Nicolo and Maffio Polo, two noble Venetians engaged in commerce, having freighted a vessel with rich merchandise, sailed from Venice in the year 1250. Traversing the Mediterranean and the Bosphorus, they arrived in safety at Constantinople, Baldwin II. being then Emperor of the East. Here they disposed of their cargo, and purchasing rich jewels with the proceeds, crossed the Black Sea to Soldain, or Sudak, in the Crimea, from whence they travelled by land to the court of Barkah Khan, a Tartar prince, whose principal residences were the cities of Al-Serai, and Bolghar. To this khan they presented a number of their finest jewels, receiving gifts of still greater value in return. When they had spent a whole year in the dominions of Barkah, and were beginning to prepare for their return to Italy, hostilities suddenly broke out between the khan and his cousin Holagon; which, rendering unsafe all passages to the west, compelled them to make the circuit of the northern and eastern frontiers of Kipjak. Having escaped from the scene of war they crossed Gihon, and then traversing a desert of seventeen days’ journey, thinly sprinkled with the tents of the wandering tribes, they arrived at Bokhāra. Here they remained three years. At the termination of this period an ambassador from Holagon to Kublai Khan passing through Bokhāra, and happening accidentally to meet with the Polos, who had by this time acquired a competent knowledge of the Tartar language, was greatly charmed with their conversation and manners, and by much persuasion and many magnificent promises prevailed upon them to accompany him to Cambalu, or Khanbalik, in Cathay. A whole year was consumed in this journey. At length, however, they arrived at the court of the Great Khan, who received and treated them with peculiar distinction.
How long the brothers remained at Cambalu is not known; but their residence, whatever may have been its length, sufficed to impress Kublai Khan with an exalted opinion of their honour and capacity, so that when by the advice of his courtiers he determined on sending an embassy to the pope, Nicolo and Maffio were intrusted with the conduct of the mission. They accordingly departed from Cambalu, furnished with letters for the head of the Christian church, a passport or tablet of gold, empowering them to provide themselves with guides, horses, and provisions throughout the khan’s dominions, and accompanied by a Tartar nobleman. This Tartar falling exceedingly ill on the way, they proceeded alone, and, after three years of toil and dangers, arrived at Venice in 1269.
Nicolo, who, during the many years he had been absent, seems to have received no intelligence from home, now found that his wife, whom he had left pregnant at his departure, was dead, but that she had left him a son, named Marco, then nineteen years old. The pope, likewise, had died the preceding year; and various intrigues preventing the election of a successor, they remained in Italy two years, unable to execute the commission of the khan. At length, fearing that their long absence might be displeasing to Kublai, and perceiving no probability of a speedy termination to the intrigues of the conclave, they, in 1271, again set out for the East, accompanied by young Marco.
Arriving in Palestine, they obtained from the legate Visconti, then at Acre, letters testifying their fidelity to the Great Khan, and stating the fact that a new pope had not yet been chosen. At Al-Ajassi, in Armenia, however, they were overtaken by a messenger from Visconti, who wrote to inform them that he himself had been elected to fill the papal throne, and requested that they would either return, or delay their departure until he could provide them with new letters to the khan. As soon as these letters and the presents of his holiness arrived, they continued their journey, and passing through the northern provinces of Persia, were amused with the extraordinary history of the Assassins, then recently destroyed by a general of Holagon.
Quitting Persia, they proceeded through a rich and picturesque country to Balkh, a celebrated city, which they found in ruins and nearly deserted, its lofty walls and marble palaces having been levelled with the ground by the devastating armies of the Mongols. The country in the neighbourhood had likewise been depopulated, the inhabitants having taken refuge in the mountains from the rapacious cruelty of the predatory hordes, who roamed over the vast fields which greater robbers had reaped, gleaning the scanty plunder which had escaped their powerful predecessors. Though the land was well watered and fertile, and abounding in game, lions and other wild beasts had begun to establish their dominion over it, man having disappeared; and therefore, such travellers as ventured across this new wilderness were constrained to carry along with them all necessary provisions, nothing whatever being to be found on the way.
