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The Project Gutenberg EBook of The Travels of Marco Polo Volume 1
by Marco Polo and Rustichello of Pisa
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Title: The Travels of Marco Polo Volume 1
Author: Marco Polo and Rustichello of Pisa
Release Date: January 8, 2004 [EBook #10636]
Language: English
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*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK THE TRAVELS OF MARCO POLO VOLUME 1 ***
Produced by Charles Franks, Robert Connal, John Williams and PG
Distributed Proofreaders
THE TRAVELS OF MARCO POLO
THE COMPLETE YULE-CORDIER EDITION
[Illustration: H. Yule]
Including the unabridged third edition (1903) of Henry Yule's annotated
translation, as revised by Henri Cordier; together with Cordier's later
volume of notes and addenda (1920)
IN TWO VOLUMES
VOLUME I
_Containing the first volume of the 1903 edition_
DEDICATION.
TO THE MEMORY OF
SIR RODERICK I. MURCHISON, BART., K.C.B., G.C.ST.A., G.C.ST.S.,
ETC.
THE PERFECT FRIEND
WHO FIRST BROUGHT HENRY YULE AND JOHN MURRAY TOGETHER
(HE ENTERED INTO REST, OCTOBER 22ND, 1871,)
AND TO THAT OF HIS MUCH LOVED NIECE,
HARRIET ISABELLA MURCHISON,
WIFE OF KENNETH ROBERT MURCHISON, D.L., J.P.,
(SHE ENTERED INTO REST, AUGUST 9TH, 1902,)
UNDER WHOSE EVER HOSPITABLE ROOF MANY OF THE PROOF
SHEETS OF THIS EDITION WERE READ BY ME,
I DEDICATE THESE VOLUMES FROM
THE OLD MURCHISON HOME,
IN THANKFUL REMEMBRANCE OF ALL I OWE TO
THE ABIDING AFFECTION, SYMPATHY, AND EXAMPLE OF BOTH.
TARADALE, AMY FRANCES YULE.
ROSS-SHIRE, SEPTEMBER 11TH, 1902.
SCOTLAND.
* * * *
Ed e da noi si strano,
Che quando ne ragiono
I' non trovo nessuno,
Che l'abbia navicato,
* * * *
Le parti del Levante,
La dove sono tante
Gemme di gran valute
E di molta salute:
E sono in quello giro
Balsamo, e ambra, e tiro,
E lo pepe, e lo legno
Aloe, ch' e si degno,
E spigo, e cardamomo,
Giengiovo, e cennamomo;
E altre molte spezie,
Ciascuna in sua spezie,
E migliore, e piu fina,
E sana in medicina.
Appresso in questo loco
Mise in assetto loco
Li tigri, e li grifoni,
Leofanti, e leoni
Cammelli, e dragomene,
Badalischi, e gene,
E pantere, e castoro,
Le formiche dell' oro,
E tanti altri animali,
Ch' io non so ben dir quail,
Che son si divisati,
E si dissomigliati
Di corpo e di fazione,
Di si fera ragione,
E di si strana taglia,
Ch'io non credo san faglia,
Ch' alcun uomo vivente
Potesse veramente
Per lingua, o per scritture
Recitar le figure
Delle bestie, e gli uccelli....
--From _Il Tesoretto di Ser Brunetto Latini_ (circa MDCCLX.).
(_Florence_, 1824, pp. 83 seqq.)
[Illustration]
[Greek:
Andra moi hennepe, Mousa, polytropon, hos mala polla
Plagchthae . . . . . . .
Pollon d' anthropon iden astea kai noon egno].
_Odyssey_, I.
--"I AM BECOME A NAME;
FOR ALWAYS ROAMING WITH A HUNGRY HEART
MUCH HAVE I SEEN AND KNOWN; CITIES OF MEN,
AND MANNERS, CLIMATES, COUNCILS, GOVERNMENTS,
MYSELF NOT LEAST, BUT HONOURED OF THEM ALL."
TENNYSON.
"A SEDER CI PONEMMO IVI AMBODUI
VOLTI A LEVANTE, OND' ERAVAM SALITI;
CHE SUOLE A RIGUARDAR GIOVARE ALTRUI."
DANTE, _Purgatory_, IV.
[Illustration: Messer Marco Polo, with Messer Nicolo and Messer Maffeo,
returned from xxvi years' sojourn in the Orient, is denied entrance to the
Ca' Polo. (See _Int._ p. 4)]
CONTENTS OF VOL. I.
DEDICATION
NOTE BY MISS YULE
PREFACE TO THIRD EDITION
PREFACE TO SECOND EDITION
ORIGINAL PREFACE
ORIGINAL DEDICATION
MEMOIR OF SIR HENRY YULE BY AMY FRANCES YULE, L.A.SOC. ANT. SCOT.
A BIBLIOGRAPHY OF SIR HENRY YULE'S WRITINGS
SYNOPSIS OF CONTENTS
EXPLANATORY LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS TO VOL. I.
INTRODUCTORY NOTICES
THE BOOK OF MARCO POLO.
NOTE BY MISS YULE
I desire to take this opportunity of recording my grateful sense of the
unsparing labour, learning, and devotion, with which my father's valued
friend, Professor Henri Cordier, has performed the difficult and delicate
task which I entrusted to his loyal friendship.
Apart from Professor Cordier's very special qualifications for the work,
I feel sure that no other Editor could have been more entirely acceptable
to my father. I can give him no higher praise than to say that he has
laboured in Yule's own spirit.
The slight Memoir which I have contributed (for which I accept all
responsibility), attempts no more than a rough sketch of my father's
character and career, but it will, I hope, serve to recall pleasantly his
remarkable individuality to the few remaining who knew him in his prime,
whilst it may also afford some idea of the man, and his work and
environment, to those who had not that advantage.
No one can be more conscious than myself of its many shortcomings, which I
will not attempt to excuse. I can, however, honestly say that these have
not been due to negligence, but are rather the blemishes almost inseparable
from the fulfilment under the gloom of bereavement and amidst the pressure
of other duties, of a task undertaken in more favourable circumstances.
Nevertheless, in spite of all defects, I believe this sketch to be such
a record as my father would himself have approved, and I know also that he
would have chosen my hand to write it.
In conclusion, I may note that the first edition of this work was
dedicated to that very noble lady, the Queen (then Crown Princess)
Margherita of Italy. In the second edition the Dedication was reproduced
within brackets (as also the original preface), but not renewed. That
precedent is again followed.
I have, therefore, felt at liberty to associate the present edition of my
father's work with the Name MURCHISON, which for more than a generation
was the name most generally representative of British Science in Foreign
Lands, as of Foreign Science in Britain.
A. F. YULE.
PREFACE TO THIRD EDITION
Little did I think, some thirty years ago, when I received a copy of the
first edition of this grand work, that I should be one day entrusted with
the difficult but glorious task of supervising the third edition. When the
first edition of the _Book of Ser Marco Polo_ reached "Far Cathay," it
created quite a stir in the small circle of the learned foreigners, who
then resided there, and became a starting-point for many researches, of
which the results have been made use of partly in the second edition, and
partly in the present. The Archimandrite PALLADIUS and Dr. E.
BRETSCHNEIDER, at Peking, ALEX. WYLIE, at Shang-hai--friends of mine who
have, alas! passed away, with the exception of the Right Rev. Bishop G. E.
MOULE, of Hang-chau, the only survivor of this little group of
hard-working scholars,--were the first to explore the Chinese sources of
information which were to yield a rich harvest into their hands.
When I returned home from China in 1876, I was introduced to Colonel HENRY
YULE, at the India Office, by our common friend, Dr. REINHOLD ROST, and
from that time we met frequently and kept up a correspondence which
terminated only with the life of the great geographer, whose friend I had
become. A new edition of the travels of Friar Odoric of Pordenone, our
"mutual friend," in which Yule had taken the greatest interest, was
dedicated by me to his memory. I knew that Yule contemplated a third
edition of his _Marco Polo_, and all will regret that time was not allowed
to him to complete this labour of love, to see it published. 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. Not only am I,
with the late CHARLES SCHEFER, the founder and the editor of the _Recueil
de Voyages et de Documents pour servir a l'Histoire de la Geographie
depuis le XIII'e jusqu'a la fin du XVI'e siecle_, but I am also the
successor, at the Ecole des langues Orientales Vivantes, of G. PAUTHIER,
whose book on the Venetian Traveller is still valuable, so the mantle of
the last two editors fell upon my shoulders.
I therefore, gladly and thankfully, accepted Miss AMY FRANCIS YULE'S kind
proposal to undertake the editorship of the third edition of the _Book of
Ser Marco Polo_, and I wish to express here my gratitude to her for the
great honour she has thus done me.[1]
Unfortunately for his successor, Sir Henry Yule, evidently trusting to his
own good memory, left but few notes. These are contained in an interleaved
copy obligingly placed at my disposal by Miss Yule, but I luckily found
assistance from various other quarters. The following works have proved of
the greatest assistance to me:--The articles of General HOUTUM-SCHINDLER
in the _Journal of the Royal Asiatic Society_, and the excellent books of
Lord CURZON and of Major P. MOLESWORTH SYKES on Persia, M. GRENARD'S
account of DUTREUIL DE RHINS' Mission to Central Asia, BRETSCHNEIDER'S and
PALLADIUS' remarkable papers on Mediaeval Travellers and Geography, and
above all, the valuable books of the Hon. W. W. ROCKHILL on Tibet and
Rubruck, to which the distinguished diplomatist, traveller, and scholar
kindly added a list of notes of the greatest importance to me, for which I
offer him my hearty thanks.
My thanks are also due to H.H. Prince ROLAND BONAPARTE, who kindly gave me
permission to reproduce some of the plates of his _Recueil de Documents de
l'Epoque Mongole_, to M. LEOPOLD DELISLE, the learned Principal Librarian
of the Bibliotheque Nationale, who gave me the opportunity to study the
inventory made after the death of the Doge Marino Faliero, to the Count de
SEMALLE, formerly French Charge d'Affaires at Peking, who gave me for
reproduction a number of photographs from his valuable personal
collection, and last, not least, my old friend Comm. NICOLO BAROZZI, who
continued to lend me the assistance which he had formerly rendered to Sir
Henry Yule at Venice.
Since the last edition was published, more than twenty-five years ago,
Persia has been more thoroughly studied; new routes have been explored in
Central Asia, Karakorum has been fully described, and Western and
South-Western China have been opened up to our knowledge in many
directions. The results of these investigations form the main features of
this new edition of _Marco Polo_. I have suppressed hardly any of Sir Henry
Yule's notes and altered but few, doing so only when the light of recent
information has proved him to be in error, but I have supplemented them by
what, I hope, will be found useful, new information.[2]
Before I take leave of the kind reader, I wish to thank sincerely Mr. JOHN
MURRAY for the courtesy and the care he has displayed while this edition
was going through the press.
HENRI CORDIER.
PARIS, _1st of October, 1902_.
[1] Miss Yule has written the Memoir of her father and the new Dedication.
[2] Paragraphs which have been altered are marked thus +; my own additions
are placed between brackets [ ].--H. C.
[Illustration:
"Now strike your Sailes yee jolly Mariners,
For we be come into a quiet Rode"....
--THE FAERIE QUEENE, I. xii. 42.]
PREFACE TO SECOND EDITION.
The unexpected amount of favour bestowed on the former edition of this
Work has been a great encouragement to the Editor in preparing this second
one.
Not a few of the kind friends and correspondents who lent their aid before
have continued it to the present revision. The contributions of Mr. A.
WYLIE of Shang-hai, whether as regards the amount of labour which they
must have cost him, or the value of the result, demand above all others a
grateful record here. Nor can I omit to name again with hearty
acknowledgment Signor Comm. G. BERCHET of Venice, the Rev. Dr. CALDWELL,
Colonel (now Major-General) R. MACLAGAN, R.E., Mr. D. HANBURY, F.R.S., Mr.
EDWARD THOMAS, F.R.S. (Corresponding Member of the Institute), and Mr. R.
H. MAJOR.
But besides these old names, not a few new ones claim my thanks.
The Baron F. VON RICHTHOFEN, now President of the Geographical Society of
Berlin, a traveller who not only has trodden many hundreds of miles in the
footsteps of our Marco, but has perhaps travelled over more of the
Interior of China than Marco ever did, and who carried to that survey high
scientific accomplishments of which the Venetian had not even a
rudimentary conception, has spontaneously opened his bountiful stores of
new knowledge in my behalf. Mr. NEY ELIAS, who in 1872 traversed and
mapped a line of upwards of 2000 miles through the almost unknown tracts
of Western Mongolia, from the Gate in the Great Wall at Kalghan to the
Russian frontier in the Altai, has done likewise.[1] To the Rev. G. MOULE,
of the Church Mission at Hang-chau, I owe a mass of interesting matter
regarding that once great and splendid city, the KINSAY of our Traveller,
which has enabled me, I trust, to effect great improvement both in the
Notes and in the Map, which illustrate that subject. And to the Rev.
CARSTAIRS DOUGLAS, LL.D., of the English Presbyterian Mission at Amoy, I
am scarcely less indebted. The learned Professor BRUUN, of Odessa, whom I
never have seen, and have little likelihood of ever seeing in this world,
has aided me with zeal and cordiality like that of old friendship. To Mr.
ARTHUR BURNELL, Ph.D., of the Madras Civil Service, I am grateful for many
valuable notes bearing on these and other geographical studies, and
particularly for his generous communication of the drawing and photograph
of the ancient Cross at St. Thomas's Mount, long before any publication of
that subject was made on his own account. My brother officer, Major OLIVER
ST. JOHN, R.E., has favoured me with a variety of interesting remarks
regarding the Persian chapters, and has assisted me with new data, very
materially correcting the Itinerary Map in Kerman.
Mr. BLOCHMANN of the Calcutta Madrasa, Sir DOUGLAS FORSYTH, C.B., lately
Envoy to Kashgar, M. de MAS LATRIE, the Historian of Cyprus, Mr. ARTHUR
GROTE, Mr. EUGENE SCHUYLER of the U.S. Legation at St. Petersburg, Dr.
BUSHELL and Mr. W.F. MAYERS, of H.M.'s Legation at Peking, Mr. G. PHILLIPS
of Fuchau, Madame OLGA FEDTCHENKO, the widow of a great traveller too
early lost to the world, Colonel KEATINGE, V.C., C.S.I., Major-General
KEYES, C.B., Dr. GEORGE BIRDWOOD, Mr. BURGESS, of Bombay, my old and
valued friend Colonel W. H. GREATHED, C.B., and the Master of Mediaeval
Geography, M. D'AVEZAC himself, with others besides, have kindly lent
assistance of one kind or another, several of them spontaneously, and the
rest in prompt answer to my requests.
Having always attached much importance to the matter of illustrations,[2]
I feel greatly indebted to the liberal action of Mr. Murray in enabling me
largely to increase their number in this edition. Though many are
original, we have also borrowed a good many;[3] a proceeding which seems
to me entirely unobjectionable when the engravings are truly illustrative
of the text, and not hackneyed.
I regret the augmented bulk of the volumes. There has been some excision,
but the additions visibly and palpably preponderate. The truth is that
since the completion of the first edition, just four years ago, large
additions have been made to the stock of our knowledge bearing on the
subjects of this Book; and how these additions have continued to come in
up to the last moment, may be seen in Appendix L,[4] which has had to
undergo repeated interpolation after being put in type. KARAKORUM, for a
brief space the seat of the widest empire the world has known, has been
visited; the ruins of SHANG-TU, the "Xanadu of Cublay Khan," have been
explored; PAMIR and TANGUT have been penetrated from side to side; the
famous mountain Road of SHEN-SI has been traversed and described; the
mysterious CAINDU has been unveiled; the publication of my lamented friend
Lieutenant Garnier's great work on the French Exploration of Indo-China
has provided a mass of illustration of that YUN-NAN for which but the
other day Marco Polo was well-nigh the most recent authority. Nay, the
last two years have thrown a promise of light even on what seemed the
wildest of Marco's stories, and the bones of a veritable RUC from New
Zealand lie on the table of Professor Owen's Cabinet!
M. VIVIEN de St. MARTIN, during the interval of which we have been
speaking, has published a History of Geography. In treating of Marco Polo,
he alludes to the first edition of this work, most evidently with no
intention of disparagement, but speaks of it as merely a revision of
Marsden's Book. The last thing I should allow myself to do would be to
apply to a Geographer, whose works I hold in so much esteem, the
disrespectful definition which the adage quoted in my former Preface[5]
gives of the _vir qui docet quod non sapit_; but I feel bound to say that
on this occasion M. Vivien de St. Martin has permitted himself to
pronounce on a matter with which he had not made himself acquainted; for
the perusal of the very first lines of the Preface (I will say nothing of
the Book) would have shown him that such a notion was utterly unfounded.
In concluding these "forewords" I am probably taking leave of Marco
Polo,[6] the companion of many pleasant and some laborious hours, whilst I
have been contemplating with him ("_volti a levante_") that Orient in
which I also had spent years not a few.
* * * * *
And as the writer lingered over this conclusion, his thoughts wandered
back in reverie to those many venerable libraries in which he had formerly
made search for mediaeval copies of the Traveller's story; and it seemed
to him as if he sate in a recess of one of these with a manuscript before
him which had never till then been examined with any care, and which he
found with delight to contain passages that appear in no version of the
Book hitherto known. It was written in clear Gothic text, and in the Old
French tongue of the early 14th century. Was it possible that he had
lighted on the long-lost original of Ramusio's Version? No; it proved to
be different. Instead of the tedious story of the northern wars, which
occupies much of our Fourth Book, there were passages occurring in the
later history of Ser Marco, some years after his release from the Genoese
captivity. They appeared to contain strange anachronisms certainly; but we
have often had occasion to remark on puzzles in the chronology of Marco's
story![7] And in some respects they tended to justify our intimated
suspicion that he was a man of deeper feelings and wider sympathies than
the book of Rusticiano had allowed to appear.[8] Perhaps this time the
Traveller had found an amanuensis whose faculties had not been stiffened
by fifteen years of Malapaga?[9] One of the most important passages ran
thus:--
"Bien est voirs que, apres ce que _Messires Marc Pol_ avoit pris fame et
si estoit demoure plusours ans de sa vie a _Venysse_, il avint que
mourut _Messires Mafes_ qui oncles _Monseignour Marc_ estoit: (et mourut
ausi ses granz chiens mastins qu'avoit amenei dou Catai,[10] et qui
avoit non _Bayan_ pour l'amour au bon chievetain _Bayan Cent-iex_);
adonc n'avoit oncques puis _Messires Marc_ nullui, fors son esclave
_Piere le Tartar_, avecques lequel pouvoit penre soulas a s'entretenir
de ses voiages et des choses dou Levant. Car la gent de _Venysse_ si
avoit de grant piesce moult anuy pris des loncs contes _Monseignour
Marc_; et quand ledit _Messires Marc_ issoit de l'uys sa meson ou Sain
Grisostome, souloient li petit marmot es voies dariere-li courir en
cryant _Messer Marco Milion! cont' a nu un busion!_ que veult dire en
Francois 'Messires Marcs des millions di-nous un de vos gros mensonges.'
En oultre, la Dame _Donate_ fame anuyouse estoit, et de trop estroit
esprit, et plainne de couvoitise.[11] Ansi avint que _Messires Marc_
desiroit es voiages rantrer durement.
"Si se partist de _Venisse_ et chevaucha aux parties d'occident. Et
demoura mainz jours es contrees de _Provence_ et de _France_ et puys
fist passaige aux Ysles de la tremontaingne et s'en retourna par _la
Magne_, si comme vous orrez cy-apres. Et fist-il escripre son voiage
atout les devisements les contrees; mes de la France n'y parloit mie
grantment pour ce que maintes genz la scevent apertement. Et pour ce en
lairons atant, et commencerons d'autres choses, assavoir, de BRETAINGNE
LA GRANT."
_Cy devyse dou roiaume de Bretaingne la grant._
"Et sachies que quand l'en se part de _Cales_, et l'en nage XX ou XXX
milles a trop grant mesaise, si treuve l'en une grandisme Ysle qui
s'apelle _Bretaingne la Grant_. Elle est a une grant royne et n'en fait
treuage a nulluy. Et ensevelissent lor mors, et ont monnoye de chartres
et d'or et d'argent, et ardent pierres noyres, et vivent de marchandises
et d'ars, et ont toutes choses de vivre en grant habondance mais non pas
a bon marchie. Et c'est une Ysle de trop grant richesce, et li marinier
de celle partie dient que c'est li plus riches royaumes qui soit ou
monde, et qu'il y a li mieudre marinier dou monde et li mieudre coursier
et li mieudre chevalier (ains ne chevauchent mais lonc com Francois).
Ausi ont-il trop bons homes d'armes et vaillans durement (bien que maint
n'y ait), et les dames et damoseles bonnes et loialles, et belles com
lys souef florant. Et quoi vous en diroie-je? Il y a citez et chasteau
assez, et tant de marcheanz et si riches qui font venir tant d'avoir-de-
poiz et de toute espece de marchandise qu'il n'est hons qui la verite en
sceust dire. Font venir _d'Ynde_ et d'autres parties coton a grant
plante, et font venir soye de _Manzi_ et de _Bangala_, et font venir
laine des ysles de la Mer Occeane et de toutes parties. Et si labourent
maintz bouquerans et touailles et autres draps de coton et de laine et
de soye. Encores sachies que ont vaines d'acier assez, et si en
labourent trop soubtivement de tous hernois de chevalier, et de toutes
choses besoignables a ost; ce sont espees et glaive et esperon et heaume
et haches, et toute espece d arteillerie et de coutelerie, et en font
grant gaaigne et grant marchandise. Et en font si grant habondance que
tout li mondes en y puet avoir et a bon marchie".
_Encores cy devise dou dyt roiaume, et de ce qu'en dist Messires
Marcs._
"Et sachies que tient icelle Royne la seigneurie de _l'Ynde majeure_ et
de _Mutfili_ et de _Bangala_, et d'une moitie de _Mien_. Et moult est
saige et noble dame et pourveans, si que est elle amee de chascun. Et
avoit jadis mari; et depuys qu'il mourut bien _XIV_ ans avoit; adonc la
royne sa fame l'ama tant que oncques puis ne se voult marier a nullui,
pour l'amour le prince son baron, ancois moult maine quoye vie. Et tient
son royaume ausi bien ou miex que oncques le tindrent li roy si aioul.
Mes ores en ce royaume li roy n'ont guieres pooir, ains la poissance
commence a trespasser a la menue gent Et distrent aucun marinier de
celes parties a _Monseignour Marc_ que hui-et-le jour li royaumes soit
auques abastardi come je vous diroy. Car bien est voirs que ci-arrieres
estoit ciz pueple de _Bretaingne la Grant_ bonne et granz et loialle
gent qui servoit Diex moult volontiers selonc lor usaige; et tuit li
labour qu'il labouroient et portoient a vendre estoient honnestement
laboure, et dou greigneur vaillance, et chose pardurable; et se
vendoient a jouste pris sanz barguignier. En tant que se aucuns labours
portoit l'estanpille _Bretaingne la Grant_ c'estoit regardei com pleges
de bonne estoffe. Mes orendroit li labours n'est mie tousjourz si bons;
et quand l'en achate pour un quintal pesant de toiles de coton, adonc,
par trop souvent, si treuve l'en de chascun C pois de coton, bien XXX ou
XL pois de plastre de gifs, ou de blanc d'Espaigne, ou de choses
semblables. Et se l'en achate de cammeloz ou de tireteinne ou d'autre
dras de laine, cist ne durent mie, ains sont plain d'empoise, ou de glu
et de balieures.
"Et bien qu'il est voirs que chascuns hons egalement doit de son cors
servir son seigneur ou sa commune, pour aler en ost en tens de
besoingne; et bien que trestuit li autre royaume d'occident tieingnent
ce pour ordenance, ciz pueple de _Bretaingne la Grant_ n'en veult
nullement, ains si dient: 'Veez-la: n'avons nous pas la _Manche_ pour
fosse de nostre pourpris, et pourquoy nous penerons-nous pour nous faire
homes d'armes, en lessiant nos gaaignes et nos soulaz? Cela lairons aus
soudaiers.' Or li preudhome entre eulx moult scevent bien com tiex
paroles sont nyaises; mes si ont paour de lour en dire la verite pour ce
que cuident desplaire as bourjois et a la menue gent.
"Or je vous di sanz faille que, quand _Messires Marcs Pols_ sceust ces
choses, moult en ot pitie de cestui pueple, et il li vint a remembrance
ce que avenu estoit, ou tens _Monseignour Nicolas_ et _Monseignour
Mafe_, a l'ore quand _Alau_, frere charnel dou Grant Sire _Cublay_, ala
en ost seur _Baudas_, et print le _Calife_ et sa maistre cite, atout son
vaste tresor d'or et d'argent, et l'amere parolle que dist ledit Alau au
Calife, com l'a escripte li Maistres Rusticiens ou chief de cestui
livre.[12]
"Car sachies tout voirement que _Messires Marc_ moult se deleitoit a
faire appert combien sont pareilles au font les condicions des diverses
regions dou monde, et soloit-il clorre son discours si disant en son
language de _Venisse: 'Sto mondo xe fato tondo_, com uzoit dire mes
oncles Mafes.'
"Ore vous lairons a conter de ceste matiere et retournerons a parler de
la Loy des genz de _Bretaingne la Grant_.
_Cy devise des diverses creances de la gent Bretaingne la Grant et de
ce qu'en cuidoit Messires Marcs._
"Il est voirs que li pueples est Crestiens, mes non pour le plus selonc
la foy de l'Apostoille Rommain, ains tiennent le en mautalent assez.
Seulement il y en a aucun qui sont feoil du dit Apostoille et encore
plus forment que li nostre prudhome de _Venisse_. Car quand dit li
Papes: 'Telle ou telle chose est noyre,' toute ladite gent si en jure:
'Noyre est com poivre.' Et puis se dira li Papes de la dite chose: 'Elle
est blanche,' si en jurera toute ladite gent: 'Il est voirs qu'elle est
blanche; blanche est com noifs.' Et dist _Messires Marc Pol_: 'Nous
n'avons nullement tant de foy a _Venyse_, ne li prudhome de _Florence_
non plus, com l'en puet savoir bien apertement dou livre Monseignour
_Dantes Aldiguiere_, que j'ay congneu a _Padoe_ le meisme an que
Messires _Thibault de Cepoy_ a _Venisse_ estoit.[13] Mes c'est
joustement ce que j'ay veu autre foiz pres le Grant _Bacsi_ qui est com
li Papes des Ydres.'
"Encore y a une autre maniere de gent; ce sont de celz qui s'appellent
filsoufes;[14] et si il disent: 'S'il y a Diex n'en scavons nul, mes il
est voirs qu'il est une certeinne courance des choses laquex court
devers le bien.' Et fist _Messires Marcs_: 'Encore la creance des
_Bacsi_ qui dysent que n'y a ne Diex Eternel ne Juge des homes, ains il
est une certeinne chose laquex s'apelle _Kerma_.'[15]
"Une autre foiz avint que disoit un des filsoufes a _Monseignour Marc_:
'Diex n'existe mie jeusqu'ores, aincois il se fait desorendroit.' Et
fist encore _Messires Marcs_: 'Veez-la, une autre foiz la creance des
ydres, car dient que li seuz Diex est icil hons qui par force de ses
vertuz et de son savoir tant pourchace que d'home il se face Diex
presentement. Et li Tartar l'appelent _Borcan_. Tiex Diex _Sagamoni
Borcan_ estoit, dou quel parle li livres Maistre _Rusticien_.'[16]
"Encore ont une autre maniere de filsoufes, et dient-il: 'Il n'est mie
ne Diex ne _Kerma_ ne courance vers le bien, ne Providence, ne Creerres,
ne Sauvours, ne saintete ne pechies ne conscience de pechie, ne proyere
ne response a proyere, il n'est nulle riens fors que trop minime grain
ou paillettes qui ont a nom _atosmes_, et de tiex grains devient chose
qui vive, et chose qui vive devient une certeinne creature qui demoure
au rivaige de la Mer: et ceste creature devient poissons, et poissons
devient lezars, et lezars devient blayriaus, et blayriaus devient
gat-maimons, et gat-maimons devient hons sauvaiges qui menjue char
d'homes, et hons sauvaiges devient hons crestien.'
"Et dist _Messires Marc_: 'Encore une foiz, biaus sires, li _Bacsi_ de
_Tebet_ et de _Kescemir_ et li prestre de _Seilan_, qui si dient que
l'arme vivant doie trespasser par tous cez changes de vestemens; si com
se treuve escript ou livre _Maistre Rusticien_ que _Sagamoni Borcan_
mourut iiij vint et iiij foiz et tousjourz resuscita, et a chascune foiz
d'une diverse maniere de beste, et a la derreniere foyz mourut hons et
devint diex, selonc ce qu'il dient.'[17] Et fist encore _Messires Marc_:
'A moy pert-il trop estrange chose se juesques a toutes les creances des
ydolastres deust decheoir ceste grantz et saige nation. Ainsi peuent
jouer Misire li filsoufe atout lour propre perte, mes a l'ore quand tiex
fantaisies se respanderont es joenes bacheliers et parmy la menue gent,
celz averont pour toute Loy _manducemus et bibamus, cras enim moriemur_;
et trop isnellement l'en raccomencera la descente de l'eschiele, et
d'home crestien deviendra hons sauvaiges, et d'home sauvaige gat-
maimons, et de gat-maimon blayriaus.' Et fist encores _Messires Marc_:
'Maintes contrees et provinces et ysles et citez je _Marc Pol_ ay veues
et de maintes genz de maintes manieres ay les condicionz congneues, et
je croy bien que il est plus assez dedens l'univers que ce que li nostre
prestre n'y songent. Et puet bien estre, biaus sires, que li mondes n'a
estes crees a tous poinz com nous creiens, ains d'une sorte encore plus
merveillouse. Mes cil n'amenuise nullement nostre pensee de Diex et de
sa majeste, ains la fait greingnour. Et contree n'ay veue ou Dame Diex
ne manifeste apertement les granz euvres de sa tout-poissante saigesse;
gent n'ay congneue esquiex ne se fait sentir li fardels de pechie, et la
besoingne de Phisicien des maladies de l'arme tiex com est nostre
Seignours Ihesus Crist, Beni soyt son Non. Pensez doncques a cel qu'a
dit uns de ses Apostres: _Nolite esse prudentes apud vosmet ipsos_; et
uns autres: _Quoniam multi pseudo-prophetae exierint_; et uns autres:
_Quod benient in nobissimis diebus illusores ... dicentes, Ubi est
promissio?_ et encores aus parolles que dist li Signours meismes: _Vide
ergo ne lumen quod in te est tenebrae sint_.
_Commant Messires Marcs se partist de l'ysle de Bretaingne et de la
proyere que fist_.
"Et pourquoy vous en feroie-je lonc conte? Si print nef _Messires Marcs_
et se partist en nageant vers la terre ferme. Or _Messires Marc Pol_
moult ama cel roiaume de _Bretaingne la grant_ pour son viex renon et
s'ancienne franchise, et pour sa saige et bonne Royne (que Diex gart),
et pour les mainz homes de vaillance et bons chaceours et les maintes
bonnes et honnestes dames qui y estoient. Et sachies tout voirement que
en estant delez le bort la nef, et en esgardant aus roches blanches que
l'en par dariere-li lessoit, _Messires Marc_ prieoit Diex, et disoit-il:
'Ha Sires Diex ay merci de cestuy vieix et noble royaume; fay-en
pardurable forteresse de liberte et de joustice, et garde-le de tout
meschief de dedens et de dehors; donne a sa gent droit esprit pour ne
pas Diex guerroyer de ses dons, ne de richesce ne de savoir; et
conforte-les fermement en ta foy'...."
A loud _Amen_ seemed to peal from without, and the awakened reader started
to his feet. And lo! it was the thunder of the winter-storm crashing among
the many-tinted crags of Monte Pellegrino,--with the wind raging as it
knows how to rage here in sight of the Isles of Aeolus, and the rain
dashing on the glass as ruthlessly as it well could have done, if, instead
of Aeolic Isles and many-tinted crags, the window had fronted a dearer
shore beneath a northern sky, and looked across the grey Firth to the
rain-blurred outline of the Lomond Hills.
But I end, saying to Messer Marco's prayer, Amen.
PALERMO, _31st December, 1874_.
[1] It would be ingratitude if this Preface contained no acknowledgment of
the medals awarded to the writer, mainly for this work, by the Royal
Geographical Society, and by the Geographical Society of Italy, the
former under the Presidence of Sir Henry Rawlinson, the latter under
that of the Commendatore C. Negri. Strongly as I feel the too generous
appreciation of these labours implied in such awards, I confess to
have been yet more deeply touched and gratified by practical evidence
of the approval of the two distinguished Travellers mentioned above;
as shown by Baron von Richthofen in his spontaneous proposal to
publish a German version of the book under his own immediate
supervision (a project in abeyance, owing to circumstances beyond his
or my control); by Mr. Ney Elias in the fact of his having carried
these ponderous volumes with him on his solitary journey across the
Mongolian wilds!
[2] I am grateful to Mr. de Khanikoff for his especial recognition of
these in a kindly review of the first edition in the _Academy_.
[3] Especially from Lieutenant Garnier's book, mentioned further on; the
only existing source of illustration for many chapters of Polo.
[4] [Merged into the notes of the present edition.--H. C.]
[5] See page xxix.
[6] Writing in Italy, perhaps I ought to write, according to too prevalent
modern Italian custom, _Polo Marco_. I have already _seen_, and in the
work of a writer of reputation, the Alexandrian geographer styled
_Tolomeo Claudio!_ and if this preposterous fashion should continue to
spread, we shall in time have _Tasso Torquato_, _Jonson Ben_, Africa
explored by _Park Mungo_, Asia conquered by _Lane Tamer_, Copperfield
David by _Dickens Charles_, Homer Englished by _Pope Alexander_, and
the Roman history done into French from the original of _Live Tite_!
[7] Introduction p. 24, and _passim_ in the notes.
[8] Ibid., p. 112.
[9] See Introduction, pp. 51, 57.
[10] See Title of present volumes.
[11] Which quite agrees with the story of the document quoted at p. 77 of
Introduction.
[12] Vol. i. p. 64, and p. 67.
[13] I.e. 1306; see Introduction, pp. 68-69.
[14] The form which Marco gives to this word was probably a reminiscence
of the Oriental corruption _failsuf_. It recalls to my mind a Hindu
who was very fond of the word, and especially of applying it to
certain of his fellow-servants. But as he used it, _bara failsuf_,--
"great philosopher"--meant exactly the same as the modern slang
"_Artful Dodger_"!
[15] See for the explanation of _Karma_, "the power that controls the
universe," in the doctrine of atheistic Buddhism, Hardy's _Eastern
Monachism_, p. 5.
[16] Vol. ii. p. 316 (see also i. 348).
[17] Vol. ii. pp. 318-319.
ORIGINAL PREFACE.
The amount of appropriate material, and of acquaintance with the mediaeval
geography of some parts of Asia, which was acquired during the compilation
of a work of kindred character for the Hakluyt Society,[1] could hardly
fail to suggest as a fresh labour in the same field the preparation of
a new English edition of Marco Polo. Indeed one kindly critic (in the
_Examiner_) laid it upon the writer as a duty to undertake that task.
Though at least one respectable English edition has appeared since
Marsden's,[2] the latter has continued to be the standard edition, and
maintains not only its reputation but its market value. It is indeed the
work of a sagacious, learned, and right-minded man, which can never be
spoken of otherwise than with respect. 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 Remusat, D'Avezac,
Reinaud, Quatremere, Julien, I. J. Schmidt, Gildemeister, Ritter,
Hammer-Purgstall, Erdmann, D'Ohsson, Defremery, Elliot, Erskine, and many
more, which throw light directly or incidentally on Marco Polo, have, for
the most part, appeared since then. Nor, as regards the literary history of
the book, were any just views possible at a time when what may be called
the _Fontal_ MSS. (in French) were unpublished and unexamined.
Besides the works which have thus occasionally or incidentally thrown
light upon the Traveller's book, various editions of the book itself have
since Marsden's time been published in foreign countries, accompanied by
comments of more or less value. All have contributed something to the
illustration of the book or its history; the last and most learned of the
editors, M. Pauthier, has so contributed in large measure. I had occasion
some years ago[3] to speak freely my opinion of the merits and demerits of
M. Pauthier's work; and to the latter at least I have no desire to recur
here.
Another of his critics, a much more accomplished as well as more
favourable one,[4] seems to intimate the opinion that there would scarcely
be room in future for new commentaries. Something of the kind was said of
Marsden's at the time of its publication. I imagine, however, that whilst
our libraries endure the _Iliad_ will continue to find new translators,
and Marco Polo--though one hopes not so plentifully--new editors.
The justification of the book's existence must however be looked for, and
it is hoped may be found, in the book itself, and not in the Preface. The
work claims to be judged as a whole, but it may be allowable, in these
days of scanty leisure, to indicate below a few instances of what is
believed to be new matter in an edition of Marco Polo; by which however it
is by no means intended that all such matter is claimed by the editor as
his own.[5]
From the commencement of the work it was felt that the task was one which
no man, though he were far better equipped and much more conveniently
situated than the present writer, could satisfactorily accomplish from his
own resources, and help was sought on special points wherever it seemed
likely to be found. In scarcely any quarter was the application made in
vain. Some who have aided most materially are indeed very old and valued
friends; but to many others who have done the same the applicant was
unknown; and some of these again, with whom the editor began
correspondence on this subject as a stranger, he is happy to think that he
may now call friends.
To none am I more indebted than to the Comm. GUGLIELMO BERCHET, of Venice,
for his ample, accurate, and generous assistance in furnishing me with
Venetian documents, and in many other ways. Especial thanks are also due
to Dr. WILLIAM LOCKHART, who has supplied the materials for some of the
most valuable illustrations; to Lieutenant FRANCIS GARNIER, of the French
Navy. the gallant and accomplished leader (after the death of Captain
Doudart de la Gree) of the memorable expedition up the Mekong to Yun-nan;
to the Rev. Dr. CALDWELL, of the S.P.G. Mission in Tinnevelly, for copious
and valuable notes on Southern India; to my friends Colonel ROBERT
MACLAGAN, R.E., Sir ARTHUR PHAYRE, and Colonel HENRY MAN, for very
valuable notes and other aid; to Professor A. SCHIEFNER, of St.
Petersburg, for his courteous communication of very interesting
illustrations not otherwise accessible; to Major-General ALEXANDER
CUNNINGHAM, of my own corps, for several valuable letters; to my friends
Dr. THOMAS OLDHAM, Director of the Geological Survey of India, Mr. DANIEL
HANBURY, F.R.S., Mr. EDWARD THOMAS, Mr. JAMES FERGUSSON, F.R.S., Sir
BARTLE FRERE, and Dr. HUGH CLEGHORN, for constant interest in the work and
readiness to assist its progress; to Mr. A. WYLIE, the learned Agent of
the B. and F. Bible Society at Shang-hai, for valuable help; to the Hon.
