Selitrennoye Gorodok 
or Saltpetre-Town, not far above Astrakhan. 

The upper site exhibits by far the most extensive traces of former population, and 
is declared unhesitatingly to be the sole site of Sarai by M. Gregorieff, who carried on 
excavations among the remains for four years, though with what precise results I have 
not been able to learn. The most dense part of the remains, consisting of mounds 
and earth-works, traces of walls, buildings, cisterns, dams, and innumerable canals, 
extends for about 7j miles in the vicinity of the town of Tzarev, but a tract 
of 66 miles in length and 300 miles in circuit, commencing from near the head of the 
Akhtuba, presents remains of like character, though of less density, marking the 
ground occupied by the villages which encircled the capital. About 2^ miles to the 
N.W. of Tzarev a vast mass of such remains, surrounded by the traces of a brick 
rampart, points out the presumable position of the Imperial Palace. 

M. Gregorieff appears to admit no alternative. Yet it seems certain that the 
indications of Abulfeda, Pegolotti, and others, with regard to the position of the 
capital in the early part of the 14th century, are not consistent with a site so far from 
the Caspian. Moreover, F. H. Miiller states that the site near Tzarev is known to 
the Tartars as the "Sarai of Janibek Khan" (13411357). Now it is worthy of note 
that in the coinage of Janibek we repeatedly find as the place of mintage. New Sarai. 
Arabshah in his History of Timur states that ()}, years had elapsed from the foundation 
to the destruction of Sarai. But it must have been at least 140 years since the 
foandation of P.atu's city. Is it not possible, therefore, that both the sites which we 
have mentioned were successively occupied by the Mongol capital ; that the original 
Sarai of Batu was at Selitrennoye Gorodok, and that the New Sarai of Janibek was 
established by him, or by his father Uzbeg in his latter days, on the upper Akhtuba ? 
Pegolotti having carried bis merchant from Tana (Azov) to Gittarchan (Astrakhan), 
takes him one day by river to Sara, and from Sara to Saracanco, also by river, eight 
days more. {Cathay, p. 287.) In the work quoted I have taken Saracanco for 
Saraichik, on the Yaik. But it was possibly the Upper or New Sarai on the 
Akhtuba. Ibn Batota, marching on the frozen river, reached Sarai in three d .ys 
from Astrakhan. This could not have been at Tzarev, 200 miles off. 

In corroboration {quantum valeat) of my suggestion that there must have been 
two Sarais near the Volga, Professor Bruun of Odessa points to the fact that Fra 
Mauro's map presents two cities of Sarai on the Akhtuba ; only the Sarai of Janibeg 
is with him no longer New Sarai, but Great Sarai. 

The use of the latter name suggests the possibility that in the Saracanco of 
Pegolotti the latter half of the name may be the Mongol AYmk " Great." (See Pavet 
de Courteille, p. 439.) 

Professor Bruun also draws attention to the impossibility of Ibn Batuta's travelling 
from Astrakhan to Tzarev in three days, an argument which had already occurred 
to me and been inserted above. 

[The Empire of Kipchak founded after the Mongol Conquest of 1224, included 
also parts of Siberia and Khwarizm ; it survived nominally until 1502. — H. C] 

(Four Years of Archccological Researches atnojig the Ruins of Sarai ^\xi Russian] by 
M. Gregorieff [who appears to have also published a pamphlet specially on the site, 
but this has not been available] ; Historisch-geographische Darstellung des Strom- 
systems der Wolga, von Ferd. Heinr. Miiller, Berlin, 1839, 568-577 ; Ibn. Bat. II. 
447; Not. et Extrai/s, XIII. i. 286 ; Pallas, Voyages ; Cathay, 231, etc. ; Erdmann, 
Numi Asiatici, pp. ■>f)2 seqq ; Arabs. I. p. 381.) 

Note 2. — Boi.ghar, our author's Bolgara, was the capital of the region some- 
times called Great Bulgaria, by Abulfeda Inner Bulgaria, and stood a few miles (rom 
the left bank of the Volga, in latitude about 54° 54', and 90 miles below Kazan. The old 
Arab writers regarded it as nearly the limit of the habitable world, and told wonders 
of the cold, the brief summer nights, and the fossil ivory tliat was found in its vicinity. 
This was exported, and with peltry, wax, honey, hazel-nuts, and Russia leather, 



Chap. II. BOLGilAR 7 

formed the staple articles of trade. The last item derived from Bolghar the name 
which it still bears all over Asia. (See Bk. II. ch. xvi., and Note.) Bolghar ieems 
to have been the northern limit of Arab travel, and was visited by the curious (by Ibn 
Batuta among others) in order to witness the phenomena of the short summer night, 
as tourists now visit Hanimerfest to witness its entire absence. 

Russian chroniclers speak of an earlier capital of the Bulgarian kingdom, 
Brakhimof, near the mouth of the Kama, destroyed by Andrew, Grand Duke of 
Rostof and Snsdal, about 1160 ; and this may have been the city referred to in the 
earlier Arabic accounts. The fullest of these is by Ibn Fozlan, who accompanied an 
embassy from the Court of Baghdad to Bolghar, in A.D. 921. The King and people 
had about this time been converted to Islam, having pre\-iously, as it would seem, pro- 
fessed Christianity. Nevertheless, a Mahomedan writer of the 14th century says the 
people had then long renounced Islam for the worship of the Cross. {Not. et Exir. 
XIII. i. 270.) 




Ruins of Bolghar. 

Bolghar was first captured by the Mongols in 1225. It seems to have perished 
early in the 15th centur)-, after which Kazan practically took its place. Its position 
is still marked by a village called Bolgari, where ruins of Mahomedan character 
remain, and where coins and inscriptions have been found. Coins of the Kings of 
Bolghar, struck in the loth century, have been described by Fraehn, as well as coins 
of the Mongol period struck at Bolghar. Its latest known coin is of A.H. 818 (a.d. 
1415-16). A history of Bolghar was written in the first half of the 12th century by 
Yakub Ibn Noman, Kadlii of the city, but this is not known to be extant. 

Fraehn shows ground for belie\-ing the people to have been a mixture of Fins, 
Slavs, and Turks. Nicephorus Gregoras supposes that they took their name from the 
great river on which they dwelt (BoA^a). 

[" The ruins [of Bolghar]," says Bretschneider, in his Medueval Researches, published 
in 1888, vol. ii. p. 82, "still exist, and have been the subject of learned investigation 
by several Russian scholars. These remains are found on the spot where now the 
village Uspenskoye, called also Bolgarskoye (Bolgari), stands, in the district of Spask, 
province of Kazan. This village is about 4 English miles distant from the Volga, 
east of it, and 83 miles from Kazan." Part of the Bulgars removed to the 
Balkans ; others remained in their native ciuntry on the shores of the Azov Sea, and 
were subjugated by the Khazars. At the banning of ihe 9th centurj-, they 
marched northwards to the Volga and the Kama, and established the kingdom of 
Great Bulgaria. Their chief city, Bolghar, was on the bank of the Volga, but the 
river runs now to the west ; as the Kama also underwent a change in its course, it is 
possible that formerly Bolghar was built at the junction of the two rivers. (Cf. Redtis, 



8 MARCO POLO PROL. 

Europe rtisse, p, 761.) The Bulgars were converted to Islam in 922. Their country 
was first invaded by the Mongols under Subutai in 1223 ; this General conquered it 
in 1236, the capital was destroyed the following year, and the country annexed to 
the kingdom of Kipchak. Bolghar was again destroyed in 1391 by Tamerlan. In 
1438, Ulugh Mohammed, cousin of Toka Timur, younger son of Juji, transformed 
this country into the khanate of Kazan, which survived till 1552. It had probably 
been the capital of the Golden Horde before Sarai. 

With reference to the early Christianity of the Bulgarians, to which Yule refers 
in his note, the Laurentian Chronicle (A.D. 1229), quoted by Shpilevsky, adduces 
evidence to show that in the Great City, i.e. Bulgar, there were Russian Christians and 
a Christian cemetery, and the death of a Bulgarian Christian martyr is related in the 
same chronicle as well as in the Nikon, Tver, and Tatischef annals in which his name 
is given, (Cf. Shpilevsky, Anc. (owns and other Bulgaro- Tartar monuments, Kazan, 
1877, p. 158^1?^.; EockhilPs Rubrtick, Hakl. Soc. p. 121, note.) — H. C] 

The severe and lasting winter is spoken of by Ibn Fozlan and other old writers in 
terms that seem to point to a modern mitigation of climate. It is remarkable, too, 
that Ibn Fozlan speaks of the aurora as of very frequent occurrence, which is not now 
the case in that latitude. We may suspect this frequency to have been connected 
with the greater cold indicated, and perhaps with a different position of the magnetic 
pole. Ibn Fozlan's account of the aurora is very striking : — " Shortly before sunset 
the horizon became all very ruddy, and at the same time I heard sounds in the upper 
air, with a dull rustling. I looked up and beheld sweeping over me a fire-red cloud, 
from which these sounds issued, and in it movements, as it were, of men and horses ; 
the men grasping bows, lances, and swords. This I saw, or thought I saw. Then 
there appeared a white cloud of like aspect ; in it also I beheld armed horsemen, and 
these rushed against the former as one squadron of horse charges another. We were 
so terrified at this that we turned with humble prayer to the Almighty, whereupon the 
natives about us wondered and broke into loud laughter. We, however, continued 
to gaze, seeing how one cloud charged the other, remained confused with it a while, 
and then sundered again. These movements lasted deep into the night, and then all 
vanished." 

{Fraehn, Ueber die Wolga Bulgaren, Petersb. 1832 ; Gold. Horde, 8, 9, 423-424; 
Not. et Extr. II. 541 ; Ibn Bat. II. 398 ; Biischings Mag. V. 492 ; Erdmatm, 
NumiAsiat. I. 315-318, 333-334. 520-535 J Niceph. Gregoras, II. 2, 2.) 

Note 3. — Alau is Polo's representation of the name of Hulakii, brother of the 
Great Kaans Mangu and Kublai and founder of the Mongol dynasty in Persia. In 
the Mongol pronunciation guttural and palatal consonants are apt to be elided, hence 
this spelling. The same name is written by Pope Alexander IV., in addressing the 
Khan, Olao, by Pachymeres and Gregoras XaXai) and XaXaoO, by Hayton Haolon, 
by Ibn Batuta Huldiin, as well as in a letter of Hulaku"s own, as given by 
Makrizi. 

The war in question is related in Rashfduddin's history, and by Polo himself 
towards the end of the work. It began in the summer of 1262, and ended about 
eight months later. Hence the Polos must have reached Barka's Court in 1261. 

Marco always applies to the Mongol Khans of Persia the title of " Lords of the 
East" {Levant), and to the Khans of Kipchak that of " Lords of the West " {Ponent). 
We use the term Levant still with a similar specific application, and in another form 
Anatolia. I think it best to preserve the terms Levant and Ponent when used in this 
way. 

[Robert Parke in his translation out of Spanish of Mendoza, The Historie of the 
great and mightie kingdome of China . . . London, printed by I. Wolfe for Edward 
White, 1 588, uses the word Ponent : ' ' You shall understande that this mightie 
kingdome is the Orientalest part of all Asia, and his next neighbour towards the 
/'<?«(?«^ is the kingdome of Quachinchina ... (p. 2)." — II. C] 

Note 4. — Ucaca or Ukek was a town on the right bcnk of the Volga, nearly 



Chap. III. UCACA 9 

equidistant between Sarai and Bolghar, and about six miles south of the modern 
Saratov, where a village called Uwek still exists. Ukek is not mentioned before 
the Mongol domination, and is supposed to have been of Mongol foundation, as the 
name Ukek is said in Mongol to signify a dam of hurdles. The city is mentioned by 
Abulfeda as marking the extremity of " the empire of the Barka Tartars," and Ibn 
Batuta speaks of it as " one day distant from the hills of the Russians." Polo there- 
fore means that it was the frontier of the Ponent towards Russia. Ukek was the site 
of a Franciscan convent in the 14th century ; it is mentioned several times in the 
campaigns of Timur, and was destroyed by his army. It is not mentioned under the 
form Ukek after this, but appears as Uwek and Uwesh in Russian documents of the 
l6th century. Perhaps this was always the Slavonic form, for it already is written 
U^iech ( = Uwek) in Wadding's r4th century catalogue of convents. Anthony 
Jenkinson, in Hakluyt, gives an observation of its latitude, as Oweke ^'^x" i^o'), and 
Christopher Burrough, in the same collection, gives a description of it as Oueak, and 
the latitude as 51° 30' (some 7' too much). In his time (1579) there were the re- 
mains of a "verj'faire stone castle" and city, with old tombs exhibiting sculptures 
and inscriptions. All these have long vanished. Burrough was told by the Russians 
that the town " was swallowed into the earth by the justice of God, for the wicked- 
nesse of the people that inhabited the same." Lepechin in 1769 found nothing 
remaining but part of an earthen rampart and some underground vaults of larger 
bricks, which the people dug out for use. He speaks of coins and other relics as 
frequent, and the like have been found more recently. Coins with Mongol- Arab in- 
scription-, struck at Ukek by Tuktugai Khan in 1306, have been described by Fraehn 
and Erdmann. 

(Fraehn, Ueber die ehemalige Along. Stadt Ukek, etc., Petersb. 1835; Gold. 
Horde; Ibn Bat. II. 414; Abul/eda, in Biisching, V. 365; Ann. Minomin, sub 
anno 1400 ; Petis de la Croix, II. 355, 383, 388 ; Hakluyt, ed. 1809, I. 375 and 472 ; 
Lepechin, Tagebuch der Reise, etc., I. 235-237 ; Rockhill, Rubntck, 120-121, note 2.) 

Note 5. — The great River Tigeri or Tigris is the Volga, as Pauthier rightly 
shows. It receives the same name from the Monk Pascal of Vittoria in 1338. 
(Cathay, p. 234.) Perhaps this arose out of some legend that the Tigris was a 
reappearance of the same river. The ecclesiastical historian, Nicephorus Callistus, 
appears to imply that the Tigris coming from Paradise flows under the Caspian to 
emerge in Kurdistan. (See IX. 19.) 

The "17 days" applies to one stretch of desert. The whole journey from Ukek 
Bokhara would take some 60 days at least. Ibn Batuta is 58 days from Sarai to 
Bokhara, and of the last section he says, "we entered the desert which extends 
between Khwarizm and Bokhara, and which has an extent of 18 days^ jounuy." 
(III. 19.) 



CHAPTER III. 



How THE Two Brothers, after crossing a desert, came to the 
City of Bocar.\, and fell in with certain Envoys i here. 

After they had passed the desert, they arrived at a 
very great and noble city called Bocara, the territory 
of which belonged to a king whose name was Barac, 



lO . MARCO POLO Prol. 

and is also called Bocara. The city is the best in all 
Persia.^ And when they had got thither, they found 
they could neither proceed further forward nor yet turn 
back again ; wherefore they abode in that city of Bocara 
for three years. And whilst they were sojourning in 
that city, there came from Alau, Lord of the Levant, 
Envoys on their way to the Court of the Great Kaan, 
the Lord of all the Tartars in the world. And when 
the Envoys beheld the Two Brothers they were amazed, 
for they had never before seen Latins in that part of 
the world. And they said to the Brothers: "Gentle- 
men, if ye will take our counsel, ye will find great 
honour and profit shall come thereof." So they replied 
that they would be right glad to learn how. "In 
truth," said the Envoys, "the Great Kaan hath never 
seen any Latins, and he hath a great desire so to do. 
Wherefore, if ye will keep us company to his Court, ye 
may depend upon it that he will be right glad to see 
you, and will treat you with great honour and liberality ; 
whilst in our company ye shall travel with perfect 
security, and need fear to be molested by nobody." ^ 



Note i. — Hayton also calls Bokhara a city of Persia, and I sec Vambery says 
that, up till the conquest by Chinghiz, Bokhara, Samarkand, Balkh, etc., were con- 
sidered to belong to Persia. {Travels, p. 377.)- The first Mongolian governor of 
Bokhara was Buka Bosha. 

King Barac is Borrak Khan, great-grandson of Cliagatai, and sovereign of the 
Ulus of Chagatai, from 1264 to 1270. The Polos, no doubt, reached Bokhara 
before 1264, but Borrak must have been sovereign some time before they left it. 

Note 2. — The language of the envoys seems rather to imply that they were 
the Great Kaan's own people returning from the Court of Hulaku. And Rashid 
mentions that Sartak, the Kaan's ambassador to ITulaku, returned from Persia in the 
year that the latter prince died. It may have been his party that the Venetians 
joined, for the year almost certainly was the same, viz. 1265. If so, another of the 
party was Bayan, afterwards the greatest of Kublai's captains, and much celebrated 
in the sequel of this book. (See Erdinanns Temttdschin, p. 214.) 

Marsden justly notes that Marco habitually speaks of Latins, never of Franks. 
Yet I suspect his own mental expression was Farangi. 



Chaps. IV., V. . THE COURT OF THE GREAT KAAN II 



CHAPTER IV. 

How THE Two Brothers took the Envoys' counsel, and went 
TO THE Court of the Great Kaan. 

So when the Two Brothers had made their arrangements, 
they set out on their travels, in company with the Envoys, 
and journeyed for a whole year, going northward and 
north-eastward, before they reached the Court of that 
Prince. And on their journey they saw many marvels of 
divers and sundry kinds, but of these we shall say nothing 
at present, because Messer Mark, who has likewise seen 
them all, will give you a full account of them in the Book 
which follows. 



CHAPTER V. 



How the Two Brothers arrived at the Court of the 
Great Kaan. 

When the Two Brothers got to the Great Kaan, he re- 
ceived them with great honour and hospitality, and showed 
much pleasure at their visit, asking them a great number 
of questions. First, he asked about the emperors, how 
they maintained their dignity, and administered justice in 
their dominions ; and how they went forth to battle, and 
so forth. And then he asked the like questions about the 
kings and princes and other potentates. 



12 MARCO POLO Prol. 



CHAPTER VI. 

How THE Great Kaan asked all about the manners of the 
Christians, and particularly about the Pope of Rome. 

And then he inquired about the Pope and the Church, 
and about all that is done at Rome, and all the customs of 
the Latins. And the Two Brothers told him the truth in 
all its particulars, with order and good sense, like sensible 
men as they were ; and this they were able to do as they 
knew the Tartar language well.^ 



Note i. — The word generally used for Pope in the original is Apostoille 
{Aposlolicus), the usual French expression of that age. 

It is remarkable that for the most part the text edited by Pauthier has the 
correcter Oriental form Tatar, instead of the usual Tartar, Tattar is the word used 
by Yvo of Narbonne, in the curious letter given by Matthew Paris under 1243. 

We are often told that Tai-tar is a vulgar European error. It is in any case a 
very old one ; nor does it seem to be of European origin, but rather Armenian ; * 
tliough the suggestion of Tartarus may have given it readier currency in Europe. 
Russian writers, or rather writers who have been in Russia, sometimes try to force on 
us a specific limitation of the word Tartar to a certain class of Oriental Turkish race, 
to whom the Russians appropriate the name. But there is no just ground for this. 
Tatar is used by Oriental writers of Polo's age exactly as Tartar was then, and is 
still, used in Western Europe, as a generic title for the Turanian hosts who followed 
Chinghiz and his successors. But I believe the name in this sense was unknown to 
Western Asia before the time of Chinghiz. And General Cunningham must over- 
look this when he connects the Tdtariya coins, mentioned by Arab geographers of 
the 9th century, with "the Scythic or Tatar princes who ruled in Kabul" in the 
beginning of our era. Tartars on the Indian frontier in those centuries are surely 
to be classed with the Frenchmen whom Brennus led to Rome, or the Scotchmen 
who fought against Agricola. 



tee/. As. s<;i. V. torn. xi. p. 20^. 



Chap. VII. CUBLAY'S EMBASSY TO THE POPE I^ 



CHAPTER VII. 

How THE Great Kaan sent the Two Brothers as his Envoys to 

THE Pope. 

When that Prince, whose name was Cublay Kaan, Lord 
of the Tartars all over the earth, and of all the kingdoms 
and provinces and territories of that vast quarter of the 
world, had heard all that the Brothers had to tell him 
about the ways of the Latins, he was greatly pleased, 
and he took it into his head that he would send them 
on an Embassy to the Pope. So he urgently desired 
them to undertake this mission along with one of his 
Barons ; and they replied that they would gladly exe- 
cute all his commands as those of their Sovereign Lord. 
Then the Prince sent to summon to his presence one of 
his Barons whose name was Cogatal, and desired him 
to get ready, for it was proposed to send him to the 
Pope along with the Two Brothers. The Baron replied 
that he would execute the Lord's commands to the best 
of his ability. 

After this the Prince caused letters from himself to the 
Pope to be indited in the Tartar tongue,^ and committed 
them to the Two Brothers and to that Baron of his own, 
and charged them with what he wished them to say to 
the Pope. Now the contents of the letter were to this 
purport : He begged that the Pope would send as many as 
an hundred persons of our Christian faith ; intelligent men, 
acquainted with the Seven Arts,^ well qualified to enter 
into controversy, and able clearly to prove by force of 
argument to idolaters and other kinds of folk, that the 
Law of Christ was best, and that all other religions were 
false and naught ; and that if they would prove this, he 
and all under him would become Christians and the 



14 MARCO POLO Prol. 

Church's liegemen. Finally he charged his Envoys to 
bring back to him some Oil of the Lamp which burns on 
the Sepulchre of our Lord at Jerusalem.^ 



NoTB I. — •- The appearance of the Great Kaan's letter may be illustrated by two 
letters on so-called Corean paper preserved in the French archives ; one from 
Arghun Khan of Persia (1289), brought by Buscarel, and the other from his son 
Oljaitu (May, 1305), to Philip the Fair. These are both in the Mongol language, and 
according to Abel Remusat and other authorities, in the Uighiir character, the parent 
of the present Mongol writing. Facsimiles of the letters are given in Remusat's 
paper on intercourse with Mongol Princes, in Mini, de VAcad. des Inscript. vols. vii. 
and viii., reproductions in J. B Chabot's Hist, de Afar Jabalaha III., Paris, 1895, 
and preferably in Prince Roland Bonaparte's beautiful Documents Alotjgois, PI. XIV., 
and we give samples of the two in vol. ii.* 

Note 2.- — -"The Seven Arts," from a date reaching back nearly to classical times, 
and down through the Middle Ages, expressed the whole circle of a liberal education, 
and it is to these Seven Arts that the degrees in arts were understood to apply. 
They were divided into the Triviiim of Rhetoric, Logic, and Grammar, and the 
Qiiadrivium o{ K.x\\!mat\\c, Astronomy, Music, and Geometry. The 38th epistle of 
Seneca was in many MSS. (according to Lipsius) entitled "Z. Annaei Senecae Liber 
de Septem Artibus liberalibiis." I do not find, however, that Seneca there mentions 
categorically more than five, viz., Grammar, Geometry, Music, Astronomy, and 
Arithmetic. Li the 5th century we find the Seven Arts to form the successive 
subjects of the last seven books of the work of Martianus Capella, much used in the 
schools during the early Middle Ages. The Seven Arts will be found enumerated in 
the verses of Tzetzes {Chil. XI. 525), and allusions to them in the mediaeval 
romances are endless. Thus, in one of the " Gestes d'Alexandre," a chapter is 
headed " Coimnent Aristotle aprent a Alixandre les Sept Arts." In the tale of the 
Seven Wise Masters, Diocletian selects that number of tutors for his son, each to 
instruct him in one of the Seven Arts. In the romance of Erec and Efteide we have 
a dress on which the fairies had portrayed the Seven Arts {Franc. Michel, Kecherches, 
etc. II. 82) ; in the Koinafi de Mahonviiet the young impostor is master of all the 
seven. There is one mediaeval poem called the Mai-riage of the Seven Arts, and 
another called the Battle of the Seven Arts. (See also Dante, Convito, Trat. II. c. 
14 ; Not. et Ex. V,, 491 setjq.) 

Note 3. — The Chinghizide Princes were eminently liberal^or indifferent — in 
religion ; and even after they became Mahomedan, which, however, the Eastern 
branch never did, they were rarely and only by brief fits persecutors. Hence there 
was scarcely one of the non-Mahomedan Khans of whose conversion to Christianity 
there were not stories spread. The first rumours of Chinghiz in the West were as of 
a Christian conqueror ; tales may l)e found of the Christianity of Chagatai, Hulaku, 
Abaka, Arghun, Baidu, Ghazan, Sartak, Kuyuk, Mangu, Kublai, and one or two of 
the latter's successors in China, all pro[)ably false, with one or two doubtful 
exceptions. 

* See plates with gjj. xvij. of Hk. IV. See also the Uighi'ir character in the second Patza, 
Pk. n. ch. vii. 



Chap. VIII. 



THE GOLDEN TABLET 



15 




The Great Kaan delivering a Golden Tablet to the Brothers. From a miniature of the 14th century. 



CHAPTER VIII. 

How THE Great Kaan gave them a Tablet of Gold, bearing his 

ORDERS IN their BEHALF. 



When the Prince had charged them with all his commis- 
sion, he caused to be given them a Tablet of Gold, on 
which was inscribed that the three Ambassadors should 
be supplied with everything needful in all the countries 
through which they should pass — with horses, with escorts, 
and, in short, with whatever they should require. And 
when they had made all needful preparations, the three 
Ambassadors took their leave of the Emperor and set 
out. 

When they had travelled I know not how many days, 
the Tartar Baron fell sick, so that he could not ride, and 
being very ill, and unable to proceed further, he halted at 
a certain city. So the Two Brothers judged it best that 
they should leave him behind and proceed to carry out 
their commission ; and, as he was well content that they 



i6 



MARCO POLO 



Prol. 



should do so, they continued their journey. And I can 
assure you, that whithersoever they went they were 
honourably provided with whatever they stood in need 
of, or chose to command. And this was owing to that 
Tablet of Authority from the Lord which they carried 
with them.^ 

So they travelled on and on until they arrived at Layas 
in Hermenia, a journey which occupied them, I assure you, 
for three years. •^ It took them so long because they could 
not always proceed, being stopped sometimes by snow, or 
by heavy rains falling, or by great torrents which they 
found in an impassable state. 



Note i. — On these Tablets, see a note under Bk. II. ch. vii. 

Note 2. — Ayas, called also Ayacio, Aiazzo, Giazza, (jlaza, La Jazza, and Layas, 
occupied the site of ancient Aegae, and was the chief port of Cilician Armenia, on the 
Gulf of Scanderoon. Aegae had been in the 5th century a place of trade with the 
West, and the seat of a bishopric, as we learn from the romantic but incomplete 




Caslle of Ayas, 



Chap. IX. THE BROTHERS RETURNING REACH ACRE 17 

story of Mary, the noble slave-girl, told by Gibbon (ch. 33). As Ayas it became in the 
latter part of the 13th century one of the chief places for the shipment of Asiatic wares 
arriving through Tabriz, and was much frequented by the vessels of the Italian 
Republics. The Venetians had a Bailo resident there. 
Ayas is the Leyes of Chaucer's Knight, — 

(" At Leyes was he and at Satalie") — 

and the Layas of Froissart. (Bk. III. ch. xxii.) The Gulf of Layas is described in the 
xix. Canto of Ariosto, where Mafisa and Astolfo find on its shores a country of 
barbarous Amazons : — 

" Fatto e '1 porto a sembranza d' una luna," etc. 

Marino Sanuto says of it : " Laiacio has a haven, and a shoal in front of it that we 
might rather call a reef, and to this shoal the hawsers of vessels are moored whilst the 
anchors are laid out towards the land." (II. IV. ch. xxvi. ) 

The present Ayas is a wretched village of some 15 huts, occupied by about 600 
Turkmans, and standing inside the ruined walls of the castle. This castle, which is 
still in good condition, was built by the Armenian kings, and restored by Sultan 
Suleiman ; it was constructed from the remains of the ancient city ; fragments of old 
columns are embedded in its walls of cut stone. It formerly communicated by a 
causeway with an advanced work on an island before the harbour. The ruins of the 
city occupy a large space. (Langlois, V. en Cilicie, pp. 429-31 ; see also Beaiiforfs 
Karamania, near the end.) A plan of Ayas will be found at the b^inning of Bk. I. 
— H. Y. and H. C. 



CHAPTER IX. 

How THE Two Brothers came to the city of Acre. 

They departed from Layas and came to Acre, arriving 

there in the month of April, in the year of Christ 1269, 

and then they learned that the Pope was dead. And when 

they found that the Pope was dead (his name was Pope 

* *),^ they went to a certain wise Churchman who was 

Legate for the whole kingdom of Egypt, and a man of 

great authority, by name Theobald of Piacenza, and 

told him of the mission on which they were come. When 

the Legate heard their story, he was greatly surprised, and 

deemed the thing to be of great honour and advantage 

for the whole of Christendom. So his answer to the two 

Ambassador Brothers was this : " Gentlemen, ye see that 
VOL. 1. R 



i8 



MARCO POLO 



PROL 



the Pope is dead ; wherefore ye must needs have patience 
until a new Pope be made, and then shall ye be able to 
execute your charge." Seeing well enough that what the 
Legate said was just, they observed : " But while the 
Pope is a-making, we may as well go to Venice and visit 
our households." So they departed from Acre and went 

ClVirASAcONSIVE PTQLOMAYDA. 



/kCURSEOToWER 




^CRE AS /T WAS WH£IV LOST ( A .D . \29\) . 
FROM THE PLAN GIVEN BY 

MARINO SANUTO. 

to Negropont, and from Negropont they continued their 
voyage to Venice." On their arrival there, Messer 
Nicolas found that his wife was dead, and that she 
had left behind her a son of fifteen years of age, whose 
name was Makco ; and 'tis of him that this Book tells.^ 
The Two Brothers abode at Venice a couple of years, 
tarrying until a Pope should be made. 



Note i. — The deceased Pope's nam-e is omitted both in the Geog. Text and in 
Pauthier's, clearly because neither Rusticiano nor Polo remembered it. It is supplied 
correctly in the Crusca Italian as Clement, and in Ramusio as Clement IV. 

It is not clear that llicohald, though generally adopted, is the ecclesiastic's proper 
name. It appears in different MSS. as Tea Id (d. T.), Ceabo for Teaho (P.aulhier), 
Odoaldo (Crusca), and in the Riccardian as Thehaldus de Vice-comililnis de Placeitiia, 



Chap. X. SECOND DEPARTURE FROM VENICE 1 9 

which corresponds to Kamusio's version. Most of the ecclesiastical clironiclers call 
him Tedaldus, some Thealdus. Tedaldo is a real name, occurring in Boccaccio. (Day 
iii. Novel 7.) 

Note 2. — After the expulsion of the Venetians from Constantinople, Negropont 
was the centre of their influence in Romania. On the final return of the travellers 
they again take Negropont on their way. [It was one of the ports on the route from 
Venice to Constantinople, Tana, Trebizond. — H. C] 

Note 3. — The edition of the Soc. de Geographie makes Mark's age twelve, but I 
have verified from inspection the fact noticed by Pauthier that the manuscript has 
distinctly xv. like all the other old texts. In Ramusio it is nineteen, but this is doubt- 
less an arbitrary correction to suit the mistaken date (1250) assigned for the departure 
of the father from Constantinople. 

There is nothing in the old French texts to justify the usual statement that Marco 
was born after the departure of his father from Venice. All that the G. T. says is : 
" Meser Nicolau treuve que sa fame estoit morte, et les remes un filz de xv. anz que 
avoit k nom Marc," and Pauthier's text is to the same effect. Ramusio, indeed, has :. 
" M. Nicolo trovo, che sua mc^lie era morta, la quale nella sua partita have^•a partorito 
un figliuolo," and the other versions that are based on Pipino's seem all to have like 
statements. 



CHAPTER X. 



How THE Two Brothers again departed from Venice, on their 

WAY BACK to THE GrEAT KaAN, AND TOOK WITH THEM MaRK, 
THE SON OF MeSSER NiCOLAS. 

When the Two Brothers had tarried as lon^as I have told 
you, and saw that never a Pope was made, they said that 
their return to the Great Kaan must be put ofif no longer. 
So they set out from Venice, taking Mark along with 
them, and went straight back to Acre, where they found 
the Legate of whom we have spoken. They had a good 
deal of discourse with him concerning the matter, and 
asked his permission to go to Jerusalem to get some Oil 
from the Lamp on the Sepulchre, to carry with them to the 
Great Kaan, as he had enjoined.^ The Leoate orivine 
them leave, they went from Acre to Jerusalem and got 
some of the Oil and then returned to Acre, and went to 
the Legate and said to him : " As we see no siorn of a 



VOL. L 



20 MARCO POLO Prol. 

Pope's being made, we desire to return to the Great 
Kaan ; for we have already tarried long, and there has 
been more than enough delay." To which the Legate 
replied : " Since 'tis your wish to go back, I am well con- 
tent." Wherefore he caused letters to be written for 
delivery to the Great Kaan, bearing testimony that the 
Two Brothers had come in all good faith to accomplish 
his charge, but that as there was no Pope they had been 
unable to do so. 



Note i. — In a Pilgrimage of date apparently earlier than this, the Pilgrim says of 
the Sepulchre : " The Lamp which had been placed by His head (when He lay there) 
still burns on the same spot day and night. We took a blessing from it {i.e. ap- 
parently took some of the oil as a beneficent memorial), and replaced it." {Itineraritiin 
Antonini Placentini in BoUandists, Ma}', vol. ii. p. xx. ) 

["Five great oil lamps," says Daniel, the Russian Hegoumene, 1106-1107 
{Itiniraires russes en Orient, trad, pour la Soc. de I'Orient l^atin, par Mme. B. de 
Khitrowo, Geneva, 1889, p. 13), " burning continually night and day, are hung in the 
Sepulchre of Our Lord."— H. C] 



CHAPTER XI. 



How THE Two Brothers set out from Acre, and Mark along 

WITH THEM. 

When the Two Brothers had received the Legate's 
letters, they set forth from Acre to return to the Grand 
Kaan, and got as far as Layas. But shortly after their 
arrival there they had news that the Legate aforesaid was 
chosen Pope, taking the name of Pope Gregory of 
Piacenza ; news which the Two Brothers were very glad 
indeed to hear. And presently there reached them at 
Layas a message from the Legate, now the Pope, desiring 
them, on the part of the Apostolic See, not to proceed 
further on their journey, but to return to him inconti- 
nently. And what shall I tell you? The King of 



Chap. XI. DEPARTURE FROM ACRE WITH MARK 



21 



Hermenia caused a galley to be got ready for the Two 
Ambassador Brothers, and despatched them to the Pope 
at Acre.^ 



Note i.— The tiealh of Tope Clement IV, occurred on St Andrew's Day (29th 
November), 1268 ; the electioa of Tedaldo or Tebaldo of Piacenza, a member of the 
Visconti family, and Archdeacon of Liege, did not take place till ist September, 1271, 
owing to the factions among the 



cardinals. And it is said that 
some of them, anxious only to 
get away, voted for Theobald 
in full belief that he was dead. 
The conclave, in its inability 
to agree, had named a com- 
mittee of six with full powers 
which the same day elected 
Theoljald, on the recommenda- 
tion of the Cardinal Bishop of 
Portus (John de Toleto, said, in 
spite of his name, to have been 
an Englishman). This facetious 
dignitary had su^ested that the 
roof should be taken off the 
Palace at Viterbo where they 
sat, to allow the divine influences 
to descend more freely on their 
counsels {</uia mt/twuut ad ttos 
per tot tecta ingredi). According 
to some, these doggerel verses, 
current on the occasion, were 
extemporised by Cardinal John 
in the pious exuberance of his 
glee:— 




Portrait of Pope Gregory- X. 



" Papatus munus tulit Archidiaconus unus 
Quem Patrem Patrum fecit discordia Fratrum. 



The Archdeacon, a man of great weight of character, in consequence of differences 
with his Bishop (of Liege), who was a disorderly liver, had gone to the Holy Land, 
and during his stay there he contracted great intimacy with Prince Edward of 
England (Edward I.). Some authors, e.g. John Villani (VIII. 39), say that he was 
L^ate in SjTia ; others, as Rainaldus, deny this ; but Polo's statement, and the 
authority which the Archdeacon took on himself in writing to the Kaan, seem to 
show that he had some such position. 

He took the name of Gregory' X., and lefore his departure from Acre, preached a 
moving sermon on the text, " If I forget thee, O Jeritsakin,''^ etc. Prince Edward 
fitted him out for his voyage. 

Gregory reigned barely four years, dying at Arezzo loth January, 1276. His 
character stood high to the last, and some of the Northern Martyrologies enrolled Lim 
among the saints, but there has never been canonisation by Rome. The people of 
Arezzo used to celebrate his anniversary with torch-light gatherings at his tomb, and 
plenty of miracles were alleged to have occurred there. The tomb still stands in the 



2 2 MARCO POLO Frol. 

Duonio at Arczzo, a handsome work by Maryaritone, an artist in all branches, who 
was the Pope's contemporary. There is an engraving of it in Goimelli, Mon. Sepolc. 
di Toscana. 

{Fra Pipino in Miiraiori, IX. 700 ; Rainaldi Annal. III. 252 seqq. ; Wadding, 
sub. an. 1217 : Bollandisls, loth January; Falatii, Gesia Pontif. Roiiiatt. vol. iii., and 
Fasti Car dinalmin, I. 463, etc.) 



CHAPTER XII. 



How THE Two Brothers presented themselves before the 

NEW Pope. 

And when they had been thus honourably conducted to 
Acre they proceeded to the presence of the Pope, and 
paid their respects to him with humble reverence. He 
received them with great honour and satisfaction, and 
gave them his blessing. He then appointed two Friars of 
the Order of Preachers to accompany them to the Great 
Kaan, and to do whatever might be required of them. 
These were unquestionably as learned Churchmen as were 
to be found in the Province at that day — one being called 
Friar Nicolas of Vicenza, and the other Friar William of 
Tripoli.^ He delivered to them also proper credentials, 
and letters in reply to the Great Kaan's messages [and 
gave them authority to ordain priests and bishops, and to 
bestow every kind of absolution, as if given by himself 
in proper person ; sending by them also many fine vfessels 
of crystal as presents to the Great Kaan].^ So when 
they had got all that was needful, they took leave of the 
Pope, receiving his benediction ; and the four set out 
together from Acre, and went to Layas, accompanied 
always by Messer Nicolas's son Marco. 

Now, about the time that they reached Layas, Ben- 
docquedar, the Soldan of Babylon, invaded Hermenia 
with a great host of Saracens, and ravaged the country, 



Chai>. XII. BUNDCKDAR^S INVASION OF ARMENIA 23 

SO that our Envoys ran a great peril of being taken or 
slain.^ And when the Preaching Friars saw this they 
were greatly frightened, and said that go they never 
would. So they made over to Messer Nicolas and 
Messer Maffeo all their credentials and documents, and 
took their leave, departing in company with the Master 
of the Temple.* 

Note i. — Friar William, of Tripoli, of the Dominican convent at Acre, appears 
to have ser\'ed there as early as 1250. [lie was bom circa 1220, at Tripoli, in 
Syria, whence his name. — H. C] He is known as the author of a book, De Siaiu 
Saracenorum post Ludoz'ici Regis dc Syrid reditittii, dedicated to Theoldus, 
Archdeacon of Liege (/.<;. Pope Gregory). Of this some extracts are printed in 
Duchesne's Hist. Franconiin Scriptoies. There are two MSS. of it, with different 
titles, in the Paris Library, and a French version in that of Berne. A MS. in 
Cambridge Univ. Library, which contains among other things a copy of Pipino's 
Polo, has also the work of Friar William : — " WiUelmtis Tripolitamis, Aconensis 
Conventus, de Egressii Machometi et Saracenorum, atqtie progressu eorumdem, de Statu 
Saraceiwrum ,'' etc. It is imperfect ; it is addressed Theobai.do EccUsiarcho digno 
Sancte Terre Peregriito Sancto. And from a cursory inspection I imagine that the 
Tract appended to one of the Polo MSS. in the British Museum (Addl. MSS., 
No. 19,952) is the same work or part of it. To the same author is ascribed a tract 
called Clades Daniiatae. {Duchesne, V. 432 ; D Avezac in Rec. de Voyages, IV. 406 ; 
QuMf, Script. Ord. Praed. I. 264-5 '■> Catal. of MSS. in Camb. Univ. Library, I. 22.) 

Note 2. — I presume that the powers, stated in this passage from Ramusio to have 
been conferred on the Friars, are exaggerated. In letters of authority granted in 
like cases by Pope Gregory's successors, Nicolas III. (in 1278) and Boniface VIII. 
(in 1299), the missionary friars to remote regions are empowered to absolve from ex- 
communication and release from vows, to settle matrimonial questions, to found 
churches and appoint idoneos rectores, to authorise Oriental clergy who should 
publicly submit to the Apostolic See to enjoy the privilegium clericale, whilst in the 
absence of bishops those among the missionaries who were priests might consecrate 
cemeteries, altars, palls, etc., admit to the Order of Acolytes, but nothing beyond. 
(See Mosheim, Hist. Tartar. Eccles. App. Nos. 23 and 42.) 

Note 3. — The statement here about Bundukdar's invasion of Cilician Armenia is 
a difficulty. He had invaded it in 1266, and his second devastating invasion, during 
which he burnt both Layas and Sis, the king's residence, took place in 1275, a point 
on which Marino Sanuto is at one with the Oriental Historians. Now we know from 
Rainaldus that Pope Gregory left Acre in November or December, 1271, and the text 
appears to imply that our travellers left Acre before him. The utmost corroboration 
that I can find lies in the following facts stated by Makrizi : — 

On the I3ih Safar, A.H. 670 (20th September 1271), Bundukdar arrived unex- 
pectedly at Damascus, and after a brief raid against the Ismaelians he returned to that 
city. In the middle of Rabi I. (about 20-25 October) the Tartars made an incursion 
in northern Syria, and the troops of Aleppo retired towards Hamah. There was 
great alarm at Damascus ; the Sultan sent orders to Cairo for reinforcements, and 
these arrived at Damascus on the 9th November. The Sultan then advanced 
on Aleppo, sending corps likewise towards Marash (which was within the 
Armenian frontier) and Harran. At the latter place the Tartars were attacked 
and those in the town slaughtered ; the rest retreated. The Sultan was back at 



24 MARCO rOLO Prol. 

Damascus, and off on a different expedition, by 7th December. Hence, if the 
travellers arrived at Ayas towards the latter part of November they would probably 
find alarm existing at the advance of Bundiikdar, though matters did not turn out so 
serious as they imply. 

"Babylon," of which Bundukdar is here styled Sultan, means Cairo, commonly so 
styled {Bambellonia d'Egitlo) in that age. Babylon of Egypt is mentioned by 
Diodorus quoting Ctesias, by Strabo, and by Ptolemy; it was the station of a 
Roman Legion in the days of Augustus, and still survives in the name oi Babul, close 
to old Cairo. 

Malik Dahir Ruknuddfn Bfbars Bundiikdavi, a native of Kipchak, was originally 
sold at Damascus for 800 dirhems (about 18/.), and returned by his purchaser because 
of a blemish. He was then bought by the Amir Alauddm Aidekin Bimdiikddr (" The 
Arblasteer") whose surname he afterwards adopted. He became the fourth. of the 
Mameluke Sultans, and reigned from 1259 to 1276. The two great objects of his 
life were the repression of the Tartars and the expulsion of the Christians from Syria, 
so that his reign was one of constant war and enormous activity. William of Tripoli, 
in the work above mentioned, says : ' ' Bondogar, as a soldier, was not inferior to 
Julius Caesar, nor in malignity to Nero." He admits, however, that the Sultan was 
sober, chaste, just to his own people, and even kind to his Christian subjects ; whilst 
Makrizi calls him one of the best princes that ever reigned over Musulmans. Yet if 
we take Bibars as painted by this admiring historian and by other Arabic documents, 
the second of Friar William's comparisons is justified, for he seems almost a devil in 
malignity as well as in activity.* More than once he played tennis at Damascus and 
Cairo within the same week. A strange sample of the man is the letter which he 
wrote to Boemond, Prince of Antioch and Tripoli, to announce to him the capture of the 
former city. After an ironically polite address to Boemond as having by the loss of 
his great city had his title changed from Princeship {Al-Brensiyah) to Countship 
{Al-Komastyah), avid describing his own devastations round Tripoli, he comes to the 
attack of Antioch : " We carried the place, sword in hand, at the 4th hour of Saturday, 
the 4th day of Ramadhan, .... Hadst thou but seen thy Knights trodden under the 
hoofs of the horses ! thy palaces invaded by plunderers and ransacked for booty ! thy 
treasures weighed out by the hundredweight ! thy ladies {Ddmdtaka, * tes Damks ') 
bought and sold with thine own gcar^ at four for a dinar ! hadst thou but seen thy 
churches demolished, thy crosses sawn in sunder, thy garbled Gospels hawked about 
before the sun, the tombs of thy nobles cast to the ground ; thy foe the Moslem 
treading thy Holy of the Holies ; the monk, the priest, the deacon slaughtered on the 
Altar; the rich given up to misery; princes of royal blood reduced to slavery! 
Couldst thou but have seen the flames devouring thy halls ; thy dead cast into the fires 
temporal with the fires eternal hard at hand ; the churches of Paul and of Cosmas 

rocking and going down , then wouldst thou have said, ' Would God that I were 

dust !'.... As not a man hath escaped to tell thee the tale, I tell it thee ! " 

A little later, when a mission went to treat with Boemond, Bibars himself accom- 
panied it in disguise, to have a look at the defences of Tripoli. In drawing out the 
terms, the Envoys styled Boemond Count, not Prmce, as in the letter just quoted. 
Pie lost patience at their persistence, and made a movement which alarmed them. 
Bibars nudged the Envoy Mohiuddin (who tells the story) with his foot to give up the 
point, and the treaty was made. On their way back the Sultan laughed heartily at 
their narrow escape, " sending to the devil all the counts and princes on the face of 
the earth." 

{Qiiatrem^re's Makrizi, II. 92-101, and 190 seqq.; J, As. ser. I. tom. xi. p. 89; 
D'Ohsson, HI. 459-474; Marino Sanuto in Bongars, 224-226, etc.) 

Note 4. — The ruling Master of the Temple was Thomas Berard (1256-1273), but 
there is little detail about the Order in the East at this time. They had, however, 
considerable possessions and great influence in Cilician Armenia, and how much they 
were mixed up in its affairs is shown by a circumstance related by Makrizi. In 1285, 



CHA1-. XIII. TRAVELLING TO THE GREAT KAANS COURT 25 

when Sultan Mansur, the successor of Bundiikdar, was besi^;ing the Castle of Markab, 
there arrived in Camp the Commander of the Temple {Kama7tdiir-ul Dewet) of the 
Country of Armenia, charged to negotiate on the part of the King of Sis (i.e. of 
Lesser Armenia, Leon III. 1268-1289, successor of Hayton I. 1224-1268), and 
bringing presents from him and from the Master of the Temple, Berard's successor, 
William de Beaujeu (1273-1291). (III. 201.) — H. Y. and H. C. 



CHAPTER XIII. 



How Messer Nicolo and Messer Maffeo Polo, accompanied by 
Mark, tr.welled to the Court of the Gre.\t Kaan. 

So the Two Brothers, and Mark along with them, pro- 
ceeded on their way, and journeying on, summer and 
winter, came at length to the Great Kaan, who was then 
at a certain rich and great city, called Kemenfu.^ As to 
what they met with on the road, whether in going or 
coming, we shall give no particulars at present, because 
we are going to tell you all those details in regular order 
in the after part of this Book. Their journey back to 
the Kaan occupied a good three years and a half, owing 
to the bad weather and severe cold that they encountered. 
And let me tell vou in orood sooth that when the Great 
Kaan heard that Messers Nicolo and Maffeo Polo were 
on their way back, he sent people a journey of full 40 
days to meet them ; and on this journey, as on their 
former one, they were honourably entertained upon the 
road, and supplied with all that they required. 



Note i. — The French texts read Clemeinfu, Ramusio Clemenfu. ThePucciMS. 
guides us to the correct reading, having Chemeusti {Kemensu) for Clumenfu. 
Kaipingfu, meaning something like '* City of Peace," and called by Rashiduddin 
Kaiminfu (whereby we see that Polo as usual adopted the Persian form of the name), 
was a city founded in 1256, four years before Kublai's accession, some distance to the 
north of the Chinese wall. It became Kublai's favourite summer residence, and was 
styled from 126^ Shangtu or "Upper Court." (See infra, Bk. I. ch. L\i.) It was 
known to the Mongols, apparently by a combination of the two names, as Shangdu 
Keibmig. It appears in D'Anville's map under the name of Djao-Naiman Sum/. 



26 MARCO POLO Prol. 

Dr. Bushell, who visited Shangtu in 1S72, makes it 1103 H (367 miles) by road 
distance vid Kalgan from Peking. The busy town of Dolonniir lies 26 miles S.E. of 
it, and according to Kiepert's Asia that place is about 180 miles in a direct line north 
of Peking. 

{Stt Klaprofk in/. As. XI. 365 ; Ganhil, p. 115; Cathay, p. 260;/. R. G. S. 
vol, xliii.) 



CHAPTER XIV. 



How Messer Nicolo and Messer Maffeo Polo and Marco 

PRESENTED THEMSELVES BEFORE THE GrEAT KaAN. 

And what shall I tell you? when the Two Brothers and 
Mark had arrived at that great city, they went to the 
Imperial Palace, and there they found the Sovereign 
attended by a great company of Barons. So they bent 
the knee before him, and paid their respects to him, with 
all possible reverence [prostrating themselves on the 
ground]. Then the Lord bade them stand up, and 
treated them with great honour, showing great pleasure 
at their coming, and asked many questions as to their 
welfare, and how they had sped. They replied that 
they had in verity sped well, seeing that they found 
the Kaan well and safe. Then they presented the 
credentials and letters which they had received from the 
Pope, which pleased him right well ; and after that 
they produced the Oil from the Sepulchre, and at that 
also he was very glad, for he set great store thereby. 
And next, spying Mark, who was then a young gallant,^ 
he asked who was that in their company ? " Sire," said 
his father, Messer Nicolo, "'tis my son and your 
liegeman."^ ** Welcome is he too," quoth the Emperor. 
And why should I make a long story ? There was 
great rejoicing at the Court because of their arrival ; and 
they met with attention and honour from everybody. 
So there they abode at the Court with the other Barons. 



Chap. XV. MARK SENT ON AN EMBASSY 27 

Note i. — '■' Joenue BachekrJ^ 

Note 2. — '■' Sire, il est mon fih et vostre homme." The last word in the sense 
which gives us the word Iwniage. Thus in the miracle play of Theophilus (13th 
century), the Devil says to Theophilus : — 

" Or joing 
Tes mains, et si de\"ien nus horn. 
Theoph. Vez ci que je vous faz Jionimage.' 

So infra (Bk. I. ch. xlvii.) Aung Khan is made to say of Chinghiz: "// est mon 
homes et mon serf." (See also Bk. II. ch. iv. note.) St. Lewis said of the peace he 
had made with Henry III. : " II m'est mout grant honneur en la paix que je foiz au 
Roy d'Angleterre pour ce qu'il est mon home, ce que n'estoit pas devant." And 
Joinville says with regard to the king, " Je ne voz faire point de serement, car je 
n'estoie pas son home " (being a vassal of Champagne). A famous Saturday Reviewer 
quotes the term applied to a lady : " Eddcva pitella homo Stigandi Archiepiscopi" 
( ThMtre Fraiicais au Moyen Age, p. 145 ; Joinville, pp. 21, 37 ; 5. ^., 6th September, 
1873, P- 305-) 



CHAPTER XV. 

How THE Emperor sent Mark on ax Embassy of his. 

Now it came to pass that Marco, the son of Messer 
Nicolo, sped wondrously in learning the customs of the 
Tartars, as well as their language, their manner of 
writing, and their practice of war ; in fact he came in 
brief space to know several languages, and four sundry 
written characters. And he was discreet and prudent 
in every way, insomuch that the Emperor held him in 
great esteem.^ And so when he discerned Mark to 
have so much sense, and to conduct himself so well 
and beseemingly, he sent him on an ambassage of his, to 
a country which was a good six months' journey distant." 
The young gallant executed his commission well and 
with discretion. Now he had taken note on several 
occasions that when the Prince's ambassadors returned 
from different parts of the world, they were able to tell 
him about nothing except the business on which they 



28 MARCO rOLO Prol. 

had gone, and that the Prince In consequence held them 
for no better than fools and dolts, and would say : " I 
had far liever hearken about the strangle thinors, and the 
manners of the different countries you have seen, than 
merely be told of the business you went upon ; " — for he 
took great delight in hearing of the affairs of strange 
countries. Mark therefore, as he went and returned, 
took great pains to learn about all kinds of different 
matters in the countries which he visited, in order to be 
able to tell about them to the Great Kaan.^ 



Note i. — The word Emperor stands liere for Sci^mciir. 

What the four characters acquired by Marco were is open to discussion. 

The Chronicle of the Mongol Emperois rendered by Gaubil mentions, as char- 
acters used in their Empire, the Ufghiir, the Persian and x\rabic, that of the Lamas 
(Tibetan), that of the Niuche, introduced by the Kin Dynasty, the Khitan, and the 
Bdshpah character, a syllabic alpha) )et arranged, on the basis of the Tibetan and 
Sanskrit letters chiefly, by a learned chief Lama so-called, under the orders of 
Kublai, and established by edict in 1269 as the official character. Coins bearing 
this character, and dating from 1308 to 1354, are extant. The forms of the Niuche 
and Khitan were devised in imitation of Chinese writing, but are supposed to be 
syllabic. Of the Khitan but one inscription was known, and no key. "The Khitan 
had two national scripts, the ' small characters ' {hsiao tzii) and the ' large characters ' 
(,ta izii)." S. W. Bushell, Insc. in ihejuchcii and Allied Scripts, Cong, des Orientalistes, 
Paris, 1897. — Die Sprache nnd Schrift der Juchen, von Dr W. Grube, Leipzig, 1896, 
from a polyglot MS. dictionary, discovered by Dr F. Ilirth and now kept in the Royal 
Library, Berlin.— IL Y. and H. C- 

Chinghiz and his first successors used the Uighiir, nnd sometimes the Chinese 
character. Of the Ui'ghiir character we give a specimen in Bk. IV. It is of Syriac 
origin, undoubtedly introduced into Eastern Turkestan by the early Nestorian mis- 
sions, probably in the 8th or 9th century. The oldest known example of this 
character so applied, the Kudatlnt Bilik, a didactic poem in Uighiir (a branch of 
Oriental Turkish), dating from a.d. 1069, was published by Prof. Vambery in 1870. 
A new edition of the Kzidatkn Bilik was published at St. Petersburg, in 1891, by Dr. 
W. Radloff. Vambery had a pleasing illustration of the origin of the Ufghiir char- 
acter, when he received a visit at Pesth from certain Nestorians of Urumia on a 
begging tour. On being shown the original MS. of the Kudatkii Bilik, they read 
the character easily, whilst much to their astonishment they could not understand a 
word of what was written. This Uighiir is the basis of the modern Mongol and 
Mancha characters. (Cf. E. Bretschneider, Mcdicrval Researches, I. pp. 236, 263.) 
— H. Y. and H. C. 

[At the village of Keuyung Kwan, 40 miles north of Peking, in the sub-prefecture 
of Ch'ang Ping, in the Chih-li province, the road from Peking to Kalgan runs beyond 
the pass of Nankau, under an archway, a view of which will be found at the end of 
this volume, on which were engraved, in 1345, two large inscriptions in six different 
languages : Sanskrit, Tibetan, Mongol, Bdshpah, Uighur, Chinese, and a language un- 
known till recently. Mr Wylie's kindness enabled Sir Henry Yule to present a specimen 
of this. (A much better facsimile of these inscriptions than Wylie's having since 
been published by Prince Roland Bonaparte in his valuable Kecueil des Documents de 



7^ 



Chap. XV. MONGOL LANGUAGES 29 

r Afoque Mo7igole, this latter is, by permission, here reproduced.) The Chinese and 
Mongol inscriptions have been translated by M. Ed. Chavannes ; the Tibetan by M. 
Sylvain Levi (/our. Asiat., Sept.- Oct. 1894, pp. 354-373) ; the Ui'ghur, by Prof. W. 
Radloflf (/^»rf. Nov. -Dec. 1894, pp. 546, 550) ; the Mongol by Prof. G. Huth. {Ibid. 
Mars-Avril 1895, pp. 351-360.) The sixth language was supposed by A. Wylie (J. 
R. A. S. vol. xvii. p. 331, and N.S., vol. v. p. 14) to be Neochih, Niuche, Niuchen 
or Juchen. M. Deveria has shown that the inscription is written in Si Hia, or the 
language of Tangut, and gave a facsimile of a stone stele (pet) in this language kept in 
the great Monastery of the Clouds (Ta Yun Ssu) at Liangchau in Kansuh, together 
with a translation of the Chinese text, engraved on the reverse side of the slab. M. 
Deveria thinks that this writing was borrowed by the Kings of Tangut from the one 
derived in 920 by the Khitans from the Chinese. {Siele Si-Hia de Leang-tchtmi. 
... /. As., 1898 ; Vdcriiure du royaumes de Si- Hia ou Tangout, par M. Deveria. 
. . . Ext. des Mem. . . . presentes a I'Ac. des. Ins. etB. Let. lere Ser. XL, 1898.) 
Dr. S. W. Bushell in two papers {Inscriptions in the Juchen and Allied Scripts, Actes 
du XI. Congris des Orient cdistes, Paris, 1897, 2nd. sect., pp. il, 35, and the ZTw Z&»a 
Dynasty of Tangut, their Money aiui their peculiar Script, J. China Br. R. A. S., 
XXX. N.S. No. 2, pp. 142, 160) has also made a special study of the same 
subject. The Si Hia writing was adopted by Yuan Ho in 1056, on which occasion 
he changed the title of his reign to Ta Ch'ing, i.e. "Great Good Fortune." Unfor- 
tunately, both the late AL Deveria and Dr. S. W. Bushell have deciphered but few 
of the Si Hia characters. — H. C] 

The orders of the Great Kaan are stated to have been published habitually in six 
languages, viz.. Mongol, Ufghiir, Arabic, Persian, Tangutan (Si-Hia), and Chinese. 
— H. Y. and H. C. 

Ghazan Khan of Persia is said to have understood Mongol, Arabic, Persian, 
something of Kashmiri, of Tibetan, of Chinese, and a little of the Frank tongue 
(probably French). 

The annals of the Ming Dynasty, which succeeded the Mongols in China, men- 
tion the establishment in the i ith moon of the 5lh year Yong-lo (1407) of the Sse yi 
kwan, a linguistic office for diplomatic purposes. The languages to be studied were 
Niuche, Mongol, Tibetan, Sanskrit, Bokharan (Persian?) Ufghiir, Burmese, and 
Siamese. To these were added by the Manchu Dynasty two languages called Papeh 
and Pehyih, both dialects of the S.W. frontier. (See infra, Bk. IL ch. Ivi.-hii., and 
notes.) Since 1382, however, official interpreters had to translate Mongol texts ; they 
were selected among the Academicians, and their service (which was independent of 
the Sse yi kwan when this w as created) was under the control of the Han-lin-ytun. 
There may have been similar institutions under the Yuen, but we have no proof of it. 
At all events, such an office could not then be called Sse yi kwan {Sse yi. Barbarians 
from four sides) ; Niuche (Niuchen) was taught in Yong-lo's office, but not Manchu. 
The Sse yi kwan must not be confounded w ith the Hui t'ong kwan, the office for the 
reception of tributary envoys, to which it was annexed in 1748. (Gaubil, p. 148 ; 
Gold. Horde, 184 ; Jlchan. 11. 147 ; Lockhart in/. R. G. S. XXXVI. 152 ; Koefpen, 
II. 99 ; G. Deveria, Hist, du College des Interpiites de Peking in Melanges Charles 
de Harlez, pp. 94-102; M.S. Note of Prof. A. Vissiere ; The Tangut Script in the 
Nan-ICou Pass, by Dr. S. W. Bushell, Chitta Re7ne%v, xxiv. IL pp. 65-68.) — H. Y. 
and II. C. 

Pauthier supposes Mark's four acquisitions to have been Bdshpah-Mongol, Arabic, 
Uighur, and Chinese. I entirely reject the Chinese. Sir H. Yule adds : " We 
shall see no reason to believe that he knew either language or character " [Chinese]. 
The blunders Polo made in saj-ing that the name of the city, Suju, signifies in our 
tongue "Earth" and Kinsay "Heaven" show he did not know the Chinese char- 
acters, but we read in Bk. II. ch. Ixviii. : "And Messer Marco Polo himself, of 
whom this Book speaks, did govern this city (Vanju) for three full years, by the order 
of the Great Kaan." It seems to me [II. C] hardly possible that Marco could have for 
tliree years been governor of so important and so Chinese a city as Yangchau, in the 



30 MARCO POLO Pkoi.. 

heart of the Empire, without acquiring a knowledge of the spoken language. — H. C. 
The other three languages seem highly probable. The fourth may have been Tibetan. 
But it is more likely that he counted separately two varieties of the same character {e.g. 
of the Arabic and Persian) as two " lettres de leur escrtpiures." — H. Y. and H. C. 

Note 2. — [Ramusio here adds : " Ad und citta, delta Carazan," which, as we shall 
see, refers to the Yun-nan Province.] — H. C. 

Note 3. — From the context no doubt Marco's employments were honourable and 
confidential ; but Commissioner would perhaps better express them than Ambassador 
in the modern sense. The word llchi, which was probably in his mind, was applied 
to a large variety of classes employed on the commissions of Government, as we may- 
see from a passage of Rashiduddin in D'Ohsson, which says that " there were always 
to be found in every city from one to two hundred llchis, who forced the citizens to 
furnish them with free quarters," etc.. III. 404. (See also 485.) 



CHAPTER XVI. 



How Mark returned from the Mission whereon he had 

BEEN SENT. 

When Mark returned from his ambassage he presented 
himself before the Emperor, and after making his report 
of the business with which he was charged, and its 
successful accomplishment, he: went on to give an 
account in a pleasant and intelligent manner of all the 
novelties and strange things that he had seen . and 
heard ; insomuch that the Emperor and all such as 
heard his story were surprised, and said: "If this 
young man live, he will assuredly come to be a person 
of great worth and ability." And so from that time 
forward he was always entitled Messer Marco Polo, 
and thus we shall style him henceforth in this Book of 
ours, as is but right. 

Thereafter Messer Marco abode in the Kaan's employ- 
ment some seventeen years, continually going and coming, 
hither and thither, on the missions that were entrusted 
to him by the Lord [and sometimes, with the permission 
and authority of the Great Kaan, on his own private 
affairs.] And, as he knew all the sovereign's ways, 




•?« 



"^ 



Chap. XVII. MARCO GROWS IX FAVOUR 3 1 

like a sensible man he always took much pains to 
gather knowledge of anything that would be likely to 
interest him, and then on his return to Court he would 
relate everything in regular order, and thus the Emperor 
came to hold him in great love and favour. And for 
this reason also he would employ him the oftener on 
the most weighty and most distant of his missions. 
These Messer Marco ever carried out with discretion 
and success, God be thanked. So the Emperor became 
ever more partial to him, and treated him with the 
greater distinction, and kept him so close to his person 
that some of the Barons waxed very envious thereat. 
And thus it came about that Messer Marco Polo had 
knowledge of, or had actually visited, a greater number 
of the different countries of the World than any other 
m.an ; the more that he was always giving his mind to 
get knowledge, and to spy out and enquire into every- 
thing in order to have matter to relate to the Lord. 



CHAPTER XVII. 



How Messer Nicolo, Messer M.^ffeo, and Messer Marco, asked 

LEAVE OF the GrEAT KaaN TO GO THEIR WAV. 

When the Two Brothers and Mark had abode with the 
Lord all that time that you have been told [havino- 
meanwhile acquired great wealth in jewels and gold], 
they began among themselves to have thoughts about 
returning to their own country ; and indeed it was time. 
[For, to say nothing of the length and infinite perils 
of the way, when they considered the Kaan's great age, 
they doubted whether, in the event of his death before 
their departure, they would ever be able to get home.^] 



32 MARCO POLO Prol. 

They applied to him several times for leave to go, 
presenting their request with great respect, but he had 
such a partiality for them, and liked so much to have 
them about him, that nothing on earth would persuade 
him to let them g-o. 

Now it came to pass in those days that the Queen 
BoLGANA, wife of Argon, Lord of the Levant, departed 
this life. And in her Will she had desired that no Lady 
should take her place, or succeed her as Argon's wife, 
except one of her own family [which existed in Cathay]. 
Argon therefore despatched three of his Barons, by 
name respectively Oulatay, Apusca, and Coja, as 
ambassadors to the Great Kaan, attended by a very 
gallant company, in order to bring back as his bride a 
lady of the family of Queen Bolgana, his late wife.^ 

When these three Barons had reached the. Court of 
the Great Kaan, they delivered their message, explaining 
wherefore they were come. The Kaan received them 
with all honour and hospitality, and then sent for a lady 
whose name was Cocachin, who was of the family of 
the deceased Queen Bolgana. She was a maiden of 
17, a very beautiful and charming person, and on her 
arrival at Court she was presented to the three Barons 
as the Lady chosen in compliance with their demand. 
They declared that the Lady pleased them well.^ 

Meanwhile Messer Marco chanced to return from 
India, whither he had gone as the Lord's ambassador, 
and made his report of all the different things that he 
had seen in his travels, and of the sundry seas over 
which he had voyaged. And the three Barons, having 
seen that Messer Nicolo, Messer Maffeo, and Messer 
Marco were not only Latins, but men of marvellous 
good sense withal, took thought among themselves to 
get the three to travel with them, their intention being 
to return to their country by sea, on account of the 



Chap. XVII. THE POLOS ALLOWED TO RETURN HOME ^^ 

great fatigue of that long land journey for a lady. And 
the ambassadors were the more desirous to have their 
company, as being aware that those three had great 
knowledge and experience of the Indian Sea and the 
countries by which they would have to pass, and 
especially Messer Marco. So they went to the Great 
Kaan, and begged as a favour that he would send the 
three Latins with them, as it was their desire to return 
home by sea. 

The Lord, having that great regard that I have 
mentioned for those three Latins, was very loath to do 
so [and his countenance showed great dissatisfaction]. 
But at last he did give them permission to depart, 
enjoining them to accompany the three Barons and the 
Ladv. 



XuTE I. — P^olotti, in his chapters on mercantile ventures to Cathay, refers to the 
dangers to which foreigners were always liable on the death of the reigning sovereign. 
(See Cathay, p. 292.) 

Note 2. — Several ladies of the name of Buldghan (" Zibellina") have a place In 
Mongol-Persian history. The one here indicated, a lady of great beauty and ability, 
was known as the Great Khdtun (or Lady) Bulughan, and was (according to strange 
Mongol custom) the wife successively of Abaka and of his son Arghux, the Argon of 
the text, Mongol sovereign of Persia. She died on the banks of the Kur in Georgia, 
7 th April, 1286. She belonged to the Mongol tribe of Bayaut, and was the daughter 
of HulakiVs Chief Secretary Gi'igah. {Ilchan. I. 374 et passim; Erdmann's 
Temudsc/iin, p. 216.) 

The names of the Envoys, Uladai, Apushka, and KojA, are all names met with 
in Mongol history. And Rashiduddin speaks of an Apushka of the Mongol Tribe of 
Urnaut, who on some occasion was sent as Envoy to the Great Kaan from Persia, — 
possibly the very person. (See Erdinann, 205.) 

Of the Lady Cocachin we shall speak below. 

Note 3. — Ramusio here has the following passage, genuine no doubt: "So 
sverj-ihing being ready, with a great escort to do honour to the bride of King Argon, 
the Ambassadors took leave and set forth. But after travelling eight montJis by the 
same way that they had come, they found the roads closed, in consequence of wars 
lately broken out among certain Tartar Princes ; so being unable to proceed, they 
were compelled to return to the Court of the Great Kaan." 



VOL. I. 



34 MARCO rOLO pROL. 



CHAPTER XVIII. 

How THE Two Brothers and Messer Marco took leave of the 
Great Kaan, and returned to their own Country. 

And when the Prince saw that the Two Brothers and 
Messer Marco were ready to set forth, he called them 
all three to his presence, and gave them two golden 
Tablets of Authority, which should secure them liberty 
of passage through all his dominions, and by means of 
which, whithersoever they should go, all necessaries 
would be provided for them, and for all their company, 
and whatever they might choose to order. ^ He charged 
them also with messages to the King of France, the 
King of England,^ the King of Spain, and the other 
kings of Christendom. He then caused thirteen ships 
to be equipt, each of which had four masts, and often 
spread twelve sails. ^ And I could easily give you all 
particulars about these, but as it would be so long an 
affair I will not enter upon this now, but hereafter, 
when time and place are suitable. [Among the said 
ships were at least four or five that carried crews of 250 
or 260 men.] 

And when the ships had been equipt, the Three 
Barons and the Lady, and the Two Brothers and 
Messer Marco, took leave of the Great Kaan, and 
went on board their ships with a great company of 
people, and with all necessaries provided for two years 
by the Emperor. They put forth to sea, and after sailing 
for some three months they arrived at a certain Island 
towards the South, which is called Java,^ and in which 
there are many wonderful things which we shall tell you 
all about by-and-bye. Quitting this Island they con- 



Chap. XVIII. VOYAGE THROUGH THE SEA OF INDIA 35 

tinued to navigate the Sea of India for eighteen months 
more before they arrived whither they were bound, 
meeting on their way also with many marvels, of which 
we shall tell hereafter. 

And when they got thither they found that Argon 
w^as dead, so the Lady was delivered to Casan, his son. 

But I should have told you that it is a fact that, 
when they embarked, they were in number some 600 
persons, w ithout counting the mariners ; but nearly all 
died by the way, so that only eight survived.^ 

The sovereignty when they arrived w^as held by Kia- 
CATU, so they commended the Lady to him, and executed 
all their commission. And when the Two Brothers and 
Messer Marco had executed their charge in full, and 
done all that the Great Kaan had enjoined on them in 
regard to the Lady, they took their leave and set out 
upon their journey.*^ And before their departure, Kia- 
catu gave them four golden tablets of authority, two of 
which bore gerfalcons, one bore lions, whilst the fourth ^ 
was plain, and having on them inscriptions which directed 
that the three Ambassadors should receive honour and 
service all through the land as if rendered to the Prince 
in person, and that horses and all provisions, and every- 
thing necessary, should be supplied to them. And so 
they found in fact ; for throughout the country they 
received ample and excellent supplies of everything 
needful ; and many a time indeed, as I may tell you, 
they were furnished with 200 horsemen, more or less, 
to escort them on their way in safety. And this was 
all the more needful because Kiacatu was not the 
legitimate Lord, and therefore the people had less 
scruple to do mischief than if they had had a lawful 
prince.'^ 

Another thing too must be mentioned, which does, 
credit to those three Ambassadors, and shows for what 
VOL. I. c 2 



.36 MARCO POLO I'KOL. 

great personages they were held. The Great Kaan re- 
garded them with such trust and affection, that he had 
confided to their charge the Queen Cocachin, as well as 
the daughter of the King- of Manzi,^ to conduct to Argon 
the Lord of all the Levant. And those two great ladies 
who were thus entrusted to them they watched over and 
guarded as if they had been daughters of their own, until 
they had transferred them to the hands of their Lord ; 
whilst the ladies, young and fair as they were, looked on 
each of those three as a father, and obeyed them accord- 
ingly. Indeed, both Casan, who is now the reigning 
prince, and the Queen Cocachin his wife, have such a 
regard for the Envoys that there is nothing they would 
not do for them. And when the three Ambassadors took 
leave of that Lady to return to their own country, she 
wept for sorrow at the parting. 

What more shall I say ? Having left Kiacatu they 
travelled day by day till they came to Trebizond, and 
thence to Constantinople, from Constantinople to Negro- 
pont, and from Negropont to Venice. And this was in 
the year 1295 of Christ's Incarnation. 

And now that I have rehearsed all the Prologue as 
you have heard, we shall begin the Book of the Descrip- 
tion of the Divers Things that Messer Marco met with 
in his Travels. 



Note i. — On these plates or tablets, which have already been spoken of, a note 
will be found further on. (Bk. II. ch. vii. ) Piano Carpini says of the Mongol 
practice in reference to royal messengers: "Nuncios, quoscunque et quotcunque, et 
ubicunque transmittit, oportet quod dent eis sine mora cquos subductiiios et expensas" 
(669). 

Note 2. — The mention of the King of England appears for the first time in 
Pauthier's text. Probably we shall never know if the communication reached him. 
But we have the record of several embassies in preceding and subsequent years from 
the Mongol Khans of Persia to the Kings of England ; all with the view of obtaining 
co-operation in attack on the Egyptian Sultan. Such messages came from Abaka in 
1277 ; from Arghun in 1289 and 1291 ; from Ghazan in 1302 ; from Oljailu in 1307. 
(See R^inmat in Mini, de rAaid. VII.) 



Chap. XVIII. 



CHINESE WAR VESSELS 



zr 



Note 3. — Rumasio has " nine sails." Marsden thinks even this lower number 
an error of Kamusio's, as " it is well known that Chinese vessels do not carry any kind 
of topsail." This is, however, a mistake, for they do sometimes carrj- a small topsail 
of cotton cloth (and formerly, it would seem from Lecomte, even a toj^aUant sail at 
times), though only in quiet weather. And the evidence as to the number of sails 
carried by the great Chinese junks of the Middle Ages, which evidently made a great 
impression on Western foreigners, is irresistible. Friar Jordanus, who saw them in 
Malabar, says : "With a fair wind they cany ten sails ;" Ibn Batnta : " One of these 
great junks carries frnm three sails to twelve ; " Joseph, the Indian, speaking of those 




Ancient Chinese War Vessel 

that traded to India in the 15th century : " They were very great, and had sometimes 
twelve sails, with innumerable rowers." {Lecomte, I. 389 ; Fr. Jordanus, Hak. Soc., 
p. 55 ; Ihn Battita, IV. 91 ; Nevus Orbis, p. 148.) A fuller account of these vessels 
is given at the beginning of Bk. III. 

Note 4. — I.e. in this case Sumatra, as will appear hereafter. " It is quite 
possiblefor a fleet of fourteen junks which required to keep together to take three 
months at the present time to accomplish a similar voyage. A Chinese trader, who 
has come annually to Singapore in junks for many years, tells us that he has had as 
long a passage as sixty days, although the average is eighteen or twenty days.'" 
{Logan iny. Ind. Archip. II. 609.) 



38 



MARCO POLO Prol. 



Note 5. — Ramusio's version here varies widely, and looks more probable: "From 
the day that they embarked until their arrival there died of mariners and others on 
board 600 persons ; and of the three ambassadors only one survived, whose name was 
Goza (Coja) ; but of the ladies and damsels died but one." 

It is worth noting that in the case of an embassy sent to Cathay a few years later 
by Ghdzan Khan, on the return by this same route to Persia, the chief of the two 
Persian ambassadors, and the Great Khan's envoy, who was in company, both died 
by the way. Their voyage, too, seems to have been nearly as long as Polo's ; for 
they were seven years absent from Persia, and of these only four in China. (See 
Wassdfm Elliot, III. 47.) 

Note 6. — Ramusio's version states that on learning Arghiin's death (which they 
probably did on landing at Hormuz), they sent word of their arrival to Kiacatu, who 
directed them to conduct the lady to Casan, who was then in the region of the Arbre 
Sec (the Province of Khorasan) guarding the frontier passes with 60,000 men, and 
that they did so, and then turned back to Kiacatu (probably at Tabriz), and stayed at 
his Court nine months. Even the Geog. Text seems to imply that they had become 
personally known to Casan, and I have no doubt that Ramusio's statement is an 
authentic expansion of the original narrative by Marco himself, or on his authority. 

Arghiin Khan died loth March, 1291. He was succeeded (23rd July) by his 
brother Kaikhatii {Quiacaiu of Polo), who was put to death 24th March, 1295. 

We learn from Hammer's History of the Ilkhans that when Ghazan, the son of 
Arghiin {Casa7i of Polo), who had the government of the Khorasan frontier, was on 
his return to his post from Tabriz, where his uncle Kaikhatu had refused to see him, 
" he met at Abher the ambassador whom he had sent to the Great Khan to obtain in 
marriage a relative of the Great Lady Bulghan. This envoy brought with him the 
Lady KtJkAchin (our author's Cocachin), with presents from the Emperor, and the 
marriage was celebrated with due festivity." Abher lies a little west of Kazvin. 

Hammer is not, I find, here copying from Wassaf, and I have not been able 
to procure a thorough search of the work of Rashiduddin, which probably was 
his authority. As well as the date can be made out from the History of the Ilkhans, 
Ghdzan must have met his bride towards the end of 1293, or quite the beginning of 
1294. Rashiduddin in another place mentions the fair lady from Cathay ; " The 
ordu (or establishment) of Tukiti Khatun was given to Kukachi Khatun, who had 
been brought from the Kaan's Court, and who was a kinswoman of the late chief 
Queen Bulghan. Kukachi, the wife of the Padshah of Islam, Ghazan Khan, died in 
the month of Shaban, 695," ?>. in June, 1296, so that the poor girl did not long 
survive her promotion. (See Hammet^s Ilch. II. 20, and 8, and I. 273 ; and Qttaire- 
tn^re's Rashiduddin, p. 97.) Kukachin was the name also of the wife of Chingkim, 
Kublai's favourite son ; but she was of the Kungurat tribe. {Deguignes, IV. 179.) 

Note 7. — Here Ramusio's text says: "During this journey Messers Nicolo, 
Mafteo, and Marco heard the news that the Great Khan had departed this life ; and 
this caused them to give up all hope of returning to those parts." 

Note 8. — This Princess of Manzi, or Southern China, is mentioned only in the 
Geog. Text and in the Crusca, which is based thereon. I find no notice of her 
among the wives of Ghazan or otherwise. 

On the fall of the capital of the Sung Dynasty — the Kinsay of Polo — in 1276, the 
Princesses of that Imperial family were sent to Peking, and were graciously treated by 
Kublai's favourite Queen, the Lady Jamui. This young lady was, no doubt, one of 
those captive princesses who had been brought up at the Court of Khanbdiik. (See 
De Mailla, IX. 376, and infra Bk. II. ch. Ixv., note. 



3^ 



BOOK FIRST. 



ACCOUNT OF REGIONS VISITED OR HEARD OF 
ON THE JOURNEY FROM THE LESSER ARMENIA 
TO THE COURT OF THE GREAT KAAN AT 
CHANDU. 



MARCO POLO 



To face Chapter 1 of Book I . 



Aias,UieLATAS of PoLO^from an Admiralty Chart. 

Ont/Hnqlish Mile^ r, , 

I :£ 1 1 I \Fta-l 



"1)1 a for la mcr unc vUlc ^ 
Hi t&i ap c lU,iaia«, (a qual 4 
cjt b e ^tau mcrcaanbie ' 




ent Mole 



BookI.cli.l8. 
Position of \>WawaY, the supposed Site of PoLO'sD ILAVAR 




Li t.Tr.iuenl'eldex. Falerrao 



[To /ace p. 4'- 



BOOK I. 



CHAPTER I. 

Here the Book begins ; and first it speaks of the Lesser 
Hermenia. 

There are two Hermenias, the Greater and the Less, 
The Lesser Hermenia is governed by a certain King, 
who maintains a just rule in his dominions, but is 
himself subject to the Tartar.^ The country contains 
numerous towns and villages,^ and has everything in 
plenty ; moreover, it is a great country foi sport in 
the chase of all manner of beasts and birds. It is, 
however, by no means a healthy region, but griev- 
ously the reverse.^ In days of old the nobles there 
were valiant men, and did doughty deeds of arms ; but 
nowadays they are poor creatures, and good at 
nought, unless it be at boozing; they are great at that. 
Howbeit, they have a city upon the sea, which is called 
Layas, at which there is a great trade. For you must 
know that all the spicery, and the cloths of silk and gold, 
and the other valuable wares that come from the interior, 
are brought to that city. And the merchants of Venice 
and Genoa, and other countries, come thither to sell their 
goods, and to buy what they lack. And whatsoever per- 
sons would travel to the interior (of the East), merchants \ 
or others, they take their way by this city of Layas."* 



41 



/ 



MARCO POLO 



Book I. 



Having now told you about the Lesser Hermenia, we 
shall next tell vou about Turcomania. 




Coin of Kin^ Hetum and his Queen Isabel. 



Note i. — The Petite Ilermenie of the Middle Ages was quite distinct from the 
Armenia Minor of the ancient geographers, which name the latter applied to the 
western portion of Armenia, west of the Euphrates, and immediately north of 
Cappadocia. 

But when the old Armenian monarchy was broken up (1079-80), Rupen, a kinsman 
of the Bagratid Kings, with many of his countrymen, took refuge in the Taurus. Ilis 
first descendants ruled as barons, a title adopted apparently from the Crusaders, but 
still preserved in Armenia. Leon, the great-great-grandson of Rupen, was consecrated 
King under the supremacy of the Pope and the Western Empire in 1 198. The kingdom 

was at its zenith under Hctum or 
Hayton L , husband of Leon's daughter 
Isabel (1224- 1 269); he was, however, 
prudent enough to make an early sub- 
mission to the Mongols, and remained 
ever staunch to them, which brought 
his territory constantly under the flail 
of Egypt. It included at one time all 
Cilicia, with many cities of Syria and 
the ancient Armenia Minor, of Isauria 
and Cappadocia. The male line of Rupen becoming extinct in 1342, the kingdom 
passed to John de Lusignan, of the royal house of Cyprus, and in 1375 it was put 
an end to by the Sultan of Egypt. Leon VI., the ex-king, into whose mouth 
Froissart puts some extraordinary geography, had a pension of 1000/. a year granted 
him by our Richard II., and died at Paris in 1398. 

The chief remaining vestige of this little monarchy is the continued existence of a 
Catholic OS of part of the Armenian Church at Sis,* which was the royal residence. 
Some Armenian communities still remain both in hills and plains ; and the former, 
the more independent and industrious, still speak a corrupt Armenian. 

Polo's contemporary, Marino Sanuto, compares the kingdom of the Pope's faithful 
Armenians to one between the teeth of four fierce beasts, the Lion Tartar, the Panther 
Soldan, the Turkish IVolf, the Corsair Serpent. 

{Dulanrier, \nj. As. ser. V. tom. xvii. ; St. Martin, Arm. ; Mar. San. p. 32 ; 
Froissart, Bk. II. ch. xxii. seqq. ; Langlois, V. en Cilicie, 1861, p. 19.) 

Note 2. — " Maitttes villes et inaint chasteatix." This is a constantly recurring 
phrase, and I have generally translated it as here, believing chasteaux {castelli) to be 
used in the frequent old Italian sense of a walled viWuge or small walled town, or like 
the Eastern Kala\ applied in Khorasan " to everything — town, village, or private 
residence — surrounded by a wall of earth." (Ferrier, p. 292 ; see also /i. Conolly, I. 
p. 211.) Martini, in his Atlas Sinensis, uses " Urbes, oppida, castella," to indicate 
the three classes of Chinese administrative cities. 

Note 3. — '■'^ Enferme dnrement.'^ So INIarino Sanuto objects to Lesser Armeniaas 
a place of debarkation for a crusade "quia terra est infiriiia.''' Langlois, speaking of 
the Cilician plain : "In this region once so fair, now covered with swamps and 
brambles, fever decimates a population which is yearly diminishing, has nothing to 
oppose to the scourge but incurable apathy, and will end by disappearing altogether," 
etc. ( Voyage, p. 65.) Cilician Armenia retains its reputation for sport, and is much 
frequented by our naval officers for that object. Ayas is noted for the extraordinary 
abundance of turtles. 



'' 



Chap. II. LESSER HERMENIA— TURCOMANIA 43 

Note 4. — The phrase twice used in this passage for the Interior is Fra terre, an 
Italianism {Fra terras or, as it stands in the Geog. Latin, '■^ infra terrain Orientis")^ 
which, however, Murray and Pauthier have read as an allusion to the Euphrates, an 
error based apparently on a marginal gloss in the published edition of the Soc. de 
Gecgraphie. It is true that the province of Comagene under the Greek Empire got the 
name of Eufhratesia, or in Arabic Furdtiyah, but that was not in question here. 
The great trade of Ayas was with Tabriz, vid Sivas, Erzingan, and Erzrum, as we see in 
Pegolotti. Elsewhere, too, in Polo we find the phrase yra terre used, where Euphrates 
could possibly have no concern, as in relation to India and Oman. (See Bk. III. chs. 
xxix. and xxxviii. , and notes in each case.) 

With regard to the phrase spicery here and elsewhere, it should be noted that the 
Italian spezerie included a vast deal more than ginger and other things " hot i' the 
mouth." In one of Pegolotti's lists of spezerie we find drugs, dye-stufl's, metals, wax, 
cotton, etc. 



CHAPTER II. 
Concerning the Province of Turcomania. 

In Turcomania there are three classes of people. First, 
there are the Turcomans ; these are worshippers of Ma- 
hommet, a rude people with an uncouth language of their 
own.^ They dwell among mountains and downs where 
they find good pasture, for their occupation is cattle- 
keeping. Excellent horses, known as Turquans, are 
reared in their country, and also very valuable mules. 
The other two classes are the Armenians and the 
Greeks, who live mixt with the former in the towns 
and villages, occupying themselves with trade and handi- 
crafts. They weave the finest and handsomest carpets 
in the world, and also a great quantity of fine and rich 
silks of cramoisy and other colours, and plenty of other 
stuffs. Their chief cities are Conia, S avast [where the 
glorious Messer Saint Blaise suffered martyrdom], and 
Casaria, besides many other towns and bishops' sees, 
of which we shall not speak at present, for it would be 
too long a matter. These people are subject to the 



44 MARCO POLO Book I. 

Tartar of the Levant as their Suzerain,^ We will now 
leave this province, and speak of the Greater Armenia. 

Note i. — Ricold of Montecroce, a contemporary of Polo, calls the Turkmans 
homines bestiales. In our day Ainsworth notes of a Turkman village: "The dogs 
were very ferocious ; . . . the people only a little better." (/. K. G. S. X. 292.) The 
ill report of the people of this region did not begin with the Turkmans, for the Emperor 
Constantine Porphyrog. quotes a Greek proverb to the disparagement of the three 
kappas, Cappadocia, Crete, and Cilicia. (In Banduri, I. 6.) 

Note 2. — In Turcomania Marco perhaps embraces a great part of Asia IMinor, 
but he especially means the territory of tlie decaying Seljukian monarchy, usually 
then called by Asiatics Riim, as the Ottoman Emj^ire is now, and the capital of which 
was Iconium, Kun'IYAH, the Conia of the text, and Coyne of Joinville. Ibn Batuta 
calls the whole country Turkey {Al-Tiirkiyah), and the people 7'iirkmdn; exactly 
likewise does Ricold {'lluirchia and Thtircliinianni). Hayton's account of the various 
classes of inhabitants is quite the same in substance as Polo's. [The Turkmans emi- 
grated from Turkestan to Asia Minor before the arrival of the Scljukid Turks. " Their 
villages," says Cuinet, Tnrquie (T Asie, II. p. 767, "are distinguished by the peculiarity 
of the houses being built of sun-baked bricks, whereas it is the general habit in thecountry 
to build them of earth or a kind of plaster, called djcs.^''- — II. C] The migratory and 
pastoral Turkmans still exist in this region, but the Kurds of like habits have taken 
their place to a large extent. The fine carpets and silk fabrics appear to be no longer 
produced here, any more llian the excellent horses of wliich Polo speaks, which must 
have been the remains of the famous old breed of Cappadocia. [It appears, however 
(Vital Cninet's Turquic cfAsie, I. p. 224), that fine carpets are still manufactured at 
Koniah, also a kind of striped cotton cloth, called Alact/a.^tl. C] 

A grant of privileges to the Genoese by Leon II., King of Lesser Armenia, dated 
23rd December, 1288, alludes to the export of horses and mules, etc., from Ayas, and 
specifies the duties upon them. The horses now of repute in Asia as Turkman come 
from the east of the Caspian. And Asia Minor generally, once the mother of so many 
breeds of high repute, is now poorer in horses than any province of the Ottoman empire. 

(Pereg. Qicat. p. 114 ; /. B. II. 255 seqq. ; Ilayton, ch. xiii. ; Liber Juriii in Kelp, 
/aimensis, II. 184; Tchihatcheff, As. Min., 2''^ partie, 631.) 

[The Seljukian Sultanate of Iconium or Riim, was founded at the expense of the 
Byzantines by Suleiman (1074-1081) ; the last three sovereigns of the dynasty con 
temporaneous with Marco Polo are Ghiath ed-din Kaikhosru III. (1267- 1283), Ghiath 
ed-din Mas'ud II. (1283-1294), Ala ed-din Kaikobad III. (1294-1308), when this 
kingdom was destroyed by the Mongols of Persia. Privileges had been granted to 
Venice by Ghiath ed-din Kaikhosru I. (-1-1211), and his sons Izz ed-din Kaikaus 
(1211-1220), and Ala ed-din Kaikobad I. (1220-1237); the diploma of 1220 is un- 
fortunately the only one of the three known to be preserved. (Cf. Heyd, I. p. 302.) 
— H. C] 

Though the authors quoted above seem to make no distinction between Turks and 
Turkmans, that which we still understand does appear to have been made in the I2lh 
century : "That there may be some distinction, at least in name, between those who 
made themselves a king, and thus achieved such glory, and those who still abide in 
their primitive barbarism and adhere to their old way of life, the former are nowadays 
termed Turks, the latter by their old name of Ttitko/?ians." (William of Tyre, i. 7.) 

Casaria is KaisarIya, the ancient Caesareia of Cappadocia, close to the foot of 
the great Mount Argaeus. Savast is the Armenian form (Sevasd) of Sebaste, the 
modern SiVAS. The three cities, Iconium, Caesareia, and Sebaste, were metro- 
politan sees under the Catholicos of Sis. 

[The ruins of Sebaste are situated at about 6 miles to the east of modern Sivas, 



Chai-. III. GREATER HERMENIA 45 

near the village of Gavraz, on the Kizil Irinak. In the illh century, the King of 
Armenia, Senecherim, made his capital of Sebasle. It belonged after to the Seljukid 
Turks, and was conquered in 1397 by Bayezid Ilderim with Tokat, Castambol and 
Sinope. (Cf. Vital Cuiuet.) 

One of the oldest churches in Sivas is St. George {Sourp-Kivork\ occupied by the 
Greeks, but claimed by the Armenians; it is situated near the centre of the town, in 
what is called the " Black Earth," tlie spot where Timur is said to have massacred the 
garrison. A few steps north cf St. George is the Church of St. Blasius, occupied by 
the Roman Catholic Armenians. The tomb of St. Blasius, however, is shown in 
another part of the town, near the citadel mount, and the ruins of a very beautiful 
Seljukian Medresseh. (From a MS. Note by Sir H. Yule. The information had 
been supplied by the American Missionaries to General Sir C. Wilson, and forwarded 
by him to Sir H. Yule) 

It must be remembered that at the time of the Seljuk Turks, there were four 
Medressehs at Sivas, and a university as famous as that of Amassia. Children to the 
number of 1000, each a bearer of a copy of the Koran, were crushed to death 
under the feet of the horses of Timur, and buried in the " Black Earth " ; the garrison 
of 4000 soldiers were buried alive. 

St. Blasius, Bishop of Sebaste, was martj-red in 316 by order of Agricola, 
Governor of Cappadocia and Lesser Armenia, during the reign of Liciuius. Ilis feast 
is celebrated by the Latin Church on the 3rd of Februarj', and by the Greek Church 
on the nth of Februarj'. He is the patron of the Republic of Ragusa in Dalmatia, 
and in France of wool-carders. 

At the ^^llage of Hullukluk, near Sivas, was bom in 1676 Mekhitar, founder of 
the well-known Armenian Order, which has convents at Venice, Vienna, and 
Trieste.— H. C] 



CHAPTERIII. 
Description of the Gre.\ter Hermenia. 

This is a great country. It begins at a city called 
Akzinga, at which they weave the best buckrams in the 
world. It possesses also the best baths from natural 
springs that are anywhere to he found.^ The people of 
the country are Armenians, and are subject to the Tartar. 
There are many towns and villages in the country, but 
the noblest of their cities is Arzinga, which is the See of 
an Archbishop, and then Arziron and Arzizi.- 

The country is indeed a passing great one, and in the 
summer it is frequented by the whole host of the Tartars 
of the Levant, because it then furnishes them with such 
excellent pasture for their cattle. But in winter the cold 



46 MARCO POLO Book I. 

is past all bounds, so in that season they quit this country 
and go to a warmer region, where they find other good 
pastures. [At a castle called Paipurth, that you pass in 
going from Trebizond to Tauris, there is a very good 
silver mine.^] 

And you must know that it is in this country of 
Armenia that the Ark of Noah exists on the top of a 
certain great mountain [on the summit of which snow is 
so constant that no one can ascend ; ^ for the snow never 
melts, and is constantly added to by new falls. Below, 
however, the snow does melt, and runs down, producing 
such rich and abundant herbage that in summer cattle 
are sent to pasture from a long way round about, and it 
never fails them. The melting snow also causes a great 
amount of mud on the mountain]. 

The country is bounded on the south by a kingdom 
called Mosul, the people of which are Jacobite and 
Nestorian Christians, of whom I shall have more to tell 
you presently. On the north it is bounded by the Land 
of the Georgians, of whom also I shall speak. On the 
confines towards Georgiania there is a fountain from 
which oil springs in great abundance, insomuch that a 
hundred shiploads might be taken from it at one time. 
This oil is not good to use with food, but 'tis good to 
burn, and is also used to anoint camels that have the 
mange. People come from vast distances to fetch it, for 
in all the countries round about they have no other oil.^ 

Now, having done with Great Armenia, we will tell 
you of Georgiania. 



No IE I. — [ErzIiNJAN, Erzinga, or Eriza, in ihe vilayet of Eizriim, was rebuilt in 
1784, after having been destroyed by an earthquake. " Arzendjan," says Ibn Batuta, 
II. p. 294, "is in possession of well-established markets ; there are manufactured fine 
stuffs, which are called after its name." It was at Erzinjan that was fought in 1244 
the great battle, which placed the Seljuk Turks under the dependency of the Mongol 
Khans. — II. C] I do not find mention of its hot springs by modern travellers, Ijut 
Lazari says Armenians assured him of their existence. There are plenty of others 



Chap. III. WHAT WAS BUCKRAM? 47 

in Polo's route through the country, as at Ilija, close to Erzrum, and at Hassan 
Kala. 

The Buckrams of Arzinga are mentioned both by Pegolotti {firca 1340) and by 
Giov. d'Uzzano (1442). But what were they ? 

l^uckram in the modern sense is a coarse open texture of cotton or hemp, loaded 
with gum, and used to stiffen certain articles of dress. But this was certainly not the 
mediaeval sense. Nor is it easy to bring the mediaeval uses of the term under a single 
explanation. Indeed Mr Marsh suggests that probably two different words have 
coalesced. Fr. -Michel says that Boxiqueran was at first applied to a light cotton stuff 
of the nature of muslin, and afterwards to linen, but I do not see that he makes out this 
history of theapplication. Douet d'Arcq, inhis Comptes de V Argenterie, etc., explains the 
word simply in the modem sense, but there seems nothing in his text to bear this out. 

A quotation in Raynouard's Romance Dictionary has " Vesiirs de polpra e a&bisso 
que est bocaran," where Raynouard renders bisso as Un ; a quotation in Ducange also 
makes Buckram the equivalent of Bissus ; and Michel quotes from an inventory of 
^S^Sj "tiftam culcitrani pindam (qu. punctam ?) albam factam de bisso aliter 
boquerant." 

Mr. Marsh again produces quotations, in which the word is used as a proverbial 
example of ivhiteness, and inchnes to think that it was a bleached cloth with a 
lustrous surface. 

It certainly was not necessarily linen. Giovanni Villani, in a passage which is 
curious in more ways than one, tells how the citizens of Florence established races for 
their troops, and, among other prizes, was one which consisted of a Bucherame di 
bambagine (of cotton). Polo, near the end of the Book (Bk. III. ch. xxxiv.), 
peaking of Abyssinia, says, according to Pauthier's text : ^' Et si y fait on moult 
beaux bouquerans et autres draps de cot on." The G. T. is, indeed, more ambiguous : 
'* // hi sefont viaint biaus dras banbacin e bocaran " (cotton a«^/ buckram). When, 
however, he uses the same expression with reference to the delicate stuffs woven on 
the coast of Telingana, there can be no doubt that a cotton texture is meant, and 
apparently a fine muslin. (See Bk. III. ch. xviii.) Buckram is generally named 
as an article of price, chier bouquerant, rice hoquerans, etc., but not always, for 
Polo in one passage (Bk. II. ch. xlv.) seems to speak of it as the clothing of the 
poor people of Eastern Tibet. 

Piano Carpini says the tunics of the Tartars were either of buckram {bukeranum), 
oi purpura (a texture, perhaps velvet), or of baudekin, a cloth of gold (pp. 614-615). 
WTien the envoys of the Old Man of the Mountian tried to bully St. Lewis, one 
had a case of daggers to be offered in defiance, another a bouqueran for a winding 
sheet. {Joinville,^. 136.) 

In accounts of materials for the use of Anne Boleyn in the time of her prosperity, 
bokeram frequently appears for "lyning and taynting " (?) gowns, lining sleeves, 
cloaks, a bed, etc. , but it can scarcely have been for mere stiffening, as the colour of 
the buckram is generally specified as the same as that of the dress. 

A number of passages seem to point to a quilted material. Boccaccio (Day viii. 
Novel 10) speaks of a quilt (coltre) of the whitest buckram of Cyprus, and Uzzano 
enters buckram quilts {coltre di Bucherame) in a list of Liiuy'uoli, or linen-draperies. 
Both his handbook and P^olotti's state repeatedly that buckrams were sold by the 
piece or the half-score pieces — never by measure. In one of Michel's quotations 
(from Baudouin de Sebourc) we have : 

*' Gaufer li fist premiers armer d'un auqueton 
Qui fu de bougherant tt.plaine de ban colon " 

Mr. Hewitt would appear to take the view that Buckram meant a quilted material ; 
for, quoting from a roll of purchases made for the Court of Edward I., an entry for 
Ten Buckrams to make sleeves of, he remarks, "The sleeves appear to have been of 
potirpointerie" i.e. quilling. {Ancient Armour, I, 240.) 



48 



MARCO POLO 



Book I. 



This signification would embrace a large number of passages in which the term is 
used, though certainly not all. It would account for the mode or sale by the piece, 
and frequent use of the expression a buckram, for its habitual application to coltre or 
counterpanes, its use in the aiiquetoti of Kaudouin, and in the jackets of Falstaffs 
" men in buckram," as well as its employment in the frocks of the Mongols and 
Tibetans. The winter chap/can, or long tunic, of Upper India, a form of dress which, 
I believe, correctly represents that of the Mongol hosts, and is probably derived from 
th:m, is almost universally of quilted cotton.* This signification would also facilitate 
the transfer of meaning to the substance now called buckram, for that is used as a 
kind of quilting. 

The derivation of the word is very uncertain. Reiske says it is Arabic, Abu- 
Kainiin, " Pannus cum intextis figuris " ; Wedgwood, attaching the modern meaning, 
that it is from It., bucherare, to pierce full of holes, which might be \i bticherare could 
be used in the sense of pinitare, or the French piqiier ; Marsh connects it with the 
bucking of linen ; and D'Avezac thinks it was a stuff that took its name from Bokhara. 
If the name be local, as so many names of stuffs are, the French form rather suggests 
Bulgaria. [Heyd, II. 703, says that Buckram (Bucherame) was principally manu- 
factured at Erzinjan (Armenia), Mush, and Mardin (Kurdistan), Ispahan (Persia), 
and in India, etc. It was shipped to the west at Constantinople, Satalia, Acre, and 
Famagusta ; the name is derived from Bokhara. — H. C] 

{Delia Decima, III. 18, 149, 65, 74, 212, etc. ; IV. 4, 5, 6, 212 ; Reiske's Notes 
io Const. Porpkyrogen. II.; D^Avezac,^. 524; Vocab. Univ. Ital. ; Franc. -Michel, 
Recherches, etc. II. 29 seqq. ; Philobiblon Soc. Miscell. VI. ; MarsKs Wedgwood s 
Etym, Diet, suli voce.) 




Caillc ol' JJailjiiit. 

Note 2. — Arziron is Ekzrum, which, even in Tournefort's time, the Franks 
called Erzeron (III. 126) ; [it was named Garine, then Theodosiopolis, in honour of 



Polo's contempomry, the IiitlLin Poet Amir Kliu^^iu, puts in the mouth of his king Kaikohatl a 
mptuous gibe at the Mongols with their cotton-quilted dresses. {Elliot, III. p. 526.) 



contempt 



Chap. III. BAIBURT 49 

Theodosius the Great ; the present name was given by the Seljukid Turks, and it 
means " Roman Country " ; it was taken by Chinghiz Khan and Timur, but neither 
kept it long. Odorico (^Cathay, I. p. 46), speaking of this city, says it "is mighty 
cold." (See also on the low temperature of the place, Toiunefort, Voyage dtt Levattt, 
II. pp. 258-259.) Arzizi, AkjisH, in the v-ilayet of Van, was destroyed in the middle 
of the 19th century; it was situated on the road from Van to Erzrum. Arjish Kala 
was one of the ancient capitals of the Kingdom of Armenia ; it was conquered by 
Toghrul I., who made it his residence. (Cf. Vital Cuinet, Turquie d'Aste, II. p. 710). 
— H. C] 

Arjish is the ancient Arsissa, which gave the Lake Van one of its names. It is 
now little more than a decayed castle, with a village inside. 

Notices of Kuniyah, Kaisariya, Sivas, Arzan-ar-Rumi, Arzangan, and Aijish, will 
be found in Polo's contemporary Abulfeda. (See Biisching, IV. 303-311.) 

Note 3. — Paipurth, or Baiburt, on the high road between Trebizond and Erzrum, 
was, according to Neumann, an Armenian fortress in the first century, and, according 
to Ritter, the castle Baiberdon was fortified by Justinian. It stands on a peninsular 
hill, encircled by the windings of the R. Charok. [According to Ramusio's version 
Baiburt was the third relay from Trebizund to Tauris, and travellers on their way from 
one of these cities to the other passed under this stronghold. — H. C] The Russians, in 
retiring from it in 1829, blew up the greater part of the defences The nearest silver 
mines of which we find modern notice, are those of Gutnish- Khdnah (" Silverhouse "), 
about 35 miles N.W. of Baiburt ; they are more correctly mines of lead rich in silver, 
and were once largely worked. But the Masdlak-al-absdr (14th century), besides 
these, speaks of two others in the same province, one of which was near Bajert. This 
Quatremere reasonably would read Babert or Baiburt. {Not. et Extrcdts, XIII. L 
337 ; Texier, Arminie, I. 59. ) 

Note 4. — ^Josephus alludes to the belief that Noah's Ark still existed, and that 
pieces of the pitch were used as amulets. {Ant. I. 3. 6. ) 

Ararat (16,953 feet) was ascended, first by Prof. Parrot, September 1829 ; by Spasski 
Aotonomofi", August 1834 ; by Behrens, 1835 ; by Abich, 1845 ; by Seymour in 1848 ; 
by Khodzko, Khanikoff, and others, for trigonometrical and other scientific purposes, 
in August 1850. It is characteristic of the account from which I take these notes 
{Longrimoff, in Bull. Sac. Giog. Paris, sen IV. tom. i. p. 54), that whilst the writer's 
countr}-men, Spasski and Behrens, were "moved by a noble curiosity," the English- 
man is only admitted to have " gratified a tourist's whim " ! 

Note 5. — Though Mr. Khanikoff points out that springs of naphtha are abundant 
in the vicinity of Tiflis, the mention of ship-loads (in Ramusio indeed altered, but 
probably by the Editor, to camel-loads), and the vast quantities spoken of, point to 
the naphtha-wells of the Baku Peninsula on the Caspian. Ricold speaks of their 
supplying the whole country as far as Baghdad, and Barbaro alludes to the practice of 
anointing camels with the oil. The quantity collected firom the springs about Baku 
was in 1819 estimated at 241,000 poods (nearly 4000 tons), the greater part of which 
went to Persia. {Pereg. Quat. p. 122; Ramusio, II. 109; El. de Laprim. 276; 
V. du Chev. Gamba, I. 298.) 

[The phenomenal rise in the production of the Baku oil-fields between 1890- 
1900, may be seen at a glance from the Official Statistics where the total output 
for 1900 is given as 601,000,000 poods, about 9,500,000 tons. (Cf. Petroleum, No. 
42, vol. ii. p. 13.)] 



VOL. I. 



50 MARCO rOLO Book I. 



CHAPTER IV. 
Of Georgiania and the Kings thereof. 

In Georgiania there is a King called David Melic, which 
is as much as to say '• David King " ; he is subject to the 
Tartar.^ In old times all the kina;s were born with the 
figure of an eagle upon the right shoulder. The people 
are very handsome, capital archers, and most valiant 
soldiers. They are Christians of the Greek Rite, and 
have a fashion of wearing their hair cropped, like 
Churchmen." 

This is the country beyond which Alexander could 
not pass when he wished to penetrate to the region of the 
Ponent, because that the defile was so narrow and 
perilous, the sea lying on the one hand, and on the other 
lofty mountains impassable to horsemen. The strait 
extends like this for four leagues, and a handful of 
people might hold it against all the world. Alexander 
caused a very strong tower to be built there, to prevent 
the people beyond from passing to attack him, and this 
got the name of the Iron Gate. This is the place that 
the Book of Alexander speaks of, when it tells us how he 
shut up the Tartars between two mountains ; not that 
they were really Tartars, however, for there were no 
Tartars in those days, but they consisted of a race of 
people called Comanians and many besides.^ 

[In this province all the forests are of box-wood.*] 
There are numerous towns and villages, and silk is pro- 
duced in great abundance. They also weave cloths of 
gold, and all kinds of very fine silk stuffs. The country 
produces the best goshawks in the world [which are 
called Avi^iY It has indeed no lack of anything, and 




VOL. I. 



I) 2 



52 MARCO POLO Book I. 

the people live by trade and handicrafts. 'Tis a very 
mountainous region, and full of strait defiles and of 
fortresses, insomuch that the Tartars have never been 
able to subdue it out and out. 

There is in this country a certain Convent of Nuns 
called St. Leonard's, about which I have to tell you a 
very wonderful circumstance. Near the church in 
question there is a great lake at the foot of a mountain, 
and in this lake are found no fish, areat or small, 
throughout the year till Lent come. On the first day of 
Lent they find in it the finest fish in the world, and great 
store too thereof; and these continue to be found till 
Easter Eve. After that they are found no more till 
Lent come round again ; and so 'tis every year. 'Tis 
really a passing great miracle ! ^ 

That sea whereof I spoke as coming so near the 
mountains is called the Sea of Ghel or Ghelan, and 
extends about 700 miles.^ It is twelve days' journey 
distant from any other sea, and into it flows the great 
River Euphrates and many others, whilst it is surrounded 
by mountains. Of late the merchants of Genoa have 
begun to navigate this sea, carrying ships across and 
launching them thereon. It is from the country on this 
sea also that the silk called GhelU is brought.^ [The 
said sea produces quantities of fish, especially sturgeon, 
at the river-mouths salmon, and other big kinds of fish.]^ 



Note i. — Ramusio has : " One part of the said province is subject to the Tartar, 
and the other part, owing to its fortresses, remains subject to the King David." We 
give an illustration of one of these mediosval Georgian fortresses, from a curious collec- 
tion of MS. notices and drawings of Georgian subjects in the Municipal Library at 
Palermo, executed by a certain P. Cristoforo di Castelli of that city, who was a 
Theatine missionary in Georgia, in the first half of the 17th century. 

The G. T. says the King was always called David. The Georgian Kings of the 
family of Bagratidae claimed descent from King David through a prince Shampath, 
said to have been sent north by Nebuchadnezzar ; a descent which was usually asserted 
in their public documents. Timur in his Institutes mentions a suit of armour given 
him by the King of Georgia as forged by the hand of the Psalmist King. David is a 



Chap. IV. THE PASS OF DERBEND 53 

ver}' frequent name in their royal lists. [The dynasty of the Bagratidae, which was 
founded in 786 by Ashod, and lasted until the annexation of Georgia by Russia on 
the i8th January, iSoi, had nine reigning princes named Da\nd. During the second 
half of the 12th century the princes were : Da with (David) IV. Xarin (1247- 1259), 
Dawith V. (1243-1272), Dimitri II. Thawdadebuli (1272-1289), Wakhtang II. (1289- 
1292), Dawith VI. (1292-1308). — H. C] There were two princes of that name, David, 
who shared Georgia between them under the decision of the Great Kaan in 1246, and 
one of them, who survived to 1269, is probably meant here. The name of David was 
borne by the last titular King of Georgia, who ceded his rights to Russia in 1801. It 
is probable, however, as Marsden has suggested, that the statement about the King 
always being called David arose in part out of some confusion with the title of Dadian, 
which, according to Chardin (and also to P. di Castelli), was always assumed by the 
Princes of Mingrelia, or Colchis as the latter calls it. Chardin refers this title to the 
Persian Dad, "equitj'." To a portrait of "Alexander, King of Iberia," or Georgia 
Proper, Castelli attaches the following inscription, giving apparently his official style : 
'' With the sceptre of David, Crowned by Heaven, First King of the Orient and of the 
World, King of Israel," adding, "They say that he has on his shoulder a small mark 
of a cross, ^ Factus est principatus super humerum ejus,' and they add that he has all 
his ribs in one piece, and not divided." In another place he notes that when attending 
the King in illness his curiosity moved him strongly to ask if these things were true, 
but he thought better of it! {Khanikoff ; Jour. As. IX. 370, XI. 291, etc. ; Tim. 
Instit. p. 143; Car/<?/// MSS.) 

[A descendant of these Princes was in St. Petersburg about 1870. He wore 
the Russian uniform, and bore the title of Prince Bagration — Mukransky.] 

Note 2. — This fashion of tonsure is mentioned by Barbaro and Chardin. The 
latter speaks strongly of the beauty of both sexes, as does Delia Valle, and most 
modem travellers concur. 

Note 3. — This refers to the Pass of Derbend, apparently the Sarmatic Gates of 
Ptolemy, and Clattstra Casptorum of Tacitus, known to the Arab geographers as the 
" Gate of Gates" {Bdb-ul-abwdb), but which is still called in Turkish Demtr-Kdpi, or 
the Iron Gate, and to the ancient Wall that runs from the Castle of Derbend along 
the ridges of Caucasus, called in the East Sadd-i-Iskandar, the Rampart of 
Alexander. Bayer thinks the wall was probably built originally by one of the 
Antiochi, and renewed by the Sassanian Kobad or his son Naoshirwan. It is 
ascribed to the latter by Abulfeda ; and according to Klaproth's extracts from the 
Derbetid Ndmah, Naoshirwan completed the fortress of Derbend in A.D. 542, whilst 
he and his father together had erected 360 towers upon the Caucasian Wall which 
extended to the Gate of the Alans {i.e. the Pass of Diariel). Mas'udi says that the 
wall extended for 40 parasangs over the steepest summits and deepest gorges. The 
Russians must have gained some knowledge as to the actual existence and extent of 
the remains of this great work, but I have not been able to meet with any modem in- 
formation of a very precise kind. According to a quotation from Reiiie^s Kaukasus 
(I. 120, a work which I have not been able to consult), the remains of defences can 
be traced for many miles, and are in some places as much as 120 feet high. M. 
Moynet indeed, in the Tour du Monde (I. 122), states that he traced the wall to a 
distance of 27 versts (18 miles) from Derbend, but unfortunately, instead of describ- 
ing remains of such high interest from his own observation, he cites a description 
written by Alex. Dumas, which he says is quite accurate. 

[" To the west of Narin-Kaleh, a fortress which from the top of a promontory rises 
above the city, the wall, strengthened from distance to distance by lai^e towers, 
follows the ridge of the mountains, descends into the ravines, and ascends the 
slopes to take root on some remote peak. If the natives were to be believed, this 
wall, which, however, no longer has any strategetical importance, had formerly its 
towers bristling upon the Caucasus chain from one sea to another ; at least, this 



54- MARCO POLO Book I. 

rampart did protect all the plains at the foot of the eastern Caucasus, since vestiges 
were found up to 30 kilometres from Derbend." {Recltis, Asie rtisse, p. 160.) It 
has belonged to Russia since 1813. The first European traveller who mentions it is 
Benjamin of Tudela. 

Bretschneider (II. p. 117) observes: "Yule complains that he was not able to 
find any modern information regarding the famous Caucasian Wall which begins at 
Derbend. I may therefore observe that interesting details on the subject are found 
in Legkobytov's Survey of the Russian Dominions beyond the Caucasus (in Russian), 
1836, vol. iv. pp. 1 58- 1 61, and in Dubois de Montpereux's Voyage autour du 
Caucase, 1840, vol. iv. pp. 291-298, from which I shall give here an abstract." 

(He then proceeds to give an abstract, of which the following is a part :) 

" The famous Dagh bary (mountain wall) now begins at the village of DJelgan, 
4 versts south-west of Derbend, but we know that as late as the beginning of the 
last century it could be traced down to the southern gate of the city. This ancient 
wall then stretches westward to the high mountains of Tabasseran (it seems the 
Tabarestan of Mas'iidi) . . . Dubois de Montpereux enumerates the following sites 
of remains of the wall : — In the famous defile of Dariel, north-east of Kazbek. In 
the valley of the Assai river, near Wapila, about 35 versts north-east of Dariel. In 
the valley of the Kizil river, about 15 versts north-west of Kazbek. Farther 
west, in the valley of the Fiag or Pog river, between Lacz and Khilak. From this 
place farther west about 25 versts, in the valley of the Arredon river, in the 
district of Valaghir. Finally, the westernmost section of the Caucasian Wall has 
been preserved, which was evidently intended to shut up the maritime defile of 
Gagry, on the Black Sea." — H. C] 

There is another wall claiming the title of Sadd-i-Iskandar zX. the S.E. angle of 
the Caspian. This has been particularly spoken of by Vambery, who followed its 
traces from S.W. to N.E. for upwards of 40 miles. (See his Travels in C. Asia, 54 
seqq., SiXiA Julius Brattn in the Ausland, No. 22, of 1S69.) 

Yule (II. pp. 537-538) says, "To the same friendly correspondent [Professor Bruun] 
I owe the following additional particulars on this interesting subject, extracted from 
Eichwald, Peri plus des Kasp. M. I. 128. 

" 'At the point on the mountain, at the extremity of the fortress (of Derbend), 
where the double wall terminates, there begins a single wall constructed in the same 
style, only this no longer runs in a straight line, but accommodates itself to the contour 
of the hill, turning now to the north and now to the south. At first it is quite 
destroyed, and showed the most scanty vestiges, a few small htaps of stones or traces 
of towers, but all extending in a general bearing from east to west. ... It is not 
till you get 4 versts from Derbend, in traversing the mountains, that you come upon 
a continuous wall. Thenceforward you can follow it over the successive ridges . . . 
and through several villages chiefly occupied by the Tartar hill-people. The wall 
. . . makes many windings, and every | verst it exhibits substantial towers like 
those of the city-wall, crested with loop-holes. Some of these are still in tolerably 
good condition ; others have fallen, and with the wall itself have left but slight 
vestiges.' 

" Eichwald altogether followed it up about 18 versts (12 miles) not venturing to pro- 
ceed further. In later days this cannot have been difficult, but my kir.d correspondent 
had not been able to lay his hand on information. 

"A letter from Mr. Eugene Schuyler communicates some notes regarding inscrip- 
tions that have been found at and near Derbend, embracing Cufic of a.d. 465, Pehlvi, 
and even Cuneiform. Alluding to the fact that the other Iron-gate, south of Shahr- 
sabz, was called also Kalugah, or Kohlugah, he adds : ' I don't know what that 
means, nor do I know if the Russian Kaluga, south-west of Moscow, has anything 
to do with it, but I am told there is a Russian popular song, of which two lines run : 

' "Ah Derbend, Derbend Kaluga, 
Derbend my little Treasure ! " ' 




View ofDerbend. 



" J^lc.vanire itc pott p;tscr quanb il bosl alcr au ?ontnt . . . . rar be Tan ka 
est h\ mcr, et be I'jintre est gran montagne xjuc ne se poent cabauther. ^a bi« 
est inout rstroit entrc la tnontagne rt I.i mer." 



56 MARCO POLO Book 1. 

" I may observe that I have seen it lately pointed out that Koiuga is a Mongol 
word signifying a barrier ; and I see that Timkowski (I. 288) gives the same 
explanation of Kalgan, the name applied by Mongols and Russians to the gate in 
the Great Wall, called Chang-kia-Kau by the Chinese, leading to Kiakhta." 

The story alluded to by Polo is found in the mediasval romances of Alexander, and 
in the Pseudo-Callisthenes on which they are founded. The hero chases a number of 
impure cannibal nations within a mountain barrier, and prays that they may be shut 
up therein. The mountains draw together within a few cubits, and Alexander then 
builds up the gorge and closes it with gates of brass or iron. There were in all 
twenty-two nations with their kings, and the names of the nations were Goth, 
Magoth, Anugi, Eges, Exenach, etc. Godfrey of Viterbo speaks of them in his rhym- 
ing verses : — 

" Finibus Indorum species fuit una virorum ; 
Goth erat atque Magoth dictum cognomen eorum 

Narrat Esias, Isidorus et Apocalypsis, 

Tangit et in titulis Magna Sibylla suis. 

Patribus ipsorum tumulus fuit venter eorum," etc. 

Among the questions that the Jews are said to have put, in order to test 
Mahommed's prophetic character, was one series: "Who are Gog and Magog? 
Where do they dwell ? What sort of rampart did Zu'lkarnain build between them 
and men?" And in the Koran we find (ch. xviii. The Cavern): "They will 
question thee, O Mahommed, regarding Zu'lkarnain. Reply: I will tell you his 
history"— and then follows the story of the erection of the Rampart of Ydjuj and 
Majuj. In ch. xxi. again there is an allusion to their expected issue at the latter 
day. This last expectation was one of very old date. Thus the Cosmography of 
Aethicus, a work long believed (though erroneously) to have been abridged by St. 
Jerome, and therefore to be as old at least as the 4th century, says that the Tu7-ks of 
the race of Gog and Magog, a polluted nation, eating human flesh and feeding on all 
abominations, never washing, and never using wine, salt, nor wheat, shall come 
forth in the Day of Antichrist from where they lie shut up behind the Caspian Gates, 
and make horrid devastation. No wonder that the irruption of the Tartars into 
Europe, heard of at first with almost as much astonishment as such an event would 
produce now, was connected with this prophetic legend ! * The Emperor Frederic 
11., writing to Henry III. of England, says of the Tartars : "'Tis said tliey are de- 
scended from the Ten Tribes who abandoned the Law of Moses, and worshipped the 
Golden Calf. They are the people whom Alexander Magnus shut up in the Caspian 
Mountains." 

[See the chapter Gog et Magog dans le rotnan en aJexandrins, in Paul Meyer's 
Alexandre le Gratid dans la Littdrature fran^aise, Paris, 1886, II. pp. 386-389. — H. C.]: 

" Gos et Margos i vienent de la tiere des Turs 
Et. cccc. m. hommes amenerent u plus, 
II en jurent la mer dont sire est Neptunus 
Et le porte d'infier que garde Cerberus 
Que I'orguel d'Alixandre torneront a reiis 
Por 50U les enclot puis es estres desus. 
Dusc' al tans Antecrist n'en istera mais nus." 

According to some chroniclers, the Emperor Heraclius had already let loose the 
Shut-up Nations to aid him against the Persians, but it brought him no good, for he 
was beaten in spite of their aid, and died of grief. 

* See Letter of Frederic to the Roman Senate, of 20th June, 1241, in Briholks. Mahommedan 
writers, contemporary with the Mongol invasions, regarded these as a manifest sign of the approach- 
ing end of the world. (See P^lliot's Historians, II. p. 265.) 



Chap. IV. MIRACULOUS FISH SUPPLY 57 

The theory that the Tartars were G<^ and Magc^ led to the Rampart of 
Alexander being confounded with the Wall of China (see infra, Bk. I. ch. lix.), 
or being relegated to the extreme N.E. of Asia, as we find it in the Carta Catalana. 

These legends are referred to by Rabbi Benjamin, Hayton, Rubruquis, Ricold, 
Matthew Paris, and many more. Josephus indeed speaks of the Pass which 
Alexander fortified with gates of steel. But his saying that the King of Hyrcania 
was Lord of this Pass points to the Hyrcanian Gates of Northern Persia, or perhaps 
to the Wall of Gomushtapah, described by Vambery. 

Ricold of Montecroce allows two arguments to connect the Tartars with the Jews 
who were shut up by Alexander ; one that the Tartars hated the very name of 
Alexander, and could not bear to hear it ; the other, that their manner of writing 
was very like the Chaldean, meaning apparently the Syriac (««//, p. 29). But he 
points out that they had no resemblance to Jews, and no knowledge of the law. 

Edrisi relates how the Khalif Wathek sent one Salem the Dragoman to explore 
the Rampart of Gog and Magog. His route lay by Tiflis, the Alan country, and 
that of the Bashkirds, to the far north or north-east, and back by Samarkand. But 
the report of what he saw is pure fable. 

In 1857, Dr. Bellew seems to have found the ancient belief in the legend still held 
by Afghan gentlemen at Kandahar. 

At Gelath in Imeretia there still exists one valve of a large iron gate, traditionally 
said to be the relic of a pair brought as a trophy from Defbend by David, King of 
Georgia, called the Restorer (1089-1130). M. Brosset, however, has shown it to be 
the gate of Ganja, carried off in 1139. 

{Bayer in Comment. Petropol. I. 401 seqq. ; Pseudo-Callisth. by MulUr, p. 138; 
Gott. Viterb. in Pistorii Nidani Script. Germ. II. 228; Alexandriade, pp. 310311; 
Pereg. IV. p. 118; Acad, des Insc. Divers Savans, II. 483 ; Edrisi, II. 416-420, etc.) 

Note 4. — The box- wood of the Abkhasian forests was so abundant, and formed so 
important an article of Genoese trade, as to give the name of C/iao de Bux (Cavo di 
Bussi) to the bay of Bambor, N.W. of Sukum Kala', where the traffic was carried on. 
(See Elie de Laprim. 243.) Abulfeda also speaks of the Forest of Box {Shard! ul-buks) 
on the shores of the Black Sea, from which box-wood was exported to all parts of 
the world; buthisindicationof the exact locality is confused. {Reinaud' s Abiilf. I. 289.) 

At the present time " Boxwood abounds on the southern coast of the Caspian, and 
large quantities are exported from near Resht to England and Russia. It is sent up 
the Volga to Tsaritzin, from thence by rail to the Don, and down that river to the 
Black Sea, from whence it is shipped to England." {MS. Note, H. Y.) 

[Cf. V. Helm's Cultivated Plants, edited by J. S. Stallybrass, Lond., 1891, The 
Box Tree, pp. 176-179. — H. C] 

Note 5. ^Jerome Cardan notices that " the best and biggest goshawks come from 
Armenia," a term often including Georgia and Caucasus. The name of the bird is 
perhaps the same as 'Afii, " Falco montanus." (See Casiri, I. 320.) Major St. John 
tells me that the Terldn, or goshawk, much used in Persia, is still generally brought 
from Caucasus. {Cardan, de Per. Varietate, VII. 35.) 

Note 6.— A letter of Warren Hastings, written shortly before his death, and after 
reading Marsden's Marco Polo, tells how a fish-breeder of Banbury warned him 
against putting pike into his fish-pond, sapng, " If you should leave them where they 
are till Shroz'e Tuesday they will be sure to spawn, and then you will never get any 
other fish to breed in it." {Romance of Travel, I. 255.) Edward Webbe in his 
Travels (1590, reprinted 1868) tells us that in the " Land of Siria there is a River 
having great store of fish like unto Salmon-trouts, but no Jew can catch them, though 
either Christian and Turk shall catch them in abundance with great ease." The cir- 
cumstance of fish being got only for a limited time in spring is noticed with reference 
to Lake Van both by Tavernier and Mr. Brant. 



58 



MARCO POLO Book I. 



But the exact legend here reported is related (as M. Pauthier has already noticed) 
by Wilibrand of Oldenburg of a stream under the Castle of Adamodana, belonging to 
the Hospitallers, near Naversa (the ancient Anazarbus), in Cilicia under Taurus. 
And Khanikoff was told the same story of a lake in the district of Akhaltzike in 
Western Georgia, in regard to which he explains the substance of the phenomenon as 
a result of the rise of the lake's level by the melting of the snows, which often coin- 
cides with Lent. I may add that Moorcroft was told respecting a sacred pond near 
Sir-i-Chashma, on the road from Kabul to Bamian, that the fish in the pond were not 
allowed to be touched, but that they were accustomed to desert it for the rivulet that 
ran through the valley regularly every year on the day of the vernal equinox, and it 
was then lawful to catch them. 

Like circumstances would produce the same effect in a variety of lakes, and I 
have not been able to identify the convent of St. Leonard's. Indeed Leonard {Sant 
Lienard, G. T.) seems no likely name for an Armenian Saint ;' and the patroness of 
the convent (as she is of many others in that country) was perhaps Saint Nina, an 
eminent personage in the Armenian Church, whose tomb is still a place of pilgrimage ; 
or possibly St. Helena, for I see that the Russian maps show a place called Elenovka 
on the shores of Lake Sevan, N.E. of Erivan. Ramusio's text, moreover, says that 
the lake y^2is four days in compass, and this description will apply, I believe, to none 
but the lake just named. This is, according to Monteith, 47 miles in length and 21 
miles in breadth, and as 'far as I can make out he travelled round it in three very long 
marches. Convents and churches on its shores are numerous, and a very ancient one 
occupies an island on the lake. The Jake is noted for its fish, especially magnificent 
trout. 

{Tavern. Bk. IIL ch. iii. ; /. R. G. S. X. 897 ; Pereg. Quat. p. 179 ; Khanikoff, 
15 ; Moorcroft, II. 382 ; J. R. G. S. III. 40 seqq.) 

Ramusio has: "In this province there is a fine city called Tiklis, and round 
about it are many castles and walled villages. It is inhabited by Christians, 
Armenians, Georgians, and some Saracens and Jews, but not many." 

Note 7. — The name assigned by Marco to the Caspian, " Mer de Gheluchelan" 
or " Ghelachelan," has puzzled commentators. I have no doubt that the interpreta- 
tion adopted above is the correct one. I suppose that Marco said that the sea was 
called " La Mer de Ghel ou (de) Ghelan," a name taken from the districts of the 
ancient Gelae on its south-western shores, called indifferently Gil or Gildn, just as 
many other regions of Asia have like duplicate titles (singular and plural), arising, I 
suppose, from the change o^ ^ gentile into a /i?irt/name. Such are Lar, Laran, Khutl, 
Khutlan, etc., a class to which Badakhshan, Wakhan, Shaghnan, Mungan, Chag- 
hanian, possibly Bamian, and many others have formerly belonged, as the adjectives 
in some cases surviving, Badakhshi, Shaghni, Wdkhi, etc., show.* The change 
exemplified in the induration oi \hQSt gentile plurals into local singulars is everywhere 
traced in the passage from earlier to later geography. The old Indian geographical 
lists, such as are preserved in the Puranas, and in Pliny's extracts from Megasthenes, 
are. in the main, lists oi peoples, not of provinces, and even where the real name seems 
to be local a gentile form is often given. So also Tochari and Sogdi are replaced by 
Tokhdrisldn and Sttghd ; the Veneti and Taurini by Venice and Turin; the Remi 
and*he Parisii, by Rheims and Paris ; East-Saxons and South-Saxons by Essex and 
Sussex ; not to mention the countless -ings that, mark the tribal settlement of the 
Saxons in Britain. 

Abulfeda, speaking of this territory, uses exactly Polo's phrase, saying that the 
districts in question are properly called Kil-o-Kildn, but by the Axdihs Jil-o-Jildn. 
Teixeira gives the Persian name of the sea as Darya Ghildni. (See Abulf. in 
Bilschiftg, V. 329.) 



* When the first edition was published, I was not aware of remarks to like effect regarding names 
of this character hy Sir H. Rawlinson in the/. R. As. Soc. vol. xi. pp. 64 and 103. 



Chap. IV. THE CASPIAN SEA 59 

[The province of Gil (Gflan), which is situated between the mountains and the 
Caspian Sea, and between the provinces of Azerbaijan and Mazanderan (H. C.)]. gave 
name to the silk for which it was and is still famous, mentioned as Ghelle (Gili) at the 
end of this chapter. This &/a 6^/4^//a is mentioned also by Pegolotti (pp. 212,238,301), 
and by Uzzano, with an odd transposition, as Seta Legp, along with Seta Masaiidroni, 
i.e. from the adjoining province of Mazanderan (p. 192). May not the Spanish Geliz, 
"a silk-dealer," which seems to have been a puzzle to etj-mologists, be connected with 
this? {See Dozy and Engelmann, 2nd ed. p. 275.) [Prof. F. de Filippi {Viaggo in 
Persia nel 1862, . . . Milan, 1865, 8vo) speaks of the silk industry of Ghflan (pp. 
295-296) as the principal product of the entire province. — H. C] 

The dimensions assigned to the Caspian in the text would be very correct if length 
were meant, but the Gec^. Text with the same figure specifies circuit {zire). Ramusio 
again has "a circuit of 2800 miles." Possibly the original reading was 2700; but 
this would be in excess. 

Note 8. — The Caspian is termed by Vincent of Beau\-ais Mare Seruanicum, the 
Sea of Shirwan, another of its numerous Oriental names, rendered by Marino Sanuto 
as Mare Salvanicum. (III. xi. ch. ix.) But it was generally known to the Franks in 
the Middle Ages as the Sea of Bacu. Thus Bemi :— 

" Fuor del deserto la diritta strada 

Lungo il Mar di Bacu miglior pareva." 

(firl. Innatn. xvii. 60.) 

And in the Sfera of Lionardo Dati («Vra 1390) : — 

" Da Tramontana di quest' Asia Grande 
Tartari son sotto la fredda Zona, 
Gente bestial di bestie e vivande, 
Fin dove POnda di Baccii risuona," etc. (p. 10.) 

This name is introduced in Ramusio, but probably by interpolation, as well as the 
correction of the statement regarding Euphrates, which is perhaps a branch of the 
notion alluded to in Prologue, ch. ii. note 5. In a later chapter Marco calls it the 
Sea of Sarai, a title also given in the Carta Catalana. [Odorico calls it Sea ol Bacuc 
{Cathay) and Sea of Bascon (Cordier). The latter name is a corruption of Abeskun, 
a small town and island in the S. E. corner of the Caspian Sea, not far from Ashurada. 
— H. C] 

We have little information as to the Genoese navigation of the Caspian, but the 
great number of names exhibited along its shores in the map just named (1375) shows 
how familiar such navigation had become by that date. See also Cathay, p. 50, where 
an account is given of a remarkable enterprise by Genoese buccaneers on the Caspian 
about that time. Mas'iidi relates an earlier history of how about the beginning of the 
9th century a fleet of 500 Russian vessels came out of the Volga, and ravaged all the 
populous southern and western shores of the Caspian. The unhappy population was 
struck with astonishment and horror at this unlooked-for visitation from a sea that had 
hitherto been only frequented by peaceful traders or fishermen. (II. 18-24.) 

Note 9. — [The enormous quantity of fish found in the Caspian Sea is ascribed 
to the mass of vegetable food to be found in the shallower waters of the North and the 
mouth of the Volga. According to Reclus, the Caspian fisheries bring in fish to 
the annual value of between three and four millions sterling. — II. C] 



60 MARCO POLO Book I. 



CHAPTER V. 

Of the Kingdom of Mausul. 

On the frontier of Armenia towards the south-east is the 
kingdom of Mausul. It is a very great kingdom, and 
inhabited ^ by several different kinds of people whom we 
shall now describe. 

First there is a kind of people called Arabi, and these 
worship Mahommet. Then there is another description 
of people who are Nestorian and Jacobite Christians. 
These have a Patriarch, whom they call the Jatolic, and 
this Patriarch creates Archbishops, and Abbots, and 
Prelates of all other degrees, and sends them into every 
quarter, as to India, to Baudas, or to Cathay, just as the 
Pope of Rome does in the Latin countries. For you 
must know that though there is a very great number of 
Christians in those countries, they are all Jacobites and 
Nestorians ; Christians indeed, but not in the fashion 
enjoined by the Pope of Rome, for they come short in 
several points of the Faith. ^ 

All the cloths of gold and silk that are called Mosolins 
are made in this country ; and those great Merchants 
called Mosolins, who carry for sale such quantities of 
spicery and pearls and cloths of silk and gold, are also 
from this kingdom.^ 

There is yet another race of people who inhabit the 
mountains in that quarter, and are called Curds. Some 
of them are Christians, and some of them are Saracens ; 
but they are an evil generation, whose delight it is to 
plunder merchants.^ 

[Near this province is another called Mus and Merdin, 
producing an immense quantity of cotton, from which they 



Chap. V. THE KINGDOM OF MAUSUL 6 1 

make a great deal of buckram^ and other cloth. The 
people are craftsmen and traders, and all are subject to 
the Tartar King.] 




Note i.— Polo could scarcely have been justified in calling Mosul a very great 
kingdom. This is a bad habit of his, as we shall have to notice again. Badruddin 
Lulii, the last Atabeg of Mosul of the race of Zenghi 
had at the age of 96 taken sides with Hulaku, 
and stood high in his favour. His son Malik Salih, 
having revolted, surrendered to the Mongols in 1261 
on promise of life ; which promise they kept in Mon- 
gol fashion by torturing him to death. Since then 
the kingdom had ceased to exist as such. Coins of 
Badruddin remain with the name and titles of Mangku 
Kaan on their reverse, and some of his and of other 
atabegs exhibit curious imitations of Greek art. {Qvat. 

Rash. p. 3S9; A;«r. As. IV. VI. 141.).— H. Y. and ,„,,,. „, , 

,, „ r,, , -11 J V T- i. .u J r Coin of rjaaruddin of Mausul. 

H. C. [Mosul was pillaged by Timur at the end of 

the 14th century ; during the 15th it fell iniO the hands of the Turkomans, and during 

the i6th, of Ismail, Shah of Persia. — H. C. ] 

[The population of Mosul is to-day 61,000 inhabitants — (48,000 Musulmans, lo,ooc 

Caristians belonging to various churches, and 3000 Jews). — H. C] 

Note 2. — The Nestorian Church was at this time and in the preceding centuries 
diffused over Asia to an extent of which little conception is generally entertained, 
having a chain of Bishops and Metropolitans from Jerusalem to Peking. The Church 
derived its name from Nestorius, Patriarch of Constantinople, w ho was deposed by the 
Council of Ephesus in 431. The chief " point of the Faith " wherein it came short, 
was (at least in its most tangible form) the doctrine that in Our Lord there were two 
Persons, one of the Divine Word, the other of the Man Jesus ; the former dwelling in 
the latter as in a Temple, or uniting with the latter "as fire with iron." Nestorin, 
the terra used by Polo, is almost a literal transcript of the Arab form Nasturi. A 
notice of the Metropolitan sees, w ith a map, will be found in Cathay, p. ccxliv. 

Jdthalik, written in our text (from G. T.) Jatolic, by Fr. Burchard and Ricold 
faselic, stands for Ka^oXi^ros. No doubt it was originally Gdthalik, but altered in 
pronunciation by the Arabs. The term was applied by Nestorians to their Patriarch ; 
among the Jacobites to the Mafridn or Metropolitan. The Nestorian Patriarch at 
this time resided at Baghdad. {Assemani, vol. iii. pt. 2 ; Per. Qiiat. 91, 127.) 

The Jacobites, or Jacobins, as they are called by writers of that age (Ar. Yo'iibkiy), 
received their name from Jacob Baradaeus or James Zanzale, Bishop of Edessa (so 
called, Mas'udi says, because he was a maker oi barda'at or saddle-cloths), who gave 
a great impulse to their doctrine in the 6th century. [At some time between the 
years 541 and 578, he separated from the Church and became a follower of the doctrine of 
Eutyches. — H. C] The Jacobites then formed an independent Church, which at one 
time spread over the East at least as far as Sistan, where they had a see under the 
Sassanian Kings, fheir distinguishing tenet was Monophysitisiii, viz., that Our 
Lord had but one Nature, the Divine. It was in fact a rebound from Nestorian 
doctrine, but, as might be expected in such a case, there was a vast number of shades 
of opinion among both bodies. The chief locality of the Jacobites was in the 
districts of Mosul, Tekrit, and Jazfrah, and their Patriarch was at this time settled at 
the Monastery of St. Matthew, near Mosul, but afterwards, and to the present day, 
at or near Mardin. [They have at present two patriarchates : the Monastery of 
Zapharan near Baghdad and Etchmiadzin.— H. C. ] The Armenian, Coptic, Abyssinian, 



62 MARCO POLO Book I. 

and Malabar Churches all hold some shade of the Jacobite doctrine, though the first 
two at least have Patriarchs apart. 

(Assemani, vol. ii. ; Le Quicn, II. 1596; Mas'ndi, II. 329-330; Per. Quat. 
124-129.) 

^ Note 3. — We see here that inosolin or muslin had a very different meaning from 

what it has now. A quotation from Ives by Marsden shows it to have been applied 
in the middle of last century to a strong cotton cloth made at Mosul. Dozy says the 
Arabs use Maucili in the sense of muslin, and refers to passages in ' The Arabian 
Nights.' [Bretschneider {Med. Res. II. p. 122) observes " that in the narrative of 
Ch'ang Ch'un's travels to the west in 1221, it is stated that in Samarkand the men of 
the lower classes and the priests wrap their heads about with a piece of white vio-sze. 
There can be no doubt that mo-sze here denotes ' muslin,' and the Chinese author 
seems to understand by this term the same material which we are now used to call 
muslin."-— H. C] I have found no elucidation of Polo's application of inosolini 
to a class of merchants. But, in a letter of Pope Innocent IV. (1244) to the 
Dominicans in Palestine, we find classed as different bodies of Oriental Christians, 
^'Jacobitae, Nesioritae, Georgiani, Gracci, Armcni, Maronilae, et Mosolini." {Le 
Qiiien, III. 1342.) 

Note 4. — "The Curds," says Ricold, "exceed in malignant ferocity all the 

barbarous nations that I have seen They are called Curti, not because they 

are curt in stature, but from the Persian word for Wolves. . . . They have three 
principal vices, viz., Murder, Robbery, and Treachery." Some say they have not 
mended since, but his etymology is doubtful. Kurt is Turkish for a wolf, not 
Persian, which is Gurg ; but the name {Karducki, Kordiaei, etc.) is older, I 
imagine, than the Turkish language in that part of Asia. Quatremere refers it to 
the Persi.an gurd, "strong, valiant, hero." As regards the statement that some of 
the Kurds were Christians, Mas'udi states that the Jacobites and certain other 
Christians in the territory of Mosul and Mount Judi were reckoned among the 
Kurds. [Not. et Ext. XIII. i. 304.) [The Kurds of Mosul are in part nomadic and 
are called Kotcheres, but the greater number are sedentary and cultivate cereals, 
cotton, tobacco, and fruits. (Cuinet.) Old Kurdistan had Shehrizor (Kerkuk, in the 
sanjak of that name) as its capital. — H. C] 

Note 5. — Ramusio here, as in all passages where other texts have Bucherami 
and the like, puts Boccassini, a word which has become obsolete in its turn. I see 
both Bochayrani and Bochasini coupled, in a Genoese fiscal statute of 1339, quoted 
by Pardessus. {Lois Maritimes, IV. 456. ) 

Mush and Mardin are in very different regions, but as their actual interval is 
only about 120 miles, they may have been under one provincial government. Mush 
is essentially Armenian, and, though the seat of a Pashalik, is now a wretched place. 
Mardin, on the verge of the Mesopotamian Plain, rises in terraces on a lofty hill, and 
there, says Hammer, "Sunnis and Shias, Catholic and Schismatic Armenians, 
Jacobites, Nestorians, Chaldaeans, Sun-, Fire-, Calf-, and Devil-worshippers dwell 
one over the head of the other." {Ilchan, I. 191.) 



Chap. VI. THE GREAT CITY OF BAUDAS 63 



CHAPTER VI. 

Of the great Citv of Baudas, and how it was taken. 

Baudas is a great city, which used to be the seat of the 
Calif of all the Saracens in the world, just as Rome is 
the seat of the Pope of all the Christians.^ A very great 
river flows through the city, and by this you can descend 
to the Sea of India. There is a orreat traffic of mer- 
chants with their goods this way ; they descend some 
eighteen days from Baudas, and then come to a certain 
city called Kisi, where they enter the Sea of India.- 
There is also on the river, as you go from Baudas to 
Kisi, a great city called Bastra, surrounded by woods, 
in which grow the best dates in the world. ^ 

In Baudas they weave many different kinds of silk 
stuffs and gold brocades, such as nasich, and nac, and 
cramoisy, and many another beautiful tissue richly 
wrought with fiofures of beasts and birds. It is the 
noblest and greatest city in all those regions.* 

Now it came to pass on a day in the year of Christ 
1255, that the Lord of the Tartars of the Levant, whose 
name was Alaii, brother to the Great Kaan now reiornine, 
gathered a mighty host and came up against Baudas and 
took it by storm. ^ It was a great enterprise! for in 
Baudas there were more than 100,000 horse, besides 
foot soldiers. And when Alaii had taken the place he 
found therein a tower of the Calif's, which was full of 
gold and silver and other treasure ; in fact the greatest 
accumulation of treasure in one spot that ever was 
known.® When he beheld that great heap of treasure 
he was astonished, and, summoning the Calif to his 
presence, he said to him: " Calif, tell me now why thou 



64 MARCO POLO Book I. 

hast gathered such a huge treasure ? What didst thou 
mean to do therewith ? K newest thou not that I was 
thine enemy, and that I was coming against thee with 
so great an host to cast thee forth of thine heritage? 
Wherefore didst thou not take of thy gear and employ 
it in paying knights and soldiers to defend thee and thy 
city?" 

The Calif wist not what to answer, and said never a 
word. So the Prince continued, " Now then, Calif, since 
I see what a love thou hast borne thy treasure, I will 
e'en give it thee to eat ! " So he shut the Calif up in 
the Treasure Tower, and bade that neither meat nor 
drink should be given him, saying, " Now, Calif, eat of 
thy treasure as much as thou wilt, since thou art so fond 
of it ; for never shalt thou have aught else to eat ! " 

So the Calif lingered in the tower four days, and then 
died like a dog. Truly his treasure would have been of 
more service to him had he bestowed it upon men who 
would have defended his kingdom and his people, rather 
than let himself be taken and deposed and put to death 
as he was.^ Howbeit, since that time, there has been 
never another Calif, either at Baudas or anywhere else.^ 

Now I will tell you of a great miracle that befell at 
Baudas, wrought by God on behalf of the Christians. 



Note i. — This form of the Mediaeval Frank name of Baghdad, Baudas [the 
Chinese traveller, Ch'ang Te, Si Shi Ki, XIII. cent., says, "the kingdom oi Bao-da" 
H. C], is curiously like that used by the Chinese historians, Paota [Pati/hier ; Gaubil), 
and both are probably due to the Mongol habit of slurring gutturals. (See Prologue, 
ch. ii. note 3.) [Baghdad was taken on the 5th of February, 1258, and the Khalif 
surrendered to Hulaku on the loth of February. — H. C] 

Note 2. — Polo is here either speaking without personal knowledge, or is so brief as 
to convey an erroneous impression that the Tigris flows to Kisi, whereas three-fourths 
of the length of the Persian Gulf intervene between the river mouth and Kisi. The 
latter is the island and city ofTtlSH or Kais, about 200 miles from the mouth of the 
Gulf, and for a long time one of thc^ij^ ports of trade with India and the East. 
The island, the Cataea of Arrian, now caued Ghes or Kenn, is singular among the 
islands of the Gulf as being wooded and well supplied with fresh water. The ruins of 
a city [called Ilarira, according to Lord Curzon,] exist on the north side. According to 



Chap. VI. TEXTURES OF BAUDAS 65 

Wassaf, the island derived its name from one Kais, the son of a poor widow of Sfraf 
(then a great port of Indian trade on the northern shore of the Gulf), who on a voyage 
to India, about the loth century, made a fortune precisely as Dick Whittington did. 
The proceeds of the cat were invested in an establishment on this island. Modern 
attempts to nationalise Whittington may surely be given up ! It is one of the tales 
which, like Tell's shot, the dog Gellert, and many others, are common to many regions. 
{Hammers Ilch. I. 239 ; Ouseley's Travels, I. 170 ; Notes and Qturies, 2nd s. XI. 
372.) 

Mr Badger, in a postscript to his translation of the History of Oman {Hak. Soc. 
1 871), maintains that Kish or Kais was at this time a city on the mainland, and 
identical from Siraf. He refers to Ibn Batuta (II. 244), who certainly does speak of 
visiting ' ' the city of Kais, called also Sfraf. " And Polo, neither here nor in Bk. III. ch. 
xl. , speaks of Kisi as an island. I am inclined, however, to think that this was firom 
not having visited it. Ibn Batuta says nothing of Siraf as a seat of trade ; but the 
historian Wassaf, who had been in the service of Jamaluddin al-Thaibi, the Lord of 
Kais, in speaking of the export of horses thence to India,, calls it " the Island of ICais." 
(Elliot, III. 34.) Compare allusions to this horse trade in ch. xv. and in Bk. III. ch. 
xvii. Wassaf was precisely a contemporary of Polo. 

Note 3. — The name is Bascra in the MSS., but this is almost certainly the 

common error oic for t. Basra is still noted for its vast date-groves. " The whole 

country from the confluence of the Euphrates and Tigris to the sea, a distance of 
30 leagues, is covered with these trees." {Taro. Bk. II. ch. iii.) 

Note 4. — From Baudas, or Baldac, i.e. Baghdad, certain of these rich silk and 
gold brocades were called Baldachini, or in English Baudekins, From their use in 
the state canopies and umbrellas of Italian dignitaries, the word Baldacchino has 
come to mean a canopy, even when architectural. \_Baldekino, baldacchino, was at first 
entirely made of silk, but afterwards silk was mixed (sericum mixtum) with cotton or 
thread. When Hulaku conquered Baghdad part of the tribute was to be paid with 
that kind of stuff. Later on, says Heyd (II. p. 697), it was also manufactured in the 
province of Ahwaz, at Damas and at Cyprus ; it was carried as fai as France and 
England. Among the articles sent from Baghdad to Okkodai Khan, mentioned 
in the Yiian cKao pi shi (made in the 14th century), quoted by Bretschneider 
{Med. Res. II. p. 124), we note : Nakhut (a kind of gold brocade), Nachidut (a silk 
stuff interwoven with gold), Dardas (a stuff embroidered in gold). Bretschneider 
(p. 125) adds : " With respect to nakhut and nachidut, I may observe that these 
words represent the Mongol plural form of noAh and nachetti. ... I may finally 
mention that in the Yiian shi, ch. lxx\iii. (on oflicial dresses), a stuff, na-shi-shi, is 
repeatedly named, and the term is explained there by kin kin (gold brocade)." 
— H. C] The stuffs called Nasich and Nac are again mentioned by our traveller 
below (ch. lix.). We only know that they were of silk and gold, as he implies here, 
and as Ibn Batuta tells us, who mentions Nakh several times and Naslj once. The 
latter is also mentioned by Rubruquis {Nasic) as a present made to him at the Kaan's 
court. And Pegolotti speaks of both nacchi and nacchetti of silk and gold, the latter 
apparently answering to Nasich. Nac, Nacques, Nachiz, Nach, Nast's, appear in 
accounts and inventories of the 14th century, French and English. (See Dictiontiaire 
des Tissus, II. 199, and Doitet dArcq, Comptes de VArgenterie des Rois de France, 
^t^c-j 334-) We find no mention of Nakh or iVizj/y among the stuffs detailed in the 
Ain Akbari,%o they must have been obsolete in the i6th century. [Cf. Heyd, Com. du 
Levant, II. p. 698 ; Nacco, nachetto, comes from the i^bic nakh {nekh) ; nassit 
{tiasith) from the Arabic n^cidj.—H. C] Queuiusis or Cramoisy derived its name 
from the Kermes insect (Ar. Kirmiz) found on ^Kerens cocci/era, now supplanted by 
cochineal. The stuff so called is believed to have been origmally a crimson velvet, but 
apparently, like the mediaeval Purpura, if not identical with it, it came to indicate a 
tissue rather than a colour. Thus Fr.-Michel quotes velvet of vermeil cramoisy, of 
VOL. L V 



66 MARCO POLO Book I. 

violet, and of blue cramoisy, and. pourpres of a variety of colours, though he says he 
has never met wiih pourpre blanche. I may, however, point to Piano Carpini (p. 755)> 
who describes the courtiers at Karakorum as clad in white purpura. 

The London prices of Chermisi and Baldacchini in the early part of the 15th 
century will be found in Uzzano's work, but they are hard to elucidate. 

Babylon, of which Baghdad was the representative, was famous for its variegated 
textures in very early days. We do not know the nature of the goodly Babylonish 
garment which tempted Achan in Jericho, but Josephus speaks of the affluence of rich 
stuffs carried in the triumph of Titus, "gorgeous with life-like designs from the 
Babylonian loom," and he also describes the memorable Veil of the Temple as a 
tt^ttXos Ba^v\iI}VLos of varied colours marvellously wrought. Pliny says King Attalus 
invented the intertexture of cloth with gold ; but the weaving of damasks of a variety 
of colours was perfected at Babylon, and thence they were called Babylonian, 

The brocades wrought with figures of animals in gold, of which Marco speaks, are 
still a spicialiti at Benares, where they are known by the name of Shikdrgdh or 
hunting-grounds, which is nearly a translation of the name Thard-wahsh ' ' beast- 
hunts," by which they were known to the mediaeval Saracens. (See Q. Makrizi, IV. 
69-70.) Plautus speaks of such patterns in carpets, the produce of Alexandria — 
^'' Alexandrina belluata cotichyliata tapetia." Athenaeus speaks of Persian carpets of 
like description at an extravagant entertainment given by Antiochus Epiphanes ; and 
the same author cites a banquet given in Persia by Alexander, at which there figured 
costly curtains embroidered with animals. In the 4th century Asterius, Bishop of 
Amasia in Pontus, rebukes the Christians who indulge in such attire: "You find 
upon them lions, panthers, bears, huntsmen, woods, and rocks ; whilst the more devout 
display Christ and His disciples, with the stories of His miracles," etc. And Sidonius 
alludes to upholstery of like character : 

" Peregrina det supellex 

» « « * 

Ubi torvus, et per artem 

Resupina flexus ora, 

It equo reditque telo 

Simulacra bestiarum 

Fugiens fugansque Parthus." {Epist. ix. 13.) 

A modern Kashmir example of such work is shown under ch. xvii. 

{D'Avezac, p. 524 ; Pegolotti, in Cathay, 295, 306 ; /. B. II. 309, 388, 422 ; III. 
81; Delia Decima, IV. 125-126; Fr. -Michel, Recherches, etc., II. 10-16, 204-206; 
/oseph. Bell. Jud. VII. 5, 5, and V. 5, 4 ; Pliny, VIII. 74 (or 48) ; Plautus, 
Psetidolus, I. 2 ; Yonge's Athenaetis, V. 26 and XII. 54 ; Mongez in Mint. Acad. IV. 
275-276.) 

Note 5. — [Bretschneider {Med. Res. I. p. 114) says: " Hulagu left Karakorum, 
the residence of his brother, on the 2nd May, 1253, and returned to his ordo, in order 
to organize his army. On the 19th October of the same year, all being ready, 
he started for the west." He arrived at Samarkand in September, 1255. For this 
chapter and the following of Polo, see : HulagiCs Expedition to Western Asia, after 
the Mohamjuedan Authors, pp. 1 12-122, and the Translation of the Si Shi Ki 
(Ch'ang Te), pp. 122-156, in Bretschncider's Alcdiczval Researches, I. — II. C] 

Note 6. — [" Hulagu proceeded to the lake of Ormia (Urmia), when he ordered a 
castle to be built on the island of Tala, in the middle of the lake, for the purpose of 
depositing here the immense treasures captured at Baghdad. A great part of the booty, 
however, had been sent to Mangu Khan." {Hulagti's Exp., Bretschneider, Med. 
Res. I. p. 120.) Ch'ang Tc says (Si Shi ICi, p. 139): "The palace of the Ha-li-fa 
was built of fragrant and precious woods. The walls of it were constructed of black 
and white jade. It is impossible to imagine the quantity of gold and precious stones 
found there."~H.C.] 



Chap. VI. DEATH OF KHALIF MOSTA'SIM (i*] 

Note 7. — 

" I said to the Kalif : ' Thou art old, 
Thou hast no need of so much gold. 
Thou shouldst not have heaped and hidden it here, 
Till the breath of Battle was hot and near, 
But have sown through the land these useless hoards 
To spring into shining blades of swords, 
And keep thine honour sweet and clear. 
♦ «*»*♦ 

Then into his dungeon I locked the drone, 
And left him to feed there all alone 
In the honey-cells of his golden hive : 
Never a prayer, nor a cry, nor a groan 
Was heard from those massive walls of stone, 
Nor again was the Kalif seen alive.' 

This is the story, strange and true, 
That the great Captain Alaii 
Told to his brother, the Tartar Khan, 
When he rode that day into Cambalu. 
By the road that leadeth to Ispahan." {Longfellow.') * 

The story of the, death of Mosta'sim Billah, the last of the Abbaside Khalife, is 
told in much the same way by Hayton, Ricold, Pachymeres, and Joinville. The 
memory of the last glorious old man must have failed him, when he says the facts 
were related by some merchants who came to King Lewis, when before Saiette (or 
Sidon), viz. in 1253, for the capture of Baghdad occurred five years later. Mar. 
Sanuto says melted gold was poured down the Khalif s throat — a transfer, no doubt, 
from the old story of Crassus and the Parthians. Contemporary Armenian historians 
assert that Hulaku slew him with his own hand. 

All that Rashiduddin says is : "The evening of Wednesday, the 14th of Safar, 
656 (20th February, 1258), the Khalif was put to death in the village of Wakf, with his 
eldest son and five eunuchs who had never quitted him." Later writers say that he 
was wrapt in a carpet and trodden to death by horses. 

[Cf. The Story of the Death of the last Abbaside Caliph, from the Vatican MS. of 
Ibn-al-Ftirat, by G. le Strange (four. R. As. Soc, April, 1900, pp. 293-300). 
This is the story of the death of the Khalif told by Ibn-al-Furat (bom in Cairo, 
1335 A.D.): 

"Then Hulagu gave command, and the Caliph was left a-hungering, until his 
case was that of very great hunger, so that he called asking that somewhat might 
be given him to eat. And the accursed Hulagu sent for a dish with gold therein, 
and a dish with silver therein, and a dish with gems, and ordered tliese all to be set 
before the Caliph al Musta'sim, saying to him, 'Eat these.' But the Caliph made 
answer, 'These be not fit for eating.' Then said Hulagu : ' Since thou didst so well 
know that these be not fit for eating, why didst thou make a store thereof? With 
part thereof thou mightest have sent gifts to propitiate us, and with part thou 
shouldst have raised an army to ser\e thee and defend thyself against us ! And 
Hulagu commanded them to take forth the Caliph and his son to a place without the 
camp, and they were here bound and put into two great sacks, being afterwards 
trampled under foot till they both died — the mercy of Allah be upon them." — H. C] 

The foundation of the story, so widely received among the Christians, is to be 
found also in the narrative of Nikbi (and Mirkhond), which is cited by D'Ohsson. 
When the Khalif surrendered, Hulaku put before him a plateful of gold, and told 
him to eat it. "But one does not eat gold," said the prisoner. "Why, then," 

■yjf-^-. . * Not that Alau {^ace Mr. Longfellow) ever did see Cambalu. 

VUL. I. g J 



68 MARCO POLO Book I. 

replied the Tartar, " did you hoard it, instead of expending it in keeping up an army? 
Why did you not meet me attheOxus?" The Khalif could only say, " Such was 
God's will!" "And that which has befallen you was also God's will," said 
Hulaku. 

WassdPs narrative is interesting : — " Two days after his capture the Khalif was at 
his morning prayer, and began with the verse {Koratt, III. 25), * Say God is the 
Possessor of Dominion ! It shall be given to whom He will ; it shall be taken from 
whom He will : whom He will He raiseth to honour ; whom He will He casteth to 
the ground.' Having finished the regular office he continued still in prayer with 
tears and importunity. Bystanders reported to the Ilkhan the deep humiliation of 
the Khalifs prayers, and the text which seemed to have so striking an application to 
those two princes. Regarding what followed there are different stories. Some say 
that the Ilkhan ordered food to be withheld from the Khalif, and that when he asked 
for food the former bade a dish of gold be placed before him, etc. Eventually, after 
taking counsel with his chiefs, the Padishah ordered the execution of the Khalif. It 
was represented that the blood-drinking sword ought not to be stained with the gore 
of Mosta'sim. He was therefore rolled in a carpet, just as carpets are usually rolled 
up, insomuch that his limbs were crushed." 

The avarice of the KJialif was proverbial. When the Mongol army was investing 
Miafarakain, the chief, Malik Kamal, told his people that everything he had should 
be at the service of those in need : " Thank God, I am not like Mosta'sim, a wor- 
shipper of silver and gold ! " 

{Hayton in Ram. ch. xxvi. ; Per. Quat. 121; Pachym. Mic. Palaeol. II. 24; 
loinville, p. 182; Sanuto, p. 238; /. As. ser. V. torn. xi. 490, and xvi. 291; 
D'Ohsson, III. 243 ; Hammer's Wassdf, 75-76; Quat. Rashid. 305.) 

Note 8. — Nevertheless Froissart brings the KhaUf to life again one hundred and 
twenty years later, as "Z* Galifre de Baudas." (Bk. III. ch. xxiv.) 



CHAPTER VII. 



How THE Calif of Baudas took counsel to slay all the 
Christians in his Land. 

I WILL tell you then this great marvel that occurred be- 
tween Baudas and Mausul. 

It was in the year of Christ ^ . . . that there was a 
Calif at Baudas who bore a great hatred to Christians, 
and was taken up day and night with the thought how 
he might either bring those that were in his kingdom 
over to his own faith, or might procure them all to be 
slain. And he used daily to take counsel about this 
with the devotees and priests of his faith,^ for they all 



Chap. VIL THE MIRACLE OF THE MOUNTAIN 69 

bore the Christians like malice. And, indeed, it is a 
fact, that the whole body of Saracens throughout the 
world are always most malignantly disposed towards the 
I whole body of Christians. 

Now it happened that the Calif, with those shrewd 
I priests of his, got hold of that passage in our Gospel 
■ which says, that if a Christian had faith as a grain of 
mustard seed, and should bid a mountain be removed, 
it would be removed. And such indeed is the truth. 
But when they had got hold of this text they were de- 
lighted, for ft seemed to them the very thing whereby 
either to force all the Christians to change their faith, or 
to bring destruction upon them all. The Calif. therefore 
called together all the Christians in his territories, who 
were extremely numerous. And when they had come 
before him, he showed them the Gospel, and made them 
read the text which I have mentioned. And when they 
had read it he asked them if that was the truth ? The 
Christians answered that it assuredly was so. "Well," 
said the Calif, " since you say that it is the truth, I will 
give you a choice. Among such a number of you there 
must needs surely be this small amount of faith ; so you 
must either move that mountain there," — and he pointed 
to a mountain in the neighbourhood — " or you shall die 
an ill death ; unless you choose to eschew death by all 
becoming Saracens and adopting our Holy Law. To 
this end I give you a respite of ten days ; if the thing 
be not done by that time, ye shall die or become 
Saracens." And when he had said this he dismissed 
them, to consider what was to be done in this strait 
wherein they were. 



