A History of the Philippines

by David P. Barrows

Ideas about the Earth.—The Greek philosophers before the time of Christ had discovered that the world is a globe, or ball, and had even computed rudely its circumference. But in the Middle Ages this knowledge had been disputed and contradicted by a geographer named Cosmas, who held that the world was a vast plane, twice as long as it was broad and surrounded by an ocean. This belief was generally adopted by churchmen, who were the only scholars of the Middle Ages, and came to be the universal belief of Christian Europe.

The Renaissance revived the knowledge of the writings of the old Greek geographers who had demonstrated the earth’s shape to be round and had roughly calculated its size; but these writings did not have sufficient circulation in Europe to gain much acceptance among the Christian cosmographers. The Arabs, however, after conquering Egypt, Syria and northern Africa, translated into their own tongue the wisdom of the Greeks and became the best informed and most scientific geographers of the Middle Age, so that intercourse with the Arabs which began with the Crusades helped to acquaint Europe somewhat with India and China.

The Far East.—The Tartar Mongols.—Then in the thirteenth century all northern Asia and China fell under the power of the Tartar Mongols. Russia was overrun by them and western Europe threatened. At the Danube, however, this tide of Asiatic conquest stopped, and then a long period when Europe came into diplomatic and commercial relations with these Mongols and through them learned something of China.

Marco Polo Visits the Great Kaan.—Several Europeans visited the court of the Great Kaan, or Mongol king, and of one of them, Marco Polo, we must speak in particular. He was a Venetian, and when a young man started in 1271 with his father and uncle on a visit to the Great Kaan. They passed from Italy to Syria, across to Bagdad, and so up to Turkestan, where they saw the wonderful cities of this strange oasis, thence across the Pamirs and the Desert of Gobi to Lake Baikal, where the Kaan had his court. Here in the service of this prince Marco Polo spent over seventeen years. So valuable indeed were his services that the Kaan would not permit him to return. Year after year he remained in the East. He traversed most of China, and was for a time “taotai,” or magistrate, of the city of Yang Chan near the Yangtze River. He saw the amazing wonders of the East. He heard of “Zipangu,” or Japan. He probably heard of the Philippines.

Finally the opportunity came for the three Venetians to return. The Great Kaan had a relative who was a ruler of Persia, and ambassadors came from this ruler to secure a Mongol princess for him to marry. The dangers and hardships of the travel overland were considered too difficult for the delicate princess, and it was decided to send her by water. Marco Polo and his father and uncle were commissioned to accompany the expedition to Persia.

History of Marco Polo’s Travels.—They sailed from the port of Chin Cheu, probably near Amoy,[1] in the year 1292. They skirted the coasts of Cambodia and Siam and reached the eastern coasts of Sumatra, where they waited five months for the changing of the monsoon. Of the Malay people of Sumatra, as well as of these islands, their animals and productions, Marco Polo has left us most interesting and quite accurate accounts. The Malays on Sumatra were beginning to be converted to Mohammedanism, for Marco Polo says that many of them were “Saracens.” He gained a good knowledge of the rich and mysterious Indian Isles, where the spices and flavorings grew. It was two years before the party, having crossed the Indian Ocean, reached Persia and the court of the Persian king. When they arrived they found that while they were making this long voyage the Persian king had died; but they married the Mongol princess to his son, the young prince, who had succeeded him, and that did just as well.

From Persia the Venetians crossed to Syria and thence sailed to Italy, and at last reached home after an absence of twenty-six years. But Marco Polo’s adventures did not end with his return to Venice. In a fierce sea fight between the Venetians and Genoese, he was made a prisoner and confined in Genoa. Here a fellow captive wrote down from Marco’s own words the story of his eastern adventures, and this book we have to-day. It is a record of adventure, travel, and description, so wonderful that for years it was doubted and its accuracy disbelieved. But since, in our own time, men have been able to traverse again the routes over which Marco Polo passed, fact after fact has been established, quite as he truthfully stated them centuries ago. To have been the first European to make this mighty circuit of travel is certainly a strong title to enduring fame.

Countries of the Far East.—India.—Let us now briefly look at the countries of the Far East, which by the year 1400 had come to exercise over the mind of the European so irresistible a fascination. First of all, India, as we have seen, had for centuries been the principal source of the western commerce. But long before the date we are considering, the scepter of India had fallen from the hand of the Hindu. From the seventh century, India was a prey to Mohammedan conquerors, who entered from the northwest into the valley of the Indus. At first these were Saracens or Arabs; later they were the same Mongol converts to Mohammedanism, whose attacks upon Europe we have already noticed.

In 1398 came the furious and bloody warrior, the greatest of all Mongols,—Timour, or Tamerlane. He founded, with capital at Delhi, the empire of the Great Mogul, whose rule over India was only broken by the white man. Eastward across the Ganges and in the Dekkan, or southern part of India, were states ruled over by Indian princes.

China.—We have seen how, at the time of Marco Polo, China also was ruled by the Tartar Mongols. The Chinese have ever been subject to attack from the wandering horse-riding tribes of Siberia. Two hundred years before Christ one of the Chinese kings built the Great Wall that stretches across the northern frontier for one thousand three hundred miles, for a defense against northern foes. Through much of her history the Chinese have been ruled by aliens, as they are to-day. About 1368, however, the Chinese overthrew the Mongol rulers and established the Ming dynasty, the last Chinese house of emperors, who ruled China until 1644, when the Manchus, the present rulers, conquered the country.