G. P. MARSH, U.S. Minister at the Court of Italy, for untiring kindness in
the communication of his ample stores of knowledge, and of books. I have
also to express my obligations to Comm. NICOLO BAROZZI, Director of the
City Museum at Venice, and to Professor A. S. MINOTTO, of the same city;
to Professor ARMINIUS VAMBERY, the eminent traveller; to Professor
FLUeCKIGER of Bern; to the Rev. H. A. JAESCHKE, of the Moravian Mission in
British Tibet; to Colonel LEWIS PELLY, British Resident in the Persian
Gulf; to Pandit MANPHUL, C.S.I. (for a most interesting communication on
Badakhshan); to my brother officer, Major T. G. MONTGOMERIE, R.E., of the
Indian Trigonometrical Survey; to Commendatore NEGRI the indefatigable
President of the Italian Geographical Society; to Dr. ZOTENBERG, of the
Great Paris Library, and to M. CH. MAUNOIR, Secretary-General of the
Societe de Geographie; to Professor HENRY GIGLIOI, at Florence; to my old
friend Major-General ALBERT FYTCHE, Chief Commissioner of British Burma;
to DR. ROST and DR. FORBES-WATSON, of the India Office Library and Museum;
to Mr. R. H. MAJOR, and Mr. R. K. DOUGLAS, of the British Museum; to Mr.
N. B. DENNYS, of Hong-kong; and to Mr. C. GARDNER, of the Consular
Establishment in China. There are not a few others to whom my thanks are
equally due; but it is feared that the number of names already mentioned
may seem ridiculous, compared with the result, to those who do not
appreciate from how many quarters the facts needful for a work which in
its course intersects so many fields required to be collected, one by one.
I must not, however, omit acknowledgments to the present Earl of DERBY for
his courteous permission, when at the head of the Foreign Office, to
inspect Mr. Abbott's valuable unpublished Report upon some of the Interior
Provinces of Persia; and to Mr. T. T. COOPER, one of the most adventurous
travellers of modern times, for leave to quote some passages from his
unpublished diary.
PALERMO, _31st December, 1870_.
[_Original Dedication._]
TO
HER ROYAL HIGHNESS,
MARGHERITA,
_Princess of Piedmont_,
THIS ENDEAVOUR TO ILLUSTRATE THE LIFE AND WORK
OF A RENOWNED ITALIAN
IS
BY HER ROYAL HIGHNESS'S GRACIOUS PERMISSION
Dedicated
WITH THE DEEPEST RESPECT
BY
H. YULE.
[1] _Cathay and The Way Thither, being a Collection of Minor Medieval
Notices of China_. London, 1866. The necessities of the case have
required the repetition in the present work of the substance of some
notes already printed (but hardly published) in the other.
[2] Viz. Mr. Hugh Murray's. I mean no disrespect to Mr. T. Wright's
edition, but it is, and professes to be, scarcely other than
a reproduction of Marsden's, with abridgment of his notes.
[3] In the _Quarterly Review_ for July, 1868.
[4] M. Nicolas Khanikoff.
[5] In the Preliminary Notices will be found new matter on the Personal
and Family History of the Traveller, illustrated by Documents; and a
more elaborate attempt than I have seen elsewhere to classify and
account for the different texts of the work, and to trace their mutual
relation.
As regards geographical elucidations, I may point to the explanation
of the name _Gheluchelan_ (i. p. 58), to the discussion of the route
from Kerman to Hormuz, and the identification of the sites of Old
Hormuz, of _Cobinan_ and _Dogana_, the establishment of the position
and continued existence of _Keshm_, the note on _Pein_ and _Charchan_,
on _Gog_ and _Magog_, on the geography of the route from _Sindafu_ to
_Carajan_, on _Anin_ and _Coloman_, on _Mutafili_, _Cail_, and _Ely_.
As regards historical illustrations, I would cite the notes regarding
the Queens _Bolgana_ and _Cocachin_, on the _Karaunahs_, etc., on the
title of King of _Bengal_ applied to the K. of Burma, and those
bearing upon the Malay and Abyssinian chronologies.
In the interpretation of outlandish phrases, I may refer to the notes
on _Ondanique, Nono, Barguerlac, Argon, Sensin, Keshican, Toscaol,
Bularguchi, Gat-paul_, etc.
Among miscellaneous elucidations, to the disquisition on the _Arbre
Sol_ or _Sec_ in vol. i., and to that on Mediaeval Military Engines in
vol. ii.
In a variety of cases it has been necessary to refer to Eastern
languages for pertinent elucidations or etymologies. The editor would,
however, be sorry to fall under the ban of the mediaeval adage:
"_Vir qui docet quod non sapit
Definitur Bestia!_"
and may as well reprint here what was written in the Preface to
_Cathay_:
I am painfully sensible that in regard to many subjects dealt with in
the following pages, nothing can make up for the want of genuine
Oriental learning. A fair familiarity with Hindustani for many years,
and some reminiscences of elementary Persian, have been useful in
their degree; but it is probable that they may sometimes also have led
me astray, as such slender lights are apt to do.
TO HENRY YULE.
[Illustration]
Until you raised dead monarchs from the mould
And built again the domes of Xanadu,
I lay in evil case, and never knew
The glamour of that ancient story told
By good Ser Marco in his prison-hold.
But now I sit upon a throne and view
The Orient at my feet, and take of you
And Marco tribute from the realms of old.
If I am joyous, deem me not o'er bold;
If I am grateful, deem me not untrue;
For you have given me beauties to behold,
Delight to win, and fancies to pursue,
Fairer than all the jewelry and gold
Of Kublai on his throne in Cambalu.
E. C. BABER.
_20th July, 1884._
MEMOIR OF SIR HENRY YULE.
Henry Yule was the youngest son of Major William Yule, by his first wife,
Elizabeth Paterson, and was born at Inveresk, in Midlothian, on 1st May,
1820. He was named after an _aunt_ who, like Miss Ferrier's immortal
heroine, owned a man's name.
On his father's side he came of a hardy agricultural stock,[1] improved by
a graft from that highly-cultured tree, Rose of Kilravock.[2] Through his
mother, a somewhat prosaic person herself, he inherited strains from
Huguenot and Highland ancestry. There were recognisable traces of all
these elements in Henry Yule, and as was well said by one of his oldest
friends: "He was one of those curious racial compounds one finds on the
east side of Scotland, in whom the hard Teutonic grit is sweetened by the
artistic spirit of the more genial Celt."[3] His father, an officer of the
Bengal army (born 1764, died 1839), was a man of cultivated tastes and
enlightened mind, a good Persian and Arabic scholar, and possessed of much
miscellaneous Oriental learning. During the latter years of his career in
India, he served successively as Assistant Resident at the (then
independent) courts of Lucknow[4] and Delhi. In the latter office his
chief was the noble Ouchterlony. William Yule, together with his younger
brother Udny,[5] returned home in 1806. "A recollection of their voyage
was that they hailed an outward bound ship, somewhere off the Cape,
through the trumpet: 'What news?' Answer: 'The King's mad, and Humfrey's
beat Mendoza' (two celebrated prize-fighters and often matched). 'Nothing
more?' 'Yes, Bonapart_y_'s made his _Mother_ King of Holland!'
"Before his retirement, William Yule was offered the Lieut.-Governorship
of St. Helena. Two of the detailed privileges of the office were residence
at Longwood (afterwards the house of Napoleon), and the use of a certain
number of the Company's slaves. Major Yule, who was a strong supporter of
the anti-slavery cause till its triumph in 1834, often recalled both of
these offers with amusement."[6]
William Yule was a man of generous chivalrous nature, who took large views
of life, apt to be unfairly stigmatised as Radical in the narrow Tory
reaction that prevailed in Scotland during the early years of the 19th
century.[7] Devoid of literary ambition, he wrote much for his private
pleasure, and his knowledge and library (rich in Persian and Arabic MSS.)
were always placed freely at the service of his friends and
correspondents, some of whom, such as Major C. Stewart and Mr. William
Erskine, were more given to publication than himself. He never travelled
without a little 8vo MS. of Hafiz, which often lay under his pillow. Major
Yule's only printed work was a lithographed edition of the _Apothegms_ of
'Ali, the son of Abu Talib, in the Arabic, with an old Persian version and
an English translation interpolated by himself. "This was privately issued
in 1832, when the Duchesse d'Angouleme was living at Edinburgh, and the
little work was inscribed to her, with whom an accident of neighbourhood
and her kindness to the Major's youngest child had brought him into
relations of goodwill."[8]
Henry Yule's childhood was mainly spent at Inveresk. He used to say that
his earliest recollection was sitting with the little cousin, who long
after became his wife, on the doorstep of her father's house in George
Street, Edinburgh (now the Northern Club), listening to the performance of
a passing piper. There was another episode which he recalled with humorous
satisfaction. Fired by his father's tales of the jungle, Yule (then about
six years old) proceeded to improvise an elephant pit in the back garden,
only too successfully, for soon, with mingled terror and delight, he saw
his uncle John[9] fall headlong into the snare. He lost his mother before
he was eight, and almost his only remembrance of her was the circumstance
of her having given him a little lantern to light him home on winter
nights from his first school. On Sundays it was the Major's custom to lend
his children, as a picture-book, a folio Arabic translation of the Four
Gospels, printed at Rome in 1591, which contained excellent illustrations
from Italian originals.[10] Of the pictures in this volume Yule seems
never to have tired. The last page bore a MS. note in Latin to the effect
that the volume had been read in the Chaldaean Desert by _Georgius
Strachanus, Milnensis, Scotus_, who long remained unidentified, not to say
mythical, in Yule's mind. But George Strachan never passed from his
memory, and having ultimately run him to earth, Yule, sixty years later,
published the results in an interesting article.[11]
Two or three years after his wife's death, Major Yule removed to
Edinburgh, and established himself in Regent's Terrace, on the face of the
Calton Hill.[12] This continued to be Yule's home until his father's
death, shortly before he went to India. "Here he learned to love the wide
scenes of sea and land spread out around that hill--a love he never lost,
at home or far away. And long years after, with beautiful Sicilian hills
before him and a lovely sea, he writes words of fond recollection of the
bleak Fife hills, and the grey Firth of Forth."[13]
Yule now followed his elder brother, Robert, to the famous High School,
and in the summer holidays the two made expeditions to the West Highlands,
the Lakes of Cumberland, and elsewhere. Major Yule chose his boys to have
every reasonable indulgence and advantage, and when the British
Association, in 1834, held its first Edinburgh meeting, Henry received a
member's ticket. So, too, when the passing of the Reform Bill was
celebrated in the same year by a great banquet, at which Lord Grey and
other prominent politicians were present, Henry was sent to the dinner,
probably the youngest guest there.[14]
At this time the intention was that Henry should go to Cambridge (where
his name was, indeed, entered), and after taking his degree study for the
Bar. With this view he was, in 1833, sent to Waith, near Ripon, to be
coached by the Rev. H. P. Hamilton, author of a well-known treatise, _On
Conic Sections_, and afterwards Dean of Salisbury. At his tutor's
hospitable rectory Yule met many notabilities of the day. One of them was
Professor Sedgwick.
There was rumoured at this time the discovery of the first known (?)
fossil monkey, but its tail was missing. "Depend upon it, Daniel
O'Conell's got hold of it!" said 'Adam' briskly.[15] Yule was very happy
with Mr. Hamilton and his kind wife, but on his tutor's removal to
Cambridge other arrangements became necessary, and in 1835 he was
transferred to the care of the Rev. James Challis, rector of Papworth St.
Everard, a place which "had little to recommend it except a dulness which
made reading almost a necessity."[16] Mr. Challis had at this time two
other resident pupils, who both, in most diverse ways, attained
distinction in the Church. These were John Mason Neale, the future eminent
ecclesiologist and founder of the devoted Anglican Sisterhood of St.
Margaret, and Harvey Goodwin, long afterwards the studious and
large-minded Bishop of Carlisle. With the latter, Yule remained on terms of
cordial friendship to the end of his life. Looking back through more than
fifty years to these boyish days, Bishop Goodwin wrote that Yule then
"showed much more liking for Greek plays and for German than for
mathematics, though he had considerable geometrical ingenuity."[17] On one
occasion, having solved a problem that puzzled Goodwin, Yule thus
discriminated the attainments of the three pupils: "The difference between
you and me is this: You like it and can't do it; I don't like it and can do
it. Neale neither likes it nor can do it." Not bad criticism for a boy of
fifteen.[18]
On Mr. Challis being appointed Plumerian Professor at Cambridge, in the
spring of 1836, Yule had to leave him, owing to want of room at the
Observatory, and he became for a time, a most dreary time, he said,
a student at University College, London.
By this time Yule had made up his mind that not London and the Law, but
India and the Army should be his choice, and accordingly in Feb. 1837 he
joined the East India Company's Military College at Addiscombe. From
Addiscombe he passed out, in December 1838, at the head of the cadets of
his term (taking the prize sword[19]), and having been duly appointed to
the Bengal Engineers, proceeded early in 1839 to the Headquarters of the
Royal Engineers at Chatham, where, according to custom, he was enrolled as
a "local and temporary Ensign." For such was then the invidious
designation at Chatham of the young Engineer officers of the Indian army,
who ranked as full lieutenants in their own Service, from the time of
leaving Addiscombe.[20] Yule once audaciously tackled the formidable
Pasley on this very grievance. The venerable Director, after a minute's
pondering, replied: "Well, I don't remember what the reason was, but I
have _no_ doubt (_staccato_) it ... was ... a very ... _good_ reason."[21]
"When Yule appeared among us at Chatham in 1839," said his friend
Collinson, "he at once took a prominent place in our little Society by his
slightly advanced age [he was then 18-1/2], but more by his strong
character.... His earlier education ... gave him a better classical
knowledge than most of us possessed; then he had the reserve and
self-possession characteristic of his race; but though he took small part
in the games and other recreations of our time, his knowledge, his native
humour, and his good comradeship, and especially his strong sense of right
and wrong, made him both admired and respected.... Yule was not a
scientific engineer, though he had a good general knowledge of the
different branches of his profession; his natural capacity lay rather in
varied knowledge, combined with a strong understanding and an excellent
memory, and also a peculiar power as a draughtsman, which proved of great
value in after life.... Those were nearly the last days of the old
_regime_, of the orthodox double sap and cylindrical pontoons, when
Pasley's genius had been leading to new ideas, and when Lintorn Simmons'
power, G. Leach's energy, W. Jervois' skill, and R. Tylden's talent were
developing under the wise example of Henry Harness."[22]
In the Royal Engineer mess of those days (the present anteroom), the
portrait of Henry Yule now faces that of his first chief, Sir Henry
Harness. General Collinson said that the pictures appeared to eye each
other as if the subjects were continuing one of those friendly disputes in
which they so often engaged.[23]
It was in this room that Yule, Becher, Collinson, and other young R.E.'s,
profiting by the temporary absence of the austere Colonel Pasley, acted
some plays, including _Pizarro_. Yule bore the humble part of one of the
Peruvian Mob in this performance, of which he has left a droll
account.[24]
On the completion of his year at Chatham, Yule prepared to sail for India,
but first went to take leave of his relative, General White. An accident
prolonged his stay, and before he left he had proposed to and been refused
by his cousin Annie. This occurrence, his first check, seems to have cast
rather a gloom over his start for India. He went by the then newly-opened
Overland Route, visiting Portugal, stopping at Gibraltar to see his
cousin, Major (afterwards General) Patrick Yule, R.E.[25] He was under
orders "to stop at Aden (then recently acquired), to report on the water
supply, and to deliver a set of meteorological and magnetic instruments
for starting an observatory there. The overland journey then really meant
so; tramping across the desert to Suez with camels and Arabs, a proceeding
not conducive to the preservation of delicate instruments; and on arriving
at Aden he found that the intended observer was dead, the observatory not
commenced, and the instruments all broken. There was thus nothing left for
him but to go on at once" to Calcutta,[26] where he arrived at the end of
1840.
His first service lay in the then wild Khasia Hills, whither he was
detached for the purpose of devising means for the transport of the local
coal to the plains. In spite of the depressing character of the climate
(Cherrapunjee boasts the highest rainfall on record), Yule thoroughly
enjoyed himself, and always looked back with special pleasure on the time
he spent here. He was unsuccessful in the object of his mission, the
obstacles to cheap transport offered by the dense forests and mighty
precipices proving insurmountable, but he gathered a wealth of interesting
observations on the country and people, a very primitive Mongolian race,
which he subsequently embodied in two excellent and most interesting
papers (the first he ever published).[27]
In the following year, 1842, Yule was transferred to the irrigation canals
of the north-west with head-quarters at Kurnaul. Here he had for chief
Captain (afterwards General Sir William) Baker, who became his dearest and
most steadfast friend. Early in 1843 Yule had his first experience of
field service. The death without heir of the Khytul Rajah, followed by the
refusal of his family to surrender the place to the native troops sent to
receive it, obliged Government to send a larger force against it, and the
canal officers were ordered to join this. Yule was detailed to serve under
Captain Robert Napier (afterwards F.-M. Lord Napier of Magdala). Their
immediate duty was to mark out the route for a night march of the troops,
barring access to all side roads, and neither officer having then had any
experience of war, they performed the duty "with all the elaborate care of
novices." Suddenly there was an alarm, a light detected, and a night
attack awaited, when the danger resolved itself into Clerk Sahib's
_khansamah_ with welcome hot coffee![28] Their hopes were disappointed,
there was no fighting, and the Fort of Khytul was found deserted by the
enemy. It "was a strange scene of confusion--all the paraphernalia and
accumulation of odds and ends of a wealthy native family lying about and
inviting loot. I remember one beautiful crutch-stick of ebony with two
rams' heads in jade. I took it and sent it in to the political authority,
intending to buy it when sold. There was a sale, but my stick never
appeared. Somebody had a more developed taste in jade.... Amid the general
rummage that was going on, an officer of British Infantry had been put
over a part of the palace supposed to contain treasure, and they--officers
and all--were helping themselves. Henry Lawrence was one of the politicals
under George Clerk. When the news of this affair came to him I was
present. It was in a white marble loggia in the palace, where was a white
marble chair or throne on a basement. Lawrence was sitting on this throne
in great excitement. He wore an Afghan _choga_, a sort of dressing-gown
garment, and this, and his thin locks, and thin beard were streaming in
the wind. He always dwells in my memory as a sort of pythoness on her
tripod under the afflatus."[29]
During his Indian service, Yule had renewed and continued by letters his
suit to Miss White, and persistency prevailing at last, he soon after the
conclusion of the Khytul affair applied for leave to go home to be
married. He sailed from Bombay in May, 1843, and in September of the same
year was married, at Bath, to the gifted and large-hearted woman who, to
the end, remained the strongest and happiest influence in his life.[30]
Yule sailed for India with his wife in November 1843. The next two years
were employed chiefly in irrigation work, and do not call for special
note. They were very happy years, except in the one circumstance that the
climate having seriously affected his wife's health, and she having been
brought to death's door, partly by illness, but still more by the drastic
medical treatment of those days, she was imperatively ordered back to
England by the doctors, who forbade her return to India.
Having seen her on board ship, Yule returned to duty on the canals. The
close of that year, December, 1845, brought some variety to his work, as
the outbreak of the first Sikh War called nearly all the canal officers
into the field. "They went up to the front by long marches, passing
through no stations, and quite unable to obtain any news of what had
occurred, though on the 21st December the guns of Ferozshah were
distinctly heard in their camp at Pehoa, at a distance of 115 miles
south-east from the field, and some days later they came successively on
the fields of Moodkee and of Ferozshah itself, with all the recent traces
of battle. When the party of irrigation officers reached head-quarters, the
arrangements for attacking the Sikh army in its entrenchments at Sobraon
were beginning (though suspended till weeks later for the arrival of the
tardy siege guns), and the opposed forces were lying in sight of each
other."[31]
Yule's share in this campaign was limited to the sufficiently arduous task
of bridging the Sutlej for the advance of the British army. It is
characteristic of the man that for this reason he always abstained from
wearing his medal for the Sutlej campaign.
His elder brother, Robert Yule, then in the 16th Lancers, took part in
that magnificent charge of his regiment at the battle of Aliwal (Jan. 28,
1846) which the Great Duke is said to have pronounced unsurpassed in
history. From particulars gleaned from his brother and others present in
the action, Henry Yule prepared a spirited sketch of the episode, which
was afterwards published as a coloured lithograph by M'Lean (Haymarket).
At the close of the war, Yule succeeded his friend Strachey as Executive
Engineer of the northern division of the Ganges Canal, with his
head-quarters at Roorkee, "the division which, being nearest the hills and
crossed by intermittent torrents of great breadth and great volume when in
flood, includes the most important and interesting engineering works."[32]
At Roorkee were the extensive engineering workshops connected with the
canal. Yule soon became so accustomed to the din as to be undisturbed by
the noise, but the unpunctuality and carelessness of the native workmen
sorely tried his patience, of which Nature had endowed him with but a
small reserve. Vexed with himself for letting temper so often get the
better of him, Yule's conscientious mind devised a characteristic remedy.
Each time that he lost his temper, he transferred a fine of two rupees
(then about five shillings) from his right to his left pocket. When about
to leave Roorkee, he devoted this accumulation of self-imposed fines to
the erection of a sun-dial, to teach the natives the value of time. The
late Sir James Caird, who told this legend of Roorkee as he heard it there
in 1880, used to add, with a humorous twinkle of his kindly eyes, "It was
a _very_ handsome dial."[33]
From September, 1845, to March, 1847, Yule was much occupied
intermittently, in addition to his professional work, by service on a
Committee appointed by Government "to investigate the causes of the
unhealthiness which has existed at Kurnal, and other portions of the
country along the line of the Delhi Canal," and further, to report
"whether an injurious effect on the health of the people of the Doab is,
or is not, likely to be produced by the contemplated Ganges Canal."
"A very elaborate investigation was made by the Committee, directed
principally to ascertaining what relation subsisted between certain
physical conditions of the different districts, and the liability of their
inhabitants to miasmatic fevers." The principal conclusion of the
Committee was, "that in the extensive epidemic of 1843, when Kurnaul
suffered so seriously ... the greater part of the evils observed had not
been the necessary and unavoidable results of canal irrigation, but were
due to interference with the natural drainage of the country, to the
saturation of stiff and retentive soils, and to natural disadvantages of
site, enhanced by excess of moisture. As regarded the Ganges Canal, they
were of opinion that, with due attention to drainage, improvement rather
than injury to the general health might be expected to follow the
introduction of canal irrigation."[34] In an unpublished note written
about 1889, Yule records his ultimate opinion as follows: "At this day,
and after the large experience afforded by the Ganges Canal, I feel sure
that a verdict so favourable to the sanitary results of canal irrigation
would not be given." Still the fact remains that the Ganges Canal has been
the source of unspeakable blessings to an immense population.
The Second Sikh War saw Yule again with the army in the field, and on 13th
Jan. 1849, he was present at the dismal 'Victory' of Chillianwallah, of
which his most vivid recollection seemed to be the sudden apparition of
Henry Lawrence, fresh from London, but still clad in the legendary Afghan
cloak.
On the conclusion of the Punjab campaign, Yule, whose health had suffered,
took furlough and went home to his wife. For the next three years they
resided chiefly in Scotland, though paying occasional visits to the
Continent, and about 1850 Yule bought a house in Edinburgh. There he wrote
"The African Squadron vindicated" (a pamphlet which was afterwards
re-published in French), translated Schiller's _Kampf mit dem Drachen_ into
English verse, delivered Lectures on Fortification at the, now long
defunct, Scottish Naval and Military Academy, wrote on Tibet for his friend
Blackwood's Magazine, attended the 1850 Edinburgh Meeting of the British
Association, wrote his excellent lines, "On the Loss of the _Birkenhead_,"
and commenced his first serious study of Marco Polo (by whose wondrous
tale, however, he had already been captivated as a boy in his father's
library--in Marsden's edition probably). But the most noteworthy literary
result of these happy years was that really fascinating volume, entitled
_Fortification for Officers of the Army and Students of Military History_,
a work that has remained unique of its kind. This was published by
Blackwood in 1851, and seven years later received the honour of
(unauthorised) translation into French. Yule also occupied himself a good
deal at this time with the practice of photography, a pursuit to which he
never after reverted.
In the spring of 1852, Yule made an interesting little semi-professional
tour in company with a brother officer, his accomplished friend, Major R.
B. Smith. Beginning with Kelso, "the only one of the Teviotdale Abbeys
which I had not as yet seen," they made their way leisurely through the
north of England, examining with impartial care abbeys and cathedrals,
factories, brick-yards, foundries, timber-yards, docks, and railway works.
On this occasion Yule, contrary to his custom, kept a journal, and a few
excerpts may be given here, as affording some notion of his casual talk to
those who did not know him.
At Berwick-on-Tweed he notes the old ramparts of the town: "These, erected
in Elizabeth's time, are interesting as being, I believe, the only
existing sample in England of the bastioned system of the 16th century....
The outline of the works seems perfect enough, though both earth and stone
work are in great disrepair. The bastions are large with obtuse angles,
square orillons, and double flanks originally casemated, and most of them
crowned with cavaliers." On the way to Durham, "much amused by the
discussions of two passengers, one a smooth-spoken, semi-clerical looking
person; the other a brusque well-to-do attorney with a Northumbrian burr.
Subject, among others, Protection. The Attorney all for 'cheap bread'--
'You wouldn't rob the poor man of his loaf,' and so forth. 'You must go
with the _stgheam_, sir, you must go with the stgheam.' 'I never did, Mr
Thompson, and I never will,' said the other in an oily manner, singularly
inconsistent with the sentiment." At Durham they dined with a dignitary of
the Church, and Yule was roasted by being placed with his back to an
enormous fire. "Coals are cheap at Durham," he notes feelingly, adding,
"The party we found as heavy as any Edinburgh one. Smith, indeed,
evidently has had little experience of really stupid Edinburgh parties,
for he had never met with anything approaching to this before." (Happy
Smith!) But thanks to the kindness and hospitality of the astronomer, Mr.
Chevalier, and his gifted daughter, they had a delightful visit to
beautiful Durham, and came away full of admiration for the (then newly
established) University, and its grand _locale_. They went on to stay with
an uncle by marriage of Yule's, in Yorkshire. At dinner he was asked by
his host to explain Foucault's pendulum experiment. "I endeavoured to
explain it somewhat, I hope, to the satisfaction of his doubts, but not at
all to that of Mr. G. M., who most resolutely declined to take in _any_
elucidation, coming at last to the conclusion that he entirely differed
with me as to what North meant, and that it was useless to argue until we
could agree about that!" They went next to Leeds, to visit Kirkstall
Abbey, "a mediaeval fossil, curiously embedded among the squalid brickwork
and chimney stalks of a manufacturing suburb. Having established ourselves
at the hotel, we went to deliver a letter to Mr. Hope, the official
assignee, a very handsome, aristocratic-looking gentleman, who seemed as
much out of place at Leeds as the Abbey." At Leeds they visited the flax
mills of Messrs. Marshall, "a firm noted for the conscientious care they
take of their workpeople.... We mounted on the roof of the building, which
is covered with grass, and formerly was actually grazed by a few sheep,
until the repeated inconvenience of their tumbling through the glass domes
put a stop to this." They next visited some tile and brickworks on land
belonging to a friend. "The owner of the tile works, a well-to-do burgher,
and the apparent model of a West Riding Radical, received us in rather a
dubious way: 'There are a many people has come and brought introductions,
and looked at all my works, and then gone and set up for themselves close
by. Now des you mean to say that you be really come all the way from
Beng_u_l?' 'Yes, indeed we have, and we are going all the way back again,
though we didn't exactly come from there to look at your brickworks.'
'Then you're not in the brick-making line, are you?' 'Why we've had a good
deal to do with making bricks, and may have again; but we'll engage that
if we set up for ourselves, it shall be ten thousand miles from you.' This
seemed in some degree to set his mind at rest...."
"A dismal day, with occasional showers, prevented our seeing Sheffield to
advantage. On the whole, however, it is more cheerful and has more of a
country-town look than Leeds--a place utterly without beauty of aspect. At
Leeds you have vast barrack-like factories, with their usual suburbs of
squalid rows of brick cottages, and everywhere the tall spiracles of the
steam, which seems the pervading power of the place. Everything there is
machinery--the machine is the intelligent agent, it would seem, the man
its slave, standing by to tend it and pick up a broken thread now and
then. At Sheffield ... you might go through most of the streets without
knowing anything of the kind was going on. And steam here, instead of
being a ruler, is a drudge, turning a grindstone or rolling out a bar of
steel, but all the accuracy and skill of hand is the Man's. And
consequently there was, we thought, a healthier aspect about the men
engaged. None of the Rodgers remain who founded the firm in my father's
time. I saw some pairs of his scissors in the show-room still kept under
the name of _Persian_ scissors."[35]
From Sheffield Yule and his friend proceeded to Boston, "where there is
the most exquisite church tower I have ever seen," and thence to Lincoln,
Peterborough, and Ely, ending their tour at Cambridge, where Yule spent
a few delightful days.
In the autumn the great Duke of Wellington died, and Yule witnessed the
historic pageant of his funeral. His furlough was now nearly expired, and
early in December he again embarked for India, leaving his wife and only
child, of a few weeks old, behind him. Some verses dated "Christmas Day
near the Equator," show how much he felt the separation.
Shortly after his return to Bengal, Yule received orders to proceed to
Aracan, and to examine and report upon the passes between Aracan and
Burma, as also to improve communications and select suitable sites for
fortified posts to hold the same. These orders came to Yule quite
unexpectedly late one Saturday evening, but he completed all preparations
and started at daybreak on the following Monday, 24th Jan. 1853.
From Calcutta to Khyook Phyoo, Yule proceeded by steamer, and thence up
the river in the _Tickler_ gunboat to Krenggyuen. "Our course lay through
a wilderness of wooded islands (50 to 200 feet high) and bays, sailing
when we could, anchoring when neither wind nor tide served ... slow
progress up the river. More and more like the creeks and lagoons of the
Niger or a Guiana river rather than anything I looked for in India. The
densest tree jungle covers the shore down into the water. For miles no
sign of human habitation, but now and then at rare intervals one sees a
patch of hillside rudely cleared, with the bare stems of the burnt trees
still standing.... Sometimes, too, a dark tunnel-like creek runs back
beneath the thick vault of jungle, and from it silently steals out a slim
canoe, manned by two or three wild-looking Mugs or Kyens (people of the
Hills), driving it rapidly along with their short paddles held vertically,
exactly like those of the Red men on the American rivers."
At the military post of Bokhyong, near Krenggyuen, he notes (5th Feb.)
that "Captain Munro, the adjutant, can scarcely believe that I was present
at the Duke of Wellington's funeral, of which he read but a few days ago
in the newspapers, and here am I, one of the spectators, a guest in this
wild spot among the mountains--2-1/2 months since I left England."
Yule's journal of his arduous wanderings in these border wilds is full of
interest, but want of space forbids further quotation. From a note on the
fly-leaf it appears that from the time of quitting the gun-boat at
Krenggyuen to his arrival at Toungoop he covered about 240 miles on foot,
and that under immense difficulties, even as to food. He commemorated his
tribulations in some cheery humorous verse, but ultimately fell seriously
ill of the local fever, aided doubtless by previous exposure and
privation. His servants successively fell ill, some died and others had to
be sent back, food supplies failed, and the route through those dense
forests was uncertain; yet under all difficulties he seems never to have
grumbled or lost heart. And when things were nearly at the worst, Yule
restored the spirits of his local escort by improvising a wappenshaw, with
a Sheffield gardener's knife, which he happened to have with him, for
prize! When at last Yule emerged from the wilds and on 25th March marched
into Prome, he was taken for his own ghost! "Found Fraser (of the
Engineers) in a rambling phoongyee house, just under the great gilt
pagoda. I went up to him announcing myself, and his astonishment was so
great that he would scarcely shake hands!" It was on this occasion at
Prome that Yule first met his future chief Captain Phayre--"a very
young-looking man--very cordial," a description no less applicable to
General Sir Arthur Phayre at the age of seventy!
After some further wanderings, Yule embarked at Sandong, and returned by
water, touching at Kyook Phyoo and Akyab, to Calcutta, which he reached on
1st May--his birthday.
The next four months were spent in hard work at Calcutta. In August, Yule
received orders to proceed to Singapore, and embarked on the 29th. His
duty was to report on the defences of the Straits Settlements, with a view
to their improvement. Yule's recommendations were sanctioned by
Government, but his journal bears witness to the prevalence then, as
since, of the penny-wise-pound-foolish system in our administration. On
all sides he was met by difficulties in obtaining sites for batteries,
etc., for which heavy compensation was demanded, when by the exercise of
reasonable foresight, the same might have been secured earlier at a
nominal price.
Yule's journal contains a very bright and pleasing picture of Singapore,
where he found that the majority of the European population "were
evidently, from their tongues, from benorth the Tweed, a circumstance
which seems to be true of four-fifths of the Singaporeans. Indeed, if I
taught geography, I should be inclined to class Edinburgh, Glasgow,
Dundee, and Singapore together as the four chief towns of Scotland."
Work on the defences kept Yule in Singapore and its neighbourhood until
the end of November, when he embarked for Bengal. On his return to
Calcutta, Yule was appointed Deputy Consulting Engineer for Railways at
Head-quarters. In this post he had for chief his old friend Baker, who had
in 1851 been appointed by the Governor-General, Lord Dalhousie, Consulting
Engineer for Railways to Government. The office owed its existence to the
recently initiated great experiment of railway construction under
Government guarantee.
The subject was new to Yule, "and therefore called for hard and anxious
labour. He, however, turned his strong sense and unbiased view to the
general question of railway communication in India, with the result that
he became a vigorous supporter of the idea of narrow gauge and cheap lines
in the parts of that country outside of the main trunk lines of
traffic."[36]
The influence of Yule, and that of his intimate friends and ultimate
successors in office, Colonels R. Strachey and Dickens, led to the
adoption of the narrow (metre) gauge over a great part of India. Of this
matter more will be said further on; it is sufficient at this stage to
note that it was occupying Yule's thoughts, and that he had already taken
up the position in this question that he thereafter maintained through
life. The office of Consulting Engineer to Government for Railways
ultimately developed into the great Department of Public Works.
As related by Yule, whilst Baker "held this appointment, Lord Dalhousie
was in the habit of making use of his advice in a great variety of matters
connected with Public Works projects and questions, but which had nothing
to do with guaranteed railways, there being at that time no officer
attached to the Government of India, whose proper duty it was to deal with
such questions. In August, 1854, the Government of India sent home to the
Court of Directors a despatch and a series of minutes by the
Governor-General and his Council, in which the constitution of the Public
Works Department as a separate branch of administration, both in the local
governments and the government of India itself, was urged on a detailed
plan."
In this communication Lord Dalhousie stated his desire to appoint Major
Baker to the projected office of Secretary for the Department of Public
Works. In the spring of 1855 these recommendations were carried out by the
creation of the Department, with Baker as Secretary and Yule as Under
Secretary for Public Works.
Meanwhile Yule's services were called to a very different field, but
without his vacating his new appointment, which he was allowed to retain.
Not long after the conclusion of the second Burmese War, the King of Burma
sent a friendly mission to the Governor-General, and in 1855 a return
Embassy was despatched to the Court of Ava, under Colonel Arthur Phayre,
with Henry Yule as Secretary, an appointment the latter owed as much to
Lord Dalhousie's personal wish as to Phayre's good-will. The result of
this employment was Yule's first geographical book, a large volume
entitled _Mission to the Court of Ava in 1855_, originally printed in
India, but subsequently re-issued in an embellished form at home (see over
leaf). To the end of his life, Yule looked back to this "social progress
up the Irawady, with its many quaint and pleasant memories, as to a bright
and joyous holiday."[37] It was a delight to him to work under Phayre,
whose noble and lovable character he had already learned to appreciate two
years before in Pegu. Then, too, Yule has spoken of the intense relief it
was to escape from the monotonous scenery and depressing conditions of
official life in Bengal (Resort to Simla was the exception, not the rule,
in these days!) to the cheerfulness and unconstraint of Burma, with its
fine landscapes and merry-hearted population. "It was such a relief to
find natives who would laugh at a joke," he once remarked in the writer's
presence to the lamented E. C. Baber, who replied that he had experienced
exactly the same sense of relief in passing from India to China.
Yule's work on Burma was largely illustrated by his own sketches. One of
these represents the King's reception of the Embassy, and another, the
King on his throne. The originals were executed by Yule's ready pencil,
surreptitiously within his cocked hat, during the audience.
From the latter sketch Yule had a small oil-painting executed under his
direction by a German artist, then resident in Calcutta, which he gave to
Lord Dalhousie.[38]
The Government of India marked their approval of the Embassy by an unusual
concession. Each of the members of the mission received a souvenir of the
expedition. To Yule was given a very beautiful and elaborately chased
small bowl, of nearly pure gold, bearing the signs of the Zodiac in
relief.[39]
On his return to Calcutta, Yule threw himself heart and soul into the work
of his new appointment in the Public Works Department. The nature of his
work, the novelty and variety of the projects and problems with which this
new branch of the service had to deal, brought Yule into constant, and
eventually very intimate association with Lord Dalhousie, whom he
accompanied on some of his tours of inspection. The two men thoroughly
appreciated each other, and, from first to last, Yule experienced the
greatest kindness from Lord Dalhousie. In this intimacy, no doubt the fact
of being what French soldiers call _pays_ added something to the warmth of
their mutual regard: their forefathers came from the same _airt_, and
neither was unmindful of the circumstance. It is much to be regretted that
Yule preserved no sketch of Lord Dalhousie, nor written record of his
intercourse with him, but the following lines show some part of what he
thought:
"At this time [1849] there appears upon the scene that vigorous and
masterful spirit, whose arrival to take up the government of India had
been greeted by events so inauspicious. No doubt from the beginning the
Governor-General was desirous to let it be understood that although new to
India he was, and meant to be, master;... Lord Dalhousie was by no means
averse to frank dissent, provided _in the manner_ it was never forgotten
that he was Governor-General. Like his great predecessor Lord Wellesley,
he was jealous of all familiarity and resented it.... The general
sentiment of those who worked under that [Greek: anax andron] was one of
strong and admiring affection ... and we doubt if a Governor-General ever
embarked on the Hoogly amid deeper feeling than attended him who,
shattered by sorrow and physical suffering, but erect and undaunted,
quitted Calcutta on the 6th March 1856."[40]
His successor was Lord Canning, whose confidence in Yule and personal
regard for him became as marked as his predecessor's.