Note i. — The date in the G. Text and Pauthier is 1275, which of course cannot 
have been intended. Ramusio has 1225. 

[The Khali& in 1225 were Abu'l Abbas Ahmed VII. en-Nassir lidini 'Ilah (1180- 
1225) and Abu Nasr Mohammed IX. ed-Dhahir bi-emri 'Ilah (1225-1226). — H. C] 



yO MARCO POLO Book I. 

Note 2. — " Cttm sez regisles et cum sez casses." (G. T.) I suppose the former 
expression to be a form of Regiiks, which is used in Polo's book for persons of a 
religious rule or order, whether Christian or Pagan. The latter word [casses) I tiike 
to be the Arabic Kashhh, properly a Christian Presbyter, but frequently applied by 
old travellers, and habitually by the Portuguese [caxtz, caxtx), to Mahomedan Divines. 
(See Cathay, p. 568.) It may, however, be Kdzi. 

Pauthier's text has simply " a ses prestres de la Loi." 



CHAPTER VIII. 



How THE Christians were in great dismay because of what 
THE Calif had .said. 

The Christians on hearing what the Calif had said were 
in great dismay, but they Hfted all their hopes to God, 
their Creator, that He would help them in this their 
strait. All the wisest of the Christians took counsel 
together, and among -them were a number of bishops 
and priests, but they had no resource except to turn to 
Him from whom all good things do come, beseeching 
Him to protect them from the cruel hands of the Calif. 

So they were all gathered together in prayer, both 
men and women, for eight days and eight nights. And 
whilst they were thus engaged in prayer it was revealed 
in a vision by a Holy Angel of Heaven to a certain 
Bishop who was a very good Christian, that he should 
desire a certain Christian Cobler,^ who had but one eye, 
to pray to God ; and that God in His goodness would 
grant such prayer because of the Cobler's holy life. 

Now I must tell you what manner of man this Cobler 
was. He was one who led a life of great uprightness 
and chastity, and who fasted and kept from all sin, and 
went daily to church to hear Mass, and gave daily a 
portion of his gains to God. And the way how he came 
to have but one eye was this. It happened one day that 



Chap. IX. THE MIRACLE OF THE MOUNTAIN 7 1 

a certain woman came to him to have a pair of shoes 
made, and she showed him her foot that he might take 
her measure. Now she had a very beautiful foot and 
leg ; and the Cobler in taking her measure was conscious 
of sinful thoughts. And he had often heard it said in 
the Holy Evangel, that if thine eye offend thee, pluck 
it out and cast it from thee, rather than sin. So, as 
soon as the woman had departed, he took the awl that 
he used in stitching, and drove it into his eye and de- 
stroyed it. And this is the way he came to lose his eye. 
So you can judge what a holy, just, and righteous man 
he was. 



Note i. — Here the G. T. uses a strange word : '^ Or te vats a tel cralantor." 
It does not occur again, being replaced by chabitier (savetier). It has an Oriental 
look, but I can make no satisfactory suggestion as to what the word meant. 



CHAPTER IX. 



How THE One-eyed Cobler was desired to pray for the 
Christians. 

Now when this vision had visited the Bishop several 
times, he related the whole matter to the Christians, and 
they agreed with one consent to call the Cobler before 
them. And when he had come they told him it was 
their wish that he should pray, and that God had 
promised to accomplish the matter by his means. On 
hearing their request he made many excuses, declaring 
that he was not at all so good a man as they repre- 
sented. But they persisted in their request with so 
much sweetness, that at last he said he would not tarry, 
but do what they desired. 



72 MARCO POLO Book I. 



CHAPTER X. 

How THE Prayer of the One-eyed Cobler caused the 
Mountain to move. 

And when the appointed day was come, all the Christians 
got up early, men and women, small and great, more 
than 100,000 persons, and went to church, and heard the 
Holy Mass. And after Mass had been sung, they all 
went forth together in a great procession to the plain in 
front of the mountain, carrying the precious cross before 
them, loudly singing and greatly weeping as they went. 
And when they arrived at the spot, there they found the 
Calif with all his Saracen host armed to slay them if 
they would not change their faith ; for the Saracens be- 
lieved not in the least that God would grant such favour 
to the Christians. 'These latter stood indeed in great 
fear and doubt, but nevertheless they rested their hope 
on their God Jesus Christ. 

So the Cobler received the Bishop's benison, and 
then threw himself on his knees before the Holy Cross, 
and stretched out his hands towards Heaven, and made 
this prayer : " Blessed Lord God Almighty, I pray 
Thee by Thy goodness that Thou wilt grant this grace 
unto Thy people, insomuch that they perish not, nor Thy 
faith be cast down, nor abused nor flouted. Not that 
I am in the least worthy to prefer such request unto 
Thee ; but for Thy great power and mercy I beseech 
Thee to hear this prayer from me Thy servant full of 
sm. 

And when he had ended this his prayer to God the 
Sovereign Father and Giver of all grace, and whilst the 
Calif and all the Saracens, and other people there, were 
looking on, the mountain rose out of its place and moved 



Chap. X. THE MIRACLE OF THE MOUNTAIN 73 

to the spot which the Calif had pointed out ! And when 
the Calif and all his Saracens beheld, they stood amazed 
at the wonderful miracle that God had wrought for the 
Christians, insomuch that a great number of the Saracens 
became Christians. And even the Calif caused himself 
to be baptised in the name of the Father and of the Son 
and of the Holy Ghost, Amen, and became a Christian, 
but in secret. Howbeit, when he died they found a 
little cross hung round his neck ; and therefore the 
Saracens would not bury him with the other Califs, but 
put him in a place apart. The Christians exulted greatly 
at this most holy miracle, and returned to their homes 
full of joy, giving thanks to their Creator for that which 
He had done.^ 

And now you have heard in what wise took place 
this great miracle. And marvel not that the Saracens 
hate the Christians ; for the accursed law that Ma- 
hommet gave them commands them to do all the 
mischief in their power to all other descriptions of 
people, and especially to Christians ; to strip such of 
their goods, and do them all manner of evil, because 
they belong not to their law. See then what an evil 
law and what naughty commandments they have ! But 
in such fashion the Saracens act, throughout the world. 

Now I have told you something of Baudas. I could 
easily indeed have told you first of the affairs and the 
customs of the people there. But it would be too long a 
business, looking to the great and strange things that 
I have got to tell you, as you will find detailed in this 
Book. 

So now I will tell you of the noble city of Tauris. 



Note i. — We may remember that at a date only three years before Marco related 
this story (viz. in 1295), the cottage of Loreto is asserted to have changed its locality 
for the third and last time by moving to the site which it now occupies. 

Some of the old Latin copies place the scene at Tauris. And I observe that a 



74 MARCO POLO Book I. 

missionary of the 1 6th century does the same. The mountain, he says, is between 
Tauris and Nakhshiwan, and is called Maithuc. [Gravina, Christ ianit(i nelV 
Armenia, etc., Roma, 1605, p. 91.) 

The moving of a mountain is one of the miracles ascribed to Gregory 
Thaumaturgus. Such stories are rife among the Mahomedans themselves. "I 
know," says Khanikoff, "at least half a score of mountains which the Musulmans 
allege to have come from the vicinity of Mecca. " 

Ram usio's text adds here: "All the Nestorian and Jacobite Christians from that 
time forward have maintained a solemn celebration of the day on which the miracle 
occurred, keeping a fast also on the eve thereof." 

F. Goring, a writer who contributes three articles on Marco Polo to the Nette 
Ziiricher-Zeituiig, 5th, 6th, 8th April, 1878, says : " I heard related in Egypt a report 
which Marco Polo had transmitted to Baghdad. I will give it here in connection 
with another which I also came across in Egypt. 

" ' Many years ago there reigned in Babylon, on the Nile, a haughty Khalif who 
vexed the Christians with taxes and corvees. He was confirmed in his hate of 
the Christians by the Khakam Chacham Bashi or Chief Rabbi of the Jews, who one 
day said to him : " The Christians allege in their books that it shall not hurt them to 
drink or eat any deadly thing. So I have prepared a potion that one of them shall 
taste at my hand : if he does not die on the spot then call me no more Chacham 
Bashi ! " The Khalif immediately sent for His Holiness the Patriarch of Babylon, 
and ordered him to drink up the potion. The Patriarch just blew a little over the 
cup and then emptied it at a draught, and took no harm. His Holiness then on his 
side demanded that the Chacham Bashi should quaff a cup to the health of the 
Khalif, which he (the Patriarch) should first taste, and this the Khalif found only 
fair and right. But hardly had the Chacham Bashi put the cup to his lips than he 
fell down and expired.' Still the Musulmans and Jews thirsted for Christian blood. 
It happened at that time that a mass of the hill Mokattani became loose and 
threatened to come down upon Babylon. This was laid to the door of the Christians, 
and they were ordered to stop it. The Patriarch in great distress has a vision that tells 
him summon the saintly cobbler (of whom the same story is told as here) — the cobbler 
bids the rock to stand still and it does so to this day. ' These two stories may still 
be heard in Cairo ' — from whom is not said. The hill that threatened to fall on the 
Egyptian Babylon is called in Turkish Dtir Dagh, ' Stay, or halt-hill.' {L.c. April, 
T878.")— ^aS'. Note, H. Y. 



CHAPTER XI. 

Of the Noble City ov Tauris. 



Tauris is a great and noble city, situated in a great 
province called Yrac, in which are many other towns and 
villages. But as Tauris is the most noble I will tell you 
about it.^ 

The men of Tauris get their living by tracle and handi- 



Chap. XI. THE NOBLE CITY OF TAURIS 75 

crafts, for they weave many kinds of beautiful and valuable 
stuffs of silk and gold. The city has such a good position 
that merchandize is brought thither from India, Baudas, 
Cremesor,^ and many other regions ; and that attracts 
many Latin merchants, especially Genoese, to buy goods 
and transact other business there ; the more as it is also 
a great market for precious stones. It is a city in fact 
where merchants make large profits.^ 

The people of the place are themselves poor creatures ; 
and are a great medley of different classes. There are 
Armenians, Nestorians, Jacobites, Georgians, Persians, 
and finally the natives of the city themselves, who are 
worshippers of Mahommet. These last are a very evil 
generation ; they are known as Taurizl* The city 
is all girt round with charming gardens, full of many 
varieties of large and excellent fruits.^ 

Now we will quit Tauris, and speak of the great country 
of Persia. [From Tauris to Persia is a journey of twelve 
days.] 



Note i. — Abulfeda notices that TABRfz was \-ulgarly pronounced Tauris, and 
this appears to have been adopted by the Franks. In Pegolotti the name is always 
Tori'ssi. 

Tabriz is often reckoned to belong to Annenia, as by Hayton- Properly it is the 
chief city of Azerbaijan, which never was included in 'Irak. But it may be ob- 
served that Ibn Batuta generally calls the Mongol Ilkhan of Persia Sahib or Malik 
ul-'Irdk, and as Tabriz was the capital of that sovereign, we can account for the 
mistake, whilst admitting it to be one. [The destruction of Baghdad by Hulaku made 
Tabriz the great commercial and political city of Asia, and diverted the route of 
Indian products from the Mediterranean to the Euxine. It was the route to the 
Persian Gulf by Kashan, Yezd, and Kerman, to the Mediterranean by Lajazzo, 
and later on by Aleppo, — and to the Euxine by Trebizond. The destruction of the 
Kingdom of Armenia closed to Europeans the route of Taturis. — H. C.J 

Note 2. — Cremesor, as Baldelli points out, is Garmsir, meaning a hot region, a 
term which in Persia has acquired several specific applications, and especially in- 
dicates the coast-country on the N.E. side of the Persian Gulf, including Hormuz and 
the ports in that quarter. 

Note 3. — [Of the ItaUans established at Tabriz, the first whose name is mentioned 
is the Venetian Pietro Viglioni (Vioni) ; his will, dated loth December, 1264, is still 
in existence. (Archiv. Venet. XXVI. pp. 161-165 ; Heyd, French Ed., II. p. no.) 
— H. C] At a later date (1341) the Genoese had a factory at Tabriz headed by a consul 



76 



MARCO POLO 



Book I. 



with a council of twenty -four merchants, and in 1320 there is evidence of a Venetian 
settlement there, {EHe de la Prim. 161 ; Heyd, II. 82.) 

Rashiduddin says of Tabriz that there were gathered there under the eyes of the 
Padishah of Islam "philosophers, astronomers, scholars, historians, of all religions, of 
all sects ; people of Cathay, of Machfn, of India, of Kashmir, of Tibet, of the Uighur 
and other Turkish nations, Arabs and Franks." Ibn Batuta : " I traversed the bazaar 
of the jewellers, and my eyes were dazzled by the varieties of precious stones which I 
beheld. Handsome slaves, superbly dressed, and girdled with silk, offered their gems 
for sale to the Tartar ladies, who bought great numbers. [Odoric (ed. Cordier) speaks 
also of the great trade of Tabriz.] Tabriz maintained a large population and prosperity 
down to the 17th century, as may be seen in Chardin. It is now greatly fallen, though 
still a place of importance." {Quaf. Rash. y>- 39; /• P- H. 130.) 




Ghazan Khan's Mosque at Tabriz. — (From Fergusson.) 



Note 4. — In Pauthier's text this is Touzi, a mere clerical error, I doubt not for 
Torizi, in accordance with the G. Text (" le petiple de la citd que sunt apeUs Tauriz"), 
with the Latin, and with Ramusio. All that he means to say is that the people are 
called Tabrizis. Not recondite information, but 'tis his way. Just so he tells us in 
ch. iii. that the people of Hermenia are called Hermins, and elsewhere that the 
people of Tebet are called Tebet. So Hayton thinks it not inappropriate to say that 
the people of Catay are called Cataini, that the people of Corasmia are called Coras- 
mins, and that the people of the cities of Persia are called Persians. 

Note 5. — Hamd Allah Mastaufi, the Geographer, not long after Polo's time, gives 
an account of Tabriz, quoted in Barbier de Meynard's Diet, de la Perse, p. 132. This 
also notices the extensive gardens round the city, the great abundance and cheapness of 
fruits, the vanity, insolence, and faithlessness of the Tabrfzfs, etc. (p. 132 scqq.). Our 
cut shows a relic of the Mongol Dynasty at Tabriz. 



Chap. XII. THE MONASTERY OF ST. BARSAMO 77 



CHAPTER XII. 

Of the Monastery of St. Barsamo on the Borders of Tauris. 

On the borders of (the territory of) Tauris there is a 
monastery called after Saint Barsamo, a most devout Saint. 
There is an Abbot, with many Monks, who wear a habit 
like that of the Carmelites, and these to avoid idleness 
are continually knitting woollen girdles. These they 
place upon the altar of St. Barsamo during the service, 
and when they go begging about the province (like the 
Brethren of the Holy Spirit) they present them to their 
friends and to the gentlefolks, for they are excellent 
things to remove bodily pain ; wherefore every one 
is devoutly eager to possess them.^ 



Note i. — Barsauma(" The Son of Fasting") was a native of Saniosata, and an 
Archimandrite of the Asiatic Church. He opposed the Nestorians, but became him- 
self still more obnoxious to the orthodox as a spreader of the Monophysite Heresy. 
He was condemned by the Council of Chalcedon (451), and died in 458. He is a 
Saint of fame in the Jacobite and Armenian Churches, and several monasteries were 
dedicated to him ; but by far the most celebrated, and doubtless that meant here, was 
near Malatia. It must have been famous even among the Mahomedans, for it has an 
article in Bakui's Geog. Dictionary. {Dir-Barsuma, see N. et Ext. II. 515.) This 
monastery possessed relics of Barsauma and of St. Peter, and was sometimes the resi- 
dence of the Jacobite Patriarch and the meeting-place of the Synods. 

A more marvellous story than Marco's is related of this monastery by Vincent of 
Beauvais: "There is in that kingdom (Armenia) a place called St. Brassamns, at 
which there is a monastery for 300 monks. And 'tis said that if ever an enemy 
attacks it, the defences of the monastery move of themselves, and shoot back the shot 
against the besieger." 

[Assemani in vol. ii. passim ; Touriiefort, III. 260 ; Vin. Bell. Spec, Hisioriale, 
Lib. XXX. c. cxlii. ; see also Mar. Sanut. III. xi. c. 16.) 



yS MARCO POLO Book L 



CHAPTER XIII 

Of the Great Country of Persia; with some account of the 

Three Kings. 

Persia is a great country, which was in old times very 
illustrious and powerful ; but now the Tartars have wasted 
and destroyed it. 

In Persia is the city of Saba, from which the Three 
Magi set out when they went to worship Jesus Christ ; 
and in this city they are buried, in three very large and 
beautiful monuments, side by side. And above them 
there is a square building, carefully kept. The bodies 
are still entire, with the hair and beard remaining. One 
of these was called Jaspar, the second Melchior, and the 
third Balthasar. Messer Marco Polo asked a great many 
questions of the people of that city as to those Three 
Magi, but never one could he find that knew aught of the 
matter, except that these were three kings who were 
buried there in days of old. However, at a place three 
days' journey distant he heard of what I am going to tell 
you. He found a village there which goes by the name 
of Gala Ataperistan,-^ which is as much as to say, " The 
Castle of the Fire- worshippers." And the name is rightly 
applied, for the people there do worship fire, and I will 
tell you why. 

They relate that in old times three kings of that 
country went^way to worship a Prophet that was born, 
and they carried with them three manner of offerings, 
Gold, and Frankincense, and Myrrh ; in order to ascertain 
whether that Prophet were God, or an earthly King, or a 
Physician. For, said they, if he take the Gold, then he 
is an earthly King ; if he take the Incense he is God ; if 
he take the Myrrh he is a Physician. 



Chap. XIV. PERSIA AND THE THREE KINGS 79 

So it came to pass when they had come to the place 
where the Child was born, the youngest of the Three 
Kings went in first, and found the Child apparently 
just of his own age ; so he went forth again marvelling 
greatly. The middle one entered next, and like the 

|L first he found the Child seemingly of his own age; 

!^ so he aiso went forth again and marvelled greatly. 
Lastly, the eldest went in, and as it had befallen the 
other two, so it befell him. And he went forth very 
pensive. And when the three had rejoined one 
another, each told what he had seen ; and then they all 
marvelled the more. So they agreed to go in all 
three together, and on doing so they beheld the Child 
with the appearance of its actual age, to wit, some 
thirteen days.^ Then they adored, and presented their 
Gold and Incense and Myrrh. And the Child took 
all the three offerings, and then gave them a small 
closed box ; whereupon the Kings departed to return 
into their own land. 



Note i. — Kalti Atishparastdn, meaning as in the text {Marsden.") 

Note 2. — According to the Collectanea ascribed to Bede, Melchior was a boaiy 
old man ; Balthazar in his prime, with a beard ; Caspar young and beardless. 
{Ituhofer, Ties Magi Evangelici, Romae, 1639.) 



CHAPTER XIV. 



What befell when the Three Kings returned to their own 

Country. 

And when they had ridden many days they said they 
would see what the Child had given them. So they 
opened the little box, and inside it they found a stone. 



8o MARCO POLO Book I. 

On seeing this they began to wonder what this might be 
that the Child had given them, and what was the import 
thereof. Now the signification was this : when they 
presented their offerings, the Child had accepted all three, 
and when they saw that they had said within themselves 
that He was the True God, and the True King, and the 
True Physician.^ And what the gift of the stone implied 
was that this Faith which had begun in them should 
abide firm as a rock. For He well knew what was 
in their thoughts. Howbeit, they had no under- 
standing at all of this signification of the gift of the 
stone ; so they cast it into a well. Then straight- 
way a fire from Heaven descended into that well 
wherein the stone had been cast. 

And when the Three Kings beheld this marvel they 
were sore amazed, and it greatly repented them that they 
had cast away the stone ; for well they then perceived 
that it had a great and holy meaning. So they took of 
that fire, and carried it into their own country, and placed 
it in a rich and beautiful church. And there the people 
keep it continually burning, and worship it as a god, and 
all the sacrifices they offer are kindled with that fire. 
And if ever the fire becomes extinct they go to other 
cities round about where the same faith is held, and 
obtain of that fire from them, and carry it to the church. 
And this is the reason why the people of this country 
worship fire. They will often go ten days' journey to 
aet of that fire.^ 

Such then was the story told by the people of that 
Casde to Messer Marco Polo ; they declared to him for 
a truth that such was their history, and that one of the 
three kings was of the city called Saba, and the second 
of AvA, and the third of that very Castle where they still 
worship fire, with the people of all the country round 
about.^ 



Chap. XIV. THE THREE MAGI 8 1 

Having related this story, I will now tell you of the 
different provinces of Persia, and their peculiarities. 



Note i. — ''Afire." This was in old French the popular word for a Leech ; the 
politer word was Physicien. (JV. et E. V. 505. ) 

Chrysostom says that the Gold, Myrrh, and Frankincense were mystic gifts indicat- 
ing King, Man, God ; and this interpretation was the usual one. Thus Prudentius : — 

" Regem, Deumque adnunciant 
Thesaurus et fragrans odor 
Thuris Sabaei, at myrrheus 
Pulvis sepulchrum praedocet." {Hymntts Epij)hantus.) 

And the Paris Liturgj- : — 

" Offert Aurum Caritas, 
Et Myrrham Atisteritas, 

Et Thus Desideriiim. 
Auro Rex agnoscitur. 
Homo Myrrha, colitur 

Thure Deus gentium." 

And in the " Hymns, Ancient and Modem" : — 

" Sacred gifts of mystic meaning : 
Incense doth their God disclose. 
Gold the King of Kings proclaimeth. 
Myrrh His sepulchre foreshows." 

Note 2. — '"Feruntque (Magi), si justum est credi, etiam ignem caelitus lapsum 
apud se sempiternis foculis custodire, cujus portionem exiguam, ut faustam praeisse 
quondam Asiaticis Regibus dicunt." (Ammian, Marcell. XXIII. 6.) 

Note 3. — Saba or Sava still exists as Savah, about 50 miles S.W. of Tehran. It is 
described by Mr. Consul Abbott, who visited it in 1849, as the most ruinous town he 
had ever seen, and as containing about 1000 families. The people retain a tradition, 
mentioned by Hamd Allah Mastaufi, that the city stood on the shores of a Lake 
which dried up miraculously at the birth of Mahomed. Savah is said to have pos- 
sessed one of the greatest Libraries in the East, until its destruction by the Mongols 
on their first invasion of Persia. Both Savah and Avah (or Abah) are mentioned by 
Abulfeda as cities of Jibal. We are told that the two cities were always at lo^erheads, 
the former being Sunni and the latter Shiya. [We read in the Travels of Thevenot, 
a most intelligent traveller, "qu'il n'a rien ecrit de I'ancienne ville de Sava qu'il 
trouva sur son chemin, et oil il a marque lui-meme que son esprit de curiosite 
I'abandonna." {^Voyages, ed. 1727, vol. v. p. 343. He died a few days after at 
Miana, in Armenia, 28th November, 1667). {MS. Note. — H. Y.) ] 

As regards the position of Avah, Abbott says that a village still stands upon the 
site, about 16 miles S.S.E. of Savah. He did not visit it, but took a bearing to it. 
He was told there was a mound there on which formerly stood a Gueber Castle. At 
Savah he could find no trace of Marco Polo's legend. Chardin, in whose time Savah 
was not quite so far gone to decay, heard of an alleged tomb of Samuel, at 4 leagues 
from the city. This is alluded to by Hamd Allah. 

Keith Johnston and Kiepert put Avah some 60 miles W.N.W. of Savah, on the 
road between Kazvin and Hamadan. There seems to be some great mistake here. 

Friar Odoric puts the locality of the Magi at Keshan, though one of the versions of 
Ramusio and the Palatine MS. (see Cordier's Odoric, pp. xcv. and 41 of his Itinerary), 
perhaps corrected in this, puts it at Saba. — H. Y. and H. C. 

VOL. I. r 



82 MARCO POLO Book I. 

We have no means of fixing the Kald Atishparastdn. It is probable, however, that 
the story was picked up on the homeward journey, and as it seems to be implied that 
this castle was reached three days after leaving Savah, I should look for it between 
Savah and Abher. Ruins to which the name KilcC-i-Gabi; " Gueber Castle," attaches 
are common in Persia. 

As regards the Legend itself, which shows such a curious mixture of Christian and 
Parsi elements, it is related some 350 years earlier by Mas'udi : " In the Province of 
Fars they tell you of a Well called the Well of Fire, near which there was a temple 
built. When the Messiah was born the King Koresh sent three messengers to him, 
the first of whom carried a bag of Incense, the second a bag of Myrrh, and the third 
a bag of Gold. They set out under the guidance of the Star which the king had 
described to them, arrived in Syria, and found the Messiah with Mary His Mother. 
This story of tlie three messengers is related by the Christians with sundry exaggera- 
tions ; it is also found in the Gospel. Thus they say that the Star appeared to Koresh 
at the moment of Christ's birth ; that it went on when the messengers went on, and 
stopped when they stopped. More ample particulars will be found in our Historical 
Annals, where we have given the versions of this legend as current among the Guebers 
and among the Christians. It will be seen that Mary gave the king's messengers a 
round loaf, and this, after different adventures, they hid under a rock in the province 
of Fars. The loaf disappeared underground, and there they dug a well, on which 
they beheld two columns of fire to start up flaming at the surface ; in short, all the 
details of the legend will be found in our Annals." The Editors say that Mas'udi had 
carried the story to Fars by mistaking S/i/z in Azerbaijan fthe Atropatenian Ecbatana 
of Sir H. Rawlinson) for Shiraz. A rudiment of the same legend is contained in the 
Arabic Gospel of the Infancy. This says that Mary gave the Magi one of the bands 
in which the Child was swathed. On their return they cast this into their sacred fire ; 
though wrapt in the flame it remained unhurt. 

We may add that there was a Christian tradition that the Star descended into a 
well between Jerusalem and Bethlehem. Gregory of Tours also relates that in a 
certain well, at Bethlehem, from which Mary had drawn water, the Star was some- 
times seen, by devout pilgrims who looked carefully for it, to pass from one side to 
the other. But only such as merited the boon could see it. 

(See Abbott in /. R. G. S. XXV. 4-6 ; Assemani, III. pt. 2, 750 ; Chardin, II. 
407 ; N. et Ext. II. 465 ; Diet, de la Perse, 2, 56, 298 ; Cathay, p. 51 ; Mas'udi, IV. 
80; Greg. Turon. Libri Miraculorum, Paris, 1858, I. 8.) 

Several of the fancies that legend has attached to the brief story of the Magi in St. 
Matthew, such as the royal dignity of the persons ; their location, now in Arabia, now 
(as here) at Saba in Persia, and again (as in Hayton and the Catalan Map) in Tarsia 
or Eastern Turkestan ; the notion that one of them was a Negro, and so on, probably 
grew out of the arbitrary application of passages in the Old Testament, such as : 
Veuient legati ex Aegypto : Awniiovix praevenit vianns ejus Deo'" (Ps. Ixviii. 31). 
This produced the Negro who usually is painted as one of the Three. '^ A'eges 
Tharsis et hisulae munera offerent : lieges Arabum et Saba dona adducent " (Ixxii. 
10). This made the Three into Kings, and fixed them in Tarsia, Arabia, and Sava. 
^' Miindatio Caineloruin operiet te, droinedarii Madian et Epha : oinnes de Saba 
venient aurtim et thus deferentes et laudem Domino annunciantes" (Is. Ix. 6). Here 
were Ava and Sava coupled, as well as the gold and frankincense. 

One form of the old Church Legend was that the Three were buried at Sessania 
Adrumetorutn (Hadhramaut) in Arabia, whence the Empress Helena had the bo( ies 
conveyed to Constantinople, [and later to Milan in the time of the Emperor Manuel 
Comnenus. After the fall of Milan (1162), Frederic Barbarossa gave them to .Arch- 
bishop Rainald of Dassel (1159-1167), who carried them to Cologne (23rd July, 1 164). 
— H.'C] 

The names given by Polo, Caspar, Melchior, and Balthasar, have been accepted 
from an old date by the Roman Church ; but an abundant variety of other names has 
been assigned to them. Hyde quotes a Syriac writer who calls them Aruphon, 



Chap. XV. THE EIGHT KINGDOMS OF PERSIA 83 

Hunnon, and Tachshesh, but says that some call them Gudphorbus, Aitachshasht, 
and Labndo; whilst in Persian they were termed Amad, Zad-Amad, Drust-Amad, 
i.e. Venit, Cito Venit, Suuerus Venit. Some called them in Greek, Apellius, Amerus, 
and Damascus, and in Hebrew, Magalolh, Galgalath, and Saracia, but otherwise 
Ator, Sator, and Petatoros ! The Armenian Church used the same names as the 
Roman, but in Chaldee they were Kaghba, Badadilma, Badada Kharida. (Hyde, Rel. 
Vet. Pers. 382-383 ; IncJwJer, ut supra; J. As. ser. V^I. IX. 160.) 

[Just before going to press we have read Major Sykes' new book on Persia. Major 
Sykes (ch. xxiii. ) does not beUeve that Marco \-isited Baghdad, and he thinks that the 
Venetians entered Persia near Tabriz, and travelled to Sultania, Kashan, and Yezd. 
Thence they proceeded to Kerman and Hormuz, We shall discuss this question in 
the Introduction. — H. C.] 



CHAPTER XV. 



Of the Eight Kingdoms of Persia, and how they 
are named. 

Now you must know that Persia is a very great country, 
and contains eight kingdoms. I will tell you the names 
of them all. 

The first kingdom is that at the beginning of Persia, 
and it is called Casvin : the second is further to the south, 
and is called Curdistan ; the third is Lor ; the fourth 
[Suolstan] ; the fifth Istanit; the sixth Serazy ; the 
seventh Soncara ; the eighth Tunocain, which is at the 
further extremity of Persia. All these kingdoms lie in a 
southerly direction except one, to wit, Tunocain ; that 
lies towards the east, and borders on the (country of the) 
Arbre Sol.^ 

In this country of Persia there is a great supply of 
fine horses ; and people take them to India for sale, for 
they are horses of great price, a single one being worth 
as much of their money as is equal to 200 livres 
Tournois ; some will be more, some less, according to 
the quality." Here also are the finest asses in the world, 
one of them being worth full 30 marks of silver, for they 
are very large and fast, and acquire a capital amble. 

VOL. I. F 2 



84* MARCO POLO Book I. 

Dealers carry their horses to Kisi and Curmosa, two 
cities on the shores of the Sea of India, and there they 
meet with merchants who take the horses on to India 
for sale. 

In this country there are many cruel and murderous 
people, so that no day passes but there is some homicide 
among them. Were it not for the Government, which 
is that of the Tartars of the Levant, they would do great 
mischief to merchants ; and indeed, maugre the Govern- 
ment, they often succeed in doing such mischief. Unless 
merchants be well armed they run the risk of being 
murdered, or at least robbed of everything ; and it some- 
times happens that a whole party perishes in this way 
when not on their guard. The people are all Saracens, 
i.e. followers of the Law of Mahommet.^ 

In the cities there are traders and artizans who live 
by their labour and crafts, weaving cloths of gold, and 
silk stuffs of sundry kinds. They have plenty of cotton 
produced in the country ; and abundance of wheat, 
barley, millet, panick, and wine, with fruits of all kinds. 

[Some one may say, " But the Saracens don't drink 
wine, which is prohibited by their law." The answer is 
that they gloss their text in this way, that if the wine be 
boiled, so that a part is dissipated and the rest becomes 
sweet, they may drink without breach of the command- 
ment ; for it is then no longer called wine, the name 
being changed with the change of flavour.^] 



Note i. — The following appear to be Polo's Eight Kingdoms : — 

I. KAZvfN; then a flourishing city, though I know not why he calls it a kingdom. 
Persian 'Irdk, or the northern portion thereof, seems intended. Previous to Ilulaku's 
invasion Kazvin seems to have been in the hands of the Ismailites or Assassins. 

II. Kurdistan. I do not understand the difficulties of Marsden, followed by 
Lazari and Pauthier, which lead them to put forth that Kurdistan is not Kurdistan 
but something else. The boundaries of Kurdistan according to Hamd Allah were 
Arabian Trak, Khuzistan, Persian 'Irak, Azerbaijan and Diarbekr. {Did. de la P. 
480.) [Cf, Curzon, Persia fass. — W. C] Persian Kurdistan, in modern as in 



Chap. XV. THE EIGHT KINGDOMS OF PERSIA 85 

mediaeval times, extends south beyond Kermanshah to the immediate border of 
Polo's next kingdom, viz. : 

III. Ltjr or Luristan. [On Luristan, see Curzon, Persia, II. pp. 273-303, with the 
pedigreeof the Ruling Family of the Feili Lurs (Pusht-i-Kuh), p. 278. — H. C] This was 
divided into two principalities. Great Lur and Little Lur, distinctions still existing. 
The former was ruled by a Dynasty called the Fasluyah Atabegs, which endured from 
about 1 155 to 1424, [when it was destroyed by the Timurids ; it was a Kurd Dynasty, 
founded by Emad ed-din Abu Thaher (i 160-1228), and the last prince of which was 
Ghiyas ed-din (1424). In 1258 the general Kitubuka (Hulagu's Exp. to Persia, 
Bretschneider, Aled. Res. I. p. 12 1 ) is reported to have reduced the country of Lur 
or Luristan and its Atabeg Teghele. — H. C.]. Their territory lay in the mountainous 
district immediately west of Ispahan, and extended to the River of Dizful, which parted 
it from Little Lur. The stronghold of the Atabegs was the extraordinary hill fort of 
Mungasht, and they had a residence also at Aidhej or Mai -Amir in the mountains 
south of Shushan, where Ibn Batuta \-isited the reigning Prince in 1327. Sir H. 
Rawlinson has described Mungasht, and Mr Layard and Baron de Bode have visited 
other parts, but the country is still very imperfectly known. Little Luristan lay west 
of the R. Dizful, extending nearly to the Plain of Babylonia. Its Dynasty, called 
Kurshid, [was founded in 1184 by the Kurd Shodja ed-din Khurshid, and existed till 
Shah-Werdy lost his throne in 1593. — H. C.]. 

The Lurs are akin to the Kurds, and speak a Kurd dialect, as do all those Ilyats, 
or nomads of Persia, who are not of Turkish race. They were noted in the Middle 
Ages for their agility and their dexterity in thieving. The tribes of Little Ltir " do 
not affect the slightest veneration for Mahomed or the Koran ; their only general 
object of worship is their great Saint Baba Buzurg," and particular disciples regard 
with reverence little short of adoration holy men looked on as living representatives of 
the Divinity. (Ilckan. I. 70 seqq. ; Ra-wlinson in J. R. G. S. IX. ; Layard in Do. 
XVL 75, 94; Ld. Strangford'inJ. R. A. S. XX. 64; A^. et E. XIIL i. 330, /. B. U. 
31 ; D'bhssan, IV. 171-172.) 

IV. Shui.istan, best represented by Ramusio's Suohtan, whilst the old French 
texts have Cielstan {i.e. Shelstan); the name applied to the country of the Shuls, or 
Shatils, a people who long occupied a part of Luristan, but were expelled by the Lurs 
in the 1 2th century, and settled in the country between Shfraz and Khuzistan (now 
that of the Mamaseni, whom Colonel Pelly's information identifies with the Shuls), 
their central points being Naobanjan and the fortress called Kala' Safed or " While 
Castle." Ibn Batuta, going from Shiraz to Kazerun, encamped the first day in the 
country of the Shuls, "a Persian desert tribe which includes some pious persons." 
(Q. R. p. 385 ; A^ elE. XIIL i. 332-333; Ilch. I. 71 ; /. R. G. S. XIIL Map ; /. B. 
II. 88.) [ " Adjoining the Kuhgelus on the East are the tents of the Mamasenni (qy. 
Mohammed Huseini) Lurs, occupying the country still known as Shtilistan, and 
extending as far east and south-east as Fars and the Plain of Kazerun. This tribe 
prides itself on its origin, claiming to have come from Seistan, and to be directly 
descended from Rustam, whose name is still borne by one of the Mamasenni dans." 
(Curzon, Persia, II. p. 318.) — H. C] 

V. Ispahan ? The name is in Ramusio Spaan, showing at least that he or some 
one before him had made this identification. The unusual combination^, i.e. sf, in 
manuscript would be so like the frequent one ft. i.e. st, that the change from Isfan to 
Istan would be easy. But why Istan?'/.'' 

VI. ShIraz [(5/n'r=milk, or Shir— Won) — H. C.] representing the province of 
Fars or Persia Proper, of which it has been for ages the chief city. [It was founded 
after the Arab conquest in 694 A.D., by Mohammed, son of Yusuf Kekfi. (Curzon, 
Persia, II. pp. 93-1 10.)— H. C] The last Dynasty that had reigned in Fars was that 
of the Salghur Atabegs, founded about the middle of the 12th century. Under Abu- 
bakr (1226-1260) this kingdom attained considerable power, embracing Fars, Kernian, 
the islands of the Gulf and its Arabian shores ; and Sbfriz then flourished in arts and 



86 MARCO POLO Book I. 

literature ; Abubakr was the patron of Saadi. From about 1262, though a Salghurian 
princess, married to a son of Hulaku, had the nominal title of Atabeg, the province of 
Fars was under Mongol administration. i^Ilch. passim. ) 

VII. ShawAnkAra or Shabankara. The G. T. has Soucara, but the Crusca 
gives the true reading Soncara. It is the country of the Shawankars, a people 
coupled with the Shtils and Liirs in mediaeval Persian history, and like them of Kurd 
affinities. Their princes, of a family Fasluyah, are spoken of as influential before the 
Mahomedan conquest, but the name of the people comes prominently forward only 
during the Mongol era of Persian history. [Shabankara was taken in 1056 from the 
Buyid Dynasty, who ruled from the lOth-century over a great part of Persia, by Fazl 
ibn Hassan (Fazluieh-Hasunieh). Under the last sovereign, Ardeshir, Shabankara 
was taken in 1355 by the Modhafferians, who reigned in Irak, Fars, and Kerman, 
one of the Dynasties established at the expense of the Mongol Ilkhans after the death 
of Abu Said (1335), and were themselves subjugated by Timur in 1392. — II. C] Their 
country lay to the south of the great salt lake east of Shfrdz, and included Niriz and 
Daribjird, Fassa, Forg, and Tarum. Their capital was I'g or I'j, called also Irej, 
about 20 miles north-west of Darab, with a great mountain fortress ; it was taken by 
Hulaku in 1259. The son of the prince was continued in nominal authority, with 
Mongol administrators. In consequence of a rebellion in 131 1 the Dynasty seems to 
have been extinguished. A descendant attempted to revive their authority about the 
middle of the same century. The latest historical mention of the name that I have 
found is in Abdurrazzik's History of Shah Rukh, under the year H. 807 (1404). (See 
lour. As. 3d. s. vol. ii. 355.) But a note by Colonel Pelly informs me that the name 
Shab^nkdra is still applied (i) to the district round the towns of Runiz and Gauristan 
near Bandar Abbas ; (2) to a village near Maiman, in the old country of the tribe ; 
(3) to a tribe and district of Dashtistan, 38 farsakhs west of Shfraz. 

With reference to the form in the text, Soncara, I may notice that in two passages 
of the Masdlak-ul-Absdr, translated by Quatrem^re, the name occurs as Shatikdrah. 
{Q. R. pp. 380, 440 seqq. ; N. et E. XIII. ; Ilch. I. 71 ?inA passim ; Oiiseley's Travels, 
II. 158 seqq.) 

VIII. Ti5n-0-Kain, the eastern Kuhistan or Hill country of Persia, of which 
Tun and Kain are chief cities. The practice of indicating a locality by combining two 
names in this way is common in the East. Elsewhere in this book we find Ariora- 
Keshemur and Kes-macoran (Kij-Makran). Upper Sind is often called in India by 
the Sepoys Rori-Bakkar, from two adjoining places on the Indus ; whilst in former 
days. Lower Sind was often called Diul-Sind. Karra-Mdnikpur, Uch-Multdn, 
Kunduz-Baghldn are other examples. 

The exact expression T4n-o-Kdin for the province here in question is used by 
Baber, and evidently also by some of Hammer's authorities. {Baber, pp. 201, 204 ; 
see lick. II, 190; I. 95, 104, and Hist, de VOrdre des Assassins, p. 245.) 

[We learn from (Sir) C. Macgregor's {iZ"] i^ Journey through Khorasan (I. p. 127) 
that the same territory including Ghafn or Kain is now called by the analogous name 
of Tabas-o-TCin. Tun and Kain (Ghdfn) are both described in their modern state, 
by Macgregor. [Ibid. pp. 147 and 161.) — H. C] 

Note that the identification of Suolstan is due to Quatrem^re (see N. et E. XIII. i. 
circa p. 332) ; that of Soncara to Defr^mery (/. As. ser. IV. torn. xi. p. 441) ; and 
that of 71w«<Jfaz« to Malte-Brun. {N. Ann. des V. xviii. p. 261.) I may add that the 
Lurs, the Sh&ls, and the Shabdnkdras are the subjects of three successive sections in 
the Masdlak-al-Absdr of Shihdbuddin Dimishki, a work which reflects much of Polo's 
geography. (See N. et E. XIII. i. 330-333 ; Curzon, Persia, II. pp. 248 and 251.) 

Note 2. — The horses exported to India, of which we shall hear more hereafter, 
were probably the same class of *• Gulf Arabs " that are now carried thither. But the 
Turkman horses of Persia are also very valuable, especially for endurance. Kinneir 
speaks of one accomplishing 900 miles in eleven days, and Ferrier states a still more 
extraordinary feat from his own knowledge. In that case one of those horses went 



Chap. XV. THE EIGHT KINGDOMS OF PERSIA 87 

from Tehran to Tabriz, returned, and went again to Tabriz, within twelve days, including 
two days' rest. The total distance is about lioo miles. 

The Hvre toumois at this period was equivalent to a little over 18 francs of modem 
French silver. But in bringing the value to our modem gold standard we must add 
one-third, as the ratio of silver to gold was then I : 12 instead of i : 16. Hence the 
equivalent in gold of the livre toumois is very little less than l/. sterling, and the price 
of the horse would be about 193/.* 

Mr Wright quotes an ordinance of Philip III. of France (12701285) fixing the 
maximum price that might be given for a palfrey at 60 li-vres taurtiois, and for a 
squire's roiwin at 20 livres. Joinville, however, speaks of a couple of horses pre- 
sented to St. Lewis in 1254 by the Abbot of Cluny, which he says would at the time 
of his writing (1309) have been worth 500 livres (the pair, it would seem). Hence it 
may be concluded in a general way that the ordinary price of imported horses in India 
approached that of the highest class of horses in Europe. {Hist, of Dom. Manners, 
p. 317 ; foinville, p. 205.) 

About 1850 a very fair Arab could be purchased in Bombay for 60/., or even less ; 
but prices are much higher now. 

With regard to the donkeys, according to Tavemier, the fine ones used by mer- 
chants in Persia were imported from Arabia, The mark of silver was equivalent to 
about 44s-. of our silver money, and allowing as before for the lower relative value of 
gold, 30 marks would be equivalent to 88/. sterling. 

Kisi or Kish we have already heard of. Curmosa is Hormuz, of which we shall 
hear more. With a Pisan, as Rusticiano was, the sound of c is purely and strongly 
aspirate. Giovanni d'Empoli, in the banning of the i6th century, another Tuscan, 
also calls it Cormus. (See Archiv. Stor. Ital. Append. III. 81.) 

Note 3. — The character of the nomad and semi-nomad tribes of Persia in those 
days — Kurds, Liirs, Shuls, Karaunahs, etc. — probably deserved all that Polo says, and 
it is not changed now. Take as an example Rawlinson's account of the Bakhtyaris 
of Luristan: "I believe them to be individually brave, but of a cruel and savage 
character ; they pursue their blood feuds with the most inveterate and exterminating 
spirit. ... It is proverbial in Persia that the Bakhtiyaris have been compelled to 
forego altogether the reading of the Fatihah or prayer for the dead, for otherwise they 
would have no other occupation. They are also most dextrous and notorious thieves." 
(/. R. G. S. IX. 105.) 

Note 4. — The Persians have always been lax in regard to the abstinence from 
wine. 

According to Athenaeus, Aristotle, in his Treatise on Drinking (a work lost, I 
imagine, to posterity), says, " If the wine be moderately boiled it is less apt to intoxi- 
cate." In the preparation of some of the sweet wines of the Levant, such as that of 
Cyprus, the must is boiled, but I believe this is not the case generally in the East. 
Baber notices it as a peculiarity among the Kafirs of the Hindu Kush. Tavemier, 
however, says that at Shfraz, besides the wine for which that city was so celebrated, 
a good deal of boiled wine was manufactured, and used among the poor and by 
travellers. No doubt what is meant is the sweet liquor or syrup called Diishdi, 
which Delia Valle says is just the Italian Mostocotto, but better, clearer, and not so 
mawkish (I. 689). ( Yonge's Athen. X. 34 ; Baber, p. 145 ; Tavemier, Bk. V. ch. 
xxi.) 

* The Encyc. Britann, , article " Money," gives the U\Te toumois of this period as iS. 17 francs. A 
French paper in Notes and Queries (/\\^ S. IV. 485) gives it under St. Lewis and Philip HI. as equiva- 
lent to 18.24 fr., and under Philip IV. to 17.95. And lastly, experiment at the British Museum, made 
hy the kind mtervention of my friend, Mr. E. Thornas, F.R.S., gave the weights of the sols of St. 
Lewis (1226-1270) and Philip IV. (1285-1314) respectively as 63 grains and 6ii grains of remarkably 
pure silver. These trials would give the livres (20 sols) as equivalent to 18.14 &• ^nd i7-70 fr- 
respectively. 



MARCO POLO Book I. 



CHAPTER XVI. 

Concerning the Great City of Yasdi. 

Yasdi also is properly in Persia ; it is a good and noble 
city, and has a great amount of trade. They weave 
there quantities of a certain silk tissue known as Yasdi, 
which merchants carry into many quarters to dispose of. 
The people are worshippers of Mahommet.^ 

When you leave this city to travel further, you ride 
.for seven days over great plains, finding harbour to 
receive you at three places only. There are many fine 
woods [producing dates] upon the way, such as one 
can easily ride through ; and in them there is great 
sport to be had in hunting and hawking, there being 
partridges and quails and abundance of other game, 
so that the merchants who pass that way have plenty 
of diversion. There are also wild asses, handsome 
creatures. At the end of those seven marches over 
the plain you come to a fine kingdom which is called 
Kerman.^ 

Note i. — Yezd, an ancient city, supposed by D'Anville to be the hatichae of 
Ptolemy, is not called by Marco a kingdom, though having a better title to the 
distinction than some which he classes as such. The atabegs of Yezd dated from the 
middle of the nth century, and their Dynasty was permitted by the Mongols to 
continue till the end of the 13th, when it was extinguished by Ghazan, and the ad- 
ministration made over to the Mongol Diwan. 

Yezd, in pre-Mahomedan times, was a great sanctuary of the Gueber worship, 
though now it is a seat of fanatical Mahomedanism. It is, however, one of the few 
places where the old religion lingers. In 1859 there were reckoned 850 families of 
Guebers in Yezd and fifteen adjoining villages, but they diminish rapidly. 

[Heyd {Com. du Levant, II. p. 109) says the inhabitants of Yezd wove the finest 
silk of Taberistan. — H. C.] The silk manufactures still continue, and, with other 
weaving, employ a large part of the population. The Yazdi, which Polo mentions, 
finds a place in the Persian dictionaries, and is spoken of by D'llerbelot as Kumdsh- 
i- Yezdi, "Yezd stuff." [" He [Nadir Shah] bestowed upon the ambassador [Hakeem 
Ataleek, the prime minister of Abulfiez Khan, King of Bokhara] a donation of a 
thousand mohurs of Hindostan, twenty-five pieces of Yezdy brocade, a rich dress, 
and a horse with silver harness. ..." {Memoirs of Khojah Abdtilhirj-eem, a Cash- 



Chap. XVI. ROAD FROM YEZD TO KERMAN 89 

merian of distinction . . . transl. from the original Persian,hyYTxaasG\3iA'mn ... 
Calcutta, 1788, 8vo, p. 36.)— H. C] 

Yezd is still a place of important trade, and carries on a thriving commerc- 
with India by Bandar Abbasi. A visitor in the end of 1865 says: "The external 
trade appears to be very considerable, and the merchants of Vezd are reputed to be 
amongst the most enterprising and respectable of their class in Persia. Some of their 
agents have lately gone, not only to Bombay, but to the Mauritius, Java, and China." 
{Ilch. I. 67-68; Kkanikoff, AHm. p. 202; Report by Major R. M. Smith, R.E.) 
Friar Odoric, who visited Yezd, calls it the third best city of the Persian 
Emperor, and says {Cathay, I. p. 52) : "There is very great store of victuals and 
all other good things that you can mention ; but especially is found there great 
plenty of figs ; and raisins also, green as grass and very small, are found there in 
richer profusion than in any other part of the world." [He also gives from the 
smaller version of Ramusio's an awful description of the Sea of Sand, one day 
distant from Yezd. (Cf. Tavemier, 1679, I. p. 116.)— H. C] 

Note 2. — I believe Delia Valle correctly generalises when he sa)-s of Persian 
travelling that "you always travel in a plain, but you always have mountains on 
either hand" (I. 462). [Compare Macgregor, I. 254 : "I really caimot describe the 
road. Every road in Persia as yet seems to me to be exactly alike, so . . . my readers 
will take it for granted that the road went over a waste, with barren rugged hills in 
the distance, or near; no water, no houses, no people passed." — H. C] The distance 
from Yezd to Kerman is, according to Khanikoft's sur\'ey, 314 kilometres, or about 
195 miles. Ramusio makes the time eight days, which is probably the better reading, 
giving a little over 24 miles a day. Westergaard in 1844, and Khanikoff in 1859, took 
ten days ; Colonel Goldsmid and Major Smith in 1865 twelve. [ " The distance from 
Yezd to Kerman by the present high road, 229 miles, is by caravans, generally made 
in nine stages ; persons travelling with all comforts do it in twelve stages ; travellers 
whose time is of some value do it easily in seven days." {Hmituvi-Schindler, l.c. pp. 
490-491. )-H. C] 

Khanikoff observes on this chapter : " This notice of woods easy to ride through, 
covering the plain of Yezd, is very curious. Now you find it a plain of great extent 
indeed from N.W. to S.E., but narrow and arid ; indeed I saw in it only thirteen in- 
habited spots, counting two caravanserais. Water for the inhabitants is brought from 
a great distance by subterraneous conduits, a practice which may have tended to 
desiccate the soil, for every trace of wood has completely disappeared. " 

Abbott travelled from Yezd to Kerman in 1849, by a road through Bafk, east of 
the usual road, which Khanikoff followed, and parallel to it ; and it is worthy of note 
that he found circumstances more accordant with Marco's description. Before getting 
to Bafk he says of the plain that it " extends to a great distance north and south, and 
is probably 20 miles in breadth;" whilst Bafk "is remarkable for its groves of 
date-trees, in the midst of which it stands, and which occupy a considerable space." 
Further on he speaks of " wild tufts and bushes growing abundantly," and then of 
" thickets of the Ghez tree." He heard of the wild asses, but did not see any. In 
his report to the Foreign Office, alluding to Marco Polo's account, he says : " It is 
still true that wild asses and other game are found in the wooded spots on the road." 
The ass is the Asinus Onager, the Gor Khar of Persia, or Kulan of the Tartars. 
{Khan. Mem. p. 200 ; Id. sur Marco Polo, p. 21 ; /. R. G. S. XXV. 20-29 ; M*"' 
Abbotfs MS. Report in Foreign office. ) [ The difficulty has now been explained by 
General Houtum-Schindler in a valuable paper published in the Jour. Roy. As. Soc. 
N.S. XIII., October, 1881, p. 490. He says : " Marco Polo travelled from Yazd to 
Kerman vid Bafk. His description of the read, seven days over great plains, harbour 
at three places only, is perfectly exact. The fine woods, producing dates, are at Bafk 
itself. (The place is generally called Baft.) Partridges and quails still abound ; wild 
asses I saw several on the western road, and I was told that there were a great many 
on the Bafk road. Travellers and caravans now always go by the eastern road vid 



90 MARCO POLO Book I. 

Anar and Bahrdmabdd. Before the Sefavfehs (/.^. before A.D. 1500) the Anar road 
was hardly, if ever, used ; travellers always took the Bafk road. The country from 
Yazd to Anar, 97 miles, seems to have been totally uninhabited before the Sefavfehs. 
Anar, as late as A.D. 1340, is mentioned as the frontier place of Kerman to the north, 
on the confines of the Yazd desert. When Shah Abbis had caravanserais built at 
three places between Yazd and Anar (Zein ud-dfn, Kerman-shahan, and Shamsh), the 
eastern road began to be neglected." (Cf. Major Sykes' Persia, ch. xxiii.)— H. C] 



CHAPTER XVII. 

Concerning the Kingdom of Kerman. 

Kerman is a kingdom which is also properly in Persia, 
and formerly it had a hereditary prince. Since the 
Tartars conquered the country the rule is no longer 
hereditary, but the Tartar sends to administer whatever 
lord he pleases.^ In this kingdom are produced the 
stones called turquoises in great abundance ; they are 
found in the mountains, where they are extracted from 
the rocks.^ There are also plenty of veins of steel and 
Ondaniqtie} The people are very skilful in making 
harness of war ; their saddles, bridles, spurs, swords, 
bows, quivers, and arms of every kind, are very well 
made indeed according to the fashion of those parts. 
The ladies of the country and their daughters also 
produce exquisite needlework in the embroidery of silk 
stuffs in different colours, with figures of beasts and 
birds, trees and flowers, and a variety of other patterns. 
They work hangings for the use of noblemen so deftly 
that they are marvels to see, as well as cushions, pillows, 
quilts, and all sorts of things.* 

In the mountains of Kerman are found the best 
falcons in the world. They are inferior in size to the 
Peregrine, red on the breast, under the neck, and 
between the thighs ; their flight so swift that no bird 
can escape them.^ 



Chap. XVII. THE KINGDOM OF KERMAn 9 1 

On quitting the city you ride on for seven days, 
always finding towns, villages, and handsome dwelling- 
houses, so that it is very pleasant travelling ; and there 
is excellent sport also to be had by the way in hunting 
and hawking. When you have ridden those seven days 
over a plain country, you come to a great mountain ; 
and when you have got to the top of the pass you find 
a great descent which occupies some two days to go 
down. All along you find a variety and abundance of 
fruits ; and in former days there were plenty of inhabited 
places on the road, but now there are none ; and you 
meet with only a few people looking after their cattle 
at pasture. From the city of Kerman to this descent 
the cold in winter is so great that you can scarcely abide 
it, even with a great quantity of clothing.® 



Note i. — Kerman is mentioned by Ptolemy, and also by Ammianos amongst the 
cities of the country so called {Carmania) : "inter quas nitet Cannana omnium 
mater." (XXIII. 6.) 

M. Pauthier's supposition that Sitjdn was in Polo's time the capital, is incorrect. 
(See N. et E. XIV. 208, 290.) Our Author's Kerman is the city still so called ; and 
its proper name would seem to have been Kuwdshir. (See Reitmttd, Mim. sur Plrtde, 
171 ; also Sprenger P. and R. R. 77.) According to Khanikoflfit is 5535 feet above 
the sea. 

Kermin, on the fall of the Beni Buya Dynasty, in the middle of the llth century, 
came into the hands of a branch of the Seljukian Turks, who retained it till the con- 
quests of the Kings of Khwarizm, which just preceded the Mongol invasion. In 
1226 the Amir Borak, a Kara Khitaian, who was governor on behalf of Jalaluddin of 
Khwarizm, became independent under the title of Kutlugh Sultan. [He died in 1234.] 
The Mongols allowed this family to retain the immediate authority, and at the time 
when Polo returned from China the representative of the house was a lady known as 
the Padishah Khdtun [who reigned from 1291], the wife successively of the Ilkhans 
Abaka and Kaikhatu ; an ambitious, clever, and masterful woman, who put her own 
brother Siyurgutmish to death as a rival, and was herself, after the decease of Kaikhatu, 
put to death by her brother's widow and daughter [1294]. The Dynasty continued, 
nominally at least, to the reign of the Ilkhan Khodabanda (1304-13), when it was 
extinguished. [See Major Sykes' Persia, chaps, v. and xxiii.] 

Kerman was a Nestorian see, under the Metropolitan of Fars. (Ilch. passim ; Weil, 
III. 454; Lequieti, II. 1256.) 

[ "There is some confusion with regard to the names of Kerman both as a town and 
as a province or kingdom. We have the names Kerman, Kuwashfr, Bardshir. I 
should say the original name of the whole country was Kerman, the ancient Kara- 
mania. A province of this was called Kureh-i-Ardeshir, which, being contracted, 
became Kuwashfr, and is spoken of as the province in which Ardeshfr Babekan, the 
first Sassanian monarch, resided. A part of Kureh-i-Ardeshir was called BardsMr, or 



92 MARCO POLO Book I. 

Bard-i-Ardesh(r, now occasionally Bardsir, and the present city of Kerman was 
situated at its north-eastern corner. This town, during the Middle Ages, was called 
Bardshfr. On a coin of Qara Arslan Beg, King of Kerman, of A.H. 462, Mr. 
Stanley Lane Poole reads Yazdashfr instead of Bardshfr. Of Al Idrfsf's Yazdashfr 
I see no mention in histories ; Bardshfr was the capital and the place where most of 
the coins were struck. Yazdashfr, if such a place existed, can only have been a place 
of small importance. It is, perhaps, a clerical error for Bardshfr ; without diacritical 
points, both words are written alike. Later, the name of the city became Kerman, 
the name Bardshfr reverting to the district lying south-west of it, with its principal 
place Mashfz. In a similar manner Mashfz was often, and is so now, called 
Bardshfr. Another old town sometimes confused with Bardshfr was Sfrjan or 
Shfrjan, once more important than Bardshfr ; it is spoken of as the capital of 
Kerman, of Bardshfr, and of Sardsfr. Its name now exists only as that of a district, 
with principal place S'afdabad. The history of Kerman, 'Agd-ul-'OU, plainly says 
Bardshfr is the capital of Kerman, and from the description of Bardshfr there is no 
doubt of its having been the present town Kerman. It is strange that Marco Polo 
does not give the name of the city. In Assemanni's Bibliotheca Orientalis Kuwashfr 
and Bardashir are mentioned as separate cities, the latter being probably the old 
Mashfz, which as early as A.H. 582 (A.D. 11 86) is spoken of in the History of Kermdtt 
as an important town. The Nestorian bishop of the province Kerman, who stood 
under the Metropolitan of Fars, resided at Hormuz." {Houtum-Schindler, I.e. pp. 
491-492.) 

There does not seem any doubt as to the identity of Bardashir with the present city 
of Kerman. (See 77/1? Cities of Kinnan in the time of Hamd- Allah Mustawfi and 
Marco Polo, by Guy le Strange, Jour. R. As. Sac. April, 1901, pp. 281, 290.) 
Ilamd-Allah * the author of the Cosmography known as the Nuzhat-al-Kfdub or 
'* Heart's Delight." (Cf. Major Sykes' Persia, chap, xvi., and the Geographical Journal 
for February, 1902, p. 166.) — H. C.J 

Note 2. — A MS. treatise on precious stones cited by Ouseley mentions Shebavek 
in Kerman as the site of a Turquoise mine. This is prol:)ably Shahr-i-Babek, about 
100 miles west of the city of Kerman, and not far from Pdrez, where Abbott tells us 
there is a mine of these stones, now abandoned. Goebel, one of Khanikofifs party, 
found a deposit of turquoises at Taft, near Yezd. {Ouseley s' Travels, I. 211 ; J. P. 
G. S. XXVI. 63-65; Khan. Mdm. 203.) 

["The province Kerman is still rich in turquoises. The mines of Parfz or Parez 
are at Chemen - i - mo - aspan, 16 miles from Parfz on the road to Bahramabad 
(principal place of Rafsinjan), and opposite the village or garden called G6d-i-Ahmer. 
These mines were worked up to a few years ago ; the turquoises were of a pale blue. 
Other turquoises are found in the present Bardshfr plain, and not far from Mashfz, on 
the slopes of the Chehel tan mountain, opposite a hill called the Bear Hill (tal-i-Khers). 
The Shehr-i-Babek turquoise mines are at the small village Karfk, a mile from 
Medvar-i - Bala, 10 miles north of Shehr-i-Babek. They have two shafts, one of 
which has lately been closed by an earthquake, and were worked up to about twenty 
years ago. At another place, 12 miles from Shehr-i-Babek, are seven old shafts 
now not worked for a long period. The stones of these mines are also of a very pale 
blue, and have no great value." {Houtu7n-Schindler, I.e. 1881, p. 491.) 

The finest turquoises came from Khorasan ; the mines were near Maaden, about 
48 miles to the north of Nishapur. (Heyd, Com. du Levant, II. p. 653 ; Ritter, 
Erdk. pp. 325-330.) 

It is noticeable that Polo does not mention indigo at Kerman. — H. C] 

NoTK 3. — Edrisi says that excellent iron was produced in the "cold mountains" 
N.W. of Jiruft, i.e. somewhere south of the capital; and ihejihdn A'umd, or Great 
Turkish Geography, that the steel mines of Niriz, on the borders of Kermdn, were 
famous. These are also spoken of by Teixeira. Major St. John enables me to in- 



Chap. XVII. "STEEL AND ONDANIQUE" 93 

dicate their position, in the hills east of Niriz. (Edrisi, vol. L p. 430 ; Hammer, Mhn. 
lur la Perse, p. 275 ; Teixdra, Kelaciones, p. 378 ; and see Map of Itineraries, 
No. II.) 

[ " Marco Polo's steel mines are probably the Parpa iron mines on the road from 
Kerman to Shfraz, called even to-day M'adeni-fiilad (steel mine) ; they are not worked 
now. Old Kerman weapons, daggers, swords, old stirrups, etc., made of steel, are 
really beautiful, and justify Marco Polo's praise of them." {Houtum-Schindler, 
I.e. p. 49i.)-H. C] 

Gndanique of the Geog. Text, Andaine of Pauthier's, Andantcum of the Latin, 
is an expression on which no light has been thrown since Ramusio's time. The 
latter often asked the Persian merchants who visited Venice, and they all agreed in 
stating that it was a sort of steel of such surpassing value and excellence, that in the 
days of yore a man who possessed a mirror, or sword, of Andanic regarded it as he 
would some precious jewel. This seems to me excellent evidence, and to give the 
true clue to the meaning of Ondanique. I have retained the latter form because it 
points most distinctly to what I believe to be the real word, viz. Hundwdniy, 
" Indian Steel." * {?>tc Johnson' s Pers. Diet, and De Sacys Chrestomathie Arabe, II. 
148.) In the Voeabulista Arabieo, of about a.d. 1200 (Florence, 1871, p. 211), 
Hunduwdn is explained by En sis. VUllers explains Hundwdn as " anything peculiar 
to India, especially swords," and quotes from Firdusi, " Khanjar-i-Hundwdn^' a 
hanger of Indian steel. 

The like expression appears in the quotation from Edrisi below as Hindiah, and 
found its way into Spanish in the shapes of Alhinde, Alfinde, Alinde, first with the 
meaning of steel, then assimiing, that of steel mirror, and finally that of metallic foil 
of a glass mirror. (See Dozy and Engelmann, 2d ed. pp. 144-145.) Hint or Al-hint 
is used in Berber also for steel. {See J. P. A. S. IX. 255.) 

The sword-blades of India had a great fame over the East, and Indian steel, 
according to esteemed authorities, continued to be imported into Persia till days quite 
recent. Its fame goes back to very old times. Ctesias mentions two wonderful 
swords of such material that he got from the king of Persia and his mother. It is 
perhaps the ferrttm candidum of which the Malli and Oxydracae sent a ico talents 
weight as a present to Alexander.t Indian Iron and Steel (eriSrjpos 'IvSi^ds koX 
(TTbiiwiia) are mentioned in the Periplus as imports into the Abyssinian ports. 
Ferrum Indiaitn appears (at least according to one reading) among the Oriental 
species subject to duty in the Law of Marcus Aurelius and Commodus on that matter. 
Salmasius notes that among surviving Greek chemical treatises there was one xepi 
Pa<p^s 'lydiKov aid-qpov, " On the Tempering of Indian Steel." Edrisi says on this 
subject: "The Hindus excel in the manufacture of iron, and in the preparation of 
those ingredients along with which it is fused to obtain that kind of soft Iron which 
is usually styled Indian Steel (Hindiah).:^ They also have workshops wherein are 
forged the most famous sabres in the world. . . . It is impossible to find anything to 
surpass the edge that you get from Indian Steel {al-hadid al-Hindi)." 

Allusions to the famous sword-blades of India would seem to be frequent in 
Arabic literature. Several will be found in Hamasa's collection of ancient Arabic 
poems translated by Freytag. The old commentator on one of these passages says : 
" Ut optimos gladios significet . . , Indicos esse dixit," and here the word used in 
the original is Hundwdniyah. In Manger's version of Arabshah's Life of Timur 

* A learned friend objects to Johnson's //untfwdn(y=" Indian Steel," as too absolute ; some word 
for sUet being wanted. Even if it be so, I obser\-e that in the three places where Polo uses Ondanigiu 
(here, ch. xxi., and ch. xlii.), the phrase is always " steel and ondanique." This looks as if his 
mental expression were Puldd-i-Hundiudni, rendered by an idiom like Virgil's pocula et 
aurvm. 

t Kenrick suggests that the "bright iron " mentioned by Ezekiel among the wares of Tyre (ch. 
xxvii. 19) can hardly have been anything else than Indian Steel, because named with cassia and 
calamus. 

% Literally rendered by Mr Redhouse : " The Indians do well the combining of the mixtures of 
the chemicals with which they (smelt and) cast the soft iron, and it becomes Indian (steel), being re- 
ferred to India (in this expression)." 



94 MARCO POLO Book I. 

are several allusions of the same kind ; one, a quotation from Aittar, recalls the 
ferriini caiididuin of Curtius : 

" Albi (gladii) Indici meo in sanguine abluunttir." 

In the histories, even of the Mahomedan conquest of India, the Hindu infidels are 
sent X.oJiha7tnam with " the well-watered blade of the Hindi sword " ; or the sword is 
personified as " a Hindu of good family." Coming down to later days, Chardin says 
of the steel of Persia : " They combine it with Indian steel, which is more tractable 
.... and is much more esteemed." Dupre, at the beginning of this century, tells 
us : "I used to believe .... that the steel for the famous Persian sabres came from 
certain mines in Khorasan. But according to all the information I have obtained, I 
can assert that no mine of steel exists in that province. What is used for these blades 
comes in the shape of disks from Lahore." Pottinger names j/^^/ among the imports 
into Kerman from India. Elphinstone the Accurate, in his Caubul, confirms Dupre : 
" Indian Steel [in Afghanistan] is most prized for' the material ; but the best swords 
are made in Persia and in Syria ; " and in his History of India, he repeats : " The 
steel of India was in request with the ancients ; it is celebrated in the oldest Persian 
poem, and is still the material of the scimitars of Khorasan and Damascus." * 

Klaproth, in his Asia Polyglotta, gives Andun as the Ossetish and Andan as the 
Wotiak, for Steel. Possibly these are essentially the same with Himdwdniy and 
Alhinde, pointing to India as the original source of supply. [In the Sikandar Ndma, 
e Bard (or "Book of Alexander the Great," written A.D. 1200, by Abu Muhammad bin 
Yusuf bin Mu, Ayyid-i-Nizamu-'d-Din), translated by Captain H. Wilberforce Clarke 
(Lond., 1881, large 8vo), steel is frequently mentioned : Canto xix. 257, p. 202 ; xx. 
12, p. 211 ; xlv. 38, p. 567 ; Iviii. 32, pp. 695, 42, pp. 697, 62, 66, pp. 699 ; lix. 28, 
p. 703.-H. C] 

Avicenna, in his fifth book De Animd, according to Roger Bacon, distinguishes 
three very different species of iron : " ist. Iron which is good for striking or bearing 
heavy strokes, and for being forged by hammer and fire, but not for cutting-tools. Of 
this hammers and anvils are made, and this is what we commonly call Iron simply. 
2nd. That which is purer, has more heat in it, and is better adapted to take an edge 
and to form cutting-tools, but is not so malleable, viz. Steel. And the 3rd is that 
which is called Andena. This is less known among the Latin nations. Its special 
character is that like silver it is malleable and ductile under a very low degree of heat. 
In other properties it is intermediate between iron and steel." {Fr. R. Baconis Opera 
Inedita, 1859, pp. 382-383.) The same passage, apparently, of Avicenna is quoted by 
Vincent of Beauvais, but with considerable differences. (See Speculum Maturate, 
VII. ch. lii. Ix., and Specul. Doctrinale, XV. ch. Ixiii.) The latter author writes 
Alidena, and I have not been able to refer to Avicenna, so that I am doubtful 
whether his Andena is the same term with the Andaitte of Pauthier and our Ondanique. 

The popular view, at least in the Middle Ages, seems to have regarded Steel as a 
distinct natural species, the product of a necessarily different ore, from iron ; and some 
such view is, I suspect, still common in the East. An old Indian officer told me of the 
reply of a native friend to whom he had tried to explain the conversion of iron into 
steel—" What ! You would have me believe that if I put an ass into the furnace it 
will come forth a horse." And Indian Steel again seems to have been regarded as a 
distinct natural species from ordinary steel. It is in fact made by a peculiar but 
simple process, by which the iron is converted directly into cast-steel, without passing 
through any intermediate stage analogous to that of blister-steel. When specimens 
were first examined in England, chemists concluded that the steel was made direct 
from the ore. The Ondanique of Marco no doubt was a fine steel resembling the 

* In Richardson's Pers. Diet., by Johnson, we have a word RoJtan, Rohina (and other forms). 
"The finest Indian steel, of which the most excellent swords are made ; also the swords made of that 
ftcel." 




Texture, with Animals, etc., from a Cashmere Scarf in the Indian Museum. 

" ^c icbCTsts maittcrcs laborcs a btstts tt anstans moot richemcnt." 



96 MARCO POLO Book I. 

Indian article. {^Mailer's Ctesias, p. 80 ; Curtius, IX. 24 ; J\ fuller's Geog.Gr. Min. I. 
262 ; Digest. Novum, Lugd, 1551, Lib, XXXIX. Tit. 4 ; Salmas. Ex. Plinian. II. 
763 ; Edrisi, I. 65-66 ; /. R. S. A. A. 387 seqq. ; Hamasae Cartnina, I. 526 ; Elliot, 
II. 209, 394; Reynolds's Utbi, p. 216.) 

Note 4. — Pauliis Jovius in the l6th century says, I know not on what authority, 
that Kermdn was then celebrated for the fine temper of its steel in scimitars and lance- 
points. These were eagerly bought at high prices by the Turks, and their quality 
was such that one blow of a Kerman sabre would cleave an European helmet without 
turning the edge. And I see that the phrase, " Kermani blade " is used in poetry by 
Marco's contemporary Am(r Khusru of Delhi. {P. Jov. Hist, of his own Time, Bk. 
XIV. ; Elliot, III. 537.) 

There is, or was in Pottinger's time, still a great manufacture of matchlocks at 
Kerman ; but rose-water, shawls, and carpets are t!ie staples of the place now. Polo 
says nothing that points to shawl-making, but it would seem from Edrisi that some 
such manufacture already existed in the adjoining district of Bamm. It is possible 
that the "hangings" spoken of by Polo may refer to the carpets. I have seen a 
genuine Kerman carpet in the house of my friend. Sir Bartle Frere. It is of very short 
pile, very even and dense ; the design, a combination of vases, birds, and floral 
tracery, closely resembling the illuminated frontispiece of some Persian MSS. 

The shawls are inferior to those of Kashmir in exquisite softness, but scarcely in 
delicacy of texture and beauty of design. In 1850, their highest quality did not exceed 
30 tomans (14/.) in price. About 2200 looms were employed on the fabric. A good 
deal of Kerman wool called Ktirk, goes vid Bandar Abbasi and Karachi to Amritsar, 
where it is mixed with the genuine Tibetan wool in the shawl manufacture. Several 
of the articles named in the text, including /ar^a/^j (" cortines") are woven in shawl- 
fabric. I scarcely think, however, that Marco would have confounded woven shawl 
with needle embroidery. And Mr. Khanikofif states that the silk embroidery, of which 
Marco speaks, is still performed with great skill and beauty at Kerman. Our cut 
illustrates the textures figured with animals, already noticed at p. 66. 

The Guebers were numerous here at the end of last century, but they are rapidly 
disappearing now. The Musulman of Kerman is, according to Khanikoff, an 
epicurean gentleman, and even in regard to wine, which is strong and plentiful, his 
divines are liberal. " In other parts of Persia you find the scribblings on the walls of 
Serais to consist of philosophical axioms, texts from the Koran, or abuse of local 
authorities. From Kerman to Yezd you find only rhymes in praise of fair ladies or 
good wine." 

{Pottinger's Travels ; Khanik. MSti. 186 seqq., and Notice, p. 21 ; Afajor Smith's 
Report ; Abbott's MS. Report in F. O. ; Notes by Major O. St. John, R.E.) 

Note 5. — Parez is famous for its falcons still, and so are the districts of Aktar and 
Sirjan. Both Mr. Abbott and Major Smith were entertained with hawking by Persian 
hosts in this neighbourhood. The late Sir O. St. John identifies the bird described as 
the Shdhln (Falco Peregr-inator), one variety of which, the Fdrsi, is abundant in the 
higher mountains of S. Persia. It is now little used in that region, the Terldn or 
goshawk being most valued, but a few are caught and sent for sale to the Arabs of 
Oman. (/. R. G. S. XXV. 50, 63, and Major St. John's Notes.) 

[ '' The fine falcons, * with red breasts and swift of flight,' come from Pdrfz. They 
are, however, very scarce, two or three only being caught every year. A well-trained 
Pdrfz falcon costs from 30 to 50 tomans (12/. to 20/.), as much as a good horse." 
{Houtum-Schindler, I.e. p. 491.) Major Sykes, Persia, ch. xxiii., writes: "Marco 
Polo was evidently a keen sportsman, and his description of the Shdhin, as it is 
termed, cannot be improved upon." Major Sykes has a list given him by a Kh^n of 
seven hawks of the province, all black and white, except the Shdhin, which has yellow 
eyes, and is the third in the order of size. — H. C] 

Note 6. — We defer geographical remarks till the traveller reaches Hormuz, 



Chap. XVIII. THE CITY OF CAMADI 97 



CHAPTER XVIII. 

Of the City of Camadi and its Ruins; also touching the 
Carauna Robbers. 

After you have ridden down hill those two days, you find 
yourself in a vast plain, and at the beginning thereof there 
is a city called Camadi, which formerly was a great and 
noble place, but now is of little consequence, for the 
Tartars in their incursions have several times ravaged it. 
The plain whereof I speak is a very hot region ; and 
the province that we now enter is called Reobarles. 

The fruits of the country are dates, pistachioes, and 
apples of Paradise, with others of the like not found in 
our cold climate. [There are vast numbers of turtle- 
doves', attracted by the abundance of fruits, but the 
Saracens never take them, for they hold them in 
abomination.] And on this plain there is a kind of bird 
called francolin, but different from the francolin of other 
countries, for their colour is a mixture of black and 
white, and the feet and beak are vermilion colour.^ 

The beasts also are peculiar ; and first I will tell you 
of their oxen. These are very large, and all over white 
as snow ; the hair is very short and smooth, which is 
owing to the heat of the country. The horns are short 
and thick, not sharp in the point ; and between the 
shoulders they have a round hump some two palms high. 
There are no handsomer creatures in the world. And 
when they have to be loaded, they kneel like the camel ; 
once the load is adjusted, they rise. Their load is a 
heavy one, for they are very strong animals. Then 
there are sheep here as big as asses ; and their tails are 
so large and fat, that one tail shall weigh some 30 lbs. 
They are fine fat beasts, and afford capital mutton.^ 

VOL. I. Q 



98 MARCO POLO Book 1. 

In this plain there are a number of villages and 
towns which have lofty walls of mud, made as a defence 
against the banditti,^ who are very numerous, and are 
called Caraonas. This name is given them because 
they are the sons of Indian mothers by Tartar fathers. 
And you must know that when these Caraonas wish to 
make a plundering incursion, they have certain devilish 
enchantments whereby they do bring darkness over the 
face of day, insomuch that you can scarcely discern your 
comrade riding beside you ; and this darkness they will 
cause to extend over a space of seven days' journey. 
They know the country thoroughly, and ride abreast, 
keeping near one another, sometimes to the number of 
10,000, at other times more or fewer. In this way they 
extend across the whole plain that they are going to 
harry, and catch every living thing that is found outside 
of the towns and villages ; man, woman, or beast, nothing 
can escape them ! The old men whom they take in this 
way they butcher ; the young men and the women they 
sell for slaves in other countries ; thus the whole land is 
ruined, and has become well-nigh a desert. 

The King of these scoundrels is called Nogodar. 
This Nogodar had gone to the Court of Chagatai, who 
was own brother to the Great Kaan, with some 10,000 
horsemen of his, and abode with him ; for Chagatai was 
his uncle. And whilst there this Nogodar devised a 
most audacious enterprise, and I will tell you what it was. 
He left his uncle who was then in Greater Armenia, and 
fled with a great body of horsemen, cruel unscrupulous 
fellows, first through Badashan, and then through 
another province called Pashai-Dir, and then through 
another called Ariora-Keshemur. There he lost a 
great number of his people and of his horses, for the 
roads were very narrow and perilous. And when he had 
conquered all those provinces, he entered India at the 



Chap. XVIII. HUMPED OXEN AND FAT-TAILED SHEEP 99 

extremity of a province called Dalivar. He established 
himself in that city and government, which he took from 
the King of the country, Asedin Soldan by name, a 
man of great power and wealth. And there abideth 
Nogodar with his army, afraid of nobody, and waging 
war with all the Tartars in his neighbourhood.* 

Now that I have told you of those scoundrels and 
their histor}% I must add the fact that Messer Marco 
himself was all but caught by their bands in such a 
darkness as that I have told you of; but, as it pleased 
God, he got off and threw himself into a village that was 
hard by, called Conosalmi. Howbeit he lost his whole 
company except seven persons who escaped along with 
him. The rest were caught, and some of them sold, 
some put to death.* 



Note i. — Ramasio has " Adam's apple " for apples of Paradise. This was some 
kind of Citrus, though Lindley thinks it impossible to say precisely what According 
to Jacques de Vitry it was a beautiful fruit of the Citron kind, in which the bite of 
human teeth was plainly discernible. (Note to Vulgar Errors, II. 21 1 ; Bongars, I. 
1099. ) Mr. Abbott speaks of this tract as " the districts (of Kerman) l>Tng towards the 
South, which are termed the Ghermseer or Hot Region, where the temperature of 
winter resembles that of a charming spring, and where the palm, orange, and lemon- 
tree flourish." {MS. Report; see also/. R. G. S. XXV. 56.) 

["Marco Polo's apples of Paradise are more probably the fruits of the Konar tree. 
There are no plantains in that part of the country. Turtle doves, now as then, are 
plentiful, and as they are seldom shot, and are said by the people to be unwholesome food, 
we can understand Marco Polo's sajdng that the people do not eat them." {Houtum^ 
Schindler, I.e. pp. 492-493.) — H. C] 

The Francolin here spoken of is, as Major Smith tells me, the Darrdj of the 
Persians, the Black Partridge of English sportsmen, sometimes called the Red-le^ed 
Francolin. The Darraj is found in some parts of Eg>pt, where its peculiar call is 
interpreted by the peasantry into certain Arabic words, meaning " Sweet are the 
corn-ears ! Praised be the Lord ! " In India, Baber tells us, the call of the Black 
Partridge was (less piously) rendered " Sht'r ddram skairak,'^ "I've got milk and 
sugar !" The bird seems to be the arrayas of Athenaens, a fowl "speckled like the 
partridge, but larger," found in Egjpt and Lydia. The Greek version of its cry is 
the best of all : " rpts toTj Kaxovfryoii jtoKct " (" Threefold ills to the ill-doers ! "). This 
is really like the call of the black partridge in India as I recollect it. [Teirao 
francolinus. — H. C] 

{Chrestomathie Arabe, II. 295 ; Baber, 320 ; Yong^s Athen. IX. 39.) 

Note 2. — Abbott mentions the humped (though small) oxen in this part of Persia, 
and that in some of the neighbouring districts they are taught to kneel to receive the 
load, an accomplishment which seems to have struck Mas'udi (III. 27), who says he 
saw it exhibited by oxen at Rai (near modem Tehran). The Afn Akbari also 
ascribes it to a very fine breed in Bengal. The whimsical name Zebu, given to the 
VOL. I. C 2 



lOO 



MARCO POLO 



Book I. 



humped or Indian ox in books of Zoology, was taken by Buffon from the exhibitors 
of such a beast at a French Fair, who probably invented it. That the humped 
breeds of oxen existed in this part of Asia in ancient times is shown by sculptures at 
Kouyunjik. (See cut below. ) 

A letter from Agassiz, printed in the Proc. As. Soc. Bengal (1865), refers to wild 
"zebus," and calls the species a small one. There is no wild "zebu," and some of 
the breeds are of enormous size. 

[ " White oxen, with short thick horns and a round hump between the shoulders, 
are now very rare between Kerman and Bender 'Abbas. They are, however, still to 
be found towards Beliichistan and Mekran, and they kneel to be loaded like camels. 
The sheep which I saw had fine large tails ; I did not, however, hear of any having so 
high a weight as thirty pounds." {Houtum-Schindler, I.e. p. 493.) — H. C] 

The fat-tailed sheep is well known in many parts of Asia and part of Africa. It is 
mentioned by Ctesias, and by /Elian, who says the shepherds used to extract the 
tallow from the live animal, sewing up the tail again ; exactly the same story is told 
by the Chinese Pliny, Ma Twan-lin. Marco's statements as to size do not surpass those 
of the admirable Kampfer : " In size they so much surpass the common sheep that it 
is not unusual to see them as tall as a donkey, whilst all are much more than three 
feet ; and as to the tail I shall not exceed the truth, though I may exceed belief, if I 
say that it sometimes reaches 40 lbs. in weight." Captain Hutton was assured by an 
Afghan sheep-master that tails had occurred in his flocks weighing 12 Tabriz mans, 
upwards of 76 lbs. ! The Afghans use the fat as an aperient, swallowing a dose of 4 
to 6 lbs ! Captain Hutton's friend testified that trucks to bear the sheep-tails were 




Humped Oxen from the Assyrian Sculptures at Koj'unjik. 

sometimes used among the Taimiinis (north of Herat). This may help to locate that 
ancient and slippery story. Josafat Barbaro says he had seen the thing, but is vague 
as to place, {yi. Han Nat. An. III. 3, IV. 32; Amoen. Exoticae ; Ferrier, H. of 
Afghans, p. 294 ; /. A. S. B. XV. 160.) 

[Rabelais says (Bk. I. ch. xvi.): "Si de ce vous efmerveillez, efmerveillez vous 
d'advantage de la queue des beliers de la Scyihie, qui pesait plus de trente livres ; 
et des moutons de Surie, esquels fault (si Tenaud, diet vray) affuster une charrette au 
cul, pour la porter tant qu'elle est longue et pesanle." (See G. Capus, A travers le roy. 
de Tamerlan, pp. 21-23, on the fat sheep.) — II. C] 

Note 3. — The word rendered banditti is in Pauthier Carans, in G. Text 
Carattncs, in the Latin "a scaranis ct vialandrinis." The last is no doubt 



I 



Chap. XVIII. THE CARAUNA ROBBERS lOI 

correct, standing for the old Italian Scherani, bandits. (See Caihay, p. 287, 
note. ) 

Note 4- — ^This is a knotty subject, and needs a long note. 

The Karaunahs are mentioned often in the histories of the Mongol regime in 
Persia, first as a Mongol tribe forming a Tuman, i.e. a division or corps of 10,000 
in the Mongol army (and I suspect it was the phrase the Tuman of the Karaunahs in 
Marco's mind that suggested his repeated use of the number 10,000 in speaking of 
them) ; and afterwards as daring and savage freebooters, scouring the Persian 
provinces, and having their headquarters on the Eastern frontiers of Persia. They 
are described as having had their original seats on the mountains north of the 
Chinese wall near Karaunjidunox Khidun; and their special accomplishment in war 
was the use of Naphtha Fire. Rashiduddin mentions the Kardnut as a branch of 
the great Mongol tribe of the Kungurats, who certainly ha I their seat in the vicinity 
named, so these may possibly be connected with the Karaunahs. The same author 
says that the Tuman of the Karaunahs formed the Inju ox peculiuni of Arghun Khan. 

Wassaf calls them " a kind of goblins rather than human beings, the most daring of 
all the Mongols" ; and Mirkhond speaks in like terms. 

Dr. Bird of Bombay, in discussing some of the Indo-Scythic coins which bear the 
word Korano attached to the prince's name, asserts this to stand for the name of the 
Karaunah, "who were a Graeco- Indo-Scythic tribe of robbers in the Punjab, who are 
mentioned by Marco Polo," a somewhat hasty conclusion which Pauthier adopts. 
There is, Quatremere observes, no mention of the Karaunahs before the Moi^ol 
invasion, and this he regards as the great obstacle to any supposition of their ha\-ing 
been a people previously settled in Persia. Reiske, indeed, with no reference to the 
present subject, quotes a passage from Hamza of Ispahan, a writer of the lOth century, 
in which mention is made of certain troops called Kardunahs. But it seems certain 
that in this and other like cases the real reading was Kazdwinah, people of Kazrin. 
(See Reiske' s Constant. Porphyrog. Bonn. ed. II. 674; Gottwaldfs Hamza Ispahanensis, 
p. 161 ; and Quatremere '\nj. A. ser. V. torn. xv. 173.) Ibn Batuta only once men- 
tions the name, saying that Tughlak Shah of Dehli was "one of those Turks called 
Kardimas who dwell in the /noimtains between Sind and Turkestan." Hammer has 
suggested the derivation of the word Carbine from Kardwinah (as he writes), and a 
link in such an etymology is perhaps furnished by the fact that in the l6th century the 
word Carbine was used for some kind of irregular horseman. 

{Gold. Horde, 214 ; Hch. I. 17, 344, etc. ; Erdmann, 168, 199, etc. ; J. A. S., 
B. X. 96; Q. R. 130; Not. et Ext. XIV. 282; /. B. III. 201 ; Ed. fVebbe, his 
Travailes, p. 17, 1590. Reprinted 1868.) 

As regards the account given by Marco of the origin of the Caraonas, it seems 
almost necessarily a mistaken one. As KhanikoflF remarks, he might have confounded 
them with the Biluchis, whose Turanian aspect (at least as regards the Brahuis) shows 
a strong infusion of Turki blood, and who might be rudely described as a cross between 
Tartars and Indians. It is indeed an odd fact that the word Kardni (vulgo Cranny) 
is commonly applied in India at this day to the mixed race sprung from European 
fathers and Native mothers, and tliis might be cited in corroboration of Marsden's 
reference to the Sanskrit Karana, but I suspect the coincidence arises in another way. 
Karana is the name applied to a particular class of mixt blood, whose special occupa- 
tion was writing and accounts. But the prior sense of the word seems to have been 
" clever, skilled," and hence a writer or scribe. In this sense we find Kardni applied 
in Ibn Batuta's day to a ship's clerk, and it is used in the same sense in the Ain Akbari. 
Clerkship is also the predominant occupation of the East- Indians, and hence the term 
Karani is applied to them from their business, and not from their mixt blood. We 
shall see hereafter that thf re is a Tartar term Arghun, applied to fair children bom of 
a Mongol mother and white father ; it is possible that there may have been a correlative 
word like Kardun (from Kara, black) applied to dark children bom of Mongol father 
and black mother, and that this led Marco to a false theory. 



102 



MARCO POLO 



Book 1. 



[Major Sykes (Persia) devotes a chapter (xxiv.) to T/ie Karwdn Expedition in 
which he says : " Is it not possible that the Karwanis are the Caraonas of Marco 
Polo ? They are distinct from the surrounding Baluchis, and pay no tribute." — H. C] 

Let us turn now to the name of Nogodar. Contemporaneously with the Karaunahs 
we have frequent mention of predatory bands known as Nigudaris, who seem to be 
distinguished from the Karaunahs, but had a like character for truculence. Their 
headquarters were about Sijistan, and Quatremere seems disposed to look upon them 
as a tribe indigenous in that quarter. Hammer says they were originally the troops of 




Portrait of a HazSra. 

Prince Nigudar, grandson of Chaghatai, and that they were a rabble of all sorts, 
Mongols, Turkmans, Kurds, Shiils, and what not. We hear of their revolts and 
disorders down to 1319, under which date Mirkhond says that there had been one- 
and-twenty fights with them in four years. Again we hear of them in 1336 about 
Herat, whilst in Baber's time they turn up as Nukdari, fairly established as tribes in 
the mountainous tracts of Karnud and Ghiir, west of Kabul, and coupled with the 
Ilazaras, who still survive both in name and character. " Among both," says Baber, 
" there are some who speak the Mongol language." Hazaras and Takdaris (read 
Nukdaris) again occur coupled in the His/oty of Sind. (See Elliot, I. 303-304.) 
[On the struggle against Timur of Toumen, veteran chief of the Nikoudrians (1383-84), 
see Major David Price's Alahoinviedan History, London, 1821, vol. iii. pp. 47-49, 
H. C. ] In maps of the 17th century, as of Hondius and Blaeuw, we find the moun- 
tains north of Kabul termed Nochdarizari, in which we cannot miss the combination 
Nigudar-Hazarah, whencesoever it was got. The Hazdras are eminently Mongol in 



Chap. XVIII. THE CARAUNA ROBBERS IO3 

feature to this day, and it is very probable that they or some part cf them are the 
descendants of the Karaunahs or the Nigudaris, or of both, and that the origination of 
the bands so called, from the scum of the Mongol inundation, is thus in degree con- 
firmed. The Hazaras generally are said to speak an old dialect of Persian. But one 
tribe in Western Afghanistan retains both the name of Mongols and a language of 
which six-sevenths (judging from a vocabulary published by Major Leech) appear to 
be Mongol. Leech says, too, that the Hazaras generally are termed Moghals by the 
Ghilzais. It is worthy of notice that Abu'l Fazl, who also mentions the Nukdaris 
among the nomad tribes of Kabul, says the Hazaras were the remains of the Chaghataian 
army which Mangu Kaan sent to the aid of Hulaku, under the command of Nigudar 
Oghlan. {Not. et Ext. XIV. 284; lick. I. 284, 309, etc.; Baber, 134, 136, 140; 
J. As. ser. IV. tom. iv. 98 ; Ayeen Akbery, II, 192-193.) 

So far, excepting as to the doubtful point of the relation between Karaunahs and 
Nigudaris, and as to the origin of the former, we have a general accordance with 
Polo's representations. But it is not very easy to identify with certainty the inroad 
on India to which he alludes, or the person intended by Nogodar, nephew of 
Chaghatai. It seems as if two persons of that name had each contributed something 
to Marco's history. 

We find in Hammer and D'Ohsson that one of the causes which led to the war 
between Barka Khan and Hulaku in 1262 (see above, Prologue, ch. ii.) was the 
violent end that had befallen three princes of the House of Juji, who had accompanied 
Hulaku to Persia in command of the contingent of that House. When war actually 
broke out, the contingent made their escape from Persia. One party gained Kipchak 
by way of Derbend ; another, in greater force, led by NiGUDAR and Onguja, escaped 
to Khorasan, pursued by the troops of Hulaku, and thence eastward, where they 
seized upon Ghazni and other districts bordering on India. 

But again : Nigudar Aghul, or Oghlan, son of (the younger) Juji, son ol Chaghatai, 
was the leader of the Chaghataian contingent in Hulaku's expedition, and was still 
attached to the Mongol-Persian army in 1269, when Borrak Khan, of the House of 
Chaghatai, was meditating war against his kinsman, Abaka of Persia. Borrak sent to 
the latter an ambassador, w ho was the bearer of a secret message to Prince Nigudar, 
begging him not to serve against the head of his own House. Nigudar, upon this, 
made a pretext of retiring to his own headquarters in Georgia, hoping to reach 
Borrak's camp by way of Derbend. He was, however, intercepted, and lost many of 
his people. With icoo horse he took refuge in Georgia, but was refused an asylum, 
and was eventually captured by Abaka's commander on that frontier. His ofiicers 
were executed, his troops dispersed among Abaka's army, and his own life spared 
under surveillance. I find no more about him. In 1278 Hammer speaks of him as 
dead, and of the Nigudarian bands as ha\'ing been formed out of his troops. But 
authority is not given. 

The second Nigudar is evidently the one to whom Abu'l Fazl alludes. Khanikoff 
assumes that the Nigudar who went off towards India about 1260 (he puts the date 
earlier) was Nigudar, the grandson of Chaghatai, but he takes no notice of the second 
story just quoted. 

In the former story we have bands under Nigudar going off by Ghazni, and con- 
quering country on the Indian frofttier. In the latter we have Nigudar, a descendant 
of Chaghatai, trying to escape from his camp on the frontier of Great Armenia. 
Supposing the Persian historians to be correct, it looks as if Marco had rolled two 
stories into one. 

Some other passages may be cited before quitting this part of the subject. A 
chronicle of Herat, translated by Barbier de Meynard, says, under 1298 : "The King 
Fakhruddin (of Herat) had the imprudence to authorise the Amir Nigudar to establish 
himself in a quarter of the city, with 300 adventurers from 'Irak. This little troop 
made frequent raids in Kuhistan, Sijistan, Farrah, etc., spreading terror. Khoda- 
banda, at the request of his brother Ghazan Khan, came from Mazanderan to demand 
the immediate surrender of these brigands," etc. And in the account of the 



I04 MARCO POLO Book I. 

tremendous foray of the Chaghataian Prince Kotlogh Shah, on the east and south of 
Persia in 1299, we find one of his captains called Nigudar Bahadur. {Gold. Ho7-de, 
146, I57> 164; D'-Ohsson, IV. 378 seqq., 433 seqq., 513 seqq.; Ilch. I. 216, 261, 
284; II, 104;/. A. %kx. V. torn. xvii. 455-456, 507 ; Khan. Notice, 31.) 

As regards the route taken by Prince Nogodar in his incursion into India, we have 
no difficulty with Badakhshan. Pashai-Dir is a copulate name ; the former 
part, as we shall see reason to believe hereafter, representing the country between the 
Hindu Kush and the Kabul River (see infra, ch. xxx.); the latter (as Pauthier 
already has pointed out), DiR, the chief town of Panjkora, in the hill country north 
of Peshawar. In Ariora-Keshemtir the first portion only is perplexing. I will 
mention the most probable of the solutions that have occurred to me, and a second, 
due to that eminent archaeologist, General A. Cunningham, (i) Arioi-a may be some 
corrupt or Mongol form of Aryavartta, a sacred name applied to the Holy l^nds of 
Indian Buddhism, of which Kashmir was eminently one to the Northern Buddhists. 
Oron, in Mongol, is a Region or Realm, and may have taken the place of Vartta, 
giving Aryoron or Ariora. (2) '^ Ariora," General Cunningham writes, " I take to be 
the Harhaura of Sanscrit — i.e. the Western Panjab. Harhaura was the North- 
western Division of the Nava-Khanda, or Nine Divisions of Ancient India. It is 
mentioned between Sindhn-Sauvira in the west {i.e. Sind), and Madra in the north 
{i.e. the Eastern Panjab, which is still called Madar-Des). The name of Plarhaura 
is, I think, preserved in the Haro River. Now, the Sind-Sagor Doab formed a 
portion of the kingdom of Kashmir, and the joint names, like those of Sindhu-Sauvira, 
describe only one State." The names of the Nine Divisions in question are given by 
the celebrated astronomer, Varaha Mihira, who lived in the beginning of the 6th 
century, and are repeated by Al Biruni. (See Reinaud, Mt!ni. stir P hide, p. 116.) The 
only objection to this happy solution seems to lie in Al Biruni's remark, that the 
names in question, were in general no longer used even in his time (a. D. 1030). 

There can be no doubt that Asidin Soldan is, as Khanikoff has said, Ghaiassuddin 
Balban, Sultan of Delhi from 1266 to 1286, and for years before that a man of great 
power in India, and especially in the Panjab, of which he had in the reign of Rukn- 
uddin (1236) held independent possession. 

Firishta records several inroads of Mongols in the Panjab during the reign of 
Ghaiassuddin, in withstanding one of which that King's eldest son was slain ; and 
there are constant indications of their presence in Sind till the end of the century. 
But we find in that historian no hint of the chief circumstances of this part of the 
story, viz., the conquest of Kashmir and the occupation oi Dalivar or Dilivar {G. T.), 
evidently (whatever its identity) in the plains of India. I do find, however, in the 
history of Kashmir, as given by Lassen (III. 1138), that in the end of 1259, Laksha- 
mana Deva, King of Kashmir, was killed in a campaign against the Twushka 
(Turks or Tartars), and that their leader, who is called Kajjala, got hold of the 
country and held it till 1287.* It is difficult not to connect this both with Polo's 
story and with the escapade of Nigudar about 1260, noting also that this occupation of 
Kashmir extended through the whole reign of Ghaiassuddin. 

We seem to have a memory of Polo's story preserved in one of Elliot's extracts 
from Wassaf, which states that in 708 (a.d. 1308), after a great defeat of a Mongol 
inroad which had passed the Ganges, Sultan Ala'uddin Khilji ordered a pillar of 
Mongol heads to be raised before the Badaun gate, " as was donz with the Nigudari 
Moghtils'' {^\l. i,^. 

We still have to account for the occupation and locality of Dalivar ; Marsden 
supposed it to be Lahore ; Khanikoff considers it to be Dirdwal, the ancient desert 
capital of the Bhattis, properly (according to Tod) Dcordwal, but by a transposition 
common in India, as it is in Italy, sometimes called Dihhvar, in the modern State of 
Bhdwalpur. But General Cunningham suggests a more probable locality in DilAwar 
on the west bank of the Jelam, close to Ddrdpiir, and opposite to Mung. These two 

* Khajlak is mentioned as a leader of the Mongol raids in India by the poet Amir Khusru (a.d. 
1289; see Elliot, III. 527)- 



Chap. XVIII. THE CARAUNAS AND MAGICAL DARKNESS 105 

sites, Dilawar-Darapiir on the west bank, and Mung on the east, are identified by 
General Cunningham (I believe justly) with Alexander's Bucephala and Nicaea. The 
spot, which is just opposite the battlefield of Chilianwala, was visited (iSth December, 
1868) at my request, by my friend Colonel R. Maclagan, R.E. He writes: "The 
present village of Dilawar stands a little above the town of Darapur (I mean on 
higher ground), looking down on Darapur and on the river, and on the cultivated and 
wooded plain along the river bank. The remains of the Old Dilawar, in the form of 
quantities of large bricks, cover the low round-backed spurs and knolls of the broken 
rocky hills around the present village, but principally on the land side. They cover 
a large area of verj- irr^ular character, and may clearly be held to represent a very 
considerable town. There are no indications of the form of buildings, .... but 
simply large quantities of large bricks, which for a long time have been carried away 

and used for modern buildings After rain coins are found on the surface 

There can be no doubt of a ver)' large extent of ground, of very irregular and uninvit- 
ing character, having been covered at some lime with buildings. The position on the 
Jelam would answer well for the Dilawar which the Mongol invaders took and held. 
.... The strange thing is that the name should not be mentioned (I believe it is 
not) by any of the well-known Mahomedan historians of India. So much for 

Dilawar The people have no traditions. But there are the remains ; and 

there is the name, borne by the existing village on part of the old site." I had come 
to the conclusion that this was almost certainly Polo's Dalivar, and had mapped it as 
such, before I read certain passages in the History of Ziyduddin Bami, which have 
been translated by Professor Dowson for the third volume of Elliot's India. When 
the comrades of Ghaiassuddin Balban urged him to conquests, the Sultan pointed to 
the constant danger from the Mongols,* saying : " These accursed wretches have 
heard of the wealth and condition of Hindustan, and have set their hearts upon con- 
quering and plundering it. They have taken a7td plundered Lahor within my terri- 
tories, and no year passes that they do not come here and plunder the villages 

They even talk about the conquest and sack of Delhi." And under a later date the 
historian says : '* The Sultan .... marched to Lahor, and ordered the rebuilding 
of the fort which the Mughals had destroyed in the reigns of the sons of Shamsuddin. 
The towns and villages of Lahor which the Mughals had devastated and laid waste 
he repeopled." Considering these passages, and the fact that Polo had no personal 
knowledge of Upper India, I now think it probable that Marsden was right, and that 
Dilivar is really a misunderstanding of " Citth di Livar" for Lahawar or Lahore. 

The Magical darhuss which Marco ascribes to the evil arts of the Karaunas is 
explained by KhanikoflF from the phenomenon of Dry Fog, which he has often ex- 
perienced in Khorasan, combined with the Dust Storm with which we are ^miliar 
in Upper India. In Sind these phenomena often produce a great degree of darkness. 
During a battle fought between the armies of Sindh and Kachh in 1762, such a fog 
came on, obscuring the light of day for some six hours, during which the armies were 
intermixed with one another and fighting desperately. When the darkness dispersed 
they separated, and the consternation of both parties was so great at the events of the 
day that both made a precipitate retreat. In 1844 this battle was still spoken of with 
wonder. (/. Bomb. Br. R. A. S. I. 423.) 

Major St. John has given a note on his own ex(>erience of these curious Kerman 
fogs (see Ocean Highways, 1872, p. 286) : " Not a breath of air was stirring, and the 
whole effect was most curious, and utterly unlike'any other fc^ I have seen. No 
deposit of dust followed, and the feeling of the air was decidedly damp. I unfortun- 
ately could not get my hygrometer till the fog had cleared away." 

[ General Houtum-Schindler, I.e. p. 493, writes : " The magical darkness might, 
as Colonel Yule supposes, be explained by the curious drj' fc^s or dust storms, often 
occurring in the neighbourhood of Kerman, but it must be remarked that Marco Polo 

* Profes or Cowell compares the Mongol inroads in the latter part of the 13th and beginaiag of the 
14th century, in their incessant recurrence, to the incursions of the Danes in England. A passage in 
Wassaf (^Z/iV/, 1 1 J. 38) show^; that the Mongols were, circa I254-S5> already in occupation of Sodia 
on the Chenab, and districts adjoining. 



I06 MARCO POLO Book I. 

was caught in one of these storms down in Ji'ruft, where, according to the people I 
questioned, such storms now never occur. On the 29th of September, 1879, at 
Kerman, a high wind began to blow from S.S.W. at about 5 P.M. First there came 
thick heavy clouds of dust with a few drops of rain. The heavy dust then settled 
down, the hghter particles remained in the«air, forming a dry fog of such density that 
large objects, like houses, trees, etc., could not even faintly be distinguished at a 
distance of a hundred paces. The barometers suffered no change, the three I had with 
me remained in statu quo.'''' " The heat is over by the middle of September, and after the 
autumnal equinox, there are a few days of what is best described as a dense dry fog. This 
was undoubtedly the haze referred to by Marco Polo." (Ma/or Sykes, ch. iv.) — H.C.] 

" Richthofen's remarkable exposition of the phenomena of the Voss'vsx North China, 
and of the sub-aerial deposits of the steppes and of Central Asia throws some light on 
this. But this hardly applies to St John's experience of " no deposit of dust." (See 
Richthofen, China, pp. 96-97 s. AiS. Note, H. Y.) 

The belief that such opportune phenomena were produced by enchantment was a 
thoroughly Tartar one. D'Herbelot relates (art. Giagathai) that in an action with a 
rebel called Mahomed Tarabi, the Mongols were encompassed by a dust storm which 
they attributed to enchantment on the part of the enemy, and it so discouraged them 
that they took to flight. 

Note 5. — The specification that only seven were saved from Marco's company is 
peculiar to Pauthier's Text, not appearing in the G. T. 

Several names compounded of Salm or Salmi occur on the dry lands on the 
borders of Kerman. Edrisi, however (I. p. 428), names a place called Kanat-ul- 
ShAm as the first march in going from Jiruft to Walashjird. Walashjird is, I 
imagine, represented by Galashkird, Major R. Smith's third march from Jiruft (see 
my Map of Routes from Kerman to Hormuz); and as such an indication agrees with 
the view taken below of Polo's route, I am strongly disposed to identify Kanat-ul- 
Sham with his castello or walled village of Canosalmi. 

[ " Marco Polo's Conosalmi, where he was attacked by robbers and lost the greater 
part of his men, is perhaps the ruined town or village Kamasal (Kahn-i-asal = the 
honey canal), near Kahnuj-i-pancheh and Vakflabad in Jfruft. It lies on the direct 
road between Shehr-i-Daqfamis (Camadi) and the Nevergiin Pass. The road goes 
in an almost due southerly direction. The Nevergiin Pass accords with Marco Polo's 
description of it ; it is very difficult, on account of the many great blocks of sandstone 
scattered upon it. Its proximity to the Bashakird mountains and Mekran easily 
accounts for the prevalence of robbers, who infested the place in Marco Polo's time. 
At the end of the Pass lies the large village Shamfl, with an old fort ; the distance 
thence to the site of Hormuz or Bender 'Abbas (lying more to the west) is 52 miles, two 
days' march. The climate of Bender 'Abbas is very bad, strangers speedily fall sick, 
two of my men died there, all the others were seriously ill." {Houtum-Schindler, 
I.e. pp. 495-496.) Major Sykes (ch. xxiii.) says: "Two marches from Camadi was 
Kahn-i-Panchur, and a stage beyond it lay the ruins of Fariab or Pariab, which 
was once a great city, and was destroyed by a flood, according to local legend. 
It may have been Alexander's Salmous, as it is about the right distance from the 
coast, and if so, could not have been Marco's Cono Salmi. Continuing on, 
Galashkird mentioned by Edrisi, is the next stage."— H. C] 

The raids of the Mekranis and Biluchis long preceded those of the Karaunas, for 
they were notable even in the time of Mahmud of Ghazni, and they have continued to 
our own day to be prosecuted nearly on the same stage and in the same manner. 
About 1721, 4000 horsemen of this description plundered the town of Bander Abbasi, 
whilst Captain Alex. Hamilton was in the port ; and Abbott, in 1850, found the dread 
of Biliich robbers to extend almost to the gates of Ispahan. A striking account of 
the Biliich robbers and their characteristics is given by General Ferrier. (See Hamilton, 
I. 109 ; y. R .G. S. XXV. ; Khanikoff's Mimoire ; Macd. Kinneir, 196; Caravan 
Journeys, p. 437 ^^q- ) 



Chap. XIX. THE CITY OF HORMOS IO7 

CHAPTER XIX. 

Of the Descent to the City of Hormos. 

The Plain of which we have spoken extends in a 
southerly direction for five days' journey, and then 
you come to another descent some twenty miles in 
length, where the road is very bad and full of peril, 
for there are many robbers and bad characters about. 
When you have got to the foot of this descent you find 
another beautiful plain called the Plain of Formosa. 
This extends for two days' journey ; and you find in it 
fine streams of water with plenty of date-palms and other 
fruit-trees. There are also many beautiful birds, franco- 
lins, popinjays, and other kinds such as we have none of 
in our country. When you have ridden these two daj^ 
you come to the Ocean Sea, and on the shore you find a 
city with a harbour which is called Hormos.^ Merchants 
come thither from India, with ships loaded with spicery 
and precious stones, pearls, cloths of silk and gold, 
elephants' teeth, and many other wares, which they sell 
to the merchants of Hormos, and which these in turn 
carry all over the world to dispose of again. In fact, 
'tis a city of immense trade. There are plenty of towns 
and villages under it, but it is the capital. The King 
is called Ruomedam Ahomet. It is a very sickly place, 
and the heat of the sun is tremendous. If any foreiorn 
merchant dies there, the King takes all his property. 

In this country they make a wine of dates mixt with 
spices, which is very good. When any one not used to 
it first drinks this wine, it causes repeated and violent 
purging, but afterwards he is all the better for it, and 
gets fat upon it. The people never eat meat and 
wheaten bread except when they are ill, and if they 
take such food when they are in health it makes them 
ill. Their food when in health consists of dates and 



I08 MARCO POLO Rook I. 

salt-fish (tunny, to wit) and onions, and this kind of diet 
they maintain in order to preserve their health.^ 

Their ships are wretched affairs, and many of them 
get lost ; for they have no iron fastenings, and are only 
stitched together with twine made from jthe husk of the 
Indian nut. They beat this husk until it becomes like 
horse-hair, and from that they spin twine, and with this 
stitch the planks of the ships together. It keeps well, 
and is not corroded by the sea-water, but it will not stand 
well in a storm. The ships are not pitched, but are 
rubbed with fish-oil. They have one mast, one sail, and 
one rudder, and have no deck, but only a cover spread 
over the cargo when loaded. This cover consists of 
hides, and on the top of these hides they put the horses 
which they take to India for sale. They have no iron 
to make nails of,*and for this reason they use only 
wooden trenails in their shipbuilding, and then stitch 
the planks with twine as I have told you. Hence 'tis a 
perilous business to go a voyage in one of those ships, 
and many of them are lost, for in that Sea of India the 
storms are often terrible.^ 

The people are black, and are worshippers of 
Mahommet. The residents avoid living in the cities, 
for the heat in summer is so great that it would kill 
them. Hence they go out (to sleep) at their gardens in 
the ^ountry, where there are streams and plenty of 
wateV. For all that they would not escape but for one 
thing that I will mention. The fact is, you see, that in 
summer a wind often blows across the sands which en- 
compass the plain, so intolerably hot that it would kill 
everybody, were it not that when they perceive that 
wind coming they plunge into water up to the neck, and 
so abide until the wind have ceased.* [And to prove 
the great heat of this wind, Messer Mark related a case 
that befell when he was there. The Lord of Hormos, 
not having paid his tribute to the King of Kerman the 



Chap. XIX. THE CITY OF HORMOS IO9 

latter resolved to claim it at the time when the people of 
Hormos were residing away from the city. So he 
caused a force of 1600 horse and 5000 foot to be got 
ready, and sent them by the route of Reobarlesr to take 
the others by surprise. Now, it happened one day that 
through the fault of their guide they were not able to 
reach the place appointed for their night's halt, and were 
obliged to bivouac in a wilderness not far from Hormos. 
In the morning as they were starting on their march 
they were caught by that wind, and every man of them 
was suffocated, so that not one survived to carry the 
tidings to their Lord. When the people of Hormos 
heard of this they went forth to bury the bodies lest 
they should breed a pestilence. But when they laid 
hold of them by the arms to drag them to the pits, the 
bodies proved to be so baked, as it were, by that 
tremendous heat, that the arms parted from the trunks, 
and in the end the people had to dig graves hard by 
each where it lay, and so cast them in.]* 

The people sow their wheat and barley and other 
corn in the month of November, and reap it in the 
month of March. The dates are not gathered till May, 
but otherwise there is no grass nor any other green 
thing, for the excessive heat dries up everything. 

When any one dies they make a great business of 
the mourning, for women mourn their husbands four 
years. During that time they mourn at least once a 
day, gathering together their kinsfolk and friends and 
neighbours for the purpose, and making a great weeping 
and wailing. [And they have women who are mourners 
by trade, and do it for hire.] 

Now, we will quit this country. I shall not, how- 
ever, now go on to tell you about India ; but when time 
and place shall suit we shall come round from the north 
and tell you about it. For the present, let us return by 
another road to the aforesaid city of Kerman, for we 



no MARCO POLO Book I. 

cannot get at those countries that I wish to tell you 
about except through that city. 

I should tell you first, however, that King Ruomedam 
Ahomet of Hormos, which we are leaving, is a liegeman 
of the King of Kerman.^ 

On the road by which we return from Hormos to 
Kerman you meet with some very fine plains, and you 
also find many natural hot baths ; you find plenty of 
partridges on the road ; and there are towns where victual 
is cheap and abundant, with quantities of dates and other 
fruits. The wheaten bread, however, is so bitter, owing to 
the bitterness of the water, that no one can eat it who is 
not used to it. The baths that I mentioned have excellent 
virtues ; they cure the itch and several other diseases.'^ 

Now, then, I am going to tell you about the countries 
towards the north, of which you shall hear in regular order. 
Let us begin. 



Note i. — Having now arrived at HoRMUZ, it is time to see what can be made of 
the Geography of the route from Kermdn to that port. 

The port of Hormuz, [which had taken the place of Kish as the most important 
market of the Persian Gulf (H. C. )], stood upon the mainland. A few years later it was 
transferred to the island which became so famous, under circumstances which are con- 
cisely related by Abulfeda : — " Hormuz is the port of Kerman, a city rich in palms, and 
very hot. One who has visited it in our day tells me that the ancient Hormuz was 
devastated by the incursions of the Tartars, and that its people transferred their abode 
to an island in the sea called Zarun, near the continent, and lying west of the old city. 
At Hormuz itself no inhabitants remain, but some of the lowest order." (In Busching, 
IV. 261-262.) Friar Odoric, about 1321, found Hormuz " on an island some 5 miles 
distant from the main." Ibn Batuta, some eight or nine years later, discriminates 
between Hormuz or Moghistan on the mainland, and New Hormuz on the Island of 
Jeraun, but describes only the latter, already a great and rich city. 

The site of the Island Hormuz has often been visited and described ; but I could 
find no published trace of any traveller having verified the site of the more ancient city, 
though the existence of its ruins was known to John de Barros, who says that a little 
fort called Cuxstac (Ktihestek of P. della Valle, II. p. 300) stood on the site. An 
application to Colonel Pelly, the very able British Resident at Bushire, brought me 
from his own personal knowledge the information that I sought, and the following 
particulars are compiled from the letters with which he has favoured me : — 

" The ruins of Old Hormuz, well known as such, stand several miles up a creek, 
and in the centre of the present district of Minao. They are extensive (though in 
large part obliterated by long cultivation over the site), and the traces of a long pier 
or Bandar were pointed out to Colonel Pelly. They are about 6 or 7 miles from 
the fort of Minao, and the Minao river, or its stony bed, winds down towards them. 
The creek is quite traceable, but is silted up, and to embark goods you have to go a 
farsakh towards the sea, where there is a custom-house on that part of the creek which 



Chap, XiX. THE DESCENT TO THE CITY OF HORMOS III 

is still navigable. Colonel Felly collected a few bricks from the ruins. From the 
mouth of the Old Hormuz creek to the New Hormuz town, or town of Tnrumpok on 
the island of Hormuz, is a sail of about three farsakhs. It may be a trifle more, but 
any native tells you at once that it is three farsakhs from Hormuz Island to the creek 
where you land to go up to Minao. Homiuzdia was the name of the region in the 
days of its prosperity. Some people say that Hormuzdia was known as Jerunia, and 
Old Hormuz town zs/erun." (In this I suspect tradition has gone astray.) "The 
town and fort of Minao lie to the N.E. of the ancient city, and are built upon the 
lowest spur of the Bashkurd mountains, commanding a gorge through which the 
Rudbar river debouches on the plain of Hormuzdia." In these new and interesting 
particulars it is pleasing to find such precise corroboration both of Edrisi and of Ibn 
Batuta. The former, writing in the I2th centurj-, says that Hormuz stood on the 
banks of a canal or creek from the Gulf, by which vessels came up to the city. The 
latter specifies the breadth of sea between Old and New Hormuz as three farsakhs. 
{Edrisi, I. 424; /. B. II. 230.) 

I now proceed to recapitulate the main features of Polo's Itinerary from Kerman 
to Hormuz. We have : — 

Marches. 

1. From Kerman across a plain to the top of a mountain-pass, where 
extreme cold was experienced 7 

2. A descent, occupj-ing ......... 2 

3. A great plain, called ReobarUs, in a much warmer climate, abound- 
ing in francolin partridge, and in dates and tropical fruit, with a 
ruined city of former note, called Camadi, near the bead of the 
plain, which extends for ........ 5 

4. A second very bad pass, descending for 20 miles, say . . .1 

5. A well-watered fruitiiil plain, which is crossed to HormuXy on the 
shores of the Gulf 2 

Total 17 

No European traveller, so far as I know, has described the most direct road from 
Kerman to Hormuz, or rather to its nearest modem representative Bander Abb^i, — 
I mean the road by Baft. But a line to the eastward of this, and leading through 
the plain of Jiruft, was followed partially by Mr. Abbott in 1850, and completely by 
Major R. M. Smith, R.E., in I866. The details of this route, except in one 
particular, correspond closely in essentials with those given by our author, and form 
an excellent basis of illustration for Polo's description. 

Major Smith (accompanied at first by Colond Goldsmid, who diverged to Mekran) 
left Kerman on the 15th of January, and reached Bander Abbdsi on the 3rd of 
February, but, as three halts have to be deducted, his total number of marches was 
exactly the same as Marco's, viz. 17. They di\'ide as follows : — 

Marches. 

1. From Kerman to the caravanserai of Deh Bakri in the pass so 
called. " The ground as I ascended became covered with snow, 
and the weather bitterly cold" (A*.?^/) 6 

2. Two miles over very deep snow brought him to the top of the pass ; 
he then descended 14 miles to his halt. Two miles to the south of 
the crest he passed a second caravanserai : " The two are evidently 
built so near one another to afiford shelter to travellers who may be 
unable to cross the ridge during heavy snow-storms." The next 
march continued the descent for 14 miles, and then carried him 10 
miles along the banks of the Rudkhanah-i-Shor. The approximate 
height of the pass alx>ve the sea is estimated at 8000 feet We 
have thus for the descent the greater part of .... 2 

3. " Clumps of date-palms growing near the \'inage showed that I had 
now reached a totally different climate." (Smithes Report.) And 
Mr. Abbott sajs of the same region: " Partly wooded . . . and 
with thickets of reeds abounding with francolin and Jirufti par- 
tridge. . . . The lands yield grain, millet, pulse, French- and 



112 MARCO POLO Book I. 

Marches, 
horse-beans, rice, cotton, henna, Palma Christi, and dates, and in 
part are of great fertility. . . . Rainy season from January to 
March, after which a luxuriant crop of grass." Across this plain 
(districts of Jiruft and Rudbar), the height of which above the sea, 
is something under 2000 feet 6 

4. 6 J hours, " nearly the whole way over a most difficult mountain- 
pass," called the Pass of Nevergun ...... I 

5. Two long marches over a plain, part of which is described as "con- 
tinuous cultivation for some 16 miles," and the rest as a "most 
uninteresting plain " 2 

Total as before . . . .17 

In the previous edition of this work I was inclined to identify Marco's route 
absolutely with this Itinerary. But a communication from Major St. John, who 
surveyed the section from Kerman towards Deh Bakri in 1872, shows that this first 
section does not answer well to the description. The road is not all plain, for it 
crosses a mountain pass, though not a formidable one. Neither is it through a 
thriving, populous tract, for, with the exception of two large villages. Major St. 
John found the whole road to Deh Bakri from Kerman as desert and dreary as any in 
Persia. On the other hand, the more direct route to the south, which is that always 
used except in seasons of extraordinary severity (such as that of Major Smith's 
journey, when this route was impassable from snow), answers better, as described to 
Major St. John by rnuleteers, to Polo's account. The first six days are occupied by 
a gentle ascent through the districts of Bardesir and Kairat-ul-Arab, which are the 
best-watered and most fertile uplands of Kerman. From the crest of the pass 
reached in those six marches (which is probably more than 10,000 feet above the 
sea, for it was closed by snow on ist May, 1872), an easy descent oi two days leads to 
the Garmsir. This is traversed in four days, and then a very difficult pass is crossed 
to reach the plains bordering on the sea. The cold of this route is much greater 
than that of the Deh Bakri route. Hence the correspondence with Polo's description, 
as far as the descent to the Garmsir, or Reobarles, seems decidedly better by this 
route. It is admitted to be quite possible that on reaching this plain the two routes 
coalesced. We shall assume this provisionally, till some traveller gives us a detailed 
account of the Bardesir route. Meantime all the remaining particulars answer well. 

[General Houtum-Schindler [I.e. pp. 493-495), speaking of the Itinerary from 

Kerman to Hormuz and back, says : " Only two of the many routes between Kerman 

and Bender 'Abbas coincide more or less with Marco Polo's description. These two 

routes are the one over the Deh Bekrf Pass [see above. Colonel Smith], and the one 7)id 

Sardu. The latter is the one, I think, taken by Marco Polo. The more direct roads 

to the west are for the greater part through mountainous country, and have not 

twelve stages in plains which we find enumerated in Marco Polo's Itinerary. The 

road vid Baft, Urzii, and the Zendan Pass, for instance, has only four stages in plains ; 

the road, vid Rahbur, Rudbar and the Nevergun Pass only six ; and the road vid Sfrjan 

also only six." 

Marches. 

The Sardii route, which seems to me to be the one followed by 

Marco Polo, has five stages through fertile and populous plains to 

Sarvfzan • . .5 

One day's march ascends to the top of the Sarvizan Pass . . i 

Two days' descent to Rahjird, a village close to the ruins of old 

Jfruft, now called Shehr-i-Daqfaniis 2 

Six days' march over the "vast plain" of Jiruft and Rudbar to 

Farfab, joining the Deh Bekri route at Kerimabad, one stage south 

of the Shehr-i-Daqfaniis • ^ 

One day's march through the Nevergun Pass to Shamd, descending I 

Two days' march through the plain to Bender 'Abbds or Hormuz 2 

In all . . . . 17 



Chap. XIX. THE DESCENT TO THE CITY OF IIORMOS II3 

The Sardii road enters the Jiruft plaia at the ruins of the old city, the Deh 
Bekrf route does so at some distance to the eastward. The first six stages performed 
by Marco Polo in seven days go through fertile plains and past numerous villages. 
Regarding the cold, "which you can scarcely abide," Marco Polo does not speak of 
it as existing on the mountains only; he says, "From the city of Kerman to this 
descent the cold in winter is very great," that is, from Kerman to near Jiruft. The 
winter at Kerman itself is fairly severe ; from the town the groimd gradually but 
steadily rises, the absolute altitudes of the passes crossing the mountains to the south 
varying from 8000 to 11,000 feet. These passes are up to the month of March 
always very cold ; in one it froze slightly in the beginning of June. The Sardii Pass lies 
lower than the others. The name is Sardu, not Sardii from sard, "cold." Major 
Sykes {Persia, ch. xxiii. ) comes to the same conclusion: "In 1895, and again in 
1900, I made a tour partly with the object of solving this problem, and of giving a 
geographical existence to Sardu, which appropriately means the ' Cold Country.' I 
found that there was a route which exactly fitted Marco's conditions, as at Sarbizan 
the Sardu plateau terminates in a high pass of 9200 feet, from which there is a most 
abrupt descent to the plain of Jiruft, Komadin being about 35 miles, or two days' 
journey firom the top of the pass. Starting from Kerman, the stages would be as 
follows : — I. Jupar (small town) ; 2. Bahramjird (large village) ; 3. Gudar (village) ; 
4. Rain (small town). . . . Thence to the Sarbizan pass is a distance of 45 miles, or 
three desert stages, thus constituting a total of 1 10 miles for the seven days. This is 
the camel route to the present day, and absolutely fits in with the description given. . . . 
The question to be decided by this section of the journey may then, I think, be con- 
sidered to be finally and most satisfactorily settled, the route proving to lie between 
the two selected by Colonel Yule, as being the most suitable, although he wisely left 
the question open." — H. C] 

In the abstract of Major Smith's Itinerary as we have given it, we do not find 
Polo's city of Camadi. Major Smith writes to me, however, that this is probably to 
be sought in " the ruined city, the traces of which I observed in the plain of Jiruft 
near Keriniabad. The name of the city is now apparently lost." It is, however, 
known to the natives as the City of Dakidmis, as Mr. Abbott, who visited the site, 
informs us. This is a name analc^ous only to tlie Arthur's ovens or Merlin's caves of 
our own country, for all over Mahomedan Asia there are old sites to which legend 
attaches the name of Dakianus or the Emperor Decius, the persecuting tyrant of the 
Seven Sleepers. " The spot," says Abbott, "is an elevated part of the plain on the 
right bank of the Hali Rud, and is thickly strewn with kiln-baked bricks, and shreds 
of pottery and glass. . . . After heavy rain the peasantry search amongst the ruins 
for ornaments of stone, and rings and coins of gold, silver, and copper. The popular 
tradition concerning the city is that it was destroyed by a flood long before the birth 
of Mahomed." 

[General Houtum-Schindler, in a paper in iheyiwr. K. As. 5tfr.,Jan. 1898, p. 43, 
gives an abstract of Dr. Houtsma's (of Utrecht) memoir, Zur Geschichie der Saljuqen 
V071 Kerman, and comes to the conclusion that "fi^om these statements we can 
safely identify Marco Polo's Camadi with the suburb Qumadin, or, as I would read it, 
Qamadin, of the city of Jiruft." — (Cf. Major Sykei Persia, chap, xxiii. : " Camadi was 
sacked for the first time, after the death of Toghrul Shah of Kerman, when his four 
sons reduced the province to a condition of anarchy.") 

Major P. Molesworth Sykes, Recent Journeys in Persia {Geog. Journal, X. 1897, 
p. 589), says : " Upon arrival in Rudbar, we turned northwards and left the 
Farman Farma, in order to explore the site of Marco Polo's ' Camadi.' . . . We came 
upon a huge area littered with yellow bricks eight inches square, while not even a 
broken wall is left to mark the site of what was formerly a great city, under the name of 
the Sher-i-Jiruft." — H. C] The actual distance from Bamm to the City of Dakianus 
is, by Abbott's Journal, about 66 miles. 

The name of Reobarles, which Marco applies to the plain intermediate between 
VOL. I. H 



114 MARCO POLO Book I. 

the two descents, has given rise to many conjectures. Marsden pointed to Rudbdr, 
a name frequently applied in Persia to a district on a river, or intersected by streams 
— a suggestion all the happier that he was not aware of the fact that there is a district 
of RUDBAR exactly in the required position. The last syllable still requires explana- 
tion. I ventured formerly to suggest that it was the Arabic Lass, or, as Marco 
would certainly have written it, Les, a robber. Reobarles would then be Rudbar-i- 
Lass, "Robber's River District." The appropriateness of the name Marco has amply 
illustrated ; and it appeared to me to survive in that of one of the rivers of the plain, 
which is mentioned by both Abbott and Smith under the title of Riidkhdnah-i-Duzdi, 
or Robbery River, a name also applied to a village and old fort on the banks of the 
stream. This etymology was, however, condemned as an inadmissible combination 
of Persian and Arabic by two very high authorities both as travellers and scholars — 
Sir H. Rawlinson and Mr. Khanikoff. The Les, therefore, has still to be explained.* 

[Major Sykes {Geog. Journal, 1902, p. 130) heard of robbers, some five miles from 
Minab, and he adds : " However, nothing happened, and after crossing the Gardan-i- 
Pichal, we camped at Birinti, which is situated just above the junction of Rudkhana 
Duzdi, or ' River of Theft,' and forms part of the district of Rudan, in Fars." 

"The Jfruft and Rudbdr plains belong to the germsfr (hot region), dates, pis- 
tachios, and konars (apples of Paradise) abound in them. Reobarles is Rudbar or 
RUdbaris." [Houtum-Sckindler, I.e. 1881, p. 495.) — H. C] 

We have referred to Marco's expressions regarding the great cold experienced on 
the pass which formed the first descent ; and it is worthy of note that the title of " The 
Cold Mountains " is applied by Edrisi to these very mountains. Mr. Abbott's MS. 
Report also mentions in this direction, Sardu, said to be a cold country (as its name 
seems to express [see above, — H. C.]), which its population (Iliydts) abandon in winter 
for the lower plains. It is but recently that the importance of this range of mountains 
has become known to us. Indeed the existence of the chain, as extending continuously 
from near Kashdn, was first indicated by Khanikoff in 1862. More recently Major 
St. John has shown the magnitude of this range, which rises into summits of 15,00c 
feet in altitude, and after a course of 550 miles terminates in a group of volcanic hills 
some 50 miles S.E. of Bamm. Yet practically this chain is ignored on all our maps ! 

Marco's description of the " Plain of Formosa" does not apply, now at least, to 
the whole plain, for towards Bander Abbasi it is barren. But to the eastward, about 
Minao, and therefore about Old Ilormuz, it has not fallen off. Colonel Pelly writes : 
"The district of Minao is still for those regions singularly fertile. Pomegranates, 
oranges, pistachio-nuts, and various other fruits grow in profusion. The source of 
its fertility is of course the river, and you can walk for miles among lanes and cultivated 
ground, partially sheltered from the sun." And Lieutenant Kempthorne, in his notes 
on that coast, says of the same tract : "It is termed by the natives the Paradise of 
Persia. It is certainly most beautifully fertile, and abounds in orange-groves, and 
orchards containing apples, pears, peaches, and apricots ; with vineyards producing a 
delicious grape, from which was at one time made a wine called aniber-rosolli" — a name 
not easy to explain. 'Ainbar-i-Rastil, " The Prophet's Bouquet !" would be too bold 
a name even for Persia, though names more sacred are so profaned at Naples and on the 
Moselle. Sir H. Rawlinson suggests ^Avibar-asali, " Honey Bouquet," as possible. 

When Nearchus beached his fleet on the shore of Harmozeia at the mouth of the 
Anamis (the River of Minao), Arrian tells us he found the country a kindly one, and 

* It is but fair to say that scholars so eminent as Professors Sprenger and Blochmann have con- 
sidered the original suggestion lawful and probable. Indeed, Mr. Blochmann says in a letter : " After 
studying a language for years, one acquires a natural feeling for anything un-idiomatic ; but I must 
confess I see nothing un-Persian in riidbdr-i-duzd, nor in riidbdr-i-lass. . . . How common /ass is, 
you may see from one fact, that it occurs in children's reading-books." We must not take Reobarles 
in Marco's French as rhyming to (French) Charles ; every syllable sounds. It is remarkable that Las, 
as the name of a small State near our Sind frontier, is said to mean, "in the language of the country," 
a level plain. (/. A. S. B. VIII. 195.) It is not clear what is meant by the l.inguage of the country. 
The chief is a Brahui, the people are Lumri or Numri Bililchis, who are, according to Tod, of Jat 
descent. 



f 



Chap. XIX. WINES AND SPIRITS II5 

very frmtfol in every way except that there were no olives. The weary mariners 
landed and enjoyed this pleasant rest from their toils. (Indua, 33 ; /. R. G. S. V. 274.) 

The name Formosa is probably only Rusticiano's misunderstanding of Harmuza, 
aided, perhaps, by Polo's picture of the beauty of the plain. We have the same 
change in the old Mafomet for Mahomet, and the converse one in the Spanish hermcsa 
ioxformosa. Teixeira's Chronicle says that the city of Hormuz was founded by Xa 
Mahamed Dranku, i.e. Shah Mahomed Dirhem-Ko, in "a plain of the same name." 

The statement in Ramusio that Hormuz stood upon an island, is, I doubt not, an 
interpolation by himself or some earlier transcriber. 

When the ships of Nearchus launched again firom the mouth of the Anamis, their 
first day's run carried them past a certain desert and bushy island to another which 
was large and inhabited. The desert isle was called Organa ; the lai^e one by which 
they anchored OanKT/a. {Indica, 37.) Neither name is quite lost; the latter greater 
island is Kishm or Brakht ; the foTmei Jgrtin,* perhaps in old Persian Genin or 
Gerdn, now again desert though no longer bushy, after having been for three centuries 
the site of a city which became a poetic type of wealth and splendour. An Eastern 
saying ran, " Were the world a ring, Hormuz would be the jewel in it." 

["The Yilan shi mentions several seaports of the Indian Ocean as carrying on 
trade with China ; Hormuz is not spoken of there. I may, however, quote from the 
Yiian History a curious statement which perhaps refers to this port. In ch. cxxiii. , 
bi(^;raphy of Arsz-lan, it is recorded that his grandson Hurdutai, by order of Kubilai 
Khan, accompanied Bu-lo no-yen on his mission to the country of Ha-rk-nia-sz. This 
latter name may be intended for Hormuz. I do not think that by the Noyen Bulo, 
M. Polo could be meant, for the title Noyen would hardly have been applied to him. 
But Rashid-eddin mentions a distinguished Mongol, by name Pulad, with whom he 
was acquainted in Persia, and who furnished him with much information r^arding the 
history of the Mongols. This may be the Bu-lo no-yen of the Yiian History." 
(Bretschneider, Med. Res. II. p. 132.)— H. C] 

Note 2. — A spirit is still distilled from dates in Persia, Mekran, Sind, and some 
places in the west of India. It is mentioned by Strabo and Dioscorides, according to 
Kampfer, who says it was in his time made under the name of a medicinal stomachic ; 
the rich added Radix Chinae, ambergris, and aromatic spices ; the poor, liquorice and 
Persian absinth. (Sir B. Frere ; Arnoen. Exot. 750; Macd. JCintteir, 220.) 

["The date wine with spices is not now made at Bender 'Abbas. Date arrack, 
however, is occasionally found- At Kerman a sort of wine or arrack is made with 
spices and alcohol, distilled from sugar ; it is called Mi-ul-Hayat (water of life), and 
is recommended as an aphrodisiac. Grain in the Shamfl plain is harvested in April, 
dates are gathered in August." {Hcutum-Schindler, I.e. p. 496.) 

See " Remarks on the Use of Wine and Distilled Liquors among the Mohammedans 
of Turkey and Persia," pp. T,\K,-iyioi Narrative of a Totir through Armenia, Kurdistan, 
Persia, and Mesopotamia. . . . By the Rev. Horatio Southgate, . . . London, 1840, 
vol. ii.— H. C] 

[Sir H. Yule quotes, in a MS. note, these lines from Moore's Light of the Harem : 
" Wine, too, of every clime and hue. 
Around their liquid lustre threw 
Amber Roso!li\ — the bright dew 
From vineyards of the Green Sea gushing."] See above, p. 114. 

* Sir Henry Rawlinson objects to this identification (which is the same that Dr. Karl MuUer 
adopts), saying that Organa is more probably " Angan, formerly Argan." To this I cannot assent. 
Nearchus sails joo stadia from the mouth of Aaamis to Oaracta, and on his vjay passes Organx 
Taking 600 stadia to the degree (Dr. Muller's value), I oaake it just 300 stadia from the mouth of the 
Hormuz creek to the eastern point of Kishm. Organa must have been either Jerun or L£rek ; Angan 
(Hanjdm of Mas'udi) is out of the question. And as a straig)^ run must have passed quite close to 
Jerun, not to Larek, I find the former most probable. Nearchus next day proceeds 200 stadia along 
Oaracta, and anchors in sight of another island(Neptiuie's) which was separated by 40 stadia from 
Oaracta. This was Angan ; no other islaitd answers, and for this the distances answer with singular 
precision. 

t ^loore refers to Persian TtUes. 

VOL I. Ha 



ii6 



MARCO POLO 



Book I, 



The date and dry-fish diet of the Gulf people is noticed by most travellers, and P, 
delia Valle repeats the opinion about its being the only wholesome one. Ibn Batuta 




says the people of Hormiaz had a saying, " Kkormd iva vidhllut-i-Fadshahi" i.e. 
" Dates and fish make an ICmperor's dish !" A fish, exactly like the tunny of the 



Chap. XIX. STITCHED BOATS II7 

Mediterranean in general appearance and habits, is one of the great objects of fishery 
off the Sind and Mekran coasts. It comes in pursuit of shoals of anchovies, very 
much like the Mediterranean fish also. (/. B. II. 231 ; Sir B. Frere.) 

[Friar Odoric {Cathay, I. pp. 55-56) says : " And there you find (before arriving at 
Hormuz) people who live almost entirely on dates, and yon get forty-two pounds of 
dates for less than a groat ; and so of many other things."] 

Note 3. — The stitched vessels of Kerman (xXwapta paxra) are noticed in the 
Pertplus. Similar accounts to those of our text are given of the ships of the Gulf 
and of Western India by Jordanus and John of Montecor\ino. {Jord. p. 53 ; Cathay, 
p. 217.) " Stitched vessels," Sir B. Frere writes, " are still used. I have seen them 
of 200 tons burden ; but they are being driven out by iron-fastened vessels, as iron 
gets cheaper, except where (as on the Malabar and Coromandel coasts) the pliancy of 
a stitched boat is useful in a surf. Till the last few years, when steamers have begun 
to take all the best horses, the Arab horses bound to Bombay almost all came in the 
way Marco Polo describes." Some of them do stiD, standing over a date cai^o, and 
the result of this combination gives rise to an extraordinary traflBc in the Bombay 
bazaar. From what Colonel Pelly tells me, the stitched build in the Gulf is wotp con- 
fined to fishing-boats, and is disused for sea-going craft. 

[Friar Odoric (Ca/^ay, I. p. 57) mentioned these vessels: "In this country men 
make use of a kind of vessel which they C2^jase, which is fastened only with stitch- 
ing of twine. On one of these vessels I embarked, and I could find no iron at all 
therein." Jase is for the Arabic Djehaz. — H. C] 

The fish-oil used to rub the ships was whale-oil. The old Arab voyagers of the 
9th century describe the fishermen of Siraf in the Gulf as cutting up the whale-blubber 
and drawing the oil firom it, which was mixed with other stuff, and used to rub the 
joints of ships' planking. (Reinaitd,!. 146.) 

Both Montecorvino and Polo, in this passage, specify otu rudder, as if it was a 
peculiarity of these ships worth noting. The fact is that, in the Mediterranean at 
least, the double rudders of the ancients kept their place to a great extent through the 
Middle Ages. A Marseilles MS. of the 13th century, quoted in Ducange, says : "A 
ship requires three rudders, two in place, and one to spare." Another : " Every two- 
ruddered bark shall pay a groat each voyage ; every one-ruddered bark shall," etc. 
(See Due. under Timonus and Tenw.) Numerous proofs of the use of two rudders in 
the 13th century will be found in " Documenti imditi riguardanti le due Crociate di 
S. Ludovico IX., Re di Francia, etc., da Z. T. Belgrano, Genova, 1859." Thus in 
a specification of ships to be built at Genoa for the king (p. 7), each is to have 
*' Timotus duo, affaiticos, grossitudinis palmorum viiii et dimidiae, longitudinis cubi- 
torum xxiiiL" Extracts given by Capmany, regarding the equipment of galleys, show 
the same thing, for he is probably mistaken in saying that one of the dos timones 
specified was a spare one. Joinville (p. 205) gives incidental evidence of the same : 
" Those Marseilles ships have each two rudders, with each a tiller (.' tison) attached 
to it in such an ingenious way that you can turn the ship right or left as fast as you 
would turn a horse. So on the Friday the king was sitting upon one of these tillers, 
when he called me and said to me," etc.* Francesco da Barberino, a poet of the 13th 
century, in the 7th part of his Documenti d^Amore (printed at Rome in 1640), which 
instructs the lover to whose lot it may fall to escort his lady on a sea-voyage (instruc- 
tions carried so far as to provide even for the case of her death at sea !), alludes more 
than once to these plural rudders. Thus — 

" se vedessi avenire 

Che vento ti rompesse 

Timoni . . . 
In luogo di timoni 

Fa spere t e in aqua poni." (P. 272-273.) 

• This tison can be seen in the cuts from the tomb of St. Peter Martyr and the seal of Winchelsea. 
t Spert, bundles of spars, etc., dragged overboard. 



ii8 



MARCO POLO 



Book I. 



And again, when about to enter a port, it is needful to be on the alert and ready to 
run in case of a hostile reception, so the galley should enter stern foremost — a move- 




i2th Century Illumination. (After Pertz.) 




Seal of Winchelsea. 





i2th Century Illumination. (After Pertz. ) 



From Leaning Tower. (After Jal.) 





After Spinello Aretini at Siena. From Monument of St. Peter Martyr. 

ILLUSTRATIONS OF THE DOUBLE RUDDER OF THE MIDDLE AGES. 



Chap. XIX. DOUBLE RUDDERS 1 19 

ment which he reminds his lover involves the reversal of the ordinary ase of the two 
rudders : — 

" Z.' un timon leva suso 

L' altro leggier tiengiuso. 
Ma convien levar mano 

Xon mica com soleslno. 
Ma per contraro, e face 

Cosi '1 guidar verace."' (P. 275.) 

A representation of a vessel over the door of the Leaning Tower at Pisa shows 
this arrangement, which is also discernible in the frescoes of galley-fights by Spinello 
Aretini, in the Municipal Palace at Siena. 

[Godinho de Eredia (1613), describing the smaller vessels of Malacca which he calls 
bdlos in ch. 13, De Embarcafdes, says : *' At the poop they have two rudders, one on 
each side to steer with." E por ponpa dos ballos, tem 2 lemes, hum en cada lado pera o 
govemo. (Malacca, fIndenUrid. et le Cathay. Bruxelles, 1882, 4to, f. 26.) — H. C] 

The midship rudder seems to have been the more usual in the western seas, and 
the double quarter-rudders in the Mediterranean. The former are sometimes styled 
Navarresques and the latter Latins. Yet early seals of some of the Cinque Ports show 
vessels with the double rudder ; one of which (that of Winchelsea) is given in the cut. 

In the Mediterranean the latter was still in occasional use late in the i6th cenlury. 
Captain Pantero Pantera in his book, VArmata Novate (Rome, 1614, p. 44), says ' 
that the Galeasses, or great galleys, had the helm alia Navarresca, but also a great 
oar on each side of it to assist in turning the ship. And I observe that the great 
galeasses which precede the Christian line of battle at Lepanto, in one of the frescoes 
by Vasari in the Royal Hall leading to the Sistine Chapel, have the quarter-rudder 
very distinctly. 

The Chinese appear occasionally to employ it, as seems to be indicated in a wood- 
cut of a vessel of war which I have traced from a Chinese book in the National 
Library at Paris. (See above, p. 37.) [For the Chinese words for rudder, see p. 126 of 
J. Edkins* article on Chinese Names far Boats and Boat Gear, -Jour. N. China Br. H. 
As. Sac. N.S. }il. 1876. — H. C] It is also tised by certain craft of the Indian Archi- 
pelago, as appears from Mr. Wallace's description of the Prau in which he sailed from 
Macassar to the Aru Islands. And on the Caspian, it is stated in Smith's " DicL of 
Antiquities " (art. GubemaculuTtt), the practice remained in force till late times. A 
modem traveller was nearly wrecked on that sea, because the two rudders were in the 
hands of two pilots who spoke diflFerent languages, and did not understand each other ! 

(Besides the works quoted se&JaJ, Arch4ologie Navale, II. 437-438, and Capmany, 
Memorias, III. 61.) 

[Major Sykes remarks (Persia, ch. xxiii.) : " Some unrecorded event, probably the 
sight of the unseaworthy craft, which had not an ounce of iron in their composition, 
made our travellers decide that the risks of the sea were too great, so that we have 
the pleasure of accompanying them back to Kerman and thence northwards to 
Khorasan." — H.C.] 

Note 4. — So also at Bander Abbasi Tavemier says it was so unhealthy that 
foreigners could not stop there beyond March ; everybody left it in ApriL Not a 
hundredth part of the population, says Kampfer, remained in the city. Not a be^ar 
would stop for any reward ! The rich went to the towns of the interior or to the cool 
recesses of the mountains, the poor took refuge in the palm-groves at the distance of 
a day or two from the city. A place called 'Ishin, some 12 miles north of the 
city, was a favourite resort of the European and Hindu merchants. Here were fine 
gardens, spacious baths, and a rivulet of fresh and limpid water. 

The custom of Ijfing in water is mentioned also by Sir John Maundevile, and it 
was adopted by the Portuguese when they occupied Insular Hormuz, as P. della Valle 
and Linschoten relate. The custom is still common during great heats, in Sind and 
Mekran(SirB. F.). 

An anonymous ancient geography (JUber Junioris PHlosophi) speaks of a people 



1 20 MARCO POLO Book I, 

in India who live in the Terrestrial Paradise, and lead the life of the Golden Age. . . . 
The sun is so hot that they remaijt all day in the river ! 

The heat in the Straits of Hormuz drove Abdurrazzak into an anticipation of a 
verse familiar to English schoolboys : " Even the bird of rapid flight was burnt up in 
the heights of heaven, as well as the fish in the depths of the sea ! " ( Tavern. Bk. V. 
ch. xxiii. ; Am. Exot. 716, 762; Afiiller, Geog. Gr. Min. II. 514; India in XV. 
Cent. p. 49.) 

Note 5. — A like description of the effect of the Simiim on the human body is 
given by Ibn Batuta, Chardin, A. Hamilton, Tavernier, Tl.evenot, etc. ; and the first 
of these travellers speaks specially of its prevalence in the desert near Hormuz, and of 
the many graves of its victims ; but I have met with no reasonable account of its 
poisonous action. I will quote Chardin, already quoted at greater length by Marsden, 
as the most complete parallel to the text : " The most surprising effect of the wind 
is not the mere fact of its causing death, but its operation on the bodies of those who 
are killed by it. It seems as if they became decomposed without losing shape, so that 
you would think them to be merely asleep, when they are not merely dead, but in 
such a state that if you take hold of any part of the body it comes away in your hand. 
And the finger penetrates such a body as if it were so much dust." (III. 286.) 

Burton, on his journey to Medina, says : " The people assured me that this wind 
never killed a man in their Allah-favoured land. I doubt the fact. At Bir Abbas 
the body of an Arnaut was brought in swollen, and decomposed rapidly, the true 
diagnosis of death by the poison-wind." Khanikoff is very distinct as to the immedi- 
ate fatality of the desert wind at Khabis, near Kerman, but does not speak of the 
effect on the body after death. This Major St. John does, describing a case that 
occurred in June, 1871, when he was halting, during intense heat, at the post-house of 
Pasangan, a few miles south of Kom. The bodies were brought in of two poor men, 
who had tried to start some hours before sunset, and were struck down by the poison- 
ous blast within half-a-mile of the post-house. " It was found impossible to wash them 
before burial. . . . Directly the limbs were touched they separated from the trunk." 
{Oc. Highways, ut. sup.) About 1790, when Timiir Shah of Kabul sent an army 
under the Sirdar-i-Sirdaran to put down a revolt in Meshed, this force on its return 
was struck by Simum in the Plain of Farrah, and the Sirdar perished, with a great 
number of his men. (Ferj-ier, H. of the Afghans, 102 ; J. R. G. S. XXVI. 217 ; 
Kha7i. Mhn. 210.) 

Note 6. — The History of Hormuz is very imperfectly known. What I have met 
with on the subject consists of— (i) An abstract by Teixeira of a chronicle of Hormuz, 
written by Thuran Shah, who was himself sovereign of Hormuz, and died in 1377 ; 
{2) some contemporary notices by Wassaf, which are extracted by Hammer in his 
History of the Ilkhans ; (3) some notices from Persian sources in the 2nd Decade of 
De Barros (ch. ii.). The last do not go further back than Gordun Shah, the father 
of Thuran Shah, to whom they erroneously ascribe the first migration to the Island. 

One of Teixeira's Princes is called Ruknuddin Makmtid, and with him Marsden 
and Pauthier have identified Polo's Ruomedam Acomet, or as he is called on another 
occasion in the Geog. Text, Maimodi Acomet. This, however, is out of the question, 
for the death of Ruknuddin is assigned to A.H. 675 (a.d. 1277), whilst there can, I 
think, be no doubt that Marco's account refers to the period of his return from China, 
viz. 1293 or thereabouts. 

We find in Teixeira that the ruler who succeeded in 1290 was Amir Masa^ud, 
who obtained the Governmeat by the murder of his brother Saifuddin Nazrat. 
Masa'iid was cruel and oppressive ; most of the influential people withdrew to 
Bahduddin Ayaz, whom Saifuddin had made Wazir of Kalhdt on the Arabian coast. 
This Wazir assembled a force and drove out Masa'iid after he had reigned tliree years. 
He fled to Kerman and died there some years afterwards. 

Bahauddin, who had originally been a slave of Saifuddin Nazrat's, succeeded in 



Chap. XIX. HISTORY OF HORMUZ 121 

establishing his authority. But about 1300 great bodies of Turks (i.e. Tartars) issu- 
ing from Turkestan ravaged many provinces of Persia, including Kerman and Hormoz. 
The people, unable to bear the frequency of such visitations, retired first to the 
island of Kishm, and then to that of Jerun, on which last was built the city of New 
Hormuz, afterwards so famous. Tliis is Teixeira's account from Thuran Shah, so far 
as we are concerned with it. As regards the transfer of the city it agrees substantially 
with Abulfeda's, which we have already quoted [supra, note i). 

Hammer's account from Wassaf is frightfully confused, chiefly I should suppose 
from Hammer's own fault ; for among other things he assumes that Hormuz was 
always on an island, and he distinguishes between tlie Island of Hormuz and the 
Island of Jerun ! We gather, however, that Hormuz before the Mongol time formed 
a government subordinate to the Salghur Atabegs of Fars (see note I, ch. xv.), and 
when the power of that Dynasty was falling, the governor Mahmud Kalhati, established 
himself as Prince of Hormuz, and became the founder of a petty d)-nasty, bemg 
evidently identical with Teixeira's Ruknuddin Mahmud above-named, who is repre- 
sented as reigning from 1246 to 1277. In Wassaf we find, as in Teixeira, Mahmud's 
son Masa'ud killing his brother Nazrat, and Bahauddin expelling Masa'iid. It is 
true that Hammer's surprising muddle makes Nazrat kill Masa'ud ; however, as a few 
lines lower we find Masa'ud alive and Nazrat dead, we may safely venture on this 
correction. But we find also that Masa'ud appears as Ruknuddin Masa'ud, and that 
Bahauddin does not assume the princely authority himself, but proclaims that of 
Fakhruddin Ahmed Ben Ibrahim At-Thaibi, a personage who does not appear in 
Teixeira at all. A MS. history-, quoted by Ouseley, does mention Fakhruddin, and 
ascribes to him the transfer to Jenin. Wassaf seems to allude to Bahauddin as a 
sort of Sea Rover, occupjing the islands of Larek and Jerun, whilst Fakhruddin 
reigned at Hormuz. It is difficult to understand the relation between the two. 

It is possible that Polo's memory made some confusion between the names of 
Ruknuddin Masa'ud and Pakhruddin Ahmed, but I incline to think the latter is 
his Ruomedan Ahmed. For Teixeira tells us that Masa'ud took refuge at the 
court of Kermdn, and Wassaf represents him as supported in his claims by the 
Atabeg of that province, whilst we see that Polo seems to represent Ruomedan 
Acomat as in hostility with that prince. To add to the imbroglio I find in a passage 
of Wassaf Malik Fakhruddin Ahmed at-Thaibi sent by Ghazan Khan in 1297 as 
ambassador to Khanbalig, staying there some years, and dying off" the Coromandel 
coast on his return in 1305. (Elliot, iii. pp. 45-47.) 

Masa'ud's seeking help from Kerman to reinstate him is not the first case of the 
same kind that occurs in Teixeira's chronicle, so there may have been some kind of 
colour for Marco's representation of the Prince of Hormuz as the vassal of the Atabeg 
of Kerman {" rhomme de cest roy de Creman ;^' see Prologue, ch. xiv. note 2). 
M. KhanikofiF denies the possibility of the existence of any royal dynasty at Hormuz 
at this period. That there was a dy-nasty of Maliks of Hormuz, however, at 
this period we must believe on the concurring testimony of Marco, of Wassaf, and 
of Thuran Shdh. There was also, it would seem, another yKow' - independent 
principality in the Island of Kais. (Hammers Hch. II. 50, 51; Teixeira, Relacion 
de los Reyes de Hormuz ; Khan. Notice, p. 34. ) 

The ravages of the Tartars which drove the people of Hormuz from their city may 
have begim with the incursions of the Nigudaris and Karaunahs, but they probably 
came to a climax in the great raid in 1299 of the Chaghataian Prince Kotlogh Shah, 
son of Dua Khnn, a part of whose bands besieged the city itself, though they are said 
to have been repulsed by Bahauddin Ayas. 

[The Dynasty of Hormuz was founded about 1060 by a Yemen chief Mohammed 
Dirheni Ko, and remained subject to Kermfo till 1249, when Rokn ed-din Mahmud 
III. Kalhati (1242-1277) made himself independent. The immediate successors of 
Rokn ed-din were Saif ed-din Nazrat (1277- 1290), Masa'ud (1290- 1293), Bahad ed-din 
Ayaz Say fin (1293-1311). Hormuz was captured by the Portuguese in 15 10 and by 
the Persians in 1622. — H. C] 



122 MARCO POLO Book I. 

Note 7. — The indications of this alternative route to Kerman are very vague, but 
it may probably have been that through Finn, Tarum, and the Sfrj^n district, passing 
out of the plain of Hormuz by the eastern flank of the Ginao mountain. This road 
Vifould pass near the hot springs at the base of the said mountain, Sarga, Khurkhu, 
and Ginao, which are described by Kampfer. Being more or less sulphureous they 
are likely to be useful in skin-diseases : indeed, Hamilton speaks of their efficacy in 
these. (I. 95.) The salt-streams are numerous on this line, and dates are abundant. 
The bitterness of the bread was, however, more probably due to another cause, as 
Major Smith has kindly pointed out to me : " Throughout the mountains in the south 
of Persia, which are generally covered with dwarf oak, the people are in the habit of 
making bread of the acorns, or of the acorns mixed with wheat or barley. It is dark 
in colour, and very hard, bitter, and unpalatable." 

Major St. John also noticed the bitterness of the bread in Kerman, but his servants 
attributed it to the presence in the wheat-fields of a bitter leguminous plant, with a 
yellowish white flower, which the Kermanis were too lazy to separate, so that much 
remained in the thrashing, and imparted its bitter flavour to the grain (surely the Tare 
of our Lord's Parable !). 

[General Houtum-Schindler says {I.e. p. 496) : " Marco Polo's return journey was, 
I am inclined to think, vid Urzii and Baft, the shortest and most direct road. The 
road vid Tarum and Sfrjan is very seldom taken by travellers intending to go to 
Kerman ; it is only frequented by the caravans going between Bender 'Abbas and 
Bahramabad, three stages west of Kerman. Hot springs, 'curing itch,' I noticed at 
two places on the Urzu-Baft road. There were some near Qal'ah Asgher and others 
near Dashtab; they were frequented by people suffering from skin-diseases, and were 
highly sulphureous ; the water of those near Dashtab turned a silver ring black after two 
hours' immersion. Another reason of my advocating the Urzu road is that the bitter 
bread spoken of by Marco Polo is only found on it, viz. at Baft and in Bardshfr. 
In Sfrjdn, to the west, and on the roads to the east, the bread is sweet. The bitter 
taste is from the Khur, a bitter leguminous plant, which grows among the wheat, and 
. whose grains the people are too lazy to pick out. There is not a single oak between 
Bender 'Abbis and Kerman ; none of the inhabitants seemed to know what an 
acorn was. A person at Baft, who had once gone to Kerbela vid Kermanshah and 
Baghdad, recognised my sketch of tree and fruit immediately, having seen oak and 
acorn between Kerminshah and Qasr-i-Shirfn on the Baghdad road." Major Sykes 
writes (ch. xxiii.) : "The above description undoubtedly refers to the main winter 
route, which runs vid Sfrjan. This is demonstrated by the fact that under the Kuh-i- 
Ginao, the summer station of Bandar Abbas, there is a magnificent sulphur spring, 
which, welling from an orifice 4 feet in diameter, forms a stream some 30 yards 
wide. Its temperature at the source is 113 degrees, and its therapeutic properties 
are highly appreciated. As to the bitterness of the bread, it is suggested in the notes 
that it was caused by being mixed with acorns, but, to-day at any rate, there are no 
oak forests in this part of Persia, and I would urge that it is better to accept our 
traveller's statement, that it was due to the bitterness of the water." — However, I 
prefer Gen. Houtum-Schindler's theory. — H. C] 



Chap. XX. THE DESERT OF KERMAN 1 23 



CHAPTER XX. 

Of the Wearisome and Desert Road that has now to be 

travelled. 

On departing from the city of Kerman you find the road 
for seven days most wearisome ; and I will tell you how 
this is.^ The first three days you meet with no water, or 
next to none. And what little you do meet with is bitter 
green stuff, so salt that no one can drink it ; and in fact 
if you drink a drop of it, it will set you purging ten times 
at least by the way. It is the same with the salt which 
is made from those streams ; no one dares to make use 
of it, because of the excessive purging which it occasions. 
Hence it is necessary to carry water for the people to last 
these three days ; as for the cattle, they must needs drink 
of the bad water I have mentioned, as there is no help 
for it, and their great thirst makes them do so. But it 
scours them to such a degree that sometimes they die of 
it. In all those three days you meet with no human 
habitation ; it is all desert, and the extremity of drought. 
Even of wild beasts there are none, for there is nothinof 
for them to eat.^ 

After those three days of desert [you arrive at a 
stream of fresh water running underground, but along 
which there are holes broken in here and there, perhaps 
undermined by the stream, at which you can get sight of 
it. It has an abundant supply, and travellers, worn with 
the hardships of the desert, here rest and refresh them- 
selves and their beasts.]^ 

You then enter another desert which extends for four 
days ; it is very much like the former except that you do 
see some wild asses. And at the termination of these 
four days of desert the kingdom of Kerman comes to an 
end, and you find another city which is called Cobinan. 



1 24 MARCO POLO Book I. 

Note i. [" The present road from Kerman to Kiibenan is to Zerend about 50 
miles, to the Sar i Benan 15 miles, thence to Kubenan 30 miles — total 95 miles. 
Marco Polo cannot have taken the direct road to Kubenan, as it took him seven days 
to reach it. As he speaks of waterless deserts, he probably took a circuitous route to 
the east of the mountains, vid Kiihpayeh and the desert lying to the north of Khabis." 
{Hoututn-Sclmidler, I.e. pp. 496-497.) (Cf. Major Sykes, ch. xxiii.)— H. C] 

Note 2. — This description of the Desert of Kerman, says Mr. Khanikoff, "is very 
correct. As the only place in the Desert of Lut where water is found is the dirty, salt, 
bitter, and green water of the rivulet called Sho7'-JRiid (the Salt River), we can have 
no doubt of the direction of Marco Polo's route from Kerman so far. " Nevertheless 
I do not agree with Khanikoff that the route lay N.E. in the direction of Am bar and 
Kain, for a reason which will appear under the next chapter. I imagine the route to 
have been nearly due north from Kerman, in the direction of Tabbas or of Tun. And 
even such a route would, according to Khanikoffs own map, pass the Shor-Rud, though 
at a higher point. 

I extract a few lines from that gentleman's narrative : "In proportion as we got 
deeper into the desert, the soil became more and more arid ; at daybreak I could still 
discover a few withered plants of Caligonum and Salsola, and not far from the same 
spot I saw a lark and another bird of a whitish colour, the last living things that we 
beheld in this dismal solitude. . . . The desert had now completely assumed the 
character of a land accursed, as the natives call it. Not the smallest blade of grass, 
no indication of animal life vivified the prospect ; no sound but such as came from our 
own caravan broke the dreary silence of the void." {Mint. p. 176.) 

