Polo

“ If the duty of bringing out the new edition of Marco Polo has fallen on one who considers himself but an unworthy successor of the first illustrious commentator, it is fair to add that the work could not have been entrusted to a more respectful disciple. Many of our tastes were similar; we had the same desire to seek the truth, the same earnest wish to be exact, perhaps the same sense of humour, and, what is necessary when writing on Marco Polo, certainly the same love for Venice and its history. ”

“ In mediæval intercourse between the courts of Siam and China we find Brazil-wood to form the bulk of the Siamese present. [“Ma Huan fully bears out Polo’s statement in this matter, for he says: This Brazil (of which Marco speaks) is as plentiful as firewood. On Chêng-ho’s chart Brazil and other fragrant woods are marked as products of Siam. Polo’s statement of the use of porcelain shells as small change is also corroborated by Ma Huan.” (G. Phillips, Jour. China B. R. A. S., XXI., 1886, p. 37.) —H. C.] (3) Elephants are abundant. ”

“ Whilst some of the changes or interpolations seem to carry us further from the truth, others contain facts of Asiatic nature or history, as well as of Polo’s own experiences, which it is extremely difficult to ascribe to any hand but the Traveller’s own. This was the view taken by Baldelli, Klaproth, and Neumann; [14] but Hugh Murray, Lazari, and Bartoli regard the changes as interpolations by another hand ”

“ He writes (p. 398) that as far as he knows, none “of the many learned men who have devoted their attention to the discoveries of Marco Polo, have been able to refer to any maps in which all or almost all those places mentioned by Marco Polo are given. All friends of the history of geography will therefore be glad to hear that such an atlas from the middle of the sixteenth century really does exist, viz. Gastaldi’s ‘Prima, seconda e terza parte dell’Asia.’” All the names of places in Ramusio’s Marco Polo are introduced in the maps of Asia of Jacobo Gastaldi (1561) . ”

“ In the other three days of the six that I have mentioned above{7}, you continue to meet with many towns and villages, with traders, and goods for sale, and craftsmen. The people have much silk, and are Idolaters, and subject to the Great Kaan. There is plenty of game of all kinds, and there are great and fierce lions which attack travellers. In the last of those three days’ journey, when you have gone 15 miles you find a city called Unken, where there is an immense quantity of sugar made. ”

“ We are told that Prince Pedro of Portugal in 1426 received from the Signory of Venice a map which was supposed to be either an original or a copy of one by Marco Polo’s own hand. (Major’s P. Henry, p. 62.) There is no evidence to justify any absolute expression of disbelief; and if any map-maker with the spirit of the author of the Carta Catalana then dwelt in Venice, Polo certainly could not have gone to his grave uncatechised. But I should suspect the map to have been a copy of the old one that existed in the Sala dello Scudo of the Ducal Palace. ”

“ Only two of the many routes between Kermán and Bender ’Abbás coincide more or less with Marco Polo’s description. These two routes are the one over the Deh Bekrí Pass [see above, Colonel Smith] , and the one viâ Sárdú. The latter is the one, I think, taken by Marco Polo. The more direct roads to the west are for the greater part through mountainous country, and have not twelve stages in plains which we find enumerated in Marco Polo’s Itinerary. The road viâ Báft, Urzú, and the Zendán Pass, for instance, has only four stages in plains; the road, viâ Ráhbur, Rúdbár and the Nevergún Pass only six ”

“ Marco Polo comes to a city called Sachiu belonging to a province called Tangut. “The people are for the most part Idolaters.... The Idolaters have a peculiar language, and are no traders, but live by their agriculture. ”

“ Part of the Catalan Map (1375) .
[Some years ago, I made a special study of the Far East in the Catalan Map (L’Extrême-Orient dans l’Atlas catalan de Charles V., Paris, 1895) , and I have come to the conclusion that the cartographer’s knowledge of Eastern Asia is drawn almost entirely from Marco Polo. We give a reproduction of part of the Catalan Map.—H. C.]
85. In the following age we find more frequent indications that Polo’s book was diffused and read. ”

“ P’u-chau fu lies on a level with the Yellow River, and on the edge of a large extent of worthless marsh land, full of pools of brackish, and in some places, positively salt water.... The great road does not pass into the town, having succeeded in maintaining its position on the high ground from which the town has backslided.... ”