In the autumn of 1856, Yule took leave and came home. Much of his time
while in England was occupied with making arrangements for the production
of an improved edition of his book on Burma, which so far had been a mere
government report. These were completed to his satisfaction, and on the
eve of returning to India, he wrote to his publishers[41] that the
correction of the proof sheets and general supervision of the publication
had been undertaken by his friend the Rev. W. D. Maclagan, formerly an
officer of the Madras army (and now Archbishop of York).
Whilst in England, Yule had renewed his intimacy with his old friend
Colonel Robert Napier, then also on furlough, a visitor whose kindly
sympathetic presence always brought special pleasure also to Yule's wife
and child. One result of this intercourse was that the friends decided to
return together to India. Accordingly they sailed from Marseilles towards
the end of April, and at Aden were met by the astounding news of the
outbreak of the Mutiny.
On his arrival in Calcutta Yule, who retained his appointment of Under
Secretary to Government, found his work indefinitely increased. Every
available officer was called into the field, and Yule's principal centre
of activity was shifted to the great fortress of Allahabad, forming the
principal base of operations against the rebels. Not only had he to
strengthen or create defences at Allahabad and elsewhere, but on Yule
devolved the principal burden of improvising accommodation for the
European troops then pouring into India, which ultimately meant providing
for an army of 100,000 men. His task was made the more difficult by the
long-standing chronic friction, then and long after, existing between the
officers of the Queen's and the Company's services. But in a far more
important matter he was always fortunate. As he subsequently recorded in a
Note for Government: "Through all consciousness of mistakes and
shortcomings, I have felt that I had the confidence of those whom I
served, a feeling which has lightened many a weight."
It was at Allahabad that Yule, in the intervals of more serious work, put
the last touches to his Burma book. The preface of the English edition is
dated, "Fortress of Allahabad, Oct. 3, 1857," and contains a passage
instinct with the emotions of the time. After recalling the "joyous
holiday" on the Irawady, he goes on: "But for ourselves, standing here on
the margin of these rivers, which a few weeks ago were red with the blood
of our murdered brothers and sisters, and straining the ear to catch the
echo of our avenging artillery, it is difficult to turn the mind to what
seem dreams of past days of peace and security; and memory itself grows
dim in the attempt to repass the gulf which the last few months has
interposed between the present and the time to which this narrative
refers."[42]
When he wrote these lines, the first relief had just taken place, and the
second defence of Lucknow was beginning. The end of the month saw Sir
Colin Campbell's advance to the second--the real--relief of Lucknow. Of
Sir Colin, Yule wrote and spoke with warm regard: "Sir Colin was
delightful, and when in a good humour and at his best, always reminded me
very much, both in manner and talk, of the General (i.e. General White,
his wife's father). The voice was just the same and the quiet gentle
manner, with its underlying keen dry humour. But then if you did happen to
offend Sir Colin, it was like treading on crackers, which was not our
General's way."
When Lucknow had been relieved, besieged, reduced, and finally remodelled
by the grand Roads and Demolitions Scheme of his friend Napier, the latter
came down to Allahabad, and he and Yule sought diversion in playing quoits
and skittles, the only occasion on which either of them is known to have
evinced any liking for games.
Before this time Yule had succeeded his friend Baker as _de facto_
Secretary to Government for Public Works, and on Baker's retirement in
1858, Yule was formally appointed his successor.[43] Baker and Yule had,
throughout their association, worked in perfect unison, and the very
differences in their characters enhanced the value of their co-operation;
the special qualities of each friend mutually strengthened and completed
each other. Yule's was by far the more original and creative mind, Baker's
the more precise and, at least in a professional sense, the more
highly-trained organ. In chivalrous sense of honour, devotion to duty, and
natural generosity, the men stood equal; but while Yule was by nature
impatient and irritable, and liable, until long past middle age, to
occasional sudden bursts of uncontrollable anger, generally followed by
periods of black depression and almost absolute silence,[44] Baker was the
very reverse. Partly by natural temperament, but also certainly by severe
self-discipline, his manner was invincibly placid and his temper
imperturbable.[45] Yet none was more tenacious in maintaining whatever he
judged right.
Baker, whilst large-minded in great matters, was extremely conventional in
small ones, and Yule must sometimes have tried his feelings in this
respect. The particulars of one such tragic occurrence have survived.
Yule, who was colour-blind,[46] and in early life whimsically obstinate in
maintaining his own view of colours, had selected some cloth for trousers
undeterred by his tailor's timid remonstrance of "Not _quite_ your usual
taste, sir." The result was that the Under-Secretary to Government
startled official Calcutta by appearing in brilliant claret-coloured
raiment. Baker remonstrated: "Claret-colour! Nonsense, my trousers are
silver grey," said Yule, and entirely declined to be convinced. "I think I
_did_ convince him at last," said Baker with some pride, when long after
telling the story to the present writer. "And _then_ he gave them up?"
"Oh, no," said Sir William ruefully, "he wore those claret-coloured
trousers to the very end." That episode probably belonged to the Dalhousie
period.
When Yule resumed work in the Secretariat at Calcutta at the close of the
Mutiny, the inevitable arrears of work were enormous. This may be the
proper place to notice more fully his action with respect to the choice of
gauge for Indian railways already adverted to in brief. As we have seen,
his own convictions led to the adoption of the metre gauge over a great
part of India. This policy had great disadvantages not at first foreseen,
and has since been greatly modified. In justice to Yule, however, it
should be remembered that the conditions and requirements of India have
largely altered, alike through the extraordinary growth of the Indian
export, especially the grain, trade, and the development of new
necessities for Imperial defence. These new features, however, did but
accentuate defects inherent in the system, but which only prolonged
practical experience made fully apparent.
At the outset the supporters of the narrow gauge seemed to have the
stronger position, as they were able to show that the cost was much less,
the rails employed being only about 2/3rds the weight of those required by
the broad gauge, and many other subsidiary expenses also proportionally
less. On the other hand, as time passed and practical experience was
gained, its opponents were able to make an even stronger case against the
narrow gauge. The initial expenses were undoubtedly less, but the
durability was also less. Thus much of the original saving was lost in the
greater cost of maintenance, whilst the small carrying capacity of the
rolling stock and loss of time and labour in shifting goods at every break
of gauge, were further serious causes of waste, which the internal
commercial development of India daily made more apparent. Strategic needs
also were clamant against the dangers of the narrow gauge in any general
scheme of Indian defence. Yule's connection with the Public Works
Department had long ceased ere the question of the gauges reached its most
acute stage, but his interest and indirect participation in the conflict
survived. In this matter a certain parental tenderness for a scheme which
he had helped to originate, combined with his warm friendship for some of
the principal supporters of the narrow gauge, seem to have influenced his
views more than he himself was aware. Certainly his judgment in this
matter was not impartial, although, as always in his case, it was
absolutely sincere and not consciously biased.
In reference to Yule's services in the period following the Mutiny, Lord
Canning's subsequent Minute of 1862 may here be fitly quoted. In this the
Governor-General writes: "I have long ago recorded my opinion of the value
of his services in 1858 and 1859, when with a crippled and overtaxed staff
of Engineer officers, many of them young and inexperienced, the G.-G. had
to provide rapidly for the accommodation of a vast English army, often in
districts hitherto little known, and in which the authority of the
Government was barely established, and always under circumstances of
difficulty and urgency. I desire to repeat that the Queen's army in India
was then greatly indebted to Lieut.-Colonel Yule's judgment, earnestness,
and ability; and this to an extent very imperfectly understood by many of
the officers who held commands in that army.
"Of the manner in which the more usual duties of his office have been
discharged it is unnecessary for me to speak. It is, I believe, known and
appreciated as well by the Home Government as by the Governor-General in
Council."
In the spring of 1859 Yule felt the urgent need of a rest, and took the,
at that time, most unusual step of coming home on three months' leave,
which as the voyage then occupied a month each way, left him only one
month at home. He was accompanied by his elder brother George, who had not
been out of India for thirty years. The visit home of the two brothers was
as bright and pleasant as it was brief, but does not call for further
notice.
In 1860, Yule's health having again suffered, he took short leave to Java.
His journal of this tour is very interesting, but space does not admit of
quotation here. He embodied some of the results of his observations in a
lecture he delivered on his return to Calcutta.
During these latter years of his service in India, Yule owed much
happiness to the appreciative friendship of Lord Canning and the ready
sympathy of Lady Canning. If he shared their tours in an official
capacity, the intercourse was much more than official. The noble character
of Lady Canning won from Yule such wholehearted chivalrous devotion as,
probably, he felt for no other friend save, perhaps in after days, Sir
Bartle Frere. And when her health failed, it was to Yule's special care
that Lord Canning entrusted his wife during a tour in the Hills. Lady
Canning was known to be very homesick, and one day as the party came in
sight of some ilexes (the evergreen oak), Yule sought to cheer her by
calling out pleasantly: "Look, Lady Canning! There are _oaks_!" "No, no,
Yule, _not_ oaks," cried Sir C. B. "They are (solemnly) IBEXES." "No,
_not_ Ibexes, Sir C., you mean SILEXES," cried Capt. ----, the A.D.C.;
Lady Canning and Yule the while almost choking with laughter.
On another and later occasion, when the Governor-General's camp was
peculiarly dull and stagnant, every one yawning and grumbling, Yule
effected a temporary diversion by pretending to tap the telegraph wires,
and circulating through camp, what purported to be, the usual telegraphic
abstract of news brought to Bombay by the latest English mail. The news
was of the most astounding character, with just enough air of probability,
in minor details, to pass muster with a dull reader. The effect was all he
could wish--or rather more--and there was a general flutter in the camp.
Of course the Governor-General and one or two others were in the secret,
and mightily relished the diversion. But this pleasant and cheering
intercourse was drawing to its mournful close. On her way back from
Darjeeling, in November, 1861, Lady Canning (not then in Yule's care) was
unavoidably exposed to the malaria of a specially unhealthy season. A few
days' illness followed, and on 18th November, 1861, she passed calmly to
"That remaining rest where night and tears are o'er."[47]
It was to Yule that Lord Canning turned in the first anguish of his loss,
and on this faithful friend devolved the sad privilege of preparing her
last resting-place. This may be told in the touching words of Lord
Canning's letter to his only sister, written on the day of Lady Canning's
burial, in the private garden at Barrackpoor[48]:--
"The funeral is over, and my own darling lies buried in a spot which I am
sure she would have chosen of all others.... From the grave can be seen
the embanked walk leading from the house to the river's edge, which she
made as a landing-place three years ago, and from within 3 or 4 paces of
the grave there is a glimpse of the terrace-garden and its balustrades,
which she made near the house, and of the part of the grounds with which
she most occupied herself.... I left Calcutta yesterday ... and on
arriving here, went to look at the precise spot chosen for the grave. I
could see by the clear full moon ... that it was exactly right. Yule was
there superintending the workmen, and before daylight this morning a solid
masonry vault had been completely finished.
"Bowie [Military Secretary] and Yule have done all this for me. It has all
been settled since my poor darling died. She liked Yule. They used to
discuss together her projects of improvement for this place, architecture,
gardening, the Cawnpore monument, etc., and they generally agreed. He knew
her tastes well...."
The coffin, brought on a gun-carriage from Calcutta, "was carried by
twelve soldiers of the 6th Regiment (Queen's), the A.D.C.'s bearing the
pall. There were no hired men or ordinary funeral attendants of any kind
at any part of the ceremony, and no lookers-on.... Yule was the only
person not of the household staff. Had others who had asked" to attend
"been allowed to do so, the numbers would have been far too large.
"On coming near the end of the terrace walk I saw that the turf between
the walk and the grave, and for several yards all round the grave, was
strewed thick with palm branches and bright fresh-gathered flowers--quite
a thick carpet. It was a little matter, but so exactly what she would have
thought of."[49]
And, therefore, Yule thought of this for her! He also recorded the scene
two days later in some graceful and touching lines, privately printed,
from which the following may be quoted:
"When night lowered black, and the circling shroud
Of storm rolled near, and stout hearts learned dismay;
Not Hers! To her tried Lord a Light and Stay
Even in the Earthquake and the palpable cloud
Of those dark months; and when a fickle crowd
Panted for blood and pelted wrath and scorn
On him she loved, her courage never stooped:
But when the clouds were driven, and the day
Poured Hope and glorious Sunshine, she who had borne,
The night with such strong Heart, withered and drooped,
Our queenly lily, and smiling passed away.
Now! let no fouling touch profane her clay,
Nor odious pomps and funeral tinsels mar
Our grief. But from our England's cannon car
Let England's soldiers bear her to the tomb
Prepared by loving hands. Before her bier
Scatter victorious palms; let Rose's bloom
Carpet its passage...."
Yule's deep sympathy in this time of sorrow strengthened the friendship
Lord Canning had long felt for him, and when the time approached for the
Governor-General to vacate his high office, he invited Yule, who was very
weary of India, to accompany him home, where his influence would secure
Yule congenial employment. Yule's weariness of India at this time was
extreme. Moreover, after serving under such leaders as Lord Dalhousie and
Lord Canning, and winning their full confidence and friendship, it was
almost repugnant to him to begin afresh with new men and probably new
measures, with which he might not be in accord. Indeed, some little clouds
were already visible on the horizon. In these circumstances, it is not
surprising that Yule, under an impulse of lassitude and impatience, when
accepting Lord Canning's offer, also 'burnt his boats' by sending in his
resignation of the service. This decision Yule took against the earnest
advice of his anxious and devoted wife, and for a time the results
justified all her misgivings. She knew well, from past experience, how
soon Yule wearied in the absence of compulsory employment. And in the
event of the life in England not suiting him, for even Lord Canning's
good-will might not secure perfectly congenial employment for his talents,
she knew well that his health and spirits would be seriously affected.
She, therefore, with affectionate solicitude, urged that he should adopt
the course previously followed by his friend Baker, that is, come home on
furlough, and only send in his resignation after he saw clearly what his
prospects of home employment were, and what he himself wished in the
matter.
Lord Canning and Yule left Calcutta late in March, 1862; at Malta they
parted never to meet again in this world. Lord Canning proceeded to
England, and Yule joined his wife and child in Rome. Only a few weeks
later, at Florence, came as a thunderclap the announcement of Lord
Canning's unexpected death in London, on 17th June. Well does the present
writer remember the day that fatal news came, and Yule's deep anguish, not
assuredly for the loss of his prospects, but for the loss of a most noble
and magnanimous friend, a statesman whose true greatness was, both then
and since, most imperfectly realised by the country for which he had worn
himself out.[50] Shortly after Yule went to England,[51] where he was
cordially received by Lord Canning's representatives, who gave him a
touching remembrance of his lost friend, in the shape of the silver
travelling candlesticks, which had habitually stood on Lord Canning's
writing-table.[52] But his offer to write Lord Canning's _Life_ had no
result, as the relatives, following the then recent example of the
Hastings family, in the case of another great Governor-General, refused to
revive discussion by the publication of any Memoir.
Nor did Yule find any suitable opening for employment in England, so after
two or three months spent in visiting old friends, he rejoined his family
in the Black Forest, where he sought occupation in renewing his knowledge
of German. But it must be confessed that his mood both then and for long
after was neither happy nor wholesome. The winter of 1862 was spent
somewhat listlessly, partly in Germany and partly at the Hotel des
Bergues, Geneva, where his old acquaintance Colonel Tronchin was
hospitably ready to open all doors. The picturesque figure of John Ruskin
also flits across the scene at this time. But Yule was unoccupied and
restless, and could neither enjoy Mr. Ruskin's criticism of his sketches
nor the kindly hospitality of his Genevan hosts. Early in 1863 he made
another fruitless visit to London, where he remained four or five months,
but found no opening. Though unproductive of work, this year brought Yule
official recognition of his services in the shape of the C.B., for which
Lord Canning had long before recommended him.[53]
On rejoining his wife and child at Mornex in Savoy, Yule found the health
of the former seriously impaired. During his absence, the kind and able
English Doctor at Geneva had felt obliged to inform Mrs. Yule that she was
suffering from disease of the heart, and that her life might end suddenly
at any moment. Unwilling to add to Yule's anxieties, she made all
necessary arrangements, but did not communicate this intelligence until he
had done all he wished and returned, when she broke it to him very gently.
Up to this year Mrs. Yule, though not strong and often ailing, had not
allowed herself to be considered an invalid, but from this date doctor's
orders left her no choice in the matter.[54]
About this time, Yule took in hand the first of his studies of mediaeval
travellers. His translation of the _Travels of Friar Jordanus_ was
probably commenced earlier; it was completed during the leisurely journey
by carriage between Chambery and Turin, and the Dedication to Sir Bartle
Frere written during a brief halt at Genoa, from which place it is dated.
Travelling slowly and pleasantly by _vetturino_ along the Riviera di
Levante, the family came to Spezzia, then little more than a quiet
village. A chance encounter with agreeable residents disposed Yule
favourably towards the place, and a few days later he opened negotiations
for land to build a house! Most fortunately for himself and all concerned
these fell through, and the family continued their journey to Tuscany, and
settled for the winter in a long rambling house, with pleasant garden, at
Pisa, where Yule was able to continue with advantage his researches into
mediaeval travel in the East. He paid frequent visits to Florence, where
he had many pleasant acquaintances, not least among them Charles Lever
("Harry Lorrequer"), with whom acquaintance ripened into warm and enduring
friendship. At Florence he also made the acquaintance of the celebrated
Marchese Gino Capponi, and of many other Italian men of letters. To this
winter of 1863-64 belongs also the commencement of a lasting friendship
with the illustrious Italian historian, Villari, at that time holding an
appointment at Pisa. Another agreeable acquaintance, though less intimate,
was formed with John Ball, the well-known President of the Alpine Club,
then resident at Pisa, and with many others, among whom the name of a very
cultivated German scholar, H. Meyer, specially recurs to memory.
In the spring of 1864, Yule took a spacious and delightful old villa,
situated in the highest part of the Bagni di Lucca,[55] and commanding
lovely views over the surrounding chestnut-clad hills and winding river.
Here he wrote much of what ultimately took form in _Cathay, and the Way
Thither_. It was this summer, too, that Yule commenced his investigations
among the Venetian archives, and also visited the province of Friuli in
pursuit of materials for the history of one of his old travellers, the
_Beato Odorico_. At Verona--then still Austrian--he had the amusing
experience of being arrested for sketching too near the fortifications.
However, his captors had all the usual Austrian _bonhomie_ and courtesy,
and Yule experienced no real inconvenience. He was much more disturbed
when, a day or two later, the old mother of one of his Venetian
acquaintances insisted on embracing him on account of his supposed
likeness to Garibaldi!
As winter approached, a warmer climate became necessary for Mrs. Yule, and
the family proceeded to Sicily, landing at Messina in October, 1864. From
this point, Yule made a very interesting excursion to the then little
known group of the Lipari Islands, in the company of that eminent
geologist, the late Robert Mallet, F.R.S., a most agreeable companion.
On Martinmas Day, the Yules reached the beautiful capital of Sicily,
Palermo, which, though they knew it not, was to be their home--a very
happy one--for nearly eleven years.
During the ensuing winter and spring, Yule continued the preparation of
_Cathay_, but his appetite for work not being satisfied by this, he, when
in London in 1865, volunteered to make an Index to the third decade of the
_Journal of the Royal Geographical Society_, in exchange for a set of such
volumes as he did not possess. That was long before any Index Society
existed; but Yule had special and very strong views of his own as to what
an Index should be, and he spared no labour to realise his ideal.[56] This
proved a heavier task than he had anticipated, and he got very weary
before the Index was completed.
In the spring of 1866, _Cathay and the Way Thither_ appeared, and at once
took the high place which it has ever since retained. In the autumn of the
same year Yule's attention was momentarily turned in a very different
direction by a local insurrection, followed by severe reprisals, and the
bombardment of Palermo by the Italian Fleet. His sick wife was for some
time under rifle as well as shell fire; but cheerfully remarking that
"every bullet has its billet," she remained perfectly serene and
undisturbed. It was the year of the last war with Austria, and also of the
suppression of the Monastic Orders in Sicily; two events which probably
helped to produce the outbreak, of which Yule contributed an account to
_The Times_, and subsequently a more detailed one to the _Quarterly
Review_.[57]
Yule had no more predilection for the Monastic Orders than most of his
countrymen, but his sense of justice was shocked by the cruel incidence of
the measure in many cases, and also by the harshness with which both it
and the punishment of suspected insurgents was carried out. Cholera was
prevalent in Italy that year, but Sicily, which had maintained stringent
quarantine, entirely escaped until large bodies of troops were landed to
quell the insurrection, when a devastating epidemic immediately ensued,
and re-appeared in 1867. In after years, when serving on the Army Sanitary
Committee at the India Office, Yule more than once quoted this experience
as indicating that quarantine restrictions may, in some cases, have more
value than British medical authority is usually willing to admit.
In 1867, on his return from London, Yule commenced systematic work on his
long projected new edition of the _Travels of Marco Polo_. It was
apparently in this year that the scheme first took definite form, but it
had long been latent in his mind. The Public Libraries of Palermo afforded
him much good material, whilst occasional visits to the Libraries of
Venice, Florence, Paris, and London, opened other sources. But his most
important channel of supply came from his very extensive private
correspondence, extending to nearly all parts of Europe and many centres
in Asia. His work brought him many new and valued friends, indeed too many
to mention, but amongst whom, as belonging specially to this period, three
honoured names must be recalled here: Commendatore (afterwards Baron)
CRISTOFORO NEGRI, the large-hearted Founder and First President of the
Geographical Society of Italy, from whom Yule received his first public
recognition as a geographer, Commendatore GUGLIELMO BERCHET
(affectionately nicknamed _il Bello e Buono_), ever generous in learned
help, who became a most dear and honoured friend, and the Hon. GEORGE P.
MARSH, U.S. Envoy to the Court of Italy, a man, both as scholar and
friend, unequalled in his nation, perhaps almost unique anywhere.
Those who only knew Yule in later years, may like some account of his
daily life at this time. It was his custom to rise fairly early; in summer
he sometimes went to bathe in the sea,[58] or for a walk before breakfast;
more usually he would write until breakfast, which he preferred to have
alone. After breakfast he looked through his notebooks, and before ten
o'clock was usually walking rapidly to the library where his work lay. He
would work there until two or three o'clock, when he returned home, read
the _Times_, answered letters, received or paid visits, and then resumed
work on his book, which he often continued long after the rest of the
household were sleeping. Of course his family saw but little of him under
these circumstances, but when he had got a chapter of _Marco_ into shape,
or struck out some new discovery of interest, he would carry it to his
wife to read. She always took great interest in his work, and he had great
faith in her literary instinct as a sound as well as sympathetic critic.
The first fruits of Yule's Polo studies took the form of a review of
Pauthier's edition of _Marco Polo_, contributed to the _Quarterly Review_
in 1868.
In 1870 the great work itself appeared, and received prompt generous
recognition by the grant of the very beautiful gold medal of the
Geographical Society of Italy,[59] followed in 1872 by the award of the
Founder's Medal of the Royal Geographical Society, while the Geographical
and Asiatic Societies of Paris, the Geographical Societies of Italy and
Berlin, the Academy of Bologna, and other learned bodies, enrolled him as
an Honorary Member.
Reverting to 1869, we may note that Yule, when passing through Paris early
in the spring, became acquainted, through his friend M. Charles Maunoir,
with the admirable work of exploration lately performed by Lieut. Francis
Garnier of the French Navy. It was a time of much political excitement in
France, the eve of the famous _Plebiscite_, and the importance of
Garnier's work was not then recognised by his countrymen. Yule saw its
value, and on arrival in London went straight to Sir Roderick Murchison,
laid the facts before him, and suggested that no other traveller of the
year had so good a claim to one of the two gold medals of the R.G.S. as
this French naval Lieutenant. Sir Roderick was propitious, and accordingly
in May the Patron's medal was assigned to Garnier, who was touchingly
grateful to Yule; whilst the French Minister of Marine marked his
appreciation of Yule's good offices by presenting him with the magnificent
volumes commemorating the expedition.[60]
Yule was in Paris in 1871, immediately after the suppression of the
Commune, and his letters gave interesting accounts of the extraordinary
state of affairs then prevailing. In August, he served as President of the
Geographical Section of the British Association at its Edinburgh meeting.
On his return to Palermo, he devoted himself specially to the geography of
the Oxus region, and the result appeared next year in his introduction and
notes to Wood's _Journey_. Soon after his return to Palermo, he became
greatly interested in the plans, about which he was consulted, of an
English church, the gift to the English community of two of its oldest
members, Messrs Ingham and Whitaker. Yule's share in the enterprise
gradually expanded, until he became a sort of volunteer clerk of the
works, to the great benefit of his health, as this occupation during the
next three years, whilst adding to his interests, also kept him longer in
the open air than would otherwise have been the case. It was a real
misfortune to Yule (and one of which he was himself at times conscious)
that he had no taste for any out-of-door pursuits, neither for any form of
natural science, nor for gardening, nor for any kind of sport nor games.
Nor did he willingly ride.[61] He was always restless away from his books.
There can be no doubt that want of sufficient air and exercise, reacting
on an impaired liver, had much to do with Yule's unsatisfactory state of
health and frequent extreme depression. There was no lack of agreeable and
intelligent society at Palermo (society that the present writer recalls
with cordial regard), to which every winter brought pleasant temporary
additions, both English and foreign, the best of whom generally sought
Yule's acquaintance. Old friends too were not wanting; many found their
way to Palermo, and when such came, he was willing to show them
hospitality and to take them excursions, and occasionally enjoyed these.
But though the beautiful city and surrounding country were full of charm
and interest, Yule was too much pre-occupied by his own special engrossing
pursuits ever really to get the good of his surroundings, of which indeed
he often seemed only half conscious.
By this time Yule had obtained, without ever having sought it, a distinct
and, in some respects, quite unique position in geographical science.
Although his _Essay on the Geography of the Oxus Region_ (1872) received
comparatively little public attention at home, it had yet made its mark
once for all,[62] and from this time, if not earlier, Yule's high
authority in all questions of Central Asian geography was generally
recognised. He had long ere this, almost unconsciously, laid the broad
foundations of that "Yule method," of which Baron von Richthofen has
written so eloquently, declaring that not only in his own land, "but also
in the literatures of France, Italy, Germany, and other countries, the
powerful stimulating influence of the Yule method is visible."[63] More
than one writer has indeed boldly compared Central Asia before Yule to
Central Africa before Livingstone!
Yule had wrought from sheer love of the work and without expectation of
public recognition, and it was therefore a great surprise as well as
gratification to him, to find that the demand for his _Marco Polo_ was
such as to justify the appearance of a second edition only a few years
after the first. The preparation of this enlarged edition, with much other
miscellaneous work (see subjoined bibliography), and the superintendence
of the building of the church already named, kept him fully occupied for
the next three years.
Amongst the parerga and miscellaneous occupations of Yule's leisure hours
in the period 1869-74, may be mentioned an interesting correspondence with
Professor W. W. Skeat on the subject of _William of Palerne_ and Sicilian
examples of the Werwolf; the skilful analysis and exposure of Klaproth's
false geography;[64] the purchase and despatch of Sicilian seeds and young
trees for use in the Punjab, at the request of the Indian Forestry
Department; translations (prepared for friends) of tracts on the
cultivation of Sumach and the collection of Manna as practised in Sicily;
also a number of small services rendered to the South Kensington Museum,
at the request of the late Sir Henry Cole. These latter included obtaining
Italian and Sicilian bibliographic contributions to the Science and Art
Department's _Catalogue of Books on Art_, selecting architectural subjects
to be photographed;[65] negotiating the purchase of the original drawings
illustrative of Padre B. Gravina's great work on the Cathedral of
Monreale; and superintending the execution of a copy in mosaic of the
large mosaic picture (in the Norman Palatine Chapel, Palermo,) of the
Entry of our Lord into Jerusalem.
In the spring of 1875, just after the publication of the second edition of
_Marco Polo_, Yule had to mourn the loss of his noble wife. He was absent
from Sicily at the time, but returned a few hours after her death on 30th
April. She had suffered for many years from a severe form of heart
disease, but her end was perfect peace. She was laid to rest, amid
touching tokens of both public and private sympathy, in the beautiful
camposanto on Monte Pellegrino. What her loss was to Yule only his oldest
and closest friends were in a position to realise. Long years of suffering
had impaired neither the soundness of her judgment nor the sweetness, and
even gaiety, of her happy, unselfish disposition. And in spirit, as even
in appearance, she retained to the very last much of the radiance of her
youth. Nor were her intellectual gifts less remarkable. Few who had once
conversed with her ever forgot her, and certainly no one who had once
known her intimately ever ceased to love her.[66]
Shortly after this calamity, Yule removed to London, and on the retirement
of his old friend, Sir William Baker, from the India Council early that
autumn, Lord Salisbury at once selected him for the vacant seat. Nothing
would ever have made him a party-man, but he always followed Lord
Salisbury with conviction, and worked under him with steady confidence.
In 1877 Yule married, as his second wife, the daughter of an old
friend,[67] a very amiable woman twenty years his junior, who made him
very happy until her untimely death in 1881. From the time of his joining
the India Council, his duties at the India Office of course occupied a
great part of his time, but he also continued to do an immense amount of
miscellaneous literary work, as may be seen by reference to the subjoined
bibliography, (itself probably incomplete). In Council he invariably
"showed his strong determination to endeavour to deal with questions on
their own merits and not only by custom and precedent."[68] Amongst
subjects in which he took a strong line of his own in the discussions of
the Council, may be specially instanced his action in the matter of the
cotton duties (in which he defended native Indian manufactures as against
hostile Manchester interests); the Vernacular Press Act, the necessity for
which he fully recognised; and the retention of Kandahar, for which he
recorded his vote in a strong minute. In all these three cases, which are
typical of many others, his opinion was overruled, but having been
carefully and deliberately formed, it remained unaffected by defeat.
In all matters connected with Central Asian affairs, Yule's opinion always
carried great weight; some of his most competent colleagues indeed
preferred his authority in this field to that of even Sir Henry Rawlinson,
possibly for the reason given by Sir M. Grant Duff, who has
epigrammatically described the latter as good in Council but dangerous in
counsel.[69]
Yule's courageous independence and habit of looking at all public
questions by the simple light of what appeared to him right, yet without
fads or doctrinairism, earned for him the respect of the successive
Secretaries of State under whom he served, and the warm regard and
confidence of his other colleagues. The value attached to his services in
Council was sufficiently shown by the fact that when the period of ten
years (for which members are usually appointed), was about to expire, Lord
Hartington (now Duke of Devonshire), caused Yule's appointment to be
renewed for life, under a special Act of Parliament passed for this
purpose in 1885.
His work as a member of the Army Sanitary Committee, brought him into
communication with Miss Florence Nightingale, a privilege which he greatly
valued and enjoyed, though he used to say: "She is worse than a Royal
Commission to answer, and, in the most gracious charming manner possible,
immediately finds out all I don't know!" Indeed his devotion to the
"Lady-in-Chief" was scarcely less complete than Kinglake's.
In 1880, Yule was appointed to the Board of Visitors of the Government
Indian Engineering College at Cooper's Hill, a post which added to his
sphere of interests without materially increasing his work. In 1882, he
was much gratified by being named an Honorary Fellow of the Society of
Antiquaries of Scotland, more especially as it was to fill one of the two
vacancies created by the deaths of Thomas Carlyle and Dean Stanley.
Yule had been President of the Hakluyt Society from 1877, and in 1885 was
elected President also of the Royal Asiatic Society. He would probably
also have been President of the Royal Geographical Society, but for an
untoward incident. Mention has already been made of his constant
determination to judge all questions by the simple touchstone of what he
believed to be right, irrespective of personal considerations. It was in
pursuance of these principles that, at the cost of great pain to himself
and some misrepresentation, he in 1878 sundered his long connection with
the Royal Geographical Society, by resigning his seat on their Council,
solely in consequence of their adoption of what he considered a wrong
policy. This severance occurred just when it was intended to propose him
as President. Some years later, at the personal request of the late Lord
Aberdare, a President in all respects worthy of the best traditions of
that great Society, Yule consented to rejoin the Council, which he
re-entered as a Vice-President.
In 1883, the University of Edinburgh celebrated its Tercentenary, when
Yule was selected as one of the recipients of the honorary degree of LL.D.
His letters from Edinburgh, on this occasion, give a very pleasant and
amusing account of the festivity and of the celebrities he met. Nor did he
omit to chronicle the envious glances cast, as he alleged, by some British
men of science on the splendours of foreign Academic attire, on the yellow
robes of the Sorbonne, and the Palms of the Institute of France! Pasteur
was, he wrote, the one most enthusiastically acclaimed of all who received
degrees.
I think it was about the same time that M. Renan was in England, and
called upon Sir Henry Maine, Yule, and others at the India Office. On
meeting just after, the colleagues compared notes as to their
distinguished but unwieldy visitor. "It seems that _le style n'est pas
l'homme meme_ in _this_ instance," quoth "Ancient Law" to "Marco Polo."
And here it may be remarked that Yule so completely identified himself
with his favourite traveller that he frequently signed contributions to
the public press as MARCUS PAULUS VENETUS or M.P.V. His more intimate
friends also gave him the same _sobriquet_, and once, when calling on his
old friend, Dr. John Brown (the beloved chronicler of _Rab and his
Friends_), he was introduced by Dr. John to some lion-hunting American
visitors as "our Marco Polo." The visitors evidently took the statement in
a literal sense, and scrutinised Yule closely.[70]
In 1886 Yule published his delightful _Anglo-Indian Glossary_, with the
whimsical but felicitous sub-title of _Hobson-Jobson_ (the name given by
the rank and file of the British Army in India to the religious festival
in celebration of Hassan and Husain).
This _Glossary_ was an abiding interest to both Yule and the present
writer. Contributions of illustrative quotations came from most diverse
and unexpected sources, and the arrival of each new word or happy
quotation was quite an event, and gave such pleasure to the recipients as
can only be fully understood by those who have shared in such pursuits.
The volume was dedicated in affecting terms to his elder brother, Sir
George Yule, who, unhappily, did not survive to see it completed.
In July 1885, the two brothers had taken the last of many happy journeys
together, proceeding to Cornwall and the Scilly Isles. A few months later,
on 13th January 1886, the end came suddenly to the elder, from the effects
of an accident at his own door.[71]
It may be doubted if Yule ever really got over the shock of this loss,
though he went on with his work as usual, and served that year as a Royal
Commissioner on the occasion of the Indian and Colonial Exhibition of
1886.
From 1878, when an accidental chill laid the foundations of an exhausting,
though happily quite painless, malady, Yule's strength had gradually
failed, although for several years longer his general health and energies
still appeared unimpaired to a casual observer. The condition of public
affairs also, in some degree, affected his health injuriously. The general
trend of political events from 1880 to 1886 caused him deep anxiety and
distress, and his righteous wrath at what he considered the betrayal of
his country's honour in the cases of Frere, of Gordon, and of Ireland,
found strong, and, in a noble sense, passionate expression in both prose
and verse. He was never in any sense a party man, but he often called
himself "one of Mr. Gladstone's converts," i.e. one whom Gladstonian
methods had compelled to break with liberal tradition and prepossessions.
Nothing better expresses Yule's feeling in the period referred to than the
following letter, written in reference to the R. E. Gordon Memorial,[72]
but of much wider application: "Will you allow me an inch or two of space
to say to my brother officers, 'Have nothing to do with the proposed
Gordon Memorial.'
"That glorious memory is in no danger of perishing and needs no memorial.
Sackcloth and silence are what it suggests to those who have guided the
action of England; and Englishmen must bear the responsibility for that
action and share its shame. It is too early for atoning memorials; nor is
it possible for those who take part in them to dissociate themselves from
a repulsive hypocrisy.
"Let every one who would fain bestow something in honour of the great
victim, do, in silence, some act of help to our soldiers or their
families, or to others who are poor and suffering.
"In later days our survivors or successors may look back with softened
sorrow and pride to the part which men of our corps have played in these
passing events, and Charles Gordon far in the front of all; and then they
may set up our little tablets, or what not--not to preserve the memory of
our heroes, but to maintain the integrity of our own record of the
illustrious dead."
Happily Yule lived to see the beginning of better times for his country.
One of the first indications of that national awakening was the right
spirit in which the public, for the most part, received Lord Wolseley's
stirring appeal at the close of 1888, and Yule was so much struck by the
parallelism between Lord Wolseley's warning and some words of his own
contained in the pseudo-Polo fragment (see above, end of Preface), that he
sent Lord Wolseley the very last copy of the 1875 edition of _Marco Polo_,
with a vigorous expression of his sentiments.
That was probably Yule's last utterance on a public question. The sands of
life were now running low, and in the spring of 1889, he felt it right to
resign his seat on the India Council, to which he had been appointed for
life. On this occasion Lord Cross, then Secretary of State for India,
successfully urged his acceptance of the K.C.S.I., which Yule had refused
several years before.
In the House of Lords, Viscount Cross subsequently referred to his
resignation in the following terms. He said: "A vacancy on the Council had
unfortunately occurred through the resignation from ill-health of Sir
Henry Yule, whose presence on the Council had been of enormous advantage
to the natives of the country. A man of more kindly disposition, thorough
intelligence, high-minded, upright, honourable character, he believed did
not exist; and he would like to bear testimony to the estimation in which
he was held, and to the services which he had rendered in the office he
had so long filled."[73]
This year the Hakluyt Society published the concluding volume of Yule's
last work of importance, the _Diary of Sir William Hedges_. He had for
several years been collecting materials for a full memoir of his great
predecessor in the domain of historical geography, the illustrious
Rennell.[74] This work was well advanced as to preliminaries, but was not
sufficiently developed for early publication at the time of Yule's death,
and ere it could be completed its place had been taken by a later
enterprise.
During the summer of 1889, Yule occupied much of his leisure by collecting
and revising for re-issue many of his miscellaneous writings. Although not
able to do much at a time, this desultory work kept him occupied and
interested, and gave him much pleasure during many months. It was,
however, never completed. Yule went to the seaside for a few weeks in the
early summer, and subsequently many pleasant days were spent by him among
the Surrey hills, as the guest of his old friends Sir Joseph and Lady
Hooker. Of their constant and unwearied kindness, he always spoke with
most affectionate gratitude. That autumn he took a great dislike to the
English climate; he hankered after sunshine, and formed many plans, eager
though indefinite, for wintering at Cintra, a place whose perfect beauty
had fascinated him in early youth. But increasing weakness made a journey
to Portugal, or even the South of France, an alternative of which he also
spoke, very inexpedient, if not absolutely impracticable. Moreover, he
would certainly have missed abroad the many friends and multifarious
interests which still surrounded him at home. He continued to take drives,
and occasionally called on friends, up to the end of November, and it was
not until the middle of December that increasing weakness obliged him to
take to his bed. He was still, however, able to enjoy seeing his
friends--some to the very end, and he had a constant stream of visitors,
mostly old friends, but also a few newer ones, who were scarcely less
welcome. He also kept up his correspondence to the last, three attached
brother R.E.'s, General Collinson, General Maclagan, and Major W.