[Major P. Molesworth Sykes (Geog. Jour. X. p. 578) writes: "At Tun, I was 
on the northern edge of the great Dash-i-Lut (Naked Desert), which lay between 
us and Kerman, and which had not been traversed, in this particular portion, since 
the illustrious Marco Polo crossed it, in the opposite direction, when travelling from 
Kerman to 'Tonocain' vid Cobinan." Major Sykes {Persia, ch. iii. ) seems to prove 
that geographers have, without sufficient grounds, divided the great desert of Persia 
into two regions, that to the north being termed Dasht-i-Kavir, and that further south 
the Dasht-i-Lut — and that Lut is the one name for the whole desert, Dash-i-Lut being 
almost a redundancy, and that Kavir (the arable Kafr) is applied to every saline 
swamp. "This great desert stretches from a few miles out of Tehran practically to 
the British frontier, a distance of about 700 miles." — H. C] 

Note 3. — I can have no doubt of the genuineness of this passage from Ramusio. 
Indeed some such passage is necessary ; otherwise why distinguish between three days 
of desert and four days more of desert? The underground stream was probably a 
subterraneous canal (called Kandt or Kdrez), such as is common in Persia ; often con- 
ducted from a great distance. Here it may have been a relic of abandoned cultivation. 
Khanikoff, on the road between Kerman and Yezd, not far west of that which I suppose 
Marco to be travelling, says : " At the fifteen inhabited spots marked upon the map, 
they have water which has been brought from a great distance^ and at considerable 
cost, by means of subterranean galleries, to which you descend by large and deep wells. 
Although the water flows at some depth, its course is tracked upon the surface by a 
line of more abundant vegetation." {lb. p. 200. ) Elphinstone says he has heard of 
such subterranean conduits 36 miles in length. (I. 398.) Polybius speaks of 
them : "There is no sign of water on the surface; but there are many underground 
channels, and these supply tanks in the desert, that are known only to the initiated. 
.... At the time when the Persians got the upper hand in Asia, they used to con- 
cede to such persons as brought spring-v/ater to places previously destitute of irrigation, 
the usufruct for five generations. And Taurus being rife with springs, they incurred 
all the expense and trouble that was needed to form these underground channels to 
great distances, insomuch that in these days even the people who make use of the water 
don't know where the channels begin, or whence the water comes." (X. 28.) 



Chap. XXL THE CITY OF COBINAN 1 25 



CHAPTER XXI. 

Concerning the City of Cobinan and the things that are 

made there. 

Cobinan is a large town.^ The people worship Mahommet. 
There is much Iron and Steel and Ondaniqice, and they 
make steel mirrors of great size and beauty. They also 
prepare both Tutia (a thing very good for the eyes) and 
Spodium ; and I will tell you the process. 

They have a vein of a certain earth which has the 
required quality, and this they put into a great flaming 
furnace, whilst over the furnace there is an iron grating. 
The smoke and moisture, expelled from the earth of which 
I speak, adhere to the iron grating,, and thus form Tutia, 
whilst the slag that is left after burning is the Spodium} 

Note i. — Kuh-Banan is mentioned by Mokaddasi (a. D. 985) as one of the 
cities of Bardesir, the most northerly of the five circles into which he di\'ides Kerman. 
(See Sprenger, Post-uiid Reise-routen des Orients, p. 77.) It is the subject of an article 
in the Gec^. Dictionary of Yakut, though it has been there mistranscribed into 
KitbiyanzXiA Kukiydn. (See Leipzig ed. i86g, iv. p. -^16, zxid Barbier de Afeynard, 
Diet, de la Perse, p. 498.) And it is also indicated by Mr. Abbott (/. R. G. S. XXV. 
25) as the name of a district of Kerman, lying some distance to the east of his route 
when somewhat less than half-way between Yezd and Kerman. It would thus, I 
apprehend, be on or near the route between Kerman and Tabbas ; one which I believe 
has been traced by no modern traveller. We may be certain that there is now no 
place at Kuh-Banan deserving the title "of une citi grant, nor is it easy to believe that 
there was in Polo's time ; he applies such terms too profusely. The meaning of the 
name is perhaps " Hill of the Terebinths, or Wild Pistachioes," " a tree which grows 
abundantly in the recesses of bleak, stony, and desert mountains, e.g. about Shamakhi, 
about Shiraz, and in the deserts of Luristin and Lar." {Kdmpfer, 409, 413.) 

[" It is strange that Marco Polo speaks of Kubenan only on his return journey 
from Kerman ; on the do%vn journey he must have been told that Kubenan was in close 
proximity; it is even probable that he passed there, as Persian travellers of those times, 
when going firom Kerman to Yazd, and vice versa, always called at Kubenan." 
{Houtum-Schindler, I.e. p. 490.) In all histories this name is written Kubenan, 
not Kiihbenan ; the pronunciation to-day is Kobenan and Kobeniin. — H. C] 

I had thought my identification of Cobinan original, but a communication from Mr. 
Abbott, and the opportunity which this procured me of seeing his MS. Report already 
referred to, showed that he had anticipated me many years ago. The following is an 
extract: " Districts of Kerman • * ♦ fCooh Bcnan. This is a hilly district abound- 
ing in fruits, such as grapes, peaches, pomegranates, sinjid (sweet-willow), walnuts, 
melons. A great deal of madder and some asafoetida is produced there. This is no 
doubt the country alluded to by Marco Polo, under the name of Cobittam, as producing 
;ron, brass, and tutty, and which is still said to produce iron, copper, and tootea." 
There appear to be lead mines also in the district, as well as asbestos and sulphur. 
Mr. Abbott adds the names of nine villages, wliich he was not able to verify by coiq- 



126 MARCO POLO Book I. 

parison. These are Puz, Tarz, Gujard, Aspaj, Kuh-i-Gabr, Dahnah, Biighin, Bassab, 
Radk. The position of Kuh Bandn is stated to lie between Bahabad (a place also 
mentioned by Yakut as producing Ttitid) and Ravf, but this does not help us, and for 
approximate position we can only fall back on the note in Mr. Abbott's field-book, as 
published in they. R. G. S., viz. that the District lay in the mountains E.S.E. from 
a caravanserai ID miles S.E. of Gudran. To get the seven marches of Polo's 
Itinerary we must carry the Town of Kuh Banan as far north as this indication can 
possibly admit, for Abbott made only five and a half marches from the spot where this 
observation was made to Kerman. Perhaps Polo's route deviated for the sake of 
the fresh water. That a district, such as Mr. Abbott's Report speaks of, should lie 
unnoticed, in a tract which our maps represent as part of the Great Desert, shows 
again how very defective our geography of Persia still is. 

["During the next stage to Darband, we passed ruins that I believe to be those of 
Marco Polo's ' Cobinan ' as the modern Kuhbenan does not at all fit in with the 
great traveller's description, and it is just as well to remember that in the East the 
caravan routes seldom change." (Captain P. M. Sykes, Geog. Jour. X. p. 580. — See 
Persia, ch. xxiii. ) 

Kuh Banan has been visited by Mr. E. Stack, of the Indian Civil Service. {Six 
Months in Persia, London, 1882, I. 230.) — H. C] 

Note 2. — Tutty {i.e. Tutia) is in modern English an impure oxide of zinc, col- 
lected from the flues where brass is made ; and this appears to be precisely what Polo 
describes, unless it be that in his account the production of tutia from an ore of zinc 
is represented as the object and not an accident of the process. What he says reads 
almost like a condensed translation of Galen's account of Pompholyx and Spodos: 
" Pompholyx is produced in copper-smelting as Cadmia is ; and" it is also produced 
from Cadmia (carbonate of zinc) when put in the furnace, as is done (for instance) in 
Cyprus. The master of the works there, having no copper ready for smelting, 
ordered some pompholyx to be prepared from cadmia in my presence. Small pieces 
of cadmia were thrown into the fire in front of the copper-blast. The furnace top was 
covered, with no vent at the crown, and intercepted the soot of the roasted cadmia. 
This, when collected, constitutes Pompholyx, whilst that which falls on the hearth 
is called Spodos, a great deal of which is got in copper-smelting." Pompholyx, he 
adds, is an ingredient in salves for eye discharges and pustules. ( Galen, De Simpl. 
Medic, p. ix. in Latin ed., Venice, 1576.) Matthioli, after quoting this, says that 
Pompholyx was commonly known in the laboratories by the Arabic name of Tutia. I 
see that pure oxide of zinc is stated to form in modern practice a valuable eye-ointment. 

Teixeira speaks of tutia as found only in Kerman, in a range of mountains twelve 
parasangs from the capital. The ore got here was kneaded with water, and set to 
bake in crucibles in a potter's kiln. When well baked, the crucibles were lifted and 
emptied, and the tutia carried in boxes to Hormuz for sale. This corresponds with a 
modern account in Milburne, which says that the tutia imported to India from the 
Gulf is made from an argillaceous ore of zinc, which is moulded into tubular cakes, and 
baked to a moderate hardness. The accurate Garcia da Horta is wrong for once in saying 
that the tutia of Kerman is no mineral, but the ash of a certain tree called Goan. 

{Matth, on Dioscorides, Ven. 1565, pp. 1338-40 ; Teixeira, Relacion de Persia, 
p. 121 ; Milburne' s Or. Commerce, I. 139 ; Garcia, f. 21 v. ; Eng. Cyc, art. Zinc.) 

[General A. Houtum-Schindler {Jour. R. As. Sac. N.S. XIIL October, 1881, 
p. 497) says : " The name Tutia for coUyrium is now not used in Kermdn. Tutfa, when 
the name stands alone, is sulphate of copper, which in other parts of Persia is known 
as Kdt-i-Kebiid ; Tut(a-i-sabz (green Tut(a) is sulphate of iron, also called Zaj-i-sfyah. 
A piece of Tutfa-i-zard (yellow Tiitfa) shown to me was alum, generally called Zaj-i- 
saffd ; and a piece of Tutfa-f-saffd (white Tutfa) seemed to be an argillaceous zinc ore. 
Either of these may have been the earth mentioned by Marco Polo as being put into 
the furnace. The lampblack used as coUyrium is always called Surmah. This at 
Kermdn itself is the soot produced by the flame of wicks, steeped in castor oil or goat's 
fat, upon earthenware saucers. In the high mountainous districts of the province, 



Chap. XXII. THE ARBRE SEC 127 

Kubenan, Parfz, and others, Sumiah is the soot of the Gavan plant (Garcia's goan). 
This plant, a species of Astragalus, is on those mountains very fat and succulent ; firom 
it also exudes the Tragacanth gum. The soot is used dry as an eye-powder, or, mixed 
with tallow, as an eye-salve. It is occasionally collected on iron gratings. 

" Tutfa is the Arabicised word diidha, Persian for smokes. 

"The Shems-ul-loghat calls Tutfi a medicine for eyes, and a stone used for the 
fabrication of Surmah. The Tohfeh says Tiitia is of three kinds — yellow and blue 
mineral Tutfa, Tutla-i-qalam (collyrium) made from roots, and Tutii resulting from 
the process of smelting copper ore. 'The best Tiitia-i-qalam comes from Kerman.' 
It adds, ' Some authors say Surmah is sulphuret of antimony, others say it is a 
composition of iron ' ; I should say any black composition used for the eyes is Surmah, 
be it lampblack, antimony, iron, or a mixture of all. 

" TeLxeira's Tutia was an impure oxide of zinc, perhaps the above-mentioned Tiitfa- 
i-safid, baked into cakes ; it was probably the East India Company's Lapis Tutfa, 
also called Tutty. The Company's Tutenague and Tutenage, occasionally confounded 
with Tutty, was the so-called ' Chinese Copper,' an alloy of copper, zinc, and iron, 
brought from China." 

Major Sykes (ch. xxiii.) writes : " I translated Marco's description of tutia (which 
is also the modem Persian name), to a khan of Kubenan, and he assured me that the 
process was the same to-day ; spodium he knew nothing about, but the sulphate of 
zinc is found in the hills to the east of Kubenan." 

Heyd {Com. II. p. 675) says in a note : " II resulte de I'ensemble de ce passage 
que les matieres designees par Marco Polo sous le nom de 'espodie' (spodium) 
etaient des scories metalliques ; en general, le mot spodium designe les residus de la 
combustion des matieres vegetales ou des os (de I'ivoire)." — H. C] 



CHAPTER XXII. 

Of a certain Desert th.\t continues for eight days' Journey. 

When you depart from this City of Cobinan, you find 
yourself again in a Desert of surpassing aridity, which 
lasts for some eight days ; here are neither fruits nor trees 
to be seen, and what water there is is bitter and bad, so 
that you have to carry both food and water. The cattle 
must needs drink the bad water, will they nill they, 
because of their great thirst. At the end of those eight 
days you arrive at a Province which is called Tonocain. 
It has a good many towns and villages, and forms the 
extremity of Persia towards the North.^ It also contains 
an immense plain on which is found the Arbre Sol, which 
we Christians call the Arbre Sec ; and I will tell you 
what it is like. It is a tall and thick tree, having the 
bark on one side green and the other white ; and it 



128 MARCO POLO 



Book. I. 



produces a rough husk Hke that of a chestnut, but 
without anything in it. The wood is yellow like box, and 
very strong, and there are no other trees near it nor 
within a hundred miles of it, except on one side, where 
you find trees within about ten miles' distance. And 
there, the people of the country tell you, was fought the 
battle between Alexander and Kingf Darius.^ 

The towns and villages have great abundance of 
everything good, for the climate is extremely temperate, 
being neither very hot nor very cold. The natives all 
worship Mahommet, and are a very fine-looking people, 
especially the women, who are surpassingly beautiful. 



Note i. — All that region has been described as "a country divided into deserts 
that are salt, and deserts that are not salt." ( Vigne, I. l6. ) Tonocain, as we have seen 
(ch. XV. note i), is the Eastern Kuhistan of Persia, but extended by Polo, it would 
seem to include the whole of Persian Khorasan. No city in particular is indicated as 
visited by the traveller, but the view I take of the position of the Arbre Sec, as well 
as his route through Kuh-Banan, would lead me to suppose that he reached the Pro- 
vince of Tun-o-Kain about Tabbas. 

[" Marco Polo has been said to have traversed a portion of (the Dash-i-Kavir, great 
Salt Desert) on his supposed route from Tabbas to Damghan, about 1272 ; although it 
is more probable that he marched further to the east, and crossed the northern portion 
of the Dash-i-Lut, Great Sand Desert, separating Khorasan in the south-east from 
Kerman, and occupying a sorrowful parallelogram between the towns of Neh and 
Tabbas on the north, and Kerman and Yezd on the south." (Curzon, Persia, II. pp. 
248 and 251.) Lord Curzon adds in a note (p. 248) : " The Tunogan of the text which 
was originally mistaken for Damghan, is correctly explained by Yule as Tun-o- (i.e. 
and) Kain." Major Sykes writes (ch. xxiii. ) : " The section of the Lut has not hitherto 
been rediscovered, but I know that it is desert throughout, and it is practically certain 
that Marco ended these unpleasant experiences at Tabas, 150 miles from Kubenan. 
To-day the district is known as Tun-o-Tabas, Kain being independent of it." — H. C] 

Note 2. — This is another subject on which a long and somewhat discursive note 
is inevitable. 

One of the Bulletins of the Soc. de Geographic (ser. IIL torn. iii. p. 187) contains a 
perfectly inconclusive endeavour, by M. Roux de Rochelle, to identify the Arbre Sec nx 
Arbre Sol with a manna-bearing oak alluded to by Q. Curtius as growing in Hyrcania. 
There can be no doubt that the tree described is, as Marsden points out, a Chmdr or 
Oriental Plane. Mr. Ernst Meyer, in his learned Geschichte der Bolanik (Konigsberg, 
1854-57, IV. 123), objects that Polo's description of the ■wood&ot.'& not answer to that 
tree. But, with due allowance, compare with his whole account that which Olearius 
gives of the Chinar, and say if the same tree be not meant. " The trees are as tall as 
the pine, and have very large leaves, closely resembling those of the vine. The fruit 
looks like a chestnut, but has no kernel, so it is not eatable. The wood is of a very brown 
colour, and full of veins ; the Persians employ it for doors and window-shutters, and 
when these are rubbed with oil they are incomparably handsomer than our walnut- 
wood joinery." (I. 526.) The Chinar-wood is used in Kashmir for gunstocks. 

The whole tenor of the passage seems to imply that some eminent individual 



Chap. XXII. THE ARBRE SEC 1 29 

Chinar is meant- The appellations given to it vary in the diffeient texts. In the 
G. T. it is styled in this passage, "The Arbre Settle which the Christians call the 
Arbre Sec" whilst in ch. ccL of the same {infra, Bk. IV. ch. v.) it is called 
" V Arbre Sol, which in the Book of Alexander is called V Arbre Seche." Pauthier has 
here " V Arbre Solque, que nous appelons V Arbre Sec" and in the later passage 
^^ V Arbre Seul, que le Livre Alexandre apelle Arbre Sec ;" whilst Ramusio has here 
*' L^Albero del Sole che si chiama per i Cristiani L'Albor Secco" and does not contain 
the later passage. So also I think all the old Latin and French printed texts, which 
are more or less based on Pipino's version, have "The Tree of the Sun, which the 
Latins call the Dry Tree." 

[G. Capus says {A trovers le roy. de Tamerlan, p. 296) that he found at Khodjakent, 
the remains of an enormous plane-tree or Chinar, which measured no less than 48 
metres (52 yards) in circumference at the base, and 9 metres diameter inside the rotten 
trunk ; a dozen tourists from Tashkent one day feasted inside, and were all at 
ease. — H. C] 

Pauthier, building as usual on the reading of his own text {Solqtu), endeavours to 
show that this odd word represents Thoulk, the Arabic name of a tree to which Forskal 
gave the title of Ficiis Vasta, and this Ficus Vasta he will have to be the same as the 
Chinar. Tictts Vasta would be a strange name surely to give to a Plane-tree, but 
Forskal may be acquitted of such an eccentricity. The Tholak (for that seems to be the 
proper vocalisation) is a tree of Arabia Felix, very different from the Chinar, for it is 
the well-known Indian Banyan, or a closely-allied species, as may be seen in 
Forskal's description. The latter indeed says that the Arab botanists called it Delb, 
and that (or Dulb) is really a sjTionym for the Chinar. But De Sacy has already 
commented upon this supposed application of the name Delb to the Tholak as 
erroneous. (See Flora Aegypticuo-Arabica, pp. cxxiv. and 179; Abdallatif, Rel. de 
FEgypte, p. 80; /. 2i. G. S. VIII. 275 ; Ritter, VI. 662, 679.) 

The fact is that the Solque of M. Pauthier's text is a mere copj-ist's error in the 
reduplication of the pronoun que. In his chief MS. which he cites as A (No. 10,260 
of Bibl. Nationale, now Fr. 5631) we can even see how this might easily happen, for 
one line ends with Solque and the next begins with que. The true reading is, I doubt 
not, that which this MS. points to, and which the G. Text gives us in the second pas- 
sage quoted above, viz. Arbre SoL, occurring in Ramusio as Albero del Sole. To 
make this easier of acceptation I must premise two remarks : first, that Sol is " the 
Sun " in both Venetian and Proven5al ; and, secondly, that in the French of that age 
the prepositional sign is not necessary to the genitive. Thus, in Pauthier's own text 
we find in one of the passages quoted above, "Z<f Livre Alexandre, i.e. Liber Alex- 
andri ;" elsewhere, " Cazan lefls Argon," " i la mire sa femtne" " Le corps Mon- 
seigneur Saint Thomas si est en ceste Province;" in Joinville, "& commandemant 
Mahomniet," ^' ceux de la Haulequa estoient logiez entour les hdberges le soudanc, et 
establiz pour le cors le soudanc garderj" in Baudouin de Sebourc, " De r amour 
Bauduin esprise et enfiamb^e." 

Moreover it is the Tree of the Sun that is prominent in the l^endary History 
of Alexander, a fact sufficient in itself to rule the reading. A character in an old 
English play says : — 

"Peregrine. Drake was a didapper to Mandevill : 
Candish and Hawkins, Frobisher, all our Voyagers 
Went short of Mandevil. But had he reached 
To this place — here — yes, here — this wilderness. 
And seen the Trees of the Sun and Moon, that speak 
And told King Alexander of his death ; 
He then 

Had left a passage ope to Traveller* 
That now is kept and guarded by Wild Beasts." 

{Broom^s Antipodes, in LamVs Specimens.) 

VOL. I. 



130 MARCO POLO Book I. 

The same trees are alluded to in an ancient Low German poem in honour of St. 
Anno of Cologne. Speaking of the Four Beasts of Daniel's Vision : — 
*' The third beast was a Libbard ; 

Four Eagle's Wings he had ; 

This signified the Grecian Alexander, 

Who with four Hosts went forth to conquer lands 

Even to the World's End, 

Known by its Golden Pillars. 

In India he the Wilderness broke through 

With Trees twain he there did speak," etc. 

{In Schiltcri Thcsattrus Antiq. Teuton, torn, i.*) 
These oracular Trees of the Sun and Moon, somewhere on the confines of India, 
appear in all the fabulous histories of Alexander, from the Pseudo-Callisthenes down- 
wards. Thus Alexander is made to tell the story in a letter to Aristotle : ' ' Then 
came some of the towns-people and said, ' We have to show thee something passing 
strange, O King, and worth thy visiting ; for we can show thee trees that talk with 
human speech.' So they led me to a certain park, in the midst of which were the 
Sun and Moon, and round about them a guard of priests of the Sun and Moon. And 
there stood the two trees of which they had spoken, like unto cypress trees ; and round 
about them were trees like the myrobolans of Egypt, and with similar fruit. And I 
addressed the two trees that were in the midst of the park, the one which was male in 
the Masculine gender, and the one that was female in the Feminine gender. And the 
name of the Male Tree was the Sun, and of the female Tree the Moon, names which 
were in that language Miithu and Eniausae.\ And the stems were clothed with the 
skins of animals ; the male tree with the skins of he-beasts, and the female tree with 
the skins of she-beasts. . . . And at the setting of the Sun, a voice, speaking in the 
Indian tongue, came forth from the (Sun) Tree ; and I ordered the Indians who were 
with me to interpret it. But they were afraid and would not," etc. {Psetido-Callisth. 
ed. Miiller, III. 17.) 

The story as related by Firdusi keeps very near to the Greek as just quoted, but 
does not use the term " Tree of the Sun." The chapter of the Shah Nameh containing 
it is entitled Didan Sikandar dirakht-i-goydrd, " Alexander's interview with the 
Speaking Tree." {Livre des Kois, V. 229.) In the Chanson d^Alixandreoi Lambert 
le Court and Alex, de Bernay, these trees are introduced as follows :-r- 
*' ' Signor,' fait Alixandre, ' je vus voel demander, 

Se des merveilles d'Inde me saves rien conter.' 

Cil li ont respondu : ' Se tu vius escouter 

Ja te dirons merveilles, s'es poras esprover. 

La sus en ces desers pues ii Arbres trover 

Qui c pies ont de haut, et de grossor sunt per. 

Li Solaus et La Lune les ont fait si serer 

Que sevent tous langages et entendre et parler.'" 

(Ed. r86i (Dinan), p. 357.) 
Maundevile informs us precisely where these trees are : "A 15 journeys in lengthe, 
goynge be the Deserts of the tother side of the Ryvere Beumare," if one could only 

* " Daz dritte Dier was ein Lebarte 

Vier arin Vederich her havite ; 

Der beceichnote den Criechiskin Alexanderin, 

Der mit vier Herin vur aftir Landin, 

Unz her die Werilt einde, 

Bi giildinin Siulin bikante. 

In India her die Wusti durchbrach, 

Mit zwein Boumin her sick da gesprach" etc. 
t It is odd how near the word Emausae comes to the E. African Mwezi; and perhaps more odd 
that "the elders of U-nya-Mwezi (' the Land of the Moon ') declare that their patriarchal ancestor 
became after death the first Tree, and afforded shade to his children and descendants. According to 
the Arabs the people still perform pilgrimage to a holy tree, and believe that the penalty of sacrilege 
in cutting off a twig would be visited by sudden and mysterious death." (Burton in /''. /?. G. S. XXIX. 
167-168.) 



Chap. XXII. THE ARBRE SEC I3I 

tell where that is ! * A mediaeval chronicler also tells us that Ogerus the Dane {temp. 
CaroH Magni) conquered all the parts beyond sea from Hierusalem to the Trees of 
the Sun. In the old Italian romance also of Guerino detto il Meschino, still a chap- 
book in S. Italy, the Hero (ch. Ixiii. ) visits the Trees of the Sun and Moon. But 
this is mere imitation of the Alexandrian story, and has nothing of interest. (Maun- 
devile, pp. 297-298; Fascuulus Temporum in Germ. Script. Pistorii Nidani, II.) 

It will be observed that the letter ascribed to Alexander describes the two oracular 
trees as resembling two cypress- trees. As such the Trees of the Sun and Moon are 
represented on several extant ancient medals, e.g. on two struck at Perga in Pamphylia 
in the time of Aurelian. And Eastern storj- tells us of two vast cj'press-trees, sacred 
among the Magians, which grew in Khorasan, one at Kashmar near Turshiz, and the 
other at Farmad near Tuz, and which were said to have risen from shoots that 
Zoroaster brought from Paradise. The former of these was sacril^ously cut down 
by the order of the Khalif Motawakkil, in the 9th century. The trunk was despatched 
to Baghdad on rollers at a vast expense, whilst the branches alone formed a load for 
1300 camels. The night that the convoy reached within one stage of the palace, the 
Khalif was cut in pieces by his own guards. This tree was said to be 1450 years old, 
and to measure 33I cubits in girth. The locality of this "Arbor Sol" we see was 
in Khorasan, and possibly its fame may have been transferred to a representative of 
another species. The plane, as well as the cypress, was one of the distinctive trees of 
the Magian Paradise. 

In the Peutingerian Tables we find in the N.E. of Asia the rubric '' Hie Alexander 
Responsum accepit," which looks very like an allusion to the tale of the Oracular Trees. 
If so, it is remarkable as a suggestion of the antiquity of the Alexandrian Legends, 
though the rubric may of course be an interpolation. The Trees of the Sun and 
Moon appear as located in India Ultima to the east of Persia, in a map which is 
found in MSS. (I2tli century-) of the Floridus of Lanibertus ; and they are indicated 
more or less precisely in several maps of the succeeding centuries. (Ouseleys Travels, I. 
387 ; Dabistan, I. 307-308 ; Santarem, H. de la Cosmog. II. 189," III, 506-513, etc) 

Nothing could show better how this legend had possessed men in the Middle Ages 
than the fact that Vincent of Beauvais discerns an allusion to these Trees of the Sun 
and Moon in the blessing of Moses on Joseph (as it runs in the Vulgate), "a!? pomis 
fntctuum Solis ac Lwtae." (Deut. xxxiii. 14- ) 

Marco has mixt up this legend of the Alexandrian Romance, on the authority, 
as we shall see reason to believe, of some of the recompilers of that Romance, 
with a famous subject of Christian Legend in that age, the Arbre Sec or Dry 
Tree, one form of which is related by Maunde\'ile and by Johan Schiltberger. 
"Alj-tille fro Ebron," says the former, "is the Mount of Mambre, of the whyche 
the Valeye taketh his name. And there is a Tree of Oke that the Saracens clepen 
Dirpe, that is of Abraham's Tyme, the which men clepen THE Drye Tree." 
[Schiltberger adds that the heathen call it Kurru Thereck, i.e. (Turkish) AYtni 
Dirakht— Dry Tree.] " And theye seye that it hathe ben there sithe the b^innynge 
of the World ; and was sumtj-me grene and bare Leves, unto the Tyme that Oure 
Lord dyede on the Cros ; and thanne it dr}-ede ; and so dyden alle the Trees that 
weren thanne in the World. And summe seyn be hire Prophecyes that a Lord, a 
PrjTice of the West syde of the World, shalle wynnen the Lond of Promyssioun, i.e. 
the Holy Lond, withe Helpe of Cristene Men, and he schalle do synge a Masse under 
that Drje Tree, and than the Tree shall wexen grene and bere both Fruyt and Leves. 
And thorghe that MjTacle manye Sarazines and Jewes schuUe ben turned to Cristene 
Feithe. And, therefore, they dou gret Worschipe thereto, and kepen it fuUe besyly. 
And alle be it so that it be drye, natheless yit he berethe great vertue," etc. 

The tradition seems to have altered with circumstances, for a traveller of nearly 
two centuries later ( Friar Anselmo, 1509) describes the oak of Abraham at Hebron 

* " The River Buemar, in the furthest forests of India," appears to come up in one of the versions 
of Alexander's Letter to Aristotle, though,! do not find it in MuUer's edition. (See Zacher's Pseudo- 
CtUlisthtnes, p. i6o.) 'Tis perhaps Ab-i-Amu I 

VOL. L , 12 



132 MARCO POLO Book I. 

as a tree of dense and verdant foliage: "The Saracens make their devotions at it, 
and hold it in great veneration, for it has remained thus green from the days of 
Abraham until now ; and they tie scraps of cloth on its branches inscribed with some 
of their writing, and believe that if any one were to cut a piece off that tree he would 
die within the year." Indeed even before Maundevile's time Friar Burchard (1283) 
had noticed that though the famous old tree was dry, another had sprung from its 
roots. And it still has a representative. 

As long ago as the time of Constantine a fair was held under the Terebinth of 
Mamre, which was the object of many superstitious rites and excesses. The Emperor 
ordered these to be put a stop to, and a church to be erected at the spot. In the 
time of Arculph (end of 7th century) the dry trunk still existed under the roof of this 
church ; just as the immortal Banyan-tree of Prag exists to this day in a subterranean 
temple in the Fort of Allahabad. 

It is evident that the story of the Dry Tree had got a great vogue in the 13th 
century. In the /its dii Pelerin, a French drama of Polo's age, the Pilgrim says : — 

" S'ai puis en maint bon lieu et ^ maint saint est6, 
S'ai este au Sec-Arbre et dusc'^ Dureste." 

And in another play of slightly earlier date {Le Jus de St. Nicolas), the King of 
Africa, invaded by the Christians, summons all his allies and feudatories, among 
whom appear the Admirals of Coine {Iconium) and Orkenie {Hyrcania), and the 
Amirald' outre VArbre-Sec (as it were of "the Back of Beyond") in whose country 
the only current coin is millstones ! Friar Odoric tells us that he heard at Tabriz that 
the Arbor Secco existed in a mosque of that city ; and Clavijo relates a confused story 
about it in the same locality. Of the Diirre Baum at Tauris there is also a somewhat 
pointless legend in a Cologne MS. of the 14th century, professing to give an account 
of the East. There are also some curious verses concerning a mystical Diirre Bom 
quoted by Fabricius from an old Low German Poem ; and we may just allude to that 
other mystic Arbor Secco of Dante — 

" una pianta dispogliata 

Di fiori e d'altra fronda in ciascun ramo," 

though the dark symbolism in the latter case seems to have a different bearing. 

[Alaundevile, p. 68; Schiltberger, p. 113; Anselm. in Canisii Thesaurus, IV. 
781 ; Pereg. Quat. p. 81 ; Niceph. Callist. VIII. 30 ; ThMtre Franfais au Moyen 
^S^^ PP* 97> ^73 ; Cathay, p. 48 ; Clavijo, p. 90 ; Orient und Occident, Gottingen, 
1867, vol. i. ; Fabricii Vet. Test. Pseud., etc., I. 1133; Dante, Purgat. xxxii. 

35-) 

But why does Polo bring this Arbre Sec into connection with the Sun Tree of the 
Alexandrian Legend ? I cannot answer this to my own entire satisfaction, but I can 
show that such a connection had been imagined in his time. 

Paulin Paris, in a notice of MS. No. 6985 (Fonds Ancien) of the National 
Library, containing a version of the Chansons de Geste cC Alixandre, based upon the 
work of L. Le Court and Alex, de Bernay, but with additions of later date, notices 
amongst these latter the visit of Alexander to the Valley Perilous, where he sees a 
variety of wonders, among others the Arbre des Pucelles. Another tree at a great 
distance from the last is called the Arbre Sec, and reveals to Alexander the secret of 
the fate which attends him in Babylon. (Les MSS. Franfais de la Bibl. du Roi, III. 
105. )* Again the English version of King Alisaundre, published in Weber's Collection, 
shows clearly enough that in its French original the term Arbre Sec was applied to 
the Oracular Trees, though the word has been miswritten, and misunderstood by 

* It is right to notice that there may be some error in the reference of Paulin Paris ; at least I 
could not trace the Arbre Sec in the MS. which he cites, nor in the celebrated Bodleian Alexander, 
which appears to contain the same version of the story. [The fact is that Paulin Paris refers to the 
Arbre, but without the word sec, at the top of the first column of fol. 79 recto of the MS. No, Fr, 
368 (late 698s).-H. C] 



-J 



Chap. XXII. THE ARBRE SEC 1 33 

Weber. The King, as in the Greek and French passages akeady quoted, meeting two 
old churls, asks if they know of any marvel in those parts : — 

*' ' Ye, par ma fay,' quoth heo, 
' A great merveille we wol telle the ; 
That is hennes in even way 
The mountas of ten daies journey. 
Thou shalt find trowes * two : 
SejTites and holy they buth bo ; 
Higher than in othir countray all. 
AsBESET men heom callith.' 
• ••••• 

' Sire KjTig,' quod on, * by m)m eyghe 
Either Trough is an hundrod feet hygh. 
They stondith up into the skye ; 
That on to the Sonm, sikirlye ; 
That othir, we tellith the nowe. 
Is sakret in the Motu vertue. ' " 

{Weber, I. 277.) 

Weber's glossary gives "^r&j«/= Strawberry Tree, arbous, arbousier, arbutus" ; 
but that is nonsense. 

Further, in the French Prose Romance of Alexander, which is contained in the 
fine volume in the British Museum known as the Shrewsbury Book (Reg. XV. e. 6), 
though we do not find the Arbre Sec so named, we find it described and pictorially 
represented. The Romance (fol. xiiiL v.) describes Alexander and his chief com- 
panions as ascending a certain mountain by 2500 steps which were attached to a 
golden chain. At the top they find the golden Temple of the Sun and an old man 
asleep within. It goes on : — 

" Quant le viellart les vit si leur demanda s'ils vouloient veoir les Arbres sacrez de 
la Lune et du Soleil que nous annuncent les choses qui sont i avenir. Quant 
Alexandre ouy ce si fat rempli de mult grant ioye. Si lui respondirent, ' Ouye sur, 
nous les voulons veoir.' Et cil lui dist, 'Se tu es nez de prince malle et de femelle il 
te convient entrer en celui lieu.' Et Alexandre lui respondi, ' Nous somes nez de 
compagne malle et de femelle.' Dont se leve le viellart du lit ou il gesoit, et leur 
dist, ' Hostez vos vestemens et vos chauces.' Et Tholomeuset Antigonuset Perdiacas 
le suivrent. Lors comencerent a aler parmy la forest qui estoit enclose en merveilleux 
labour. lUec trouverent les arbres semblables £l loriers et oliviers. Et estoient de 
cent pies de haults, et decouroit d'eulz incens ypobaume t ^ grant qnantite. Apres 
entrerent plus avant en la forest, et trouverent utu arbre durement hault qui r^avoit ne 
fueille ne fruit. Si seoit sur cet arbre une grant oysel qui avoit en son chief une 
creste qui estoit semblable au paon, et les plumes du col resplendissants come fin or. 
Et avoit la couleur de rose. Dont lui dist le viellart, 'Cet oysel dont vous vous 
merveillez est appeles Fenis, lequel n'a nul pareil en tout le monde.' Dont pass^rent 
outre, et ailment aux Arbres du Soleil et de la Lune. Et quant ils y furent venus, si 
leur dist le viellart, ' Regardez en haut, et pensez en votre coeur ce que vous vouldrez 
demander, et ne le dites de la bouche.' Alisandre luy demanda en quel language 
donnent les Arbres response aux gens. Et il lui respondit, * L' Arbre du Soleil 
commence a parler Indien.' Dont baisa Alexandre les arbres, et comenja en son ceur 
a penser s'il conquesteroit tout le monde et retoumeroit en Macedonie atout son ost. 
Dont lui respondit I'Arbre du Soleil, ' Alexandre tn seras Roy de tout le monde, mais 
Macedonie tu ne verras jamais,' " etc. 

The appearance of the Arbre Sec in Maps of the 15th century, such as those of 
Andrea Bianco (1436) and Fra Mauro (1459), may be ascribed to the influence of 

* Trees. t Opobaliwtnnm. 



134 



MARCO POLO 



Book I. 



Polo's own work ; but a more genuine evidence of the prevalence of the legend is 
found in the celebrated Hereford Map constructed in the 13th century by Richard de 
Haldingham. This, in the vicinity of India and the Terrestrial Paradise, exhibits a 
Tree with the rubric ^^ Albor Balsami est Arbor Sicca." 

The legends of the Dry Tree were probably spun out of the words of the Vulgate 
in Ezekiel xvii. 24 : " Humiliavi lignum sublime et exaltavi lignum humile ; et siccavi 
lignum viride et frondescere feci lignum aridum." Whether the Rue de PArbre Sec 
in Paris derives its name from the legend I know not. [The name of the street is taken 
from an old sign-board ; some say it is derived from the gibbet placed in the vicinity, 
but this is more than doubtful. — H. C] 

The actual tree to which Polo refers in the text was probably one of those so 
frequent in Persia, to which age, position, or accident has attached a character of 
sanctity, and which are styled Dirakht-i-Fazl, Trees Excellence or Grace, and 




often receive titles appropriate to Holy Persons. Vows are made before them, and 
|)ieces torn from the clothes of the votaries are hung upon the branches or nailed to 
the trunks. To a tree of such a character, imposing in decay, Lucan compares 
Pompey : 

" Stat magni nominis umbra. 

Quails frugifero quercus sublimis in agro, 

Extivias veteres populi sacrataqtie gestans 

Dona ducum « • ♦ • » 

Quamvis primo nutet casura sub Euro, 

Tot circum silvae firmo se robore toUant, 

Sola tamen colitur." (P/iarsalia,!. 135.) 



Chap. XXIl. THE ARBRE SEC t^^ 

The Tree of Mamre was evidently precisely one of this class ; and those who have 
crossed the Suez Desert before railway days will remember such a Dirakht-i-Fazl, an 
aged mimosa, a veritable Arbre Seul (could we accept that reading), that stood just 
half-way across the Desert, streaming with the exirviae veteres of Mecca Pilgrims. The 
majority of such holy trees in Persia appear to be Plane-trees. Admiration for the 
beauty of this tree seems to have occasionally risen into superstitious veneration from 
a very old date. Herodotus relates that the Carians, after their defeat by the Persians 
on the Marsj-as, rallied in the sacred grove of Plane-trees at Labranda. And the 
same historian tells how, some years later, Xerxes on his march to Greece decorated 
a beautiful Chinar with golden ornaments. Mr. Hamilton, in the same region, came 
on the remains of a giant of the species, which he thought might possibly be the very 
same. Pliny rises to enthusiasm in speaking of some noble Plane-trees in Lycia and 
elsewhere. Chardin describes one grand and sacred specimen, called King Hosain's 
Chinar, and said to be more than icxx) years old, in a suburb of Ispahan, and another 
hung with amulets, rags, and tapers in a garden at Shiraz.* One sacred tree men- 
tioned by the Persian geographer Hamd Allah as distinguishing the grave of a holy 
man at Bostam in Khorasan (the species is not named, at least by Ouseley, from whom 
I borrow this) comes into striking relation with the passage in our text The story 
went that it had been the staff of Mahomed ; as such it had been transmitted through 
many generations, until it was finally deposited in the grave of Abu Abdallah Dasitani, 
where it struck root^ and put forth branches. And it is explicitly called Dirakht-i- 
Khushk, i.e. literally H ARBRE SEC. 

This last legend belongs to a large class. The staff of Adam, which was created 
in the twilight of the approaching Sabbath, was bestowed on him in Paradise and 
handed down successively to Enoch and the line of Patriarchs. After the death of 
Joseph it was set in Jethro's garden, and there grew untouched, till Moses came and 
got his rod from it. In another form of the legend it is Seth who gets a branch of the 
Tree of Life, and from this Moses afterwards obtains his rod of power. These Rab- 
binical stories seem in later times to have been developed into .the Christian legends 
of the wood destined to form the Cross, such as they are told in the Golden Legend 
or by Godfrey of Viterbo, and elaborated in Calderon's Sibila del Oriente. Indeed, 
as a valued friend who has consulted the latter for me suggests, probably all the Arbre 
Sec Legends of Christendom bore mystic reference to the Cross. In Calderon's play 
the Holy Rood, seen in vision, is described as a Tree : — 

" cuyas hojas, 

Secas mustias y marchitas, 
Desnudo el tronco dejaban 
Que, entre mil copas floridas 
De los arboles, el solo 
Sin pompa y sin bizaria 
Era cadaver del prado." 

There are several Dry-Tree stories among the wonders of Buddhism ; one is that of a 
sacred tree visited by the Chinese pilgrims to India, which had grown from the twig 
which Sakya, in Hindu fashion, had used as a tooth-brush ; and I think there is a 
like story in our own country of the Glastonbury Thorn having grown from the staff 
of Joseph of Arimathea. 

["St Francis' Church is a large pile, neere which, yet a little without the Citty, 
growes a tree which they report in their legend grew from the Saint's StafiF, which on 

* A recent traveller in China gives a perfectly similar description of sacred trees in Shansi. Many 
bore inscriptions in large letiers. '' If you pray, you will certainly be heard." — Rev. A. Williantson, 
Journeys in N. China, I. 163, where there is a cut of such a tree near Taiyuanfu. (See this work, 
I. ch. xvi.) Mr. Williamson describes such a venerated tree, an ancient acacia, known as the 
Acacia of the T'ang, meaning that it existed under that Dynasty (7lh to roth centurj-)- It is renowned 
for its healing virtues, and every available spot on its surface was crowded with votive tablets and in- 
scriptions, (lb. 303.) 



136 MARCO POLO Book I. 

going to sleepe he fixed in the ground, and at his waking found it had grown a large 
tree. They affirm that the wood of its decoction cures sundry diseases." {Evelyn^s 
Diary, October, 1644.)— H. C] 

In the usual form of the mediaeval legend, Adam, drawing near his end, sends 
Seth to the gate of Paradise, to seek the promised Oil of Mercy. The Angel allows 
Seth to put his head in at the gate. Doing so (as an old English version gives it) — 

" he saw a fair Well, 

Of whom all the waters on earth cometh, as the Book us doth tell ; 

Over the Well stood a Tree, with bowes broad and lere 

Ac it ne bare leafne rind, but as itfor-olded were ; 

A nadder it had beclipt about, all naked withouten skin, 

That was the Tree and the Nadder that first made Adam do sin ! " 

The Adder or Serpent is coiled about the denuded stem ; the upper branches 
reach to heaven, and bear at the top a new-born wailing infant, swathed in linen, 
whilst {here we quote a French version) — 

" Les larmes qui de lui issoient 
Contreval I'Arbre en avaloient ; 
Adonc regarda I'enfant Seth 
Tout contreval de l'arbre secq ; 
Les rachines qui le tenoient 
Jusques en Enfer s'en aloient, 
Les larmes qui de lui issirent 
Jusques dedans Enfer cheirent." 

The Angel gives Seth three kernels from the fruit of the Tree. Seth returns home 
and finds his father dead. He buries him in the valley of Hebron, and places the three 
grains under his tongue. A triple shoot springs up of Cedar, Cypress, and Pine, 
symbolising the three Persons of the Trinity. The three eventually unite into one 
stem, and this tree survives in various forms, and through various adventures in con- 
nection with the Scripture History, till it is found at the bottom of the Pool of Beth- 
esda, to which it had imparted healing Virtue, and is taken thence to form the Cross 
on which Our Lord suffered. 

The English version quoted above is from a MS. of the 14th century in the 
Bodleian, published by Dr. Morris in his collection of Legends of the Holy Hood. I 
have modernised the spelling of the lines quoted, without altering the words. The 
French citation is from a MS. in the Vienna Library, from which extracts are given 
by Sign. Adolfo Mussafia in his curious and learned tract [Sulla Legenda del Legno 
della Croce, Vienna, 1870), which gives a full account of the fundamental legend 
and its numerous variations. The examination of these two works, particularly Sign. 
Mussafia's, gives an astonishing impression of the copiousness with which such 
Christian Mythology, as it may fairly be called, was diffused and multiplied. There 
are in the paper referred to notices of between fifty and sixty different works (not MSS. 
or copies of works merely) containing this legend in various European languages. 

{Santarem, IH. 380, IL 348 ; Ouseley, I. 359 seqq. and 391 ; Herodotus, VH. 
31 ; Pliny, XH. 5; Chat-din, VH. 410, VHI. 44 and 426; Fabricius, Vet. Test. 
Pseud. L 80 seqq. ; Cathay, p. 365 ; Beats Fah-Hian, 72 and 78 ; Pilerins Boudd- 
histes, IL 292 ; Della Valle, II. 276-277.) 

He who injured the holy tree of Bostam, we are told, perished the same day : a 
general belief in regard to those Trees of Grace, of which we have already seen 
instances in regard to the sacred trees of Zoroaster and the Oak of Hebron. We find 
the same belief in Eastern Africa, where certain trees, regarded by the natives with 
superstitious reverence, which they express by driving in votive nails and suspending 
rags, are known to the European residents by the vulgar name of Devil Trees. 



138 



MARCO POLO Book I. 



Burton relates a case of the verification of the superstition in the death of an English 
merchant who had cut down such a tree, and of four members of his household. It 
is the old story which Ovid tells ; and the tree which Erisichthon felled was a 
Dirakht-i-Fazl : 

" Vittae mediam, memoresque tabellae 
Sertaque cingebant, voti argumenta potentis." 

i^Metamorph. VIII. 744.) 

Though the coincidence with our text of Hamd Allah's Dry Tree is very striking, I 
am not prepared to lay stress on it as an argument for the geographical determination 
of Marco's Arbre Sec. His use of the title more than once to characterise the whole 
frontier of Khorasan can hardly have been a mere whim of his own : and possibly 
some explanation of that circumstance will yet be elicited from the Persian historians 
or geographers of the Mongol era. 

Meanwhile it is in the vicinity of Bostam or Damghan that I should incline to 
place this landmark. If no one very cogent reason points to this, a variety of minor 
ones do so ; such as the direction of the traveller's journey from Kermin through Kuh 
Bandn ; the apparent vicinity of a great Ismailite fortress, as will be noticed in the 
next chapter ; the connection twice indicated (see Prologue, ch. xviii. note 6, and 
Bk. IV. ch. V.) of the Arbre Sec with the headquarters of Ghazan Khan in watch- 
ing the great passes, of which the principal ones debouche at Bostam, at which place 
also buildings erected by Ghazan still exist ; and the statement that the decisive battle 
between Alexander and Darius was placed there by local tradition. For though no 
such battle took place in that region, we know that Darius was murdered near 
Hecatompylos. Some place this city west of Bostam, near Damghan ; others east of 
it, about Jah Jerm ; Ferrier has strongly argued for the vicinity of Bostam itself. 
Firdusi indeed places the final battle on the confines of Kerman, and the death of 
Darius within that province. But this could not have been the tradition Polo met 
with. 

I may add that the temperate climate of Bostam is noticed in words almost 
identical with Polo's by both Fraser and Ferrier. 

The Chinar abounds in Khorasan (as far as any tree can be said to abound in 
Persia), and even in the Oases of Tun-o-Kain wherever there is water. Travellers 
quoted by Ritter notice Chinars of great size and age at Shahriid, near Bostam, 
at Meyomid, and at Mehr, west of Sabzawar, which last are said to date from the 
time of Naoshirwan (7th century). There is a town to the N.W. of Meshid called 
Ckindrdn, "The Planes." P. Delia Valle, we may note, calls Tehran "la citta dei 
platani." 

The following note by De Sacy regarding the Chinar has already been quoted by 
Marsden, and though it may be doubtful whether the term Arbre Sec had any relation 
to the idea expressed, it seems to me too interesting to be omitted : "Its sterility 
seems to have become proverbial among certain people of the East. For in a collec- 
tion of sundry moral sentences pertaining to the Sabaeans or Christians of St. John 
... we find the following : ' The vainglorious man is like a showy Plane Tree, rich 
in boughs but producing nothing, and affording no fruit to its owner.'" The same 
reproach of sterility is cast at the Plane by Ovid's Walnut : — 

"At postquam platanis, sterileni praebentibus utubram, 
Uberior qua vis arbore venit honos ; 
Nos quoque fructiferae, si nux modo ponor in illis, 

Coepimus in patulas luxuriare comas." {Nux, 17-20.) 

I conclude with another passage from Khanikoff, though put forward in special 
illustration of what I believe to be a mistaken reading [Arbre Seul) : " Where the 
Chinar is of spontaneous growth, or occupies the centre of a vast and naked plain, this 
tree is even in our own day invested with a quite exceptional veneration, and the 



Chap. XXIII. THE OLD MAN OF THE MOUNTAIN 1 39 

locality often comes to be called ' The Place of the Solitary Tree.' " (/. R. G. S. 
XXIX. 345 ; Ferrier, 69-76 ; Fraser, 343 ; KitUr, VIII. 332, XI. 512 seqq. ; Delia 
Voile, I. 703 ; De Sac/s Abdallatif, p. 81 ; Khanikoff, Not. p. 38.) 

[See in Fr. Zamcke, Der Priester Johannes, II., in the chap. Der Baum des Seth, 
pp. 127-128, from MS. (14th century) from Cambridge, this cm-ious passage (p. 128) : 
"Tandem rogaverunt eum, ut arborem siccam, de qua multum saepe loqui audierant, 
liceret videre. Quibus dicebat : ' Non est appellata arbor sicca recto nomine, sed 
arbor Seth, quoniara Seth, filius Adae, primi patris nostri, earn plantavit.' Et ad 
arborem Seth fecit eos ducere, prohibens eos, ne arborem transmearent, sed [si ?] ad 
patriam suam redire desiderarent. Et cum appropinquassent, de pulcritudine arboris 
roirati sunt ; erat enim magnae immensitatis et miri decoris. Omnium enim colorum 
varietas inerat arbori, condensilas foliorum et fructuum diversorum ; diversitas avium 
omnium, quae sub coelo sunt. Folia vero invicem se repercutientia dulcissimae melo- 
diae modulamine resonabant, et aves amoenos cantus ultra quam credi potest promebant ; 
et odor suavissimus profudit eos, ita quod paradisi amoenitate fuisse. Et cum admirantes 
tantam pulcritudinem aspicerent, unus sociorum aliquo eorum maior aetate, cogitans 
[cc^tavil ?] intra se, quod senior esset et, si inde rediret, cito aliquo casu mori posset. 
Et cum haec secum cogitasset, coepit arborem transire, et cum transisset, advocans 
socios, iussit eos post se ad locum amoenissimum, quem ante se videbat plenum deliciis 
sibi paratum [paratis ?] festinare. At illi retrogressi sunt ad regem, scilicet presbiterura 
lohannem. Quos donis amplis ditavit, et qui cum eo morari voluerunt libenter et honori- 
fice detinuit. Alii vero ad patriam reversi sunt." — In common with Marsden and Yule, 
I have no doubt that the Arbre Sec is the Chindr. Odoric places it at Tabriz and I 
have given a very lengthy dissertation on the subject in my edition of this traveller 
(pp. 21-29), to which I must refer the reader, to avoid increasing unnecessarily the size 
c«f the present publication. — H. C] 



CHAPTER XXIII. 

Concerning the Old Man of the Mountain. 

MuLEHET is a country in which the Old Man of the 
Mountain dwelt in former days ; and the name means 
''Place of the Aram.'' I will tell you his whole history 
as related by Messer Marco Polo, who heard it from 
several natives of that res^ion. 

The Old Man was called in their language Aloadin. 
He had caused a certain valley between two mountains 
to be enclosed, and had turned it into a garden, the 
largest and most beautiful that ever was seen, filled with 
every variety of fruit. In it were erected pavilions and 
palaces the most elegant that can be imagined, all 



140 MARCO POLO Book I. 

covered with gilding and exquisite painting. And there 
were runnels too, flowing freely with wine and milk and 
honey and water ; and numbers of ladies and of the most 
beautiful damsels in the world, who could play on all 
manner of instruments, and sung most sweetly, and 
danced in a manner that it was charming to behold. 
For the Old Man desired to make his people believe 
that this was actually Paradise. So he had fashioned 
it after the description that Mahommet gave of his 
Paradise, to wit, that it should be a beautiful garden 
running with conduits of wine and milk and honey and 
water, and full of lovely women for the delectation of all 
its inmates. And sure enough the Saracens of those 
parts believed that it was Paradise ! 

Now no man was allowed to enter the Garden save 
those whom he intended to be his Ashishin. There 
was a Fortress at the entrance to the Garden, strong 
enough to resist all the world, and there was no other 
way to get in. He kept at his Court a number of the 
youths of the country, from 12 to 20 years of age, such 
as had a taste for soldiering, and to these he used to tell 
tales about Paradise, just as Mahommet had been wont 
to do, and they believed in him just as the Saracens 
believe in Mahommet. Then he would introduce them 
into his garden, some four, or six, or ten at a time, 
having first made them drink a certain potion which 
cast them into a deep sleep, and then causing them to 
be lifted and carried in. So when they awoke, they 
found themselves in the Garden.^ 



Note i.-*-Says the venerable Sire de Joinville : "Z« Vieil de la Montaingne ne 
crioit pas en Mahommet^ ahifois crioit en la Lot de Haali, qui fu Oncle Mahommet.''^ 
This is a crude statement, no doubt, but it has a germ of truth. Adherents of the 
family of 'Ali as the true successors of the Prophet existed from the tragical day of the 
death of Husain, and among these, probably owing to the secrecy with which they 
were compelled to hold their allegiance, there was always a tendency to all manner of 



Chap. XXIIL THE OLD MAN OF THE MOUNTAIN 141 

strange and mystical doctrines ; as in one direction to the glorification of ' Ali as a kind 
of incarnation of the Di%4nity, a character in which his lineal representatives were held 
in some manner to partake ; in another direction to the development of Pantheism, 
and release from all positive creed and precepts. Of these Aliites, eventually called 
Shidhs, a chief sect, and parent of many heretical branches, were the Ismailites, who 
took their name, from the seventh Imam, whose return to earth they professed to 
expect at the end of the World. About A.D. 1090 a branch of the Ismaili stock was 
established by Hassan, son of Sabah, in the mountainous districts of Northern Persia ; 
and, before their suppression by the Mongols, 170 years later, the power of the quasi- 
spiritual dynasty which Hassan founded had spread over the Eastern Kohistan, at least 
as far as Kain. Their headquarters were at Alamut (" Eagle's Nest "), about 32 miles 
north-east of Kazwin, and all over the territory which they held they established for- 
tresses of great strength. De Sacy seems to have proved that they were called 
Hashlshiya or Hashishin, from their use of the preparation of hemp called Hashish ; 
and thence, through their system of murder and terrorism, came the modern applica- 
tion of the word Assassin. The original aim of this system was perhaps that of a kind 
of Vehmgericht, to punish or terrify orthodox persecutors who were too strong to be 
faced with the sword. I have adopted in the text one of the readings of the G. Text 
Asciscin, as expressing the original word with the greatest accuracy that Italian spelling 
admits. In another author we find it as Chazisii (see BoUandists, May, voL ii. 
p. xi.) ; Joinville calls them Assacis; whilst Nangis and others corrupt the name into 
Harsacidae, and what not. 

The explanation of the name MtJLEHET as it is in Ramusio, or Mulcete as it is in 
the G. Text (the last expressing in Rusticiano's Pisan tongue the strongly aspirated 
Mulhete), is given by the former : " This name of Mulehet is as much as to say in the 
Saracen tongue ' Tht Abode of Heretics^ " the fact being that it does represent the 
Arabic term Afu/htd, pi. Mtildhidah, "Impii, heretici," which is in the Persian 
histories (as of Rashfduddfn and Wassaf) the title most commonly used to indicate this 
community, and which is still applied by orthodox Mahomedans to the Nosairis, 
Druses, and other sects of that kind, more or less kindred to the Ismaili. The writer 
of the Tabakat-i-Ndsiri calls the sectarians of Alamut Muldhidat-ul-maut, " Heretics 
of Death." * The curious reading of the G. Text which we have preserved " vaut h 
dire des Aram," should be read as we have rendered it. I conceive that Marco was 
here unconsciously using one Oriental term to explain another. For it seems possible 
to explain Aram only as standing for Hardm, in the sense of " wicked " or 
"reprobate." 

In Pauthier's Text, instead of des aram, we find ^'veult dire en fran^ois Diez 
Terrien," or Terrestrial God. This may have been substituted, in the correction of 
the original rough dictation, from a perception that the first expression was unintel- 
ligible. The new phrase does not indeed convey the meaning of Muldhidah, but it 
expresses a main characteristic of the heretical doctrine. The correction was probably 
made by Polo himself; it is certainly of very early date. For in the romance 
of Bauduin de Sebourc, which I believe dates early in the 14th century, the Caliph, 
on witnessing the extraordinary devotion of the followers of the Old Man (see note r, 
ch. xxiv.), exclaims : 

" Par Mahon .... 
Vous estes Diex en terre, autre coze n'i a !" (I. p. 360.) 

So also Fr. Jacopo d'Aqui in the Imago Mundi, sa)-s of the Assassins : "Dicitur iis 
quod sunt in Paradise magno Dei Terreni" — expressions, no doubt, taken in both 
cases from Polo's book. 

Khanikoff, and before him J. R. Forster, have supposed that the name Mulehet 
represents Alamut. But the resemblance is much closer and more satisfactory to 

• Elliot, II. 290. 



142 MARCO POLO Book I. 

Mulhid or Muldhidah. Mulhet is precisely the name by which the kingdom of the 
Ismailites is mentioned in Armenian history, and Mulihet is already applied in the 
same way by Rabbi Benjamin in the I2th century, and by Rubruquis in the 13th. 
The Chinese narrative of Hulaku's expedition calls it the kingdom of Mulahi. 
(Joinville, p. 138 ; /. As. ser. II., tom. xii. 285 ; BenJ. Tudela, p. 106 ; Rub. p. 265 ; 
Rimusat, Nouv. Melanges, I. 176; Gaubil, p. 128; Pauthier, pp. cxxxix.-cxli. ; 
Mon. Hist. Pair. Scriptorum, III, 1559, Turin, 1848.) [Cf. on Mulehet, tnelahideh, 
Heretics, plural of molhid, Heretic, my note, pp. 476-482 of my ed. of Friar Odoric. 
— H. C] 

" Old Man of the Mountain " was the title applied by the Crusaders to the chief of 
that branch of the sect which was settled in the mountains north of Lebanon, being a 
translation of his popular Arabic title Shaikh-ul-Jibal. But according to Hammer 
this title properly belonged, as Polo gives it, to the Prince of Alamiit, who never 
called himself Sultan, Malik, or Amir; and this seems probable, as his territory was 
known as the Balad-td-Jibal. (See Abtdf. in Busching, V. 319.) 



CHAPTER XXIV. 

How THE Old Man used to train his Assassins. 

When therefore they awoke, and found themselves in a 
place SO charming, they deemed that it was Paradise in 
very truth. And the ladies and damsels dallied with them 
to their hearts' content, so that they had what young 
men would have ; and with their own good will they 
never would have quitted the place. 

Now this Prince whom we call the Old One kept his 
Court in grand and noble style, and made those simple 
hill-folks about him believe firmly that he was a great 
Prophet. And when he wanted one of his Ashishin to 
send on any mission, he would cause that potion where- 
of I spoke to be given to one of the youths in the garden, 
and then had him carried into his Palace. So when the 
young man awoke, he found himself in the Castle, and 
no longer in that Paradise ; whereat he was not over 
well pleased. He was then conducted to the Old Man's 
presence, and bowed before him with great veneration 
as believing himself to be in the presence of a true 



Chap. XXIV. THE OLD MAN'S ASSASSINS 1 43 

Prophet. The Prince would then ask whence he came, 
and he would reply that he came from Paradise! and 
that it was exactly such as Mahommet had described it 
in the Law. This of course gave the others who stood 
by, and who had not been admitted, the greatest desire 
to enter therein. 

So when the Old Man would have any Prince slain, 
he would say to such a youth : " Go thou and slay So 
and So ; and when thou returnest my Angels shall bear 
thee into Paradise. And shouldst thou die, natheless 
even so will I send my Angels to carry thee back into 
Paradise." So he caused them to believe; and thus 
there was no order of his that they would not affront 
any peril to execute, for the great desire they had to get 
back into that Paradise of his. And in this manner the 
Old One got his people to murder any one whom he 
desired to get rid of Thus, too, the great dread that 
he inspired all Princes withal, made them become his 
tributaries in order that he might abide at peace and 
amity with them.^ 

I should also tell you that the Old Man had certain 
others under him, who copied his proceedings and acted 
exactly in the same manner. One of these was sent into 
the territory of Damascus, and the other into Curdistan.^ 



Note r. — Romantic as this story is, it seems to be precisely the same that was 
current over all the East. It is given by Odoric at lengtli, more briefly by a Chinese 
author, and again from an Arabic source by Hammer in the Mines de r Orient. 

The following is the Chinese account as rendered by Remnsat : " The soldiers 
of this country (Mulahi) are veritable brigands, ^\"hen they see a lusty youth, they 
tempt him with the hope of gain, and bring him to such a point that he will be ready 
to kill his fether or his elder brother with his own hand. After he is enlisted, they 
intoxicate him, and carry him in that state into a secluded retreat, where he is 
charmed with delicious music and beautiful women. All his desires are satisfied for 
several days, and then (in sleep) he is transported back to his original position. When 
he awakes, they ask what he has seen. He is then informed that if he will become 
an Assassin, he will be rewarded with the same felicity. And with the texts and 
prayers that they teach him they heat him to such a pitch that whatever commissior) 
be given him he will brave death without regret in order to execute it," 



144 MARCO POLO Book I. 

The Arabic narrative is too long to extract. It is from a kind of historical 
romance called The Memoirs of Hakim, the date of which Hammer unfortunately 
omits to give. Its close coincidence in substance with Polo's story is quite remark- 
able. After a detailed description of the Paradise, and the transfer into it of the 
aspirant under the influence of bang, on his awaking and seeing his chief enter, he 
says, " O chief ! am I awake or am I dreaming?" To which the chief : " O such an 
One, take heed that thou tell not the dream to any stranger. Know that Ali thy 
Lord hath vouchsafed to show thee the place destined for thee in Paradise. . . . 
Hesitate not a moment therefore in the service of the Imam who thus deigns to 
intimate his contentment with thee," and so on. 

William de Nangis thus speaks of the Syrian Shaikh, who alone was known to 
the Crusaders, though one of their historians {Jacques de Vitry, in Bongars, I. 1062) 
shows knowledge that the headquarters of the sect was in Persia : " He was 
much dreaded far and near, by both Saracens and Christians, because he so often 
caused princes of both classes indifferently to be murdered by his emissaries. For he 
used to bring up in his palace youths belonging to his territory, and had them taught 
a variety of languages, and above all things to fear their Lord and obey him unto 
death, which would thus become to them an entrance into the joys of Paradise. And 
whosoever of them thus perished in carrying out his Lord's behests was worshipped as 
an angel." As an instance of the implicit obedience rendered by the Fiddwi or 
devoted disciples of the Shaikh, Fra Pipino and Marino Sanuto relate that when 
Henry Count of Champagne (titular King of Jerusalem) was on a visit to the Old Man 
of Syria, one day as they walked together they saw some lads in white sitting on the 
top of a high tower. The Shaikh, turning to the Count, asked if he had any subjects 
as obedient as his own ? and without giving time for reply made a sign (o two of the 
boys, who immediately leapt from the tower, and were killed on the spot. The 
same story is told in the Cento Novelle Antiche, as happening when the Emperor 
Frederic was on a visit (imaginary) to the Veglio. And it is introduced likewise as 
an incident in the Romance of Bauduin de Sebourc : 

" Voiles veioir merveilles ? dist li Rois Seignouris " 

to Bauduin and his friends, and on their assenting he makes the signal to one of his 
men on the battlements, and in a twinkling 

" Quant le vinrent en I'air salant de tel avis, 
Et aussi liement, et aussi esjois, 
Qu'il deust conquester mil livres de parisis ! 
Ains qu'il venist a ti^re il fut mors et fenis, 
Surles roches agues desrompis corps et pis," * etc. 

{Cathay, 153 ; Rimusat, Nouv. Mil. I. 178 ; Mines de f Orient, HI. 201 seaq. ; 
Nangis in Duchesne, V. 332 ; Pipino in Muratori, IX. 705 : Defrimery in J. As. 
%kx. V. torn. V. 34 seqq. ; Cent. Nov. Antiche, Firenze, 1572, p. 91 ; Bauduin de 
Sebourc, I. 359.) 

The following are some of the more notable murders or attempts at murder 
ascribed to the Ismailite emissaries either from Syria or from Persia : — 

A.D. 1092. Nizum-ul-Mulk, formerly the powerful minister of Malik Shah, 
Seljukian sovereign of Persia, and a little later his two sons. 1 102. The Prince of 
Homs, in the chief Mosque of that city. 1113. Maudud, Prince of Mosul, in the 
chief Mosque of Damascus. About 1 1 14. Abul Muzafar 'Ali, Wazir of Sanjar Shah, 
and Chakar Beg, grand-uncle of the latter. 11 16. Ahmed Yel, Prince of Maragha, 
at Baghdad, in the presence of Mahomed, Sultan of Persia. 1 121. The Amir 

* This story has been transferred to Peter the Great, who is alleged to have exhibited the docility 
of his subjects in the same way to the King of Denmark, by ordering a Cossack to jump from the 
Round Tower at Copenhagen, on the summit of which they were standing. 



Chap. XXV. DEATH OF THE OLD MAN 1 45 

Afdhal, the powerful Wazir of Egj-pt, at Cairo. 1 126. Kasim Aksonkor, Prince of 
Mosul and Aleppo, in the Great Mosque at Mosul. 1127. Moyin-uddin, Wazir of 
Sanjar Shah of Persia. 1129. Amfr Billah, Khalif of Egypt. 1 131. Taj-nl Muluk 
Buri, Prince of Damascus. 1134. Shams-ul-Muliik, son of the preceding. 1135-38. 
The Khalif Mostarshid, the Khalif Rashid, and Daud, Seljukian Prince of Azer- 
baijan. 1 149. Raymond, Count of Tripoli 1191. Kizil Arzlan, Prince of Azer- 
baijan- 1 192. Conrad of Montferrat, titular King of Jerusalem ; a murder which 
King Richard has been accused of instigating. 121 7. Oghulmish, Prince of 
Hamadan. 

And in 1174 and 1176 attempts to murder the great Saladin. 1271. Attempt to 
murder Ala'uddin Juwaini, Governor of Baghdad, and historian of the Mongols. 
1272. The attempt to murder Prince Edward of England at Acre. 

In latter years the Fiddwi or Israailite adepts appear to have let out their services 
simply as hired assassins. Bibars, in a letter to his court at Cairo, boasts of using 
them when needful. A Mahomedan author ascribes to Bibars the instigation of the 
attempt on Prince Edward. (Makrizi, H. 100; J. As. XI. 15a) 

Note 2. — Hammer mentions as what he chooses to call " Grand Priors" under 
the Shaikh or " Grand Master" at Alamiit, the chief, in Syria, one in the Kuhistan 
of E. Persia (Tun-o-Kain), one in Kumis (the country about Damghan and Bostam), 
and one in Irak ; he does not speak of any in Kurdistan. Colonel Monteith, however, 
says, though without stating authority or particulars, " There were several divisions 
of them (the Assassins) scattered throughout Syria, Kurdistan (near the Lake of Wan), 
and Asia Minor, but all acknowledging as Imaum or High Priest the Chief residing at 
Alamut." And it may be noted that Odoric, a generation after Polo, puts the Old 
Man at Millescorte, which looks like Malasgird, north of Lake Van. {H. des 
Assass. p. 10^', J. R. G. S. III. 16; Cathay, p. ccxliii.) 



CHAPTER XXV. 
How THE Old Man came by His End. 

Now it came to pass, in the year of Christ's Incarnation, 
1252, that Alaii, Lord of the Tartars of the Levant, 
heard tell of these great crimes of the Old Man, and 
resolved to make an end of him. So he took and sent 
one of his Barons with a great Army to that Castle, and 
they besieged it for three years, but they could not take 
it, so strong was it. And indeed if they had had food 
within it never would have been taken. But after being 
besieged those three years they ran short of victual, and 
were taken. The Old Man was put to death with all 
his men [and the Castle with its Garden of Paradise was 

VOL. I. K 



146 MARCO POLO Book I. 

levelled with the ground]. And since that time he has 
had no successor ; and there was an end to all his 
villainies.^ 

Now let us go back to our journey. 



Note i. — The date in Pauthier is 1242; in the G. T. and in I^musio 1262. 
Neither is right, nor certainly could Polo have meant the former. 

When Mangku Kaan, after his enthronement (1251), determined at a great 
Kurultai or Diet, on perfecting the Mongol conquests, he entrusted his brother 
Kublai with the completion of the subjugation of China and the adjacent countries, 
whilst his brother Hulaku received the command of the army destined for Persia and 
Syria. The complaints that came from the Mongol officers already in Persia deter- 
mined him to commence with the reduction of the Ismailites, and Hulaku set out 
from Karakorum in February, 1254. He proceeded with great deliberation, and the 
Oxus was not crossed till January, 1256. But an army had been sent long in advance 
under "one of his Barons," Kitubuka Noyan, and in 1253 it was already actively en- 
gaged in besieging the Ismailite fortresses. In 1255, during the progress of the war, 
Ala'uddin Mahomed, the reigning Prince of the Assassins (mentioned by Polo as 
Alaodin), was murdered at the instigation of his son Ruknuddin Khurshah, who 
succeeded to the authority. A year later (November, 1256) Ruknuddin surrendered to 
Hulaku. [Bretschneider (il/^f/. Res. H. p. 109) says that Alamiitwas taken by Hulaku, 
20th December, 1256. — H. C] The fortresses given up, all well furnished with pro- 
visions and artillery engines, were loo in number. Two of them, however, Lembeser 
and Girdkuh, refused to surrender. The former fell after a year ; the latter is stated 
to have held out for twenty years— 2LC\.\\2\\y , as it would seem, about fourteen, or till 
December, 1270. Ruknuddin was well treated by Hulaku, and despatched to the 
Court of the Kaan. The accounts of his death differ, but that most commonly alleged, 
according to Rashiduddin, is that Mangku Kaan was irritated at hearing of his ap- 
proach, asking why his post-horses should be fagged to no purpose, and sent 
executioners to put Ruknuddin to death on the road. Alamut had been surrendered 
without any substantial resistance. Some survivors of the sect got hold of it again in 
1275-1276, and held out for a time. The dominion was extinguished, but the sect 
remained, though scattered indeed and obscure. A very strange case that came before 
Sir Joseph Arnould in the High Court at Bombay in 1866 threw much new light on 
the survival of the Ismailis. 

Some centuries ago a Dai or Missionary of the Ismailis, named Sadruddin, made 
converts from the Hindu trading classes in Upper Sind. Under the name of Khojas 
the sect multiplied considerably in Sind, Kach'h, and Guzerat, whence they spread 
to Bombay and to Zanzibar. Their numbers in Western India are now probably not 
less than 50,000 to 60,000. Their doctrine, or at least the books which they revere, 
appear to embrace a strange jumble of Hindu notions with Mahomedan practices and 
Shiah mysticism, but the main characteristic endures of deep reverence, if not worship, 
of the person of their hereditary Imam. To his presence, when he resided in Persia, 
numbers of pilgrims used to betake themselves, and large remittances of what we may 
call IsmaiVs Pence were made to him. Abul Hassan, the last Imam but one of 
admitted lineal descent from the later Shaikhs of Alamut, and claiming (as they did) 
descent from the Imam Ismail and his great ancestor 'Ali Abu Talib, had considerable 
estates at Mehelati, betweeen Kiim and Hamadan, and at one time held the Govern- 
ment of Kerman. His son and successor. Shah Khalilullah, was killed in a brawl at 
Yczd in 1818. Fatteh 'Ali Shdh, fearing Ismailite vengeance, caused the homicide 
to be severely punished, and conferred gifts and honours on the young Imim, Agha 
Khan, including the hand of one of his own daughters. In 1S40 Agha Khan, who 



Chap. XXV. 



DEATH OF THE OLD MAN 



147 



had raised a revolt at Kerman, had to escape from Persia, He took refuge in Sind, 
and eventually rendered good service both to General Nott at Kandahar and to Six 
C. Napier in Sind, for which he receives a pension from our Government. 

For many years this genuine Heir and successor of the Viex de la MontaingHe has 
had his headquarters at Bombay, where he devotes, or for a loi^ time did demote, the 
lai^e income that he receives from the faithful to the maintenance of a racing stable, 
being the chief patron and promoter of the Bombay Turf ! 

A schism among the Khojas, owing apparently to the desire of part of the well-to- 
do Bombay community to sever themselves from the peculiarities of the sect and to 
set up as respectable Stmnis, led in 1866 to an action in the High Court, the object 
of which was to exclude Agha Khan from all rights over the Khojas, and to transfer the 
property of the community to the charge of Orthodox Mahomedans. To the 
elaborate addresses of Mr. Howard and Sir Joseph Amould, on this most singular 
process before an English Court, I owe the preceding particulars. The judgment was 
entirely in lavotu: of the Old Man of the Mountain. 




H. H. Agha Khan Mebelati, late Representative of the Old Man of the Mountain. 

"%t (StigntJr Bid, jjut jc boas *i bit si tient sa court . . . . xt fait a croixc 
a celt sitnpU gent qui li est rntout ntu ii est an grant prophctc." 



[Sir Bartle Frere writes of Agha Khan in 1875 : "Like his ancestor, the Old One 
of Marco Polo's time, he keeps his court in grand and noble style. His sons, 
popularly known as ' The Persian Princes,' are active sportsmen, and age has not 
dulled the Agha's enjoj-ment of horse-racing. Some of the best blood of Arabia is 
always to be found in his stables. He spares no expense on his racers, and no pre- 
judice of religion or race prevents his availing himself of the science and skill of an 
English trainer or jockey when the races come roimd. If tidings of war or threatened 
VOL. I. K 2 



148 



MARCO POLO Book I. 



disturbance should arise from Central Asia or Persia, the Agha is always one of the 
first to hear of it, and seldom fails to pay a visit to the Governor or to some old friend 
high in office to hear the news and offer the services of a tried sword and an ex- 
perienced leader to the Government which has so long secured him a quiet refuge for 
his old age." Agha Khan died in April, 1881, at the age of 81. lie was succeeded by 
his son Agha Ali Shah, one of the members of the Legislative Council. (See The 
Homeward Maily Overland Times of India, of 14th April, 1881.)] 

The Bokras of Western India are identified with the Imaml-lsmaiHs in some books, 
and were so spoken of in the first edition of this work. This is, however, an error, 
originally due, it would seem, to Sir John Malcolm. The nature of their doctrine, 
indeed, seems to be very much alike, and the Bohras, like the IsmaiHs, attach a 
divine character to their Mullah or chief pontiff, and make a pilgrimage to his 
presence once in life. But the persons so reverenced are quite different ; and the 
Bohras recognise all the 12 Imams of ordinary Shiahs. Their first appearance in India 
was early, the date which they assign being A. 11. 532 (a.d. 1137-I138). Their chief 
seat was in Yemen, from which a large emigration to India took place on its conquest 
by the Turks in 1538. Ibn Batuta seems to have met with Bohras at Gandar, near 
Baroch, in 1342. ( Voyages, IV. 58.) 

A Chinese account of the expedition of Hulaku will be found in Remusat's 
Nouveaux Milanges (I.), and in Pauthier's Introduction. (2- R. I15-219, esp. 213 ; 
Ilch. vol. i. ; J. A. S. B. VI. 842 seqq.) [A new and complete translation has been 
given by Dr. E. Bretschneider, Med. Res. I. 112 seqq. — H. C] 

There is some account of the rock of Alamiit and its exceedingly slender traces of 
occupancy, by Colonel Monteith, iny. R. G. S. III. 15, and again by Sir Justin Sheil 
in vol. viii. p. 431. There does not seem to be any specific authority for assigning the 
Paradise of the Shaikh to Alamiit ; and it is at least worthy of note that another of 
the castles of the Mulahidab, destroyed by Ilulaku, was called Firdiis, i.e. Paradise. 
In any case, I see no reason to suppose that Polo visited Alamiit, which would have 
been quite out of the road that he is following. 

It is possible that "the Castle," to which he alludes at the beginning of next 
chapter, and which set him off upon this digression, was Girdkuh.* It has not, as 
far as I know, been identified by modern travellers, but it stood within 10 or 12 miles 
of Damghan (to the west or north-west). It is probably the Tigado of llayton, of 
which he thus speaks : " The Assassins had an impregnable castle called Tigado, 
which was furnished with all necessaries, and was so strong that it had no fear of 
attack on any side, llowbeit, llaloon commanded a certain captain of his that he 
should take 10,000 Tartars who had been left in garrison in Persia, and with them 
lay siege to the said castle, and not leave it till he had taken it. Wherefore the said 
Tartars continued besieging it for seven whole years, winter and summer, without 
being able to take it. At last the Assassins surrendered, from sheer want of clothing, 
but not of victuals or other necessaries." So Ramusio ; other copies read "27 
years." In any case it corroborates the fact that Girdkuh was said to have held out 
for an extraordinary length of time. If Rashiduddin is right in naming 1270 as the 
date of surrender, this would be quite a recent event when the Polo party passed, 
and draw special attention to the spot. (y. As. ser. IV. tom. xiii. 48 ; Ilch. 1. 93, 104, 
274; Q. R. p. 278; Ritler, VI 11. 336.) A note which I have from DJihan Nttma 
(I. 259) connects Girdkuh with a district called Chitiar, This may be a clue to the 
term Arbre Sec ; but there are difficulties. 

* [Ghirdkuh means "round mountain" ; it was in the district of Kumis, three parasangs west of 
Damehan. Under the year 1257, the Yuan ski mentions the taking of the fortress of Gki-rk-du-kie 
by JCie-di-bu-hua. {Bretschneidtr, Med. Res. I. p. 122; II. no.>— H. C] 



Chap. XXVI. THE CITY OF SAPURGAN 1 49 

CHAPTER XXVI. 

Concerning the City of Sapurgan. 

On leaving the Castle, you ride over fine plains and 
beautiful valleys, and pretty hill-sides producing excellent 
grass pasture, and abundance of fruits, and all other 
products. Armies are glad to take up their quarters 
here on account of the plenty that exists. This kind of 
country extends for six days' journey, with a goodly 
number of towns and villages, in which the people are 
worshippers of Mahommet. Sometimes also you meet 
with a tract of desert extending for 50 or 60 miles, or 
somewhat less, and in these deserts you find no water, 
but have to carry it along with you. The beasts do 
without drink until you have got across the desert tract 
and come to watering places. 

So after travelling for six days as I have told you, 
you come to a city called Sapurgan. It has great 
plenty of everything, but especially of the very best 
melons in the world. They preserve them by paring 
them round and round into strips, and drying them in 
the sun. When dry they are sweeter than honey, and 
are carried off for sale all over the country.^ There is 
also abundance of game here, both of birds and beasts.^ 



Note i. — Sapurgan may closely express the pronunciation of the name of the 
city which the old Arabic writers call Saburkdn and Shaburkdn, now called Shibrgdn^ 
lying some 90 miles west of Balkh ; containing now some I2,CXX3 inhabitants, and 
situated in a plain still richly cultivated, thotigh on the verge of the desert. * But I 
have seen no satisfactory solution of the difiSculties as to the time assigned. This in 
the G. T. and in Ramusio is clearly six days. The point of departure is indeed un- 
certain, but even if we were to place that at Sharakhs on the extreme veige of 

* The oldest form of the name is Asapuragdn, which Rawlinson thinks traceable to its being an 
ancient scat of the Asa or Asagartii. (/. R. A. S. XI. 63.) 



150. MARCO POLO Book I. 

cultivated Khorasan, which would be quite inconsistent with other data, it would 
have taken the travellers something like double the time to reach Shfbrgan. Where 
I have followed the G. T. in its reading " quant fen a chevatichis six jorii^e tel che 
je vos ai contis, adunc treuve Fen une citi" etc., Pauthier's text has *' Et quant ten 
a chevauchU les vi cites, si treuve Ven une citi qui a 110m Sapurgan" and to this that 
editor adheres. But I suspect that cit^s is a mere lapsus for journdes, as in the 
reading in one of his three MSS. What could be meant by " chevauchier les vi citis " .? 
Whether the true route be, as I suppose, by Nishapur and Meshid, or, as 
Khanikoff supposes, by Herat and Badghis, it is strange that no one of those famous 
cities is mentioned. And we feel constrained to assume that something has been 
misunderstood in the dictation, or has dropt out of it. As a probable conjecture I 
should apply the six days to the extent of pleasing country described in the first lines 
of the chapter, and identify it with the tract between Sabzawur and the cessation of 
fertile country beyond Meshid. The distance would agree well, and a comparison 
with Fraser or Ferrier will show that even now the description, allowing for the 
compression of an old recollection, would be well founded ; e.g. on the first march 
beyond Nishapur : " Fine villages, with plentiful gardens full of trees, that bear fruit 
of the highest flavour, may be seen all along the foot of the hills, and in the little 
recesses formed by the ravines whence issues the water that irrigates them. It was a 
rich and pleasing scene, and out of question by far the most populous and cultivated 

tract that I had seen in Persia Next morning we quitted Derrood .... by 

a very indifferent but interesting road, the glen being finely wooded with walnut, 
mulberry, poplar, and willow-trees, and fruit-tree gardens rising one above the other 

upon the mountain-side, watered by little rills These gardens extended for 

several miles up the glen ; beyond them the bank of the stream continued to be 
fringed with white sycamore, willow, ash, mulberry, poplar, and woods that love a 
moist situation," and so on, describing a style of scenery not common in Persia, and 
expressing diffusely (as it seems to me) the same picture as Polo's two lines. In the 
valley of Nishapur, again (we quote Arthur Conolly) : "'This is Persia !' was the 
vain exclamation of those who were alive to the beauty of the scene ; ' this is Persia ! ' 
Bah! Bah I What grass, what grain, what water ! Bah! Bah ! 

[ ' If there be a Paradise on the face of the Earth, 
This is it 1 This is it ! This is it ! ' "]— (I. 209. ) , 

(See Fraser, 405, 432-433. 434. 436-) 

With reference to the dried melons of Shibrgan, Quatrem^re cites a history of 
Herat, which speaks of them almost in Polo's words. Ibn Batuta gives a like account 
of the melons of Kharizm : " The surprising thing about these melons is the way the 
people have of slicing them, drying them in the sun, and then packing them in 
baskets, just as Malaga figs are treated in our part of the world. In this state they 
are sent to the remotest parts of India and China. There is no dried fruit so 
delicious, and all the while I lived at Delhi, when the travelling dealers came in, I never 
missed sending for these dried strips of melon." {Q. li. 169 ; /. B. III. 15.) Here, 
in the 14th century, we seem to recognise the Afghan dealers arriving in the cities of 
Hindustan with their annual camel-loads of dried fruits, just as we have seen them in 
our own day. 



Chap. XXVII. THE CITY OF BALC I5I 

CHAPTER XXVI I. 

Of the City of Balc. 

Balc is a noble city and a great, though it was much 
greater in former days. But the Tartars and other 
nations have greatly ravaged and destroyed it. There 
were formerly many fme palaces and buildings of marble, 
and the ruins of them still remain. The people of the 
city tell that it was here that Alexander took to wife 
the daughter of Darius. 

Here, you should be told, is the end of the empire 
of the Tartar Lord of the Levant. And this city is also 
the limit of Persia in the direction between east and 
north-east.^ 

Now, let us quit this city, and I will tell you of 
another country called Dogana.^ 

When you have quitted the city of which I have 
been speaking, you ride some 12 days between north- 
east and east, without finding any human habitation, for 
the people have all taken refuge in fastnesses among the 
mountains, on account of the Banditti and armies that 
harassed them. There is plenty of water on the road, 
and abundance of game ; there are lions too. You can 
get no provisions on the road, and must carry with you 
all that you require for these 1 2 days.^ 



Note i. — Balkh, "the mother of cities," suffered mercilessly firom Chinghiz. 
Though the city had yielded without resistance, the whole population was marched 
by companies into the plain, on the usual Mongol pretext of coimting them, and then 
brutally massacred. The city and its gardens were fired, and all buildings capable 
of defence were levelled. The province long continued to be harried by the Chagha- 
taian inroads. Ibn Batuta, sixty years after Marco's visit, describes the city as still 
in ruins, and as uninhabited : " The remains of its mosques and colleges," he says, 
"are still to be seen, and the painted walls traced with azure." It is no doubt the 
Vaeq (VaJq) of Clavijo, "very large, and surrounded by a broad earthen wall, 
thirty paces across, but breached in many parts." He describes a large portion erf 



152 MARCO POLO Book I. 

the area within as sown with cotton. The account of its modern state in Burnes and 
Ferrier is much the same as Ibn Batuta's, except that they found some population ; 
two separate towns within the walls according to the latter. Burnes estimates the 
circuit of the ruins at 20 miles. The bulk of the population has been moved since 
1858 to Takhtapul, 8 miles east of Balkh, where the Afghan Government is placed. 

{Erdmann, 404-405; /. B. III. 59 ; Clavijo, p. 117 ; Burnes, II. 204-206; Ferrier, 
206-207.) 

According to the legendary history of Alexander, the beautiful Roxana was the 
daughter of Darius, and her father in a dying interview with Alexander requested the 
latter to make her his wife : — 

" Une fiUe ai mult bele ; se prendre le voles. 
Vus en seres de I'mont tout li mius maries," etc. 

{Lambert Le Courts p. 256. ) 

Note 2. — The country called Dogana in the G. Text is a puzzle. In the former 
edition I suggested Juzgdna, a name which till our author's time was applied to a 
part of the adjoining territory, though not to that traversed in quitting Balkh for the 
east. Sir H. Rawlinson is inclined to refer the name to Dehgdn, or " villager," a term 
applied in Bactria, and in Kabul, to Tajik peasantry.* I may also refer to certain 
passages in Baber's " Memoirs," in which he speaks of a place, and apparently a 
district, called Dehdnah, which seems from the context to have lain in the vicinity of 
the Ghori, or Aksarai River. There is still a village in the Ghori territory, called 
Dehdnah. Though this is worth mentioning, where the true solution is so uncertain, 
I acknowledge the difficulty of applying it. I may add also that Baber calls the 
River of Ghori or Aksarai, the Dogh-ihah. [Sprenger, P. und R. Botiten, p. 39 and 
Map; Anderson in/. A. S. B. XXII. 161 ; Ilch. II. 93; Baber, pp. 132, 134, 168, 
200, also 146.) 

Note 3. — Though Burnes speaks of the part of the road that we suppose 
necessarily to have been here followed from Balkh towards Taican, as barren and 
dreary, he adds that the ruins of aqueducts and houses proved that the land had at 
one time been peopled, though now destitute of water, and consequently of inhabi- 
tants. The country would seem to have reverted at the time of Burnes' journey, 
from like causes, nearly to the state in which Marco found it after the Mongol 
devastations. 

Lions seem to mean here the real king of beasts, and not tigers, as hereafter in 
the book. Tigers, though found on the S. and W. shores of the Caspian, do not 
seem to exist in the Oxus valley. On the other hand, Rashiduddin tells us that, when 
Hulaku was reviewing his army after the passage of the river, several lions were 
started, and two were killed. The lions are also mentioned by Sidi 'All, the 
Turkish Admiral, further down the valley towards Hazarasp : " We were obliged to 
fight with the lions day and night, and no man dared to go alone for water." 
Moorcroft says of the plain between Kunduz and the Oxus: "Deer, foxes, wolves, 
hogs, and lions are numerous, the latter resembling those in the vicinity of Hariana " 
(in Upper India). Wood also mtentions lions in Kuldb, and at Kila'chap on the 
Oxus. Q. Curtius tells how Alexander killed a great lion in the country north of 
the Oxus towards Samarkand. [A similar story is told of Timur in The Mulfuzat 
TimUry, translated by Major Charles Stewart, 1830 (p. 69): "During the march 
' (near Balkh) ' two lions made their appearance, one of them a male, the other a 
female. I (Timur) resolved to kill them myself, and having shot them both with 
arrows, I considered this circumstance as a lucky omen." — H. C] {Burnes, II. 200 ; 
Q. R. 15s; Ilch. I. 90;/. As. IX. 217; Moorcroft, II. 430; Wood, ed. 1872, 
pp. 259, 260 ; Q. C. VII. 2.) 

* It maybe observed that the careful Elphinstonc distinguishes from this general application of 
Dehg&n or Dehkdn, the name Deggdn applied to a tribe "once spread over the north-east pf 
Afghanistan, but nr-w as a separate people only in Kunar and Laghm^ri." 



Chap. XXVIII. THE PROVINCE OF CASEM 1 53 



CHAPTER XXVIII. 

Of Taican, and the Mountains of Salt. Also of the Pro- 
vince OF Casem. 

After those twelve days' journey you come to a forti- 
fied place called Taican, where there is a great com 
market.^ It is a fine place, and the mountains that you 
see towards the south are all composed of salt. People 
from all the countries round, to some thirty days' journey, 
come to fetch this salt, which is the best in the world, 
and is so hard that it can only be broken with iron picks. 
'Tis in such abundance that it would supply the whole 
world to the end of time. [Other mountains there grow 
almonds and pistachioes, which are exceedingly cheap. J 

When you leave this town and ride three days 
further between north-east and east, you meet with 
many fine tracts full of vines and other fruits, and with 
a goodly number of habitations, and everything to be 
had very cheap. The people are worshippers of Ma- 
hommet, and are an evil and a murderous generation, 
whose great delight is in the wine shop ; for they have 
good wine (albeit it be boiled), and are great topers ; in 
truth, they are constantly getting drunk. They wear 
nothing on the head but a cord some ten palms long 
twisted round it. They are excellent huntsmen, and 
take a great deal of game ; in fact they wear nothing 
but the skins of the beasts they have taken in the chase, 
for they make of them both coats and shoes. Indeed, 
all of them are acquainted with the art of dressing skins 
for these purposes.^ 

When you have ridden those three days, you find a 
town called Casem,* which is subject to a count. His 
other towns and villages are on the hills, but through this 



154 MARCO POLO Book I. 

town there flows a river of some size. There are a great 
many porcupines hereabouts, and very large ones too. 
When hunted with dogs, several of them will get together 
and huddle close, shooting their quills at the dogs, which 
get many a serious wound thereby.^ 

This town of Casem is at the head of a very great pro- 
vince, which is also called Casem. The people have a 
peculiar language. The peasants who keep cattle abide 
in the mountains, and have their dwellings in caves, which 
form fine and spacious houses for them, and are made with 
ease, as the hills are composed of earth. ^ 

After leaving the town of Casem, you ride for three 
days without finding a single habitation, or anything to 
eat or drink, so that you have to carry with you every- 
thing that you require. At the end of those three days 
you reach a province called Badashan, about which we 
shall now tell you.^ 



Note i. — The Taican of Polo is the still existing Tatjkan in the province of 
Kataghan or Kunduz, but it bears the former name {Thdtkdn) in the old Arab 
geographies. Both names are used by Baber, who says it lay in the Ulugh Bdgh, or 
Great Garden, a name perhaps acquired by the Plains of Talikan in happier days, but 
illustrating what Polo says of the next three days' march. The Castle of Talikan 
resisted Chinghiz for seven months, and met with the usual fate (1221). [In the 
Travels of Sidi Ali, son of Housain {Jour. Asiat., October, 1826, p. 203), " Talikan, in 
the country of Badakhschan" is mentioned. — H. C] Wood speaks of Talikan in 1838 
as a poor place of some 300 or 400 houses, mere hovels ; a recent account gives it 500 
families. Market days are not usual in Upper India or Kabul, but are universal in 
Badakhshan and the Oxus provinces. The bazaars are only open on those days, and 
the people from the surrounding country then assemble to exchange goods, generally 
by barter. Wood chances to note: "A market was held at Talikan. . . . The 
thronged state of the roads leading into it soon apprised us that the day was no ordi- 
nary one." {Abulf. in Bilsching, V. 352 ; Sprenger, p. 50 ; P. de la Croix, I. 63 ; 
Baber, 38, 130; Burnes, III. 8; Wood, 156; Pa7tdit ManphuTs Report.) 

The distance of Talikan from Balkh is about 170 miles, which gives very short 
marches, if twelve days be the correct reading. Ramusio has two days, which is 
certainly wrong. XII. is easily miswritten for VII., which would be a just number. 

Note 2. — In our day, as I learn from Pandit Manphul, the mines of rock salt are 
at Ak Bulak, near the Lataband Pass, and at Daruna, near the Kokcha, and these 
supply the whole of Badakhshan, as well as Kunduz and Chitrdl. These sites are due 
east of Talikan, and are in Badakhshan. But there is a mine at Chdl, S.E. or 
S.S.E. of Talikan and within the same province. There are also mines of rock-salt 
near the famous "stone bridge" in Kulab, north of the Oxus, and again on the south 



Chap. XXVIII. THE PROVINCE OF CASEM I55 

of the Ala! steppe. (Papers by Manphul and by Faiz Baish; also Nofes by 
Feachenko.) 

Both pistachioes and wild almonds are mentioned by Pandit Man{^al ; and see 
Wood (p. 252) on the beauty and profusion of the latter. 

NoTB 3. — Wood thinks that the Tajik inhabitants of Badakhshan and the 
adjoining districts are substantially of the same race as the Kafir tribes of Hindu 
Kush. At the time of Polo's visit it would seem that their conversion to Islam was 
imperfect. They were probably in that transition state which obtains in our own day 
for some of the Hill Mahomedans adjoining the Kafirs on the south side of the 
mountains the reproachful title of Nimchah Musulmdn, or Half-and-halfs. Thus 
they would seem to have retained sundry Kafir characteristics ; among others that 
love of wine which is so strong among the Kafirs. The boiling of the wine is noted 
by Baber (a connoisseur) as the custom of Nijrao, adjoining, if not then included in, 
Kafir-land ; and Elphinstone implies the continuance of the custom when he speaks 
of the Kafirs as having wine of the consistence of jelly, and very strong. The wine of 
Kdpishi, the Greek Kapisa, immediately south of Hindu Kush, was famous as early 
as the time of the Hindu grammarian Panini, say three centuries B.C. The cord 
twisted round the head was probably also a relic of Kafir costume: "Few of the 
Kafirs cover the head, and when they do, it is with a narrow band or fillet of goat's 
hair .... about a yard or a yard and a half in length, wound round the head." 
This style of head-dress seems to be very ancient in India, and in the Sanchi sculptures 
is that of the supposed Dasyas. Something very similar, i.e. a scanty turban cloth 
twisted into a mere cOrd, and wound two or three times round the head, is often 
seen in the Panjab to this day. 

The Posttn or sheepskin coat is almost universal on both sides of the Hindu Kush ; 
and Wood notes :. " The shoes in use resemble half- boots, made of goatskin, and 
mostly of home manufacture." {Baber, 145 ; /. A. S. B. XXVIII. 348, 364 ; 
Elphimt. II. 384 ; Ind. Antiquary, I. 22 ; Wood, 174, 220;/. R. A. S. XIX. 2.) 

Note 4. — Marsden was right in identifpng Scassem or Casern with the Kecheni of 
D'Anville's Map, but wrong in confounding the latter with the Kishmabad of Elphin- 
stone — properly, I believe, Kishnabad—'xa. the Anderab Valley. Kashm, or Keshni, 
found its way into maps through Petis de la Croix, firom whom probably D'An\n]le 
adopted it ; but as it was ignored by Elphinstone (or by Macartney, who constructed 
his map), and by Burnes, it dropped out of our geography. Indeed, Wood does not 
notice it except as giving name to a high hill called the Hill of Kishm, and the position 
even of that he omits to indicate. The frequent mention of Kishm in the histories of 
Timur and Humayun (e.^. P. de la Croix, I. 167; A1 et E. XIV. 223, 491 ; Erskine^s 
Baber and Humayun, II. 330, 355, etc.) had enabled me to determine its position 
within tolerably narrow limits ; but desiring to fix it definitely, application was made 
through Colonel Maclagan to Pandit Manphul, C.S.I., a very intelligent Hindu gentle- 
inan, who resided for some time in Badakhshan as agent of the Panjab Government, 
and firom him arrived a special note and sketch, and afterwards a MS. copy of a 
Report,* which set the position of Kishm at rest. 

Kishm is the Kilissemo, i.e. Karisma or Krishma, of Hiuen Tsang ; and Sir H. 
Rawlinson has identified the Hill of Kishm with the Mount Kharesem of the Zend- 
Avesta, on which Jamshid placed the most sacred of all the fires. It is now a small 
town or large village on the right bank of the Varsach river, a tributary of the Kokcha. 
It was in 1866 the seat of a district ruler under the Mir of Badakhshan, who was 
styled the Mir of Kishm, and is the modem counterpart of Marco's Qtuns or Count. 
The modern caravan-road between Kunduz and Badakhshan does not pass through 
Kishm, which is left some five miles to the right, but through the town of Mashhad, 
which stands on the same river. Kishm is the warmest district of Badakhshan. Its 

* Since published in /. K. G. S. toL xlii 



156 MARCO POLO Book I. 

fruits are abundant, and ripen a month earlier than those at Faizabad, the capital of 
that country. The Varsach or Mashhad river is Marco's *' Flum auques grant P 
Wood {247) calls it "the largest stream we had yet forded in Badakhshan." 

It is very notable that in Ramusio, in Pipino, and in one passage of the G. Text, 
the name is written Scasem, which has led some to suppose the Ish-Kdshm of Wood 
to be meant. That place is much too far east — in fact, beyond the city which forms 
the subject of the next chapter. The apparent hesitation, however, between the forms 
Casern and Scasem suggests that the Kishm of our note may formerly have been 
termed S'kashm or Ish-Kashm, a form frequent in the Oxus Valley, e.g. Ish-Kimisk, 
Ish-Kdshm, Ishtrakh, Ishpingao. General Cunningham judiciously suggests [Ladak, 
34) that this form is merely a vocal corruption of the initial S before a consonant, a 
combination which always troubles the Musulman in India, and converts every Mr. 
Smith or Mr. Sparks into Ismit or Ispak Sahib. 

[There does not seem to me any difficulty about this note : " Shibarkhan (Afghan 
Turkistan), Balkh, Kunduz, Khanabad, Talikan, Kishm, Badakhshan." I am 
tempted to look for Dogana at Khanabad. — H. C] 

Note 5. — The belief that the porcupine projected its quills at its assailants was an 
ancient and persistent one — " cum intendit cutem missiles" says Pliny {VIII. 35, and 
see also Aelian. de Nat. An. I. 31), and is held by the Chinese as it was held by the 
ancients, but is universally rejected by modern zoologists. The huddling and coiling 
appears to be a true characteristic, for the porcupine always tries to shield its head. 

Note 6. — The description of Kishm as a "very great " province is an example of 
a bad habit of Marco's, which recurs in the next chapter. What he says of the cave- 
dwellings may be illustrated by Burnes's account of the excavations at Bamian, in a 
neighbouring district. These " still form the residence of the greater part of the 

population The hills at Bamian are formed of indurated clay and pebbles, 

which renders this excavation a matter of little difficulty." Similar occupied excava- 
tions are noticed by Moorcroft at Heibak and other places towards Khulm. 

Curiously, Pandit Manphul says of the districts about the Kokcha : "Both their 
hills and plains are productive, the former being mostly composed of earth, having very 
little of7-ocky substance." 

Note 7. — The capital of Badakhshan is now Faizabad, on the right bank of the 
Kokcha, founded, according to Manphul, by Yarbeg, the first Mfr of the present 
dynasty. When this family was displaced for a time, by Murad Beg of Kunduz, 
about 1829, the place was abandoned for years, but is now re-occupied. The ancient 
capital of Badakhshan stood in the Dasht (or Plain) of Baharak, one of the most 
extensive pieces of level in Badakhshan, in which the rivers Vardoj, Zardeo, and 
Sarghalan unite with the Kokcha, and was apparently termed JauzgHn. This was 
probably the city called Badakhshan by our traveller.* As far as I can estimate, by 
the help of Wood and the map I have compiled, this will be from loo to no miles 
distant from Talikan, and will therefore suit fairly with the six marches that Marco 
lays down. 

Wood, in 1838, found the whole country between Talikan and Faizabad nearly as 
depopulated as Marco found that between Kishm and Badakhshan. The modern 
depopulation was due — in part, at least — to the recent oppressions and razzias of the 
Uzbeks of Kunduz. On their decline, between 1840 and 1850, the family of the 
native Mfrs was reinstated, and these now rule at Faizabad, under an acknowledgment, 
since 1859, of Afghan supremacy. 

• Wilford, in the end of the i8th century, speaks of Faizabad as "the new cajjital of Badakhshan, 
built near the site of the old one." The Chinese map {vide J. R. G. S. vol. xlii.) represents the city 
oi Badakhshan to the east of Faizabad. Faiz Bakhsh, in an unpublished paper, mentions a tradition 
that the Lady Zobeidah, dear to English children, the daughter of Al-Mansur and wife of Ar-Rashid, 
delighted to pass the spring at Jauzgun, and built a palace there, ' ' the ruins of which are still visible." 



Chap. XXIX THE PROVINCE OF BADASHAN I.57 

CHAPTER XXIX. 

Of the Province of Badashan. 

Badashan is a Province inhabited by people who worship 
Mahommet, and have a peculiar language. It forms a 
very great kingdom, and the royalty is hereditary. All 
those of the royal blood are descended from King Alex- 
ander and the daughter of King Darius, who was Lord 
of the vast Empire of Persia. And all these kings call 
themselves in the Saracen tongue Zulcarniain, which is 
as much as to say Alexander ; and this out of regard for 
Alexander the Great. ^ 

It is in this province that those fine and valuable gems 
the Balas Rubies are found. They are got in certain 
rocks among the mountains, and in the search for them 
the people dig great caves underground, just as is done 
by miners for silver. There is but one special mountain 
that produces them, and it is called Syghinan. The stones 
are dug on the king's account, and no one else dares dio- 
in that mountain on pain of forfeiture of life as well as 
goods ; nor may any one carry the stones out of the 
kingdom. But the king amasses them all, and sends 
them to other kings when he has tribute to render, or 
when he desires to offer a friendly present ; and such only 
as he pleases he causes to be sold. Thus he acts in order 
to keep the Balas at a high value ; for if he were to allow 
everybody to dig, they would extract so many that the 
world would be glutted with them, and they would cease 
to bear any value. Hence it is that he allows so few to 
be taken out, and is so strict in the matter.* 

There is also in the same country another mountain, 
in which azure is found ; 'tis the finest in the world, and 
is got in a vein like silver. There are also other 



158 MARCO POLO Book I. 

mountains which contain a great amount of silver ore, so 
that the country is a very rich one ; but it is also (it must 
be said) a very cold one.^ It produces numbers of 
excellent horses, remarkable for their speed. They are 
not shod at all, although constantly used in mountainous 
country, and on very bad roads. [They go at a great 
pace even down steep descents, where other horses neither 
would nor could do the like. And Messer Marco was 
told that not long ago they possessed in that province a 
breed of horses from the strain of Alexander's horse 
Bucephalus, all of which had from their birth a particular 
mark on the forehead. This breed was entirely in the 
hands of an uncle of the king's ; and in consequence ol 
his refusing to let the king have any of them, the latter 
put him to death. The widow then, in despite, destroyed 
the whole breed, and it is now extinct.*] 

The mountains of this country also supply Saker 
falcons of excellent flight, and plenty of Lanners like- 
wise. Beasts and birds for the chase there are in great 
abundance. Good wheat is grown, and also barley with- 
out husk. They have no olive oil, but make oil from 
sesame, and also from walnuts.^ 

[In the mountains there are vast numbers of sheep — 
400, 500, or 600 in a single flock, and all of them wild ; 
and though many of them are taken, they never seem to 
get aught the scarcer.^ 

Those mountains are so lofty that 'tis a hard day's 
work, from morning till evening, to get to the top of 
them. On getting up, you find an extensive plain, with 
great abundance of grass and trees, and copious springs 
of pure water running down through rocks and ravines. 
In those brooks are found trout and many other fish of 
dainty kinds ; and the air in those regions is so pure, and 
residence there so healthful, that when the men who dwell 
below in the towns, and in the valleys and plains, find 



Chap. XXIX. 



THE PROVINCE OF BADASHAN 



159 



themselves attacked by any kind of fever or other ailment 
that may hap, they lose no time in going to the hills ; and 
after abiding there two or three days, they quite recover 
their health through the excellence of that air. And 
Messer Marco said he had proved this by experience : for 
when in those parts he had been ill for about a year, but 




Ancient Silver Patera of debased Greek an, formerly in the possession of the Princes of Badalch- 
shan, now in the India Museum. (Four-ninths of the diameter of the Original.) 

as soon as he was advised to visit that mountain, he did 
so and got well at once.'] 

In this kingdom there are many strait and perilous 
passes, so difficult to force that the people have no fear of 
invasion. Their towns and villages also are on lofty hills, 



l6o MARCO POLO Book I. 

and in very strong positions.^ They are excellent archers, 
and much given to the chase ; indeed, most of them are 
dependent for clothing on the skins of beasts, for stuffs 
are very dear among them. The great ladies, however, 
are arrayed in stuffs, and I will tell you the style of their 
dress ! They all wear drawers made of cotton cloth, and 
into the making of these some will put 60, 80, or even 
100 ells of stuff. This they do to make themselves look 
large in the hips, for the men of those parts think that to 
be a great beauty in a woman. ^ 



Note i. — "The population of Badakhshan Proper is composed of Tajiks, Turks, 
and Arabs, who are all Sunnis, following the orthodox doctrines of the Mahomedan 
law, and speak Persian and Turki, whilst the people of the more mountainous tracts 
are Tajiks of the Shia creed, having separate provincial dialects or languages of their 
own, the inhabitants of the principal places combining therewith a knowledge of 
Persian, Thus, the Shighndni [sometimes called Shighni\ is spoken in Shignan and 
Roshan, the Ishkdshami in Ishkasham, the Wakhi in Wakhan, the Sanglichi in 
Sanglich and Zebak, and the Minjdni in Minjan. All these dialects materially differ 
from each other." {Pand. Manphul.) It may be considered almost certain that 
Badakhshan Proper also had a peculiar dialect in Polo's time. Mr. Shaw speaks of the 
strong resemblance to Kashmiris of the Badakhshan people whom he had seen. 

The Legend of the Alexandrian pedigree of the Kings of Badakhshan is spoken of 
by Baber, and by earlier Eastern authors. This pedigree is, or was, claimed also by 
the chiefs of Karategin, Darwaz, Roshan, Shighnan, Wakhan, Chitral, Gilgit, Swat, 
and Khapolor in Balti. Some samples of those genealogies may be seen in that strange 
document called " Gardiner's Travels." 

In Badakhshan Proper the story seems now to have died out. Indeed, though 
Wood mentions one of the modern family of Mfrs as vaunting this descent, these are 
in fact Sdhibzddahs of Samarkand, who were invited to the country about the middle 
of the 17th century, and were in no way connected with the old kings. 

The traditional claims to Alexandrian descent were probably due to a genuine 
memory of the Graeco-Bactrian kingdom, and might have had an origin analogous to 
the Sultan's claim to be "Caesar of Rome"; for the real ancestry of the oldest 
dynasties on the Oxus was to be sought rather among the Tochari and Ephthalites 
than among the Greeks whom they superseded. 

The cut on p. 159 presents an interesting memorial of the real relation of Bactria 
to Greece, as well as of the pretence of the Badakhshan princes to Grecian descent. 
This silver patera was sold by the family of the Mirs, when captives, to the Minister 
of the Uzbek chief of Kunduz, and by him to Dr. Percival Lord in 1838. It is now 
in the India Museum. On the bottom is punched a word or two in Pehlvi, and there 
is also a word incised in Syriac or Uighur. It is curious that a pair of paterae were 
acquired by Dr. Lord under the circumstances stated. The other, similar in material 
and form, but apparently somewhat larger, is distinctly Sassanian, representing a king 
spearing a lion. 

Zu-'lkarnain, " the Two-Horned," is an Arabic epithet of Alexander, with which 
legends have been connected, but which probably arose from the horned portraits on 
bis coins. [Capus, I.e. p. 121, says, " Iskandr Zoulcarnein or Alexander le Coniu, 



Chap. XXIX. THE RUBIES OF BADASHAN l6l 

horns being the emblem of strength." — H. C] The term appears in Chaucer {Trail, 
and Cress. III. 931) in the sense oi tion plus : — 

" I am, till God me better minde send. 
At dulcamon, right at my wittes end." 

And it is said to have still colloquial existence in that sense in some comers of England. 
This use is said to have arisen from the Arabic application of the term {Bicorne) to the 
47th Proposition of Euclid. [Baber, 13; N. et E. XIV. 490; N. An. des V. xxvL 
296 ; Burnes, III. 186 seqq. ; Wood, 155, 244 ;/. A. S. B. XXII. 3C0 ; Ayeen Akbery, 
II. 185 ; see N. and Q. ist Series, vol. v.) 

Note 2. — I have adopted in the text for the name of the country that one of the 
several forms in the G. Text which comes nearest to the correct name, viz. Badascian. 
But Balacian also appears both in that and in Pauthier's text. This represents 
Balakhshdn, a form also sometimes used in the East. Hay ton has Balaxcen, Clavijo 
Balaxia, the Catalan Map BaUlassia. From the form Balakhsh the Balas Ruby got 
its name. As Ibn Batuta says: "The Mountains of Badakhshan have given their 
name to the Badakhshi Ruby, vulgarly called Al Balaksh." Albertus Magnus says 
the Balagius is the female of the Carbuncle or Ruby Proper, "and some say it is his 
house, and hath thereby got the name, quasi Palatium Carbunculi ! " The Balais or 
Balas Ruby is, Uke the Spinel, a kind inferior to the real Ruby of Ava. The author 
of the Masdlak al Absdr says the finest Balas ever seen in the Arab countries was one 
presented to Malek 'Adil Ketboga, at Damascus ; it was of a triangular form and 
weighed 50 drachms. The prices of Balasci in Eiu-ope in that age may be found in 
Pegolotti, but the needful problems are hard to solve. 

" No sapphire in Inde, no Ruble rich of price. 
There lacked than, nor Emeraud so grene, 
Balis, Turk^s, ne thing to my device." 

(Chaucer, ' Court of LoveJ") 

" L'altra letizia, che m'era gia nota, 
Preclara cosa mi si fece in vista, 
Qual fin balascio in che lo Sol percuoto." 
(Paradiso, ix. 67.) 

Some account of the Balakhsh from Oriental sources will be found in /. As. skr. 
V. tom. xi. 109. 

(/. B. III. 59, 394 ; Alb. Mag. de Mineralibus ; Pegol. p. 307 ; N. et E. XIII. 
i. 246.) 

["The Mohammedan authors of the Mongol period mention Badakhshan several 
limes in connection with the political and military events of that period. Guchluk, 
the 'gurkhan of Karakhitai,' was slain in Badakhshan in 1218 (d^Oksson, I. 272). In 
1221, the Moiigols invaded the country {I.e. I. 272). On the same page, d'Ohsson 
translates a short account of Badakhshan by Yakut ( + 1229), stating that this moun- 
tainous country is famed for its precious stones, and especially rubies, called Balakhsh." 
(Bretschneider, Med. Res. II. p. 66.)— H. C] 

The account of the royal monopoly in working the mines, etc., has continued 
accurate down to our own day. When Murad B^ of Kunduz conquered Badakhshan 
some forty years ago, in disgust at the small produce of the mines, he abandoned 
working them, and sold nearly all the population of the place into slavery ! They 
continue still unworked, unless clandestinely. In 1866 the reigning Mir had one of 
them opened at the request of Pandit Manphul, but without much result. 

The locality of the mines is on the right bank of the Oxus, in the district of Ish 
Kashm and on the borders of Shignan, the Syghinan of the text. {P. Manph. ; 
Wood, 206 ; N. Ann. des. V. xxvi. 300. ) 

[The ruby mines are really in the Gharan country, which extends along both banks 
VOL. I. L 



,\ 



y- 



162 MARCO POLO Book I. 

of the Oxus. Barshar is one of the deserted villages ; the boundary between Ghiran 
and Shignan is the Kuguz Parin (in Shighai dialect means "holes in the rock") ; the 
Persian equivalent is " Rafak-i-Somakh." (Cf. Captain Trotter, Forsyth's Mission, 
p. 277. )-H. C] 

Note 3. — The mines oi Ldjwtird (whence PAzur and Lazuli) have been, like the 
Ruby mines, celebrated for ages. They lie in the Upper Valley of the Kokcha, called 
Koran, within the Tract called Vam^dn, of which the popular etymology is Hamah- 
Kdn, or "All-Mines," and were visited by Wood in 1838. The produce now is said 
to be of very inferior quality, and in quantity from 30 to 60 poods (36 lbs each) annually. 
The best quality sells at Bokhara at 30 to 60 tillas, or 12/. to 24/. the pood {Manphul). 
Surely it is ominous when a British agent writing of Badakhshan products finds it 
natural to express weights in Russian poods ! 

The Yamgan Tract also contains mines of iron, lead, alum, salammoniac, sulphur, 
ochre, and copper. The last are not worked. But I do not learn of any silver mines 
nearer than those of Paryan in the Valley of Panjshir, south of the crest of the Hindu- 
Kiish, much worked in the early Middle Ages. (See Cathay, p. 595.) 

Note 4. — The Kataghan breed of horses from Badakhshan and Kunduz has still 
a high reputation. They do not often reach India, as the breed is a favourite one 
among the Afghan chiefs, and the horses are likely to be appropriated in transit. 
{Lumsden, Mission to Kandahar, p. 20.) 

[The Kirghiz between the Yangi Hissar River and Sirikol are the only people using 
the horse generally in the plough, oxen being employed in the plains, and yaks in 
Sirikol. (Lieutenant-Colonel (lordon, p. 222, Forsyth! s Mission.) — II. C] 

What Polo heard of the Bucephalid strain was perhaps but another form of a story 
told by the Chinese, many centuries earlier, when speaking of this same region. A 
certain cave was frequented by a wonderful stallion of supernatural origin. Hither 
the people yearly brought their mares, and a famous breed was derived from the foals. 
i,R4m. N. Mdl. As. I. 245.) 

Note 5. — The huskless barley of the text is thus mentioned by Bumes in the 
vicinity of the Hindu-Kush : " They rear a barley in this elevated country which has 
no husk, and grows like wheat; but it is barley." It is not properly huskless, but 
when ripe it bursts the husk and remains so loosely attached as to be dislodged from 
it by a slight shake. It is grown abundantly in Ladak and the adjoining Plill States. 
Moorcroft details six varieties of it cultivated there. The kind mentioned by Marco 
and Bumes is probably that named by Royle Hordeum Aigiceras, and which has 
been sent to England under the name of Tartarian Wheat, though it is a genuine 
barley. Naked barley is mentioned by Galen as grown in Cappadocia ; and Matthioli 
speaks of it as grown in France in his day (middle of i6th century). It is also known 
to the Arabs, for they have a name for it — Suit. (Bumes, III. 205 ; Moore. II. 148 
seqq. ; Galen, de Alii/ient. Facult. Lat. ed. 13 ; Matthioli, Ven. 1585, p. 420; Eng. 
Cyc.'; 2si. Hordeum.) 

Sesame is mentioned by P. Manphul as one of the products of Badakhshan ; 
linseed is another, which is also used for oil. Walnut-trees abound, but neither he 
nor Wood mention the oil. We know that walnut oil is largely manufactured in 
Kashmir. {Moorcroft, II. 148.) 

[See on Saker and Lanner Falcons (/". Sakar, Briss. ; /'. lanarius, Schlegel) the 
valuable paper by Edouard Blanc, Sur ^utilisation des Oiseaux de proie en Asie 
centrale in Rev. des Scietices natur. appliquies, 20lh June, 1895. 

" Hawking is the favourite sport of Central Asian Lords," says G. Capus. {A travers 
le royaume de Tamerlan, p. 132. See pp. 132-134.) 

The Mirza says {I.e. p. 157) that the mountains of Wakhan "are only noted for 
producing a breed of hawks or falcons which the hardy Waklianis manage to catch 
among the cliffs. These hawks are much esteemed by the chiefs of Badakhshan, 



Chap. XXIX. THE PROVINCE OF BADASHAN 1 63 

Bokhara, etc. They are celebrated for their swiftness, and known by their white 
colour."— H. C] 

Note 6. — These wild sheep are probably the kind called Kcuhkdr^ mentioned by 
Baber, and described by Mr. Blyth in his Monograph of Wild Sheep, iinder the name 
of Ovis Vignei. It is extensively difiiised over all the ramifications of Hindu- Kush, 
and westward perhaps to the Persian Elburz. " It is gregarious," says Wood, " con- 
gregating in herds of several hundreds." In a later chapter Polo speaks of a wild 
sheep apparently different and greater. (Seey!. A. S. B., X. 858 seqq.) 

Note 7. — This pleasant passage is only in Ramosio, but it would be heresy to 
doubt its genuine character. Marco's recollection of the delight of convalescence in 
such a climate seems to lend an unusual enthusiasm and felicity to his description of 
the scenerj'. Such a region as he speaks of is probably the cool Plateau of Shewa, of 
which we are told as extending about 25 miles eastward from near Faizabad, and 
forming one of the finest pastures in Badakhshan. It contains a large lake called by 
the frequent name Sar-i-Kol. No European traveller in modem times (unless Mr. 
Gardner) has been on those glorious table-lands. Bumes says that at Kunduz both 
natives and foreigners spoke rapturously of the vales of Badakhshan, its rivulets, 
romantic scenes and glens, its fruits, flowers, and nightingales. Wood is reticent on 
scenery, naturally, since nearly all his journey was made in winter. WTien approach- 
ing Faizabad on his return from the Upper Oxus, however, he says : " On entering 
the beautifiil lawn at the gorge of its valley I was enchanted at the quiet loveliness of 
the scene. Up to this time, from the day we left Talikan, we had been mo\-ing in 
snow ; but now it had nearly vanished firom the valley, and the fine sward was 
enamelled with crocuses, daffodils, and snowdrops." {P. Manpkul ; Bunus, III. 
176; IVood, 252.) 

Note 8. — ^Yet scarcely any country in the world has suffered so terribly and 
repeatedly fi^om invasion. " Enduring decay probably commenced with the wars of 
Chinghiz, for many an instance in Eastern history shows the permanent effect of such 
devastations. . . . Century after century saw only prc^ess in decay. Even to our 
own time the progress of depopulation and deterioration has continued." In I759i 
two of the Khojas of Kashgar, escaping from the dominant Chinese, took refiige in 
Badakhshan ; one died of his wounds, the other was treacherously slain by Sultan 
Shah, who then ruled the country. The holy man is said in his dying moments to 
have invoked curses on Badakhshan, and prayed that it might be three times depopu- 
lated ; a malediction which fotmd ample accomplishment. The misery of the country 
came to a climax about 1830, when the Uzbek chief of Kunduz, Murad Beg Kataghan, 
swept away the bulk of the inhabitants, and set them down to die in the marshy plains 
of Ktmduz, {Caihay, p. 542 ; Fat's Bakhsh, etc.) 

Note 9. — This " bombasticall dissimulation of their garments," as the author of 
Anthropometamorphosis calls such a fashion, is no longer affected by the ladies of 
Badakhshan. But a friend in the Panjab observes that it still surnves there. ' ' There 
are ladies' trousers here which might almost justify Marco's very liberal estimate of 
the quantity of stuff required to make them ; " and among the Afghan ladies. Dr. 
Bellew says, the silken trousers almost surpass crinoline in amplitude. It is curious 
to find the same characteristic attaching to female figures on coins of ancient kings of 
these regions, such as Agathocles and Pantaleon. (The last name is appropriate !) 



VOL. L L2 



164 MARCO POLO Book I. 

CHAPTER XXX. 

Of the Province of Pashai 

You must know that ten days' journey to the south of 
Badashan there is a Province called Pashai, the people of 
which have a peculiar language, and are Idolaters, of a 
brown complexion. They are great adepts in sorceries 
and the diabolic arts. The men wear earrings and brooches 
of gold and silver set with stones and pearls. They are 
a pestilent people and a crafty; and they live upon flesh 
and rice. Their country is very hot.^ 

Now let us proceed and speak of another country 
which is seven days' journey from this one towards the 
south-east, and the name of which is Keshimur. 



Note i. — The name of Pashai has already occurred (see ch. xviii.) linked with 
DiR, as indicating a tract, apparently of very rugged and difficult character, through 
which the partizan leader Nigiidar passed in making an incursion from Badakhshan 
towards Kashmir. The difficulty here lies in the name Pashai, which points to the 
south-west, whilst Dir and all other indications point to the south-east. But Pashai 
seems to me the reading to which all texts tend, whilst it is clearly expressed in the 
G. T. {Pasciai), and it is contrary to all my experience of the interpretation of Marco 
Polo to attempt to torture the name in the way which has been common with com- 
mentators professed and occasional. But dropping this name for a moment, let us 
see to what the other indications do point. 

In the meagre statements of this and the next chapter, interposed as they are 
among chapters of detail unusually ample for Polo, there is nothing to lead us to 
suppose that the Traveller ever personally visited the countries of which these two 
chapters treat. I believe we have here merely an amplification of the information 
already sketched of the country penetrated by the Nigudarian bands whose escapade 
is related in chapter xviii., information which was probably derived from a Mongol 
source. And these countries are in my belief both regions famous in the legends of 
the Northern Buddhists, viz. UdyAna and KAshmir. 

Udydna lay to the north of Peshawar on the Swat River, but from the extent 
assigned to it by Hiuen Tsang, the name probably covered a large part of the whole 
hill-region south of the Hindu-Kiish from Chitral to the Indus, as indeed it is repre- 
sented in the Map of Vivien de St. Martin {Pterins Botiddhistes, II.). It is regarded 
by Fahian as the most northerly Province of India, and in his time the food and 
clothing of the people were similar to those of Gangetic India. It was the native 
country of Padma Sambhava, one of the chief apostles of Lamaism, i.e. of Tibetan 
Buddhism, and a great master of enchantments. The doctrines of Sakya, as they 
prevailed in Udydna in old times, were probably strongly tinged with Sivaitic magic, 



Chap. XXX. THE PROVINCE OF PASHAI 1 65 

and the Tibetans still regard that locality as the classic ground of sorcery and 
witchcraft. 

Hiuen Tsang says of the inhabitants : " The men are of a soft and pusillanimous 
character, naturally irulined to craft and trickery. They are ibnd of study, but 
pursue it with no ardour. The science of magical formulae is become a regular pro- 
fessional busitiess with them. They generally wear clothes of white cotton, and rarely 
use any other stuff. Their spoken language, in spite of some differences, has a strong 
resemblance to that of India." 

These particulars suit well with the slight description in our text, and the Indian 
atmosphere that it suggests ; and the direction and distance ascribed to Pashai suit 
well with Chitral, which may be taken as representing Udyina when approached from 
Badakhshan. For it would be quite practicable for a party to reach the town of 
Chitral in ten days from the position assigned to the old capital of Badakhshan. And 
from Chitral the road towards Kashmir would lie over the high Lahori pass to DiR, 
which from its mention in chapter xviii. we must consider an obligatory point. 
(Fah-hian, p. 26; Koeppenj I. 70; Pelerins Boud. II. 131-132.) 

[" Tao-lin (a Buddhist monk like Hiuen Tsang) afterwards left the western r^ons 
and changed his road to go to Northern India ; he made a pilgrimage to Kia-che-mi- 
louo (Kashmir), and then entered the country of U-cKang-na (Udyana). . ." (Ed. 
Chavannes, 1-tsing, p. 105.) — H.C.] 

We must now turn to the name Pashai. The Pashai Tribe are now Mahomedan, 
but are reckoned among the aboriginal inhabitants of the country, which the A%hans 
are not. Baber mentions them several times, and counts their language as one of the 
dozen that were spoken at Kabul in his time. Bumes says it resembles that of the 
Kafirs. A small vocabulary of it was published by Leech, in the seventh volume of the 
J. A. S. B., which I have compared with vocabularies of Siah-posh Kafir, published 
by Raverty in vol. xxxiii. of the same journal, and by Lumsden in his Report of the 
Mission to Kandahar, in 1837. Both are Ar}an, and seemingly of Professor Max 
Miiller's class Indic, but not very close to one another.* 

Ibn Batuta, after crossing the Hindu-Kush by one of the passes at the head of the 
Panjshir Valley, reaches the Mountain Bashai (Pashai). In the same vicinity the 
Pashais are mentioned by Sidi 'Ali, in 1554. And it is still in the neighbourhood of 
Panjshir that the tribe is most numerous, though they have other settlements in the 
hill-country about Nijrao, and on the left bank of the Kabul River between Kabul 
and Jalalabad. Pasha and Pasha-^zx is also named as one of the chief divisions of 
the Kafirs, and it seems a fair conjecture that it represents those of the Pashais who 
resisted or escaped conversion to Islam. (See LeecKs Reports in Collection pub. at 
Calcutta in 1839; Baber, 140; Elphinstone, I. 411;/. A. S. B. VII. 329, 731, 
XXVIII. 317 seqq., XXXIII. 271-272 ; /. B. III. 86 ; /. As. IX. 203, and/. R. A. S. 
N.S. V. 103, 278.) 

The route of which Marco had heard must almost certainly have been one of those 
leading by the high Valley of Zebak, and by the Dorah or the Nuks^ Pass, over the 
watershed of Hindu-Kiish into Chitral, and so to Dir, as already noticed. The 
difficulty remains as to how he came to apply the name Pashai to the country south- 
east of Badakhshan. I cannot tell. But it is at least possible that the name of the 
Pashai tribe (of which the branches even now are spread over a considerable extent of 
coimtry) may have once had a wide application over the southern spurs of the Hindu- 
Kush.t Our Author, moreover, is speaking here from hearsay, and hearsay gec^raphy 
without maps is much given to generalising. I apprehend that, along with char- 
acteristics specially referable to the Tibetan and Mongol traditions of Udydna, the 
term Pashai, as Polo uses it, vaguely covers the whole tract from the southern boundary 
of Badakhshan to the Indus and the Kabul River. 



• The Kafir dialect of which Mr. Trumpp collected some particulars shows in the present tense 
of the substantive verb these remarkable forms -.—Ei sum, Tu sit, si'^a se ; Ima simU, Wi sik 
Sigi sin, ' 

t In the Tabakat-i-Ndsiri {,BUiot, II. 317) we find mention of the Highlands oi Paska-A/roz, but 
nothing to define their position. 



1 66 MARCO POLO Book I. 

But even by extending its limits to Attok, we shall not get within seven marches 
of Kashmir. It is 234 miles by road from Attok to Srinagar ; more than twice seven 
marches. And, according to Polo's usual system, the marches should be counted from 
Chitral, or some point thereabouts. 

Sir H. Rawlinson, in his Monograph on the Oxus, has indicated the probability 
that the name Pashai may have been originally connected with Aprasin or Paresin, 
the Zendavestian name for the Indian Caucasus, and which occurs in the Babylonian 
version of the Behistun Inscription as the equivalent of Gaddra in the Persian, i.e. 
Gandhdra, there applied to the whole country between Bactria and the Indus. (See 
/. /i. G. S. XLII. 502.) Some such traditional application of the term Pashai 
might have survived. 



CHAPTER XXXI. 

Of the Province of Keshimur. 



Keshimur also is a Province inhabited by a people who 
are Idolaters and have a language of their own.^ They 
have an astonishing acquaintance with the devilries of 
enchantment ; insomuch that they make their idols to 
.speak. They can also by their sorceries bring on changes 
of- weather and produce darkness, and do a number of 
things so extraordinary that no one without seeing them 
would believe them.^ Indeed, this country is the very 
original source from which Idolatry has spread abroad.^ 

In this direction you can proceed further till you come 
to the Sea of India. 

The men are brown and lean, but the women, taking 
them as brunettes, are very beautiful. The food of the 
people is flesh, and milk, and rice. The clime is finely 
tempered, being neither very hot nor very cold. There 
are numbers of towns and villages in the country, but also 
forests and desert tracts, and strong passes, so that the 
people have no fear of anybody, and keep their inde- 
pendence, with a king of their own to rule and do justice.* 

There are in this country Eremites (after the fashion 
of those parts), who dwell in seclusion and practise great 
abstinence in eating and drinking. They observe strict 



Chap. XXXI. 



THE PROVINCE OF KESHIMUR 



167 



chastity, and keep from all sins forbidden in their law, so 
that they are regarded by their own folk as very holy 
persons. They live to a very great age." 

There are also a number of idolatrous abbeys and 
monasteries. [The people of the province do not kill 
animals nor spill blood ; so if they want to eat meat they 
get the Saracens who dwell among them to play the 
butcher.^] The coral which is carried from our parts of 




Ancient Buddhist Temple at Pandrethan in Kashmir. 

the world has a better sale there than in any other 
country.' 

Now we will quit this country, and not go any 
further in the same direction ; for if we did so we 
should enter India; and that I do not wish to do at 
present. For, on our return journey, I mean to tell you 
about India: all in regrular order. Let us gro back 
therefore to Badashan, for we cannot otherwise proceed 
on our journey. 



1 68 MARCO POLO Book I. 

Note i. — I apprehend that in this chapter Marco represents Buddhism (which is 
to be understood by his expression Idolatry^ not always, but usually) as in a position 
of greater life and prosperity than we can believe it to have enjoyed in Kashmir at the 
end of the 13th century, and I suppose that his knowledge of it was derived in great 
part from tales of the Mongol and Tibetan Buddhists about its past glories. 

I know not if the spelling Kesciemur represents any peculiar Mongol pronuncia- 
tion of the name. Piano Carpini, probably the first modern European to mention 
this celebrated region, calls it Casmir (p. 708). 

"The Cashmeerians," says Abu'l Fazl, "have a language of their own, but their 
books are written in the Shanskrit tongue, although the character is sometimes Cash- 
meerian. They write chiefly upon Tooz [birch-bark], which is the bark of a tree ; it 
easily divides into leaves, and remains perfect for many years." {Ayeen Akbery, II. 
147.) A sketch of Kashmiri Grammar by Mr. Edgeworth will be found in vol. x. of 
the/. A. S. B., and a fuller one by Major Leech in vol. xiii. Other contributions 
on the language are in vol. xxxv. pt. i. p. 233 (God win- Austen) ; in vol. xxxix. 
pt. i. p. 95 (Dr. Elmslie) ; and in Proceedings for 1866, p. 62, seqq. (Sir G. Campbell 
and Babii Rajendra Lai Mitra). The language, though in large measure of Sanskrit 
origin, has words and forms that cannot be traced in any other Indian vernacular. 
( Campbell, pp. 67, 68). The character is a modification of the Panjab Nagari. 

Note 2. — The Kashmirian conjurers had made a great impression on Marco, who 
had seen them at the Court of the Great Kaan, and he recurs in a later chapter to 
their weather sorceries and other enchantments, when we shall make some remarks. 
Meanwhile let us cite a passage from Bernier, already quoted by M. Pauthier. When 
crossing the Pir Panjal (the mountain crossed on entering Kashmir from Lahore) 
with the camp of Aurangzfb, he met with "an old Hermit who had dwelt upon the 
summit of the Pass since the days of Jehangir, and whose religion nobody knew, 
although it was said that he could work miracles, and used at his pleasure to produce 
extraordinary thunderstorms, as well as hail, snow, rain, and wind. There was 
something wild in his countenance, and in his long, spreading, and tangled hoary 
beard. He asked alms fiercely, allowing the travellers to drink from earthen cups 
that he had set out upon a great stone, but signing to them to go quickly by without 
stopping. He scolded those who made a noise, 'for,' said he to me (after I had 
entered his cave and smoothed him down with a half rupee which I put in his hand 
with all humility), 'noise here raises furious storms. Aurangzib has done well in 
taking my advice and prohibiting it. Shah Jehan always did the like. But Jehangir 
once chose to laugh at what I said, and made his drums and trumpets sound ; the 
consequence was he nearly lost his life.'" {Bernier, Amst. ed. 1699, II. 290.) A 
successor of this hermit was found on the same spot by P. Desideri in 1713, and 
another by Vigne in 1837. 

Note 3. — Though the earliest entrance of Buddhism into Tibet was from India 
Proper, yet Kashmir twice in the history of Tibetan Buddhism played a most 
important part. It was in Kashmir that was gathered, under the patronage of the 
great King Kanishka, soon after our era, the Fourth Buddhistic Council, which marks 
the point of separation between Northern and Southern Buddhism. Numerous mis- 
sionaries went forth from Kashmir to spread the doctrine in Tibet and in Central 
Asia. Many of the Pandits who laboured at the translation of th^ sacred books into 
Tibetan were Kashmiris, and it was even in Kashmir that several of the translations 
were made. But these were not the only circumstances that made Kashmir a holy 
land to the Northern Buddhists. In the end of the 9th century the religion was 
extirpated in Tibet by the Julian of the Lamas, the great persecutor Langdarma, and 
when it was restored, a century later, it was from Kashmir in particular that fresh 
missionaries were procured to reinstruct the people in the forgotten Law. (See 
Koeppen, II. 12-13, 78;/. As. ser. VI. torn. vi. 540.) 

"The spread of Buddhism to Kashmir is an event of extraordinary importance in 



Chap. XXXI. THE PROVINCE OF KESHIMUR 1 69 

the history of that religion. Thenceforward that country became a mistress in the 
Buddhist Doctrine and the headquarters of a particular school. . . . The influence of 
Kashmir was very marked, especially in the spread of Buddhism beyond India. 
From Kashmir it penetrated to Kandahar and Kabul, . . . and thence over Bactria. 
Tibetan Buddhism also had its essential origin from Kashmir ; ... so great is the 
importance of this region in the History of Buddhism." ( Vassilyev, Der Budd- 
hismus, I. 44.) 

In the account which the Mahawanso gives of the consecration of the great Tope 
at Ruanwelli, by Dutthagamini, King of Ceylon (B.C. 157), 280,000 priests (!) come 
from Kashmir, a far greater number than is assigned to any other country except one. 
(J. A. S. B. VII. 165.) 

It is thus very intelligible how Marco learned from the Mongols and the Lamas 
with whom he came in contact to regard Kashmir as " the very original source from 
which their Religion had spread abroad." The feeling with which they looked to 
Kashmir must have been nearly the same as that with which the Buddhists of Burma 
look to Ceylon. But this feeling towards Kashmir does not now, I am informed, 
exist in Tibet. The reverence for the holy places has reverted to Bahar and the 
neighbouring "cradle-lands" of Buddhism. 

It is notable that the historian Firishta, in a passage quoted by Tod, uses Marco's 
expression in reference to Kashmir, almost precisely, saying that the Hindoos derived 
their idolatry from Kishmir, "the foundry of magical superstition." (Rajastftan, 
I. 219.) 

Note 4. — The people of Kashmir retain their beaoty, but they are morally one 
of the most degraded races in Asia. Long oppression, now under the Lords of Jamu 
as great as ever, has no doubt a^ravated this. Yet it would seem that twelve 
hundred years ago the evil elements were there as well as the beauty. The Chinese 
traveller says : " Their manners are light and volatile, their characters effeminate and 
pusillanimous. . . . They are very handsome, but their natural bent is to fraud and 
trickery." {PH. Boud. II. 167-168.) Vigne's account is nearly the same. (II. 
142-143.) " They are as mischievous as monkeys, and far more malicious," says Mr. 
Shaw (p. 292). 

[Bernier says : *' The women [of Kachemire] especially are very handsome ; and it 
is from this country that nearly every individual, when first admitted to the court of 
the Great Mogul, selects wives or concubines, that his children may be whiter than 
the Indians, and pass for genuine Moguls. Unquestionably, there must be beautiftil 
women amor\g the higher classes, if we may judge by those of the lower orders seen 
in the streets and in the shops." {Travels in the Mogul Empire, edited by 
Archibald Constable, 1891, p. 404.)] 

Note 5.— In the time of Hiuen Tsang, who spent two years studying in 
Kashmir in the first half of the 7th centurj-, though there were many Brahmans in 
the country, Buddhism was in a flourishing state ; there were 100 convents with 
about 5000 monks. In the end of the nth century a King (Harshadeva, 1090- 1 102) 
is mentioned exceptionally as a protector of Buddhisna. The supposition has been 
intimated above that Marco's picture refers to a traditional state of things, but I must 
notice that a like picture is presented in the Chinese account of Hulaku's war. One 
of the thirty kingdoms subdued by the Mongols was " The kingdom of Fo (Buddha) 
called Kishimi. It lies to the N.W. of India. There are to be seen the men who 
are counted the successors of Shakia ; their ancient and venerable air recalls the 
countenance of Bodi-dharma as one sees it in pictures. They abstain from wine, and 
content themselves with a gill of rice for their daily food, and are occupied only in 
reciting the prayers and litanies of Fo." {R^m. N. M^l. Asiat. I. 179.) Abu'l Fazl 
says that on his third visit with Akbar to Kashmir he discovered some old men of the 
religion of Buddha, but none of them were literati. The Rishis, of whom he speaks 
with high commendation as abstaining from meat and from female society, as chari- 



170 MARCO POLO Book I. 

table and unfettered by traditions, were perhaps a modified remnant of the Buddhist 
Eremites. Colonel Newall, in a paper on the Rishis of Kashmir, traces them to a 
number of Shiah Sayads, who fled to Kashmir in the time of Timur. But evidently 
the genus was of much earlier date, long preceding the introduction of Islam. ( Vie et 
V. de H. T. p. 390; Lassen, III. 709 ; Ayeen Akb. II. 147, III. 151 ; J. A. S. B. 
XXXIX. pt. i. 265.) 

We see from the Dabistan that in the 17th century Kashmir continued to be a great 
resort of Magian mystics and sages of various sects, professing great abstinence and 
credited with preternatural powers. And indeed Vambery tells us that even in oui 
own day the Kashmiri Dervishes are pre-eminent among their Mahomedan brethren 
for cunning, secret arts, skill in exorcisms, etc. {Dab. I. 113 seqq. II. 147-148; 
Vdmb. Sk. of Cent. Asia, 9.) 

Note 6. — The first precept of the Buddhist Decalogue, or Ten Obligations of the 
Religious Body, is not to take life. But animal food is not forbidden, though 
restricted. Indeed it is one of the circumstances in the Legendary History of Sakya 
Muni, which looks as if it must be true, that he is related to have aggravated his fatal 
illness by eating a dish of pork set before him by a hospitable goldsmith. Giorgi says 
the butchers in Tibet are looked on as infamous ; and people selling sheep or the like 
will make a show of exacting an assurance that these are not to be slaughtered. In 
Burma, when a British party wanted beef, the owner of the bullocks would decline to 
make one over, but would point one out that might be shot by the foreigners. 

In Tibetan history it is told of the persecutor Langdarma that he compelled 
members of the highest orders of the clergy to become hunters and butchers. A 
Chinese collection of epigrams, dating from the 9th century, gives a facetious list of 
[tuongruous Conditions, among which we find a poor Parsi, a sick Physician, a fat 
Bride, a Teacher who does not know his letters, and a Butcher who reads the 
Scriptures {oi'S,w^^vs,n\)\ {Alph. Tib. 445; Koeppejt, I. 74; N. and Q., C. and J. 
IIL 33-) 

Note 7. — Coral is still a very popular adornment in the Himalayan countries. 
The merchant Tavernier says the people to the north of the Great Mogul's territories 
and in the mountains of Assam and Tibet were the greatest purchasers of coral. (TV. 
in India, Bk. II. ch. xxiii.) 



CHAPTER XXXII. 
Of the Great River of Badashan. 

In leaving Badashan you ride twelve days between east 
and north-east, ascending a river that runs through land 
belono-ing to a brother of the Prince of Badashan, and 
containing a good many towns and villages and scattered 
habitations. The people are Mahommetans, and valiant 
in war. At the end of those twelve days you come to a 
province of no great size, extending indeed no more 



Chap. XXXII. THE GREAT RIVER OF BADASHAN I7I 

than three days' journey in any direction, and this is 
called VoKHAN. The people worship Mahommet, and 
they have a peculiar language. They are gallant soldiers, 
and they have a chief whom they call None, which is as 
much as to say Count, and they are liegemen to the 
Prince of Badashan.^ 

There are numbers of wild beasts of all sorts in this 
region. And when you leave this little country, and ride 
three days north-east, always among mountains, you get 
to such a height that 'tis said to be the highest place in 
the world ! And when you have got to this height you 
find [a great lake between two mountains, and out of it] 
a fine river running through a plain clothed with the 
finest pasture in the world ; insomuch that a lean beast 
there will fatten to your heart's content in ten days. 
There are great numbers of all kinds of wild beasts ; 
among others, wild sheep of great size, whose horns are 
good six palms in length. From these horns the 
shepherds make great bowls to eat from, and they use 
the horns also to enclose folds for their cattle at nigfht. 
[Messer Marco was told also that the wolves were 
numerous, and killed many of those wild sheep. Hence 
quantities of their horns and bones were found, and 
these were made into great heaps by the way-side, in 
order to guide travellers when snow was on the ground.] 

The plain is called Pamier, and you ride across it 
for twelve days together, finding nothing but a desert 
without habitations or any green thing, so that travellers 
are obliged to carry with them whatever they have need 
of. The region is so lofty and cold that you do not even 
see any birds flying. And I must notice also that because 
of this great cold, fire does not burn so brightly, nor 
give out so much heat as usual, nor does it cook food so 
effectually.^ 

Now, if we go on with our journey towards the east- 



1 72 MARCO POLO Book I. 

north-east, we travel a good forty days, continually passing 
over mountains and hills, or through valleys, and crossing 
many rivers and tracts of wilderness. And in all this 
way you find neither habitation of man, nor any green 
thing, but must carry with you whatever you require. 
The country is called Bolor. The people dwell high up 
in the mountains, and are savage Idolaters, living only 
by the chase, and clothing themselves in the skins of 
beasts. They are in truth an evil race.^ 



Note i. — ["The length of Little Pamir, according to Trotter, is 68 miles 

To find the twelve days' ride in the plain of Marco Polo, it must be admitted, says 
Severtsof {Bui. Soc. Giog. XI. 1890, pp. 588-589), that he went down a considerable 
distance along the south-north course of the Aksu, in the Aktash Valley, and did not 
turn towards Tash Kurgan, by the Neza Tash Pass, crossed by Gordon and Trotter. 
The descent from this pass to Tash Kurgan finishes with a difficult and narrow defile, 
which may well be overflowed at the great melting of snow, from the end of May till 
the middle of June, even to July. 

" Therefore he must have left the Aksu Valley to cross the Pass of Tagharma, 
about 50 or 60 kilometres to the north of the Neza Tash Pass ; thence to Kashgar, the 
distance, in a straight line, is about 200 kilometres, and less than 300 by the shortest 
route which runs from the Tagharma Pass to little Kara Kul, and from there down to 
Vangi Hissar, along the Ghidjik. And Marco Polo assigns yi^r-fy days for this route, 
while he allows but thirty for the journey of 500 kilometres {at least) from Jerm to 
the foot of the Tagharma Pass." 

Professor Paquier {Bid. Soc. Giog. 6e Ser. XII, pp. 121-125) remarks that the Moon- 
shee, sent by Captain Troiter to survey the Oxus between Ishkashm and Kila VVamar, 
could not find at the spot marked by Yule on his map, the mouth of the Shakh-Dara, 
but northward 7 or 8 miles from the junction of the Murghab with the Oxus, he 
saw the opening of an important water-course, the Suchnan River, formed by the Shakh- 
Dara and the Ghund-Dara. Marco arrived at a place between Northern VN'akhan and 
Shihgnan ; from the Central Pamir, Polo would have taken a route identical with that 
of the Mirza ( 1868- 1869) by the Chichiklik Pass. Professor Paquier adds : " I have no 
hesitation in believing that Marco Polo was in the neighbourhood of that great com- 
mercial road, which by the Vallis Comedarum reached the foot of the Imaus. He 
probably did not venture on a journey of fifty marches in an unknown country. At 
the top of the Shihgnan Valley, he doubtless found a road marked out to Little 
Bukharia. This was the road followed in ancient times from Bactrian to Serica ; 
and Ptolemy has, so to speak, given us its landmarks after Marinus of Tyre, by the 
Vallis Comedai-iim [Y&Wty oi actual Shihgnan); the Turris Lapidea and the Statio 
Mercatorum, neighbourhood of Tash Kurgan, capital of the present province of 
Sar-i-kol." 

I must say that accepting, as I do, for Polo's Itinerary, the route from Wakhdn to 
Kashgar by the Taghdum-Bash Pamir, and Tash Kurgdn, I do not agree with Professor 
Paquier's theory. But though I prefer Sir H. Yule's route from Badakhshan, by the 
River Vardoj, the Pass of Ishkashm, the Panja, to Wakhan, I do not accept his views 
for the Itinerary from Wakhan to Kashgar ; see p. 175. — H. C] 

The river along which Marco travels from Badakhshan is no doubt the upper stream 
of the Oxus, known locally as the Panja, along which Wood also travelled, followed 



Chap. XXXII. THE PLATEAU OF PAMIR 



^7Z 



of late by the Mirza and Faiz Bakhsh. It is true that the river is reached from 
Badaskhshan Proper by ascending another river (the Vardoj) and crossing the Pass of 
Ishkashm, but in the brief style of oor narrative we must expect such condensation. 

Wakhan was restored to geography by Macartney, in the able map which he 
compiled for Elphinstone's Caubul, and was made known more accurately by Wood's 
journey through it. [The district of Wakhan " comprises the valle)-s containing the 
two heads of the Panjah branch of the Oxus, and the valley of the Panjah itself, from 
the junction at Zung down to Ishkashim. The northern branch of the Panjah has its 
principal source in the Lake Victoria in the Great Pamir, which as well as the Little 
Pamir, belongs to Wakhan, the Aktash River forming the well recognized boundary 
between Kashgaria and Wakhan." (Captain Trotter, ForsytK s Mission, p. 275.) The 
southern branch is the Sarhadd Valley. — H. C] The lowest part is about 8ocx3 feet 
above the sea, and the highest Kishlak, or village, about 11,50a A few willows and 
poplars are the only trees that can stand against the bitter blasts that blow down the 
valley. Wood estimated the total population of the province at only icxx) souls, though 
it might be capable of supporting 5000. * He saw it, however, in the depth of winter. 
As to the peculiar language, see note I, ch. xxix. It is said to be a very old dialect 
of Persian. A scanty vocabulary was collected by Hayward. (/. R. G. S. XXI. p. 29. ) 
The people, according to Shaw, have Ar)'an features, resembling those of the 
Kashmiris, but harsher. 

[Cf. Captain Trotter's The Oxus below Wakhan, ForsytKs Mission, p. 276.] 

We appear to see in the indications of this paragraph precisely the same system of 
government that now prevails in the Oxus valleys. The central districts of Faizabad 
and Jemi are under the immediate administration of the Mfr of Badakhshan, whilst 
fifteen other districts, such as Kishm, Rustdk, Zebdk, Ishkashm, Wakhan, are 
dependencies " held by the relations of the Mir, or by hereditary rulers, on a feudal 
tenure, conditional on fidelity and military service in time of need, the holders pos- 
sessing supreme authority in their respective territories, and paying little or no 
tribute to the paramount power." (Pandit Manphul.) The first part of the valley 
of which Marco speaks as belonging to a brother of the Prince, may correspond to 
Ishkashm, or perhaps to Vardoj ; the second, Wakhan, seems to have had a heredi- 
tary ruler ; but both were vassals of the Prince of Badakhshan, and therefore are 
styled Counts, not kings or Seigneurs. 

The native title which Marco gives as the equivalent of Count is remarkable. Non 
or None, as it is variously written in the texts, would in French form represent Nono in 
Italian. Pauthier refers this title to the " ^o^-nana (or nano) Rao" which figures as 
the style of Kanerkes in the Indo-Scythic coinage. But Wilson {Ariana Antiqua^ 
p. 358) interprets Raonano as most probably a genitive plural of Rao, whilst the whole 
inscription answers precisely to the Greek one BA2IAETS BASIAEIiN KANHPKOT, 
which is found on other coins of the same prince. General Cunningham, a very 
competent authority, adheres to this view, and writes : " I do not think None or Non 
can have any connection with the Wawn of the coins." 

It is remarkable, however, that NoNO (said to signify "younger," or lesser) is in 
Tibet the title given to a younger brother, deputy, or subordinate prince. In 
Cunningham's Ladak (259) we read : " Nono is the usual term of respect which is 
used in addressing any young man of the higher ranks, and when prefixed to Kahlon 
it means the younger or deputy minister." And again (p. 352) : '■'■Nono is the title 
given to a younger brother. Nono Sungnam was the younger brother of Chang 

* " Yet this barren and inaccessible upland, with its scanty handful of wild people, finds a place 
in Eastern history and geography from an early period, and has now become the subject of serious 
correspondence between two great European Governments, and its name, for a few weeks at least, a 
household word in London. Indeed, this is a striking accident of the course of modem history. We 
see the Slav and the_ Englishman — representatives of two great branches of the Aryan race, but 
divided by such vast inter%-als of space and tire from the original common startini^-point of their 
migration — thus brought back to the lap of Pamir to which so many quivering lines jwint as the centre 
of their earliest seats, there by common consent to lay down limits to mutual encroachment. " 
{Quarterly Review, Afuil, 1S73, p. 548.) 



174 MARCO POLO Book I. 

Raphtan, the Kahlon of Bazgo." I have recently encountered the word used inde- 
pendently, and precisely in Marco's application of it. An old friend, in speaking of a 
journey that he had made in our Tibetan provinces, said incidentally that he had 
accompanied the commissioner to the installation of a new NoNO (I think in Spiti). 
The term here corresponds so precisely with the explanation which Marco gives of 
None as a Count subject to a superior sovereign, that it is difficult to regard the coin- 
cidence as accidental. The Yuechi or Indo-Scyths who long ruled the Oxus countries 
are said to have been of Tibetan origin, and Al-Biruni repeats a report that this was 
so. {Elliot. II. 9.)* Can this title have been a trace of their rule? Or is it Indian? 

Note 2. — This chapter is one of the most interesting in the book, and contains one 
of its most splendid anticipations of modern exploration, whilst conversely Lieutenant 
John Wood's narrative presents the most brilliant confirmation in detail of Marco's 
narrative. 

We have very old testimony to the recognition of the great altitude of the Plateau 
of Pamir (the name which Marco gives it and which it still retains), and to the 
existence of the lake (or lakes) upon its surface. The Chinese pilgrims Hwui Seng 
and Sung Yun, who passed this way A.D. 518, inform us that these high lands of the 
Tsung Ling were commonly said to be midway between heaven and earth. The more 
celebrated Hiuen Tsang, who came this way nearly 120 years later (about 644) on his 
return to China, "after crossing the mountains for 700 //, arrived at the valley of 
Pomilo (Pamir). This valley is 1000 ti (about 200 miles) from east to west, and 100 li 
(20 miles) from north to south, and lies between two snowy ranges in the centre of the 
Tsung Ling mountains. The traveller is annoyed by sudden gusts of wind, and the 
snow-drifts never cease, spring or summer. As the soil is almost constantly frozen, you 
see but a few miserable plants, and no crops can live. The whole tract is but a dreary 
waste, without a trace of human kind. In the middle of the valley is a great lake 
300 li (60 miles) from east to west, and 500 li from north to south. This stands in the 
centre of Jambudwipa (the Buddhist oIkov/j^vti) on a plateau of prodigious elevation. 
An endless variety of creatures peoples its waters. When you hear the murmur and 
clash of its waves you think you are listening to the noisy hum of a great market in 

which vast crowds of people are mingling in excitement The lake discharges 

to the west, and a river runs out of it in that direction and joins the Potsu (Oxus) 

The lake likewise discharges to the east, and a great river runs out, which 

flows eastward to the western frontier of A"ies/ia (Kashgar), where it joins the River Sita, 
and runs eastward with it into the sea." The story of an eastern outflow from the lake 
is, no doubt, legend, connected with an ancient Hindu belief (see Cathay, p. 347), but 
Burnes in modern times heard much the same story. And the Mirza, in 1868, took up 
the same impression regarding the smaller lake called I'amir Kul, in which the 
southern branch of the Panja originates. 

" After quitting the (frozen) surface of the river," says Wood, "we . . . . ascended 
a low hill, which apparently bounded the valley to the eastward. On surmounting this, 
at 3 r.M. of the 19th February, 1838, we stood, to use a native express-on, upon the 
Bdm-i-Duniah, or 'Roof of the World,' while before us lay stretched a noble but 
frozen sheet of water, from whose western end issued the infant river of the Oxus. 
This fine lake (Sirikol) lies in the form of a crescent, about 14 miles long from east to 
west, by an average breadth of i mile. On three sides it is bordered by swelling 
hills about 500 feet high, while along its southern bank they rise into mountains 3500 
feet above the lake, or 19,000 feet above the sea, and covered with perpetual snow, 

from which never-failing source the lake is supplied Its elevation, measured 

by the temperature of boiling water, is 15,600 feet." 

The absence of birds on Pamir, reported by Marco, probably shows that he passed 
very late or early in the season. Hiuen Tsang, we see, gives a different account ; 

* Ibn Haukal reckons V/akh.^n as an Indian country. It is a curious coincidence (it can scarcely 
be more) that Nona in the Garo tongue of Eastern Bengal signifies "a younger brother." {J. A.&. B. 
XXII. 153. XVIII. 208.) 



I 



Chap. XXXII. THE PLATEAU OF PAMIR 1 75 

Wood was there in the winter, but heard that in summer the lake swarmed witli water, 
fowl. [Cf. Captain Trotter, p. 263, in ForsytKs Mission.'] 

The Pamir Steppe was crossed by Benedict Goes late in the aatamn of 1603, and 
the narrative speaks of the great cold and desolation, and the difficulty of breathing. 
We have also an abstract of the journey of Abdul Mejid, a British Agent, who passed 
Pamir on his way to Kokan in 1861 : — " Fourteen weary days were occupied in cross- 
ing the steppe ; the marches were long, depending on uncertain supplies of grass and 
water, which sometimes wholly failed them ; food for man and beast had to be carried 
with the party, for not a trace of human habitation is to be met with in those in- 
hospitable wilds. .... The steppe is interspersed with tamarisk jungle and the 
wild willow, and in the summer with tracts of high grass." (Neumann, Pilgerfahrten 
Buddh. Priester, p. 50; V. et V. de H. T. 271-272; Wood, 232; Proc. R. G. S. X. 

150-) 

There is nothing absolutely to decide whether Marco's route from Wakhan lay by 
Wood's Lake " Sirikol," or Victoria, or by the more southerly source of the Oxus 
in Pamir Kul. These routes would unite in the valley of Tashkurgan, and his 
road thence to Kashgar was, I apprehend, nearly the same as the Mirza's in 1868-1869, 
by the lofty Chichikhk Pass and Kin Valley. But I cannot account for the forty days 
of wilderness. The Mirza was but thirty-four days from Faizabad to Kashgar, and 
Faiz Bakhsh only twenty-five. 

[Severtsof {Btd. Soc. Giog. XI. 1890, p. 587), who accepts Trotter's route, by 
the Pamir Khurd (Little Pamir), says there are three routes from Wakhan to Little 
Pamir, going up the Sarhadd : one during the winter, by the frozen river ; the two 
others available during the spring and the summer, up and down the snowy chain 
along tlie right bank of the Sarhadd, until the valley w idens out into a plain, where 
a swelling is hardly to be seen, so flat is it ; this chain is the di\-iding ridge between 
the Sarhadd and the Aksu. From the summit, the traveller, looking towards the west, 
sees at his feet the mountains he has crossed ; to the east, the Pamir Kul and the 
Aksu, the river flowing from it. The pasture grounds around the Pamir Kul and the 
sources of the Sarhadd are magnificent ; but lower down, the Aksu valley is arid, 
dotted only with pasture grounds of little extent, and few and far between. It is to 
this part of Pamir that Marco Polo's description applies ; more than any other part 
of this ensemble of high valleys, this line of water parting, of the Sarhadd and the 
Aksu, has the aspect of a Roof of the World {Bam-i-dunya, Persian name of Pamir). 
~H. C.]. 

[We dan trace Marco Polo's route from Wakhan, on comparing it with Captain 
Younghusband's Itinerary from Kashgar, which he left on the 22nd July, 1891, for 
Little Pamir : Little Pamir at Bozai-Gumbaz, joins with the Pamir-i- Wakhan at the 
Wakhijrui Pass, first explored by Colonel Lockhart's mission. Hence the route lies 
by the old fort of Kurgan-i-Ujadbai at the junction of the two branches cf the Tagh- 
duni-bash Pamir (Supreme Head of the Mountains), the Tagh-dum-bash Pamir, Tash 
Kurgan, Bulun Kul, the Gez Defile and Kashgar. (Proc. R. G. S. XIV. 1892, 
pp. 205-234.)— H. C] 

We may observe that Severtsof asserts Pamir to be a generic term, applied to all 
high plateaux in the Thian Shan. * 

["The Pamfr plateau may be described as a great, broad, rounded ridge, extend- 
ing north and south, and crossed by thick mountain chains, between which lie 
elevated valleys, open and gently sloping towards the east, but narrow and confined, 
with a rapid fall towards the west. The waters which nm in all, with the exception 
of the eastern flow from the Taghdiingbash, collect in the Oxus ; the Aksu from the 
Little Pamfr lake receiving the eastern drainage, which finds an outlet in the Aktash 
Valley, and joining the Murghab, which obtains that from the Alichor and Sirfz 
Pamirs. As the eastern Taghdungbash stream finds its way into the Yarkand river, 

" According to Colonel Tod, the Hindu bard Chand speaks of " Pamer, chief of mountains." 
(I. p. 24.) But one may like and respect Colonel Tod without feeling able to rely on such quotations 
of his unconfirmed. 



176 



MARCO POLO . Book I. 



the watershed must be held as extending from that Pamir, down the range dividing 
it from the Little Pamir, and along the Neza Tash mountains to the Kizil Art Pass, 
leading to the Alai." (Colonel Gordon, Forsyth'' s Mission, p. 231.) 

Lieutenant-Colonel Gordon {Forsyth's Mission, p. 231 ) says also : " Regarding the 
name ' Pamir,' the meaning appears to be wilderness — a place depopulated, abandoned, 
waste, yet capable of habitation. I obtained this information on the Great Pamfr from 
one of our intelligent guides, who said in explanation — 'In former days, when this part 
was inhabited by Kirghiz, as is shown by the ruins of their villages and burial-grounds, 
the valley was not all called Pamir, as it is now. It was known by its village names, 
as is the country beyond Sirikol, which being now occupied by Kirghiz is not known 
by one name, but partly as Charling, Bas Robat, etc. If deserted it would be Pamfr." 
In a note Sir T. D. Forsyth adds that the same explanation of the word was given 
to him at Yangi-Hissar, and that it is in fact a Khokandi-Turki word. — H. C] 

It would seem, from such notices as have been received, that there is not, 
strictly speaking, one steppe called Pamir, but a variety of Pamirs, which are lofty 
valleys between ranges of hills, presenting luxuriant summer pasture, and with floors 
more or less flat, but nowhere more than 5 or 6 miles in width and often much less. 

