A Book of Discovery / The History of the World's Exploration, From the Earliest Times to the Finding of the South Pole

by M. B. Synge

MARCO POLO

Now Venice at this time was full of enterprising merchants—merchants such as we hear of in Shakspere's Merchant of Venice. Among these were two Venetians, the brothers Polo. Rumours had reached them of the wealth of the mysterious land of Cathay, of the Great Khan, of Europeans making their way, as we have seen, through barren wildernesses, across burning deserts in the face of hardships indescribable, to open up a highway to the Far East.

So off started Maffio and Niccolo Polo on a trading enterprise, and, having crossed the Mediterranean, came "with a fair wind and the blessing of God" to Constantinople, where they disposed of a large quantity of their merchandise. Having made some money, they directed their way to Bokhara, where they fell in with a Tartar nobleman, who persuaded them to accompany him to the Court of the Great Khan himself. Ready for adventure, they agreed, and he led them in a north-easterly direction; now they were delayed by heavy snows, now by the swelling of unbridged rivers, so that it was a year before they reached Pekin, which they considered was the extremity of the East. They were courteously received by the Great Khan, who questioned them closely about their own land, to which they replied in the Tartar language which they had learnt on the way.

Now since the days of Friar John there was a new Khan named Kublai, who wished to send messengers to the Pope to beg him to send a hundred wise men to teach the Chinese Christianity. He chose the Polo brothers as his envoys to the Pope, and accordingly they started off to fulfil his behests. After an absence of fifteen years they again reached Venice. The very year they had left home Niccolo's wife had died, and his boy, afterwards to become the famous traveller, Marco Polo, had been born. The boy was now fifteen.

HOW THE BROTHERS POLO SET OUT FROM CONSTANTINOPLE WITH THEIR NEPHEW MARCO FOR CHINA. From a miniature painting in the fourteenth century Livre des Merveilles.

The stories told by his father and uncle of the Far East and the Court of the greatest Emperor on earth filled the boy with enthusiasm, and when in 1271 the brothers Polo set out for their second journey to China, not only were they accompanied by the young Marco, but also by two preaching friars to teach the Christian faith to Kublai Khan.

MARCO POLO LANDS AT ORMUZ. From a miniature in the Livre des Merveilles.

Their journey lay through Armenia, through the old city of Nineveh to Bagdad, where the last Khalif had been butchered by the Tartars. Entering Persia as traders, the Polo family passed on to Ormuz, hoping to take ship from here to China. But, for some unknown reason, this was impossible, and the travellers made their way north-eastwards to the country about the sources of the river Oxus. Here young Marco fell sick of a low fever, and for a whole year they could not proceed. Resuming their journey at last "in high spirits," they crossed the great highlands of the Pamirs, known as the "roof of the world," and, descending on Khotan, found themselves face to face with the great Gobi Desert. For thirty days they journeyed over the sandy wastes of the silent wilderness, till they came to a city in the province of Tangut, where they were met by messengers from the Khan, who had heard of their approach. But it was not till May 1275 that they actually reached the Court of Kublai Khan after their tremendous journey of "one thousand days." The preaching friars had long since turned homewards, alarmed at the dangers of the way, so only the three stout-hearted Polos were left to deliver the Pope's message to the ruler of the Mongol Empire.