Broadfoot, taking it in turn with the present writer to act as his
amanuensis.
On Friday, 27th December, Yule received a telegram from Paris, announcing
his nomination that day as Corresponding Member of the Institute of France
(Academie des Inscriptions), one of the few distinctions of any kind of
which it can still be said that it has at no time lost any of its exalted
dignity.
An honour of a different kind that came about the same time, and was
scarcely less prized by him, was a very beautiful letter of farewell and
benediction from Miss Florence Nightingale,[75] which he kept under his
pillow and read many times. On the 28th, he dictated to the present writer
his acknowledgment, also by telegraph, of the great honour done him by the
Institute. The message was in the following words: "Reddo gratias,
Illustrissimi Domini, ob honores tanto nimios quanto immeritos! Mihi
robora deficiunt, vita collabitur, accipiatis voluntatem pro facto. Cum
corde pleno et gratissimo moriturus vos, Illustrissimi Domini, saluto.
YULE."
Sunday, 29th December, was a day of the most dense black fog, and he felt
its oppression, but was much cheered by a visit from his ever faithful
friend, Collinson, who, with his usual unselfishness, came to him that day
at very great personal inconvenience.
On Monday, 30th December, the day was clearer, and Henry Yule awoke much
refreshed, and in a peculiarly happy and even cheerful frame of mind. He
said he felt so comfortable. He spoke of his intended book, and bade his
daughter write about the inevitable delay to his publisher: "Go and write
to John Murray," were indeed his last words to her. During the morning he
saw some friends and relations, but as noon approached his strength
flagged, and after a period of unconsciousness, he passed peacefully away
in the presence of his daughter and of an old friend, who had come from
Edinburgh to see him, but arrived too late for recognition. Almost at the
same time that Yule fell asleep, his "stately message,"[76] was being read
under the great Dome in Paris. Some two hours after Yule had passed away,
F.-M. Lord Napier of Magdala, called on an errand of friendship, and at
his desire was admitted to see the last of his early friend. When Lord
Napier came out, he said to the present writer, in his own reflective way:
"He looks as if he had just settled to some great work." With these
suggestive words of the great soldier, who was so soon, alas, to follow
his old friend to the work of another world, this sketch may fitly close.
* * * * *
The following excellent verses (of unknown authorship) on Yule's death,
subsequently appeared in the _Academy_:[77]
"'Moriturus vos saluto'
Breathes his last the dying scholar--
Tireless student, brilliant writer;
He 'salutes his age' and journeys
To the Undiscovered Country.
There await him with warm welcome
All the heroes of old Story--
The Venetians, the Ca Polo,
Marco, Nicolo, Maffeo,
Odoric of Pordenone,
Ibn Batuta, Marignolli,
Benedict de Goes--'Seeking
Lost Cathay and finding Heaven.'
Many more whose lives he cherished
With the piety of learning;
Fading records, buried pages,
Failing lights and fires forgotten,
By his energy recovered,
By his eloquence re-kindled.
'Moriturus vos saluto'
Breathes his last the dying scholar,
And the far off ages answer:
_Immortales te salutant_. D. M."
The same idea had been previously embodied, in very felicitous language,
by the late General Sir William Lockhart, in a letter which that noble
soldier addressed to the present writer a few days after Yule's death. And
Yule himself would have taken pleasure in the idea of those meetings with
his old travellers, which seemed so certain to his surviving friends.[78]
He rests in the old cemetery at Tunbridge Wells, with his second wife, as
he had directed. A great gathering of friends attended the first part of
the burial service which was held in London on 3rd January, 1890. Amongst
those present were witnesses of every stage of his career, from his boyish
days at the High School of Edinburgh downwards. His daughter, of course,
was there, led by the faithful, peerless friend who was so soon to follow
him into the Undiscovered Country.[79] She and his youngest nephew, with
two cousins and a few old friends, followed his remains over the snow to
the graveside. The epitaph subsequently inscribed on the tomb was penned
by Yule himself, but is by no means representative of his powers in a kind
of composition in which he had so often excelled in the service of others.
As a composer of epitaphs and other monumental inscriptions few of our
time have surpassed, if any have equalled him, in his best efforts.
SIR GEORGE UDNY YULE, C.B., K.C.S.I.[80]
George Udny Yule, born at Inveresk in 1813, passed through Haileybury into
the Bengal Civil Service, which he entered at the age of 18 years. For
twenty-five years his work lay in Eastern Bengal. He gradually became
known to the Government for his activity and good sense, but won a far
wider reputation as a mighty hunter, alike with hog-spear and double
barrel. By 1856 the roll of his slain tigers exceeded four hundred, some
of them of special fame; after that he continued slaying his tigers, but
ceased to count them. For some years he and a few friends used annually to
visit the plains of the Brahmaputra, near the Garrow Hills--an entirely
virgin country then, and swarming with large game. Yule used to describe
his once seeing seven rhinoceroses at once on the great plain, besides
herds of wild buffalo and deer of several kinds. One of the party started
the theory that Noah's Ark had been shipwrecked there! In those days
George Yule was the only man to whom the Maharajah of Nepaul, Sir Jung
Bahadur, conceded leave to shoot within his frontier.
Yule was first called from his useful obscurity in 1856. The year before,
the Sonthals in insurrection disturbed the long unbroken peace of the
Delta. These were a numerous non-Aryan, uncivilised, but industrious race,
driven wild by local mismanagement, and the oppressions of Hindoo usurers
acting through the regulation courts. After the suppression of their
rising, Yule was selected by Sir F. Halliday, who knew his man, to be
Commissioner of the Bhagulpoor Division, containing some six million
souls, and embracing the hill country of the Sonthals. He obtained
sanction to a code for the latter, which removed these people entirely
from the Court system, and its tribe of leeches, and abolished all
intermediaries between the Sahib and the Sonthal peasant. Through these
measures, and his personal influence, aided by picked assistants, he was
able to effect, with extraordinary rapidity, not only their entire
pacification, but such a beneficial change in their material condition,
that they have risen from a state of barbarous penury to comparative
prosperity and comfort.
George Yule was thus engaged when the Mutiny broke out, and it soon made
itself felt in the districts under him. To its suppression within his
limits, he addressed himself with characteristic vigour. Thoroughly
trusted by every class--by his Government, by those under him, by planters
and by Zemindars--he organised a little force, comprising a small
detachment of the 5th Regiment, a party of British sailors, mounted
volunteers from the districts, etc., and of this he became practically the
captain. Elephants were collected from all quarters to spare the legs of
his infantry and sailors; while dog-carts were turned into limbers for the
small three-pounders of the seamen. And with this little army George Yule
scoured the Trans-Gangetic districts, leading it against bodies of the
Mutineers, routing them upon more than one occasion, and out-manoeuvring
them by his astonishing marches, till he succeeded in driving them across
the Nepaul frontier. No part of Bengal was at any time in such danger, and
nowhere was the danger more speedily and completely averted.
After this Yule served for two or three years as Chief Commissioner of
Oudh, where in 1862 he married Miss Pemberton, the daughter of a very able
father, and the niece of Sir Donald MacLeod, of honoured and beloved
memory. Then for four or five years he was Resident at Hyderabad, where he
won the enduring friendship of Sir Salar Jung. "Everywhere he showed the
same characteristic firm but benignant justice. Everywhere he gained the
lasting attachment of all with whom he had intimate dealings--except
tigers and scoundrels."
Many years later, indignant at the then apparently supine attitude of the
British Government in the matter of the Abyssinian captives, George Yule
wrote a letter (necessarily published without his name, as he was then on
the Governor-General's Council), to the editor of an influential Indian
paper, proposing a private expedition should be organised for their
delivery from King Theodore, and inviting the editor (Dr. George Smith) to
open a list of subscriptions in his paper for this purpose, to which Yule
offered to contribute L2000 by way of beginning. Although impracticable in
itself, it is probable that, as in other cases, the existence of such a
project may have helped to force the Government into action. The
particulars of the above incident were printed by Dr. Smith in his _Memoir
of the Rev. John Wilson_, but are given here from memory.
From Hyderabad he was promoted in 1867 to the Governor-General's Council,
but his health broke down under the sedentary life, and he retired and
came home in 1869.
After some years of country life in Scotland, where he bought a small
property, he settled near his brother in London, where he was a principal
instrument in enabling Sir George Birdwood to establish the celebration of
Primrose Day (for he also was "one of Mr. Gladstone's converts"). Sir
George Yule never sought 'London Society' or public employment, but in
1877 he was offered and refused the post of Financial Adviser to the
Khedive under the Dual control. When his feelings were stirred he made
useful contributions to the public press, which, after his escape from
official trammels, were always signed. The very last of these (_St. James
Gazette_, 24th February 1885) was a spirited protest against the snub
administered by the late Lord Derby, as Secretary of State, to the
Colonies, when they had generously offered assistance in the Soudan
campaign. He lived a quiet, happy, and useful life in London, where he was
the friend and unwearied helper of all who needed help. He found his chief
interests in books and flowers, and in giving others pleasure. Of rare
unselfishness and sweet nature, single in mind and motive, fearing God and
knowing no other fear, he was regarded by a large number of people with
admiring affection. He met his death by a fall on the frosty pavement at
his door, in the very act of doing a kindness. An interesting sketch of
Sir George Yule's Indian career, by one who knew him thoroughly, is to be
found in Sir Edward Braddon's _Thirty Years of Shikar_. An account of his
share in the origin of Primrose Day appeared in the _St. James' Gazette_
during 1891.
[1] There is a vague tradition that these Yules descend from the same
stock as the Scandinavian family of the same name, which gave Denmark
several men of note, including the great naval hero Niels Juel. The
portraits of these old Danes offer a certain resemblance of type to
those of their Scots namesakes, and Henry Yule liked to play with the
idea, much in the same way that he took humorous pleasure in his
reputed descent from Michael Scott, the Wizard! (This tradition was
more historical, however, and stood thus: Yule's great grandmother was
a Scott of Ancrum, and the Scotts of Ancrum had established their
descent from Sir Michael Scott of Balwearie, reputed to be the
Wizard.) Be their origin what it may, Yule's forefathers had been
already settled on the Border hills for many generations, when in the
time of James VI. they migrated to the lower lands of East Lothian,
where in the following reign they held the old fortalice of Fentoun
Tower of Nisbet of Dirleton. When Charles II. empowered his Lord Lyon
to issue certificates of arms (in place of the Lyon records removed
and lost at sea by the Cromwellian Government), these Yules were among
those who took out confirmation of arms, and the original document is
still in the possession of the head of the family.
Though Yules of sorts are still to be found in Scotland, the present
writer is the only member of the Fentoun Tower family now left in the
country, and of the few remaining out of it most are to be found in
the Army List.
[2] The literary taste which marked William Yule probably came to him from
his grandfather, the Rev. James Rose, Episcopal Minister of Udny, in
Aberdeenshire. James Rose, a non-jurant (i.e. one who refused to
acknowledge allegiance to the Hanoverian King), was a man of devout,
large, and tolerant mind, as shown by writings still extant. His
father, John Rose, was the younger son of the 14th Hugh of Kilravock.
He married Margaret Udny of Udny, and was induced by her to sell his
pleasant Ross-shire property and invest the proceeds in her own bleak
Buchan. When George Yule (about 1759) brought home Elizabeth Rose as
his wife, the popular feeling against the Episcopal Church was so
strong and bitter in Lothian, that all the men of the family--
themselves Presbyterians--accompanied Mrs. Yule as a bodyguard on the
occasion of her first attendance at the Episcopal place of worship.
Years after, when dissensions had arisen in the Church of Scotland,
Elizabeth Yule succoured and protected some of the dissident
Presbyterian ministers from their persecutors.
[3] General Collinson in _Royal Engineers' Journal_ 1st Feb. 1890. The
gifted author of this excellent sketch himself passed away on 22nd
April 1902.
[4] The grave thoughtful face of William Yule was conspicuous in the
picture of a Durbar (by an Italian artist, but _not_ Zoffany), which
long hung on the walls of the Nawab's palace at Lucknow. This picture
disappeared during the Mutiny of 1857.
[5] Colonel Udny Yule, C.B. "When he joined, his usual _nomen_ and
_cognomen_ puzzled the staff-sergeant at Fort-William, and after much
boggling on the cadet parade, the name was called out _Whirly Wheel_,
which produced no reply, till some one at a venture shouted, 'sick in
hospital.'" (_Athenaeum_, 24th Sept. 1881.) The ship which took Udny
Yule to India was burnt at sea. After keeping himself afloat for
several hours in the water, he was rescued by a passing ship and taken
back to the Mauritius, whence, having lost everything but his
cadetship, he made a fresh start for India, where he and William for
many years had a common purse. Colonel Udny Yule commanded a brigade
at the Siege of Cornelis (1811), which gave us Java, and afterwards
acted as Resident under Sir Stamford Raffles. Forty-five years after
the retrocession of Java, Henry Yule found the memory of his uncle
still cherished there.
[6] Article on the Oriental Section of the British Museum Library in
_Athenaeum_, 24th Sept. 1881. Major Yule's Oriental Library was
presented by his sons to the British Museum a few years after his
death.
[7] It may be amusing to note that he was considered an almost dangerous
person because he read the _Scotsman_ newspaper!
[8] _Athenaeum_, 24th Sept. 1881. A gold chain given by the last
Dauphiness is in the writer's possession.
[9] Dr. John Yule (b. 176-d. 1827), a kindly old _savant_. He was one of
the earliest corresponding members of the Society of Antiquaries of
Scotland, and the author of some botanical tracts.
[10] According to Brunet, by Lucas Pennis after Antonio Tempesta.
[11] _Concerning some little-known Travellers in the East_. ASIATIC
QUARTERLY, vol. v. (1888).
[12] William Yule died in 1839, and rests with his parents, brothers, and
many others of his kindred, in the ruined chancel of the ancient
Norman Church of St. Andrew, at Gulane, which had been granted to the
Yule family as a place of burial by the Nisbets of Dirleton, in
remembrance of the old kindly feeling subsisting for generations
between them and their tacksmen in Fentoun Tower. Though few know its
history, a fragrant memorial of this wise and kindly scholar is still
conspicuous in Edinburgh. The magnificent wall-flower that has, for
seventy summers, been a glory of the Castle rock, was originally all
sown by the patient hand of Major Yule, the self-sowing of each
subsequent year, of course, increasing the extent of bloom. Lest the
extraordinarily severe spring of 1895 should have killed off much of
the old stock, another (but much more limited) sowing on the northern
face of the rock was in that year made by his grand-daughter, the
present writer, with the sanction and active personal help of the
lamented General (then Colonel) Andrew Wauchope of Niddrie Marischal.
In Scotland, where the memory of this noble soldier is so greatly
revered, some may like to know this little fact. May the wall-flower
of the Castle rock long flourish a fragrant memorial of two faithful
soldiers and true-hearted Scots.
[13] Obituary notice of Yule, by Gen. R. Maclagan, R.E. _Proceedings, R.
G. S._ 1890.
[14] This was the famous "Grey Dinner," of which The Shepherd made grim
fun in the _Noctes_.
[15] Probably the specimen from South America, of which an account was
published in 1833.
[16] Rawnsley, _Memoir of Harvey Goodwin, Bishop of Carlisle_.
[17] Biog. Sketch of Yule, by C. Trotter, _Proceedings, R.S.E._ vol. xvii.
[18] Biog. Sketch of Yule, by C. Trotter, _Proceedings, R.S.E._ vol. xvii.
[19] After leaving the army, Yule always used this sword when wearing
uniform.
[20] The Engineer cadets remained at Addiscombe a term (= 6 months) longer
than the Artillery cadets, and as the latter were ordinarily gazetted
full lieutenants six months after passing out, unfair seniority was
obviated by the Engineers receiving the same rank on passing out of
Addiscombe.
[21] Yule, in _Memoir of General Becher_.
[22] Collinson's _Memoir of Yule_ in _R. E. Journal_.
[23] The picture was subscribed for by his brother officers in the corps,
and painted in 1880 by T. B. Wirgman. It was exhibited at the Royal
Academy in 1881. A reproduction of the artist's etching from it forms
the frontispiece of this volume.
[24] In _Memoir of Gen. John Becher_.
[25] General Patrick Yule (b. 1795, d. 1873) was a thorough soldier, with
the repute of being a rigid disciplinarian. He was a man of
distinguished presence, and great charm of manner to those whom he
liked, which were by no means all. The present writer holds him in
affectionate remembrance, and owes to early correspondence with him
much of the information embodied in preceding notes. He served on the
Canadian Boundary Commission of 1817, and on the Commission of
National Defence of 1859, was prominent in the Ordnance Survey, and
successively Commanding R.E. in Malta and Scotland. He was Engineer to
Sir C. Fellows' Expedition, which gave the nation the Lycian Marbles,
and while Commanding R.E. in Edinburgh, was largely instrumental in
rescuing St. Margaret's Chapel in the Castle from desecration and
oblivion. He was a thorough Scot, and never willingly tolerated the
designation N.B. on even a letter. He had cultivated tastes, and under
a somewhat austere exterior he had a most tender heart. When already
past sixty, he made a singularly happy marriage to a truly good woman,
who thoroughly appreciated him. He was the author of several Memoirs
on professional subjects. He rests in St. Andrew's, Gulane.
[26] Collinson's _Memoir of Yule_.
[27] Notes on the Iron of the Khasia Hills and Notes on the Khasia Hills
and People both in Journal of the R. Asiatic Society of Bengal, vols.
xi. and xiii.
[28] Mr. (afterwards Sir) George Clerk, Political Officer with the
expedition. Was twice Governor of Bombay and once Governor of the
Cape: "A diplomatist of the true English stamp--undaunted in
difficulties and resolute to maintain the honour of his country." (Sir
H. B. Edwardes, _Life of Henry Lawrence_, i. 267). He died in 1889.
[29] Note by Yule, communicated by him to Mr. R. B. Smith and printed by
the latter in _Life of Lord Lawrence_.
[30] And when nearing his own end, it was to her that his thoughts turned
most constantly.
[31] Yule and Maclagan's _Memoir of Sir W. Baker_.
[32] Maclagan's _Memoir of Yule, P.R.G.S._, Feb. 1890.
[33] On hearing this, Yule said to him, "Your story is quite correct
except in one particular; you understated the _amount_ of the fine."
[34] Yule and Maclagan's _Memoir of Baker_.
[35] It would appear that Major Yule had presented the Rodgers with some
specimens of Indian scissors, probably as suggestions in developing
that field of export. Scissors of elaborate design, usually damascened
or gilt, used to form a most important item in every set of Oriental
writing implements. Even long after adhesive envelopes had become
common in European Turkey, their use was considered over familiar, if
not actually disrespectful, for formal letters, and there was a
particular traditional knack in cutting and folding the special
envelope for each missive, which was included in the instruction given
by every competent _Khoja_ as the present writer well remembers in the
quiet years that ended with the disasters of 1877.
[36] Collinson's _Memoir of Yule, Royal Engineer Journal_.
[37] Extract from Preface to _Ava_, edition of 1858.
[38] The present whereabouts of this picture is unknown to the writer. It
was lent to Yule in 1889 by Lord Dalhousie's surviving daughter (for
whom he had strong regard and much sympathy), and was returned to her
early in 1890, but is not named in the catalogue of Lady Susan's
effects, sold at Edinburgh in 1898 after her death. At that sale the
present writer had the satisfaction of securing for reverent
preservation the watch used throughout his career by the great
Marquess.
[39] Now in the writer's possession. It was for many years on exhibition
in the Edinburgh and South Kensington Museums.
[40] Article by Yule on Lord Lawrence, _Quarterly Review_ for April, 1883.
[41] Messrs. Smith & Elder.
[42] Preface to _Narrative of a Mission to the Court of Ava_. Before these
words were written, Yule had had the sorrow of losing his elder
brother Robert, who had fallen in action before Delhi (19th June,
1857), whilst in command of his regiment, the 9th Lancers. Robert
Abercromby Yule (born 1817) was a very noble character and a fine
soldier. He had served with distinction in the campaigns in
Afghanistan and the Sikh Wars, and was the author of an excellent
brief treatise on Cavalry Tactics. He had a ready pencil and a happy
turn for graceful verse. In prose his charming little allegorical tale
for children, entitled _The White Rhododendron_, is as pure and
graceful as the flower whose name it bears. Like both his brothers, he
was at once chivalrous and devout, modest, impulsive, and impetuous.
No officer was more beloved by his men than Robert Yule, and when some
one met them carrying back his covered body from the field and
enquired of the sergeant: "Who have you got there?" the reply was:
"Colonel Yule, and better have lost half the regiment, sir." It was in
the chivalrous effort to extricate some exposed guns that he fell.
Some one told afterwards that when asked to go to the rescue, he
turned in the saddle, looked back wistfully on his regiment, well
knowing the cost of such an enterprise, then gave the order to advance
and charge. "No stone marks the spot where Yule went down, but no
stone is needed to commemorate his valour" (Archibald Forbes, in
_Daily News_, 8th Feb. 1876). At the time of his death Colonel R. A.
Yule had been recommended for the C.B. His eldest son, Colonel J. H.
Yule, C.B., distinguished himself in several recent campaigns (on the
Burma-Chinese frontier, in Tirah, and South Africa).
[43] Baker went home in November, 1857, but did not retire until the
following year.
[44] Nothing was more worthy of respect in Yule's fine character than the
energy and success with which he mastered his natural temperament in
the last ten years of his life, when few would have guessed his
original fiery disposition.
[45] Not without cause did Sir J. P. Grant officially record that "to his
imperturbable temper the Government of India owed much."
[46] Yule's colour-blindness was one of the cases in which Dalton, the
original investigator of this optical defect, took special interest.
At a later date (1859) he sent Yule, through Professor Wilson, skeins
of coloured silks to name. Yule's elder brother Robert had the same
peculiarity of sight, and it was also present in two earlier and two
later generations of their mother's family--making five generations in
all. But in no case did it pass from parent to child, always passing
in these examples, by a sort of Knight's move, from uncle to nephew.
Another peculiarity of Yule's more difficult to describe was the
instinctive association of certain architectural forms or images with
the days of the week. He once, and once only (in 1843), met another
person, a lady who was a perfect stranger, with the same peculiarity.
About 1878-79 he contributed some notes on this obscure subject to one
of the newspapers, in connection with the researches of Mr. Francis
Galton, on Visualisation, but the particulars are not now accessible.
[47] From Yule's verses on her grave.
[48] Lord Canning to Lady Clanricarde: Letter dated Barrackpoor, 19th Nov.
1861, 7 A.M., printed in _Two Noble Lives_, by A. J. C. Hare, and here
reproduced by Mr. Hare's permission.
[49] Lord Canning's letter to Lady Clanricarde. He gave to Yule Lady
Canning's own silver drinking-cup, which she had constantly used. It
is carefully treasured, with other Canning and Dalhousie relics, by
the present writer.
[50] Many years later Yule wrote of Lord Canning as follows: "He had his
defects, no doubt. He had not at first that entire grasp of the
situation that was wanted at such a time of crisis. But there is a
virtue which in these days seems unknown to Parliamentary statesmen in
England--Magnanimity. Lord Canning was an English statesman, and he
was surpassingly magnanimous. There is another virtue which in Holy
Writ is taken as the type and sum of all righteousness--Justice--and
he was eminently just. The misuse of special powers granted early in
the Mutiny called for Lord Canning's interference, and the consequence
was a flood of savage abuse; the violence and bitterness of which it
is now hard to realise." (_Quarterly Review_, April, 1883, p. 306.)
[51] During the next ten years Yule continued to visit London annually for
two or three months in the spring or early summer.
[52] Now in the writer's possession. They appear in the well-known
portrait of Lord Canning reading a despatch.
[53] Lord Canning's recommendation had been mislaid, and the India Office
was disposed to ignore it. It was Lord Canning's old friend and Eton
chum, Lord Granville, who obtained this tardy justice for Yule,
instigated thereto by that most faithful friend, Sir Roderick
Murchison.
[54] I cannot let the mention of this time of lonely sickness and trial
pass without recording here my deep gratitude to our dear and honoured
friend, John Ruskin. As my dear mother stood on the threshold between
life and death at Mornex that sad spring, he was untiring in all
kindly offices of friendship. It was her old friend, Principal A. J.
Scott (then eminent, now forgotten), who sent him to call. He came to
see us daily when possible, sometimes bringing MSS. of Rossetti and
others to read aloud (and who could equal his reading?), and when she
was too ill for this, or himself absent, he would send not only books
and flowers to brighten the bare rooms of the hillside inn (then very
primitive), but his own best treasures of Turner and W. Hunt, drawings
and illuminated missals. It was an anxious solace; and though most
gratefully enjoyed, these treasures were never long retained.
[55] Villa Mansi, nearly opposite the old Ducal Palace. With its private
chapel, it formed three sides of a small _place_ or court.
[56] He also at all times spared no pains to enforce that ideal on other
index-makers, who were not always grateful for his sound doctrine!
[57] He saw a good deal of the outbreak when taking small comforts to a
friend, the Commandent of the Military School, who was captured and
imprisioned by the insurgents.
[58] After 1869 he discontinued sea-bathing.
[59] This was Yule's first geographical honour, but he had been elected
into the Athenaeum Club, under "Rule II.," in January, 1867.
[60] Garnier took a distinguished part in the Defence of Paris in 1870-71,
after which he resumed his naval service in the East, where he was
killed in action. His last letter to Yule contained the simple
announcement "_J'ai pris Hanoi_" a modest terseness of statement
worthy of the best naval traditions.
[61] One year the present writer, at her mother's desire, induced him to
take walks of 10 to 12 miles with her, but interesting and lovely as
the scenery was, he soon wearied for his writing-table (even bringing
his work with him), and thus little permanent good was effected. And
it was just the same afterwards in Scotland, where an old Highland
gillie, describing his experience of the Yule brothers, said: "I was
liking to take out Sir George, for _he_ takes the time to enjoy the
hills, but (plaintively), the Kornel is no good, for he's just as
restless as a water-wagtail!" If there be any _mal de l'ecritoire_
corresponding to _mal du pays_, Yule certainly had it.
[62] The Russian Government in 1873 paid the same work the very practical
compliment of circulating it largely amongst their officers in Central
Asia.
[63] "Auch in den Literaturen von Frankreich, Italien, Deutschland und
andere Laendern ist der maechtig treibende Einfluss der Yuleschen
Methode, welche wissenschaftliche Grundlichkeit mit anmuthender Form
verbindet, bemerkbar." (_Verhandlungen der Gesellschaft fuer Erdkunde
zu
Berlin_, Band XVII. No. 2.)
[64] This subject is too lengthy for more than cursory allusion here, but
the patient analytic skill and keen venatic instinct with which Yule
not only proved the forgery of the alleged _Travels of Georg Ludwig
von ----_ (that had been already established by Lord Strangford, whose
last effort it was, and Sir Henry Rawlinson), but step by step traced
it home to the arch-culprit Klaproth, was nothing less than masterly.
[65] This is probably the origin of the odd misstatement as to Yule
occupying himself at Palermo with photography, made in the delightful
_Reminiscences_ of the late Colonel Balcarres Ramsay. Yule never
attempted photography after 1852.
[66] She was a woman of fine intellect and wide reading; a skilful
musician, who also sang well, and a good amateur artist in the style
of Aug. Delacroix (of whom she was a favourite pupil). Of French and
Italian she had a thorough and literary mastery, and how well she knew
her own language is shown by the sound and pure English of a story she
published in early life, under the pseudonym of Max Lyle (_Fair Oaks,
or The Experiences of Arnold Osborne, M.D._, 2 vols., 1856). My mother
was partly of Highland descent on both sides, and many of her fine
qualities were very characteristic of that race. Before her marriage
she took an active part in many good works, and herself originated the
useful School for the Blind at Bath, in a room which she hired with
her pocket-money, where she and her friend Miss Elwin taught such of
the blind poor as they could gather together.
In the tablet which he erected to her memory in the family
burial-place of St. Andrew's, Gulane, her husband described her
thus:--"A woman singular in endowments, in suffering, and in faith; to
whom to live was Christ, to die was gain."
[67] Mary Wilhelmina, daughter of F. Skipwith, Esq., B.C.S.
[68] Collinson's _Memoir of Yule_.
[69] See _Notes from a Diary_, 1888-91.
[70] The identification was not limited to Yule, for when travelling in
Russia many years ago, the present writer was introduced by an
absent-minded Russian _savant_ to his colleagues as _Mademoiselle
Marco Paulovna_!
[71] See Note on Sir George Yule's career at the end of this Memoir.
[72] Addressed to the Editor, _Royal Engineers' Journal_, who did not,
however, publish it.
[73] Debate of 27th August, 1889, as reported in _The Times_ of 28th
August.
[74] Yule had published a brief but very interesting Memoir of Major
Rennell in the _R. E. Journal_ in 1881. He was extremely proud of the
circumstance that Rennell's surviving grand-daughter presented to him
a beautiful wax medallion portrait of the great geographer. This
wonderfully life-like presentment was bequeathed by Yule to his friend
Sir Joseph Hooker, who presented it to the Royal Society.
[75] Knowing his veneration for that noble lady, I had written to tell her
of his condition, and to ask her to give him this last pleasure of a
few words. The response was such as few but herself could write. This
letter was not to be found after my father's death, and I can only
conjecture that it must either have been given away by himself (which
is most improbable), or was appropriated by some unauthorised
outsider.
[76] So Sir M. E. Grant Duff well calls it.
[77] _Academy_, 19th March, 1890.
[78] He was much pleased, I remember, by a letter he once received from a
kindly Franciscan friar, who wrote: "You may rest assured that the
Beato Odorico will not forget all you have done for him."
[79] F.-M. Lord Napier of Magdala, died 14th January, 1890.
[80] This notice includes the greater part of an article written by my
father, and published in the _St. James' Gazette_ of 18th January,
1886, but I have added other details from personal recollection and
other sources.--A. F. Y.
A BIBLIOGRAPHY OF SIR HENRY YULE'S WRITINGS
COMPILED BY H. CORDIER AND A. F. YULE[1]
1842 Notes on the Iron of the Kasia Hills. (_Jour. Asiatic Soc. Bengal_,
XI. Part II. July-Dec. 1842, pp. 853-857.)
Reprinted in _Proceedings of the Museum of Economic Geology_, 1852.
1844 Notes on the Kasia Hills and People. By Lieut. H. Yule. (_Jour.
Asiatic Soc. Bengal_, XII. Part II. July-Dec. 1844, pp. 612-631.)
1846 A Canal Act of the Emperor Akbar, with some notes and remarks on the
History of the Western Jumna Canals. By Lieut. Yule. (_Jour. Asiatic
Society Bengal_, XV. 1846, pp. 213-223.)
1850 The African Squadron vindicated. By Lieut. H. Yule. Second Edition.
London, J. Ridgway, 1850, 8vo, pp. 41.
Had several editions. Reprinted in the Colonial Magazine of March,
1850.
---- L'Escadre Africaine vengee. Par le lieutenant H. Yule. Traduit du
_Colonial Magazine_ de Mars, 1850. (_Revue Coloniale_, Mai, 1850.)
1851 Fortification for Officers of the Army and Students of Military
History, with Illustrations and Notes. By Lieut. H. Yule, Blackwood,
MDCCCLI. 8vo, pp. xxii.-210. (There had been a previous edition
privately printed.)
---- La Fortification mise a la portee des Officiers de l'Armee et des
personnes qui se livrent a l'etude de l'histoire militaire (avec
Atlas). Par H. Yule. Traduit de l'Anglais par M. Sapia, Chef de
Bataillon d'Artillerie de Marine et M. Masselin, Capitaine du Genie.
Paris, J. Correard, 1858, 8vo, pp. iii.-263, and Atlas.
1851 The Loss of the _Birkenhead_ (Verses). (_Edinburgh Courant_, Dec.
1851.)
Republished in Henley's _Lyra Heroica_, a Book of Verse for Boys.
London, D. Nutt, 1890.
1852 Tibet. (_Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine_, 1852.)
1856 Narrative of Major Phayre's Mission to the Court of Ava, with Notices
of the Country, Government, and People. Compiled by Capt. H. Yule.
Printed for submission to the Government of India. Calcutta, J.
Thomas,... 1856, 4to, pp. xxix. + 1 f. n. ch. p. l. er. + pp. 315 +
pp. cxiv. + pp. iv. and pp. 70.
The last pp. iv.-70 contain: Notes on the Geological features of the
banks of the River Irawadee and on the Country north of the
Amarapoora, by Thomas Oldham ... Calcutta, 1856.
---- A Narrative of the Mission sent by the Governor-General of India to
the Court of Ava in 1855, with Notices of the Country, Government,
and People. By Capt. H. Yule. With Numerous Illustrations. London,
Smith, Elder & Co., 1858, 4to.
1857 On the Geography of Burma and its Tributary States, in illustration
of a New Map of those Regions. (_Journal, R.G.S._, XXVII. 1857, pp.
54-108.)
---- Notes on the Geography of Burma, in illustration of a Map of that
Country. (_Proceedings R. G. S._, vol. i. 1857, pp. 269-273.)
1857 An Account of the Ancient Buddhist Remains at Pagan on the Irawadi.
By Capt. H. Yule. (_Jour. Asiatic Society, Bengal_, XXVI. 1857,
pp. 1-51.)
1861 A few notes on Antiquities near Jubbulpoor. By Lieut.-Col. H. Yule.
(_Journal Asiatic Society, Bengal_, XXX. 1861, pp. 211-215.)
---- Memorandum on the Countries between Thibet, Yunan, and Burmah. By the
Very Rev. Thomine D'Mazure (sic), communicated by Lieut.-Col. A. P.
Phayre (with notes and a comment by Lieut.-Col. H. Yule) With a Map
of
the N. E. Frontier, prepared in the Office of the Surveyor-Gen. of
India, Calcutta, Aug. 1861. (_Jour. Asiatic Soc. Bengal_, XXX. 1861,
pp. 367-383.)
1862 Notes of a brief Visit to some of the Indian Remains in Java.
By Lieut.-Col. H. Yule. (_Jour. Asiatic Society, Bengal_, XXXI.
1862, pp. 16-31.)
---- Sketches of Java. A Lecture delivered at the Meeting of the Bethune
Society, Calcutta, 13th Feb. 1862.
---- Fragments of Unprofessional Papers gathered from an Engineer's
portfolio after twenty-three years of service. Calcutta, 1862.
Ten copies printed for private circulation.
1863 _Mirabilia descripta_. The Wonders of the East. By Friar Jordanus, of
the Order of Preachers and Bishop of Columbum in India the Greater
(circa 1330). Translated from the Latin original, as published at
Paris in 1839, in the _Recueil de Voyages et de Memoires_, of the
Society of Geography, with the addition of a Commentary, by Col. H.
Yule, London.
Printed for the Hakluyt Society, M.DCCC.LXIII, 8vo, p. iv.-xvii.-68.
---- Report on the Passes between Arakan and Burma [written in 1853].
(_Papers on Indian Civil Engineering_, vol. i. Roorkee.)
1866 Notices of Cathay. (_Proceedings, R.G.S._, X. 1866, pp. 270-278.)
---- Cathay and the Way Thither, being a Collection of Mediaeval Notices
of China. Translated and Edited by Col. H. Yule With a Preliminary
Essay on the Intercourse between China and the Western Nations
previous to the Discovery of the Cape route. London, printed for the
Hakluyt Society. M.DCCC.LXVI. 2 vols. 8vo.
1866 The Insurrection at Palermo. (_Times_, 29th Sep., 1866.)
---- Lake People. (_The Athenaeum_, No. 2042, 15th Dec. 1866, p. 804.)
Letter dated Palermo, 3rd Dec. 1866.
1867 General Index to the third ten Volumes of the Journal of the Royal
Geographical Society. Compiled by Col. H. Yule. London, John Murray,
M.DCCCLXVII, 8vo, pp. 228.
---- A Week's Republic at Palermo. (_Quarterly Review_, Jan. 1867.)
---- On the Cultivation of Sumach (_Rhus coriaria_), in the Vicinity of
Colli, near Palermo. By Prof. Inzenga. Translated by Col. H. Yule.
Communicated by Dr. Cleghorn. _From the Trans. Bot. Society_, vol.
ix., 1867-68, ppt. 8vo, p. 15.
Original first published in the _Annali di Agricoltura Siciliana,
redatti per l'Istituzione del Principe di Castelnuovo_. Palermo,
1852.
1868 Marco Polo and his Recent Editors. (_Quarterly Review_, vol. 125,
July and Oct. 1868, pp. 133 and 166.)
1870 An Endeavour to Elucidate Rashiduddin's Geographical Notices of
India. (_Journal R. Asiatic Society_, N.S. iv. 1870, pp. 340-356.)
---- Some Account of the Senbyu Pagoda at Mengun, near the Burmese
Capital, in a Memorandum by Capt. E. H. Sladen, Political Agent at
Mandale; with Remarks on the Subject, by Col. H. Yule. (Ibid. pp.
406-429.)
---- Notes on Analogies of Manners between the Indo-Chinese and the Races
of the Malay Archipelago. (_Report Fortieth Meeting British
Association, Liverpool_, Sept. 1870, p. 178.)
1871 The Book of Ser Marco Polo, the Venetian, Concerning the Kingdoms and
Marvels of the East. Newly translated and edited with notes. By Col.
H. Yule. In two volumes. With Maps and other Illustrations. London,
John Murray, 1871, 2 vols. 8vo.
---- The Book of Ser Marco Polo, the Venetian, concerning the Kingdoms and
Marvels of the East. Newly translated and edited, with Notes, Maps,
and other Illustrations. By Col. H. Yule. Second edition. London,
John Murray, 1875, 2 vols. 8vo.
1871 Address by Col. H. Yule (_Report Forty-First Meeting British
Association, Edinburgh_, Aug. 1871, pp. 162-174.)
1872 A Journey to the Source of the River Oxus. By Captain John Wood,
Indian Navy. New edition, edited by his Son. With an Essay on the
Geography of the Valley of the Oxus. By Col. H. Yule. With maps.
London, John Murray, 1872. In-8, pp. xc.-280.
---- Papers connected with the Upper Oxus Regions. (_Journal_, xlii. 1872,
pp. 438-481.)
---- Letter [on Yule's edition of Wood's _Oxus_]. (_Ocean Highways_, Feb.
1874, p. 475.)
Palermo, 9th Jan. 1874.
1873 Letter [about the route of M. Polo through Southern Kerman]. (_Ocean
Highways_, March, 1873, p. 385.)
Palermo, 11th Jan. 1873.
---- On Northern Sumatra and especially Achin. (_Ocean Highways_, Aug.
1873, pp. 177-183.)
---- Notes on Hwen Thsang's Account of the Principalities of Tokharistan,
in which some previous Geographical Identifications are reconsidered.
(_Jour. Royal Asiatic Society_, N.S. vi. 1873, pp, 92-120 and p.