[This is quite exact ; Mr. E. Delmar Morgan writes in the Scottish Geog. Mag. 
January, 1892, p. 17 : " Following the terminology of Yule adopted by geographers, 
and now well established, we have (i) Pamir Alichur ; (2) Pamir Khurd (or " Little " ) ; 




Hums of Ovh Poll. 

(3) Pamir Kalan (or "Great"); (4) Pamir Ivhargosi ( " of the hare"); (5) Pamir 
Sares; (6) Pamir Rang-kul." — H. C] 

Wood speaks of the numerous wolves in this region. And the great sheep is that 
to which Blyth, in honour of our traveller, has given the name of Ovis Poli.^ A 
pair of horns, sent by Wood to the Royal Asiatic Society, and of which a representa- 
tion is given above, affords the following dimensions : — Length of one horn on the 
curve, 4 feet 8 inches ; round the base 14J inches ; distance of tips apart 3 feet 9 
inches. This sheep appears to be the same as the Kass, of which Burnes heard that 
the horns were so big that a man could not lift a pair, and that foxes bred in them ; 
also that the carcass formed a load for two horses. Wood says that these horns 
supply shoes for the Kirghiz horses, and also a good substitute for stirrup-irons. "We 
saw numbers of horns strewed about in every direction, the spoils of the Kirghiz 
hunter. Some of these were of an astonishingly large size, and belonged to an 
animal of a species between a goat and a sheep, inhabiting the steppes of Pamir. 
l^he ends of the horns projecting above the snow often indicated the direction of the 
road ; and wherever they were heaped in large quantities and disposed in a semi- 
circle, there our escort recognised the site of a Kirghiz summer encampment 

We came in sight of a rough-looking building, decked out with the horns of the wild 
sheep, and all but buried amongst the snow. It was a Kirghiz burying-ground." (Pp. 
223, 229, 231.) 

* Usually written Polii, which is nonsense. 



Chap. XXXII. 



THE PLATEAU OF PAMIR 



177 



[With reference to Wood's reiBark that the horns of the Ovis Poli supply shoes 
for the Kirghiz horses, Mr. Rockhill writes to me that a Paris newspaper of 24th 
November, 1894, observes : *' Horn shoes made of the horn of sheep are successfully 
used in Lyons. They are especially adapted to horses employed in towns, where the 
pavements are often slippery. Horses thus shod can be driven, it is said, at the most 
rapid pace over the worst pavement without slipping." 

(Cf. Rockhill, Rubruck, p. 69 ; Chasses et Explorations dans la Rdgion des Pamirs^ 
par le Vte. Ed. de Poncins, Paris, 1897, 8vo. — H. C.).] 

In 1867 this great sheep was shot by M. Severtsof, on the Plateau of Aksai, in the 
western Thian Shan. He reports these animals to go in great herds, and to be very 
difiScult to kill. However, he brought back two specimens. The Narin River is 




Ovis Poli, the Great Sheep of Pamir. (After Severtsof.) 

' El hi « srant mxmtitnbc tt xmvAaxi saobagcs qc sunt gt^nbisnu, txx axA. \tt 
cimics iwn si.x paumcs " . . . . 



stated to be the northern limit of the species. * Severtsof also states that the enemies 
of the Oms Poli are the wolves, [and Colonel Gordon says that the leopards and wolves 
prev almost entirely upon them. (On the Oi'is Poli, see Captain Deasy, In Tibet^ 
p. i6i.)-H. C] 

Colonel Gordon, the head of the exploring party detached by Sir Douglas Forsyth, 
brought away a head of Oz'is Poli, which quite bears out the account by its eponymus 
of horns "good 6 palms in length," say 60 inches. This head, as I learn from a 
letter of Colonel Gordon's to a friend, has one horn perfect which measures 65J inches 
on the curs-es ; the other, broken at the tip, measures 64 inches ; the straight line 
between the tips is 55 inches. 

[Captain Younghusband [1886] "before leaving the Altai Mountains, picked up 
several heads of the Oi'is Poli, called Argali by the Mongols. They were somewhat 

• ["The Tian Shan wild sheep has since been described as the Ovis Karelini, a species some- 
what smaller than the true Ovis /*<>// which frequents the Pamirs." (Colonel Gordon, Roc/ 0/ the 
WorU, p. 83, note.)— H. C] 



VOL. L 



M 



178 



MARCO POLO Book I. 



different from those which I afterwards saw at Yarkand, which had been brought in 
from the Pamir. Those I found in the Gobi were considerably thicker at the base, 
there was a less degree of curve, and a shorter length of horn. A full description 
of the Ovis Poli, with a large plate drawing of the horns, may be seen in Colonel 
Gordon's Roof of the World. (See p. 8i.) {Proc. R. G. S. X. 1888, p. 495.) 
Some years later, Captain Younghusband speaks repeatedly of the great sport of shoot- 
ing Ovis Poli. {Proc. R. G. S. XIV. 1892, pp. 205, 234.)— H. C] 

As to the pasture, Timkowski heard that ' ' the pasturage of Pamir is so luxuriant 
and nutritious, that if horses are left on it for more than forty days they die of reple- 
tion." (I. 421.) And Wood : "The grass of Pamir, they tell you, is so rich that a 
sorry horse is here brought into good condition in less than twenty days ; and its 
nourishing qualities are evidenced in the productiveness of their ewes, which almost 
invariably bring forth two lambs at a birth." (P. 365.) 

With regard to the effect upon fire ascribed to the "great cold," Ramusio's version 
inserts the expression " gli fu affermato per miracolo," " it was asserted to him as a 
wonderful circumstance." And Humboldt thinks it so strange that Marco should not 
have observed this personally that he doubts whether Polo himself passed the Pamir. 
*' How is it that he does not say that he himself had seen how the flames disperse and 
leap about, as I myself have so often experienced at similar altitudes in the Cordilleras 
of the Andes, especially when investigating the boiling-point of water?" {Cent. 
Asia, Germ. Transl. I. 588.) But the words quoted from Ramusio do not exist in 
the old texts, and they are proljably an editorial interpolation indicating disbelief in 
the statement. 

MM. Hue and Gabet made a like observation on the high passes of north-eastern 
Tibet: "The argols gave out much smoke, but would not burn with any flame"; 
only they adopted the native idea that this as well as their own sufferings in respira- 
tion was caused by some pernicious exhalation. 

Major Montgomerie, R.E., of the Indian Survey, who has probably passed more 
time nearer the heavens than any man living, sends me the following note on this 
passage : " What Marco Polo says as to fire at great altitudes not cooking so effectu- 
ally as usual is perfectly correct as far as anything boiled is concerned, but I doubt if 
it is as to anything roasted. The want of brightness in a fire at great altitudes is, I 
think, altogether attributable to the poorness of the fuel, which consists of either 
small sticks or bits of roots, or of argols of dung, all of which give out a good deal of 
smoke, more especially the latter if not quite dry ; but I have often seen a capital 
blaze made with the argols when perfectly dry. As to cooking, we found that rice, 
ddl, and potatoes would never soften properly, no matter how long they were boiled. 
This, of course, was due to the boiling-point being only from 170° to 180°. Our 
tea, moreover, suffered from the same cause, and was never good when we were 
over 15,000 feet. This was very marked. Some of my natives made dreadful com- 
plaints about the rice and dal that they got from the village-heads in the valleys, and 
vowed that they only gave them what was very old and hard, as they could not soften 
it!" 

Note 3. — Bolor is a subject which it would take several pages to discuss with 
fulness, and I must refer for such fuller discussion to a paper in the J. R. G. S. vol. 
xlii. p. 473- 

The name Bolor is very old, occurring in Hiuen Tsang's Travels (7th century), 
and in still older Chinese works of like character. General Cunningham has told us 
that Balti is still termed Balor by the Dards of Gilghit ; and Mr. .Shaw, that Palor is 
an old name still sometimes used by the Kirghiz for the upper part of Chitral. The 
indications of Hiuen Tsang are in accordance with General Cunningham's informa- 
tion ; and the fact that Chitral is described under the name of Bolor in Chinese works 
of the last century entirely justifies that of Mr. Shaw. A Pushtu poem of the 
17th century, translated by Major Raverty, assigns the mountains of Bilaur-isiin, 
as the northern boundary of Swdt. The collation of these indications shows that the 



Chap. XXXII. BOLOR 1 79 

term Bolor must have been applied somewhat extensively to the high regions adjoin- 
ing the southern margin of Pamir. And a passage in the Tdrikh Rashidi, written at 
Kashgar in the i6th century by a cousin of the great Baber, affords us a definition of 
the tract to which, in its larger sense, the name was thus applied: " Malaur {i.e. 
Balaur or Bolor) ... is a country with few level spots. It has a circuit of four 
months' march. The eastern frontier borders on Kashgar and Yarkand ; it has 
Badakhshan to the north, Kabul to the west, and Kashmir to the south." The writer 
was thoroughly acquainted with his subject, and the region which he so defines must 
have embraced Sirikol and all the wild country south of Yarkand, Balti, Gilghit, 
Yasin, Chitral, and perhaps Kafiristan. This enables us to understand Polo's use of 
the term. 

The name of Bolor in later days has been in a manner a symbol of controversy. 

It is prominent in the apocryphal travels of Georj-e Ludwig von , preserved in 

the Military Archives at St. Petersburg. That work represents a town of Bolor as 
existing to the north of Badakhshan, with \Vakhan still furtlier to the north. This 
geography ne now know to be entirely erroneous, but it is in full accordance with 
the maps and tables of the Jesuit missionaries and their pupils, who accompanied the 
Chinese troops to Kashgar in 1758-1759. The paper in the Geographual Society's 
Journal, which has been referred to, demonstrates how these erroneous data must 
have originated. It shows that the Jesuit geography was founded on downright 
accidental error, and, as a consequence, that the narratives which profess de visu to 
corroborate that geography must be downright forgeries. When the first edition was 
printed, I retained the belief in a Bolor where the Jesuits placed it. 

[The Chinese traveller, translated by M. Gueluy {^Desc. de la Chine occid. p. 53), 
speaks of Bolor, to the west of Yarkand, inhabited by Mahomedans who live in 
huts ; the country is sandy and rather poor. Severtsof says, {Bui. Soc. Giog. XI. 
1890, p. 591) that he believes that the name of Bolor should be expunged from 
geographical nomenclature as a source of confusion and error. Humboldt, with his 
great authority, has too definitely attached this name to an erroneous orographical 
system. Lieutenant-Colonel Gordon says that he "made repeated enquiries from 
Kirghiz and Wakhis, and from the Mir [of Wakhan], Fatteh Ali Shah, regarding 
'Bolor,' as a name for any mountain, country, or place, but all professed perfect 
ignorance of it." (Forsyth! s Mission.) — H. C] 

They. A. S. Bengal for 1853 (vol. xxiL) contains extracts from the diary of a 
Mr. Gardiner in those central r^ons of Asia. These read more like the memoranda 
of a dyspeptic dream than anything else, and the only passage I can find illustrative of 
our traveller is the following ; the region is described as lying twenty days south-west 
of Kashgar : " The Keiaz tribe live in caves on the highest peaks, subsist by hunting, 
keep no flocks, said to be anthropophagous, but have handsome women ; eat their 
flesh raw." (P. 295 ; PHerins Bond. III. 316, 421, etc.; Ladak, 34, 45, 47 ; Mag. 
Asiatique, I. 92, 96-97 ; Not. et Ext. II. 475, XIV. 492 ; /. A. S. B. XXXI. 279 ; 
Mr. R. Shaw in Geog. Proceedings, XVI. 246, 400; Notes regarding Bolor, etc.,y. R. 
G. S. XLII. 473.) 

As this sheet goes finally to press we hear of the exploration of Pamir by officers 

of Mr. Forsyth's Mission. [I have made use of the information collected by them 

H. C] 



VOL. I. ^ , 



i8o 



MARCO POLO 



Book I. 



CHAPTER XXXIII. 
Of the Kingdom of Cascar. 



Cascar is a region lying between north-east and east, 
and constituted a kingdom in former days, but now it 




Head of a Native of Kashgar. 



is subject to the Great Kaan. The people worship 
Mahommet. There are a good number of towns and 



Chap. XXXIII. 



THE KINGDOM OF CASCAR 



l8l 



villages, but the greatest and finest is Cascar itself. The 
inhabitants live by trade and handicrafts ; they have 




beautiful gardens and vineyards, and fine estates, and 
grow a great deal of cotton. From this country many 



1 82 MARCO POLO Book I. 

merchants go forth about the world on trading journeys. 
The natives are a wretched, niggardly set of people ; 
they eat and drink in miserable fashion. There are in 
the country many Nestorian Christians, who have 
churches of their own. The people of the country 
have a peculiar language, and the territory extends 
for five days' journey.^ 



Note i. — [There is no longer any difficulty in undeislanding how the travellers, after 
crossing Pamir, should have arrived at Kashgar if they followed the route from 
Tashkurgan through the Gez Defile. 

The Itinerary of the Mirza from Badakhshan (Faizabad) is the following : Zebak, 
Ishkashm, on the Panja, which may be considered the beginning of the Wakhan 
Valley, Panja Fort, in Wakhan, Raz Khan, Patur, near Lunghar (commencement 
of Pamir Steppe), Pamir Kul, or Barkiit Yassin, 13,300 feet, Aktash, Sirikul Tash- 
kurgan, Shukrab, Chichik Dawan, Akul, Kotul, Chahul Station (road to Yarkand) 
Kila Karawal, Aghiz Gah, Yangi-Hissar, Opechan, Yanga Sha?ir, Kashgar, where he 
arrived on the 3rd February, 1869. (Cf. Report of^' The Mirza' s" Exploration from 
Caubul to Kashgar. By Major T. G. Montgomerie, R.E. . . {Jour. R. Geog. Soc. 
XLI. 1871, pp. 132-192.) 

Major Montgomerie {I.e. p. 144) says: "The alterations in the positions of 
Kashgar and Yarkund in a great measure explains why Marco Polo, in crossing from 
Badakhshan to Eastern Turkestan, went first to Kashgar and then to Yarkund. With 
the old positions of Yarkund and Kashgar it appeared that the natural route from 
Badakhshan would have led first to Yarkund ; with the new positions, and guided by 
the light of the Mirza's route, from which it is seen that the direct route to Yarkund 
is not a good one, it is easy to understand how a traveller might prefer going to 
Kashgar first, and then to Yarkund. It is satisfactory to have elicited this further proof 
of the general accuracy of the great traveller's account of his journey through Central 
Asia." 

The Itinerary of Lieutenant-Colonel G^jidon {Sirikol, the Pdmirs and Wakhdn, ch. 
vi. o{ Forsytes Mission to Yarkund in 1873) runs thus : "Left Kashgar (21st March), 
Yangi-Hissar, Kaskasu Pass, descent to Chihil Gumbaz (forty Domes), where the road 
branches off to Yarkand (110 miles), Torut Pass, Tangi-Tar (defile), ' to the foot of a 
great elevated slope leading to the Chichiklik Pass, plain, and lake (14,700 feet), 
below the Yambulak and Kok-Moinok Passes, which are used later in the season on 
the road between Yangi-Hissar and Sirikol, to avoid the Tangi-Tdr and Shindi defiles. 
As the season advances, these passes become free from snow, while the defiles are 
rendered dangerous and difficult by the rush of the melting snow torrents. From the 
Chichiklik plain we proceeded down the Shindi ravine, over an extremely bad stony 
road, to the Sirikol River, up the banks of which we travelled to Tashkurgan, 
reaching it on the tenth day from Yangi-Hissar. The total distance is 125 miles.' 
Then T^shkurgdn (ancient name Vdrshtdi) : * the open part of the Sirikol Valley 
extends from about 8 miles below Tashkurgan to apparently a very considerable 
distance towards the Kunjiit mountain range ; ' left Tdshkurgin for Wakhan (2nd 
April, 1873) ; leave Sirikol Valley, enter the Shindan defile, reach the Aktdsh Valley, 
follow the Aktdsh stream (called Aksii by the Kirghiz) through the Little Pamir 
to the Gh^zkul (Little Pamir) Lake or Barkat Ydssfn, from which it takes its rise, 
four days from Tdshkurgdn. Little Pamir ' is bounded on the south by the con- 
tinuation of the Neza Tdsh range, which separates it from the Tdghdiingbdsh Pamir,' 



Chap. XXXIV. THE GREAT CITY OF SAMARCAN 183 

west of the lake, Langar, Sarhadd, 30 miles from Langar, and seven days from 
Sirikol, and Kila Panj, twelve days from Sirikol." — H. C] 

[I cannot admit with Professor Faquier {I.e. pp. 127-128) that Marco Polo did not 
visit Kashgar. — Grenard (II. p. 17) makes the remark that it took Marco Polo seventy 
days from Badakhshan to Kashgar, a distance that, in the Plain of Turkestan, he shall 
cross in sixteen days. — The Chinese traveller, translated by M. Guelny {Desc. de la 
Chim occidentale, p. 45), says that the name Kashgar is made of Kash^ fine colour, 
and,^ar, brick house. — H. C.] 

Kashgar was the capital, from 1865 to 1877, of Va'kub Kiishb^, a soldier of 
fortune, by descent it is said a Tajik of Shighnan, who, when the Chinese yoke 
was thrown off, made a throne for himself in Extern Turkestan, and subjected 
the whole basin to his authority, taking the title of Atalik Ghdzi. 

It is not easy to see how Kashgar should have been subject to the Great Kaan, 
except in the sense in which all territories under Mongol rule owed him homage. 
Yarkand, Polo acknowledges to have belonged to Kaidu, and the boundary between 
Kaidu's territory and the Kaan's lay between Karashahr and Komul [Bk. I. ch. xlL], 
much further east. 

[Bretschneider, Med. Res. (II. p. 47), says : " Marco Polo states with respect to the 
kingdom of Cascar (I. 189) that it was subject to the Great Khan, and says the same 
r^arding Colon (I. 196), whilst Yetrcan (I. 195), according to Marco Polo, belonged 
to Kaidu. This does not agree with Rashid's statements about the boundary between 
Kaidu's territory and the Khan's." — H. C] 

Kashgar was at this time a Metropolitan See of the Nestorian Chorch. (Cathay, 
etc 275, ccxiv.) 

Many strange sayings have been unduly ascribed to our traveller, but I remember 
none stranger than this by Colonel Tod : " Marco Polo calls Cashgar, where he was 
in the 6ih century, the birthplace of the Swedes" ! (Rajasthan, I. 60.) Petis de 
la Croix and Tod between them are answerable for this nonsense. (Sec Tie Hist, of 
Gengkizcan the Great, p. 116.) 

On cotton^ see ch. xxxvi — On Nestorians, see Konchao. 



CHAPTER XXXIV. 
Of the Great City of Samarcan. 

Samarcan is a great and noble city towards the north- 
west, inhabited by both Christians and Saracens, who 
are subject to the Great Kaan's nephew, Caidou by 
name ; he is, however, at bitter enmity with the Kaan.^ 
I will tell you of a great marvel that happened at this 
city. 

It is not a great while ago that Sigatay, own brother 
to the Great Kaan, who was Lord of this country and 
of many an one besides, became a Christian.* The 



Chap. XXXIV. THE GREAT CITY OF SAMARCAN 1 85 

Christians rejoiced greatly at this, and they built a great 
church in the city, in honour of John the Baptist ; and 
by his name the church was called. And they took a 
very fine stone which belonged to the Saracens, and 
placed it as the pedestal of a column in the middle of 
the church, supporting the roof. It came to pass, how- 
ever, that Sigatay died. Now the Saracens were full 
of rancour about that stone that had been theirs, and 
which had been set up in the church of the Christians ; 
and when they saw that the Prince was dead, they said 
one to another that now was the time to get back their 
stone, by fair means or by foul. And that they might 
well do, for they were ten times as many as the 
Christians. So they gat together and went to the 
church and said that the stone they must and would 
have. The Christians acknowledged that it was theirs 
indeed, but offered to pay a large sum of money and so 
be quit. Howbeit, the others replied that they never 
would give up the stone for anything in the world. 
And words ran so high that the Prince heard thereof, 
and ordered the Christians either to arrange to satisfy 
the Saracens, if it might be, with money, or to give up 
the stone. And he allowed them three days to do either 
the one thing or the other. 

What shall I tell you ? Well, the Saracens would on 
no account agree to leave the stone where it was, and 
this out of pure despite to the Christians, for they knew 
well enough that if the stone were stirred the church 
would come down by the run. So the Christians were 
in great trouble and wist not what to do. But they did 
do the best thing possible ; they besought Jesus Christ 
that he would consider their case, so that the holy 
church should not come to destruction, nor the name 
of its Patron Saint, John the Baptist, be tarnished by 
its ruin. And so when the day fixed by the Prince 



1 86 MARCO POLO Book I. 

came round, they went to the church betimes in the 
morning, and lo, they found the stone removed from 
under the column ; the foot of the cokimn was without 
support, and yet it bore the load as stoutly as before ! 
Between the foot of the column and the ground there 
was a space of three palms. So the Saracens had away 
their stone, and mighty little joy withal. It was a 
glorious miracle, nay, it is so, for the column still so 
standeth, and will stand as long as God pleaseth.^ 
Now let us quit this and continue our journey. 



Note i. — Of Kaidu, Kiibldi Kaan's kinsman and rival, and their long wars, we 
shall have to speak later. He had at this time a kind of joint occupancy of 
Samarkand and Bokhara with the Khans of Chagatai, his cousins. 

[On Samarkand generally see : Samarqand, by W. Radloff, translated into French 
by L. Leger, Rec. cPItin. dans PAsie Centrale, Ecole des Langues Orient. , Paris, 
1878, p. 284 et seq. ; A travers le royauine de Tamerlan {Asie Centrale) . . . par 
Guillaume Capus . . . Paris, 1892, 8vo. — H. C] 

Marco evidently never was at Samarkand, though doubtless it was visited by his 
Father and Uncle on their first journey, when we know they were long at Bokhara. 
Having, therefore, little to say descriptive of a city he had not seen, he tells us a 
story : — 

" So geographers, in Afric maps. 
With savage pictures fill their gaps. 
And o'er unhabitable downs 
Place elephants for want of towns." 

As regards the Christians of Samarkand who figure in the preceding story, we may 
note that the city had been one of the Metropolitan Sees of the Nestorian Church 
since the beginning of the 8th century, and had been a bishopric perhaps two centuries 
earlier. Prince Sempad, High Constable of Armenia, in a letter written from 
Samarkand in 1246 or 1247, mentions several circumstances illustrative of the state of 
things indicated in this story : " I tell you that we have found many Christians 
scattered all over the East, and many fine churches, lofty, ancient, and of good 
architecture, which have been spoiled by the Turks. Hence, the Christians of this 
country came to the presence of the reigning Kaan's grandfather {i.e. Chinghiz); he 
received them most honourably, and granted them liberty of worship, and issued 
orders to prevent their having any just cause of complaint by word or deed. And so 
the Saracens, who used to treat them with contempt, have now the like treatment in 
double measure." 

Shortly after Marco's time, viz. in 1328, Thomas of Mancasola, a Dominican, who 
had come from Samarkand with a Mission to the Pope (John XXH. ) from Ilchigadai, 
Khan of Chagatai, was appointed Latin Bishop of that city. {Mosheivi, p. 1 10, etc. ; 
Cathay, p. 192.) 

Note 2. — Chagatai, here called Sigatay, was Uncle, not Brother, to the Great 
Kaan (Kiibldi). Nor was Kaidu either Chagatai's son or Kublai's nephew, as Marco 
here and elsewhere represents him to be. (See Bk. IV. ch. i.) The term used to 



I 



Chap. XXXV. THE PROVINCE-OF^STARCAN 1 87 

describe Chagatai's relationship Ssfrire charnel, which excludes ambiguity, cousinship, 
or the like (such as is expressed by the Italian fratello cugiiio), and corresponds, I 
believe, to the brother german of Scotch law documents. 

Note 3.— One might say, These things be an allegory ! We take the fine stone 
that belongs to the Saracens (or Papists) to build our church on, but the day of 
reckoning comes at last, and our (Irish Protestant) Christians are afraid that the 
Church will come about their ears. May it stand, and better than that of Samarkand 
has done ! 

There is a story somewhat like this in D'Herbelot, about the Karmathian Heretics 
airrjing off the Black Stone from Mecca, and being obliged years after to bring it 
back across the breadth of Arabia ; on which occasion the stone conducted itself in a 
miraculous manner. 

There is a remarkable Stone at Samarkand, the Kok-Tash or Green Stone, on 
which Timur's throne was set. Tradition says that, big as it is, it was brought by him 
fromBrusa; — but tradition may be Nvrong. (See Vdmbhy's Travels, t^. 206.) [Also 
H. Moser, A travers PAsie centraU, 1 14- 1 1 5.— H. C] 

[The Archimandrite Palladius {Chinese Recorder, VI. p. 108) quotes from the 
Chi shun Chin-kiang chi (Description of Chin-Kiang), 14th century, the following 
passage r^arding the pillar : "There is a temple (in Samarcand) supported by four 
enormous wooden pillars, each of them 40 feet high. One of these pillars is in a 
hanging position, and stands off from the floor more than a foot." — H. C] 



CHAPTER XXXV. 
Of the Province of Yarcan. 

Yarcan is a province five days' journey in extent. The 
people follow the Law of Mahommet, but there are also 
Nestorian and Jacobite Christians. They are subject to 
the same Prince that I mentioned, the Great Kaan's 
nephew. They have plenty of everything, [particularly 
of cotton. The inhabitants are also great craftsmen, but 
a large proportion of them have swoln legs, and great 
crops at the throat, which arises from some quality in 
their drinking-water.] As there is nothing else worth 
telling we may pass on.^ 



Note i. — ^Yarkan or Yarken seems to be the general pronunciation of the name 
to this day, though we write Yarkand. 

[A Chinese traveller, translated by M. Gueluy {Desc. de la Chine oaidentales, 
p. 41), says that the word Yarkand is made of lar, earth, and Kiang {Kandl), large, 



1 88 MARCO POLO Book I. 

vast, but this derivation is doubtful. The more probable one is that Yarkand is made 
up of Var, new, and Kattd, Kend, or Kent, city. — H. C] 

Mir 'Izzat Ullah in modern days speaks of the prevalence of goitre at Yarkand. 
And Mr. Shaw informs me that during his recent visit to Yarkand (1869) he had 
numerous applications for iodine as a remedy for that disease. The theory which 
connects it with the close atmosphere of valleys will not hold at Yarkand. (/. R. A. S. 
VII. 303.) 

[Dr. Sven Hedin says that three-fourths of the population of Yarkand are suffering 
from goitre ; he ascribes the prevalence of the disease to the bad quality of the water, 
which is kept in large basins, used indifferently for bathing, washing, or draining. 
Only Hindu and " Andijdanlik " merchants, who drink well water, are free from 
goitre. 

Lieutenant Roborovsky, the companion of Pievtsov, in 1889, says : " In the streets 
one meets many men and women with large goitres, a malady attributed to the bad 
quality of the water running in the town conduits, and drunk by the inhabitants in its 
natural state. It appears in men at the age of puberty, and in women when they 
marry." (Proc. R. G. S. 2 ser. XII. 1890, p. 36.) 

Formerly the Mirza {J. R. G. S. 1871, p. 181) said : " Goitre is very common in 
the city [of Yarkund], and in the country round, but it is unknown in Kashgar." 

General Pievtsov gives to the small oasis of Yarkand (264 square miles) a population 
of 150,000, that is, 567 inhabitants per square mile. He, after Prjevalsky's death, 
started, with V. L. Roborovsky (botanist) and P. K. Kozlov (zoologist), who were later 
joined by K. I. Bogdanovich (geologist), on his expedition to Tibet (1889-1890). He 
followed the route Yarkand, Khotan, Kiria, Nia, and Charchan. — H. C] 



CHAPTER XXXVI. 
Of a Province called Cotan. 



CoTAN is a province lying between north-east and east, 
and is eight days' journey in length. The people are 
subject to the Great Kaan,^ and are all worshippers of 
Mahommet.^ There are numerous towns and villages in 
the country, but Cotan, the capital, is the most noble of 
all, and gives its name to the kingdom. Everything is 
to be had there in plenty, including abundance of cotton, 
[with flax, hemp, wheat, wine, and the like]. The 
people have vineyards and gardens and estates. They 
live by commerce and manufactures, and are no soldiers.^ 



Note i. — [The Buddhist Government of Khotan was destroyed by Boghra Khan 
(about 980-990) ; it was temporarily restored by the Buddhist Kutchluk Khan, chief 



Chap, XXXVI. THE PROVINCE OF COTAN 1 89 

of the Naimans, who came from the banks of the Ih, destroyed the Mahomedan 
d\-nasty of Boghra Khan {1209), but was in his turn subjugated by Chinghiz Khan. 

The only Christian monument discovered in Khotan is a bronze cross brought 
back by Grenard (III. pp. 134- 135); see also Deveria, Notes d" Epigraphie AlongoU, 
p. 80.— H. C] 

Note 2. — " Aourent Makommet." Though this is Marco's usual formula to define 
Mahomedans, we can scarcely suppose that he meant it literally. But in other cases 
it was very literally interpreted. Thus in Baudouin de Sebourc, the Dame de Pontieu, 
a passionate lady who renounces her faith before Saladin, says : — 

" ' Et je renoie Dieu, et le pooir qu'il a ; 
Et Marie, sa Mere, qu'on dist qui le porta ; 
Afahom voel aourer, aportez-le-moi cha ! ' 

* * * * Li Soudans commanda 
Qu'on aportast Mahom ; et celle faoura." (I. p. 72.) 

The same romance brings in the story of the Stone of Samarkand, adapted fi-om 
ch. xxxiv. , and accounts for its sanctity in Saracen eyes because it had long formed 
a pedestal for Mahound ! 

And this notion gave rise to the use of Mawmet for an idol in general ; whilst from 
the Mahonimerie or place of Islamite worship the name of mummery came to be 
applied to idolatrous or unmeaning rituals; both very unjust etymologies. Thus of 
mosques in Richard Cctur de Lion : 

"Kyrkes they made of Cr}'stene Lawe, 
And hei A/aTvmettes lete dovine diawe." {Weber, II. 228.) 

So Correa calls a golden idol, which was taken by Da Gama in a ship of Calicut, "an 
image of Mahomed" (372). Don Quixote too, who ought to have known better, 
cites with admiration the feat of Rinaldo in carrying off, in spite of forty Moors, a 
golden image of Mahomed. 

Note 3. — 800 //(160 miles) east of Chokiuka or Yarkand, Hiuen Tsang comes to 
Kiustanna (Kustana) or Khotan. " The country chiefly consists of plains covered 
with stones and sand. The remainder, however, is favourable to agriculture, and pro* 
duces everything abundantly. From this country are got woollen carpets, fine felts, 
well woven taffetas, white and black jade." Chinese authors of the loth century 
speak of the abundant grapes and excellent wine of Khotan. 

Chinese annals of the 7th and 8th centuries tell us that the people of Khotan had 
chronicles of their own, a glimpse of a lost branch of histor)-. Their writing, laws, 
and literature were modelled upon those of India. 

Ilchi, the modem capital, was visited by Mr. Johnson, of the Indian Survey, in 1865. 
The country, after the revolt against the Chinese in 1863, came first under the rule of 
Habfb-ullah, an aged chief calling himself A'/4rf« Bddshah of Khotan ; and since the 
treacherous seizure and murder of Habib-ullah by Ya'kub Beg of Kashgar in January 
1867, it has formed a part of the kingdom of the latter. 

Mr. Johnson says: "The chief grains of the country are Indian com, wheat, barley 
of two kinds, bdjra, j'o^vdr (two kinds of holcus), buckwheat and rice, all of which 

are sup)erior to the Indian grains, and are of a very fine quality The country 

is certainly superior to India, and in every respect equal to Kashmir, over which it 
has the advantage of being less humid, and consequently better suited to the growth 
of firuits. Olives (?), pears, apples, peaches, apricots, mulberries, grapes, currants, 
and melons, all exceedingly large in size and of a delicious flavour, are produced in 
great variety and abundance Cotton of valuable quality, and raw silk, are pro- 
duced in very large quantities." 



190 MARCO POLO Book I. 

[Khotan is the chief place of Turkestan for cotton manufactures ; its khatn is to be 
found everywhere. This name, which means raw in Persian, is given to a stuff made 
with cotton thread, which has not undergone any preparation ; they manufacture also 
two other cotton stuffs : alatcha with blue and red stripes, and ichekmen, very thick 
and coarse, used to make dresses and sacks ; if khhm is better at Khotan, alatcha and 
tchektnen are superior at Kashgar. {Grenard, II. pp. 191-192.) 

Grenard (II. pp. I75-I77)> among the fruits, mentions apricots (<?«w«^), ripe in June, 
and so plentiful that to keep them they are dried up to be used like garlic against 
mountain sickness; melons {koghoun); water-melons (/ar<5^«2, the best are from Hami); 
vine ((dtj—i\ie best grapes (uzum) come from Boghaz langar, near Keria ; the best dried 
grapes are those from Turfan ; peaches [shaptdlozi) ; pomegranates (and); best from 
Kerghalyk), etc. ; the best apples are those of Nia and Sadju; pears are very bad ; 
cherries and strawberries are unknown, Grenard (II. p. 106) also says that grapes are 
very good, but that Khotan wine is detestable, and tastes like vinegar. 

The Chinese traveller, translated by M. Gueluy [Desc. de la Chiiie occidentale, 
p. 45), says that all the inhabitants of Khotan are seeking for precious stones, and that 
melons and fruits are more plentiful than at Yarkand. — H. C] 

Mr. Johnson reports the whole country to be rich in soil and very much under- 
peopled. Ilchi, the capital, has a population of about 40,000, and is a great place 
for manufactures. The chief articles produced are silks, felts, carpets (both silk and 
woollen), coarse cotton cloths, and paper from the mulberry fibre. The people are 
strict Mahomedans, and speak a Turki dialect. Both sexes are good-looking, with 
a slightly Tartar cast of countenance. {V. et V. de H. T. 278 ; Riinusat, H. de la V. 
de Khotan, 37, 73-84 ; Chin. Kepos. IX. 128 ; /. R. G. S. XXXVII. dseqq.) 

[In 1891, Dutreuil de Rhins and Grenard at the small village of Yotkan, about 
8 miles to the west of the present Khotan, came across what they considered 
the most important and probably the most ancient city of southern Chinese 
Turkestan. The natives say that Yotkan is the site of the old Capital. (Cf. 
Grenard, III. p. 127 et seq. for a description and drawings of coins and objects found 
at this place.) 

The remains of the ancient capital of Khotan were accidentally discovered, some 
thirty-five years ago, at Yotkan, a village of the Borazan Tract. A great mass of 
highly interesting finds of ancient art pottery, engraved stones, and early Khotan coins 
with Kharo§thi-Chinese legends, coming from this site, have recently been thoroughly 
examined in Dr. Hoernle's Report on the "British Collection of Central Asian 
Antiquities." Stein. — (See Three further Collections of Ancient Manuscripts from 
Central Asia, by Dr. A. F. R. Hoernle. . . . Calcutta, 1897, 8vo.) 

"The sacred sites of Buddhist Khotan which Hiuen Tsangand Fa-hian describe, 
can be shown to be occupied now, almost without exception, by Mohamedan 
shrines forming the object of popular pilgrimages." (M. A. Stein, Archceological Work 
about Khotan, Jour. R. As. Soc, April, 1901, p. 296.) 

It may be justly said that during the last few years numerous traces of Hindu 
civilisation have been found in Central Asia, extending from Khotan, through the 
Takla-Makan, as far as Turfan, and perhaps further up. 

Dr. Sven Hedin, in the year 1896, during his second journey through Takla-Makan 
from Khotan to Shah Yar, visited the ruins between the Khotan Daria and the Kiria 
Daria, where he found the remains of the city of Takla-Makan now buried in the 
sands. He discovered figures of Buddha, a piece of papyrus with unknown characters, 
vestiges of habitations. This Asiatic Pompei, says the traveller, at least ten centuries 
old, is anterior to the Mahomedan invasion led by Kutei'be Ibn- Muslim, which 
happened at the beginning of the 8th century. Its inhabitants were Buddhist, and 
of Aryan race, probably originating from Hindustan. — Dutreuil de Rhins and Grenard 
discovered in the Kumari grottoes, in a small hill on the right bank of the Karakash 
Daria, a manuscript written on birch bark in A'harosh/hi characters ; these grottoes of 
Kumari are mentioned in Hiuen Tsang. (II. p. 229.) 

Dr. Sven Hedin followed the route Kashgar, Yangi-Hissar, Yarkand to Khotan, 



Chap. XXXVII. THE PROVINCE OF PELN I9I 

in 1895. He made a stay of nine days at Ilchi, the population of which he estimated 
at 5500 inhabitants (5000 Musulnians, 500 Chinese). 

(See also Sven Hedin, Die Geog. wissenschaft. Ergebnisse meiner Reisen in 
Zentralasien, 1894-1897. Petertnamis Mitt., Erganz. XXVIII. (Hft. 131), Gotha, 
1900. — H. C] 



CHAPTER XXXVII. 

Of the Province of Pein. 



Pein is a province five days in length, lying between 
east and north-east. The people are worshippers of 
Mahommet, and subjects of the Great Kaan. There are 
a good number of towns and villages, but the most noble 
is Fein, the capital of the kingdom.^ There are rivers in 
this country, in which quantities of Jasper and Chalcedony 
are found.^ The people have plenty of all products, in- 
cluding cotton. They live by manufactures and trade. 
But they have a custom that I must relate. If the 
husband of any woman go away upon a journey and 
remain away for more than 20 days, as soon as that term 
is past the woman may marry another man, and the 
husband also may then marry whom he pleases.^ 

I should tell you that all the provinces that I have 
been speaking of, from Cascar forward, and those I am 
going to mention [as far as the city of Lop] belong to 
Great Turkey. 



Note i. — "In old times," says the Haft Iklim., " travellers used to go from 
Khotan to Cathay in 14 (?) days, and found towns and villages all along the road 
[excepting, it may be presumed, on the terrible Gobi], so that there was no need to 
travel in caravans. In later days the fear of the Kalmaks caused this line to be 
abandoned, and the circuitous one occupied 100 days." This directer route between 
• Khotan and China must have been followed by Fa-hian on his way to India ; by 
Hiuen Tsang on his way back ; and by Shah Rukh's ambassadors on their return 
from China in 1421. The circuitous route alluded to appears to have gone north from 
Khotan, crossed the Tarimgol, and fallen into the road along the base of the Thian 
Shan, eventually crossing the Desert southward from Komul, 



192 MARCO POLO Book I. 

Former commentators differed very widely as to the position of Pein, and as to 
the direction of Polo's route from Khotan. The information acquired of late years 
leaves the latter no longer open to doubt. It must have been nearly coincident with 
that of Hiuen Tsang. 

The perusal of Johnson's Report of his journey to Khotan, and the Itineraries at- 
tached to it, enabled me to feel tolerable certainty as to the position of Charchan (see 
next chapter), and as to the fact that Marco followed a direct route from Khotan to 
the vicinity of Lake Lop. Pein, then, was identical with PlMA,* which was the first 
city reached by Hiuen Tsang on his return to China after quitting Khotan, and 
which lay 330 li east of the latter city.f Other notices of Pima appear in Remusat's 
history of Khotan ; some of these agree exactly as to the distance from the capital, 
adding that it stood on the banks of a river flowing from the East and entering the 
sandy Desert ; whilst one account seems to place it at 500 li from Khotan. And in 
the Turkish map of Central Asia, printed in the Jahdn Nuntd, as we learn from Sir 
H. Rawlinson, the town of Pint is placed a little way north of Khotan. Johnson 
found Khotan rife with stories of former cities overwhelmed by the shifting sands of 
the Desert, and these sands appear to have been advancing for ages ; for far to the 
north-east of Pima, even in the 7th century, were to be found the deserted and ruined 
cities of the ancient kingdoms of Tuholo and Shemathona. "Where anciently were 
the seats of flourishing cities and prosperous communities," says a Chinese author 
speaking of this region, " is nothing now to be seen but a vast desert ; all has been 
buried in the sands, and the wild camel is hunted on those arid plains." 

Pima cannot have been very far from Kiria, visited by Johnson. This is a town 
of 7000 houses, lying east of Ilchi, and about 69 miles distant from it. The road for 
the most part lies through a highly cultivated and irrigated country, flanked by the 
sandy desert at three or four miles to the left. After passing eastward by Kiria it is 
said to make a great elbow, turning north ; and within this elbow lie the sands that 
have buried cities and fertile country. Here Mr. Shaw supposes Pima lay (perhaps 
upon the river of Kiria). At Pima itself, in A. D. 644, there was a story of the de- 
struction of a city lying further north, a judgment on the luxury and impiety of the 
people and their king, who, shocked at the eccentric aspect of a holy man, had 
caused him to be buried in sand up to the mouth. 

{N. et E. XIV. 477 ; H. de la Ville de Khotan, 63-66 ; Klap. Tabl. Hisioriques, 
p. 182 ; Proc. R. G. S. XVI. 243.) 

[Dutreuil de Rhins and Grenard took the road from Khotan to Charchan ; they 
left Khotan on the 4th May, 1893, passed Kiria, Nia, and instead of going direct to 
Charchan through the desert, they passed Kara Say at the foot of the Altyn tagh, a 
route three days longer than the other, but one which was less warm, and where 
water, meat, milk, and barley could be found. Having passed Kapa, they crossed 
the ICaramuren, and went up from Achan due north to Charchan, where they stayed 
three months. Nowhere do they mention Pein, or Pima, for it appears to be Kiria 
itself, which is the only real town between Khotan and the Lobnor. Grenard says in 
a note (p. 54, vol. ii. ): '^^ Fi-mo (Keria) recalls the Tibetan byi-ma, which is pro- 
nounced Pima, or Tchitiia, and which means sand. Such is perhaps also the origin 
of Pialma, a village near Khotan, and of the old name of Charchan, Tchd-mo-to-na, 
of which the two last syllables would represent grong (pronounce tojig=ioyin), or 
ikr'om (/W; = bazaar). Now, not only would this etymology be justified because these . 
three places are indeed surrounded with sand remarkably deep, but as they were the 
first three important places with which the Tibetans met coming into the desert of Gobi, 
either by the route of Gurgutluk and of Polor, or by Karakoram and Sandju, or by 
Tsadam, and they had thus as good a pretext to call them * towns of sand ' as the 

* Pein may easily have been miscopied for Pern, which is indeed the reading of some MSS. 
Ramusio has Pey?n. 

t M. Vivien de St. Martin, in his map of Hiuen Tsang's tr.ive.ls, places Pima to the west of 
Khotan. Though one sees how the mistake originated, there is no leal ground for this in either of 
the versions of the Chinese pilgrim's journey. (See Vit tt Voyages, p. a88, and Mimoirts, vol. it. 
242-243.) 



Chap. XXXVII. THE JADE OF KHOTAN 193 

Chinese had to give to T'un-hwang the name of Shcuhau, viz. City of Sand. Kiria 
is called Ou-mi, under the Han, and the name of Pi-mo is found for the first time iu 
Iliuen Tsang, that is to say, before the Tibetan invasions of the 8th centurj'. It is 
not possible to admit that the incursion of the Tu-ku-hun in the 5th century could be 
the cause of this change of name. The hypothesis remains that Pi-mo was really the 
ancient name forced by the first Tibetan invaders spoken of by legend, tliat Ou-mi 
was either another name of the town, or a fancy name invented by the Chinese, like 
Yu-t'ien for Khotan, Su-lo for Kashgar. . . ." Sir T. D. Forsyth {J. R. G. S., 
XLVII., 1877, p. 3) writes : " I should say that Peim or Pima must be identical with 
Kiria."— H. C] 

Note 2. — The Jasper and Chalcedony of our author are probably only varieties 
of the semi-precious mineral called by us popularly Jade, by the Chinese Yii, by the 
Eastern Turks Kdsh, by the Persians Yashm, which last is no doubt the same word 
with fa<rrtj, and therefore ■<N\\h Jasper. The Greek Jaspis was in reality, according to 
Mr. King, a green Chalcedony. 

The Jade of Turkestan is largely derived from water-rolled boulders fished up by 
divers in the rivers of Khotan, but it is also got from mines in the valley of the Kard- 
kash River. " Some of the Jade," says Timkowski, " is as white as snow, some dark 
green, like the most beautiful emerald (?), others yellow, vermilion, and jet black. 
ITie rarest and most esteemed varieties are the white speckled with red and the green 
veined with gold." (I. 395.) The Jade of Khotan appears to be first mentioned by 
Chinese authors in the time of the Han DjTiasty under Wu-ti (B.C. 140-S6). In A.D. 
541 an image of Buddha sculptured in Jade was sent as an offering from Khotan ; and 
in 632 the process of fishing for the material in the rivers of Khotan, as practised 
down to modem times, is mentioned. The importation of Jade or Yii from this 
quarter probably gave the name of Kia-yii Kwan or "Jade Gate" to the fortified 
Pass looking in this direction on the extreme N.W. of China Proper, between Shachau 
and Suhchau. Since the detachment from China the Jade industry has ceased, the 
Musulmans having no taste for that kind oivirtit. {H. de la V. de Khotan, 2, 17, 
23 ; also see J. R. G. S. XXXVI. 165, and Cathay, 130, 564 ; Ritter, II. 213 ; 
Shaw's High Tartary, pp. 98, 473.) 

[On the 1 1 th January, 1895, ^r. Sven Hedin visited one of the chief places where 
Jade is to be found. It is to the north-east of Khotan, in the old bed of the Yurun 
Kash. The bed of the river is divided into claims like gold-fields ; the workmen are 
Chinese for the greater part, some few are Musulmans. 

Grenard (II. pp. 186-187) says that the finest Jade comes from the high Karakash 
(black Jade) River and Yurungkash (white Jade) ; the Jade River is called Su-tash. 
At Khotan, Jade is polished up by sixty or seventy indi\'iduals belonging to twenty- 
five workshops. 

"At i8 miles from Su-chau, Kia-yu-kwan, celebrated as one of the gates of China, 
and as the fortress guarding the extreme north-west entrance into the empire, is passed." 
^Colonel M. S. Bell, Proc. R. G. S. XII. 1890, p. 75.) 

According to the Chinese characters, the name of Kia-j-u Kwan does not mean 
"Jade Gate," and as Mr. Rockhill writes to me, it can only mean something like 
" barrier of the pleasant Valley."— H. C] 

Note 3. — Possibly this may refer to the custom of temporarj- marriages which 
seems to prevail in most towns of Central Asia which are the halting-places of cara- 
vans, and the morals of which are much on a par with those of seaport towns, from 
analogous causes. Thus at Meshid, Khanikoff speaks of the large population of young 
and pretty women ready, according to the accommodating rules of Shiah Mahomedan- 
ism, to engage in marriages which are perfectly lawful, for a month, a week, or even 
twenty-four hours. Kashgar is also noted in the East for its chaukans, young women 
with whom the traveller may readily form an alliance for the period of his stay, 
be it long or short, i^Khan. Mhn. p. 98 ; Rtiss. in Central Asia, 52 ; /, A. S. D. 
XXVI. 262 ; Humes, III. 195 ; Vipte, II. 201.) 

VOL. i, .. 



194 MARCO POLO Book I. 

CHAPTER XXXVIII. 
Of the Province of Charchan. 

Charchan is a Province of Great Turkey, lying between 
north-east and east. The people worship Mahommet. 
There are numerous towns and villages, and the chief 
city of the kingdom bears its name, Charchan. The 
Province contains rivers which bring down Jasper and 
Chalcedony, and these are carried for sale into Cathay, 
where they fetch great prices. The whole of the 
Province is sandy, and so is the road all the way from 
Pein, and much of the water that you find is bitter and 
bad. However, at some places you do find fresh and 
sweet water. When an army passes through the land, 
the people escape with their wives, children, and cattle a 
distance of two or three days' journey into the sandy 
waste ; and knowing the spots where water is to be had, 
they are able to live there, and to keep their cattle alive, 
whilst it is impossible to discover them ; for the wind 
immediately blows the sand over their track. 

Quitting Charchan, you ride some five days through 
the sands, finding none but bad and bitter water, and 
then you come to a place where the water is sweet. And 
now I will tell you of a province called Lop, in which 
there is a city, also called Lop, which you come to at the 
end of those five days. It is at the entrance of the great 
Desert, and it is here that travellers repose before 
entering on the Desert.^ 



Note i. — Though the Lake of Lob or Lop appears on all our maps, from 
Chinese authority, the latter does not seem to have supplied information as to a town 
so called. We have, however, indications of the existence of such a place, both 
mediaeval and recent. The History of Mirza Haidar, called the Tar(kh-i-Rashfd(, 
already referred to, in describing the Great Basin of Eastern Turkestan, says : 
" Formerly there were several large cities in this plain ; the names of two have 
survived — Lob and Kank, but of the rest there is no trace or tradition ; all is buried 
under the sand." [Forsyth {/. R. G. S. XLVII. 1877, p. 5) says that he thinks 



Chap. XXX\aiI. THE PROVINCE OF CHARCHAN 1 95 

tliat this Kank is probably the Katak mentioned by Mirza Haidar. — H. C] 
In another place the same history says that a boy heir of the house of Chag- 
hatai, to save him from a usurper, was sent away to Sarigh Uighiir and Lob- 
Kank, far in the East. Again, in the short notices of the cities of Turkestan which 
Mr. Wathen collected at Bombay from pilgrims of those regions on their way to Mecca, 
we find the following : " Lopp. — Lopp is situated at a great distance from Yarkand. 
The inhabitants are principally Chinese ; but a few Uzbeks reside there. Lopp is 
remarkable for a salt-water lake in its vicinity." Johnson, speaking of a road from 
Tibet into Khotan, says : " This route .... leads not only to Ilchi and Yarkand, 
but also vid Lob to the large and important city of Karashahr." And among the 
routes attached to Mr. Johnson's original Report, we have : — 

" Route No. VII. Kiria (see note I to last chapter) to ChacHAN and LoB 
(from fiative informatioit)." 

This first revealed to me the continued existence of Marco's Charchan ; for it was 
impossible to doubt that in the Chachan and I.OB of this Itinerary we had his 
Charchan and Lop ; and his route to the verge of the Great Desert was thus made 
clear. 

Mr. Johnson's information made the journey from Kiria to Charchan to be 9 
marches, estimated by him to amount to 154 miles, and adding 69 miles from Ilchi to 
Kiria (which he actually traversed) we have 13 marches or 223 miles for the distance 
from Ilchi to Charchan. Mr. Shaw has since obtained a route between Ilchi and Lob 
on very good authority. This makes the distance to Charchan, or Charchand, as it is 
called, 22 marches, which Mr. Shaw estimates at 293 miles. Both give 6 marches 
from Charchand to Lob, which is in fair accordance with Polo's 5, and Shaw 
estimates the whole distance from Ilchi to Lob at 373, or by another calculation at 
384 miles, say roundly 380 miles. This higher estimate is to be preferred to Mr. 
Johnson's for a reason which will appear under next chapter. 

Mr. Shaw's informant, Rozi of Khotan, who had lived twelve years at Charchand, 
described the latter as a small town with a district extending on both sides of a 
stream which flows to Lob, and which affords Jade. The people are Musulmans. 
They grow wheat, Indian com, pears, and apples, etc., but no cotton or rice. It 
stands in a great plain, but the mountains are not far off. The nature of the products 
leads Mr. Shaw to think it must stand a good deal higher than Ilchi (4000), perhaps 
at about 6000 feet. I may observe that the Chinese hydrography of the Kashgar 
Basin, translated by Julien in the N. An. des Voyages for 1846 (vol. iii.), seems to 
imply that mountains from the south approach within some 20 miles of the Tarim 
River, between the longitude of Shayar and Lake Lop. The people of Lob are 
Musulman also, but very uncivilised. The Lake is salt. The hydrc^raphy calls it 
about 200 It (say 66 miles) from E. to W. and half that from N. to S., and expresses 
the old belief that it forms the subterranean source of the Hwang-Ho. Shaw's 
Itinerary shows " salt \mx>\s " at six of the stations between Kiria and Charchand, so 
Marco's memory in this also was exact. 

Nut, a town two marches from Kiria according to Johnson, or four according to 
Shaw, is probably the ancient city of Ni-jang of the ancient Chinese Itineraries, 
which lay 30 or 40 miles on the China side of Pima, in the middle of a great marsh, 
and formed the eastern frontier of Khotan bordering on the Desert, (y. /?. G. S. 
XXXVII. pp. 13 and 44 ; also Sir H. Rawlinson in XLII. p. 503 : Erskinis Baber 
and Humayun, I. 42 ; Proc. R. G. S. vol. xvi. pp. 244-249 ; J. A. S. B. IV. 656 ; 
H. de la V. de Khotan, u.s.) 

[The Charchan of Marco Polo seems to have been built to the west of the present 
oasis, a little south of the road to Kiria, where ruined houses have been found. It 
must have been destroyed before the i6th century, since Mirza Haidar does not 
mention it. It was not anterior to the 7th century, as it did not exist at the time of 
Hiuen Tsang. (Cf. Grenard, III. p. 146.) 

Grenard says (pp. 183-184) that he examined the remains of what is called the old 
town of Charchan, traces of the ancient canal, ruins of dwelhngs deep into the sand, of 
VOL. I. y 2 



196 MARCO POLO Book I. 

which the walls built of large and solid-baked bricks, are pretty well preserved. 
Save these bricks, " I found hardly anything, the inhabitants have pillaged everything 
long ago. I attempted some excavating, which turned out to be without result, as far 
as I was concerned ; but the superstitious natives declared that they were the cause 
of a violent storm which took place soon after. There are similar ruins in the 
environs, at Yantak Koudouk, at Tatrang, one day's march to the north, and at 
Ouadjchahari at five days to the north-east, which corresponds to the position 
assigned to Lop by Marco Polo." (See Grenard^s Haute Asie on Nia.) 

Palladius is quite mistaken {I.e. p. 3) in saying that the "Charchan" of Marco 
Polo is to be found in the present province of Karashar. (Cf. T. W. A'ingstnill's Notes 
on Marco Folds Route from Khoten to China, Chinese Recorder, VIL pp. 338-343 ; 
Notes on Doctor Sven Heditis Discoveries in the Valley of the Tarim, its Cities and 
Peoples, China Review, XXIV. No. IL pp. 59-64.) — IL C] 



CHAPTER XXXIX. 
Of the City of Lop and the Great Desert. 

Lop is a large town at the edge of the Desert, which is 
called the Desert of Lop, and is situated between east 
and north-east. It belongs to the Great Kaan, and the 
people worship Mahommet. Now, such persons as 
propose to cross the Desert take a week's rest in this 
town to refresh themselves and their cattle ; and then 
they make ready for the journey, taking with them a 
month's supply for man and beast. On quitting this city 
they enter the Desert. 

The length of this Desert is so great that 'tis said it 
would take a year and more to ride from one end of it to 
the other. And here, where its breadth is least, it takes 
a month to cross it. 'Tis all composed of hills and 
valleys of sand, and not a thing to eat is to be found on 
it. But after riding for a day and a night you find fresh 
water, enough mayhap for some 50 or 100 persons with" 
their beasts, but not for more. And all across the 
Desert you will find water in like manner, that is to say, 
in some 28 places altogether you will find good water, 



Chap. XXXIX. THE GREAT DESERT 197 

but in no great quantity ; and in four places also you find 
brackish water.^ 

Beasts there are none ; for there is nought for them 
to eat. But there is a marvellous thing related of this 
Desert, which is that when travellers are on the move by 
night, and one of them chances to lag behind or to fall 
asleep or the like, when he tries to gain his company 
again he v/ill hear spirits talking, and will suppose them 
to be his comrades. Sometimes the spirits will call him 
by name ; and thus shall a traveller ofttimes be led 
astray so that he never finds his party. And in this way 
many have perished. [Sometimes the stray travellers 
will hear as it were the tramp and hum of a great 
cavalcade of people away from the real line of road, and 
taking this to be their own company they will follow the 
sound ; and when day breaks they find that a cheat has 
been put on them and that they are in an ill plight.^] 
Even in the day-time one hears those spirits talking. 
And sometimes you shall hear the sound of a variety of 
musical instruments, and still more commonly the sound 
of drums. [Hence in making this journey 'tis customary 
for travellers to keep close together. All the animals 
too have bells at their necks, so that they cannot easily 
get astray. And at sleeping-time a signal is put up to 
show the direction of the next march.] 

So thus it is that the Desert is crossed.' 



Note i. — Lop appears to be the Napopo, i.e. A'avapa, of Hiuen Tsang, called also 
the country of Leulan, in the Desert. {M^in. II. p. 247.) N^avapa looks like Sanskrit. 
If so, this carries ancient Indian influence to the verge of the great Gobi. [See supra, 
j>. 190.] It is difficult to reconcile with our maps the statement of a thirty days' journey 
across the Desert from Lop to Shachau. RittePs extracts, indeed, regarding this Desert, 
sho\» that the constant occurrence of sandhills and deep drifts (our traveller's "hiils 
and valleys of sand ") makes the passage extremely difficult for carts and cattle. (III. 
375. ) But I suspect that there is some material error in the longitude of Lake Lop 
as represented in our maps, and that it should be placed something Hie three degrees 
more to the westward ihan we find it {e.g.) in Kiepert's Map of Asia. By that map 
Khotan is not far short of 600 miles from the western extremity of Lake Lop. By 



198 MARCO POLO Book I. 

Johnson's Itinerary (including his own journey to Kiria) it is only 338 miles from 
Ilchi to I.ob. Mr. Shaw, as we have seen, gives us a little more, but it is only even 
then 380. Polo unfortunately omits his usual estimate for the extent of the " Province 
of Charchan," so he affords us no complete datum. But his distance between 
Charchan and I-ob agrees fairly, as we have seen, with that both of Johnson and of 
Shaw, and the elbow on the road from Kiria to Charchan {supra, p. 192) necessitates 
our still further abridging the longitude between Khotan and Lop. (See Shaw's 
remarks in Proc. R. G. S. XVL 243.) 

[" This desert was known in China of old by the name of Lew-sAa, i.e. " Quick- 
sand," or literally, "Flowing sands." {Pal ladius, Jour. N. China B. R. As. Soc. 
N.S. X. 1875, p. 4.) 

A most interesting problem is connected with the situation of Lob-nor which led 
to some controversy between Baron von Richthofen and Prjevalsky. The latter 
placed the lake one degree more to the south than the Chinese did, and found that 
its water was sweet. Richthofen agreed with the Chinese Topographers and wrote in 
a letter to Sir Henry Yule : "I send you two tracings ; one of them is a true copy 
of the Chinese map, the other is made from a sketch which I constructed to-day, and 
on which I tried to put down the Chinese Topography together with that of Prjevalsky. 
It appears evident — (l) That Prjevalsky travelled by the ancient road to a point south 
of the true Lop-noor ; (2) that long before he reached this point he found the river 
courses quite different from what they had been formerly ; and (3) that following one 
of the new rivers which flows due south by a new road, he reached the two sweet- 
water lakes, one of which answers to the ancient Khas-omo. I use the word ' new ' 
merely by way of comparison with the state of things in Kien-long's time, when the 
map was made. It appears that the Chinese map shows the Khas Lake too far north 
to cover the Kara-Koshun. 'Ihe bifurcation of the roads south of the lake nearly 
resembles that which is marked by Prjevalsky." (Preface of E. D. Morgan's transl. 
of From Kulja across the Tian Shan to Lob-nor, by Colonel N. Prjevalsky, London, 
1879, p. iv.) In this same volume Baron von Richthofen's remarks are given 
(pp. 135-159, with a map, p. 144), showing comparison between Chinese and Prje- 
valsky's Geography from tracings by Baron von Richthofen and (pp. 160-165) a 
translation of Prjevalsky's replies to the Baron's criticisms. 

Now the Swedish traveller. Dr. Sven Hedin, claims to have settled this knotty 
point. Going from Korla, south-west of Kara-shahr, by a road at the foot of the Kurugh- 
tagh and between these mountains and the Koncheh Daria, he discovered the ruins 
of two fortresses, and a series of milestones (potais). These tall pyramids of clay and 
wood, indicating distances in lis, show the existence at an ancient period of a road 
with a large traffic between Korla and an unknown place to the south-east, probably 
on the shores of the Chinese Lob-nor. Prjevalsky, who passed between the 
Lower Tarim and the Koncheh Daria, could not see a lake or the remains of a lake 
to the east of this river. The Koncheh Daria expands into a marshy basin, the Malta 
Kul, from which it divides into two branches, the Kuntiekkich Tarim (East River) 
and the Ilek (river) to the E.S.E. Dr. Sven Hedin, after following the course of the 
Ilek for three days (4th April, 1896) found a large sheet of water in the valley at the 
very place marked by the Chinese Topographers and Richthofen for the Lob-nor. 
This mass of water is divided up by the natives into AvuUu Kul, Kara Kul, Tayek 
Kul, and Arka Kul, which are actually almost filled up with reeds. Dr. Sven Hedin 
afterwards visited the Lob-nor of Prjevalsky, and reached its western extremity, the 
Kara-buran (black storm) on the 17th April. In 1885, Prjevalsky had found the Lob- 
nor an immense lake ; four years later Prince Henri d'Orleans saw it greatly reduced 
in size, and Dr. Sven Hedin discovered but pools of water. In the meantime, since 
1885, the northern (Chinese) Lob-nor has gradually filled up, so the lake is somewhat 
vagrant. Dr. Sven Hedin says that from his observations he can assert that Prjevalsky's 
ake is of recent formation. 

So Marco Polo's Lob-nor should be the northern or Chinese lake. 

Another proof of this given by Dr. Sven Hedin is that the Chinese give the name of 



Chap. XXXIX. THE LOB-NOR 1 99 

Lob to the region between Arghan and Tikkenlik, anknown in the country of the 
southern lake. The existence of two lakes shows what a quantity of water from the 
Thian Shan, the Eastern Pamir, and Northern Tibet flows into the basin of the Tarim. 
The Russian Lieutenant K. P. Kozlov has tried since to prove that the Chinese 
Lob-nor is the Kara-Koshun (Black district), which is a second lake formed by the 
Tarim, which discharges into and issues from the lake Kara-buran. Kozlov's argu- 
ments are published in the Isvestia of the Russian Geographical Society, and in a 
separate pamphlet. The Geog. Jour. (June, 1898, pp. 652-658) contains The Lob-nor 
Controversy, a full statement of the case, summarising Kozlov's pamphlet. Among 
the documents relating to the controversy, Kozlov "quotes passages from the 
Chinese work Si-yui-shui-dao-tsi, published in 1823, relative to the region, and 
gives a reduced copy of the Chinese Map published by Dr. Georg Wegener in 1863, 
upon which map Richthofen and Sven Hedin based their arguments." Kozlov's 
final conclusions {Geog. Jour. I.e. pp. 657-658) are the following : "The Koncheh- 
daria, since very remote times till the present day, has moved a long way. The spot 
Gherelgan may be taken as a spot of relative permanence of its bed, while the basis 
of its delta is a line traced from the farthest northern border of the area of salt clays 
surrounding the Lob-nor to the Tarim. At a later period the Koncheh-daria mostly 
influenced the lower Tarim, and each time a change occurred in the latter's discharge, 
the Koncheh took a more westward course, to the detriment of its old eastern branch 
(Ilek). Always following the gradually receding humidity, the vegetable life changed 
too, while moving sands were taking its place, conquering more and more ground for 
the desert, and marking their conquest by remains of old shore-lines. ... 

" The facts noticed by Sven Hedin have thus another meaning — the desert to the 
east of the lakes, which he discovered, was formed, not by Lob-nor, which is situated 
1° southwards, but by the Koncheh-daria, in its unremitted deflection to the west. 
The old bed Ilek, lake-shaped in places, and having a belt of salt lagoons and 
swamps along its eastern shores, represents remains of waters belonging, not to 
Lob-nor, but to the shifting river which has abandoned this old bed. 

" These facts and explanations refute the second point of the arguments which were 
brought forward by Sven Hedin in favour of his hjrpothesis, asserting the existence of 
some other Lob-nor. 

" I accept the third point of his objections, namely, that the grandfathers of the 
present inhabitants of the Lob-nor lived by a lake whose position was more to the 
north of Lob-nor ; that was mentioned already by Pievtsor, and the lake was Uchu- 
Kul. 

" Why Marco Polo never mentioned the Lob-nor, I leave to more competent 
persons to decide. 

"The only inference which I can make from the preceding account is that the 
Kara-Koshun-Kul is not only the Lob-nor of my lamented teacher, N. M. Prjevalsky, 
but also the ancient, the historical, and the true Lob-nor of the Chinese geographers. 
So it was during the last thousand years, and so will it remain, if ' the river of time' 
in its running has not effaced it from the face of the Earth." 

To Kozlov's query : " Why Marco Polo never mentioned the Lob-nor, I leave to 
more competent persons to decide," I have little hesitation in replying that he did not 
mention the Lob-nor because he did not see it. From Charchan, he followed, I 
believe, neither Prjevalsky's nor Pievtsov's route, but the old route from Khotan to 
Si-ngan fu, in the old bed of the Charchan daria, above and almost parallel to the 
new bed, to the Tarim, — then between Sven Hedin's and Prjevalsky's lakes, and 
across the desert to Shachau to join the ancient Chinese road of the Han Dynasty, 
partly explored by M. Bonin from Shachau. 

There is no doubt as to the discovery of Prjevalsky's Lob-nor, but this does not 
appear to be the old Chinese Lob-nor ; in fact, there may have been several lakes 
co-existent ; probably there was one to the east of the mass of water described by Dr. 
Sven Hedin, near the old route from Korla to Shachau ; there is no fixity in these 
waterspreads and the soil of this part of Asia, and in the course of a few years some 



200 MARCO POLO Book I. 

discrepancies will naturally arise between the observations of different travellers. 
But as I think that Marco Polo did not see one of the Lob-nor, but travelled 
between them, there is no necessity to enlarge on this question, fully treated of in 
this note. 

See besides the works mentioned above : No7-d — Tibet und Lob-nur Gebiet. . . . 
herausg. von Dr. G. Wegener. Berlin, 1893. (Sep. abd. Zeii. Ges. f. Erdk.) — Die 
Geog, wiss. Ergebnisse ineiner Reisen in Zentralasien, 1894-1897, von Dr. Sven Hedin, 
Gotha, J. Perthes, 1900. 

Bonvalot and Prince Henri d'Orleans (De Paris au Tonkin, h iravers le Tibet 
incomiti, Paris, 1892) followed this Itinerary : Semipalatinsk, Kulja, Korla, Lob-nor, 
Charkalyk, Altyn Tagh, almost a straight line to Tengri Nor, then to Batang, Ta 
Tsien lu, Ning-yuan, Yun-nan-fu, Mong-tsii, and Tung-King. 

Bonvalot (28th October, 1889) describes Lob in this manner : " The village of Lob 
is situated at some distance from [the Charchan daria] ; its inhabitants come to see us ; 
they are miserable, hungry, Cliques ; they offer us for sale smoked fish, duck taken with 
lacet. Some small presents soon make friends of them. They apprize us that news 
lias spread that Pievtsov, the Russian traveller, will soon arrive" {I.e. p. 75). From 
Charkalyk, Prince Henri d'Orleans and Father Dedeken visited Lob-nor {I.e. p. 77 
et seq.), but it was almost dry ; the water had receded since Prjevalsky's visit, thirteen 
years before. The Prince says the Lob-nor he saw was not Prjevalsky's, nor was 
the latter's lake the mass of water on Chinese maps ; an old sorceress gave confirma- 
tion of the fact to the travellers. According to a tradition known from one generation 
to another, there was at this place a large inland sea without reeds, and the elders had 
seen in their youth large ponds ; they say that the earth impregnated with saltpetre 
absorbs the water. The Prince says, according to tradition. Lob is a local name 
meaning "wild animals," and it was given to the country at the time it was crossed by 
Kalmuk caravans ; they added to the name Lob the Mongol word Nor (Great Lake). 
The travellers (p. 109) note that in fact the name Lob-nor does not apply to a Lake, 
but to the whole marshy part of the country watered by the Tarim, from the village of 
L(»b to end of the river. 

The Pievtsov expedition "visited the Lob-nor (2650 feet) and the Tarim, whose 
proper name is Yarkend-daria {tarii7i means ' a tilled field ' in Kashgarian). The lake 
is rapidly drying up, and a very old man, no years old, whom Pievtsov spoke to (his 
son, 52 years old, was the only one who could understand the old man), said that he 
would not have recognized the land if he had been absent all this time. Ninety years ago 
there was only a narrow strip of rushes in the south-west part of the lake, and the 
Yarkend-daria entered it 2.\ miles to the west of its present mouth, where now stands 
the village of Abdal. The lake was then much deeper, and several villages, now 
abandoned, stood on its shores. There was also much more fish, and otters, which 
used to live there, but have long since disappeared. As to the Yarkend-daria, 
tradition says that two hundred years ago it used to enter another smaller lake, 
Uchukul, which was connected by a channel with the Lob-nor. This old bed, named 
Shirga-chapkan, can still be traced by the trees which grew along it. The greater 
previous extension of the Lob-nor is also confirmed by the freshwater molluscs 
{Limnaea urieularia, var. ventrieosa, L. stagnalis, L. peregra, and Planorbis 
sibiricus), which are found at a distance from its present banks. Another lake, 
400 miles in circumference, Kara-boyon {black isthmus), lies, as is known, 27 miles 
to the south-west of Lob-nor. To the east of the lake, a salt desert stretches for a 
seven days' march, and further on begin the Kum-tagh sands, where wild camels 
live." {Geog. Jour. IX. 1897, p. 552.) 

Grenard (III. pp. 194-195) discusses the Lob-nor question and the formation of four 
new lakes by the Koncheh-daria called by the natives beginning at the north ; Kara 
Kul, Tayek Kul, Sugut Kul, Tokum Kul. He does not accept Baron v. Richthofen's 
theory, and believes that the old Lob is the lake seen by Prjevalsky. 

He says (p. 149) : "Lop must be looked for on the actual road from Charchan to Char- 
kalyk. Ouash Shahri, five days from Charchan, and where small ruins are to be found. 



Chap. XXXIX. TERRORS OF THE GREAT DESERT 20I 

corresponds well to the position of Lop according to Marco Polo, a few degrees of 
the compass near. But the stream which passes at this spot could never be important 
enough for the wants of a considerable centre of habitation and the ruins of Ouash 
Shabri are more of a hamlet than of a town. Moreover, Lop was certainly the 
meeting point of the roads of Kashgar, Urumtsi, Shachau, L'Hasa, and Khotan, and 
it is to this fact that this town, situated in a very poor country, owed its relative 
importance. Now, it is impossible that these roads crossed at Ouash ShahrL I believe 
that Lop was built on the site of Charkalyk itself. The Venetian traveller gives five 
days' journey between Charchan and Lop, whilst Charkalyk is really seven days from 
Charchan ; but the objection does not appear sufiBcient to me : Marco Polo may wall 
have made a mistake of two days." (III. pp. 149-150.) 

The Chinese Governor of Urumtsi found some years ago to the north-west of the 
Lob-nor, on the banks of the Tarim, and within five days of Charkalyk, a town hearing 
the same name, though not on the same site as the Lop of Marco Polo. — II. C] 

Note 2. — " The waste and desert places of the Earth are, so to speak, the 
characters which sin has visibly impressed on the outward creation ; its signs and 
symbols there. . . . Out of a true feeling of this, men have ever conceived of the 
Wilderness as the haunt of evil spirits. In the old Persian religion Ahriman and his 
evil Spirits inhabit the steppes and wastes of Turan, to the nortli of the happy Iran, 
which stands under the dominion of Ormuzd ; exactly as with the Egyptians, the evil 
Typhon is the Lord of the Libyan sand-wastes, and Osiris of the fertile Eg}-pt." 
(Archbf. Tremh, Sittdies in the Gospels^ p. 7.) Terror, and the seeming absence 
of a beneficent Providence, are suggestions of the Desert which must have led men to 
associate it with evil spirits, rather than the figure with which this passage b^ns ; no 
spontaneous conception surely, however appropriate as a moral image. 

"According to the belief of the nations of Central Asia," says I. J. Schmidt, "the 
earth and its interior, as well as the encompassing atmosphere, are filled with Spiritual 
Beings, which exercise an influence, partly beneficent, partly malignant, on the whole 

of organic and inorganic nature Especially are Deserts and other wild or 

uninhabited tracts, or regions in which the influences of nature are displayed on a 
gigantic and terrible scale, regarded as the chief abode or rendezvous of evil Spirits. 
. . . And hence the steppes of Turan, and in particular the great sandy Desert of 
Gobi have been looked on as the dwelling-place of malignant beings, firom days of 
hoar antiquity." 

The Chinese historian Ma Twan-lin informs us that there were two roads from China 
into the Uighur country- (towards Karashahr). The longest but easiest road was by 
Kamul. The other was much shorter, and apparently corresponded, as far as Lop, 
to that described in tliis chapter. "By this you have to cross a plain of sand, 
extending for more than loo leagues. You see nothing in any direction but the sky 
and the sands, without the slightest trace of a road ; and travellers find nothing to 
guide them but the bones of men and beasts and the droppings of camels. During 
the passage of this wilderness you hear sounds, sometimes of singing, sometimes of 
wailing ; and it has often happened that travellers going aside to see what those 
sounds might be have strayed from their course and been entirely lost ; for they were 
voices of spirits and goblins. 'Tis for these reasons that travellers and merchants 
often prefer the much longer route by Kamul." ( Visdelou, p. 139.) 

" In the Desert" (this same desert), says Fa-hian, "there are a great many evil 
demons ; there are also sirocco winds, which kill all who encounter them. There 
are no birds or beasts to be seen ; but so far as the eye can reach, the route is marked 
out by the bleached bones of men who have perished in the attempt to cross." 

[" The Lew-sha was the subject of various most exa^erated stories. We find 
more trustworthy accounts of it in the Chnv shu : thus it is mentioned in that historj-, 
that there sometimes arises in this desert a ' burning wind,' pernicious to men and 
cattle ; in such cases the old camels of the caravan, having a presentiment of its 
approach, flock shrieking to one place, lie down on the ground and hide their heads 



202 MARCO POLO Book L 

in the sand. On this signal, the travellers also lie down, close nose and mouth, and 
remain in this position until the hurricane abates. Unless these precautions are taken, 
men and beasts inevitably perish." (Palladtus, I.e. p. 4.) 

A friend writes to me that he thinks that the accounts of strange noises in the 
desert would find a remarkable corroboration in the narratives of travellers through 
the central desert of Australia. They conjecture that they are caused by the sudden 
falling of cliffs of sand as the temperature changes at night time. — H. C] 

Iliuen Tsang, in his passage of the Desert, both outward and homeward, speaks 
of visual illusions ; such as visions of troops marching and halting with gleaming arms 
and waving banners, constantly shifting, vanishing, and reappearing, " imagery created 
by demons." A voice behind him calls, " Fear not ! fear not ! " Troubled by these 
fantasies on one occasion, he prays to Kwan-yin (a Buddhist divinity) ; still he could 
not entirely get rid of them ; but as soon as he had pronounced a few words from the 
Prajna (a holy book), they vanished in the twinkling of an eye. 

These Goblins are not peculiar to the Gobi, though that appears to be their most 
favoured haunt. The awe of the vast and solitary Desert raises them in all similar 
localities. Pliny speaks of the phantoms that appear and vanish in the deserts of 
Africa ; Aethicus, the early Christian cosmographer, speaks, though incredulous, of 
the stories that were told of the voices of singers and revellers in the desert ; Mas'iidi 
tells of the Ghtils, which in the deserts appear to travellers by night and in lonely 
hours ; the traveller, taking them for comrades, follows and is led astray. But the 
wise revile them and the Ghiils vanish. Thus also Apollonius of Tyana and his 
companions, in a desert near the Indus by moonlight, see an Empusa or Ghul taking 
many forms. They revile it, and it goes off uttering shrill cries. Mas'udi also speaks 
of the mysterious voices heard by lone wayfarers in the Desert, and he gives a rational 
explanation of them. Ibn Batuta relates a like legend of the Western Sahara : " If 
the messenger be solitary, the demons sport with him and fascinate him, so that he 
strays from his course and perishes." The Afghan and Persian wildernesses also have 
their GhM-i-Bedban or Goblin of the Waste, a gigantic and fearful spectre which 
devours travellers ; and even the Gael of the West Highlands have the Direach Ghlinn 
Eitidh, the Desert Creature of Glen Eiti, which, one-handed, one-eyed, one-legged, 
seems exactly to answer to the Arabian Nesnas or Empusa. Nicol6 Conti in the 
Chaldaean desert is aroused at midnight by a great noise, and sees a vast multitude 
pass by. The merchants tell him that these are demons who are in the habit of 
traversing the deserts. (Sckmidi^s San. Setzen, p. 352 ; V. ei V. de H. T. 23, 28, 
289; Pliny, VII. 2; Philostratus, Bk. II. ch. iv. ; Prairies d'Or, III. 315, 324; 
Bcal^s Fahian; Campbell's Popular Tales of the W. Highlands, IV, 326; /. B. IV. 
382 ; Elphi7istone , I. 291 ; Chodzko's Pop. Poetry of Persia, p. 48 ; Conti, p. 4 ; 
Forsyth, J. R. G. S. XLVII, 1877, p. 4.) 

The sound of musical instruments, chiefly of drums, is a phenomenon of another 
class, and is really produced in certain situations among sandhills when the sand is dis- 
turbed. [See supra.'\ A very striking account of a phenomenon of this kind regarded as 
supernatural is given by Friar Odoric, whose experience I fancy I have traced to the Reg 
Ruwdn or " Flowing Sand " north of Kabul. Besides this celebrated example, which 
has been described also by the Emperor Baber, I have noted that equally well-known 
one oiiYiQjibal Nakiis, or "Hill of the Bell," in the Sinai Desert; Wadi Hamade, 
in the vicinity of the same Desert ; Xhejibal-til- Thabiil, or "Hill of the Drums, " between 
Medina and Mecca ; one on the Island of Eigg, in the Hebrides, discovered by Hugh 
Miller ; one among the Medanos or Sandhills of Arequipa, described to me by Mr. C. 
Markham ; the Bramador or rumbling mountain of Tarapaca ; one in hills between the 
Ulba and the Irtish, in the vicinity of the Altai, called the Almanac Hills, because 
the sounds are supposed to prognosticate weather-changes ; and a remarkable example 
near Kolberg on the shore of Pomerania, A Chinese narrative of the loth century 
mentions the phenomenon as known near Kwachau, on the eastern border of the Lop 
Desert, under the name of the " Singing Sands" ; and Sir F. Goldsmid has recently 
made us acquainted with a second Reg Ruwdn, on a hill near the Perso- Afghan frontier. 



Chap. XL. THE PROVINCE OF TANGUT 2O3 

a little to the north of Si'stan. The place is frequented in pilgrimage. (See Cathay^ 
pp, ccxliv. 156, 398; Ritter, II, 204; Aus der Nattir, Leipzig, No. 47 [of 1868], 
p. 752 ; Rimusat, H. de Khotan, p. 74 ; Proc. R. G. S. XVII. 91.) 

Note 3. — [We learn from Joseph Martin, quoted by Grenard, p. 170 (who met this 
unfortunate French traveller at Khotan, on his way from Peking to Marghelan, where 
he died), that from Shachau to Abdal, on the Lob-nor, there are twelve days of desert, 
sandy only during the first two days, stony afterwards. Occasionally a little grass is 
to be found for the camels ; water is to be found every^vhere. M. Bonin went from 
Shachau to the north-west towards the Kara-nor, then to the west, but lack of water 
compelled him to go back to Shachau. Along this road, every five lis, are to be 
found towers built with clay, and about 30 feet high, abandoned by the Chinese, who 
do not seem to have kept a remembrance of them in the country ; this route seems to 
be a continuation of the Kan Suh Imperial highway. A wall now destroyed connected 
these towers together. "There is no doubt," writes M. Bonin, "that all these remains 
are those of the great route, vainly sought after till now, which, under the Han 
Dynasty, ran to China through Bactria, Pamir, Eastern Turkestan, the Desert of Gobi, 
and Kan Suh : it is in part the route followed by Marco Polo, when he went from 
Charchan to Shachau, by the city of Lob." The route of the Han has been also 
looked for, more to the south, and it was believed that it was the same as that of 
the Astyn Tagh, followed by Mr. Littledale in 1893, who travelled one month from 
Abdal (Lob-nor) to Shachau ; M. Bonin, who explored also this route, and was 
twenty-three days from Shachau to Lob-nor, says it could not be a commercial road. 
Dr. Sven Hedin saw four or five towers eastward of the junction of the Tarim and the 
Koncheh-daria ; it may possibly have been another part of the road seen by M. Bonin. 
(See La Geographic, 15th March, 1901, p. 173.) — H. C] 



CHAPTER XL. 

Concerning the Great Province of Tangut. 

After you have travelled thirty days through the 
Desert, as I have described, you come to a city called 
Sachiu, lying between north-east and east ; it belongs 
to the Great Kaan, and is in a province called Tangut.^ 
The people are for the most part Idolaters, but there are 
also some Nestorian Christians and some Saracens. 
The Idolaters have a peculiar language, and are no 
traders, but live by their agriculture.^ They have a 
great many abbeys and minsters full of idols of sundry 
fashions, to which they pay great honour and reverence, 
worshipping them and sacrificing to them with much ado. 
For example, such as have children will feed up a sheep 



204 MARCO POLO Book I. 

ill honour of the idol, and at the New Year, or on the 
day of the Idol's Feast, they will take their children and 
the sheep along with them into the presence of the idol 
with great ceremony. Then they will have the sheep 
slaughtered and cooked, and again present it before the 
idol with like reverence, and leave it there before him, 
whilst they are reciting the offices of their worship and 
their prayers for the idol's blessing on their children. 
And, if you will believe them, the idol feeds on the meat 
that is set before it ! After these ceremonies they take 
up the flesh and carry it home, and call together all their 
kindred to eat it with them in great festivity [the idol- 
priests receiving for their portion the head, feet, entrails, 
and skin, with some part of the meat]. After they have 
eaten, they collect the bones that are left and store them 
carefully in a hutch. ^ 

And you must know that all the Idolaters in the 
world burn their dead. And when they are going to 
carry a body to the burning, the kinsfolk build a wooden 
house on the way to the spot, and drape it with cloths of 
silk and gold. When the body is going past this building 
they call a halt and set before it wine and meat and other 
eatables ; and this they do with the assurance that the 
defunct will be received with the like attentions in the 
other world. All the minstrelsy in the town goes playing 
before the body ; and when it reaches the burning-place 
the kinsfolk are prepared with figures cut out of parch- 
ment and paper in the shape of men and horses and 
camels, and also with round pieces of paper like gold 
coins, and all these they burn along with the corpse. 
For they say that in the other world the defunct will be 
provided with slaves and cattle and money, just in 
proportion to the amount of such pieces of paper that 
has been burnt along with him.'* 

But they never burn their dead until they have [sent 



Chap. XL. THE PROVINCE OF TANGUT 205 

for the astrologers, and told them the year, the day, and 
the hour of the deceased person's birth, and when the 
astrologers have ascertained under what constellation, 
planet, and sign he was born, they declare the day on 
which, by the rules of their art, he ought to be burnt]. 
And till that day arrive they keep the body, so that 'tis 
sometimes a matter of six months, more or less, before it 
comes to be burnt.^ 

Now the way they keep the body in the house is 
this : They make a coffin first of a good span in thick- 
ness, very carefully joined and daintily painted. This 
they fill up with camphor and spices, to keep off corrup- 
tion [stopping the joints with pitch and lime], and then 
they cover it with a fine cloth. Every day as long as 
the body is kept, they set a table before the dead covered 
with food ; and they will have it that the soul comes and 
eats and drinks : wherefore they leave the food there as 
long as would be necessary in order that one should 
partake. Thus they do daily. And worse still ! Some- 
times those soothsayers shall tell them that 'tis not good 
luck to carry out the corpse by the door, so they have to 
break a hole in the wall, and lo draw it out that way 
when it is taken to the burning.^ And these, I assure 
you, are the practices of all the Idolaters of those 
countries. 

However, we will quit this subject, and I will tell you 
of another city which lies towards the north-west at the 
extremity of the desert. 



Note i. — [The Natives of this country were called by the Chinese Vang-hiang, and 
by the Mongols T^angu or T'ang--wu, and with the plural suffix Tangut. The king- 
dom of Tangut, or in Chinese, Si Hia (Western Hia), or Ho si (West of the Yellow 
River), was declared independent in 982 by Li Chi Ch'ien, who had the d)-nastic 
title or Miao Hao of Tai Tsu. "The rulers of Tangut," says Dr. Bushell, "were 
scions of the Toba race, who reigned over North China as the Wei D}-nasty 
(a.d. 386-557), as well as in some of the minor dynasties which succeeded. 
Claiming descent from the ancient Chinese Hsia D)-nasty of the second millen- 
nium B.C., they adopted the title of Ta Hsia ('Great Hsia'), and the dynasty 



206 MARCO POLO Book I. 

is generally called by the Chinese Hsi Hsia, or Western Hsia." This is a list of the 
Tangut sovereigns, wiih the date of their accession to the throne : Tai Tsu (982), Tai 
Tsung (1002), Ching Tsung (1032), Yi Tsung (1049), llui Tsung (1068), Ch'ung 
Tsung (1087), Jen Tsung (1140), Huan Tsung (1194), Hsiang Tsung (1206), Shen 
Tsung (1213), Hien Tsung (1223), Mo Chu (1227). In fact; the real founder of the 
Dynasty was Li Yuan-hao, who conquered in 1031, the cities of Kanchau and Suhchau 
from the Uighur Turks, declaring himself independent in 1032, and who adopted in 
1036 a special script of which we spoke when mentioning the archway at Kiuyung 
Kwan. His capital was Hia chau, now Ning hia, on the Yellow River. Chinghiz 
invaded Tangut three times, in 1206, 1217, and at last in 1225 ; the final struggle 
took place the following year, when Kanchau, Liangchau, and Suhchau fell into the 
hands of the Mongols. After the death of Chinghiz (1227), the last ruler of Tangut, 
Li H'ien, who surrendered the same year to Okkodai, son of the conqueror, was killed. 
The dominions of Tangut in the middle of the nth century, according to the Si Hia 
Chi Shih Pen Mo, quoted by Dr. Bushell, " were bounded, according to the map, by 
the Sung Empire on the south and east, by the Liao (Khitan) on the north-east, the 
Tartars (Tata) on the north, the Uighur Turks (liui-hu) on the west, and the Tibetans 
on the south-west. The Alashan Mountains stretch along the northern frontier, 
and the western extends to the Jade Gate (YU Men Kwan) on the border of the Desert 
of Gobi." Under the Mongol Dynasty, Kan Suh was the official name of one of the 
twelve provinces of the Empire, and the popular name was Tangut. 

(Dr. S. W. Bushell : Inscriptions in the Juchen and Allied Scripts and The Hsi Hsia 
Dynasty of Tangut. See above, p. 29. ) 

" The word Tangutan applied by the Chinese and by Colonel Prjevalsky to a 
Tibetan-speaking people around the Koko-nor has been explained to me in a variety of 
ways by native Tangutans. A very learned lama from the Gserdkog monastery, south- 
east of the Koko-nor, told me that Tangutan, Amdoans, and Sifan were interchange- 
able terms, but I fear his geographical knowledge was a little vague. The following 
explanation of the term Tangut is taken from the Hsi-tsang-fu. ' The Tangutans are 
descendants of the Tang-tu-chiieh. The origin of this name is as follows : In early 
days, the Tangutans lived in the Central Asian.Chin-shan, where they were workers 
of iron. They made a model of the Chin-shan, which, in shape, resembled an iron 
helmet. Now, in their language, " iron helmet "-is Tang-ktieh, hence the name of the 
country. To the present day, the Tangutans of the Koko-nor.wear a hat shaped like 
a pot, high crowned and narrow, rimmed with red fringe sewn on it, so that it looks 
like an iron helmet, and this is a proof of [the accuracy of the derivation].' Although 
the proof is not very satisfactory, it is as good as we are often offered by authors 
with greater pretension to learning. 

" If I remember rightly, Prjevalsky derives the name from two words meaning 
' black tents.' " {W. W. Rockhill, China Br. A\ As. Soc, XX. pp. 278-279.) 

" Chinese authorities tell us that the name [Tangut] was originally borne by a people 
living in the Altai', and that the word is Turkish. . . . The population of Tangut was 
a mixture of Tibetans, Turks, Uighiirs, Tukuhuns, Chinese, etc." {Rockhill, 
Rubruck, p. 150, note. — H. C] 

Sackiu is Shachau, "Sand-district," an outpost of China Proper, at the eastern 
verge of the worst part of the Sandy Desert. It is recorded to have been fortified in 
the 1st century as a barrier against the Hiongnu. 

[The name of Shachau dates from a.d. 622, when it was founded by the first emperor 
of the T'ang Dynasty. Formerly, Shachau was one of the Chinese colonies established 
by the Han, at the expense of the Hiongnu ; it was called T'ung hoang (B.C. 1 1 1), a 
name still given to Shachau; the other colonies were Kiu-kaan (Suhchau, B.C. 121) 
and Chang-ye (Kanchau, B.C. in). (See Bretschneider, Med. Res. II. 18.) 

" Sha-chow, the present 7««-/iwa;/^-/«V« (a few /«■ east of the ancient town). . . . 
In 1820, or about that time, an attempt was made to re-establish the ancient direct 
way between Sha-chow and Khotan. With this object in view, an exploring party of 
ten men was sent from Khotan towards Sha-chow ; this party wandered in the 



Chap. XL. CUSTOMS OF TANGUT 207 

desert over a month, and found neither dwellings nor roads, but pastures and water 
everjrwhere. M. Polo omits to mention a remarkable place at Sha-chow, a sandy 
hillock (a short distance south of this town) known under the name of Ming-sha shan 
— the ' rumbling sandhill.' The sand, in rolling down the hill, produces a particular 
sound, similar to that of distant thunder. In M. Polo's time (1292), Khubilal re- 
moved the inhabitants of Sha-chow to the interior of China ; fearing, probably, the 
agression of the seditious princes ; and his successor, in 1303, placed there a garrison 
often thousand men." (Palladius, I.e. p. 5.) 

" Sha-chau is one of the best oases of Central Asia. It is situated at the foot of 
the Nan-shan range, at a height of 3700 feet above the sea, and occupies an area of 
about 2CX) square miles, the whole of which is thickly inhabited by Chinese. Sha- 
chau is interesting as the meeting-place of three expeditions started independently 
from Russia, India, and China. Just two months before Prjevalsky reached this town, 
it was visited by Count Szechenp [April, 1879], and eighteen months afterwards Pundit 
A-k, whose report of it agrees fairly well with that of our traveller, also stayed here. 
Both Prejevalsky and Szechenyi remark on some curious caves in a valley near Sha- 
chau containing Buddhistic clay idols.* These caves were in Marco Polo's time the 
resort of numerous worshippers, and are said to date back to the Han D\-nasty." 
(Prejevalsky s Journeys ... by E. Delmar Morgan, Proc. R. G. S. IX. 1887, 
pp. 217-218.)— H. C] 

(Ritter, II. 205 ; Neumann, p. 616 ; Cathay, 269, 274 ; Erdmann, 155 ; Ermarty 
II. 267 ; Mag. Asia/. II. 213.) 

Note 2. — By Idolaters, Polo here means Buddhists, as generally. We do not know 
whether the Buddhism here was a recent introduction from Tibet, or a relic of the old 
Buddhism of Khotan and other Central Asian kingdoms, but most probably it was the 
former, and the " peculiar language" ascribed to them may have been, as Neumann 
supposes, Tibetan. This language in modem Mongolia answers to the Latin of the 
Mass Book, indeed with a curious exactness, for in both cases the holy tongue is not 
that of the original propagators of the respective religions, but that of the hierarchy which 
has assumed their government. In the Lamaitic convents of China and Manchuria also 
the Tibetan only is used in worship, except at one privileged temple at Peking. 
(Kbeppen, II, 288. ) The language intended by Polo may, however, have been a Chinese 
dialect. (See notes i and 4. ) The Nestorians must have been tolerably numerous in 
Tangut, for it formed a metropolitan province of their Church. 

Note 3. — A practice resembling this is mentioned by Pallas as existing among the 
Buddhist Kalmaks, a relic of their old Shaman superstitions, which the Lamas profess 
to deer)-, but sometimes take part in. " Rich Kalmaks select from the»r flock a ram 
for dedication, which gets the name of Tengri Tockho, ' Heaven's Ram.' It must be 
a white one with a yellow head. He must never be shorn or sold, but when he gets 
old, and the owner chooses to dedicate a fresh one, then the old one must be sacrificed. 
This is usually done in autumn, when the sheep are fattest, and the neighbours are 
called together to eat the sacrifice. A fortimate day is selected, and the ram is 
slaughtered amid the cries of the sorcerer directed towards the sunrise, and the diligent 
sprinkling of milk for the benefit of the Spirits of the Air. The flesh is eaten, but the 
skeleton with a part of the fat is burnt on a turf altar erected on four pillars of an ell 
and a half high, and the skin, with the head and feet, is then hang up in the way 
practised by the Buraets." {Sammlungen, II. 346.) 

Note 4. — Several of the customs of Tangut mentioned in this chapter are essenti- 
ally Chinese, and are perhaps introduced here because it was on entering Tangut that 
the traveller first came in contact with Chinese peculiarities. This is true of the 
manner of forming cofiins, and keeping them with the body in the house, serving food 

• M. Bonin \-isited in 1899 these caves which he calls " Grottoes of Thousand Buddhas " ( Tsien 
Fo tung). (Xa Giographie, 15th March, 1901, p. 171.) He found a stele dated 1348, bearing a 
Buddhist prayer in six different scripts like the inscription at Kiu Yung Kwan. (Rev. Hist, de* 
Rtligioni, 1901, p. 393.)— H. C. • 



2o8 MARCO POLO Book I. 

before the cofiin whilst it is so kept, the burning of paper and papier-mache figures of 
slaves, horses, etc., at the tomb. Chinese settlers were very numerous at Shachauand 
the neighbouring Kwachau, even in the loth century. {Riiie); II. 213.) [" Keeping 
a body unburied for a considerable time is called khhg koan, ' to conceal or 
store away a coffin,' or thing koan, 'to detain a coffin.' It is, of course, a matter 
of necessity in such cases to have the cracks and fissures, and especially the seam 
where the case and the lid join, hermetically caulked. This is done by means of 
a mixture of chunam and oil. The seams, sometimes even the whole coffin, are 
pasted over with linen, and finally everything is varnished black, or, in case of a 
mandarin of rank, red. In process of time, the varnishing is repeated as many times 
as the family think desirable or necessary. And in order to protect the coffin still 
better against dust and moisture, it is generally covered with sheets of oiled paper, 
over which comes a white pall." (De Groot, I. 106.) — H. C] Even as regards 
the South of China many of the circumstances mentioned .here are strictly applic- 
able, as may be seen in Doohttl^s Social Life of the Chinese. (See, for example, 
p. 135 ; also Astley, IV. 93-95, or Marsden's quotations horn. Duhalde.) The custom 
of burning the dead has been for several centuries disused in China, but we shall see 
hereafter that Polo represents it as general in his time. On the custom of burning gilt 
paper in the form of gold coin, as well as of paper clothing, paper houses, furniture, 
slaves, etc., see also Medhurst, p. 213, and Kidd, 177-178. No one who has read Pere 
Hue will forget his ludicrous account of the Lama's charitable distribution of paper 
horses for the good of disabled travellers. The manufacture of mock money is a large 
business in Chinese cities. In Fuchau there are more than thirty large establishments 
where it is kept for sale. (Doolittle, 541.) [The Chinese believe that sheets of paper, 
partly tinned over on one side, are, " pxcording to the prevailing conviction, turned 
by the process of fire into real silver currency available in the world of darkness, and 
sent there through the smoke to the soul; they are called giln-tsod, 'silver paper.' 
Most families prefer to previously fold every sheet in the shape of a hollow ingot, a 
' silver ingot,' giln-kho, as they call it. This requires a great amount of labour and 
time, but increases the value of the treasure immensely." (De Graot, I. 25.) 
"Presenting paper money when paying a visit of condolence is a custom firmly 
established, and accordingly complied with by everybody with great strictness .... 
The paper is designed for the equipment of the coffin, and, accordingly, always 
denoted by the term koan-ihao-tsod, ' coffin paper.' But as the receptacle of the dead 
is, of course, not spacious enough to hold the whole mass offered by so many friends, 
it is regularly burned by lots by the side of the corpse, the ashes being carefully 
collected to be afterwards wrapped in paper and placed in the coffin, or at the side 
of the coffin, in the tomb." {De Groot, I. 31-32.)— H. C] There can be little doubt 
that these latter customs are symbols of the ancient sacrifices of human beings and 
valuable property on such occasions ; so Manetho states that the Egyptians in days of 
yore used human sacrifices, but a certain King Amosis aboUshed them and substituted 
images of wax. Even when the present Manchu Dynasty first occupied the throne of 
China, they still retained the practice of human sacrifice. At the death of Kanghi's 
mother, however, in 1718, when four young girls offered themselves for sacrifice on 
the tomb of their mistress, the emperor would not allow it, and prohibited for the 
future the sacrifice of life or the destruction of valuables on such occasions. 
{DeguigneSi Voy. I. 304.) 

Note 5. — Even among the Tibetans and Mongols burning is only one of the modes 
of disposing of the dead. "They sometimes bury their dead : often they leave them 
exposed in their coffins, or cover them with stones, paying regard to the sign under 
which the deceased was born, his age, the day and hour of his death, which determine 
the mode in which he is to be interred (or otherwise disposed of). For this purpose 
Ihey consult some books which are explained to them by the Lamas." ( Tinik. II. 312. ) 
The extraordinary and complex absurdities of the books in question are given in detail 
by Pallas, and curiously illustrate the paragraph in the text. (See Samnilungen, II. 



Chap. XLI. DOOR OF THE DEAD 209 

254 sf^g.) ["The first seven days, including that on which the demise has taken 
place, are generally deemed to be lucky for the burial, especially the odd ones. But 

when they have elapsed, it becomes requisite to apply to a day-professor The 

popular almanac which chiefly wields sway in Amoy and the surrounding country, 
regularly stigmatises a certain number of days as ttng-sng jtt: 'days of reduplication 
of death,' because encofSning or burying a dead person on such a day will entail 
another loss in the family shortly afterwards." {,De Groot, I. 103, 99-100.) — H. C] 

Note 6. — The Chinese have also, according to Duhalde, a custom of making a 
new opening in the wall of a house by which to carry out the dead ; and in their prisons 
a special hole in the wall is provided for this ofiSce. This same custom exists among 
the Esquimaux, as well as, according to Sonnerat, in Southern India, and it used to 
exist in certain parts both of Holland and of Central Italy. In the " clean village 
of Broek," near Amsterdam, those special doors may stUl be seen. And in certain 
towns of Umbria, such as Perugia, Assisi, and Gubbio, this opening was common> 
elevated some feet above the ground, and known as the " Door of the Dead." 

I find in a list, printed by Liebrecht, of popular French superstitions, amount- 
ing to 479 in number, condemned by Maupas du Tour, Bishop of Evreux in 1664, 
the following : "When a woman lies in of a dead child, it must not be taken out by 
the door of the chamber but by the window, for if it were taken out by the door the 
woman would never lie in of any but dead children." The Samoyedes have the 
superstition mentioned in the text, and act exactly as Polo describes. 

["The body [of the Queen of Bali, 17th century] was drawn out of a large 
aperture made in the wall to the right hand side of the door, in the absurd opinion of 
cheating the devil, whom these islanders believe to lie in wait in the ordinary passage." 
{John Crawfurd, Hist, of the Indian Archipelago, II. p. 245.) — H. C.J 

And the Rev. Mr. Jaeschke writes to me from Lahaul, in British Tibet : "Our 
Lama (from Central Tibet) tells us that the owner of a house and the members of his 
family when they die are carried through the house-door ; but if another person dies 
in the house his body is removed by some other aperture, such as a window, or the 
smokehole in the roof, or a hole in the wall dug expressly for the purpose. Or a 
wooden frame is made, fitting into the doorway, and the body is then carried through ; 
it being considered that by this contrivance the evil consequences are escaped that 
might ensue, were it carried through the ordinary, and, so to say, undisguised house- 
door ! Here, in Lahaul and the neighbouring countries, we have not heard of such a 
custom." 

(Duhalde, quoted by Marsden ; Semedo, p. 175 ; Mr. Sala in N. and Q., 2nd S. 
XL 322 ; Lubbock, p. yx>',Sottnerat, I. 86; LieSrechfs Gervasius of Tilbury, Hanover, 
1856, p. 224; Mag. Asiat. 11. 93.) 



CHAPTER XLI. 

Of the Province of Camul. 



Camul is a province which in former days was a 

kingdom. It contains numerous towns and villages, but 

the chief city bears the name of Camul. The province 

lies between the two deserts ; for on the one side is the 
VOL. 1. Q 



2 I O MARCO POLO Book I. 

Great Desert of Lop, and on the other side is a small 
desert of three days' journey in extent/ The people are 
all Idolaters, and have a peculiar language. They live 
by the fruits of the earth, which they have in plenty, and 
dispose of to travellers. They are a people who take 
things very easily, for they mind nothing but playing 
and singing, and dancing and enjoying themselves.^ 

And it is the truth that if a foreigner comes to the 
house of one of these people to lodge, the host is 
delighted, and desires his wife to put herself entirely at 
the guest's disposal, whilst he himself gets out of the way, 
and comes back no more until the stranger shall have 
taken his departure. The guest may stay and enjoy 
the wife's society as long as he lists, whilst the husband 
has no shame in the matter, but indeed considers it an 
honour. And all the men of this province are made 
wittols of by their wives in this way.^ The women 
themselves are fair and wanton. 

Now it came to pass during the reign of Mangu Kaan, 
that as lord of this province he came to hear of this 
custom, and he sent forth an order commanding them 
under grievous penalties to do so no more [but to provide 
public hostelries for travellers]. And when they heard 
this order they were much vexed thereat. [For about 
three years' space they carried it out. But then they 
found that their lands were no longer fruitful, and that 
many mishaps befell them.] So they collected together 
and prepared a grand present which they sent to their 
Lord, praying him graciously to let them retain the 
custom which they had inherited from their ancestors ; 
for it was by reason of this usage that their gods bestowed 
upon them all the good things that they possessed, and 
without it they saw not how they could continue to exist.^ 
When the Prince had heard their petition his reply was 
" Since ye must reeds keep your shame, keep it then," 



Chap. XLI. THE PROVINCE OF CAMUL 211 

and so he left them at Hberty to maintain their naughty 
custom. And they always have kept it up, and do so 
still. 

Now let us quit Camul, and I will tell you of another 
province which lies between north-west and north, and 
belongs to the Great Kaan. 



Note i. — Kamul (or Komul) does not fall into the great line of travel towards 
Cathay which Marco is following. His notice of it, and of the next province, forms a 
digression hke that which he has already made to Samarkand. It appears verj' doubt- 
ful if Marco himself had visited it ; his &ther and uncle may have done so on their 
first journey, as one of the chief routes to Northern China from Western Asia lies 
through this city, and has done so for many centuries. This was the route described 
by Pegolotti as that of the Italian traders in the century following Polo ; it was that 
followed by Marignolli, by the envoys of Shah Rukh at a later date, and at a much 
later by Benedict Goes. The people were in Polo's time apparently Buddhist, as the 
Uighurs inhabiting this region had been from an old date : in Shah Rukh's time (1420) 
we find a mosque and a great Buddhist Temple cheek by jowl ; whilst Ramnsio's 
friend Hajji Mahomed (circa 1550) speaks of Kamul as the first Mahomedan city 
met with in travelling from China. 

Kamul stands on an oasis carefully cuhivated by aid of reservoirs for irrigation, and 
is noted in China for its rice and for some of its fruits, especially melons and grapes. 
It is still a place of some consequence, standing near the bifurcation of two great roads 
from China, one passing north and the other south of the Thian Shan, and it was the 
site of the Chinese Commissariat dep6ts for the garrisons to the westward. It was 
lost to the Chinese in 1867. 

Kamul appears to have been the see of a Nestorian bishop. A Bishop of Kamul 
is mentioned as present at the inauguration of the Catholicos Denha in 1266. [Russians 
in Cent. Asia, 129 ; Ritter, II. 357 seqq. ; Cathay, passim ; Assemani, H. 455-456.) 

\Kamul is the Turkish name of the province called by the Mongols Khamil, by 
the Chinese Hanii ; the latter name is found for the first time in the Yiun Shi, but 
it is first mentioned in Chinese history in the ist century of our Era under the name 
of I-wu-lu or I-wu (Bretschneider, Med. Res. II. p. 20) ; after the death of Chinghiz, 
it belonged to his son Chagatal. From the Great Wall, at the Pass of Kia Yti, to 
Hami there is a distance of 1470 //. (C. Imbault-Huart. Le Pays de Hami mi Khamil 
. . . d'apres les auteurs chinois, But. de G^og. hist, et desc, Paris, 1892, pp. 121-195.) 
The Chinese general Chang Yao was in 1877 at Hami, which had submitted in 1867 
to the Athalik Ghazi, and made it the basis of his operations against the small towns of 
Chightam and Pidjam, and Yakub Khan himself stationed at Turfan. The Imperial 
Chinese Agent in this region bears the title of JCu hin Pan She Ta CKen and resides 
at K'urun (Urga) ; of lesser rank are the agents {Pan She Ta CKen) of Kashgar, 
Kliarashar, Kuche, Aksu, Khotan, and Hami. (See a description of Hami by Colonel 
M. S. Bell, Proc. R. G. S. XH. 1890, p. 213.)— H. C] 

Note 2. — Expressed almost in the same words is the character attributed by a 
Chinese writer to the people of Kuche in the same region. [Chin. Repos. IX. 126.) 
In fact, the character seems to be generally applicable to the people of East Turkestan, 
but sorely kept down by the rigid Islam that is now enforced. (See Shaw, passim, 
and especially the Mahrambashi's lamentations over the jolly days that were no more, 
PP- 319. 376.) 

VOL. I. 02 



212 MARCO POLO Book I. 

Note 3. — Pauthier's text has " sont si honni de letir inoliers comme vous avez ojiy." 
Here the Crusca has " sono bozzi delle loro moglie" and the Lat. Geog. " stint bezzi 
cie suis uxoribus." The Crusca Vocab. has inserted bozzo with the meaning we have 
given, on the strength of this passage. It occurs also in Dante {Paradise, XIX. 137), 
in the general sense of disgraced. 

The shameful custom here spoken of is ascribed by Polo also to a province of 
Eastern Tibet, and by popular report in mod^n times to the Hazaras of the Hindu- 
Kush, a people of Mongolian blood, as well as to certain nomad tribes of Persia, to 
say nothing of the like accusation against our own ancestors which has been drawn 
from Laonicus Chalcondylas. The old Arab traveller Ibn Muhalhal (lOth century) 
also relates the same of the Ilazlakh (probably Kharlikh) Turks : " Ducis alicujus 
uxor vel filia vel soror, quum mercatorum agmen in terram venit, eos adit, eorumque 
lustrat faciem. Quorum siquis earum afficit admiratione hunc domum suam ducit, 
eumque apud se hospitio excipit, eique benigne facit. Atque marito suo et filio 
fratrique rerum necessariarum curam demandat ; neque dum hospes apud eam habitat, 
nisi necessarium est, maritus eam adit." A like custom prevails among the Chukchis 
and Koryaks in the vicinity of Kamtchatka. {Elphinslone' s Caubul ; Wood, p. 201 ; 
Btirnes, who discredits, II. 153, III. 195 ; Laon. Chalcotid. 1650, pp. 48-49 ; Kurdde 
Schloezer, p. 13 ; Erman, II. 530.) 

[" It is remarkable that the Chinese author. Hung Hao, who lived a century before 
M. Polo, makes mention in his memoirs nearly in the same words of this custom of 
the Uighiirs, with whom he became acquainted during his captivity in the kingdom of 
the Kin. According to the chronicle of the Tangut kingdom of Si-hia, Hami was the 
nurseiy of Buddhism in Si-hia, and provided this kingdom with Buddhist books 
and monks." {Palladius, I.e. p. 6.) — H. C] 

Note 4. — So the Jewish rabble to Jeremiah : "Since we left off to burn incense 
to the Queen of Heaven, and to pour out drink-offerings to her, we have wanted all 
things, and have been consumed by the sword and by famine." {Jerem. xliv. 18.) 



CHAPTER XLII. 

Of the Provincp: of Chingintalas. 

CiiiNGiNTALAS IS also a province at the verge of the 
Desert, and lying between north-west and north. It has 
an extent of sixteen days' journey, and belongs to the 
Great Kaan, and contains numerous towns and villages. 
There are three different races of people in it — Idolaters, 
Saracens, and some Nestorian Christians.^ At the 
northern extremity of this province there is a mountain 
in which are excellent veins of steel and ondanique." 
And you must know that in the same mountain there is 
a vein of the substance from which Salamander is made.^ 



Chap. XLII. THE PROVINCE OF CHINGINTALAS 2 1 3 

For the real truth is that the Salamander is no beast, as 
they allege in our part of the world, but is a substance 
found in the earth ; and I will tell you about it. 

Everybody must be aware that it can be no animal's 
nature to live in fire, seeing that every animal is composed 
of all the four elements.* Now I, Marco Polo, had a 
Turkish acquaintance of the name of Zurficar, and he 
was a very clever fellow. And this Turk related to 
Messer Marco Polo how he had lived three years in that 
region on behalf of the Great Kaan, in order to procure 
those Salamanders for him.^ He said that the way they 
got them was by digging in that mountain till they 
found a certain vein. The substance of this vein was 
then taken and crushed, and when so treated it divides 
as it were into fibres of wool, which they set forth to dry. 
When dry, these fibres were pounded in a great copper 
mortar, and then washed, so as to remove all the earth 
and to leave only the fibres like fibres of wool. These 
were then spun, and made into napkins. When first 
made these napkins are not very white, but by putting 
them into the fire for a while they come out as white as 
snow. And so again whenever they become dirty they 
are bleached by being put in the fire. 

Now this, and nought else, is the truth about the 
Salamander, and the people of the country all say the 
same. Any other account of the matter is fabulous non- 
sense. And I may add that they have at Rome a napkin 
of this stuff, which the Grand Kaan sent to the Pope to 
make a wrapper for the Holy Sudarium of Jesus Christ* 

We will now quit this subject, and I will proceed with 
my account of the countries lying in the direction between 
north-east and east. 



214 MARCO POLO Book I. 

Note i. — The identification of this province is a difficulty, because the geo- 
graphical definition is vague, and the name assigned to it has not been traced in other 
authors. It is said to lie between north-west and north, whilst Kamul was said to lie 
towards the north-west. The account of both provinces forms a digression, as is clear 
from the last words of the present chapter, where the traveller returns to take up his 
regular route "in the direction between north-east and east." The point from which 
he digresses, and to which he reverts, is Shachau, and 'tis presumably from Shachau 
that he assigns bearings to the two provinces forming the subject of the digression. 
Hence, as Kamul lies vers maistre, i.e. north-west, and Chingintalas entre maistre et 
tramontaijie, i.e. nor'-nor'-west, Chingintalas can scarcely lie due west of Kamul, as 
M. Paulhier would place it, in identifying it with an obscure place called Saiyintala, 
in the territory of Urumtsi. Moreover, the province is said to belong to the Great 
Kaan. Now, Ui-umtsi or Bishbalik seems to have belonged, not to the Great Kaan, 
but to the empire of Chagatai, or possibly at this time to Kaidu. Rashiduddin, 
speaking of the frontier between the Kaan and Kaidu, says : — " From point to point 
are posted bodies of troops under the orders of princes of the blood or other generals, 
and they often come to blows with the troops of Kaidu. Five of these are cantoned 
on the verge of the Desert ; a sixth in Tangut, near Chagan-Nor (White Lake) ; a 
seventh in the vicinity of Karakhoja, a city of the Uighurs, which lies between the 
two States, and maintains neutrality. " 

Karakhoja, this neutral town, is near Turfan, to the south-east of Urumtsi, which 
thus would lie without the Kaan's boundary ; Kamul and the country north-east of it 
would lie within it. This country, to the north and north-east of Kamul, has remained 
till quite recently unexplored by any modern traveller, unless we put faith in Mr. 
Atkinson's somewhat hazy narrative. But it is here that I would seek for Chingin- 
talas. 

Several possible explanations of this name have suggested themselves or been sug- 
gested to me. I will mention two. 

1. Klaproth states that the Mongols applied to Tibet the n2cme oi Baron-tala, 
signifying the " Right Side," i.e. the south-west or south quarter, whilst Mongolia 
vfzs caWeA. Dzohn [oi Dzegiin) Tata, i.e. the "Left," or north-east side. It is pos- 
sible that Chigin-talas might represent Dzegun Tala in some like application. The 
etymology of Dzungaria, a name which in modern times covers the territory of which 
we are speaking, is similar. 

2. Professor V^mbery thinks that it is probably Chingin Tala, "The Vast Plain.'' 
But nothing can be absolutely satisfactory in such a case except historical evidence of 
the application of the name. 

I have left the identity of this name undecided, though pointing to the general 
position of the region so-called by Marco, as indicated by the vicinity of the Tangnu- 
01a Mountains (p. 215). A passage in the Journey of the Taouist Doctor, Chang- 
chun, as translated by Dr. Bretschneider {^Chinese Recorder and Miss. Jotirn., 
Shanghai, Sept. -Oct., 1874, p. 258), suggests to me the strong probability that it may 
be the Kem-kivi-jut of Rashiduddin, called by the Chinese teacher Kien kien-<:!!nzyx. 

Rashiduddin couples the territory of the Kirghiz with Kemkemjiit, but defines the 
country embracing both with some exactness: " On one side (south-east?), it bordered 
on the Mongol country ; on a second (north-east?), it was bounded by the Selenga; 
on a third (north), by the ' great river called Angara, which flows on the confines of 
Ibir-Sibir ' {i.e. of Siberia) ; on a fourth side by the territory of the Naimans. This 
great country contained many towns and villages, as well as many nomad inhabitants." 
Dr. Bretschneider's Chinese Traveller speaks of it as a country where good iron was 
found, where (grey) squirrels abounded, and wheat was cultivated. Other notices 
quoted by him show that it lay to the south-east of the Kirghiz country, and had its 
name from the Kien or Ken R. {i.e. the Upper Yenisei). 

The name {Kienkien), the general direction, the existence of good iron ("steel and 
ondanique "), the many towns and villages in a position where we should little look 
for such an indication, all point to the identity of this region with the Chingintalas of 



Chap. XLII. THE PROVINCE OF CIlINGINTALAS 21^ 

our text. The only alteration called for in the Itinerary Map (No. IV. ) would be to 
spell the name Hinkin, or Ghinghin (as it is in the Ge<^raphic Text), and to shift it 
a very Uttle further to the north. 

(See Chinginm. Kovalevskis Mongol Did., No. 2134; and for Baron-tala, etc., 
see Delia Penna, Breve Notizia del Regno del Thibet, with Klaproth's notes, p. 6 ; 
L^Avezac, p. 568 ; Relation prefixed to D'Anville's Atlas, p. 1 1 ; Alphabetuin Tibet- 
aniiin, 454 ; and Kircher, China Illustrata, p. 65.) 

Since the first edition was published, Wr. Ney Elias has traversed the region in 
question from east to west ; and I learn from him that at Kobdo he found the most 
usual name for that town among Mongols, Kalmaks, and Russians to be Sankin- 
hoto. He had not then thought of connecting this name with Chinghin-talas, and 
has therefore no information as to its origin or the extent of its application. But he 
remarks that Polo's bearing of between north and north-west, if understood to hQ/ront 
Katntcl, would point exactly to Kobdo. He also calls attention to the Lake Sankin- 
dalai, to the north-east of Uliasut'ai, of which Atkinson gives a sketch. The recur- 
rence of this name over so wide a tract may have something to do with the Chinghin- 
talas of Polo. But we must still wait for further light. * 

[•'Supposing that M. Polo mentions this place on his way from Sha-chow to Su- 
chow, it is natural to think that it is Chi-kin-talas, i.e. ' Chi-kin plain ' or valley ; 
Chi-kin was the name of a lake, called so even now, and of a defile, which received 
its name from the lake. The latter is on the way from Kia-yU kwan to Ansi chow." 
(Falladius, I.e. p. 7.) " Ckikin, or more correctly Chigin, is a Mongol word mean- 
ing 'ear.'" (Ibid.) Palladius (p. 8) adds: "The Chinese accounts of Chi-kin are 
not in contradiction to the statements given by M. Polo regarding the same subject ; 
but when the distances are taken into consideration, a serious difficulty arises ; Chi- 
kin is two hundred and fifty or sixty //distant from Su-chow, whilst, according to M. 
Polo's statement, ten days are necessary to cross this distance. One of the three 
following explanations of this discrepancy must be admitted : either Chingintalas is 
not Chi-kin, or the traveller's memory failed, or, lastly, an error crept into tlie number 
of days' journey. The two last suppositions I consider the most probable ; the more 
so that similar difficulties occur several times in Marco Polo's narrative." (L.c. p. 8.) 
— H. C] 

Note 2. — {Ondaniqiie. — We have ahready referred to this word, Kemidn, p. 90. 
Cobinan, p. 124. La Curne de Sainte-Palaye (Diet.), F. Godefroy (Diet.), Du Cange 
(Gloss.), all give to andaitt the meaning of enjambie, from the Latin andare. Godefroy, 
%.v. andaine, calls it sorte d'acier ou de fer, and quotes besides Marco Polo : 

" I. espiel, ou ot fer d'andaine, 
Dont la lamele n'iert pas trouble." 

(Huon de Mery, Le Tomoiement de fAnteehrist, p. 3, Tarbe.) 

There is a forest in the department of Orne, arrondissement of Domfront, which 
belonged to the Crown before 1669, and is now State property, called Foret d' Andaine ; 
it is situated near some bed of iron. Is this the origin of the name ? — H. C] 

Note 3. — The Altai, or one of its ramifications, is probably the mountain of the 
text, but so little is known of this part of the Chinese territory that we can learn 
scarcely anything of its mineral products. Still Martini does mention that asbestos 
is found "in the Tartar country of Tangii," which probably is the Tangnu Oola 
branch of the Altai to the south of the Upper Yenisei, and in the very region we have 
indicated as Chingintalas. Mr. Elias tells me he inquired for asbestos by its Chinese 
name at Uhasut'ai, but without success. 

* The late Mr. Atkinson has been twice alluded to in this note. I take the opportunity of saying 
that Mr. Ney Elias, a most competent judge, who has travelled across the region in question whilst 
admitting, as every one must, Atkinson's vagueness and sometimes very careless statements, is not at 
all disposed to discredit the truth of his narrative. 



2 1 6 MARCO POLO Book I. 

Note 4. — 

"Degli elementi quattro principali, 
Che son la Terra, e I'Acqua, e I'Aria, e'l Foco, 
Composti sono gli universi Animali, 
Pigliando di ciascuno assai o poco. " 

{Dati, La Sfera, p. 9.) 

Zurficar in the next sentence is a Mahomedan name, ZtHlfikdr, the title of [the 
edge of] All's sword. 

Note 5. — Here the G. Text adds : "Et j'e meisme le vi," intimating, I conceive, 
his having himself seen specimens of the asbestos — not to his having been at the 
place. 

Note 6. — The story of the Salamander passing unhurt through fire is at least as 
old as Aristotle. But I cannot tell when the fable arose that asbestos was a substance 
derived from the animal. This belief, however, was general in the Middle Ages, 
both in Asia and Europe. " The fable of the Salamander," says Sir Thomas Browne, 
" hath been much promoted by stories of incombustible napkins and textures which 
endure the fire, whose materials are called by the name of Salamander's wool, which 
many, too literally apprehending, conceive some investing part or integument of the 
Salamander. . . . Nor is this Salamander's wool desumed from any animal, but a 
mineral substance, metaphorically so called for this received opinion." 

Those who knew that the Salamander was a lizard-like animal were indeed per- 
plexed as to its woolly coat. Thus the Cardinal de Vitry is fain to say the creature 
"/r^r/ tfx rM/(5 quasi quamdam lanam de qud zonae contextae comburi non possunt 
igtie." A Bestiary, published by Cahier and Martin, says of it : ''^ De lui naist une 
cose qui 1^ est ne sole ne lin ne laine." Jerome Cardan looked in vain, he says, for 
hair on the Salamander ! Albertus Magnus calls the incombustible fibre pluiita 
Salamandri ; and accordingly Bold Bauduin de Sebourc finds the Salamander in the 
Terrestrial '?zxz.^\s,& a kind of bird covered with the whitest plwnage ; of this he takes 
some, which he gets woven into a cloth ; this he presents to the Pope, and the 
Pontiff applies it to the purpose mentioned in the text, viz. to cover the holy napkin 
of St. Veronica. 

Gervase of Tilbury writes : " I saw, when lately at Rome, a broad strap of Sala- 
mander skin, like a girdle for the loins, which had been brought thither by Cardinal 
Peter of Capua. When it had become somewhat soiled by use, I myself saw it 
cleaned perfectly, and without receiving harm, by being put in the fire." 

In Persian the creature is called Samandar, Samattdal, etc., and some derive the 
word from Sam, "fire," sxidt. Aftdar, "within." Doubtless it is a corruption of the 
Greek HiaXafidvdpa, whatever be the origin of that. Bakui says the animal is found 
at Ghur, near Herat, and is like a mouse. Another author, quoted by D'Herbelot, 
says it is like a fnarten. 

[Sir T. Douglas Forsyth, in his Introductory Remarks to Prjevalsky's Travels to 
Lob-tior (p. 20), at Aksu says : " The asl^estos mentioned by Marco Polo as a utilized 
product of this region is not even so known in this country." — H. C] 

-f Interesting details regarding the fabrication of cloth and paper from amianth or 
asbestos are contained in a report presented to the French Institute by M. Sage {Mim. 
Ac. Scieiues, 2e Sem., 1806, p. 102), of which large extracts are given in the 
Diction, giniral des Tissus, par M. Bezon, 2e 6d. vol. ii. Lyon, 1 859, p. 5. He 
mentions that a Sudarium of this material is still shown at the Vatican ; we hope it 
is the cover which Kiiblii sent. 

[This hope is not to be realized. Mgr. Duchesne, of the Institut de France, writes 
to me from Rome, from information derived from the keepers of the Vatican Museum, 
that there is no sudarium from the Great Khan, that indeed part of a sudarium made 
of asbestos is shown (under glass) in this Museum, about 20 inches long, but it is 
ancient, and was found in a Pagan tomb of tlie Appian Way. — II. C.J 



Chap. XLIII. THE PROVINCE OF SUKCHUR 217 

M. Sage exhibited incombustible paper made from this material, and had himself 
seen a small furnace of Chinese origin made from it. Madame Perpente, an Italian 
lady, who experimented much with asbestos, found that from a crude mass of that 
substance threads could be ehcited which were ten times the length of the mass itself, 
and were indeed sometimes several metres in length, the fibres seeming to be involved, 
like silk in a cocoon. Her process of preparation was much Uke that described by 
Marco. She succeeded in carding and reeling the material, made gloves and the like, 
as well as paper, from it, and sent to the Institute a work printed on such paper. 

The Rev. A. Williamson mentions asbestos as found in Shantung. The natives 
use it for making stoves, crucibles, and so forth. 

{Sir T. Browne, I. 293; Bongars, I. 1 104; Cahier et Martin, III. 271; Cardan, 
de Rer. Varietaie, VII. 33; Alb. Mag. Opera, 1551, II. 227, 233; /^r. Michel, 
Recherckes, etc., II. 91; Gerv. of Tilbury, p. 13; N. et E. II. 493; D. des Tisstts, 
II. I-12; /. N. China Branch R.A.S., December, 1867, p. 70.) [Berger de Xivrey, 
Traditions tiratologiqiies, 457-458, 460-463. — H. C] 



CHAPTER XLIII. 
Of the Province of Sukchur. 



On leaving the province of which I spoke before,^ you 
ride ten days between north-east and east, and in all that 
way you find no human dwelling, or next to none, so 
that there is nothing for our book to speak of. 

At the end of those ten days you come to another 
province called Sukchur, in which there are numerous 
towns and villages. The chief city is called Sukchu.^ 
The people are partly Christians and partly Idolaters, 
and all are subject to the Great Kaan. 

The great General Province to which all these three 
provinces belong is called Tangut. 

Over all the mountains of this province rhubarb is 
found in great abundance, and thither merchants come 
to buy it, and carry it thence all over the world.' 
[Travellers, however, dare not visit those mountains 
with any cattle but those of the country, for a certain 
plant grows there which is so poisonous that cattle 
which eat it lose their hoofs. The cattle of the country 



2l8 MARCO POLO Book I. 

know it and eschew it/] The people live by agriculture, 
and have not much trade. [They are of a brown com- 
plexion. The whole of the province is healthy.] 



Note i. — Referring apparently to Shachau; see Note I and the closing words of 
last chapter. 

Note 2. — There is no doubt that the province and city are those of Suhchau, 
but there is a great variety in the readings, and several texts have a marked difference 
between the name of the province and that of the city, whilst others give them as the 
same. I have adopted those to which the resultants of the readings of the best texts 
seem So point, viz. Succiur and Stccciu, though with considerable doubt whether they 
should not be identical. Pauthier declares that Suctur, which is the reading of his 
favourite MS., is the exact pronunciation, after the vulgar Mongol manner, of Suh- 
chau-lu, the Lu or circuit of Suhchau ; whilst Neumann says that the Northern 
Chinese constantly add an euphonic particle or to the end of words. I confess to 
little faith in such refinements, when no evidence is produced. 

[Suhchau had been devastated and its inhabitants massacred by Chinghiz Khan in 
1226.— H. C] 

Suhchau is called by Rashiduddin, and by Shah Rukh's ambassadors, Sukckii, in 
exact correspondence with the reading we have adopted for the name of the city, 
whilst the Russian Envoy Boikoff, in the 17th century, cails it " Suktsey, where the 
rhubarb grows" ; and Anthony Jenkinson, in Hakluyt, by a slight metathesis, 
Sowchick. Suhchau lies just within the extreme north-west angle of the Great Wall. It 
was at Suhchau that Benedict Goes was detained, waiting for leave to go on to 
Peking, eighteen weary months, and there he died just as aid reached him. 

Note 3. — The real rhubarb \^Rheiuiipal)iiatuiii\ grows wild, on very high mountains. 
The central line of its distribution appears to be the high range dividing the head waters 
of the Hwang-Ho, Yalang, and Min-Kiang. The chief markets are Siningfu (see ch. 
Ivii.), and Kwan-Kian in Szechwan. In the latter province an inferior kind is grown 
in fields, but the genuine rhubarb defies cultivation. (See Richthofen, Letters, No. 
VII. p. 69.) Till recently it was almost all exported by Kiakhta and Russia, but 
some now comes vid Hankau and Shanghai. 

[ "See, on the preparation of the root in China, Gemelli-Careri. (Churchill^ s Collect. , 
Bk. III. ch. V. 365.) It is said that when Chinghiz Khan was pillaging Tangut, the 
only things his minister, Yeh-lii Ch'u-ts'ai, would take as his share of the booty were 
a few Chinese books and a supply of rhubarb, with which he saved the lives of a 
great number of Mongols, when, a short time after, an epidemic broke out in the 
army." {D'Ohsson, I. 372. — Rock/nil, Rubrtick, p. 193, note.) 

" With respect to rhubarb . . . the Suchowchi also makes the remark, that the 
best rhubarb, with golden flowers in the breaking, is gathered in this province 
(district of Shan-tan), and that it is equally beneficial to men and beasts, preserving 
them from the pernicious eff"ects of the heat." {Palladius, I.e. p. 9.)— H. C] 

Note 4. — Erba is the title applied to the poisonous growth, which may be either 
"plant" or "grass." It is not unlikely that it was a plant akin to the Andromeda 
ovaltfolia, the tradition of the poisonous character of which prevails everywhere along 
the Himalaya from Nepal to the Indus. 

It is notorious for poisoning sheep and goats at Simla and other hill sanitaria ; 
and Dr. Cleghorn notes the same circumstance regarding it that Polo heard of the 
plant in Tangut, viz. that its effects on flocks imported from the plains are highly 
injurious, whilst those of the hills do not appear to suffer, probably because they shun 
the young leaves, which alone are deleterious. Mr. Marsh attests the like fact regard- 



Chap. XLIV. THE CITY OF CAMPICHU 2 1 9 

ing the Kalinia atiguUifolia of New England, a plant of the same order {Erictueae). 
Sheep bred where it abounds almost always avoid browsing on its leaves, whilst those 
brought from districts where it is unknown feed upon it and are poisoned. 

Firishta, quoting from the Zafar-Ndmah, says : " On the road from Kashmir 
towards Tibet there is a plain on which no other vegetable grows but a poisonous 
grass that destroys all the cattle that taste of it, and therefore no horsemen venture 
to travel that route. " And Abbe Desgodins, writing from E. Tibet, mentions that 
sheep and goals are poisoned by rhododendron leaves. {Dr. Hugh Cleghorn in J. 
Agricultural and Hortic. Society of India, XIV. part 4 ; AlarsKs Man and Nature, 
p. 40 ; Brigg's Firishta, IV. 449 ; Bui. de la Soc. de Giog. 1 873, I. 333.) 

[ " This poisonous plant seems to be the Stipa inebrians described by the late Dr. 
Hance in theyi7z/r«a/ of Bot. 1876, p. 211, from specimens sent to me by Belgian 
Missionaries from the Ala Shan Mountains, west of the Yellow River." {Bretschneider, 
Hist, of Bot. Disc. I. p. 5.) 

" M. Polo notices that the cattle not indigenous to the province lose their hoofs in 
the Suh-chau Mountains ; but that is probably not on account of some poisonous grass, 
but in consequence of the stony groimd." {Pallcuiius, I.e. p. 9.) — H. C.] 



CHAPTER XLIV. 
Of the City of Campichu. 



Campichu is also a city of Tangut, and a very great and 
noble one. Indeed it is the capital and place of govern- 
ment of the whole province of Tangut.^ The people are 
Idolaters, Saracens, and Christians, and the latter have 
three very fine churches in the city, whilst the Idolaters 
have many minsters and abbeys after their fashion. 
In these they have an enormous number of idols, both 
small and great, certain of the latter being a good ten 
paces in stature ; some of them being of wood, others 
of clay, and others yet of stone. They are all highly 
polished, and then covered with gold. The great idols 
of which I speak lie at length.^ And round about them 
there are other figures of considerable size, as if adoring 
and paying homage before them. 

Now, as I have not yet given you particulars about 
the customs of these Idolaters, I will proceed to tell you 
about them. 



2 20 MARCO POLO Book I. 

You must know that there are among them certain 
religious recluses who lead a more virtuous life than the 
rest. These abstain from all lechery, though they do 
not indeed regard it as a deadly sin ; howbeit if any 
one sin against nature they condemn him to death. 
They have an Ecclesiastical Calendar as we have ; and 
there are five days In the month that they observe 
particularly ; and on these five days they would on no 
account either slaughter any animal or eat flesh meat. 
On those days, moreover, they observe much greater 
abstinence altogether than on other days.^ 

Among these people a man may take thirty wives, 
more or less, if he can but afford to do so, each having 
wives in proportion to his wealth and means ; but the 
first wife is always held in highest consideration. The 
men endow their wives with cattle, slaves, and money, 
according to their ability. And if a man dislikes any 
one of his wives, he just turns her off and takes another. 
They take to wife their cousins and their fathers' widows 
(always excepting the man's o^n mother), holding to be 
no sin many things that we thi^ok grievous sins, and, in 
short, they live like beasts.* ■:. 

Messer Maffeo and Messer Marco Polo dwelt a 
whole year in this city when on a mission.^ 

Now we will leave this and tell you about other pro- 
vinces towards the north, for we are going to take you 
a sixty days' journey in that direction. 



Note i. — Campichiu is undoubtedly Kanchau, which was at this time, as Pauthier 
tells us, the chief city of the administration of Kansuh, corresponding to Polo's 
Tangut. Kansuh itself is a name compounded of the names of the two cities Kan- 
chau and ^M^-chau. 

[Kanchau fell under the Tangut dominion in 1208. [Palladius, p. 10.) The Musul- 
mans mentioned by Polo at Shachau and Kanchau probably came from Khotan. — 
H. C] 

The difficulties that have been made about the form of the name Campiciou, etc., in 
Polo, and the attempts to explain these, are probably alike futile. Quatremere writes 
the Persian form of the name after Abdurrazzak as Kamtcheou, but I see that Erdmann 



Chap. XLIV. 



THE LAMAS 



221 



writes it after Rashid, I presume on good grounds, as Ckaviidschu, i.e. Kamijit or 
Kamichti. And that this was the Western pronunciation of the name is shown by the 
form which Pegolotti uses, Camextt, i.e. Camechu. The / in Polo's spelHng is pro- 
bably only a superfluous letter, as in the occasional old spelling ofdanipntan, contenip- 
nere, hympntis, tirampniis, sompnour, Dampne Deu. In fact, AJarignolU writes Polo's 
Quinsai as Campsay. 

It is worthy of notice that though Ramusio's text prints the names of these two 
cities as Succuir and Campion, his own pronunciation of them appears to have been 
quite well understood by the Persian traveller Hajji Mahomed, for it is perfectly clear 
that the latter recognized in these names Suhchau and Kanchau. (See Ram. II. f. 
14V. ) The second volume of the Navigationi, containing Polo, was published after 
Ramusio's death, and it is possible that the names as he himself read them were more 
correct {e.g. Succiur, Campjou). 

Note 2. — This is the meaning of the phrase in the G. T. : " Ceste grande ydie 
gigent," as may be seen from Ramusio's giaciono disiesi. Lazari renders the former 
expression, " giganteggia nn idolo," etc., a phrase very unlike Polo. The circum- 
stance is interesting, because this recumbent Colossus at Kanchau is mentioned both 
by Hajji Mahomed and by Shah Rukh's people. The latter say: "In this city of 
Kanchti there is an Idol-Temple 500 cubits square. In the middle is an idol l}nng at 
length which measures 50 paces. The sole of the foot is nine paces long, and the in- 
step is 21 cubits in girth. Behind this image and overhead are other idols of a cubit (?) 
in height, besides figures of Bakshis as large as life. The action of all is hit off so 
admirably that you would think they were alive." These great recumbent figures are 
favourites in Buddhist countries still, e.g. in Siam, Burma, and Ceylon. They sym- 
bolise Sakya Buddha entering Nirvana. Such a recumbent figure, perhaps the 
prototype of these, was seen by Hiuen Tsang in a Vihara close to the Sal Grove 
at Kusinagara, where Sakya en- 
tered that state, i.e. died. The 
stature of Buddha was, we are 
told, 12 cubits; but Brahma, 
Indra, and the other gods vainly 
tried to compute his dimensions. 
Some such rude metaphor is 
probably embodied in these large 
images. I have described one 69 
feet long in Burma (represented 
in the cut), but others exist of 
much greater size, though pro- 
bably none equal to that which 
Hiuen Tsang, in the 7th century, 
saw near Bamian, which was 
1000 feet in length ! I have 
heard of but one such image 
remaining in India, viz. in one 
of the caves at Dhamnar in 
Malwa. This is 15 feet lonj 
and is popularly known a 
"Bhim's Baby." 
pp. cciii., ccxviii. 
Archal. Reports, ii. 274 ; Tod, ii. 273.) 

[" The temple, in which M. Polo saw an idol of Buddha, represented in a h-ing 
position, IS evidently Wo-fo-sze, i.e. 'Monastery- of the hnng Buddha.' It was built 
m 1 103 by a Tangut queen, to place there three idols representing Buddha in this 
posture, which have since been found in the ground on this ver\- spot." {Palladius, I c. 
p. 10.) 




Colossal Figure, Buddh.-i entering Xin-ana. 

" <Et St 'aaz bt qn'il jrnt be jbrrs jjnc snnt grant 
{Cathay, etc., ii'-v pas. . . . Cfstc grant j)trf3 gigent." . . . 
Mission to Ava, p. 52 ; V. et V. de H. T., p. 374 : Cunningham's 



222 



MARCO POLO 



Book I. 



Rubruck (p. 144) says: "A Nestorian, who had come from Cathay told me that 
in that country there is an idol so big that it can be seen from two days off." Mr. 
Rockhill [Rnhrnck, p. 144, note) writes: "The largest stone image I have seen is 
in a cave temple at Yung-kan, about 10 miles north-west of Ta-t'ungP'u in Shan-si. 
Pere Gerbillon says the Emperor K'ang-hsi measured it himself and found it to be 57 
chih high (61 feet). {Dtihalde, Description, IV. 352.) I have seen another colossal 
statue in a cave near Pinchou in north-west Shan-si ; and there is another about 45 
miles south of Ning-hsia Fu, near the left bank of the Yellow River. {Rockhill, Land 
of the Lamas, 26, and Diary, 47.) The great recumbent figure of the 'Sleeping 
Buddha' in the Wo Fo ssii, near Peking, is of clay." 

King Haython (Brosset's ed. p. 181) mentions the statue in clay, of an extra- 
ordinary height, of a God (Buddha) aged 3040 years, who is to live 370,000 years 
more, when he will be superseded by another god called Madri (yiaXixeya). — H. C] 





Great Lama Monastery. 



Note 3. — Marco is now speaking of the Lamas, or clergy of Tibetan Buddhism. 
The customs mentioned have varied in details, both locally and with the changes that 
the system has passed through in the course of time. 

The institutes of ancient Buddhism set apart the days of new and full moon to be 
observed by the Srainanas or monks, by fasting, confession, and listening to the 
reading of the law. It became usual for the laity to take part in the observance, and 
the number of days was increased to three and then to four, whilst Hiuen Tsang 
himself speaks of " the six fasts of every month," and a Chinese authority quoted by 
Julien gives the days as the 8th, 14th, 15th, 23rd, 29th, and 30th. Fahian says that 
in Ceylon preaching took place on the 8th, 14th, and 15th days of the month. Four 



Chap. XLV. THE CITY OF ETZINA 223 

is the number now most general amongst Buddhist nations, and the days may be re- 
garded as a kind of Buddhist Sabbath. In the southern coimtries and in Nepal they 
occur at the moon's changes. In Tibet and among the Mongol Buddhists they are 
not at equal intervals, though I find the actual days differently stated by different 
authorities. Pallas says the Mongols observed the 13th, 14th, and 15th, the three 
days being brought together, he thought, on account of the distance many Lamas had 
to travel to the temple — ^just as in some Scotch country parishes they used to give two 
sermons in one service for like reason ! Koeppen, to whose work this note is much 
indebted, says the Tibetan days are the 14th, 15th, 29th, 30th, and adds as to the 
manner of observance : " On these days, by rule, among the Lamas, nothing should 
be tasted but farinaceous food and tea ; the very devout refrain from all food from 
sunrise to sunset. The Temples are decorated, and the altar tables set out with the 
holy symbols, with tapers, and with dishes containing offerings in corn, meal, tea, 
butter, etc. , and especially with small pyramids of dough, or of rice or clay, and ac- 
companied by much burning of incense-sticks. The service performed by the priests 
is more solemn, the music louder and more exciting, than usual. The laity make 
their offerings, tell their beads, and repeat Om mani padma horn" etc. In the con- 
cordat that took place between the Dalai-Lama and the Altun Khaghan, on the re- 
conversion of the Mongols to Buddhism in the l6th century, one of the articles was 
the entire prohibition of hunting and the slaughter of animals on the monthly fast 
days. The practice varies much, however, even in Tibet, with different provinces and 
sects — a variation which the Ramusian text of Polo implies in these words : " For 
five days, ox four days, or three in each month, they shed no blood," etc. 

In Burma the Worship Day, as it is usually called by Europeans, is a very gay 
scene, the women flocking to the pagodas in their brightest attire. (ZT. T. M^moires, 
I. 6, 208 ; Koe{-pen, I. 563-564, II. 139, 307-308; Pallas, Saniml. II. 168-169). 

Note 4. — These matrimonial customs are the same that are after\vards ascribed 
to the Tartars, so we defer remark. 

Note 5. — So Pauthier's text, " en legation." The G. Text includes Nicolo Polo, 
and says, "on business of theirs that is not worth mentioning," and with this 
Ramusio agrees. 



CHAPTER XLV. 
Of the City of Etzina. 



When you leave the city of Campichu you ride for 
twelve days, and then reach a city called Etzina, which 
is towards the north on the verge of the Sandy Desert ; 
it belongs to the Province of Tangut.^ The people are 
Idolaters, and possess plenty of camels and cattle, and 
the country produces a number of good falcons, both 
Sakers and Lanners. The inhabitants live by their 
cultivation and their catde, for they have no trade. 



224 



MARCO POLO 



Book I. 



At this city you must needs lay in victuals for forty 
days, because when you quit Etzina, you enter on a 
desert which extends forty days' journey to the north, 
and on which you meet with no habitation nor baiting- 
place.^ In the summer-time, indeed, you will fall in 
with people, but in the winter the cold is too great. 
You also meet with wild beasts (for there are some small 
pine-woods here and there), and with numbers of wild 
asses.3 When you have travelled these forty clays across 
the Desert you come to a certain province lying to the 
north. Its name you shall hear presently. 



Note i. — Deguignes says that Yetsina is found in a Chinese Map of Tartary of 
the Mongol era, and this is confirmed by Pauthier, who reads it Itsinai, and adds 




Wild Ass of Alongoliru 

that the text of the Map names it as one of the seven Lu or Circuits of the Province 
of Kansuh (or Tangut). Indeed, in D'Anville's Atlas we find a river called Eisbia 
Pira, running northward from Kanchau, and a little below the 41st parallel joining 



Chap. XLV. THE CITY OF ETZINA 225 

another from Suhchau. Beyond the junction is a town called Hoa-tsiang, which 
probably represents Etzina. Yetsina is also mentioned in Gaubil's History of 
Chinghiz as taken by that conqueror in 1226, on his last campaign againt Tangut. 
This capture would also seem from Petis de la Croix to be mentioned by Rashiduddin. 
Gaubil says the Chinese Geography places Yetsina north of Kanchau and north-east of 
Suhchau, at a distance of 120 leagues from Kanchau, but observes that this is 
certainly too great. {.Gaubil, p. 49.) 

[I believe there can be no doubt that Etzina must be looked for on the river Hei- 
shut, called Etsina by the Mongols, east of Suhchau. This river empties its waters 
into the two lakes Soho-omo and Sopo-omo. Etzina would have been therefore 
situated on the river on the border of the Desert, at the top of a triangle whose bases 
would be Sulichau and Kanchau. This river was once part of the frontier of 
the kingdom of Tangut. {Cf. Deviria, Notes cCipigraphie nwngolo-chinoise, p. 4.) 
Reclus (,G^og. Univ., Asie Orientale, p. 159) says: "To the east [of Hami], beyond 
the Chukur Gobi, are to be found also some permanent villages and the remains of 
cities. One of them is perhaps the 'cite d'Etzina' of which Marco Polo speaks, and 
the name is to be found in that of the river Az-sind." 

"Through Kanchau was the shortest, and most direct and convenient road to I-tsi- 
ftay. . . . I-tsi-nay, or Echini, is properly the name of a lake. Khubilai, disquieted 
by his factious relatives on the north, established a military post near lake I-tsi-nay, 
and built a town, or a fort on the south-western shore of this lake. The name of 
I-tsi-nay appears from that time ; it does not occur in the chronicle of the Tangut king- 
dom ; the lake had then another name. Vestiges of the town are seen to this day ; 
the buildings were of large dimensions, and some of them were very fine. In Marco 
Polo's time there existed a direct route from I-tsi-nay to Karakorum ; traces of this 
road are still noticeable, but it is no more used. This circumstance, i.e. the exist- 
ence of a road from I-tsi-nay to Karakorum, probably led Marco Polo to make an ex- 
cursion (a mental one, I suppose) to the residence of the Khans in Northern &Ion- 
golia." [Palladius, I.e. pp. lo-ii.)— H. C] 

Note 2.—"Erberge" (G. T.). Pauthier has Herbage. 

Note 3. — The Wild Ass of Mongolia is the Dshiggetaioi Pallas {Asintis hemionus 
of Gray), and identical with the Tibetan Kyang of Moorcroft and Trans- Himalayan 
sportsmen. It diflfers, according to Blyth, only in shades of colour and unimportant 
markings from the Ghor Khar of Western India and the Persian Deserts, the Kulan 
of Turkestan, which Marco has spoken of in a previous passage (supri, ch. xvi. ; 
/. A. S. B. XXVIII. 229 seqq.). There is a fine Kyang in the Zoological Gardens, 
whose portrait, after Wolf, is given here. But Mr. Ney Elias says of this animal that 
he has little of the aspect of his nomadic brethren. [The wild ass (Tibetan Kyang, 
Mongol Hoiu or Hidan) is called by the Chinese _y/f A ma, "wild horse," though 
" every one admits that it is an ass, and should be called yeh lo-tzH." (Kockhill, Land 
of the Lamas, 151, note.) — H. C] 

[Captain Younghusband {1886) saw in the Altai Mountains "considerable 
numbers of wild asses, which appeared to be perfectly similar to the Kyang of Ladak 
and Tibet, and wild horses too — the Eqiius Prejcvalskii — roaming about these great 
open plains." {Proc. R. G. S. X. 1888, p. 495.) Dr. Sven Hedin says the habitat of 
the Kulan is the heights of Tibet as well as the valley of the Tarim ; it looks like a 
mule with the mane and tail of an ass, but shorter ears, longer than those of a horse : 
he gives a picture of it. — H. C] 



V^OL. I. 



:226 MARCO POLO Book. I. 

CHAPTER XLVI. 

Of the City of Caracoron. 

Caracoron is a city of some three miles in compass. 
[It is surrounded by a strong earthen rampart, for stone 
is scarce there. And beside it there is a great citadel 
wherein is a fine palace in which the Governor resides.] 
'Tis the first city that the Tartars possessed after they 
issued from their own country. And now I will tell 
you all about how they first acquired dominion and 
spread over the world.^ 

Originally the Tartars ^ dwelt in the north on the 
borders of Chorcha.^ Their country was one of great 
plains ; and there were no towns or villages in it, but 
excellent pasture-lands, with great rivers and many 
sheets of water ; in fact it was a very fine and extensive 
region. But there was no sovereign in the land. They 
did, however, pay tax and tribute to a great prince 
who was called in their tongue Unc Can, the same 
that we call Prester John, him in fact about whose 
great dominion all the world talks.* The tribute he had 
of them was one beast out of every ten, and also a tithe 
of all their other gear. 

Now it came to pass that the Tartars multiplied 
exceedingly. And when Prester John saw how great 
a people they had become, he began to fear that he 
should have trouble from them. So he made a scheme 
to distribute them over sundry countries, and sent one 
of his Barons to carry this out. When the Tartars 
became aware of this they took it much amiss, and 
with one consent they left their country and went off 
across a desert to a distant region towards the north, 
where Prester John could not get at them to annoy 



Chap. XLVI. THE CITY OF CARACORON 227 

them. Thus they revolted from his authority and paid 
him tribute no longer. And so things continued for a 
time. 



Note i. — KarAkorum, near the upper course of the River Orkhon, is said by 
Chinese authors to have been founded by Biiku Khan of the Hoei-ilu or Uigurs, in 
the 8th century. In the days of Chinghiz, we are told that it was the headquarters 
of his ally, and afterwards enemy, Togrul Wang Khan, the Prester John of Polo. 
["The name of this famous city is Mongol, Kara, 'black,' and Kuren, 'a camp,' 
or properly * palling.' " It was founded in 1235 by Okkodai, who called it Ordu Balik, 
or " the City of the Ordu," otherwise " The Royal City." Mohammedan authors say 
it took its name of Karakorum from the mountains to the south of it, in which the 
Orkhon had its source. {ly Ohssott, ii. 64.) The Chinese mention a range of mountains 
from which the Orkhon flows, called Wu-t& kien shan. {T'ang shu, bk. 43^.) Prob- 
ably these are the same. Rashiduddin speaks of a tribe of Utikien Uigurs living in 
this country. {Bretschneider, Med. Geog. 191 ; IfOhsson, i. 437. Rockhill, Rubruck, 
220, note. ) — Karakorum was called by the Chinese Ho-lin and was chosen by Chinghiz, 
in 1206, as his capital; the full name of it, Hala Ho-lin, was derived from a river to the 
west. ( Yuen shi, ch. Iviii. ) Gaubil {Holin, p. 10) says that the river, called in his days 
in Tartar Karoha, was, at the time of the Mongol Emperors, named by the Chinese Ha- 
la Ho-lin, in Tartar language Ka la Ko lin, or Cara korin, or Kara Koran. In the 
spring of 1235, Okkodai had a wall raised round Ho-lin and a palace called Wang an, 
built inside the city. {Gaubil, Gentckiscan, 89.) After the death of Kiiblai, Ho-lin 
was altered into Ho-Ning, and, in 1320, the name of the province was changed into 
Z/«^-/^ (mountainous north, i.e. the y/w-j'/iaw chain, separating China Proper from 
Mongolia). In 1256, Mangu Kaan decided to transfer the seat of government to 
Kaiping-fu, or Shangtu, near the present Dolonnor, north of Peking. {Suprh, in 
Prologue, ch. xiii. note I.) In 1260, Kiibldi transferred his capital to Ta-Tu 
(Peking). 

Piano Carpini (1246) is the first Western traveller to mention it by name which he 
writes Caracoron ; he visited the Sira Orda, at half a day's journey from Karakorum, 
where Okkodai used to pass the summer ; it was situated at a place Ormektua. 
{Rockhill, Rubruck, 21, iii.) Rubruquis (1253) visited the city itself; the following 
is his account of it : "As regards the city of Caracoron, you must understand that if 
you set aside the Kaan's own Palace, it is not as good as the Borough of St. Denis ; 
and as for the Palace, the Abbey of St. Denis is worth ten of it ! There are two streets 
in the town ; one of which is occupied by the Saracens, and in that is the market- 
place. The other street is occupied by the Cathayans, who are all craftsmen. 
Besides these two streets there are some great palaces occupied by the court secretaries. 
There are also twelve idol temples belonging to different nations, two Maliummeries 
in which the Law of Mahomet is preached, and one church of the Christians at the 
extremity of the town. The to\vn is enclosed by a mud-wall and has four gates. At 
the east gate they sell millet and other corn, but the supply is scanty ; at the west gate 
they sell rams and goats ; at the south gate oxen and waggons ; at the north gate 
horses. . • . Mangu Kaan has a great Court beside the Town Rampart, which is en- 
closed by a brick wall, just like our priories. Inside there is a big palace, within 
which he holds a drinking-bout twice a year ; . . . there are also a number of long 
buildings like granges, in which are kept his treasiures and his stores of victual " 
(345-6 ; 334)- 

Where was Karikorum situated ? 

The Archimandrite Palladius is very prudent (I.e. p. Il) : " Everything that the 
studious Chinese authors could gather and say of the situation of Karakhorum is col- 
lected in two Chinese works, Lofung low wen kao (1849), and Mungku yew mu ki 
VOL. I. p 2 



2 28 MARCO POLO Book I. 

(1859). However, no positive conclusion can be derived from these researches, chiefly 
in consequence of the absence *of a tolerably correct map of Northern Mongolia." 

Abel Remusat {Mini, sur Giog. Asie Centrale, p. 20) made a confusion between 
Karabalgasun and Karakorum which has misled most writers after him. 

Sir Henry Yule says : " The evidence adduced in Abel Remusat's paper on 
Karakorum {Mhn. de V Acad. R. des Insc. VII. 288) establishes the site on the north 
bank of the Orkhon, and about five days' journey above the confluence of the Orkhon 
and Tula. But as we have only a very loose knowledge of these rivers, it is impossible 
to assign the geographical position with accuracy. Nor is it likely that ruins exist 
beyond an outline perhaps of the Kaan's Palace walls." 

In the Geographical Magazine for July, 1874 (p. 137), Sir Henry Yule has been 
enabled, by the kind aid of Madame Fedtchenko in supplying a translation from the 
Russian, to give some account of Mr. Paderin's visit to the place, in the summer of 
1873, along with a sketch-map. 

" The site visited by Mr. Paderin is shown, by the particulars stated in that paper, 
to be sufficiently identified with Karakorum. It is precisely that which Remusat in- 
dicated, and which bears in the Jesuit maps, as published by D'Anville, the name of 
Talarho Hara Palhassoiin {i.e. Kara Balghasun),- standing 4 or 5 miles from the left 
bank of the Orkhon, in lat. (by the Jesuit Tables) 47° 32" 24". It is now known as Kara- 
Kharam (Rampart) or Kara Balghasun (city). The remains consist of a quadrangular 
rampart of mud and sun-dried brick, of about 500 paces to the side, and now about 
9 feet high, with traces of a higher tower, and of an inner rampart parallel to the 
other. But these remains probably appertain to the city as re-occupied by the 
descendants of the Yuen in the end of the 14th century, after their expulsion from 
China." 

Dr. Bretschneider {Med. Res. I. p. 123) rightly observes : " It seems, however, 
that Paderin is mistaken in his supposition. At least it does not agree with the 
position assigned to the ancient Mongol residence in the Mongol annals Erdenin 
e7'ikhe, translated into Russian, in 1883, by Professor Pozdneiev. It is there positively 
stated (p. no, note 2) that the monastery of Erdenidsu, founded in 1585, was 
erected on the ruins of that city, which once had been built by order of Ogotai Khan, 
and where he had established his residence ; and where, after the expulsion of the 
Mongols from China, Togontemur again had fixed the Mongol court. This vast 
monastery still exists, one English mile, or more, east of the Orkhon. It has even 
been astronomically determined by the Jesuit missionaries, and is marked on our maps 
of Mongolia. Pozdneiev, who visited the place in 1877, obligingly informs me that 
the square earthen wall surrounding the monastery of Erdenidsu, and measuring 
about an English mile in circumference, may well be the very wall of ancient 
Karakorum." 

Recent researches have fully confirmed the belief that the Erdeni Tso, or Eideni 
Chao, Monastery occupies the site of Karakorum, near the bank of the Orkhon, 
between this river and the Kokchin (old) Orkhon. (See map in Inscriptions de 
r Orkhon, Helsingfors, 1892 ; a plan of the vicinity and of the Erdeni Tso is given 
(plate 36) in W. Radloff's Atlas der Alterthumer der Mongolei, St. Pet., 1892.) 

According to a work of the 13th century quoted by the late Professor G. Deveria, 
the distance between the old capital of the Uighiir, Kara Balgasun, on the left bank 
of the Orkhon, north of Erdeni Tso, and the Ho-lin or Karakorum of the Mongols, 
would be 70 // (about 30 miles), and such is the space between Erdeni Tso and Kara 
Balgasun. M. Marcel Monnier {Itiniraires, p. 107) estimates the bird's-eye distance 
from Erdeni Tso to Kara Balgasun at 33 kilom. (about 20 ^ miles). "When the 
brilliant epoch of the power of the Chinghizkhanides," says Professor Axel Heikel, 
"was at an end, the city of Karakorum fell into oblivion, and towards the year 1590 
was founded, in the centre of this historically celebrated region of the Orkhon, the 
most ancient of Buddhist monasteries of Mongolia, this of Erdeni Tso [Erdeni Chao]. 
It was built, according to a Mongol chronicle, on the ruins of the town built by 
OkkodaK, son of Chinghiz Khan, that is to say, on the ancient Kardkorum." 



Chap. XLVI. 



THE CITY OF CARACOROV 



229 



{Inscriptions de TOrkJion.) So Professor Heikel, like Professor Pozdneiev, con- 
cludes that Erdeni Tso was built on the site of Karakorum and cannot be 
mistaken for Karabalgasun. Indeed it is highly probable that one of the walls 
of the actual convent belonged to the old Mongol capital. The travels and 
researches by expeditions from Finland and Russia have made these questions pretty 
clear. Some most interesting inscriptions have been brought home and hare been 
studied by a number of Orientalists : G. Schlegel, O. Donner, G. Deveria, Vasiliev, 




G. von der Gabelentz, Dr. Hirth, G. Huth, E. H. Parker, W. Bang, etc., and 
especially Professor \'ilh. Thomsen, of Copenhagen, who deciphered them {Dt'chiffre- 
ntent des Inscriptions de I Orkhon et de I Ihjissei, Copenhagiie, 1894, 8vo ; 
Inscriptions de F Orkhon dicJiiffr^es, par V. Thomsen, Helsingfors, 1894, 8vo), and 
Professor W. Radloff of St. Petersburg {Atlas der Alterthiimer der Mongolei, 1892-6, 
fol. ; Die alttiirkischcn Inschriften der Mongolei, 1894-7, etc.). There is an immense 
literature on these inscriptions, and for the bibliography, I must refer the reader to 



230 



MARCO POLO 



Book I. 



H, Cordier, Etudes Chinoises (\%(i\-\%<i6,), Leide, 1895, 8vo; Id. (1895-1898), Leide, 
1898, 8vo. The initiator of these discoveries was N. larindsev, of Irkutsk, who died 
at Barnaoul in 1894, and the first great expedition was started from Finland in 1890, 
under the guidance of Professor Axel Ileikel. {Inscriptions de V Orkhonrecneillies 
par V expMition fimioise, 1890, et publiees par la Socidtd Finno-Oiigrienne, Helsingfors, 
1892, fol.) The Russian expedition left the following year, 1891, under the direction 
of the Academician W. Radloff. 

M. Chaffanjon {Nouv. Archiv. des Missions Scient. IX., 1899, p. 81), in 1895, does 
not appear to know that there is a difference between Kara Korum and Kara Balgasun, 
as he writes : " Forty kilometres south of Kara Korum or Kara Balgasun, the convent 
of Erdin Zoun." 

A plan of Kara Balgasun is given (plate 27) in Radloff^ s Atlas, See also Henri 
Cordier et Gatibil, Situation de Holin en Tartaric, I^eide, 1893, 

In Rubruquis's account of Karakorum there is one passage of great interest: 
"Then master William [Guillaume L'Orfevre] had made for us an iron to make 
wafers ... he made also a silver box to put the body of Christ in, with relics in 
little cavities made in the sides of the box," Now M. Marcel Monnier, who is one 
of the last, if not the last traveller who visited the region, tells me that he found in 
the large temple of Erdeni Tso an iron (the cast bore a Latin cross ; had the wafer 
been Nestorian, the cross should have been Greek) and a silver box, which are very- 
likely the objects mentioned by Rubruquis. It is a new proof of the identity of the 
sites of Erdeni Tso and Karakorum. — H. C] 




r-ntrancc to tne Isrdeni Tso Great Tempic. 



Note 2. — [Mr. Rockhill {Rubruck, 113, note) says : " The earliest date to which 
I have been able to trace back the name Tartar is A.D. 732. We find mention made 
in a Turkish inscription found on the river Orkhon and bearing that date, of the 
Tokuz Tatar, or 'Nine (tribes of) Tatars,' and of the Otuz Tatar, or 'Thirty (tribes 
of) Tatars.' It is probable that these tribes were then living between the Oguz or 
Uigiir Turks on the west, and the Kitan on the east. {Thonisen, Iiiscnptions de 
I' Orkhon, 98, 126, 140. ) Mr, Thos, Walters tells me that the Tartars are first men. 
tioned by the Chinese in the period extending from A.D. 860 to 874; the earliest 
mention I have discovered, however, is under date of A. o. 880. ( IVu lai siiih, Bk. 4.) 