“ A learned Frenchman, whom we shall have to quote freely in the immediately ensuing pages, does not venture to be more precise in reference to the meeting of Polo and Rusticiano than to say of the latter: “In 1298, being in durance in the Prison of Genoa, he there became acquainted with Marco Polo, whom the Genoese had deprived of his liberty from motives equally unknown.” ”

“ The Venetian traveller, coming from Wakhān, reached, after three days, a great lake which may be either Lake Victoria or Lake Chakmak, at a ‘height that is said to be the highest place in the world.’ He then describes faithfully enough the desert plain called ‘Pamier,’ which he makes extend for the distance of a twelve days’ ride, and next tells us: ‘Now, if we go on with our journey towards the east-north-east, we travel a good forty days, continually passing over mountains and hills, or through valleys, and crossing many rivers and tracts of wilderness. ”

“ The plain is called Pamier, and you ride across it for twelve days together, finding nothing but a desert without habitations or any green thing, so that travellers are obliged to carry with them whatever they have need of. The region is so lofty and cold that you do not even see any birds flying. ”

“ In the heart of Canton, within easy reach of mob violence at any time, may be seen to-day the life-size statue of an elderly European, in gilt clothes and black hat, which the Chinese have cared for and preserved from generation to generation because the original, Marco Polo, was a friend to their race. The thirteenth-century European had no monopoly of ability to make himself loved and reverenced. ”

“ Moreover on the north side of the Palace, about a bow-shot off, there is a hill which has been made by art [from the earth dug out of the lake] ; it is a good hundred paces in height and a mile in compass. This hill is entirely covered with trees that never lose their leaves, but remain ever green. And I assure you that wherever a beautiful tree may exist, and the Emperor gets news of it, he sends for it and has it transported bodily with all its roots and the earth attached to them, and planted on that hill of his. No matter how big the tree may be, he gets it carried by his elephants ”

“ Many a traveller besides Marco Polo might therefore have brought home the block-books. And this is the less to be ascribed to him because 141he so curiously omits to speak of the art of printing, when his subject seems absolutely to challenge its description.
[1] “They draw nowadays the map of the world in a laughable manner, for they draw the inhabited earth as a circle; but this is impossible, both from what we see and from reason.” (Meteorolog. Lib. II. cap. 5.) Cf. Herodotus, iv. ”

“ For persons who had been there and had seen it told Messer Marco Polo that it was for all the world like an eagle, but one indeed of enormous size; so big in fact that its wings covered an extent of 30 paces, and its quills were 12 paces long, and thick in proportion. And it is so strong that it will seize an elephant in its talons and carry him high into the air, and drop him so that he is smashed to pieces; having so killed him the bird gryphon swoops down on him and eats him at leisure. ”

“ And truly a trip on this Lake is a much more charming recreation than can be enjoyed on land. For on the one side lies the city in its entire length, so that the spectators in the barges, from the distance at which they stand, take in the whole prospect in its full beauty and grandeur, with its numberless palaces, temples, monasteries, and gardens, full of lofty trees, sloping to the shore. And the Lake is never without a number of other such boats, laden with pleasure parties ”

“ Thomas and the eunuch of Candace, Queen of Ethiopia.” (Tennent, II. 133.)
[“Near to the King’s residence there is a lofty mountain reaching to the skies. On the top of this mountain there is the impress of a man’s foot, which is sunk two feet deep in the rock, and is some eight or more feet long. This is said to be the impress of the foot of the ancestor of mankind, a Holy man called A-tan, otherwise P’an-Ku.” (Ma-Huan, p. 213.) —H. C.]
Polo, however, says nothing of the foot; he speaks only of the sepulchre of Adam, or of Sakya-muni. ”

“ But since Marsden published his quarto (1818) vast stores of new knowledge have become available in elucidation both of the contents of Marco Polo’s book and of its literary history. The works of writers such as Klaproth, Abel Rémusat, D’Avezac, Reinaud, Quatremère, Julien, I. J. Schmidt, Gildemeister, Ritter, Hammer-Purgstall, Erdmann, D’Ohsson, Defrémery, Elliot, Erskine, and many more, which throw light directly or incidentally on Marco Polo, have, for the most part, appeared since then. ”