278.)
1874 Francis Garnier (In Memoriam). (_Ocean Highways_, pp. 487-491.)
March, 1874.
---- Remarks on Mr. Phillips's Paper [_Notices of Southern Mangi_].
(_Journal_, XLIV. 1874, pp. 103-112.)
Palermo, 22nd Feb. 1874.
---- [Sir Frederic Goldsmid's] "Telegraph and Travel." (_Geographical
Magazine_, April, 1874, p. 34; Oct. 1874, pp. 300-303.)
---- Geographical Notes on the Basins of the Oxus and the Zarafshan. By
the late Alexis Fedchenko. (_Geog. Mag._, May, 1874, pp. 46-54.)
---- [Mr. Ashton Dilke on the Valley of the Ili.] (_Geog. Mag._, June,
1874, p. 123.) Palermo, 16th May, 1874.
---- The _Atlas Sinensis_ and other Sinensiana. (_Geog. Mag._, 1st July,
1847, pp. 147-148.)
---- Letter [on Belasaghun]. (_Geog. Mag._, 1st July, 1874, p. 167; Ibid.
1st Sept. 1874, p. 254.)
Palermo, 17th June, 1874; 8th Aug. 1874.
1874 Bala Sagun and Karakorum. By Eugene Schuyler. With note by Col. Yule.
(_Geog. Mag._, 1st Dec. 1874, p. 389.)
---- M. Khanikoff's Identifications of Names in Clavijo. (Ibid. pp.
389-390.)
1875 Notes [to the translation by Eugene Schuyler of Palladius's version
of _The Journey of the Chinese Traveller, Chang Fe-hui_]. (_Geog.
Mag._, 1st Jan. 1875, pp. 7-11).
---- Some Unscientific Notes on the History of Plants. (_Geog. Mag._, 1st
Feb. 1875, pp. 49-51)
---- Trade Routes to Western China. (_Geog. Mag._, April, 1875, pp.
97-101.)
---- Garden of Transmigrated Souls [Friar Odoric]. (_Geog. Mag._, 1st May,
1875, pp. 137-138.)
---- A Glance at the Results of the Expedition to Hissar. By Herr P.
Lerch. (_Geog. Mag._, 1st Nov. 1875, pp. 334-339.)
---- Kathay or Cathay. (_Johnson's American Cyclopaedia_.)
---- Achin. (_Encycl. Brit._ 9th edition, 1875, I. pp. 95-97.)
---- Afghanistan. (Ibid. pp. 227-241.)
---- Andaman Islands. (Ibid. II. 1875, pp. 11-13.)
---- India [Ancient]. (Map No. 31, 1874, in _An Atlas of Ancient
Geography, edited by William Smith and George Grove_. London, John
Murray, 1875.)
1876 Mongolia, the Tangut Country, and the Solitudes of Northern Tibet,
being a Narrative of Three Years' Travel in Eastern High Asia. By
Lieut.-Col. N. Prejevalsky, of the Russian Staff Corps; Mem. of the
Imp. Russ. Geog. Soc. Translated by E. Delmar Morgan, F.R.G.S. With
Introduction and Notes by Col. H. Yule. With Maps and Illustrations.
London, Sampson Low, 1876, 8vo.
---- _Tibet_ ... Edited by C. R. Markham. Notice of. (_Times_, 1876,
----?)
---- Eastern Persia. Letter. (_The Athenaeum_, No. 2559, 11th Nov. 1876.)
---- Review of _H. Howorth's History of the Mongols_, Part I. (The
Athenaeum, No. 2560, 18th Nov. 1876, pp. 654-656.) Correspondence.
(Ibid. No. 2561, 25th Nov. 1876.)
---- Review of _T. E. Gordon's Roof of the World_. (_The Academy_, 15th
July, 1876, pp. 49-50.)
1876 Cambodia. (_Encycl. Brit._ IV. 1876, pp. 723-726.)
1877 Champa. (_Geog. Mag._, 1st March, 1877, pp. 66-67.)
Article written for the _Encycl. Brit._ 9th edition, but omitted for
reasons which the writer did not clearly understand.
---- _Quid, si Mundus evolvatur?_ (_Spectator_, 24th March, 1877.)
Written in 1875.--Signed MARCUS PAULUS VENETUS.
---- On Louis de Backer's _L'Extreme-Orient au Moyen-Age_. (_The
Athenaeum_, No. 2598, 11th Aug. 1877, pp. 174-175.)
---- On P. Dabry de Thiersant's _Catholicisme en Chine_. (_The Athenaeum_,
No. 2599, 18th Aug. 1877, pp. 209-210.)
---- Review of _Thomas de Quincey, His Life and Writings. By H. A. Page_.
(_Times_, 27th Aug. 1877.)
---- Companions of Faust. Letter on the Claims of P. Castaldi.
(_Times_, Sept. 1877.)
1878 The late Col. T. G. Montgomerie, R.E. (Bengal). (_R. E. Journal_,
April, 1878.) 8vo, pp. 8.
---- Mr. Henry M. Stanley and the Royal Geographical Society; being the
Record of a Protest. By Col. H. Yule and H. M. Hyndman B.A., F.R.G.S.
London: Bickers and Son, 1878, 8vo, pp. 48
---- Review of _Burma, Past and Present; with Personal Reminiscences of
the Country_. By Lieut.-Gen. Albert Fytche. (_The Athenaeum_, No.
2634, 20th April, 1878, pp. 499-500.)
---- Kayal. (_The Athenaeum_, No. 2634, 20th April, 1878, p. 515.)
Letter dated April, 1878.
---- Missions in Southern India. (Letter to _Pall Mall Gazette_, 20th
June, 1878.)
---- Mr. Stanley and his Letters of 1875. (Letter to _Pall Mall Gazette_,
30th Jan. 1878.)
---- Review of _Richthofen's China_, Bd. I. (_The Academy_, 13th April,
1878, pp. 315-316.)
---- [A foreshadowing of the Phonograph.] (_The Athenaeum_, No. 2636,
4th May, 1878.)
1879 A Memorial of the Life and Services of Maj.-Gen. W. W. H. Greathed,
C.B., Royal Engineers (Bengal), (1826-1878). Compiled by a Friend and
Brother Officer. London, printed for private circulation, 1879, 8vo,
pp. 57.
---- Review of _Gaur: its Ruins and Inscriptions_. By John Henry
Ravenshaw. (_The Athenaeum_, No. 2672, 11th Jan. 1879, pp. 42-44.)
---- Wellington College. (Letter to _Pall Mall Gazette_, 14th April,
1879.)
---- Dr. Holub's Travels. (_The Athenaeum_, No. 2710, 4th Oct. 1879,
pp. 436-437.)
---- Letter to Comm. Berchet, dated 2nd Dec. 1878. (_Archivio Veneto_
XVII. 1879, pp. 360-362.)
Regarding some documents discovered by the Ab. Cav. V. Zanetti.
---- Gaur. (_Encyclop. Brit._ X. 1879, pp. 112-116.)
---- Ghazni. (Ibid. pp. 559-562.)
---- Gilgit. (Ibid. pp. 596-599.)
---- Singular Coincidences. (_The Athenaeum_, No. 2719, 6th Dec. 1879.)
1880 [Brief Obituary Notice of] General W. C. Macleod. (_Pall Mall
Gazette_, 10th April, 1880.)
---- [Obituary Notice of] Gen. W. C. Macleod. (_Proc. R. Geog. Soc._,
June, 1880.)
---- An Ode in Brown Pig. Suggested by reading Mr. Lang's _Ballades in
Blue China_. [Signed MARCUS PAULUS VENETUS.] (_St. James' Gazette_,
17th July, 1880.)
---- Notes on Analogies of Manners between the Indo-Chinese Races and the
Races of the Indian Archipelago. By Col. Yule (_Journ. Anthrop. Inst.
of Great Britain and Ireland_, vol. ix., 1880, pp. 290-301.)
---- Sketches of Asia in the Thirteenth Century and of Marco Polo's
Travels, delivered at Royal Engineer Institute, 18th Nov. 1880.
[This Lecture, with slight modification, was also delivered on other
occasions both before and after. Doubtful if ever fully reported.]
---- Dr. Holub's Collections. (_The Athenaeum_, No. 2724, 10th Jan. 1880.)
---- Prof. Max Mueller's Paper at the Royal Asiatic Society. (_The
Athenaeum_, No. 2731, 28th Feb. 1880, p. 285.)
---- The Temple of Buddha Gaya. (Review of _Dr. Rajendralala Mitra's
Buddha Gaya_.) (_Sat. Rev._, 27th March, 1870.)
---- Mr. Gladstone and Count Karoiyi. (Letter to _The Examiner_, 22nd May,
1880, signed TRISTRAM SHANDY.)
1880 Stupa of Barhut. [Review of Cunningham's work.] (_Sat. Rev._, 5th
June, 1880.)
---- From Africa: Southampton, Fifth October, 1880.
[Verses to Sir Bartle Frere.] (_Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine_, Nov.
1880.)
---- Review of _H. Howorth's History of the Mongols_, Part II. (_The
Athenaeum_, No. 2762, 2nd Oct. 1880, pp. 425-427.)
---- _Verboten ist_, a Rhineland Rhapsody. (Printed for private
circulation only.)
---- Hindu-Kush. (_Encyclop. Brit._ XI. 1880, pp. 837-839.)
---- The River of Golden Sand, the Narrative of a Journey through China
and Eastern Tibet to Burmah, With Illustrations and ten Maps from
Original Surveys. By Capt. W. Gill, Royal Engineers. With an
Introductory Essay. By Col. H. Yule, London, John Murray,... 1880,
2 vols. 8vo, pp. 95-420, 11-453;
---- The River of Golden Sand: Being the Narrative of a Journey through
China and Eastern Tibet to Burmah. By the late Capt. W. Gill, R.E.
Condensed by Edward Colborne Baber, Chinese Secretary to H.M.'s
Legation at Peking. Edited, with a Memoir and Introductory Essay, by
Col. H. Yule. With Portrait, Map, and Woodcuts. London, John Murray,
1883, 8vo., pp. 141-332.
---- Memoir of Captain W. Gill, R.E., and Introductory Essay as prefixed
to the New Edition of the "River of Golden Sand." By Col. H. Yule.
London, John Murray,... 1884, 8vo. [Paged 19-141.]
1881 [Notice on William Yule] in Persian Manuscripts in the British
Museum. By Sir F. J. Goldsmid. (_The Athenaeum_, No. 2813, 24th Sept.
1881, pp. 401-403.)
---- Il Beato Odorico di Pordenone, ed i suoi Viaggi: Cenni dettati dal
Col. Enrico Yule, quando s'inaugurava in Pordenone il Busto di
Odorico il giorno, 23 deg. Settembre, MDCCCLXXXI, 8vo. pp. 8.
---- Hwen T'sang. (_Encyclop. Brit._ XII. 1881, pp. 418-419.)
---- Ibn Batuta. (Ibid. pp. 607-609.)
---- Kafiristan. (Ibid. XIII. 1881, pp. 820-823.)
---- Major James Rennell, F.R.S., of the Bengal Engineers. [Reprinted from
the _Royal Engineers' Journal_], 8vo., pp. 16.
(Dated 7th Dec. 1881.)
1881 Notice of Sir William E. Baker. (_St. James' Gazette_, 27th Dec.
1881.)
---- Parallels [Matthew Arnold and de Barros]. (_The Athenaeum_, No. 2790,
16th April, 1881, pp. 536.)
1882 Memoir of Gen. Sir William Erskine Baker, K.C.B., Royal Engineers
(Bengal). Compiled by two old friends, brother officers and pupils.
London. Printed for private circulation, 1882, 8vo., pp. 67.
By H. Y[ule] and R. M. [Gen. R. Maclagan].
---- Etymological Notes. (_The Athenaeum_, No. 2837, 11th March, 1882; No.
2840, 1st April, 1882, p. 413.)
---- Lhasa. (_Encyclop. Brit._ XIV. 1882, pp. 496-503.)
---- _Wadono_. (_The Athenaeum_, No. 2846, 13th May, 1882, p. 602.)
---- Dr. John Brown. (_The Athenaeum_, No. 2847, 20th May, 1882, pp.
635-636.)
---- A Manuscript of Marco Polo. (_The Athenaeum_, No. 2851, 17th June,
1882, pp. 765-766.)
[About Baron Nordenskioeld's Facsimile Edition.]
---- Review of _Ancient India as described by Ktesias the Knidian_, etc.
By J. W. M'Crindle. (_The Athenaeum_, No. 2860, 19th Aug. 1882,
pp. 237-238.)
---- The Silver Coinage of Thibet. (Review of Terrien de Lacouperie's
Paper.) (_The Academy_, 19th Aug. 1882, pp 140-141.)
---- Review of _The Indian Balhara and the Arabian Intercourse with
India_. By Edward Thomas. (_The Athenaeum_, No. 2866, 30th Sept.
1882, pp. 428-429.)
---- The Expedition of Professor Palmer, Capt. Gill, and Lieut.
Charrington. (Letter in _The Times_, 16th Oct. 1882.)
---- Obituary Notice of Dr. Arthur Burnell. (_Times_, 20th Oct. 1882.)
---- Capt. William Gill, R.E. [Notice of]. (_The Times_, 31st Oct. 1882.)
See supra, first col. of this page.
---- Notes on the Oldest Records of the Sea Route to China from Western
Asia. By Col. Yule. _Proc. of the Royal Geographical Society, and
Monthly Record of Geography_, Nov. No. 1882, 8vo.
_Proceedings_, N.S. IV. 1882, pp. 649-660. Read at the Geographical
Section, Brit. Assoc., Southampton Meeting, augmented and revised by
the author.
1883 Lord Lawrence. [Review of _Life of Lord Lawrence_. By R. Bosworth
Smith.] (_Quarterly Review_, vol. 155, April, 1883, pp. 289-326.)
---- Review of _Across Chryse_. By A. R. Colquhoun. (_The Athenaeum_, No.
2900, 26th May, 1883, pp. 663-665.)
---- La Terra del Fuoco e Carlo Darwin. (Extract from Letter published by
the _Fanfulla_, Rome 2nd June, 1883.)
---- How was the Trireme rowed? (_The Academy_, 6th Oct. 1883, p. 237.)
---- _Across Chryse_. (_The Athenaeum_, No. 2922, 27th Oct. 1883.)
---- Political Fellowship in the India Council. (Letter in _The Times_,
15th Dec. 1883.) [Heading was not Yule's.]
---- Maldive Islands. (_Encyclop. Brit._ XV. 1883, pp. 327-332.)
---- Mandeville. (Ibid. pp. 473-475.)
1884 A Sketch of the Career of Gen. John Reid Becher, C.B., Royal
Engineers (Bengal). By an old friend and brother officer. Printed for
private circulation, 1884, 8vo, pp. 40.
---- Rue Quills. (_The Academy_, No. 620, 22nd March, 1884, pp. 204-205.)
Reprinted in present ed. of Marco Polo, vol. ii. p. 596.
---- Lord Canning. (Letter in _The Times_, 2nd April, 1884.)
---- Sir Bartle Frere [Letter respecting Memorial of]. (_St. James'
Gazette_, 27th July, 1884.)
---- Odoric. (_Encyclop. Brit._ XVIII. 1884, pp. 728-729.)
---- Ormus. (Ibid. pp. 856-858.)
1885 Memorials of Gen. Sir Edward Harris Greathed, K.C.B. Compiled by the
late Lieut.-Gen. Alex. Cunningham Robertson, C.B. Printed for private
circulation. (With a prefatory notice of the compiler.) London,
Harrison & Sons,... 1885, 8vo, pp. 95.
The Prefatory Notice of Gen. A. C. Robertson is by H. Yule, June,
1885, p. iii.-viii.
---- Anglo-Indianisms. (Letter in the _St. James' Gazette_, 30th July,
1885.)
---- Obituary Notice of Col. Grant Allan, Madras Army. (_From the Army and
Navy Gazette_, 22nd Aug. 1885.)
---- Shameless Advertisements. (Letter in _The Times_, 28th Oct. 1885.)
1886 Marco Polo. (_Encyclop. Brit._ XIX. 1885, pp. 404-409.)
---- Prester John. (Ibid. pp. 714-718.)
---- Brief Notice of Sir Edward Clive Bayley. Pages ix.-xiv. [Prefixed to
_The History of India as told by its own Historians: Gujarat_. By the
late Sir Edward Clive Bayley.] London, Allen, 1886, 8vo.
---- Sir George Udny Yule. In Memoriam (_St. James' Gazette_, 18th Jan.
1886.)
---- Cacothanasia. [Political Verse, Signed [Greek: Maenin AEIDE]]
(_St. James' Gazette_, 1st Feb. 1886.)
---- William Kay, D.D. [Notice of]. (Letter to _The Guardian_, 3rd Feb.
1886.)
---- Col. George Thomson, C.B., R.E. (_Royal Engineers' Journal_, 1886.)
---- Col. George Thomson, C.B. [Note]. (_St. James' Gazette_, 16th Feb.
1886.)
---- Hidden Virtues [A Satire on W. E. Gladstone]. (Letter to the _St.
James' Gazette_, 21st March, 1886. Signed M. P. V.)
---- Burma, Past and Present. (_Quart. Rev._ vol. 162, Jan. and April,
1886, pp. 210-238.)
---- Errors of Facts, in two well-known Pictures.
(_The Athenaeum_, No. 3059, 12th June, 1886, p. 788.)
---- [Obituary Notice of] Lieut.-Gen. Sir Arthur Phayre, C.B., K.C.S.I.,
G.C.M.G. (_Proc. R.G.S._, N.S. 1886, VIII. pp. 103-112.)
---- "Lines suggested by a Portrait in the Millais Exhibition."
Privately printed and (though never published) widely circulated.
These powerful verses on Gladstone are those several times referred
to by Sir Mountstuart Grant Duff, in his published Diaries.
---- Introductory Remarks on _The Rock-Cut Caves and Statues of Bamian_.
By Capt. the Hon. M. G. Talbot. (_Journ. R. As. Soc._ N.S. XVIII.
1886, pp. 323-329.)
---- Opening Address. (Ibid. pp. i.-v.)
---- Opening Address. (Ibid. xix. pp. i.-iii.)
---- Hobson-Jobsoniana. By H. Yule (_Asiatic Quarterly Review_, vol. i.
1886, pp. 119-140.)
---- HOBSON-JOBSON: Being a Glossary of Anglo-Indian Colloquial Words and
Phrases, and of Kindred Terms; etymological, historical,
geographical, and discursive. By Col. H. Yule, and the late Arthur
Coke Burnell, Ph.D., C.I.E., author of "The Elements of South Indian
Palaeography," etc., London, John Murray, 1886. (All rights
reserved), 8vo, p. xliii.-870. Preface, etc.
A new edition is in preparation under the editorship of Mr. William
Crooke (1902).
1886 John Bunyan. (Letter in _St. James' Gazette_, circa 31st Dec. 1886.
Signed M. P. V.)
---- Rennell. (_Encyclop. Brit._ XX. 1886, pp. 398-401.)
---- Rubruquis (Ibid. XXI. 1886, pp. 46-47.)
1887 Lieut.-Gen. W. A. Crommelen, C.B., R.E. (_Royal Engineers' Journal_,
1887.)
---- [Obituary Notice] Col. Sir J. U. Bateman Champain. (_Times_, 2nd Feb.
1887).
---- "Pulping Public Records." (_Notes and Queries_, 19th March, 1887.)
---- A Filial Remonstrance (Political Verses). Signed M. P. V. (_St.
James' Gazette_, 8th Aug. 1887.)
---- Memoir of Major-Gen. J. T. Boileau, R.E., F.R.S. By C. R. Low, I.N.,
F.R.G.S. With a Preface by Col. H. Yule, C.B., London, Allen, 1887.
---- The Diary of William Hedges, Esq. (afterwards Sir William Hedges),
during his Agency in Bengal; as well as on his voyage out and return
overland (1681-1687). Transcribed for the Press, with Introductory
Notes, etc., by R. Barlow, Esq., and illustrated by copious extracts
from unpublished records, etc., by Col. H. Yule. Pub. for Hakluyt
Society. London, 1887-1889, 3 vols. 8vo.
1888 Concerning some little known Travellers in the East. (_Asiatic
Quarterly Review_, V. 1888, pp. 312-335.)
No. I.--George Strachan.
---- Concerning some little known Travellers in the East. (_Asiatic
Quarterly Review_, VI. 1888, pp. 382-398.)
No. II.--William, Earl of Denbigh; Sir Henry Skipwith; and others.
---- Notes on the St. James's of the 6th Jan. [A Budget of Miscellaneous
interesting criticism.] (Letter to _St. James' Gazette_, 9th Jan.
1888.)
---- Deflections of the Nile. (Letter in _The Times_, 15th Oct. 1888.)
---- The History of the Pitt Diamond, being an excerpt from Documentary
Contributions to a Biography of Thomas Pitt, prepared for issue [in
Hedges' Diary] by the Hakluyt Society. London, 1888, 8vo. pp. 23.
Fifty Copies printed for private circulation.
1889 The Remains of Pagan. By H. Yule. (_Truebner's Record_, 3rd ser.
vol. i. pt. i. 1889, p. 2.)
To introduce notes by Dr. E Forchammer.
---- A Coincident Idiom. By H. Yule. (_Truebner's Record_, 3rd ser. vol. i.
pt. iii. pp. 84-85.)
---- The Indian Congress [a Disclaimer], (Letter to _The Times_, 1st Jan.
1889.)
---- Arrowsmith, the Friend of Thomas Poole. (Letter in _The Academy_,
9th Feb. 1889, p. 96.)
BIOGRAPHIES OF SIR HENRY YULE.
---- Colonel Sir Henry Yule, K.C.S.I., C.B., LL.D., R.E. By General Robert
Maclagan, R.E. (_Proceed. Roy. Geog. Soc._ XII. 1890, pp. 108-113.)
---- Colonel Sir Henry Yule, K.C.S.I., C.B., LL.D., R.E., etc. (With a
Portrait). By E. Delmar Morgan. (_Scottish Geographical Magazine_,
VI. 1890, pp. 93-98.) Contains a very good Bibliography.
---- Col. Sir H. Yule, R.E., C.B., K.C.S.I., by Maj.-Gen. T. B. Collinson,
R.E., _Royal Engineers' Journal_, March, 1890. [This is the best of
the Notices of Yule which appeared at the time of his death.]
---- Sir Henry Yule, K.C.S.I, C.B., LL.D., R.E., by E. H. Giglioli. Roma,
1890, ppt. 8vo, pp. 8.
Estratto dal _Bollettino della Societa Geografica Italiana_, Marzo,
1890.
---- Sir Henry Yule. By J. S. C[otton]. (_The Academy_, 11th Jan. 1890,
No. 923, pp. 26-27.)
---- Sir Henry Yule. (_The Athenaeum_, No. 3245, 4th Jan. 1900, p. 17;
No. 3246, 11th Jan. p. 53; No. 3247, 18th Jan. p. 88.)
---- _In Memoriam_. Sir Henry Yule. By D. M. (_The Academy_, 29th March,
1890, p. 222.)
See end of _Memoir_ in present work.
---- Le Colonel Sir Henry Yule. Par M. Henri Cordier. Extrait du _Journal
Asiatique_. Paris, Imprimerie nationale, MDCCCXC, in-8, pp. 26.
---- The same, _Bulletin de la Societe de Geographie_. Par M. Henri
Cordier. 1890, 8vo, pp. 4.
Meeting 17th Jan. 1890.
1889 Baron F. von Richthofen. (_Verhandlungen der Gesellschaft fuer
Erdkunde zu Berlin_, xvii. 2.)
---- Colonel Sir Henry Yule, R.E., C.B., K.C.S.I. Memoir by General R.
Maclagan, _Journ. R. Asiatic Society_, 1890.
---- Memoir of Colonel Sir Henry Yule, R.E., C.B., K.C.S.I., LL.D., etc.
By Coutts Trotter. (_Proceedings of the Royal Society of Edinburgh_,
1891. p. xliii. to p. lvi.)
1889 Sir Henry Yule (1820-1889). By Coutts Trotter. (_Dict. of National
Biography_, lxiii. pp. 405-407.)
1903 Memoir of Colonel Sir Henry Yule, R.E., C.B., K.C.S.I., Corr. Inst.
France, by his daughter, Amy Frances Yule, L.A.Soc. Ant. Scot., etc.
Written for third edition of Yule's Marco Polo. Reprinted for private
circulation only.
[1] This list is based on the excellent preliminary List compiled by E.
Delmar Morgan, published in the _Scottish Geographical Magazine_, vol.
vi., pp. 97-98, but the present compilers have much more than doubled
the number of entries. It is, however, known to be still incomplete,
and any one able to add to the list, will greatly oblige the compilers
by sending additions to the Publisher.--A. F. Y.
SYNOPSIS OF CONTENTS.
MARCO POLO AND HIS BOOK.
INTRODUCTORY NOTICES.
I. OBSCURITIES IN THE HISTORY OF HIS LIFE AND BOOK. RAMUSIO'S STATEMENTS
Sec. 1. Obscurities, etc. 2. Ramusio his earliest Biographer; his Account
of Polo. 3. He vindicates Polo's Geography. 4. Compares him with
Columbus. 5. Recounts a Tradition of the Traveller's Return to Venice.
6. Recounts Marco's Capture by the Genoese. 7. His statements about
Marco's liberation and marriage. 8. His account of the Family Polo and
its termination.
II. SKETCH OF THE STATE OF THE EAST AT THE TIME OF THE JOURNEYS OF THE
POLO FAMILY
Sec. 9. State of the Levant. 10. The various Mongol Sovereignties in Asia
and Eastern Europe. 11. China. 12. India and Indo-China.
III. THE POLO FAMILY. PERSONAL HISTORY OF THE TRAVELLERS TILL THEIR FINAL
RETURN FROM THE EAST
Sec. 13. Alleged origin of the Polos. 14. Claims to Nobility. 15. The Elder
Marco Polo. 16. Nicolo and Maffeo Polo commence their Travels. 17. Their
intercourse with Kublai Kaan. 18. Their return home, and Marco's
appearance on the scene. 19. Second Journey of the Polo Brothers,
accompanied by Marco. (See App. L. 1.) 20. Marco's Employment by Kublai
Kaan; and his Journeys. 21. Circumstances of the departure of the Polos
from the Kaan's Court. 22. They pass by Persia to Venice. Their
relations there.
IV. DIGRESSION CONCERNING THE MANSION OF THE POLO FAMILY AT S. GIOVANNI
GRISOSTOMO
Sec. 23. Probable period of their establishment at S. Giovanni Grisostomo.
24. Relics of the Casa Polo in the Corte Sabbionera. 24a. Recent
corroboration as to traditional site of the Casa Polo.
V. DIGRESSION CONCERNING THE WAR-GALLEYS OF THE MEDITERRANEAN STATES IN
THE MIDDLE AGES.
Sec. 25. Arrangement of the Rowers in Mediaeval Galleys; a separate Oar to
every Man. 26. Change of System in 16th Century. 27. Some details of
13th-Century Galleys. 28. Fighting Arrangements. 29. Crew of a Galley
and Staff of a Fleet. 30. Music and miscellaneous particulars.
VI. THE JEALOUSIES AND NAVAL WARS OF VENICE AND GENOA. LAMBA DORIA'S
EXPEDITION TO THE ADRIATIC; BATTLE OF CURZOLA; AND IMPRISONMENT OF MARCO
POLO BY THE GENOESE
Sec. 31. Growing Jealousies and Outbreaks between the Republics. 32. Battle
in Bay of Ayas in 1294. 33. Lamba Doria's Expedition to the Adriatic.
34. The Fleets come in sight of each other at Curzola. 35. The Venetians
defeated, and Marco Polo a Prisoner. 36. Marco Polo in Prison dictates
his Book to Rusticiano of Pisa. Release of Venetian Prisoners. 37.
Grounds on which the story of Marco Polo's capture at Curzola rests.
VII. RUSTICIANO OR RUSTICHELLO OF PISA, MARCO POLO'S FELLOW-PRISONER AT
GENOA, THE SCRIBE WHO WROTE DOWN THE TRAVELS
Sec. 38. Rusticiano, perhaps a Prisoner from Meloria. 39. A Person known
from other sources. 40. Character of his Romance Compilations.
41. Identity of the Romance Compiler with Polo's Fellow-Prisoner.
42. Further particulars regarding Rusticiano.
VIII. NOTICES OF MARCO POLO'S HISTORY AFTER THE TERMINATION OF HIS
IMPRISONMENT AT GENOA
Sec. 43. Death of Marco's Father before 1300. Will of his Brother Maffeo.
44. Documentary Notices of Polo at this time. The Sobriquet of
_Milione_. 45. Polo's relations with Thibault de Cepoy. 46. His
Marriage, and his Daughters. Marco as a Merchant. 47. His Last Will; and
Death. 48. Place of Sepulture. Professed Portraits of Polo. 49. Further
History of the Polo Family. 49 _bis_. Reliques of Marco Polo.
IX. MARCO POLO'S BOOK; AND THE LANGUAGE IN WHICH IT WAS FIRST WRITTEN
Sec. 50. General Statement of what the Book contains. 51. Language of the
original Work. 52. Old French Text of the Societe de Geographie.
53. Conclusive proof that the Old French Text is the source of all the
others. 54. Greatly diffused employment of French in that age.
X. VARIOUS TYPES OF TEXT OF MARCO POLO'S BOOK
Sec. 55. Four Principal Types of Text. _First_, that of the Geographic or
Oldest French. 56. _Second_, the Remodelled French Text; followed by
Pauthier. 57. The Bern MS. and two others form a sub-class of this type.
58. _Third_, Friar Pipino's Latin. 59. The Latin of Grynaeus,
a Translation at Fifth Hand. 60. _Fourth_, Ramusio's Italian.
61. Injudicious Tamperings in Ramusio. 62. Genuine Statements peculiar
to Ramusio. 63. Hypothesis of the Sources of the Ramusian Version. 64.
Summary in regard to Text of Polo. 65. Notice of a curious Irish
Version.
XI. SOME ESTIMATE OF THE CHARACTER OF POLO AND HIS BOOK
Sec. 66. Grounds of Polo's Pre-eminence among Mediaeval Travellers.
67. His true claims to glory. 68. His personal attributes seen but
dimly. 69. Absence of scientific notions. 70. Map constructed on Polo's
data. 71. Singular omissions of Polo in regard to China; historical
inaccuracies. 72. Was Polo's Book materially affected by the Scribe
Rusticiano? 73. Marco's reading embraced the Alexandrian Romances.
Examples. 74. Injustice long done to Polo. Singular Modern Example.
XII. CONTEMPORARY RECOGNITION OF POLO AND HIS BOOK.
Sec. 75. How far was there diffusion of his Book in his own day?
76. Contemporary References to Polo. T. de Cepoy; Pipino; Jacopo
d'Acqui; Giov. Villani. 77. Pietro d'Abano; Jean le Long of Ypres.
78. Curious borrowings from Polo in the Romance of Bauduin de Sebourc.
78 _bis._ Chaucer and Marco Polo.
XIII. NATURE OF POLO'S INFLUENCE ON GEOGRAPHICAL KNOWLEDGE
Sec. 79. Tardy operation, and causes thereof. 80. General characteristics
of Mediaeval Cosmography. 81. Roger Bacon as a Geographer. 82. Arab
Geography. 83. Marino Sanudo the Elder. 84. The Catalan Map of 1375, the
most complete mediaeval embodiment of Polo's Geography. 85. Fra Mauro's
Map. Confusions in Cartography of the 16th Century from the endeavour to
combine new and old information. 86. Gradual disappearance of Polo's
nomenclature. 87. Alleged introduction of Block-printed Books into
Europe by Marco Polo in connexion with the fiction of the invention of
Printing by Castaldi of Feltre. 88. Frequent opportunities for such
introduction in the Age following Polo's.
XIV. EXPLANATIONS REGARDING THE BASIS ADOPTED FOR THE PRESENT TRANSLATION
Sec. 89. Texts followed by Marsden and by Pauthier. 90. Eclectic Formation
of the English Text of this Translation. 91. Mode of rendering Proper
Names.
THE BOOK OF MARCO POLO.
PROLOGUE.
PRELIMINARY ADDRESS OF RUSTICIANO OF PISA
I.--HOW THE TWO BROTHERS POLO SET FORTH FROM CONSTANTINOPLE TO TRAVERSE
THE WORLD
NOTES.--1. Chronology. 2. "The Great Sea." The Port of Soldaia.
II.--HOW THE TWO BROTHERS WENT ON BEYOND SOLDAIA
NOTES.--1. Site and Ruins of Sarai. 2. City of Bolghar. 3. Alau Lord of
the Levant (i.e. _Hulaku_). 4. Ucaca on the Volga. 5. River Tigeri.
III.--HOW THE TWO BROTHERS, AFTER CROSSING A DESERT, CAME TO THE CITY OF
BOCARA, AND FELL IN WITH CERTAIN ENVOYS THERE
NOTES.--1. "Bocara a City of Persia." 2. The Great Kaan's Envoys.
IV.--HOW THE TWO BROTHERS TOOK THE ENVOYS' COUNSEL, AND WENT TO THE COURT
OF THE GREAT KAAN
V.--HOW THE TWO BROTHERS ARRIVED AT THE COURT OF THE GREAT KAAN
VI.--HOW THE GREAT KAAN ASKED ALL ABOUT THE MANNERS OF THE CHRISTIANS, AND
PARTICULARLY ABOUT THE POPE OF ROME
NOTE.--Apostoille. The name _Tartar_.
VII.--HOW THE GREAT KAAN SENT THE TWO BROTHERS AS HIS ENVOYS TO THE POPE
NOTES.--1. The Great Kaan's Letter. 2. The Seven Arts. 3. Religious
Indifference of the Mongol Princes.
VIII.--HOW THE GREAT KAAN GAVE THEM A TABLET OF GOLD, BEARING HIS ORDERS
IN THEIR BEHALF
NOTES.--1. The Tablet. 2. The Port of Ayas.
IX.--HOW THE TWO BROTHERS CAME TO THE CITY OF ACRE; AND THENCE TO VENICE
NOTES.--1. Names of the deceased Pope and of the Legate. 2. Negropont.
3. Mark's age.
X.--HOW THE TWO BROTHERS AGAIN DEPARTED FROM VENICE, ON THEIR WAY BACK TO
THE GREAT KAAN, AND TOOK WITH THEM MARK, THE SON OF MESSER NICOLO
NOTE.--Oil from the Holy Sepulchre.
XI.--HOW THE TWO BROTHERS SET OUT FROM ACRE, AND MARK ALONG WITH THEM
NOTE.--Pope Gregory X. and his Election.
XII.--HOW THE TWO BROTHERS PRESENTED THEMSELVES BEFORE THE NEW POPE
NOTES.--1. William of Tripoli. 2. Powers conceded to Missionary Friars.
3. Bundukdar and his Invasion of Armenia; his character. 4. The Templars
in Cilician Armenia.
XIII.--HOW MESSER NICOLO AND MESSER MAFFEO POLO, ACCOMPANIED BY MARK,
TRAVELLED TO THE COURT OF THE GREAT KAAN
NOTE.--The City of Kemenfu, Summer Residence of Kublai.
XIV.--HOW MESSER NICOLO AND MESSER MAFFEO POLO AND MARCO PRESENTED
THEMSELVES BEFORE THE GREAT KAAN
NOTES.--1. Verbal. 2. "Vostre Homme."
XV.--HOW THE LORD SENT MARK ON AN EMBASSY OF HIS
NOTES.--1. The four Characters learned by Marco, what? 2. Ramusio's
addition. 3. Nature of Marco's employment.
XVI.--HOW MARK RETURNED FROM THE MISSION WHEREON HE HAD BEEN SENT
XVII.--HOW MESSER NICOLO, MESSER MAFFEO, AND MESSER MARCO, ASKED LEAVE OF
THE GREAT KAAN TO GO THEIR WAY
NOTES.--1. Risks to Foreigners on a change of Sovereign. 2. The Lady
Bolgana. 3. Passage from Ramusio.
XVIII.--HOW THE TWO BROTHERS AND MESSER MARCO TOOK LEAVE OF THE GREAT
KAAN, AND RETURNED TO THEIR OWN COUNTRY
NOTES.--1. Mongol Royal Messengers. 2. Mongol communication with the
King of England. 3. Mediaeval Ships of China. 4. Passage from China
to Sumatra. 5. Mortality among the party. 6. The Lady Cocachin in
Persian History. 7. Death of the Kaan. 8. The Princess of Manzi.
BOOK FIRST.
_Account of Regions Visited or heard of on the Journey from the Lesser
Armenia to the Court of the Great Kaan at Chandu._
I.--HERE THE BOOK BEGINS; AND FIRST IT SPEAKS OF THE LESSER HERMENIA
NOTES.--1. Little Armenia. 2. Meaning of _Chasteaux_. 3. Sickliness of
Cilician Coast. 4. The phrase "_fra terre_."
II.--CONCERNING THE PROVINCE OF TURCOMANIA
NOTES.--1. Brutality of the people. 2. Application of name _Turcomania_.
Turcoman Hordes.
III.--DESCRIPTION OF THE GREATER HERMENIA
NOTES.--1. Erzingan. _Buckrams_, what were they? 2. Erzrum. 3. Baiburt.
4. Ararat. 5. Oil wells of Baku.
IV.--OF GEORGIANIA AND THE KINGS THEREOF
NOTES.--1. Georgian Kings. 2. The Georgians. 3. The Iron Gates and Wall
of Alexander. 4. Box forests. 5. Goshawks. 6. Fish Miracle. 7. Sea of
Ghel or Ghelan. Names ending in _-an_. 8. Names of the Caspian, and
navigation thereon. 9. Fish in the Caspian.
V.--OF THE KINGDOM OF MAUSUL
NOTES.--1. Atabeks of Mosul. 2. Nestorian and Jacobite Christians.
3. Mosolins. 4. The Kurds. 5. Mush and Mardin.
VI.--OF THE GREAT CITY OF BAUDAS, AND HOW IT WAS TAKEN
NOTES.--1. Baudas, or Baghdad. 2. Island of Kish. 3. Basra.
4. Baldachins and other silk textures; Animal patterns. 5, 6. Hulaku's
Expedition. 7. The Death of the Khalif Mosta'sim. 8. Froissart.
VII.--HOW THE CALIF OF BAUDAS TOOK COUNSEL TO SLAY ALL THE CHRISTIANS IN
HIS LAND
NOTES.--1. Chronology. 2. "Ses _Regisles_ et ses _Casses_."
VIII.--HOW THE CHRISTIANS WERE IN GREAT DISMAY BECAUSE OF WHAT THE CALIF
HAD SAID
NOTE.--The word "_cralantur_."