Chap. XLVI. THE CITY OF CARACORON 23 1 

We also read in the same work (Bk. 74, 2) that ' The Ta-ta were a branch of the 
Mo-ho (the name the Nu-chen Tartars bore during the Sui and Tang periods : Ma 
Tuanlin, Bk. 327, 5). They first lived to the north of the Kitan. Later on they 
were conquered by this people, when they scattered, a part becoming tributaries of the 
Kitan, another to the Fo-hai (a branch of the Mo-ho), while some bands took up their 
abode in the Yin Shan in Southern ^longolia, north of the provinces of Chih-li and 
Shan-si, and took the name of Ta-ta.' In 981 the Chinese ambassador to the 
Prince of Kao-chang (Karakhodjo, some 20 miles south-east of Turfan) traversed 
the Ta-ta country. They then seem to have occupied the northern bend of the Yellow 
River. He gives the names of some nine tribes of Ta-ta hving on either side of the 
river. He notes that their neighbours to the east were Kitan, and that for a long 
time they had been fighting them after the occupation of Kan-chou by the Uigurs. 
(Ma Tuanlin, Bk. 336, 12-14.) We may gather firom this that these Tartars were 
already settled along the Yellow River and the Yin Shan (the valley in which is now 
the important frontier mart of Kwei-hua Ch'eng) at the beginning of the ninth century, 
for the Uigurs, driven southward by the Kirghiz, first occupied Kan-chou in north- 
western Kan-suh, somewhere about A.D. 842."] 

Note 3. — Chorcha [Ciorcia) is the Manchu country, whose people were at that 
time called by the Chinese Ytuh4 or Niuchi, and by the Mongols Churchi, or as it is 
in Sanang Sttuem, /urckid. The country in question is several times mentioned by 
Rashiduddin as Churche. The founders of the Kin Dynasty, which the Mongols 
superseded in Northern China, were of Churche race. [It was part of Nayan's 
appanage. (See Bk. II. ch. v.) — H. C] 

Note 4. — The idea that a Christian potentate of enormous wealth and power, and 
bearing this title, ruled over vast tracts in the far East, was universal in Europe from the 
middle of the 12th to the end of the 13th century, after which time the Asiatic story 
seems gradually to have died away, whilst the Royal Presbjrter was assigned to a locus 
in Abyssmia; the equivocal application of the term India to the East of Asia and the 
EUist of Africa facilitating this transfer. Indeed I have a suspicion, contrary to the 
view now generally taken, that the term may from the first have belonged to the 
Abyssinian Prince, though circumstances led to its being applied in another quarter 
for a time. It appears to me almost certain that the letter of Pope Alexander III., 
preserved by R. Hoveden, and written in 1177 to the Magnificus Rex Indorum^ 
Sacerdotum sanctissimus, was meant for the King of Abyssinia. 

Be that as it may, the inordinate report of Prester John's magnificence became 
especially dilSised from about the year 1 165, when a letter fiall of the most extravagant 
details was circulated, which purported to have been addressed by this potentate to 
the Greek Emperor Manuel, the Roman Emperor Frederick, the Pope, and other 
Christian sovereigns. By the circulation of this letter, glaring fiction as it is, the idea 
of this Christian Conqueror was planted deep in the mind of Europe, and twined it- 
self round every rumour of revolution in further Asia. Even when the din of the 
conquests of Chinghiz began to be audible in the West, he was invested with the 
character of a Christian King, and more or less confounded with the mysterious Prester 
John. 

The first notice of a conquering Asiatic potentate so styled had been brought to 
Europe by the SjTrian Bishop of Gabala (/ibal, south of Laodicea in Northern Syria), 
who came, in 1 145, to lay various grievances before Pope Eugene III. He reported 
that not long before a certain John, inhabiting the extreme East, king and Nestorian 
priest, and claiming descent from the Three Wise Kings, had made war on the 
Samiard Kings of the Medes and Persians, and had taken Ecbatana their capitaL 
He was then proceeding to the deliverance of Jerusalem, but was stopped by the 
Tigris, which he could not cross, and compelled by disease in his host to retire. 

M. d'Avezac first showed to whom this account must apply, and the subject has 
more recently been set forth with great completeness and learning by Dr. Gustavus 
Oppert. The conqueror in question was the founder of Kara Khitai, which existed as 



232 MARCO POLO Book I. 

a great Empire in Asia during the last two-thirds of the I2lh century. This cliief 
was a prince of the Khitan dynasty of Liao, who escaped with a body of followers 
from Northern China on the overthrow of that dynasty by the Ki7i or Niuchen about 
1 125. He is called by the Chinese historians Yeliu Tashi ; by Abulghazi, Nuzi 
Taigri Hi ; and by Rashiduddin, Nushi (or Fushi) Taifu. Being well received by the 
Uighurs and other tribes west of the Desert who had been subject to the Khitan 
Empire, he gathered an army and commenced a course of conquest which eventually 
extended over Eastern and Western Turkestan, including Khwarizm, which became 
tributary to him. He took the title of Gtirkhan, said to mean Universal or Suzerain 
Khan, and fixed at Bala Sagun, north of the Thian Shan, the capital of his Empire, 
which became known as A'rtra (Black) Khitai* [The dynasty being named by the 
Chinese Si-Liao (Western Liao) lasted till it was destroyed in 1218. — H. C] In 1141 
he came to the aid of the King of Khwarizm against Satijar the Seljukian sovereign of 
Persia (whence the Samtard of the Syrian Bishop), who had just taken Samarkand, 
and defeated that prince with great slaughter. Though the Gurkhan himself is not 
described to have extended his conquests into Persia, the King of Khwarizm followed 
up the victory by an invasion of that country, in which he plundered the treasury and 
cities of Sanjar. 

Admitting this Karacathayan prince to be the first conqueror (in Asia, at all events) 
to whom the name of Prester John was applied, it still remains obscure how that name 
arose. Oppert supposes that Gtir/ckan or Kurkhan, softened in West Turkish pro- 
nunciation into Yjirkan, was confounded with Yochanan or Johannes ; but he finds 
no evidence of the conqueror's profession of Christianity except the fact, notable 
certainly, that the daughter of the last of his brief dynasty is recorded to have been a 
Christian. Indeed, D'Ohsson says that the first Gurkhan was a Buddhist, though on 
what authority is not clear. There seems a probability at least that it was an error 
in the original ascription of Christianity to the Karacathayan prince, which caused the 
confusions as to the identity of Prester John which appear in the next century, of which 
we shall presently speak. Leaving this doubtful point, it has been plausibly sug- 
gested that the title of Presbyter Johannes was connected with the legends of the 
immortality of John the Apostle (6 irpea^vrepos, as he calls himself in the 2nd and 3rd 
epistles), and the belief referred to by some of the Fathers that he would be the 
Forerunner of our Lord's second coming, as John the Baptist had been of His first. 

A new theory regarding the original Prester John has been propounded by 
Professor Bruun of Odessa, in a Russian work entitled T/ie Migt-ations of Prester 
John. The author has been good enough to send me large extracts of this essay in 
(French) translation ; and I will endeavour to set forth the main points as well as the 
small space that can be given to the matter will admit. Some remarks and notes shall 
be added, but I am not in a position to do justice to Professor Bruun's views, from the 

* A passage in Mirkhond extracted by Erdmann {TemudscMn, p. 532) seems to make Bdld 
SSghdn the same as Bishbdlik, now Urumtsi, but this is inconsistent with other passages abstracted 
by Oppert {Presbyler Jokan. I3i--i2) ; and Vdmbiry indicates a reason for its being sought very much 
further west {H. 0/ Bokhara, 116). [Dr. Bretschneider {Med. Res.)has a chapter on Kara-Khitai 
(I. 208 segy.), and in a long note on B.-xla Sagun, which he calls Belnsagun, he says (p. 226) that 
"according to the Tarikh Djihan Kljshai (dOhsson, i. 433), the city of Belasagun had been founded 
by Buku Khan, sovereign of the Uigurs, in a well-watered plain of Turkestan with rich pastures. 
The Arabian geographers first mention Belasagun, in the ninth or tenth century, as a city beyond the 
Sihun or Yaxartes, depending on Isfidjab (Sairam, according to Lerch), and situated east of Taras. 
They state that the people of Turkestan considered Belasagun to represent ' the n.-ivel of the earth,' 
on account of its being situated in the middle between east and west, and likewise between north and 
south." {Sfirenger's Poststr. d. Or., Mavarannahar). Dr. Bretschneider adds (p. 227): "It is not 
improbable that ancient Belasagun was situated at the same place where, according to the T'ang 
history, the Khan of one branch of the Western T'u Kue (Turks) had his residence in the seventh 
century. It is stated in the T'ang shu that Ibi Shabolo Sheliu Khan, who reigned in the first half of 
the seventh century, placed his ordo on the northern border of the river Sui ye. This river, and a 
city of the same name, are frequently mentioned in the T'ang annals of the seventh and eighth cen- 
turies, in connection with the warlike expeditions of the Chinese in Central Asia. Sui ye was 
situated on the way from the river /// to the city of Ta-lo-sz' (Talas\ In 679 the Chinese had built 
on the Sui ye River a fortress; but in 748 they were constrained to destroy it." (Comp. Visdelou in 
Suppl. Biol. Orient, pp. 110-114; GaubiPs Hist, de la Dyn. des 'J'hang, in M(m. cone. Chin. 
XV. p. 403 segg.). — H. C] 



Chap. XLVI. PRESTER JOHN 233 

want of access to some of his most Important anthorities, such as Brosset's History of 
Georgia, and its appendices. 

It will be well, before going further, to give the essential parts of the passage in 
the History of Bishop Otto of Freisingen (referred to in vol i. p. 229), which contains 
the first allusion to a personage styled Prester John : 

"We saw also there [at Rome in 1145] the afore-mentioned Bishop of Gabala, 
from Syria. . . . We heard him bewailing with tears the peril of the Chm-ch 
beyond-sea since the capture of Edessa, and uttering his intention on that account 
to cross the Alps and seek aid from the King of the Romans and the King of the 
Franks. He was also telling us how, not many years before, one John, King 
and Priest, who dwells in the extreme Orient beyond Persia and Armenia, and 
is (with his people) a Christian, but a Nestorian, had waged war against the 
brother Kings of the Persians and Medes who are called the Samiards, and had 
captured Ecbatana, of which we have spoken above, the seat of their dominion. 
The said Kings having met him with their forces made up of Persians, Medes, and 
Assyrians, the battle had been maintained for 3 days, either side preferring death 
to flight. But at last Presbyter John (for so they are wont to style him), ha\-ing 
routed the Persians, came forth the \'ictor from a most sanguinary battle. After 
this victory (he went on to say) the aforesaid John was advancing to fight in aid of 
the Church at Jerusalem ; but when he arrived at the Tigris, and found there no 
possible means of transport for his army, he turned northward, as he had heard 
that the river in that quarter was frozen over in winter-time. Halting there for some 
years* in expectation of a frost, which never came, owing to the mildness of the 
season, he lost many of his people through the unaccustomed climate, and was 
obliged to return homewards. This personage is said to be of the ancient race of 
those Magi who are mentioned in the Gospel, and to rule the same nations that they 
did, and to have such glorj' and wealth that he uses (they say) only an emerald sceptre. 
It was (they say) from his being fired by the example of his fathers, who came to 
adore Christ in the cradle, that he was proposing to go to Jerusalem, when he was 
prevented by the cause already alleged." 

Professor Bruun will not accept Opperfs explanation, which identifies this 
King and Priest with the Gur-Khan of Karacalhay, for whose profession of 
Christianity there is indeed (as has been indicated — supra) no real evidence ; who 
could not be said to have made an attack upon any pair of brother Kings of the Per- 
sians and the Medes, nor to have captured Ecbatana (a city, whatever its identity, 
of Media) ; who could never have had any intention of coming to Jerusalem ; 
and whose geographical position in no way suggested the mention of Armenia. 

Professor Bruun thinks he finds a warrior much better answering to the indications 
in the Georgian prince John Orbelian, the general-in-chief mider several successive 
Kings of Georgia in that age. 

At the time when the Gur-Khan defeated Sanjar the real brothers of the latter 
had been long dead ; Sanjar had withdrawn from interference with the affairs of 
Western Persia ; and Hamadan (if this is to be regarded as Ecbatana) was no 
residence of his. But it was the residence of Sanjar's nephew Mas'ud, in whose 
hands was now the dominion of Western Persia ; whilst Mas'ud's nephew, Daiid, 
held Media, i.e. Azerbeijan, Arran, and Armenia. It is in these two princes that 
Professor Bruun sees the Samiardi fraires of the German chronicler. 

Again the expression "extreme Orient" is to be interpreted by local usage. 
And with the people o Little Armenia, through whom probably such intelligence 
reached the Bishop of Gabala, the expression the East signified specifically Great 
Armenia (which was then a part of the kingdom of Georgia and Abkhasia), as 
Dulaurier has stated, t 

It is true that the Georgians were not really Nestorians, but followers of the 
Greek Church. It was the fact, however, that in general, the Armenians, whom the 

* Sic : per aliquot annos, but 
\ I. As. six. V. torn. xi. 449. 



234 



MARCO POLO Book I. 



Greeks accused of following the Jacobite errors, retorted upon members of the 
Greek Church with the reproach of the opposite heresy of Nestorianism. And the 
attribution of Nestorianism to a Georgian Prince is, like the expression '■^extreme 
East" an indication of the Armenian channel through which the story came. 

The intention to march to the aid of the Christians in Palestine is more like 
the act of a Georgian General than that of a Karacathayan Khan ; and there are 
in the history of the Kingdom of Jerusalem several indications of the proposal at least 
of Georgian assistance. 

The personage in question is said to have come from the country of the Magi, 
from whom he was descended. But these have frequently been supposed to come 
from Great Armenia. E.s;. Friar Jordanus says they came from Moghan.* 

The name Ecbatana has been so variously applied that it was likely to lead to 
ambiguities. But it so happens that, in a previous passage of his History, Bishop 
Otto of Freisingen, in rehearsing some Oriental information gathered apparently 
from the same Bishop of Gabala, has shown what was the place that he had been 
taught to identify with Ecbatana, viz. the old Armenian city of ANl.f Now this city 
was captured from the Turks, on behalf of the King of Georgia, David the Restorer, 
by his great sbasalar,X John Orbelian, in 1123-24. 

Professor Bruun also lays stress upon a passage in a German chronicle of date some 
years later than Otho's work : 

" 1 141. Liupoldus dux Bawariorum obiit, Plenrico fratre ejus succedente in 
ducatu. lohannes Presbyter Rex Armeniae et Indise cum duobus regibus fratribus 
Persarum et Medorum pugnavit et vicit." § 

He asks how the Gur-Khan of Karakhitai could be styled King of Armenia 
and of India? It may be asked, per contra, how either the King of Georgia or his 
Peshwa (to use the Mahratta analogy of John Orbelian's position) could be styled 
King of Armenia and of India ? In reply to this. Professor Bruun adduces a 
variety of quotations which he considers as showing that the, term India was applied 
to some Caucasian region. 

My own conviction is that the report of Otto of Freisingen is not merely the 
first mention of a great Asiatic potentate called Prester John, but that his state- 
ment is the whole and sole basis of good faith on which the story of such a 
potentate rested ; and I am quite as willing to believe, on due evidence, that the 
nucleus of fact to which his statement referred, and on which such a pile of long- 
enduring fiction was erected, occurred in Armenia as that it occurred in Turan. 
Indeed in many respects the story would thus be more comprehensible. One cannot 
attach any value to the quotation from the Annalist in Pertz, because there seems 
no reason to doubt that the passage is a mere adaptation of the report by Bishop 
Otto, of whose work the Annalist makes other use, as is indeed admitted by 



* The Great Plain on the Lower Araxes and Cyrus. The word MoghSn=Afa^'; and Abulfeda 
quotes this as the etymology of the name. {Reinauifs Abulf. I. 300.)— Y. \Co7dier, Odoric, 36.] 

t Here is the passage, which is worth giving for more reasons than one : 

" That portion of ancient Babylon which is still occupied is (as we have heard from persons 
of character from beyond sea) styled Baldach, whilst the part that lies, according to the prophecy, 
deserted and pathless extends some ten miles to the Tower of Babel. The inhabited portion called 
Baldach is very large and populous ; and though it should belong to the Persian monarchy it has been 
conceded by the Kings of the Persians to their High Priest, whom they call the Caliph; in order 
that in this also a certain analogy [guaedafn kabiiudo], such as has been often remarked before, 
should be exhibited between Babylon and Rome. For the same (privilege) that here in the city of 
Rome has been made over to our chief Pontiff by the Christian Emperor, has there been conceded to 
their High Priest by the Pagan Kings of Persia, to whom Babylonia has for a long time been subject. 
But the Kings of the Persians (just as our Kings have their royal city, like Aachen) have themselves 
established the seat of their kingdom at Egbatana, which, in the Book of Judith, Arphaxat is said to 
have founded, and which in their tongue is called Hani, containing as they allege 100,000 ormore 
fighting men, and have reserved to themselves nothing of Babylon except the nominal dominion. 
Finally, the place which is now vulgarly called Babylonia, as I have mentioned, is not upon the 
Euphrates (at all) as people suppose, but on the Nile, about 6 days' journey from Alexandria, and is 
the same as Memphis, to which Cambyses, the son of Cyrus, anciently gave the name of Babylon." — 
Ottonis Frising. Lib. VIL cap. 3, in Germanic Hist. Illust. etc, Christiani Urstisii Basiliensis, 
Francof. 1585.— Y. 

X Sbasalar, or " GeneraI-in-chief," = Pers. Sifidhsdldr.—W. 

J Continuatio Ann. Admuiensium, in Pertz, Sciiptores, IX. 580 



Chap. XLVI. PRESTER JOHN 235 

Professor Bruun, who (be it said) is a pattern of candour in controversy. But 
much else that the Professor allies is interesting and striking. The fact that 
Azerbeijan and the adjoining r^ons were known as "the East" is patent to 
the readers of this book in many a page, where the Khan and his Mongols in 
occupation of that region are styled by Polo Lord of the Levant, Tartars of 
the Levant {i.e. of the East), even when the speaker's standpoint is in far Cathay.* 
The mention of Anl as identical with the Ecbatana of which Otto had heard is a 
remarkable circumstance which I think even Oppert has overlooked. That this 
Georgian hero was a Christian and that his name was John are considerable facts. 
Oppert's conversion of Korkhan into Yokhanan or John is anything but satisfactory. 
The identification proposed again makes it quite intelligible how the so-called Prester 
John should have talked about coming to the aid of the Crusaders ; a point so difficult 
to explain on Oppert's theory, that he has been obliged to introduce a duplicate John 
in the person of a Greek Emperor to solve that knot ; another of the weaker links in 
his argument. In fact. Professor Bruun's thesis seems to me more than fairly 
successful in paving the way for the introduction of a Caucasian Prester John ; the 
barriers are removed, the carpets are spread, the trumpets sound royally — but the 
conquering hero comes not ! 

He does very nearly come. The almost royal power and splendour of the 
Orbelians at this time is on record: "They held the office of Sbasalar or 
Generalissimo of all Georgia, All the officers of the King's Palace were under 
their authority. Besides that they had 12 standards of their own, and under each 
standard looo warriors mustered. As the custom was for the King's flag to be 
white and the pennon over it red, it was ruled that the Orpelian flag should be 
red and the pennon white. ... At banquets they alone had the right to couches 
whilst other princes had cushions only. Their food was served on silver; and to 
them it belonged to crown the kings." t Orpel Ivane, i.e. John Qrbelian, Grand 
Sbasalar, was for years the pride of Georgia and the hammer of the Turks. In 
1 123- 1 124 he wrested from them Tiflis and the whole country up to the Araxes, 
including Ani, as we have said. His King David, the Restorer, bestowed on him 
large additional domains from the new conquests ; and the hke briUiant service 
and career of conquest was continued under David's sons and successors, Deme- 
trius and George ; his later achievements, however, and some of the most 
brilliant, occurring after the date of the Bishop of Gabala's visit to Rome. But 
still we hear of no actual conflict with the chief princes of the Seljukian house, 
and of no event in his history so important as to account for his being made to 
play the part of Presbyter Johannes in the story of the Bishop of Gabala, Pro- 
fessor Bruun's most forcible observation in reference to this rather serious difficulty 
is that the historians have transmitted to us extremely little detail concerning the 
reign of Demetrius II., and do not even agree as to its duration. Carebat vate sacro : 
" It was," says Brosset, " long and glorious, but it lacked a commemorator." If new 
facts can be alleged, the identity may still be proved. But meantime the conquests of 
the Gur-Khan and his defeat of Sanjar, just at a time which suits the story, are 
indubitable, and this great advantage Oppert's thesis retains. As regards the claim to 
the title of Presbyter nothing worth mentioning is alleged on either side. 

When the Mongol Conquests threw Asia open to Frank travellers in the middle of 
the 13th century, their minds were full of Prester John ; they sought in vaui for an 
adequate representative, but it was not in the nature of things but they should find 
some representative. In fact they found several. Apparently no real tradition 
existed among the Eastern Christians of any such personage, but the persistent 
demand produced a supply, and the honour of identification with Prester John, after 
hovering over one head and another, settled finally upon that of the King of the 
Keraits, whom we find to play the part in our text. 

Thus in Piano Carpini's single mention of Prester John as the King of the 

• E.g. iL 43 \ St. Martin, Mim. sur rArmenie, II. 77. 



236 



MARCO POLO Book I. 



Christians of India the Greater, \.ho defeats the Tartars by an elaborate stratagem, 
Oppert recognizes Sultan Jalaluddin of Khwarizm and his temporary success over the 
Mongols in Afghanistan. In the Armenian Prince Sempad's account, on the other 
hand, this Christian King of India is aided by the Tartars to defeat and harass the 
neighbouring Saracens, his enemies, and becomes the Mongol's vassal. In the state- 
ment of Rubruquis, though distinct reference is made to the conquering Gurkhan 
(under the name of Coir Cham of Caracatay), the title of King John is assigned to the 
Naiman Prince {Kushluk), who had married the daughter of the last lineal sovereign 
of Karakhitai, and usurped his power, whilst, with a strange complication of confusion, 
Unc, Prince of the Crit and Merkit (Kerait and Merkit, two great tribes of 
Mongolia) * and Lord of Karakorum, is made the brother and successor of this 
Naiman Prince. His version of the story, as it proceeds, has so much resemblance to 
Polo's, that we shall quote the words. The Crit and Merkit, he says, were 
Nestorian Christians. "But their Lord had abandoned tlie worship of Christ 
to follow idols, and kept by him those priests of the idols who are all devil-raisers and 
sorcerers. Beyond his pastures, at the distance of ten or fifteen days' journey, were 
the pastures of the Moal (Mongol), who were a very poor people, without a leader 
and without any religion except sorceries and divinations, such as all the people of 
those parts put so much faith in. Next to Moal was another poor tribe called 
Tartar. King John having died without an heir, his brother Unc got his wealth, 
and caused himself to be proclaimed Cham, and sent out his flocks and herds even to 
the borders of Moal. At that time there was a certain blacksmith called Chinghis 
among the tribe of Moal, and he used to lift the cattle of Unc Chan as often as 
he had a chance, insomuch that the herdsmen of Unc Chan made complaint to their 
master. The latter assembled an army, and invaded the land of the Moal in search of 
Chinghis, but he fled and hid himself among the Tartars. So Unc, having plundered 
the Moal and Tartars, returned home. And Chinghis addressed the Tartars and 
Mr^l, saying : 'It is because we have no leader that we are thus oppressed by 
our neighbours.' So both Tartars and Moal made Chinghis himself their leader 
and captain. And having got a host quietly together, he made a sudden onslaught 
upon Unc and conquered him, and compelled him to flee into Cathay. On that 
occasion his daughter was taken, and given by Chinghis to one of his sons, to whom 
she bore Mangu, who now reigneth. . . , The land in which they (the Mongols) first 
were, and where the residence of Chinghis still exists, is called Onan Kerule.'X But 
because Caracoran is in the country which was their first conquest, they regard it as a 
royal city, and there hold the elections of their Chan." 

Here we see plainly that the Unc Chan of Rubruquis is the Unc Can or Unecan of 
Polo. In the narrative of the former, Unc is only connected with King or Prester 
John ; in that of the latter, rehearsing the story as heard some 20 or 25 years later, the 
two are identified. The shadowy role of Prester John has passed from the Ruler of 
Kara Khitai to the Chief of the Keraits. This transfer brings us to another history. 

*["The Keraits," says Mr. Rockhill(^Ki5r«c^,iii, note), "lived on the Orkhon and the Tula, south- 
east of Lake Baikal ; Abulfaraj relates their conversion to Christianity in 1007 by the Nestorian Bishop of 
Merv. Rashideddin, however, says their conversion took place in the time of Chingis Khan. 
(Z)' Ohsson, I. 48 ; Chahot, Mar Jabalaha, III. 14.) D'Avezac (536) identifies, with some plausibility, 
I think, the Keraits with the Ki-U (or Tieh-le) of the early Chinese annals. The name K'i-le was 
applied in the 3rd century A.D. to all the Turkish tribes, such as the Hui-hu (Uigurs), Kich-Ku 
(Kirghiz) Alans, etc., and they are said to be the same as the Kao-ch'i, from whom descended the 
Cangleoi Rubruck. {Tan^shu, Bk. 217, i.; Ma Tuan-lin, Bk. 344, 9, Bk. 347, 4.) As to the Merkits, 
or Merkites, they weie a nomadic people of Turkish stock, with a possible infusion of Mongol blood. 
They are called by Mohammedan writers Uduyut, and were divided into four tribes. They lived on 
the Lower Selinga ai d its feeders. (D'Ohsson, i. 54 ; Ho%vorth, History, L, pt. i. 22, 698.)"— H. C] 

t [Onan Kerule is "the country watered by the Orkhon and Kerulun Rivers, i.e. the country to 
the south and south-east of Lake Baikal. The headquarters (ya-chang) of the principal chief of the 
Uigurs in the eighth century was 500 // (about 165 miles) south-west of the confluence of the Wen- 
Kun ho (Orkhon) and the Tu-lo ho (Tura). Its ruins, sometimes, but wrongly, confounded with those 
of the Mongol city of Karakorum, some 20 miles from it, built in 1235 by Ogodai, are now known 
by the name of Kara Balgasun, ' Black City.'" [See p. 228.] The n.-ime Q/tankerule seems .0 be taken 
from the form Onan-ou-Keloran, which occurs in Mohammedai: writer'. {Quat^emire, 113 *' «?. .* 
.rr« aUo Tan^shu, Bk. 43^; RockhiU, Rubruck, 116, note.) — H. C] 



Chap. XLVI. PRESTER JOHN 237 

We have already spoken of the extensive diffusion of Nestorian Christianity in 
Asia during the early and Middle Ages. The Christian historian Gregory Abulfaraj 
relates a curious history of the conversion, in the beginning of the nth century, of the 
King oi Kerith with his people, dwelling in the remote north-east of the land of the 
Turks. And that the Keraits continued to profess Christianity down to the time of 
Chinghiz is attested by Rashiduddin's direct statement, as well as by the numerous 
Christian princesses from that tribe of whom we hear in Mongol history. It is the 
chief of this tribe of whom Rubruquis and Polo speak under the name of Unc Khan, 
and whom the latter identifies with Prester John. His proper name is called Tuli by 
the Chinese, and Tc^rul by the Persian historians, but the Kin sovereign of Northern 
China had conferred on him the title of Wang or King, from which his people gave him 

the slightly corrupted cognomen of i^^ ^iXj* J , which some scholars read Awang, 

and Avetik Khan, but which the spelling of Rubruquis and Polo shows probably to 
have been pronounced as Aung or Ung Khan.* The circumstance stated by 
Rubruquis of his ha\'ing abandoned the profession of Christianitj', is not alluded to 
by Eastern writers ; but in any case his career is not a credit to the Faith. I cannot 
find any satisfactory corroboration of the claims of supremacy over the Mongols which 
Polo ascribes to Aung Khan. But that his power and dignity were considerable, 
appears from the term Padshah which Rashiduddin applies to him. He had at first 
obtained the sovereignty of the Keraits by the murder of two of his brothers and 
several nephews. Yessugai, the father of Chinghiz, had been his staunch friend, and 
had aided him effectually to recover his dominion from which he had been ex- 
pelled. After a reign of many years he was again ejected, and in the greatest 
necessity sought the help of Temujin (afterwards called Chinghiz Khan), by whom he 
was treated with the greatest consideration. This was in 1 196. For some years the 
two chiefs conducted their forays in alliance, but differences sprang up between them ; 
the son of Aung Khan entered into a plot to kill Temujin, and in 1202-1203 they were 
in open war. The result will be related in connection with the next chapters. 

We may observe that the idea which Joinville picked up in the East about Prester 
John corresponds pretty closely with that set forth by Marco. Join\'ille represents 
him as one of the princes to whom the Tartars were tributary in the daj^ of their 
oppression, and as "their ancient enemy" ; one of their first acts, on being organized 
under a king of their own, was to attack him and conquer him, slaying all that bore 
arms, but sparing all monks and priests. The expression used by Joinville in speak- 
ing of the original land of the Tartars, '■^utu grande berrie de sablon" has not been 
elucidated in any edition that I have seen. It is the Arabic 2S^J^ > Bdrlya, " a 

Desert." No doubt Joinville learned the word in Palestine. (See Joinville, 
p. 143 seqq. ; see also Oppert, Der'Presb. Johannes in Sage und Geschichte, and Cathay, 
etc., pp. 173-182.) [Fried. Zanicke, Der Priester Johannes ; Cordier, Odoric. 
— H. C] 

* VamWry makes Ong- 2ca Uighfir word, signifying "right." [Palladius (I.e. 23) says: "The 
consonance of the names of Wang-Khan and Wang-Ku (Ung-Khan and Ongu — Ongot of Rashiduddin, 
a Turkish Tribe) led to the confusion regarding the tribes and persons, which at M. Polo's time seems 
to have been general among the Europeans in China ; M. Polo and Johannes de Monte Corvine 
transfer the title of Prester John from Wang-Khan, already perished sU that time, to the distinguished 
fanuly of Wans-Ku."— H. CJ 



238 MARCO POLO Book I. 



CHAPTER XLVII. 

Of Chinghis, and how he became the First Kaan of the 

Tartars. 

Now it came to pass in the year of Christ's Incarnation 
1 187 that the Tartars made them a King whose name 
was Chinghis Kaan.i He was a man of great worth, 
and of great ability (eloquence), and valour. And as 
soon as the news that he had been chosen Kine was 
spread abroad through those countries, all the Tartars 
in the world came to him and owned him for their Lord. 
And right well did he maintain the Sovereignty they 
had given him. What shall I say? The Tartars 
gathered to him in astonishing multitude, and when he 
saw such numbers he made a great furniture of spears 
and arrows and such other arms as they used, and set 
about the conquest of all those regions till he had 
conquered eight provinces. When he conquered a 
province he did no harm to the people or their property, 
but merely established some of his own men in the 
country along with a proportion of theirs, whilst he 
led the remainder to the conquest of other provinces. 
And when those whom he had conquered became 
aware how well and safely he protected them against 
all others, and how they suffered no ill at his hands, 
and saw what a noble prince he was, then they joined 
him heart and soul and became his devoted followers. 
And when he had thus gathered such a multitude that 
they seemed to cover the earth, he began to think of 
conquering a great part of the world. Now in the 
year of Christ 1200 he sent an embassy to Prester 
John, and desired to have his daughter to wife. But 
when Prester John heard that Chinghis Kaan demanded 



Chap. XLVII. CHINGHIS KAAN 239 

his daughter in marriage he waxed very wroth, and 
said to the Envoys, " What impudence is this, to ask 
my daughter to wife! Wist he not well that he was 
my liegeman and serf? Get ye back to him and tell 
him that I had liever set my daughter in the fire than 
give her in marriage to him, and that he deserves 
death at my hand, rebel and traitor that he is ! " So he 
bade the Envoys begone at once, and never come into 
his presence again. The Envoys, on receiving this 
reply, departed straightway, and made haste to their 
master, and related all that Prester John had ordered 
them to say, keeping nothing back.^ 



Note i. — Temujin was born in the year 11 55, according to all the Persian 
historians, who are probably to be relied on; the Chinese put the event in 1 162. 
1 187 does not appear to be a date of special importance in his history. His inaugura- 
tion as sovereign under the name of Chinghiz Kaan was in 1202 according to the 
Persian authorities, in 1206 according to the Chinese. 

In a preceding note (p. 236) we have quoted a passage in which Rnbruqnis calls 
Chinghiz " a certain blacksmith." This mistaken notion seems to have originated in 
the resemblance of his name Temujin to the Turki Temirji, a blacksmith ; but 
it was common throughout Asia in the Middle Ages, and the story is to be found not 
only in Rubruquis, but in the books of Ha)-ton, the Armenian prince, and of Ibn 
Batuta, the Moor. That cranky Orientalist, Dr. Isaac Jacob Schmidt, positively re- 
viles William Rubruquis, one of the most truthful and delightful of travellers, and 
certainly not inferior to his critic in mother-wit, for adopting this storj', and rebukes 
Timkowski^not for adopting it, but for merely telhng us the very interesting fact 
that the story was stiy, in 1820, current in Mongolia. (Schmidt's San. Seiz. 376, and 
Timkowski, I, I47.) 

Note 2. — Several historians, among others Abulfaraj, represent Chinghiz as 
having married a daughter of Aung Khan ; and this is current among some of the 
media;val European writers, such as Vincent of Beauvais. It is also adopted by Petis 
de la Croix in his history of Chinghiz, apparently from a comparatively late Turkish 
historian ; and both D'Herbelot and St. Martin state the same ; but there seems to 
be no foundation for it in the best authorities : either Persian or Chinese. (See Abulfa- 
ragius, p. 285 ; Speculum Historiale, Bk. XXIX. ch. Ixix. ; Hist, of Genghiz Can, 
p. 29 ; and Golden Horde, pp. 61-62.) But there is a real story at the basis of Polo's, 
which seems to be this : About 1202, when Aung Khan and Chinghiz were still act- 
ing in professed alliance, a double union was proposed between Aung Khan's daughter 
Jaur Bigi and Chinghiz's son Juji, and between Chinghiz's daughter Kijin Bigi and 
Togrul's grandson Kush Buka. From certain circumstances this union fell through, 
and this was one of the circumstances which opened the breach between the two 
chiefs. There were, however, several marriages between the families. (Erdmann^ 
2S3 ; others are quoted under ch. lix., note 2.) 



240 MARCO POLO Book 1. 



CHAPTER XLVIII. 

How Chinghis mustered his People to march against 
Prester .John. 

When Chinghis Kaan heard the brutal message that 
Prester John had sent him, such rage seized him that 
his heart came nigh to bursting within him, for he was 
a man of a very lofty spirit. At last he spoke, and 
that so loud that all who were present could hear him : 
" Never more might he be prince if he took not revenge 
for the brutal message of Prester John, and such re- 
venge that insult never in this world was so dearly 
paid for. And before long Prester John should know 
whether he were his serf or no ! " 

So then he mustered all his forces, and levied such 
a host as never before was seen or heard of, sending 
word to Prester John to be on his defence. And when 
Prester John had sure tidings that Chinghis was really 
coming against him with such a multitude, he still pro- 
fessed to treat it as a jest and a trifle, for, quoth he, 
"these be no soldiers." Natheless he marshalled his 
forces and mustered his people, and made great pre- 
parations, in order that if Chinghis did come, he 
might take him and put him to death. In fact he 
marshalled such an host of many different nations 
that it was a world's wonder. 

And so both sides gat them ready to battle. And 
why should I make a long story of it? Chinghis 
Kaan with all his host arrived at a vast and beautiful 
plain which was called Tanduc, belonging to Prester 
John, and there he pitched his camp ; and so great 
was the multitude of his people that it was impossible 
to number them. And when he got tidings that Prester 



Chap. XLIX. CHINGHIS KAAN AND PRESTER JOHN 24 1 

John was coming, he rejoiced greatly, for the place 
afforded a fine and ample battle-ground, so he was 
right glad to tarry for him there, and greatly longed 
for his arrival. 

But now leave we Chinghis and his host, and let us 
return to Prester John and his people. 



CHAPTER XLIX: 

How Prester John ^[arched to meet Chinghis. 

Now the story goes that when Prester John became 
aware that Chinorhis with his host was marchinor against 
him, he went forth to meet him with all his forces, and 
advanced until he reached the same plain of Tanduc, 
and pitched his camp over against that of Chinghis 
Kaan at a distance of 20 miles. And then both armies 
remained at rest for two days that they might be fresher 
and heartier for battle.^ 

So when the two great hosts were pitched on the 
plains of Tanduc as you have heard, Chinghis Kaan 
one day summoned before him his astrologers, both 
Christians and Saracens, and desired them to let him 
know which of the two hosts would gain the battle, 
his own or Prester John's. The Saracens tried to' 
ascertain, but were unable to givG a true answer; 
the Christians, however, did give a true answer, and 
showed manifestly beforehand how the event should 
be. For they got a cane and split it lengthwise, and 
laid one half on this side and one half on that, allowing 
no one to touch the pieces. And one piece of cane they 
called Chinghis Kaan, and the other piece they called 
Prester Johii. And then they said to Chinghis : " Now 
VOL. L Q 



242 



MARCO POLO Book I. 



mark ! and you will see the event of the battle, and 
who shall have the best of it ; for whose cane soever 
shall get above the other, to him shall victory be." He 
replied that he would fain see it, and bade them begin. 
Then the Christian astrologers read a Psalm out of the 
Psalter, and went through other incantations. And lo ! 
whilst all were beholding, the cane that bore the name 
of Chinghis Kaan, without being touched by anybody, 
advanced to the other that bore the name of Prester 
John, and got on the top of it. When the Prince saw 
that he was greatly delighted, and seeing how in this 
matter he found the Christians to tell the truth, he 
always treated them with great respect, and held them 
for men of truth for ever after.^ 



Note i. — Polo in the preceding chapter has stated that this plain of Tanduc was 
in Prester John's country. He plainly regards it as identical with the Tanduc of 
which he speaks more particularly in ch. lix. as belonging to Prester John's descend- 
ants, and which must be located near the Chinese Wall. He is no doubt wrong in 
placing the battle there. Sanang Setzen puts the battle between the two, the only 
one which he mentions, " at the outflow of the Onon near Kulen Buira." The same 
action is placed by De Mailla's authorities at Calantschan, by P. Hyacinth at Kharak- 
chin Schatu, by Erdmann after Rashid in the vicinity of Hulun Barkat and Kalan- 
chinalt, which latter was on the borders of the Churche or Manchus. All this points 
to the vicinity of Buir Nor and Hulan or Kalon Nor (though the Onon is far from 
these). But this was not the final defeat of Aung Khan or Prester John, which took 
place some time later (in 1203) at a place called the Chacher Ondur (or Heights), which 
Gaubil places between the Tula and the Kerulun, therefore near the modern Urga. 
Aung Khan was wounded, and fled over the frontier of the Naiman ; the officers of 
that tribe seized and killed him. {Schmidt, 87, 383 ; Erdmami, 297 ; Gaubil, p. 10.) 

Note 2. — A Tartar divination by twigs, but different from that here employed, 
is older than Herodotus, who ascribes it to the Scythians. We hear of one something 
like the last among the Alans, and (from Tacitus) among the Germans. The words 
ofHosea(iv. 12), " My people ask counsel at their stocks, and their staff declareth 
unto them," are thus explained by Theophylactus : " They stuck up a couple of sticks, 
whilst murmuring certain charms and incantations ; the sticks then, by the operation 
of devils, direct or indirect, would fall over, and the direction of their fall was noted," 
etc. The Chinese method of divination comes still nearer to that in the text. It is 
conducted by tossing in the air two symmetrical pieces of wood or bamboo of a 
peculiar form. It is described by Mendoza, and more particularly, with illustrations, 
by Doolittle.* 

But Rubruquis would seem to have witnessed nearly the same process that Polo 
describes. He reprehends the conjuring practices of the Nestorian priests among the 
Mongols, who seem to have tried to rival the indigenous Kdms or Medicine-men. 

• [On the Chinese divining-twig, see Dennys, Folk-lore 0/ China, 57. — H. C] 



Chap. XLIX. CHINGHIS KAAN AND PRESTER JOHN 243 

Visiting the Lady Kuktai, a Christian Queen of Mangu Kaan, who was ill, he says : 
" The Nestorians were repeating certain verses, I know not what (they said it was 
part of a Psalm), over two twigs which were brought into contact in the hands of two 
men. The monk stood by during the operation " (p. 326).* Petis de la Croix quotes 
from Thevenot's travels, a similar mode of divination as much used, before a fight, 
among the Barbary corsairs. Two men sit on the deck facing one another and each 
holding two arrows by the points, and hitching the notches of each pair of arrows into 
the other pair. Then the ship's writer reads a certain Arabic formula, and it is pre- 
tended that whilst this goes on, the two sets of arrows, of which one represents the 
Turks and the other the Christians, struggle together in spite of the resistance of the 
holders, and finally one rises over the other. This is perhaps the divination by 
arrows which is prohibited in the Koran. {Sura, V. v. 92.) It is related by Abulfeda 
that Mahomed found in the Kaaba an image of Abraham with such arrows in his 
hand. 

P. della Valle describes the same process, conducted by a Mahomedan conjuror 
of Aleppo : " By his incantations he made the four points of the arrows come tc^ether 
without any movement of the holders, and by the way the points spontaneously placed 
themselves, obtained answers to interrogatories." 

And Mr. Jaeschke writes from Lahaul: "There are many different ways (rf 
divination practised among the Buddhists ; and that also mentioned by Marco Polo 
is known to our Lama, but in a slightly different way, making use of two arrows 
instead of a cane 5plit up, wherefore this kind is called da- mo, 'Arrow-divination.'" 
Indeed the practice is not extinct in India, for in 1833 Mr. Vigne witnessed its appli- 
cation to detect the robber of a government chest at Lodiana. 

As regards Chinghiz's respect for the Christians there are other stories. Abul- 
faragius has one about Chinghiz seeing in a dream a religious person who promised 
him success. He told the dream to his wife, Aung Khan's daughter, who said the 
description answered to that of the bishop who used to visit her father. Chinghiz 
then inquired for a bishop among the Uighur Christians in his camp, and they indi- 
cated Mar Denha. Chinghiz thenceforward was milder towards the Christians, and 
showed them many distinctions {p. 285). Vincent of Beauvais also speaks of 
Rabbanta, a Nestorian monk, who lived in the confidence of Chinghiz's wife, 
daughter of " the Christian King David or Prester John," and who used by divina- 
tion to make many revelations to the Tartars. We have already said that there 
seems no ground for assigning a daughter of Aung Khan as wife to Chinghiz. But 
there was a niece of the former, named Abika, among the wives of Chinghiz, And 
Rashiduddin does relate a dream of the Kaan's in relation to her. But it was to the 
effect that he was divinely commanded to give her away; and this he did next 
morning ! 

{Rawlins. Herod. IV. 67 ; Amm. Marcell. XXXI. 2 ; Delvio, Disq. Magic. 558 ; 
Mendoza, Hak. Soc. I. 47 ; Doolitile, 435-436 ; Hist, of Genghizcan, pp. 52-53 ; 
Preston's al- Hariri, p. 183; P. della V. IL 865-866; Vigne, I. 46; UOhsson, I. 
41S-419). 

* [With reference to this passage from Rubruck, Mr. Rockhill says (195, note): " The mode of 
divining here referred to is apparently the same as that described by Pola It must not however be 
confounded with rabdomancy, in which bundles of wands or arrows were used." Ammianus 
Marcellinus (XXXI.z. 350) says this mode_ of divination was practised by the Alans. "Theyhave a 
singular way of divining : they take straight willow wands and make bundles of them, and on 
examining them at a certain time, with certain secret iiicantations, they know what is going to 
happen." — H. C] 



VOL. I. ^ 2 



244 



MARCO POLO 



Book I. 



CHAPTER L. 



The Battle between Chinghis Kaan and Prester John. 

And after both sides had rested well those two days, 
they armed for the fight and engaged in desperate 
combat ; and it was the greatest battle that ever was 
seen. The numbers that were slain on both sides were 
very great, but in the end Chinghis Kaan obtained 
the victory. And in the battle Prester John was slain. 




A. HttiMii'-'":. ^ 

Death of Chinghiz Khan. (¥rom. a. mmiainve m tha Lhire des I\Tcr7ie! lies.) 

And from that time forward, day by day, his kingdom 
passed into the hands of Chinghis Kaan till the whole 
was conquered. 

I may tell you that Chinghis Kaan reigned six years 
after this battle, engaged continually in conquest, and 
taking many a province and city and stronghold. But 
at the end of those six years he went against a certain 
castle that was called Caaju, and there he was shot 
with an arrow in the knee, so that he died of his 



Chap. LI. DEFEAT AND DEATH OF PRESTER JOHN 245 

wound. A great pity it was, for he was a valiant 
man and a wise.^ 

I will now tell you who reigned after Chinghis, and 
then about the manners and customs of the Tartars. 



Note i. — Chinghiz in fact survived Aung Khan so.ne 24 years, dying during his 
fifth expedition against Tangut, l8th August 1227, aged 65 according to the Chinese 
accounts, 72 according to the Persian. Sanang Setzen says that Kurbeljin Goa 
Khatiin, the beautiful Queen of Tangut, who had passed into the tents of the 
conqueror, did him some bodily mischief (it is not said what), and then went and 
drowned herself in the Karamuren (or Hwang-ho), which thenceforth was called by 
the Mongols the Khditin-gol, or Lady's River, a name which it in fact still bears. 
Carpini relates that Chinghiz was killed by lightning. The Persian and Chinese 
historians, however, agree in speaking of his death as natural. Gaubil calls the place 
of his death Lou-pan, which he says was in lat. 38". Rashiduddi» calls it Leung- 
Shan, which appears to be the mountain range still so called in the heart of Shensi. 

The name of the place before which Polo represents him as mortally wounded is 
very variously given. According to Gaubil, Chinghiz was in reality dangerously 
wounded by an arrow-shot at the siege of Taitongfii in 1 212. And it is possible, as 
Oppert suggests, that Polo's account of his death before Caagiu (as I prefer the 
reading), arose out of a confusion between this circumstance and those of the death of 
Mangku Kaan, which is said to have occurred at the assault of HocH AU in Sze-ch'uan, 
a name which Polo would write Caagiu, or nearly so. Abulfaragius specifically says 
that Mangku Kaan died by an arrow ; though it is true that other authors say he 
died of disease, and Haiton that he was drowned ; all which shows how excusable 
were Polo's errors as to events occurring 50 to 100 years before his time. (See 
Opperfs Presbyter Johannes, p. 76 ; De Mailla, IX. 275, and note ; Gaubil, 18, 50, 
52, 121 ; Erdmann, 443 ; Ss. Setzen, 103.) 

It is only by referring back to ch. xlvii., where we are told that Chinghiz 
"began to think of conquering a great part of the world," that we see Polo to have 
been really aware of the vast extent and aim of the conquests of Chinghiz ; the aim 
being literally the conquest of the world as he conceived it ; the extent of the empire 
which he initiated actually covering (probably) one half of the whole number of the 
human race. {See remarks in Koeppen, Die Relig. des Buddha, II. 86.) 



CHAPTER LI. 



Of those who did Reign after Chinghis Kaan, and of the 
Customs of the Tartars. 

Now the next that reigned after Chinghis Kaan, their 
first Lord,^ was Cuy Kaan, and the third Prince was 
Batuy Kaan, and the fourth was Alacou Kaan, the 
fifth MoNGOU Kaan, the sixth Cublay Kaan, who is 



246 MARCO POLO . Book I. 

the sovereign now reigning, and is more potent than 
any of the five who went before him ; in fact, if you 
were to take all those five together, they would not be 
so powerful as he is ^ Nay, I will say yet more ; for 
if you were to put together all the Christians in the 
world, with their Emperors and their Kings, the whole 
of these Christians, — aye, and throw in the Saracens 
to boot, — would not have such power, or be able to do 
so much as this Cublay, who is the Lord of all the 
Tartars in the world, those of the Levant and of the 
Ponent included ; for these are all his liegemen and 
subjects. I mean to show you all about this great 
power of his in this book of ours. 

You should be told also that all the Grand Kaans, 
and all the descendants of Chinghis their first Lord, 
are carried to a mountain that is called Altay to be 
interred. Wheresoever the Sovereign may die, he is 
carried to his burial in that mountain with his pre- 
decessors ; no matter an the place of his death were 
100 days' journey distant, thither must he be carried to 
his burial.^ 

Let me tell you a strange thing too. When they 
are carrying the body of any Emperor to be buried with 
the others, the convoy that goes with the body doth 
put to the sword all whom they fall in with on the road, 
saying : " Go and wait upon your Lord in the other 
world 1 " For they do in sooth believe that all such as 
they slay in this manner do go to serve their Lord in 
the other world. They do the same JLoo with horses ; 
for when the Emperor dies, they kill all his best horses, 
in order that he may have the use of them in the 
other world, as they believe. And I tell you as a 
certain truth, that when Mongou Kaan died, more than 
20,000 persons, who chanced to meet the body on its 
way, were slain in the manner I have told.* 



Chap. LI. INTERMENT OF THE TARTAR KAANS 247 

Note i. — Before parting with Chinghlz let me point out what has not to my 
knowledge been suggested before, that the name of" Cambuscan bold" in Chaucer's 
tale is only a corruption of the name of Chinghiz. The name of the conqueror 
appears in Fr. Ricold as Camiuscan, from which the transition to Cambuscan 
presents no difficulty. Camitis was, I suppose, a clerical corruption out of Canjus 
or Cianjus. In the chronicle of St. Antonino, however, we have him called 
" Chinghiscan rectius Tamgius Cam" (XIX, c. 8). If this is not merely the usual 
blunder of / for c, it presents a curious analogy to the form Tankiz Khdn always 
used by Ibn Batuta. I do not know the origin of the latter, unless it was suggested 
by tankis (Ar.) "Turning upside down." (See Pereg. Quat., p. 119 ; /. B. III. 22, 
etc.) 

Note 2. — Polo's history here is inadmissible. He introduces into the list of the 
supreme Kaans Batii, who was only Khan of Kipchak (the Golden Horde), and 
Hulaku, who was Khan of Persia, whilst he omits Okkodai, the immediate successor 
of Chinghiz. It is also remarkable that he uses the form Alacou here instead of 
Alaii as elsewhere ; nor does he seem to mean the same person, for he was quite 
well aware that Alaii was Lord of the Levant, who sent ambassadors to the Great 
Khan Cublay, and could not therefore be one of his predecessors. The real succession 
ran : i. Chinghiz ; 2. Okkodai ; 3. Kuyuk ; 4. Mangku ; 5. Kiiblai. 

There are quite as great errors in the history of Haiton, who had probably 
greater advantages in this respect than Marco. And I may note that in Teixeira's 
abridgment of Mirkhond, Hulaku is made to succeed Mangku Kaan on the throne 
of Chinghiz. {Relaciones, p. 338.) 

Note 3. — The Altai here certainly does not mean the Great South Siberian 
Range to which the name is now applied. Both Altai and Alttin-Khan appear 
sometimes to be applied by Sanang Setzen to the Khingan of the Chinese, or range 
running immediately north of the Great Wall near Kalgan. (See ch. Ixi. note I.) 
But in reference to this matter of the burial of Chinghiz, he describes the place as 
" the district of Yekeh Utek, between the shady side of the Altai-Khan and the sunny 
side of the Kentei-Khan." Now the Kentei-Khan {khan here meaning" mountain") 
is near the sources of the Onon, immediately to the north-east of Urga ; 
and Altai-Khan in this connection cannot mean the hills near the Great Wall, 500 
miles distant. 

According to Rashiduddin, Chinghiz was buried at a place called Biirkdn 
Kdldun (" God's Hill"), or Yekeh Kuruk (" The Great Sacred or Tabooed Place ") ; 
in another passage he calls the spot Biidah Uiidur (which means, I fancy, the same 
as Burkan Kaldun), near the River Selenga. Burkan Kaldun is often mentioned by 
Sanang Setzen, and Quatremere seems to demonstrate the identity of this place with 
the mountain called by Pallas (and Timkowski) Khanoolla. This is a lofty mountain 
near Urga, covered with dense forest, and is indeed the first woody mountain 
reached in tra%elling from Peking. It is still held sacred by the Mongols and 
guarded from access, though the tradition of Chinghiz's grave seems to be extinct 
Now, as this Khanoolla ("Mount Royal," for khan here means " sovereign," and 
oolla " mountain") stands immediately to the south of the Keniei mentioned in the 
quotation from S. Setzen, this identification agrees with his statement, on the 
supposition that the Khanoolla is the Altai of the same quotation. The Khanoolla 
must also be the Han mountain which Mongol chiefs claiming descent from 
Chinghiz named to Gaubil as the burial-place of that conqueror. Note that the 
Khanoolla, which we suppose to be the Altai of Polo, and here of Sanang Setzen, 
belongs to a range known as Khingan, whilst we see that Setzen elsewhere applies 
Altai and Altan-Khan to the other Khingan near the Great Wall. 

Erdmann relates, apparently after Rashiduddin, that Chinghiz was buried at the 
foot of a tree which had taken his fancy on a hunting expedition, and which he had 
then pointed out as the place where he desired to be interred. It was then con- 
spicuous, but afterwards the adjoining trees shot up so rapidly, that a dense wood 



248 



MARCO POLO Book I. 



covered the whole locality, and it became impossible to identify the spot. {Q. J?. 117 
8e(/j.; Timk. I. 115 seqq., II. 475-476; San. Seiz. 103, I14-I15, 108-109; Gaubil, 
54; Erd. 444.) 

["There are no accurate indications," says Palladius (/.r. pp. II-13), "in the docu- 
ments of the Mongol period on the burial -places of Chingiz Khan and of the Khans 
who succeeded him. The Yuan-shi or ' History of the Mongol Dynasty in China,' 
in speaking of the burial of the Khans, mentions only that they used to be conveyed 
from Peking to the north, to their common burial-ground in the KH-lien Valley. 
This name cannot have anything in common with the ancient K'i-lien of the Hiung- 
nu, a hill situated to the west of the Mongol desert ; the ICi-lien of the Mongols is to 
be sought more to the east. When Khubilai marched out against Prince Nayan, and 
reached the modern Talnor, news was received of the occupation of the Khan's 
burial-ground by the rebels. They held out there very long, which exceedingly 
afflicted Khubilai [F?/a« j/^i /?<?/ZiS«]; and this goes to prove that the tombs could 
not be situated much to the west. Some more positive information on this subject is 
found in the diary of the campaign in Mongolia in 1410, of the Ming Emperor Yung- 
lo \^Pe eking hi\. He reached the Kerulen at the place where this river, after 
running south, takes an easterly direction. The author of the diary notes, that 
from a place one march and a half before reaching the Kerulen, a very large 
mountain was visible to the north-east, and at its foot a solitary high and pointed 
hillock, covered with stones. The author says, that the sovereigns of the house of 
Yuan used to be buried near this hill. It may therefore be plausibly supposed that 
the tombs of the Mongol Khans were near the Kerulen, and that the ' K'i-lien' of 
the Yuan ski is to be applied to this locality ; it seems to me even, that K'i-lien is an 
abbreviation, customary to Chinese authors, of Kerulen. The way of burying the 
Mongol Khans is described in the Yuan shi (ch. ' On the national religious rites of the 
Mongols'), as well as in the CKue keng lu, 'Memoirs of the time of the Yuan 
Dynasty.' When burying, the greatest care was taken to conceal from outside people 
the knowledge of the locality of the tomb. With this object in view, after the tomb 
was closed, a drove of horses was driven over it, and by this means the ground was, 
for a considerable distance, trampled down and levelled. It is added to this (probably 
from hearsay) in the Ts'ao mu tze Memoirs (also of the time of the Yuan Dynasty), 
that a young camel used to be killed (in the presence of its mother) on the tomb of 
the deceased Khan ; afterwards, when the time of the usual offerings of the tomb ap- 
proached, the mother of this immolated camel was set at liberty, and she came crying 
to the place where it was killed; the locality of the tomb was ascertained in this 
way." 

The Archimandrite Palladius adds in a footnote: "Our well-known Mongolist 
N. Golovkin has told us, that according to a story actually current among the Mongols, 
the tombs of the former Mongol Khans are situated near Tas-ola Hill, equally in the 
vicinity of the Kerulen. He states also that even now the Mongols are accustomed to 
assemble on that hill on the seventh day of the seventh moon (according to an ancient 
custom), in order to adore Chingiz Khan's tomb. Altan tobchi (translated into 
Russian by Galsan Gomboefif), in relating the history of the Mongols after their ex- 
pulsion from China, and speaking of the Khans' tombs, calls them Naiman tzagan 
gher, i.e. ' Eight White Tents' (according to the number of chambers for the souls of 
the chief deceased Khans in Peking), and sometimes simply Tzagan gher, ' the White 
Tent,' which, according to the translator's explanation, denotes only Chingiz Khan's 
tomb." 

" According to the Chinese Annals {Tung kien kang mu), quoted by Dr. E. Bret- 
schneider {Med. Res. I. p. 157), Chinghiz died near the Liu p' an shan in 1227, after 
having subdued the Tangut empire. On modern Chinese maps Liti fan shan 
is marked south of the city oi Ku yiian chou, department of Ping Hang, in Kan suh. 
The Yuan shi, however, implies that he died in Northern Mongolia. We read there, 
in the annals, s.a. 1227, that in the fifth intercalary month the Emperor moved to the 
mountain Liu fan shan in order to avoid the heat of the summer. In the sixth 



Chap. LI. INTERMENT OF THE TARTAR KAANS 249 

month the empire of the Hia (Tangut) submitted. Chinghiz rested on the river 
Si Kiang in the district of Ts'ing shut (in Kansuh ; it has still the same name). In 
autumn, in the seventh month (August), on the da.yjen luu, the Emperor fell ill, and 
eight days later died in his palace Ha-lao-fu on the River Sa-li. This river Sali is 
repeatedly mentioned in the Yiian ski, viz. in the first chapter, in connection with 
the first military doings of Chinghiz. Rashid reports {LfOhsson, I. 58) that Chinghiz 
in 1 199 retired to his residence Sari Kihar. The Yiian chao pi shi (Palladius' Iransl., 
81) writes the same name Saari Kelur {^Keher in modem Mongol means 'a plain'). 
On the ancient map of Mongolia found in the Yiian shi leipien, Sa-li ICie-rh is marked 
south of the river Wa-nan (the Onon of our maps), and close to Sa-li ICie-rh we read : 
' Here was the original abode of the Yiian ' (Mongols). Thus it seems the passage 
in the Yiian history translated above intimates that Chinghiz died in Mongolia, and 
not near the Liu fan shan, as is generally believed. The Yiian cKao pishi (Palladius' 
transl., 152) and the 'TV/w cheughi (Palladius' transL, 195) both agree in stating that, 
after subduing the Tangut empire, Chinghiz rettuTied home, and then died. Colonel 
Yule, in his Marco Polo (I. 245), states ' that Rashid calk the place of Chinghiz* death 
Leung shan, which appears to be the mountain range still so-called in the heart of 
Shensi.' I am not aware from what translation of Rashid, Yule's statement is derived, 
but d'Ohsson (I. 375, note) seems to quote the same passage in translating from 
Rashid : ' Liu-p'an-shan was situated on the frontiers of the Churche (empire of the 
Kin), Nangias (empire of the Sung) and Tangut;^ which statement is quite 
correct." 

We now come to the Mongol tradition, which places the tomb of Chinghiz in the 
country of the Ordos, in the great bend of the Yellow River. 

Two Belgian missionaries, MM. de Vos and Verlinden, who visited the tomb of 
Chinghiz Khan, say that before the Mahomedan invasion, on a hill a few feet high, 
there were two courtyards, one in front of the other, surrounded by palisades. In 
the second courtyard, there were a building like a Chinese dwelUng-house and six 
tents. In a double tent are kept the remains of the bokta (the Holy). The neighbouring 
tents contained various precious objects, such as a gold saddle, dishes, drinking-cups, 
a tripod, a kettle, and many other utensils, all in solid silver, {Missions Catholiques, 
No. 315, 1 8th June, 1875.) — This periodical gives (p. 293) a sketch of the tomb of the 
Conqueror, according to the account of the two missionaries, 

Prjevalsky {Mongolia and Tangut) relates the story of the Khatun Gol (see supra, 
p. 245), and says that her tomb is situated at II versts north-east of lake of Dzaldemin 
Nor, and is called by the Mongols Tumir-Alku, and by the Chinese Djiou-Djin Fu ; one 
of the legends mentioned by the Russian traveller gives the Ordo country as the burial- 
place of Chinghiz, 200 versts south of lake Dabasun Nor ; the remains are kept in two 
coffins, one of wood, the other of silver ; the Khan prophesied that after eight or 
ten centuries he would come to life again and fight the Emperor of China, and being 
victorious, would take the Mongols from the Ordos back to their country of Khalka ; 
Prjevalsky did not see the tomb, nor did Potanin. 

"Their holiest place [of the Mongols of Ordos] is a collection of felt tents called 
' Edjen-joro,' reputed to contain the bones of Jenghiz IChan. These sacred relics are 
entrusted to the care of a caste of Darhats, numbering some fifty families. Every 
summer, on the twenty-first day of the sixth moon, sacrifices are offered up in his 
honour, when numbers of people congregate to join in the celebration, such gatherings 
being called tdilgan." On the southern border of the Ordos are the ruins of Boro- 
balgasun [Grey town], said to date from Jenghiz Khan's time, (Potanin, Proc. 
R. G. S. IX. 1887, p. 233.) 

The last traveller who visited the tomb of Chinghiz is M. C. E. Bonin, in July 
1896 ; he was then on the banks of the Yellow River in the northern part of the Ordo 
country, which is exclusively inhabited by nomadic and pastoral Mongols, forming 
seven tribes or hords, Djungar, Talat, Wan, Ottok, Djassak, Wushun and Hangkin, 
among which are eastward the Djungar and in the centre the Wan ; according to 
their own tradition, these tribes descend from the seven armies encamped in the 



250 MARCO POLO Book I. 

country at the time of Chinghiz's death ; the King of Djungar was 67 years of age, 
and was the chief of all the tribes, being considered the 37th descendant of the 
conqueror in a direct line. His predecessor was the Wushun Wang. M. Bonin 
giwes {Revue de Paris, 15th February 1898) the following description of the tomb and 
of the country surrounding it. Between the yamen (palace) of the King (Wang) of 
Djungar and the tomb of Chinghiz-Khan, there are five or six marches made difficult 
by the sands of the Gobi, but horses and camels may be used for the journey. The 
road, southward through the desert, passes near the great lama-monastery called 
Barong-tsao or Si-tsao (Monastery of the West), and in Chinese San-t'ang sse 
(Three Temples). This celebrated monastery was built by the King of Djungar 
to hold the tablets of his ancestors — on the ruins of an old temple, said to have 
been erected by Chinghiz himself. More than a thousand lamas are registered 
there, forty of them live at the expense of the Emperor of China. Crossing after- 
wards the two upper branches of the Ulan Miiren (Red River) on the banks of 
which Chinghiz was murdered, according to local tradition, close to the lake of Chahan 
Nor (White Lake), near which are the tents of the Prince of Wan, one arrives at last 
at the spot called Yeke-Etjen- Koro, in Mongol : the abode of the Great Lord, where 
the tomb is to be found. It is erected to the south-east of the village, comprising some 
twenty tents or tent-like huts built of earth. Two large white felt tents, placed side 
by side, similar to the tents of the modern Mongols, but much larger, cover the tomb ; 
a red curtain, when drawn, discloses the large and low silver coffin, which contains 
the ashes of the Emperor, placed on the ground of the second tent ; it is shaped like 
a big trunk, with great rosaces engraved upon it. The Emperor, according to local 
tradition, was cremated on the bank of the Ulan Muren, where he is supposed to have 
been slain. On the twenty-first day of the third moon the anniversary fete of Mongolia 
takes place ; on this day of the year only are the two mortuary tents opened, and the 
coffin is exhibited to be venerated by people coming from all parts of Mongolia. 
Many other relics, dispersed all over the Ordo land, are brought thither on this 
occasion ; these relics called in Mongol Chinghiz Bogdo (Sacred remains of Chinghiz) 
number ten ; they are in the order adopted by the Mongols : the saddle of Chinghiz, 
hidden in the Wan territory ; the bow, kept at a place named Hu-ki-ta-lao Hei, near 
Yeke Etjen-Koro ; the remains of his war-horse, called Antegan-tsegun (more), pre- 
served at Kebere in the Djungar territory ; a fire-arm kept in the palace of the King 
of Djungar ; a wooden and leather vase called Pao-lao-antri, kept at the place Shien- 
ni-chente ; a wax figure containing the ashes of the Khan's equerry, called Altaqua- 
tosu, kept at Ottok (one of the seven tribes) ; the remains of the second wife, who lay 
at Kiasa, on the banks of the Yellow River, at a place called on Prjevalsky's map m 
Chinese Djiou-Djin-fu, and in Mongol Tumir-Alku ; the tomb of the third wife of 
Chinghiz, who killed him, and lay to-day at Bagha-Ejen-Koro, "the abode of the 
little Sovereign," at a day's march to the south of the Djungar King's palace ; the 
very tomb of Yeke-Etjen-Koro, which is supposed to contain also the ashes of the 
first wife of the Khan ; and last, his great standard, a black wood spear planted in the 
desert, more ban 150 miles to the south of the tomb ; the iron of it never gets rusty ; 
no one dares touch it, and therefore it is not carried to Yeke-Etjen-Koro with the other 
relics for the yearly festival. (See also Rockhill, Diary, p. 29.) — H. C] 

Note 4. — Rashiduddin relates that the escort, in carrying Chinghiz to his burial, 
slew all whom they met, and that forty noble and beautiful girls were despatched to 
serve him in the other world, as well as superb horses. As Mangku Kaan died in 
the heart of China, any attempt to carry out the barbarous rule in his case would 
involve great slaughter. {Erd. 443; D'Ohsson, I. 381, IL 13; and see Cathay, 

507-508-) 

Sanang Setzen ignores these barbarities. He describes the body of Chinghiz as 
removed to his native land on a two-wliecled waggon, the whole host escorting it, and 
wailing as they went : " And Kiluken Bahadur of the Sunid Tribe (one of the Khan's 
old comrades) lifted up his voice and sang — 



Chap. LII. THE CUSTOMS OF THE TARTARS 25 1 

Whilom Thou didst swoop like a Falcon : A rambling waggon now trundles tbee off: 

O My King ! 
Hast thou in truth then forsaken thy wife and thy children and the Diet of thy People? 

O My King ! 
Circling in pride like an Eagle whilom Thou didst lead us, 

O My King ! 
But now Thou hast stumbled and fallen, like an unbroken Colt, 

O My King! '"(p. 108.) 

[ " The burying of living men with the dead was a general custom with the tribes 
of Eastern Asia. Favourite servants and wives were usually buried in this way. In 
China, the chief wives and those concubines who had already borne children, were 
exempted from this lot. The Tunguz and other tribes were accustomed to kill the 
selected victims by strangulation. In China they used to be buried alive ; but the 
custom of burying living men ceased in a.d. 1464. [Hwang ming ts'ung sin lu.'\ In 
the time of the present Manchu Dj'nasty, the biirying of living men was prohibited by 
the Emperor Kang-hi, at the close of the 17th century, i.e. the forced burying ; but 
voluntary sepulture remained in force [ Yu chi wen]. Notwithstanding this prohibi- 
tion, cases of forced burying occiured again in remote parts of Manchuria ; when a 
concubine refused to follow her deceased master, she was forcibly strangled with a 
• bow-string [Ninguta chi]. I must observe, however, that there is no mention made 
in historical documents of the existence of this custom with the Mongols ; it is only an 
hypothesis based on the analogy between the religious ideas and customs of the 
Mongols and those of other tribes." (Palladius, p. 13.) 

In his Religious System of China, II., Dr. J. J. M. de Groot devotes a whole 
chapter (ix. 721 seqq.), Concertting the Sacnjice of Human Beings at Burials, and Usages 
connected therewith. The oldest case on record in China dates as far back as B.C. 677, 
when sixty-six men were killed after the ruler Wu of the state of Ts'in died. 

The Official Annals of the Tartar Dynasty of Liao, quoted by Professor J. J. M. 
de Groot {Religious System of China, vol. ii. 698), state that " in the tenth year of the 
T'ung hwo period (a.d. 692) the killing of horses for funeral and burial rites was 
interdicted, as also the putting into the tombs of coats of mail, helmets, and articles 
and trinkets ofgold and silver." Professor de Groot writes {I.e. 709) : "But, just as the 
placing of victuals in the graves was at an early date changed into sacrifices of food out- 
side the graves, so burying horses with the dead was also modified under the Han 
Dynasty into presenting them to the dead without interring them, and valueless counter- 
feits were on such occasions substituted for the real animals." — H. C] 



CHAPTER LII. 

Concerning the Customs of the Tartars. 

Now that we have begun to speak of the Tartars, I 
have plenty to tell you on that subject. The Tartar 
custom is to spend the winter in warm plains, where they 
find good pasture for their cattle, whilst in summer 
they betake themselves to a cool climate among the 



252 MARCO POLO Book I. 

mountains and valleys, where water is to be found as 
well as woods and pastures. 

Their houses are circular, and are made of wands 
covered with felts.^ These are carried along with them 
whithersoever they go ; for the wands are so strongly 
bound together, and likewise so well combined, that the 
frame can be made very light. Whenever they erect 
these huts the door is always to the south. They also 
have waggons covered with black felt so efficaciously 
that no rain can get in. These are drawn by oxen and 
camels, and the women and children travel in them.''' 
The women do the buying and selling, and whatever is 
necessary to provide for the husband and household ; 
for the men all lead the life of gentlemen, troubling 
themselves about nothing but hunting and hawking, 
and looking after their goshawks and falcons, unless it 
be the practice of warlike exercises. 

They live on the milk and meat which their herds 
supply, and on the produce of the chase ; and they eat 
all kinds of flesh, including that of horses and dogs, and 
Pharaoh's rats, of which last there are great numbers 
in burrows on those plains.^ Their drink is mare's 
milk. 

They are very careful not to meddle with each 
other's wives, and will not do so on any account, hold- 
ing that to be an evil and abominable thing. The 
women too are very good and loyal to their husbands, 
and notable housewives withal/ [Ten or twenty of 
them will dwell together in charming peace and unity, 
nor shall you ever hear an ill word among them.] 

The marriage customs of Tartars are as follows. 
Any man may take a hundred wives an he so please, 
and if he be able to keep them. But the first wife is 
ever held most in honour, and as the most legitimate 
[and the same applies to the sons whom she may bear]. 



Chai'. LII. 



THE CUSTOMS OF THE TARTARS 



253 



The husband gives a marriage payment to his wife's 
mother, and the wife brings nothing to her husband. 
They have more children than other people, because 
they have so many wives. They may marry their 
cousins, and if a father dies, his son may take any of the 
wives, his own mother always excepted ; that is to say 
the eldest son may do this, but no other. A man may 
also take the wife of his own brother after the latter 's 
death. Their weddings are celebrated with great ado.^ 



Note i. — The word here in the G. T. is "fennes,^' which seems usually to mean 
ropes , and in fact Tauthier's text reads : " // out mesons de verges et les cuetevrent de 
cordes.'^ Ramusio's text \\2l% feltrotii, and both Miiller and the Latin of the S. G. 
\\z\efiltro. This is certainly the right reading. But whether y^«//t'J was ever used 
as a form oifeltres (as pennes means peltry) 1 cannot discover. Perhaps some words 
have dropped out. A good description of a Kirghiz hut (35 feet in diameter), and 
exactly corresponding to Polo's account, will be found in Atkittsotis Siberia, and 
another in Vamb^rys Travels. How comfortable and civilised the aspect of such a 
hut may be, can be seen also in Bumes's account of a Turkoman dwelling of this kind. 
This description of hut or tent is common to nearly all the nomade tribes of Central 
Asia. The trellis-work forming the skeleton of the tent-walls is (at least among the 
Turkomans) loosely pivoted, so as to draw out and compress like " lazy-tongs.'' 




Dressing up a tent. 

Rubruquis, Pallas, Timkowski, and others, notice the custom of turning the door 
to the south ; the reason is obvious. {Atkinson, 285 ; Vdiiib. 316 ; Bumes, HI. 51 ; 
Conoily, I. 96.) But throughout the Altai, Mr. Ney Elias informs me, K'alkas, 



254 MARCO POLO Book I. 

Kirghiz, and Kalmaks all pitch their tents facing east. The prevailing w inter wind is 
there westerly. 

[Mr. Rockhill (Rtibnuk, p. 56, note) says that he has often seen Mongol tents facing 
east and south-east. He adds : " It is interesting to find it noted in the CJwu Shu 
(Bk. 50, 3) that the Khan of the Turks, who lived always on the Tu-kin mountains, 
had his tent invariably facing south, so as to show reverence to the sun's rising place." 
— H. C] 

Note 2. — yEschylus already knows the 

" wandering Scyths who dwell 
In latticed huts high-poised on easy wheels." 

{Prom. Vinct. 709-710.) 

And long before him Ilesiod says Phineus was carried by the Harpies — 

" To the Land of the Milk-fed nations, whose houses are waggons." 

(Strabo, vii. 3-9.) 

Ibn Batuta describes the Tartar waggon in which he travelled to Sarai as mounted on 
four great wheels, and drawn by two or more horses : — 

" On the waggon is put a sort of pavilion of wands laced together with narrow 
thongs. It is very light, and is covered with felt or cloth, and has latticed windows, 
so that the person inside can look out without being seen. He can change his position 
at pleasure, sleeping or eating, reading or writing, during the journc)'." These 
waggons were sometimes of enormous size. Rubruquis declares that he measured be- 
tween the wheel-tracks of one and found the interval to be 20 feet. The axle was like 
a ship's mast, and twenty-two oxen were yoked to the waggon, eleven abreast. (See 
opposite cut. ) He describes the huts as not usually taken to pieces, but carried all stand- 
ing. The waggon just mentioned carried a hut of 30 feet diameter, for it projected beyond 
the wheels at least 5 feet on either side. In fact, Carpini says explicitly, " Some of the 
huts are speedily taken to pieces and put up again ; such are packed on the beasts. 
Others cannot be taken to pieces, but are carried bodily on the waggons. To carry 
the smaller tents on a waggon one ox may serve ; for the larger ones three oxen or 
four, or even more, according to the size." The carts that were used to transport the 
Tartar valuables were covered with felt soaked in tallow or ewe's milk, to make them 
waterproof. The tilts of these were rectangular, in the form of a large trunk. The 
carts used in Kashgar, as described by Mr. Shaw, seem to resemble these latter. 
(/. B. II. 381-382 ; Rub. 221 ; Carp. 6, 16.) 

The words of Herodotus, speaking generally of the Scyths, apply perfectly to the 
Mongol hordes under Chinghiz : " Having neither cities nor forts, and carrying their 
dwellings with them wherever they go ; accustomed, moreover, one and all, to shoot 
from horseback ; and living not by husbandry but on their cattle, their waggons the 
only houses that they possess, how can they fail of being unconquerable ? " (Bk. IV. ch. 
46, p. 41, Rawlins. ) Scythian prisoners in their waggons are represented on the Column 
of Theodosius at Constantinople ; but it is difficult to believe that these waggons, at 
least as figured in Banduri, have any really Scythian character. 

It is a curious fact that the practice of carrying these _y?<r/j or felt tents upon 
waggons appears to be entirely obsolete in Mongolia. Mr. Ney Elias writes : "I 
frequently showed your picture [that opposite] to Mongols, Chinese, and Russian 
border-traders, but none had ever seen anything of the kind. The only cart I have 
ever seen used by Mongols is a little low, light, roughly-made bullock-dray, certainly 
of Chinese importation." The old system would, however, appear to have been kept 
up to our own times by the Nogai Tartars, near the Sea of Azof. (See note from 
Ileber, in Clark's Travels, 8vo ed. I. 440, and Dr. Clark's vignette at p. 394 in the 
same volume. ) 

Note -^.—phnrapKs Rat was properly the Gerboa of Arabia and North Africa, 



Chap. LIT. 



THE CUSTOHS OF THE TARTARS 



-OD 




256 MARCO POLO Book I. 

which the Arabs also regard as a dainty. There is a kindred animal in Siberia, called 
Alactaga, and a kind of Kangaroo-rat (probably the same) is mentioned as very abun- 
dant on the Mongolian Steppe. There is also the Ziesehnaus of Pallas, a Dormouse, 
I believe, which he says the Kalmaks, even of distinction, count a delicacy, especially 
cooked in sour milk. " They eat not only the flesh of all their different kinds of 
cattle, including horses and camels, but also that of many wild animals which other 
nations eschew, e.g. marmots and zieselmice, beavers, badgers, otters, and lynxes, 
leaving none untouched except the dog and weasel kind, and also (unless very hard 
pressed) the flesh of the fox and the wolf." {Pallas, Sanunl. I. 128 ; also Rub)-. 
229-230.) 

["In the Mongol biography of Chinghiz Khan (Mongol text of the Yuan cKao pi 
shi), mention is made of two kinds of animals (mice) used for food ; the tarbagat 
{Aritomys Bobac) and kuclmgur." {Palladiu^^ Uc. p. 14.) Regarding the marmots 
called Sogur by Rubruquis, Mr. Rockhill writes (p. 69) : " Probably the Mits ciiilhis, 
the Suslik of the Russians. . . . M. Grenard ttMs me that Soghur, more usually 
written sour in Turki, is the ordinary name of the marmot." — II. C] 

Note 4. — "Their wives are chaste; nor does one ever hear any talk of their 
immodesty," says Carpini ; — no Boccaccian and Chaucerian stories. 

Note 5. — " The Mongols are not prohibited from having a plurality of wives ; the 
first manages the domestic concerns, and is the most respected." {Tiink. II. 310.) 
Naturally Polygamy is not so general among the Mongols as when Asia lay at their 
feet. The Buraets, who seem to retain the old Mongol customs in great completeness, 
are polygamists, and have as many wives as they choose. Polygamy is also very 
prevalent among the Yakuts, whose lineage seems to be Eastern Turk. {Kilter, III. 
125 ; Erman, II. 346.) 

Of the custom that entitled the son on succeeding to take such as he pleased of his 
deceased father's wives, we have had some illustration (see Prologue, ch. xvii. note 2), 
and many instances will be found in Hammer's or other Mongol Histories. The same 
custom seems to be ascribed by Herodotus to the Scyths (IV. 78). A number of 
citations regarding the practice are given by Quatremere. ( Q. R. p. 92. ) A modern 
Mongol writer in the Mdanges Asiatiques of the Petersburg Academy, states that the 
custom of taking a deceased brother's wives is now obsolete, but that a proverb 
preserves its memory (II. 656). It is the custom of some Mahomedan nations, 
notably of the Afghans, and is one of those points that have been cited as a supposed 
proof of their Hebrew lineage. 

"The Kalin is a present which the Bridegroom or his parents make to the parents 
of the Bride. All the Pagan nations of Siberia have this custom ; they differ only in 
what constitutes the present, whether money or cattle." {Gmeliu, I. 29; see also 
Erman, II. 348.) 



CHAPTER LIII. 

Concerning the God of the Tartars. 

This is the fashion of their religion. [They say there is 
a Most High God of Heaven, whom they worship 
daily with thurible and incense, but they pray to Him 



Chap. LIII. OBJECTS OF TARTAR WORSHIP 257 

only for health of mind and body. But] they have [also] 
a certain [other] god of theirs called Natigay, and they 
say he is the god of the Earth, who watches over their 
children, cattle, and crops. They show him great wor- 
ship and honour, and every man hath a figure of him in 
his house, made of felt and cloth ; and they also make in 
the same manner imagres of his wife and children. The 
wife they put on the left hand, and the children in front. 
And when they eat, they take the fat of the meat and 
grease the god's mouth withal, as well as the mouths of 
his wife and children. Then they take of the broth and 
sprinkle it before the door of the house ; and that done, 
they deem that their god and his family have had their 
share of the dinner.^ 

Their drink is mare's milk, prepared in such a wa) 
that you would take it for white wine ; and a right good 
drink it is, called by them Kemiz} 

The clothes of the wealthy Tartars are for the most 
part of gold and silk stuffs, lined with costly furs, such as 
sable and ermine, vair and fox-skin, in the richest 
fashion. 



NoT£ 1. — There is no reference here to Buddhism, which was then of recent 
introduction among the Mongols ; indeed, at the end of the chapter. Polo speaks of 
their new adoption of the Chinese idolatry, i.e. Buddhism. We may add here that 
the Buddhism of the Mongols decayed and became practically extinct after their 
expulsion fjom China (1368- 1369). The old Shamanism then apparently revived ; nor 
was it till 1577 that the great reconversion of Mongolia to Lamaism began. This 
reconversion is the most prominent event in the Mongol historj- of Sanang Setzen, 
whose great-grandfather Khutuktai Setzen, Prince of the Ordos, was a chief agent in 
the movement. 

The Supreme Good Spirit appears to have been called by the Mongols Tengri 
(Heaven), and Khormuzda, and is identified by Schmidt with the Persian Hormuzd- 
In Buddhist times he became identified with Indra. 

Piano Carpini's account of this matter is very like Marco's : " They believe in one 
God, the Maker of all things, visible and invisible, and the Distributor of good and 
evil in this world ; but they worship Him not with prayers or praises or any kind of 
service. Natheless, they have certain idols of felt, imitating the human face, and 
having underneath the f^ce something resembling teats ; these they place on either 
side of the door. These they believe to be the guardians of the flocks, from whom 
Ihey have the boons of milk and increase. Others they fabricate of bits of silk, and 
these are highly honoured ; . . . . and whenever they begin to eat or drink, they first 
offer these idols a portion of their food or drink." 

VOL.- I. ^ 



258 



MARCO POLO Book I. 



The account agrees generally with what we are told of the original Shamanism of 
the Tunguses, which recognizes a Supreme Power over all, and a small number of 
potent spirits called Ongot. These spirits among the Buraets are called, according to 
one author, Notigait or Nogat, and according to Erman Ongotui. In some form of 
this same word, Nogait, Ongot, Onggod, Ongotui, we are, I imagine, to trace the 
Natigay of Polo. The modern representative of this Shamanist Lar is still found 
among the Buraets, and is thus described by Pallas under the name of Immegiljin : 
" He is honoured as the tutelary god of the sheep and other cattle. Properly, the 
divinity consists of two figures, hanging side by side, one of whom represents the 
god's wife. These two figures are merely a pair of lanky flat bolsters with the upper 
part shaped into a round disk, and the body hung with a long woolly fleece ; eyes, 
nose, breasts, and navel, being indicated by leather knobs stitched on. The male 
figure commonly has at his girdle the foot-rope with which horses at pasture are 
fettered, whilst the female, which is sometimes accompanied by smaller figures repre- 
senting her children, has all sorts of little nicknacks and sewing implements. " Galsang 




Tartar Idols and Kumis Churn. • 

Czomboyef, a recent Russo-Mongol writer already quoted, says also: "Among the 
Buryats, in the middle of the hut and place of honour, is the Dsaiaga^hi ox 'Chief 
Creator of Fortune.' At the door is the Emelgelji, the Tutelary of the Herds and 
Young Cattle, made of sheepskins. Outside the hut is the Chandaghatn, a name 
implying that the idol was formed of a white hare-skin, the Tutelary of the Chase and 
perhaps of War. All these have been expelled by Buddhism except Dsaiagachi, who 
is called Tengri, and introduced among the Buddhist divinities." 

[Dorji Banzaroff, in his dissertation On the Black Religion, i.e. Shamanism, 
1846, "is disposed to see in Natigay of M. Polo, the Ytoga of other travellers, i.e. 
the Mongol Etugen — 'earth,' as the object of veneration of the Mongol Shamans. 
They look upon it as a divinity, for its power as Delegei in echen, i.e. ' the Lord of 
Earth,' and on account of its productiveness, Allan delegei, i.e. 'Golden Earth.'" 
Palladius {I.e. pp. 14-16) adds one new variant to what the learned Colonel Yule 
has collected and set forth with such precision, on the Shaman household gods. " The 
Dahurs and Barhus have in their dwellings, according to the number of the male 



Chap. LIII. THE DRINK OF THE MONGOLS 259 

members of the family, puppets made of straw, on which eyes, eyebrows, and mouth 
are drawn ; these puppets are dressed up to the waist. When some one of the family 
dies, his puppet is taken out of the house, and a new puppet is made for e%ery newly- 
born member of the family. On New Year's Day offerings are made to the puppets, 
and care is taken not to disturb them (by moving them, etc.), in order to avoid 
bringing sickness upon the family." {He lung kiang ivai ki. ) 
(Cf. Rubruck, 58-59, and Mr. Rockhill's note, 59-60.)— H. C] 

Note 2. — Kimiz or KtJMiz, the habitual drink of the Mongols, as it still is of 
most of the nomads of Asia. It is thus made. Fresh mare's milk is put in a well- 
seasoned bottle-necked vessel of horse-skin ; a litde kur^t (see note 5, ch. liv.) or 
some sour cow's milk is added ; and when acetous fermentation is commencing it is 
violently churned with a peculiar staff which constantly stands in the vessel. This 
interrupts fermentation and introduces a quantity of air into the liquid. It is 
customary for \'isitors who may drop in to give a turn or two at the chum stick. After 
three or four days the drink is ready. 

Kumiz keeps long ; it is wonderfully tonic and nutritious, and it is said that it has 
cured many persons threatene'd with consumption. The tribes using it are said to be 
remarkably free from pulmonary disease ; and indeed I understand there is a regular 
Galactopathic establishment somewhere in the province of Orenburg for treating 
pulmonary patients with Kumiz diet. 

It has a peculiar fore- and after-taste which, it is said, everv^body does not like. 
Yet I have found no confession of a dislike to Kumiz. Rubruquis tells us it is 
pungent on the tongue, like vinum raspei {vin rapi of the French), whilst you are 
drinking it, but leaves behind a pleasant flavour like milk of almonds. It makes a 
man's inside feel very cosy, he adds, even turning a weak head, and is strongly 
diuretic. To this last statement, however, modern report is in direct contradiction. 
The Greeks and other Oriental Christians considered it a sort of denial of the faith 
to drink Kumiz. On the other hand, the Mahomedan converts firom the nomad 
tribes seem to have adhered to the use of Kumiz even when strict in abstinence firom 
wine ; and it was indulged in by the early Mamelukes as a public solemnity. Excess 
on such an occasion killed Bibars Bundukdari, who was passionately fond of this 
liquor. 

The intoxicating power of Kumiz varies according to the brew. The more 
advanced is the vinous fermentation the less acid is the taste and the more it sparkles. 
The effect, however, is always slight and transitory, and leaves no unpleasant sensa- 
tion, whilst it produces a strong tendency to refreshing sleep. If its good qualities 
amount to half what are ascribed to it by Dr. W. F. Dahl, from whom we derive some 
of these particulars, it must be the pearl of all beverages. "With the nomads it is 
the drink of all from the suckling upwards, it is the solace of age and illness, and the 
greatest of treats to all ! " 

There was a special kind called Kard Ktiiniz, which is mentioned both by 
Rubruquis and in the history of Wassaf. It seems to have been strained and 
clarified. The modem Tartars distil a spirit from Kumiz of which Pallas gives a 
detailed account. (Dahl, Ueber den Kumyss in Boers Beiirage, VII. ; Lettres sur le 
Caucase et la Crim^e, Paris, 1859, p. 81 ; Makrizi, II. 147 ; J. As. XI. 160 ; Levchitu, 
322-323 ; Rubr. 227-228, 335 ; Gold. Horde, p. 46 ; Erman, I. 296 ; Pallas, Samml. 
I. 132 seqq.) 

[In the Si yu ki. Travels to the West of Ch'ang ch'on, we find a drink called 
tiing lo. "The Chinese characters, tung lo," says Bretschneider {Med. Res. I. 94), 
" denote according to the dictionaries preparations from mare's or cow's milk, as Kumis, 
sour milk, etc. In the Yuan s/ii (ch. cxxviii.) biography of the Kipchak prince 
Tutii-ha, it is stated that ' black mare's milk ' (evidently the cara cosmos of Rubruck), 
very pleasant to the taste, tised to be sent from Kipchak to the Mongol court in 
China." (On the drinks of the Mongols, see Mr. Rockhill's note, Rubruck, p. 62.)^ 
The Mongols indulge in sour milk {tarak) and distilled mare's milk {arreki), but 
VOL L R 2 



26o MARCO POLO Book I. 

Mr. Rockhill {Land of^ the Lamas, 130) says he never saw them drink 
ktimiz. — H. C] 

The mare's-milk drink of Scythian nomads is alluded to by many ancient authors. 
But the manufacture of Kumiz is particularly spoken of by Herodotus. "The 
(mare's) milk is poured into deep wooden casks, about which the blind slaves are 
placed, and then the milk is stirred round. That which rises to the top is drawn off, 
and considered the best part ; the under portion is of less account." Strabo also 
speaks of the nomads beyond the Cimmerian Chersonesus, who feed on horse-flesh 
and other flesh, mare's-milk cheese, mare's milk, and sour milk (6f iryaXoKra) ' ' which 
they have a particular way of preparing." Perhaps Herodotus was mistaken about 
the wooden tubs. At least all modern attempts to use anything but the orthodox 
skins have failed. Priscus, in his narrative of the mission of himself and Maximin to 
Altila, says the Huns brought them a drink made from barley which they called 
Kciyitos. The barley was, no doubt, a misapprehension of his. {Herod. Bk. iv. p. 2, in 
Rawl. ; Strabo, VH. 4, 6 : Excerpta de Legationibus, in Corp. Hist, Byzant. I. 55.) 



CHAPTER LIV. 
Concerning the Tartar Customs of War. 

All their harness of war is excellent and costly. Their 
arms are bows and arrows, sword and mace ; but above 
all the bow, for they are capital archers, indeed the best 
that are known. On their backs they wear armour of 
cuirbouly, prepared from buffalo and other hides, which 
is very strong.^ They are excellent soldiers, and passing- 
valiant in battle. They are also more capable of hard- 
ships than other nations ; for many a time, if need be, 
they will go for a month without any supply of food, 
living only on the milk of their mares and on such game 
as their bows may win them. Their horses also will 
subsist entirely on the grass of the plains, so that there 
is no need to carry store of barley or straw or oats ; and 
they are very docile to their riders. These, in case of 
need, will abide on horseback the livelong night, armed 
at all points, while the horse will be continually grazing. 
Of all troops in the world these are they which en- 
dure the greatest hardship and fatigue, and which cost 



Chap. LIV. THE TARTAR CUSTOMS OF WAR 26 1 

the least ; and they are the best of all for making wide 
conquests of country. And this you will perceive from 
what you have heard and shall hear in this book ; and 
(as a fact) there can be no manner of doubt that now 
they are the masters of the biggest half of the world. 
Their troops are admirably ordered in the manner that I 
shall now relate. 

You see, when a Tartar prince goes forth to war, he 
takes with him, say, 100,000 horse. Well, he appoints 
an officer to every ten men, one to every hundred, one 
to every thousand, and one to every ten thousand, so 
that his own orders have to be given to ten persons only, 
and each of these ten persons has to pass the orders only 
to other ten, and so on ; no one having to give orders to 
more than ten. And every one in turn is responsible 
only to the officer immediately over him ; and the 
discipline and order that comes of this method is mar- 
vellous, for they are a people very obedient to their 
chiefs. Further, they call the corps of 100,000 men a 
Ttcc ; that of 10,000 they call a Toman; the thousand 
they call . . . . ; the hundred Guz ; the ten . . . ? And 
when the army is on the march they have always 200 
horsemen, very well mounted, who are sent a distance 
of two marches in advance to reconnoitre, and these 
always keep ahead. They have a similar party de- 
tached in the rear, and on either flank, so that there is a 
good look-out kept on all sides against a surprise. When 
they are going on a distant expedition they take no gear 
with them except two leather bottles for milk ; a litde 
earthenware pot to cook their meat in, and a little 
tent to shelter them from rain.^ And in case of grreat 
urgency they will ride ten days on end without lighting 
a fire or taking a meal. On such an occasion they will 
sustain themselves on the blood of their horses, opening 
a vein and letting the blood jet into their mouths. 



262 MARCO POLO Book I. 

drinking till they have had enough, and then staunching 
it/ 

They also have milk dried into a kind of paste to 
carry with them ; and when they need food they put this 
in water, and beat it up till it dissolves, and then drink 
it. [It is prepared in this way ; they boil the milk, and 
when the rich part floats on the top they skim it into 
another vessel, and of that they make butter ; for the 
milk will not become solid till this is removed. Then 
they put the milk in the sun to dry. And when they 
go on an expedition, every man takes some ten pounds 
of this dried milk with him. And of a morning he will 
take a half pound of it and put it in his leather bottle, 
with as much water as he pleases. So, as he rides along, 
the milk-paste and the water in the bottle get well 
churned together into a kind of pap, and that makes his 
dinner.^] 

When they come to an engagement with the enemy, 
they will gain the victory in this fashion. [They never 
let themselves get into a regular medley, but keep per- 
petually riding round and shooting into the enemy. 
And] as they do not count it any shame to run away in 
battle, they will [sometimes pretend to] do so, and in 
running away they turn in the saddle and shoot hard and 
strong at the foe, and in this way make great havoc. 
Their horses are trained so perfectly that they will double 
hither and thither, just like a dog, in a way that is quite 
astonishing. Thus they fight to as good purpose in 
running away as if they stood and faced the enemy, 
because of the vast volleys of arrows that they shoot in 
this way, turning round upon their pursuers, who are 
fancying that they have won the battle. But when the 
Tartars see that they have killed and wounded a good 
many horses and men, they wheel round bodily, and 
return to the charge in perfect order and with loud cries ; 



Chap. LIV. THE TARTAR CUSTOMS OF WAR 263 

and in a very short time the enemy are routed. In truth 
they are stout and valiant soldiers, and inured to war. 
And you perceive that it is just when the enemy sees 
them run, and imagines that he has gained the battle, 
that he has in reality lost it ; for the Tartars wheel round 
in a moment when they judge the right time has come. 
And after this fashion they have won many a fight.^ 

All this that I have been telling you is true of the 
manners and customs of the genuine Tartars. But I 
must add also that in these days they are greatly de- 
generated ; for those who are settled in Cathay have 
taken up the practices of the Idolaters of the country, 
and have abandoned their own institutions ; whilst those 
who have settled in the Levant have adopted the customs 
of the Saracens.^ 



Note i. — The bow was the characteristic weapon of the Tartars, insomnch that 
the Armenian historians often call them "The Archers." (Si. Martin, II. 133.) 
"CuiRBOULY, leather softened by boiling, in which it took any form or impression 
required, and then hardened." {IVri^fs Diet.) The English adventurer among the 
Tartars, whose account of them is given by Archbishop Ivo of Narbonne, in Matthew 
Paris (i«3. 1243), says : " De coriis bullitis sibi arma levia quidem, sed tamen im- 
penetrabilia coaptarunt." This armour is particularly described by Piano Carpini 
(p. 685). See the tail-piece to Book FV. 

[Mr. E. H. Parker {China Review, XXIV. iv. p. 205) remarks that "the first / 
coats of mail were made in China in 1288 : perhaps the idea was obtained from the 1 
Malays or Arabs." — H. C] 

Note 2. — M. Pauthier has judiciously pointed out the omissions that have occurred 
here, perhaps owing to Rusticiano's not properly catching the foreign terms applied 
to the various grades. In the G. Text the passage runs : '■'■ Et sachi4s que les cent 
mille est apelU un Tut (read tue) et les dix mille un Toman, et les por milier et par 
centenier et por desnu." In Pauthier's (uncorrected) text one of the missing words is 
supplied : '' Et appellent les CM. un Tuc ; et les X.M. un Toman ; et un millier 
Guz por centenier et por disenier." The blanks he supplies thus from Abulghazi : 
"Et un millier: [un Miny] ; Guz, por centenier et \\Jn\por disenier." The words 
supplied are Turki, but so is the Guz, which appears aheady in Pauthier's text, 
whilst Toman and Tuc are common to Turki and Mongol. The latter word, Tui or 
Tugh, is the horse-tail or yak-tail standard which among so many Asiatic nations has 
marked the supreme military command. It occurs as Taia in ancient Persian, and 
Cosmas Indicopleustes speaks of it as Tupha. The Nine Orloks or Marshals under 
Chinghiz were entitled to the Tuk, and theirs is probably the class of command here 
indicated as of 100,000, though the figure must not be strictly taken. Timur ordains 
that every Amir who should conquer a kingdom or command in a victory should 
receive a tide of honour, the Tugh and the Nakkdri. (Infra, Bk. II. ch. iv. note 3.) 
Baber on several occasions speaks of conferring the Tugh upon his generals for dis- 



264 



MARCO POLO Book I. 



tinguished service. One of the military titles at Bokhara is still Tokhsabai, a corrup- 
tion of Tugh-Sdhibi (Master of the Tugh). 

We find the whole gradation except the Tuc in a rescript of Janibeg, Khan of 
Sarai, in favour of Venetian merchants dated February 1347. It begins in the 
Venetian version: "Za parola de Zanibeck alio puovolo di Mogoli, alii Baroni di 
Thomeni,* delli miera, delli centenera, delle dexiene." (Erdmann, $^6 ; DAvezac, 
577-578 ; Rimusat, Langiies Tartares, 303 ; Pallas, Saniml. I. 283 ; Schmidt, 379, 381 ; 
Baber, 260, etc. ; Vdmb^ry, 374 ; Tinioiir hist. pp. 283 and 292-293 ; Bibl. de fEc. 
des Charles, tom. Iv. p. 585.) 

The decimal division of the army was already made by Chinghiz at an early period 
of his career, and was probably much older than his time. In fact we find the 
Myriarch and Chiliarch already in the Persian armies of Darius Hystaspes. From the 
Tartars the system passed into nearly all the Musulman States of Asia, and the titles 
Min-bashi or Bimbashi, Yuzbashi, Oiibashi, still subsist not only in Turkestan, but 
also in Turkey and Persia. The term Tvian or 7'nia was, according to Herberstein, 
still used in Russia in his day for 10,000. {Ramus. II. 159.) 

[The King of An-nam, Dinh Tien-hiang (a.d. 968) had an army of 1,000,000 
men forming 10 corps of 10 legions ; each legion forming 10 cohorts of 10 centuries ; 
each century forming 10 squads of 10 men. — H. C] 

Note 3. — Ramusio's edition says that what with horses and mares there will be 
an average of eighteen beasts (?) to every man. 

Note 4. — See the Oriental account quoted below in Note 6. 

So Dionysius, combining this practice with that next described, relates of the 
MassagetcE that they have no delicious bread nor native wine : 

"But with horse's blood 
And white milk mingled set their banquets forth." 

{Orbis Desc. 743-744.) 
And Sidonius : 

" .Solitosque cruentum 
Lac potare Getas, et pocula tingcre venis." 

{Parag. ad Avitum.) 

["The Scythian soldier drinks the blood of the first man he overthrows in 
battle." {Herodotus, Rawlinson, Bk. IV. ch. 64, p. 54.)— H. C] "When in 
lack of food, they bleed a horse and suck the vein. If they need something 
more solid, they put a sheep's pudding full of blood under the saddle ; this in time 
gets coagulated and cooked by the heat, and then they devour it." {Georg. Pachytneres, 
V. -4.) The last is a well-known story, but is strenuously denied and ridiculed by 
Bergmann. {Streifereien, etc. I. I5.) Joinville tells the same story. Hans 
Schiltberger asserts it very distinctly: " Ich hon och gesehen wann sie in reiss 
ylten, das sie ein fleisch nemen, und es dunn scliinden und legents unter den 
sattel, und riten doruff; und essents wann sie hungert" (ch. 35). Botero had 
"heard from a trustworthy source that a Tartar of Perekop, travelling on the 
steppes, lived for some days on the blood of his horse, and tlien, not daring to bleed it 
more, cut off and ate its ears !" {Relazione Univers. p. 93.) The Turkmans speak of 
such practices, but Conolly says he came to regard them as hyperbolical talk (I. 45). 

[Abul-Ghazi I^an, in his History of Mongols, describing a raid of Russian 
{Ourous) Cossacks, who were hemmed in by the Uzbeks, says: "The Russians had 
in continued fighting exhausted all their water. They began to drink blood ; the 
fifth day they had not even blood remaining to drink." {Transl. by Baron Des 
Maisons, St. Petersburg, II. 295.)] 

Note 5. — Rubruquis thus describes this preparation, which is called KurAc: 

' Tliis is Chomeni in the original, Imt I h.ive ventured to correct it. 



Chap. LIV. THE TARTAR CUSTOMS OF WAR 265 

" The milk that remains after the butter has been made, they allow to get as sour as 
sour can be, and then boil it. In boiling, it curdles, and that curd they dry in the 
sun ; and in this way it becomes as hard as iron-slag. And so it is stored in bags 
against the winter. In the winter time, when they have no milk, they put that sour 
curd, which they call Griut, into a skin, and pour warm water on it, and they shake it 
violently till the curd dissolves in the water, to which it gives an acid flavour ; that 
water they drink in place of milk. But above all things they eschew drinking plain 
water." From Pallas's account of the modern practice, which is substantially the 
same, these cakes are also made from the lea\Tngs of distillation in making milk-arrack. 
The Kurut is frequently made of ewe-milk. Wood speaks of it as an indispensable 
article in the food of the people of Badakhshan, and under the same name it is a staple 
food of the Afghans. {Ruhr. 229 ; Samml. I. 136 ; Dahl, u.s. ; Wood, 311.) 

[It is the cKura of the Tibetans. " In the Kokonor countrj- and Tibet, this krut or 
chura is put in tea to soften, and then eaten either alone or mixed with parched 
barley meal {tsambay (Rockkill, Rubruck, p. 68, note.)— H. C] 

Note 6. — Compare with Marco's account the report of the Mongols, which was 
brought by the spies of Mahomed, Sultan of Khwarizm, when invasion was first 
menaced by Chinghiz : " The army of Chinghiz is countless, as a swarm of ants or 
locusts. Their warriors are matchless in lion-like valour, in obedience, and endurance. 
They take no rest, and flight or retreat is unknown to them. On their expeditions 
they are accompanied by oxen, sheep, camels, and horses, and sweet or sour milk 
suffices them for food. Their horses scratch the earth with their hoofs and feed on 
the roots and grasses they dig up, so that they need neitlier straw nor oats. They 
themselves reck nothing of the clean or the unclean in food, and eat the flesh of 
all animals, even of dc^s, swine, and bears. They will open a horse's vein, draw blood, 
and drink it. .... In victory they leave neither small nor great alive ; they cut up 
women great with child and cleave the fruit of the womb. If they come to a great 
river, as they know nothing of boats, they sew skins tc^ether, stitch up all their goods 
therein, tie the bundle to their horses' tails, mount with a hard grip of the mane, and 
so swim over." This passage is an absolute abridgment of many chapters of Carpini. 
Still more terse was the sketch of Mongol proceedings drawn by a fugitive from 
Bokhara after Chinghiz's devastations there. It was set forth in one unconscious 
hexameter : 

" Amdand u khandand u sokhtand u kushtand u burdand u raftand! " 

" They came and they sapped, they fired and they slew, trussed up their loot and 
were gone ! " 

Juwaini, the historian, after telling the story, adds: "The cream and essence of 
whatever is written in this volume might be represented in these few words." 

A Musulman author quoted by Hammer, Najmuddin of Rei, gives an awfnl 
picture of the Tartar devastations, " Such as had never been heard of, whether in the 
lands of unbelief or of Islam, and can only be likened to those which the Prophet 
announced as signs of the Last Day, when he said : ' The Hour of Judgment shall 
not come until ye shall have fought with the Turks, men small of eye and ruddy of 
countenance, whose noses are flat, and their faces like hide-covered shields. Those 
shall be Days of Horror ! ' ' And what meanest thou by horror ? ' said the Companions ; 
and he replied, ' Slaughter ! Slaughter ! ' This beheld the Prophet in vision 
600 years ago. And could there well be worse slaughter than there was in Rei, where 
I, wretch that I am, was bom and bred, and where the whole population of five 
hundred thousand souls was either butchered or draped into slavery ?" 

Marco habitually suppresses or ignores the firightful brutalities of the Tartars, but 
these were somewhat less, no doubt, in Kiiblai's time. 

The Hindustani poet Amir Khosru gives a picture of the Mongols more forcible 
than elegant, which Elliot has translated (III. 528). 

This is Ha}-ton's account of the Parthian tactics of the Tartars : " They will 
run away, but always keeping their companies together ; and it is very dangerous to 



266 MARCO POLO Book I. 

give them chase, for as they flee they shoot back over their heads, and do great 
execution among their pursuers. They keep very close rank, so that you would not 
guess them for half their real strength." Carpini speaks to the same effect. Baber, 
himself of Mongol descent, but heartily hating his kindred, gives this account of their 
military usage in His day : " Such is the uniform practice of these wretches the 
Moghuls ; if they defeat the enemy they instantly seize the booty ; if they are de- 
feated, they plunder and dismount their own allies, and, betide what may, carry off the 
spoil." (Erdmann, 364, 383, 620 ; GoM. Horde, 'J'J, 80 ; Elliot, II. 388 ; Hayton 
in Ram, ch. xlviii. ; Baber, 93 ; Carpini, p. 694.) 

Note 7. — "The Scythians" [i.e. in the absurd Byzantine pedantry, Tartars), 
says Nicephorus Gregoras, "from converse with the Assyrians, Persians, and Chaldseans, 
in time acquired their manners and adopted their religion, casting off their ancestral 

atheism And to such a degree were they changed, that though in former 

days they had been wont to cover the head with nothing better than a loose felt cap, 
and for other clothing had thought themselves well off with the skins of wild beasts or 
ill-dressed leather, and had for weapons only clubs and slings, or spears, arrows, and 
bows extemporised from the oaks and other trees of their mountains and forests, now, 
forsooth, they will have no meaner clothing than brocades of silk and gold ! And 
their luxury and delicate living came to such a pitch that they stood far as the poles 
asunder from their original habits " (II. v. 6). 



CHAPTER LV. 
Concerning the administering of Justice among the Tartars. 

The way they administer justice is this. When any 
one has committed a petty theft, they give him, under 
the orders of authority, seven blows of a stick, or 
seventeen, or twenty-seven, or thirty-seven, or forty- 
seven, and so forth, always increasing by tens in propor- 
tion to the injury done, and running up to one hundred 
and seven. Of these beatings sometimes they die.^ 
But if the offence be horse-stealing, or some other 
great matter, they cut the thief in two with a sword. 
Howbeit, if he be able to ransom himself by paying 
nine times the value of the thing stolen, he is let off. 
Every Lord or other person who possesses beasts has 
them marked with his peculiar brand, be they horses, 
mares, camels, oxen, cows, or other great catde, and 
then they are sent abroad to graze over the plains 



Chap. LV. TARTAR ADMINISTRATION OF JUSTICE 267 

without any keeper. They get all mixt together, but 
eventually every beast is recovered by means of its 
owner's brand, which is known. For their sheep and 
goats they have shepherds. All their cattle are re- 
markably fine, big, and in good condition.* 

They have another notable custom, which is this. 
If anv man have a daug^hter who dies before marriag-e, 
and another man have had a son also die before 
marriage, the parents of the two arrange a grand 
wedding between the dead lad and lass. And marry 
them they do, making a regular contract! And when 
the contract papers are made out they put them in 
the fire, in order (as they will have it) that the parties 
in the other world may know the fact, and so look on 
each other as man and wife. And the parents thence- 
forward consider themselves sib to each other, just as 
if their children had lived and married. Whatever 
may be agreed on between the parties as dowry, those 
who have to pay it cause to be painted on pieces of 
paper and then put these in the fire, saying that in 
that way the dead person will get all the real articles 
in the other world.' 

Now I have told you all about the manners and 
customs of the Tartars ; but you have heard nothing 
yet of the great state of the Grand Kaan, who is the 
Lord of all the Tartars and of the Supreme Imperial 
Court. All that I will tell you in this book in proper 
time and place, but meanwhile I must return to my 
story which I left off in that great plain when we 
began to speak of the Tartars.* 



Note i. — ^The cudgel among the Mongols was not confined to thieves and sach 
like. It was the punishment also of military and state offences, and even princes 
were liable to it without fatal di^race. " If they give any offence," says Carpini, "or 
omit to obey the slightest beck, the Tartars themselves are beaten like donkej-s." 
The number of blows administered was, according to Wassaf, always odd, 3, 5, and 
so forth, up to 77. {Carp. 712; Ikhan. I. 37.) 



268 MARCO POLO Book I. 

["They also punish with death grand larceny, but as for petty thefts, such as that 
of a sheep, so long as one has not repeatedly been taken in the act, they beat him 
cruelly, and if they administer an hundred blows they must use an hundred sticks." 
(Rockhill, Riibruck, p. 80.) — II. C] 

Note 2. — " They have no herdsmen or others to watch their cattle, because the 

laws of the Turks («'.<?. Tartars) against theft are so severe A man in whose 

possession a stolen horse is found is obliged to restore it to its owner, and to give nine 
of the same value ; if he cannot, his children are seized in compensation ; if he have 
no children, he is slaughtered like a- mutton." {Ihi Batuta, II. 364.) 

Note 3. — This is a Chinese custom, though no doubt we may trust Marco for its 
being a Tartar one also. " In the province of Shansi they have a ridiculous custom, 
which is to marry dead folks to each other. F. Michael Trigault, a Jesuit, who lived 
several years in that province, told it us whilst we were in confinement. It falls out 
that one man's son and another man's daughter die. Whilst the coffins are in the 
house (and they used to keep them two or three years, or longer) the parents agree to 
marry them ; they send the usual presents, as if the pair were alive, with much cere- 
mony and music. After this they put the two coffins together, hold the wedding dinner 
in their presence, and, lastly, lay them together in one tomb. The parents, from this 
time forth, are looked on not merely as friends but as relatives — ^just as they would 
have been had their children been married when in life." [Navarrete, quoted by 
Maj-sden.) ICidd likewise, speaking of the Chinese custom of worshipping at the 
tombs of progenitors, says : "So strongly does veneration for this tribute after death 
prevail that parents, in order to secure the memorial of the sepulchre for a daughter 
who has died during her betrothal, give her in marriage after her decease to her in- 
tended husband, who receives with nuptial ceremonies at his own house a paper effigy 
made by her parents, and after he hte burnt it, erects a tablet to her memory — an 
honour which usage forbids to be rendered to the memory of unmarried persons. The 
law seeks without effect to abolish this absurd custom." {China, etc., pp. 179-180.) 

[Professor J. J. M. de Groot {Religious System of China) gives several instances of 
marriages after death ; the following example (II. 804-805) will illustrate the custom : 
"An interesting account of the manner in which such post-mortetn marriages were con- 
cluded at the period when the Sung Dynasty governed the Empire, is given by a 
contemporary work in the following words : ' In the northern parts of the Realm it 
is customary, when an unmarried youth and an unmarried girl breathe their last, that 
the two families each charge a match-maker to demand the other party in marriage. 
Such go-betweens are called match-makers for disembodied souls. They acquaint 
the two families with each other's circumstances, and then cast lots for the marriage 
by order of the parents on both sides. If they augur that the union will be a happy 
one, (wedding) garments for the next world are cut out, and the match-makers repair 
to the grave of the lad, there to set out wine and fruit for the consummation of the 
marriage. Two seats are placed side by side, and a small streamer is set up near each 
seat. If these streamers move a little after the libation has been performed, the souls 
are believed to approach each other ; but if one of them does not move, the party 
represented thereby is considered to disapprove of the marriage. Each family has 
to reward its match-maker with a present of woven stuffs. Such go-betweens make 
a regular livelihood out of these proceedings.' " — H. C] 

The Ingushes of the Caucasus, according to Klaproth, have the same custom : "If 
a man's son dies, another who has lost his daughter goes to the father and says, *Thy 
son will want a wife in the other world ; I will give him my daughter ; pay me the 
price of the bride.' Such a demand is never refused, even though the purchase of the 
bride amount to thirty cows." {Travds, Eng. Trans. 345.) 

Note 4. — There is a little doubt about the reading of this last paragraph. The 
G. T, has — " M^s desormh volun retorner h. nostre conte en la grant plaingne oil nos 
estion quant nos comechames desfais des Tartars" whilst Pauthier's text has " Mais 



Chap. LVI. THE PLAIN BEYOND CARACORON 269 

desormais ziieil retourner a ttton conte queje lessai d'or plain quant nous commencames 
des faiz des Tatars" The former reading looks very like a misunderstanding of one 
similar to the latter, where dor plain seems to be an adverbial expression, with some 
such meaning as "just now,"' "a while ago." I have not, ♦lowever, been able to 
trace the expression elsewhere. Cotgrave has or primes, " but even now," etc. ; and 
has also de plain, "presently, immediately, out of hand." It seems quite possible 
that d'or plain should have had the meaning surest ed. 



CHAPTER LVI. 

Sundry Particulars of the Plain beyond Caracoron. 

And when you leave Caracoron and the Altay, in which 
they bury the bodies of the Tartar Sovereigns, as I told 
you, you go north for forty days till you reach a country 
called the Plain of Bargu.^ The people there are 
called Mescript ; they are a very wild race, and live 
by their cattle, the most of which are stags, and these 
stags, I assure you, they used to ride upon. Their 
customs are like those of the Tartars, and they are 
subject to the Great Kaan. They have neither corn 
nor wine. [They get birds for food, for the country 
is full of lakes and pools and marshes, which are much 
frequented by the birds when they are moulting, and 
when they have quite cast their feathers and can't fly, 
those people catch them. They also live partly on 
fish.^ 

And when you have travelled forty days over this 
great plain you come to the ocean, at the place where 
the mountains are in which the Pereorine falcons have 
their nests. And in those mountains it is so cold that 
you find neither man or woman, nor beast nor bird, 
except one kind of bird called BargzLerlac, on which 
the falcons feed. They are as big as partridges, and 
have feet like those of parrots and a tail like a swallow's, 



I 1 



\ ■ 270 MARCO POLO Book I. 

and are very strong in flight. And when the Grand 
Kaan wants Peregrines from the nest, he sends thither 
to procure them.^ It is also on islands in that sea that 
the Gerfalcons are bred. You must know that the 
place is so far to the north that you leave the North 
Star somewhat behind you towards the south ! The 
gerfalcons are so abundant there that the Emperor 
can have as many as he likes to send for. And you 
must not suppose that those gerfalcons which the 
Christians carry into the Tartar dominions go to the 
Great Kaan ; they are carried only to the Prince of 
the Lev-ant.^ 

Now I have told you all about the provinces north- 
ward as far as the Ocea^ Sea, beyond which there is 
no more land at all ; so I shall proceed to tell you 
of the other provinces on the way to the Great Kaan. 
Let us, then, return to that province of which I 
spoke before, called Campichu. 



Note i. — The readings differ as to the length of the journey. In Pauthier's text 
we seem to have first a journey of forty days from near Karakorum to the Plain of Bargu, 
and then a journey of forty days more across the plain to the Northern Ocean. The 
G. T. seems to present only one journey of forty days (Ramusio, of sixty days), but 
leaves the interval from Karakorum undefined. I have followed the former, though 
with some doubt. 

Note 2. — This paragraph from Ramusio replaces the following in Pauthier's text : 
"In the summer they got abundance of game, both beasts and birds, but in winter, 
there is none to be had because of the great cold." 

Marco is here dealing, I apprehend, with hearsay geography, and, as is common 
in like cases, there is great compression of circumstances and characteristics, analogous 
to the like compression of little-known regions in medireval maps. 

The name Bargu appears to be the same with that often mentioned in Mongol 
history as Barguchin Tugrum or Barguti, and which Rashiduddin calls the 
northc^rn limit of the inhabited earth. This commenced about Lake Baikal, where 
the name still survives in that of a river {Bargtizin) falling into the Lake on the east 
side, and of a town on its banks {Barguzinsk). Indeed, according to Rashid himself, 
Bargu was the name of one of the tribes occupying the plain ; and a quotation from 
Father Hyacinth would seem to show that the country is still called Barakhu. 

[The Archimandrite Palladius {Elucidations, 16-17) writes : — " In the Mongol text 
of Chingis Khan's biography, this country is called Barhu and Barhuchin ; it is to be 
supposed, according to Colonel Yule's identification of this name with the modern 
Barguzin, that this country was near Lake Baikal. The fact that Merkits were in 
Bargu is confirmed by the following statement in Chingis Khan's biography : 
' When Chingis Khan defeated his enemies, the Merkits, they fled to Barhuchin 



Chap. LVI. THE PLAIN BEYOND CARACORON 27 1 

tokum.' Tokum signifies ' a hollow, a low place,' according to the Chinese trans- 
lation of the above-mentioned biography, made in 1 381 ; thus Barhuchin tokum un- 
doubtedly corresponds to M. Polo's Plain of Bargu. As to M. Polo's statement that 
the inhabitants of Bargu were Merkils, it cannot be accepted unconditionally. The 
Merkits were not indigenous to the country near Baikal, but belonged originally, 
— according to a division set forth in the Mongol text of the Yuan ch 'ao pi ski, — 
to the category of tribes living in yurts, i.e. nomad tribes, or tribes of the desert. 
Meanwhile we find in the same biography of Chingis Khan, mention of a people 
called Barhun, which belonged to the category of tribes living in the forests ; and we 
have therefore reason to suppose that the Barhuns were the aborigines of Barhu. 
After the time of Chingis Khan, this ethnographic name disappears from Chinese 
history ; it appears again in the middle of the i6th century. The author of the 
Yyu (1543- 1 544), in enumerating the tribes inhabiting Mongolia and the adjacent 
countries, mentions the Barhu, as a strong tribe, able to supply up to several tens of 
thousands (?) of warriors, armed with steel swords ; but the country inhabited by them 
is not indicated. The Mongols, it is added, call them Black Ta-tze (Khara 
Mongols, i.e. 'Lower Mongols'). 

"At the close of the 17th century, the Barhus are found inhabiting the western slopes 
of the interior Hing'an, as well as between Lake Kulon and River Khalkha, and de- 
pendent on a prince of eastern Khalkhas, Doro beile. (Maijchu title.) 

" At the time of Galdan Khan's invasion, a part of them fled to Siberia with the 
eastern Khalkhas, but afterwards they retiimed. [Mung ku yew mu ki and Lung sha 
ki lio.'\ After their rebellion in 1696, quelled by a Manchu General, they were in- 
cluded with other petty tribes (regarding which few researches have been made) in the 
categor)' butkha, or hunters, and received a military organisation. They are divided 
into Old and New Barhu, according to the time when they were brought under Manchu 
rule. The Barhus belong to the Mongolian, not to the Tungusian race ; they are 
sometimes considered even to have been in relationship with the Khalkhas. {He lung 
Hang wai ki and Lung sha ki Ho. ) 

*' This is all the substantial information we possess on the Barhu. Is there an 
affinity to be found between the modern Barhus and the Barhuns of Chingis Khan's 
bic^raphy ? — and is it to be supposed, that in the course of time, they spread from Lake 
Baikal to the Hing'an range ? or is it more correct to consider them a branch of the 
Mongol race indigenous to the Hing'an Mountains, and which received the general 
archaic name of Bargu, which might have pointed out the physical character of the 
country they inhabited [A7« Shi\, just as we find in history the Urianhai of Altai and 
the Urianhai of Western Manchuria ? It is difficult to solve this question for want 
of historical data."— H. C] 

Mescript, or Mecri, as in G. T. The Merkit, a great tribe to the south-east of the 
Baikal, were also called Mekrit, and sometimes Megrin. The Mekrit are spoken of 
also by Carpini and Rubruquis. D'Avezac thinks that the Kerait, and not the Merkit, 
are intended by all three travellers. As regards Polo, I see no reason for this ^-iew. 
The name he uses is Mekrit, and the position which he assigns to them agrees fairly 
with that assigned on good authority to the Merkit or Mekrit. Only, as in other 
cases, where he is rehearsing hearsay information, it does not follow that the identifica- 
tion of the name involves the correctness of all the circumstances that he connects 
with that name. We saw in ch. xxx. that under Pashai he seemed to lump cir- 
cumstances belonging to various parts of the region from Badakhshan to the Indus ; 
so here under Mekrit he embraces characteristics belonging to tribes extending far 
beyond the Mekrit, and which in fact are appropriate to the Tungnses. Rashiduddin 
seems to describe the latter under the name of Uriangkut of the Woods, a people 
dwelling beyond the frontier of Barguchin, and in connection with whom he speaks of 
their Reindeer obscurely, as well as of their tents of birch bark, and their hunting on 
snow-shoes. 

The mention of the Reindeer by Polo in this passage is one of the interesting 
points which Pauthier's text omits. Marsden objects to the statement that the stags 



272 MARCO POLO Book I. 

are ridden upon, and from this motive mis-renders " li quaP anche cavalcano," as, 
"which they make use of for the purpose of travelling." Yet he might have found 
in Witsen that the Reindeer are ridden by various Siberian Tribes, but especially by 
the Tunguses. Erman is very full on the reindeer-riding of the latter people, having 
himself travelled far in that way in going to Okhotsk, and gives a very detailed 
description of the saddle, etc. , employed. The reindeer of the Tunguses are stated 
by the same traveller to be much larger and finer animals than those of Lapland. 
They are also used for pack-carriage and draught. Old Richard Eden says that the 
" olde wryters" relate that "certayne Scythians doe ryde on Hartes." I have not 
traced to what he refers, but if the statement be in any ancient author it is very 
remarkable. Some old editions of Olaus Magnus have curious cuts of Laplanders and 
others riding on reindeer, but I find nothing in the text appropriate. We hear from 
travellers of the Lapland deer being occasionally mounted, but only it would seem in 
sport, not as a practice. {Erdmann, 189, 191 ; UOhsson, I. 103; UAvezac, 534 
seqq. ; J. As. ser. IL torn. xi. ; ser. IV. tom. xvii. 107 ; N. et E. XIIL i. 274-276 ; 
Witsen, IL 670, 671, 680; Erman, II. 321, 374, 429, 449 seqq., and original 
German, II. 347 seqq. ; Azotes on Russia, Hac. Soc. II. 224 ; J. A. S. B. XXIX. 379.) 
The numerous lakes and marshes swarming with water-fowl are very characteristic 
of the country between Yakutsk and the Kolyma. It is evident that Marco had his 
information from an eye-witness, though the whole picture is compressed. Wrangell, 
speaking of Nijni Kolyma, says :" It is at the moulting season that the great bird- 
hunts take place. The sportsmen surround the nests, and slip their dogs, which drive 
the birds to the water, on which they are easily knocked over with a gun or arrow, 
or even with a stick. . . , This chase is divided into several periods. They begin 
with the ducks, which moult first ; then come the geese ; then the swans. ... In 
each case the people take care to choose the time when the birds have lost their 
feathers." The whole calendar with the Yakuts and Russian settlers on the Kolyma 
is a succession of fishing and hunting seasons which the same author details. 
(L 149, 150; 119-121.) 

Note 3. — What little is said of the Barguerlac points to some bird of the genus 
Pterochs, or Sand Grouse (to which belong the so-called Rock Pigeons of India), or 
to the allied Tetrao paradoxus of Pallas, now known as Syrrhaptes Pallasii. Indeed, 
we find in Zenker's Dictionary that Boghurtldk (or BagMrtldk, as it is in Pavet de 
Courteille's) in Oriental Turkish is the Kata, i.e. I presume, the Pterocles alchata of 
Linnaeus, or Large Pin-tailed Sand Grouse. Mr, Gould, to whom I referred the 
point, is clear that the Syrrhaptes is Marco's bird, and I believe there can be no 
question of it. 

[Passing through Ch'ang-k'ou, Mr. Rockhill found the people praying for rain. 
*' The people told me," he says, in his Journey (p. 9), "that they knew long ago the 
year would be disastrous, for the sand grouse had been more numerous of late than for 
years, and the saying goes Sha-cKi kuo, niai lao-po, ' when the sand grouse fly by, 
wives will be for sale.' " — IL C] 

The chief difficulty in identification with the Syrrhaptes or any known bird, would 
be "the feet like a parrot's." The feet of the Syrrhaptes are not indeed like a 
parrot's, though its awkward, slow, and waddling gait on the ground, may have 
suggested the comparison ; and though it has very odd and anomalous feet, a circum- 
stance which the Chinese indicate in another way by calling the bird (according to 
Hue) Lung Kio, or " Dragon-foot." [Mr. Rockhill {Jotirney) writes in a note (p. 9) : 
•' I, for my part, never heard any other name than sha-cKi, 'sand-fowl,' given them. 
This name is used, however, for a variety of birds, among others the partridge." — H. C. ] 
The hind-toe is absent, the toes are unseparated, recognisable only by the broad flat 
nails, and fitted below with a callous couch, whilst the whole foot is covered with short 
dense feathers like hair, and is more like a quadruped's paw than a bird's foot. 

The home of the Syrrhaptes is in the Altai, the Kirghiz Steppes, and the 
country round Lake Baikal, though it also visits the North of China in 



Chap. LVI. THE PLAIN BEYOND CARACORON 273 

great flights. " On plains of grass and sandy deserts," says Gould 
(Birds of Great Britain, Part IV.), "at one season covered with snow, 
and at another sun-burnt and parched by drought, it finds a congenial home ; in these 
inhospitable and little-known regions it breeds, and when necessity compels it to do 
so, wings its way .... over incredible distances to obtain water or food."' Hue 
says, speaking of the bird on the northern frontier of China : "They generally arrive 
in great flights from the north, especially when much snow has fallen, flying with 
astonishing rapidity, so that the movement of their wings produces a noise like hail." 
It is said to be very delicate eating. The bird owes its place in Gould's Birds of 
Great Britain to the fact — strongly illustrative of its being jiionlt volant, as Polo says 
it is — that it appeared in England in 1859, and since then, at least up to 1863, con- 
tinued to arrive annually in pairs or companies in nearly all parts of our island, from 
Penzance to Caithness. And Gould states that it was breeding in the Danish islands. 
A full account by Mr. A. Newton of this remarkable immigration is contained in the 
Ibis for April, 1864, and many details in Stevenson's Birds of Norfolk, I. 376 seqq. 




SjTrhaptes Pallasii. 

There are plates of Syrrhaptes in Radde's Reisen iiii Siiden von Ost-Sibirien, Bd. II. ; 
in vol. V. of Temminck, Planches Coloriees, PI. 95 ; in Gould, as above ; in Gray, 
Genera of Birds, vol. iii. p. 517 (life size) ; and in the Ibis for April, i860. From the 
last our cut is taken. 

[See A. David et Oustalet, Oiseaux de la Chine, 389, on Syrrhaptes Pallasii or 
Syrrhaptes Paradoxus. — H. C] ' 

Note 4. — Gerfalcons (Shonkdr) were objects of high estimation in the Middle 
Ages, and were frequent presents to and from royal personages. Thus among the 
presents sent with an embassy from King James II. of Aragon to the Sultan of Egypt, 
ill 1314, we find three white gerfalcons. They were sent in homage to Chinghiz and 
to Kublai, by the Kirghiz, but I cannot identify the mountains where they or the 
Peregrines were found. The Peregrine falcon was in Europe sometimes termed 
Faucon Tartare. (See Menage s. v. Sahin.) The Peregrine of Northern Japan, and 
probably therefore that of Siberia, is identical w ith that of Europe. Witsen speaks 
of an island in the Sea of Tartar}-, from which falcons were got, apparently referring 
to a Chinese map as his authority ; but I know nothing more of it. ( Capmany, IV. 
64-65 ; Ibis, 1862, p. 314; IVitsen, II. 656.) 

[On the Fako peregrinus, Lin., a«d other Falcons, see Ed. Blanc's paper men-^ 
tioned on p. 162. The Falco Saker is to be found all over Central Asia ; it is called j 
by the Pekingese Hivang-yng {y&Wow falcon). (David et Oustalet, Oiseaux de la Chine^ 
3i-32.)-H. C] 



VOL. I, 



274 MARCO POLO Book I. 



CHAPTER LVII. 

Of the Kingdom of Erguiul, and Province of Sinju. 

On leaving Campichu, then, you travel five days across 
a tract in which many spirits are heard speaking in the 
night season ; and at the end of those five marches, 
towards the east, you come to a kingdom called 
Erguiul, belonging to the Great Kaan. It is one of 
the several kingdoms which make up the great Province 
of Tangut. The people consist of Nestorian Christians, 
Idolaters, and worshippers of Mahommet.^ 

There are plenty of cities in this kingdom, but 
the capital is Erguiul. You can travel in a south- 
easterly direction from this place into the province 
of Cathay. Should you follow that road to the south- 
east, you come to a city called Sinju, belonging also 
to Tangut, and subject to the Great Kaan, which 
has under it many towns and villages.^ The popula- 
tion is composed of Idolaters, and worshippers of 
Mahommet, but there are some Christians also. There 
are wild cattle in that country [almost] as big as 
elephants, splendid creatures, covered everywhere but 
on the back with shaggy hair a good four palms long. 
They are partly black, partly white, and really wonder- 
fully fine creatures [and the h^ir or wool is extremely 
fine and white, finer and whiter than silk. Messer 
Marco brought some to Venice as a great curiosity, 
and so it was reckoned by those who saw it]. There 
are also plenty of them tame, which have been caught 
young. [They also cross these with the common cow, 



Chap. LVII. THE KINGDOM OF ERGUIUL 275 

and the cattle from this cross are wonderful beasts, 
and better for work than other animals.] These the 
people use commonly for burden and general work, 
and in the plough as well ; and at , the latter they 
will do full twice as much work as any other cattle, 
being such very strong beasts.' 

In this country too is found the best musk in 
the world ; and I will tell you how 'tis produced. There 
exists in that region a kind of wild animal like a 
gazelle. It has feet and tail like the gazelle's, and 
stag's hair of a very coarse kind, but no horns. It 
has four tusks, two below and two above, about three 
inches long, and slender in form, one pair growing 
upwards, and the other downwards. It is a very 
pretty creature. The musk is found in this way. 
When the creature has been taken, they find at the 
navel between the flesh and the skin something like 
an impostume full of blood, which they cut out and 
remove with all the skin attached to it. And the 
blood inside this impostume is the musk that produces 
that powerful perfume. There is an immense number 
of these beasts in the country we are speaking of 
[The flesh is very good to eat. Messer Marco brought 
the dried head and feet of one of these animals to 
V^enice with him.*] 

The people are traders and artizans, and also grow 
abundance of corn. The province has an extent of 26 
days' journey. Pheasants are found there twice as big 
as ours, indeed nearly as big as a peacock, and having 
tails of 7 to 10 palms in length ; and besides them 
other pheasants in aspect like our own, and birds of 
many other kinds, and of beautiful variegated plumage.^ 
The people, who are Idolaters, are fat folks with little 
noses and black hair, and no beard, except a few hairs 
on the upper lip. The women too have very smooth 

VOL. I, 5 2 



276 MARCO POLO Book I. 

and white skins, and in every respect are pretty 
creatures. The men are very sensual, and marry 
many wives, which is not forbidden by their reHgion. 
No matter how base a woman's descent may be, if 
she have beauty she may find a husband among the 
greatest men in the land, the man paying the girl's 
father and mother a great sum of money, according to 
the bargain that may be made. 



Note i. — No approximation to the name of Erguiul in an appropriate position 
has yet been elicited from Chinese or other Oriental sources. We cannot go widely 
astray as to its position, five days east of Kanchau. Klaproth identifies it with 
Liangchau-fu ; Pauthier with the neighbouring city of Yungchang, on the ground 
that the latter was, in the time of Kublai, the head of one of the LUs, or Circles, of 
Kansuh or Tangut, which he has shown some reason for believing to be the 
"kingdoms" of Marco. 

It is probable, however, that the town called by Polo Erguiul lay north of both 
the cities named, and more in line with the position assigned below to Egrigaya. (See 
note I, ch. Iviii.) 

I may notice that the structure of the name Ergui-ul or Ergiu-ul, has a look of 
analogy to that of Tang-keu-ul, named in the next note. 

[" Erguiul is Erichew of the Mongol text of the Yuen cKao pi ski, Si-liang in the 
Chinese history, the modern Liang chow fit. Klaproth, on the authority of Rashid- 
eddin, has already identified this name with that of Si-liang." [Palladius, p. 18.) 
M. Bonin left Ning-h'ia at the end of July, 1899, and he crossed the desert to 
Liangchau in fifteen days from east to west; he is the first traveller who took this 
route : Prjevalsky went westward, passing by the residence of the Prince of Alashan, 
and Obrutchev followed the route south of Bonin's. — H. C] 

Note 2. — No doubt Marsden is right in identifying this with Sining-chau, now 
Sining-fu, the Chinese city nearest to Tibet and the Kokonor frontier. Grueber and 
Dorville, who passed it on their way to Lhasa, in 1661, call it tirbs ingens. Sining 
was visited also by Hue and Gabet, who are unsatisfactory, as usually on geo- 
graphical matters. They also call it "an immense town," but thinly peopled, its 
commerce having been in part transferred to Tang-keu-ul, a small town closer to the 
frontier. 

[Sining belonged to the country called Hwang chung ; in 1 198, under the Sung 
Dynasty, it was subjugated by the Chinese, and was named Si-ning chau ; at the be- 
ginning of the Ming Dynasty (from 1368), it was named Si-ning wei, and since 1726 
Si-ning fu. (Cf. Gueluy, Chine, p. 62.) From Liangchau, M. Bonin went to Sining 
through the Lao kou kau pass and the Ta-Tung ho. Obrutchev and Grum Grijmailo 
took the usual route from Kanchau to Sining. After the murder of Dutreuil de Rhins 
at Tung bu wdo, his companion, Grenard, arrived at Sining, and left it on the 29th 
July, 1894. Dr. Sven Hedin gives in his book his own drawing of a gate of Sining- 
fu, where he arrived on the 25th November, 1896. — H. C] 

Sining is called by the Tibetans Ziling or Jiling, by the Mongols Seling Khoto, 
A shawl wool texture, apparently made in this quarter, is imported into I"Cashmir and 
Ladak, under the name of Sling. I have supposed Sining to be also the Zilm of 
which Mr. Shaw heard at Yarkand, and am answerable for a note to that effect on 
p. 38 of his High Tartary. But Mr. Shaw, on his return to Europe, gave some rather 
Strong reasons against this. (See Proc. R. G. S. XVI. 245 ; Kircher, pp. 64, 66 ; 



Chap. LVII. THE YAK OF TARTARY 277 

Delia Penna, 27; Dames' s Report, App. p. ccxxix. ; Vigne, II. 1 10, 129.) [At 
present Sining is called by the Tibetans Seling K'ar or Kuar, and by the Mongols, 
Seling K'utun, K'ar and ICutun meaning " fortified city." (Eockhill, Land of the 
Lamas, 49, note.) — H. C] 

[Mr. Rockhill {Diary of a Journey , 65) writes : " There must be some Scotch blood 
in the Hsi-ningites, for I find they are very fond of oatmeal and of cracked wheat. 
The first is c&Wed yen-met ch' en, and is eaten boiled with the water in which mutton 
has been cooked, or with neat's-foot oil (yang-fi yu). The cracked wheat (met-tzU 
fan) is eaten prepared in the same way, and is a very good dish." — H. C] 

Note 3. — -The Dong, or Wild Yak, has till late years only been known by vague 
rumour. It has always been famed in native reports for its great fierceness. The 
Haft IkUm says that "it kills with its horns, by its kicks, by treading under foot, 
and by tearing with its teeth," whilst the Emperor Humayun himself told Sidi 'Ali, 
the Turkish admiral, that when it had knocked a man down it skinned him from head 
to heels by licking him with its tongue ! Dr. Campbell states, in the Journal of the 
As. Soc. of Bengal, that it was said to be four times the size of the domestic Yak. 
The horns are alleged to be sometimes three feet long, and of immense girth ; they 
are handed round full of strong drink at the festivals of Tibetan grandees, as the Urus 
horns were in Germany, according to Caesar. 

A note, with which I have been favoured by Dr. Campbell (long the respected 
Superintendent of British Sikkim) says: "Captain Smith, of the Bengal Army, who 
had travelled in Western Tibet, told me that he had shot many wild Yaks in the 
neighbourhood of the Mansarawar Lake, and that he measured a bull which was 
18 hands high, i.e. 6 feet All that he saw were black all over. He also spoke to 
the fierceness of the animal. He was once charged by a bull that he had wounded, 
and narrowly escaped being killed. Perhaps my statement (above referred to) in 
regard to the relative size of the Wild and Tame Yak, may require modification if 
applied to all the countries in which the Yak is found. At all events, the finest speci- 
men of the tame Yak I ever saw, was not in Nepal, Sikkim, Tibet, or Bootan, but 
in \i\Qjardin des Plantes at Paris ; and that one, a male, was brought from Shanghai. 
The best drawing of a Yak I know is that in Turner's Tibet. '^ 

[Lieutenant Samuel Turner gave a very good description of the Yak of Tartary, which 
he calls Soora-Goy, or the Bushy-tailed Bull of Tibet. {Asiat. Researches, No. XXIII, 
pp. 351-353, with a plate.) He says wth regard to the colour: " There is a great 
variety of colours amongst them, but black or white are the most prevalent. It is not 
uncommon to see the long hair upon the ridge of the back, the tail, tuft upon the 
chest, and the legs below the knee white, when all the rest of the animal is jet black." 
A good drawing of " an enormous" Yak is to be found on p. 183 of Captain Wellb/s 
Unknown Tibet. (See also Captain Deasy's work on Tibet, p. 363.) Prince Henri 
d'Orleans brought home a fine specimen, which he shot during his journey \vith 
Bonvalot ; it is now exhibited in the galleries of the Museum d'Histoire Naturelle. 
Some Yaks were brought to Paris on the :st April, 1854, and the celebrated artist, 
Mme. Rosa Bonheur, made sketches after them. (^t&Jour. Soc. Acclimatation, June, 
1900, 39-40.)— H. C] 

Captain Prjevalsky, in his recent journey (1872-1873), shot twenty wild Yaks south 
of the Koko Nor. He specifies one as 1 1 feet in length exclusive of the tail, which 
was 3 feet more ; the height 6 feet. He speaks of the Yak as less formidable than 
it looks, from apathy and stupidity, but very hard to kill ; one having taken eighteen 
bullets before it succumbed. 

[Mr. Rockhill [Rubruck, 151, note) writes : "The average load carried by a Yak 
is about 250 lbs. The wild Yak bull is an enormous animal, and the people of 
Turkestan and North Tibet credit him with extraordinary strength. Mirza Haidar, in 
the Tarikhi Rashidi, says of the wild Yak or ktttds: 'This is a very wild and 
ferocious beast. In whatever manner it attacks one it proves fatal. Whether it 
strikes with its horns, or kicks, or overthrows its victim. If it has no opportunity of 



278 



MARCO POLO Book I. 



doing any of these things, it tosses its enemy with its tongue twenty gaz into the air, 
and he is dead before reaching the ground. One male kuids is a load for twelve 
horses. One man cannot possibly raise a shoulder of the animal.'" — Captain Deasy 
(hi Tibet, 363) says : ' In a few places on lofty ground in Tibet we found Yaks in 
herds numbering from ten to thirty, and sometimes more. Most of the animals are 
black, brown specimens being very rare. Their roving herds move with great 
agility over the steep and stony ground, apparently enjoying the snow and frost and 
wind, which seldom fail. . . . Yaks are capable of offering formidable resistance to 
the sportsman. . . .'" — H. C] 

The tame Yaks are never, I imagine, "caught young," as Marco says; it is a 
domesticated breed, though possibly, as with buffaloes in Bengal, the breed may 
occasionally be refreshed by a cross of wild blood. They are employed for riding, 
as beasts of burden, and in the plough. [Lieutenants. Turner, I.e., says, on the other 
hand: "They are never employed in agriculture, but are extremely useful as beasts 
of burthen." — H. C] In the higher parts of our Himalayan provinces, and in Tibet, 
the Yak itself is most in usfe ; but in the less elevated tracts several breeds crossed 
with the common Indian cattle are more used. They have a variety of names ac- 
cording to their precise origin. The inferior Yaks used in the plough are ugly 
enough, and "have more the appearance of large shaggy bears than of oxen," but 
the Yak used for riding, says Hoffmeister, "is an infinitely handsomer animal. It 
has a stately hump, a rich silky hanging tail nearly reaching the ground, twisted 
horns, a noble bearing, and an erect head." Cunningham, too, says that the Dso, 
one of the mixed breeds, is "a very handsome animal, with long shaggy hair, 
generally black and white." Many of the various tame breeds appear to have the 
tail and back white, and also the fringe under the body, but black and red are the 
prevailing colours. Some of the crossbred cows are excellent milkers, better than 
either parent stock. 

Notice in this passage the additional and interesting particulars given by Ramusio, 
e.g. the use of the mixed breeds. " Finer than silk," is an exaggeration, or say an 
hyberbole, as is the following expression, " As big as elephants," even with Ramusio's 
apologetic quasi. Caesar says the Ilercynian Urus was magnitudine patillo infra 
elephantos. 

The tame Yak is used across the breadth of Mongolia. Rubruquis saw them at 
Karakorum, and describes them well. Mr. Ney Elias tells me he found Yaks 
common everywhere along his route in Mongolia, between the Tui river (long, circa 
101°) and the upper valleys of the Kobdo near the Siberian frontier. At Uliasul'ai 
they were used occasionally by Chinese settlers for drawing carts, but he never saw 
them used for loads or for riding, as in Tibet. He has also seen Yaks in the 
neighbourhood of Kwei-hwa-ch'eng. [Tendtic, see ch. lix. note I.) This may 
be taken as the eastern limit of the employment of the Yak ; the western limit is in 
the highlands of Khokand. 

These animals had been noticed by Cosmas [who calls them agriobous] in the 
6th century, and by ^lian in the 3rd. The latter speaks of them as black cattle 
with white tails, from which fly-flappers were made for Indian kings. And the 
great Kalidasa thus sang of the Yak, according to a learned (if somewhat rugged) 
version ascribed to Dr. Mill. The poet personifies the Himalaya : — 

" For Him the large Yaks in his cold plains that bide 
Whisk here and there, playful, their tails' bushy pride. 
And evermore flapping those fans of long hair 
Which borrowed moonbeams have made splendid and fair, 
Proclaim at each stroke (what our flapping men sing) 
His title of Honour, 'The Dread Mountain King.'" 

Who can forget P^re Hue's inimitable picture of the hairy Yaks of their caravan, 



Chap. LVII. MUSK DEER 279 

after passing a river in the depth of winter, " walking with their legs wide apart, 
and bearing an enormous load of stalactites, which hong beneath their bellies quite 
to the ground. The monstrous beasts looked exactly as if they were preserved in 
sugar-candy." Or that other, even more striking, of- a great troop of wild 
Yaks, caught in the upper waters of the Kin-sha Kiang, as they swam, in the 
moment of congelation, and thus preserved throughout the winter, gigantic "flies in 
amber." 

{N. et E. XIV. 478 ; /. As. IX. 199 ; /. A. S. B. IX. 566, XXIV. 235 ; Sham, 
p. 91 ; Ladak, p. 210 ; Geog. Magazine, April, 1874 ; Hoff'meistet' s Travels, p. 441 ; 
Rt4br. 288 ; yEl, de Nat. An. XV. 14 ; /. A. S. B. I. 342; Mrs. Sinnetfs Hue, 
pp. 228, 235.) 

Note 4, — Ramusio adds that the hunters seek the animal at New Moon, at which 
time the musk is secreted. 

The description is good except as to Xhefour tusks, for the musk deer has canine 
teeth only in the upper jaw, slender and prominent as he describes them. The flesh 
of the animal is eaten by the Chinese, and in Siberia by both Tartars and Russians, 
but that of the males has a strong musk flavour. 

The "immense number" of these animals that existed in the Himalayan countries 
may be conceived from Tavemier's statement, that on one visit to Patna, then the 
great Indian mart for this article, he purchased 7673 pods of musk. These pre- 
sumably came by way of Nepal ; but musk pods of the highest class were also 
imported from Khotan vi& Yarkand and Leh, and the lowest price such a pod 
fetched at Yarkand was 250 tankas, or upwards of 4/. This import has long been 
extinct, and indeed the trade in the article, except towards China, has altogether 
greatly declined, probably (says Mr. Hodgson) because its repute as a medicine is 
becoming fast exploded. In Sicily it is still so used, but apparently only as a sort 
of decent medical viaticum, for when it is said "the Doctors have given him musk," 
it is as much as to say that they have given up the patient. 

[" Here Marco Polo speaks of musk ; musk and rhubarb (which he mentions before, 
Sukchur, ch. xliii.) are the most renowned and valuable of the products of the 
province of Kansu, which comparatively produces verj' little ; the industry in both 
these articles is at present in the hands of the Tanguts of that province \Su chow 
chi\:' (Palladius, p. 18.) 

Writing under date 15th February, 1892, from Losar (coming from Sining), Mr. 
Rockhill saj-s: "The musk trade here is increasing, Cantonese and Ssu-ch'uanese 
traders now come here to buy it, pa)-ing for good musk four times its weight in 
silver {ssii huan, as they say). The best test of its purity is an examination of the 
colour. The Tibetans adulterate it by mLxing tsamba and blood with it. The best 
lime to buy it is from the seventh to the ninth moon (latter part of August to middle 
of November)." Mr. Rockhill adds in a note : "Mongols call musk awo ; Tibetans 
call it latsi. The best musk they say is ' white musk,' tsahan owo in Mongol, in 
Tibetan latsi karpo. I do not know whether white refers to the colour of the musk 
itself or to that of the hair on the skin covering the musk pouch." {Diary of a 
fmtrney, p. 71.)— H. C] 

Three species of the Moschtts are found in the Mountains of Tibet, and 
M. Chrysogaster, which Mr. Hodgson calls " the loveliest," and which chiefly 
supplies the highly-prized pod called Kdghazi, or "Thin-as-paper," is almost 
exclusively confined to the Chinese frontier. Like the Yak, the Moschus is mentioned 
by Cosmas {circa a.d. 545), and musk appears in a Greek prescription by Aetius 
of Amida, a physician practising at Constantinople about the same date. 

{Martini, p. 39; Tav., Des Indes, Bk. II. ch. xxiv. ; /. A. S. B. XL 285; 
Davies's Rep. App. p. ccxxx\-ii. ; Dr. Fliickiger in Schweiz. IVochenschr. fiir 
Phannacic, 1867; Heyd, Commerce du LevatU, II. 636-640.) 

Note 5. — The China pheasant answering best to the indications in the text. 



28o 



MARCO POLO 



Book I. 



appears to be Reeves's Pheasant. Mr. Gould has identified this bird with Marco's in his 

magnificent Bh-ds of Asia, and 
has been kind enough to show 
me a specimen which, with 
the body, measured 6 feet 8 
inches. The tail feathers alone, 
however, are said to reach to 6 
and 7 feet, so that Marco's ten 
palms was scarcely an exagger- 
ation. These tail-feathers are 
often seen on the Chinese stage 
in the cap of the hero of the 
drama, and also decorate the 
hats of certain civil function- 
aries. 

Size is the point in which 
the bird fails to meet Marco's 
description. In that respect 
the latter would rather apply 
to the Crossoptilon auritum, 
which is nearly as big as a 
turkey, or to the glorious 
Miindl ( Lopophorus impey- 
amis), but then that has no 
length of tail. The latter 
seems to be the bird described 
by ^lian : " Magnificent 
cocks which have the crest 
variegated and ornate like a 
crown of flowers, and the tail 
feathers not curved like a 
cock's, but broad and carried 
in a train like a peacock's ; 
the feathers are partly golden, 
and partly azure or emerald- 
coloured." (Wood's Birds, 
6io, from which I have copied 
the illustration ; Williavis, M. 
A". I. 261 ; Ail. De Nat. An. 
XVI. 2.) A species of C;-(?^j'(?/- 
tilon has recently been found 
by Captain Prjevalsky in Ala- 
shan, the Egrigaia (as I believe) 
of next chapter, and one also 
by Abbe Armand David at the 
Koko Nor. 

[See on the Phasianidre 

family in Central and Western 

Asia, David et Oustalet, 

Oiseaux dc la Chine, 401-421 ; 

the Phasianus Retvesii or 

veneratiis is called by the 

Chinese of Tung-lin, near 

Peking, Djeu-ky (hen-arrow) ; 

the Crossoptilon auritum is 

named Ma-ky. — H. C] 
Reeves's Pheasant. 




Chap. LVIII. THE KINGDOM OF EGRIGAIA 28 1 

CHAPTER LVIII. 
Of the Kingdom of Egrigaia. 

Starting again from Erguiul you ride eastward for 
eight days, and then come to a province called Egrigaia, 
containing numerous cities and villages, and belonging 
to Tangut.^ The capital city is called Calachan.^ The 
people are chiefly Idolaters, but there are fine churches 
belonging to the Nestorian Christians. They are all 
subjects of the Great Kaan. They make in this city 
great quantities of camlets of camel's wool, the finest 
in the world ; and some of the camlets that they make 
are white, for they have white camels, and these are 
the best of all. Merchants purchase these stuffs here, 
and carry them over the world for sale.^ 

We shall now proceed eastward from this place and 
enter the territory that was formerly Prester John's. 



Note i. — Chinghiz invaded Tangut in all five times, viz. in 1205, 1207, 1209 
(or according to Erdmann, 1210-1211), 121 8, and 1226- 1227, on which last expedition 
he died. 

A. In the third invasion, according to lyOhsson's Chinese guide (Father Hyacinth), 
he took the town of Uiraca, and the fortress of Imen, and laid si^e to the capital, 
then called Chung-sing or Chung-hing, now Ning-hsia. 

Rashid, in a short notice of this campaign, calls the first city Erica, Erlaca, or, as 
Erdmann has it, Artacki. In De Mailla it is Ulahai. 

B. On die last invasion (1226), D'Ohsson's Chinese authority says that Chinghiz 
took Kanchau and Suhchau, Cholo and Khola in the province of Liangcheu, and 
then proceeded to the Yellow River, and invested Lingchau, south of Ning-hsia. 

Erdmann, following his reading of Rashiduddin, says Chinghiz took the cities of 
Tangut, called Arucki, Kachtt, Sichu, and Kamichii, and besieged Deresgai 
(D'Ohsson, Derssekai), whilst Shidergu, the King of Tangut, betook himself to his 
capital Artackin. 

D'Ohsson, also professing to follow Rashid, calls this " his capital Irghai, which 
the Mongols call /rroya." Klaproth, illustrating Polo, reads " Eyircai, which the 
Mongols call Eyircayd." 

Petis de la Croix, relating the same campaign and professing to follow Fadlallah, 
i.e. Rashiduddin, says the king "retired to his fortress oi Arbaca." 

C. Sanang Setzen several times mentions a city called Jrghai, apparently in 
Tangut ; but all we can gather as to his position is that it seems to have lain east of 
Kanchau. 



26 2 MARCO POLO Book I. 

We perceive that the Arbaca of P. de la Croix, the Eyircai of Klaproth, the 
Uiraca of D'Ohsson, the Artacki or Artackin of Erdmann, are all various readings or 
forms of the same name, and are the same with the Chinese form Ulahai of De Mailla, 
and most probably the place is the Egiigaia of Polo. 

We see also that Erdmann mentions another place Aruki {^^^'i) in connec- 
tion with Kanchau and Suhchau. This is, I suspect, the Ergtiiul of Polo, and per- 
haps the Irghai of Sanang Setzen. 

Rashiduddin seems wrong in calling Ircaya the capital of the king, a circumstance 
which leads lOaproth to identify it with Ning-hsia. Pauthier, identifying Ulahai with 
Egrigaya, shows that the former was one of the circles of Tangut, but not that of 
Ning-hsia. Its position, he says, is uncertain. Klaproth, however, inserts it in his 
map of Asia, in the era of Kublai {Tabl. Hist. pi. 22), as Ulakhai to the north of 
Ning-hsia, near the great bend eastward of the Hwang-Ho. Though it may have ex- 
tended in this direction, it is probable, from the name referred to in next note, that 
Egrigaia or Ulahai is represented by the modern principality of Alaskan, visited by 
Prjevalskyin 1871 and 1872. 

[New travels and researches enable me to say that there can be no doubt that 
Egrigaia = Ning-hsia. Palladius {I.e. 18) says: '■'■Egrigaia is Erigaia of the Mongol 
text. Klaproth was correct in his supposition that it is modern Ning-h'ia. Even 
now the Eleuths of Alashan call Ning-h'ia, Yargai. In M. Polo's time this depart- 
ment was famous for the cultivation of the Safflower {carthamus tindorius). \^Siu thing 
kien, A.D. 1292.] " Mr. Rockhill (cf. his Diary of a Journey) writes to me that Ning- 
hsia is still called Irge Khotun by Mongols at the present day. M. Bonin (/. As., 

1900, I. 585) mentions the same fact. 

Palladius (19) adds: "■Erigaia is not to be confounded with Urahai, often 
mentioned in the history of Chingis Khan's wars with the Tangut kingdom. Urahai 
was a fortress in a pass of the same name in the Alashan Mountains. Chingis Khan 
spent five months there (an. 1208), during which he invaded and plundered the 
country in the neighbourhood. \Si hia shu shi.~\ The Alashan Mountains form a 
semicircle 500 li in extent,, and have over forty narrow passes leading to the 
department of Ning-hia; the broadest and most practicable of these is now called 
Ch'i-mu-K'ow ; it is not more than 80 feet broad. \_Ning hia fu chi.] It may be 
that the Urahai fortress existed near this pass." 

"From Liang-chow fu, M. Polo follows a special route, leaving the molern 
postal route on his right ; the road he took has, sinct, the time of the Emperor K'ang-hi, 
been called the courier's route." {Palladius, 18.) — 11. C.j 

Note 2. — Calachan, the chief town of Egrigaia, is mentioned, according to 
Klaproth, by Rashiduddin, among the cities of Tangut, as Kala.iAN. The name and 
approximate position suggest, as just noticed, identity with Alashan, the modern 
capital of which, called by Prjevalsky Dyn-yuan-yin, stands some distance west of the 
Hwang-Ho, in about lat. 39°. Polo gives no data for the interval between this and 
his next stage. 

[The Dyn-yuan-yin of Prjevalsky is the camp of Ting-yuan-yng or Fu-ma-fu of 
M. Bonin, the residence of the Si-wang (western prince), of Alashan, an abbreviation 
of Alade-shan {shau, mountain in Chinese), Alade = Eleuth or CElot ; the sister of 
this prince married a son of Prince Tuan, ihc c\\\ei oi ihc Boxers. [La Geographic, 

1901, I. 118.) Palladius (/.£•. 19) says: *' Under the name of Calachan, Polo probably 
means the summer residence of the Tangut kings, which was 60 li from Ning-hia, at 
the foot of the Alashan Mountains. It was built by the famous Tangut king Vuen- 
hao, on a large scale, in the shape of a castle, in which were high terraces and 
magnificent buildings. Traces of these buildings are visible to this day. There arc 
often found coloured tiles and iron nails i foot, and even 2 feet long. The last 
Tangut kings made this place their permanent residence, and led there an indolent 
and sensual life. The Chinese name of this residence was Ho-lan shan Li-Kung, 



Chap. LVIII. WHITE CAMELS 283 

There is sufficient reason to suppose that this very residence is named (under the year 
1226) in the Mongol text Alashai ntintuh ; and in the chronicles of the Tangut 
Kingdom, Halahachar, otherwise Halachar, apparently in the Tangut language. 
Thus M. Polo's Calachan can be identified with the Halachar of the Si hia shu shi, 
and can be taken to designate the Alashan residence of the Tangut kings." — H. C] 

Note 3. — Among the Buraets and Chinese at Kiakhta snow-white camels, 
without albino character, are often seen, and probably in other parts of Mongolia. (See 
Erdmann, II. 261.) Philostratus tells us that the Kng of Taxila furnished white 
camels to Apollonius. I doubt if the present King of Taxila, whom Anglo-Indians 
call the Commissioner of Rawal Pindi, could do the like. 

Cavuiiellotti appear to have been fine woollen textures, by no means what are now 
called camlets, nor were they necessarily of camel's wool, for those of Angora goat's 
wool were much valued. M. Douet d'Arcq calls it "a fine stuff of wool approaching 
to our Cashmere, and sometimes of silk." Indeed, as Mr. Marsh points out, the word 
is Arabic, and has nothing to do with Camel in its origin ; though it evidently came to be 
associated therewith. Khamlat is defined in F. Johnson's Diet. : " Camelot, silk 
and camel's hair ; also all silk or velvet, especially pily and plushy," and Khaml is 
" pile or plush." Camelin was a different and inferior material. There was till 
recently a considerable import of different kinds of woollen goods from this part of 
China into Ladakh, Kashmir, and the northern Panjab. [Leaving Ning-hsia, Mr. 
Rockhill writes {Diary, 1892, 44) : " We passed on the road a cart with Jardine 
and Matheson's flag, coming probably from Chung- Wei Ilsien, where camel's wool 
is sold in considerable quantities to foreigners. This trade has fallen off very much 
in the last three or four years on account of the Chinese middlemen rolling the 
wool in the dirt so as to add to its weight, and practising other tricks on buyers." — 
H. C] Among the names of these were Sling, Shirum, Gitnin, and Khoza, said to 
be the names of the towns in China where the goods were made. We have supposed 
Sling to be Sining (note 2, ch. Ivii.), but I can make nothing of the others. Cunning- 
ham also mentions "camlets of camel's hair," under the name of Siikldt, among 
imports from the same quarter. The term Sukldt is, however, applied in the Panjab 
trade returns to broadcloth. Does not this point to the real nature of the siclatoun of 
the Middle Ages ? It is, indeed, often spoken of as used for banners, which implies 
that it was not a heavy woollen : 

** There was mony gonfanoun 
Of gold, sendel, and siclatoun." 

{King Alisatindre, in Weber, I. 85.) 

But it was also a material for ladies' robes, for quilts, leggings, housings, pavilions. 
Franc. Michel does not decide what it was, only that it was generally red and wrought 
with gold. Dozy renders it "silk stuff brocaded with gold" ; but this seems con- 
jectural. Dr. Rock says it was a thin glossy silken stuff, often with a woof of gold 
thread, and seems to derive it from the Arabic sakl, "polishing" (a sword), which is 
improbable. Perhaps the name is connected with Sikiliyat, " Sicily." 

{Marsh on Wedgwood, and on Webster in N. Y. Nation, 1867 ; Douet D'Arcq, 
p. 355; Punjab Trade Rep., Pi.^^. ccxix.-xx. ; Ladak, 242; Fr. -Michel Rech. I. 221 
seqq. ; Dozy, Diet, dcs Vetc/iients, etc. ; Dr. Rock's Kens. Catal. xxxix.-xl.) 



284 MARCO POLO Book I. 



CHAPTER LIX. 

Concerning the Province of Tenduc, and the Descendants 
OF Prester John. 

Tenduc is a province which lies towards the east, and 
contains numerous towns and villages ; among which is 
the chief city, also called Tenduc. The king of the 
province is of the lineage of Prester John, George by 
name, and he holds the land under the Great Kaan ; 
not that he holds anything like the whole of what 
Prester John possessed.^ It is a custom, I may tell 
you, that these kings of the lineage of Prester John 
always obtain to wife either daughters of the Great 
Kaan or other princesses of his family.^ 

In this province is found the stone from which 
Azure is made. It is obtained from a kind of vein 
in the earth, and is of very fine quality.^ There is 
also a orreat manufacture of fine camlets of different 
colours from camel's hair. The j^eople get their living 
by their cattle and tillage, as well as by trade and 
handicraft. 