“ In this map it seems to me Marco Polo’s influence, I will not say on geography, but on map-making, is seen to the greatest advantage. His Book is the basis of the Map as regards Central and Further Asia, and partially as regards India. His names are often sadly perverted, and it is not always easy to understand the view that the compiler took of his itineraries. Still we have Cathay admirably placed in the true position of China, as a great Empire filling the south-east of Asia. ”

“ Arcot ... four fronds of the Raphia palm, called here ‘Moale.’ They are just as sold and shipped up and down the coast. No doubt they were sent in Marco Polo’s time in exactly the same state, i.e. stripped of their leaflets, and with the tip broken off. They are used for making stages and ladders, and last long if kept dry. They are also made into doors, by being cut into lengths, and pinned through. The stages are made of three, like tripods, and used for picking cloves from the higher branches. ”

“ On leaving the Castle [of the Old Man] , you ride over fine plains and beautiful valleys, and pretty hill-sides producing excellent grass pasture, and abundance of fruits, and all other products.... This kind of country extends for six days’ journey, with a goodly number of towns and villages, in which the people are worshippers of Mahommet. Sometimes also you meet with a tract of desert extending for 50 or 60 miles, or somewhat less, and in these deserts you find no water, but have to carry it along with you.... ”

“ Here was the last point where caravans coming from the Bactrian side with the products of the Far West and of India could provision themselves for crossing that high tract of wilderness ‘called Pamier’ of which old Marco Polo rightly tells us: ‘You ride across it...’ And as I looked south towards the snow-covered saddle of the Baroghil, the route I had followed myself, it was equally easy to realize why Kao Hsien-chih’s strategy had, after the successful crossing of the Pamirs, made the three columns of his Chinese Army concentrate upon the stronghold of Lien-yün, opposite the present Sarhad. ”

“ It would thus, I apprehend, be on or near the route between Kermán and Tabbas; one which I believe has been traced by no modern traveller. We may be certain that there is now no place at Kuh-Banán deserving the title of une cité grant, nor is it easy to believe that there was in Polo’s time; he applies such terms too profusely. The meaning of the name is perhaps “Hill of the Terebinths, or Wild Pistachioes,” “a tree which grows abundantly in the recesses of bleak, stony, and desert mountains, e.g. about Shamákhi, about Shiraz, and in the deserts of Luristan and Lar.” (Kämpfer, 409, 413.) ”

“ Note 1. [“The present road from Kermán to Kúbenán is to Zerend about 50 miles, to the Sár i Benán 15 miles, thence to Kúbenán 30 miles—total 95 miles. Marco Polo cannot have taken the direct road to Kúbenán, as it took him seven days to reach it. As he speaks of waterless deserts, he probably took a circuitous route to the east of the mountains, viâ Kúhpáyeh and the desert lying to the north of Khabis.” (Houtum-Schindler, l.c. pp. 496–497.) (Cf. Major Sykes, ch. xxiii.) —H. C.]
Note 2.—This description of the Desert of Kermán, says Mr. Khanikoff, “is very correct. ”

“ The boys on the pasture, which we will suppose is ten miles square, will take ten of their number and five extra ponies apiece, which one man leads, and from one to another of which they shift their saddles as men do in polo, and go directly to the water-tanks in the ten square miles of land. ”

“ The Pámír plateau may be described as a great, broad, rounded ridge, extending north and south, and crossed by thick mountain chains, between which lie elevated valleys, open and gently sloping towards the east, but narrow and confined, with a rapid fall towards the west. ”

“ Those mountains are so lofty that ’tis a hard day’s work, from morning till evening, to get to the top of them. On getting up, you find an extensive plain, with great abundance of grass and trees, and copious springs of pure water running down through rocks and ravines. ”

“ Sir Bartle Frere writes of Agha Khan in 1875: “Like his ancestor, the Old One of Marco Polo’s time, he keeps his court in grand and noble style. His sons, popularly known as ‘The Persian Princes,’ are active sportsmen, and age has not dulled the Agha’s enjoyment of horse-racing. Some of the best blood of Arabia is always to be found in his stables. He spares no expense on his racers, and no prejudice of religion or race prevents his availing himself of the science and skill of an English trainer or jockey when the races come round. ”