IX.--HOW THE ONE-EYED COBLER WAS DESIRED TO PRAY FOR THE CHRISTIANS
X.--HOW THE PRAYER OF THE ONE-EYED COBLER CAUSED THE MOUNTAIN TO MOVE
NOTE.--The Mountain Miracle.
XI.--OF THE NOBLE CITY OF TAURIS
NOTES.--1. Tabriz. 2. Cremesor. 3. Traffic at Tabriz. 4. The _Torizi_.
5. Character of City and People.
XII.--OF THE MONASTERY OF SAINT BARSAMO ON THE BORDERS OF TAURIS
NOTE.--The Monastery of Barsauma.
XIII.--OF THE GREAT COUNTRY OF PERSIA; WITH SOME ACCOUNT OF THE THREE
KINGS
NOTES.--1. Kala' Atishparastan. 2. The Three Kings.
XIV.--HOW THE THREE KINGS RETURNED TO THEIR OWN COUNTRY
NOTES.--1. The three mystic Gifts. 2. The Worshipped Fire. 3. Savah and
Avah. The Legend in Mas'udi. Embellishments of the Story of the Magi.
XV.--OF THE EIGHT KINGDOMS OF PERSIA, AND HOW THEY ARE NAMED
NOTES.--1. The Eight Kingdoms. 2. Export of Horses, and Prices.
3. Persian Brigands. 4. Persian wine.
XVI.--CONCERNING THE GREAT CITY OF YASDI
NOTES.--1. Yezd. 2. Yezd to Kerman. The Woods spoken of.
XVII.--CONCERNING THE KINGDOM OF KERMAN
NOTES.--1. City and Province of Kerman. 2. Turquoises. 3. _Ondanique_ or
Indian Steel. 4. Manufactures of Kerman. 5. Falcons.
XVIII.--OF THE CITY OF CAMADI AND ITS RUINS; ALSO TOUCHING THE CARAUNA
ROBBERS
NOTES.--1. Products of the warmer plains. 2. Humped oxen and fat-tailed
sheep. 3. _Scarani_. 4. The Karaunahs and Nigudarian Bands.
5. Canosalmi.
XIX.--OF THE DESCENT TO THE CITY OF HORMOS
NOTES.--1. Site of Old Hormuz and Geography of the route from Kerman to
Hormuz. 2. Dates and Fish Diet. 3. Stitched Vessels. "_One rudder_," why
noticed as peculiar. 4. Great heat at Hormuz. 5. The Simum. 6. History
of Hormuz, and Polo's Ruomedan Acomat. 7. Second Route between Hormuz
and Kerman.
XX.--OF THE WEARISOME AND DESERT ROAD THAT HAS NOW TO BE TRAVELLED
NOTES.--1. Kerman to Kubenan. 2. Desert of Lut. 3. Subterraneous Canals.
XXI.--CONCERNING THE CITY OF COBINAN AND THE THINGS THAT ARE MADE THERE
NOTES.--1. Kuh-Banan. 2. Production of Tutia.
XXII.--OF A CERTAIN DESERT THAT CONTINUES FOR EIGHT DAYS' JOURNEY
NOTES.--1. Deserts of Khorasan. 2. The _Arbre Sol_ or _Arbre Sec_.
XXIII.--CONCERNING THE OLD MAN OF THE MOUNTAIN
NOTE.--The Assassins, Hashishin, or Mulahidah.
XXIV.--HOW THE OLD MAN USED TO TRAIN HIS ASSASSINS
NOTES.--1. The story widely spread. Notable murders by the Sectaries.
2. Their different branches.
XXV.--HOW THE OLD MAN CAME BY HIS END
NOTE.--History of the apparent Destruction of the Sect by Hulaku; its
survival to the present time. Castles of Alamut and Girdkuh.
XXVI.--CONCERNING THE CITY OF SAPURGAN
NOTE.--Shibrgan, and the route followed. Dried Melons.
XXVII.--OF THE CITY OF BALC
NOTES.--1. Balkh. 2. Country meant by Dogana. 3. Lions in the Oxus
Valley.
XXVIII.--OF TAICAN, AND THE MOUNTAINS OF SALT. ALSO OF THE PROVINCE OF
CASEM
NOTES.--1. Talikan. 2. Mines of Rock-salt. 3. Ethnological
characteristics. 4. Kishm. 5. Porcupines. 6. Cave dwellings. 7. Old and
New Capitals of Badakhshan.
XXIX.--OF THE PROVINCE OF BADASHAN
NOTES.--1. Dialects of Badakhshan. Alexandrian lineage of the Princes.
2. Badakhshan and the Balas Ruby. 3. Azure Mines. 4. Horses of
Badakhshan. 5. Naked Barley. 6. Wild sheep. 7. Scenery of Badakhshan.
8. Repeated devastation of the Country from War. 9. Amplitude of
feminine garments.
XXX.--OF THE PROVINCE OF PASHAI
NOTE.--On the country intended by this name.
XXXI.--OF THE PROVINCE OF KESHIMUR
NOTES.--1. Kashmir language. 2. Kashmir Conjurers. (_See App. L. 2._)
3. Importance of Kashmir in History of Buddhism. 4. Character of the
People. 5. Vicissitudes of Buddhism in Kashmir. 6. Buddhist practice
as to slaughter of animals. 7. Coral.
XXXII.--OF THE GREAT RIVER OF BADASHAN; AND PLAIN OF PAMIER
NOTES.--1. The Upper Oxus and Wakhan. The title _Nono_, (_See App. L.
3._) 2. The Plateau of Pamir. (_See App. L. 4 and 5._) The Great Wild
Sheep. Fire at great altitudes. 3. Bolor.
XXXIII.--OF THE KINGDOM OF CASCAR
NOTE.--Kashgar.
XXXIV.--OF THE GREAT CITY OF SAMARCAN
NOTES.--1. Christians in Samarkand. 2. Chagatai's relation to Kublai
mis-stated. 3. The Miracle of the Stone.
XXXV.--OF THE PROVINCE OF YARCAN
NOTE.--Yarkand. Goitre prevalent there.
XXXVI.--OF A PROVINCE CALLED COTAN
NOTES.--1. Government. 2. "Adoration of Mahommet." 3. Khotan.
XXXVII.--OF THE PROVINCE OF PEIN
NOTES.--1. Position of Pein (App. L. 6.) 2. The Yu or Jade. 3. Temporary
marriages.
XXXVIII.--OF THE PROVINCE OF CHARCHAN
NOTE.--Position of Charchan and Lop.
XXXIX.--OF THE CITY OF LOP, AND THE GREAT DESERT
NOTES.--1. Geographical discrepancy. 2. Superstitions as to Deserts:
their wide diffusion. The Sound of Drums on certain sandy acclivities.
3. Sha-chau to Lob-nor.
XL.--CONCERNING THE GREAT PROVINCE OF TANGUT
NOTES.--1. Tangut. 2. Buddhism encountered here. 3. Kalmak superstition,
the "_Heaven's Ram_." 4. Chinese customs described here. 5. Mongol
disposal of the Dead. 6. Superstitious practice of avoiding to carry out
the dead by the house-door; its wide diffusion.
XLI.--OF THE PROVINCE OF CAMUL
NOTES.--1. Kamul. 2. Character of the people. 3. Shameless custom.
4. Parallel.
XLII.--OF THE PROVINCE OF CHINGINTALAS
NOTES.--1. The Country intended. 2. Ondanique. 3. Asbestos Mountain.
4. The four elements. 5 and 6. The Story of the Salamander. Asbestos
fabrics.
XLIII.--OF THE PROVINCE OF SUKCHUR
NOTES.--1. Explanatory. 2. The City of Suhchau. 3. Rhubarb country.
4. Poisonous pasture.
XLIV.--OF THE CITY OF CAMPICHU
NOTES.--1. The City of Kanchau. 2. Recumbent Buddhas. 3. Buddhist Days
of
Special Worship. 4. Matrimonial Customs. 5. Textual.
XLV.--OF THE CITY OF ETZINA
NOTES.--1. Position of Yetsina. 2. Textual. 3. The Wild Ass of Mongolia.
XLVI.--OF THE CITY OF CARACORON
NOTES.--1. Karakorum. 2. Tartar. 3. Chorcha. 4. Prester John.
XLVII.--OF CHINGHIS, AND HOW HE BECAME THE FIRST KAAN OF THE TARTARS
NOTES.--1. Chronology. 2. Relations between Chinghiz and Aung Khan, the
Prester John of Polo.
XLVIII.--HOW CHINGHIS MUSTERED HIS PEOPLE TO MARCH AGAINST PRESTER JOHN
XLIX.--HOW PRESTER JOHN MARCHED TO MEET CHINGHIS
NOTES.--1. Plain of Tanduc. 2. Divination by Twigs and Arrows.
L.--THE BATTLE BETWEEN CHINGHIS KAAN AND PRESTER JOHN. DEATH OF CHINGHIS
NOTE.--Real circumstances and date of the Death of Chinghiz.
LI.--OF THOSE WHO DID REIGN AFTER CHINGHIS KAAN, AND OF THE CUSTOMS OF THE
TARTARS
NOTES.--1. Origin of the _Cambuscan_ of Chaucer. 2. Historical Errors.
3. The Place of Sepulture of Chinghiz. 4. Barbarous Funeral
Superstition.
LII.--CONCERNING THE CUSTOMS OF THE TARTARS
NOTES.--1. Tartar Huts. 2. Tartar Waggons. 3. Pharaoh's Rat. 4. Chastity
of the Women. 5. Polygamy and Marriage Customs.
LIII.--CONCERNING THE GOD OF THE TARTARS
NOTES.--1. The old Tartar idols. 2. Kumiz.
LIV.--CONCERNING THE TARTAR CUSTOMS OF WAR
NOTES.--1. Tartar Arms. 2. The Decimal Division of their Troops.
3. Textual. 4. Blood-drinking. 5. _Kurut_, or Tartar Curd. 6. The Mongol
military rapidity and terrorism. 7. Corruption of their Nomade
simplicity.
LV.--CONCERNING THE ADMINISTERING OF JUSTICE AMONG THE TARTARS
NOTES.--1. The Cudgel. 2. Punishment of Theft. 3. Marriage of the Dead.
4. Textual.
LVI.--SUNDRY PARTICULARS ON THE PLAIN BEYOND CARACORON
NOTES.--1. Textual. 2. Bargu, the Mecrit, the Reindeer, and Chase of
Water-fowl. 3. The bird _Barguerlac_, the Syrrhaptes. 4. Gerfalcons.
LVII.--OF THE KINGDOM OF ERGUIUL, AND PROVINCE OF SINJU
NOTES.--1. Erguiul. 2. Siningfu. 3. The Yak. 4. The Musk Deer.
5. Reeves's Pheasant.
LVIII.--OF THE KINGDOM OF EGRIGAIA
NOTES.--1. Egrigaia. 2. Calachan 3. White Camels, and Camlets:
Siclatoun.
LIX.--CONCERNING THE PROVINCE OF TENDUC, AND THE DESCENDANTS OF PRESTER
JOHN
NOTES.--1. The name and place Tenduc. King George. 2. Standing Marriage
Compact. The title _Gurgan_. 3. Azure. 4. The terms _Argon_ and
_Guasmul_. The _Dungens_. 5. The Rampart of Gog and Magog. 6. Tartary
cloths. 7. Siuen-hwa fu.
LX.--CONCERNING THE KAAN'S PALACE OF CHAGANNOR.
NOTES.--1. Palace. 2. The word _Sesnes_. 3. Chagan-nor. 4. The five
species of Crane described by Polo. 5. The word _Cator_.
LXI.--OF THE CITY OF CHANDU, AND THE KAAN'S PALACE THERE
NOTES.--1. Two Roads. 2. Chandu, properly Shangtu. 3. Leopards. 4. The
Bamboo Palace. Uses of the Bamboo. 5. Kublai's Annual Migration to
Shangtu. 6. The White Horses. The Oirad Tribe. 7. The Mare's Milk
Festival. 8. Weather Conjuring. 9. Ascription of Cannibalism to
Tibetans, etc. 10. The term _Bacsi_. 11. Magical Feats ascribed to the
Lamas. 12. Lamas. 13. Vast extent of Lama Convents. 14. Married Lamas.
15. Bran. 16. Patarins. 17. The Ascetics called _Sensin_. 18. Textual.
19. Tao-sze Idols.
BOOK SECOND.
PART I.
I.--OF CUBLAY KAAN, THE GREAT KAAN NOW REIGNING, AND OF HIS GREAT
PUISSANCE
NOTE.--Eulogies of Kublai.
II.--CONCERNING THE REVOLT OF NAYAN, WHO WAS UNCLE TO THE GREAT KAAN
CUBLAY
NOTES.--1. Chronology. 2. Kublai's Age. 3. His Wars. 4. Nayan and his
true relationship to Kublai.
III.--HOW THE GREAT KAAN MARCHED AGAINST NAYAN
NOTE.--Addition from Ramusio.
IV.--OF THE BATTLE THAT THE GREAT KAAN FOUGHT WITH NAYAN
NOTES.--1. The word _Bretesche_. 2. Explanatory. 3. The Nakkara.
4. Parallel Passages. 5. Verbal. 6. The Story of Nayan. (_See App. L.
7._)
V.--HOW THE GREAT KAAN CAUSED NAYAN TO BE PUT TO DEATH
NOTES.--1. The Shedding of Royal blood avoided. 2. Chorcha, Kaoli,
Barskul, Sikintinju. 3. Jews in China.
VI.--HOW THE GREAT KAAN WENT BACK TO THE CITY OF CAMBALUC
NOTE.--Passage from Ramusio respecting the Kaan's views of Religion.
Remarks.
VII.--HOW THE KAAN REWARDED THE VALOUR OF HIS CAPTAINS
NOTES.--1. Parallel from Sanang Setzen. 2. The Golden Honorary Tablets
or _Paizah_ of the Mongols. 3. Umbrellas. 4. The Gerfalcon Tablets.
VIII.--CONCERNING THE PERSON OF THE GREAT KAAN
NOTES.--1. Colour of his Eyes. 2. His Wives. 3. The Kungurat Tribe.
Competitive Examination in Beauty.
IX.--CONCERNING THE GREAT KAAN'S SONS
NOTES.--1. Kublai's intended Heir. 2. His other Sons.
X.--CONCERNING THE PALACE OF THE GREAT KAAN
NOTES.--1. Palace Wall. 2. The word _Tarcasci_ 3. Towers. 4. Arsenals of
the Palace. 5. The Gates. 6. Various Readings. 7. Barracks. 8. Wide
diffusion of the kind of Palace here described. 9. Parallel description.
10. "Divine" Park. 11. Modern account of the Lake, etc. 12. "_Roze de
l'acur_." 13. The Green Mount. 14. Textual. 15. Bridge.
XI.--CONCERNING THE CITY OF CAMBALUC
NOTES.--1. Chronology, etc., of Peking. 2. The City Wall. 3. Changes in
the Extent of the City. 4. Its ground plan. 5. Aspect. 6. Public Towers.
7. Addition from Ramusio.
XII.--HOW THE GREAT KAAN MAINTAINS A GUARD OF TWELVE THOUSAND HORSE, WHICH
ARE CALLED KESHICAN
NOTE.--The term _Quescican_.
XIII.--THE FASHION OF THE GREAT KAAN'S TABLE AT HIS HIGH FEASTS
NOTES.--1. Order of the Tables. 2. The word _Vernique_. 3. The Buffet of
Liquors. 4. The superstition of the Threshold. 5. Chinese Etiquettes.
6. Jugglers at the Banquet.
XIV.--CONCERNING THE GREAT FEAST HELD BY THE GRAND KAAN EVERY YEAR ON HIS
BIRTHDAY
NOTES.--1. The Chinese Year. 2. "Beaten Gold." 3. Textual. Festal
changes of costume. 4. Festivals.
XV.--OF THE GREAT FESTIVAL WHICH THE KAAN HOLDS ON NEW YEAR'S DAY
NOTES.--1. The White Month. 2. Mystic value of the number 9. 3.
Elephants at Peking. 4. Adoration of Tablets. K'o-tow.
XVI.--CONCERNING THE TWELVE THOUSAND BARONS WHO RECEIVE ROBES OF CLOTH OF
GOLD FROM THE EMPEROR ON THE GREAT FESTIVALS, THIRTEEN CHANGES A-PIECE
NOTES.--1. Textual. 2. The words _Camut_ and _Borgal_. 3. Tame Lions.
XVII.--HOW THE GREAT KAAN ENJOINETH HIS PEOPLE TO SUPPLY HIM WITH GAME
NOTE.--Parallel Passage.
XVIII.--OF THE LIONS AND LEOPARDS AND WOLVES THAT THE KAAN KEEPS FOR THE
CHASE
NOTES.--1. The Cheeta or Hunting Leopard. 2. Lynxes. 3. The Tiger,
termed _Lion_ by Polo. 4. The Burgut Eagle.
XIX.--CONCERNING THE TWO BROTHERS WHO HAVE CHARGE OF THE KAAN'S HOUNDS
NOTE.--The Masters of the Hounds, and their title.
XX.--HOW THE EMPEROR GOES ON A HUNTING EXPEDITION
NOTES.--1. Direction of the Tour. 2. Hawking Establishments. 3. The word
_Toskaul_. 4. The word _Bularguchi_. 5. Kublai's Litter. 6. Kachar
Modun. 7. The Kaan's Great Tents. 8. The Sable and Ermine. 9. Petis de
la Croix.
XXI.--HOW THE GREAT KAAN, ON RETURNING FROM HIS HUNTING EXPEDITION, HOLDS
A GREAT COURT AND ENTERTAINMENT
NOTE.--This chapter peculiar to the 2nd Type of MSS.
XXII.--CONCERNING THE CITY OF CAMBALUC, AND ITS GREAT TRAFFIC AND
POPULATION
NOTES.--1. Suburbs of Peking. 2. The word _Fondaco_.
XXIII.--[CONCERNING THE OPPRESSIONS OF ACHMATH THE BAILO, AND THE PLOT
THAT WAS FORMED AGAINST HIM]
NOTES.--1. Chapter peculiar to Ramusio. 2. Kublai's Administration. The
Rise of Ahmad. 3. The term _Bailo_. 4. The Conspiracy against Ahmad as
related by Gaubil from the Chinese. 5. Marco's presence and upright
conduct commemorated in the Chinese Annals. The Kaan's prejudice against
Mahomedans.
XXIV.--HOW THE GREAT KAAN CAUSETH THE BARK OF TREES, MADE INTO SOMETHING
LIKE PAPER, TO PASS FOR MONEY OVER ALL HIS COUNTRY
NOTE.--Chinese Paper Currency.
XXV.--CONCERNING THE TWELVE BARONS WHO ARE SET OVER ALL THE AFFAIRS OF THE
GREAT KAAN
NOTE.--The Ministers of the Mongol Dynasty. The term _Sing_.
XXVI.--HOW THE KAAN'S POSTS AND RUNNERS ARE SPED THROUGH MANY LANDS AND
PROVINCES
NOTES.--1. Textual. 2. The word _Yam_. 3. Government Hostelries.
4. Digression from Ramusio. 5. Posts Extraordinary. 6. Discipline of the
Posts. 7. Antiquity of Posts in China, etc.
XXVII.--HOW THE EMPEROR BESTOWS HELP ON HIS PEOPLE, WHEN THEY ARE
AFFLICTED WITH DEARTH OR MURRAIN
NOTE.--Kublai's remissions, and justice.
XXVIII.--HOW THE GREAT KAAN CAUSES TREES TO BE PLANTED BY THE HIGHWAYS
NOTE.--Kublai's Avenues.
XXIX.--CONCERNING THE RICE-WINE DRUNK BY THE PEOPLE OF CATHAY
NOTE.--Rice-wine.
XXX.--CONCERNING THE BLACK STONES THAT ARE DUG IN CATHAY, AND ARE BURNT
FOR FUEL
NOTE.--Distribution and Consumption of Coal in China.
XXXI.--HOW THE GREAT KAAN CAUSES STORES OF CORN TO BE MADE, TO HELP HIS
PEOPLE WITHAL IN TIME OF DEARTH
NOTE.--The Chinese Public Granaries.
XXXII.--OF THE CHARITY OF THE EMPEROR TO THE POOR.
NOTE.--Buddhist influence, and Chinese Charities.
XXXIII.--[CONCERNING THE ASTROLOGERS IN THE CITY OF CAMBALUC]
NOTES.--1. The word _Tacuin_.--The Chinese Almanacs. The Observatory.
2. The Chinese and Mongol Cycle.
XXXIV.--[CONCERNING THE RELIGION OF THE CATHAYANS; THEIR VIEWS AS TO THE
SOUL; AND THEIR CUSTOMS]
NOTES.--1. Textual. 2. Do. 3. Exceptions to the general charge of
Irreligion brought against the Chinese. 4. Politeness. 5. Filial Piety.
6. Pocket Spitoons.
EXPLANATORY LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS TO VOLUME I.
INSERTED PLATES AND MAPS.
Portrait of Sir HENRY YULE. From the Painting by Mr. T. B. Wirgman, in the
Royal Engineers' Mess House at Chatham.
Illuminated Title, with Medallion representing the POLOS ARRIVING AT
VENICE after 26 years' absence, and being refused admittance to the Family
Mansion; as related by Ramusio, p. 4 of Introductory Essay. Drawn by
Signor QUINTO CENNI, No. 7 Via Solferino, Milan; from a Design by the
Editor.
DOORWAY of the HOUSE of MARCO POLO in the Corte Sabbionera at Venice.
Woodcut from a drawing by Signor L. ROSSO, Venice.
_Corte del Milione_, Venice.
_Malibran Theatre_, Venice.
Entrance to the Corte del Milione, Venice. From photographs taken for the
present editor, by Signor NAYA.
Figures from St. Sabba's, sent to Venice. From a photograph of Signor
NAYA.
Church of SAN MATTEO, at Genoa.
_Palazzo di S. Giorgio_, at Genoa.
_Miracle of S. Lorenzo_. From the Painting by V. CARPACCIO.
Facsimile of the WILL of MARCO POLO, preserved in St. Mark's Library.
Lithographed from a photograph specially taken by Bertani at Venice.
Pavement in front of S. Lorenzo.
Mosaic Portrait of Marco Polo, at Genoa.
The Pseudo Marco Polo at Canton.
Porcelain Incense-Burner, from the Louvre.
Temple of 500 Genii, at Canton, after a drawing by FELIX REGAMEY.
Probable view of MARCO POLO'S OWN GEOGRAPHY: a Map of the World, formed as
far as possible from the Traveller's own data. Drawn by the Editor.
Part of the _Catalan Map_ of 1375.
Marco Polo's Itineraries, No. 1. WESTERN ASIA. This includes also "Sketch
showing the chief Monarchies of Asia, in the latter part of the 13th
century."
Map illustrating the geographical position of the CITY of SARAI. Plan of
part of the remains of the same city. Reduced from a Russian plan
published by _M. Grigorieff_.
Reduced FACSIMILE of the BUDDHIST INSCRIPTION of the Mongol Era, on the
Archway at KIU-YONG KWAN in the Pass of Nan-k'au, north-west of Peking,
showing the characters in use under the Mongol Dynasty. Photogravure from
the _Recueil des documents de l'Epoque Mongole_, by H.H. Prince ROLAND
BONAPARTE. _See an Article by_ Mr. Wylie _in the J. R. A. S. for 1870, p.
14._
Plan of AYAS, the Laias of Polo. _From an Admiralty Chart_. Plan of
position of DILAWAR, the supposed site of the Dilavar of Polo. _Ext.
from a Survey by Lt.-Col. D. G. Robinson, R.E._
Marco Polo's Itineraries, No. II. Routes between KERMAN and HORMUZ.
Marco Polo's Itineraries, No. III. Regions on and near the UPPER OXUS.
Heading, in the old Chinese seal-character, of an INSCRIPTION on a
Memorial raised by Kublai Kaan to a Buddhist Ecclesiastic, in the vicinity
of his summer-palace at SHANGTU in Mongolia. Reduced from a facsimile
obtained on the spot by _Dr. S. W. Bushell_, 1872, and by him lent to the
Editor.
The CHO-KHANG. The grand Temple of Buddha at _Lhasa_, from _The Journey to
Lhasa_, by SARAT CHANDRA DAS, by kind permission of the Royal Geographical
Society.
"_Table d'Or de Commandement_;" the PAIZA of the MONGOLS, from a specimen
found in Siberia. _Reduced to one-half the scale of the original, from an
engraving in a paper by_ I. J. Schmidt _in the_ Bulletin de la Classe
Historico-Philologique de l'Acad. Imp. des Sciences, St. Petersbourg, tom.
iv. No. 9.
Second Example of a Mongol Paiza with superscription in the Uighur
character, found near the Dnieper River, 1845. From _Trans. of the
Oriental Section, Imp. Soc. of Archaeology_ of St. Petersburg, vol. v. The
Inscription on this runs: "_By the strength of Eternal Heaven, and thanks
to Its Great Power, the Man who obeys not the order of Abdullah shall be
guilty, shall die._"
Plan of PEKING as it is, and as it was about A.D. 1290.
BANK-NOTE of the MING Dynasty, on one-half the scale of the original.
Reduced from a genuine note in the possession of the British Museum. Was
brought back from Peking after the siege of the Legations in 1900.
Mongol "Compendium Instrument."
Mongol Armillary Sphere.
Observatory Terrace.
Observatory Instruments of the Jesuits. All these from photographs kindly
lent to the present Editor by Count de Semalle.
Marco Polo's Itineraries. No. IV. EASTERN ASIA. This includes also Sketch
Map of the Ruins of SHANGTU, after Dr. BUSHELL; and Enlarged Sketch of the
Passage of the Hwang-ho or Karamoran on the road to Si-ngan fu (see vol.
ii. pp. 25-27) from the data of _Baron von Richthofen_.
WOODCUTS PRINTED WITH THE TEXT.
INTRODUCTORY NOTICES.
A MEDIAEVAL SHIP.
COAT OF ARMS of SIR HENRY YULE.
ARMS of the POLO family, according to Priuli.
ARMS of the POLO family, according to Marco Barbaro. (See p. 7, note.)
Autograph of HETHUM or HAYTON I. King of (Cicilian) Armenia; copied from
_Codice Diplomatico del Sacro Militare Ordine Gerosolemitano_, I. 135. The
signature is attached to a French document without date, granting the
King's Daughter "Damoiselle Femie" (Euphemia) in marriage to Sire Julian,
son of the Lady of Sayete (Sidon). The words run: _Thagavor Haiwetz_ ("Rex
Armenorum"), followed by the King's cypher or monogram; but the initial
letter is absent, probably worn off the original document.
The PIAZZETTA at VENICE in the 14th century. From a portion of the
Frontispiece Miniature of the MS. of Marco Polo in the Bodleian. (Borrowed
from the _National Miscellany_, published by J. H. Parker, Oxford, for
1853-55; and see _Street's Brick and Marble_, etc., 1855, pp. 150-151.)
[See vol. ii. p. 529.]
Three extracts from MAPS of VENICE, showing the site of the CA' POLO at
three different periods, (1) From the great woodcut Map or View of Venice,
dated 1500, and commonly called Albert Duerer's. (2) From a Plan by Cav.
Ludovico Ughi, 1729. (3) From the Modern Official Plan of the City.
Diagram of arrangement of oars in galleys.
Extract from a fresco by SPINELLO ARETINI, in the Municipal Palace at
Siena, representing a GALLEY FIGHT (perhaps imaginary) between the
Venetians and the fleet of the Emperor Frederick Barbarossa, and
illustrating the arrangements of mediaeval galleys. Drawn from a very dim
and imperfect photograph, after personal study of the original, by the
Editor.
Extract from a picture by DOMENICO TINTORETTO in the Ducal Palace at
Venice, representing the same GALLEY-FIGHT. After an engraving in the
_Theatrum Venetum_.
MARCO POLO'S GALLEY going into action at CURZOLA. Drawn by Signor Q.
CENNI, from a design by the Editor.
Map to illustrate the SEA-FIGHT at CURZOLA, where Marco Polo was taken
prisoner.
SEAL of the PISAN PRISONERS in Genoa, after the battle of Meloria (1284).
From _Manni, Osservazioni Storiche sopra Sigilli Antichi_, tom. xii.
Engraved by T. ADENEY.
The Convent and CHURCH of S. LORENZO, the burial-place of Marco Polo, as
it existed in the 15th century. From the Map of 1500 (see above). Engraved
by the same.
Arms of the TREVISAN family, according to Priuli.
TAILED STAR near the Antarctic, as Marco Polo drew it for Pietro d'Abano.
From the _Conciliator_ of Pietro d'Abano.
PROLOGUE.
Remains of the Castle of SOLDAIA or Sudak. After _Dubois de Montpereux,
Voyage autour du Caucase_, Atlas, 3d s. Pl. 64.
Ruins of BOLGHAR. After _Demidoff, Voyage dans la Russie Meridionale_, Pl.
75.
The GREAT KAAN delivering a GOLDEN TABLET to the two elder Polos. From a
miniature in the _Livre des Merveilles du Monde_ (Fr. 2810) in the Library
at Paris, fol. 3 verso.
Castle of AYAS. After _Langlois, Voyage en Cilicie._
Plan of ACRE as it was when lost (A.D. 1291). Reduced and translated from
the contemporary plan in the _Secreta Fidelium Crucis_ of Marino Sanudo
the Elder, engraved in _Bongars, Gesta Dei per Francos_, vol. ii.
Portrait of Pope GREGORY X. After _J. B. de Cavaleriis Pontificum
Romanorum Effigies_, etc. Romae, 1580.
Ancient CHINESE WAR VESSEL. From the Chinese Encyclopaedia called
_San-Thsai-Thou-Hoei_, in the Paris Library.
BOOK FIRST.
Coin of King HETUM I. and Queen ISABEL of Cilician Armenia. From an
original in the British Museum. Engraved by ADENEY.
Castle of BAIBURT. After _Texier, L'Armenie_, Pl. 3.
Mediaeval GEORGIAN FORTRESS. From a drawing by Padre CRISTOFORO DI
CASTELLI of the Theatine Mission, made in 1634, and now in the Communal
Library at Palermo. The name of the place has been eaten away, and I have
not yet been able to ascertain it.
View of DERBEND. After a cut from a drawing by M. Moynet in the _Tour du
Monde_, vol. i.
Coin of BADRUDDIN LOLO of Mosul (A.H. 620). After _Marsden's Numismata
Orientalia_, No. 164. By ADENEY.
GHAZAN Khan's Mosque at TABRIZ. Borrowed from _Fergusson's History of
Architecture._
KASHMIR SCARF with animals, etc. After photograph from the scarf in the
Indian Museum.
Humped Oxen from the Assyrian Sculptures at Kouyunjik. From _Rawlinson's
Ancient Monarchies._
Portrait of a Hazara. From a Photograph, kindly taken for the purpose, by
M.-Gen. _C. P. Keyes_, C.B., Commanding the Panjab Frontier Force.
Illustrations of the use of the DOUBLE RUDDER in the Middle Ages. 7
figures, viz., No. 1, The Navicello of Giotto in the Porch of St. Peter's.
From _Eastlake's H. of Painting_; Nos. 2 and 3, from _Pertz, Scriptores_,
tom. xviii. after a Genoese Chronicle; No. 4, Sketch from fresco of
Spinello Aretini at Siena; No. 5, Seal of Port of Winchelsea, from _Sussex
Archaeological Collections_, vol. i. 1848; No. 6, Sculpture on Leaning
Tower at Pisa, after _Jal, Archeologie Navale_; No. 7, from the Monument
of Peter Martyr, the persecutor of the Lombard _Patarini_, in the Church
of St. Eustorgius at Milan, after _Le Tombe ed i Monumenti Illustri
d'Italia_, Mil. 1822-23.
The _ARBRE SEC_, and _ARBRES DU SOLEIL ET DE LA LUNE_. From a miniature in
the Prose Romance of Alexander, in the Brit. Museum MS. called the
_Shrewsbury Book_ (Reg. xv. e. 6).
The CHINAR or Oriental Plane, viz., that called the Tree of Godfrey of
Boulogne at Buyukdere, near Constantinople. Borrowed from _Le Monde
Vegetal_ of Figuier.
Portrait of H. H. AGHA KHAN MEHELATI, late representative of the OLD MAN
of the MOUNTAIN. From a photograph by Messrs. SHEPHERD and BOURNE.
Ancient SILVER PATERA of debased Greek Art, formerly in the possession of
the Princes of BADAKHSHAN, now in the India Museum.
Ancient BUDDHIST Temple at Pandrethan in KASHMIR. Borrowed from
_Fergusson's History of Architecture_.
Horns of the _OVIS POLI_, or Great Sheep of Pamir. Drawn by the Editor
from the specimen belonging to the Royal Asiatic Society.
Figure of the _OVIS POLI_ or Great Sheep of Pamir. From a drawing by Mr.
Severtsof in a Russian publication.
Head of a native of KASHGAR. After Verchaguine. From the _Tour du Monde_.
View of KASHGAR. From _Mr. R. Shaw's Tartary_.
View of SAMARKAND. From a Sketch by Mr. D. IVANOFF, engraved in a Russian
Illustrated Paper (kindly sent by Mr. I. to the editor).
Colossal Figure; BUDDHA entering NIRVANA. Sketched by the Editor at Pagan
in Burma.
Great LAMA MONASTERY, viz., that at Jehol. After _Staunton's Narrative of
Lord Macartney's Embassy_.
The _Kyang_, or WILD ASS of Mongolia. After a plate by Wolf in the
_Journal of the Royal Zoological Society_.
The Situation of Karakorum.
Entrance to the Erdeni Tso, Great Temple. From MARCEL MONNIER'S _Tour d'
Asie_, by kind permission of M. PLON.
Death of Chinghiz Khan. From a Miniature in the _Livre des Merveilles_.
Dressing up a Tent, from MARCEL MONNIER'S _Tour d' Asie_, by kind
permission of M. PLON.
Mediaeval TARTAR HUTS and WAGGONS. Drawn by Sig. QUINTO CENNI, on a design
compiled by the Editor from the descriptions of mediaeval and later
travellers.
Tartar IDOLS and KUMIS Churn. Drawn by the Editor after data in _Pallas_
and _Zaleski_ (_Vie des Steppes Kirghiz_).
The _SYRRHAPTES PALLASII; Bargherlac_ of Marco Polo. From a plate by Wolf
in the _Ibis_ for April, 1860.
REEVES'S PHEASANT. After an engraving in _Wood's Illustrated Natural
History_.
The RAMPART of GOG and MAGOG. From a photograph of the Great Wall of
China. Borrowed from _Dr. Rennie's Peking and the Pekingese_.
A PAVILION at Yuen-Ming-Yuen, to illustrate the probable style of Kublai
Kaan's Summer Palace. Borrowed from _Michie's Siberian Overland Route_.
CHINESE CONJURING Extraordinary. Extracted from an engraving in _Edward
Melton's Zeldzaame Reizen_, etc. Amsterdam, 1702.
A MONASTERY of LAMAS. Borrowed from the _Tour du Monde_.
A TIBETAN BACSI. Sketched from the life by the Editor.
BOOK SECOND.--PART FIRST.
NAKKARAS. From a Chinese original in the _Lois des Empereurs Mandchous_
(_Thai-Thsing-Hoei-Tien-Thou_), in the Paris Library.
NAKKARAS. After one of the illustrations in Blochmann's edition of the
_Ain-i-Akbari_.
Seljukian Coin, with the LION and the SUN (A.H. 640). After _Marsden's
Numismata Orientalia_, No. 98. Engraved by Adeney.
Sculptured GERFALCON from the Gate of Iconium. Copied from _Hammer's
Falknerklee_.
Portrait of the Great KAAN KUBLAI. From a Chinese engraving in the
Encyclopaedia called _San Thsai-Thou-Hoei_; in the Paris Library.
Ideal Plan of the Ancient Palaces of the Mongol Emperors at Khanbaligh,
according to Dr. Bretschneider.
Palace at Khan-baligh. From the _Livre des Merveilles_.
The WINTER PALACE at PEKING. Borrowed from _Fergusson's History of
Architecture_.
View of the "GREEN MOUNT." From a photograph kindly lent to the present
Editor by Count de SEMALLE.
The _Yuean ch'eng_. From a photograph kindly lent to the present Editor by
Count de SEMALLE.
South GATE of the "IMPERIAL CITY" at Peking. From an original sketch
belonging to the late _Dr. W. Lockhart_.
The BUGUT EAGLE. After _Atkinson's Oriental and Western Siberia_.
The TENTS of the EMPEROR K'ien-lung. From a drawing in the _Staunton
Collection_ in the British Museum.
Plain of CAMBALUC; the City in the distance; from the hills on the
north-west. From a photograph. Borrowed from _Dr. Rennie's Peking_.
The Great TEMPLE OF HEAVEN at Peking. From _Michie's Siberian Overland
Route_.
MARBLE ARCHWAY erected under the MONGOL DYNASTY at Kiu-Yong Kwan in the
Nan-k'au Pass, N.W. of Peking. From a photograph in the possession of the
present Editor.
MARCO POLO AND HIS BOOK.
INTRODUCTORY NOTICES.
I. OBSCURITIES IN THE HISTORY OF HIS LIFE AND BOOK. RAMUSIO'S STATEMENTS.
[Illustration: Doorway of the House of Marco Polo in the Corte Sabbionera,
at Venice]
[Sidenote: Obscurities of Polo's Book, and personal History.]
1. With all the intrinsic interest of Marco Polo's Book it may perhaps be
doubted if it would have continued to exercise such fascination on many
minds through succesive generations were it not for the difficult
questions which it suggests. It is a great book of puzzles, whilst our
confidence in the man's veracity is such that we feel certain every puzzle
has a solution.
And such difficulties have not attached merely to the identification of
places, the interpretation of outlandish terms, or the illustration of
obscure customs; for strange entanglements have perplexed also the chief
circumstances of the Traveller's life and authorship. The time of the
dictation of his Book and of the execution of his Last Will have been
almost the only undisputed epochs in his biography. The year of his birth
has been contested, and the date of his death has not been recorded; the
critical occasion of his capture by the Genoese, to which we seem to owe
the happy fact that he did not go down mute to the tomb of his fathers,
has been made the subject of chronological difficulties; there are in the
various texts of his story variations hard to account for; the very tongue
in which it was written down has furnished a question, solved only in our
own age, and in a most unexpected manner.
[Sidenote: Ramusio, his earliest biographer. His account of Polo.]
2. The first person who attempted to gather and string the facts of Marco
Polo's personal history was his countryman, the celebrated John Baptist
Ramusio. His essay abounds in what we now know to be errors of detail,
but, prepared as it was when traditions of the Traveller were still rife
in Venice, a genuine thread runs through it which could never have been
spun in later days, and its presentation seems to me an essential element
in any full discourse upon the subject.