The rule of the province is in the hands of the 
Christians, as I have told you ; but there are also plenty 
of Idolaters and worshippers of Mahommet. And there 
is also here a class of people called Argons, which is 
as much as to say in French Guasmul, or, in other 
words, sprung from two different races : to wit, of the 
race of the Idolaters of Tenduc and of that of the 
worshippers of Mahommet. They are handsomer men 
than- the other natives of the country, and having more 
ability, they come to have authority ; and they are also 
capital merchants.* 

You must know that it was in this same capital city 



Chap. LIX. THE PROVINCE OF TENDUC 285 

of Tenduc that Prester John had the seat of his govern- 
ment when he ruled over the Tartars, and his heirs 
still abide there; for, as I have told you, this King 
George is of his line, in fact, he is the sixth in descent 
from Prester John. 

Here also is what we call the country of Gog and 
Magog ; they, however, call it Ung and Mungul, after 
the names of two races of people that existed in that 
Province before the migration of the Tartars. Ung 
was the title of the people of the country, and Mungul 
a name sometimes applied to the Tartars.^ 

And when you have ridden seven days eastward 
through this province you get near the provinces of 
Cathay. You find throughout those seven days' 
journey plenty of towns and villages, the inhabitants 
of which are Mahommetans, but with a mixture also 
of Idolaters and Nestorian Christians. They get their 
living by trade and manufactures ; weaving those fine 
cloths of gold which are called Nasich and Naques, 
besides silk stuffs of many other kinds. For just as 
we have cloths of wool in our country, manufactured 
in a great variety of kinds, so in those regions they 
have stuffs of silk and gold in like variety.^ 

All this region is subject to the Great Kaan. There 
is a city you come to called Sindachu, where they 
carry on a great many crafts such as provide for the 
equipment of the Emperor's troops. In a mountain of 
the province there is a very good silver mine, from 
which much silver is got : the place is called Ydifu. 
The country is well stocked with game, both beast 
and bird.''^ 

Now we will quit that province and go three days' 
journey forward. 

Note i. — Marco's own errors led commentators much astray about Tanduc or 
Tenduc, till Klaproth put the matter in its true light 



286 MARCO POLO Book I. 

Our traveller says that Tenduc had been the seat of Aung Khan's sovereignty ; he 
has aheady said that it had been the scene of his final defeat, and he tells us that it 
Was still the residence of his descendants in their reduced state. To the last piece of 
information he can speak as a witness, and he is corroborated by other evidence ; but 
the second statement we have seen to be almost certainly erroneous ; about the first 
we cannot speak positively. 

Klaprotli pointed out the true position of Tenduc in the vicinity of the great 
northern bend of the Ilwang-IIo, quoting Chinese authorities to show that Thiant^ or 
Thiantd-Kiun was the name of a district or group of towns to the north of that bend, 
a name which he supposes to be the original of Polo's Tenduc. The general position 
entirely agrees with Marco's indications ; it lies on his way eastward from Tangut 
towards Chagannor, and Shangtu (see ch. Ix., Ixi.), whilst in a later passage (Bk. II. 
ch. Ixiv.), he speaks of the Caramoran or IIwang-Ho in its lower course, as "coming 
from the lands of Prester John." 

M. Pauthier finds severe fault with Klaproth's identification of the name Tenduc 
with the Thiante of the Chinese, belonging to a city which had been destroyed 300 
years before, whilst he himself will have that name to be a corruption of Tathung. 
The latter is still the name of a city and Fu of northern Shansi, but in Mongol time 
its circle of administration extended beyond the Chinese wall, and embraced territory 
on the left of the Hwang-Ho, being in fact the first Lu, or circle, entered on leaving 
Tangut, and therefore, Pauthier urges, the " ICingdom of Tanduc" of our text. 

I find it hard to believe that Marco could get no nearer Tathung than in the 
form of Tanduc or Tcruiuc. The origin of the last may have been some Mongol 
name, not recovered. But it is at least conceivable that a name based on the old 
Thianti-Kmn might have been retained among the Tartars, from whom, and not from 
the Chinese, Polo took his nomenclature. Thiante had been, according to Pauthier's 
own quotations, the military post of Tathung ; Klaproth cites a Chinese author of the 
Mongol era, who describes the Hwang-Ho as passing through the territory of the 
ancient Chinese city of Thianti ; and Pauthier's own quotation from the Modern 
Imperial Geography seems to imply that a place in that territory was recently known 
as Fung-chau- 7y4w«/^-A'«/«. 

In the absence of preciser indications, it is reasonable to suppose that the Plain of 
Tenduc, with its numerous towns and villages, was the extensive and well-cultivated 
plain which stretches from the Hwang-Ho, past the city of Kuku-Khotan, or "Blue 
Town." This tract abounds in the remains of cities attributed to the Mongol era. 
And it is not improbable that the city of Tenduc was Kuku-Khotan itself, now called 
by the Chinese Kwei-hwa Ch'eng, but which was known to them in the Middle Ages 
as Tsing-chau, and to which we find the Kin Emperor of Northern China sending an 
envoy in 1 210 to demand tribute from Chinghiz. The city is still an important mart 
and a centre of Lamaitic Buddhism, being the residence of a Khutukhiu, or personage 
combining the characters of cardinal and voluntarily re-incarnate saint, as well as the 
site of five great convents and fifteen smaller ones. Gerbillon notes that Kuku 
Khotan had been a place of great trade and population during the Mongol 
Dynasty. 

[The following evidence shows, I think, that we must look for the city of Tenduc to 
Tou Ch'eng or Toto Ch'eng, called 7'ogto or Tokto by the Mongols. Mr. Rockhill (Diary, 
18) passed through this place, and 5 /? south of it, reached on the Yellow River, Ho-k'ou 
(in Chinese) or Dugus or Dugei (in Mongol). Gerbillon speaks of Toto in his sixth 
voyage in Tartary. [Du Halde, IV. 345.) Mr. Rockhill adds that he cannot but 
think that Yule overlooked the existence of Togto when he identified Kwei-hwa 
Ch'eng with Tenduc. Tou Ch'eng is two days' march west of Kwei-hwa Ch'eng. 
"On the loess hill behind this place are the ruins of a large camp, Orch'eng, in all 
likelihood the site of the old town" {I.e. 18). M. Bonin (/. As. XV. 1900, 589) 
shares Mr. Rockhill's opinion. From Kwei-hwa Ch'eng, M. Bonin went by the 
valley of the Hei Shui River to the Hwang Ho; at the junction of the two rivers 
Stands the village of Ho-k'au (Ho-k'ou), south of the small town To Ch'eng, sur- 



Chap. LIX. THE PROVINCE OF TENDUC 287 

mounted by the ruins of the old square Mongol stronghold of Tokto, the walls of 
which are still in a good state of preservation.— (Za Giographie, I. 1901, p. 1 16.) 

On the other hand, it is but fair to state that Palladius (21) says : " The name of 
Tenduc obnously corresponds to T'ien-te Kiun, a military post, the position of which 
Chinese geographers identify correctly with that of the modem Kuku-hoton ( Ta tsingy 
fungchi, ch. on the Tumots of Kuku-hoton). The T'ien-te Kiun post existed under 
this name during the K'itan (Liao) and Kin Dynasties up to Khubilai's time (1267) ; 
when under the name of Fung-chow it was left only a district town in the department 
of Ta-t'ung fu. The Kin kept in T'ien-te Kiun a military chief, Chao-tao-shi, 
whose duty it was to keep an eye on the neighbouring tribes, and to use, if needed, 
military force against them. The T'ien-te Kiun district was hardly greater in extent 
than the modem almak of Tumot, into which Kuku-hoton was included since the i6th 
century, i.e. 370 // from north to south, and 400 li from east to west ; daring the Kin 
it had a settled population, numbering 22,600 famihes." 

In a footnote, Palladius refers to the gec^aphical parts of the Liao shi. Kin ski, 
and Yuen shi, and adds : " M. Polo's commentators are wrong in suspecting an 
anachronism in his statement, or trj-ing to find Tenduc elsewhere." 

We find in the Norlh-China Herald (29th April, 1887, p. 474) the following note 
from the Chinese Times: " There are records that the position of this city [Kwei-hwa 
Ch'eng] was known to the builder of the Great Wall. From very remote times, it 
appears to have been a settlement of nomadic tribes. During the last 1000 years 
it has been alternately possessed by the Mongols and Chinese. About A.D. 1573, 
Emperor Wan-Li reclaimed it, enclosed a space within walls, and called it Kwei-hwa 
Ch'eng." 

Potanin left Peking on the 13th May, 1884, for Kuku-khoto (or Kwei-hwa-Ch'eng), 
passing over the triple chain of mountains dividing the Plain of Peking from that on 
which Kuku-khoto is situate. The southernmost of these three ridges bears the 
Chinese name of Wu-tai-shan, " the mountain of five sacrificial altars," after the group 
of five peaks, the highest of which is lo,coo feet above the sea, a height not exceeded 
by any mountain in Northern China. At its southern foot lies a valley remarkable for 
its Buddhist monasteries and shrines, one of which, " Shing-tung-tze," is entirely 
made of brass, whence its name. 

" Kuku-Khoto is the dep6t for the Mongolian trade with China. It contains two 
hundred tea-shops, five theatres, fifteen temples, and six Mongol monasteries. Among 
its sights are the Buddhist convent of Utassa, with its five pinnacles and bas-reliefs, the 
convent of Fing-sung-si, and a temple containing a statue erected in honour of the 
Chinese general, Pai-jin jung, who avenged an insult offered to the Emperor of 
China." ^Proc. R. G. S. IX. 18S7, p. 233.)— H. C] 

A passage in Rashiduddin does seem to intimate that the Kerait, the tribe of Aung 
Khan, alias Prester John, did occupy territory close to the borders of Cathay or 
Northern China ; but neither from Chinese nor from other Oriental sources has any 
illustration yet been produced of the existence of Aung Khan's descendants as rulers 
in this territory under the Mongol emperors. There is, however, very positive 
evidence to that effect supplied by other Eiuropean travellers, to whom the fables 
prevalent in the West had made the supposed traces of Prester John a subject of 
strong interest. 

Thus John of Monte Corvino, afterwards Archbishop of Cambaluc or Peking, in 
his letter of January, 1305, from that city, speaks of Polo's King George in these 
terms : " A certain king of this part of the world, by name George, belonging to the 
sect of the Nestorian Christians, and of the illustrious lineage of that great king who 
was called Prester John of India, in the first year of my arrival here \circa 1295-1296] 
attached himself to me, and, after he had been converted by me to the verity of the 
Catholic faith, took the Lesser Orders, and when I celebrated mass used to attend me 
wearing his royal robes. Certain others of the Nestorians on this account accused him 
of apostacy, but he brought over a great part of his people with him to the true 
Catholic faith, and built a church of royal magnificence in honour of our God, of the 



288 MARCO rOLO Book I. 

Holy Trinity, and of our Lord, the Pope, giving it the name of the Roman Church, 
This King George, six years ago, departed to the Lord, a true Christian, leaving as 
his heir a son scarcely out of the cradle, and who is now nine years old. And after 
King George's death, his brothers, perfidious followers of the errors of Nestorius, 
perverted again all those whom he had brought over to the Church, and carried them 
back to their original schismatical creed. And being all alone, and not able to leave 
His Majesty the Cham, I could not go to visit the church above-mentioned, which is 
twenty days' journey distant. ... I had been in treaty with the late King George, if he 
had lived, to translate the whole Latin ritual, that it might be sung throughout the 
extent of his territory ; and whilst he was alive I used to celebrate mass in his church 
according to the Latin rite." The distance mentioned, twenty days' journey from 
Peking, suits quite well with the position assigned to Tenduc, and no doubt the Roman 
Church was in the city to which Polo gives that name. 

P'riar Odoric, travelling from Peking towards Shensi, about 1 326- 1 327, also 
visits the country of Prester John, and gives to its chief city the name of Tozan, in 
which perhaps we may trace Tathung. He speaks as if the family still existed in 
authority. 

King George appears again in Marco's own book (Bk. IV. ch. ii.) as one of 
Kiiblai's generals against Kaidu, in a battle fought near Karakoriim. {Journ. As. IX. 
299 seqq.; UOhsson, I. 123 ; Htic's Tartary, etc. I. 55 seqq.; Koeppeyt, II. 381 ; Erd- 
viamU sTemudschin ; Gerbillonm Astley, IV. 670; Cathay, pp. 146 and i()<^ seqq.) 

Note 2. — Such a compact is related to have existed reciprocally between the 
family of Chinghiz and that of the chief of the Kungurats ; but I have not found it 
alleged of the Kerait family except by Friar Odoric. We find, however, many 
princesses of this family married into that of Chinghiz. Thus three nieces of Aung 
Khan became wives respectively of Chinghiz himself and of his sons Juji and Tului . 
she who was the wife of the latter, Serkukteni Bigi, being the mother of Mangii^ 
Ilulaku, and Kublai. Dukuz Khatun, the Christian wife of Hulaku, was a grand- 
daughter of Aung Khan. 

The name George, of Prester John's representative, may have been actually 
Jirjis, Yurji, or some such Oriental form of Georgius. But it is possible that the 
title was really Gtirgdn, "Son-in Law," a title of honour conferred on those who 
married into the imperial blood, and that this title may have led to the statements of 
Marco and Odoric about the nuptial privileges of the family. Gurgan in this sense 
was one of the titles borne by Timur. * 

[The following note by the Archimandrite Palladius {Eluc. 21-23) throws a great 
light on the relations between the families of Chinghiz Khan and of Prester John. 

"T'ien-te Kiun was bounded on the north by the Yn-shan Mountains, in and 
beyond which was settled the Sha-t'o Tu-K'iu tribe, i.e. Tu-K'iu of the sandy 
desert. The K'itans, when they conquered the northern borders of China, brought 
also under their rule the dispersed family of these Tu-K'iu. With the accession of 
the Kin, a Wang Ku [Ongot] family made its appearance as the ruling family of those 

* Mr. Ney Elias favours me with a curious but tantalising communication on this suhject : "An 
old man called on me at Kwei-hwa Ch'eng (Tenduc), who said he was neither Chinaman, Mongol, 
nor Mahomedan, and lived on ground a short distance to the north of the city, especially allotted to 
his ancestors by the Emperor, and where there now exist several families of the same origin. He 
then mentioned the connection of his family with that of the Emperor, but in what way I am not 
clear, and said that he ought to be, or had been, a prince. Other people coming in, he was inter- 
rupted and went away He was not with me more than ten minutes, and the incident is a 

specimen of the difficulty in obtaining interesting information, except by mere chance. . . . The 
idea that struck me was, that he was perhaps a descendant of King George of_ Tenduc; fori had 

your M. P. before me, and had been inquiring as much as I dared about subjects it suggested 

At Kwei-hwa Ch'eng I was very closely spied, and my servant was frequently told to warn me 
against asking too many questions." 

I should mention that Oppert, in his very interesting monograph, Der Presbyter Johannes, refuses 
to recognise the Kerait chief at all in that character, and supposes Polo's King George to be the 
representative of a prince of the Liao {supra, p. 205), who, as we learn from De Mailla's History, 
after thft defeat of the Kin, in which he had assisted Chinghiz, settled in Liaotung, and received from 
the conqueror the title of King of the Liao. This seems to me geographically and otherwise quite 
inadmissible. 



Chap. LIX. THE DESCENDANTS OF PRESTER JOHN 289 

tribes ; it issued from those Sha-t'o Tu-K'iu, who once reigned in the north of China as 
the How T'ang Dynasty (923-936 a.d.). It split into two branches, the Wang-Ku of 
the Yn-shan, and the Wang-Ku of the Lin-t'ao (west of Kan-su). The Kin removed 
the latter branch to Liao-tung (in Manchuria). The Yn-shan Wang-Ku guarded the 
northern borders of China belonging to the Kin, and watched their herds. When 
the Kin, as a protection against the inroads of the tribes of the desert, erected a 
rampart, or new wall, from the boundary of the Tangut Kingdom down to 
Manchuria, they intrusted the defence of the principal places of the \n-sh.-in portion 
of the wall to the Wang-Ku, and transferred there also the Liao-tung Wang-Ku. 
At the time Chingiz Khan became powerful, the chief of the Wang-Ku of the Yn- 
shan was Alahush ; and at the head of the Liao-tung Wang-Ku stood Pa-sao-via-ie-li. 
Alahush proved a traitor to the Kin, and passed over to Chinghiz Khan ; for this he 
was murdered by the malcontents of his family, perhaps l>y Pa-sao-ma-ie-li, who 
remained true to the Kin. Later on, Chingiz Khan married one of his daughters to 
the son of Alahush, by name Po-yao-ho, who, however, had no children by her. He 
had three sons by a concubine, the eldest of whom, Kiun-pu-hwa, was married to 
Kuyuk Khan's daughter. Kiun-pu-hwa's son, Ko-li-ki-sze, had two wives, both of 
imperial blood. During a campaign against Haidu, he was made prisoner in 1298, 
and murdered. His title and dignities passed over in a.d. 1310 to his son Chuan. 
Nothing is known of Alahush's later descendants ; they probably became entirely 
Chinese, like their relatives of the Liao-tung branch. 

"The Wang-Ku princes were thus de jure the sons-in-law of tlie Mongol Khans, 
and they had, moreover, the hereditary title of Kao-t'ang princes (Kao- t'ang wang) ; it 
is very possible that they had their residence in ancient T'ien-te Kiun (although no 
mention is made of it in history), just as at present the Tumot princes reside in 
Kuku-hoton. 

"The consonance of the names of Wang-Khan and Wang-Ku (Ung- Khan and 
Ongu) led to the confusion regarding the tribes and persons, which at Marco Polo's 
time seems to have been general among the Europeans in China ; Marco Polo and 
Johannes de Monte Corvino transfer the title of Prester John from Wang-Khan, 
already perished at that time, to the distinguished family of Wang-Ku. Their 
Georgius is undoubted. y Ko-li-ki-sze, Alahush's great-grandson. That his name is 
a Christian one is confirmed by other testimonies ; thus in the Asu (.Azcs) regiment 
of the Khan's guards was Ko-li-ki-sze, alids Kow-r-ki (ti3ii), and his son Ti-mi-ti-r. 
There is no doubt that one of them was Georgius, and the other Demetrius. Further, 
in the description of Chin-Kiang in the time of the Yuen, mention is made of Ko-li- 
ki-sze Ye-li-ko-wen, i.e. Ko-li-ki-sze, the Christian, and of his son Lu-ho (Luke). 

' ' Ko-li-ki-sze of Wang-ku is much praised in history for his valour and his lo\'e for 
Confucian doctrine ; he had in consequence of a special favour of the Khan two 
Mongol princesses for wives at the same time (which is rather difficult to conciliate 
with his being a Christian). The time of his death is correctly indicated in a letter 
of Joannes de M. Corvino of the year 1305 : ante sex antws niigravit ad Dominum. 
He left a young son Chu-an, who probably is the Joannes of the letter of loannes 
(Giovani) de ^L Corvino, so called propter iionien victim, says the missionary. In 
another Wang-ku branch, Si-li-ki-sze reminds one also of the Christian name 
Sergiusr—W. C] 

Note 3. — "The Lapis Amienus, or Azure, ... is produced in the district of 
Tayton-fu {,i.e. Tat hung), belonging to Stansi." {Du Halde in Astley, IV. 309 ; see 
also Martini, p. 36. ) 

Note 4. — This is a highly interesting passage, but difficult, from being corrupt in 
the G. Text, and over-curt in Pauthier's MSS. In the former it runs as follows : 
'' Hi I hi a une jenerasion dejens que stint appelUs Argon, qe vatit d, dire en fran^ois 
Guasmul, ce est d dire qti'il stmt ne del dciis generasions de la lengnee des celz Argon 
Tenduc et des celz reduc et des celz que aorent Maomet. II sunt biaus homes plus 
VOL. I. T 



290 MARCO POLO Book I. 

que le autre dou pais et phii sajes et plus mercaani.'''' Pauthier's text runs thus: *'// 
ont une generation de gens, ces Crestiens qui 07it la Seigneurie, qui s'appellent Argon, 
qui vaut a dire GasmuL; et sottt plus beaux homines que les autres inescreans et plus 
sages. Et pour ce ont il la seigneurie et sont bons viarchans." And Ramusio : 
" Vi k anche una sorte di genie che si chiamano Argon, per che sono nati di due 
generazioni, cioe da quella di Tenduc che adorano gl' idoli, e da quella che osservano 
la legge di Macometto. E quest i sono i piu belli uomini che si trovino in quel paese 
e pill savi, e piv, accorti nella tnercanzia." 

In the first quotation the definition of the Argon as sprung de la letignie, etc., is not 
intelhgible as it stands, but seems to be a corruption of the same definition that has 
been rendered by Ramusio, viz. that the Argon were half-castes between the race of 
the Tenduc Buddhists and that of the Mahomedan settlers. These two texts do not 
assert that the Argon were Christians. Pauthier's text at first sight seems to assert 
this, and to identify them with the Christian rulers of the province. But I doubt if it 
means more than that the Christian rulers have under them a people called Argon, 
etc. The passage has been read with a bias, owing to an erroneous interpretation of 
the word Argon in the teeth of Polo's explanation of it. 

Klaproth, I believe, first suggested that Argon represents the term Arkhaitin, 
which is found repeatedly applied to Oriental Christians, or their clergy, in the 
histories of the Mongol era.* No quite satisfactory explanation has been given of the 
origin of that term. It is barely possible that it may be connected with that which 
Polo uses here ; but he tells us as plainly as possible that he means by the term, not 
a Christian, but a half-breed. 

And in this sense the word is stili extant in Tibet, probably also in Eastern 
Turkestan, precisely in Marco's form, Argon. It is applied in Ladak, as General 
Cunningham tells us, specifically to the mixt race produced by the marriages of 
Kashmirian immigrants with B5t (Tibetan) women. And it was apparently to an 
analogous cross between Caucasians and Turanians that the term was applied in 
Tenduc. Moorcroft also speaks of this class in Ladak, calling them Argands. Mr. 
Shaw styles them "a set of ruffians called Argoons, half-bred between Toorkistan 
fathers and Ladak mothers. . . . They possess all the evil qualities of both races, 
without any of their virtues." And the author of the Dabistan, speaking of the 
Tibetan Lamas, says : ' ' Their king, if his mother be not of royal blood, is by them 
called Arghtin, and not considered their true king." [See p. 291, my reference to 
Wellby's Tibet. — H. C] Cunningham says the word is probably Turki, /^^CjJ, 
Arghiin, "Fair," "not white," as he writes to me, "but ruddy or pink, and there- 
fore 'fair.' Arghiin is both Turki and Mogholi, and is applied to all fair children, 
both inale and female, as Arghun Beg, Arghuna Khatun" etc.f We find an Arghiin 
tribe named in Timur's Institutes, which probably derived its descent from such half- 
breeds. And though the Arghun Dynasty of Kandahar and Sind claimed their descent 
and name from Arghun Khan of Persia, this may have had no other foundation. 

* The term Arkaiun, or Arkaun, in this sense, occurs in the Armenian History of Stephen 
Orpelian, quoted by St. Martin. The author of the Tdrikh Jahdn Kushai, cited by D'Ohsson, 
says that Christians were called by the Mongols Arkdtin. When Hulaku invested Baghdad we are 
told that he sent a letter to the Judges, Shaikhs, Doctors and ArkauKS, promising to spare such as 
should act pciceably. And in the subsequent sack we hear that no houses were spared except those 
of a few Arkarins and foreigners. In Rashiduddin's account of the Council of State at Pekingj we 
are told that the four Fanchan, or Ministers of the Second Class, were taken from the four nations 
of Tdjiks, Cathayans, Uighurs, and Arkaun. Sabadin Arkaun was the name of one of the Envoys 
sent by Arghun Khan of Persia to the Pope in 1288. Traces of the name appear also in Chinese 
documents of the Mongol era, as denoting jow^ religious body. Some of these have been quoted by Mr. 
Wylie ; but I have seen no notice taken of a very curious extract given by Visdelou. This states that 
Kublai in 1289 established a Board of nineteen chief officers to have surveillance of the affairs of the 
Religion of the Cross, of the Marha, the Siliepan, and the Velikhawen. This Board was raised to a 
higher rank in 1315 : and at that time 72 minor courts presiding over the religion of the Velikhawen 
existed under its supervision. Here we evidently have the word Arkliaiun in a Chinese form ; and 
we may hazard the suggestion that Marha, Siliepan and Velikhawen meant respectively the 
Armenian, Syrian, or Jacobite, and Nestorian Churches. (St. Martin, Mem. II. 133, 143, 279; 
D'Ohsson, II. 264 ; Ilchan, I. 150, 152 ; Cathay, 264 ; Acad. VII. 359 ; Wylie in /. As. V. xix. 466. 
Suppf. to D'Herbelot, 142.) 

\ The word is not in Zenker or Pavet de Courteille. 



Chap. LIX. THE ARGONS 29 1 

There are some carious analogies between these Argons of whom Marco speaks 
and those Mahomedans of Northern China and Chinese Turkestan lately revolted 
against Chinese authority, who are called Tungdni, or as the Russians write it 
Dungen, a word signifying, according to Professor Vambery, in Turki, " a convert." * 
These Tungani are said by one account to, trace their origin to a large body of 
Uighurs, who were transferred to the vicinity of the Great Wall during the rale of the 
Thang Dynasty (7th to loth century). Another tradition derives their origin from 
Samarkand. And it is remarkable that Rashiduddin speaks of a town to the west 
or north-west of Peking, "most of the inhabitants of which are natives of Samarkand, 
and have planted a number of gardens in the Samarkand style." t The former 
tradition goes on to say that marriages were encouraged between the Western settlers 
and the Chinese women. In after dajrs these people followed the example of their 
kindred in becoming Mahomedans, but they still retained the practice of marrying 
Chinese wives, though bringing up their children in Islam. The Tungani are stated 
to be known in Central Asia for their commercial integrity ; and they were gener- 
ally selected by the Chinese for police functionaries. They are passionate and 
ready to use the knife ; but are distinguished from both Manchus and Chinese by 
their strength of body and intelligent countenances. Their special feature is their 
predilection for mercantile speculations. 

Looking to the many common features of the two accounts— the origin as a half- 
breed between Mahomedans of Western extraction and Northern Chinese, the 
position in the vicinity of the Great Wall, the superior physique, intelligence, and 
sjjecial cap)acity for trade, it seems highly probable that the Tungani of our day are 
the descendants of Marco's Argons. Otherwise we may at least point to these 
analogies as a notable instance of like results produced by like circumstances on the 
same scene ; in fact, of history repeating itself. (See The Dungens, by Mr. H. K. 
Heins, in the Russian Military Journal ior August, 1866, and Western China, in the 
Ed. Review for April, 1868 ;X Cathay, p. 261.) 

[Palladius (pp. 23-24) says that " it is impossible to admit that Polo had meant 
to designate by this name the Christians, who were called by the Mongols Erkeun 
[ Ye It ke un]. He was well acquainted with the Christians in China, and of course 
could not ignore the name under which they were generally known to such a d^ree 
as to see in it a designation of a cross-race of Mahommetans and heathens." From 
the Yuen cKao pi shi and the Yuen ski, Palladius gives some examples which refer to 
Mahommedans. 

Professor Deveria {Notes cT^pig. 49) says that the word "Apx^v was used by the 
Mongol Government as a designation for the members of the Christian clergy at large ; 
the word is used between 1252 and 13 15 to speak of Christian priests by the 
historians of the Yuen Dynasty ; it is not used before nor is it to be found in the Si- 
ngan-fu inscription {I.e. 82). Mr. E. H. Parker {China Review, xxiv. p. 157) 
supplies a few omissions in Deveria's paper ; we note among others : " Ninth moon 
of 1329. Buddhist services ordered to be held by the Uighiir priests, and by the 
Christians [ Ye li ke ««]." " 

Captjdn Wellby writes {Unknown Tibet, p. 32) : " We impressed into our service 
six other muleteers, four of them being .^rgoons, who are r«illy half-castes, arising 



• Mr. Shaw writes Toong&nee. The first mention of this name that I know of is in Izzat Ullah's 
Journal (Vide/. R. A. S. VII. 310.) The people are there said to have got the name from having 
first settled in Tungan. Tung-gan is in the same page the name given to the strong city of T'ung 
Kwan on the Hwang-ho. (See Bk. II. ch. xlL note i.) A variety of etymologies have been given, 
but VamWrj-'s seems the most probable. 

t Probably no man could now say what this means. But the following note from Mr. Ney Elias 
IS very interesting in its suggestion of analogy : " In my report to the Geographical Society I have 
noticed the peculiar Western appearance of Kwei-hwa-ch'eng, and the little gardens of creepers and 
flowers "m pots which are displayed round the porches in the court-yards of the better class of houses, 
and which I have seen in no other part of China. My attention was especially drawn to these by 
your quotation from Rashiduddin." 

{A translation of Heins' was kindly leal me by the author of this article, the lamented Mr. I. W. 
S. Wyllie. 

VOL. I. T 2 



292 MARCO POLO Book I. 

from the merchants of Turkestan making short marriages with the Ladakhi women." 
— H. C] 

Our author gives the odd word Giiasmtd as the French equivalent of Argon. M. 
Pauthier has first, of Polo's editors, given the true explanation from Ducange. The 
word appears to have been in use in the Levant among the Franks as a name for the 
half-breeds sprung from their own unions with Greek women. It occurs three times 
in the history of George Pachymeres. Thus he says {Mich. Pal. III. 9), that the 
Emperor Michael "depended upon the Gasmuls, or mixt breeds {(xv/jifxiKroi), which 
is the sense of this word of the Italian tongue, for these were born of Greeks and 
Italians, and sent them to man his ships; for the race in question inherited at once 
the military wariness and quick wit of the Greeks, and the dash and pertinacity of 
the Latins." Again (IV. 26) he speaks of these "Gasmuls, whom a Greek would 
call diyeveh, men sprung from Greek mothers and Italian fathers." Nicephorus 
Gregoras also relates how Michael Palaeologus, to oppose the projects of Baldwin 
for the recovery of his fortunes, manned 60 galleys, chiefly with the tribe of Gasmuls 
(7^j'os ToO ra<TfjLov\iKov), to whom he assigns the same characteristics as Pachymeres. 
(IV. v. 5, also VI. iii. 3, and XIV. x. 11.) One MS. of Nicetas Choniates also, in 
his annals of Manuel Comnenus (see Paris ed. p. 425), speaks of "the light troops 
whom we call Basniuls." Thus it would seem that, as in the analogous case of the 
Turcopuli, sprung from Turk fathers and Greek mothers, their name had come to be 
applied technically to a class of troops. According to Buchon, the laws of the 
Venetians in Candia mention, as different races in tliat island, the Vastniilo, Latino, 
Blaco, and Griego. 

Ducange, in one of his notes on Joinville, says: "During the time that the 
French possessed Constantinople, they gave the name of Gas-/iioiiles to those who 
were born of French fathers and Greek mothers ; or more probably Gaste-moules, by 
way of derision, as if such children by those irregular marriages .... had in some 
sort debased the wombs of their mothers ! " I have little doubt {pace tanti viri) that 
the word is in a Gallicized form the same with the surviving Italian Gtiazzabuglio, 
a hotch-potch, or mish-mash. In Davanzati's ZlraV^j', the words " Colluviem //.'a/// 
natiotiuni^^ {Annal. II. 55) are rendered " (/?<i?//i3 guazzabuglio di tmzioni," in which 
case we come very close to the meaning assigned to Gtiasmul. The Italians are 
somewhat behind in matters of etymology, and I can get no light from them on the 
history of this word. (See Buchon, Ch^-oniqiies Etrang^res, p. xv. ; Ducange, Gloss. 
Graecitatis, and his note o\\ Joinville, in Bohn^s Chron. of the Crnsades, 466.) 

Note 5. — It has often been cast in Marco's teeth that he makes no mention of 
the Great Wall of China, and that is true ; whilst the apologies made for the omission 
have always seemed to me unsatisfactory. [I find in Sir G. Staunton's account of 
Macartney's Embassy (II. p. 185) this most amusing explanation of the reason why 
Marco Polo did not mention the wall : " A copy of Marco Polo's route to China, 
taken from the Doge's Library at Venice, is sufficient to decide this question. By 
this route it appears that, in fact, that traveller did not pass through Tartary to 
Pekin, but that after having followed the usual track of the caravans, as far to the 
eastward from Europe as Samarcand and Cashgar, he bent his course to the south- 
east across the River Ganges to Bengal (!), and, keeping to the southward of the Thibet 
mountains, reached the Chinese province of Shensee, and through the adjoining 
province of Shansee to the capital, without interfering with the line of the Great 
Wall." — H. C] We shall see presently that the Great Wall is spoken of 
by Marco's contemporaries Rashiduddin and Abulfeda. Yet I think, if we read 
"between the lines," we shall see reason to believe that the Wall was in 
Polo's mind at this point of the dictation, whatever may have been his motive for 
withholding distincter notice of it.* I cannot conceive why he should say : " Here 
is what we call the country of Gog and Magog," except as intimating " Here we are 

* I owe the suggestion of this to a remark in Ofifierfs Presbyler Joltannts, p. 77. 



Chap. LIX. 



THE GREAT WALL OF CHINA 



293 




294 MARCO POLO Book I. 

beside the Great Wall known as ihe Rampart of Gog and Magog," and being there 
he tries to find a reason why those names should have been applied to it. Why they 
were really applied to it we have already seen. {Supra, eh. iv. note 3.) Abulfeda 
says: *' The Ocean turns northward along the east of China, and then expands in 
the same direction till it passes China, and comes opposite to the Rampart of Yajuj 
and Majiij ; " whilst the same geographer's definition of the boundaries of China ex- 
hibits that country as bounded on the west by the Indo-Chinese wildernesses ; on the 
.south, by the seas ; on the east, by the Eastern Ocean ; on the north, by the land of 
Ydjiij and Mdjiij, and other countries unknown. Ibn Batuta, with less accurate 
geography in his head than Abulfeda, maugre his travels, asks about the Rampart of 
Gog and Magog [Sadd Ydjiij wa Majtij) when he is at Sin Kalan, i.e. Canton, and, 
as might be expected, gets little satisfaction. 

Apart from this interesting point Marsden seems to be right in the general bearing 
of his explanation of the passage, and I conceive that the two classes of people whom 
Marco tries to identify with Gog and Magog do substantially represent the two genera 
or species, Turks and Mongols, or, according to another nomenclature used by 
Rashiduddin, the IVkite and Black Tartars. To the latter class belonged Chinghiz 
and his Mongols proper, with a number of other tribes detailed by Rashiduddin, 
and these I take to te in a general way the Mungul of our text. The Ung, on the 
other hand, are the Ung-^^^/, the latter form being presumably only the Mongol plural 
of Ung. The Ung-kiit were a Turk tribe who were vassals of the Kin Emperors of 
Cathay, and were intrusted with the defence of the Wall of China, or an important 
portion of it, which was called by the Mongols Ufign, a name which some connect 
with that of the tribe. [See note pp. 288-9. J Erdmann indeed asserts that the wall by 
which the Ung-kut dwelt was not the Great Wall, but some other. There are traces 
of other great ramparts in the steppes north of the present wall. But Erdmann's 
arguments seem to me weak in the extreme. 

[Mr. Rockhill [Ruhruck, p. 112) writes: " The earliest mention I have found of 
the name Mongol in Oriental works occurs in the Chinese annals of the After T'ang 
period (a.d. 923-934), where it occurs in the form Moig-ku. In the annals of 
the Liao Dynasty (a.d. 916-1125) it is found under the form Meng-ku-li. The first 
occurrence of the name in the Tung chien kang mu is, however, in the 6th year 
Shao-hsing of Kao-tsung of the Sung (a.d. 1136). It is just possible that we may 
trace the word back a little earlier than the After T'ang period, and that the Meng- 
wa (or ngo, as this character may have been pronounced at the time), a branch of the 
Shih-wei, a Tungusic or Kitan people living around Lake Keule, to the east of the 
Baikal, and along the Kerulun, which empties into it, during the 7th and subsequent 
centuries, and referred to in the Vaitg shu (Bk. 219), is the same as the later Meng-ku. 
Though I have been unable to find, as stated by Howorth {History, i. pt. I. 28), that 
the name Meng-ku occurs in the T'ang shu, his conclusion that the northern Shih- 
wei of that time constituted the Mongol nation proper is very likely correct 

I. J. Schmidt {Ssanang Setzen, 380) derives the name Mongol from niong, meaning 
'brave, daring, bold,' while Rashideddin says it means 'simple, weak' {d'Ohsson, 
i. 22). The Chinese characters used to transcribe the name mean ' dull, stupid,' 

and ' old, ancient,' but they are used purely phonetically The Mongols of 

the present day are commonly called by the Chinese Ta-tzU, but this name is 
resented by the Mongols as opprobrious, though it is but an abbreviated form of the 
name Ta-ta-tzU, in which, according to Rubruck, they once gloried." — H. C] 

Vincent of Beauvais has got from some of his authorities a conception of the 
distinction of the Tartars into two races, to which, however, he assigns no names : 
'^ Sunt autem duo genera Tartarorum, diversa qiiidem habenlia idiomata, sedunicani 
legetn ac rituin, sicui Franci et Theutonici." But the result of his effort to find a 
realisation of Gog and Magog is that he makes Guyuk Kaan into Gog, and Mangu 
Kaan into Magog. Even the intelligent PViar Ricold says of the Tartars : "They say 
themselves that they are descended from Gog and Magog : and on this account they 
are called MogoH, as if from a corruption of Magogoli." {Abulfeda in Biisching, IV. 



Chap. LIX. SINDACHU 295 

140, 274-275; /. B. IV. 274 ; Golden Horde, 34, 68 ; Erdmann, 241-242, 257-258 ; 
rimk. I. 259, 263, 268 ; Vine. Bellro. Spec. Hist. XXIX. 73, XXXI. 32-34 ; Pereg, 
Quat. 118; Not. et Ext. II. 536.) 

Note 6. — The towns and villages were probably those immediately north of the 
Great Wall, between 112° and 115" East longitude, of which many remains exist, 
ascribed to the time of the Yuen or Mongol Dj-nasty. This tract, between the Great 
Wall and the volcanic plateau of Mongolia, is extensively colonised by Chinese, and 
has resumed the flourishing aspect that Polo describes. It is known now as the 
Ku-wei, or extramural r^on. 

[After Kalgan, Captain Yonnghusband, on the 12th April, 18S6, "passed 
through the [outer] Great Wall .... entering what Marco Polo calls the land of 
Gog and Magog. For the next two days I passed through a hilly country inhabited 
by Chinese, though it really belongs to Mongolia; but on the 14th I emerged on to 
the real steppes, which are the characteristic features of Mongolia Proper." {Proc. 
P. G. S. X., 1888, p. 490.)— H. C] 

Of the cloths called na^A and nasi/ we have spoken before {supra ch. vL 
note 4). These stuffs, or some such as these, were, I believe, what the mediaeval 
writers called Tartary cloth, not because they were made in Tartary, but because they 
were brought from China and its borders through the Tartar d minions ; as we find 
that for like reason they were sometimes called stuffs of Russia. Dante alludes to 
the supposed skill of Turks and Tartars in weaving gorgeous stufis, and Boccaccio, 
commenting thereon, says that Tartarian cloths are so skilfully woven that no painter 
with his brush could equal them. Maundevile often speaks of cloths of Tartar}- {e.g. 
pp. 175, 247). So also Chaucer : 

" On every trumpe hanging a broad banere 
Of fine Tartarium." 

Again, in the French inventory of the Garde- Meuble of 1353 we find two pieces of 
Tartary, one green and the other red, priced at 15 crowns each. {Flower and Leaf, 
211 ; Dante, Inf. XVII. 17, and Longfellow, p. 159; Dotiet d'Arcq, p. 328; Fr.- 
Michel, Reck. I. 315, II. 166 seqq.) 

Note 7. — Sindachu (Sindacui, Suidatui, etc., of the MSS.) is Siuen-hwa-fu, 
called under the Kin Dynasty Siuen-te-chau, more than once besieged and taken by 
Chinghiz. It is said to have been a summer residence of the later Mongol Emperors, 
and fine parks full of grand trees remain on the western side. It is still a large town 
and the capital of a Fu, about 25 miles south of the Gate on the Great Wall at Chang 
Kia Kau, which the Mongols and Russians call Kalgan. There is still a manufacture 
of felt and woollen articles here. 

[Mr. Rockhill writes to me that this place is noted for the manufacture of buck- 
skins. — H. C] 

Ydifu has not been identified. But Baron Richthofen saw old mines north-east 
of Kalgan, which used to yield argentiferous galena; and Pumpeliy heard of silver- 
mines near Yuchau, in the same department. 

[In the Yuen-shi it is "stated that there were gold and silver mines in the 
districts of Siuen-te-chow and Yuchow, as well as in the Kiming shan Mountains. 
These mines were worked by the Government itself up to 1323, when they were trans- 
ferred to private enterprise. Marco Polo's Ydifu is probably a copyist's error, and 
sUnds instead of Yuchow." {Palladius, 24, 25.) — II. C.] 



296 MARCO POLO Book I. 

CHAPTER LX. 
Concerning the Kaan's Palace of Chagannor, 

At the end of those three days you find a city called 
Chagan Nor [which is as much as to say White Pool], 
at which there is a great Palace of the Grand Kaan's ; ^ 
and he likes much to reside there on account of the 
Lakes and Rivers in the neighbourhood, which are the 
haunt of swans ^ and of a great variety of other birds. 
The adjoining plains too abound with cranes, partridges, 
pheasants, and other game birds, so that the Emperor 
takes all the more delight in staying there, in order to 
go a-hawking with his gerfalcons and other falcons, a 
sport of which he is very fond.^ 

There are five different kinds of cranes found in 
those tracts, as I shall tell you. First, there is one 
which is very big, and all over as black as a crow ; the 
second kind again is all white, and is the biggest of all ; 
its wings are really beautiful, for they are adorned with 
round eyes like those of a peacock, but of a resplendent 
golden colour, whilst the head is red and black on a 
white ground. The third kind is the same as ours. 
The fourth is a small kind, having at the ears beautiful 
long pendent feathers of red and black. The fifth 
kind is grey all over and of great size, with a handsome 
head, red and black.* 

Near this city there is a valley in which the Emperor 
has had several little houses erected in which he keeps 
in mew a huge number of cators, which are what we 
call the Great Partridge. You would be astonished 
to see what a quantity there are, with men to take 
charofe of them. So whenever the Kaan visits the 
place he is furnished with as many as he wants.^ 



Chap. LX. THE KAAN'S PALACE OF CHAGANNOR 297 

Note i. — [According to the Sin i'uiig hen, quoted by Palladius, the palace in 
Chagannor was built in 1280. — H.C.] 

Note 2. — " Ou demenrent sesnes." Sesiies, Cestus, Cecini, Cesanae, is a 
mediseval form oicygnes, cigni, which seems to have escaped the dictionarj- -makers 
It occurs in the old Italian version of Brunetto LalinVs Tresor, Bk. X. ch, xxv., as 
cecino ; and for other examples, see Cathay, p. 125. 

Note 3. — The city called by Polo Chagan-Nor (meaning in Mongol, as he says, 
•'White Lake") is the Chaghan Balghasiin mentioned by Timkowski as an old city 
of the Mongol era, the ruined rampart of which he passed about 30 miles north of the 
Great Wall at Kalgan, and some 55 miles from Siuen-hwa, adjoining the Imperial 
pastures. It stands near a lake still called Chaghan-Nor, and is called by the 
Chinese Pe-ching-tzu, or White City, a translation of Chaghan Balghasun. Dr. 
Bushell says of one of the lakes (Ichi-Nor), a few miles east of Chaghan-Nor : "We 
.... found the water black with waterfowl, which rose in dense flocks, and filled 
the air with discordant noises. Swans, geese, and ducks predominated, and three 
different species of cranes were distinguished." 

The town appears as Tchahan Toloho in D'Anville. It is also, I imagine, the 
Arulun Tsaghan Balghasun which S. Setzen says Kublai built about the same time 
with Shangtu and another city "on the shady side of the Altai," by which here he 
seems to mean the Khingan range adjoining the Great Wall. {Tivik. II. 374, 378- 
379 ; J- ^- ^- ^- vol. xliii. ; S. Setz. 115.) I see Ritter has made the same identi- 
fication of Chaghan-Nor (II. 141). 

Note 4. — The following are the best results I can arrive at in the identification of 
these five cranes. 

1. Radde mentions as a rare crane in South Siberia Gr»s monachtis, called by the 
Buraits Kara Togorii, or "Black Crane." Atkinson also speaks of "a beautiful 
black variety of crane," probably the same. The Grus monachus is not, however, 
jet black, but brownish rather. (Radde, Keisen, Bd. II. p. 318 ; Atkinson. Or. 
and IV. Sib. 548.) 

2. Grus leiicogeranus (?) whose chief habitat is Siberia, but which sometimes 
comes as far south as the Punjab. It is the largest of the genus, snowy white, with 
red face and beak ; the ten largest quills are black, but this barely shows as a narrow 
black line when the wings are closed. The resplendent golden eyes on the wings 
remain unaccounted for ; no naturalist whom I have consulted has any knowledge of 
a crane or crane-like bird with such decorations. When 'tis discovered, let it be the 
Grus Poli! 

3. Grus cinerea. 

4. The colour of the pendants varies in the texts. Pauthier's and the G. Text 
have red and black ; the Lat. S. G. black only, the Crusca black and white, Raniusio 
feathers red and blue (not pendants). The red and black may have slipt in from the 
preceding description. I incline to believe it to be the Demoiselle, Anthropoides 
Virgo, which is frequently seen as far north as Lake Baikal. It has a tuft of pure 
white from the eye, and a beautiful black pendent ruff or collar ; the general plumage 
purplish-grey. 

5. Certainly the Indian Saras (vulgo Cjtus), or Grtts antigone, which answers 
in colours and grows to 52 inches high. 

Note 5. — Cator occurs only in the G. Text and the Crusca, in the latter with the 
interpolated explanation "aV^ cotttornici'' (i.e. quails), whilst the S. G. Latin has 
coturnices only. I suspect this impression has assisted to corrupt the text, and 
that it was originally written or dictated ciacor or cacor, viz. chakar, a term applied in 
the East to more than one kind of " Great Partridge." Its most common application 
in India is to the Himalayan red-legged partridge, much resembling on a somewhat 
larger scale the bird so called in Europe. It is the " Francolin " of Moorcroft's 



298 MARCO POLO Book I. 

Travels, and the Caccabis Chukor of Gray. According to Cunningham the name is 
applied in Ladak to the bird sometimes called the Snow-pheasant, Jerdan's Snow- 
cock, Tetraogallus himalayensis of Gray. And it must be the latter which Moorcroft 
speaks of as " the gigantic Chukor, much larger than the common partridge, found in 
large coveys on the edge of the snow ; . . . . one plucked and drawn weighed 5 lbs." ; 
described by Vigne as " a partridge as large as a hen-turkey " ; the original perhaps of 
that partridge "larger than a vulture" which formed one of the presents from an 
Indian King to Augustus Caesar. [With reference to the large Tibetan partridge 
found in the Nan-shan Mountains in the meridian of Sha-chau by Prjevalsky, M. E. 
D. Morgan in a note {P. R. Geog. S. ix. 1887, p. 219), writes: '■^ Megaloperdrix 
thibetanus. Its general name in Asia is nllar, a word of Kirghiz or Turkish origin ; 
the Mongols call it hailik, and the Tibetans kung-mo. There are two other varieties 
of this bird found in the Himalaya and Altai Mountains, but the habits of life and 
call-note of all three are the same."] From the extensive diffusion of the term, which 
seems to be common to India, Tibet, and Persia (for the latter, see Abbott \x\J. R. 
G. S. XXV. 41), it is likely enough to be of Mongol origin, not improbably Tsokhor, 
" dappled or pied." {Kovalevsky, No. 2196, and Straklenberg's Vocabulary ; see also 
Ladak, 205 ; Moorcr. I. 313, 432 ; ferdaiUs Birds of India, III. 549, 572 ; Dunlop, 
Huntingin Himalaya, 178; /. A. S. B. VI. 774.) 

The chakor is mentioned by Baber (p. 282) ; and also by the Hindi poet Chand 
{Rds Mdla, I. 230, and Ind. Antiquary, I. 273). If the latter passage is genuine, it 
is adverse to my Mongol etymology, as Chand lived before the Mongol era. 

The keeping of partridges for the table is alluded to by Chaucer in his portrait of 
the Franklin, Prologue, Cant. Tales: 

" It snewed in his hous of mete and drinke, 
Of alle deyntees that men coud of thinke. 
After the sondry sesons of the yere, 
So changed he his mete and his soupere. 
J^ull many a fat partrich hadde he in meice, 
And many a breme and many a luce in stewe." 



CHAPTER LX I. 

Of the City of Chandu, and the Kaan's Palace there. 

And when you have ridden three days from the city 
last mentioned, between north-east and north, you come 
to a city called Chandu/ which was built by the Kaan 
now reigning. There is at this place a very fine marble 
Palace, the rooms of which are all gilt and painted with 
figures of men and beasts and birds, and with a variety 
of trees and flowers, all executed with such exquisite 
art that you regard them with delight and astonishment.'^ 
Round this Palace a wall is built, inclosing a compass 



Chap. LXI. THE CITY AND PALACE OF CHAXDU 299 

of 16 miles, and inside the Park there are fountains and 
rivers and brooks, and beautiful meadows, with all kinds 
of wild animals (excluding such as are of ferocious 
nature), which the Emperor has procured and placed 
there to supply food for his gerfalcons and hawks, 
which he keeps there in mew. Of these there are 
more than 200 gerfalcons alone, without reckoning the 
o.her hawks. The Kaan himself goes every week to 
see his birds sitting in mew, and sometimes he rides 
through the park with a leopard behind him on his 
horse's croup ; and then if he sees any animal that 
takes his fancy, he slips his leopard at it,^ and the 
game when taken is made over to feed the hawks in 
mew. This he does for diversion. 

Moreover [at a spot in the Park where there is a 
charming wood] he has another Palace built of cane, of 
which I must give you a description. It is gilt all over, 
and most elaborately finished inside. [It is stayed on 
gilt and lackered columns, on each of which is a dragon 
all gilt, the tail of which is attached to the column 
whilst the head supports the architrave, and the claws 
likewise are stretched out right and left to support the 
architrave.] The roof, like the rest, is formed of canes, 
covered with a varnish so strong and excellent that no 
amount of rain will rot them. These canes are a good 
3 palms in girth, and from 10 to 15 paces in length. 
[They are cut across at each knot, and then the pieces 
are split so as to form from each two hollow tiles, and 
with these the house is roofed ; only every such tile of 
cane has to be nailed down to prevent the wind from 
lifting it.] In short, the whole Palace is built of these 
canes, which (I may mention) serve also for a great 
variety of other useful purposes. The construction of 
the Palace is so devised that it can be taken down and 
put up again w ith great celerity ; and it can all be taken 



300 MARCO POLO Book I. 

to pieces and removed whithersoever the Emperor may 
command. When erected, it is braced [against mishaps 
from the wind] by more than 200 cords of silk/ 

The Lord abides at this Park of his, dweHingr some- 
times in the Marble Palace and sometimes in the Cane 
Palace for three months of the year, to wit, June, July, 
and August ; preferring this residence because it is by 
no means hot ; in fact it is a very cool place. When 
the 28th day of [the Moon of] August arrives he takes 
his departure, and the Cane Palace is taken to pieces.^ 
But I must tell you what happens when he goes away 
from this Palace every year on the 28th of the August 
[Moon]. 

You must know that the Kaan keeps an immense 
stud of white horses and mares ; in fact more than 
10,000 of them, and all pure white without a speck. 
The milk of these mares is drunk by himself and his 
family, and by none else, except by those of one great 
tribe that have also the privilege of drinking it. This 
privilege was granted them by Chinghis Kaan, on 
account of a certain victory that they helped him to win 
loner aofo. The name of the tribe is Horiad.'^ 

Now when these mares are passing across the 
country, and any one falls in with them, be he the 
greatest lord in the land, he must not presume to pass 
until the mares have gone by ; he must either tarry 
where he is, or go a half-day's journey round if need 
so be, so as not to come nigh them ; for they are to be 
treated with the greatest respect. Well, when the Lord 
sets out from the Park on the 28th of August, as I told 
you, the milk of all those mares is taken and sprinkled 
on the ground. And this is done on the injunction of 
the Idolaters and Idol-priests, who say that it is an 
excellent thing to sprinkle that milk on the ground 
every 28th of August, so that the Earth and the Air 



Chap. LXI. THE KAAN'S PALACE AT CHANDU 3OI 

and the False Gods shall have their share of it, and 
the Spirits likewise that inhabit the Air and the Earth. 
And thus those beings will protect and bless the Kaan 
and his children and his wives and his folk and his gear, 
and his cattle and his horses, his corn and all that is his. 
After this is done, the Emperor is off and away.^ 

But I must now tell you a strange thing that hitherto 
I have forgotten to mention. During the three months 
of every year that the Lord resides at that place, if it 
should happen to be bad weather, there are certain 
crafty enchanters and astrologers in his train, who are 
such adepts in necromancy, and the diabolic arts, that 
they are able to prevent any cloud or storm from 
passing over the spot on which the Emperor's Palace 
stands. The sorcerers who do this are called Tebet 
and Kesimur, which are the names of two nations of 
Idolaters. Whatever they do in this way is by the 
help of the Devil, but they make those people believe 
that it is compassed by dint of their own sanctity and 
the help of God.^ [They always go in a state of dirt 
and uncleanness, devoid of respect for themselves, or 
for those who see them, unwashed, unkempt, and 
sordidly attired.] 

These people also have a custom which I must tell 
you. If a man is condemned to death and executed by 
the lawful authority, they take his body and cook and 
eat it. But if any one die a natural death then they 
will not eat the body.^ 

There is another marvel performed by those Bacsi, 
of whom I have been speaking as knowing so many 
enchantments.^" For when the Great Kaan is at his 
capital and in his great Palace, seated at his table, 
which stands on a platform some eight cubits above 
the ground, his cups are set before him [on a great 
buffet] in the middle of the hall pavement, at a distance 



302 MARCO POLO Book I. 

of some ten paces from his table, and filled with wine, 
or other good spiced liquor such as they use. Now 
when the Lord desires to drink, these enchanters by 
the power of their enchantments cause the cups to 
move from their place without being touched by any- 
body, and to present themselves to the Emperor! This 
every one present may witness, and there are ofttimes 
more than 10,000 persons thus present. 'Tis a truth 
and no lie ! and so will tell you the sages of our own 
country who understand necromancy, for they also can 
perform it^^ 

And when the Idol Festivals come round, these 
Bacsi go to the Prince and say : " Sire, the Feast of 
such a god is come " (naming him). " My Lord, you 
know," the enchanter will say, " that this god, when 
he gets no offerings, always sends bad weather and 
spoils our seasons. So we pray you to give us such 
and such a number of black-faced sheep," naming 
whatever number they please. " And we beg also, 
good my lord, that we may have such a quantity of 
incense, and such a quantity of lignaloes, and " — so much 
of this, so much of that, and so much of t'other, accord- 
ing to their fancy — " that we may perform a solemn 
service and a great sacrifice to our Idols, and that so 
they may be induced to protect us and all that is 
ours." 

The Bacsi say these things to the Barons entrusted 
with the Stewardship, who stand round the Great Kaan, 
and these repeat them to the Kaan, and he then orders 
the Barons to give everything that the Bacsi have asked 
for. And when they have got the articles they go and 
make a great feast in honour of their god, and hold 
great ceremonies of worship with grand illuminations 
and quantities of incense of a variety of odours, which 
they make up from different aromatic spices. And 



Chap. LXI. THE BACSI AND THE SENSIN 303 

then they cook the meat, and set it before the idols, 
and sprinkle the broth hither and thither, saying that 
in this way the idols get their bellyful. Thus it is 
that they keep their festivals. You must know that 
each of the idols has a name of his own, and a feast- 
day, just as our Saints have their anniversaries.^"^ 

They have also immense Minsters and Abbeys, 
some of them as big as a small town, with more 
than two thousand monks (i.e. after their fashion) in 
a single abbey.^^ These monks dress more decently 
than the rest of the people, and have the head and 
beard shaven. There are some among these Bacsi who 
are allowed by their rule to take wives, and who have 
plenty of children.^* 

Then there is another kind of devotees called 
Sensin, who are men of extraordinary abstinence after 
their fashion, and lead a life of such hardship as' I will 
describe. All their life long they eat nothing but bran,^^ 
which they take mixt with hot water. That is their 
food : bran, and nothing but bran ; and water for their 
drink. 'Tis a lifelong fast ! so that I may well say their 
life is one of extraordinary asceticism. They have 
great idols, and plenty of them ; but they sometimes 
also worship fire. The other Idolaters who are not of 
this sect call these people heretics — Patarins as we 
should say^^ — because they do not worship their idols in 
their own fashion. Those of whom I am speaking 
would not take a wife on any consideration." They 
wear dresses of hempen stuff, black and blue,^^ and 
sleep upon mats ; in fact their asceticism is something 
astonishing. Their idols are all feminine, that is to say, 
they have women's names. ^^ 

Now let us have done with this subject, and let me 
tell you of the great state and wonderful magnificence 
of the Great Lord of Lords ; I mean that great Prince 



304 MARCO POLO Book I. 

who is the Sovereign of the Tartars, Cublay by name, 
that most noble and puissant Lord. 



Note i. — [There were two roads to go from Peking to Shangtu : the eastern road 
through Tu-shi-k'ow, and the western (used for the return journey) road by Ye-hu ling. 
Polo took this last road, which ran from Peking to Siuen-te chau through the same 
places as now ; but from the latter town it led, not to Kalgan as it does now, but 
more to the west, to a place called now Shan-fang pii where the pass across the Ye-hu 
ling range begins. " On both these roads tiabo, or temporary palaces, were built, as 
resting-places for the Khans ; eighteen on the eastern road, and twenty-four on the 
western." [Palladius, p. 25.) The same author makes (p. 26) the following remarks : 
" M. Polo's statement that he travelled three days from Siuen-te chau to Chagannor, 
and three days also from the latter place to Shang-tu, agrees with the information 
contained in the ' Researches on the Routes to Shangtu.' The Chinese authors have 
not given the precise position of Lake Chagannor ; there are several lakes in the desert 
on the road to Shangtu, and their names have changed with time. The palace in 
Chagannor was built in 1280" (according to the Sin fung kie^i). — H. C] 

Note 2. — Chandu, called more correctly in Ramusio Xandii, i.e. Shandu, and 
by Fr. Odorico Safidu, viz. Shang-tu or "Upper Court," the Chinese title of Kublai's 
summer residence at Kaipingfu, Mongolid Keibung (see ch. xiii. of Prologue) [is 
called also Zoa« /^/«^, i.e. "the capital on the Loan River," according to Palladius, 
p. 26. — H. C.]. The ruins still exist, in about lat. 40° 22', and a little west of the 
longitude of Peking. The site is 118 miles in direct line from Chaghan-nor, making 
Polo's three marches into rides of unusual length.* The ruins bear the Mongol name 
of Chao Naintan Sumi Khotan, meaning "city of the 108 temples," and are about 
26 miles to the north-west of Dolon-nor, a bustling, dirty town of modern origin, 
famous for the manufactory of idols, bells, and other ecclesiastical paraphernalia of 
Buddhism. The site was visited (though not described) by Pere Gerbillon in 1691, 
and since then by no European traveller till 1872, when Dr. Bushell of the British 
Legation at Peking, and the Hon. T. G. Grosvenor, made a journey thither from 
the capital, by way of the Nan-kau Pass {supra p. 26), Kalgan, and the vicinity of 
Chaghan-nor, the route that would seem to have been habitually followed, in their 
annual migration, by Kublai and his successors. 

The deserted site, overgrown with rank weeds and grass, stands but little above 
the marshy bed of the river, which here preserves the name of Shang-tu, and about a 
mile from its north or left bank. The walls, of earth faced with brick and unhewn 
stone, still stand, forming, as in the Tartar city of Peking, a double enceinte, of which 
the inner line no doubt represents the area of the " Marble Palace" of which Polo 
speaks. This forms a square of about 2 li (5 of a mile) to the side, and has three 
gates — south, east, and west, of which the southern one still stands intact, a perfect 
arch, 20 ft. high and 12 ft. wide. The outer wall forms a square of 4 li {\\ mile) to 
the side, and has six gates. The foundations of temples and palace-buildings can be 
traced, and both enclosures are abundantly strewn with blocks of marble and frag- 
ments of lions, dragons, and other sculptures, testifying to the former existence of a 
flourishing city, but exhibiting now scarcely one stone upon another. A broken 
memorial tablet was found, half buried in the ground, within the north-east angle of 
the outer rampart, bearing an inscription in an antique form of the Chinese character, 
which proves it to have been erected by Kublai, in honour of a 15uddhist ecclesiastic 
called Yun-IIien. Yun-llien was the abbot of one of those great minsters and 

* This dist.-ince is taken from a tracing of tlie map prepared for Dr. BusheU's paper quoted below. 
But there is a serious discrepancy between this tracing and the observed position of Dolon-nor, which 
determines that of bbang-tu, as stated to me in a letter from Dr. Bushell. |See Note i.] 






tM 



.__f"-.. 



t I 



|IJ!!lil;[»ill 




rr- 



:^' 








"'"'"iiiiiiDiii iiiiiniiaiiiinitii iiiiiimiiDi: i 



Heading 

In the Old Chinese Seal-Character, of an Inscription on a Memorial raised by KudlAi-Kaan 

to a Buddhist Ecclesiastic in the vicinity of his Summer- Palace 

at Shang-tu in Mongolia. 

Reduced from a facsimile obtained on the spot by Dr. 6". IV. Bushel/, 

1872. 

(About one-Fourth the Length and Breadth of Original.) 

Vrofacep. 305. 



Chap. LXI. THE KAAN'S PALACE AT SHANGTU 305 

abbeys of Bacsis, of which Marco speaks, and the exact date (no longer visible) of the 
monument was equivalent to A. D. 1 2S8. * 

This city occupies the south-east angle of a more extensive enclosure, bounded by 
what is now a grassy mound, and embracing, on Dr. Bushell's estimate, about 5 
square miles. Further knowledge may explain the discrepancy from Marco's dimen- 
sion, but this must be the park of which he speaks.f The woods and fountains have 
disappeared, like the temples and palaces ; all is dreary and desolate, though still 
abounding in the game which was one of Kublai's attractions to the spot. A small 
monastery, occupied by six or seven wretched Lamas, is the only building that 
remains in the vicinity. The river Shangtu, which lower down becomes the Lan [or 
Loan] -Ho, was formerly navigated from the sea up to this place by flat grain-boats. 

[Mgr. de Harlez gave in the T''oung Pao (x. p. 73) an inscription in Chtien 
character on a stele found in the ruins of Shangtu, and built by an officer with the 
permission of the Emperor ; it is probably a token of imperial favour ; the inscription 
means : Great Longevity. — H. C] 

In the wail which Sanang Setzen, the poetical historian of ihe Mongols, puts, 
perhaps with some traditional basis, into the mouth of Toghon Temur, the last of the 
Chinghizide Dynasty in China, when driven from his throne, the changes are rung on 
the lost glories of his capital Daitu (see infra, Book II. ch. xi.) and his summer palace 
Shangtu; thus (I translate from Schott's amended German rendering of the Mongol) : 

" My vast and noble Capital, My Daitu, My splendidly adorned I 

And Thou my cool and delicious Summer-seat, my Shangtu-Keibung ! 

Ye, also, yellow plains of Shangtu, Delight of my godlike Sires I 

I suftered myself to drop into dreams, — and lo ! my Empire was gone ! 

Ah Thou my Daitu, built of the nine precious substances ! 
Ah my Shangtu-Keibung, Union of all perfections ! 
Ah my Fame ! Ah my Glory, as Khagan and Lord of the Earth ! 
When I used to awake betimes and look forth, how the breezes blew loaded with 

fragrance ! 
And turn which way I would all was glorious perfection of beauty ! 

Alas for my illustrious name as the Sovereign of the World ! 
Alas for my Daitu, seat of Sanctity, Glorious work of the Immortal Ki'blai ! 
All, all is rent from me ! " 

It was, in 1797, whilst reading this passage of Marco's narrative in old Purchas that 
Coleridge fell asleep, and dreamt the dream of Kublai's Paradise, beginning : 
" In Xanadu did Kubla Khan 

A stately pleasure-dome decree : 
Where Alph, the sacred River, ran 
Through caverns measureless to man 

Down to a sunless sea. 
So twice five miles of fertile ground 
With walls and towers were girdled round : 
And there were gardens bright with sinuous rills 

Where blossomed many an incense-bearing tree ; 
And here were forests ancient as the hills. 
Pinfolding sunny spots of greenery." 

* These particulars were obtained by Dr. Bushell through the Arctimandrite Palladius, from the 
MS. account of a Chinese traveller who visited Shangtu about two hundred years ago, when probably 
ihe whole inscription was above ground. The inscription is also mentioned in the Imp. Geography of 
the present Dynasty, quoted by Klaprotb. This work gives the interior wall 5 /i to the side, instead 
of 2 li, and the outer wall 10 //, instead of 4 // By Dr. Bushell's kindness, I give a reduction of his 
sketch plan (see Itinerary Mafi, No. IV. at end of this volume , and also a plate of the beading of the 
inscription. The translation of this is: " Monument conferred by the Emperor of the August Yuen 
(Dynasty) in memory of His High Eminence Yun Hien (styled) Chang-Lao (canonised as) Shou-Kung 
(Prince of Longevity)." [See Missions de Chine et du Congo, No. 28, Mars, iSgi, Bruxelles.] 

t Ramusio's version runs thus : " The palace presents one side to the centre of the city and the 
other to the city wall. And from either extremity of the p.-«lace where it touches the city wall, the'e 

VOL. I. y 



3o6 



MARCO POLO Book I. 



It would be a singular coincidence in relation to this poem were Klaproth's reading 
correct of a passage in Rashiduddin which he renders as saying that the palace at 
Kaiminfu was " called Langtin, and was built after a plan that Kiibldi had seen in a 
dream, and had retained in his memory." But I suspect D'Ohsson's reading is more 
accurate, which runs : " Kublai caused a Palace to be built for him east of Kaipingfu, 
called Lengten ; but he abandoned it hi consequence of a drea9)i." For we see from 
Sanang Setzen that the Palaces of Lengten and Kaiming or Shangtu were distinct : 
" Between the year of the Rat (1264), when Kublai was fifty years old, and the year 
of the Sheep (1271), in the space of eight years, he built four great cities, viz. for 
Summer Residence Shangtu Keibung Kiirdu Balgasun, for Winter Residence Yeke 
Da'itu Khotan, and on the shady side of the Altai (see ch. li. note 3, supra) Arulun 
TSAGHAN Balgasun, and Erchiigin Langting Balgasun." A valuable letter from 
Dr. Bushell enables me now to indicate the position of I^angtin: "The district through 
which the river flows eastward from Shangtu is known to the Mongolians of the 
present day by the name o{ Lang-tirh {Lang-ting' rh). . . . The ruins of the city are 
marked on a Chinese map in my possession Pai-dseng-tzu, i.e. 'White City,' implying 
that it was formerly an Imperial residence. The remains of the wall are 7 or 8 /i in 
diameter, of stone, and situated about 40 /? north-north-west from Dolon-nor." 

{Gerbil/on in Astley, IV. 701-716; Klaproth, iny. As. ser. II. torn. xi. 345-350; 
Schott, Die letzleii Jahre der MongoIenhe^Tschaft in China (Berl. Acad. d. Wissensch. 
1850, pp. 502-503) ; Hues Tartary, etc., p. 14 seqq. ; Cathay, 134, 261 ; S. Setzen, 
p. 115 ; Dr. S. W. Bushell, Jour luy outside the Great Wall, in J. R. G. S. for 1874, 
and MS. notes.) 

One of the pavilions of the celebrated Yuen-ming-Yuen may give some idea of 
the probable style, though not of the scale, of Kiiblai's Summer Palace. 

Hiuen Tsang's account of the elaborate and fantastic ornamentation of the famous 
Indian monasteries at Nalanda in Bahar, where Mr. Broadley has lately made such 
remarkable discoveries, seems to indicate that these fantasies of Burmese and Chinese 
architecture may have had a direct origin in India, at a time when timber was still a 
principal material of construction there : " The pavilions had pillars adorned with 
dragons, and posts that glowed with all the colours of the rainbow, sculptured frets, 
columns set with jade, richly chiselled and lackered, with balustrades of vermilion, 
and carved open work. The lintels of the doors were tastefully ornamented, and 
the roofs covered with shining tiles, the splendours of which were nmltiplied by 
mutual reflection and from moment to moment took a thousand forms." '( Vie et 
Voyages, 157.) 

Note 3. — [Rubruck says, {Rockhill, p. 248) : " I saw also the envoy of a certain 
Soldan of India, who had brought eight leopards and ten greyhounds, taught to sit on 
horses' backs, as leopards sit." — H. C] 

Note 4. — Ramusio's is here so mucli more lucid than the other texts, that I have 
adhered mainly to his account of the building. The roof described is of a kind in use 
in the Indian Archipelago, and in some other parts of Transgangetic India, in which 
the semi-cylinders of bamboo are laid just like Roman tiles. 

Rashiduddin gives a curious account of the way in which the foundations of the 
terrace on which this palace stood were erected in a lake. He says, too, in accord 
with Polo : " Inside the city itself a second palace was built, about a bowshot from 
the first : but the Kaan generally takes up his residence in the palace outside the 
town," i.e., as I imagine, in Marco's Cane Palace. {Cathay, pp. 261-262.) 

\^^^'1\\& Palace of canes 1% probably the Palm Hall, Tsung /zVw, alias Tsung viao 
tien, of the Chinese authors, which was situated in the western palace garden of 
Shangtu. Mention is made also in the Allan 7'obchi of a cane tent in Shangtu.'' 
{Pallndius, p. 27.)— H. C] 



runs nnolher wall, which fetches a comp.iss and encloses a good 16 miles of plain, and so that no on* 
can enter this enclosure except by passing through the palact;." 



Chap. LXI. 



THE K.\AN'S PALACE AT SHANGTU 



307 



Marco might well say of the bamboo that ' ' it serves also a great variety of other 
purposes." An intelligent native of Arakan who accompanied me in wanderings on 
duty in the forests of the Burmese frontier in the banning of 1853, and who used to 
ask many questions about Europe, seemed able to apprehend almost everything except 
the possibility of existence in a country without bamboos ! " ^^'^len I speak of bamboo 
huts, I mean to say that posts and walls, wall-plates and rafters, floor and thatch, and 




Pavilion at Yuen-ming-Yuen. 



the withes that bind them, are all of bamboo. In fact, it might almost be said that 
among the Indo-Chinese nations the staff of life is a bamboo ! Scaffolding and ladders, 
landing-jetties, fishing apparatus, irrigation wheels and scoops, oars, masts, and yards 
[and in China, sails, cables, and caulking, asparagus, medicine, and works of fantastic 
art], spears and arrows, hats and helmets, bow, bowstring and quiver, oil-cans, water- 
VOL. 1, ^ 2 U 



3o8 



MARCO POLO Book I. 



stoups and cooking-pots, pipe-sticks [tinder and means of producing fire], conduits, 
clothes-boxes, pawn-boxes, dinner-trays, pickles, preserves, and melodious musical 
instruments, torches, footballs, cordage, bellows, mats, paper ; thege are but a few of 
the articles that are made from the bamboo ; " and in China, to sum up the whole, as 
Barrow observes, it maintains order throughout the Empire ! {.-Iva ISIission, p. 153 ; 
and see also Wallace, Ind. Arch. I. 120 seqq.) 

Note 5. — " The Emperor .... l)egan this year (1264) to depart from Yenking 
(Peking) in the second or third month for Shangtu, not returning until the eighth month. 
Every year he made this passage, and all the Mongol emperors who succeeded him 
followed his example." {Gaiibil, p. 144.) 

[ "The Khans usually resorted to Shangtu in the 4th moon and returned to Peking 
in the 9th, On the 7th day of the 7th moon there were libations performed in honour 
of the ancestors ; a shaman, his face to the north, uttered in a loud* voice the names of 
Chingiz Khan and of other deceased Khans, and poured mare's milk on the ground. 
The propitious day for the return journey to Peking was also appointed then." 
(Palladius, p. 26.)— II. C] 

Note 6. — White horses were presented in homage to the Kaan on New Year's 
Day {the White Feast), as we shall see below. (Bk. II. ch. xv.) Odoric also 
mentions this practice ; and, according to Hue, the Mongol chiefs continued it at 
least to the time of the Emperor K'ang-hi. Indeed Timkowski speaks of annual 
tributes of white camels and white horses from the Khans of the Kalkas and other 
Mongol dignitaries, in the present century. (Huc^s Tartary, etc. ; Tim. II. t,'^.) 

By the Hokiad are no doubt intended the Uirad or OiRAD, a name usually in- 
terpreted as signifying the "Closely Allied," or Confederates; but Vambery explains 
it as (Turki) Oyurat, "Grey horse," to which the statement in our text appears to 
lend colour. They were not of the tribes properly called Mongol, but after their 
submission to Chinghiz they remained closely attached to him. In Chinghiz's victory 
over Aung-Khan, as related by S. Setzen, we find Turulji Taishi, the son of the chief 
of the Oirad, one of Chinghiz's three chief captains ; perhaps that is the victory 
alluded to. The seats of the Oirad appear to have been about the head waters of the 
Kem, or Upper Yenisei. 

In A.i). 1295 there took place a curious desertion from the service of Ghazan 
Khan of Persia of a vast corps of the Oirad, said to amount to 18,000 tents. They 
made their way to Damascus, where they were well received by the Mameluke 
Sultan. But their heathenish practices gave dire offence to the Faithful. They 
were settled in the Sdhil, or coast districts of Palestine. Many died speedily ; the 
rest embraced Islam, spread over the country, and gradually became absorbed in the 
general population. Their sons and daughters were greatly admired for their beauty. 
(S. Setz. p. 87 ; Erdinami, 187 ; Pallas, Sainml. I. 5 seqq. ; Makrizi, III. 29 ; 
Bret Schneider, Med. Res. II. p. 159 seqq.) 

[With reference to Yule's conjecture, I may quote Palladius {I.e. p. 27) : "It is, 
however, strange that the Oirats alone enjoyed the privilege described by Marco Polo ; 
for the highest position at the Mongol Khan's court belonged to the Kunkrat tribe, 
out of which the Khans used to choose their first wives, who were called Empresses 
of the first (7;'^^." — H. C] 

Note 7. — Rubruquis assigns such a festival to the month of May: "On the 9th 
day of the May Moon they collect all the white mares of their herds and consecrate 
them. The Christian priests also must then assemble with their thuribles. They 
then sprinkle new cosmos {kumiz) on the ground, and make a great feast that day, 
for according to their calendar, it is their time of first drinking new cosmos, just as 
we reckon of our new wine at the feast of St. Bartholomew (24th August), or that of 
St. Sixtus (6th August), or of our fruit on the feast of St. James and St. Christopher " 
(25th July). [With reference to this feast, Mr. Rockhill gwts [RubrncA, p. 241, note) 
extracts from Pallas^ Voyages, IV. 579, and Professor Radloff, Aus Siberien^ I. 378, 



Chap. LXI. WEATHER-CONJURING 309 

— H. C] The Yakuts also hold such a festival in June or July, when the mares foal, 
and immense wooden goblets of kumfz are emptied on that occasion. They also pour 
out kumfz for the Spirits to the four quarters of heaven. 

The following passage occurs in the narrative of the Journey of Chang Te-hui, a 
Chinese teacher, who was summoned to visit the camp of Kiiblai in Mongolia, some 
twelve years before that Prince ascended the throne of the Kaans : * 

" On the 9th day of the 9th Moon (October), the Prince, ha\-ing called his subjects 
before his chief tent, performed the libation of the milk of a white mare. This w^as 
the customary sacrifice at that time. The vessels used were made of birch-bark, not 
ornamented with either silver or gold. Such here is the respect for simplicity 

"At the last day of the year the Mongols suddenly changed their camping-ground 
to another place, for the mutual congratulation on the ist Moon. Then there was 
every day feasting before the tents for the lower ranks. Banning with the Prince, 
all dressed themselves in white fur clothing t 

" On the 9th day of the 4th Moon (May) the Prince again collected his vassals before 
the chief tent for the libation of the milk of a white mare. This sacrifice is performed 
twice a year." 

It has been seen (p. 308) that Rubruquis also names the 9th day of the May moon 
as that of the consecration of the white mares. The autumn libation is described by 
Polo as performed on the 2Sth day of the August moon, probably because it was un- 
suited to the circumstances of the Court at Cambaluc, where the Kaan was during 
October, and the day named was the last of his annual stay in the Mongolian 
uplands. 

Baber tells that among the ceremonies of a Mongol Review the Khan and his staff 
took kumiz and sprinkled it towards the standards. An Armenian author of the 
Mongol era says that it was the custom of the Tartars, before drinking, to sprinkle 
drink towards heaven, and towards the four quarters. Mr. Atkinson notices the same 
practice among the Kirghiz : and I found the like in old days among the Kasias of 
the eastern frontier of Bengal. 

The time of year assigned by Polo for the ceremony implies some change. Perhaps 
it had been made to coincide with the Festival of Water Consecration of the Lamas, 
with which the time named in the text seems to correspond. On that occasion the 
Lamas go in procession to the rivers and lakes and consecrate them by benediction 
and by casting in ofiierings, attended by much popular festivity. 

Rubruquis seems to intimate that the Nestorian priests were employed to con- 
secrate the white mares by incensing them. In the rear of Lord Canning's camp in 
India I once came upon the party of his Shutr Suwdrs, or dromedary-express ridtrs, 
busily engaged in incensing with frankincense the whole of the dromedaries, which 
were kneeling in a circle. I could get no light on the practice, but it was veiy 
probably a relic of the old Mongol custom. {Ruhr. 363 ; Erman, II. 397 ; Bil/iugs' 
Journey, Fr. Tr. I. 217; Baber, 103 ;y. As. ser. V. tom. xL p. 249; Atk. Amoor, 
p. AT, J. A. S. B. XIIL 628 ; Koeppen, IL 313.) 

Note 8. — The practice of weather-conjuring was in great vc^jue among the 
Mongols, and is often alluded to in their history. 

The operation was performed by means of a stone of magical virtuts, called Yadah 
or Jadah-Tdsh, which was placed in or hung over a basin of water with sundry 
ceremonies. The possession of such a stone is ascribed by the early Arab traveller 
Ibn Mohalhal to the Kimdk, a great tribe of the Turks. In the war raised against 
Chinghiz and Aung Khan, when still allies, by a great confederation of the Naiman 
and other tribes in 1202, we are told that Sengun, the son of Aung Khan, when sent 
to meet the enemy, caused them to l)e enchanted, so that all their attempted move- 

• This narrative, translated from Chinese into Russian by Father Palladius, and from the Russian 
pto English by Mr. Eugene Schuyler, Secretar>- of the U.S. Legation at St. Petersbursr, was oblig- 
ingly sent to me by the latter gentleman, and appeared in the Geo^rafhical Magazine for January, 
If 75, p. 7. 

t See Blc II. chap. xiv. note > 



3IO MARCO POLO Book I. 

ments against him were defeated by snow and mist. The fog and darkness were 
indeed so dense that many men and horses fell over precipices, and many also 
perished with cold. In another account of (apparently) the same matter, given by 
Mir-Khond, the conjuring is set on foot by the Yadachi of Buyruk Khan, Prince of 
the Naiman, but the mischief all rebounds on the conjurer's own side. 

In Tului's invasion of Honan in 1231-1232, Rashiduddin describes him, when in 
difficulty, as using \h&Jadah stone with success. 

Timur, in his Memoirs, speaks of the Jets using incantations to produce heavy 
rains which hindered his cavalry from acting against them, A Yadachi was captured, 
and when his head had been taken off the storm ceased. 

Baber speaks of one of his early friends, Khwaja Ka Mulai, as excelling in 
falconry and acquainted with Yadagari or the art of biinging on rain and snow by 
means of enchantment. When the Russians besieged Kazan in 1552 they suffered 
much from the constant heavy rains, and this annoyance was universally ascribed to 
the arts of the Tartar Queen, who was celebrated as an enchantress. Shah Abbas 
believed he had learned the Tartar secret, and put much confidence in it. {P. Delia V. 
I. 869.) 

[Grenard says (II. p. 256) the most powerful and most feared of sorcerers [in 
Chinese Turkestan] is the djdduger, who, to produce rain or fine weather, uses a jade 
stone, given by Noah to Japhet. Grenard adds (II. 406-407) there are sorcerers 
(Ngag-pa-snags-pa) whose specialty is to make rain fall ; they are similar to the 
Turkish Yadachi and like them use a stone called " water cristal," chu shel ; probably 
jade stone. 

Mr. Rockhill [Rubruck, p. 245, note) writes : " Rashideddin states that when the 
Urianghit wanted to bring a storm to an end, they said injuries to the sky, the 
lightning and thunder. I have seen this done myself by Mongol storm-dispellers. 
(See Diary, 201, 203.) 'The other Mongol people,' he adds, 'do the contrary. 
When the storm rumbles, they remain shut up in their huts, full of fear.' Tlie 
subject of storm-making, and the use of stones for that purpose, is fully discussed by 
Quatremere, Histoire, 438-440." (Cf. also Rockhill, I.e. p. 254.)— H. C] 

An edict of the Emperor Shi-tsung, of the reigning dynasty, addressed in 1724- 
1725 to the Eight Banners of Mongolia, warns them against this rain-conjuring : " If 
I," indignantly observes the Emperor, "offering prayer in sincerity have yet room to 
fear that it may please Heaven to leave MY prayer unanswered, it is truly intolerable 
that mere common people wishing for rain should at their own caprice set up altars 
of earth, and bring together a rabble of Hoshang (Buddhist Bonzes) and Taosse to 
conjure the spirits to gratify their wishes." 

[ " Lamas were of various extraction ; at the time of the great assemblies, and of 
the Khan's festivities in Shangtu, they erected an altar near the Khan's tent and 
prayed for fine weather ; the whistling of shells rose up to heaven." These are the 
words in which Marco Polo's narrative is corroborated by an eye-witness who has 
celebrated the remarkable objects of Shangtu {Loan king tsa yung). These Lamas, 
in spite of the prohibition by the Buddhist creed of bloody sacrifices, used to sacrifice 
sheep's hearts to Mahakala. It happened, as it seems, that the heart of an executed 
criminal was also considered an agreeable offering ; and as the offerings could be, 
after the ceremony, eaten by the sacrificing priests, Marco Polo had some reason to 
accuse the Lamas of cannibalism." {Palladitis, 28.) — H. C] 

The practice of weather-conjuring is not yet obsolete in Tartary, Tibet, and the 
adjoining countries.* 

Weather-conjuring stories were also rife in Europe during the Middle Ages. One 



* In the first edition I liad supposed a derivation of the Persian words Jddti and Jddilgari, used 
commonly in India for conjuring, from the Tartar use of YadcUi. And Pallas says the Kirghiz call 
their witches Jddug-ar. {l^oy. 11. 298.) But I am assured by Sir H. Rawlinson that this etymologj; is 
more than doubtful, and that at any rate the Persian {Jddii) is probably older than the Turkish 
term. I see that M. Pavet de Courteille derives Yadah from a Mongol word signifying "change of 
weather," etc. 



Chap. LXI. WEATHER-CONJURING 3 1 i 

such is conspicuously introduced in connection with a magical fountain in the 
romance of the Chevalier au Lyon : 

" Et s'i pant uns bacins d'or fin 
A une si longue chaainne 
Qui dure jusqu'a la fontainne. 
Lez la fontainne troveras 

Un perron tel con tu verras 

» ♦ • » 

S'au bacin viaus de Tiaue prandre 
Et dessor le perron espandre, 
La verras une tel tanpeste 
Qu'an cest bois ne remandra beste,'' 
etc. etc. * 

The eflfect foretold in these lines is the subject of a woodcut illustrating a Welsh 
version of the same tale in the first volume of the Madittogion. And the existence of 
such a fountain is alluded to by Alexander Neckam. (De Naturis Keruni, Bk. II. 
ch. vii.) 

In the Cettto NotkILs Antiche also certain necromancers exhibit their craft before 
the Emperor Frederic (Barbarossa apparently) : "The weather began to be overcast, 
and lo ! of a sudden rain began to fall with continued thunders and lightnings, as if 
the world were come to an end, and hailstones that looked hke steel-caps,"' etc. 
Various other European l^ends of like character will be found in Liebrechfs 
Gervasius von Tilbury, pp. 147-148. 

Rain-makers there are in many parts of the world ; but it is remarkable that 
those also of Samoa in the Pacific operate by means of a rain-stone. 

Such weather conjurings as we have spoken of are ascribed by Ovid to Circe : 

" Concipit ilia preces, et verba venefica dicit ; 

Ignotosque Deos ignoto carmine adorat, 

♦ • » * 

Tunc qttoque cantata densetur carmim caelum, 
Et tubulas exhalat humus." — Metam. XIV. 365. 

And to Medea : — 

"Quura volui, rijMS mirantibus, amnes 

In fontes rediere suos .... (another feat of the Lamas) 

.... Nubila pello, 
Niibilaque induco ; ventos abigoque, vocoque." — Ibid. VII. 199. 

And by Tibullus to the Saga (Eleg. I. 2, 45); whilst Empedocles, in verses 
ascribed to him by Diogenes Laertius, claims power to communicate like secrets of 
potency : — 

" By my spells thou may'st 
To timely sunshine turn the purple rains. 
And parching droughts to fertilising floods." 

(See Cathay, p. clxxxvii. ; Erdm. 282; Oppert, 182 seqq. ; Emian, I. 153; Pallas, 
Samml. II. 348 seqq. ; Timk. I. 402 ; /. R. A. S. VII. 305-306 ; D'Ohsson, II. 
614; and for many interesting particulars, Q. R. p. 428 seqq., and Hammer's Golden 
Horde, 207 and 435 seqq.) 

Note 9. — It is not clear whether Marco attributes this cannibalism to the 
Tibetans and Kashmirians, or brings it in as a particular of Tartar custom which he 
had forgotten to mention before. 

• [Sec W. Focrster's ed., HalU, 1887, p. 15, 386.— H. C.i 



312 MARCO POLO Book I. 

The accusations of cannibalism indeed against the Tibetans in old accounts are 
frequent, and I have elsewhere (see Cathay, p. 151) remarked on some singular 
Tibetan practices which go far to account for such charges. Delia Penna, too, makes 
a statement which bears curiously on the present passage. Remarking on the great 
use made by certain classes of the Lamas of human skulls for magical cups, and of 
human thigh bones for flutes and whistles, he says that to supply them with these the 
bodies of executed criminals were stoi-edup at the disposal of the Lamas ; and a Hindu 
account of Tibet in the Astatic Researches asserts that when one is killed in a fight 
both parties rush forward and struggle for the liver, which they eat (vol. xv). 

[Carpini says of the people of Tibet : "They are pagans; they have a most 
astonishing, or rather horrible, custom, for, when any one's father is about to give up 
the ghost, all the relatives meet together, and they eat him, as was told to me for 
certain." Mr. Rockhill {Ktibruck, p. 152, note) writes : " So far as I am aware, this 
charge [of cannibalism] is not made by any Oriental writer against the Tibetans, though 
both Arab travellers to China in the ninth century and Armenian historians of the 
thirteenth century say the Chinese practised cannibalism. The Armenians designate 
China by the name Nankas, which I take to be Chinese Nati-hio, 'southern country,' 
the Manzi country of Marco Polo." — H. C] 

But like charges of cannibalism are brought against both Chinese and Tartars very 
positively. Thus, without going back to the Anthropophagous Scythians of Ptolemy 
-nnd Mela, we read in the Relations of the Arab travellers of the ninth century : " In 
China it occurs sometimes that the governor of a province revolts from his duty to the 
emperor. In such a case he is slaughtered and eaten. In fact, the Chinese eat the 
flesh of all men who are executed by the sword." Dr. Rennie mentions a superstitious 
practice, the continued existence of which in our own day he has himself witnessed, 
and which might perhaps have given rise to some such statement as that of the Arab 
travellers, if it be not indeed a relic, in a mitigated form, of the very practice they 
assert to have prevailed. After an execution at Peking certain large pith balls are 
steeped in the blood, and under the name of blood-bread are sold as a medicine for 
consumption. // is only to the blood of decapitated criminals that ajiy such healing 
power is attributed. It has been asserted in the annals of the Propagation de la Foi 
that the Chinese executioners of M. Chapdelaine, a missionary who was martyred in 
Kwang-si in 1856 (28th February), were seen to eat the heart of their victim ; and 
M. Huot, a missionary in the Yun-nan province, recounts a case of cannibalism which 
he witnessed. Bishop Chauveau,'at Ta Ts'ien-Iu, told Mr. Cooper that he had seen men 
in one of the cities of Yun-nan eating the heart and brains of a celebrated robber who 
had been executed. Dr. Carstairs Douglas of Amoy also tells me that the like 
practices have occurred at Amoy and Swatau. 

[With reference to cannibalism in China see Medical Superstitions an Incentive to 
Anli-Foreign Riots in China, by D. J. Macgowan, North China Herald, 8th July, 
1892, pp. 60-62. Mr. E. H. Parker {China Review, February-March, 1901, 136) 
relates that the inhabitants of a part of Kwang-si boiled and ate a Chinese officer who 
had been sent to pacify them. "The idea underlying this horrible act [cannibalism] 
ii, that by eating a portion of the victim, especially the heart, one acquires the valour 
with which he was endowed." {Dennys^ Folk-lore of China, 67.) — H. C] 

Hayton, the Armenian, after relating the treason of a Saracen, called Parwana 
(he was an Iconian Turk), against Abaka Khan, says : " He was taken and cut in 
two, and orders were issued that in all the food eaten by Abaka there should be put 
a portion of the traitor's flesh. Of this Abaka himself ate, and caused all his barons 
to partake. And this was in accordance with the custom of the Tartars." The same 
story is related independently and differently by Friar Kicold, thus: "When the 
army of Abaga ran away from the Saracens in Syria, a certain great Tartar baron was 
arrested who had been guilty of treason. And when the Emperor Khan was giving 
the order for his execution the Tartar ladies and women interposed, and begged that 
he might be made over to them. Having got hold of the prisoner they boiled him 
alive, and cutting his body up into mince-meat gave it to eat to the whole army, as 



Chap. LXI. STORIES OF CANNIBALISM 3 1 3 

an exaaiple to others." Vincent of Beauvais makes a like statement : " When they 
captuie any one who is at bitter enmity with them, they gather together and eat him 
in vengeance of his revolt, and like infernal leeches suck his blood," a custom of 
which a modern Mongol writer thinks that he finds a trace in a surviving proverb. 
Among more remote and ignorant Franks the cannibalism of the Tartars was a general 
belief. Ivo of Xarbonne, in his letter written during the great Tartar invasion of 
Europe (1242), declares that the Tartar chiefs, with their dog's head followers and 
other Lotophagi ( !), ate the bodies of their victims like so much bread ; whilst a 
Venetian chronicler, speaking of the council of Lyons in 1274, says there was a 
discussion about making a general move against the Tartars, " porce qtiil tnanjuent la 
char humaine." These latter writers no doubt rehearsed mere popular beliefs, but 
Ha)-ton and Ricold were both intelligent persons well acquainted with the Tartars, 
and Ha)-ton at least not prejudiced against them. 

The old belief was re\-ived in Prussia during the Seven Years' War, in ragard to 
the Kalmaks of the Russian army ; and Bergmann says the old Kalmak warriors 
confessed to him that they had done what they could to encourage it by cutting up the 
bodies of the slain in presence of their prisoners, and roasting them ! But Levchine 
relates an act on the part of the Kirghiz Kazaks which was no jest. They drank the 
blood of their victim if they did not eat his flesh. 

There is some reason to believe that cannibalism was in the Middle Ages generally 
a less strange and unwonted horror than we should at first blush imagine, and especi- 
ally that it was an idea tolerably familiar in China. M. Bazin, in the second part ot 
Chine Afoderne, p. 461, after sketching a Chinese drama of the Mongol era ("The 
Devotion of Chao-H"), the plot of which turns on the acts of a body of caimibals, 
quotes several other passages from Chinese authors which indicate this. Nor is this 
wonderful in the age that had experienced the horrors of the Mongol wars. 

That was no doubt a fable which Carpini heard in the camp of the Great Kaan, 
that in one of the Mongol sieges in Cathay, when the army was without food, one 
man in ten of their own force was sacrificed to feed the remainder.* But we are told 
in sober history that the force of Tului in Honan, in 1231-1232, was reduced to such 
straits as to eat grass and human flesh. At the siege of the Kin capital Kaifongfu, in 
1233, the besi^ed were reduced to the like extremity ; and the same occurred the 
same year at the siege of Tsaichau ; and in 1262, when the rebel general Litan was 
besit^ed in Tsinanfu. The Taiping wars the other day revived the same horrors in 
all their magnitude. And savage acts of the same kind by the Chinese and their 
Turk partisans in the defence of Kashgar were related to Mr. Shaw. 

Probably, however, nothing of the kind in history equals what Abdallatif, a sober 
and scientific physician, describes as having occurred before his own eyes in the great 
E^ptian famine of A.H. 597 (1200). The horrid details fill a chapter of some 
length, and we need not quote from them. 

Nor was Christendom without the nmaour of such barbarities. The story of King 
Richard's banquet in presence of Saladin's ambassadors on the head of a Saracen 
curried (for so it surely was), — 

"soden full hastily 
With powder and with spj-sory. 
And with saffron of good colour " — 

fable as it is, is told with a zest that makes one shudder ; but the tale in the Chanson 
ifAntiocfu, of how the licentious bands of ragamufl^, who hung on the army of the 
First Crusade, and were known as the Tafurs,\ ate the Turks whom they killed at 



* A young .Afghan related in the presence of Arthur ConoUy at Herat that on a certain occasion 
when pro\-isions ran short the Russian General gave orders that 50,00a men should be killed and served 
out as rations 1 (I. 346. ) 

t Ar. Tifir, a sordid, squalid fellow. 



314 



MARCO POLO Book I. 



the siege, looks very like an abominable truth, corroborated as it is by the prose 
chronicle of worse deeds at the ensuing siege of Marrha : — 

"A lor cotiaus qu'il ont trenchans et afiles 
Escorchoient les Turs, aval parmi les pres. 
Voiant Paiens, les ont par pieces decoupes. 
En I'iave et el carbon les ont bien quisines, 
Volontiers les menjuent sans pain et dessales." * 

(Delia Penna, p. 76 ; Reinatid, Rel. I. 52 ; Rennie^s Peking, II. 244 ; Ami. de 
la Pr. de la F. XXIX. 353, XXI. 298 ; Hayton in Ram. ch. xvii. ; Per. Quat. 
p. 116; M. Paris, sub. 1243; Mil. Asiat. Acad. St. Pitersb. II. 659; Canale in 
Arch. Star. Ital. VIII. ; Bergm. Noriiad. Streifereicn, I. 14 ; Carpini, 638 ; 
D''Ohsson, II. 30, 43, 52 ; Wilson's Ever Victorious Army, 74 ; Shaw, p. 48 ; 
Abdallatif, p. 363 j^^^. ; Weber, II. 135; Littri, H. de la Langne Frauf. I. 191 ; 
Gesta Tancredi ixi Tkes. Nov. Anecd. III. 172.) 

Note 10. — Bakhshi is generally believed to be a corruption of Bhikshu, the 
proper Sanscrit term for a religious mendicant, and in particular for the Buddhist 
devotees of that character. Bakhshi was probably applied to a class only of the 
Lamas, but among the Turks and Persians it became a generic name for them all. 
In this sense it is habitually used by Rashiduddin, and thus also in the Ain Akbari : 
" The learned among the Persians and Arabians call the priests of this (Buddhist) 
religion Bnkshee, and in Tibbet they are styled Lamas." 

According to Pallas the word among the modern Mongols is used in the sense of 
Teacher, and is applied to the oldest and most learned priest of a community, who 
is the local ecclesiastical chief. Among the Kirghiz Kazzaks again, who profess 
Mahomedanism, the word also survives, but conveys among them just the idea that 
Polo seems to have associated with it, that of a mere conjuror or " medicine-man" ; 
whilst in Western Turkestan it has come to mean a Bard. 

The word Bakhshi has, however, wandered much further from its original meaning. 
From its association with persons who could read and write, and who therefore 
occasionally acted as clerks, it came in Persia to mean a clerk or secretary. In the 
Petrarchian Vocabulary, published by Klaproth, we find scriba rendered in Comanian, 
i.e. Turkish of the Crimea, by Bacsi. The transfer of meaning is precisely parallel 
to that in regard to our Clerk. Under the Mahomedan sovereigns of India, Bakhshi 
was applied to an officer performing something like the duties of a quartermaster- 
general ; and finally, in our Indian army, it has come to mean a paymaster. In the 
latter sense, I imagine it has got associated in the popular mind with the Persian 
bakhshldan,\.o\iQ.'sX.o\\,2i.n^ bakhshish. (See a note in Q. R. p. 184 j-e^r/. ; Cathay, 
p. 474 ; Ayeen Akbery, III. 150; Pallas, Samml. II. 126 ; Levchine, p. 355 ; Klap, 
Mim. III. ; Vdmbiry, Sketches, p. 81.) 

The sketch from the life, on p. 326, of a wandering Tibetan devotee, whom I met 
once at Hardwar, may give an idea of the sordid Bacsis spoken of by Polo. 

NoTK II. — This feat is related more briefly by Odoric : " And jugglers cause cups 
of gold full of good wine to fly through the air, and to offer themselves to all who list 
to drink." {Cathay, p. 143.) In the note on that passage I have referred to a some- 
what similar story in the Life of Apollonius. " Such feats," says Mr. Jaeschke, "are 
often mentioned in ancient as well as modern legends of Buddha and other saints ; 
and our Lamas have heard of things very similar performed by conjuring Bonpos." 
(See p. 323.) The moving of cups and the like is one of the sorceries ascribed in old 
legends to Simon Mngus : "He made statues to walk; leapt into the fire without 
being burnt ; flew in the air ; made bread of stones ; changed his shape ; assumed 
two faces at once ; converted himself into a pillar ; caused closed doors to fly open 
spontaneously ; made the vessels in a house seem to move of themselves," etc. The 

* [Cf. Pauiin Paris 's ed., 1848, II. p. 5.— H, C] 



Chap. LXI. WONDERFUL DOlXGS OF LAMAS 315 

Jesuit Delrio laments that credulous princes, otherwise of pious repute, should have 
allowed diabolic tricks to be played before them, "as, for example, things of iron, 
and silver goblets, or other heavy articles, to be moved by bounds from one end of 
a table to the other, without the use of a magnet or of any attachment." The pious 
prince appears to have been Charles IX., and the conjuror a certain Cesare Maltesio. 
Another Jesuit author describes the veritable mango-trick, speaking of persons who 
" within three hours' space did cause a genuine shrub of a span in length to grow out 
of the table, besides other trees that produced both leaves and fruit." 

In a letter dated ist December, 1875, written by Mr. R. B. Shaw, after liis last 
return from Kashgar and l^hore, this distinguished traveller says: "I have heard 
stories related regarding a Buddhist high priest whose temple is said to be not far to 
the east of Lanchau, which reminds me of Marco Polo and Kublai Khan. This high 
priest is said to have the magic power of attracting cups and plates to him from a 
distance, so that things fly through the air into his hands." {MS. Note. — H. Y.) 

The profession and practice of exorcism and magic in general is greatly more 
prominent in Lamaism or Tibetan Buddhism than in any other known form of that 
religion. Indeed, the old form of Lamaism as'it existed in our traveller's day, and 
till the reforms of Tsongkhapa (1357-1419), and as it is still professed by the Red 
sect in Tibet, seems to be a kind of compromise between Indian Buddhism and the 
old indigenous Shamanism. Even the reformed doctrine of the Yellow sect recog- 
nises an orthodox kind of magic, which is due in great measure to the combination of 
Sivaism with the Buddhist doctrines, and of which the institutes are contained in the 
vast collection of ihejud or Tantras, recognised among the holy books. The magic 
arts of this code open even a short road to the Buddhahood itself. To attain that 
perfection of power and wisdom, culminating in the cessation of sensible existence, 
requires, according to the ordinary paths, a period of three asankhyas (or say Un- 
countable Time x 3), whereas by means of the magic arts of the Taniras it may be 
reached in the course of three rebirths only, nay, of one ! But from the Tantras also 
can be learned how to acquire miraculous powers for objects entirely selfish and 
secular, and how to exercise these by means of Dhdrani or mystic Indian charms. 

Still the orthodox Yellow Lamas professedly repudiate and despise the grosser 
exhibitions of common magic and ch.irlatanism which the Reds still practise, such as 
knife-swallowing, blowing fire, cutting off their own heads, etc. But as the vulgar 
will not dispense with these marvels, every great orthodox monastery in Tibet keeps a 
conjuror, who is a member of the unreformed, and does not belong to the brotherhood 
of the convent, but lives in a particular part of it, bearing the name of Choichong, or 
protector of religion, and is allowed to marry. The magic of these Choichong is in 
theory and practice different from the orthodox Tantrist magic. The practitioners 
possess no literature, and hand down their mysteries only by tradition. Their fantastic 
equipments, their frantic bearing, and their cries and howls, seem to identifj' them 
with the grossest Shamanist devil dancers. 

Sanang Setzen enumerates a variety of the wonderful acts which could be per- 
formed through the Dhdrani. Such were, sticking a peg into solid rock ; restoring 
the dead to life ; turning a dead body into gold ; penetrating everywhere as air does ; 
flying ; catching wild beasts with the hand ; reading thoughts ; making water flow 
backwards ; eating tiles ; sitting in the air with the legs doubled under, etc. Some 
of these are precisely the powers ascribed to Medea, Empedocles, and Simon Magus, 
in passages already cited. Friar Ricold says on this subject : " There are certain men 
whom the Tartars honour above all in the world, viz. the Baxitae {i.e. Bakhshis), 
who are a kind of idol-priests. These are men from India, persons of deep wisdom, 
well-conducted, and of the gravest morals. They are usually acquainted with magic 
arts, and depend on the counsel and aid of demons ; they exhibit many illusions, and 
predict some future events. For instance, one of eminence among them was said to 
fly ; the truth, however, was (as it proved), that he did not fly, but did walk close to 
the surface of the ground without touching it ; and would seem to sit down without 
having any substatue to support him.'''' This last performance was witnessed by Ibn 



3i6 



HIARCO POLO Book I. 



/ 



Batuta at Delhi, in the presence of Sultan Mahomed Tughlak ; and it was professedly 
exhibited by a Brahmin at Madras in the present century, a descendant doubtless of 
those Brahmans whom Apollonius saw walking two cubits from the ground. It is 
also described by the worthy Francis Valentyn as a performance known and practised 
in his own day in India. It is related, he says, that "a man will first go and sit on 
three .sticks put together so as to form a tripod ; after which, first one stick, then a 
second, then the third shall be removed from under him, and the man shall not fall 
but shall still remain sitting in the air ! Yet I have spoken with two friends who had 
seen this at one and the same time ; and one of them, I may add, mistrusting his own 
eyes, had taken the trouble to feel about with a long stick if there were nothing on 
which the body rested ; yet, as the gentleman told me, he could neither feel nor see 
any such thing. Still, I could only say that I could not believe it, as a thing too 
manifestly contrary to reason." 

Akin to these performances, though exhibited by professed jugglers without claim 
to religious character, is a class of feats which might be regarded as simply inventions 
if told by one author only, but which seem to deserve prominent notice from their 
being recounted by a series of authors, certainly independent of one another, and 
writing at long intervals of time and place. Our first witness is Ibn Batuta, and it 
will be necessary to quote him as well as the otliers in full, in order to show how 
closely their evidence tallies. The Arab Traveller was present at a great entertain- 
ment at the Court of the Viceroy of IChansa {Kinsay of Polo, or Ilang-chau fu) : 
"That same night a juggler, who was one of the Kan's slaves, made his appearance, 
and the Amir said to him, ■ Come and show us some of your marvels.' Upon this he 
took a wooden ball, with several holes in it, through which long thongs were passed, 
and, laying hold -of one of these, slung it into the air. It went so high that we lost 
sight of it altogether. (It was the hottest season of the year, and we were outside in 
the middle of the palace court.) There now remained only a little of the end of a 
thong in the conjuror's hand, and he desired one of the boys who assisted him to lay 
hold of it and mount. He did so, climbing by the thong, and we lost sight of him 
also ! The conjuror then called to him three times, but getting no answer, he snatched 
up a knife as if in a great rage, laid hold of the thong, and disappeared also ! By and 
bye he threw down one of tlie boy's hands, then a foot, then the other hand, and then 
the other foot, then the trunk, and last of all the head ! 'I'hen he came down himself, 
all puffing and panting, and with his clothes all bloody, kissed the ground before the 
Amir, and said something to him in Chinese. The Amfr gave some order in reply, 
and our friend then took the lad's limbs, laid them together in their places, and gave 
a kick, when, presto ! there was the boy, who got up and stood before us ! All this 
astonished me beyond measure, and I had a.i attack of palpitation like that which 
overcame me once before in the presence of rhe Sultan of India, when he showed me 
something of the same kind. They gave ine a cordial, hosvever, which cured the 
attack. The Kazi Afkharuddin was next to me, and quoth he, ' Wallah ! 'tis my 
opinion there has been neither going up nor coming down, neither marring nor 
mending ; 'tis all hocus pocus ! ' " 

Now let us compare with this, which Ibn Batuta the Moor says he saw in China 
about the year 1348, the account which is given us by Edward Melton, an Anglo- 
Dutch traveller, of the performances of a Chinese gang of conjurors, which he witnessed 
at Batavia about the year 1670 (I have forgotten to note the year). After describing 
very vividly the basket-murder trick, which is well known in India, and now also in 
Europe, and some feats of bamboo balancing similar to those which were recently 
shown by Japanese performers in England, only more wonderful, he proceeds : " But 
now I am going to relate a thing which surpasses all belief, and which I should 
scarcely venture to insert here had it not been witnessed by thousands before my own 
eyes. One of the same gang took a ball of cord, and grasping one end of the cord 
in his hand slung the other up into the air with such force that its extremity was 
beyond reach of our sight. He then immediately climbed up the cord with in- 
describable swiftness, and got so high that we could no longer see him. I stood full 



Chap. LXI. 



CONJURING EXTRAORDINARY 



^17 



of astonishment, not conceiving what was to come of this ; when lo ! a leg came 
tumbling down out of the air. One of the conjuring company instantly snatched it up 
and threw it into the basket whereof I have formerly spoken. A moment later a 
hand came down, and immediately on that another leg. And in short all the members 
of tlie body came thus successively tumbling from the air and were cast together into 
the basket. The last fragment of all that we saw tumble down was the head, and no 
sooner had that touched the ground than he who had snatched up all the limbs ar.d 
put them in the basket turned them all out again topsy-tur\y. Then straightway we 
saw with these eyes all those limbs creep together again, and in short, form a whole 




Chinese Conjuring Extraordinary. 



man, who at once could stand and go just as before, without showing the least 
damage ! Never in my life was I so astonished as when I beheld this wonderful 
performance, and I doubted now no longer that these misguided men did it by the 
help of the Devil. For it seems to me totally impossible that such things should be 
accomplished by natural means." The same performance is spoken of by Valentyn, 
in a passage also containing curious notices of the basket-murder trick, the mango 
trick, the sitting in the air (quoted above), and others ; but he refers to Melton, and I 
am not sure whether he had any other authority for it. The cut on this page is taken 
from Melton's plate. 

Again we have in the Memoirs of the Emperor Jahangir a detail of the wonderful 
performances of seven jugglers from Bengal who exhibited before him. Two of their 



3i8 



MARCO POLO Book I. 



feats are thus described: '^ Ninth. They produced a man whom they divided limb 
from limb, actually severing his head from the body. They scattered these mutilated 
members along the ground, and in this state they lay for some time. They then 
extended a sheet or curtain over the spot, and one of the men putting himself under 
the sheet, in a few minutes came from below, followed by the individual supposed to 
have been cut into joints, in perfect health and condition, and one might have safely 
sworn that he had never received wound or injury whatever. . . . I'weniy-ihird. 
They produced a chain of 50 cubits in length, and in my presence threw one end of 
it towards the sky, where it remained as if fastened to something in the air. A dog 
was then brought forward, and being placed at the lower end of the chain, immedi- 
ately ran up, and reaching the other end, immediately disappeared in the air. In the 
same manner a hog, a panther, a lion, and a tiger were successively sent up the chain, 
and all equally disappeared at the upper end of the chain. At last they took down 
the chain and put it into a bag, no one ever discovermg in what way the different 
animals were made to vanish into the air in the mysterious manner above described." 

[There would appear (says the Times of India, quoted by the Weekly Dispatch, 
15th September, 1889) to be a fine field of unworked romance in the annals of Indian 
jugglery. One Siddeshur Mitter, writing to the Calcutta paper, gives a thrilling 
account of a conjurer's feat which he witnessed recently in one of the villages of the 
Hooghly district. He saw the whole thing himself, he tells us, so there need be no 
question about the facts. On the particular afternoon when he visited the village the 
place was occupied by a company of male and female jugglers, armed with bags and 
boxes and musical instruments, and all the mysterious paraphernalia of the peripatetic 
/adtigar. While Siddeshur was looking on, and in the broad, clear light of the 
afternoon, a man was shut up in a box, which was then carefully nailed up and bound 
with cords. Weird spells and incantations of the style we are all familiar with were 
followed by the breaking open of the box, which, "to the unqualified amazement of 
everybody, was found to be perfectly empty." All this is much in the usual style; 
but what followed was so much superior to the ordinary run of modern Indian 
jugglery that we must give it in the simple Siddeshur's own words. When every one 
was satisfied that the man had really disappeared, the principal performer, who did 
not seem to be at all astonished, told his audience that the vanished man had gone up 
to the heavens to fight Indra. " In a few moments," says Siddeshur, "he expressed 
anxiety at the man's continued absence in the aerial regions, and said that he would 
go up to see what was the matter. A boy was called, who held upright a long 
bamboo, up which the man climbed to the top, whereupon we suddenly lost sight of 
him, and the boy laid the bamboo on the ground. Then there fell on the ground 
before us the different members of a human body, all bloody, — first one hand, then 
another, a foot, and so on, until complete. The boy then elevated the bamboo, and 
the principal performer, appearing on the top as suddenly as he had disappeared, came 
down, and seeming quite disconsolate, said that Indra had killed his friend before he 
could get there to save him. He then placed the mangled remains in the same box, 
closed it, and tied it as before. Our wonder and astonishment reached their climax 
when, a few minutes later, on the box being again opened, the man jumped out 
perfectly hearty and unhurt." Is not this rather a severe strain on one's credulity, 
even for an Indian jugglery story ?] 

In rhilostratus, again, we may learn the antiquity of some juggling tricks that have 
come up as novelties in our own day. Thus at Taxila a man set his son against a 
board, and then threw darts tracing the outline of the boy's figure on the board. 
This feat was shown in London some fifteen or twenty years ago, and humorously 
commemorated in Pimch by Tohn Leech. 

{Philostratus, Fr. Transl. Bk. III. ch. xv. and xxvii. ; Mich. Glycas, Ann. II. 
156, Paris ed. ; Delrio, Disqtiis. Magic, pp. 34, 100; Koeppen, I. 31, II. 82, 114-I15, 
260, 262, 280; Vassilyev, 156; Delia Pcnna, 36; S. Sctzen, ^^i 353 5 P^'t'eg. Quat. 
117; J. B. IV. 39 and 290 setjq. ; Asiat. Researches, XVII. 186; Valentyn, V. 52-54; 
Edtvard Melton^ Engelsch Edelmans, /eldzaame en Geiknkwaardige Zee en Land 



Chap. LXI. MONASTERIES OF LAMAS 319 

Reizen, etc., aangevangen in denjaare 1660 en geendigd in denjaare l()'/'J, Amsterdam, 
1702, p. 468; Afem. of the. Evip. Jahavgiieir, pp. 99, 102.) 

Note 12. — [" The maintenance of the Lamas, of their monasteries, the expenses for 
the sacrifices and for transcription of sacred books, required enormous sums. The Lamas 
enjoyed a preponderating influence, and stood much higher th:;n the priests of other 
creeds, living in the palace as if in their own house. The perfumes, which M. Polo 
mentions, were used by the Lamas for two purposes ; they used them for joss-sticks, 
and for making small turrets, known under the name of tsa-ts'a; the joss-sticks used 
to be burned in tbe same way as they are now ; the ts^a-is'a were inserted in suburgas 
or buried in the ground. At the time when the suburga was built in the garden of 
the Peking palace in 127 1, there were used, according to the Empress' wish, 1008 
turrets made of the most expensive perfumes, mixed with pounded gold, silver, pearls, 
and corals, and 130,000 /j'a-/j'fl made of ordinary perfumes." {Palladius, 29. — H. C] 

Note 13. — There is no exaggeration in this number. Turner speaks of 2500 
monks in one Tibetan convent. Hue mentions Chorchi, north of the Great Wall, as 
containing 2000 ; and Kunbiim, where he and Gabet spent several months, on the 
borders of Shensi and Tibet, had nearly 4000. The missionary itinerary from Nepal 
to L'hasa given by Giorgi, speaks of a group of convents at a place called Brephung, 
which formerly contained 10,000 inmates, and at the time of the journey (about 1700) 
still contained 5000, including attendants. Dr. Campbell gives a list of twelve chief 
convents in L'hasa and its vicinity (not including the Potala or Residence of the 
Grand Lama), of which one is said to have 7500 members, resident and itinerary. 
Major Montgomerie's Pandit gives the same convent 7700 Lamas. In the great 
monaster)' at L'hasa called Labrang, they show a copper kettle holding more than 
100 buckets, which was used to make tea for the Lamas who performed the daily 
temple service. The monasteries are usually, as the text says, like small towns, 
clustered round the great temples. That represented at p. 224 is at Jehol, and is an 
imitation of the Potala at L'hasa. {Hue's Tartary, etc. , pp. 45, 208, etc. ; Alph. 
Tibetan, 453 ; /. A. S. B. XXIV. 219;/. R. G. S. XXXVIII. ]68; Koeppen, II. 
338.) \La Geographic, II. 1901, pp. 242-247, has an article by Mr. J. Deniker, La 
Premiere Photographic de Lhassa, with a view of Potala, in 1901, from a photograph 
by M. O. Norzunov ; it is interesting to compare it with the view given by Kircher 
in 1670.— H. C] 

[" The monasteries with numbers of monks, who, as M. Polo asserts, behaved 
decently, evidently belonged to Chinese Buddhists, ho-shang; in Kiiblai's time they 
had two monasteries in Shangtu, in the north-east and north-west parts of the 
town." {Palladiics, 29.) Rubruck (Rockhiirs ed, p. 145) says : "All the priests 
(of the idolaters) shave their heads, and are dressed in saffron colour, and they 
observe chastity from the time they shave their heads, and they live in congregations 
of one or two hundred." — H. C] , 

Note 14. — There were many anomalies in the okler Lamaism, and it permitted, 
at least in some sects of it which still subsist, the marriage of the clergy under certain 
limitations and conditions. One of Giorgi's missionaries speaks of a Lama of high 
hereditary rank as a spiritual prince who marries, but separates from his wife as soon 
as he has a son, who after certain trials is deemed worthy to be his successor. ["A 
good number of Lamas were married, as M. Polo correctly remarks ; their wives 
were known amongst the Chinese, under the name of Fan-sao." {Ch'tie kenglu, quoted 
by Palladius, 28.)— H. C] One of the "reforms'" of Tsongkhapa was the absolute 
prohibition of marriage to the clergy, and in this he followed the institutes of the 
oldest Buddhism. Even the Red Lavias, or unreformed, cannot now marry without 
a dispensation. 

But even the oldest orthodox Buddhism had its Lay brethren and Lay sisters 
{Updsaka z.x\6. Updsikd), and these are to be found in Tibet and Mongolia ( VotUs an 
blanc, as it were). They are called by the Mongols, by a corruption of the Sanskrit, 



320 



MARCO POLO 



Book i. 




i;i!ii,j.!,i:ii;iM':i;;',ii!i!iiiiiii!ti!:i:i:!itiiiii: 



Chap. LXI. ASCETICS CALLED SENSIN 32 1 

Ubashi and Ubashanza. Their vows extend to the strict keeping of the five great 
commandments of the Buddhist Law, and they diligently ply the rosary and the 
prayer-wheel, but they are not pledged to celibacy, nor do they adopt the tonsure. 
As a sign of their amphibious position, they commonly wear a red or yellow girdle. 
These are what some travellers speak of as the lowest order of Lamas, permitted to 
marry ; and Polo may have regarded them in the same light. 

{Koeppen, IL 82, 113, 276, 291 ; Timk. II. 354; Erman, II. 304; Alph. Tibet, 
449-) 

Note 15. — [Mr. Rockhill writes to me that "bran" is certainly Tibetan tsamba 
(parched barley).— H. C] 

Note 16. — Marco's contempt for Patarins slips out in a later passage (Bk. III. 
ch. XX.). The name originated in the eleventh century in Lombardy, where it 
came to be applied to the "heretics," otherwise called "Cathari." Muratori has 
much on the origin of the name Patarini, and mentions a monument, which still 
exists, in the Piazza de' Mercanti at Milan, in honour of Oldrado Podesta of that city 
in 1233, and which thus, with more pith than grammar, celebrates his meritorious 
acts : — 

" Qui solium struxit Catharos ut debiiit UXIT." 

Other cities were as piously Catholic. A Mantuan chronicler records under 1276 : 
"Captum fuit Sermionum seu redditum fuit Ecclesix, et capti fuerunt cercha CL 
Patarini contra fidem, inter masculos et feminas ; qui omnes ducti fuerunt Veronam, 
et ibi incarcerati, et pro magna parte COMBDSTI." {Murat. Dissert. III. 238 ; 
Archiv. Star. Ital. N.S. I. 49.) 

Note 17. — Marsden, followed by Panthier, supposes these unorthodox ascetics to 
be Hindu Sanyasis, and the latter editor supposes even the name Sensi or Sensin to 
represent that denomination. Such wanderers do occasionally find their way to 
Tartary; Gerbillon mentions having encountered five of them at Kuku Khotan 
(supra, p. 286), and I think John Bell speaks of meeting one still further north. 
But what is said of the great and numerous idols of the Sensin is inconsistent with 
such a notiorn, as is indeed, it seems to me, the whole scope of the passage. 
Evidently no occasional vagabonds from a far country, but some indigenous sectaries, 
are in question. Nor would bran and hot water be a Hindu regimen. The staple 
diet of the Tibetans is Chamba, the meal of toasted barley, mixed sometimes with 
warm water, but more frequently with hot tea, and I think it is probable that these 
were the elements of the ascetic diet rather than the mere bran which Polo speaks of. 
Semedo indeed says that some of the Buddhist devotees professed never to take any 
food but tea ; knowing people said they mixed with it pellets of sun-dried beef. The 
determination of the sect intended in the text is, I conceive, to be sought in the 
history of Chinese or Tibetan Buddhism and their rivals. 

Both Baldelli and Neumann have indicated a general opinion that the Tacssi or 
some branch of that sect is meant, but they have entered into no particulars except in 
a reference by the former to Shien-sien, a title of perfection affected by that sect, as 
the origin of Polo's term Sensin. In the substance of this I think they are right. 
But I believe that in the text this Chinese sect are, rightly or wrongly, identified with 
the ancient Tibetan sect of Bon-po, and that part of the characters assigned belong to 
each. 

First with regard 'to the Taossi. These were evidently the Patarini of the 
Buddhists in China at this time, and Polo was probably aware of the persecution 
which the latter had stirred up Kiiblai to direct against them in 1281 — persecution at 
least it is called, though it was but a mild proceeding in comparison with the thing 
contemporaneously practised in Christian Lombardy, for in heathen Cathay, books, 
and not human creatures, were the subjects doomed to burn, and even that doom 
was not carried ouL 

VOL. I. X 



322 



MARCO POLO Book I. 



["The Tao-sze," says M. Polo, " were looked upon as heretics by the other sects ; 
that is, of course, by the Lamas and Ho-shangs ; in fact in his time a passionate 
struggle was going on between Buddhists and Tao-sze, or rather a persecution of the 
latter by the former ; the Buddhists attributed to the doctrine of the Tao-sze a 
pernicious tendency, and accused them of deceit ; and in support of these assertions 
they pointed to some of their sacred books. Taking advantage of their influence at 
Court, they persuaded Kublai to decree the burning of these books, and it was 
carried out in Peking." {Palladius, 30.) — H. C] 

The term which Polo writes as Sensin appears to have been that popularly 
applied to the Taoss6 sect at the Mongol Court. Thus we are told by Rashfduddfn 
in his History of Cathay : "In the reign of Din-Wang, the 20th king of this (the I Ith) 
Dynasty, Tai Shang LAi Kun, was born. This person is stated to have been 
accounted a prophet by the people of Kbita ; his father's name was Han ; like Shak- 
miini he is said to have been conceived by light, and it is related that his mother 
bore him in her womb no less a period than 80 years. The people who embraced 
his doctrine were called /j^ W*^ {Sh&n-shan or Shinshin)," This is a correct 
epitome of the Chinese story of Laokiun or Lao-tsi, born in the reign of Ting 
Wang of the Cheu Dynasty. The whole title used by Rashfduddin, Tai Shang Lao 
Kiun, "The Great Supreme Venerable Ruler," is that formerly applied by the 
Chinese to this philosopher. 

Further, in a Mongol [and Chinese] inscription of the year 13 14 from the depart- 
ment of Si-ngan fu, which has been interpreted and published by Mr. Wylie, the 
Taoss^ priests are termed Senshitig. [See Dev^ria, Notes d'£j>ig)-aphie, pp. 39-43, 
and Prince R. Bonaparte s Reaieil, PI. xii. No. 3. — H. C] 

Seeing then that the very term used by Polo is that applied by both Mongol and 
Persian authorities of the period to the Taoss^, we can have no doubt that the latter 
are indicated, whether the facts stated about them be correct or not. 

The word Senshing-ud (the Mongol plural) is represented in the Chinese version 
of Mr. Wylie's inscription by Sin-sang, a conventional title applied to literary men, 
and this perhaps is sufficient to determine the Chinese word which Sensin represents. 
I should otherwise have supposed it to be the Shin-sian alluded to by Baldelli, and 
mentioned in the quotations which follow ; and indeed it seems highly probable that 
two terms so much alike should have been confounded by foreigners. Semedo says 
of the Taosse : "They pretend that by means of certain exercises and meditations 
one shall regain his youth, and others shall attain to be Shien-sien, i.e. 'Terrestrial 
Beat!,' in whose state every desire is gratified, whilst they have the power to trans- 
port themselves from one place to another, however distant, with speed and facility." 
Schott, on the same subject, says : " By Sian or Shin-sian are understood in the old 
Chinese conception, and particularly in that of the Tao-Kiao [or Taosse] sect, 
persons who withdraw to the hills to lead the life of anchorites, and who have 
attained, either through their ascetic observances or by the power of charms and 
elixirs, to the possession of miraculous gifts and of terrestrial immortality." And M. 
Pauthier himself, in his translation of the Journey of Khieu, an eminent doctor of this 
sect, to the camp of the Great Chinghiz in Turkestan, has related how Chinghiz 
bestowed upon this personage "a seal with a tiger's head and a diploma" (surely a 
lion's head, Faizah and Yarligh ; see infra, Bk. IL ch. vii. note 2), "wherein he 
was styled Shin Sien or Divine Anchorite." Sian-jin again is the word used by 
Hiuen Tsang as the equivalent to the name of the Indian Rishis, who attain to 
supernatural powers. 

[" Setisin is a sufficiently faithful transcription of Sien-seng (Sien-shing in 
Pekingese) ; the name given by the Mongols in conversation as well as in official 
documents, to the Tao-sze, in the sense of preceptors, just as Lamas were called by them 
Bacshi, which corresponds to the Chinese Sien-seng. M. Polo calls them fasters and 
ascetics. It was one of the sects of Taouism. There was another one which 
practised cabalistic and other mysteries. The Tao-sze had two monasteries in 



Chap. LXI. ASCETICS CALLED SENSIN 323 

Shangtu, one in the eastern, the other in the western part of the town." (PalladiuSf 
3o.)-H. C] 

One class of the Tao priests or devotees does marry, but another class never 
does. Many of them lead a wandering life, and derive a precarious subsistence from 
the sale of charms and medical nostrums. They shave the sides of the head, and coil 
the remaining hair in a tuft on the crown, in the ancient Chinese manner ; moreover, 
says Williams, they "an; recognised by their slate-coloured robes." On the feast of 
one of their divinities whose title Williams translates as "High Emperor of the 
Sombre Heavens," they assemble before his temple, "and having made a great fire, 
about 15 or 20 feet in diameter, go over it barefoot, preceded by the priests and 
bearing the gods in their arms. They firmly assert that if they possess a sincere mind 
they will not be injured by the fire ; but both priests and people get miserably burnt 
on these occasions." Escayrac de Lauture says that on those days they^leap, dance, 
and whirl round the fire, striking at the devils with a straight Roman-like sword, and 
sometimes wounding themselves as the priests of Baal and Moloch used to do. 

{Astley, IV. 671 ; Morley'm J. R. A. S. VI. 24; Semedo, III, 114; De Afailla, 
IX. 410; /. As. ser. V. tom. viii. 138; Schott iiber den Buddhismus, etc. 71; 
Voyage de Khieou iny. As. ser. VI. tom. ix. 41 ; Middle Kingdom, II. 247 ; Doolittle, 
192 ; Esc. de Lauture, Mint, sur la Chine, Religion, 87, 102 ; Peler. Boudd. II. 
370, and III. 468.) 

Let us now turn to the Bon-po. Of this form of religion and its sectaries not 
much is known, for it is now confined to the eastern and least known part of Tibet. 
It is, however, believed to be a remnant of the old pre-Buddhistic worship of the 
powers of nature, though much modified by the Buddhistic worship with which it has 
so long been in contact, Mr. Hodgson also pronounces a collection of drawings of 
Bonpo divinities, which were made for him by a mendicant friar of the sect from the 
neighbourhood of Tachindu, or Ta-t'sien-lu, to be saturated with Sakta attributes, i.e. 
with the spirit of the Tantrika worship, a worship which he tersely defines as "a 
mixture of lust, ferocity, and mummerj," and which he believes to have originated in 
an incorporation with the Indian religions of the rude superstitions of the primitive 
Turanians. Mr. Hodgson was told that the Bonpo sect still possessed numerous and 
wealthy Vihars (or abbeys) in Tibet. But from the information of the Catholic 
missionaries in Eastern Tibet, who have come into closest contact with the sect, it 
appears to be now in a state of great decadence, " oppressed by the Lamas of other 
sects, the Peunbo (Bonpo) think only of shaking off the yoke, and getting deliverance 
from the vexations which the smallness of their number forces them to endure." In 
June, 1863, apparently from such despairing motives, the Lamas of Tsodam, a Bonpo 
convent in the vicinity of the mission settlement of Bonga in E. Tibet, invited the 
Rev. Gabriel Durand to come and instruct them. ' ' In this temple, " he writes, ' ' are 
the monstrous idols of the sect of Peunbo ; horrid figures, whose features only Satan 
could have inspired. They are 'disposed about the enclosure according to their 
power and their seniority. Above the pagoda is a loft, the nooks of which are 
crammed with all kinds of diabolical trumpery ; little idols of wood or copper, 
hideous masques of men and animals, superstitious Lama vestments, drums, trumpets 
of human bones, sacrificial vessels, in short, all the utensils with which the devil's 
servants in Tibet honour their master. And what will become of it all ? The Great 
River, whose waves roll to Martaban (the Lu-kiang or Salwen), is not more than 
200 or 300 paces distant. . . . Besides the infernal paintings on the walls, eight or 
nine monstrous idols, seated at the inner end of the pagoda, were calculated by their 
size and aspect to inspire awe. In the middle was Tamba-Shi-Rob, the great 
doctor of the sect of the Peunbo, squatted with his right arm outside his red scarf, and 
holding in his left the vase of knowledge. ... On his right hand sat Keumia-Zon-bo, 
'the All-Good,' , . . with ten hands and three heads, one over the other. ... At 
his right is Dreuma, the most celebrated goddess of the sect. On the left of Tamba- 
Shi-Rob was another goddess, whose name they never could tell me. On the left 
again of this anonymous goddess appeared Tam-pla-mi-ber, .... a monstrous 
VOL. i, 2 X 



324 MARCO POLO Book I. 

dwarf environed by flames and his head garnished with a diadem of skulls. He trod 
with one foot on the head of Shakiatttpa [Skakya Thubba, i.e. ' the Mighty Shakya,' 
the usual Tibetan appellation of Sakya Buddha himself]. . . . The idols are made of 
a coarse composition of mud and stalks kneaded together, on which they put first a 
coat of plaster and then various colours, or even silver or gold. . . . Four oxen 
would scarcely have been able to draw one of the idols." Mr. Emilius Schlagintweit, 
in a paper on the subject of this sect, has explained some of the names used by the 
missionary. Tamba-Shi-Eob is " ^itanpa ^hen-rabs," i.e. the doctrine of Shen-rabs, 
who is regarded as the founder of the Bon religion. [Cf. Grenard, II. 407. — H. C] 
Keun-tu-zon-bo is " Kun-tu-feang-po," '■^ the All Best." 

\_Bo7i-po seems to be (according to Grenard, II. 410) a "coarse naturism combined 
with ancestral worship" resembling Taoism. It has, however, borrowed a good dealfrom 
Buddhism. " I noticed," says Mr. Rockhill {Journey, 86), " a couple of grimy volumes 
of Bonbo sacred literature. One of them I examined ; it was a funeral service, and was 
in the usual Bonbo jargon, three-fourths Buddhistic in its nomenclature." The Bon- 
po Lamas are above all sorcerers and necromancers, and are very similar to the kam 
of the Northern Turks, the bd of the Mongols, and lastly to the Shamaiis. During 
their operations, they wear a tall pointed black hat, surmounted by the feather of a 
peacock, or of a cock, and a human skull. Their principal divinities are the White 
God of Heaven, the Black Goddess of Earth, the Red Tiger and the Dragon ; they 
worship an idol called Ky^-p'ang formed of a mere block of wood covered with 

garments. Their sacred symbol is the svastika turned from right to left 1 I ' . The 

most important of their monasteries is Zo-chen gum-pa, in the north-east of Tibet, 
where they print most of their books. The Bonpos Lamas " are very popular 
with the agricultural Tibetans, but not so much so with the pastoral tribes, who 
nearly all belong to the Gelupa sect of the orthodox Buddhist Church." A. K. 
says, " Buddhism is the religion of the country ; there are two sects, one named 

Mangba and the other Chiba or Baimbu." Explorations made by A K- , 34. 

Mangba means " Esoteric," Chiba ip^yi-ba), " Exoteric," and Baimbu is Bonbo. 
Rockhill, Journey, 289, et passim. ; Land of the Lamas, 217-218; Grenard, Mission 
Scientifique, II. 407 segq. — H. C] 

There is an indication in Koeppen's references that the followers of the Bon 
doctrine are sometimes called in Tibet Nag-choi, or " Black Sect," as the old and the 
reformed Lamas are called respectively the " Red" and the "Yellow." If so, it is 
reasonable to conclude that the first appellation, like the two last, has a reference to 
the colour of clothing affected by the priesthood. 

The Rev. Mr. Jaeschke writes from Lahaul : * ' There are no Bonpos in our part 
of the country, and as far as we know there cannot be many of them in the whole of 
Western Tibet, i.e. in Ladak, Spiti, and all the non-Chinese provinces together; we 
know, therefore, not much more of them than has been made known to the 
European public by different writers on Buddhism in Tibet, and lately collected by 
Emil de Schlagintweit. . . . Whether they can be with certainty identified with the 
Chinese Taossi I cannot decide, as I don't know if anything like historical evidence 
about their Chinese origin has been detected anywhere, or if it is merely a conclusion 
from the similarity of their doctrines and practices. . . . But the Chinese author of 
the Wei-tsang-tu-Shi, translated by Klaproth, under the title of Description du Tubet 
(Paris, 1831), renders Bonpo by Taossi. So much seems to be certain that it was the 
ancient religion of Tibet, before Buddhism penetrated into the country, and that even 
at later periods it several times gained the ascendancy when the secular power was of 
a disposition averse to the Lamaitic hierarchy. Another opinion is that the Bon 
religion was originally a mere fetishism, and related to or identical with Shamanism ; 
this appears to me very probable and easy to reconcile with the former supposition, 
for it may afterwards, on becoming acquainted with the Chinese doctrine of the 
'Taosse,' have adorned itself with many of its tenets. . . . With regard to the 
following particulars, I have got most of my information from our Lama, a native of 



Chap. LXI. ASCETICS CALLED SENSIN 325 

the neighbourhood of Tashi Lhunpo, whom we consulted about all your questions. 
The extraordinary asceticism which struck Marco Polo so much is of course not to 
be understood as being practised by all members of the sect, but exclusively, or 
more especially, by the priests. That these never marry, and are consequently more 
strictly celibatar>' than many sects of the Lamaitic priesthood, was confirmed by our 
Lama." (Mr. Jaeschke then remarks upon the bran to much the same effect as I 
have done above.) "The Bonpos are by all Buddhists regarded as heretics. 
Though they worship idols partly the same, at least in name, with those of the 
Buddhists, . . . their rites seem to be very different. The most conspicuous and 
most generally known of their customs, futile in itself, but in the eyes of the common 
people the greatest sign of their sinful heresy, is that they perform the religious 
ceremony of making a turn round a sacred object in the opposite direction to that 
prescribed by Buddhism. As to their dress, our Lama said that they had no 
particular colour of garments, but their priests frequently wore red clothes, as some 
sects of the Buddhist priesthood do. Mr Heyde, however, once on a journey in our 
neighbouring county of Langskar, saw a man clothed in black with blue borders, who 
the people said was a Bonpo." 

[Mr. Rockhill {Journey, 63) saw at Kao miao-tzu "a r^tf-gowned, long-haired 
Bonbo Lama," and at Kumbum (p. 68), " was surprised to see quite a large number 
of Bonbo Lamas, recognisable by their huge mops of hair and their red gowns, and 
also from their being dirtier than the ordinary run of people." — H. C] 

The identity of the Bonpo and Taosse seems to have been accepted by Csoma de 
Koros, who identifies the Chinese founder of the latter, Lao-tseu, with the Shen-rabs 
of the Tibetan Bonpos. Klaproth also says, ' ' Bhonbp'o, Bhanpo, and Shen, are 
the names by which are commonly designated (in Tibetan) the Taoszu, or follower of 
the Chinese philosopher Laotseu. " * Schlagintweit refers to Schmidt's Tibetan 
Grammar (p. 209) and to the Calcutta edition of the Fo-koui-ki (p. 218) for the like 
identification, but I do not know how far any two of these are independent 
testimonies. General Cunningham, however, fully accepts the identity, and writes to 
me: " Fahian (ch. xxiii.) calls the heretics who assembled at Ramagrama Tcu)ssi,'\ 
thus identifying them with the Chinese Finitimists. The Taosse are, therefore, the 
same as the Swdstikas, or worshippers of the mystic cross Swasti, who are also 
TirthcJ:aras, or ' Pure-doers.' The synonymous word Punya is probably the origin 
oi Pon or Bon, the Tibetan Finitimists. From the same word comes the Burmese 
Fungyi or Fungi." I may add that the Chinese envoy to Cambodia in 1296, whose 
narrative Remusat has translated, describes a sect which he encountered there, 
apparently Brahminical, as Taossi. And even if the Bonpo and the Taosse were 
not fundamentally identical, it is extremely probable that the Tibetan and Mongol 
Buddhists should have applied to them one name and character. Each played 
towards them the same part in Tibet and in China respectively ; both were heretic 
sects and hated rivals ; both made high pretensions to asceticism and supernatural 
powers; both, I think we see reason to believe, affected the dark clothing which 
Polo assigns to the Sensin; both, we may add, had "great idols and plenty of 
them." We have seen in the account of the Taosse the ground that certain of their 
ceremonies afford for the allegation that they "sometimes also worship fire," whilst 
the whole account of that rite and of others mentioned by Duhalde,:^ shows what a 
powerful element of the old devil-dancing Shamanism there is in their practice. 
The French Jesuit, on the other hand, shows us what a prominent place female 

♦ Shen, or coupled withyz« "people," Shenjin, in this sense affords another possible origin of the 
word Sensin; but it may in fact be at bottom, as regards the first syllable, the same with the 
etymology we have preferred. 

t I do not find this allusion in Mr. Beal's new version of Fahian. [See R^musat's id. p. 227 ; 
Klaproth says {Ibid. p. 330) that the Taoszu are called in Tibetan Bonbd and Voi/ngdhroungpa.— 

X Apparently they had at their command the whole encyclopscdia of modem "Spiritualists." 
Duhalde mentions among their sorceries the art of producing by their invocations the figures of 
Lao-tseu and their divinities in the air, and of maiing a pencil to write answers to ouestions without 
anybody touching it. 



326 



MARCO POLO 



Book I. 



divinities occupied in the Bon-po Pantheon,* though we cannot say of either sect 
that " their idols are all feminine." A strong symptom of relation between the twp 
religions, by the way, occurs in M. Durand's account of the Bon Temple. We see 
there that Shen-rabs, the great doctor of the sect, occupies a chief and central place 
among the idols. Now in the Chinese temples of the Taosse the figure of their 
Doctor Lao-tseu is one member of the triad called the "Three Pure Ones," which 
constitute the chief objects of worship. This very title recalls General Cunningham's 
etymology of Bonpo. 




Tibetan Bacsi. 



[At the quarterly fair {yueh kai) of Ta-li (Yun-Nan), Mr. E. C. Baber {Travels, 
158-159) says : " A Fakir with a praying machine, which he twirled for the salvation 
of the -pious at the price of a few cash, was at once recognised by us ; he was our 
old acquaintance, the Bakhsi, whose portrait is given in Colonel Yulis Marco Polo." 
— H. C] 

(Hodgson, in/. A'. A. S. XVIII. 396 se^t^. ; Ann. de la Prop, de laFot, XXXVI. 



• It is possible that this may point to some report of the mystic impurities of the l.-intnsts. Ihe 
Sakiidn, or T.-\ntrists, according to the Dabistan, hold that the worship of a female divinity .iffords a 
gieater recompense. (II. 155.) 



Chap. LXI. ASCETICS CALLED SENSIN 327 

301-302, 424-427 ; E. Schlaginhueit, Ueber die Bon-pa Sekte in Tibet, in the Sitzens- 
berichte oi \he Munich Acad, for 1866, Heft I. pp. 1-12; Koeppen, II. 260; Ladak, 
P- 358 J y- ^^- ser. II. torn. i. 411-412 ; Ritnusat. Nouv. Mil. Asiat. I. II2 ; Astley, 
IV. 205; Doolittle, 191.) 

Note 18. — Pauthier's text has blons, no doubt an error for bloiis. In the G. Text 
it is bloies. Pauthier interprets the latter term as " blond ardent," whilst the glossary 
to the G. Text explains it as both blue and white. Kaynouard's Romance Diet. 
explains Bloi as '* Blond." Ramusio has biave, and I have no doubt that blue is the 
meaning. The same word (bloie) is used in the G. Text, where Polo speaks of the 
bright colours of the Palace tiles at Cambaluc, and where Pauthier's text has " vermeil 
etjaune et vert et blou," and again {infra, Bk. II. ch. xix.), where the two corps of 
huntsmen are said to be clad respectively in vermeil and in bloie. Here, again, 
Pauthier's text has bleu. The Crusca in the description of the Sensin omits the colours 
altc^ether ; in the two other passages referred to it has bioda, biodo. 

["The Tao-sze, says Marco Polo, wear dresses of black and blue linen; i.e. they 
wear dresses made of tatters of black and blue linen, as can be seen also at the present 
day." {Palladius, 30.)— H. C] 

Note 19. — [" The idols of the Tao-sze, according to Marco Polo's statement, have 
female names ; in fact, there are in the pantheon of Taoism a great many female 
divinities, still enjoying popular veneration in China ; such are Tow Mu (the ' Ursa 
major,' constellation), Pi-hia-yuen Kiun (the celestial queen), female divinities for 
lying-in women, for children, for diseases of the eyes ; and others, which are to be 
seen everywhere. The Tao-sze have, besides these, a good number of male divinities, 
bearing the title of Kiun in common with female divinities ; both these circumstances 
might have led Marco Polo to make the above statement" {Palladius, p. 30.) — H. C] 



r 



BOOK SECOND. 



(I.) ACCOUNT OF THE GREAT KAAN CUBLAY ; 
OF HIS PALACES AND CAPITAL; HIS COURT, 
GOVERNMENT, AND SPORTS. 

(2.) CITIES AND PROVINCES VISITED BY THE 
TRAVELLER ON ONE JOURNEY WESTWARD 
FROM THE CAPITAL TO THE FRONTIERS OF 
MIEN IN THE DIRECTION OF INDIA. 

(3.) AND ON ANOTHER SOUTHWARD FROM THE 
CAPITAL TO FUCHU AND ZAYTON. 



BOOK II. 



Part I.— THE KAAN, HIS COURT AND CAPITAL. 



CHAPTER I. 

Of Cublay Kaan, the Great Kaan now Reigning, and of his 
Great Puissance. 

Now am I come to that part of our Book in which I 
shall tell you of the great and wonderful magnificence 
of the Great Kaan now reigning, by name Cublay 
Kaan ; Kaan being a title which signifyeth " The 
Great Lord of Lords," or Emperor. And of a surety 
he hath good right to such a title, for all men know 
for a certain truth that he is the most potent man, as 
regards forces and lands and treasure, that existeth in 
the world, or ever hath existed from the time of our 
First Father Adam until this day. All this I will 
make clear to you for truth, in this book of ours, so 
that every one shall be fain to acknowledge that he is 
the greatest Lord that is now in the world, or ever 
hath been. And now ye shall hear how and wherefore.* 



Note i. — According to Sanang Setzen, Chinghiz himself discerned young 
Kublai's superiority. On his deathbed he said : ' ' The words of the lad Kublai 
are well worth attention ; see, all of you, that ye heed what he says ! One day he will 
sit in my seat and bring you good fortune such as you have had in my day ! " 
(p. 103). 

831 



332 MARCO POLO Book II. 

The Persian history of Wassaf thus exalts Kublai : "Although from the frontiers of 
this country ('Irak) to the Centre of Empire, the Focus of the Universe, the genial abode 
of the ever- Fortunate Emperor and Just Kaan, is a whole year's journey, yet the stories 
that have been spread abroad, even in these parts, of his glorious deeds, his institutes, 
his decisions, his justice, the largeness and acuteness of his intellect, his correctness 
of judgment, his great powers of administration, from the mouths of credible witnesses, 
of well-known merchants and eminent travellers, are so surpassing, that one beam of 
his glories, one fraction of his great qualities, suffices to eclipse all that history tells 
of the Caesars of Rome, of the Chosroes of Persia, of the Khagans of China, of the 
(Himyarite) Kails of Arabia, of the Tobbas of Yemen, and the Rajas of India, of the 
monarchs of the houses of Sassan and Buya, and of the Seljukian Sultans." {Hammer's 
Wassaf, orig. p. 37.) 

Some remarks on Kublai and his government by a Chinese author, in a more ' 
rational and discriminative tone, will be found below under ch. xxiii., note 2. 

A curious Low-German MS. at Cologne, giving an account of the East, says of 
the " Keyser von Kathagien — syn recht Name is der groisse Hunt!" (Magnus Canis, 
the Big Bow-wow as it were. See Orient und Occident ^ vol. i. p. 640.) 



CHAPTER II. 



Concerning the Revolt of Nayan, who was Uncle to the 
Great Kaan Cublay. 

Now this Cublay Kaan is of the right Imperial lineage, 
being descended from Chinghis Kaan, the first sovereign 
of all the Tartars. And he is the sixth Lord in that 
succession, as I have already told you in this book. 
He came to the throne in the year of Christ, 1256, 
and the Empire fell to him because of his ability and 
valour and great worth, as was right and reason.^ His 
brothers, indeed, and other kinsmen disputed his claim, 
but his it remained, both because maintained by his great 
valour, and because it was in law and right his, as being 
directly sprung of the Imperial line. 

Up to the year of Christ now running, to wit 1298, 
he hath reigned two-and-forty years, and his age is 
about eighty-five, so that he must have been about 
forty-three years of age when he first came to the 
throne.^ Before that time he had often been to the 
wars, and had shown himself a gallant soldier and an 



Chap. II. THE REVOLT OF NAYAN 333 

excellent captain. But after coming to the throne he 
never went to the wars in person save once.^ This 
befel in the year of Christ, 1286, and I will tell you why 
he went. 

There was a great Tartar Chief, whose name was 
Nayan,* a young man [of thirty], Lord over many lands 
and many provinces ; and he was Uncle to the Emperor 
Cublay Kaan of whom we are speaking. And when he 
found himself in authority this Nayan waxed proud in 
the insolence of his youth and his great power; for 
indeed he could bring into the field 300,000 horsemen, 
though all the time he was liegeman to his nephew, the 
Great Kaan Cublay, as was right and reason. Seeing 
then what great power he had, he took it into his head 
that he would be the Great Kaan's vassal no longer ; 
nay more, he would fain wrest his empire from him if 
he could. So this Nayan sent envoys to another Tartar 
Prince called Caidu, also a great and potent Lord, who 
was a kinsman of his, and who was a nephew of the 
Great Kaan and his lawful liegeman also, though he 
was in rebellion and at bitter enmity with his sovereign 
Lord and Uncle. Now the message that Nayan sent 
was this : That he himself was making ready to march 
against the Great Kaan with all his forces (which were 
great), and he begged Caidu to do likewise from his 
side, so that by attacking Cublay on two sides at once 
with such great forces they would be able to wrest his 
dominion from him. 

And when Caidu heard the message of Nayan, he 
was right glad thereat, and thought the time was come 
at last to gain his object. So he sent back answer 
that he would do as requested ; and got ready his host, 
which mustered a good hundred thousand horsemen. 

Now let us go back to the Great Kaan, who had 
news of all this plot. 



334 MARCO POLO Book II. 

Note i. — There is no dovibt that Kublai was proclaimed Kaan in 1260 (4th 
month), his brother Mangku Kaan having perished during the seige of Hochau in 
Ssechwan in August of the preceding year. But Kublai had come into Cathay some 
years before as his brother's Lieutenant. 

He was the/ifth, not sixth, Supreme Kaan, as we have already noticed. (Bk. I. 
ch. li. note 2.) 

Note 2. — Kublai was born in the eighth month of the year corresponding to 1216, 
and had he lived to 1298 would have been eighty-two years old. [According to Dr. E. 
Bretschneider [Peking, 30), quoting the Yuen-Shi, Kubldi died at Khanbaligh, in 
the Tze-t'an tien in February, 1294. — H. C] But by Mahomedan reckoning he 
would have been close upon eighty-five. He was the fourth son of Tuli, who was the 
youngest of Chinghiz's four sons by his favourite wife Burte Fujin. (See De Mailla, 
IX. 255, etc.) 

Note 3. — This is not literally true ; for soon after his accession (in 1261) Kublai 
led an army against his brother and rival Arikbuga, and defeated him. And again 
in his old age, if we credit the Chinese annalist, in 1289, when his grandson Kanmala 
(or Kambala) was beaten on the northern frontier by Kaidu, Kublai took the field 
himself, though on his approach the rebels disappeared. 

Kublai and his brother Hulaku, young as they were, commenced their military 
career on Chinghiz's last expedition (1226-1227). His most notable campaign was the 
conquest of Yunnan in 1253-1254. {De Mailla, IX. 298, 441.) 

Note 4. — Nayan was no " uncle " of Kiiblai's, but a cousin in a junior generation. 
For Kublai was the grandson of Chinghiz, and Nayan was the great-great-grandson 
of Chinghiz's brother Uchegin, called in the Chinese annals Pilgutai. [Belgutai was 
Chinghiz's step-brother. [Palladius.) — H. C] On this brother, the great-uncle of 
Kublai, and the commander of the latter's forces against Arikbuga in the beginning 
of the reign, both Chinghiz and Kublai had bestowed large territories in Eastern 
Tartary towards the frontier of Corea, and north of Liaotong towards the Manchu 
country. ["The situation and limits of his appanage are not clearly defined in 
history. According to Belgutai's biography, it was between the Onon and Kerulen 
( Yuen shi), and according to Shin Yao's researches {Lo fung low wen kao), at the 
confluence of the Argun and Shilka. Finally, according to Harabadur's biography, 
it was situated in Abalahu, which geographically and etymologically corresponds to 
modern Butkha ( Yuen shi) ; Abalahu, as Kublai himself said, was rich in fish ; 
indeed, after the suppression of Nayan's rebellion, the governor of that country used 
to send to the Peking Court fishes weighing up to a thousand Chinese pounds f&m. ). 
It was evidently a country near the Amur River." {Palladius, I.e. 31.) — H. C] Nayan 
had added to his inherited territory, and become very powerful. ['* History has 
apparently connected Nayan's appanage with that of Hatan (a grandson of Hachiun, 
brother of Chinghiz Khan), whose ordo was contiguous to Nayan's, on the left bank 
of the Amur, hypothetically east of Blagovietschensk, on the spot, where still the 
traces of an ancient city can be seen. Nayan's possessions stretched south to Kwang- 
ning, which belonged to his appanage, and it was from this town that he had the 
title of prince of Kwang-ning (F?/^« jA?)." {Palladius, I.e. ^1.) — H. C] Kaidu had 
gained influence over Nayan, and persuaded him to rise against KiibUi. A number 
of the other Mongol princes took part with him. Kublai was much disquieted at the 
rumours, and sent his great lieutenant Bayan to reconnoitre. Bayan was nearly 
captured, but escaped to court and reported to his master the great armament that 
Nayan was preparing. KubUi succeeded by diplomacy in detaching some of the 
princes from the enterprise, and resolved to march in person to the scene of action, 
whilst despatching Bayan to the Karakorum frontier to intercept Kaidu. This was 
in the summer of 1287. What followed will be found in a subsequent note (ch. iv. 
note 6). (For Nayan's descent, see the Genealogical Table in ihe Appendix (A).) 



Chap. III. THE KAAN MARCHES AGAINST NAYAN 335 

CHAPTER III. 
How THE Great Kaan marched against Nayan. 

When the Great Kaan heard what was afoot, he made 
his preparations in right good heart, Hke one who feared 
not the issue of an attempt so contrary to justice. 
Confident in his own conduct and prowess, he was in 
no degree disturbed, but vowed that he would never 
wear crown again if he brought not those two traitorous 
and disloyal Tartar chiefs to an ill end. So swiftly and 
secretly were his preparations made, that no one knew 
of them but his Privy Council, and all were completed 
within ten or twelve days. In that time he had 
assembled good 360,000 horsemen, and 100,000 footmen, 
— but a small force indeed for him, and consisting only 
of those that were in the vicinity. For the rest of his 
vast and innumerable forces were too far off to answer 
so hasty a summons, being engaged under orders from 
him on distant expeditions to conquer divers countries 
and provinces. If he had waited to summon all his 
troops, the multitude assembled would have been 
beyond all belief, a multitude such as never was heard 
of or told of. past all counting. In fact, those 360,000 
horsemen that he got together consisted merely of the 
falconers and whippers-in that were about the court ! ^ 

And when he had got ready this handful (as it 
were) of his troops, he ordered his astrologers to declare 
whether he should gain the battle and get the better of 
his enemies. After they had made their observations, 
they told him to go on boldly, for he would conquer and 
gain a glorious victory : whereat he greatly rejoiced. 

So he marched with his army, and after advancing 
for 20 days they arrived at a great plain where Nayan 
lay with all his host, amounting to some 400,000 horse. 



33^ MARCO POLO 



Book II, 



Now the Great Kaan's forces arrived so fast and so 
suddenly that the others knew nothing of the matter. 
For the Kaan had caused such strict watch to be made 
in every direction for scouts that every one that appeared 
was instantly captured. Thus Nayan had no warning 
of his coming and was completely taken by surprise ; 
insomuch that when the Great Kaan's army came up, 
he was asleep in the arms of a wife of his of whom 
he was extravagantly fond. So thus you see why it was 
that the Emperor equipped his force with such speed 
and secrecy. 

NorE r. — I am afraid Marco, in his desire to impress on his readers the great 
power of the Kaan, is here giving the reins to exaggeration on a great scale. 

Ramusiohas here the following explanatory addition : — " You must know that in 
all the Provinces of Cathay and Mangi, and throughout the Great Kaan's dominions, 
there are too many disloyal folk ready to break into rebellion against their Lord, and 
hence it is needful in every province containing large cities and much population, to 
maintain garrisons. These are stationed four or five miles from the cities, and the 
latter are not allowed to have walls or gates by which they might obstruct the 
entrance of the troops at their pleasure. These garrisons as well as their com- 
manders the Great Khan causes to be relieved every two years ; and bridled in this 
way the people are kept quiet, and can make no disturbance. The troops are 
maintained not only by the pay which the Kaan regularly assigns from the revenues 
of each province, but also by the vast quantities of cattle which they keep, and by the 
sale of milk in the cities, which furnishes the means of buying what they require. 
They are scattered among their different stations, at distances of 30, 40, or 60 days 
(from the capital) ; and had Cublay decided to summon but the half of them, the 
number would have been incredible," etc. 

[Palladius says (p. 37) that in the Mongol- Chinese documents, the Mongol 
garrisons cantoned near the Chinese towns are mentioned under the name of Aohi, 
but no explanation of the term is given. — H. C] 

The system of controlling garrisons, quartered at a few miles from the great cities, 
is that which the Chinese followed at Kashgar, Yarkand, etc. It is, in fact, our own 
system in India, as at Barrackpur, Dinapiir, Sikandardbad, Midn Mfr. 



CHAPTER IV. 
Of the Battle that the Great Kaan fought with Nayan. 

What shall I say about it? When day had well 
broken, there was the Kaan with all his host upon a 
hill overlooking the plain where Nayan lay in his tent, 



Chap. IV. BATTLE BETWEEN THE KAAN AND NAYAN 337 

in all security, without the slightest thought of any one 
coming thither to do him hurt. In fact, this confidence 
of his was such that he kept no vedettes whether in front 
or in rear ; for he knew nothing of the coming of the 
Great Kaan, owing to all the approaches having been 
completely occupied as I told you. Moreover, the place 
was in a remote wilderness, more than thirty marches 
from the Court, though the Kaan had made the distance 
in twenty, so eager ' was he to come to battle with 
Nay an. 

And what shall I tell you next ? The Kaan was 
there on the hill, mounted on a great wooden bartizan,^ 
which was borne by four well-trained elephants, and 
over him was hoisted his standard, so high aloft that 
it could be seen from all sides. His troops were ordered 
in battles of 30,000 men apiece ; and a great part of the 
horsemen had each a foot-soldier armed with a lance set 
on the crupper behind him (for it was thus that the foot- 
men were disposed of) ; ^ and the whok plain seemed 
to be covered with his forces. So it was thus that the 
Great Kaan's army was arrayed for battle. 

When Nayan and his people saw what had happened, 
they were sorely confounded, and rushed in haste to 
arms. Nevertheless they made them ready in good 
style and formed their troops in an orderly manner. 
And when all were in battle array on both sides as I 
have told you, and nothing remained but to fall to 
blows, then might you have heard a sound arise of 
many instruments of various music, and of the voices 
of the whole of the two hosts loudly singing. For this 
is a custom of the Tartars, that before they join battle 
they all unite in singing and playing on a certain two- 
stringed instrument of theirs, a thing right pleasant to 
hear. And so they continue in their array of battle, 
singing and playing in this pleasing manner, until the 

VOL. L Y 



338 MARCO POLO Book II. 

great Naccara of the Prince is heard to sound. As 
soon as that begins to sound the fight also begins on 
both sides ; and in no case before the Prince's Naccara 
sounds dare any commence fighting.^ 

So then, as they were thus singing and playing, 
though ordered and ready for battle, the great Naccara 
of the Great Khan began to sound. And that of Nayan 
also began to sound. And thenceforward the din of 
battle began to be heard loudly from this side and from 
that. And they rushed to work so doughtily with their 
bows and their maces, with their lances and swords, 
and with the arblasts of the footmen, that it was a 
wondrous sight to see. Now might you behold such 
flights of arrows from this side and from that, that 
the whole heaven was canopied with them and they 
fell like rain. Now might you see on this side and 
on that full many a cavalier and man-at-arms fall 
slain, insomuch that the whole field seemed covered 
with them. From this side and from that such cries 
arose from the crowds of the wounded and dying that 
had God thundered, you would not have heard Him ! 
For fierce and furious was the battle, and quarter there 
was none given.* 

But why should I make a long story of it ? You 
must know that it was the most parlous and fierce and 
fearful battle that ever has been fought in our day. 
Nor have there ever been such forces in the field in 
actual fight, especially of horsemen, as were then en- 
gaged — for, taking both sides, there were not fewer 
than 760,000 horsemen, a mighty force ! and that 
without reckoning the footmen, who were also very 
numerous. The batde endured with various fortune 
on this side and on that from morning till noon. But 
at the last, by God's pleasure and the right that was 
on his side, the Great Khan had the victory, and Nayan 



Chap. IV. NAKKARAS OR KETTLEDRUMS 339 

lost the battle and was utterly routed. For the army 
of the Great Kaan performed such feats of arms that 
Nayan and his host could stand against them no longer, 
so they turned and fled. But this availed nothing for 
Nayan ; for he and all the barons with him were taken 
prisoners, and had to surrender to the Kaan with all 
their arms. 

Now you must know that Nayan was a baptized 
Christian, and bore the cross on his banner ; but this 
nought availed him, seeing how grievously he had done 
amiss in rebelling against his Lord. For he was the 
Great Kaan's liegeman,^ and was bound to hold his 
lands of him like all his ancestors before him.^ 



Note i. — " Une gratide bretesche." Bretesche, Bertisca (whence old English 
Brattice, and Bartizan), was a term applied to any boarded structure of defence or 
attack, but especially to the timber parapets and roofs often placed on the top of the 
flanking-towers in mediaeval fortifications ; and this use quite explains the sort of 
structure here intended. The term and its derivative Bartizan came later to be 
applied to projecting giUrites or watch-towers of masonry. Brattice in English is 
now applied to a fence round a pit or dangerous machinery. (See Muratori, Dissert. 
!• 334 > Wedgwood's Diet, of Etym. sub. v. Brattice; Viollet le Due, by Macdermott, 
p. 40; La Cume de Saint e — Palaye, Diet.; F. Godefroy, Diet.) 

(John Ranking (Hist. Res. on the Wars and Sports of the Mongols and Romans) 
in a note regarding this battle writes (p. 60) : " It appears that it is an old custom in 
Persia, to use four elephants a-breast." The Senate decreed Gordian III. to repre- 
sent him triumphing after the Persian mode, with chariots drawn with four elephants. 
Augustan Hist. vol. ii. p. 65. See plate, p. 52. — H. C] 

Note 2. — This circumstance is mentioned in the extract below from Gaubil. He 
may have taken it from Polo, as it is not in Pauthier's Chinese extracts ; but Gaubil 
has other facts not noticed in these. 

[Elephants came from the Indo-Chinese Kingdoms, Burma, Siam, Ciampa. — H. C] 

Note 3. — The specification of the Tartar instrument of two strings is pecuUar to 
Pauthier's texts. It was no doubt what Dr. Clarke calls "the balalaika or two- 
stringed IjTC," the most common instrument among the Kalmaks. 

