“Now the exhibition of this large number of gems and precious stones, all scattered over the table, threw the guests into fresh amazement, insomuch that they seemed quite bewildered and speechless. They now saw that in spite of all their former doubts these were really the honored and worthy gentlemen of the Polo family as they had claimed to be, and they therefore paid them the greatest honor and reverence. And when the story became current 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 Messere Maffeo, who was the eldest, the Venetians conferred the honors of an office which was of great dignity in those days; while the young men came daily to visit and converse with the ever-polite and gracious Messere Marco, and to ask him questions about Cathay[76] and the Grand Khan, all of 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 Grand Khan, he would speak of his revenues as amounting to ten or fifteen millions of gold; and in like manner, when recounting other instances of great wealth in those parts, he would always make use of the term millions, so they gave him the nickname of Messere Marco Millioni, an appellation which I have seen in the public records of this republic where mention is made of him. The court of his house, in the confine of S. Giovanni Crisostomo, has always from that time been known as the Corte del Millioni.”[77]
These conversational descriptions respecting the remote dominions of the Grand Khan, with which Marco Polo often interested the imaginative Venetians, were to have a much wider field of influence in another form,—one which was a most potent element among the leading agencies which opened to the people of Western Europe great pathways of discovery and of commerce around the earth. In order to perceive how these descriptions of Cathay led to the exploration of the Atlantic Ocean and the discovery of the continent of America, the fortunes of Marco Polo must be followed farther. It appears that shortly after his return to Venice he was placed in command of a fleet, which subsequently was captured by the Genoese in a naval engagement. While confined in Genoa as a prisoner of war, his remarkable adventures as an explorer of remote eastern countries became known, and he was often visited and questioned by inquisitive people. Wearied by the frequent repetition of the story of his wanderings in Cathay, he at last applied himself to writing an account of his extensive journeys by the aid of such notes and memoranda as he had taken while in the East. Assisted by a Genoese gentleman, he completed his curious and instructive narrative, which was soon copied, translated into different languages, and distributed among the people of Europe.[78]
As justly claimed by Yule, Marco Polo was the first traveller “to trace a route across the longitude of Asia, naming and describing kingdom after kingdom which he had seen with his own eyes; the deserts of Persia, the flowering plateaux and wild gorges of Badakhshan, the jade-bearing rivers of Khotan, the Mongolian steppes, ... the new and brilliant court that had been established at Cambaluc; the first traveller to reveal China in all its wealth and vastness, its mighty rivers, its huge cities, its rich manufactures, its swarming population, the inconceivably vast fleets that quickened its seas and its inland waters; to tell us of the nations on its borders with all their eccentricities of manners and worship; of Tibet with its sordid devotees; of Burma, with its golden pagodas and their tinkling crowns; of Laos, of Siam, of Cochin China, of Japan, the Eastern Thule, with its rosy pearls and golden-roofed palaces; the first to speak of that museum of beauty and wonder, still so imperfectly ransacked, the Indian archipelago, source of 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 dreamland of Alexandrian fables but as a country seen and partially explored, with its virtuous Brahmans, its obscene ascetics, its diamonds and the strange tales of their acquisition, its sea-beds of pearl, and its powerful sun; the first in medieval 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 Zanzibar with its negroes and its ivory, and of the vast and distant Madagascar, bordering on the dark ocean of the South, with its ruc and other monstrocities; and, in a remotely opposite region, of Siberia and the Arctic Ocean, of dog-sledges, white bears, and reindeer-riding Tunguses.”[79]
Never before had the people of Europe heard of such extraordinary wealth and unlimited resources as existed in the far-off countries visited by Marco Polo. His novel descriptions of stately, gold-covered palaces, of the royal magnificence of the entertainments of the Grand Khan, of the intoxicating fragrance of an endless profusion of rare flowers, of luscious fruits and sweet spicery, of heavily laden argosies of valuable merchandise floating on noble rivers, and of vast collections of gold, silver, and precious stones, were read with the most exaggerated conceptions of their reality. These enchanting details respecting Cathay and the adjacent countries were fully confirmed in the fourteenth century by Sir John Mandeville, who, in 1322, departed from England, and after an absence of thirty-four years in different countries returned to write, in Latin, in French, and in English, a narrative of his extended travels.[80]
Dazzled by the splendor of the Orient the people of Western Europe were eager to enter into commercial intercourse with the inhabitants of Cathay. But there were innumerable barriers, both natural and political, obstructing all the overland ways to the East. Chief among the obstacles classed as political was the selfish exclusiveness of the different governments possessing the intervening territory. Had there been no national opposition to the establishment of a protected system of overland commerce between Western Europe and Eastern Asia, the distance was too great to be travelled over by slowly moving caravans.
As early as the year 1343 the aggressive enterprise of the Venetians had obtained from the sultan of Egypt the exclusive privilege of sending ships to trade in the ports of that country and of Syria. The merchants of Venice thereupon established commercial agencies at Alexandria and Damascus. Their factors penetrated Central and Southern Asia, and became active participants in the remunerative traffic of those regions. The prized productions of the islands in the Indian Ocean, such as pepper, cinnamon, cloves, and other spices, were transported by them to Venice and distributed through Europe. Although the ocean along the western and southern coast of Africa to the East was believed to be navigable, no attempt was made in the fourteenth century to sail by it to the Moluccas or Spice Islands. Concerning the early navigation of the sea-path along the coast of Africa, from the Pillars of Hercules to the Arabian Sea, Herodotus says that when Necho, king of Egypt, “had ceased digging the canal leading from the Nile to the Arabian Gulf, he sent certain Phœnicians in ships, with orders to sail between the Pillars of Hercules into the Northern Sea [the Mediterranean], and so to return to Egypt. These Phœnicians, taking their course from the Red Sea, entered the Southern Ocean. On the approach of autumn they landed in Libya [Africa], and planted some corn in the place where they happened to find themselves. When this was ripe, and they had cut it down, they again departed. Having thus consumed two years, they in the third doubled the Pillars of Hercules, and returned to Egypt. Their account may obtain attention from others, but to me it seems incredible, for they affirmed, that having sailed around Libya, they had the sun on their right hand. Thus was Libya for the first time known.”[81]