Ramusio's preface to the Book of Marco Polo, which opens the second volume
of his famous Collection of Voyages and Travels, and is addressed to his
learned friend Jerome Fracastoro, after referring to some of the most
noted geographers of antiquity, proceeds:[1]--
"Of all that I have named, Ptolemy, as the latest, possessed the
greatest extent of knowledge. Thus, towards the North, his knowledge
carries him beyond the Caspian, and he is aware of its being shut in all
round like a lake,--a fact which was unknown in the days of Strabo and
Pliny, though the Romans were already lords of the world. But though his
knowledge extends so far, a tract of 15 degrees beyond that sea he can
describe only as Terra Incognita; and towards the South he is fain to
apply the same character to all beyond the Equinoxial. In these unknown
regions, as regards the South, the first to make discoveries have been
the Portuguese captains of our own age; but as regards the North and
North-East the discoverer was the Magnifico Messer Marco Polo, an
honoured nobleman of Venice, nearly 300 years since, as may be read more
fully in his own Book. And in truth it makes one marvel to consider the
immense extent of the journeys made, first by the Father and Uncle of
the said Messer Marco, when they proceeded continually towards the East-
North-East, all the way to the Court of the Great Can and the Emperor of
the Tartars; and afterwards again by the three of them when, on their
return homeward, they traversed the Eastern and Indian Seas. Nor is that
all, for one marvels also how the aforesaid gentleman was able to give
such an orderly description of all that he had seen; seeing that such an
accomplishment was possessed by very few in his day, and he had had a
large part of his nurture among those uncultivated Tartars, without any
regular training in the art of composition. His Book indeed, owing to
the endless errors and inaccuracies that had crept into it, had come for
many years to be regarded as fabulous; and the opinion prevailed that
the names of cities and provinces contained therein were all fictitious
and imaginary, without any ground in fact, or were (I might rather say)
mere dreams.
[Sidenote: Ramusio vindicates Polo's Geography.]
3. "Howbeit, during the last hundred years, persons acquainted with
Persia have begun to recognise the existence of Cathay. The voyages of
the Portuguese also towards the North-East, beyond the Golden
Chersonese, have brought to knowledge many cities and provinces of
India, and many islands likewise, with those very names which our Author
applies to them; and again, on reaching the Land of China, they have
ascertained from the people of that region (as we are told by Sign. John
de Barros, a Portuguese gentleman, in his Geography) that Canton, one of
the chief cities of that kingdom, is in 30-2/3 deg. of latitude, with the
coast running N.E. and S.W.; that after a distance of 275 leagues the
said coast turns towards the N.W.; and that there are three provinces
along the sea-board, Mangi, Zanton, and Quinzai, the last of which is
the principal city and the King's Residence, standing in 46 deg. of
latitude. And proceeding yet further the coast attains to 50 deg..[2] Seeing
then how many particulars are in our day becoming known of that part of
the world concerning which Messer Marco has written, I have deemed it
reasonable to publish his book, with the aid of several copies written
(as I judge) more than 200 years ago, in a perfectly accurate form, and
one vastly more faithful than that in which it has been heretofore read.
And thus the world shall not lose the fruit that may be gathered from so
much diligence and industry expended upon so honourable a branch of
knowledge."
4. Ramusio, then, after a brief apologetic parallel of the marvels related
by Polo with those related by the Ancients and by the modern discoverers
in the West, such as Columbus and Cortes, proceeds:--
[Sidenote: Ramusio compares Polo with Columbus.]
And often in my own mind, comparing the land explorations of these our
Venetian gentlemen with the sea explorations of the aforesaid Signor Don
Christopher, I have asked myself which of the two were really the more
marvellous. And if patriotic prejudice delude me not, methinks good
reason might be adduced for setting the land journey above the sea
voyage. Consider only what a height of courage was needed to undertake
and carry through so difficult an enterprise, over a route of such
desperate length and hardship, whereon it was sometimes necessary to
carry food for the supply of man and beast, not for days only but for
months together. Columbus, on the other hand, going by sea, readily
carried with him all necessary provision; and after a voyage of some 30
or 40 days was conveyed by the wind whither he desired to go, whilst the
Venetians again took a whole year's time to pass all those great deserts
and mighty rivers. Indeed that the difficulty of travelling to Cathay
was so much greater than that of reaching the New World, and the route
so much longer and more perilous, may be gathered from the fact that,
since those gentlemen twice made this journey, no one from Europe has
dared to repeat it,[3] whereas in the very year following the discovery
of the Western Indies many ships immediately retraced the voyage
thither, and up to the present day continue to do so, habitually and in
countless numbers. Indeed those regions are now so well known, and so
thronged by commerce, that the traffic between Italy, Spain, and England
is not greater.
[Sidenote: Recounts a tradition of the travellers' return to Venice.]
5. Ramusio goes on to explain the light regarding the first part or
prologue of Marco Polo's book that he had derived from a recent piece of
luck which had made him partially acquainted with the geography of
Abulfeda, and to make a running commentary on the whole of the preliminary
narrative until the final return of the travellers to Venice:--
"And when they got thither the same fate befel them as befel Ulysses,
who, when he returned, after his twenty years' wanderings, to his native
Ithaca, was recognized by nobody. Thus also those three gentlemen who
had been so many years absent from their native city were recognized by
none of their kinsfolk, who were under the firm belief that they had all
been dead for many a year past, as indeed had been reported. Through the
long duration and the hardships of their journeys, and through the many
worries and anxieties that they had undergone, they were quite changed
in aspect, and had got a certain indescribable smack of the Tartar both
in air and accent, having indeed all but forgotten their Venetian
tongue. Their clothes too were coarse and shabby, and of a Tartar cut.
They proceeded on their arrival to their house in this city in the
confine of St. John Chrysostom, where you may see it to this day. The
house, which was in those days a very lofty and handsome palazzo, is now
known by the name of the _Corte del Millioni_ for a reason that I will
tell you presently. Going thither they found it occupied by some of
their relatives, and they had the greatest difficulty in making the
latter understand who they should be. For these good people, seeing them
to be in countenance so unlike what they used to be, and in dress so
shabby, flatly refused to believe that they were those very gentlemen of
the Ca' Polo whom they had been looking upon for ever so many years as
among the dead.[4] So these three gentlemen,--this is a story I have
often heard when I was a youngster from the illustrious Messer GASPARO
MALPIERO, a gentleman of very great age, and a Senator of eminent virtue
and integrity, whose house was on the Canal of Santa Marina, exactly at
the corner over the mouth of the Rio di S. Giovanni Chrisostomo, and
just midway among the buildings of the aforesaid Corte del Millioni, and
he said he had heard the story from his own father and grandfather, and
from other old men among the neighbours,--the three gentlemen, I say,
devised a scheme by which they should at once bring about their
recognition by their relatives, and secure the honourable notice of the
whole city; and this was it:--
"They invited a number of their kindred to an entertainment, which they
took care to have prepared with great state and splendour in that house
of theirs; and when the hour arrived for sitting down to table they came
forth of their chamber all three clothed in crimson satin, fashioned in
long robes reaching to the ground such as people in those days wore
within doors. And when water for the hands had been served, and the
guests were set, they took off those robes and put on others of crimson
damask, whilst the first suits were by their orders cut up and divided
among the servants. Then after partaking of some of the dishes they went
out again and came back in robes of crimson velvet, and when they had
again taken their seats, the second suits were divided as before. When
dinner was over they did the like with the robes of velvet, after they
had put on dresses of the ordinary fashion worn by the rest of the
company.[5] These proceedings caused much wonder and amazement among the
guests. But when the cloth had been drawn, and all the servants had been
ordered to retire from the dining hall, Messer Marco, as the youngest of
the three, rose from table, and, going into another chamber, brought
forth the three shabby dresses of coarse stuff which they had worn when
they first arrived. Straightway they took sharp knives and began to rip
up some of the seams and welts, and to take out of them jewels of the
greatest value in vast quantities, such as rubies, sapphires,
carbuncles, diamonds and emeralds, which had all been stitched up in
those dresses in so artful a fashion that nobody could have suspected
the fact. For when they took leave of the Great Can they had changed all
the wealth that he had bestowed upon them into this mass of rubies,
emeralds, and other jewels, being well aware of the impossibility of
carrying with them so great an amount in gold over a journey of such
extreme length and difficulty. Now this exhibition of such a huge
treasure of jewels and precious stones, all tumbled out upon the table,
threw the guests into fresh amazement, insomuch that they seemed quite
bewildered and dumbfounded. And now they recognized that in spite of all
former doubts these were in truth those honoured and worthy gentlemen of
the Ca' Polo that they claimed to be; and so all paid them the greatest
honour and reverence. And when the story got wind in Venice, straightway
the whole city, gentle and simple, flocked to the house to embrace them,
and to make much of them, with every conceivable demonstration of
affection and respect. On Messer Maffio, who was the eldest, they
conferred the honours of an office that was of great dignity in those
days; whilst the young men came daily to visit and converse with the
ever polite and gracious Messer Marco, and to ask him questions about
Cathay and the Great Can, all which he answered with such kindly
courtesy that every man felt himself in a manner his debtor. And as it
happened that in the story, which he was constantly called on to repeat,
of the magnificence of the Great Can, he would speak of his revenues as
amounting to ten or fifteen _millions_ of gold; and in like manner, when
recounting other instances of great wealth in those parts, would always
make use of the term _millions_, so they gave him the nickname of MESSER
MARCO MILLIONI: a thing which I have noted also in the Public Books of
this Republic where mention is made of him.[6] The Court of his House,
too, at S. Giovanni Chrisostomo, has always from that time been
popularly known as the Court of the Millioni.
[Sidenote: Recounts Marco's capture by the Genoese.]
6. "Not many months after the arrival of the travellers at Venice, news
came that LAMPA DORIA, Captain of the Genoese Fleet, had advanced with
70 galleys to the Island of Curzola, upon which orders were issued by
the Prince of the Most Illustrious Signory for the arming of 90 galleys
with all the expedition possible, and Messer Marco Polo for his valour
was put in charge of one of these. So he with the others, under the
command of the Most Illustrious MESSER ANDREA DANDOLO, Procurator of St.
Mark's, as Captain General, a very brave and worthy gentleman, set out
in search of the Genoese Fleet. They fought on the September feast of
Our Lady, and, as is the common hazard of war, our fleet was beaten, and
Polo was made prisoner. For, having pressed on in the vanguard of the
attack, and fighting with high and worthy courage in defence of his
country and his kindred, he did not receive due support, and being
wounded, he was taken, along with Dandolo, and immediately put in irons
and sent to Genoa.
"When his rare qualities and marvellous travels became known there, the
whole city gathered to see him and to speak with him, and he was no
longer entreated as a prisoner but as a dear friend and honoured
gentleman. Indeed they showed him such honour and affection that at all
hours of the day he was visited by the noblest gentlemen of the city,
and was continually receiving presents of every useful kind. Messer
Marco finding himself in this position, and witnessing the general
eagerness to hear all about Cathay and the Great Can, which indeed
compelled him daily to repeat his story till he was weary, was advised
to put the matter in writing. So having found means to get a letter
written to his father here at Venice, in which he desired the latter to
send the notes and memoranda which he had brought home with him, after
the receipt of these, and assisted by a Genoese gentleman, who was a
great friend of his, and who took great delight in learning about the
various regions of the world, and used on that account to spend many
hours daily in the prison with him, he wrote this present book (to
please him) in the Latin tongue.
"To this day the Genoese for the most part write what they have to write
in that language, for there is no possibility of expressing their
natural dialect with the pen.[7] Thus then it came to pass that the Book
was put forth at first by Messer Marco in Latin; but as many copies were
taken, and as it was rendered into our vulgar tongue, all Italy became
filled with it, so much was this story desired and run after.
[Sidenote: Ramusio's account of Marco's liberation and marriage.]
7. "The captivity of Messer Marco greatly disturbed the minds of Messer
Maffio and his father Messer Nicolo. They had decided, whilst still on
their travels, that Marco should marry as soon as they should get to
Venice; but now they found themselves in this unlucky pass, with so much
wealth and nobody to inherit it. Fearing that Marco's imprisonment might
endure for many years, or, worse still, that he might not live to quit
it (for many assured them that numbers of Venetian prisoners had been
kept in Genoa a score of years before obtaining liberty); seeing too no
prospect of being able to ransom him,--a thing which they had attempted
often and by various channels,--they took counsel together, and came to
the conclusion that Messer Nicolo, who, old as he was, was still hale
and vigorous, should take to himself a new wife. This he did; and at the
end of four years he found himself the father of three sons, Stefano,
Maffio, and Giovanni. Not many years after, Messer Marco aforesaid,
through the great favour that he had acquired in the eyes of the first
gentlemen of Genoa, and indeed of the whole city, was discharged from
prison and set free. Returning home he found that his father had in the
meantime had those three other sons. Instead of taking this amiss, wise
and discreet man that he was, he agreed also to take a wife of his own.
He did so accordingly, but he never had any son, only two girls, one
called Moreta and the other Fantina.
"When at a later date his father died, like a good and dutiful son he
caused to be erected for him a tomb of very honourable kind for those
days, being a great sarcophagus cut from the solid stone, which to this
day may be seen under the portico before the Church of S. Lorenzo in
this city, on the right hand as you enter, with an inscription denoting
it to be the tomb of Messer Nicolo Polo of the contrada of S. Gio.
Chrisostomo. The arms of his family consist of a _Bend_ with three birds
on it, and the colours, according to certain books of old histories in
which you see all the coats of the gentlemen of this city emblazoned,
are the field _azure_, the bend _argent_, and the three birds _sable_.
These last are birds of that kind vulgarly termed _Pole_,[8] or, as the
Latins call them, _Gracculi_.
[Sidenote: Ramusio's account of the Family Polo and its termination.]
8. "As regards the after duration of this noble and worthy family, I
find that Messer Andrea Polo of San Felice had three sons, the first of
whom was Messer Marco, the second Maffio, the third Nicolo. The two last
were those who went to Constantinople first, and afterwards to Cathay,
as has been seen. Messer Marco the elder being dead, the wife of Messer
Nicolo who had been left at home with child, gave birth to a son, to
whom she gave the name of Marco in memory of the deceased, and this is
the Author of our Book. Of the brothers who were born from his father's
second marriage, viz. Stephen, John, and Matthew, I do not find that any
of them had children, except Matthew. He had five sons and one daughter
called Maria; and she, after the death of her brothers without
offspring, inherited in 1417 all the property of her father and her
brothers. She was honourably married to Messer AZZO TREVISANO of the
parish of Santo Stazio in this city, and from her sprung the fortunate
and honoured stock of the Illustrious Messer DOMENICO TREVISANO,
Procurator of St. Mark's, and valorous Captain General of the Sea Forces
of the Republic, whose virtue and singular good qualities are
represented with augmentation in the person of the Most Illustrious
Prince Ser MARC' ANTONIO TREVISANO, his son.[9]
"Such has been the history of this noble family of the Ca' Polo, which
lasted as we see till the year of our Redemption 1417, in which year
died childless Marco Polo, the last of the five sons of Maffeo, and so
it came to an end. Such be the chances and changes of human affairs!"
[Illustration: Arms of the Ca' Polo.]
[1] The Preface is dated Venice, 7th July, 1553. Fracastorius died in the
same year, and Ramusio erected a statue of him at Padua. Ramusio
himself died in July, 1557.
[2] The Geography of De Barros, from which this is quoted, has never been
printed. I can find nothing corresponding to this passage in the
Decades.
[3] A grievous error of Ramusio's.
[4] See the decorated title-page of this volume for an attempt to realise
the scene.
[5] At first sight this fantastic tradition seems to have little
verisimilitude; but when we regard it in the light of genuine Mongol
custom, such as is quoted from Rubruquis, at p. 389 of this volume, we
shall be disposed to look on the whole story with respect.
[6] This curious statement is confirmed by a passage in the records of the
Great Council, which, on a late visit to Venice, I was enabled to
extract, through an obliging communication from Professor Minotto.
(See below, p. 67.)
[7] This rather preposterous skit at the Genoese dialect naturally excites
a remonstrance from the Abate Spotorno. (_Storia Letteraria della
Liguria_, II. 217.)
[8] _Jackdaws_, I believe, in spite of some doubt from the imbecility of
ordinary dictionaries in such matters.
They are under this name made the object of a similitude by Dante
(surely a most unhappy one) in reference to the resplendent spirits
flitting on the celestial stairs in the sphere of Saturn:--
"E come per lo natural costume
_Le Pole_ insieme, al cominciar del giorno,
Si muovono a scaldar le fredde piume:
Poi altre vanno via senza ritorno,
Altre rivolgon se, onde son mosse,
Ed altre roteando fan soggiorno."--_Parad._ XXI. 34.
There is some difference among authorities as to the details of the
Polo blazon. According to a MS. concerning the genealogies of Venetian
families written by Marco Barbaro in 1566, and of which there is a
copy in the Museo Civico, the field is _gules_, the bend _or_. And
this I have followed in the cut. But a note by S. Stefani of Venice,
with which I have been favoured since the cut was made, informs me
that a fine 15th-century MS. in his possession gives the field as
_argent_, with no _bend_, and the three birds _sable_ with beaks
_gules_, disposed thus ***.
[Illustration: Arms of the Polo[A]]
[A] [This coat of arms is reproduced from the Genealogies of
Priuli, Archivio di Stato, Venice.--H. C.]
[9] Marco Antonio Trevisano was elected Doge, 4th June, 1553, but died on
the 31st of May following. We do not here notice Ramusio's numerous
errors, which will be corrected in the sequel. [See p. 78.]
II. SKETCH OF THE STATE OF THE EAST AT THE TIME OF THE JOURNEYS OF THE
POLO FAMILY.
9. The story of the travels of the Polo family opens in 1260.
[Sidenote: State of the Levant.]
Christendom had recovered from the alarm into which it had been thrown
some 18 years before when the Tartar cataclysm had threatened to engulph
it. The Tartars themselves were already becoming an object of curiosity
rather than of fear, and soon became an object of hope, as a possible help
against the old Mahomedan foe. The frail Latin throne in Constantinople
was still standing, but tottering to its fall. The successors of the
Crusaders still held the Coast of Syria from Antioch to Jaffa, though a
deadlier brood of enemies than they had yet encountered was now coming to
maturity in the Dynasty of the Mamelukes, which had one foot firmly
planted in Cairo, the other in Damascus. The jealousies of the commercial
republics of Italy were daily waxing greater. The position of Genoese
trade on the coasts of the Aegean was greatly depressed, through the
predominance which Venice had acquired there by her part in the expulsion
of the Greek Emperors, and which won for the Doge the lofty style of Lord
of Three-Eighths of the Empire of Romania. But Genoa was biding her time
for an early revenge, and year by year her naval strength and skill were
increasing. Both these republics held possessions and establishments in
the ports of Syria, which were often the scene of sanguinary conflicts
between their citizens. Alexandria was still largely frequented in the
intervals of war as the great emporium of Indian wares, but the facilities
afforded by the Mongol conquerors who now held the whole tract from the
Persian Gulf to the shores of the Caspian and of the Black Sea, or nearly
so, were beginning to give a great advantage to the caravan routes which
debouched at the ports of Cilician Armenia in the Mediterranean and at
Trebizond on the Euxine. Tana (or Azov) had not as yet become the outlet
of a similar traffic; the Venetians had apparently frequented to some
extent the coast of the Crimea for local trade, but their rivals appear to
have been in great measure excluded from this commerce, and the Genoese
establishments which so long flourished on that coast, are first heard of
some years after a Greek dynasty was again in possession of
Constantinople.[1]
[Sidenote: The various Mongol Sovereignties in Asia and Eastern Europe.]
10. In Asia and Eastern Europe scarcely a dog might bark without Mongol
leave, from the borders of Poland and the Gulf of Scanderoon to the Amur
and the Yellow Sea. The vast empire which Chinghiz had conquered still
owned a nominally supreme head in the Great Kaan,[2] but practically it
was splitting up into several great monarchies under the descendants of
the four sons of Chinghiz, Juji, Chaghatai, Okkodai, and Tuli; and wars on
a vast scale were already brewing between them. Hulaku, third son of Tuli,
and brother of two Great Kaans, Mangku and Kublai, had become practically
independent as ruler of Persia, Babylonia, Mesopotamia, and Armenia,
though he and his sons, and his sons' sons, continued to stamp the name of
the Great Kaan upon their coins, and to use the Chinese seals of state
which he bestowed upon them. The Seljukian Sultans of Iconium, whose
dominion bore the proud title of Rum (Rome), were now but the struggling
bondsmen of the Ilkhans. The Armenian Hayton in his Cilician Kingdom had
pledged a more frank allegiance to the Tartar, the enemy of his Moslem
enemies.
Barka, son of Juji, the first ruling prince of the House of Chinghiz to
turn Mahomedan, reigned on the steppes of the Volga, where a standing
camp, which eventually became a great city under the name of Sarai, had
been established by his brother and predecessor Batu.
The House of Chaghatai had settled upon the pastures of the Ili and the
valley of the Jaxartes, and ruled the wealthy cities of Sogdiana.
Kaidu, the grandson of Okkodai who had been the successor of Chinghiz in
the Kaanship, refused to acknowledge the transfer of the supreme authority
to the House of Tuli, and was through the long life of Kublai a thorn in
his side, perpetually keeping his north-western frontier in alarm. His
immediate authority was exercised over some part of what we should now
call Eastern Turkestan and Southern Central Siberia; whilst his hordes of
horsemen, force of character, and close neighbourhood brought the Khans of
Chaghatai under his influence, and they generally acted in concert with
him.
The chief throne of the Mongol Empire had just been ascended by Kublai,
the most able of its occupants after the Founder. Before the death of his
brother and predecessor Mangku, who died in 1259 before an obscure
fortress of Western China, it had been intended to remove the seat of
government from Kara Korum on the northern verge of the Mongolian Desert
to the more populous regions that had been conquered in the further East,
and this step, which in the end converted the Mongol Kaan into a Chinese
Emperor,[3] was carried out by Kublai.
[Sidenote: China.]
11. For about three centuries the Northern provinces of China had been
detached from native rule, and subject to foreign dynasties; first to the
_Khitan_, a people from the basin of the Sungari River, and supposed (but
doubtfully) to have been akin to the Tunguses, whose rule subsisted for
200 years, and originated the name of KHITAI, Khata, or CATHAY, by which
for nearly 1000 years China has been known to the nations of Inner Asia,
and to those whose acquaintance with it was got by that channel.[4] The
Khitan, whose dynasty is known in Chinese history as the _Liao_ or "Iron,"
had been displaced in 1123 by the Churches or Niu-chen, another race of
Eastern Tartary, of the same blood as the modern Manchus, whose Emperors
in their brief period of prosperity were known by the Chinese name of
Tai-_Kin_, by the Mongol name of the _Altun_ Kaans, both signifying
"Golden." Already in the lifetime of Chinghiz himself the northern
Provinces of China Proper, including their capital, known as Chung-tu or
Yen-King, now Peking, had been wrenched from them, and the conquest of the
dynasty was completed by Chinghiz's successor Okkodai in 1234.
Southern China still remained in the hands of the native dynasty of the
Sung, who had their capital at the great city now well known as Hang-chau
fu. Their dominion was still substantially untouched, but its subjugation
was a task to which Kublai before many years turned his attention, and
which became the most prominent event of his reign.
[Sidenote: India, and Indo-China.]
12. In India the most powerful sovereign was the Sultan of Delhi,
Nassiruddin Mahmud of the Turki House of Iltitmish;[5] but, though both
Sind and Bengal acknowledged his supremacy, no part of Peninsular India had
yet been invaded, and throughout the long period of our Traveller's
residence in the East the Kings of Delhi had their hands too full, owing to
the incessant incursions of the Mongols across the Indus, to venture on
extensive campaigning in the south. Hence the Dravidian Kingdoms of
Southern India were as yet untouched by foreign conquest, and the
accumulated gold of ages lay in their temples and treasuries, an easy prey
for the coming invader.
In the Indo-Chinese Peninsula and the Eastern Islands a variety of
kingdoms and dynasties were expanding and contracting, of which we have at
best but dim and shifting glimpses. That they were advanced in wealth and
art, far beyond what the present state of those regions would suggest, is
attested by vast and magnificent remains of Architecture, nearly all
dating, so far as dates can be ascertained, from the 12th to the 14th
centuries (that epoch during which an architectural afflatus seems to have
descended on the human race), and which are found at intervals over both
the Indo-Chinese continent and the Islands, as at Pagan in Burma, at
Ayuthia in Siam, at Angkor in Kamboja, at Borobodor and Brambanan in Java.
All these remains are deeply marked by Hindu influence, and, at the same
time, by strong peculiarities, both generic and individual.
[Illustration: Autograph of Hayton, King of Armenia, circa A.D. 1243.
"... e por so qui cestes lettres soient fermes e establis ci avuns escrit
l'escrit de notre main vermoil e sayele de notre ceau pendant...."]
[1] See Heyd, _Le Colonie Commerciali degli Italiani_, etc., passim.
[2] We endeavour to preserve throughout the book the distinction that was
made in the age of the Mongol Empire between _Khan_ and _Kaan_
([Arabic] and [Arabic] as written by Arabic and Persian authors). The
former may be rendered _Lord_, and was applied generally to Tartar
chiefs whether sovereign or not; it has since become in Persia, and
especially in Afghanistan, a sort of "Esq.," and in India is now a
common affix in the names of (Musulman) Hindustanis of all classes;
in Turkey alone it has been reserved for the Sultan. _Kaan_, again,
appears to be a form of _Khakan_, the [Greek: Chaganos] of the
Byzantine historians, and was the peculiar title of the supreme
sovereign of the Mongols; the Mongol princes of Persia, Chaghatai,
etc., were entitled only to the former affix (Khan), though _Kaan_ and
_Khakan_ are sometimes applied to them in adulation. Polo always
writes _Kaan_ as applied to the Great Khan, and does not, I think, use
_Khan_ in any form, styling the subordinate princes by their name
only, as _Argon, Alau_, etc. _Ilkhan_ was a special title assumed by
Hulaku and his successors in Persia; it is said to be compounded from
a word _Il_, signifying tribe or nation. The relation between _Khan_
and _Khakan_ seems to be probably that the latter signifies "_Khan of
Khans_" Lord of Lords. Chinghiz, it is said, did not take the higher
title; it was first assumed by his son Okkodai. But there are doubts
about this. (See _Quatremere's Rashid_, pp. 10 seqq. and _Pavet de
Courteille, Dict. Turk-Oriental._) The tendency of swelling titles is
always to degenerate, and when the value of Khan had sunk, a new form,
_Khan-khanan_, was devised at the Court of Delhi, and applied to one
of the high officers of state.
[Mr. Rockhill writes (_Rubruck_, p. 108, note): "The title _Khan_,
though of very great antiquity, was only used by the Turks after A.D.
560, at which time the use of the word _Khatun_ came in use for the
wives of the Khan, who himself was termed _Ilkhan_. The older title of
_Shan-yue_ did not, however, completely disappear among them, for
Albiruni says that in his time the chief of the Ghuz Turks, or
Turkomans, still bore the title of _Jenuyeh_, which Sir Henry
Rawlinson (_Proc. R. G. S._, v. 15) takes to be the same word as that
transcribed _Shan-yue_ by the Chinese (see _Ch'ien Han shu_, Bk. 94,
and _Chou shu_, Bk. 50, 2). Although the word _Khakhan_ occurs in
Menander's account of the embassy of Zemarchus, the earliest mention I
have found of it in a Western writer is in the _Chronicon_ of
Albericus Trium Fontium, where (571), under the year 1239, he uses it
in the form _Cacanus_"--Cf. _Terrien de Lacouperie, Khan, Khakan, and
other Tartar Titles_. Lond., Dec. 1888.--H. C.]
[3] "China is a sea that salts all the rivers that flow into it."--_P.
Parrenin_ in _Lett. Edif._ XXIV. 58.
[4] E.g. the Russians still call it Khitai. The pair of names, _Khitai_
and _Machin_, or Cathay and China, is analogous to the other pair,
_Seres_ and _Sinae_. _Seres_ was the name of the great nation in the
far East as known by land, _Sinae_ as known by sea; and they were
often supposed to be diverse, just as Cathay and China were
afterwards.
[5] There has been much doubt about the true form of this name.
_Iltitmish_ is that sanctioned by Mr. Blochmann (see _Proc. As. Soc.
Bengal_, 1870, p. 181).
III. THE POLO FAMILY. PERSONAL HISTORY OF THE TRAVELLERS DOWN TO THEIR
FINAL RETURN FROM THE EAST.
[Sidenote: Alleged origin of the Polos.]
13. In days when History and Genealogy were allowed to draw largely on the
imagination for the _origines_ of states and families, it was set down by
one Venetian Antiquary that among the companions of King Venetus, or of
Prince Antenor of Troy, when they settled on the northern shores of the
Adriatic, there was one LUCIUS POLUS, who became the progenitor of our
Traveller's Family;[1] whilst another deduces it from PAOLO the first
Doge[2] (Paulus Lucas Anafestus of Heraclea, A.D. 696).
More trustworthy traditions, recorded among the Family Histories of
Venice, but still no more it is believed than traditions, represent the
Family of Polo as having come from Sebenico in Dalmatia, in the 11th
century.[3] Before the end of the century they had taken seats in the
Great Council of the Republic; for the name of Domenico Polo is said to be
subscribed to a grant of 1094, that of Pietro Polo to an act of the time
of the Doge Domenico Michiele in 1122, and that of a Domenico Polo to an
acquittance granted by the Doge Domenico Morosini and his Council in
1153.[4]
The ascertained genealogy of the Traveller, however, begins only with his
grandfather, who lived in the early part of the 13th century.
Two branches of the Polo Family were then recognized, distinguished by the
_confini_ or Parishes in which they lived, as Polo of S. Geremia, and Polo
of S. Felice. ANDREA POLO of S. Felice was the father of three sons,
MARCO, NICOLO, and MAFFEO. And Nicolo was the Father of our Marco.
[Sidenote: Claims to be styled noble.]
14. Till quite recently it had never been precisely ascertained whether
the immediate family of our Traveller belonged to the _Nobles_ of Venice
properly so called, who had seats in the Great Council and were enrolled
in the Libro d'Oro. Ramusio indeed styles our Marco _Nobile_ and
_Magnifico_, and Rusticiano, the actual scribe of the Traveller's
recollections, calls him "_sajes et noble citaiens de Venece_," but
Ramusio's accuracy and Rusticiano's precision were scarcely to be depended
on. Very recently, however, since the subject has been discussed with
accomplished students of the Venice Archives, proofs have been found
establishing Marco's personal claim to nobility, inasmuch as both in
judicial decisions and in official resolutions of the Great Council, he is
designated _Nobilis Vir_, a formula which would never have been used in
such documents (I am assured) had he not been technically noble.[5]
[Sidenote: Marco the Elder.]
15. Of the three sons of Andrea Polo of S. Felice, Marco seems to have
been the eldest, and Maffeo the youngest.[6] They were all engaged in
commerce, and apparently in a partnership, which to some extent held good
even when the two younger had been many years absent in the Far East.[7]
Marco seems to have been established for a time at Constantinople,[8] and
also to have had a house (no doubt of business) at Soldaia, in the Crimea,
where his son and daughter, Nicolo and Maroca by name, were living in
1280. This year is the date of the Elder Marco's Will, executed at Venice,
and when he was "weighed down by bodily ailment." Whether he survived for
any length of time we do not know.
[Sidenote: Nicolo and Maffeo commence their travels.]
16. Nicolo Polo, the second of the Brothers, had two legitimate sons,
MARCO, the Author of our Book, born in 1254,[9] and MAFFEO, of whose place
in the family we shall have a few words to say presently. The story opens,
as we have said, in 1260, when we find the two brothers, Nicolo and Maffeo
the Elder, at Constantinople. How long they had been absent from Venice we
are not distinctly told. Nicolo had left his wife there behind him; Maffeo
apparently was a bachelor. In the year named they started on a trading
venture to the Crimea, whence a succession of openings and chances,
recounted in the Introductory chapters of Marco's work, carried them far
north along the Volga, and thence first to Bokhara, and then to the Court
of the Great Kaan Kublai in the Far East, on or within the borders of
CATHAY. That a great and civilized country so called existed in the
extremity of Asia had already been reported in Europe by the Friars Plano
Carpini (1246) and William Rubruquis (1253), who had not indeed reached
its frontiers, but had met with its people at the Court of the Great Kaan
in Mongolia; whilst the latter of the two with characteristic acumen had
seen that they were identical with the Seres of classic fame.
[Sidenote: Their intercourse with Kublai Kaan.]
17. Kublai had never before fallen in with European gentlemen. He was
delighted with these Venetians, listened with strong interest to all that
they had to tell him of the Latin world, and determined to send them back
as his ambassadors to the Pope, accompanied by an officer of his own
Court. His letters to the Pope, as the Polos represent them, were mainly
to desire the despatch of a large body of educated missionaries to convert
his people to Christianity. It is not likely that religious motives
influenced Kublai in this, but he probably desired religious aid in
softening and civilizing his rude kinsmen of the Steppes, and judged, from
what he saw in the Venetians and heard from them, that Europe could afford
such aid of a higher quality than the degenerate Oriental Christians with
whom he was familiar, or the Tibetan Lamas on whom his patronage
eventually devolved when Rome so deplorably failed to meet his advances.
[Sidenote: Their return home, and Marco's appearance on the scene.]
18. The Brothers arrived at Acre in April,[10] 1269, and found that no
Pope existed, for Clement IV. was dead the year before, and no new
election had taken place. So they went home to Venice to see how things
stood there after their absence of so many years.
The wife of Nicolo was no longer among the living, but he found his son
Marco a fine lad of fifteen.
The best and most authentic MSS. tell us no more than this. But one class
of copies, consisting of the Latin version made by our Traveller's
contemporary, Francesco Pipino, and of the numerous editions based
indirectly upon it, represents that Nicolo had left Venice when Marco was
as yet unborn, and consequently had never seen him till his return from
the East in 1269.[11]
We have mentioned that Nicolo Polo had another legitimate son, by name
Maffeo, and him we infer to have been younger than Marco, because he is
named last (_Marcus et Matheus_) in the Testament of their uncle Marco the
Elder. We do not know if they were by the same mother. They could not have
been so if we are right in supposing Maffeo to have been the younger, and
if Pipino's version of the history be genuine. If however we reject the
latter, as I incline to do, no ground remains for supposing that Nicolo
went to the East much before we find him there viz., in 1260, and Maffeo
may have been born of the same mother during the interval between 1254 and
1260. If on the other hand Pipino's version be held to, we must suppose
that Maffeo (who is named by his uncle in 1280, during his father's second
absence in the East) was born of a marriage contracted during Nicolo's
residence at home after his first journey, a residence which lasted from
1269 to 1271.[12]
[Illustration: The Piazzetta at Venice. (From the Bodleian MS. of Polo.)]
[Sidenote: Second Journey of the Polo Brothers, accompanied by Marco.]
19. The Papal interregnum was the longest known, at least since the dark
ages. Those two years passed, and yet the Cardinals at Viterbo had come to
no agreement. The brothers were unwilling to let the Great Kaan think them
faithless, and perhaps they hankered after the virgin field of speculation
that they had discovered; so they started again for the East, taking young
Mark with them. At Acre they took counsel with an eminent churchman,
TEDALDO (or Tebaldo) VISCONTI, Archdeacon of Liege, whom the Book
represents to have been Legate in Syria, and who in any case was a
personage of much gravity and influence. From him they got letters to
authenticate the causes of the miscarriage of their mission, and started
for the further East. But they were still at the port of Ayas on the Gulf
of Scanderoon, which was then becoming one of the chief points of arrival
and departure for the inland trade of Asia, when they were overtaken by
the news that a Pope was at last elected, and that the choice had fallen
upon their friend Archdeacon Tedaldo. They immediately returned to Acre,
and at last were able to execute the Kaan's commission, and to obtain a
reply. But instead of the hundred able teachers of science and religion
whom Kublai is said to have asked for, the new Pope, Gregory X., could
supply but two Dominicans; and these lost heart and drew back when they
had barely taken the first step of the journey.
Judging from certain indications we conceive it probable that the three
Venetians, whose second start from Acre took place about November 1271,
proceeded by Ayas and Sivas, and then by Mardin, Mosul, and Baghdad, to
Hormuz at the mouth of the Persian Gulf, with the view of going on by sea,
but that some obstacle arose which compelled them to abandon this project
and turn north again from Hormuz.[13] They then traversed successively
Kerman and Khorasan, Balkh and Badakhshan, whence they ascended the Panja
or upper Oxus to the Plateau of Pamir, a route not known to have been
since followed by any European traveller except Benedict Goes, till the
spirited expedition of Lieutenant John Wood of the Indian Navy in
1838.[14] Crossing the Pamir highlands the travellers descended upon
Kashgar, whence they proceeded by Yarkand and Khotan, and the vicinity of
Lake Lob, and eventually across the Great Gobi Desert to Tangut, the name
then applied by Mongols and Persians to territory at the extreme
North-west of China, both within and without the Wall. Skirting the
northern frontier of China they at last reached the presence of the Kaan,
who was at his usual summer retreat at Kai-ping fu, near the base of the
Khingan Mountains, and nearly 100 miles north of the Great Wall at Kalgan.
If there be no mistake in the time (three years and a half) ascribed to
this journey in all the existing texts, the travellers did not reach the
Court till about May of 1275.[15]
[Sidenote: Marco's employment by Kublai Kaan; and his journeys.]
20. Kublai received the Venetians with great cordiality, and took kindly
to young Mark, who must have been by this time one-and-twenty. The _Joenne
Bacheler_, as the story calls him, applied himself to the acquisition of
the languages and written characters in chief use among the multifarious
nationalities included in the Kaan's Court and administration; and Kublai
after a time, seeing his discretion and ability, began to employ him in
the public service. M. Pauthier has found a record in the Chinese Annals
of the Mongol Dynasty, which states that in the year 1277, a certain POLO
was nominated a second-class commissioner or agent attached to the Privy
Council, a passage which we are happy to believe to refer to our young
traveller.[16]
His first mission apparently was that which carried him through the
provinces of Shan-si, Shen-si, and Sze-ch'wan, and the wild country on the
East of Tibet, to the remote province of Yun-nan, called by the Mongols
Karajang, and which had been partially conquered by an army under Kublai
himself in 1253, before his accession to the throne.[17] Mark, during his
stay at court, had observed the Kaan's delight in hearing of strange
countries, their marvels, manners, and oddities, and had heard his
Majesty's frank expressions of disgust at the stupidity of his
commissioners when they could speak of nothing but the official business
on which they had been sent. Profiting by these observations, he took care
to store his memory or his note-books with all curious facts that were
likely to interest Kublai, and related them with vivacity on his return to
Court. This first journey, which led him through a region which is still
very nearly a _terra incognita_, and in which there existed and still
exists, among the deep valleys of the Great Rivers flowing down from
Eastern Tibet, and in the rugged mountain ranges bordering Yun-nan and
Kwei-chau, a vast Ethnological Garden, as it were, of tribes of various
race and in every stage of uncivilisation, afforded him an acquaintance
with many strange products and eccentric traits of manners, wherewith to
delight the Emperor.