The sounding of the Nakkara as the signal of action is an old Pan-Asiatic custom, 
but I cannot find that this very striking circumstance of the whole host of Tartars 
playing and singing in chorus, when ordered for battle and waiting the signal from 
the boom of the Big Drum, is mentioned by any other author. 

The Nakkdrah or Nagdrah was a great kettledrum, formed like a brazen caldron, 
tapering to the bottom and covered with buffalo-hide — at least 3^ or 4 feet in 
diameter. Bemier, indeed, tells of Nakkdras in use at the Court of Delhi that were 
not less than a fathom across ; and Tod speaks of them in Rajputana as "about 8 or 
10 feet in diameter." The Tartar Nakkarahs were usually, I presume, carried on a 
camel ; but as Kublai had begun to use elephants, hi-s may have been carried on an 
VOL. I. 2 Y 



340 MARCO I'OLO Book IL 

elephant, as is sometimes the case in India. Thus, too, P. della Valle describes 
those of an Indian Embassy at Ispahan: "The Indian Ambassador was also 
accompanied by a variety of warlike instruments of music of strange kinds, and 
particularly by certain Naccheras of such immense size that each pair had an elephant 
to carry them, whilst an Indian astride upon the elephant between the two Naccheras 
played upon them wit?h both hands, dealing strong blows on this one and on that ; 
what a din was made by these vast drums, and what a spectacle it was, I leave you 
to imagine." 

Joinville also speaks of the Nakkara as the signal for action : " So he was setting 
his host in array till noon, and then he made those drums of theirs to sound that 
they call Nacaires, and then they set upon us horse and foot." The Great Nakkara 
of the Tartars appears from several Oriental histories to have been called Kurkah. 
I cannot find this word in any dictionary accessible to me, but it is in the Ahi Akbari 
{Kmvargah) as distinct from the Nakkdrah. Abulfazl tells us that Akbar not only 
had a rare knowledge of the science of music, but was likewise an excellent performer 
— especially on the Nakkdrah ! 




Nakkaras. (From a Chinese original.) 

. The privilege of employing the Nakkara in personal state was one granted by the 
sovereign as a high lionour and reward. , 

The crusades naturalised the word in some form or other in most European 
languages, but in our own apparently with a transfer of meaning. For Wright 
defines Naker as "a cornet or horn of brass." And Chaucer's use seems to 
countenanee this : — 

" Pipes, Trompes, Nakeres, and Clariounes, 
That in the Bataille blowen blody sounes." 

— The Knight's Tale. 

On the other hand, Nacchera, in Italian, seems always to have retained the meaning 
of kettle-drum, with the slight exception of a local application at Siena to a metal 
circle or triangle struck with a rod. The fact seems to be that there is a double 
origin, for the Arabic dictionaries not only have N'akkarah, but Nakir, and Ndkur, 
"cornu, tuba." The orchestra of Bibars Bundukdari, we are told, consisted of 40 
pairs of kettle-drums, 4 drums, 4 hautbois, and 20 trumpets (Nakir). (Sir B. Frere; 
Delia Valle, II. 21 ; locTs Kdjasthdii, I. ■7,2^; Joinville, p. 83;' N. et E. XIV. 129, 
and following note ; Blochmann's Ain-i- Akbari, pp. 50-51 ; Ducange, by Haenschel, 
8. v.; Makrizif I. 173.) 



Chap. IV. BATTLE— DESCRIPTION 



341 



[Dozy {Supp. atix Did. Arabes) has ^ysJ \^ii(U]qare\ " petit tambour ou timbale, 

bassin de cuivre ou de terre recouvert d'une peao tendue," and " grosses timbales en 
cuivre portees sur un chameau ou un mulet." — Devic (ZVrA Etym.) writes: "Bas 
Latin, ftacara ; bas grec, drdxapa. Ce n'est point comme on I'a dit, I'Arabe jjJUij 
naqir ou ^fiit ndqor, qui signifient trompette, clairon, mais le persan ^(u 

en arabe, J|j*«« naqara, timbale^ It is to be found also in Ab^-^nia and south of 
Gondokoro ; it is mentioned in the Sedjarat Malayu. 

In French, it gives nacaire and gnacare from the Italian gnacare. " Quatre jouent 
de la guitare, quatre des castagnettes, quatre des gnacares." (Moli^re, Pastorale 
Comiqiu.) — H. C.J 




Nakkaias. (From an Indian origina!.) 

Note 4. — This description of a fight will recur again and again till we are veiy 
tired of it. It is difficult to say whether the style is borrowed from the historians of 
the East or the romancers of the West. Compare the two following parallels. First 
from an Oriental history : — 

" The Ear of Heaven was deafened with the din of the great A'urkahs and Drums, 
and the Earth shook at the clangour of the Trumpets and Clarions. The shafts began 
to fall like the rain-drops of spring, and blood flowed till the field looked lik« the Oxus." 
(/. A S. ser. IV. tom. xix. 256 ) 

Next from an Occidental Romance : — 

'* Now rist grete labour betyng, 

Blaweyng of pypes, and ek trumpyng, 

Stedes lepyng, and ek arnyng. 

Of sharp sper es, and avalyng 

Of stronge knighltes, and wyghth meetyng ; 

Launces breche asd increpyng ; 

Knighttes fallyng, stedes les\-ng ; 

Herte and hevedes thorough ker\-yng ; 

Swerdes drawejTig, lymes lesyng 

Hard assaylyng, strong defendjug. 

Stiff wilhstond\Tig and wighth fleighe)Tig. 

Sharp of takyng armes spoyl\-ng ; 

So gret bray, so gret crieyng, 



342 MARCO POLO Book II. 

Ifor the folk there was dyeyng ; 

So muche dent, noise of sweord, 

The thondur blast no myghte beo hirde. 

No the sunne hadde beo seye. 

For the dust of the poudre ! 

No the weolkyn seon be myght. 

So was arewes and quarels Jlyght .''^ 

— King Alisaunder, in Weber, I. 93-94. 



And again : — 



The eorthe quaked heom undur, 

No scholde mon have herd the thondur.''^ 

— Ibid. 142. 



Also in a contemporary account of the fall of Acre (1291) : " Renovatur ergo 
bellum terribile inter alterutros .... clamoribus interjectis hinc etindead terrorem; 
it a ut nee Deus tonans in stMime coaudiri pofuisset." (De Excidio Acconis, in 
Martene et Durand, V. 780. ) 

Note 5. — " Car il estoit homme ati Grant Kaan." (See note 2, ch. xiv., in 
Prologue.) 

Note 6. — In continuation of note 4, chap, ii., we give Gaubil's conclusion of the 
story of Nayan : "The Emperor had gone ahead with a small force, when Nayan's 
General came forward with 100,000 men to make a reconnaissance. The Sovereign, 
however, put on a bold front, and though in great danger of being carried off, 
showed no trepidation. It was night, and an urgent summons went to call troops to 
the Emperor's aid. They marched at once, the horsemen taking the foot soldiers on 
the crupper behind them. Nayan all this while was taking it quietly in his camp, 
and his generals did not venture to attack the Emperor, suspecting an ambuscade. 
Liting then took ten resolute men, and on approaching the General's camp, caused a 
Y'rct-Pao to be discharged ; the report caused a great panic among Nayan's troops, 
who were very ill disciplined at the best. Meanwhile the Chinese and Tartar troops 
had all come up, and Nayan was attacked on all sides : by Liting at the head ot 
the Chinese, by Yusitemur at the head of the Mongols, by Tutuha and the Emperor 
in person at the head of his guards and the troops of Kiticha (Kipchak). The presence 
of the Emperor rendered the army invincible, and Nayan's forces were completely 
defeated. That prince himself was taken, and afterwards put to death. The battle 
took place in the vicinity of the river Liao, and the Emperor returned in triumph 
to Shangtu " (207). The Chinese record given in detail by Pauthier is to the like 
effect, except as to the Kaan's narrow escape, of which it says nothing. 

As regards the Y\x&-Pao (the latter word seems to have been applied to military 
machines formerly, and now to artillery), I must refer to Fav6 and Reinaud's very 
curious and interesting treatise on the Greek fire {du Feu Grigeois). They do not 
seem to assent to the view that the arms of this description which are mentioned in 
the Mongol wars were cannon, but rather of the nature of rockets. 

[Dr. G. Schlegel {Toimg Pao, No. r, 1902), in a paper entitled. On the Invention 
and Use of Fire- Arms and Gunpowder in China, prior to the Arrival of Europeans, 
says that "now, notwithstanding all what has been alleged by different European 
authors against the use of gunpowder and fire-arms in China, I maintain that not only 
the Mongols in 1293 had cannon, but that they were already acquainted with them in 
1232." Among his many examples, we quote the following from the Books of the 
Ming Dynasty : " What were anciently called P'ao were all machines for hurling 
stones. In the beginning of the Mongol Dynasty (a.d. 1260), p''ao (catapults) of the 
Western regions were procured. In the siege [in 1233] of the city of Ts'ai chow of 
the Kin (Tatars), fire was for the first time employed (in these p'ao), but the art of 
making them was not handed down, and they were afterwards seldom used." — H. C] 



Chap. V. DEFEAT AND DEATH OF NAYAN 343 

CHAPTER V. 
How THE Great Kaan caused Nayan to be put to death. 

And when the Great Kaan learned that Nayan was 
taken right glad was he, and commanded that he 
should be put to death straightway and in secret, lest 
endeavours should be made to obtain pity and pardon 
for him, because he was of the Kaan's own flesh and 
blood. And this was the way in which he was put to 
death : he was wrapt in a carpet, and tossed to and 
fro so mercilessly that he died. And the Kaan caused 
him to be put to death in this way because he would 
not have the blood of his Line Imperial spilt upon the 
ground or exposed in the eye of Heaven and before the 
Sun.^ 

And when the Great Kaan had gained this battle, 
as you have heard, all the Barons and people of Nayan's 
provinces renewed their fealty to the Kaan. Now 
these provinces that had been under the Lordship 
of Nayan were four in number; to wit, the first 
called Chorcha ; the second Cauly ; the third 
Barscol ; the fourth Sikintinju. Of all these four 
great provinces had Nayan been Lord ; it was a very 
great dominion. 2 

And after the Great Kaan had conquered Nayan, 
as you have heard, it came to pass that the different 
kinds of people who were present, Saracens and 
Idolaters and Jews,^ and many others that believed not 
in God, did ofibe those that were Christians because 
of the cross that Nayan had borne on his standard, 
and that so grievously that there was no bearing it. 
Thus they would say to the Christians : " See now 
what precious help this God's Cross of yours hath 



344 MARCO POLO Book II, 

rendered Nayan, who was a Christian and a worshipper 
thereof." And such a din arose about the matter that 
it reached the Great Kaan's own ears. When it did 
so, he sharply rebuked those who cast these gibes at 
the Christians ; and he also bade the Christians be of 
good heart, "for if the Cross had rendered no help to 
Nayan, in that It had done right well ; nor could that 
which was good, as It was, have done otherwise ; for 
Nayan was a disloyal and traitorous Rebel against his 
Lord, and well deserved that which had befallen him. 
Wherefore the Cross of your God did well in that It 
gave him no help against the right." And this he said 
so loud that everybody heard him. The Christians then 
replied to the Great Kaan : *' Great King, you say the 
truth indeed, for our Cross can render no one help in 
wrong-doing; and therefore it was that It aided not 
Nayan, who was guilty of crime and disloyalty, for It 
would take no part in his evil deeds." 

And so thenceforward no more was heard of the 
floutings of the unbelievers against the Christians ; for 
they heard very well what the Sovereign said to the 
latter about the Cross on Nayan's banner, and its 
giving him no help. 



Note i. — Friar Ricold mentions this Tartar maxim : " One Khan will put another 
to death, to get possession of the throne, but he takes great care that the blood be 
not spilt. For they say that it is highly improper that the blood of the Great Khan 
should be spilt upon the ground ; so they cause the victim to be smothered somehow 
or other." The like feeling prevails at the Court of Burma, where a peculiar mode 
of execution without bloodshed is reserved for Princes of the Blood. And Kaempfer, 
relating the conspiracy of Faulcon at the Court of Siam, says that two of the king's 
brothers, accused of participation, were beaten to death with clubs of sandal- wood, 
'"for the respect entertained for the blood-royal forbids its being shed." See also 
note 6, ch. vi. Bk. I., on the death of the Khalif Mosta'sim Billah. {Pereg. Qtiat. 
p. 115; Mission to Ava, p. 229 ; Kaempfer, I. 1 9.) 

Note 2. — Chorcha is the Manchu country, Niuchd of the Chinese. {^Sttpra, note 2, 
ch. xlvi. Bk. I.) ["Chorcha is Churchin, — Nayan, as vassal of the Mongol khans, 
had the commission to keep in obedience the people of Manchuria (subdued in 1233), 
and to care for the security of the country ( Yiten shi) ; there is no doubt that he shared 
these obligations with his relative Hatan, who stood nearer to the native tribes of 
Manchuria." {Palladius, 32.)— H. C] 



Chap. V. KAYAK'S COUNTRY 



345 



Kauli is properly Corea, probably here a district on the frontier thereof, as it is 

improbable that Nayan had any rule over Corea. ["The Corean kingdom proper 
could not be a part of the prince's appanage. Marco Polo might mean the northern 
part of Corea, which submitted to the Mongols in A.D. 1269, with sixty towns, and 
which was subordinated entirely to the central administration in Liao-yang. As to 
the southern part of Corea, it was left to the king of Corea, who, however, was a vassal 
of the Mongols." {Palladtus, 32.) The king of Corea (AT? rye, Kao-lt) was in 1288 
Chyoung ryel wang (1274- 1298) ; the capital was Syong-to, now Kai syeng (K'ai-ch'eng). 
— H. C] 

Barskul, " Leopard- Lake," is named in Sanang Setsen (p. 217), but seems there 
fO indicate some place in the west of Mongolia, perhaps the Barkul of our maps. 
This Barskul must have been on the Manchu frontier. [There are in the Yuen-shi 
the names of the department of Fu-yil-lu, and of the place Fu-lo-ho, which, accord- 
ing to the system of Chinese transcription, approach to Barscol ; but it is difiicult to 
prove this identification, since our knowledge of these places is very scanty ; it only 
remains to identify Barscol with Abalahu, which is already known ; a conjecture all 
the more probable as the two names of P'u-yii-lu and Pu-lo-ho have also some re- 
semblance to Abalahu. {Palladius, 32.) Mr. E. H. Parker says {China Review, 
xviii. p. 261) that Barscol may be Pa-la ssu or Bars Koto [in Tsetsen]. " This seems 
the more probable in that Cauly and Chorcha are clearly proved to be Corea and 
Niuche or Manchuria, so that Bars Koto would naturally fall within Nayan's appanage."' 
— H. C] 

The reading of the fourth name is doubtful, Sichuigiu, Sichittc^'tt {G. T.), Sickin- 
tingiu, etc. The Chinese name of Mukden is Shing-king, but I know not if it be so 
old as our author's time. I think it very possible that the real reading is Sinchin- 
tingin, and that it represents Shangking-Tungking, expressing the two capitals 
of the Khitan Dynasty in this region, the position of which will be found indicated in 
No. IV. map of Polo's itineraries. (See Schott, Aelteste Nachiichten von Alongolen 
uiid Tartaren, Berlin Acad. 1845, pp. 11-12.) 

[Sikintinju is Kien chau " belonging to a town which was in Najran's appanage, 
and is mentioned in the history of his rebellion. There were two Kien-chow, one in 
the time of the Kin in the modern aimak of Khorchin ; the other during the Mongol 
Dynasty, on the upper part of the river Ta-ling ho, in the limits of the modern aimak 
of Kharachin {Man chow yuen lew k'ao) ; the latter depended on Kuang-ning ( Ytien- 
sht). Mention is made of Kien-chow, in connection with the following circumstance. 
When Nayan's rebellion broke out, the Court of Peking sent orders to the King of 
Corea, requiring from him auxiliary troops ; this circumstance is mentioned in the 
Corean Annals, under the year 1288 {Kao li shi, ch. xxx. f. Ii) in the following 
words : — ' In the present year, in the fourth month, orders were received from 
Peking to send five thousand men with provisions to Kien-chow, which is 3000 
// distant from the King's residence.' This number of li cannot of course be 
t.iken literally ; judging by the distances estimated at the present day, it was 
about 2000 // from the Corean K'ai-ch'eng fu (then the Corean capital) to the 
Mongol Kien-chow ; and as much to the Kien-chow of the Kin (through Mukden 
and the pass of Fa-k'u mun in the willow palisade). It is difficult to decide to 
which of these two cities of the same name the troops were ordered to go, but at 
any rate, there are sufficient reasons' to identify Sikintinju of Marco Polo with 
Kien-chow." {Palladiiis, 33.) — H. C] 

We learn from Gaubil that the rebellion did not end with the capture of Nayan. 
In the summer of 1288 several of the princes of Nayan's league, under Hatan 
(apparently the Abkan of Erdmann's genealogies), the grandson of Chinghiz's brother 
Kajyun [Hachiun], threatened the provinces north-east of the wall. Kublai sent his 
grandson and designated heir, Teimur, against them, accompanied by some of his 
best generals. After a two days' fight on the banks of the River Kweilei, the rebels 
were completely beaten. The territories on the said River Kweilei, the Tiro, or Torro, 
and the Liao, are mentioned both by Gaubil and De Mailla as among those which 



346 



MARCO POLO Book II. 



had belonged to Nayan. As the Kweilei and Toro appear on our maps and also 
the better-known Liao, we are thus enabled to determine with tolerable precision 
Nayan's country. (See Gattbil, p. 209, and De Mailla, 431 seqq.) 

[*' The rebellion of Nayan and Hatan is incompletely and contradictorily related in 
Chinese history. The suppression of both these rebellions lasted four years. In 
1287 Nayan marched from his ordo with sixty thousand men through Eastern 
Mongolia. In the 5th moon {var. 6th) of the same year Khubilai marched against 
him from Shangtu. The battle was fought in South-Eastern Mongolia, and gained by 
Khubilai, who returned to Shangtu in the 8th month. Nayan fled to the south-east, 
across the mountain range, along which a willow palisade now stands ; but forces 
had been sent beforehand from Shin-chow (modern Mukden) and Kuang-ning 
(probably to watch the pass), and Nayan was made prisoner. 

"Two months had not passed, when Hatan's rebellion broke out (so that it took 
place in the same year 1287). It is mentioned under the year 1288, that Hatan was 
beaten, and that the whole of Manchuria was pacified ; but in 1290, it is again 
recorded that Hatan disturbed Southern Manchuria, and that he was again de- 
feated. It is to this time that the narratives in the biographies of Liting, Yuesi 
Femur, and Mangwu ought to be referred. According to the first of these biographies, 
Hatan, after his defeat by Liting on the river Kui lui (Kuilar?), fled, and perished. 
According to the second biography, Hatan's dwelling (on the Amur River) was 
destroyed, and he disappeared. According to the third, Mangwu and Naimatai 
pursued Hatan to the extreme north, up to the eastern sea-coast (the mouth of the 
Amur). Hatan fled, but two of his wives and his son Lao-ti were taken ; the latter 
was executed, and this was the concluding act of the suppression of the rebellion in 
Manchuria. We find, however, an important variante in the history of Corea ; it 
is stated there that in 1290, Hatan and his son Lao-ti were carrying fire and 
slaughter to Corea, and devastated that country ; they slew the inhabitants and fed on 
human flesh. The King of Corea fled to the Kiang-hwa island. The Coreans were 
not able to withstand the invasion. The Mongols sent to their aid in 1291, troops 
under the command of two generals, Seshekan (who was at tliat time governor of 
Liao-tung) and Namantai (evidently the above-mentioned Naimatai). The Mongols 
conjointly with the Coreans defeated the insurgents, who had penetrated into the 
very heart of the country ; their corpses covered a space 30 li in extent ; Hatan 
and his son made their way through the victorious army and fled, finding a refuge in 
the Niuchi (Djurdji) country, from which Laotai made a later incursion into Corea. 
Such is the discrepancy between historians in relating the same fact. The statement 
found in the Corean history seems to me more reliable than the facts given by 
Chinese history." {Palladius, 35-37.) — H. C] 

Note 3. — This passage, and the extract from Ramusio's version attached to the 
following chapter, contain the only allusions by Marco to Jews in China. John of 
Monte Corvino alludes to them, and so does MarignoUi, who speaks of having held 
disputations with them at Cambaluc ; Ibn Batuta also speaks of them at IChansa or 
Hangchau. Much has been written about the ancient settlement of Jews at Kaifungfu, 
in Honan. One of the most interesting papers on the subject is in the Chinese 
Repository, vol. xx. It gives the translation of a Chinese-Jewish Inscription, which 
in some respects forms a singular parallel to the celebrated Christian Inscription of 
Si-ngan fu, though it is of far more modern date (151 1). It exhibits, as that inscrip- 
tion does, the effect of Chinese temperament or language, in modifying or diluting 
doctrinal statements. Here is a passage : " With respect to the Israelitish religion, 
we find on inquiry that its first ancestor, Adam, came originally from India, and 
that during the (period of the) Chau State the Sacred Writings were already in exist- 
ence. The Sacred Writings, embodying Eternal Reason, consist of 53 sections. 
The principles therein contained are very abstruse, and the Eternal Reason therein 
revealed is very mysterious, being treated with the same veneration as Heaven. 
The founder of the religion is Abraham, who is considered the first teacher of it. 



Chap. V. JEWS IN CHINA 347 

Then came Moses, who established the Law, and handed down the Sacred Writings. 
After his time, during the Han Dynasty (B.C. 206 to A.D. 221), this religion entered 
China. In (a.d.) 1164, a synagogue was built at P'ien. In (A.D.) 1296, the old 
Temple was rebuilt, as a place in which the Sacred Writings might be deposited witn 
veneration." 

[According to their oral tradition, the Jews came to China from Si i7A (Western 
Regions), probably Persia, by Khorasan and Samarkand, during the first century of 
our era, in the reign of the Emperor Ming-ti (A.D. 58-75) of the Han Dynasty. 
They were at times confounded with the followers of religions of India, T^ien Chu 
kiao, and very often with the Mohammedans Hwui-Hwui or Hwui-tzU ; the common 
name of their religion was Tiao kin kiao, " Extract Sinew Religion." However, 
three lapidary inscriptions, kept at Kai-fung, give different dates for the arrival of 
the Jews in China : one dated 1489 (2nd year Hung Che, Ming Dynasty) says that 
seventy Jewish families arrived at P'ien Hang (Kai-fung) at the time of the Sung (A.D. 
960-1278); one dated 1512 (7th year Cheng Teh) says that the Jewish religion was 
introduced into China under the Han Dynasty (B.C. 206-A.D. 221), and the last one 
dated 1663 (2nd year K'ang-hi) says that this religion was first preached in China 
under the Chau Dynasty (B.C. 1122-255) ; this will not bear discussion. 

The synagogue, according to these inscriptions, was built in 1 163, under the Sung 
Emperor Hiao ; under the Yuen, in 1279, the rabbi rebuilt the ancient temple known 
as Ts'ing Chen sse, probably on the site of a ruined mosque ; the synagogue was re- 
built in 142 1 during the reign of Yung-lo ; it was destroyed by an inundation of the 
Hwang-ho in 1642, and the Jews began to rebuild it once more in 1653. 

The first knowledge Europeans had of a colony of Jews at K'al-fung fu, in the 
Ho-nan province, was obtained through the Jesuit missionaries at Peking, at the 
b^inning of the 17th century; the celebrated Matteo Ricci having received the 
visit of a young Jew, the Jesuits Aleni (1613), Gozani (1704), Gaubil and Domenge 
who made in 1 721 two plans of the sjTiagogue, visited Kai-fung and brought back 
some documents. In' 1850, a mission of enquiry was sent to that place by the 
London Society for promoting Christianity among the Jews ; the results of this 
mission were published at Shang-hai, in 1851, by Bishop G. Smith of Hongkong; 
fac-similes of the Hebrew manuscripts obtained at the synagogue of Kai-fung were 
also printed at Shanghai at the London Missionary Society's Press, in the same year. 
The Jewish merchants of London sent in 1 760 to their brethren of Kai-fung a letter 
written in Hebrew ; a Jewish merchant of Vienna, J. L. Liebermann, visited the 
Kai-fung colony in 1867. At the time of the T'ai-P'ing rising, the rebels marched 
against Kai-fung in 1857, and with the rest of the population, the Jews were dispersed. 
{J. Tobar, Insc. j'uives de Kdi-fong-fou, 1900 ; Henri Cordier, Les Juifs en Chine, 
and Ftmg and WapiaWs Jewish Encyclopedia.) Palladius writes (p. 38), "The 
Jews are mentioned for the first time in the Yuen shi (ch. xxxiii. p. 7), under the 
year 1329, on the occasion of the re-establishment of the law for the collection of 
taxes from dissidents. Mention of them is made again under the year 1354, ch. 
xliii. fol. 10, when on account of several insurrections in China, rich Mahommetans 
and Jews were invited to the capital in order to join the army. In both cases they 
are named Chu hu (Djuhud)."— H. C] 

The synagogue at Kaifungfu has recently been demolished for the sake of its 
materials, by the survivors of the Jewish community themselves, who were too poor 
to repair it. The tablet that once adorned its entrance, bearing in gilt characters 
the name ESZLOYIH (Israel), has been appropriated by a mosque. The 300 or 400 
sur\-ivors seem in danger of absorption into the Mahomedan or heathen population. 
The last Rabbi and possessor of the sacred tongue died some thirty or forty years ago, 
the worship has ceased, and their traditions have almost died away. 

{Cc^hay, 225, 341, 497; Ch. Rep. XX. 436; Dr. Martin, '\n /. N. China Br. 
R.A.S. 1866, pp. 32-33.) 



348 MARCO POLO Book IL 

CHAPTER VI. 
How THE Great Kaan went back to the City of Cambaluc. 

And after the Great Kaan had defeated Nayan in the 
way you have heard, he went back to his capital city of 
Cambaluc and abode there, taking his ease and making 
festivity. And the other Tartar Lord called Caydu was 
greatly troubled when he heard of the defeat and death 
of Nayan, and held himself in readiness for war ; but he 
stood greatly in fear of being handled as Nayan had 
been.^ 

I told you that the Great Kaan never went on a 
campaign but once, and it was on this occasion ; in all 
other cases of need he sent his sons or his barons into 
the field. But this time he would have none go in 
command but himself, for he regarded the presumptuous 
rebellion of Nayan as far too serious and perilous an 
affair to be otherwise dealt with. 



Note i. — Here Ramusio has a long and curious addition. Kiiblai, it says, re- 
mained at Cambaluc till March, "in which our Easter occurs; and learning that 
this was one of our chief festivals, he summoned all the Christians, and bade them 
bring with them the Book of the Four Gospels. This he caused to be incensed many 
times with great ceremony, kissing it himself most devoutly, and desiring all the 
barons and lords who were present to do the same. And he always acts in this 
fashion at the chief Christian festivals, such as Easter and Christmas. And he does 
the like at the chief feasts of the Saracens, Jews, and Idolaters. On being asked 
why, he said : ' There are Four Prophets worshipped and revered by all the world. 
The Christians say their God is Jesus Christ ; the Saracens, Mahommet ; the Jews, 
Moses ; the Idolaters, Sogomon Borcan [Sakya-Muni Rtirkhan or Buddha], who 
was the first god among the idols ; and I worship and pay respect to all four, and 
pray that he among them who is greatest in heaven in very truth may aid me.' But 
the Great Khan let it be seen well enough that he held the Christian Faith to be the 
truest and best — for, as he says, it commands nothing that is not perfectly good and 
holy. But he will not allow the Christians to carry the Cross before them, because 
on it was scourged and put to death a person so great and exalted as Christ. 

" Some one may say : ' Since he holds the Christian faith to be best, why does he 
not attach himself to it, and become a Christian ? ' Well, this is the reason that he 
gave to Messer Nicolo and Messer Maffeo, when he sent them as his envoys to the 
Pope, and when they sometimes took occasion to speak to him about the faith of 
Christ. He sftid : ' How would you have me to become a Christian ? You see that 



Chap. VI. RELIGIOUS TOLERATION OF THE KAAIf 349 

the Christians of these parts are so ignorant that they achieve nothing and can achieve 
nothing, whilst you see the Idolaters can do anything they please, insomuch that when 
I sit at table the cups from the middle of the hall come to me full of wine or other 
liquor without being touched by anybody, and I drink from them. They control storms, 
causing them to pass in whatever direction they please, and do many other mar\'els ; 
whilst, as you know, their idols speak, and give them predictions on whatever subjects 
they choose. But if I were to turn to the faith of Christ and become a Christian, 
then my barons and others who are not converted would say: "What has moved 
you to be baptised and to take up the faith of Christ ? What powers or miracles have 
you witnessed on His part?" (You know the Idolaters here say that their wonders 
are performed by the sanctity and power of their idols.) Well, I should not know 
what answer to make ; so they would only be confirmed in their errors, and the 
Idolaters, who are adepts in such surprising arts, would easily compass my death. 
But now you shall go to your Pope, and pray him on my part to send hither an 
hundred men skilled in your law, who shall be capable of rebuking the practices of 
the Idolaters to their faces, and of telling them that they too know how to do such 
things but will not, because they are done by the help of the devil and other evil 
spirits, and shall so control the Idolaters that these shall have no power to perform 
such things in their presence. WTien we shall witness this we will denounce the 
Idolaters and their religion, and then I will receive baptism ; and when I shall have 
been l)aptised, then all my barons and chiefs shall Ix baptised also, and their followers 
shall do the like, and thus in the end there will be more Christians here than exist in 
your part of the world ! ' 

"And if the Pope, as was said in the beginning of this book, had sent men fit to 
preach our religion, the Grand Kaan would have turned Christian ; for it is an un- 
doubted fact that he greatly desired to do so." 

In the simultaneous patronage of different religions, Kublai followed the practice 
of his house. Thus Rubruquis writes of his predecessor Mangku Kaan : "It is his 
custom, on such days as his diviners tell him to be festivals, or any of the Nestorian 
priests declare to be holydays, to hold a court. On these occasions the Christian priests 
enter first with their paraphernalia, and pray for him, and bless his cup. They retire, 
and then come the Saracen priests and do likewise ; the priests of the Idolaters follow. 
He all the while believes in none of them, though they all follow his court as flies 
follow honey. He bestows his gifts on all of them, each party believes itself to be 
his favourite, and all prophesy smooth things to him." Abulfaragius calls Kublai " a 
just prince and a wise, who loved Christians and honoured physicians of learning, 
whatsoever their nation." 

There is a good deal in Kublai that reminds us of the greatest prince of that other 
great Mongol house, Akbar. And if we trusted the first impression of the passage 
just quoted from Ramusio, we might suppose that the grandson of Chinghiz too had 
some of that real wistful regard towards the Lord Jesus Christ, of which we seem to 
see traces in the grandson of Baber. But with Kublai, as with his predecessors, 
religion seems to have been only a political matter ; and this aspect of the thing will 
easily be recognised in a re-perusal of his conversation with Messer Nicolas and Messer 
Maffeo. The Kaan must be obeyed ; how man shall worship God is indifferent ; this 
was the constant policy of his house in the days of its greatness. Kublai, as Koeppen 
observes, the first of his line to raise himself above the natural and systematic barbarism 
of the Mongols, probably saw in the promotion of Tibetan Buddhism, already spread 
to some extent among them, the readiest means of civilising his covmtrjmen. But 
he may have been quite sincere in sajdng what is here ascribed to him in iAis sense, 
viz. : that if the Latin Church, with its superiority of character and acquirement, had 
come to his aid as he had once requested, he would gladly have used »/j missionaries 
as his civilising instruments instead of the Lamas and their trumpery. {Ruhr. 313 ; 
Asseniani, III. pt ii. 107 ; Koeppen, II. 89, 96.) 



35^ MARCO POLO Book II. 

CHAPTER VII. 

How THE Kaan rewarded the Valour of his Captains. 

So we will have done with this matter of Nayan, and 
go on with our account of the great state of the Great 
Kaan. 

We have already told you of his lineage and of his 
age ; but now I must tell you what he did after his 
return, in regard to those barons who had behaved well 
in the battle. Him who was before captain of loo he 
made captain of looo ; and him who was captain of looo 
men he made to be captain of 10,000, advancing every 
man according to his deserts and to his previous rank. 
Besides that, he also made them presents of fine silver 
plate and other rich appointments ; gave them Tablets 
of Authority of a higher degree than they held before ; 
and bestowed upon them fine jewels of gold and silver, 
and pearls and precious stones ; insomuch that the 
amount that fell to each of them was something astonish- 
ing. And yet 'twas not so much as they had deserved ; 
for never were men seen who did such feats of arms for 
the love and honour of their Lord, as these had done 
on that day of the battle.^ 

Now those Tablets of Authority, of which I have 
spoken, are ordered in this way. The officer who is a 
captain of 100 hath a tablet of silver; the captain of 
1000 hath a tablet of gold or silver-gilt ; the commander 
of 10,000 hath a tablet of gold, with a lion's head on it. 
And I will tell you the weight of the different tablets, 
and what they denote. The tablets of the captains of 
100 and 1000 weigh each of them 120 saggi ; and the 
tablet with the lion's head engraven on it, which is that 
of the commander of 10,000, weighs 220 saggi. And on 



i 



Chap. VII. THE KAAN'S REWARDS TO HIS CAPTAINS 35 1 

each of the tablets is inscribed a device, which runs : 
'^ By the strength of the great God, and of the great grace 
which He hath accorded to our Emperor, may the 7iame 
of the Kaan be blessed ; and let all such as will not obey 
him be slain and be destroyed.'' And I will tell you 
besides that all who hold these tablets likewise receive 
warrants in writing, declaring all their powers and 
privileges. 

I should mention too that an officer who holds the 
chief command of 100,000 men, or who is general-in- 
chief of a great host, is entitled to a tablet that weighs 
300 saggi. It has an inscription thereon to the same 
purport that I have told you already, and below the 
inscription there is the figure of a lion, and below the 
lion the sun and moon. They have warrants also of 
their high rank, command, and power.^ Every one, 
moreover, who holds a tablet of this exalted degree is 
entitled, whenever he goes abroad, to have a little 
golden canopy, such as is called an umbrella, carried 
on a spear over his head in token of his high command. 
And whenever he sits, he sits in a silver chair.^ 

To certain very great lords also there is given a 
tablet with gerfalcons on it ; this is only to the very 
greatest of the Kaan's barons, and it confers on them 
his own full power and authority ; so that if one of those 
chiefs wishes to send a messenger any whither, he can 
seize the horses of any man, be he even a king, and any 
other chattels at his pleasure.* 



Note i. — So Sanang Setzen relates that Chinghiz, on returning from one of his 
great campaigns, busied himself in reorganising his forces and bestowing rank and 
title, according to the deserts of each, on his nine Orlok, or marshals, and all who 
had done good service. " He named commandants over hundreds, over thousands, 
over ten thousands, over hundred thousands, and opened his treasury to the multitude 
of the people '' (p. 91). 

Note 2. — We have several times already had mention of these tablets. (See 
Prologue, ch. viii. and xviii.) The earliest European allusion to them is in 
Rubruquis : "And Mangu gave to the Moghul (whom he was going to send to the 



352 MARCO POLO Book II. 

King of France) a bull of his, that is to say, a golden plate of a palm in breadth and 
half a cubit in length, on which his orders were inscribed. Whosoever is the bearer 
of that may order what he pleases, and his order shall be executed straightway." 

These golden bulls of the Mongol Kaans appear to have been originally tokens 
of high favour and honour, though afterwards they became more frequent and con- 
ventional. They are often spoken of by the Persian historians of the Mongols under 
the name of Fdi'za/i, a.nd sometimes Pdlzah Sir-i-Sher, or "Lion's Head Paizah."' 
Thus, in a firman of Ghazan Khan, naming a viceroy to his conquests in Syria, the 
Khan confers on the latter ' ' the sword, the august standard, the drum, and the Lion's 
Head Paizah." Most frequently the grant of this honour is coupled with Yarligh ; 
"to such an one were granted Yarligh and Pdlzah" the former word (which is 
still applied in Turkey to the Sultan's rescripts) denoting the written patent which 
accompanies the grant of the tablet, just as the sovereign's warrant accompanies 
the badge of a modern Order. Of such written patents also Marco speaks in this 
passage, and as he uttered it, no doubt the familiar words Yarligh u Pdlzah were in 
his mind. The Armenian history of the Orpelians, relating the visit of Prince 
Sempad, brother of King Hayton, to the court of Mangku Kaan, says : "They gave 
him also a P'haiza of gold, i.e. a tablet whereon the name of God is written by the 
Great Kaan himself; and this constitutes the greatest honour known among the 
Mongols. Farther, they drew up for him a sort of patent, which the Mongols call 
larlekh" etc. The Latin version of a grant by Uzbek Khan of Kipchak to the 
Venetian Andrea Zeno, in 1333,* ends with the words: " Dediinus baisa et privi- 
legium cum bullis ru^is," where the latter words no doubt represent the Yarligh al- 
tamghd, the warrant with the red seal or stamp, t as it may be seen upon the letter of 
Arghun Khan. (See plate at ch. xvii. of Bk. IV.). So also Janibek, the son of 
Uzbek, in 1344, confers privileges on the Venetians, " eisdeiii dando baissinum de 
aiiro" ; and again Bardibeg, son, murderer, and successor of Janibeg, in 1358, 
writes : " Avemo dado comandamento [i.e. Yarlig] cum le boUe rosse, et \o paysai/i.^' 
Under the Persian branch, at least, of the bouse the degree of honour was indi- 
cated by the member oiWons' heads upon the plate, which varied from i to 5. The 
Lion and Sun, a symbol which survives, or has been revived, in the modern 
Persian decoration so called, formed the emblem of the Sun 
in Leo, i.e. in highest power. It had already been used on 
the coins of the Seljukian sovereigns of Persia and Iconium ; 
it appears on coins of the Mongol Ilkhans Ghazan, Oljaitu, 
and Abusaid, and it is also found on some of those of 
Mahomed Uzbek Khan of Kipchak. 

Hammer gives regulations of Ghazan Khan's on the 
subject of the Paizah, from which it is seen that the latter 
were of different kinds as well as degrees. Some were held 
Seljukian Coin with the by great governors and officers of state, and these were 
Lion and Sun. cautioned against letting the Paizah out of their own keep- 

ing ; others were for officers of inferior order; and, again, "for persons travelling 
on state commissions with post-horses, particular paizah (which Hammer says were of 
brass) are appointed, on which their names are inscribed." These last would seem 
therefore to be merely such permissions to travel by the Government post-horses as 
are still required in Russia, perhaps in lineal derivation from Mongol practice. The 
terms of Ghazan's decree and other contemporary notices show that great abuses were 
practised with the Paizah, as an authority for living at free quarters and making other 
arbitrary exactions. 

The word Paizah is said to be Chinese, Pai-lseu, "a tablet." A trace of the 
name and the thing still survives in Mongolia. The hoxse-Bai is the name applied to 




* " In anno Simiae, octava luna, die quarto exeunte, juxta fluvlum Cobam (,the Kuban), apud 
Ripam Rubeam existentes scripsimus." The original was in linguit PersaycA. 
t See Goldtn Horde, p. 3i8. 



Chap. VII. TABLETS OF AUTHORITY 353 

a certain ornament on the horse caparison, which gives the rider a title to be furnished 
with horses and provisions on a journey. 

Where I have used the Venetian erm saggio, the French texts have here and else- 
where sates and sates, and sometimes /^/j. Sazc points to saiga, which, according to 
Dupre de St Maur, is in the Salic laws the equivalent of a denier or the twelfth part 
of a sol. Saggio is possibly the same word, or rather may have been confounded with 
it, but the saggio was a recognised Venetian weight equal to \ of an ounce. We shall 
see hereafter that Polo appears to use it to indicate the miskdl, a weight which may 
be taken at 74 grains Troy. On that supposition the smallest tablet specified in the 
text would weigh 18^ ozs. Troy. 

I do not know if any gold Paizah has been discovered, but several of silver have 
been found in the Russian dominions ; one near the Dnieper, and two in Eastern 
Siberia. The first of our plates represents one of these, which was found in the 
Minusinsk circle of the Government of Yenisei in 1846, and is now in the Asiatic 
Museum of the Academy of St. Petersburg. For the sake of better illustration of our 
text, I have taken the liberty to represent the tablet as of gold, instead of silver with 
only the inscription gilt. The moulded ring inserted in the orifice, to suspend the 
plate by, is of iron. On the reverse side the ring bears some Chinese characters 
engraved, which are interpreted as meaning " Publication No. 42." The inscription 
on the plate itself is in the Mongol language and Baspa character {supra. Prologue, 
note I , ch. xv. ), and its purport is a remarkable testimony to the exactness of Marco's 
account, and almost a proof of his knowledge of the language and character in which 
the inscriptions were engraved. It runs, according to Schmidt's version: '■^ By the 
strength of iJie etental heaven ! May the name of the Khagan be holy! Who pays 
him not reverence is to be slain, and must die ! " The inscriptions on the other plates 
discovered were essentially similar in meaning. Our second plate shows one of them 
with the inscription in the Uighur character. 

The superficial dimensions of the Yenisei tablet, as taken firom Schmidt's fall-size 
drawing, are I2'2 in. by y6^ in. The weight is not given. 

In the French texts nothing is said of the size of the tablets. But Ramusio's copy 
in the Prologue, where the tables given by Kiacatu are mentioned [supra, p. 35), says 
that they were a cubit in length and 5 fingers in breadth, and weighed 3 to 4 marks 
each, i.e. 24 to 32 ounces. 

{Dupri de St. Maur, Essai sur les Monnoies, etc., 1746, p. viii. ; also (on saiga) 
see Pertz, Script. XVII. 357 ; Rtibrtiq. 312; Golden Horde, 219-220, 521 ; Ilch. II. 
166 seqq., 355-356; LfOhsson, III. 412-413; Q. R. 177-180; Ham. JVassdf, 154, 
176; A/ahrizi, IV. 158; St. Martin, Mim. sur CArtninie, II. 137, 169; M. Mas 
Latrie in Bibl. de tEc. des Charles, IV. 585 seqq. ; J. As. ser. V. torn. xvii. 536 seqq ; 
Schtntdt, iiber eitu Mongol. Quadratinschrift, etc, Acad. St. P., 1847; Russian 
paper by G rigor ieff on same subject, 1846.) 

["The History tells us {Liao Shih, Bk. LVII. f. 2) that the official silver tablets 
p^ai izii of the period were 600 in number, about a foot in length, and that they were 
engraved with an inscription like the above [' Our imperial order for post horses. 
Urgent.'] in national characters (kuo tzO), and that when there was important state 
business the Emperor personally handed the tablet to the envoy, which entitled him to 
demand horses at the post stations, and to be treated as if he were the Emperor him- 
self travelling. When the tablet was marked ' Urgent,' he had the right to take 
private horses, and was required to ride, night and day, 700 li in twenty-four hours. 
On his return he had to give back the tablet to the Emperor, who handed it to the 
prince who had the custody of the state tablets and seals." [Dr. S. IV. Bushell, 
Actes XI. Cong. Int. Orient., Paris, p. 17.) 

"The Kin, in the thirteenth century, used badges of office made of silver. They 
were rectangular, bore the imperial seal, and an inscription indicative of the duty of 
the bearer. {Chavattnes, Voyageurs chez les Khitans, 102.) The Nii-chen at an earlier 
date used wooden pai-tzu tied to each horseman and horse, to distinguish them by. 
\Ma Ttian-lin, Bk. 327, II.)" (Rockhill, Rubruck, p. 181, note.) 

VOL. L Z 



354 MARCO POLO Book II. 

"Tiger's tablets — Sinice Hu fit, and fai tsze in the common language. The 
Mongols had them of several kinds, which differed by the metal, of which they were 
made, as well as by the number of pearls (one, two, or three in number), which were 
incrusted in the upper part of the talalet. Falcon's tablets with the figure of a falcon 
were round, and used to be given only to special couriers and envoys of the Khan. 
\^Yuen ski ltd pien and Yuen cKao Hen ckang.'] The use of the Hu-fu was adopted 
by the Mongols probably from the Kin. " {PaUadhcs, I.e. p. 39. ) 

Rubruquis (Rockhill's ed. pp. 153-154) says: — "And whenever the principal 
envoy [of Longa] came to court he carried a highly-polished tablet of ivory about a 
cubit long and half a palm wide. Every time he spoke to the chan or some great 
personage, he always looked at that tablet as if he found there what he had to say, 
nor did he look to the right or the left, nor in the face of him with whom he was talk- 
ing. Likewise, when coming into the presence of the Lord, and when leaving it, he 
never looked at anything but his tablet." Mr. Rockhill observes: "These tablets 
are called hti in Chinese, and were used in China and Korea; in the latter country 
down to quite recent times. They were made of jade, ivory, bamboo, etc., according 
to the rank of the owner, and were about three feet long. The hu was originally 
used to make memoranda on of the business to be submitted by the bearer to the 
Emperor or to write the answers to questions he had had submitted to them. Odoric 
also refers to ' the tablets of white ivory which the Emperor's barons held in their 
hands as they stood silent before him.' " 

(Cf. the golden tablets which were of various classes with a tiger for image and 
pearls for ornaments, Deviria, Epigraphie, p. \'^ et seq.) — li. C] 

Note 3. — Umbrella. The phrase in Pauthier's text is *' Palteque que on dit 
ombrel." The Latin text of the Soc. de Geographic has '■'■ unum pallium de auro," 
which I have adopted as probably correct, looking to Burma, where the old 
etiquettes as to umbrellas are in full force. These etiquettes were probably in both 
countries of old Hindu origin. Pallium, according to Muratori, was applied in the 
Middle Ages to a kind of square umbrella, by which is probably meant rather a 
canopy on four staves, which was sometimes assigned by authority as an honourable 
privilege. 

But the genuine umbrella would seem to have been used also, for Polo's con- 
temporary, Martino da Canale, says that, when the Doge goes forth of his palace, 
" si vait apres lui un damoiseau qui porJe une umbrele de dras h or stir son chief " 
which umbrella had been given by " Monseigiteur PApostoille." There is a picture 
by Girolamo Gambarota, in the Sala del Gran Consiglio, at Venice, which represents 
the investiture of the Doge with the umbrella by Pope Alexander III., and Frederick 
Barbarossa (concerning which see Sanuto Junior, in Altiraiori, XXII. 512). 

The word Parasol also occurs in tlie Petrarchian vocabulary (14th century) as the 
equivalent of saioual (Pers. sdydban or sdizvdn, an umbrella). Carpini notices that 
umbrellas [solinum vel tentoriolum in hasid) were carried over the Tartar nobles and 
their wives, even on horseback ; and a splendid one, covered with jewels, was one 
of the presents made to Kuyuk Kaan on his enthronement. 

With respect to the honorary character attaching to umbrellas in China, I may 
notice that recently an English resident of Ningpo, on his departure for Europe, was 
presented by the Chinese citizens, as a token of honour, with a pair of Wan min san, 
umbrellas of enormous size. 

The umbrella must have gone through some curious vicissitudes ; for at one time 
we find it familiar, at a later date apparently unknown, and then reintroduced as some 
strange novelty. Arrian speaks of the (XKiadia, or umbrellas, as used by all Indians of 
any consideration ; but the thing of which he spoke was familiar to the use of Greek 
and Roman ladies, and many examples of it, borne by slaves behind their mistresses, 
are found on ancient vase-paintings. Athenaeus quotes from Anacreon the description 
of a "beggar on horseback" who 

"like a woman bears 
An ivory parasol over his delicate head." 



I 



t 



I 





Second Example of a 

Mongol PaIza, 

with Superscription in the Uig/iiir Character, 

found near the River Dnieper, 

1845. 

(Half the Length and Breadth of the Original.) 



[To/ace p. 355- 



Chap. VII. 



UMBRELLAS 



355 



An Indian prince, in a Sanskrit insciiption of the 9th century, boasts of having 
wrested from the King of Marwar the two umbrellas pleasing to Parvati, and white as 
the summer moonbeams. Prithi Raj, the last Hindu king of Delhi, is depicted by 
the poet Chand as shaded by a white umbrella on a golden staff. An unmistakable 
umbrella, copied from a Saxon MS. in the Harleian collection, is engraved in 
Wrighfs History of Domestic Afanners, p. 75. The fact that the gold umbrella is 
one of the paraphernalia of high church dignitaries in Italy seems to presume acquaint- 
ance with the thing from a remote period. A decorated umbrella also accompanies 
the host when sent out to the sick, at least where I write, in Palermo. Ibn Batuta 
says that in his time all the people of Constantinople, civil and military, great and 
small, carried great umbrellas over their heads, summer and winter. Ducange 
quotes, from a MS. of the Paris Library, the Byzantine court regulations about 
umbrellas, which are of the genuine Pan-Asiatic spirit ; — ffKiaSia xp^coKOKKiva extend 
from the Hypersebastus to the grand Stratopedarchus, and so on ; exactly as used to 
be the case, with different titles, in Java. And yet it is curious that John MarignoUi, 
Ibn Batuta's contemporary in the middle of the 14th century, and Barbosa in the i6th 
century, are alike at pains to describe the umbrella as some strange object. And in 
our own country it is commonly stated that the umbrella was first used in the last 
century, and that Jonas Hanway (died 17H6) was one of the first persons who made 
a practice of carrying one. The word umbrella is, however, in Minsheu's dictionary. 
[See Hobson-Jobson, s.v. Umbrella. — H. C] 

(Murat. Dissert. II. 229; Archiv. Storic. Ital. VIII. 274, 560 ; Klapr. Mim. 
III. ; Carp.^ 759; N. and Q., C. and J. IL 180; Arrian, Indica, XVI. ; Smith's 
Diet., G. and H. Ant., s. v. umbraciihim ; /. R. A. S. V. 351 ; Rds Mala, I. 221 ; 
/. B. II. 440; Cathay, 381 ; Ramus. I. f. 301.) 

Alexander, according to Athenaeus, feasted his captains to the number of 6000, 
and made them all sit upon silver chairs. The same author relates that the King of 
Persia, among other rich presents, bestowed upon Entimus the Gortynian, who went 
up to the king in imitation of Themistocles, a silver chair and a gilt umbrella. (Bk. 
I. Epit. ch. 31, and II. 31.) 

The silver chair has come down to our ow n day in India, and is much affected by 
native princes. 

Note 4. — I have not been able to find any allusion, except in our author, to 
tablets, with gerfalcons {sfto^ikdr). The shonkdr appears, however, according to 
Erdmann, on certain coins of the Golden Horde, struck at Sarai. 

There is a passage from Wassaf used by Hammer, in whose words it runs that the 
Sayad Imamuddin, appointed (a.d. 683) governor of Shiraz bv Arghun Khan, *• was 




Sculptured Gerfalcon. (From the Gate of Iconium.) 
VOL I. Z 2 



356 MARCO POLO Book II. 

invested with both the Mongol symbols of delegated sovereignty, the Golden Lion's 
Head, and the golden Cat's Head." It would certainly have been more satisfactory 
to find "Gerfalcon's Head^'' in lieu of the latter ; but it is probable that the same 
object is meant. The cut below exhibits the conventional effigy of a gerfalcon as 
sculptured over one of the gates of Iconium, Polo's Conia. The head might easily 
pass for a conventional representation of a cat's head, and is indeed strikingly like the 
grotesque representation that bears that name in mediaeval architecture. {Erdmann, 
Nut/ii Asiatici, L 339; Ilc?i. I, 370.) 



CHAPTER VIII. 

Concerning the Person of the Great Kaan. 

The personal appearance of the Great Kaan, Lord of 
Lords, whose name is Cublay, is such as I shall now tell 
you. He is of a good stature, neither tall nor short, but 
of a middle height. He has a becoming amount of 
flesh, and is very shapely in all his limbs. His com- 
plexion is white and red, the eyes black and fine,^ the 
nose well formed and well set on. He has four wives, 
whom he retains permanently as his legitimate consorts ; 
and the eldest of his sons by those four wives ought by 
rights to be emperor ; — I mean when his father dies. 
Those four ladies are called empresses, but each is dis- 
tinguished also by her proper name. And each of them 
has a special court of her own, very grand and ample ; 
no one of them having fewer than 300 fair and charming 
damsels. They have also many pages and. eunuchs, 
and a number of other attendants of both sexes ; so that 
each of these ladies has not less than 10,000 persons 
attached to her court.^ 

When the Emperor desires the society of one of 
these four consorts, he will sometimes send for the lady 
to his apartment and sometimes visit her at her own. 
He has also a great number of concubines, and I will 
tell you how he obtains them. 



Chap. VIII. 



PERSON OF KUBLAI KA.\N 



357 



You must know that there is a tribe of Tartars 
called UxGRAT, who are noted for their beauty. Now 
every year an hundred of the most beautiful maidens of 
this tribe are sent to the Great Kaan, who commits 
them to the charge of certain elderly ladies dwelling in 
his palace. And these old ladies make the girls sleep 




Portrait of Kublai Kaan. (From a Chinese Engraving.) 

with them, in order to ascertain if they have sweet 
breath [and do not snore], and are sound in all their 
limbs. Then such of them as are of approved beauty, 
and are good and sound in all respects, are appointed 
to attend on the Emperor by turns. Thus six of these 
damsels take their turn for three days and nights, and 



358 



MARCO POLO Book II. 



wait on him when he is in his chamber and when he is 
in his bed, to serve him in any way, and to be entirely 
at his orders. At the end of the three days and nights 
they are reheved by other six. And so throughout the 
year, there are reHefs of maidens by six and six, chang- 
ing every three days and nights.^ 



No'PE I. — We are left in some doubt as to the colour of Kiiblai's eyes, for some 
of the MSS. read vairs and voirs, and others noirs. The former is a very common 
epithet for eyes in the mediaeval romances. And in the ballad on the death of St. 
Lewis, we are told of his son Tristram : — 

" Droiz fu comme un rosel, iex vairs co7}ime faucon, 
Des le tens Moysel ne nasqui sa fajon." 

The word has generally been interpreted bluish-grey, but in the passage just quoted, 
Fr. -Michel explains it by brillans. However, the evidence for noirs here seems 
strongest. Rashiduddin says that when Kublai was born Chinghiz expressed surprise 
at the child's being so brown, as its father and all his other sons were fair. Indeed, 
we are told that the descendants of Yesugai (the father of Chinghiz) were in general 
distinguished by blue eyes and reddish hair. {^Michel's Joinville, p. 324 ; UOhsson, 
II. 475; Erdmann, 252.) 

Note 2. — According to Hammer's authority (Rashid?) Kublai had seven vi'w&s ; 
Gaubil's Chinese sources assign him Jive, with the title of empress (Hwang-hcu). Of 
these the best beloved was the beautiful Jamiii Khatiin (Lady or Empress Jamiii, 
illustrating what the text says of the manner of styling these ladies), who bore him 
four sons and five daughters. Rashiduddin adds that she was called Kiiu Ku, or the 
great consort, evidently the term Hwang-heu. (Gen. Tables in Hammer's llkhans ; 
Gaubil, 223 ; Erdfnann, 200.) 

["Kublai's four wives, i.e. the empresses of the first, second, third, and fourth 
ordos. Ordo is, properly speaking, a separate palace of the Khan, under the manage- 
ment of one of his wives. Chinese authors translate therefore the word ordo by 
'harem.' The four Ordo established by Chingis Khan were destined for the 
empresses, who were chosen out of four different nomad tribes. During the reign of 
the first four Khans, who lived in Mongolia, the four ordo were considerably distant 
one from another, and the Khans visited them in different seasons of the year ; they 
existed nominally as long as China remained under Mongol domination. The custom 
of choosing the empress out of certain tribes, was in the course of time set aside by 
the Khans. The empress, wife of the last Mongol Khan in China, was a Corean 
princess by birth ; and she contributed in a great measure to the downfall of the 
Mongol Dynasty." {Palladius, 40.) 

I do not believe that Rashiduddin's AYin Ku is the term Hitang-heu ; it is the 
term KiUn Chu, King or Queen, a sovereign. — H. C] 

Note 3. — Ungrat, the reading of the Crusca, seems to be that to which the 
others point, and I doubt not that it represents the great Mongol tribe of KUNGURAT, 
which gave more wives than any other to the princes of the house of Chinghiz ; a con- 
clusion in which I find I have been anticipated by De Mailla or his editor (IX. 426). 
To this tribe (which, according to Vambery, took its name from (Turki) Kongiir-At, 
"Chestnut Horse") belonged Burteh Fujin, the favourite wife of Chinghiz himself, 
and mother of his four heirs ; to the same tribe belonged the two wives of Chagatai, 



Chap. IX. THE GREAT KAAITS SONS 359 

two of Hulaku's seven wives, one of Mangku Kaan's, two at least of Kublai's including 
the beloved Jamui Khatiin, one at least of Abaka's, two of Ahmed Tigudar's, two of 
Arghun's, and two of Ghazan's. 

The seat of the Kangurats was near the Great Wall. Their name is still applied 
to one of the tribes of the Uzbeks of Western Turkestan, whose body appears to have 
been made up of fractions of many of the Turk and Mongol tribes. Kungurat is also 
the name of a town of Khiva, near the Sea of Aral, perhaps borrowed from the Uzbek 
clan. 

The conversion of Kungurat into Ungrat is due, I suppose, to that Mongol 
tendency to soften gutturals which has been before noticed. {Erdm. 199-200 ; 
Hammer, passim; Burnes, III. 143, 225.) 

The Ramusian version adds here these curious and apparently genuine 
particulars : — 

"The Great Kaan sends his commissioners to the Province to select four or five 
hundred, or whatever number may be ordered, of the most beautiful young women, 
according to the scale of beauty enjoined upon them. And they set a value upon the 
comparative beauty of the damsels in this way. The commissioners on arriving 
assemble all the girls of the province, in presence of appraisers appointed for the 
purpose. These carefully survey the points of each girl in succession, as (for example) 
her hair, her complexion, eyebrows, mouth, lips, and the proportion of all her limbs. 
They will then set down some as estimated at 16 carats, some at 17, 18, 20, or more 
or less, according to the sum of the beauties or defects of each. And whatever 
standard the Great Kaan may have fixed for those that are to be brought to him, 
whether it be 20 carats or 21, the commissioners select the required number from 
those who have attained that standard, and bring them to him. And when they 
reach his presence he has them appraised anew by other parties, and has a selection 
made of 30 or 40 of those, who then get the highest valuation." 

Marsden and Murray miss the meaning of this curious statement in a surprising 
manner, supposing the carat to represent some absolute value, 4 grains of gold accord- 
ing to the former, whence the damsel of 20 carats was estimated at 13J. 4//. ! This is 
sad nonsense ; but Marsden would not have made the mistake had he not been 
fortunate enough to live before the introduction of Competitive Examinations. This 
Kungurat business was in fact a competitive examination in beauty; total marks 
attainable 24 ; no candidate to pass who did not get 20 or 21. Carat expresses « -r 
24, not any absolute value. 

Apart from the mode of valuation, it appears that a like system of selection was 
continued by the Ming, and that some such selection from the daughters of the 
Manchu nobles has been maintained till recent times. Herodotus tells that the like 
custom prevailed among the Adyrmachidae, the Libyan tribe next Egypt. Old Eden 
too relates it of the '" Princes of Moscovia." {Middle Km. I. 318 ; Herod. IV. 168, 
RawL ; Notes on Russia, Hak. Soc, II. 253.) 



CHAPTER IX. 

Concerning the Great Kaan's Sons. 

The Emperor hath, by those four wives of his, twenty- 
two male children ; the eldest of whom was called 
Chinkin for the love of the good Chinghis Kaan, the 



360 MARCO POLO Book II. 

first Lord of the 7'artars. And this Chinkin, as the 
Eldest Son of the Kaan, was to have reigned after his 
father's death; but, as it came to pass, he died. He 
left a son behind him, however, whose name is Temur, 
and he is to be the Great Kaan and Emperor after the 
death of his Grandfather, as is but right ; he being the 
child of the Great Kaan's eldest son. And this Temur 
is an able and brave man, as he hath already proven on 
many occasions.^ 

The Great Kaan hath also twenty-five other sons 
by his concubines ; and these are good and valiant 
soldiers, and each of them is a great chief I tell you 
moreover that of his children by his four lawful wives 
there are seven who are kings of vast realms or 
provinces, and govern them well ; being all able and 
gallant men, as might be expected. For the Great 
Kaan their sire is, I tell you, the wisest and most 
accomplished man, the greatest Captain, the best to 
govern men and rule an Empire, as well as the most 
valiant, that ever has existed among all the Tribes of 
Tartars.^ 

Note i. — Kiiblai had a son older than Chimkin or Chingkim, to whom 
Hammer's Genealogical Table gives the name oi Jurji, and attributes a son called 
Ananda. , The Chinese authorities of Gaubil and Pauthier call him lurchi or Torchi, 
i.e. Dorji, "Noble Stone," the Tibetan name of a sacred Buddhist emblem in the 
form of a dumb-bell, representing the Vajra or Thunderbolt. Probably Dorje died 
early, as in the passage we shall quote from Wassaf also Chingkim is styled the 
Eldest Son : Marco is probably wrong in connecting the name of the latter with that 
of Chinghiz. Schmidt says that he docs not know what Chingkim means. 

[Mr. Parker says that Chen kim was the third son of Kublai {China Review, xxiv. 
p. 94.) Teimur, son of Chen kim, wore the temple name (miao-hao) of CKing Tsung 
and the title of reign [nien-hao) of Yiie7i Cheng and Ta Tdh. — H. C] 

Chingkim died in the 12th moon of 1284- 1285, aged 43. Me had received a 
Chinese education, and the Chinese Annals ascribe to him all the virtues which so 
often pertain in history to heirs apparent who have not reigned. 

"When KiibMi approached his 70th year," says Wassaf, "he desired to raise his 
eldest son Chimkin to the position of his representative and declared successor, 
during his own lifetime ; so he took counsel with the chiefs, in view to giving the 
Prince a share of his authority and a place on the Imperial Throne. The chiefs, who 
are the Pillars of Majesty and Props of the Empire, represented that His Majesty's 
proposal to invest his Son, during his own lifetime, with Imperial authority, was not 
in accordance with the precedents and Institutes ( Yasa) of the World-conquering 



Chap. IX. THE GREAT KAAN'S SONS 36 I 

Padshah Chinghiz Khan ; but still they would consent to execute a solemn document, 
securing the Kaanship to Chimkin, and pledging themselves to lifelong obedience and 
alliance to him. It was, however, the Divine Fiat that the intended successor should 

predecease him who bestowed the nomination The dignitaries of the 

Empire then united their voices in favour of Teimur, the son of Chimkin." 

Teimur, according to the same authority, was the third son of Chimkin ; but the 
eldest, Kambala, squinted; the second, Tarmah (properly Tarmabala for Dharma- 
pka/a, a Buddhist Sanskrit name) was rickety in constitution ; and on the death of 
the old Kaan (1294) Teimur was unanimously named to the Throne, after some 
opposition from Kambala, which was put down by the decided bearing of the great 
soldier Bayan. (Schmidt, p. 399 ; De Mailla, IX. 424; Gaiibil, 203 ; fVassdf, 46.) 

[The Rev. W. S. Ament {Marco Polo in Cambahu, p. 106), makes the following 
remarks regarding this young prince (Chimkin): "The historians give good reasons 
for their regard for Chen Chin. He had from early years exhibited great promise and 
had shown great proficiency in the military art, in government, history, mathematics, 
and the Chinese classics. He was well acquainted with the condition and numbers of 
the inhabitants of Mongolia and China, and with the topography and commerce of the 
Empire (Howorth). He was much beloved by all, except by some of his father's own 
ministers, whose lives were anything but exemplar)'. That Kublai had full confidence 
in his son is shown by the fact that he put the collecting of taxes in his hands. The 
native historians represent him as economical in the use of money and wise in the 
choice of companions. He carefully watched the officers in his charge, and would 
tolerate no extortion of the people. After droughts, famines or floods, he would en- 
quire into the condition of the people and liberally supply their needs, thus starting 
them in life again. Polo ascribes all these virtues to the Khan himself. Doubtless he 
possessed them in greater or less degree, but father and son were one in all these 
benevolent enterprises." — H. C] 

Note 2. — The Chinese Annals, according to Pauthier and Gaubil, give only tett 
sons to Kublai, at least by his legitimate wives ; Hammer's Table gives twelve. It is 
very probable that xxii. was an early clerical error in the texts of Polo for xii. 
Dodeci indeed occurs in one MS. (No. 37 of our Appendix F), though not one of 
much weight. 

Of these legitimate sons Polo mentions, in different parts of his work, five by 
name. The following is the list from Hammer and D'Ohsson, with the Chinese 
forms from Pauthier in parentheses. The seven whose names are in capitals had the 
title of Wang or " KLing " of particular territories, as M. Pauthier has shown from the 
Chinese Annals, thus confirming Marco's accuracy on that point. 

I. Jurji or Dorje (Torchi). II. Chimkin or Chixgkim (Yu Tsung, King of Yen, 
i.e. Old Peking). III. Mangai.ai (Mankola, "King of the Pacified West"), 
mentioned by Polo(/«/9-a, ch. xli.)as King of Kenjanfu or Shensi. IV. NUMUGAN 
(Numukan, "Pacifying King of the North"), mentioned by Polo (Bk. IV. ch. ii.) 
as with King George joint leader of the Kaan's army against Kaidu. V. Kuridai 
(not in Chinese List). VI. Hukaji (Hukochi, "King of Yunnan"), mentioned by 
Polo (infra, ch. xlix.) as King of Carajan. VII. AoHRUKjl or Ukuruji (Gaoluchi, 
"King of Siping" or Tibet). VIII. Abaji (Gaiyachi?). IX. KuKju or Geukju 
(Khokhochu, "King of Ning" or Tangut). X. Kutuktemur (Hutuln Temurh). 
XI. TuKAN (Thohoan, "King of Chinnan"). His command lay on the Tungking 
frontier, where he came to great grief in 1288, in consequence of which he was 
disgraced. (See Cathay, p. 272.) XII. Temkan (not in Chinese List). Gaubil's 
Chinese List omits Hutu.'u Temurh, and introduces a prince called Gantanpouhoa as 
4th son. 

M. Pauthier lays great stress on Polo's intimate knowledge of the Imperial 
affairs (p. 263) because he knew the name of the Hereditary Prince to be Teimur ; 
this being, he says, the private name which could not be known until after the 
owner's death, except by those in the most confidential intimacy. The public only 



362 MARCO POLO Book II. 

then discovered that, like the Irishman's dog, his real name was Turk, though he 
had always been called Toby ! But M. Pauthier's learning has misled him. At 
least the secret must have been very badly kept, for it was known in Teimur's 
lifetime not only to Marco, but to Rashiduddin in Persia, and to Hayton in 
Armenia ; to say nothing of the circumstance that the name Tenmr Khaghan is also 
used during that Emperor's life by Oljaitu Khan of Persia in writing to the King of 
France a letter which M. Pauthier himself republished and commented upon, (See 
his book, p. 7S0.) 



CHAPTER X. 

Concerning the Palace of the Great Kaan. 

You must know that for three months of the year, to 
wit December, January, and February, the Great Kaan 
resides in the capital city of Cathay, which is called 
Cambaluc, [and which is at the north-eastern extremity 
of the country]. In that city stands his great Palace, 
and now I will tell you what it is like. 

It is enclosed all round by a great wall forming a 
square, each side of which is a mile in length ; that is 
to say, the whole compass thereof is four miles. This 
you may depend on ; it is also very thick, and a good 
ten paces in height, whitewashed and loop-holed all 
round.' At each angle of the wall there is a very fine 
and rich palace in which the war-harness of the 
Emperor is kept, such as bows and quivers,^ saddles 
and bridles, and bowstrings, and everything needful for 
an army. Also midway between every two of these 
Corner Palaces there is another of the like ; so that 
taking the whole compass of the enclosure you find 
eieht vast Palaces stored with the Great Lord's harness 
of war.^ And you must understand that each Palace is 
assigned to only one kind of article ; thus one is stored 
with bows, a second with saddles, a third with bridles, 
and so on in succession right round.* 



Chap. X. THE PALACE OF THE GREAT KAAN 363 

The great wall has five gates on its southern face, 
the middle one being the great gate which is never 
opened on any occasion except when the Great Kaan 
himself goes forth or enters. Close on either side of this 
great gate is a smaller one by which all other people 
pass ; and then towards each angle is another great 
gate, also open to people in general ; so that on that 
side there are five gates in all.^ 

Inside of this wall there is a second, enclosing a space 
that is somewhat greater in length than in breadth. 
This enclosure also has eight palaces corresponding to 
those of the outer wall, and stored like them with the 
Lord's harness of war. This wall also hath five gates 
on the southern face, corresponding to those in the outer 
wall, and hath one gate on each of the other faces, as 
the outer wall hath also. In the middle of the second 
enclosure is the Lord's Great Palace, and I will tell you 
what it is like.® 

You must know that it is the greatest Palace that 
ever was. [Towards the north it is in contact with the 
outer wall, whilst towards the south there is a vacant 
space which the Barons and the soldiers are constantly 
traversing.^ The Palace itself] hath no upper story, but 
is all on the ground floor, only the basement is raised 
some ten palms above the surrounding soil [and this 
elevation is retained by a wall of marble raised to the 
level of the pavement, two paces in width and projecting 
beyond the base of the Palace so as to form a kind of 
terrace-walk, by which people can pass round the build- 
ing, and which is exposed to view, whilst on the outer 
edge of the wall there is a very fine pillared balustrade ; 
and up to this the people are allowed to come]. The 
roof is very lofty, and the walls of the Palace are all 
covered with gold and silver. They are also adorned 
with representations of dragons [sculptured and gilt], 



364 MARCO POLO Book II. 

beasts and birds, knights and idols, and sundry other 
subjects. And on the ceiling too you see nothing but 
gold and silver and painting. [On each of the four 
sides there is a great marble staircase leading to the top 
of the marble wall, and forming the approach to the 
Palace.] « 

The Hall of the Palace is so large that it could 
easily dine 6000 people ; and it is quite a marvel to see 
how many rooms there are besides. The building is 
altogether so vast, so rich, and so beautiful, that no 
man on earth could design anything superior to it. 
The outside of the roof also is all coloured with vermilion 
and yellow and green and blue and other hues, which 
are fixed with a varnish so fine and exquisite that they 
shine like crystal, and lend a resplendent lustre to the 
Palace as seen for a great way round. ^ This roof is 
made too with such strength and solidity that it is fit to 
last for ever. 

[On the interior side of the Palace are large build- 
ings with halls and chambers, where the Emperor's 
private property is placed, such as his treasures of gold, 
silver, gems, pearls, and gold plate, and in which reside 
the ladies and concubines. There he occupies himself 
at his own convenience, and no one else has access.] 

Between the two walls of the enclosure which I have 
described, there are fine parks and beautiful trees bear- 
ing a variety of fruits. There are beasts also of sundry 
kinds, such as white stags and fallow deer, gazelles and 
roebucks, and fine squirrels of various sorts, with 
numbers also of the animal that gives the musk, and 
all manner of other beautiful creatures,^" insomuch that 
the whole place is full of them, and no spot remains 
void except where there is traffic of people going and 
coming. [The parks are covered with abundant grass ; 
and the roads through them being all paved and raised 



Chap. X. THE PALACE OF THE GREAT KAAN 365 

two cubits above the surface, they never become muddy, 
nor does the rain lodge on them, but flows off into the 
meadows, quickening the soil and producing that abun- 
dance of herbage.] 

From that corner of the enclosure which is towards 
the north-west there extends a fine Lake, containing 
foison of fish of different kinds which the Emperor hath 
caused to be put in there, so that whenever he desires 
any he can have them at his pleasure. A river enters 
this lake and issues from it, but there is a ofratinsf of 
iron or brass put up so that the fish cannot escape in 
that way.^^ 

Moreover on the north side of the Palace, about a 
bow-shot off, there is a hill which has been made by art 
[from the earth dug out of the lake}; it is a good 
hundred paces in height and a mile in compass. This 
hill is entirely covered with trees that never lose their 
leaves, but remain ever green. And I assure you that 
wherever a beautiful tree may exist, and the Emperor 
gets news of it, he sends for it and has it transported 
bodily with all its roots and the earth attached to them, 
and planted on that hill of his. No matter how big the 
tree may be, he gets it carried by his elephants ; and in 
this way he has got together the most beautiftil collection 
of trees in all the world. And he has also caused the 
whole hill to be covered with the ore of azure,^^ which 
is very green. And thus not only are the trees all 
green, but the hill itself is all green likewise ; and there 
is nothing to be seen on it that is not green ; and hence 
it is called the Green Mount ; and in orood sooth 'tis 
named well.^^ 

On the top of the hill again there is a fine big palace 
which is all green inside and out ; and thus the hill, and 
the trees, and the palace form together a charming 
spectacle ; and it is marvellous to see their uniformity 



366 ■ MARCO POLO Book II, 

of colour! Everybody who sees them is delighted. 
And the Great Kaan had caused this beautiful prospect 
to be formed for the comfort and solace and delectation 
of his heart. 

You must know that beside the Palace (that we have 
been describing), i.e. the Great Palace, the Emperor has 
caused another to be built just like his own in every 
respect, and this he hath done for his son when he shall 
reign and be Emperor after him.^* Hence it is made 
just in the same fashion and of the same size, so that 
everything can be carried on in the same manner after 
his own death. [It stands on the other side of the lake 
from the Great Kaan's Palace, and there is a bridge 
crossing the water from one to the other.] ^^ The Prince 
in question holds now a Seal of Empire, but not with 
such complete authority as the Great Kaan, who remains 
supreme as long as he lives. 

Now I am going to tell you of the chief city of 
Cathay, in which these Palaces stand ; and why it was 
built, and how. 



Note i.— [According to the Ch'ue keng lu, translated by Bretschneider, 25, "the 
wall surrounding the palace ... is constructed of bricks, and is 35 ch'i in height. 
The construction was begun in A.D. 1 271, on the 17th of the 8th month, between 
three and five o'clock in the afternoon, and finished next year on the 15th of the 3rd 
month."— H. C] 

Note 2. — Tarcasci (G. T.) This word is worthy of note as the proper form of 
what has become in modern French carquois. The former is a transcript of the 
Persian Tarkash ; the latter appears to be merely a corruption of it, arising perhaps 
clerically from the constant confusion of c and t in MSB. (See Defrhnery, quoted by 
Pauthier, in loco.) [Old French tarquais (13th century), Ilatzfeldt and Darmesteter's 
Diet, gives : " Coivres orent ceinz et tarchais." (Wage, Roji, III., 7698 ; 12th century).] 

Note 3. — [" It seems to me [Dr. Bretschneider] that Polo took the towers, 
mentioned by the Chinese author, in the angles of the galleries and of the Kung- 
ch'eng for palaces ; for further on he states, that ' over each gate [of Cambaluc] there 
is a great and handsome palace.' I have little doubt that over the gates of Cambaluc, 
stood lofty buildings similar to those over the gates of modern Peking. These tower- 
like buildings are called lou by the Chinese. It may be very likely, that at the time 
of Marco Polo, the war harness of the Khan was stored in these towers of the palace 
wall. The author of the Ch'ue keng hi, who wrote more than fifty years later, assigns 
to it another place." {Bretschneider, Peking, 32.)— II. C] 



Sh 


ng sheng 




Kung 




unj fu 




Kun| 




IDEAL PLAN 

of the 

MCIENT PALACES 

^ of the 

BONCOL EMPERORS 
B AT KHANBALIGH 

■^ordmg to or Bretschneider 



368 MARCO POLO Book II. 

Note 4. — The stores are now outside the walls of the " Prohibited City," corres- 
ponding to Polo's Palace- Wall, but within the walls of the " Imperial City." {^Middle 
Kingdom, I. 61.) See the cut at p. 376. 

Note 5. — The two gates near the corners apparently do not exist in the Palace 
now. " On the south side there are three gates to the Palace, both in the inner and 
the outer walls. The middle one is absolutely reserved for the entrance or exit of the 
Emperor ; all other people pass in and out by the gate to the right or left of it." 
{Trigautius, Bk. I. ch. vii.) This custom is not in China peculiar to Royalty. In 
private houses it is usual to have three doors leading from the court to the guest- 
rooms, and there is a great exercise of politeness in reference to these ; the guest after 
much pressing is prevailed on to enter the middle door, whilst the host enters by the 
side. (See Deguignes, Voyages, I. 262.) [See also H. Cordier's Hist, des Kelat. 
de la Chine, III. ch. x. Audience Inipiriale.'\ 

[" It seems Polo took the three gateways in the middle gate {Ta-niing men) for 
three gates, and thus speaks of five gates instead of three in the southern wall." 
{Bretschneider, Peking, 27, note.) — H. C] 

Note 6. — Ramusio's version here diverges from the old MSS. It makes the 
inner enclosure a mile square ; and the second (the city of Taidu) six miles square, as 
here, but adds, at a mile interval, a third of eight miles square. Now it is remarkable 
that Mr. A. Wylie, in a letter dated 4th December 1873, speaking of a recent visit to 
Peking, says: "I found from various inquiries that there are several remains of a 
very much larger city wall, inclosing the present city ; but time would not allow me 
to follow up the traces." 

Pauthier's text (which I have corrected by the G. T.), after describing the outer 
inclosure to be a mile every way, says that the inner inclosure lay at an interval of a 
mile within it I 

[Dr. Bretschneider observes " that in the ancient Chinese works, three concentric 
inclosures are mentioned in connection with the palace. The innermost inclosed the 
Ta-nei, the middle inclosure, called Ktmg-cKengox Httang-ch'eng, answering to the 
wall surrounding the present prohibited city, and was about 6 li in circuit. Besides 
this there was an outer wall (a rampart apparently) 20 li in circuit, answering to the 
wall of the present imperial city (which now has 18 li in circuit." The Hnang-cVeng 
of the Yuen was measured by imperial order, and found to be 7 li in circuit ; the wall 
of the Mongol palace was 6 li in circuit, according to the CKue keng lu. {Bret- 
schneider, Peking, 24.) — Marco Polo's mile could be approximately estimated =277 
Chinese/?. {Ibid. 24, note.) The common Chinese li=T,6o pii, or 180 chang, or 
1800 ch'i (feet) ; I li= 1894 English feet or 575 metres ; at least according to the old 
Venice measures quoted in Yule's Marco Polo, II., one pace = 5 f^^t- Besides the 
common li, the Chinese have another li, used for measuring fields, which has only 
240 pu or 1200 ch'i. This is the li spoken of in the Ch'tie keng lu. {Ibid. 13, note.) 
—II. C] 

Note 7. — ["Near the southern face of the wall are barracks for the Life Guards." 
{Ch'tie keng lu, translated by Bretschneider, 25.) — H. C] 

Note 8. — This description of palace (see opposite cut), an elevated basement of 
masonry with a superstructure of timber (in general carved and gilded), is still found 
in Burma, Siam, and Java, as well as in China. If we had any trace of the palaces 
of the ancient Asokas and Vikramadityas of India, we should probably find that they 
were of the same character. It seems to be one of those t'nings that belonged to some 
ancient Panasiatic fashion, as the palaces of Nineveh were of a somewhat similar 
construction. In the Audience Halls of the Moguls at Delhi and Agra we can trace 
the ancient form, though the superstructure has there become an arcade of marble 
instead of a pavilion on timber columns. 



Chap. X. 



THE PALACE OF THE GREAT KAAN 



369 



["The Ta-tning tieit (Hall of great brightness) is withoat doubt ythaX Marco Polo 
calls 'the Lord's Great Palace.' ... He states, that it 'hath no upper story'; 
and indeed, the palace buildings which the Chinese call tien are always of one story. 
Polo speaks also of a 'very fine pillared balustrade' (the chu long, pillared verandah. 




Palace at Khan-baligh. (From the Livre des MeroeilUs.) 

of the Chinese author). Marco Polo states that the basement of the great palace 
' is raised some ten palms above the surrounding soil.' We find in the Ku kimg i 
he 'The basement of the Ta-ming tien is raised about 10 ch'i above the soil.' 
There can also be no doubt that the Taming tien stood at about the same place 




Winter Palace at Peking. 



VOL. L 



2 A 



370 MARCO POLO Book II. 

where now. the T^ai-ho tien, the principal hall of the palace, is situated." {Bret- 
schneider, Peking, 28, note.) ... 

The CKtte keng hi, translated by Bretschncider, 25, contains long articles devoted 
to the description of the palace of the Mongols and the adjacent p.alace grounds. 
They are too long to be reproduced here. — II. C] 

Note 9. — " As all that one sees of these palaces is varnished in those colours, 
when you catch a distant view of them at sunrise, as I have done many a time, you 
would think them all made of, or at least covered with, pure gold enamelled in azure and 
green, so that the spectacle is at once majestic and charming." {Magaillans, p. 353.) 

Note id. — \T\)\s \s iht Ling ytt or "Divine Park," to the east of the Wan-sui 
shan, "in which rare birds and beasts are kept. Before the Emperor goes to Shang- 
tu, the officers are accustomed to be entertained at this place." {Cfi'ue keng Iti, quoted 
by Bretschneider, 36. )— H. C. ] 

Note ii. — "On the west side, where the space is amplest, there is a lake very 
full of fish. It is in the form of a fiddle, and is an Italian mile and a quarter in 
length. It is crossed at the narrowest part, which corresponds to gates in the walls, 
by a handsome bridge, the extremities of which are adorned by two triumphal arches 
of three openings each. . . . The lake is surrounded by palaces and pleasure houses, 
built partly in the water and partly on shore, and charming boats are provided on it 
for the use of the Emperor when he chooses to go a-fishing or to take an airing." 
{Ibid. 282-283.) The marble bridge, as it now exists, consists of nine arches, and is 
600 feet long. {Rennie's Peking, II. 57.) 

Ramusio specifies another lake in the city, fed by the same stream before it enters 
the palace, and used by the public for watering cattle. 

["The lake which Marco Polo saw is the same as the l^ai-yi chH of our days. 
It has, however, changed a little in its form. This lake and also its name T'ai-yi 
fA'i date from the twelfth century, at which time an Emperor of the Kin first gave 
orders to collect together the water of some springs in the hills, where now the 
summer palaces stand, and to conduct it to a place north of his capital, where pleasure 
gardens were laid out. The river which enters the lake and issues from it exists still, 
under its ancient name Kin-slnii." [Bretschneider, Peking, 34.) — H. C] 

Note 12. — The expression here is in the Geog. Text, " Poze de I'afur,'" and in 
Pauthier's ^'de rose et de Pasnr." Rose Minerale, in the terminology of the alchemists, 
was a red powder produced in the sublimation of gold and mercury, but I can find no 
elucidation of the term Rose of Azure. The Crusca Italian has in the same place 
7"erra dello Azznrro. Having ventured to refer the question to the high authority of 
Mr, C. W. King, he expresses the opinion that Roze here stands for Roche, and that 
probably the term Roche de faztir may have been used loosely for blue-stone, i.e. 
carbonate of copper, which would assume a green colour through moisture. He 
adds : " Nero, according to Pliny, actually used chrysocolla, the siliceous carbonate of 
copper, in powder, for strewing the circus, to give the course the colour of his 
favourite faction, the prasine (or green). There may be some analogy between this 
device and that of Kiiblai Khan." This parallel is a very happy one. 

Note 13. — Friar Odoric gives a description, short, but closely agreeing in sub- 
stance with that in the Text, of the Palace, the Park, the Lake, and the Green Mount. 

A green mount, answering to the description, and about 160 feet in height, stands 
immediately in rear of the palace buildings. It is called by the Chinese King-Shan, 
" Court Mountain," Wan-su-Shan, "Ten Thousand Year Mount," and Mei-Shan, 
"Coal Mount," the last from the material of which it is traditionally said to be com- 
posed (as a provision of fuel in case of siege). * Whether this is Kublai's Green Mount 

• Some ye.-irs ago, in Calcutta, I learned that a large store of charcoal e.\isted under the soil of 
Fort William, deposited there, I believe, in the early days of that fortress. 

["The///r/a says that the name of Mei shan (Coal hill) was given to it from the stock of coal 
buried at its foot, as a provision in case of siege." {Bretschneider, Peking, 38.) — H. C.J 



ol^ 



MARCO POLO Book IK 



does not seem to be quite certain. Dr, Lockhart tells me that, according to the in- 
formation he collected when living at Peking, it is not so, "but was formed by the 
Ming Emperors from the excavation of the existing lake on the site which the Mongol 
I'alace had occupied. There is another mount, he adds, adjoining the east shore of 
the lake, which must be of older date even than Kiiblai, for a Dagoba standing on it 
is ascribed to the Kiti. 

[1 he " Green Mount " was an island called Idiing-hua at the time of the Kin ; ia 
1 27 1 it received the name of Wan-mi slum ; it is about 100 feet in height, and is the 
only hill mentioned by (Jhinesc writers of the Mongol time who refer to the palace 
grounds. It is not the present Khi^q-shan, north of the palace, called also I'Vaji-siii- 
shan under the Ming, and now the Jllei-shaji, of more recent formation. " I have no 
doubt," says Bretschneider {Peking, I.e. 35), "that Marco Polo's handsome palace on 
the top of the Green Mount is the same as the Ktiaiig-lian tien '' of the C/i't/e koig In. 
It was a hall in which there was a jar of black jade, big enough to hold more than 30 
piculs of wine ; this jade had white veins, and in accordance with these veins, fish and 
animals have been carved on the jar. {Jbid. 35.) " The Js^u ktingi In, in describing 
the Wan-sui-shan, praises the beautiful shady green of the vegetation there." {Ibid. 
37.)-H.C.] 

[" Near the eastern end of the bridge {Kiii-ao yil-tting which crosses the lake) the 
visitor sees a circular wall, which is calieil yiian cICeng (round wall). It is about 350 
paces ia circuit. .Within it is an imperial building Ck' eiig-kitang tien, dating from the 
Mongol time. From this circular enclosure, another long and beautifidly executed 
mafble bridge leads northwards, to a charming hill, covered with shady trees, and 
capped by a magnificent white sitbiirga." {Bret Schneider, p. 22.) — PI. C.] 

In a plate attached to next chapter, I have drawn, on a small scale, the existing 
cities of Peking, as compared with the Mongol and Chinese cities in the time of 
Kublai. The plan of the latter has been constructed (i) from existing traces, as 
exhibited in the Russian Survey republished by our War Office ; (2) from information 
: kindly afforded by Dr. Lockhart; and (3) from Polo's description and a few slight 
notices by Gaubil and others. It will be seen, even on the small scale of these plans, 
that the general arrangement of the palace, the park, the lakes (including that in the 
city, which appears in Ramusio's version), the bridge, the mount, etc., in the existing 
Peking, very closely correspond with Polo's indications ; and I think the strong 
probability is that the Ming really built on the old traces, and that the lake, mount, 
etc., as they now stand, are substaritially those of the Great Mongol, though Chinese 
policy or patriotism may have spread the belief that the foreign traces were obliter- 
ated. Indeed, if that belief were true, the Mongol Palace must have been very much 
out of the axis of the City of Kublai, which is in the highest degree improbable. The 
Bulletin de la Soc. de Giographie for September 1873, "contains a paper on I'eking by 
the physician to the French Embassy there. Whatever may be the worth of the 
meteorological and hygienic details in that paper, I am bound to say that the historical 
and topographical part is so inaccurate as to be of no value. 

Note 14. — For son, read grandson. But the G. T. actually names the Emperor's 
son Chingkim, whose death our traveller has himself already mentioned. 

Note 15. — [" Marco Polo's bridge, crossing the lake from one side to the other, 
must be identified with the wooden bridge mentioned in the Cti'ne keng In. The 
present marble bridge spanning the lake was only built in 1392." "A marble bridge 
connects this island. (an islet with the hall I-fien tien) with the Wan-std shan. 
Another bridge, made of wood, 120 chH long and 22 broad, leads eastward to the 
wall of the Imperial Palace. A third bridge, a wooden draw-bridge 470 clCi long, 
stretches to the west oVer the lake to its western border, where the palace Hing-sheng 
>&//«^ [built in 1308] stands." {Bretschneider, Peking, 36.) — li. C.J 



I 



374 MARCO POLO Book IL 

CHAPTER XI. 

Concerning the City of Cambaluc. 

Now there was on that spot in old times a great and 
noble city called Cambaluc, which is as much as to say 
in our tongue "The city of the Emperor."^ But the 
Great Kaan was informed by his Astrologers that this 
city would prove rebellious, and raise great disorders 
against his imperial authority. So he caused the present 
city to be built close beside the old one, with only a 
river between them.^ And he caused the people of the 
old city to be removed to the new town that he had 
founded; and this is called Taidu. [However, he 
allowed a portion of the people which he did not suspect 
to remain in the old city, because the new one could not 
hold the whole of them, big as it is.] 

As regards the size of this (new) city you must know 
that it has a compass of 24 miles, for each side of it hath 
a length of 6 miles, and it is four-square. And it is all 
walled round with walls of earth which have a thickness 
of full ten paces at bottom, and a height of more than 
10 paces ;^ but they are not so thick at top, for they 
diminish in thickness as they rise, so that at top they 
are only about 3 paces thick. And they are provided 
throughout with loop-holed battlements, which are all 
whitewashed. 

There are 12 gates, and over each gate there is a 
great and handsome palace, so that there are on each 
side of the square three gates and five palaces; for (I 
oucjht to mention) there is at each anorle also a g-reat 
and handsome palace. In those palaces are vast halls 
in which are kept the arms of the city garrison."* 

The streets are so straight and wide that you can 



Chap. XI. THE CITY OF CAMBALUC- 375 

see risfht along; them from end to end and from one 
gate to the other. And up and down the city there 
are beautiful palaces, and many great and fine hostelries, 
and fine houses in great numbers. [All the plots of 
ground on which the houses of the city are built are 
four-square, and laid out with straight lines ; all the 
plots being occupied by great and spacious palaces, with 
courts and gardens of proportionate size. All these 
plots were assigned to different heads of families. Each 
square plot is encompassed by handsome streets for 
traffic ; and thus the whole city is arranged in squares 
just like a chess-board, and disposed in a manner so 
perfect and masterly that it is impossible to give a de- 
scription that should do it justice.]* 

Moreover, in the middle of the city there is a great 
clock — that is to say, a bell — which is struck at night. 
And after it has struck three times no one must go out 
in the city, unless it be for the needs of a woman in 
labour, or of the sick.^ And those who go about on 
such errands are bound to carry lanterns with them. 
Moreover, the established guard at each gate of the 
city is 1000 armed men ; not that you are to imagine 
this guard is kept up for fear of any attack, but only 
as a guard of honour for the Sovereign, who resides 
there, and to prevent thieves from doing mischief in the 
town.''' 



Note i. 1- The history of the city on the site of Peking goes back to very old 

times, for it had been [under the name of /Ti] the capital of the kingdom of Yen, 
previous to B.C. 222, when it was captured by the Prince of the T'sin Dynasty. 
[Under the T'ang dynasty (618-907) it was known under the name of Yu-chau.] It 
became one of the capitals of the Khitans in A. D. 936, and of the Kin sovereigns, who 
took it in 1125, in 1151 under the name of Chung-tu. Under the name of Yenking, 
[given to this city in 1013] it has a conspicuous place in the wars of Chinghiz against 
the latter dynasty. He captured it in 12 15. In 1264, Kublai adopted it as his chief 
residence, and founded in 1267, the new city of Ta ru (" Great Court "), called by the 
Mongols Taidu or Daitu since 1271 (see Bk. I. ch. bu. note 1), at a little distance 
— Odoric says half a mile— to the north-east of the old Yenking. Tatu was com- 
pleted in the summer of 1267. 



3>7^ 



MARCO POLO 



Book II. 



Old Yenking had, when occupied by the Kin, a circuit of 27 H (commonly 
estimated at 9 miles, but in early works the li is not more than i of a mile), after- 
wards increased to 30 //. But there was some kind of outer wall about the city and 
its suburbs, the circuit of which is called 75 li. ["At the time of the Yuen the 
walls still ex'sted, and the ancient city of the Kin was commonly called Nan-ch'eng 
(Southern city), whilst the Mongol capital was termed the northern city." 
Bretschneider, Peking, 10. — H. C] {Lockhart ; and see Amyot, II. 553, and note 
6 to last chapter. ) 

Polo correctly explains the name Cambalnc, i.e. Kaan-baligh, "The City of the 
Kaan." 

Note 2. — The river that ran between the old and new city must have been the 
little river F//, which still runs through the modern Tartar city, and fills the city 
ditches. 

[Dr. Bretschneider {Peking, 49) thinks that there is a strong probability that Polo 
speaks of the IVen-ming ho, a river which, according to the ancient descriptions, ran 
near the southern wall of the Mongol capital. — H. C] 

Note 3. — This height is from Pauthier's Text ; the G. Text has, " twenty paces," 




South Gate of Imperial City at Peking. 

*'%\\t « iott^f p<yrt£«, et &ax rhascunc portc » nnc jgrnnbisme palais ti binus." 

i.e. 100 feet. A recent French paper states the dimensions of the existingwalls as 14 
metres (45^ feet) high, and 14-50 (47^ feet) thick, "the top forming a ])ave(l 
promenade, unique of its kind, and recalling the legendary walls of Thebes and 
Babylon." {Ann. d'' Hygiene Publique, 2nd s. torn, xxxii. for 1869, p. 21.) 

[According to the French astronomers (Fleuriais and Lapied) sent to Peking for 
the Transit of Venus in December, 1875, the present Tartar city is 23 kii. 55 in 
circuit, viz. if i li-S75 i"-. 4^ l> > ^o^i the north to the south 5400 metres ; from cast 
to west 6700 metres ; the wall is 13 metres in height and 12 metres in width. — II. C] 

Note 4.— Our attempted plan of Cambaluc, as in 1290, differs somewhat from this 
description, but there is no getting over certain existing facts. 



^ 



n 



-^^ 



6Y 



A. D. 1290 



S '.'■fW b u. r 
Kim-U Cr^ 



IL 



Gnn-rhin G 



^J^^-Jj^^l:— 




Chap. XL THE CITY OF CAMBALUC ^']'] 

The existing Tartar city of Peking (technically Ne'i-cKing, " The Interior City," or 
King-cKing, "City of the Court") stands on the site of Taidu, and represents it. 
After the expulsion of the Mongols (1368) the new native DjTiasty of Ming established 
their capital at Nanking. But this was found so inconvenient that the third 
sovereign of the Dynasty re-occupied Taidu or Cambaluc, the repairs of which began 
in 1409. He reduced it in size by cutting off nearly a third part of the city at the 
north end. The remains of this abandoned portion of wall are, however, still in 
existence, approaching 30 feet in height all round. This old wall is called by the 
Chinese The Wall of the Yuen {i.e. the Mongol Dynasty), and it is laid down in the 
Russian Survey. [The capital of the Ming was 40 It in circuit, according to the 
Ch'angan k'o hua.] The existing walls were built, or restored rather (the north wall 
being in any case, of course, entirely new), in 1437. There seems to be no doubt 
that the present south front of the Tartar city was the south front of Taidu. The 
whole outline of Taidu is therefore still extant, and easily measurable. If the scale on 
the War Office edition of the Russian Survey be correct, the long sides measure close 
upon 5 miles and 500 j^ards ; the short sides, 3 miles and 1200 yards. Hence the 
whole perimeter was just about 18 English miles, or less than 16 Italian miles. If, 
however, a pair of compasses be run round Taidu and Yenking (as we have laid the 
latter down from such data as could be had) together, the circuit will be something 
like 24 Italian miles, and this may have to do with Polo's error. 

[" The Yuen shi states that Ta-tu was 60 li in circumference. The CKue keng lu, 
a work published at the close of the Yuen Dynasty, gives the same number of li for the 
circuit of the capital, but explains that // of 240 pti each are meant. If this state- 
ment be correct, it would give only 40 common or geographical li for the circuit of 
the Mongol town." (Bretschneider, Peking, 13.) Dr. Bretschneider writes (p. 20): 
"The outlines of Khanbaligh, partly in contradiction with the ancient Chinese 
records, if my view be correct, would have measured about 50 common //' in circuit 
(13 //and more from north to south, il"64 from east to west.") — H. C] 

Polo [and Odoric] again says that there were 12 gates — 3 to every side. Both 
Gaubil and Martini also say that there were 12 gates. But I believe that both are 
trusting to Marco. There are 9 gates in the present Tartar city — viz. 3 on the south 
side and 2 on each of the other sides. The old Chinese accounts say there were 1 1 
gates in Taidu. (See Amyot, Alim. II. 553.) I have in my plan, therefore, assumed 
that one gate on the east and one on the west were obliterated in the reduction of the 
enceinte by the Ming. But I must observe that Mr. Lockhart tells me he did not find 
the traces of gates in those positions, whilst the 2 gates on the north side of the old 
Mongol rampart are quite distinct, with the barbicans in front, and the old Mongol 
bridge over the ditch still serving for the public thoroughfare. * 

["The Yuen shi zs well as the Ch'ue henglu, and other works of the Yuen, agree 
in stating that the capital had eleven gates. They are enumerated in the following 
order : Southern wall — ( i ) The gate direct south (mid. ) was called Li-cheng men ; (2) 
the gate to the left (east), Wen-ming men ; (3) the gate to the right (west), Shun- 
cKengmeii. Eastern wall — (4) The gate direct east (mid.), Ch'ung-jen men; (5) the 
gate to the south-east, Ts^i-hua men ; (6) the gate to the north-east, Kuang-hi men. 
Western wall — (7) The gate direct west (mid.). Hoi men; (8) the gate to the south- 
west, P'ing-tse mefi; (9) the gate to the north-west, Sn-ts'ingmen. Northern Wall — 
(10) The gate to the north-west, ICien-te men; (11) the gate to the north-east. An- 
chen men.'''' {Bretschneider, Peking, 13-14.) — H. C] 

When the Ming established themselves on the old Mongol site, population seems 
to have gathered close about the southern wall, probably using material from the 
remains of Yenking. This excrescence was inclosed by a new wall in 1554, and was 

* Mr. Wylie confirms my assumption : "^Vh^st in Peking I traced the old mud wall and 

found it quite in accordance with the outline in your map. Mr. Gilmour (a missionary to the Mongols) 

and I rode round it, he taking the outside and I the inside Neither of us observed the arch 

th.it Dr. Lockhart speaks of. ... . There are gate-oJ>enings about the middle of the east and west 
ndes, but no barbicans." (4th December 1873.) 



378 



MARCO POLO Book II. 



called the " Outer Town." It is what is called by Europeans the Chinese City. Its 
western wall exhibits in the base sculptured stones, which seem to have belonged to 
the old palace of Yenking. Some traces of Yenking still existed in Gaubil's time : 
the only relic of it now pointed out is a pagoda outside of the Kwang-An-Man, or 
western gate of the Outer City, marked in the War Office edition of the Russian Map 
as "Tower." (Information from Dr. Lockhart.) 

The " Great Palaces "' over the gates and at the corner bastions are no doubt well 
illustrated by the buildings which still occupy those positions. There are two such 
lofty buildings at each of the gates of the modern city, the outer one (shown on 
p. 376) forming an elevated redoubt. 

Note 5. — The French writer cited under note 3 says of the city as it stands : 
"Laville est de la sorte coupee en echiquier h. peu pr^s regulier dont les quadras 
circonscrits par des larges avenues sont perces eux-memes d'une multitude de rues et 
ruelles ... qui toutes a peu pres sont orientees N, et S., E. et O. Une seule 
volenti a 6videmment preside ^ ce plan, et jamais edilit^ n'a eu ^ executer d'un seul 
coup aussi vaste entreprise." 

Note 6. — Martini speaks of the public clock-towers in the Chinese cities, which 
in his time were furnished with water-clocks. A watchman struck the hour on a great 
gong, at the same time exhibiting the hour in large characters. The same person 
watched for fires, and summoned the public with his gong to aid in extinguishing 
them. 

[The Rev. G. B. Farthing mentions {North-China Herald, 7th September, 1884) 
at T'ai-yuen fu the remains of an object in the bell-tower, which was, and is still 
known, as one of the eight wonders of this city ; it is a vessel of brass, a part of a 
water-clock from which water formerly used to flow down upon a drum beneath and 
mark off time into equal divisions. — II. C] 

The tower indicated by Marco appears still to exist. It occupies the place which 
I have marked as Alarm Tower in the plan of Taidu. It was erected in 1272, but 
probably rebuilt on the Ming occupation of the city. ["The Yuen yi thing chi, or 
' Geography of the Mongol Empire' records : ' In the year 1272, the bell-tower and 
the drum-tower were built in the middle of the capital.' A bell-tower {chung-lou) and 
a drum-tower {ku-lon) exist still in Peking, in the northern part of the Tartar City. 
The ku-lou is the same as that built in the thirteenth century, but the bell-tower dates 
only from the last century. The bell-tower of the Yuen was a little to the east of the 
drum-tower, where now the temple Wan-niug sse stands. This temple is nearly in 
the middle of the position I (Bretschneider) assign to KJianbaligh." {Bretschneider, 
Peking, 20.) — H. C.] In the Court of the Old Observatory at Peking there is pre- 
served, with a few other ancient instruments, which date from the Mongol era, a very 
elaborate water-clock, provided with four copper basins embedded in brickwork, and 
rising in steps one above the other. A cut of this courtyard, with its instruments and 
aged trees, also ascribed to the Mongol time, will be found in ch. xxxiii. {Atlas 
Sinensis, p. 10 ; Magaillatts, 149- 151 ; Chine Moderne, p. 26; Tour du Monde (01 
1864, vol. ii. p. 34.) 

Note 7. — "Nevertheless," adds the Ramusian, "there does exist I know not 
what uneasiness about the people of Cathay." 



Chap. XII. THE GREAT KAAN'S BODY-GUARD 379 



CHAPTER XII. 

How THE Great Kaan Maintains a Guard of Twelve Thousand 
Horse, which are called Keshican. 

You must know that the Great Kaan, to maintain his 
state, hath a guard of twelve thousand horsemen, who 
are styled Keshican, which is as much as to say 
'• Knights devoted to their Lord." Not that he keeps 
these for fear of any man whatever, but merely because 
of his own exalted dignity. These 12,000 men have 
four captains, each of whom is in command of 3000 ; 
and each body of 3000 takes a turn of three days and 
nights to guard the palace, where they also take their 
meals. After the expiration of three days and nights 
they are relieved by another 3000, who mount guard for 
the same space of time, and then another body takes 
its turn, so that there are always 3000 on guard. Thus 
it goes until the whole 12,000, who are styled (as I 
said) Keshican, have been on duty ; and then the tour 
begins again, and so runs on from year's end to year's 
end. " 1 

Note i. — I have cUdtuedz. reading for the word Quescican (Keshican), which is 
not found precisely in any text. Pauthier reads Questiau and Qtuntau ; the G. Text 
has QuesUam and Quecitain ; the Crusca Questi Tan; Ramusio, Casitan ; the 
Riccardiana, Quescitam. Recollecting the constant clerical confusion between c and 
/, what follows will leave no doubt I think that the true reading to which all these 
variations point is Quescican. * 

In the Institutes of Ghazan Khan, we find established among other formalities for 
the authentication of the royal orders, that they should be stamped on the back, in 
black ink, with the seals of the Four Commanders of the Four Kisiks^ or Corps of the. 
Life Guard. 

Wassaf also, in detailing the different classes of the great dignitaries of the Mongol 
monarchy, names (i) the Noydns of the Ulus, or princes of the blood ; (2) the great 
chiefs of the tribes ; (3) the Amirs of the four Keshik, or Corps of the Body Guard; (4) 
the officers of the army, commanding ten thousands, thousands, and so on. 

Moreover, in Rashiduddin, we find the identical plural form used by our author. 
He says that, after the sack of Baghdad, Hulaku, who had escaped from the polluted 
atmosphere of the city, sent "Ilka Noyan and Kardbuga, with 3CXX) Moghul horse 

* One of the nearest readings is that of the Brandenburg Latin collated by MuUer, which has 
Quatiicam. 



3^0 



Marco polo Book II. 



into Baghdad, in order to have the buildings repaired, and to put things generally in 

order. These chiefs posted sentries from the Kisnf kan ( tdr^es&T ), and from their 

own followings in the different quarters of the town, had the carcases of beasts re- 
moved from the streets, and caused the b-izaars to be rebuilt." 

We find Kishik still used at the court of Hindustan, under the great khigs of 
Timur's House, for the corps on tour of duty at the palace ; and even for the sets of 
matchlocks and sabres, which were changed weekly from Akbar's armoury for the 
royal use. The royal guards in Persia, who watch the king's person at night, are 
termed Keshikchi, and their captain Keshikchi Bashi. [" On the night of the nth of 
Jemady ul Sany, a.h. ii6o (or 8th June, 1747), near the city of Khojoon, three days' 
journey from Meshed, Mohammed Kuly Khan Ardemee, who was of the same 
tribe with Nadir Shah, his relation, and Kushukchee Bashee, with seventy of the 
Ixukshek or guard, . . . bound themselves by an oath to assassinate Nadir Shah." 
{Memoirs of Khojeh Abdnlkurreem . . . transl. by F. Gladwin, Calcutta, 1788, 
pp. 166-167).] 

Friar Odoric speaks of the four barons who kept watch by the Great Kaan's side 
as the CuM, which probably represents the Chinese form Kiesie (as in De Mailla), 
or Kiiciie (as in Gaubil). The latter applies the term to four devoted champions ol 
Chinghiz, and their descendants, who were always attached to the Kaan's body-guard, 
and he identifies them with the Quesitan of Polo, or rather with the captains of the 
latter ; adding expressly that the word Kuesie is Mongol. 

I see Kishik is a proper name among the Kalmalc chiefs ; and Keshikten also is 
the name of a Mongol tribe, whose territory lies due north of Peking, near the old site 
of Shangtu. (Bk. I. ch. Ixi.) [Keshikhteng, a tribe (/«; mong. aimak) of the 
Cliao Uda League (mhtg; mong. chogolgdn) among the twenty-four tribes of the 
Nei Mung-ku (Inner Mongols). (See Mayers' Chinese Gove7-nment, p. 81.) — 
H. C] In Kovalevsky, I find the following : — 

(No. 2459) ^' Keshik, grace, favour, bounty, benefit, good fortune, charity." 

(No. 2461) "Keshikten, fortunate, happy, blessed." 

(No. 2541) " Kichyekti, to be zealous, assiduous, devoted." 

(No. 2588) " Kushiku, to hinder, to bar the way to," etc. 

The third of these corresponds closely with Polo's etymology of "knights devoted 
to their lord," but perhaps either the first or the last may afford the real derivation. 

In spite of the different initials (<3 instead of cS )> it can scarcely be doubted that 
the Kalchi and Kalakchi of Timur's Institutes are mere mistranscriptions of the same 
word, e.g.: "I ordered that 12,000 Kalchi, men of the sword completely armed, 
should be cantoned in the Palace ; to the right and to the left, to the front, and in 
the rear of the imperial diwan ; thus, that 1000 of those 12,000 should be every night 
upon guard," etc.. The translator's note says of Kalchi, "A Mogul word supposed 
to xa.tz.X). guards.''^ We see that even the traditional number of 12,000, and its division 
into four brigades, are maintained. (See Timour's Inst., pp. 299 and 235, 237.) 

I must add that Professor Vambery does not assent to the form Keshikdn, on the 
ground that this Persian plural is impossible in an old Tartar dialect, and he supposes 
the true word to be Kechilan or Kechiklen, "the night-watchers," from Kiche or 
Kichek {Ociz.^. and Uighur), = "night." 

I believe, however, that Persian was the colloquial language of foreigners at the 
Kaan's court, who would not scruple to make a Persian plural when wanted ; whilst 
Rashid has exemplified the actual use of this one. 

{UOhsson, IV. 410; Gold. Horde, 228, 238; Jlch. II. 184; Q. R. pp. 308-309; 
Ayeen Akb. I. 270, and Blochmatm's, p. 115; _/. As. ser. IV. torn. xix. 276; 
Olearius, ed. 1659, I. 656; Cathay, 135; De Mailla, ix. 106; Gaubil, p. 6; Pallas, 
Sainml. I. 35.) 

["By Keshican in Colonel Yule's Marco Polo, Keshikten is evidently meant. This 
is a general Mongol term to designate the Khan's lifeguard. It is derived from the 



Chap. XIII. THE GREAT KAAN'S TABLE 38 1 

word Keshik, meaning a guard by turns ; a corps on tour of duty. Keshik is one of the 
archaisms of the Mongol language, for now this word has another meaning in Mongol. 
Colonel Yule has brought together several explanations of the term. It seems to me 
that among his suppositions the following is the most consistent with the andent 
meaning of the word : — 

"We find Kishik still used at the court of Hindustan, under the great kings of 

Timur's House, for the corps on tour of duty at the palace The roj-al guards 

in Persia, who watch the King's person at night, are termed Keshikchi.'" 

" The Keshik ten was di\-ided into a day- watch called Turgaut and a night-watch 
Kebteul. The Kebte-ul consisted of pure Mongols, whilst the Turgaut was composed 
of the sons of the vassal princes and governors of the provinces, and of hostages. 
The watch of the Khan was changed every three days, and contained 400 men. In 
1330 it was reduced to 100 men." {Palladius, 42-43.) Mr. E. H. Parker writes in 
the China Review, XVIII. p. 262. that they "are e\-idently the 'bodyguards' of 
the modem viceroys, now pronounced Kashiha, but, evidently, originally Kishigha," 
— H. C] 



CHAPTER XIII. 

The Fashion of the Great Kaan's Table at his High Feasts. 

And when the Great Kaan sits at table on any great 
court occasion, it is in this fashion. His table is elevated 
a good deal above the others, and he sits at the north 
end of the hall, looking towards the south, with his chief 
wife beside him on the left. On his right sit his sons 
and his nephews, and other kinsmen of the Blood 
Imperial, but lower, so that their heads are on a level 
with the Emperor's feet. And then the other Barons 
sit at other tables lower still. So also with the women ; 
for all the wives of the Lord's sons, and of his nephews 
and other kinsmen, sit at the lower table to his right ; 
and below them again the ladies of the other Barons 
and Knights, each in the place assigned by the Lord's 
orders. The tables are so disposed that the Emperor 
can see the whole of them from end to end, many as 
they are.^ [Further, you are not to suppose that every- 
body sits at table ; on the contrary, the greater part of 
the soldiers and their officers sit at their meal in the hall 



382 MARCO POLO Book II. 

on the carpets.] Outside the hall will be found more 
than 40,000 people ; for there is a great concourse of 
folk bringing presents to the Lord, or come from foreign 
countries with curiosities. 

In a certain part of the hall near where the Great 
Kaan holds his table, there [is set a large and very- 
beautiful piece of workmanship in the form of a square 
coffer, or buffet, about three paces each way, exquisitely 
wrought with figures of animals, finely carved and gilt. 
The middle is hollow, and in it] stands a great vessel of 
pure gold, holding as much as an ordinary butt ; and at 
each corner of the great vessel is one of smaller size [of 
the capacity of a firkin], and from the former the wine or 
beverage flavoured with fine and costly spices is drawn 
off into the latter. [And on the buffet aforesaid are set 
all the Lord's drinking vessels, among which are certain 
pitchers of the finest gold,] which are called verniqiies'^ 
and are big enough to hold drink for eight or ten 
persons. And one of these is put between every two 
persons, besides a couple of golden cups with handles, 
so that every man helps himself from the pitcher that 
stands between him and his neighbour. And the ladies 
are supplied in the same way. The value of these 
pitchers and cups is something immense ; in fact, the 
Great Kaan has such a quantity of this kind of plate, 
and of gold and silver in other shapes, as no one ever 
before saw or heard tell of, or could believe.^ 

[There are certain Barons specially deputed to see 
that foreigners, who do not know the customs of the 
Court, are provided with places suited to their rank ; 
and these Barons are continually moving to and fro in 
the hall, looking to the wants of the guests at table, and 
causing the servants to supply them prompdy with wine, 
milk, meat, or whatever they lack. At every door of 
the hall (or, indeed, wherever the Emperor may be) 



Chap. XIII. THE GREAT KAAN'S TABLE ^S^ 

there stand a couple of big men like giants, one on each 
side, armed with staves. Their business is to see that 
no one steps upon the threshold in entering, and if this 
does happen, they strip the offender of his clothes, and 
he must pay a forfeit to have them back again ; or in 
lieu of taking his clothes, they give him a certain 
number of blows. If they are foreigners ignorant of 
the order, then there are Barons appointed to introduce 
them, and explain it to them. They think, in fact, that 
it brings bad luck if any one touches the threshold. 
Howbeit, they are not expected to stick at this in going 
forth again, for at that time some are like to be the 
worse for liquor, and incapable of looking to their steps.*] 

And you must know that those who wait upon the 
Great Kaan with his dishes and his drink are some of 
the great Barons. They have the mouth and nose 
muffled with fine napkins of silk and gold, so that no 
breath nor odour from their persons should taint the 
dish or the goblet presented to the Lord. And when 
the Emperor is going to drink, all the musical instru- 
ments, of which he has vast store of every kind, begin to 
play. And when he takes the cup all the Barons and 
the rest of the company drop on their knees and make 
the deepest obeisance before him, and then the Emperor 
doth drink. But each time that he does so the whole 
ceremony is repeated.^ 

I will say nought about the dishes, as you may easily 
conceive that there is a great plenty of every possible 
kind. But you should know that in every case where 
a Baron or Knight dines at those tables, their wives 
also dine there with the other ladies. And when all 
have dined and the tables have been removed, then 
come in a great number of players and jugglers, adepts 
at all sorts of wonderful feats,^ and perform before the 
Emperor and the rest of the company, creating great 



384 



MARCO POLO Book II. 



diversion and mirth, so that everybody is full of laughter 
and enjoyment. And when the performance is over, the 
company breaks up and every one goes to his quarters. 



Note i. — We are to conceive of rows of small tables, at each of which were set 
probably but two guests. This seems to be the modern Chinese practice, and to go 
back to some very old accounts of the Tartar nations. Such tables we find in use in 
the tenth century, at the court of the King of Bolghar (see Prologue, note 2, 
ch. ii. ), and at the Chinese entertainments to Shah Rukh's embassy in the fifteenth 
century, Megasthenes described the guests at an Indian banquet as having a table 
set before each individual. {Atkenaeus, IV. 39, Yonge's Transl.) 

[Compare Rubruck's account, Rockhill's ed.,p. 210: "The Chan sits in a high 
place to the north, so that he can be seen by all . . . ." (See also Friar Odoric, 
Cathay, p. 141.) — H. C] 

Note 2. — This word (G. T. and Ram.) is in the Crusca Italian transformed into 
an adjective, " vaselle vernicate d'oro,'" and both Marsden and Pauthier have sub- 
stantially adopted the same interpretation, which seems to me in contradiction with 
the text. In Pauthier's text the word is vernigal, pi. vernigaux, which he explains, 
I know not on what authority, as '■^coupes sans anses vermes ou laquies cTor." There 
is, indeed, a Venetian sea-term, Vernegal, applied to a wooden bowl in which the 
food of a mess is put, and it seems possible that this word may have been substituted 
for the unknown Verniqtie. I suspect the latter was some Oriental term, but I can 
find nothing nearer than the Persian Bdrni, Ar. Al-Bdrniya, "vas fictile in quo quid 
recondunt," whence the Spanish word Albornia, "a great glazed vessel in the shape 
of a bowl, with handles." So far as regards the form, the change of Baniiya mio 
Verniqtie would be quite analogous to that change of Hundivdmy into Ottdanique, 
which we have already met with. (See Dozy et Engelmann, Glos. des Mots Espagnols, 
etc., 2nd ed., 1867, p. 73 ; and Boerio, Diz. del. Dial. Vencz.) 

\_F. Godefroy, Diet., s.v. Vernigal, writes: "Coupe sans anse, vernie ou laquee 
d'or," and quotes, besides Marco Polo, the Regie dzi Temple, p. 214, ed. Soc. Hist. 

de France : 

" Les vernigaics et les escuelles." 

About vernegal, of. Rockhill, Kubriuk, p. 86, note. Rubruck says {Soc. de Gdog. 
p. 241) : " Implevimus unum veringal de biscocto et platellum unum de pomis et aliis 
fructibus." Mr. Rockhill translates veringal by basket. 

Dr. Bretschneider {Peking, 28) mentions "a large jar made of wood and varnished, 
the inside lined with silver," and he adds in a note " perhaps this statement may serve 
to explain Marco Polo's verniqties or vaselle vernicate (Toro, big enough to hold drink 
for eight or ten persons." — H. C] 

A few lines above we have " of the capacity of a firkin." The word is bigoncio, 
which is explained in the Vocab. Univ. Ital. as a kind of tub used in the vintage, and 
containing 3 mine, each of half a stajo. This seems to point to the Tuscan mina, 
or half stajo, which is = i of a bushel. Hence the bigoncio would = a bushel, or, 
in old liquid measure, about a firkin. 

Note 3. — A buffet, with flagons of liquor and goblets, was an essential feature in 
the public halls or tents of the Mongols and other Asiatic races of kindred manners. 
The ambassadors of the Emperor Justin relate that in the middle of the pavilion of 
Dizabulus, the Khan of the Turks, there were set out drinking-vessels, and flagons 
and great jars, all of gold ; corresponding to the coupes (or hanas h. mances), the 
verniques, and the grant peitere and petietes peiteres of Polo's account. Rubruquis 
describes in Batu Khan's tent a buffet near the entrance, where R'limiz was set forth. 



Chaf. XIII. THE GREAT KAAN'S TABLE 3S5 

with great goblets of gold and silver, etc., and the like at the tent of the Great Kaan. 
At a festival at the court of Oljaitu, we are told, " Before the throne stood golden 
buffets ... set out with full flagons and goblets." Even in the private huts of the 
Mongols there was a buffet of a humbler kind exhibiting a skin of Kuniiz, with other 
kinds of drink, and cups standing ready ; and in a later age at the banquets of Shah 
Abbas we find the great buffet in a slightly different form, and the golden flagon still 
set to every two persons, though it no longer contained the liquor, which was handed 
round. {Cathay, clxiv., cci. ; Rtibr. 224, 268, 305; Ilch. II. 183; Delia Voile, I. 
654 and 750-751.) 

[Referring to the " large and very beautiful piece of workmanship," Mr. Rockhill, 
Rubruck, 208-209, writes : " Similar works of art and mechanical contrivances were 
often seen in Eastern courts. The earliest I know of is the golden plane-tree and 
grape vine with bunches of grapes in precious stones, which was given to Darius by 
Pythius the Lydian, and which shaded the king's couch. (Herodotus, IV. 24.) The 
most celebrated, however, and that which may have inspired Mangu with the desire 
to have something Uke it at his court, was the famous Throne of Solomon (ZoXo/iwJ'Teos 
G/Mvos) of the Emperor of Constantinople, Theophilus( A. D. 829-842). . . . Abulfeda 
states that in a.d. 917 the envoys of Constantine Porphyrogenitus to the Caliph el 
Moktader saw in the palace of Bagdad a tree with eighteen branches, some of gold, 
some of silver, and on them were gold and silver birds, and the leaves of the tree were 
of gold and silver. By means of machinery, the leaves were made to rustle and the 
birds to sing. Mirkhond speaks also of a tree of gold and precious stones in the city 
of Sultanieh, in the interior of which were conduits through which flowed drinks of 
different kinds. Clavijo describes a somewhat similar tree at the court of 
Timur." 

Dr. Bretschneider [Peking, 28, 29) mentions a clepsydra with a lantern. By means 
of machinery put in motion by water, at fixed times a little man comes forward exhibit- 
ing a tablet, which announces the hours. He speaks also of a musical instrument 
which is connected, by means of a tube, with two peacocks sitting on a cross-bar, 
and when it plays, the mechanism causes the peacocks to dance. — H. C] 

Odoric describes the great jar of liquor in the middle of the palace hall, but in his 
time it was made of a great mass of jade (p. 130). 

Note 4. — This etiquette is specially noticed also by Odoric, as well as by Makrizi, by 
Rubruquis, and by Piano Carpini. According to the latter the breach of it was liable 
to be punished with death. The prohibition to tread on the threshold is also specially 
mentioned in a Mahomedan account of an embassy to the court of Barka Khan. And 
in regard to the tents, Rubruquis says he was warned not to touch the ropes, for these 
were regarded as representing the threshold. A Russo-Mongol author of our day says 
that the memory of this etiquette or superstition is still preserved by a Mongol pro- 
verb : " Step not on the threshold ; it is a sin ! " But among some of the Mongols 
more than this survives, as is evident from a passage in Mr. Michie's narrative : 
"There is a right and a wrong way of approaching 2^yotirt also. Outside the door 
there are generally ropes lying on the ground, held down by stakes, for the purpose of 
tying up the animals when they want to keep them together. There is a way of getting 
over or round these ropes that I never learned, but on one occasion the ignorant breach 
of the rule on our part excluded us from the hospitality of the family." The feeling or 
superstition was in full force in Persia in the 17th century, at least in regard to the 
threshold of the king's palace. It was held a sin to tread upon it in entering. 
{Cathay, 132; Ruhr. 255, 268, 319; Plan. Carp. 625, 741 ; Makrizi, I. 214; Mil. 
Asiai. Ac. St. Petersb. II. 660 ; The Siberian Overland Route, p. 97 ; P. Delia 
Voile, II. 171.) 

[Mr. Rockhill writes {Rubruck, p. 104) : "The same custom existed among the 

Fljians, I believe. I may note that it also prevailed in ancient China. It is said of 

Confucius ' when he was standing he did ncjt occupy the middle of the gate-way ; 

when he passed in or out, he did not tread on the threshold.' {Lun-yii, Bk. X. ch. 

VOL. I. 2 15 



386 MARCO POLO Book II. 

iv. 2.) In China, the bride's feet must not touch the threshold of the bridegroom's 
house. (Cf. Demiys' Folk-lore in China, p. 18.) 

"The author of the CKue keng lu mentions also the athletes with clubs standing 
at the door, at the time of the khan's presence in the hall. He adds, that next to the 
Khan, two other lifeguards used to stand, who held in their hands 'natural' axes 
of jade (axes found fortuitously in the ground, probably primitive weapons)." (/*a/- 
laditis, p. 43.) — H. C] 

Note 5. — Some of these etiquettes were probably rather Chinese than Mongol, 
for the regulations of the court of Kiiblai apparently combined the two. In the visit 
of Shah Rukh's ambassadors to the court of the Emperor Ch'eng Tsu of the Ming Dynasty 
in 142 1, we are told that by the side of the throne, at an imperial banquet,- "there 
stood two eunuchs, each having a band of thick paper over his mouth, and extending 

to the tips of his ears Every time that a dish, or a cup of darassun (rice-wine) 

was brought to the emperor, all the music sounded." {N. et Ext. XIV. 408, 409.) 
In one of the Persepolitan sculptures, there stands behind the King an eunuch bearing 
a fan, and with his mouth covered ; at least so says Heeren. {Asia, I. 178.) 

Noi'E 6. — "Jotigleours et entregefonrs de maifttes plusieurs i?ianieres de grattz ex- 
perimenz" (P.); ^'' de Giuculer et de Tregiteor" (G. T.). Ital. Tragettalore, a 
juggler ; Romance, Trasjitar, Tragitar, to juggle. Thus Chaucer : — 

"There saw I playing Jogelours, 
Magiciens, and Tragetours, 
And Phetonisses, Charmeresses, 
Old Witches, Sorceresses," etc. 

— House of Fame, III. 169. 
And again: — 

" For oft at festes have I wel herd say, 
That Tregetoures, within an halle large, 
Have made come in a water and a barge. 
And in the halle rowen up and doun. 

Somtime hath semed come a grim leoun ; 
* « « * * 

Somtime a Castel al of lime and ston, 
And whan hem liketh, voideth it anon." 

— The Franklin'' s Tale, II. 454. 

Performances of this kind at Chinese festivities have already been spoken of in note 9 
to ch. Ixi. of Book I. Shah Rukh's people, Odoric, Ysbrandt Ides, etc., describe them 
also. The practice of introducing such artistes into the dining-hall after dinner seems 
in that age to have been usual also in Europe. See, for example, Wrighfs Domestic 
Manners, pp. 165-166, and the Court of the Emperor Frederic II., in Kingtotis Life 
of that prince, I. 470. (See also N. et E. XIV. 410 ; Cathay, 143 ; Ysb. Ides, 
P- 95-) 



CHAPTER XIV. 



Concerning the Gre.\t Feast held by thk Grand Kaan every 
Year on his Birthday. 

You must know that the Tartars keep high festival 
yearly on their birthday^l And the Great Kaan was 



Chap. XIV. THE GREAT KAAN'S BIRTHDAY FEAST 387 

born on the 28th day of the September moon, so on 
that day is held the greatest feast of the year at the 
Kaan's Court, always excepting that which he holds on 
New Year's Day, of which I shall tell you afterwards.^ 

Now, on his birthday, the Great Kaan dresses in the 
best of his robes, all wrought with beaten gold ; - and 
full 1 2,000 Barons and Knights on that day come forth 
dressed in robes of the same colour, and precisely like 
those of the Great Kaan, except that they are not so 
costly ; but still they are all of the same colour as his, 
and are also of silk and gold. Every man so clothed 
has also a girdle of gold ; and this as well as the dress 
is given him by the Sovereign. And I will aver that 
there are some of these suits decked with so many pearls 
and precious stones that a single suit shall be worth full 
10,000 golden bezants. 

And of such raiment there are several sets. For 
you must know that the Great Kaan, thirteen times in 
the year, presents to his Barons and Knights such suits 
of raiment as I am speaking of.^ And on each occasion 
they wear the same colour that he does, a different colour 
being assigned to each festival. Hence you may see 
what a huge business it is, and that there is no prince in 
the world but he alone who could keep up such customs 
as these. 

On his birthday also, all the Tartars in the world, 
and all the countries and governments that owe allegiance 
to the Kaan, offer him great presents according to their 
several ability, and as prescription or orders have fixed 
the amount. And many other persons also come with 
great presents to the Kaan, in order to beg for some 
employment from him. And the Great Kaan has 
chosen twelve Barons on whom is laid the charee of 
assigning to each of these supplicants a suitable answer. 

On this day likewise all the Idolaters, all the 
VOL. I. 2 B 2 



388 MARCO POLO Book II. 

Saracens, and all the Christians and other descriptions 
of people make great and solemn devotions, with much 
chaunting and lighting of lamps and burning of incense, 
each to the God whom he doth worship, praying that 
He would save the Emperor, and grant him long life 
and health and happiness. 

And thus, as I have related, is celebrated the joyous 
feast of the Kaan's birthday.* 

Now I will tell you of another festival which the 
Kaan holds at the New Year, and which is called the 
White Feast. 

Note i. — The Chinese Year commences, according to Duhalde, with the New 
Moon nearest to the Sun's Passage of the middle point of Aquarius ; according to 
Pauthier, with the New Moon inmiedialely preceding the Sun's entry into Pisces. 
(These would almost always be identical, but not always.) Generally speaking, the 
first month will include part of February and part of March. The eighth month will 
then be September-October {v. ante, ch. ii. note 2). 

[According to Dr. S. W. Williams {Middle Kingdom, II. p. 70): "The year is 
lunar, but its commencement is regulated by the sun. New Year falls on the first 
new moon after the sun enters Aquarius, which makes it come not before January 21st 
nor after February 19th." "The beginning of the civil year, writes Peter Hoang 
{Chinese Calendar, p. 13), depends upon the good pleasure of the Emperors. Under 
the Emperor Hwang-ti (2697 B.C.) and under the Hsia Dynasty (2205 n.c), it was 
made to commence with the 3rd v\ori\!cL yin-yiieh [Pisces] ; under the Shang Dynasty 
(1766 B.C.) with the 2nd month cKoti-yiieh [Aquarius], and under the Chou Dynasty 
(1122 B.C.) with the ist month tzu-yiieh [Capricorn]." — H. C] 

Note 2. — The expression "a or batuz" as here applied to robes, is common 
among the mediaeval poets and romance-writers, e.g. Chaucer : — 

" Full yong he was and merry of thought, 
And in samette with birdes wrought 
And with gold beaten full fetously. 
His bodie was clad full richely." 

— Kom. of the Rose, 836-839. 

M. Michel thinks that in a stuff so termed the gold wire was beaten out after the exe- 
cution of the embroidery, a process which widened the metallic surface and gave great 
richness of appearance. The fact was rather, however, according to Dr. Rock, that 
the gold used in weaving such tissues was not wire but beaten sheets of gold cut into 
narrow strips. This would seem sufficient to explain the term " beaten gold," though 
Dr. Rock in another passage refers it to a custom which he alleges of sewing gold- 
smith's work upon robes. {Fr. Michel, Recherches, II. 389, also I. 37 1 ; Rock's 
Catalogue, pp. xxv. xxix. xxxviii. cvi.) 

Note 3.— The number of these festivals and distributions of dresses is thirteen in 
all the old texts, except the Latin of the Geog. Soc, which h^s twelve. Thirteen 
would seem therefore to have been in the original copy. And the Ramusian version 
expands this by saying, "Thirteen great feasts t'lat the Tartars keep with much 



Chap. XIV. DISTRIBUTION OF DRESSES 389 

solemnity to each of the thirteen moons of the year." * It is possible, however, that 
this latter sentence is an interpolated gloss ; for, besides the improbability of munifi- 
cence so frequent, Pauthier has shown some good reasons why thirteen should be 
r^jarded as an error for three. The official History of the Mongol Dynasty, which 
he quotes, gives a detail of raiment distributed in presents on great state occasions 
three times a year. Such a mistake might easily have originated in the first dictation, 
treize substituted for trois, or rather for the old form ires ; but we must note that the 
number 13 is repeated and corroborated in ch. rvL Odoric speaks oi four great 
yearly festivals, but there are obvious errors in what he says on this subject. Hammer 
says the great Mongol Feasts were three, viz. New Year's Day, the Kaan's Birthday, 
and the Feast of the Herds. 

Something like the changes of costume here spoken of is mentioned by Rubruquis 
at a great festival of four dajV duration at the court of Mangkn Kaan : "Each day 
of the four they appeared in different raiment, suits of which were given them for each 
day of a different colour, but everything on the same day of one colour, firom the boots 
to the turban." So also Carpini says regarding the assemblies of the Mongol nobles 
at the inauguration of Kuyuk Kaan: "The first day they were all clad in white 
pourpre {? albis purpuris, see Bk. I. ch. vL note 4), the second day in ruby poorpre, 
the third day in blue pourpre, the fourth day in the finest baudekins." (^Cathay, 141 ; 
Rtikr. 368 ; PL Car. 755.) 

[Mr. Rockhill (^tt^rKf>&, p. 247, note) makes the following remarks: "Odoric, 
however, says that the colours differed according to the rank. The custom of pre- 
senting khilais is still observed in Central Asia and Persia. I cannot learn from any 
other authority that the Mongols ever wore turbans. Odoric says the Mongols of the 
imperial feasts wore 'coronets' {in capite coronatt)." — H. C] 

Note 4. — ["The accounts given by Marco Polo regarding the feasts of the Khan 
and the festival dresses at his Court, agree perfectly with the statements on the same 
subject of contemporary Chinese writers. Banquets were called in the common 
Mongol language chama, and festival dresses chisun. General festivals used to be 
held at the New Year and at the Birthday of the Khan. In the Mongol- Chiruse Code, 
the ceremonies performed in the provinces on the Khan's Birthday are described- 
One month before that day the civil and military officers repaired to a temple, where 
a service was performed to the Khan's health. On the morning of the Birthday a 
sumptuously adorned table was placed in the open air, and the representatives of all 
classes and all confessions were obliged to approach the table, to prostrate themselves 
and exclaim three times: Wan-sui {i.e. 'Ten thousand years' life to the Khan). 
After that the banquet took place. In the same code (in the article on the Ye ii ke 
un [Christians, Erke-un\) it is stated, that in the year 1304, — owing to a dispute, which 
had arisen in the province of Kiang-nan between the ho-shang (Buddhist priests) and 
the Christian missionaries, as to precedence in the above-mentioned ceremony, — ?l 
special edict was published, in which it was decided that in the rite of supplication. 
Christians should follow the Buddhist and Taouist priests." {Palladius, pp. 44-45.) 
— H. C] 

* There are thirteen months to the Chinese year in seven out of every nineteen. 

[" This interval of lo years comprises 235 lunar months, generally 125 long months of 30 days no 
shini months of 29 days, (but sometimes 124 Itmg and 111 sh/>rt months), and 7 into calaty months. 
The year of twelve months is called a common year, that of thirteen months, an itUercalarr vear " 
(P. Hoang, Chinese Calendar, p. 12.— H. C)] ^3 • 



390 MARCO POLO Book II. 



CHAPTER XV. 

Of the Great Festival which the Kaan holds on New 
Year's Day. 

The beginning of their New Year is the month of 
February, and on that occasion the Great Kaan and 
all his subjects made such a Feast as I now shall 
describe. 

It is the custom that on this occasion the Kaan and 
all his subjects should be clothed entirely in white ; so, 
that day, everybody is in white, men and women, great 
and small. And this is done in order that they may 
thrive all through the year, for they deem that white 
clothing is lucky.i On that day also all the people of 
all the provinces and governments and kingdoms and 
countries that own allegiance to the Kaan bring him 
great presents of gold and silver, and pearls and gems, 
and rich textures of divers kinds. And this they do that 
the Emperor throughout the year may have abundance 
of treasure and enjoyment without care. And the 
people also make presents to each other of white 
things, and embrace and kiss and make merry, and 
wish each other happiness and good luck for the coming 
year. On that day, I can assure you, among the 
customary presents there shall be offered to the Kaan 
from various quarters more than 100,000 white horses, 
beautiful animals, and richly caparisoned. [And you 
must know 'tis their custom in offering presents to the 
Great Kaan (at least when the province making the 
present is able to do so), to present nine times nine 
articles. For instance, if a province sends horses, it 
sends nine times nine or 81 horses; of gold, nine times 



Chap. XV. NEW YEAR'S DAY FESTIVAL 39 1 

nine pieces of gold, and so with stuffs or whatever else 
the present may consist of.]^ 

On that day also, the whole of^the Kaan's elephants, 
amounting fully to 5000 in number, are exhibited, all 
covered with rich and gay housings of inlaid cloth repre- 
senting- beasts and birds, whilst each of them carries on 
his back two splendid coffers ; all of these being filled 
with the Emperor's plate and other costly furniture 
required for the Court on the occasion of the White 
Feast.^ And these are followed by a vast number of 
camels which are likewise covered with rich housings 
and laden with things needful for the Feast. All these 
are paraded before the Emperor, and it makes the finest 
sight in the world. 

Moreover, on the morning of the Feast, before the 
tables are set, all the Kings, and all the Dukes, 
Marquesses, Counts, Barons, Knights, and Astrologers, 
and Philosophers, and Leeches, and Falconers, and 
other officials of sundry kinds from all the places round 
about, present themselves in the Great Hall before the 
Emperor ; whilst those who can find no room to enter 
stand outside in such a position that the Emperor can 
see them all well. And the whole company is marshalled 
in this wise. First are the Kaan's sons, and his nephews, 
and the other Princes of the Blood Imperial ; next to 
them all Kings ; then Dukes, and then all others in 
succession according to the degree of each. And when 
they are all seated, each in his proper place, then a great 
prelate rises and says with a loud voice : " Bow and 
adore ! " And as soon as he has said this, the company 
bow down until their foreheads touch the earth in adora- 
tion towards the Emperor as if he were a god. And 
this adoration they repeat four times, and then go to a 
highly decorated altar, on which is a vermilion tablet 
with the name of the Grand Kaan inscribed thereon, 



392 MARCO POLO Book II. 

and a beautiful censer of gold. So they incense the 
tablet and the altar with great reverence, and then 
return each man to his seat.* 

When all have performed this, then the presents 
are offered, of which I have spoken as being so rich 
and costly. And after all have been offered and been 
seen by the Emperor, the tables are set, and all take 
their places at them with perfect order as I have already 
told you. And after dinner the jugglers come in and 
amuse the Court as you have heard before ; and when 
that is over, every man goes to his quarters. 



Note i. — The first month of the year is still called by the Mongols Chaghan or 
Chaghan Sara, "the White "or the "White Month"; and the wearing of white 
clothing on this festive occasion must have been purely a Mongol custom. For when 
Shah Rukh's ambassadors were present at the New Year's Feast at the Court of the 
succeeding Chinese Dynasty (2nd February, 142 1) they were warned that no one must 
wear white, as that among the Chinese was the colour of mourning. [Koeppen, I. 
574, II. 309; Cathay, p. ccvii.) 

Note 2. — On the mystic importance attached to the number 9 on all such 
occasions among the Mongols, see Havuner's Golden Horde, p. 208 ; Hayton, ch. iii. 
in Ramusio II. ; Not. et Ext. XIV. Pt. I. 32 ; and Strahlenberg {\\. 210 of Amsterd. 
ed. 1757). Vambery, speaking of the Kdlin or marriage price among the Uzbegs, 
says : "The question is always how many times nijte sheep, cows, camels, or horses, 
or how many times nine ducats (as is the custom in a town), the father is to receive 
for giving up his daughter." [Sketches of Cent. Asia, p. 103.) Sheikh Ibrahim of 
Darband, making offerings to Timur, presented nines of everything else, but of slaves 
eight only. " Where is the ninth ? " enquired the court official. "Who but I myself?" 
said the Sheikh, and so won the heart of Timur. {A. Arabsiadis .... Timuri 
Hist. p. 357.) 

Note 3. — The elephant stud of the Son of Heaven had dwindled till in 1862 Dr. 
Rennie found but one animal ; now none remain. [Dr. S. W. Williams writes 
{Middle Kingdom, I. pp. 323-324) : " Elephants are kept at Peking for show, and 
are used to draw the state chariot when the Emperor goes to worship at the Altars of 
Heaven and Earth, but the sixty animals seen in the days of Kienlung, by Bell, have 
since dwindled to one or two. Van Braam met six going into Peking, sent thither 
from Yun-Nan." These were no doubt carrying tribute from Burmah. — H. C] It 
is worth noticing that the housings of cut cloth or appliqui work (" draps entaillez") 
are still in fashion in India for the caparison of elephants. 

Note 4. — In 1263 Kiibldi adopted the Chinese fashion of worshipping the tablets 
of his own ancestors, and probably at the same time the adoration of his own tablet by 
his subjects was introduced. Van Braam ingenuously relates how he and the rest of 
the Dutch Legation of 1794 performed the adoration of the Emperor's Tablet on 
first entering China, much in the way described in the text. 

There is a remarkable amplification in the last paragraph of the chapter as given 
by Ramusio : " When all are in their proper places, a certain great personage, or 



Chap. XV. THE KOW-TOW 



393 



high prelate as it were, gets up and says with a loud voice : ' Bow yourselves and 
adore ! ' On this immediately all bend and bow the forehead to the ground. Then 
the prelate says again : ' God save and keep our Lord the Emperor, with length of 
years and with mirth and happiness.' And all answer : ' So may it be !' And then 
again the prelate says : ' May God increase and augment his Empire and its prosp)erity 
more and more, and keep all his subjects in peace and goodwill, and may all things 
go well throughout his Dominion ! ' And all again respond : ' So may it be ! ' And 
this adoration is repeated four times." 

One of Pauthier's most interesting notes is a long extract from the oflScial Directorv 
of Ceremonial under the Mongol Dynasty, which admirably illustrates the chapters we 
have last read. I borrow a passage r^arding this adoration : "The Musician's Song 
having ceased, the Ministers shall recite with a loud voice the following Prayer : 
' Great Heaven, that extendest over all ! Earth which art tmder the guidance of 
Heaven ! We invoke You and beseech You to heap blessings upon the Emperor and 
the Empress ! Grant that they may live ten thousand, a hundred thousand years ! ' 

*' Then the first Chamberlain shall respond : ' May it be as the prayer hath said ! ' 
The Ministers shall then prostrate themselves, and when they rise return to their 
places, and take a cup or two of wine." 

The K'o-tow (Kk/u-th/u) which appears repeatedly in this ceremonial and 
which in our text is indicated by the four prostrations, was, Pauthier alleges, not 
properly a Chinese form, but only introduced by the Mongols. Baber indeed speaks 
of it as the Kornish, a Mc^hul ceremony, in which originally "the person who 
performed it kneeled nine times and touched the earth with his brow each time." He 
describes it as performed very elaborately (nine times twice) by his younger uncle in 
visiting the elder. But in its essentials the ceremony must have been of old date at 
the Chinese Court ; for the Annals of the Thang Dynasty, in a passage cited by M. 
Pauthier himself,* mention that ambassadors from the famous Hanin ar Rashfd in 
798 had to perform the " ceremony of kneeling and striking the forehead against the 
ground." And M. Pauthier can scarcely be right in saying that the practice was 
disused by the Ming Dynasty and only reintroduced by the Manchus ; for in the story 
of Shah Rukh's embassy the performance of the K'o-tow occurs repeatedly. 

[" It is interesting to note," writes Mr. Rockhill {Rubruck, p. 22), " that in A.D. 
981 the Chinese Envoy, Wang Yen-te, sent to the Uigur Prince of Kao-chang, re- 
fused to make genuflexions (/>a«) to him, as being contrary to the established usages 
as regards envoys. The prince and his family, however, on receiving the envoy, all 
faced eastward (towards Peking) and made an obeisance (/Swj) on receiving the 
imperial presents (shou-tzS)" (Ma Twan-lin, Bk. 336, 13.) — H. C.] 

{Gaubil, 142 ; Van Braam, I. 20-21 ; Baber, 106 ; N. et E. XIV. Pt. I. 405, 407, 
418.) 

The enumeration oi four prostrations in the text is, I fancy, quite correct There 
are several indications that this number was used instead of the three times three of 
later days. Thus Carpini, when introduced to the Great Kaan, "bent the left knee 
four times." And in the Chinese bridal ceremony of " Worshipping the Tablets," 
the genuflexion is made four times. At the court of Shah Abbas an obeisance 
evidently identical was repeated four times. (Carp. 'j^<)', Doolittle, p. 60; P. Delia 
Voile, I. 646.) 

• GamUl, cited in PautkUt's Hist, ties Relations PoUtiqius dt la Chime t etc, p. aa6 



394 MARCO POLO Book II. 



CHAPTER XVI. 

Concerning the Twelve Thousand Barons who receive robes 
OF Cloth of Gold from the Emperor on the Great 
Festivals, thirteen changes a-piece. 

Now you must know that the Great Kaan hath set 
apart 12,000 of his men who are distinguished by the 
name of Keshican, as I have told you before ; and on 
each of these 12,000 Barons he bestows thirteen changes 
of raiment, which are all different from one another : I 
mean that in one set the 1 2,000 are all of one colour ; 
the next 1 2,000 of another colour, and so on ; so that 
they are of thirteen different colours. These robes are 
garnished with gems and pearls and other precious 
things in a very rich and costly manner.^ And along 
with each of these changes of raiment, i.e. 13 times in 
the year, he bestows on each of those 1 2,000 Barons a 
fine golden girdle of great richness and value, and like- 
wise a pair of boots of Gamut, that is to say of Borgal, 
curiously wrought with silver thread ; insomuch that 
when they are clothed in these dresses every man of 
them looks like a king ! ^ And there is an established 
order as to which dress is to be worn at each of those 
thirteen feasts. The Emperor himself also has his 
thirteen suits corresponding to those of his Barons ; in 
colour, I mean (though his are grander, richer, and 
costlier), so that h'e is always arrayed in the same colour 
as his Barons, who are, as it were, his comrades. And 
you may see that all this costs an amount which it is 
scarcely possible to calculate. 

Now I have told you of the thirteen changes of 
raiment received from the Prince by those 12,000 Barons, 
amounting in all to 156,000 suits of so great cost and 
value, to say nothing of the girdles and the boots which 






Chap. XVI. THE GREAT KAAN'S PRESENTS 395 

are also worth a great sum of money. All this the Great 
Lord hath ordered, that he may attach the more of 
grandeur and dignity to his festivals. 

And now I must mention another thing that I had 
forgotten, but which you will be astonished to learn from 
this Book. You must know that on the Feast Day a 
great Lion is led to the Emperor's presence, and as soon 
as it sees him it lies down before him with every sign 
of the greatest veneration, as if it acknowledged him for 
its lord ; and it remains there lying before him, and en- 
tirely unchained. Truly this must seem a strange story 
to those who have not seen the thing ! ^ 



Note i. — On the Keshican, see note i to chap, xii., and on the changes of 
raiment note 3 to chap, xiv., and the remarks there as to the number of distri- 
butions. I confess that the stress laid upon the number 13 in this chapter makes the 
supposition of error more difficult. But there is something odd and unintelligible 
about the whole of the chapter except the last paragraph. For the 12,000 Keshican 
are here all elevated to Barons ; and at the same time the statement about their 
changes of raiment seems to be merely that already made in chapter xiv. This 
repetition occurs only in the French MSS., but as it is in all these we cannot reject 
it. 

Note 2. — The words Gamut and Borgal appear both to be used here for what we 
call Russia- Leather. The latter word in one form or another, Bolghdr, Borghdli, or 
Biilkdl, is the term applied to that material to this day nearly all over Asia. Ibn 
Batuta says that in travelling during winter firom Constantinople to the Wolga he 
had to put on three pairs of boots, one of wool (which we should call stockings), a 
second of wadded linen, and a third of Borghdli, "i.e. of horse-leather lined with 
wolf-skin." Horse-leather seems to be still the favourite material for boots among all 
the Tartar nations. The name was undoubtedly taken from Bolghar on the Wolga, 
the people of which are traditionally said to have invented the art of preparing skins 
in that manner. This manufacture is still one of the staple trades of Kazan, the city 
which in position and importance is the nearest representative of Bolghar now. 

Gamut is explained by Klaproth to be " leather made from the back -skin of a 
camel." It appears in Johnson's Persian Dictionary as Kdmu, but I do not know 
from what language it originally comes. The word is in the Latin column of the 
Petrarchian Vocabulary with the Persian rendering Sagri. This shows us what is 
meant, for Saghri is just our word Shagreen, and is applied to a fine leather granulated 
in that way, which is much used for boots and the like by the people of Central Asia. 
[In Turkish saghri or saghri is the name both for the buttocks of a horse and the 
leather called shagreen prepared with them. (See Devic, Diet. £tym.) — H. C] In 
the commercial lists of our Indian north-west frontier we find as synonymous Saghri 
ox Kimukht, " Horse or Ass-hide." No doubt this latter word is a form of Kdmu or 
Gamut. It appears (as Keimukht, "a sort of leather") in a detail of imports to 
Aden given by Ibn al Wardi, a geographer of the 13th centur)'. 

Instead of Gamut, Ramusio has Camoscia, i.e. Chamois, and the same seems to be 
in all the editions based on Fra Pipino's version. It may be a misrendering of 



396 MARCO POLO Book II. 

camtitunt or camutium ; or is there any real connexion between the Oriental Kdmu 
Kimukht, and the Italian camoscia? (/. B. II. 445; Klapr. Mini. vol. III. ; 
Davies's Trade Report, App. p. ccxx. ; Vdmbiry's Travels, 423 ; Not. et Ext. II. 

43-) 

Fraehn (writing in 1832) observes that he knew no use of the word Bolghdr, in the 

sense of Russian leather, older than the 17th century. But we see that both Marco 
and Ibn Batuta use it. {^F. on the Wolga Bulghars, pp. 8-9.) 

Pauthier in a note (p. 285) gives a list of the garments issued to certain officials on 
these ceremonial occasions under the Mongols, and sure enough this list includes 
"pairs of boots in red leather." Odoric particularly mentions the broad golden 
girdles worn at the Kaan's court. 

[La Curne, Diet., has Bulga, leather bag ; old Gallic word from which are derived 
bouge et bougete, bourse ; he adds in a note, " Festus writes : ' Bulgas galli sacculos 
scorteos vocant.' " — H. C] 

Note 3. — "Then come mummers leading lions, which they cause to salute the 
Lord with reverence." {Odoric, p. 143.) A lion sent by Mirza Baisangar, one of the 
Princes of Timur's House, accompanied Shah Rukh's embassy as a present to the 
Emperor.; and like presents were frequently repeated. (See Amyot, XIV. 37, 38.) 



CHAPTER XVII. 



How THE Great Kaan enjoineth his People to supply him 

WITH Game. 

The three months of December, January, and February, 
during which the Emperor resides at his Capital City, 
are assigned for hunting and fowHng, to the extent of 
some 40 days' journey round the city ; and it is ordained 
that the larger game taken be sent to the Court. To be 
more particular : of all the larger beasts of the chase, 
such as boars, roebucks, bucks, stags, lions, bears, etc., 
the greater part of what is taken has to be sent, and 
feathered game likewise. The animals are gutted and 
despatched to the Court on carts. This is done by all 
the people within 20 or 30 days' journey, and the 
quantity so despatched is immense. Those at a greater 
distance cannot send the game, but they have to send 
the skins after tanning them, and these are employed in 
the making of equipments for the Emperor's army.^ 



Chap. XVIII. THE KAAN'S LIONS AND LEOPARDS 397 

Note i. — So Magaillans : " Game is so abundant, especially at the capital, that 
every year during the three winter months you see at different places, intended for 
despatch thither, besides great piles of every sort of wildfowl, rows of four-footed 
game of a gunshot or two in length : the animals being all frozen and standing on 
their feet. Among other species you see three sundrj' kinds of bears .... and 
great abundance of other animals, as stags and deer of different sorts, boars, elks, 
hares, rabbits, squirrels, wild-cats, rats, geese, ducks, very fine jungle-fowl, etc., and 
all so cheap that I never could have beheved it " (pp. 177-178). As this writer mentions 
coild-cais, we may presume that the "Uons" of Polo also were destined to be 
eaten. 

["Kubilai Khan kept a whole army, I4,cxx3 men, huntsmen, distributed in 
Peking and other cities in the present province of Chili ( Yu£ti-shi). The Khan 
used to hunt in the Peking plain firom the b^inning of spring, until his departure to 
Shang-tu. There are in the Peking department many low and marshy places, stretch- 
ing often to a considerable extent and abounding in game. In the biography of 
Ai-sie ( Yuen shi, chap, cxxxiv.), who was a Christian, it is mentioned that Kubilai 
was hunting also in the department of Pao-ting fii-" {Paliadius, p. 45.) — II. C] 



CHAPTER XVIII. 



Of the Lions and Leopards and Wolves that the Kaan keeps 

FOR the Chase. 

The Emperor hath numbers of leopards^ trained to the 
chase, and hath also a great many lynxes taught in like 
manner to catch game, and which afford excellent sport. ^ 
He hath also several great Lions, bigger than those of 
Babylonia, beasts whose skins are coloured in the most 
beautiful way, being striped all along the sides with black, 
red, and white. These are trained to catch boars and wild 
cattle, bears, wild asses, stags, and other great or fierce 
beasts. And 'tis a rare sight, I can tell you, to see those 
lions giving chase to such beasts as I have mentioned ! 
When they are to be so employed the Lions are taken 
out in a covered cart, and every Lion has a little doggie 
with him. [They are obliged to approach the game 
against the wind, otherwise the animals would scent the 
approach of the Lion and be off.] ^ 

There are also a great number of eagles, all broken 
to catch wolves, foxes, deer, and wild goats, and they do 



398 



MARCO POLO Book II. 



catch them in great numbers. But those especially that 
are trained to wolf-catching are very large and powerful 
birds, and no wolf is able to get away from them." 



Note i. — The Cheeta or Hunting- Leopard, still kept for the chase by native 
noblemen in India, is an animal very distinct from the true leopard. It is much 
more lanky and long-legged than the pure felines, is unable to climb trees, and has 
claws only partially retractile. Wood calls it a link between the feline and canine 
races. One thousand Cheetas were attached to Akbar's hunting establishment ; and 
the chief one, called Semend-Manik, was carried to the field in a palankin with a 
kettledrum beaten before him. Boldensel in the first half of the 14th century speaks 
of the Cheeta as habitually used in Cyprus ; but, indeed, a hundred years before, 
these animals had been constantly employed by the Emperor Frederic II. in Italy, 
and accompanied him on all his marches. They were introduced into France in the 
latter part of the 15th century, and frequently employed by Lewis XL, Charles 
VIII., and Lewis XII. The leopards were kept in a ditch of the Castle of Amboise, 
and the name still borne by a gate hard by, Porte des Lions, is supposed to be due to 
that circumstance. The Moeurs it Usages dti Moyen Age (Lacroix), from which I 
take the last facts, gives copy of a print by John Stradanus representing a huntsman 
with the leopard on his horse's crupper, like Kiiblai's {supra, Bk. I. ch. Ixi.); 
Frederic II. used to say of his Cheetas, "they knew how to ride." This way of 
taking the Cheeta to the field had been first employed by the Khalif Yazid, son of 
Moawiyah. The Cheeta often appears in the pattern of silk damasks of the 13th and 
14th centuries, both Asiatic and Italian. {Ayeen Akbery, 1. 304, etc. ; Boldensel, in 
Canisii Thesaurus, by Basnage, vol. IV. p. 339 ; Kington's Fred. II. I. 472, II. 156 ; 
Bochart, Hierozoica, 797 ; Rock's Catalogtie, passim. ) 

[The hunting equipment of the Sultan consisted of about thirty falconers on horse- 
back who carried each a bird on his fist. These falconers were in front of seven 
horsemen, who had behind a kind of tamed tiger at times employed by His Highness 
for hare-hunting, notwithstanding what may be said to the contrary by those who 
are inclined not to believe the fact. It is a thing known by everybody here, and can- 
not be doubted except by those who admit that they believe nothing of foreign customs. 
These tigers were each covered with a brocade cloth — and their peaceful attitude, 
added to their ferocious and savage looks, caused at the same time astonishment and 
fear in the soul of those whom they looked upon, {/ournal d'Antoine Galland, trad, 
par Ch. Schefer, I. p. 135.) The Cheeta [Gueparda jubaia) was, according to Sir W. 
Jones, first employed in hunting antelopes by Hushing, King of Persia, 865 B.C. — 
H. C] 

Note 2. — ^The word rendered Lynxes is Leu cervers (G. Text), Louz serviers of 
Pauthier's MS. C, though he has adopted from another Lotips simply, which is 
certainly wrong. The Geog. Latin has ^' IJnceos i.e. lupos cerverios." There is no 
doubt that the Loup-cervier is the Lynx. Thus Brunette Latini, describing the Loup- 
cervier, speaks of its remarkable powers of vision, and refers to its agency in the 
production of the precious stone called Liguire [i.e. Ligurium), which the ancients 
fancied to come from Lync-tirium ; the tale is in Theophrastus). Yet the quaint 
Bestiary of Philip de Thaun, published by Mr. Wright, identifies it with the Greek 
Hyena : — 

" Hyena e Griu num, que nus beste apellum. 
Ceo est Lucervere, oler fait et mult est fere." 

[The Abb6 Armand David writes {Missions Cathol. XXI. 1889, p. 227) that there 
is in China, from the mountains of Manchuria to the mountains of Tibet, a lynx 



Chap. XVIII. 



LYNXES AND BURGUT EAGLE 



399 



called by the Chinese Tu-pao (earth-coloured panther) ; a lynx somewhat similar to 
the Imip-cervier is found on the western border of China, and has been named Lyncus 
Desgodinsi. — H. C] 

Hunting Lynxes were used at the Court of Akbar. They are also mentioned by 
A. Hamilton as so used in Sind at the end of the 17th century. This author calls the 
animal a Shoe-goose! i.e. Siya-gosh (Black-ear), the Persian name of the Lj-nx. It is 
still occasionally used in the chase by natives of rank in India. {BrunettoLat. Tresor, 
p. 248 ; Popular Treatises on Science written during Mid. Ages, 94 ; Ayeen Akbery, 
U.S. ; Hamilt. E. Indies, I. 125 ; Vigne, I. 42.) 

Note 3. — The conception of a Tiger seems almost to have dropped out of the 
European mind during the Middle Ages. Thus in a mediaeval Bestiarj', a chapter on 
the Tiger begins : " Une Beste est qui est apel^e Tigre c'est une maniere de Serpent.*' 
Hence Polo can only call the Tigers, whose portrait he draws here not incorrectly, 
Lions. So also nearly 2CXD years later Barbaro gives a like portrait, and calls the 
animal Leonza. Marsden supposes judiciously that the confusion may have been 
promoted by the ambiguity of the Persian Sher. 




The Burgut Eagle. (After Atkinson.) 



" il a ix[.i.axt aiglics xje suitt afaitcs a prtnbrc Icus t\ bcnprs ft bnin ft chabrion, 
ft fn prtitntnt asst^." 



The Chinese pilgrim, Sung-Yun (a.d. 518), saw two young lions at the Court of 
Gandhara. He remarks that the pictures of these animals common in China, were 
not at all good likenesses. ( Beal, p. 200. ) 

We do not hear in modern times of Tigers trained to the chase, but Chardin says 
of Persia : "In hunting the larger animals they make use of beasts of prey trained for 
the purpose, lions, leopards, tigers, panthers, ounces." 

Note 4. — This is perfectly coirect. In Eastern Turkestan, and among the 
Kirghiz to this day, eagles termed Bitrgul (now well known to be the Golden Eagle) 
are tamed and trained to fly at wolves, foxeS; deer, wild goats, etc A Kirghiz will 



400 ■ MARCO POLO Book II. 

give a good horse for an eagle in which he recognises capacity for training. Mr. 
Atkinson gives vivid descriptions and iUustrations of this eagle (which he calls " Bear 
coote"), attacking both deer and wolves. He represents the bird as striking one claw 
into the neck, and the other into the back of its large prey, and then tearing out the 
liver with its beak. In justice both to Marco Polo and to Mr. Atkinson, I have 
pleasure in adding a vivid account of the exploits of this bird, as witnessed by one of 
my kind correspondents, the Governor-General's late envoy to Kashgar. And I trust 
Sir Douglas Forsyth will pardon my quoting his own letter just as it stands * : — 
" Now for a story of the Burgoot — Atkinson's ' Bearcoote.' I think I told you it was 
the Golden Eagle and supposed to attack wolves and even bears. One day we came 
across a wild hog of enormous size, far bigger than any that gave sport to the Tent 
Club in Bengal. The Burgoot was immediately let loose, and went straight at the 
hog, which it kicked, and flapped with its wings, and \M.<tx\.y flabbergasted, whilst our 
Kashgaree companions attacked him with sticks and brought him to the ground. As 
Friar Odoric would say, I, T. D. F., have seen this with mine own eyes." — Shaw 
describes the rough treatment with which the Biirgut is tamed. Baber, when in the 
Bajaur Hills, notices in his memoirs : " This day Burgiit took a deer." ( Timkowski, I. 
414; Levchine, p. 77; Pallas, Voyages, I. 421;^/. R. A. S. VII. 305; Aikinsoti's 
Siberia, 493 ; and Amoor, 146-147 ; Shaw, p. 157 ; Baber, p. 249.) 

[The Golden Eagle {Aquila chrysaettis) is called at Peking Hoy tiao (black eagle). 
{David et Oustalet, Oiseaux de la Chine, p. 8.) — H. C] 



CHAPTER XIX. 



Concerning the Two Brothers who have charge of the 
Kaan's Hounds. 

The Emperor hath two Barons who are own brothers, 
one called Baian and the other Mingan ; and these two 
are styled Chinuchi (or Cunicki), which is as much as to 
say, "The Keepers of the Mastiff Dogs."^ Each of 
these brothers hath 10,000 men under his orders ; each 
body of 10,000 being dressed alike, the one in red and 
the other in blue, and whenever they accompany the 
Lord to the chase, they wear this livery, in order to be 
recognized. Out of each body of 10,000 there are 2000 
men who are each in charge of one or more great mastiffs, 
so that the whole number of these is very large. And 
when the Prince goes a-hunting, one of those Barons, 
with his 10,000 men and something like 5000 dogs, goes 

* Dated Yangi Hissar, loth April, 1874. 



