The voyage appears to have ended at Ormuz, at the mouth of the Persian Gulf, after a navigation of a year and a half. Six hundred men of the various crews had died upon the way. There is no mention made in history of the return of the fleet to China, though Kublai Khan is known to have died three years after the departure of the Venetians. After various adventures, Marco Polo and his companions arrived in Venice, in 1295. They had been absent twenty-one years, and their nearest relatives did not know them. When they attempted to converse in Italian, their use of foreign idioms and barbarous forms of expression rendered their language hardly intelligible. Possession had been taken of their houses by some of their kindred, and they found it difficult to expel them. Their statements were disbelieved, till, by displaying their immense wealth and their priceless collections of jewels and precious stones, they forced their countrymen to give credit to adventures which must clearly have been extraordinary, to have resulted in such acquisitions of treasure. Marco's riches gave him the name of Milione; and he is designated, in the records of the Venetian Republic, and upon the title-page of his work,—still extant,—as Messer Marco Milione.
He was induced to write an account of his adventures in the following manner. A war between the Venetians and the Genoese resulted in the capture of the galley of which he was commander. He was imprisoned during four years at Genoa. His surprising history becoming known, he was visited by all the principal inhabitants, who were anxious to listen to his narrative. The frequent necessity of repeating the same story became intolerably irksome to him, and he resolved to commit it to writing. He thus gave the first impulse to the promotion of geographical science. He procured from Venice the original notes he had made in the course of his travels, and, with their assistance and that of a Genoese amanuensis, the narrative was composed in his cell. It is a work of great research and deep interest. Formerly read for its marvels, it is now perused as the earliest authentic account of a region which still remains a terra incognita, and whose inhabitants repel curiosity and decline mingling with other nations upon the usual reciprocal terms of fellowship and good-will. Marco Polo is now justly considered the founder of the modern geography of Asia. It was long before any new discoveries were added to those of the illustrious Venetian, but his original statements were confirmed in many quarters:—by Oderic, who visited India and China in 1320; by Schiltberger, of Munich, who accompanied Tamerlane in his expeditions through Central Asia; by Pegoletti, an Italian merchant who went to Pekin, through the heart of Asia, in 1335; and by Clavijo, in 1403, who was sent by Spain as ambassador to Samarcand.
Thus, a European had been to the regions of spices and had returned. From this time forward the world was to know no rest till the route by sea had been discovered.
ANCIENT CHINESE COMPASS.
CHAPTER XI.
THE FIRST MENTION OF THE LOADSTONE IN HISTORY—ITS EARLY NAMES—THE FIRST MENTION OF ITS DIRECTIVE POWER—A POEM UPON THE COMPASS SIX HUNDRED YEARS OLD—FRIAR BACON'S MAGNET—THE LOADSTONE IN ARABIA—AN EYE-WITNESS OF ITS EFFICIENCY IN THE SYRIAN WATERS IN THE YEAR 1240—THE MAGNET IN CHINA—EARLY MENTION OF IT IN CHINESE WORKS—THE VARIATION NOTICED IN THE TWELFTH CENTURY—OTHER DISCOVERIES MADE BY THE CHINESE—MODERN ERRORS—FLAVIO GIOIA—THE ARMS OF AMALFI—ALL RECORDS LOST OF THE FIRST VOYAGE MADE WITH THE COMPASS BY A EUROPEAN SHIP.
We have arrived at a momentous epoch in the history of the sea. It was at this period that the mariner's compass was—we do not say invented—but introduced into European navigation. That this admirable instrument, which, in half a century, changed the face of the earth, by leading to the discovery of America and thus proving the sphericity of the world, should remain unclaimed by its author, and that we are unable to point to him who thus blessed and benefited his race; must always be a subject of regret. So far from being able to name the individual to whom the invention is due, it has long been deemed impossible to fix even upon the nation who first used the needle at sea. We hope, however, by availing ourselves of recent researches made in France, to arrive at a conclusion not only satisfactory, but inevitable. In tracing the history of the compass, we must naturally begin with the magnet.