When they had passed this desert, they arrived in a country richly cultivated and covered with corn, to the south of which there was a ridge of high mountains, where such prodigious quantities of salt were found that all the world might have been supplied from those mines. The track of our travellers through the geographical labyrinth of Tartary it is impossible to follow. They appear to have been prevented by accidents from pursuing any regular course, in one place having their passage impeded by the overflowing of a river, and on other occasions being turned aside by the raging of bloody wars, by the heat or barrenness, or extent of deserts, or by their utter inability to procure guides through tracts covered with impervious forests or perilous morasses.
They next proceeded through a fertile country, inhabited by Mohammedans, to the town of Scasom, perhaps the Koukan of Arrowsmith, on the Sirr or Sihon. Numerous castles occupied the fastnesses of the mountains, while the shepherd tribes, like the troglodytes of old, dwelt with their herds and flocks in caverns scooped out of the rock. In three days’ journey from hence they reached the province of Balascia, or Balashghan, where, Marco falling sick, the party were detained during a whole year, a delay which afforded our illustrious traveller ample leisure for prosecuting his researches respecting this and the neighbouring countries. The kings of this petty sovereignty pretended to trace their descent from the Macedonian conqueror and the daughter of Darius; making up, by the fabulous splendour of their genealogy, for their want of actual power. The inhabitants were Mohammedans, and spoke a language peculiar to themselves. It was said, that not many years previous they had possessed a race of horses equally illustrious with their kings, being descended from Bucephalus; but as it was asserted that these noble animals possessed one great advantage over their kings, that of bearing upon their foreheads the peculiar mark which distinguished the great founder of their family, thus proving the purity of the breed, they very prudently added that the whole race had recently been exterminated.
This country was rich in minerals and precious stones, lead, copper, silver, lapis lazuli, and rubies abounding in the mountains. The climate was cold, and that of the plains insalubrious, engendering agues, which quickly yielded, however, to the bracing air of the hills; where Marco, after languishing for a whole year with this disorder, recovered his health in the course of a few days. The horses were large, strong, and swift, and had hoofs so tough that they could travel unshod over the most rocky places. Vast flocks of wild sheep, exceedingly difficult to be taken, were found in the hills.
Marco’s health being restored, our travellers resumed their journey towards Cathay, and proceeding in a north-easterly direction, arrived at the roots of a vast mountain, reported by the inhabitants to be the loftiest in the world. Having continued for three days ascending the steep approaches to this mountain, they reached an extensive table-land, hemmed in on both sides by still loftier mountains, and having a great lake in its centre. A fine river likewise flowed through it, and maintained so extraordinary a degree of fertility in the pastures upon its banks, that an ox or horse brought lean to these plains would become fat in ten days. Great numbers of wild animals were found here, among the rest a species of wild sheep with horns six spans in length, from which numerous drinking-vessels were made. This immense plain, notwithstanding its fertility, was uninhabited, and the severity of the cold prevented its being frequented by birds. Fire, too, it was asserted, did not here burn so brightly, or produce the same effect upon food, as in other places: an observation which has recently been made on the mountains of Savoy and Switzerland.
From this plain they proceeded along the foot of the Allak mountains to the country of Kashgar, which, possessing a fertile soil, and an industrious and ingenious population, was maintained in a high state of cultivation, and beautified with numerous gardens, orchards, and vineyards. From Kashgar they travelled to Yarkand, where the inhabitants, like those of the valleys of the Pyrenees, were subject to the goitres, or large wens upon the throat. To this province succeeded that of Khoten, whence our word cotton has been derived. The inhabitants of this country, an industrious but unwarlike race, were of the Mohammedan religion, and tributaries to the Great Khan. Proceeding in their south-easterly direction, they passed through the city of Peym, where, if a husband or wife were absent from home twenty days, the remaining moiety might marry again; and pursuing their course through sandy barren plains, arrived at the country of Sartem. Here the landscape was enlivened by numerous cities and castles; but when the storm of war burst upon them, the inhabitants, like the Arabs, relied upon famine as their principal weapon against the enemy, retiring with their wives, children, treasures, and provisions, into the desert, whither none could follow them. To secure their subsistence from plunder, they habitually scooped out their granaries in the depths of the desert, where, after harvest, they annually buried their corn in deep pits, over which the wind soon spread the wavy sand as before, obliterating all traces of their labours. They themselves, however, possessed some unerring index to the spot, which enabled them at all times to discover their hoards. Chalcedonies, jaspers, and other precious stones were found in the rivers of this province.