Chap. XIX. THE KEEPERS OF THE KAAN'S HOUNDS 40I 

towards the right, whilst the other goes towards the left 
with his party in like manner. They move along, all 
abreast of one another, so that the whole line extends 
over a full day's journey, and no animal can escape 
them. Truly it is a glorious sight to see the working 
of the doos and the huntsmen on such an occasion ! 
And as the Lord rides a-fowling across the plains, you 
will see these big hounds coming tearing up, one pack 
after a bear, another pack 'after a stag, or some other 
beast, as it may hap, and running the game down now 
on. this side and now on that, so that it is really a most 
delightful sport and spectacle. 

[The Two Brothers I have mentioned are bound by 
the tenure of their office to supply the Kaan's Court 
from October to the end of March with looo head of 
game daily, whether of beasts or birds, and not counting 
quails ; and also with fish to the best of their ability, 
allowing fish enough for three persons to reckon as 
equal to one head of game.] 

Now I have told you of the Masters of the Hounds 
and all about them, and next will I tell you how the 
Lord goes off on an expedition for the space of three 
months. 

Note i. — Though this particular Bayan and Minganarenot likely to be mentioned 
in history, the names are both good Mongol names ; Bayan that of a great soldier 
under Kiiblai, of whom we shall hear afterwards ; and Mingan that of one of Chinghiz's 
generals. 

The title of "Master of the Mastiffs" belonged to a high Court official at 
Constantinople in former days, Sdmsunji Bdshi, and I have no doubt Marco has 
given the exact interpretation of the title of the two Barons : though it is di£5cnlt to 
trace its elements. It is read variously Cunici {i.e. Kunichi) and Cintui {i.e 
Chinticht). It is e\'idently a word of analc^ous structure to Kushchi, the Master of 
the Falcons ; Parschi, the Master of the Leopards. Professor Schiefner thinks it is 
probably corrupted from Noghaichi, which appears in Kovalevski's Mongol Diet, as 
'^chcsseur qui a soins des chiens courants." This word occurs, he points out, in 
Sanang Setzen, where Schmidt translates it Aufseher iiber Hunde. (See .S". S. p. 39.) 

The metathesis of Noghai-c^\ into A'wwZ-chi is the only drawback to this otherwise 
apt solution. We generally shall find Polo's Oriental words much more accurately 
expressed than this would imply — as in the next chapter. I have hazarded a suggestion 
of (Or. Turkish) Chong-lt-chi, "Keeper of the Big Dogs," which Professor Vambery 
thinks possible. (See " chong, big, strong,' in his Tschagataische Sprachstudien, 

VOL I. 2 C 



402 MARCO POLO Book It. 

p. 282, and note m Lord Strangford'' s Selected Writings, II. 169.) In East Turkestan 
they call the Chinese Chong Kafir, "The Big Heathen." This would exactly corre- 
spond to the rendering of Pipino's Latin translation, '''' hoc est catiuin magnoruin 
Praefecti." Chintuhi again would be (in Mongol) "Wolf-keepers." It is at least 
possible that the great dogs which Polo terms mastiffs may have been known by such 
a name. We apply the term Wolf-dog to several varieties, and in Macbeth's 
enumeration we have— 

"Hounds, and greyhounds, mongrels, spaniels, curs, 

Shoughs, water rugs, and Demi -Wolves.''^ 

Lastly the root-word may be the Chinese Kiuen, " dog," as Pauthier says. The 
mastiffs were probably Tibetan, but may have come through China, and brought a 
name with them, like Boule-dogues in France. 

[Palladius (p. 46) says that Chiinichi or Cunici "have no resemblance with any 
of the names found in the Ytien shi, ch. xcix., article Ping chi (military organisation), 
and relating to the hunting staff of the Khan, viz. : Si pao ch'i (falconers). Ho r ch'i 
(archers), and Ke lien chH (probably those who managed the hounds)." — H. C] * 



CHAPTER XX. 
How THE Emperor goes on a Hunting Expedition. 

After he has stopped at his capital city those three 
months that I mentioned, to wit, December, January, 
February, he starts off on the ist day of March, and 
travels southward towards the Ocean Sea, a journey of 
two days,^ He takes with him full 10,000 falconers, and 
some 500 gerfalcons besides peregrines, sakers, and 
other hawks in great numbers ; and goshawks also to 
fly at the water- fowl. ^ But do not suppose that he 
keeps all these together by him ; they are distributed 
about, hither and thither, one hundred together, or two 
hundred at the utmost, as he thinks proper. But they 
are always fowling as they advance, and the most part 
of the quarry taken is carried to the Emperor. And let 
me tell you when he goes thus a-fowling with his ger- 
falcons and other hawks, he is attended by full 10,000 
men who are disposed in couples ; and these are called 



Chap. XX. HOW THE EMPEROR GOES HUNTING 403 

Toscaol, which is as much as to say, " Watchers." And 
the name describes their business.^ They are posted 
from spot to spot, always in couples, and thus they cover 
a great deal of ground ! Every man of them is provided 
with a whistle and hood, so as to be able to call in a 
hawk and hold it in hand. And when the Emperor 
makes a cast, there is no need that he follow it up, for 
those men I speak of keep so good a look out that they 
never lose sight of the birds, and if these have need ot 
help they are ready to render it. 

All the Emperor's hawks, and those of the Barons as 
well, have a little label attached to the leg to mark them, 
on which is written the names of the owner and the keeper 
of the bird. And in this way the hawk, when caught, is at 
once identified and handed over to its owner. But if not, 
the bird is carried to a certain Baron, who is styled the 
Bulargjichi, which is as much as to say " The Keeper of 
Lost Property." And I tell you that whatever may be 
found without a known owner, whether it be a horse, or 
a sword, or a hawk, or what not, it is carried to that 
Baron straightway, and he takes charge of it. And if the 
finder neglects to carry his trover to the Baron, the latter 
punishes him. Likewise the loser of any article goes to 
the Baron, and if the thing be in his hands it is imme- 
diately given up to the owner. Moreover, the said Baron 
always pitches on the highest spot of the camp, with his 
banner displayed, in order that those who have lost or 
found anything may have no difficulty in finding their 
way to him. Thus nothing can be lost but it shall be 
incontinently found and restored.* 

And so the Emperor follows this road that I have 
mentioned, leading along in the vicinity of the Ocean 
Sea (which is within two days' journey of his capital city, 
Cambaluc), and as he goes there is many a fine sight to 
be seen, and plenty of the very best entertainment in 
VOL. 1, 2 c 2 



404 MARCO POLO Book II, 

hawking ; in fact, there is no sport in the world to 
equal it ! 

The Emperor himself is carried upon four elephants in 
a fine chamber made of timber, lined inside with plates of 
beaten gold, and outside with lions' skins [for he always 
travels in this way on his fowling expeditions, because he is 
troubled with gout]. He always keeps beside him a dozen 
of his choicest gerfalcons, and is attended by several of 
his Barons, who ride on horseback alongrside. And some- 
times, as they may be going along, and the Emperor from 
his chamber is holding discourse with the Barons, one 
of the latter shall exclaim : " Sire ! Look out for Cranes ! " 
Then the Emperor instantly has the top of his chamber 
thrown open, and having marked the cranes he casts one 
of his gerfalcons, whichever he pleases ; and often the 
quarry is struck within his view, so that he has the most 
exquisite sport and diversion, there as he sits in his 
chamber or lies on his bed ; and all the Barons with him 
get the enjoyment of it likewise ! So it is not without 
reason I tell you that I do not believe there ever existed 
in the world or ever will exist, a man with such sport and 
enjoyment as he has, or with such rare opportunities.^ 

And when he has travelled till he reaches a place 
called Cachar Modun,'' there he finds his tents pitched, 
with the tents of his Sons, and his Barons, and those of 
his Ladies and theirs, so that there shall be full 10,000 
tents in all, and all fine and rich ones. And 1 will tell 
you how his own quarters are disposed. The tent in 
which he holds his courts is large enough to give cover 
easily to a thousand souls. It is pitched with its door 
to the south, and the Barons and Knights remain in 
waiting in it, whilst the Lord abides in another close to 
it on the west side. When he wishes to speak with any 
one he causes the person to be summoned to that other 
tent. Immediately behind the great tent there is a fine 



I 



Chap. XX. HOW THE EMPEROR GOES HUNTING 405 

large chamber where the Lord sleeps ; and there are also 
many other tents and chambers, but they are not in con- 
tact with the Great Tent as these are. The two 
audience-tents and the sleeping-chamber are constructed 
in this way. Each of the audience-tents has three poles, 
which are of spice- wood, and are most artfully covered 
with lions' skins, striped with black and white and red, 
so that they do not suffer from any weather. All three 
apartments are also covered outside with similar skins of 
striped lions, a substance that lasts for ever.^ And inside 
they are all lined with ermine and sable, these two being 
the finest and most costly furs in existence. For a robe 
of sable, large enough to line a mantle, is worth 2000 
bezants of gold, or 1000 at least, and this kind of skin is 
called by the Tartars " The King of Furs," The beast 
itself is about the size of a marten.* These two furs of 
which I speak are applied and inlaid so exquisitely, that it 
is really something worth seeing. All the tent-ropes are 
of silk. And in short I may say that those tents, to 
wit the two audience-halls and the sleeping-chamber, 
are so costly that it is not every king could pay for 
them. 

Round about these tents are others, also fine ones 
and beautifully pitched, in which are the Emperor's ladies, 
and the ladies of the other princes and officers. And then 
there are the tents for the hawks and their keepers, so 
that altogether the number of tents there on the plain is 
something wonderful. To see the many people that are 
thronging to and fro on every side and every day there, 
you would take the camp for a good big city. For you 
must reckon the Leeches, and the Astrologers, and the 
Falconers, and all the other attendants on so great a 
company ; and add that everybody there has his whole 
family with him, for such is their custom. 

The Lord remains encamped there until the spring, 



406 ^ MARCO POLO Book 1 1. 

and all that time he does nothing but go hawking round 
about among the canebrakes along the lakes and rivers 
that abound in that region, and across fine plains on 
which are plenty of cranes and swans, and all sorts of 
other fowl. The other gentry of the camp also are 
never done with hunting and hawking, and every day 
they bring home great store of venison and feathered 
game of all sorts. Indeed, without having witnessed it, 
you would never believe what quantities of game are 
taken, and what marvellous sport and diversion they all 
have whilst they are in camp there. 

There is another thing I should mention ; to wit, that 
for 20 days' journey round the spot nobody is allowed, 
be he who he may, to keep hawks or hounds, though 
anywhere else whosoever list may keep them. And 
furthermore throughout all the Emperor's territories, 
nobody however audacious dares to hunt any of these 
four animals, to wit, hare, stag, buck, and roe, from the 
month of March to the month of October. Anybody 
who should do so would rue it bitterly. But those people 
are so obedient to their Lord's command, that even if a 
man were to find one of those animals asleep by the road- 
side he would not touch it for the world ! And thus the 
game multiplies at such a rate that the whole country 
swarms with it, and the Emperor gets as much as he 
could desire. Beyond the term I have mentioned, how- 
ever, to wit that from March to October, everybody may 
take these animals as he list.^ 

After the Emperor has tarried in that place, enjoying 
his sport as I have related, from March to the middle of 
May, he moves with all his people, and returns straight 
to his capital city of Cambaluc (which is also the capital of 
Cathay, as you have been told), but all the while con- 
tinuing to take his diversion in hunting and hawking as 
he goes along. 



Chap. XX. HOW THE EMfEROR GOES HUNTING 4O7 

Note i. — " Vait vers midi jusques a la Mer Occeatte, au ily a deitx journies" It 
is not possible in any way to reconcile this description as it stands with truth, though 
I do not see much room for doubt as to the direction of the excursion. Peking is 
100 miles as the crow flies from the nearest point of the coast, at least six or seven days' 
march for such a camp, and the direction is south-east, or nearly so. The last circum- 
stance would not be very material as Polo's compass-bearings are not very accurate. 
We shall find that he makes the general line of bearing from Peking towards 
Kiangnan, Scilocoz S. East, hence YasMidi ought in consistency to represent S. West, 
an impossible direction for the Ocean. It is remarkable that Ramusio has Greco or 
.:V. East, which would by the same relative correction represent £ast. And other 
circumstances point to the frontier of Liao-tong as the direction of this excursion. 
Leaving the two days out of question, therefore, I should suppose the " Ocean Sea" to 
be struck at Shan-hai-kwan near the terminus of the Great Wall, and that the site 
of ihe standing hunting-camp is in the country to the north of that point. The Jesuit 
Verbiest accompanied the Emperor Kanglii on a tour in this direction in 1682, and 
almost immediately after passing the Wall the Emperor and his party seem to have 
struck off to the left for sport. Kublai started on the " ist of March," probably how- 
ever the 1st of the second Chinese month. Kanghi started from Peking on the 23rd 
of March, on the hunting-journey just referred to. 

Note 2. — W^e are told that Bajazet had 7000 falconers and 6000 dog-keepers ; 
whilst Sultan Mahomed Tughlak of India in the generation following Polo's, is said to 
have had 10,000 falconers, and 3000 other attendants as beaters. (Not. et Ext. XIII. 
p. 1S5.) 

The Oriental practice seems to have assigned one man to the attendance on every 
hawk. This Kaempfer says was the case at the Court of Persia at the beginning of 
last century. There were about 800 hawks, and each had a special keeper. The 
same was the case with the Emperor Kanghi's hawking establishment, according to 
Gerbillon. [Am. Exot. p. 83 ; Gerb. ist Journey, in Duhalde.) 

No IE 3. — The French MSS. read Tosioor ; the reading in the text I take from 
Ramusio. It is Turki, Toskat'd cJ^ULuiAJ, defined as " Gardien, surveillant de la 
route; Wachter, Wache, Wegehiiter." (See Zenker, and Paz-et de CmirleiUe.) The 
word is perhaps also Mongol, for Remusat has Tosiyal=" Veille." [AM. As. I. 231.) 
Such an example of Polo's correctness both in the form and meaning of a Turki word 
is worthy of especial note, and shows how little he merits the w ild and random treat- 
ment which has been often applied to the solution of Uke phrases in his book. 

[Palladius (p. 47) says that he has heard from men well acquainted with the customs 
of the Mongols, that at the present day in "battues," the leaders of the two flanks 
which surround the game, are called toscaul in Mongol. — H. C] 

Note 4. — The remark in the previous note might be repeated here. The 
Buiarguji was an officer of the Mongol camp, whose duties are thus described by 
Mahomed Hindu Shah in a work on the ofiices of the Perso-Mongol Court. " He is 
an officer appointed by the Council of State, who, at tlie time when the camp is 
struck, goes over the ground with his sers-ants, and collects slaves of either sex, or 
cattle, such as horses, camels, oxen, and asses, that have been left behind, and retains 
them until the owners appear and prove their claim to the property, when he makes it 
over to them. The Buiarguji sticks up a flag by his tent or hut to enable people to 
find him, and so recover their lost property." {Golden Horde, p. 245.) And in the 
Appendix to that work (p. 476) there is a copy of a warrant to such a Buiarguji or 
Provost MarshaL The derivation appears therein as from Bularghu, " Lost property." 
Here again it was impossible to give both form and meaning of the word more exactly 
than Polo has done. Though Hammer writes these terminations in// (dscAt), I believe 
cAi (tschi) is preferable. We have this same word Bularghu in a grant of privileges 
to the Venetians by the Ilkhan Abusaid, 22nd December, 1320, which has been 



4o8 MARCO rOLO Book II. 

published by M. Mas Latrie : "Item, se algun cavalo bolargo fosse trovado apreso de 
a/gun vosti'o veneciano" etc. — " If any stray horse shall be found in the possession of 
a Venetian," etc. (See Bihl. de V Ecole des Chart es, 1870 — tit-age a part, p. 26.) 

["There are two Mongol terms, which resemble this word Bularguchi, viz. 
Balagachi and Buhiguchi. But the first was the name used for the door-keeper of 
the tent of the Khan. By Buluguchi the Mongols understood a hunter and especially 
sable hunters. No one of these terms can be made consistent with the accounts given 
by M. Polo regarding the Bularguchi. In the Kui sin tsa shi, written by Chow Mi, in 
the former part of the 14th century, interesting particulars regarding Mongol hunting 
are found." {Palladius, 47.) In chapter loi. Djan cKi, of the Yuen-shi, Falconers 
are called Yi»g fang pu lie, and a certain class of the Falconers are termed Bo-lan-ghi. 
{Bretsckneider, Med. Res. I. p. 188.)— H. C] 

Note 5. — A like description is given by Odoric of the mode in which a successor of 
Kiiblai travelled between Cambaluc and Shangtu, with his falcons also in the chamber 
beside him. What Kiiblai had adopted as an indulgence to his years and gout, his 
successors probably followed as a precedent without these excuses. 

[With regard to the gout of Kublii Khan, Palladius (p. 48) writes: "In the 
Corean history allusion is made twice to the Khan's suffering from this disease. 
Under the year 1267, it is there recorded that in the 9th month, envoys of the Khan 
with a letter to the King arrived in Corea. Kubilai asked for the skin of the Akirho 
munho, a fish resembling a cow. The envoy was informed that, as the Khan suffered 
from swollen feet it would be useful for him to wear boots made of the skin of this 
animal, and in the loth month, the king of Corea forwarded to the Khan seventeen 
skins of it. It is further recorded in the Corean history, that in the 8th month of 
1292, sorcerers and Shaman women from Corea were sent at the request of the Kiian 
to cure him of a disease of the feet and hands. At that lime the king of Corea was 
also in Peking, and the sorcerers and Shaman women were admitted during an 
audience the King had of the Khan. They took the Khan's hands and feet and 
began to recite exorcisms, whilst Kubilai was laughing." — II. C] 

Note 6. — Marsden and Pauthier identify Cachar Modun with Tchakiri Mondou, 
or Moudon, which appears in D'Anville's atlas as tlie title of a "Levee de terre 
naturelle," in the extreme east of Manchuria, and in lat. 44°, between the Khinga 
Lake and the sea. This position is out of the question. It is more than 900 miles, 
in a straight line from Peking, and the mere journey thither and back would have 
taken Kublai's camp something like six months. The name Kachar Modun is probably 
Mongol, and as Katzar is =:"land, region," and Modun =" v/ood" or "tree," a 
fair interpretation lies on the surface. Such a name indeed has little individuality. 
But the Jesuit maps have a Modun Khotan (" Wood-ville") just about the locality 
supposed, viz. in the region north of the eastern extremity of the Great Wall. 

[Captain Gill writes {River of Golden Savd, I. p. 1 1 1 ) : " This country around Urh- 
Chuang is admirably described [in Marco Polo, pp. 403, 406], and I should almost 
imagine that the Kaan must have set off south-east from Peking, and enjoyed some 
of his hawking not far from here, before he travelled to Cachar Modun, wherever 
that may have been." 

"With respect to Cachar Modun, Marco Polo intends perhaps by this name 
Ho-si wu, which place, together with Yang-ts'un, were comprised in the general name 
Ma fou (perhaps the Modun of M. Polo). Ma-t'ou is even now a general term for a 
jetty in Chinese. ITo-si in the Mongol spelling was Ha-shin. D'Ohsson, in his 
translation of Rashid-eddin renders Ho-si by Coshi {Hist, des Mongols, I. p. 95), 
but Rashid in that case speaks not of Ho-si wu, but of the Tangut Empire, which 
in Chinese was called Ho-si, meaning west of the (Yellow) River. (See supra, 
p. 205). Ho-si wu, as well as Yang-ts'un, both exist even now as villages on the 
Pei-ho River, and near the first ancient walls can be seen. Ho-si wu means : 
'Custom's barrier west of the (Pei-ho) river.'" {Palladius, p. 45.) This identifica- 
tion cannot be accepted on account of the position of Ilo-si wu. — H. C] 



Chap. XX. 



HOW THE EMPEROR GOES HUNTING 



409 



Note 7. — I suppose the best accessible illustration of the Kaan's great tent may 
be that in which the Emperor Kienlung received Lord Macartney in the same region 
in 1793, of which one \-iew is given in Staunton's plates. Another exists in the 
Staunton Collection in the B. M., of which I give a reduced sketch. 

Kublai's great tent, after all, was but a fraction of the size of Akbar's audience-tents, 
the largest of which held 10,000 people, and took 1000 farrdshes a week's work to 
pitch it, with machines. But perhaps the manner of holding people is differently 
estimated. {Ain Akb. ^t,.^ 

In the description of the tent-poles, Pauthier's text has ^^ trots eoulombes de fust 
de pieces moult bien cncuurees,'^ etc. The G. T. has "ofe /^/«f d'especies mout Men 
curds," etc. The Crusca, " Ji spezie f/iolto belle," and Ramusio going off at a tangent, 
" dt legno intagliate con grandissimo artijicio e indorate." I believe the translation in 
the text to indicate the true reading. It might mean camphor-wood, or the like. 
The tent-covering of tiger-skins is illustrated by a passage in Sanang Setzen, which 
speaks of a tent covered with panther-skins, sent to Chinghiz by the Khan of the 
Solongos (p. Tj). 




The Tents of the Eir.peror Kienlung. 

[Grenard (pp. 160-162) gives us his experience of Tents in Central Asia (Khotan). 
"These Tents which we had purchased at Tashkent were the ' tentes-abris ' which 
are used in campaign by Russian military workshops, only we made them larger by a 
third. They were made of grey Kirghiz felt, which cannot be procured at Khotan. 
The felt manufactured in this town not ha\ing enough consistency or solidity, we took 
Aksu felt, which is better than this of Khotan, though inferior to the felt of Russian 
Turkestan. These felt tents are extremely hea\-y, and, once damp, are dried with diffi- 
culty. These drawbacks are not compensated by any important advantage ; it would 
be an illusion to believe that they preserve from the cold any better than other tents. 
In fact, I prefer the Manchu tent in use in the Chinese army, which is, perhaps, of 
all militarj' tents the most practical and comfortable. It is made of a single piece 
of double cloth of cotton, very strong, waterproof for a long time, white inside, blue 
outside, and weighs wiih its three tipped sticks and its wooden poles, 25 kilc^. Set 
up, it forms a ridge roof 7 feet high and shelters fully ten men. It suits ser\-ants 
perfectly well. For the master who wants to work, to write, to draw, occasionally to 
receive officials, the ideal tent would be one of the same mateiial, but of larger pro- 
portions, and compri-ing two parallel vertical partiticns and surmounted by a ridge 
roof. The round form of Kirghiz and Mongol tents is also very comfortable, but it 
requires a complicated and inconvenient wooden frame-work, owing to which it takes 
some considerable time to raise up the tent.'" — H. C] 

Note 8.- The expressions about the sable run in the G. T., "<'/ fapelUtit Its 



4IO MARCO POLO Book II. 

Tartarz les roi des pelaines," etc. This has been curiously misunderstood both in 
versions based on Pipino, and in the Geog. Latin and Crusca ItaUan. The Geog. 
Latin gives us ^^ vacant eas Tartari Lenoidae Pellonae"; the Crusca, '■^ chiatiianle 
K Tartaj'i Leroide Pelame " ; Ramusio in a very odd way combines both the genuine 
and the blundered interpretation: "^ li Tartari la chiamano Regina delle Pelli ; 
e gli aitimali si chiajnano 'R.onAts." Fraehn ingeniously suggested that this Rondes 
(which proves to be merely a misunderstanding of the French words Roi des) was a 
mistake for Kunduz, usually meaning a "beaver," but also a "sable." (See Ibn 
Foszlan, p. 57.) Condux, no doubt with this meaning, appears coupled with vair, 
in a Venetian Treaty with Egypt (1344), quoted by Pleyd. (II. 208.) 

Ibn Baluta puts the ermine above the sable. An ermine pelisse, he says, was 
worth in India 1000 dinars of that country, whilst a sable one was worth only 400 dinars. 
As Ibn Batuta's Indian dinars are Rupees, the estimate of price is greatly lower than 
Polo's. Some years ago I find the price of a Sack, as it is technically called by the 
Russian traders, or robe of fine sables, stated to be in the Siberian market about 
7000 banco rubels, i.e. I believe about 350/. The same authority mentions that 
in 1 591 the Tzar Theodore Ivanovich made a present of a pelisse valued at the 
equivalent of 5000 silver rubels of modern Russian money, or upwards of 750/. 
Atkinson speaks of a single sable skin of the highest quality, for which the trapper 
demanded iS/. The great mart for fine sables is at Olekma on the Lena. (See 
/. B. II. 401-402; BaersBeitrage, VII. 215 seqq. ; Upper and Lower Anioor, 390.) 

NoTi': 9. — Hawking is still common in North China. Petis de la Croix the elder, 
in his account of the Yasa, or institutes of Chinghiz, quotes one which lays down 
that between March and October "no one should take stags, deer, roebucks, hares, 
wild asses, nor some certain birds," in order that there might be ample sport in winter 
for the court. This would be just the reVerse of Polo's statement, but I suspect it is 
merely a careless adoption of the latter. There are many such traps in Petis de la 
Croix. (Engl. Vers. 1722, p. 82.) 



CHAPTER XXI. 



Rehearsal of the way the Year of the Great Kaan is 
distributed. 

On arriving at his capital of Cambaluc,^ he stays in his 
palace there three days and no more ; during which time 
he has great court entertainments and rejoicings, and 
makes merry with his wives. He then quits his palace 
at Cambaluc, and proceeds to that city which he has 
built, as I told you before, and which is called Chandu, 
where he has that grand park and palace of cane, and 
where he keeps his gerfalcons in mew. There he 
spends the summer, to escape the heat, for the situation 
is a very cool one. After stopping there from the 



Chap. XXI. THE KAAN'S RETURN FROM HUNTING 41I 

beginning of May to the 28th of August, he takes his 
departure (that is the time when they sprinkle the white 
mares' milk as I told you), and returns to his capital 
Cambaluc. There he stops, as I have told you also, 
the month of September, to keep his Birthday Feast, 
and also throughout October, November, December, 
January, and February, in which last month he keeps 
the grand feast of the New Year, which they call the 
White Feast, as you have heard already with all 
particulars. He then sets out on his march towards 
the Ocean Sea, hunting and hawking, and continues 
out from the beginning of March to the middle of May ; 
and then comes back for three days only to the capital, 
during which he makes merry with his wives, and holds 
a great court and grand entertainments. In truth, 'tis 
something astonishing, the magnificence displayed by 
the Emperor in those three days ; and then he starts 
off again as you know. 

Thus his whole year is distributed in the following 
manner : six months at his chief palace in the royal city 
of Cambaluc, to wit, September, October, Novefiiber, 
Dece??iber, January, Febrjiary ; 

Then on the great hunting expedition towards the 
sea, March, April, May ; 

Then back to his palace at Cambaluc for three days ; 

Then off to the city of Chandu which he has built, 
and where the Cane Palace is, where he stays June, 
July, A^igust ; 

Then back again to his capital city of Cambaluc. 

So thus the whole year is spent ; six months at the 
capital, three months in hunting, and three months at 
the Cane Palace to avoid the heat. And in this way he 
passes his time with the greatest enjoyment ; not to 
mention occasional journeys in this or that direction at 
his own pleasure. 



412 MARCO POLO Book II. 

Note i. — This chapter, with its wearisome and whimsical reiteration, reminding 
one of a game of forfeits, is peculiar to that class of MSS. which claims to represent 
the copy given to Thibault de Cepoy by Marco Polo. 

Dr. Bushell has kindly sent me a notice of a Chinese document (his translation of 
which he had unfortunately mislaid), containing a minute contemporary account of 
the annual migration of the Mongol Court to Shangtu. Having traversed the Kiu 
Yung Kwan (or Nankau) Pass, where stands the great Mongol archway represented 
at the end of this volume, they left what is now the Kalgan post-road at Tumuyi, 
making straight for Chaghan-nor {supra, p. 304), and thence to Shangtu. The 
return journey in autumn followed the same route as far as Chaghan-nor, where some 
days were spent in fowling on the lakes, and thence by Siuen-hwa fu {"Sindachu," 
supra, p. 295) and the present post-road to Cambaluc 



CHAPTER XXII. 



Concerning the City of Cambaluc, and its Great Traffic 
AND Population. 

You must know that the city of Cambaluc hath such a 
multitude of houses, and such a vast population inside 
the walls and outside, that it seems quite past all 
possibility. There is a suburb outside each of the 
gates, which are twelve in number ; ^ and these suburbs 
are so great that they contain more people than the city 
itself [for the suburb of one gate spreads in width till 
it meets the suburb of the next, whilst they extend in 
length some three or four miles]. In those suburbs 
lodge the foreign merchants and travellers, of whom 
there are always great numbers who have come to bring 
presents to the Emperor, or to sell articles at Court, or 
because the city affords so good a mart to attract traders. 
[There are in each of the suburbs, to a distance of a 
mile from the city, numerous fine hostelries^ for the 
lodgment of merchants from different parts of the world, 
and a special hostelry is assigned to each description of 
people, as if we should say there is one for the Lombards, 
another for the Germans, and a third for the French- 
men.] And thus there are as many good houses outside 



414 MARCO POLO Book II. 

of the city as inside, without counting those that belong 
to the great lords and barons, which are very numerous. 

You must know that it is forbidden to bury any dead 
body inside the city. If the body be that of an Idolater 
it is carried out beyond the city and suburbs to a remote 
place assigned for the purpose, to be burnt. And if it be 
of one belonging to a religion the custom of which is to 
bury, such as the Christian, the Saracen, or what not, it 
is also carried out beyond the suburbs to a distant place 
assigned for the purpose. And thus the city Is preserved 
in a better and more healthy state. 

Moreover, no public woman resides inside the city, 
but all such abide outside in the suburbs. And 'tis 
wonderful what a vast number of these there are for the 
foreigners ; it is a certain fact that there are more than 
20,000 of them living by prostitution. And that so 
many can live in this way will show you how vast is the 
population. 

[Guards patrol the city every night in parties of 30 
or 40, looking out for any persons who may be abroad 
at unseasonable hours, i.e. after the great bell hath 
stricken thrice. If they find any such person he is im- 
mediately taken to prison, and examined next morning 
by the proper officers. If these find him guilty of any 
misdemeanour they order him a proportionate beating 
with the stick. Under this punishment people some- 
times die ; but they adopt it in order to eschew blood- 
shed ; for their Bacsis sav that it is an evil thinpf to shed 
man's blood]. 

To this city also are brought articles of greater cost 
and rarity, and in greater abundance of all kinds, than 
to any other city in the world. For people of every 
description, and from every region, bring things (includ- 
ing all the costly wares of India, as well as the fine and 
precious goods of Cathay itself with its provinces), some 



Chap. XXIII. CITY AND TRAFFIC OF CAMBALUC 415 

for the sovereign, some for the court, some for the city 
which is so great, some for the crowds of Barons and 
Knights, some for the great hosts of the Emperor which 
are quartered round about ; and thus between court and 
city the quantity brought in is endless. 

As a sample, I tell you, no day in the year passes 
that there do not enter the city loco cart-loads of silk 
alone, from which are made quantities of cloth of silk 
and gold, and of other goods. And this is not to be 
wondered at ; for in all the countries round about there 
is no flax, so that everything has to be made of silk. It 
is true, indeed, that in some parts of the country there is 
cotton and hemp, but not sufficient for their wants. This, 
however, is not of much consequence, because silk is so 
abundant and cheap, and is a more valuable substance 
than either flax or cotton. 

Round about this great city of Cambaluc there are 
some 200 other cities at various distances, from which 
traders come to sell their goods and buy others for their 
lords ; and all find means to make their sales and pur- 
chases, so that the traffic of the city is passing great. 



Note i. — It would seem to have been usual to reckon twelve suburbs to Peking 
down to modern times. (See Deguignes, III. 38.) 

Note 2. — The word here used is Fondaco, often employed in mediaeval Italian in 
the sense nearly of what we call a factory. The word is from the Greek to.vZok^i.ov, 
but through the Arabic Fanduk. The latter word is used by Ibn Batuta in speaking 
of the hostelries at which the Mussulman merchants put up in China. 



CHAPTER XXIII. 



[Concerning the Oppressions of Achmath the Bailo, and the 
Plot that was formed against Him.^ 

You will hear further on how that there are twelve persons 
appointed who have authority to dispose of lands, ofifices, 



41 6 MARCO POLO Book 1 1. 

and everything else at their discretion. Now one of 
these was a certain Saracen named Aciimath, a shrewd, 
and able man, who had more power and influence with 
the Grand Kaan than any of the others ; and the Kaan 
held him in such regard that he could do what he pleased. 
The fact was, as came out after his death, that Achmath 
had so wrought upon the Kaan with his sorcery, that 
the latter had the greatest faith and reliance on every- 
thing he said, and in this way did everything that 
Achmath wished him to do. 

This person disposed of all governments and offices, 
and passed sentence on all malefactors ; and whenever 
he desired to have any one whom he hated put to death, 
whether with justice or without it, he would go to the 
Emperor and say : '* Such an one deserves death, for he 
hath done this or that against your imperial dignity." 
Then the Lord would say : " Do as you think right," 
and so he would have the man forthwith executed. Thus 
when people saw how unbounded were his powers, and 
how unbounded the reliance placed by the Emperor on 
everything that he said, they did not venture to oppose 
him in anything. No one was so high in rank or power 
as to be free from the dread of him. If any one was 
accused by him to the Emperor of a capital offence, and 
desired to defend himself, he was unable to bring proofs 
in his own exculpation, for no one would stand by him, 
as no one dared to oppose Achmath. And thus the 
latter caused many to perish unjustly.^ 

Moreover, there was no beautiful woman whom he 
might desire, but he got hold of her ; if she were un- 
married, forcing her to be his wife, if otherwise, com- 
pelling her to consent to his desires. Whenever he 
knew of any one who had a pretty daughter, certain 
ruffians of his would go to the father, and say : "What 
say you.'* Here is this pretty daughter of yours ; give 



Chap. XXIII. THE PLOT AGAINST ACHMATH 417 

her in marriage to the Bailo Achmath (for they called 
him 'the Bailo,' or, as we should say, ' the Vicegerent'),' 
and we will arrange for his giving you such a govern- 
ment or such an office for three years." And so the man 
would surrender his daughter. And Achmath would go 
to the Emperor, and say : " Such a government is vacant, 
or will be vacant on such a day. So-and-So is a proper 
man for the post." And the Emperor would reply : 
" Do as you think best ; " and the father of the girl was 
immediately appointed to the government. Thus either 
through the ambition of the parents, or through fear of 
the Minister, all the beautiful women were at his beck, 
either as wives or mistresses. Also he had some five- 
and-twenty sons who held offices of importance, and 
some of these, under the protection of their father's name, 
committed scandals like his own, and many other abom- 
inable iniquities. This Achmath also had amassed great 
treasure, for everybody who wanted office sent him a 
heavy bribe. 

In such authority did this man continue for two-and- 
twenty years. At last the people of the country, to wit 
the Cathayans, utterly wearied with the endless outrages 
and abominable iniquities which he perpetrated against 
them, whether as regarded their wives or their own 
persons, conspired to slay him and revolt against the 
government. Amongst the rest there was a certain 
Cathayan named Chenchu, a commander of a thousand, 
whose mother, daughter, and wife had all been dis- 
honoured by Achmath. Now this man, full of bitter 
resentment, entered into parley regarding the destruction 
of the Minister with another Cathayan whose name was 
Vanchu, who was a commander of 10,000. They came 
to the conclusion that the time to do the business would 
be during" the Great Kaan's absence from Cambaluc. 
For after stopping there three months he used to go to 
VOL. I. ^ ^ 



41 8 MARCO POLO Book II. 

Chandu and stop there three months ; and at the same 
time his son Chinkin used to go away to his usual 
haunts, and this Achmath remained in charge of the 
city ; sending to obtain the Kaan's orders from Chandu 
when any emergency arose. 

So Vanchu and Chenchu, having come to this con- 
clusion, proceeded to communicate it to the chief people 
among the Cathayans, and then by common consent sent 
word to their friends in many other cities that they had 
determined on such a day, at the signal given by a 
beacon, to massacre all the men with beards, and that 
the other cities should stand ready to do the like on 
seeing the signal fires. The reason why they spoke 
of massacring the bearded men was that the Cathayans 
naturally have no beard, whilst beards are worn by the 
Tartars, Saracens, and Christians. And you should 
know that all the Cathayans detested the Grand Kaan's 
rule because he set over them governors who were 
Tartars, or still more frequently Saracens, and these 
they could not endure, for they were treated by them 
just like slaves. You see the Great Kaan had not 
succeeded to the dominion of Cathay by hereditary 
right, but held it by conquest ; and thus having no con- 
fidence in the natives, he put all authority into the hands 
of Tartars, Saracens, or Christians who were attached to 
his household and devoted to his service, and were 
foreigners in Cathay. 

Wherefore, on the day appointed, the aforesaid 
Vanchu and Chenchu having entered the palace at night, 
Vanchu sat down and caused a number of lights to be 
kindled before him. He then sent a messenofer to 
Achmath the Bailo, who lived in the Old City, as if to 
summon him to the presence of Chinkin, the Great 
Kaan's son, who (it was pretended) had arrived unex- 
pectedly. When Achmath heard this he was much 



Chap. XXIII. THE PLOT AGAINST ACHMATH 419 

surprised, but made haste to go, for he feared the Prince 
greatly. When he arrived at the gate he met a Tartar 
called Cogatai, who was Captain of the 12,000 that 
formed the standing garrison of the City ; and the latter 
asked him whither he was bound so late ? " To 
Chinkin, who is just arrived." Quoth Cogatai, " How 
can that be ? How could he come so privily that I know 
nought of it?" So he followed the Minister with a 
certain number of his soldiers. Now the notion of the 
Cathayans was that, if they could make an end of 
Achmath, they would have nought else to be afraid of 
So as soon as Achmath got inside the palace, and saw 
all that illumination, he bowed down before Vanchu, 
supposing him to be Chinkin, and Chenchu who was 
standing ready with a sword straightway cut his head 
off As soon as Cogatai, who had halted at the entrance, 
beheld this, he shouted "Treason!" and instantly dis- 
charged an arrow at Vanchu and shot him dead as he 
sat. At the same time he called his people to seize 
Chenchu, and sent a proclamation through the city that 
any one found in the streets would be" instantly put to 
death. The Cathayans saw that the Tartars had dis- 
covered the plot, and that they had no longer any leader, 
since Vanchu was killed and Chenchu was taken. So 
they kept still in their houses, and were unable to pass 
the signal for the rising of the other cities as had been 
settled. Cogatai immediately dispatched messengers 
to the Great Kaan giving an orderly report of the whole 
affair, and the Kaan sent back orders for him to make 
a careful investigation, and to punish the guilty as their 
misdeeds deserved. In the morning Cogatai examined 
all the Cathayans, and put to death a number whom he 
found to be ringleaders in the plot. The same thing 
was done in the other cities, when it was found that the 
plot extended to them also. 

VOL. I. 2 D 2 



420 MARCO POLO Book II. 

After the Great Kaan had returned to Cambaluc he 
was very anxious to discover what had led to this affair, 
and he then learned all about the endless iniquities of 
that accursed Achmath and his sons. It was proved that 
he and seven of his sons (for they were not all bad) had 
forced no end of women to be their wives, besides those 
whom they had ravished. The Great Kaan then ordered 
all the treasure that Achmath had accumulated in the 
Old City to be transferred to his own treasury in the 
New City, and it was found to be of enormous amount. 
He also ordered the body of Achmath to be dug up and 
cast into the streets for the dogs to tear ; and commanded 
those of his sons that had followed the father's evil 
example to be flayed alive.* 

These circumstances called the Kaan's attention to 
the accursed doctrines of the Sect of the Saracens, which 
excuse every crime, yea even murder itself, when com- 
mitted on such as are not of their religion. And seeing 
that this doctrine had led the accursed Achmath and his 
sons to act as they did without any sense of guilt, the 
Kaan was led to entertain the greatest disgust and 
abomination for it. So he summoned the Saracens and 
prohibited their doing many things which their religion 
enjoined. Thus, he ordered them to regulate their 
marriages by the Tartar Law, and prohibited their 
cutting the throats of animals killed for food, ordering 
them to rip the stomach in the Tartar way. 

Now when all this happened Messer Marco was 
upon the spot.] ^ 



Note i. — This narrative is from Ramusio's version, and constitutes one of the 
most notable passages peculiar to that version. 

The name of the oppressive Minister is printed in Ramusio's Collection Achniach. 
But the c and t are so constantly interchanged in MSS. that I think there can be 
no question this was a mere clerical error for Achmath, and so I write it. I have 
also for consistency changed the si»elling of Xa?tdu, Chingis, etc., to that hitherto 
adopted in our text of Chandu, Chinkin, etc. 



Chap. XXIII. THE OPPRESSIONS OF ACHMATH 42 1 

Note 2. — The remarks of a Chinese historian on Kublai's administration may be 
appropriately quoted here : " Hupilai Han must certainly be regarded as one of the 
greatest princes that ever existed, and as one of the most successful in all that he 
undertook. This he owed to his judgment in the selection of his officers, and to his 
talent for commanding them. He carried his arms into the most remote countries, 
and rendered his name so formidable that not a few nations spontaneously submitted 
to his supremacy. Nor was there ever an Empire of such vast extent. He 
cultivated literature, protected its professors, and even thankfully received their 
advice. Yet he never placed a Chinese in his cabinet, and he employed foreigners 
only as Ministers. These, however, he chose with discerimient, always excepting the 
Ministers of Finance. He really loved his subjects ; and if they were not always 
happy under his government, it is because they took care to conceal their sufferings. 
There were in those daj^ no Public Censors whose duty it is to warn the Sovereign of 
what is going on : and no one dared to speak out for fear of the resentment of the 
Ministers, who were the depositaries of the Imperial authority, and the authors of the 
oppressions under which the people laboured. Several Chinese, men of letters and of 
great ability, who lived at Hupilai's court, might have rendered that prince the 
greatest service in the administration of his dominions, but they never were intrusted 
with any but subordinate offices, and they were not in a position to make known the 
malversations of those public blood-suckers." {De Mailla, IX. 459-460.) 

Ahmad was a native of Fenaket (afterwards Shah-Rukhia), near the Jaxartes, and 
obtained employment under Kiiblai through the Empress Jamui Khatun, who had 
known him before her marriage. To her Court he was originally attached, but we 
find him already employed in high financial office in 1264. Kublai's demands for 
money must have been very large, and he eschewed looking too closely into the 
character of his financial agents or the means by which they raised money for him. 
Ahmad was very successful in this, and being a man of great talent and address, 
obtained immense influence over the Emperor, until at last nothing was done save by 
his direction, though he always appeared to be acting under the orders of Kiiblai. 
The Chinese authorities in Gaubil and De Mailla speak strongly of his oppressions, but 
only in general terms, and without affording such particulars as we derive from the text. 

The Hereditary Prince Chingkim was strongly adverse to Ahmad ; and some of 
the high Chinese officials on various occasions made remonstrance against the 
Minister's proceedings ; but Kublai turned a deaf ear to them, and Ahmad succeeded 
in ruining most of his opponents. {Gaitiil, 141, 143, 151 ; De Mailla., IX. 316-317 ; 
Z>'C>>4jxo«, II. 468-469.) 

[The Rev. W. S. Ament {Marco Polo in Cambaliu, 105) writes : " No name is 
more execrated than that of Ah-ha-ma (called Achmath by Polo), a Persian, who was 
chosen to manage the finances of the Empire. He was finally destroyed by a 
combination against him while the Khan was absent with Crown Prince Chen Ciiin, 
on a visit to Shang Tu." Achmath has his biography under the name of A-ho-ma 
(Ahmed) in the ch. 205 of the Yuen-shi, under the rubric "Villanous Ministers." 
[Bret Schneider, Med. Res. I. p. 272.)— H. C] 

Note 3. — This term Bailo was the designation of the representative of Venetian 
dignity at Constantinople, called Podestd. during the period of the Latin rule there, and 
it has endured throughout the Turkish Empire to our own day in the form Balios as 
the designation of a Frank Consul. [There was also a Venetian bailo in Syria. — H. C] 
But that term itself could scarcely have been in use at Cambaluc, even among the 
handful of Franks, to designate the powerful Minister, and it looks as if Marco had 
confounded the word in his own mind with some Oriental term of like sound, possibly 
the Arabic Wdli., "a Prince, Governor of a Province, .... a chief Magistrate." 
(F. Johnson.) In the Roteiro of the Voyage of Vasco da Gama (2nd ed. Lisbon, 
1861, pp. 53-54) it is said that on the arrival of the ships at Calicut the King sent "a 
man who was called tlie Bale, which is much the same as Alquaide." And the 
Editor gives the same explanation that I have su^ested. 



42 2 MARCO POLO Book II. 

I observe that according to Pandit Manphiil the native governor of Kashgar, under 
the Chinese Amban, used to be called the Baili Beg. [In this case Baili stands for 
belli h. — H. C] {Panjab Trade Report, App. p. cccxxxvii.) 

Note 4. — The story, as related in De Mailla and Gaubil, is as follows. It contains 
much less detail than the text, and it differs as to the manner of the chief conspirator's 
death, whilst agreeing as to his name and the main facts of the episode. 

In the spring of 1282 (Gaubil, 1281) Kublii and Prince Chingkim had gone off as 
usual to Shangtu, leaving Ahmad in charge at the Capital. The whole country was 
at heart in revolt against his oppressions. Kiibldi alone knew, or would know, 
nothing of them. 

Wangchu, a chief officer of the city, resolved to take the opportunity of deliver- 
ing the Empire from such a curse, and was joined in his enterprise by a certain 
sorcerer called Kao Hoshang. They sent two Lamas to the Council Board with a 
message that the Crown Prince was returning to the Capital to take part in certain 
Buddhist ceremonies, but no credit was given to this. Wangchu then, pretending to 
have received orders from the Prince, desired an officer called Chang-y (perhaps the 
Chenchu of Polo's narrative) to go in the evening with a guard of honour to receive 
him. Late at night a message was sent to summon the Ministers, as the Prince (it 
was pretended) had already arrived. They came in haste with Ahmad at their head, 
and as he entered the Palace Wangchu struck him heavily with a copper mace and 
stretched him dead, Wangchu was arrested, or according to one account surrendered, 
though he might easily have escaped, confident that the Crown Prince would save his 
life. Intelligence was sent off to Kiiblai, who received it at Chaghan-Nor. (See Book 
I. ch. Ix. ) He immediately despatched officers to arrest the guilty and bring them to 
justice. Wangchu, Chang-y, and Kao Hoshang were publicly executed at the Old 
City ; Wangchu dying like a hero, and maintaining that he had done the Empire an 
important service which would yet be acknowledged. {De Mailla, IX. 412-413 ; 
Gaubil, 193-194; D'Ohsson, II. 470.) [Cf. G. Phillips, in 2''oung-Pao, I. p. 220. — 
H. C] 

Note 5. — And it is a pleasant fact that Messer Marco's presence, and his upright 
conduct upon this occasion, have not been forgotten in the Chinese Annals: "The 
Emperor having returned from Chaghan-Nor to Shangtu, desired Polo, Assessor of 
the Privy Council, to explain the reasons which had led Wangchu to commit this 
murder. Polo spoke with boldness of the crimes and oppressions of Ahama (Ahmad), 
which had rendered him an object of detestation throughout the Empire. The 
Emperor's eyes were opened, and he praised the courage of Wangchu. He com- 
plained that those who surrounded him, in abstaining from admonishing him of what 
was going on, had thought more of their fear of displeasing the Minister than of the 
interests of the State." By Kublai's order, the body of Ahmad was taken up, his 
head was cut off and publicly exposed, and his body cast to the dogs, f lis son also 
was put to death with all his family, and his immense wealth confiscated. 714 
persons were punished, one way or other, for their share in Ahmad's malversations. 
{De Mailla, IX. 413-414.) 

What is said near the end of this chapter about the Kaan's resentment against the 
Saracens has some confirmation in circumstances related by Rashiduddin. The 
refusal of some Mussulman merchants, on a certain occasion at Court, to eat of the 
dishes sent- them by the Emperor, gave great offence, and led to the revival of an 
order of Chinghiz, which prohibited, under pain of death, the slaughter of animals by 
cutting their throats. This endured for seven years, and was then removed on the 
strong representation made to Kublai of the loss caused by the cessation of the visits 
of the Mahomedan merchants. On a previous occasion also the Mahomedans had 
incurred disfavour, owing to the ill-will of certain Christians, who quoted to Kublai 
a text of the Koran enjoining the killing of polytheists. The Emperor sent for the 
Mullahs, and asked them why they did not act on the Divine injunction? All they 
could say was that the time was not yet come ! Kublai ordered them for execution, 



Chap. XXIV. THE KAAN'S PAPER CURRENCY 423 

and was only appeased by the intercession of Ahmad, and the introdaction of a divine 
with more tact, who smoothed over obnoxious applications of the text. {LfOhswn, 
II. 492-493-) 



CHAPTER XXIV. 



How THE Great Kaan causeth the Bark of Trees, made into 

SOMETHING LIKE PaPER, TO PASS FOR MONEY OVER ALL HIS 

Country. 

Now that I have told you in detail of the splendour of 
this City of the Emperor's, I shall proceed to tell you of 
the Mint which he hath in the same city, in the which 
he hath his money coined and struck, as I shall relate to 
you. And in doing so I shall make manifest to you how 
it is that the Great Lord may well be able to accomplish 
even much more than I have told you, or am going to 
tell you, in this Book. ^ For, tell it how I might, you 
never would be satisfied that I was keeping within 
truth and reason ! 

The Emperor's Mint then is in this same City of 
Cambaluc, and the way it is wrought is such that you 
might say he hath the Secret of Alchemy in perfection, 
and you would be right ! For he makes his money after 
this fashion. 

He makes them take of the bark of a certain tree, in 
fact of the Mulberry Tree, the leaves of which are the 
food of the silkworms, — these trees being so numerous 
that whole districts are full of them. What they take is 
a certain fine white bast or skin which lies between the 
wood of the tree and the thick outer bark, and this they 
make into something resembling sheets of paper, but 
black. When these sheets have been prepared they are 
cut up into pieces of different sizes. The smallest of 
these sizes is worth a half tornesel ; the next, a little 



424 MARCO POLO Book II. 

larger, one tornesel ; one, a little larger still, is worth 
half a silver groat of Venice ; another a whole groat ; 
others yet two groats, five groats, and ten groats. 
There is also a kind worth one Bezant of gold, and 
others of three Bezants, and so up to ten. All these 
pieces of paper are [issued with as much solemnity and 
authority as if they were of pure gold or silver ; and on 
every piece a variety of officials, whose duty it is, have to 
write their names, and to put their seals. And when all 
is prepared duly, the chief officer deputed by the Kaan 
smears the Seal entrusted to him with vermilion, and 
impresses it on the paper, so that the form of the Seal 
remains printed upon it in red ; the Money is then 
authentic. Any one forging it would be punished with 
death.] And the Kaan causes every year to be made 
such a vast quantity of this money, which costs him 
nothing, that it must equal in amount all the treasure 
in the world. 

With these pieces of paper, made as I have described, 
he causes all payments on his own account to be made ; 
and he makes them to pass current universally over all 
his kingdoms and provinces and territories, and whither- 
soever his power and sovereignty extends. And nobody, 
however important he may think himself, dares to refuse 
them on pain of death. And indeed everybody takes 
them readily, for wheresoever a person may go through- 
out the Great Kaan's dominions he shall find these 
pieces of paper current, and shall be able to transact all 
sales and purchases of goods by means of* them just as 
well as if they were coins of pure gold. And all the 
while they are so light that ten bezants' worth does not 
weigh one golden bezant. 

Furthermore all merchants arriving from India or 
other countries, and bringing with them gold or silver 
or gems and pearls, are prohibited from selling to any one 



Chap. XXIV. THE KAAN'S PAPER CURRENCY 425 

but the Emperor. He has twelve experts chosen for 
this business, men of shrewdness and experience in such 
affairs ; these appraise the articles, and the Emperor 
then pays a liberal price for them in those pieces of 
paper. The merchants accept his price readily, for in 
the first place they would not get so good an one from 
anybody else, and secondly they are paid without any 
delay. And with this paper-money they can buy what 
they like anywhere over the Empire, whilst it is also 
vastly lighter to carry about on their journeys. And it 
is a truth that the merchants will several times iri the 
year bring wares to the amount of 400,000 bezants, and 
the Grand Sire pays for all in that paper. So he buys 
such a quantity of those precious things every year that 
his treasure is endless, whilst all the time the money he 
pays away costs him nothing at all. Moreover, several 
times in the year proclamation is made through the city 
that any one who may have gold or silver or gems or 
pearls, by taking them to the Mint shall get a handsome 
price for them. And the owners are glad to do this, 
because they would find no other purchaser give so large 
a price. Thus the quantity they bring in is marvellous, 
though these who do not choose to do so may let it 
alone. Still, in this way, nearly all the valuables in the 
country come into the Kaan's possession. 

When any of those pieces of paper are spoilt — not 
that they are so very flimsy neither — the owner carries 
them to the Mint, and by paying three per cent, on the 
value he gets new pieces in exchange. And if any Baron, 
or any one else soever, hath need of gold or silver or 
gems or pearls, in order to make plate, or girdles, or the 
like, he goes to the Mint and buys as much as he list, 
paying in this paper-money.^ 

Now you have heard the ways and means whereby 
the Great Kaan may have, and in fact kas^ more treasure 



426 MARCO POLO Book II. 

than all the Kings in the World ; and you know all about 
it and the reason why. And now I will tell you of the 
great Dignitaries which act in this city on behalf of the 
Emperor. 

Note i. — It is surprising to find that, nearly two centuries ago, Magaillans, a 
missionary who had lived many years in China, and was presumably a Chinese 
scholar, should have utterly denied the truth of Polo's statements about the paper- 
currency of China. Yet the fact even then did not rest on Polo's statement only. 
The same thing had been alleged in the printed works of Rubruquis, Roger Bacon, 
Hayton, Friar Odoric, the Archbishop of Soltania, and Josaphat Barbaro, to say 
nothing of other European authorities that remained in manuscript, or of the 
numerous Oriental records of the same circumstance. 

The issue of paper-money in China is at least as old as the beginning of the 9th 
century. In 1160 the system had gone to such excess that government paper 
equivalent in nominal value to 43,600,000 ounces of silver had been issued in six years, 
and there were local notes besides ; so that the Empire was flooded with rapidly 
depreciating paper. 

The Kht or " Golden " Dynasty of Northern Invaders who immediately preceded 
the Mongols took to paper, in spite of their title, as kindly as the native sovereigns. 
Their notes had a course of seven years, after which new notes were issued to the 
holders, with a deduction of 15 per cent. 

The Mongols commenced their issues of paper-money in 1236, long before they 
had transferred the seat of their government to China. Kublai made such an issue 
in the first year of his reign (1260), and continued to issue notes copiously till the end. 
In 1287 he put out a complete new currency, one note of which was to exchange 
against five of the previous series of equal nominal value ! In both issues the 
paper-money was, in official valuation, only equivalent to half its nominal value in 
silver ; a circumstance not very easy to understand. The paper-money was called Chao. 

The notes of Kiiblai's first issue (1260-1287) with which Polo maybe supposed 
most familiar, were divided into three classes ; (i) Notes of Tens, viz. of 10, 20, 30, and 
50 tsienox C2i^ ; (2) Notes of Hundreds, viz. of 100, 200, and 500 tsien ; and (3) Notes 
of Strings or Thousands oi ca.^, or in other words oi Liangs or ounces of silver (other- 
wise TaeJ), viz. of 1000 and 2000 tsien. There were also notes printed on silk for i, 
2, 3, 5, and 10 ounces each, valued at par in silver, but these would not circulate. 
In 1275, it should be mentioned, there had been a supplementary issue of small notes 
for 2, 3, and 5 cash each. 

Marsden states an equation between Marco's values of the Notes and the actual 
Chinese currency, to which Biot seems to assent. I doubt its correctness, for his 
assumed values of the groat or grosso and tornesel are surely wrong. The grosso ran 
at that time 18 to the gold ducat or sequin, and allowing for the then higher relative 
value of silver, should have contained about 5^. of silver. The ducat was also equiva- 
lent to 2 lire, and the tomese {Romanin, III. 343) was 4 deniers. Now the denier is 
always, I believe -^ of the lira. Hence the tomese would be -^^ of the grosso. 

But we are not to look for exact correspondences, when we see Polo applying 
round figures in European coinage to Chinese currency. 

His bezant notes, I agree with Marsden, here represent the Chinese notes for one 
and more ounces of silver. And here the correspondence of value is much nearer than 
it seems at first sight. The Chinese Hang or ounce of silver is valued commonly at 
6^. Td., say roundly 80^.* But the relation of gold and silver in civilized Asia was 

• Even now there are at least eight different taels (or Hangs) in extensive use over the Empire, and 
varying as much as from 96 to 106 ; and besides these are many local taels, with about the same limits 
of variation, — {JtVilliMnson's Journeys, I. 60.) 



¥f'nA&0 

















Bank-Koce of the Ming Dynasty. 



:?> 



[To face p. 426, 



Chap. XXIV. CHINESE PAPER CURRENCY 427 

then (see ch. i. note 4, and also Cathay, pp. ccl. and 442) as 10 to i, not, as with us 
now, more than 15 to i. \Vherefore the liang in relation to gold would be worth 
\iod. or loj., a little over the Venetian ducat and somewhat less than the bezant 
or dinar. We shall then find the table of Chinese issues, as compared with Marco's 
equivalents, to stand thus : — 

Chinese Issues, as recorded. Marco Polo's Statement. 

For ID ounces of silver (viz. the \ _ 10 bezants. 

Chinese Tiyig) *../'' 
For I ounce of silver, i.e. I liang,\ j 

or 1000 tsien (cash) . . J " 

For sooisun 10 groats. 

200 „ 5 » (should have been 4). 

100 „ 2 ,, 

50 „ ^ " 

20 , , i »> i^^^ "'^ proportionate equivalent 

of half a groat would be 25 tsien). 

20 „ 

10 ,, . . . . . I tomesel (but the proportionate equivalent 

would be 7i tsien). 

5 ,, i >» (but prop, equivalent 3J tsien). 

Pauthier has given from the Chinese Annals of the Mongol Dynasty a complete Table 
of the Issues of Paper-Money during every year ot Kublai's reign (1260-1294), 
estimated at their nominal value in Ting or tens of silver ounces. The lowest issue 
was in 1269, of 228,960 aunees, which at the rate of I2af. to the ounce (see above) 
= 114,480/., and the highest was in 1290, viz. 50,002,500 ounces, equivalent at the 
same estimate to 25,001,250/. ! whilst the total amount in the 34 years was 249,654,290 
ounces or 124,827,144/. in nominal value. Well might Marco speak of the vast 
quantity of such notes that the Great Kaan issued annually ! 

To complete the history of the Chinese paper-currency so far as we can : 

In 1309, a new issue took place with the same provision as in Kublai's issue of 
1287, i.e. each note of the new issue was to exchange against 5 of the old of the same 
nominal value. And it was at the same time prescribed that the notes should 
exchange at par with metals, which of course it was beyond the power of Govern- 
ment to enforce, and so the notes were abandoned. Issues continued from time to 
time to the end of the Mongol Dynasty. The paper-currency is spoken of by Odoric 
(1320-30), by Pegolotti (1330-40), and by Ibn Batuta (1348), as still the chief, if not 
sole, currency of the Empire. According to the Chinese authorities, the credit of 
these issues was constantly diminishing, as it is easy to suppose. But it is odd that 
all the Western Travellers speak as if the notes were as good as gold. Pegolotti, 
writing for mercantile men, and from the information (as we may suppose) of 
mercantile men, says explicitly that there was no depreciation. 

The Ming Dynasty for a time carried on the system of paper-money ; with the 
difference that while under the Mongols no other currency had been admitted, their 
successors made payments in notes, but accepted only hard cash from their people ! t 
In 1448 the cAaa of 1000 cash was worth but 3. Barbaro still heard talk of the 
Chinese paper-currency from travellers whom he met at Azov about this time ; but 
after 1455 there is said to be no more mention of it in Chinese history. 

I have never heard of the preservation of any note of the Mongols ; but some of 
the Ming survive, and are highly valued as curiosities in China. The late Sir G. T. 
Staunton appears to have possessed one ; Dr. Lockhart formerly had two, of which 
he gave one to Sir Harry Parkes, and retains the other. The paper is so dark as to 

* [The Archimandrite Palladius (/.c, p. 50, note) says that " the iiag of the Mongol time, as well 
as during the reign of the Kin, was a unit of weight equivalent to fifty liang, but not to ten lian^. 
Cf. Ch'u keng lu, and Yuen-shi, ch. xcv. The Yuen poo, which as everybody in China knows, is 
equivalent to fifty liang (taels) of silver, is the same as the ancient ting, and the character Yuen 
indicates that it dates from the Yuen Dynasty." — H. C.] 

t This is also, as regards Customs payments, the system of the Govenmient of modem Italy. 



428 



MARCO POLO Book II. 



explain Marco's description of it as black. By Dr. Lockhart's kindness I am enabled 
to give a reduced representation of this note, as near a facsimile as we have been able 
to render it, but with some restoration, e.g. of the seals, of which on the original 
there is the barest indication remaining. 

[Mr. Vissering {Chinese Currency, Addenda, I. -III.) gives a fiicsimile and a de- 
scription of a Chinese banknote of the Ming Dynasty belonging to the collection of the 
Asiatic Museum of the Academy of Sciences at St. Petersburg. " In the eighth year 
of the period Hung-wu {1375), the Emperor Tai-tsu issued an order to his minister of 
finances to make the Pao-tsao (precious bills) of the Ta-Ming Dynasty, and to employ as 
raw material for the composition of those bills the fibres of the mulberry tree." — H. C] 

Notwithstanding the disuse of Government issues of paper-money from that time 
till recent years, there had long been in some of the cities of China a large use of 
private and local promissory notes as currency. In Fuchau this was especially the 
case ; bullion was almost entirely displaced, and the banking-houses in that city were 
counted by hundreds. These were under no government control ; any individual or 
company having sufficient capital or credit could establish a bank and issue their bills, 
which varied in amount from loo cash to looo dollars. Some fifteen years ago the 
Imperial Government seems to have been induced by the exhausted state of the Treasury, 
and these large examples of the local use of paper-currency, to consider projects for 
resuming that system after the disuse of four centuries. A curious report by a 
Committee of the Imperial Supreme Council, on a project for such a currency, appears 
among the papers published by the Russian Mission at Peking. It is unfavourable to 
the particular project, but we gather from other sources that the Government not long 
afterwards did open banks in the large cities of the Empire for the issue of a new 
oaper-currency, but that it met with bad success. At Fuchau, in 1858, I learn from 
Dne notice, the dollar was worth from 18,000 to 20,000 cash in Government Bills. 
Dr. Rennie, in 1861, speaks of the dollar at Peking as valued at 15,000, and later at 
25,000 paper cash. Sushun, the Regent, had issued a vast number of notes through 
banks of his own in various parts of Peking. These he failed to redeem, causing the 
failure of all the banks, and great consequent commotion in the city. The Regent 
had led the Emperor [Hien Fung] systematically into debauched habits which ended 
in paralysis. On the Emperor's death the Empress caused the arrest and execution 
of Sushun. His conduct in connection with the bank failures was so bitterly resented 
that when the poor wretch was led to execution (8th November, 1861), as I learn from 
an eye-witness, the defrauded creditors lined the streets and cheered.* 

The Japanese also had a paper-currency in the 14th century. It is different in 
form from that of China. That figured by Siebold is a strip of strong paper doubled, 
6 J in. long by if in. wide, bearing a representation of the tutelary god of riches, with 
long inscriptions in Chinese characters, seals in black and red, and an indication of 
value in ancient Japanese characters. I do not learn whether notes of considerable 
amount are still used in Japan ; but Sir R. Alcock speaks of banknotes for small 
change from 30 to 500 cash and more, as in general use in the interior. 

Two notable and disastrous attempts to imitate the Chinese system of currency 
took place in the Middle Ages ; one of them in Persia, apparently in Polo's very 
presence, the other in India some 36 years later. 

The first was initiated in 1294 by the worthless Kaikhatu Khan, when his own 
and his ministers' extravagance had emptied the Treasury, on the suggestion of a 
financial officer called 'Izzuddfn Muzaffar. The notes were direct copies of KubMi's, 
even the Chinese characters being imitated as part of the device upon them.f The 

* The fust edition of this work gave a facsimile of one of this unlucky minister's notes. 

t On both sides, however, was the Mahomedan formula, and beneath that the words Yiranjln 
THrj'i, a title conferred on the kings of Persia by the Kaan. There was also an inscription to the 
following eflfect : that the Emperor in the year 693 (a.h.) had issued these auspicious chao, that all 
who forged or uttered false notes should be summarily punished, with their wives and childien, and 
their property confiscated ; and that when these auspicious notes were once in circulation, poverty 
would vanish, provisions become cheap, and rich and poor be equal {Cowelf). The use of the term 
chao at Tabriz may be compared with that of Biinkloi, current in modern India. 



Chv. XXIV. IMITATIONS OF CHINESE PAPER CURRENCY 429 

Chinese name Chao was applied to them, and the Mongol Resident at Tabriz, Pulad 
Chingsang, was consulted in carrying out the measure. Expensive preparations were 
made for this object ; offices called Chdo-Khdtiahs were erected in the principal cities 
of the provinces, and a numerous staff appointed to carry out the details. Ghazan 
Khan in Khorasan, however, would have none of it, and refused to allow any of these 
preparations to be made within his government. After the constrained use of the 
Chao for two or three days Tabriz was in an uproar ; the markets were closed ; the 
people rose and murdered 'Izzuddfn ; and the whole project had to be abandoned. 
Marco was in Persia at this time, or just before, and Sir John Malcolm not unnaturally 
suggests that he might have had something to do with the scheme ; a su^estion which 
excites a needless commotion in the breast of M. Pauthier. We may draw from the 
story the somewhat notable conclusion that Block-printing was practised, at least for 
this one purpose, at Tabriz in 1294. 

The other like enterprise was that of Sultan Mahomed Tughlak of Delhi, in 
1330-31. This also was undertaken for like reasons, and was in professed imitation 
of the Chao of Cathay. Mahomed, however, used copper tokens instead of paper ; 
the copper being made apparently of equal weight to the gold or silver coin which it 
represented. The system seems to have had a little more vogue than at Tabriz, but 
was speedily brought to an end by the ease with which forgeries on an enormous 
scale were practised. The Sultan, in hopes of reviving the credit of his currency, 
ordered that every one bringing copper tokens to the Treasury should have them 
cashed in gold or silver. " The people who in despair had flung aside their copper 
coins like stones and bricks in their houses, all rushed to the Treasury and exchanged 
them for gold and silver. In this way the Treasury soon became empty, but the 
copper coins had as little circulation as ever, and a very grievous blow was given to the 
State." 

An odd issue of currency, not of paper, but of leather, took place in Italy a few 
years before Polo's birth. The Emperor Frederic II., at the siege of Faenza in 
1 24 1, being in great straits for money, issued pieces of leather stamped with the mark 
of his mint at the value of his Golden Augustals. This leather coinage was very 
popular, especially at Florence, and it was afterwards honourably redeemed by 
Frederic's Treasury. Popular tradition in Sicily reproaches William the Bad among 
his other sins with having issued money of leather, but any stone is good enough to 
cast at a dog with such a surname. 

[Ma Twan-lin mentions that in the fourth year of the period Yuen Show (B.C. 119), 
a currency of white metal and deer-sh'nwas made. Mr. Vissering (Chinese Currency, 
38) observes that the skin-taUies " were purely tokens, and have had nothing in 
common with the leather-money, which was, during a long time, current in Russia. 
This Russian skin-money had a truly representative character, as the parcels were 
used instead of the skins from which they were cut ; the skins themselves being too 
bulky and heavy to be constantly carried backward and forward, only a little piece 
was cut off, to figure as a token of possession of the whole skin. The ownership of the 
skin was proved when the piece fitted in the hole." 

Mr Rockhill {Rubruck, 201 note) says : " As early as B.C. 1 18, we find the Chinese 
using 'leather-money' (fi pi). These were pieces of white deer-skin, a foot 
square, with a coloured border. Each had a value of 40,000 cash. {Ma Twan-lin, 
Bk. 8, 5.)" 

Mr Charles F. Keary (Coins and Medals, by S. Lane Poole, 128) mentions that 
" in the reign of Elizabeth there was a very extensive issue of private tokens in lead, 
tin, lalten, and leather."— II. C] 

(Klapr. in Mim. Rel, a TAsie, I. 375 seqq. ; Biot, in/. As. ser. III. tom. iv. ; 
Marsdenanii Pauthier, in loco; Parkes, in/. R. A. S. XIII. 179; Doolittle, ^$2 
seqq. ; Wylie,J. of Shaytghai Lit. and Scient. Soc. No. I. ; Arbeiten der kais. russ. 
Gesanckch. zu Peking, I. p. 48 ; Rennie, Peking, etc., I. 296, 347 ; Birch, in Num. 
Chron. XII. 169; Information from Dr. Lockhart ; Alcock, II. 86 ; UOhsson, IV. 
53 ; Cowell, in /. A. S. B. XXIX. 183 seqq. ; Thomas, Coins of Patan Sovs. of 



430 MARCO POLO Book II. 

Hind, (from Nuntism. Chron. 1852), p. 139 seqq. ; KingtotCs Fred. II. II. 195 ; 
Amari, III. 816; W. Vissering, On Chinese Currency, Leiden, 1877.) 

["Without doubt the Mongols borrowed the bank-note system from the Kin. Up 
to the present time there is in Si-ngan-fu a block kept, which was used for printing the 
bank-notes of the Kin Dynasty. I have had the opportunity of seeing a print of those 
bank-notes, they were of the same size and shape as the bank-notes of the Ming. 
A reproduction of the text of the Kin bank-notes is found in the Kin shi ts^ui piett. 
This copy has the characters /^zi? kiian (precious charter) and the years of reign Cheng 
Yew, 1213-1216. The first essay of the Mongols to introduce bank-notes dates from 
the time of Ogodai Khan (i229-i242>, but Chinese history only mentions the fact 
without giving details. At that time silk in skeins was the only article of a determinate 
value in the trade and on the project of Ye lii cKu ts'ai, minister of Ogodai, the taxes 
were also collected in silk delivered by weight. It can therefore be assumed that the 
name sze cKao (i.e. bank-notes referring to the weight of silk) dates back to the same 
time. At any rate, at a later time, as, under the reign of Kubilai, the issuing of bank- 
notes was decreed, silk was taken as the standard to express the value of silver and 
Iooo//a«^silk was estimated = 50 /za«_f (or i ^/«^) silver. Thus, in consequence of those 
measures, it gradually became a rule to transfer the taxes and rents originally paid in 
silk, into silver. The wealth of the Mongol Khans in precious metals was renowned. 
The accounts regarding their revenues, however, which we meet with occasionally in 
Chinese history, do not surprise by their vastness. In the year 1 298, for instance, the 
amount of the revenue is stated in the Stu fung Kien to have been : — 

19,000 Hang of gold = (190,000 //aw^ of silver, according to the exchange of that 
time at the rate of I to 10). 

60,000 //awf of silver. 

3,600,000 ting of silver in bank-notes (i.e. 180 millions Hang) ; altogether 
180,250,000 Hang of silver. 
The number seems indeed very high for that time. But if the exceedingly low 
exchange of the bank-notes be taken into consideration, the sum will be reduced to a 
modest amount." {Palladius, pp. 50-51.) — H. C] 

[Dr. Bretschneider [Hist. Boti Disc, I. p. 4) makes the following remark : — " Polo 
states (I. 409) that the Great Kaan causeth the bark of great Mulberry-trees, made 
into something like paper, to pass for money." He seems to be mistaken. Paper in 
China is not made from mulberry- trees but from the BroussoneHa papyri/era, 
which latter tree belongs to the same order of Moraceae. The same fibres are used 
also in some parts of China for making cloth, and Marco Polo alludes probably to 
the same tree when stating (II. 108) " that in the province of Cuiju (Kwei chau) they 
manufacture stuff" of the bark of certain trees, which form very fine summer 
clothing."— H. C] 



CHAPTER XXV. 



Concerning the Twelve Barons who are set over all the 
Affairs of the Great Kaan. 

You must know that the Great Kaan hath chosen 
twelve great Barons to whom he hath committed all 
the necessary affairs of thirty-four great provinces ; and 



Chap. XXV. THE KAAN'S TWELVE BARONS 43 1 

now I will tell you particulars about them and their 
establishments. 

You must know that these twelve Barons reside all 
together in a very rich and handsome palace, which is 
inside the city of Cambaluc, and consists of a variety of 
edifices, with many suites of apartments. To every 
province is assigned a judge and several clerks, and all 
reside in this palace, where each has his separate 
quarters. These judges and clerks administer all the 
affairs of the provinces to which they are attached, 
under the direction of the twelve Barons. Howbeit, 
when an affair is of very great importance, the twelve 
Barons lay in before the Emperor, and he decides as 
he thinks best. But the power of those twelve Barons 
is so great that they choose the governors for all those 
thirty-four great provinces that I have mentioned, and 
only after they have chosen do they inform the 
Emperor of their choice. This he confirms, and grants 
to the person nominated a tablet of gold such as is 
appropriate to the rank of his government. 

Those twelve Barons also have such authority that 
they can dispose of the movements of the forces, and 
send them whither, and in such strength, as they please. 
This is done indeed with the Emperor's cognizance, 
but still the orders are issued on their authority. They 
are styled Shieng, which is as much as to say "The 
Supreme Court," and the palace where they abide is 
also called Shieng. This body forms the highest 
authority at the Court of the Great Kaan ; and indeed 
they can favour and advance whom they will. I will 
not now name the thirty-four provinces to you, because 
they will be spoken of in detail in the course of this 
Book.i 

Note i. — Pauthier's extracts from the Chinese Annals of the Dynasty, in illustra- 
tion of this subject, are interesting. These, as he represents them, show the Council 



432 MARCO POLO Book II. 

of Ministers usually to have consisted of twelve high officials, viz. : two CKing-siang 
f ^ ^] ""^ (chief) ministers of state, one styled, "of the Right," and the other "of 
the Left " ; four called P'ing-chang ching-ssi, which seems to mean something like 
ministers in charge of special departments ; four assistant ministers ; two Counsellors. 

Rashiduddin, however, limits the Council to the first two classes: "Strictly 
speaking, the Council of State is composed of four Ch'ing-sang [Ch^ing-siang) or great 
officers (Waz/rs Tie afterwards terms them), and four Fanchan (F'mg-c/iang) or 
associated members, taken from the nations of the Tajiks, Cathayai>s, Ighurs, and 
Arkaun" {i.e. Nestorian Christians). (Compare p. 418, supra.) 

[A Samarkand man, Seyyd Tadj Eddin Hassan ben el Khallal, quoted in the 
Masdlak al Absdr, says : " Near the Khan are two amfrs who are his ministers ; they 
are called DJing San \ \>o.X^.r=>> (Ch'ing-siang). After them come the two Bidjan 

^V<^ (P'ing Chang), then the two Zoudjin Ifir^^) (Tso Chen), then the two 
Yudjin CrS^^. (Yu Chen), and at last the Landjun • -<iJ (Lang Chang), head 
of the scribes, and secretary of the sovereign. The Khan holds a sitting every day 
in the middle of a large building called Chen J— Ji (Sheng), which is very like our 
Palace of Justice." (C Schefer, Cent. Ec. Langues Or., pp. 18-19.) — H. C] 

In a later age we find the twelve Barons reappearing in the pages of Mendoza : 
"The King hath in this city of Tabin (Peking), where he is resident, a royal council 
of twelve counsellors and a president, chosen men throughout all the kingdom, and 
such as have had experience in government many years." And also in the early 
centuries of the Christian era we hear that the Khan of the Turks had his twelve 
grandees, divided into those of the Right and those of the Left, probably a copy from 
a Chinese order then also existing. 

But to return to Rashiduddin : "As the Kaan generally resides at the capital, he 
has erected a place for the sittings of the Great Council, called Sing .... The 
dignitaries mentioned above are expected to attend daily at the Sing, and to make 
themselves acquainted with all that passes there." 

The Sing of Rashid is evidently the Shieng or Sheng [Scieng) of Polo. M. 
Pauthier is on this point somewhat contemptuous towards Neumann, who, he says, 
confounds Marco Polo's twelve Barons or Ministers of State with the chiefs 
of the twelve great provincial governments called Sing, who had their residence 
at the chief cities of those governments ; whilst in fact Polo's Scieng (he asserts) 
has nothing to do with the Sing, but represents the Chinese word Siang^^ ^ minister," 
and "the office of a minister." [There was no doubt a confusion between Siang 
ji^ and Sheng i^. — H. C] 

It is very probable that two different words, Siang and Sing, got confounded by 
the non-Chinese attaches of the Imperial Court ; but it seems to me quite certain that 
they applied the same word, Sing or Sheng, to both institutions, viz. to the High 
Council of State, and to the provincial governments. It also looks as if Marco Polo 
himself had made that very confusion with which Pauthier charges Neumann. For 
whilst here he represents the twelve Barons as forming a Council of State at the capital, 
we find further on, when speaking of the city of Yangchau, he says : " £i si siet en 
ceste citd tins des xii Barons du Grant Kaan ; car elle est esleue potir tin des xii sieges," 
where the last word is probably a mistranscription of Sciengs, or Sings, and in any 
case the reference is to a distribution of the empire into twelve governments. 

To be convinced that Sing was used by foreigners in the double sense that I have 
said, we have only to proceed with Rashiduddin's account of the administration. 
After what we have already quoted, he goes on : " The Sing of Khanbaligh is the 
most eminent, and the building is very large. . . • Sings do not exist in all the 
cities, but only in the capitals of great provinces. ... In the whole empire of the 
Kaan there are twelve of these Sings ; but that of Khanbaligh is the only one which 
has Ching-sangs amongst its members." Wass.-if again, after describing the greatness 
of Khanzai (Kinsay of Polo) says : " These circumstances characterize the capital 



Chap. XXVI. THE KAAN'S POSTS AND RUNNERS 433 

itself, but four hundred cities of note, and embracing ample territories, are dependent 
on its jurisdiction, insomuch that the most inconsiderable of those cities surpasses 
Baghdad and Shiraz. In the number of these cities are Lankinfii and Zaitun, and 
Cliinkalan ; for tliey call Khanzai a Shittg, i.e. a great city in which the high and 
mighty Council of Administration holds its meetings." Friar Odoric again says: 
"This empire hath been divided by the Lord thereof into twelve parts, each one 
thereof is termed a Singo." 

Polo, it seems evident to me, knew nothing of Chinese. His Shieng is no direct 
attempt to represent any Chinese word, but simply the term that lie had been used to 
employ in talking Persian or Turki, in the way that Rashiduddin and Wassaf employ 
it. 

I find no light as to the thirty-four provinces into which Polo represents the 
empire as divided, unless it be an enumeration of the provinces and districts which he 
describes in the second and third parts of Bk. II., of which it is not difficult to reckon 
thirty-three or thkty-four, but not worth while to repeat the calculation. 

[China was then divided into twelve Shengox provinces : Cheng-Tung, Liao-Yang, 
Chung-Shu, Shen-Si, Ling-Pe (Karakorum), Kan-Suh, Sze-ch'wan, Ho-Nan Kiang- 
Pe, Kiang-Che, Kiang-Si, Hu-Kwang and Yun-Nan. Rashiduddin {J. As., XI. 
1883, p. 447) says that of the twelve Sing, Khanbaligh was the only one with Chin- 
siang. We read in MorrisorCs Diet. (PL II. vol. i. p. 70) : " Chin-seang, a Minister 
of State, was so called under the Ming Dynasty," According to Mr. E. H. Parker 
{China Review, xxiv. p. loi), Ching Siang were abolished in 1395. I imagine that 
the thirty-four provinces refer to the Fu cities, which numbered however thirty-nine, 
according to Oxenham's Historical Atlas. — H. C] 

(Cathay, 263 seqq. and 137 ; Mendoza, I. 96 ; Erdmann, 142 ; Hammer's Wassdf, 
p. 42, but corrected. ) 



CHAPTER XXVI. 



How THE Kaan's Posts and Runners are sped through many 
Lands and Provinces. 

Now you must know that from this city of Cambaluc 
proceed many roads and highways leading to a variety 
of provinces, one to one province, another to another ; 
and each road receives the name of the province to 
which it leads ; and it is a very sensible plan.^ And the 
messengers of the Emperor in travelling from Cambaluc, 
be the road whichsoever they will, find at every twenty- 
five miles of the journey a station which they call Yamb^ 
or, as we should say, the " Horse-Post-House." And at 
each of those stations used by the messengers, there is 
a large and handsome building for them to put up at, in 
VOL. 1, 2 E 



434 MARCO POLO Book II. 

which they find all the rooms furnished with fine beds 
and all other necessary articles in rich silk, and where 
they are provided with everything they can want. If 
even a king were to arrive at one of these, he would find 
himself well lodged. 

At some of these stations, moreover, there shall be 
posted some four hundred horses standing ready for the 
use of the messengers ; at others there shall be two 
hundred, according to the requirements, and to what 
the Emperor has established in each case. At every 
twenty-five miles, as I said, or anyhow at every thirty 
miles, you find one of these stations, on all the principal 
highways leading to the different provincial govern- 
ments ; and the same is the case throughout all the 
chief provinces subject to the Great Kaan.^ Even 
when the messengers have to pass through a roadless 
tract where neither house nor hostel exists, still there 
the station-houses have been established just the same, 
excepting that the intervals are somewhat greater, and 
the day's journey is fixed at thirty-five to forty-five 
miles, instead of twenty-five to thirty. But they are 
provided with horses and all the other necessaries just 
like those we have described, so that the Emperor's 
messengers, come they from what region they may, find 
everything ready for them, v 

And in sooth this is a thing done on the greatest 
scale of magnificence that ever was seen. Never had 
emperor, king, or lord, such wealth as this manifests ! 
For it is a fact that on all these posts taken together 
there are more than 300,000 horses kept up, specially 
for the use of the messengers. And the great buildings 
that I have mentioned are more than 10,000 in number, 
all richly furnished, as I told you. The thing is on a 
scale so wonderful and costly that it is hard to bring 
oneself to describe it.* 



Chap. XXVI. THE KAAN'S POSTS AND RUNNERS 435 

But now I will tellyou another thing that I had 
forgotten, but which ought to be told whilst I am on this 
subject. You must know that by the Great Kaan's 
orders there has been established between those post- 
houses, at every interval of three miles, a little fort with 
some forty houses round about it, in which dwell the 
people who act as the Emperor's foot-runners. Every 
one of those runners wears a great wide belt, set all over 
with bells, so that as they run the three miles from post 
to post their bells are heard jingling a long way off. 
And thus on reaching the post the runner finds another 
man similarly equipt, and all ready to take his place, 
who instantly takes over whatsoever he has in charge, 
and with it receives a slip of paper from the clerk, who 
is always at hand for the purpose ; and so the new man 
sets off and runs his three miles. At the next station he 
finds his relief ready in like manner ; and so the post 
proceeds, with a change at every three miles. And in 
this way the Emperor, who has an immense number of 
these runners, receives despatches with news from places 
ten days' journey off in one day and night ; or, if need 
be, news from a hundred days off in ten days and 
nights; and that is no small matter! (In fact in the 
fruit season many a time fruit shall be gathered one 
morning in Cambaluc, and the evening of the next day 
it shall reach the Great Kaan at Chandu, a distance of 
ten days' journey.^ The clerk at each of the posts notes 
the time of each courier's arrival and departure ; and 
there are often other officers whose business it is to 
make monthly visitations of all the posts, and to punish 
those runrrers who have been slack in their work.®) The 
Emperor exempts these men from all tribute, and pays 
them besides. 

Moreover, there are also at those stations other men 
equipt similarly with girdles hung with bells, who are 
VOL. u 2 E 2 



43^ MARCO POLO Book II. 

employed for expresses when there is a call for great 
haste in sending despatches to any governor of a 
province, or to give news when any Baron has revolted, 
or in other such emergencies ; and these men travel 
a good two hundred or two hundred and fifty miles in 
the day, and as much in the night. I'll tell you how it 
stands. They take a horse from those at the station 
which are standing ready saddled, all fresh and in wind, 
and mount and go at full speed, as hard as they can ride 
in fact. And when those at the next post hear the bells 
they get ready another horse and a man equipt in the 
same way, and he takes over the letter or whatever it 
be, and is off full-speed to the third station, where again 
a fresh horse is found all ready, and so the despatch 
speeds along from post to post, always at full gallop, 
with regular change of horses. And the speed at which 
they go is marvellous. (By night, however, they 
cannot go so fast as by day, because they have to be 
accompanied by footmen with torches, who could not 
keep up with them at full speed.) 

Those men are highly prized ; and they could never 
do it, did they not bind hard the stomach, chest and 
head with strong bands. And each of them carries 
with him a gerfalcon tablet, in sign that he is bound on 
an urgent express ; so that if perchance his horse break 
down, or he meet with other mishap, whomsoever he 
may fall in with on the road, he is empowered to make 
him dismount and give up his horse. Nobody dares 
refuse in such a case ; so that the courier hath always a 
good fresh nag to carry him.'^ 

Now all these numbers of post-horses cost the 
Emperor nothing at all ; and I will tell you the how and 
the why. Every city, or village, or hamlet, that stands 
near one of those post-stations, has a fixed demand made 
on it for as many horses as it can supply, and these it 



Chap. XXVI. THE KAAJTS POSTS AND RUNNERS 437 

must furnish to the post. And in this way are provided 
all the posts of the cities, as well as the towns and 
villages round about them ; only in uninhabited tracts 
the horses are furnished at the expense of the Emperor 
himself. 

(Nor do the cities maintain the full number, say of 
400 horses, always at their station, but month by month 
200 shall be kept at the station, and the other 200 at 
grass, coming in their turn to relieve the first 2CX). And 
if there chance to be some river or lake to be passed by 
the runners and horse-posts, the neighbouring cities are 
bound to keep three or four boats in constant readiness 
for the purpose.) 

And now I will tell you of the great bounty exercised 
by the Emperor towards his people twice a year. 



Note i.— The G. Text has " et ce est niout scue chouse " ; Pauthier's Text, " mais il 
est moult celi." The latter seems absurd. I have no doubt that s^ue is correct, and 
is an Italianism, saputo having sometimes the sense of prudent or judicious. Thus 
P. della Valle (II. 26), speaking of Shah Abbas : "Ma noti V.S. i tiri di questo re, 
saputo insieme e bizzarro," " acute with all his eccentricity." 

Note 2. — Both Neumann and Pauthier seek Chinese etymologies of this Mongol 
word, which the Tartars carried with them all over Asia. It survives in Persian and 
Turki in the senses both of a post-house and a post-horse, and in Russia, in the former 
sense, is a relic of the Mongol dominion. The ambassadors of Shah Rukh, on arriving 
at Sukchu, were lodged in the Ydm-Khdna, or post-house, by the city gate ; and they 
found ninety -nine such Yams between Sukchu and Khanbaligh, at each of which they 
were supplied with provisions, servants, beds, night-clothes, etc. Odoric likewise 
speaks of the hostelries called Yam, and Rubruquis applies the same term to quarters 
in the imperial camp, whic'n were assigned for the lodgment of ambassadors. {Cathay, 
cciL 137; Ruhr. 310.) 

[Mr. Rockhill {Rubnick, loi, note) says that these post-stations were established 
by Okkodai in 1234 throughout the Mongol empire. {D'Ohsson, ii. 63.) Dr. G. 
Schlegel {Voung Pao, II. 1891, 265, note) observes that iam is not, as Pauthier 
supposed, a contraction of yi-mh, horse post-house {yt-m^ means post-horse, and 
Pauthier makes a mistake), but represents the Chinese character ^, pronounced at 
present chdn, which means in fact a road station, a post. In Annamite, this character 
f^ is pronounced irqm, and it means, according to Bonefs Diet. Annamite- Francois : 
" Relais de poste, station de repos." (See Bretsckneider, Med. Res. I. p. 187 note.) 
— H. C] 

Note 3. — Martini and Magaillans, in the 17th century, give nearly the same 
account of the government hostelries. 

Note 4. — Here Ramusio has this digression : " Should any one find it difficult to 
understand how there should be such a population as all this impUes, and how ihey 



438 



MARCO POLO Book It. 



can subsist, the answer is that all the Idolaters, and Saracens as well, take six, eight, 
or ten wives apiece when they can afford it, and beget an infinity of children. In 
fact, you shall find many men who have each more than thirty sons who form an 
armed retinue to their father, and this through the fact of his having so many wives. 
With us, on the other hand, a man hath but one wife ; and if she be barren, still he 
must abide by her for life, and have no progeny ; thus we have not such a population 
as they have. 

"And as regards food, they have abundance; for they generally consume rice, 
panic, and millet (especially the Tartars, Cathayans, and people of Manzi) ; and 
these three crops in those countries render an hundred-fold. Those nations use no 
bread, but only boil those kinds of grain with milk or meat for their victual. Their 
wheat, indeed, does not render so much, but this they use only to make vermicelli, 
and pastes of that description. No spot of arable land is left unfilled ; and their 
cattle are infinitely prolific, so that when they take the field every man is followed by 
six, eight, or more horses for his own use. Thus you may clearly perceive how the 
population of those parts is so great, and how they have such an abundance of food." 

Note 5. — The Burmese kings used to have the odoriferous Durian transmitted by 
horse-posts from Tenasserim to Ava. But the most notable example of the rapid 
transmission of such dainties, and the nearest approach I know of to their despatch 
by telegraph, was that practised for the benefit of the Fatimite Khalif Aziz (latter 
part of loth century), who had a great desire for a dish of cherries of Balbek. The 
Wazir Yakub ben- Kills caused six hundred pigeons to be despatched from Balbek to 
Cairo, each of which carried attached to either leg a small silk bag containing a 
cherry! {Quaf. Makrizi, IV. 118.) 

Note 6. — "Note is taken at every post," says Amyot, in speaking of the Chinese 
practice of last century, " of the time of the courier's arrival, in order that it may be 
known at what point delays have occurred." (J//;«. VIII. 185.) 

Note 7. — The post-system is described almost exactly as in the text by Friar 
Odoric and the Archbishop of Soltania, in the generation after Polo, and very much 
in the same way by Magaillans in the 17th century. Posts had existed in China from 
an old date. They are spoken of by Mas'udi and the Relations of the 9th century. 
They were also employed under the ancient Persian kings ; and they were in use in 
India, at least in the generation after Polo. The Mongols, too, carried the institution 
wherever they went. 

Polo describes the couriers as changed at short intervals, but more usually in 
Asiatic posts the same man rides an enormous distance. The express courier in 
Tibet, as described by "the Pandit," rides from Gartokh to Lhasa, a distance of 800 
miles, travelling day and night. The courier's coat is sealed upon him, so that he 
dares not take off his clothes till the seal is officially broken on his arrival at the 
terminus. These messengers had faces cracked, eyes bloodshot and sunken, and 
bodies raw with vermin. {J. R. G. S. XXXVIII. p. 149.) The modern Turkish post 
from Constantinople to Baghdad, a distance of 1 100 miles, is done in twenty days by 
four Tartars riding night and day. The changes are at Sivas, Diarbekir, and Mosul. 
M. Tchihatcheff calculates that the night riding accomplishes only one quarter of the 
whole. [Asie Mineure, 2de Ptie. 632-635.) — See I. p. 352, pdi tze. 



Chap. XXVII. IIOW THE KAAN HELPS HIS PEOPLE 439 



CHAPTER XXVII. • 

How THE Emperor bestows Help on his People, when they 

ARE AFFLICTED WITH DEARTH OR MURRAIN. 

Now you must know that the Emperor sends his 
Messengers over all his Lands and Kingdoms and 
Provinces, to ascertain from his officers if the people are 
afflicted by any dearth through unfavourable seasons, or 
storms or locusts, or other like calamity ; and from those 
who have suffered in this way no taxes are exacted for 
that year; nay more, he causes them to be supplied 
with corn of his own for food and seed. Now this is 
undoubtedly a great bounty on his part. And when 
winter comes, he causes inquiry to be made as to those 
who have lost their cattle, whether by murrain or other 
mishap, and such persons not only go scot free, but get 
presents of cattle. And thus, as I tell you, the Lord 
every year helps and fosters the people subject to him. 

[There is another trait of the Great Kaan I should 
tell you ; and that is, that if a chance shot from his bow 
strike any herd or flock, whether belonging to one person 
or to many, and however big the flock may be, he takes 
no tithe thereof for three years. In like manner, if the 
arrow strike a boat full of goods, that boat-load pays no 
duty ; for it is thought unlucky that an arrow strike any 
one's property ; and the Great Kaan says it would be an 
abomination before God, were such property, that has 
been struck by the divine wrath, to enter into his 
Treasury.^] 

Note i. — The Chinese author already quoted as to Kiiblai's character (Note 2, cb. 
xxiii. su/fra) says : " This Prince, at the sight of some evil prognostic, or when there 
was dearth, would remit taxation, and cause grain to be distributed to those who were 
in destitution. He would often complain that there never lacked informers if balances 
were due, or if corvies had been ordered, but when the necessities of the people 
required to be reported, not a word was said." 



440 MARCO POLO Book II. 

Wassdf tells a long story in illustration of Kubldi's justice and consideration for 
the peasantry. One of his sons, with a handful of followers, had got separated from 
the army, and halted at a village in the territory of Bishbaligh, where the people gave 
them sheep and wine. Next year two of the party came the same way and demanded 
a sheep and a stoup of wine. The people gave it, but went to the Kaan and told the 
story, sapng they feared it might grow into a perpetual exaction. Kublai sharply 
rebuked the Prince, and gave the people compensation and an order in their favour. 
{De Mailla, ix. 460 ; Hammer's Wassaf, 38-39. ) 



CHAPTER XXVIII. 



How THE Great Kaan causes Trees to be Planted by the 

Highways. 

The Emperor moreover hath taken order that all the 
highways travelled by his messengers and the people 
generally should be planted with rows of great trees a 
few paces apart ; and thus these trees are visible a long 
way off, and no one can miss the way by day or night. 
Even the roads through uninhabited tracts are thus 
planted, and it is the greatest possible solace to travellers. 
And this is done on all the ways, where it can be of 
service. [The Great Kaan plants these trees all the 
more readily, because his astrologers and diviners tell 
him that he who plants trees lives long.^ 

But where the ground is so sandy and desert that trees 
will not grow, he causes other landmarks, pillars or stones, 
to be set up to show the way.] 



Note i. — In this Kublai imitated the great King Asoka, or Priyadarsi, who m 
his graven edicts {circa B.C. 250) on the Delhi Pillar, says : " Along the high roads 
I have caused fig-trees to be planted, that they may be for shade to animals and men. 
I have also planted mango-trees ; and at every half-coss I have caused wells to be 
constructed, and resting-places for tlie night. And how many hostels have been 
erected by me at various places for the entertainment of man and beast." (/. A. S. B. 
IV, 604.) There are still remains of the fine avenues of KiibUi and his successors in 
various parts of Northern China. (See Williamson, i. 74.) 



Chap. XXIX. RICE-WINE 44 1 



CHAPTER XXIX. 

Concerning the Rice-Wine drunk by the people of Cathay. 

Most of the people of Cathay drink wine of the kind 
that I shall now describe. It is a liquor which they 
brew of rice with a quantity of excellent spice, in such 
fashion that it makes better drink than any other kind 
of wine ; it is not only good, but clear and pleasing to 
the eye.i And being very hot stuff, it makes one drunk 
sooner than any other wine. 



Note i. — The mode of making Chinese rice- wine is described in Amyot's 
Mimoires, V. 468 seqq. A kind of yeast is employed, with which is often mixed 
a flour prepared from fragrant herbs, almonds, pine-seeds, dried fruits, etc. Rubruquis 
says this liquor was not distinguishable, except by smell, from the best wine of 
Auxerre ; a wine so famous in the Middle Ages, that the Historian Friar, Salimbene, 
went from Lyons to Auxerre on purpose to drink it.* Ysbrand Ides compares the 
rice- wine to Rhenish ; John Bell to Canary ; a modem traveller quoted by Davis, 
"in colour, and a little in taste, to Madeira." [Friar Odoric {Cathay, i. p. 117) 
calls this wine bigni; Dr. Schlegel {7'oung Poo, ii. p. 264) says Odoric's wine was 
probably made with the date Mi-yin, pronounced Bi-im in old days. But Marco's 
wine is made of rice, and is called shoo hsing chitt. Mr. Rockhill {Rubruck, p. 166, 
note) writes : " There is another stronger liquor distilled &om millet, and called 
ihao chiu: in Anglo-Chinese, samshu ; Mongols call it araka, arrak, and arreki. Ma 
Twan-lin (Bk. 327) says that the Moho (the early Nu-chen Tartars) drank rice wine 
{mi chiu), but I fancy that they, like the Mongols, got it from the Chinese." 

Dr. Emil Bretschneider {Botanicon Sinicum, ii. pp. 154-158) gives a most interesting 
account of the use and fabrication of intoxicating beverages by the Chinese. " The 
invention of wine or spirits in China," he says, " is generally ascribed to a certain I Tl, 
who lived in the time of the Emperor Yii. According to others, the inventor of wine 
was Tu K'ang." One may refer also to Dr. Macgowan's paper On the "Mutton 
Wine" of the Mongols and Analogous Preparations of the Chinese, {four. N. China 
Br. R. As. Soc, 187 1- 1872, pp. 237-240.— H. C] 



* Kington's Fred. II. II. 457. So, in a French play of the 13th century, a publican 'va\as paitnt 
invites custom, with hot bread, hot herrings, and wine of Auxerre in plenty : — 
" Cbaiens, fait bon disner chaiens ; 
Chi a caut pain et caus herens, 
Et vin d Aucheurre k plain tonnel." — 

{Theat. Franf. au Moyen Age, 168.) 



442 MARCO POLO Book II. 



CHAPTER XXX. 

Concerning the Black Stones that are dug in Cathay, and 
ARE Burnt for Fuel. 

It is a fact that all over the country of Cathay there 
is a kind of black stones existing in beds in the moun- 
tains, which they dig out and burn like firewood. If 
you supply the fire with them at night, and see that they 
are well kindled, you will find them still alight in the 
morning ; and they make such capital fuel that no other 
is used throughout the country. It is true that they 
have plenty of wood also, but they do not burn it, 
because those stones burn better and cost less.^ 

[Moreover with that vast number of people, and the 
number of hot baths that they maintain — for every one 
has such a bath at least three times a week, and in' 
winter if possible every day, whilst every nobleman and 
man of wealth has a private bath for his own use — the 
wood would not suffice for the purpose.] 



No IE I. — There is a great consumption of coal in Northern China, especially in 
the brick stoves, which are universal, even in poor houses. Coal seems to exist in 
every one of the eighteen provinces of China, which in this respect is justly pronounced 
to be one of the most favoured countries in the world. Near the capital coal is mined 
at Yuen-ming-yuen, and in a variety of isolated deposits among the hills in the direction 
of the ICalgan road, and in the district round Siuen-hwa-fu. {Sindachu of Polo, ante 
ch. lix.) But the most important coal-fields in relation to the future are those of 
Shan-tung Hu-nan, Ho-nan, and Shan-si. The last is eminently /^^ coal and iron 
province of China, and its coal-field, as described by Baron Richthofen, combines, in 
an extraordinary manner, all the advantages that can enhance the value of such a field 
except (at present) that of facile export ; whilst the quantity available is so great that 
from Southern Shan-si alone he estimates the whole world could be supplied, at the 
present rate of consumption, for several thousand years. " Adits, miles in length, 
could be driven within the body of the coal. . . . These extraordinary conditions 
. . . will eventually give rise to some curious features in mining .... if a railroad 
should ever be built from the plain to this region .... branches of it will be con- 
structed within the body of one or other of these beds of anthracite." Baron 
Richthofen, in the paper which we quote from, indicates the revolution in the deposit of 
the world's wealth and power, to wliich such facts, combined with other characteristics 
of China, point as probable ; a revolution so vast that its contemplation seems like that 
of a planetary catastrophe. 



Chap. XXXI. STONE FUEL 443 

In the coal-fields of Hu-nan " the mines are chiefly opened where the rivers intersect 
the inclined strata of the coal-measures and allow the coal-beds to be attacked by the 
miner immediately at their out-croppings." 

At the highest point of the Great Kiang, reached by Sarel and Blakiston, they foand 
mines on the cliffs over the river, firom which the coal was sent down by long bamboo 
cables, the loaded baskets drawing up the empty ones. 

[Many coal-fields have been explored since ; one of the most important is the 
coal-field of the Yun-nan province ; the finest deposits are perhaps those found in the 
bend of the Kiang ; coal is found also at Mong-Tzu, Lin-ngan, etc. ; this rich coal 
region has been explored in 1898 by the French engineer A. Leclere. (See Congres 
int. G^og.y Paris, 1900, pp. 178-184.) — H. C] 

In various parts of China, as in Che-kiang, Sze-ch'wan, and at Peking, they form 
powdered coal, mixed with mud, into bricks, somewhat like our " patent fuel." This 
practice is noticed by Ibn Batuta, as well as the use of coal in making porcelain, 
though this he seems to have misunderstood. Rashiduddin also mentions the use of 
coal in China. It was in use, according to citations of Pauthier's, before the Christian 
era. It is a popular beUef in China, that every provincial capital is bound to be 
established over a coal-field, so as to have a provision in case of siege. It is said that 
during the British siege of Canton mines were opened to the north of the city. 

( The Distribution of Coal in China, by Baron Richthofen, in Ocean Highways, 
N.S., I. 311 ; Macgowan in Ch. Repos. xix. 385-387; Blakiston, 133, 265; Mid. 
Kingdom, I. 73, 78; Amyot, xi. 334; Cathay, 261, 478, 482; Notes by Rev. A. 
Williamson in/. N. Ch. Br. R. A. S., December, 1867 ; Hedde and Rondot, p. 63.) 

^neas Sylvius relates as a miracle that took place before his eyes in Scotland, 
that poor and almost naked b^gars, when stones were given them as alms at the 
church doors, went away quite delighted ; for stones of that kind were imbued either 
with brimstone or with some oily matter, so that they could be burnt instead of wood, 
of which the country was destitute. (Quoted by Jos. Robertson, Statuta Eccles. 
Scotic, I. xciii.) 



CHAPTER XXXI. 



How THE Great Kaan causes Stores of Corn to be made, to 
HELP HIS People withal in time of Dearth. 

You must know that when the Emperor sees that corn 
is cheap and abundant, he buys up large quantities, and 
has it stored in all his provinces in great granaries, 
where it is so well looked after that it will keep for three 
or four years. ^ 

And this applies, let me tell you, to all kinds of corn, 
whether wheat, barley, millet, rice, panic, or what not, 
and when there is any scarcity of a particular kind of 
corn, he causes that to be issued. And if the price of 



444 MARCO POLO ' Book II. 

the corn is at one bezant the measure, he lets them have 
it at a bezant for four measures, or at whatever price will 
produce general cheapness ; and every one can have food 
in this way. And by this providence of the Emperor's, 
his people can never suffer from dearth. He does the 
same over his whole Empire ; causing these supplies to 
be stored everywhere, according to calculation of the 
wants and necessities of the people. 



Note i. — ^' Lefaiisi bien estuier que il dure bien trots ans ou quatre " (Pauthier) : 
" si bien estudier " (G. T. ). The word may be estiver (It. stivare), to stow, but I half 
suspect it should be estuver in the sense of " kiln-dry," though both the Geog. Latin 
and the Crusca render \\. gubernare* Lecomte says : " Rice is always stored in the 
public granaries for three or four years in advance. It keeps long if care be taken to 
air it and stir it about ; and although not so good to the taste or look as new rice, it is 
said to be more wholesome." 

The Archbishop of Soltania (a.d. 1330) speaks of these stores. "The said 
Emperor is very pitiful and compassionate. . . . and so when there is a dearth in the 
land he openeth his garners, and giveth forth of his wheat and his rice for half what 
others are selling it at." Kiiblai Kaan's measures of this kind are recorded in the 
annals of the Dynasty, as quoted by Pauthier. The same practice is ascribed to the 
sovereigns of the T'ang Dynasty by the old Arab Relations. In later days a missionary 
gives in the Lettres Edifiantes an unfavourable account of the action of these public 
granaries, and of the rascality that occurred in connection with them. {Lecomte, II. 
lOi ; Cathay, 240 ; Relat. I. 39 ; Let. Ed. xxiv. 76. ) 

[The Yuen-shi in ch. 96 contains sections on dispensaries {Hui min yao kU), 
granary regulations {Shi ti), and regulations for a time of dearth {Chen Sit), {Bretsch- 
neider, Med. Res. I. p. 187.)— H. C] 



CHAPTER XXXII. 
Of the Charity of the Emperor to the Poor. 

I HAVE told you how the Great Kaan provides for the 
distribution of necessaries to his people in time of 
dearth, by making store in time of cheapness. Now I 
will tell you of his alms and great charity to the poor 
of his city of Cambaluc. 

* Marsden observes incidentally (//?j/. of Sumatra, ist edition, p. 71) that he was told in Bengal 
they used to dry-kiln the rice for exportation, "owing to which, or to some other process, it will con- 
tinue good for several years." 



Chap. XXXII. THE KAAN'S CHARITY TO THE POOR 445 

You see he causes selection to be made of a number 
of families in the city which are in a state of indigence, 
and of such families some may consist of six in the 
house, some of eight, some of ten, more or fewer in each 
as it may hap, but the whole number being very 
great. And each family he causes annually to be 
supplied with wheat and other corn sufficient for the 
whole year. And this he never fails to do every year. 
Moreover, all those who choose to go to the daily dole 
at the Court receive a great loaf apiece, hot from the 
baking, and nobody is denied ; for so the Lord hath 
ordered. And so some 30,000 people go for it every 
day from year's end to year's end. Now this is a great 
goodness in the Emperor to take pity of his poor 
people thus ! And they benefit so much by it that they 
worship him as he were God. 

[He also provides the poor with clothes. For he 
lays a tithe upon all wool, silk, hemp, and the like, from 
which clothing can be made ; and he has these woven 
and laid up in a building set apart for the purpose; and 
as all artizans are bound to give a day's labour weekly, 
in this way the Kaan has these stuffs made into clothing 
for those poor families, suitable for summer or winter, 
according to the time of year. He also provides the 
clothing for his troops, and has woollens woven for them 
in every city, the material for which is furnished by the 
tithe aforesaid. You should know that the Tartars, 
before they were converted to the religion of the 
Idolaters, never practised almsgiving. Indeed, when 
any poor man begged of them they would tell him, 
" Go with God's curse, for if He loved you as He loves 
me. He would have provided for you." But the sages 
of the Idolaters, and especially the Bacsis mentioned 
before, told the Great Kaan that it was a good work 
to provide for the poor, and that his idols would be 



446 MARCO POLO ' Book II. 

greatly pleased if he did so. And since then he has 
taken to do for the poor so much as you have heard. ^] 

Note i. — This is a curious testimony to an ameliorating effect of Buddhism on 
rude nations. The general establishment of medical aid for men and animals is 
alluded to in the edicts of Asoka ; * and hospitals for the diseased and destitute were 
found by Fahian at Palibothra, whilst Hiuen Tsang speaks of the distribution of food 
and medicine at the Funyasdlds or " Houses of Beneficence," in the Panjab. 
Various examples of a charitable spirit in Chinese Institutions will be found in a letter 
by P^re d'EntrecoUes in the XV th Recueil of Lettres Edifiantes ; and a similar detail in 
Nevilles China and the Chinese, ch. xv. (See Prinsefs Essays, II. 15 ; Beats Fak- 
hian, 107; PH. Boudd. II. 190.) The Tartar sentiment towards the poor survives on 
the Arctic shores : — " The Yakuts regard the rich as favoured by the gods ; the poor as 
rejected and cast out by them." {Billings, Fr. Tranls. I. 233.) 



CHAPTER XXXIII. 

[Concerning the Astrologers in the City of Cambaluc] 

[There are in the city of Cambaluc, what with Christians, 
Saracens, and Cathayans, some five thousand astrologers 
and soothsayers, whom the Great Kaan provides with 
annual maintenance and clothing, just as he provides the 
poor of whom we have spoken, and they are in the con- 
stant exercise of their art in this city. 

They have a kind of astrolabe on which are inscribed 
the planetary signs, the hours and critical points of the 
whole year. And every year these Christian, Saracen, 
and Cathayan astrologers, each sect apart, investigate by 
means of this astrolabe the course and character of the 
whole year, according to the indications of each of its 
Moons, in order to discover by the natural course and 
disposition of the planets, and the other circumstances 
of the heavens, what shall be the nature of the weather, 
and what peculiarities shall be produced by each Moon 

• As rendered by J. Prinsep. But \ sfe that Professor H. H. Wilson did not admit the passage 
tp bear that meaning. 



Chap. XXXIII. THE ASTROLOGERS OF CAMBALUC 447 

of the year ; as, for example, under which Moon there 
shall be thunderstorms and tempests, under which there 
shall be disease, murrain, wars, disorders, and treasons, 
and so on, according to the indications of each ; but 
always adding that it lies with God to do less or 
more according to His pleasure. And they write dowm 
the results of their examination in certain little pamphlets 
for the year, which are called Tacuin^ and these are sold 
for a groat to all who desire to know what is coming. 
Those of the astrologers, of course whose predictions 
are found to be most exact, are held to be the greatest 
adepts in their art, and get the greater fame.^ 

And if any one having some great matter in hand, 
or proposing to make a long journey for traffic or other 
business, desires to know what will be the upshot, he 
goes to one of these astrologers and says : " Turn up 
your books and see what is the present aspect of the 
heavens, for I am going away on such and such a 
business." Then the astrologer will reply that the 
applicant must also tell the year, month, and hour of his 
birth ; and when he has got that information he will see 
how the horoscope of his nativity combines with the 
indications of the time when the question is put, and 
then he predicts the result, good or bad, according to 
the aspect of the heavens. 

You must know, too, that the Tartars reckon their 
years by twelves ; the sign of the first year being the 
Lion, of the second the Ox, of the third the Dragon, of 
the fourth the Dog, and so forth up to the twelfth ; " so 
that when one is asked the year of his birth he answers 
that it was in the year of the Lion (let us say), on such a 
day or night, at such an hour, and such a moment. 
And the father of a child always takes care to write 
these particulars down in a book. When the twelve 
yearly symbols have been gone through, then they come 



448 



MARCO POLO Book II. 



back to the first, and go through with them again in the 
same succession.] 



Note i. — It is odd that-Marsden should have sought a Chinese explanation of the 
Arabic word Takwtm, even with Tavernier before him : ' ' They sell in Persia an 
annual almanac called Tacutm, which is properly an ephemeris containing the 
longitude and latitude of the planets, their conjunctions and oppositions, and other 
such matter. The Tacuim is full of predictions regarding war, pestilence, and 
famine ; it indicates the favourable time for putting on new clothes, for getting bled 
or purged, for making a journey, and so forth. They put entire faith in it, and who- 
ever can afford one governs himself in all things by its rules." (Bk. V. ch. xiv.) 

The use of the term by Marco may possibly be an illustration of what I have else- 
where propounded, viz. that he was not acquainted with Chinese, but that his inter- 
course and conversation lay chiefly with the foreigners at the Kaan's Court, and probably 
was carried on in the Persian language. But not long after the date of our Book we 
find the word used in Italian by Jacopo Alighieri (Dante's son) : — 

*' A voler giudicare 
Si conviene adequare 
Inprimo il Tacciiino, 
Per vedere il cammino 
Come i Pianeti vanno 
Per tutto quanto I'anno." 

— Rifue Antiche Toscane, III. lo. 

Marco does not allude to the fact that almanacs were published by the Govern- 
ment, as they were then and still are. Pauthier (515 seqq.) gives some very curious 
details on this subject from the Annals of the Yuen. In the accounts of the year 
1328, it appears that no less than 3,123,185 copies were printed in three different sizes 
at different prices, besides a separate almanac for the Hwei-Hwei or Mahomedans. 
Had Polo not omitted to touch on the issue of almanacs by Government he could 
scarcely have failed to enter on the subject of printing, on which he has kept a silence 
so singular and unaccountable. 

The Chinese Government still " considers the publication of a Calendar of the 
first importance and utility. It must do everything in its power, not only to point 
out to its numerous subjects the distribution of the seasons, .... but on account 
of the general superstition it must mark in the almanac the lucky and unlucky days, 
the best days for being married, for undertaking a journey, for making their 
dresses, for buying or building, for presenting petitions to the Emperor, and for many 
other cases of ordinary life. By this means the Government keeps the people 
within the limits of humble obedience ; it is for this reason that the Emperors of 
China established the Academy of Astronomy." {Timk. I. 358.) The acceptance of 
the Imperial Almanac by a foreign Prince is considered an acknowledgment of 
vassalage to the Emperor. 

It is a penal offence to issue a pirated or counterfeit edition of the Government 
Almanac. No one ventures to be without one, lest he become liable to the greatest 
misfortunes by undertaking the important measures on black-balled days. 

The price varies now, according to Williams, from \\d. to ^d. a copy. The price 
in 1328 was i tsien or cash for the cheapest edition, and i Hang or tael of silver for 
the idiiion de luxe ; but as these prices were in paper-money it is extremely difficult 
to say, in the varying depreciation of that currency, what the price really amounted to. 

[" The Calendars for the use of the people, published by Imperial command, are of 
two kinds. The first, Wan-nien-shu, the Calendar of Ten Thousand Years, is an 
abridgment of the Calendar, comprising 397 years, viz. from 1624 to 2020. The 



tf 



% 




Chap. XXXIII. THE ASTROLOGERS OF CAMBALUC 449 

second and more complete Calendar is the Annual Calendar, which, under the pre- 
ceding djTiasties, was named Li-je, Order of Days, and is now called Shih-hsien-shu, 
Book of Constant Conformity (with the Heavens). This name was given by the 
Emperor Shun-chih, in the first year of his reign (1644), on being presented by Father 
John Schall ( Tang Jo-wang) with a new Calendar, calculated on the principles of 
European science. This Annual Calendar gives the following indications : ( 1°) The 
cyclical signs of the current year, of the months, and of all the days ; (2°) the long and 
short months, as well as the intercalary month, as the case may be ; (3°) the designa- 
tion of each day by the 5 elements, the 28 constellations, and the 12 happy 
presages ; (4°) the day and hour of the new moon, of the full moon, and of the two 
dichotomies, Shang hsien and Hsia-hsien ; (5°) the day and hour for iht positions of the 
sun in the 24 zodiacal signs, calculated for the various capitals of China as well 
as for Manchuria, Mongolia, and the tributary Kingdoms ; (6°) the hour of sunrise 
and sunset and the length of day and night for the principal days of the month in the 
several capitals ; (7°) various superstitious indications purporting to point out what days 
and hours are auspicious or not for such or such affairs in different places. Those 
superstitious indications are stated to have been introduced into the Calendar under 
the Yiian dynasty." {P. Hoang, Chinese Calendar, pp. 2-3.) — H. C] 

We may note that in Polo's time one of the principal officers of the Mathematical 
Board was Gaisue, a native of Folin or the Byzantine Empire, who was also in charge 
of the medical department of the Court. R^arding the Observatory, see note at 
p. 378, supra. 

And I am indebted yet again to the generous zeal of Mr. Wylie of Shanghai, for 
the principal notes and extracts which will, I trust, satisfy others as well as myself 
that the instruments in the garden of the Observatory belong to the period of Marco 
Polo's residence in China. * 

The objections to the alleged age of these instruments were entirely based on an 
inspection of photographs. The opinion was given very strongly that no instrument 
of the kind, so perfect in theory and in execution, could have been even imagined in 
those days, and that nothing of such scientific quahty could have been made except 
by the Jesuits. In fact it was asserted or implied that these instruments must have 
been made about the year 1700, and were therefore not earlier in age than those 
which stand on the terraced roof of the Obser\atory, and are well known to most 
of us from the representation in Duhalde and in many popular works. 

The only authority that I could lay hand on was Lecomte, and what he says was 
not conclusive. I extract the most pertinent passages : 

"It was on the terrace of the tower that the Chinese astronomers had set their 
instruments, and though few in number they occupied the whole area. But Father 
Verbiest, the Director of the Observatory, considering them useless for astronomical 
observation, persuaded the Emperor to let them be removed, to make way for several 
instruments of his own construction. The instruments set aside by the European 
astronomers are still in a hall adjoining the tower, buried in dust and oblivion ; and 
we saw them only through a grated window. They appeared to us to be very large 
and well cast, in form approaching our astronomical circles ; that is all that we could 
make out. There was, however, thrown into a back yard by itself, a celestial globe of 
bronze, of about 3 feet in diameter. Of this we were able to take a nearer view. 
Its form was somewhat oval ; the divisions by no means exact, and the whole work 
coarse enough. 

" Besides this in a lower hall they had established a gnomon. . . . This 
observatory, not worthy of much consideration for its ancient instruments, much 
less for its situation, itS'form, or its construction, is now enriched by several bronze 
instruments which Father Verbiest has placed there. These are large, well cast, 

* Besides the works quoted in the text I have only been able to consult Gaubil's notices, as 
abstracted in Lalande ; and the Introductory Remarks to Mr. J. Williams's Observations oj 
Comets .... extracted/roTti the Chinese Annals, London, 1871. 

VOL. I, z Y 



450 MARCO POLO Book II. 

adorned in every case with figures of dragons," etc. He then proceeds to describe 
them : 

"(l). Armillary Zodiacal Sphere of 6 feet diameter. This sphere reposes on 
the heads of four dragons, the bodies of which after various convolutions come to rest 
upon the extremities of two brazen beams forming a cross, and thus bear the entire 
weight of the instrument. These dragons .... are represented according to the 
notion the Chinese form of them, enveloped in clouds, covered above the horns with 
long hair, with a tufted beard on the lower jaw, flaming eyes, long sharp teeth, the 
gaping throat ever vomiting a torrent of fire. Four lion-cubs of the same material 
bear the ends of the cross beams, and the heads of these are raised or depressed by 
means of attached screws, according to what is required. The circles are divided on 
both exterior and interior surface into 360 degrees ; each degree into 60 minutes by 
transverse lines, and the minutes into sections of 10 seconds each by the sight-edge* 
applied to them." 

Of Verbiest's other instruments we need give only the names: (2) Equinoxial 
Spbere, 6 feet diameter. (3) Azimuthal Horizon, same diam. (4) Great Quadrant, 
of 6 feet radius. (5) Sextant of about 8 feet radius. (6) Celestial Globe of 
6 feet diameter. 

As Lecomte gives no details of the old instruments which he saw through a grating, 
and as the description of this zodiacal sphere (No. i) corresponds in some of its main 
features with that represented in the photograph, I could not but recognize the 
possibility that this instrument of Verbiest's had for some reason or other been removed 
from the Terrace, and that the photograph might therefore possibly Jiot be a re- 
presentation of one of the ancient instruments displaced by him.f 

The question having been raised it was very desirable to settle it, and I applied to 
Mr. Wylie for information, as I had received the photographs from him, and knew 
that he had been Mr. Thomson's companion and helper in the matter. 

" Let me assure you," he writes (21st August, 1874), " the Jesuits had nothing to do 
with the manufacture of the so-called Mongol instruments ; and whoever made them, 
they were certainly on the Peking Observatory before Loyola was born. They are 
not made for the astronomical system introduced by the Jesuits, but are altogether 
conformable to the system introduced by Kiiblai's astronomer Ko Show-king. . . . 
I will mention one thing which is quite decisive as to the Jesuits. The circle is 
divided into 365^ degrees, each degree into 100 minutes, and each minute into ICO 
seconds. The Jesuits always used the sexagesimal division. Lecomte speaks of the 
imperfection of the division on the Jesuit-made instruments ; but those on the Mongol 
instruments are immeasurably coarser. 

"I understand it is not the ornamentation your friend objects to? J If it is, 
I would observe that there is no evidence of progress in the decorative and ornamental 
arts during the Ming Dynasty ; and even in the Jesuit instruments that part of the 
work is purely Chinese, excepting in one instrument, which I am persuaded must 
have been made in Europe. 

"I have a Chinese work called Luh-King-foo-Kaou, 'Illustrations and Inves- 
tigations of the Six Classics.' This was written in A.D. 1131-1162, and revised and 

* Pinnula. The French pinnule is properly a sight-vane at the end of a traversing bar. The 
transverse lines imply that minutes were read by the system of our diagonal scales ; and these I 
understand to have been subdivided still further by aid of a divided edge attached to the sight-vane ; 
qu. a Vernier ? 

t Verbiest himself speaks of the displaced instruments thus " ut nova instrumenta 

astronomica facienda mihi imponeret, quae scilicet more Europaeo affabre facta, et in specula Astrop- 
tica Pekinensi coUocata, aeternani Imperii Tartarici niemoriam apud posteritatem servarent, 
priorihus instrumentis Sinicis rudioris Minervie, qucF jam a trecentis proxime annis speculam 
occupabani, inde amotis. Imperator statim annuit illorum postulatis, et totius rei curam, publico 
diplomate mihi imposuit. Ego ilaque intra quadriennis spatium sex diversi generis instrumenta 
confeci." This is from an account of the Observatory written by Verbiest himself, and printed at 
Peking in i658 {Liber Organicui Astronoiniie Europiecf. apud Sinas Restitutce, etc.). My friend 
Mr. D. Hanbury made the extract from a copy of this rare book in the London Institution Library. 
An enlarged edition was published in Europe. (Dillingen, 1687.) 

X On the contrary, he considered the photographs interesting, as showing to how late a period the 
art of fine casting had endured. 



u* 




^ 



Chap. XXXIII. THE ASTROLOGERS OF CAMBALUC 45 1 

printed in 1 165- 1 174- It contains a representation of an armillary sphere, which 
appears to me to be much the same as the sphere in question. There is a solid 
horizon fixed to a graduated outer circle. Inside the latter is a meridian circle, at 
right angles to which is a graduated colure ; then the equator, apparently a double 
ring, and the ecliptic ; also two diametric bars. The cut is rudely executed, but it 
certainly shows that some one imagined something more perfect. The instrument 
stands on a cross fi-ame, with 4 dragon supporters and a prop in the centre.* 

" It should be remembered that under the Mongol Dynasty the Chinese had much 
intercourse with Central Asia ; and among others Yelewchootsae, as confidential 
minister and astronomer, followed Chinghiz in his Western campaign, held intercourse 
with the astronomers of Samarkand, and on his return laid some astronomical inven- 
tions before the Emperor. 

" I append a notice of the Observatory taken from a popular description of 
Peking, by which it will be seen that the construction of these instruments is 
attributed to Ko Show-king, one of the most renowned astronomers of China. He 
was the chief astronomer under Kublai Kaan" [to whom he was presented in 1262 ; he 
was bom in 1231. — H. C] 

*' It must be remembered that there was a special vitality among the Chinese 
under the Yuen with regard to the arts and sciences, and the Emperor had the choice 
of artizans and men of science from all countries. From the age of the Yuen till the 
arrival of the Jesuits, we hear nothing of any new instruments hav-ing been made ; 
and it is well known that astronomy was never in a lower condition than under the 
Ming."t 

Mr. Wylie then draws attention to the account given by Trigault of the instrmnents 
that Matteo Ricci saw at Nanking, when he went (in the year 1599) to pay a visit to 
some of the literati of that city. He transcribes the account from the French Hist, de 
PExpidition Chrestienne en la Chine, 1618. But as I have the Latin, which is the 
original and is more lucid, by me, I will translate from that.ij: 

"Not only at Peking, but in this capital also (Nanking) there is a Collie of 
Chinese Mathematicians, and this one certainly is more distinguished by the vastness 
of its buildings than by the skill of its professors. They have little talent and less 
learning, and do nothing beyond the preparation of the almanacs on the rules of 
calculation made by the ancients ; and when it chances that events do not agree with 
their calculation they assert that what they had calculated was the r^;ular course of 
things, but that the aberrant conduct of the stars was a prognostic from heaven of 
something going to happen on the earth. This something they make out according to 
their fancy, and so spread a veil over their own blunders. These gentlemen did not 
much trust Father Matteo, fearing, no doubt, lest he should put them to shame ; but 
when at last they were freed from this apprehension they came and amicably visited the 
Father in hope of learning something from him. And when he went to retom their 
visit he saw something that really was new and beyond his expectation. 

" There is a high hill at one side of the city, but still within the walls. On the 
top of the hill there is an ample terrace, capitally adapted for astronomical observation, 
and surrounded by magnificent buildings which form tlie residence of the Professors. 
. . . On this terrace are to be seen astronomical instruments of cast-metal, well 
worthy of inspection whether for size or for beauty ; and we certainly have never seen 
or read of anything in Europe like them. For nearly 250 years they have stood thus 

* This ancient instrument is probably the same that is engraved in Pauthier's Chine Anciennt 
under the title of " The Sphere of the Emperor Shun " (b.c. 2255 !). 

t After the death of Kublai astronomy fell into neglect, and when Hongwu, the first Ming 
sovereign, took the throne (1368) the subject was almost forgotten. Nor was there any revival 
till the time of Ching. The latter was a prince who in 1573 associated himself with the astronomer 
Hing-yun-lu to reform the state of astronomy. (Gauiil.) 

What Ricci has recorded (in Trigautius) of the dense ignorance of the Chinese literati in 
astronomical matters is entirely consistent with the preceding statements. 

X 1 had entirely forgotten to look at Trigault till Mr. Wylie sent me the extract. The copy I use 
{De Christiand Expeditione afrud Sinas . . . Aiict. Nicolao Trigautio) is of Lugdun. 1616. The 
first edition was published at August. Vindtlicorum (Augsburg) m 161 5 : the French, at Lyons, 
in i6i6. 

VOL. I. 2 F 2 



452 MARCO POLO Book II. 

exposed to the rain, the snow, and all other atmospheric inclemencies, and yet they 
have lost absolutely nothing of their original lustre. And lest I should be accused of 
raising expectations which I do not justify, I will do my best in a digression, probably 
not unwelcome, to bring them before the eyes of my readers. 

" The larger of these instruments were four in number. First we inspected a great 
globe [A], graduated with meridians and parallels ; we estimated that three men 
would hardly be able to embrace its girth. ... A second instrument was a great 
sphere [B], not less in diameter than that measure of the outstretched arms which is 
commonly called a geometric pace. It had a horizon and poles ; instead of circles it 
was provided with certain double hoops [armiHa), the void space between the pair 
serving the purpose of the circles of our spheres. All these were divided into 365 
degrees and some odd minutes. There was no globe to represent the earth in the 
centre, but there was a certain tube, bored like a gun-barrel, which could readily be 
turned about and fixed to any azimuth or any altitude so as to observe any particular 
star through the tube, just as we do with our vane-sights ; * — not at all a despicable 
device ! The third machine was a gnomon [C], the height of which was twice the 
diameter of the former instrument, erected on a very large and long slab of marble, 
on the northern side of the terrace. The stone slab had a channel cut round the 
margin, to be filled with water in order to determine whether the slab was level or 
not, and the style was set vertical as in hour-dials. t We may suppose this gnomon 
to have been erected that by its aid the shadow at the solstices and equinoxes might be 
precisely noted, for in that view both the slab and the style were graduated. The lourth 
and last instrument, and the largest of all, was one consisting as it ■vVere of three or 
four huge astrolabes in juxtaposition [D] ; each of them having a diameter of such 
a geometrical pace as I have specified. The fiducial line, or Al/iidada, as it is called, 
was not lacking, nor yet the Dioptra.X Of these astrolabes, one having a tilted posi- 
tion in the direction of the south, represented the equator ; a second, which stood 
crosswise on the first, in a north and south plane, the Father took for a meridian ; 
but it could be turned round on its axis ; a third stood in the meridian plane with its 
axis perpendicular, and seemed to stand for a vertical circle ; but this also could be 
turned round so as to show any vertical whatever. Moreover all these were graduated, 
and the degrees marked by prominent studs of iron, so that in the night the gradua- 
tion could be read by the touch without a light. All this compound astrolabe 
instrument was erected on a level marble platform with channels round it for levelling. 
On each of these instruments explanations of everything were given in Chinese 
characters ; and there were also engraved the 24 zodiacal constellations which 
answer to our 12 signs, 2 to each.§ There was, however, one error common to all 
the instruments, viz. that, in all, the elevation of the Pole was assumed to be 36°. 
Now there can be no question about the fact that the city of Nanking lies in lat. 32^°; 
whence it would seem probable that these instruments were made for another locality, 
and had been erected at Nanking, without reference to its position, by some one ill 
versed in mathematical science.il 

* " Pinnulis." t " Et stilus eo modo quo in horologiis ad perpendicubnn coUocatus." 

J The A lidada is the traversing index bar which carries the dioptra, pinnules, or sight-vanes. 
The word is found in some older English Dictionaries, and in France and Italy is still applied to the 
traversing index of a plane table or of a sext.int. Littri derives it from (Ar.) 'addd, enumeration ; 
but it is really from a quite different word, al-idddat 2iVJ«!3i£ " -l door-post," which is found in 
this sense in an Arabic treatise on the Astrol.-ibe. (See Dozy and Engelmanti, p. 140.) 

§ This is an error of Ricci's, as Mr. Wylie observes, or of his reporter. 

The Chinese divide their year into 24 portions of 15 days each. Of these 24 divisions twelve called 
Kung mark the twelve places in which the sun and moon come into conjunction, and are thus in some 
degree analogous to our 12 signs of the Zodiac. The names of these Kuns: are entirely different from 
those of our signs, though since the 17th century the Western Zodiac, with paraphrased names, has 
been introduced in some of their books. But besides that, they divide the heavens into 28 stell.-u- 
spaces. The correspondence of this division to the Hindu system of the 28 Lunar Mansions, called 
NaksJiatras, has given rise to much discussion. The Chinese sieu or stellar spaces are excessively 
unequal, varying from 24° in equatorial extent down to 24'. (Williams, oJ>. cit.) \^^^ P. Hoaitg, 
supra p. 449. ) 

II Mr. Wylie is inclined to distrust the accuracy of this remark, as the only city ne.\rly on the 36th 
parallel is P ing-yang fu. 



u 



'i'y 




Observatory Terrace. 



[ To /ace /. 452. 



Chap. XXXIII. THE ASTROLOGERS OF CAMBALUC 453 

" Some years afterwards Father Matteo saw similar instruments at Peking, or 
rather the same instruments, so exactly alike were they, insomuch that they had 
unquestionably been made by the same artist. And indeed it is known that they 
were cast at the period when the Tartars were dominant in China ; and we may with- 
out rashness conjecture that they were the work of some foreigner acquainted with our 
studies. But it is time to have done with these instruments." {Lib. IV. cap. 5.) 

In this interesting description it will be seen that the Armillary Sphere [B] agrees 
entirely with that represented in illustration facing p. 450. And the second of his 
photographs in my possession, but not, I believe, yet published, answers perfectly 
to the curious description of the 4th instrument [D]. Indeed, I should scarcely 
have been able to translate that description intelligibly but for the aid of the 
photograph before me. It shows the three astrolabes or graduated circles with 
travelling indexes arranged exactly as described, and pivoted on a complex frame of 
bronze; (i) circle in the plane of the equator for measuring right ascensions; (2) 
circle with its axis vertical to the plane of the last, for measuring declinations ; (3) 
circle with vertical axis, for zenith distances ? The Gnomon [A] was seen by Mr. 
Wylie in one of the lower rooms of the Observatory (see below). Of the Globe we do 
not now hear ; and that mentioned by Lecomte among the ancient instruments was 
inferior to what Ricci describes at Peking. 

I now transcribe Mr. Wylie's translation of an extract from a Popular Description 
of Peking : 

* ' The observatory is on an elevated stage on the city wall, in the south-east 
comer of the (Tartar) city, and was built in the year (A.D. 1279). In the centre was 
the Tze-wei* Palace, inside of which were a pair of scrolls, and a cross inscription, 
by the imperial hand. Formerly it contained the H-wan-fun-e [B] ' Armillary Sphere ' ; 
the Keen-e [D ?] ' Transit Instrument ' (?) ; the Tung-kew [A] ' Brass Globe ' ; and 
the Leang-fien-cKih, ' Sector,' which were constructed by Ko Show-king under the 
Yuen Dynasty. 

"In (1673) the old instruments having stood the wear of long past years, had 
become almost useless, and six new instruments were made by imperial authority. 
These were the 7" ten-fee 'Celestial Globe' (6); Chih-taoue 'Equinoctial Sphere' 
(2); Hwang-taoue 'Zodiacal Sphere' (i) ; Te-p'ing kinge 'Azimuthal Horizon' 
(3); Te-p'ing weie 'Altitude Instrument' (4); A^-jk<?«^ ' Sextant ' (5). These were 
placed in the Observatory, and to the present day are respectfully used. The old 
mstruments were at the same time removed, and deposited at the foot of the 
stage. In (1715) the Te-ping King-wei-e 'Azimuth and Altitude Instrument' was 
made ;t and in 1744 the Ke-hang-foo-chin-e (literally 'Sphere and Tube in- 
strument for sweeping the heavens'). All these were placed on the Observatory 
stage. 

" There is a wind-index-pole called the ' Fair-wind-pennon,' on which is an iron 
disk marked out in 28 points, corresponding in number to the 28 constellations." J 

-•- Mr. Wylie justly observes that the evidence is all in accord, and it leaves, I 
think, no reasonable room for doubt that the instruments now in the Observatory 

But we have noted in regard to this (Polo's Pianfu, vol. ii. p. 17) that a college for the education 
of Mongol youth was instituted here, by the great minister Yeliu Chutsai, whose devotion to astronomy 
Mr. Wylie has noticed above. In fact, two colleges were established by him, one at Yenking, i.e. 
Peking, the other at P'ing-yang ; and astronomy is specified as one of the studies to be pursued at 
these. (See D'Ohsson,\\. 71-72, quoting De Mailla.) It seems highly probable that the two sets of 
instruments were originally intended for these two institutions, and that one set was carried to 
Nanking, when the Ming set their capital there in 1368. 

* The 28 sieu or stellar spaces, above spoken of, do not extend to the Pole ; they are indeed very 
unequal in extent on the meridian as w^ell as on the equator. And the area in the northern sky not 
embraced in them is divided into three large spaces calltd Vuen or enclosures, of which the field of 
circumpolar stars (or circle of perpetual apparition) forms one which is called Tze-Wei. (\Villiams.) 

The southern circumpolar stars form a fourth space, beyond the 28 sieu. — Ibid. 

t " This was obviously made in France. There is nothing Chinese about it, either in construction 
or ornament. It is very difterent from all the others." {Note by Mr. Wylie.') 

\ " There follows a minute description of the brass clepsydra, and the brass gnomon, which it is 
unnecessary to translate. I have seen both these instruments, in two of the lower rooms." — Id. 



454 MARCO POLO Book II. 

garden at Peking are those which were cast aside by Father Verbiest* in 1673 (or 1668) ; 
which Father Ricci saw at Peking at the beginning of the century, and of which he 
has described the duplicates at Nanking ; and which had come down from the time of 
the Mongols, or, more precisely, of Kublai Khan. 

Ricci speaks of their age as nearly 250 years in 1599 ; Verbiest as nearly 300 years 
in 1668. But these estimates evidently point to the termination of the Mongol 
Dynasty (1368), to which the Chinese would naturally refer their oral chronology. 
We have seen that Kiiblai's reign was the era of flourishing astronomy, and that the 
instruments are referred to his astronomer Ko Sheu-king ; nor does there seem any 
ground for questioning this. In fact, it being once established that the instruments 
existed when the Jesuits entered China, all the objections fall to the ground. 

We may observe that the number of the ancient instruments mentioned in the 
popular Chinese account agrees with the number of important instruments described 
by Ricci, and the titles of three at least out of the four seem to indicate the same 
instruments. The catalogue of the new instruments of 1673 (or 1668) given in the 
native work also agrees exactly with that given by Lecomte.f And in reference to 
my question as to the possibility that one of Verbiest's instruments might have been 
removed from the terrace to the garden, it is now hardly worth while to repeat 
Mr. Wylie's assurance that there is no ground whatever for such a supposition. The 
instruments represented by Lecomte are all still on the terrace, only their positions 
have been somewhat altered to make room for the two added in last century. 

Probably, says Mr. Wylie, more might have been added from Chinese works, 
especially the biography of Ko Sheu-king. But my kind correspondent was unable 
to travel beyond the books on his own shelves. Nor was it needful. 

It will have been seen that, beautiful as the art and casting of these instruments 
is, it would be a mistake to suppose that they are entitled to equally high rank in 
scientific accuracy. Mr. Wylie mentioned the question that had been started to 
Freiherr von Gumpach, who was for some years Professor of Astronomy in the 
Peking College. Whilst entirely rejecting the doubts that had been raised as to the 
age of the Mongol instruments, he said that he had seen those of Tycho Brahe, and 
the former are quite unworthy to be compared with Tycho's in scientific accuracy. 

The doubts expressed have been useful in drawing attention to these remarkable 
reliques of the era of Kublai's reign, and of Marco Polo's residence in Cathay, though 
I fear they are answerable for having added some pages to a work that required no 
enlargement ! 

[Mr. Wylie sent a most valuable paper on The Mongol Astronomical Ittsti-wnents at 
Peking to the Congress of Orientalists held at St. Petersburg, which was reprinted 
at Shanghai in 1897 in Chinese Researches. Some of the astronomical instruments 
have been removed to Potsdam by the Germans since the siege of the foreign 
Legations at Peking in 1900. — H. C] 

On these auguries, and on diviners and fortune-tellers, see Semedo, p. 118 seqq. ; 
Kidd, p. 313 (also for preceding references. Mid. Kingdom, II. 152 ; Gaubil, 136). 

Note 2. — j-The real cycleof the Mongols, which was also that of the Chinese, runs: 
I. Rat ; 2. Ox ; 3. Tiger ; 4. Hare ; 5. Dragon ; 6. Serpent ; 7. Horse ; 8. Sheep ; 
9. Ape ; 10. Cock ; 11. Dog ; 12. Swine. But as such a cycle [12 earthly branches, 
Ti-chi/i] is too short to avoid confusion, it is combined with a co-efficient cycle of ten 
epithets [celestial Stems, T^ien-kan'] in such wise as to produce a 60-year cycle of com- 
pound names before the same shall recur. These co-efficient epithets are found in 
four different forms: (i) From the Elements: Wood, Fire, Earth, Metal, Water, 
attaching to each a masculine and feminine attribute so as to make ten epithets. 
(2) From the Colours : Blue, Red, Yellow, White, Black, similarly treated. (3) By 

* [Ferdinand Verbiest, S.J., was born .it Pitlhens, near Courtrai ; he arrived in China in 1659 and 
died at Peking on the 29th January, 1688.— H. C. ] 

t We have attached letters A, B, C, to indicate the correspondences of the ancient instruments, 
and cyphers i, 3, 3, to indicate the correspondences of the modern instruments. 



M 



s^ 




^ 



Chap. XXXIII. THE ASTROLOGERS OF CAMBALUC 455 

terms without meaning in Mongol, directly adopted or imitated from the Chinese, Ga, 
Yi, Ring, Ting, etc. (4) By the five Cardinal Points : East, South, Middle, West, 
North. Thus 1864 was the first year of a 60-year cycle : — 

1864 = (Masc.) Wood-Rat Year = (Masc.) Blue- Rat Year. 

1865 = (Fem.) Wood-Ox Y^x = {¥&xq.) Blue-Ox Yca^x. 

1866 = (Masc.) Fire-Tiger Year = (Masc.) Red-Tiger Year. 

1867 ^ {Ftm.) Fire- Hare Year = (Fem.) Red-Hare Year. 
1923 = (Fem.) Water-Swine Year = (Fem.) Black-Swifte Year. 

And then a new cycle commences just as before. 

This Calendar was carried by the Mongols into all their dominions, and it would 
appear to have long survived them in Persia. Thus a docnment issued in favour of 
sir John Chardin by the Shaikh-ul- Islam of Ispah*an, bears the strange date for a 
Mahomedan luminary of " The year of the Swine." The Hindus also had a 60-year 
cycle, but with them each year had an independent name. 

The Mongols borrowed their system from the Chinese, who attribute its invention 
to the Emperor Hwang-ti, and its initiation to the 6istyear of his reign, corresponding 
to B.C. 2637. [" It was Ta-nao, Minister to the Emperor Hwang-ti, who, by 
command of his Sovereign, devised the sexagenary cycle. Hwang-ti began to reign 
2697 B.C., and the 6ist year of his reign was taken for the first cyclical sign." 
P. Hoang, Chinese Calendar, p. ii. — H. C] The characters representing what we 
have called the ten coefficient epithets are called by the Chinese the " Heavenly 
Stems " ; those equivalent to the twelve animal symbols are the " Earthly Branches," 
and they are applied in their combinations not to years only, but to cycles of months, 
days, and hours, such hours being equal to two of ours. Thus every year, month, 
day, and hour will have two appropriate characters, and the four pairs belonging to 
the time of any man's birth constitute what the Chinese call the "Eight Characters" 
of his age, to which constant reference is made in some of their systems of fortune- 
telling, and in the selection of propitious days for the transaction of business. To 
this system the text alludes. A curious account of the principles of prognostication 
on such a basis will be found in Doolittli s Social Life of the Chituse (p. 579 seqq. ; on 
the Calendar, see Schmidt's Preface to S. Selzen ; Pallas, Sammlungen, II. 228 
seqq.; Prinsep's Essays, Useful Tables, 146.) 

[" Kubilai Khan established in Peking two astronomical boards and two observa- 
tories. One of them was a Chinese Observatory {sze fien ^ai), the other a Moham- 
medan Observatory (hui hui sze t'ien t^ai), each with its particular astronomical and 
chronological systems, its particular astrolc^y and instruments. The first astrono- 
mical and calendar system was compiled for the Mongols by Ye-liu Ch'u-ts'ai, who 
was in Chingis Khan's service, not only as a high counsellor, but also as an astronomer 
and astrologer. After having been convinced of the obsoleteness and incorrectness of 
the astronomical calculations in the Ta ming li (the name of the calendar system of 
the Kin Dynasty), he thought out at the time he was at Samarcand a new system, 
valid not only for China, but also for the countries conquered by the Mongols in 
Western Asia, and named it in memory of Chingis Khan's expedition Si ching keng 
•ant yiian li, i.e. ' Astronomical Calendar beginning with the year Keng viu, com- 
piled during the war in the west.' Keng-wu was the year 1210 of our era. Ye-liu 
Ch'u-ts'ai chose this year, and the moment of the winter solstice, for the beginning of 
his period ; because, according to his calculations, it coincided with the beginning of 
a new astronomical or planetary jjeriod. He took also into consideration, that since 
the year 121 1 Chingis Khan's glory had spread over the whole world. Ye-liu Ch'u- 
ts'ai's calendar was not adopted in China, but the system of it is explained in the 
Yuen-shi, in the section on Astronomy and the Calendar. 

"In the year 1267, the Mohammedans presented to Kubilai their astronomical 
calendar (wan nien li, i.e.), the calendar of ten thousand years. By taking this 
denomination in its literal sense, we may conclude that the Mahommedans brought 



456 MARCO POLO ' Book II. 

to China the ancient Persian system, founded on the period of 10,000 years. The 
compilers of the Yuen-shi seem not to have had access to documents relating to this 
system, for they give no details about it. Finally by order of Kubilai the astronomers 
Hui-Heng and Ko Show-King composed a new calculation under the name of 
Shou-shi-li, which came into use from the year 1280. It is thoroughly explained in 
the Yuen-shi. Notwithstanding the fame this system generally enjoyed, its blemishes 
came soon to light. In the sixth month of 1302 an eclipse of the sun happened, and 
the calculation of the astronomer proved to be erroneous (it seems the calculation had 
anticipated the real time). The astronomers of the Ming Dynasty explained the 
errors in the Shou-shi-li by the circumstance, that in that calculation the period for 
one degree of precession of the equinox was taken too long (eighty-one years). But 
they were themselves hardly able to overcome these difficulties." {^Palladius, 
pp. 51-53- )-H. C] 



CHAPTER XXXIV. 

[Concerning the Religion of the Cathayans;^ their views 
AS TO THE Soul ; and their Customs. 

As we have said before, these people are Idolaters, and 
as regards their gods, each has a tablet fixed high up on 
the wall of his chamber, on which is inscribed a name 
which represents the Most High and Heavenly God ; 
and before this they pay daily worship, offering incense 
from a thurible, raising their hands aloft, and gnashing 
their teeth ^ three times, praying Him to grant them 
health of mind and body ; but of Him they ask nought 
else. And below on the ground there is a figure which 
they call Natigai, which is the god of things terrestrial. 
To him they give a wife and children, and they worship 
him in the same manner, with incense, and gnashing of 
teeth,^ and lifting up of hands ; and of him they ask 
seasonable weather, and the fruits of the earth, children, 
and so forth. ^ 

Their view of the immortality of the soul is after this 
fashion. They believe that as soon as a man dies, his 
soul enters into another body, going from a good to a 



Chap. XXXIV. RELIGION OF THE CATHAYANS 457 

better, or from a bad to a worse, according as he hath 
conducted himself well or ill. That is to say, a poor man, 
if he have passed through life good and sober, shall be 
born aofain of a o;entlevvoman, and shall be a orentleman ; 
and on a second occasion shall be born of a princess 
and shall be a prince, and so on, always rising, till he 
be absorbed into the Deity. But if he have borne himself 
ill, he who was the son of a gentleman shall be reborn as 
the son of a boor, and from a boor shall become a dog, 
always going down lower and lower. 

The people have an ornate style of speech ; they 
salute each other with a cheerful countenance, and with 
great politeness ; they behave like gentlemen, and eat 
with great propriety.* They show great respect to their 
parents ; and should there be any son who offends his 
parents, or fails to minister to their necessities, there is 
a public office which has no other charge but that of 
punishing unnatural children, who are proved to have 
acted with ingratitude towards their parents.^ 

Criminals of sundry kinds who have been imprisoned, 
are released at a time fixed by the Great Kaan (which 
occurs every three years), but on leaving prison they are 
branded on one cheek that they may be recognized. 

The Great Kaan hath prohibited all gambling and 
sharping, things more prevalent there than in any other 
part of the world. In doing this, he said : " I have con- 
quered you by force of arms, and all that you have is 
mine ; if, therefore, you gamble away your property, it 
is in fact my property that you are gambling away." 
Not that he took anything from them however. 

I must not omit to tell you of the orderly way in 
which the Kaan's Barons and others conduct themselves 
in coming to his presence. In the first place, within a 
half mile of the place where he is, out of reverence for 
his exalted majesty, everybody preserves a mien of the 



458 MARCO POLO Book II. 

greatest meekness and quiet, so that no noise of shrill 
voices or loud talk shall be heard. And every one of 
the chiefs and nobles carries always with him a hand- 
some little vessel to spit in whilst he remain in the Hall 
of Audience — for no one dares spit on the floor of the 
hall, — and when he hath spitten he covers it up and puts 
it aside.^ So also they all have certain handsome 
buskins of white leather, which they carry with them, 
and, when summoned by the sovereign, on arriving at 
the entrance to the hall, they put on these white buskins, 
and give their others in charge to the servants, in order 
that they may not foul the fine carpets of silk and gold 
and divers colours.] 



Note i. — Ramusio's heading has Tartars, but it is manifestly of the Cathayans or 
Chinese that the author speaks throughout this chapter. 

Note 2. — ^^ Sbattendo i denti." This is almost certainly, as Marsden has noticed, 
due to some error of transcription. Probably Battono i fronti, or something similar, 
was the true reading. [See following note, p. 461. — H. C] 

Note 3. — The latter part of this passage has, I doubt not, been more or less 
interpolated, seeing that it introduces again as a Chinese divinity the rude object of 
primitive Tartar worship, of which we have already heard in Bk. I. ch. liii. And 
regarding the former part of the passage, one cannot but have some doubt whether 
what was taken for the symbol of the Most High was not the ancestral tablet, which 
is usually placed in one of the inner rooms of the house, and before which worship is 
performed at fixed times, and according to certain established forms. Something, too, 
may have been known of the Emperor's worship of Heaven at the great circular temple 
at Peking, called T"ten-t'dn, or Altar of Heaven (see p. 459), where incensed offerings 
are made before a tablet, on which is inscribed the name Yuh-Hwang Shang-ti, which 
some interpret as " The Supreme Ruler of the Imperial Heavens," and regard as the 
nearest approach to pure Theism of which there is any indication in Chinese worship 
(See Doolittle, pp. 170, 625 ; and Lockhart \nj. R. G. S., xxxvi. 142). This worship is 
mentioned by the Mahomedan narrator of Shah Rukh's embassy (1421) : " Every year 

there are some days on which the Emperor eats no animal food He spends 

his time in an apartment which contains no idol, and says that he is worshipping the 
God of Heaven. " * {Ind. Antiquary, II. 81.) 

The charge of irreligion against the Chinese is an old one, and is made by Hayton 
in nearly the same terms as it often is by modern missionaries : "And though these 
people have the acutest intelligence in all matters wherein material things are con- 

* " In the worship carried on here the Emperor acts as a high priest. He only worsliips ; and no 
subject, however high in rank, can join in the adoration." {Lockhart.) Tl'.c actual temple dates from 
1420-1430 ; but the Institution is very ancient, and I think there is evidence tli.it such a structure 
existed under the Mongols, probably only restored by the Ming. [It was built during the T8th year 
of the reign of the third Ming Empetj)r Yung Loh (1403-1425); it was entirely restored during the 
i8th year of K'ien Lung ; it was struck by lightning and burnt down in 1889 ; it is being re-built.— 
H. C] 



..JL 



460 



MARCO POLO Book II. 



cerned, yet you shall never find among them any knowledge or perception of spiritual 
things." Yet it is a mistake to suppose that this insensibility has been so universal as 
it is often represented. To say nothing of the considerable numbers who have 
adhered faithfully to the Roman Catholic Church, the large number of Mahomedans 
in China, of whom many must have been proselytes, indicates an interest in religion ; 
and that Buddhism itself was in China once a spiritual power of no small energy will, 
I think, be plain to any one who reads the very interesting extracts in Schott's essay 
on Buddhism in Upper Asia and China. {Berlin Acad, of Sciences, 18^6.) These seem 
to be so little known that I will translate two or three of them. " In the years Yiian- 
yeii of the Sung (a.d. 1086-1093), a pious matron with her two servants lived entirely 
to the Land of Enlightenment. One of the maids said one day to her companion : 
' To-night I shall pass over to the Realm of Amita.' The same night a balsamic odour 
filled the house, and the maid died without any preceding illness. On the following 
day the surviving maid said to the lady : ' Yesterday my deceased companion appeared 
to me in a dream, and said to me: "Thanks to the persevering exhortations of our 
mistress, I am become a partaker of Paradise, and my blessedness is past all expression 
in words."' The matron rephed : 'If she will appear to me also then I will believe 
what you say.' Next night the deceased really appeared to her, and saluted her with 
respect. The lady asked : ' May I, for once, visit the Land of P>nlightenment ? ' 
'Yea,' answered the Blessed Soul, 'thou hast but to follow thy handmaiden.' The 
lady followed her (in her dream), and soon perceived a lake of immeasurable expanse, 
overspread with innumerable red and while lotus flowers, of various sizes, some 
blooming, some fading. She asked what those flowers might signify ? The maiden 
replied : ' These are all human beings on the earth whose thoughts are turned to the 
Land of Enlightenment. The very first longing after the Paradise of Amita produces 
a flower in the Celestial Lake, and this becomes daily larger and more glorious, as the 
self-improvement of the person whom it represents advances ; in the contrary case, it 
loses in glory and fades away.'* The matron desired to know the name of an en- 
lightened one who reposed on one of the flowers, clad in a waving and wondrously 
gHstening raiment. Her whilom maiden answered : 'That is Yangkie.' Then asked 
she the name of another, and was answered: 'That is Mahu.' The lady then said : 
' At what place shall I hereafter come into existence ? ' Then the Blessed Soul led 
her a space further, and showed her a hill that gleamed with gold and azure. ' Here,' 
said she, 'is your future abode. You will belong to the first order of the blessed.' 
When the matron awoke she sent to enquire for Yangkie and Mahu. The first was 
already departed ; the other still alive and well. And thus the lady learned that the 
soul of one who advances in holiness and never turns back, may be already a dweller 
in the Land of Enlightenment, even though the body still sojourn in this transitory 
world" (pp. 55-56). 

What a singular counterpart the striking conclusion here forms to Dante's tre- 
mendous assault on a still living villain, — or enemy ! 

• che per sua opra 



In anima in Cocito gia si bagna, 
Ed in corpo par vivo ancor di sopra." 

— Infern. xxxiii. 155. 

Again : "I knew a man who during his life had killed many living beings, and 
was at last struck with an apoplexy. The sorrows in store for his sin-laden soul pained 
me to the heart ; I visited him, and exhorted him to call on the Amita ; but he 
obstinately refused, and spoke only of indifl'erent matters. His illness clouded his 
iindersJanding ; in consequence of his misdeeds he had become hardened. What was 

* In 1871 I saw in Bond Street an exhibition of (so-called) "spirit" drawings, i.e. drawings 
alleged to be executed by a "medium" under extraneous and invisible guidance. A number of 
these extraordinary productions (for extraordinary they were undoubtedly) professed to represent the 
"Spiritual Flowers" of such and such persons; and the explanation of this as presented in the 
catalogue was in substance exactly that given in the text. It is highly improbable that the artist 
h.id any cognizance of Schott's Essay, and the coincidence was assuredly very striking. 



Chap. XXXIV. RELIGION OF THE CATHAYANS 46 1 

before such a man when once his eyes were closed ? Wherefore let men be converted 
while there is yet time ! In this life the night followeth the day, and the winter 
followeth the summer ; that, all men are aware of. But that life is followed by death, 
no man ^vill consider. Oh, what blindness and obduracy is this ! " (p. 93). 

Again : " Hoang-ta-tie, of T'ancheu (Changshu-fu in Honan), who lived under the 
Sung, followed the craft of a blacksmith. Whenever he was at his work he used to 
call without intermission on the name of Amita Buddha. One day he handed to his 
neighbours the following verses of his own composing to be spread about : — 
' Ding dong ! The hammer-strokes fall long and fast. 

Until the Iron turns to steel at last ! 

Now shall the long long Day of Rest begin, 

The Land of Bliss Eternal calls me in.' 

Thereupon he died. But his verses spread all over Honan, and many learned to call 
upon Buddha" (103). 

Once more : " In my own town there lived a physician by name Chang-yan-ming. 
He was a man who never took payment for his treatment from any one in poor or in- 
different circumstances ; nay, he would often make presents to such persons of 
money or corn to lighten their lot. If a rich man would have his advice and paid 
him a fee, he never looked to see whether it were much or little. If a patient lay so 
dangerously ill that Yanming despaired of his recovery, he would still give him good 
medicine to comfort his heart, but never took payment for it. I knew this man for 
many a year, and I never heard the word Money pass his lips ! One day a fire broke 
out in the town, and laid the whole of the houses in ashes ; only that of the 
physician was spared. His sons and grandsons reached high dignities " (p. no). 

Of such as this physician the apostle said : " Of a truth I perceive that God is no 
respecter of persons : But in every nation he that feareth Him, and worketh righteous- 
ness, is accepted v/ith Him." 

[" By the ' Most High and Heavenly God,' worshipped by the Chinese, as Marco 
Polo reports, evidently the Chinese T'ieti, ' Heaven ' is meant, Lao t'ien ye in the 
common language. Regarding ' the God of things terrestrial,' whose figure the 
Chinese, according to M. Polo, ' placed below on the ground,' there can also be no 
doubt that he understands the Tti-ti, the local ' Lar' of the Chinese, to which they 
present sacrifices on the floor, near the wall under the table. 

" M. Polo reports, that the Chinese worship tiieir God oflfering incense, raising their 
hands aloft, and gnashing their teeth. Of course he means that they placed the 
hands together, or held kindled joss-stick bundles in their hands, according to the 
Chinese custom . The statement of M. Polo sbaiiendo i denti is very remarkable. It 
seems to me, that very few of the Chinesie are aware of the fact, that this custom still 
exists among the Taouists. In the rituals of the Taouists the ICcw-cJii^Ko^w^^Xo 
knock against,' r^'z'=' teeth ') is prescribed as a comminatory and propitiatory act. 
It is effected by the four upper and lower fore-teeth. The Taouists are obliged 
before the service begins to perform a certain nimiber of ICow-chi, turning their 
heads alternately to the left and to the right, in order to drive away mundane 
thoughts and aggressions of bad spirits. The ICow-cKi repeated three times is 
called ming fa ku in Chinese, i.e. 'to beat the spiritual drum.' The ritual says, 
that it is heard by the Most High Ruler, who is moved by it to grace. 

" M. Polo observed this custom among the lay heathen. Indeed, it appears from a 
small treatise, written in China more than a hundred years before M. Polo, that at 
the time the Chinese author wrote, all devout men, entering a temple, used to per- 
form the K''ow-cKi, and considered it an expression of veneration and devotion to the 
idols. Thus this custom had been preserv-ed to the time of M. Polo, who did not 
fail to mention this strange peculiarity in the exterior observances of the Chinese. As 
regards the present time it seems to me, that this custom is not known among the 
people, and even with respect to the Taouists it is only performed on certain occasions 
and not in all Taouist temples." {Palladius, pp. 53-54.) — H. C] 



d62 MARCO POLO Book II 

Note 4. — " True politeness cannot of course be taught by rules merely, but a 
great degree of urbanity and kindness is everywhere shown, whether owing to the 
naturally placable disposition of the people, or to the effects of their early instruction 
in the forms of politeness." (Mid. Kingdom, II. 68.) As regards the "ornate style of 
speech," a well-bred Chihaman never says / or Yot{,\>\i.i for the former "the little 
person," " the disciple," " the inferior," and so on ; and for the latter, " the learned 
man," "the master," or even "the emperor." These phrases, however, are not 
confined to China, most of them having exact parallels in Hindustani courtesy. On 
this subject and the courteous disposition of the Chinese, see Fonianey, in Lett. Edif. 
VII. 287 seqq. ; also XL 287 seqq. ; Semedo, 36 ; Lecomte, II. 48 seqq. There are, 
however, strong differences of opinion expressed on this subject ; there is, apparently, 
much more genuine courtesy in the north than in the south. 

Note 5. — "Filial piety is the fundamental principle of the Chinese polity." 
{Aniiot, V. 129.) "In cases of extreme unfilial conduct, parents sometimes 
accuse their children before the magistrate, and demand his official aid in controlling 
or punishing them ; but such instances are comparatively rare. ... If the parent 
require his son to be publicly whipped by the command of the magistrate, the latter 
is obliged to order the infliction of the whipping. ... If after punishment the son 
remain undutiful and disobedient, and his parents demand it at the hands of the 
magistrate, the latter must, with the consent of the maternal uncles of the son, cause 
him to be taken out to the high wall in front of the yamun, and have him there 
publicly whipped to death." {Doolittle, 102-103.) 

Note 6. — [Mr. Rockhill writes to me that pocket-spitoons are still used in 
China.— H. C] 



END OF VOL 1. 



I-UINTED AT THE KlMNnURGH TRKSS, Q AND II YOUNG STRrET. 



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' On the walls of this archway is engraved the inscription in sLx characters, of which a representa- 
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