Mark rose rapidly in favour, and often served Kublai again on distant
missions, as well as in domestic administration, but we gather few details
as to his employments. At one time we know that he held for three years
the government of the great city of Yang-chau, though we need not try to
magnify this office, as some commentators have done, into the viceroyalty
of one of the great provinces of the Empire; on another occasion we find
him with his uncle Maffeo, passing a year at Kan-chau in Tangut; again, it
would appear, visiting Kara Korum, the old capital of the Kaans in
Mongolia; on another occasion in Champa or Southern Cochin China; and
again, or perhaps as a part of the last expedition, on a mission to the
Indian Seas, when he appears to have visited several of the southern
states of India. We are not informed whether his father and uncle shared
in such employments;[18] and the story of their services rendered to the
Kaan in promoting the capture of the city of Siang-yang, by the
construction of powerful engines of attack, is too much perplexed by
difficulties of chronology to be cited with confidence. Anyhow they were
gathering wealth, and after years of exile they began to dread what might
follow old Kublai's death, and longed to carry their gear and their own
grey heads safe home to the Lagoons. The aged Emperor growled refusal to
all their hints, and but for a happy chance we should have lost our
mediaeval Herodotus.
[Sidenote: Circumstances of the Departure of the Polos from the Kaan's
Court.]
21. Arghun Khan of Persia, Kublai's great-nephew, had in 1286 lost his
favourite wife the Khatun Bulughan; and, mourning her sorely, took steps
to fulfil her dying injunction that her place should be filled only by a
lady of her own kin, the Mongol Tribe of Bayaut. Ambassadors were
despatched to the Court of Kaan-baligh to seek such a bride. The message
was courteously received, and the choice fell on the lady Kokachin, a
maiden of 17, "_moult bele dame et avenant_." The overland road from
Peking to Tabriz was not only of portentous length for such a tender
charge, but was imperilled by war, so the envoys desired to return by sea.
Tartars in general were strangers to all navigation; and the envoys, much
taken with the Venetians, and eager to profit by their experience,
especially as Marco had just then returned from his Indian mission, begged
the Kaan as a favour to send the three _Firinghis_ in their company. He
consented with reluctance, but, having done so, fitted the party out nobly
for the voyage, charging the Polos with friendly messages for the
potentates of Europe, including the King of England. They appear to have
sailed from the port of Zayton (as the Westerns called T'swan-chau or
Chin-cheu in Fo-kien) in the beginning of 1292. It was an ill-starred
voyage, involving long detentions on the coast of Sumatra, and in the
South of India, to which, however, we are indebted for some of the best
chapters in the book; and two years or upwards passed before they arrived
at their destination in Persia.[19] The three hardy Venetians survived all
perils, and so did the lady, who had come to look on them with filial
regard; but two of the three envoys, and a vast proportion of the suite,
had perished by the way.[20] Arghun Khan too had been dead even before
they quitted China;[21] his brother Kaikhatu reigned in his stead; and his
son Ghazan succeeded to the lady's hand. We are told by one who knew both
the princes well that Arghun was one of the handsomest men of his time,
whilst Ghazan was, among all his host, one of the most insignificant in
appearance. But in other respects the lady's change was for the better.
Ghazan had some of the highest qualities of a soldier, a legislator and a
king, adorned by many and varied accomplishments; though his reign was too
short for the full development of his fame.
[Sidenote: They pass by Persia to Venice. Their relations there.]
22. The princess, whose enjoyment of her royalty was brief, wept as she
took leave of the kindly and noble Venetians. They went on to Tabriz, and
after a long halt there proceeded homewards, reaching Venice, according to
all the texts some time in 1295.[22]
We have related Ramusio's interesting tradition, like a bit out of the
Arabian Nights, of the reception that the Travellers met with from their
relations, and of the means that they took to establish their position
with those relations, and with Venetian society.[23] Of the relations,
Marco the Elder had probably been long dead;[24] Maffeo the brother of our
Marco was alive, and we hear also of a cousin (_consanguineus_) Felice
Polo, and his wife Fiordelisa, without being able to fix their precise
position in the family. We know also that Nicolo, who died before the end
of the century, left behind him two illegitimate sons, Stefano and
Zannino. It is not unlikely that these were born from some connection
entered into during the long residence of the Polos in Cathay, though
naturally their presence in the travelling company is not commemorated in
Marco's Prologue.[25]
[1] _Zurla_, I. 42, quoting a MS. entitled _Petrus Ciera S. R. E. Card, de
Origine Venetorum et de Civitate Venetiarum_. Cicogna says he could
not find this MS. as it had been carried to England; and then breaks
into a diatribe against foreigners who purchase and carry away such
treasures, "not to make a serious study of them, but for mere
vain-glory ... or in order to write books contradicting the very MSS.
that they have bought, and with that dishonesty and untruth which are
so notorious!" (IV. 227.)
[2] _Campidoglio Veneto_ of Cappellari (MS. in St. Mark's Lib.), quoting
"the Venetian Annals of Giulio Faroldi."
[3] The _Genealogies_ of Marco Barbaro specify 1033 as the year of the
migration to Venice; on what authority does not appear (MS. copy in
_Museo Civico_ at Venice).
[4] _Cappellari_, u.s., and _Barbaro_. In the same century we find (1125,
1195) indications of Polos at Torcello, and of others (1160) at
Equileo, and (1179, 1206) Lido Maggiore; in 1154 a Marco Polo of
Rialto. Contemporary with these is a family of Polos (1139, 1183,
1193, 1201) at Chioggia (_Documents and Lists of Documents from
various Archives at_ Venice).
[5] See Appendix C, Nos. 4, 5, and 16. It was supposed that an autograph
of Marco as member of the Great Council had been discovered, but this
proves to be a mistake, as will be explained further on (see p. 74,
note). In those days the demarcation between Patrician and
non-Patrician at Venice, where all classes shared in commerce, all
were (generally speaking) of one race, and where there were neither
castles, domains, nor trains of horsemen, formed no wide gulf. Still
it is interesting to establish the verity of the old tradition of
Marco's technical nobility.
[6] Marco's seniority rests only on the assertion of Ramusio, who also
calls Maffeo older than Nicolo. But in Marco the Elder's Will these
two are always (3 times) specified as "_Nicolaus et Matheus_."
[7] This seems implied in the Elder Marco's Will (1280): "_Item de bonis
quae me habere contingunt_ de fraterna Compagnia _a suprascriptis
Nicolao et Matheo Paulo_," etc.
[8] In his Will he terms himself "Ego Marcus Polo quondam de
Constantinopoli."
[9] There is no real ground for doubt as to this. All the extant MSS.
agree in making Marco fifteen years old when his father returned to
Venice in 1269.
[10] Baldelli and Lazari say that the Bern MS. specifies 30th April; but
this is a mistake.
[11] Pipino's version runs: "Invenit Dominus Nicolaus Paulus uxorem suam
esse de functam, quae in recessu suo fuit praegnans. Invenitque
filium, Marcum nomine, qui jam annos xv. habebat aetatis, qui post
discessum ipsius de Venetiis natus fuerat de uxore sua praefata." To
this Ramusio adds the further particular that the mother died in
giving birth to Mark.
The interpolation is older even than Pipino's version, for we find in
the rude Latin published by the Societe de Geographie "quam cum
Venetiis primo recessit praegnantem dimiserat." But the statement is
certainly an _interpolation_, for it does not exist in any of the
older texts; nor have we any good reason for believing that it was an
_authorised_ interpolation. I suspect it to have been introduced to
harmonise with an erroneous date for the commencement of the travels
of the two brothers.
Lazari prints: "Messer Nicolo trovo che la sua donna era morta, e
n'era rimasto un fanciullo di _dodici_ anni per nome Marco, _che il
padre non avea veduto mai, perche non era ancor nato quando egli
parti_." These words have no equivalent in the French Texts, but are
taken from one of the Italian MSS. in the Magliabecchian Library, and
are I suspect also interpolated. The _dodici_ is pure error (see p. 21
infra).
[12] The last view is in substance, I find, suggested by Cicogna (ii.
389).
The matter is of some interest, because in the Will of the younger
Maffeo, which is extant, he makes a bequest to his uncle (_Avunculus_)
Jordan Trevisan. This seems an indication that his mother's name may
have been Trevisan. The same Maffeo had a daughter _Fiordelisa_. And
Marco the Elder, in his Will (1280), appoints as his executors, during
the absence of his brothers, the same Jordan Trevisan and his own
sister-in-law _Fiordelisa_ ("Jordanum Trivisanum de confinio S.
Antonini: et Flordelisam cognatam meam"). Hence I conjecture that this
_cognata Fiordelisa_ (Trevisan?) was the wife of the absent Nicolo,
and the mother of Maffeo. In that case of course Maffeo and Marco were
the sons of different mothers. With reference to the above suggestion
of Nicolo's second marriage in 1269 there is a curious variation in a
fragmentary Venetian Polo in the Barberini Library at Rome. It runs,
in the passage corresponding to the latter part of ch. ix. of
Prologue: "i qual do fratelli steteno do anni in Veniezia aspettando
la elletion de nuovo Papa, _nel qual tempo Mess. Nicolo si tolse moier
et si la laso graveda._" I believe, however, that it is only a
careless misrendering of Pipino's statement about Marco's birth.
[13] [Major Sykes, in his remarkable book on _Persia_, ch. xxiii. pp.
262-263, does not share Sir Henry Yule's opinion regarding this
itinerary, and he writes:
"To return to our travellers, who started on their second great
journey in 1271, Sir Henry Yule, in his introduction,[A] makes them
travel via Sivas to Mosul and Baghdad, and thence by sea to Hormuz,
and this is the itinerary shown on his sketch map. This view I am
unwilling to accept for more than one reason. In the first place, if,
with Colonel Yule, we suppose that Ser Marco visited Baghdad, is it
not unlikely that he should term the River Volga the Tigris,[B] and
yet leave the river of Baghdad nameless? It may be urged that Marco
believed the legend of the reappearance of the Volga in Kurdistan, but
yet, if the text be read with care and the character of the traveller
be taken into account, this error is scarcely explicable in any other
way, than that he was never there.
"Again, he gives no description of the striking buildings of Baudas,
as he terms it, but this is nothing to the inaccuracy of his supposed
onward journey. To quote the text, 'A very great river flows through
the city,... and merchants descend some eighteen days from Baudas, and
then come to a certain city called Kisi,[C] where they enter the Sea
of India.' Surely Marco, had he travelled down the Persian Gulf, would
never have given this description of the route, which is so untrue as
to point to the conclusion that it was vague information given by some
merchant whom he met in the course of his wanderings.
"Finally, apart from the fact that Baghdad, since its fall, was rather
off the main caravan route, Marco so evidently travels east from Yezd
and thence south to Hormuz, that unless his journey be described
backwards, which is highly improbable, it is only possible to arrive
at one conclusion, namely, that the Venetians entered Persia near
Tabriz, and travelled to Sultania, Kashan, and Yezd. Thence they
proceeded to Kerman and Hormuz, where, probably fearing the sea
voyage, owing to the manifest unseaworthiness of the ships, which he
describes as 'wretched affairs,' the Khorasan route was finally
adopted. Hormuz, in this case, was not visited again until the return
from China, when it seems probable that the same route was retraced to
Tabriz, where their charge, the Lady Kokachin, 'moult bele dame et
avenant,' was married to Ghazan Khan, the son of her fiance Arghun. It
remains to add that Sir Henry Yule may have finally accepted this view
in part, as in the plate showing _Probable View of Marco Polo's own
Geography_,[D] the itinerary is not shown as running to Baghdad."
I may be allowed to answer that when Marco Polo _started_ for the
East, Baghdad was not rather off the main caravan route. The fall of
Baghdad was not immediately followed by its decay, and we have proof
of its prosperity at the beginning of the 14th century. Tauris had not
yet the importance it had reached when the Polos visited it on their
_return_ journey. We have the will of the Venetian Pietro Viglioni,
dated from Tauris, 10th December, 1264 (_Archiv. Veneto_, xxvi. 161-
165), which shows that he was but a pioneer. It was only under Arghun
Khan (1284-1291) that Tauris became the great market for foreign,
especially Genoese, merchants, as Marco Polo remarks on his return
journey; with Ghazan and the new city built by that prince, Tauris
reached a very high degree of prosperity, and was then really the
chief emporium on the route from Europe to Persia and the far East.
Sir Henry Yule had not changed his views, and if in the plate showing
_Probable View of Marco Polo's own Geography_, the itinerary is not
shown as running to Baghdad, it is mere neglect on the part of the
draughtsman.--H. C.]
[A] Page 19.
[B] _Vide Yule_, vol. i. p. 5. It is noticeable that John of Pian
de Carpine, who travelled 1245 to 1247, names it correctly.
[C] The modern name is Keis, an island lying off Linga.
[D] Vol. i. p. 110 (Introduction).
[14] It is stated by Neumann that this most estimable traveller once
intended to have devoted a special work to the elucidation of Marco's
chapters on the Oxus Provinces, and it is much to be regretted that
this intention was never fulfilled. Pamir has been explored more
extensively and deliberately, whilst this book was going through the
press, by Colonel Gordon, and other officers, detached from Sir
Douglas Forsyth's Mission. [We have made use of the information given
by these officers and by more recent travellers.--H. C.]
[15] Half a year earlier, if we suppose the three years and a half to
count from Venice rather than Acre. But at that season (November)
Kublai would not have been at Kai-ping fu (otherwise Shang-tu).
[16] _Pauthier_, p. ix., and p. 361.
[17] That this was Marco's first mission is positively stated in the
Ramusian edition; and though this may be only an editor's gloss it
seems well-founded. The French texts say only that the Great Kaan,
"l'envoia en un message en une terre ou bien avoit vj. mois de
chemin." The traveller's actual Itinerary affords to Vochan
(Yung-ch'ang), on the frontier of Burma, 147 days' journey, which with
halts might well be reckoned six months in round estimate. And we are
enabled by various circumstances to fix the date of the Yun-nan
journey between 1277 and 1280. The former limit is determined by
Polo's account of the battle with the Burmese, near Vochan, which took
place according to the Chinese Annals in 1277. The latter is fixed by
his mention of Kublai's son, Mangalai, as governing at Kenjanfu
(Si-ngan fu), a prince who died in 1280. (See vol. ii. pp. 24, 31,
also 64, 80.)
[18] Excepting in the doubtful case of Kan-chau, where one reading says
that the three Polos were there on business of their own not necessary
to mention, and another, that only Maffeo and Marco were there, "_en
legation_."
[19] Persian history seems to fix the arrival of the lady Kokachin in the
North of Persia to the winter of 1293-1294. The voyage to Sumatra
occupied three months (vol. i. p. 34); they were five months detained
there (ii. 292); and the remainder of the voyage extended to eighteen
more (i. 35),--twenty-six months in all.
The data are too slight for unexceptional precision, but the following
adjustment will fairly meet the facts. Say that they sailed from
Fo-kien in January 1292. In April they would be in Sumatra, and find
the S.W. Monsoon too near to admit of their crossing the Bay of
Bengal. They remain in port till September (five months), and then
proceed, touching (perhaps) at Ceylon, at Kayal, and at several ports
of Western India. In one of these, e.g. Kayal or Tana, they pass the
S.W. Monsoon of 1293, and then proceed to the Gulf. They reach Hormuz
in the winter, and the camp of the Persian Prince Ghazan, the son of
Arghun, in March, twenty-six months from their departure.
I have been unable to trace Hammer's authority (not Wassaf I find),
which perhaps gives the precise date of the Lady's arrival in Persia
(see infra, p. 38). From his narrative, however (_Gesch. der Ilchane_,
ii. 20), March 1294 is perhaps too late a date. But the five months'
stoppage in Sumatra _must_ have been in the S.W. Monsoon; and if the
arrival in Persia is put earlier, Polo's numbers can scarcely be held
to. Or, the eighteen months mentioned at vol. i. p. 35, must _include_
the five months' stoppage. We may then suppose that they reached
Hormuz about November 1293, and Ghazan's camp a month or two later.
[20] The French text which forms the _basis_ of my translation says that,
excluding mariners, there were 600 souls, out of whom only 8 survived.
The older MS. which I quote as G. T., makes the number 18, a fact that
I had overlooked till the sheets were printed off.
[21] Died 12th March, 1291.
[22] All dates are found so corrupt that even in this one I do not feel
absolute confidence. Marco in dictating the book is aware that Ghazan
had attained the throne of Persia (see vol. i. p. 36, and ii. pp. 50
and 477), an event which did not occur till October, 1295. The date
assigned to it, however, by Marco (ii. 477) is 1294, or the year
_before_ that assigned to the return home.
The travellers may have stopped some time at Constantinople on their
way, or even may have visited the northern shores of the Black Sea;
otherwise, indeed, how did Marco acquire his knowledge of that Sea
(ii. 486-488) and of events in Kipchak (ii. 496 seqq.)? If 1296 was
the date of return, moreover, the six-and-twenty years assigned in the
preamble as the period of Marco's absence (p. 2) would be nearer
accuracy. For he left Venice in the spring or summer of 1271.
[23] Marco Barbaro, in his account of the Polo family, tells what seems to
be the same tradition in a different and more mythical version:--
"From ear to ear the story has past till it reached mine, that when
the three Kinsmen arrived at their home they were dressed in the most
shabby and sordid manner, insomuch that the wife of one of them gave
away to a beggar that came to the door one of those garments of his,
all torn, patched, and dirty as it was. The next day he asked his wife
for that mantle of his, in order to put away the jewels that were sewn
up in it; but she told him she had given it away to a poor man, whom
she did not know. Now, the stratagem he employed to recover it was
this. He went to the Bridge of Rialto, and stood there turning a
wheel, to no apparent purpose, but as if he were a madman, and to all
those who crowded round to see what prank was this, and asked him why
he did it, he answered: 'He'll come if God pleases.' So after two or
three days he recognised his old coat on the back of one of those who
came to stare at his mad proceedings, and got it back again. Then,
indeed, he was judged to be quite the reverse of a madman! And from
those jewels he built in the contrada of S. Giovanni Grisostomo a very
fine palace for those days; and the family got among the vulgar the
name of the _Ca' Million_, because the report was that they had jewels
to the value of a million of ducats; and the palace has kept that name
to the present day--viz., 1566." (_Genealogies_, MS. copy in _Museo
Civico_; quoted also by _Baldelli Boni, Vita_, p. xxxi.)
[24] The Will of the Elder Marco, to which we have several times referred,
is dated at Rialto 5th August, 1280.
The testator describes himself as formerly of Constantinople, but now
dwelling in the confine of S. Severo.
His brothers _Nicolo_ and _Maffeo_, if at Venice, are to be his sole
trustees and executors, but in case of their continued absence he
nominates _Jordano Trevisano_, and his sister-in-law _Fiordelisa_ of
the confine of S. Severo.
The proper tithe to be paid. All his clothes and furniture to be sold,
and from the proceeds his funeral to be defrayed, and the balance to
purchase masses for his soul at the discretion of his trustees.
Particulars of money due to him from his partnership with Donato
Grasso, now of Justinople (Capo d'Istria), 1200 _lire_ in all.
(Fifty-two lire due by said partnership to Angelo di Tumba of S.
Severo.)
The above money bequeathed to his son _Nicolo_, living at _Soldachia_,
or failing him, to his beloved brothers _Nicolo_ and _Maffeo_. Failing
them, to the sons of his said brothers (_sic_) _Marco_ and _Maffeo_.
Failing them, to be spent for the good of his soul at the discretion
of his trustees.
To his son Nicolo he bequeaths a silver-wrought girdle of vermilion
silk, two silver spoons, a silver cup without cover (or saucer? _sine
cembalo_), his desk, two pairs of sheets, a velvet quilt, a
counterpane, a feather-bed--all on the same conditions as above, and
to remain with the trustees till his son returns to Venice.
Meanwhile the trustees are to invest the money at his son's risk and
benefit, but only here in Venice (_investiant seu investire,
faciant_).
From the proceeds to come in from his partnership with his brothers
Nicolo and Maffeo, he bequeaths 200 lire to his daughter Maroca.
From same source 100 lire to his natural son Antony.
Has in his desk (_capsella_) two hyperperae (Byzantine gold coins),
and three golden florins, which he bequeaths to the sister-in-law
_Fiordelisa_.
Gives freedom to all his slaves and handmaidens.
Leaves his house in Soldachia to the Minor Friars of that place,
reserving life-occupancy to his son Nicolo and daughter Maroca.
The rest of his goods to his son Nicolo.
[25] The terms in which the younger Maffeo mentions these half-brothers in
his Will (1300) seem to indicate that they were still young.
IV. DIGRESSION CONCERNING THE MANSION OF THE POLO FAMILY AT VENICE.
[Illustration: Corte del Milione, Venice.]
[Illustration: Malibran Theatre Venice]
[Sidenote: Probable period of their establishment at S. Giovanni
Grisostomo.]
23. We have seen that Ramusio places the scene of the story recently
alluded to at the mansion in the parish of S. Giovanni Grisostomo, the
court of which was known in his time as the Corte del Millioni; and indeed
he speaks of the Travellers as at once on their arrival resorting to that
mansion as their family residence. Ramusio's details have so often proved
erroneous that I should not be surprised if this also should be a mistake.
At least we find (so far as I can learn) no previous intimation that the
family were connected with that locality. The grandfather Andrea is styled
of _San Felice_. The will of Maffeo Polo the younger, made in 1300, which
we shall give hereafter in abstract, appears to be the first document that
connects the family with S. Giovanni Grisostomo. It indeed styles the
testator's father "the late Nicolo Paulo of the confine of St. John
Chrysostom," but that only shows what is not disputed, that the Travellers
after their return from the East settled in this locality. And the same
will appears to indicate a surviving connexion with S. Felice, for the
priests and clerks who drew it up and witness it are all of the church of
S. Felice, and it is to the parson of S. Felice and his successor that
Maffeo bequeaths an annuity to procure their prayers for the souls of his
father, his mother, and himself, through after the successor the annuity
is to pass on the same condition to the senior priest of S. Giovanni
Grisostomo. Marco Polo the Elder is in his will described as of _S.
Severo_, as is also his sister-in-law Fiordelisa, and the document
contains no reference to S. Giovanni. On the whole therefore it seems
probable that the Palazzo in the latter parish was purchased by the
Travellers after their return from the East.[1]
[Sidenote: Relic of the Casa Polo in the Corte Sabbionera.]
24. The Court which was known in the 16th century as the Corte del
Millioni has been generally understood to be that now known as the Corte
Sabbionera, and here is still pointed out a relic of Marco Polo's mansion.
[Indeed it is called now (1899) _Corte del Milione_; see p. 30.--H. C.]
M. Pauthier's edition is embellished with a good engraving which purports
to represent the House of Marco Polo. But he has been misled. His
engraving in fact exhibits, at least as the prominent feature, an
embellished representation of a small house which exists on the _west
side_ of the Sabbionera, and which had at one time perhaps that pointed
style of architecture which his engraving shows, though its present
decoration is paltry and unreal. But it is on the _north side_ of the
Court, and on the foundations now occupied by the Malibran theatre, that
Venetian tradition and the investigations of Venetian antiquaries concur
in indicating the site of the Casa Polo. At the end of the 16th century a
great fire destroyed the Palazzo,[2] and under the description of "an old
mansion ruined from the foundation" it passed into the hands of one
Stefano Vecchia, who sold it in 1678 to Giovanni Carlo Grimani. He built
on the site of the ruins a theatre which was in its day one of the largest
in Italy, and was called the Theatre of S. Giovanni Grisostomo; afterwards
the _Teatro Emeronitio_. When modernized in our own day the proprietors
gave it the name of Malibran, in honour of that famous singer, and this it
still bears.[3]
[In 1881, the year of the Venice International Geographical Congress,
a Tablet was put up on the Theatre with the following inscription:--
QVI FURONO LE CASE
DI
MARCO POLO
CHE VIAGGIO LE PIU LONTANE REGIONI DELL' ASIA
E LE DESCRISSE
PER DECRETO DEL COMUNE
MDCCCLXXXI].
There is still to be seen on the north side of the Court an arched doorway
in Italo-Byzantine style, richly sculptured with scrolls, disks, and
symbolical animals, and on the wall above the doorway is a cross similarly
ornamented.[4] The style and the decorations are those which were usual in
Venice in the 13th century. The arch opens into a passage from which a
similar doorway at the other end, also retaining some scantier relics of
decoration, leads to the entrance of the Malibran Theatre. Over the
archway in the Corte Sabbionera the building rises into a kind of tower.
This, as well as the sculptured arches and cross, Signor Casoni, who gave
a good deal of consideration to the subject, believed to be a relic of the
old Polo House. But the tower (which Pauthier's view does show) is now
entirely modernized.[5]
[Illustration: The site of the CA' POLO.
Fig. A. From the Diner Map A. D. 1500.
Fig. B. From Map by Ludovico Ughi A.D. 1729 Scale 1 to 2500.
Fig. C. From Recent Map. Scale 1 to 1315.]
Other remains of Byzantine sculpture, which are probably fragments of the
decoration of the same mansion, are found imbedded in the walls of
neighbouring houses.[6] It is impossible to determine anything further as
to the form or extent of the house of the time of the Polos, but some
slight idea of its appearance about the year 1500 may be seen in the
extract (fig. A) which we give from the famous pictorial map of Venice
attributed erroneously to Albert Duerer. The state of the buildings in the
last century is shown in (fig. B) an extract from the fine Map of Ughi;
and their present condition in one (fig. C) reduced from the Modern
Official Map of the Municipality.
[Coming from the Church of S. G. Grisostomo to enter the calle del Teatro
on the left and the passage (_Sottoportico_) leading to the _Corte del
Milione_, one has in front of him a building with a door of the epoch of
the Renaissance; it was the office of the _provveditori_ of silk; on the
architrave are engraved the words:
PROVISORES SERICI
and below, above the door, is the Tablet which] in the year 1827 the Abate
Zenier caused to be put up with this inscription:--
AEDES PROXIMA THALIAE CVLTVI MODO ADDICTA
MARCI POLO P. V. ITINERVM FAMA PRAECLARI
JAM HABITATIO FVIT.
[Illustration: Entrance to the Corte del Milione Venice]
[Sidenote: Recent corroboration as to the traditional site of the Casa
Polo.]
24a. I believe that of late years some doubts have been thrown on the
tradition of the site indicated as that of the Casa Polo, though I am not
aware of the grounds of such doubts. But a document recently discovered at
Venice by Comm. Barozzi, one of a series relating to the testamentary
estate of Marco Polo, goes far to confirm the tradition. This is the copy
of a technical definition of two pieces of house property adjoining the
property of Marco Polo and his brother Stephen, which were sold to Marco
Polo by his wife Donata[7] in June 1321. Though the definition is not
decisive, from the rarity of topographical references and absence of
points of the compass, the description of Donata's tenements as standing
on the Rio (presumably that of S. Giovanni Grisostomo) on one side,
opening by certain porticoes and stairs on the other to the Court and
common alley leading to the Church of S. Giovanni Grisostomo, and abutting
in two places on the Ca' Polo, the property of her husband and Stefano,
will apply perfectly to a building occupying the western portion of the
area on which now stands the Theatre, and perhaps forming the western side
of a Court of which Casa Polo formed the other three sides.[8]
We know nothing more of Polo till we find him appearing a year or two
later in rapid succession as the Captain of a Venetian Galley, as a
prisoner of war, and as an author.
[1] Marco Barbaro's story related at p. 25 speaks of the Ca' Million as
_built_ by the travellers.
From a list of parchments existing in the archives of the _Casa di
Ricovero_, or Great Poor House, at Venice, Comm. Berchet obtained the
following indication:--
"_No. 94. Marco Galetti invests_ Marco Polo _S. of_ Nicolo _with the
ownership of his possessions_ (beni) _in_ S. Giovanni Grisostomo; _10
September, 1319; drawn up by the Notary Nicolo, priest of S.
Canciano._"
This document would perhaps have thrown light on the matter, but
unfortunately recent search by several parties has failed to trace it.
[The document has been discovered since: see vol. ii., _Calendar_,
No. 6.--H. C.]
[2] --"Sua casa che era posta nel confin di S. Giovanni Chrisostomo,
_che hor fa l'anno s'abbrugio totalmente_, con gran danno di molti."
(_Doglioni, Hist. Venetiana_, Ven. 1598, pp. 161-162.)
"1596. 7 _Nov. Senato_ (Arsenal ... ix c. 159 t).
"Essendo conveniente usar qualche ricognizione a quelli della
maestranza del-l'Arsenal nostro, che prontamente sono concorsi all'
incendio occorso ultimamente a S. Zuane Grizostomo nelli stabeli detti
di CA' MILION dove per la relazion fatta nell collegio nostro dalli
patroni di esso Arsenal hanno nell' estinguere il foco prestato ogni
buon servitio...."--(Comm. by Cav. Cecchetti through Comm. Berchet.)
[3] See a paper by G. C. (the Engineer Giovanni Casoni) in _Teatro
Emeronitio Almanacco par l'Anno 1835_.
[4] This Cross is engraved by Mr. Ruskin in vol. ii. of the _Stones of
Venice_: see p. 139, and Pl. xi. Fig. 4.
[5] Casoni's only doubt was whether the _Corte del Millioni_ was what is
now the Sabbionera, or the interior area of the theatre. The latter
seems most probable.
One Illustration of this volume, p. 1, shows the archway in the Corte
Sabbionera, and also the decorations of the soffit.
[6] See _Ruskin_, iii. 320.
[7] Comm. Barozzi writes: "Among us, contracts between husband and wife
are and were very common, and recognized by law. The wife sells to the
husband property not included in dowry, or that she may have
inherited, just as any third person might."
[8] See Appendix C, No. 16.
V. DIGRESSION CONCERNING THE WAR-GALLEYS OF THE MEDITERRANEAN STATES IN
THE MIDDLE AGES.
[Sidenote: Arrangement of the Rowers in Mediaeval Galleys: a separate oar
to every man.]
25. And before entering on this new phase of the Traveller's biography it
may not be without interest that we say something regarding the equipment
of those galleys which are so prominent in the mediaeval history of the
Mediterranean.[1]
Eschewing that "Serbonian Bog, where armies whole have sunk" of Books and
Commentators, the theory of the classification of the Biremes and Triremes
of the Ancients, we can at least assert on secure grounds that in
_mediaeval_ armament, up to the middle of the 16th century or thereabouts,
the characteristic distinction of galleys of different calibres, so far as
such differences existed, was based _on the number of rowers that sat on
one bench pulling each his separate oar, but through one_ portella _or
rowlock-port_.[2] And to the classes of galleys so distinguished the
Italians, of the later Middle Age at least, did certainly apply, rightly
or wrongly, the classical terms of _Bireme_, _Trireme_, and _Quinquereme_,
in the sense of galleys having two men and two oars to a bench, three men
and three oars to a bench, and five men and five oars to a bench.[3]
That this was the mediaeval arrangement is very certain from the details
afforded by Marino Sanudo the Elder, confirmed by later writers and by
works of art. Previous to 1290, Sanudo tells us, almost all the galleys
that went to the Levant had but two oars and men to a bench; but as it had
been found that three oars and men to a bench could be employed with great
advantage, after that date nearly all galleys adopted this arrangement,
which was called _ai Terzaruoli_.[4]
Moreover experiments made by the Venetians in 1316 had shown that four
rowers to a bench could be employed still more advantageously. And where
the galleys could be used on inland waters, and could be made more bulky,
Sanudo would even recommend five to a bench, or have gangs of rowers on
two decks with either three or four men to the bench on each deck.
[Sidenote: Change of System in the 16th century.]
26. This system of grouping the oars, and putting only one man to an oar,
continued down to the 16th century, during the first half of which came in
the more modern system of using great oars, equally spaced, and requiring
from four to seven men each to ply them, in the manner which endured till
late in the last century, when galleys became altogether obsolete. Captain
Pantero Pantera, the author of a work on Naval Tactics (1616), says he had
heard, from veterans who had commanded galleys equipped in the antiquated
fashion, that _three_ men to a bench, with separate oars, answered better
than three men to one great oar, but four men to one great oar (he says)
were certainly more efficient than four men with separate oars. The
new-fashioned great oars, he tells us, were styled _Remi di Scaloccio_, the
old grouped oars _Remi a Zenzile_,--terms the etymology of which I cannot
explain.[5]
It may be doubted whether the four-banked and five-banked galleys, of
which Marino Sanudo speaks, really then came into practical use. A great
five-banked galley on this system, built in 1529 in the Venice Arsenal by
Vettor Fausto, was the subject of so much talk and excitement, that it
must evidently have been something quite new and unheard of.[6] So late as
1567 indeed the King of Spain built at Barcelona a galley of thirty-six
benches to the side, and seven men to the bench, with a separate oar to
each in the old fashion. But it proved a failure.[7]
Down to the introduction of the great oars the usual system appears to
have been three oars to a bench for the larger galleys, and two oars for
lighter ones. The _fuste_ or lighter galleys of the Venetians, even to
about the middle of the 16th century, had their oars in pairs from the
stern to the mast, and single oars only from the mast forward.[8]
[Sidenote: Some details of the 13th century Galleys.]
27. Returning then to the three-banked and two-banked galleys of the
latter part of the 13th century, the number of benches on each side seems
to have run from twenty-five to twenty-eight, at least as I interpret
Sanudo's calculations. The 100-oared vessels often mentioned (e.g. by
_Muntaner_, p. 419) were probably two-banked vessels with twenty-five
benches to a side.
[Illustration]
The galleys were very narrow, only 15-1/2 feet in beam.[9] But to give
room for the play of the oars and the passage of the fighting-men, &c.,
this width was largely augmented by an _opera-morta_, or outrigger deck,
projecting much beyond the ship's sides and supported by timber
brackets.[10] I do not find it stated how great this projection was in the
mediaeval galleys, but in those of the 17th century it was _on each side_
as much as 2/9ths of the true beam. And if it was as great in the
13th-century galleys the total width between the false gunnels would be
about 22-1/4 feet.
In the centre line of the deck ran, the whole length of the vessel,
a raised gangway called the _corsia_, for passage clear of the oars.
[Illustration]
The benches were arranged as in this diagram. The part of the bench next
the gunnel was at right angles to it, but the other two-thirds of the
bench were thrown forward obliquely, _a, b, c_, indicate the position of
the three rowers. The shortest oar _a_ was called _Terlicchio_, the middle
one _b Posticcio_, the long oar _c Piamero_.[11]
[Illustration: Galley-Fight, from a Mediaeval Fresco at Siena. (See p.
36)]
I do not find any information as to how the oars worked on the gunnels.
The Siena fresco (see p. 35) appears to show them attached by loops and
pins, which is the usual practice in boats of the Mediterranean now. In
the cut from D. Tintoretto (p. 37) the groups of oars protrude through
regular ports in the bulwarks, but this probably represents the use of a
later day. In any case the oars of each bench must have worked in very
close proximity. Sanudo states the length of the galleys of his time
(1300-1320) as 117 feet. This was doubtless length of _keel_, for that is
specified ("_da ruoda a ruoda_") in other Venetian measurements, but the
whole oar space could scarcely have been so much, and with twenty-eight
benches to a side there could not have been more than 4 feet gunnel-space
to each bench. And as one of the objects of the grouping of the oars was
to allow room between the benches for the action of cross-bowmen, &c., it
is plain that the rowlock space for the three oars must have been very
much compressed.[12]
The rowers were divided into three classes, with graduated pay. The
highest class, who pulled the poop or stroke oars, were called
_Portolati_; those at the bow, called _Prodieri_, formed the second
class.[13]
Some elucidation of the arrangements that we have tried to describe will
be found in our cuts. That at p. 35 is from a drawing, by the aid of a
very imperfect photograph, of part of one of the frescoes of Spinello
Aretini in the Municipal Palace at Siena, representing a victory of the
Venetians over the Emperor Frederick Barbarossa's fleet, commanded by his
son Otho, in 1176; but no doubt the galleys, &c., are of the artist's own
age, the middle of the 14th century.[14] In this we see plainly the
projecting _opera-morta_, and the rowers sitting two to a bench, each with
his oar, for these are two-banked. We can also discern the Latin rudder on
the quarter. (See this volume, p. 119.) In a picture in the Uffizj, at
Florence, of about the same date, by Pietro Laurato (it is in the corridor
near the entrance), may be seen a small figure of a galley with the oars
also very distinctly coupled.[15] Casoni has engraved, after Cristoforo
Canale, a pictorial plan of a Venetian trireme of the 16th century, which
shows the arrangement of the oars in _triplets_ very plainly.
The following cut has been sketched from an engraving of a picture by
Domenico Tintoretto in the Doge's palace, representing, I believe, the
same action (real or imaginary) as Spinello's fresco, but with the costume
and construction of a later date. It shows, however, very plainly, the
projecting _opera-morta_ and the arrangement of the oars in fours, issuing
through row-ports in high bulwarks.
[Illustration: Part of a Sea Fight, after Dom. Tintoretto]
[Sidenote: Fighting Arrangements.]
28. Midships in the mediaeval galley a castle was erected, of the width of
the ship, and some 20 feet in length; its platform being elevated
sufficiently to allow of free passage under it and over the benches. At
the bow was the battery, consisting of mangonels (see vol. ii. p. 161
seqq.) and great cross-bows with winding gear,[16] whilst there were
shot-ports[17] for smaller cross-bows along the gunnels in the intervals
between the benches. Some of the larger galleys had openings to admit
horses at the stern, which were closed and caulked for the voyage, being
under water when the vessel was at sea.[18]
It seems to have been a very usual piece of tactics, in attacking as well
as in awaiting attack, to connect a large number of galleys by hawsers,
and sometimes also to link the oars together, so as to render it difficult
for the enemy to break the line or run aboard. We find this practised by
the Genoese on the defensive at the battle of Ayas (infra, p. 43), and it
is constantly resorted to by the Catalans in the battles described by
Ramon de Muntaner.[19]
Sanudo says the toil of rowing in the galleys was excessive, almost
unendurable. Yet it seems to have been performed by freely-enlisted men,
and therefore it was probably less severe than that of the great-oared
galleys of more recent times, which it was found impracticable to work by
free enlistment, or otherwise than by slaves under the most cruel
driving.[20] I am not well enough read to say that war-galleys were never
rowed by slaves in the Middle Ages, but the only doubtful allusion to such
a class that I have met with is in one passage of Muntaner, where he says,
describing the Neapolitan and Catalan fleets drawing together for action,
that the gangs of the galleys had to toil _like_ "forcats" (p. 313).
Indeed, as regards Venice at least, convict rowers are stated to have been
first introduced in 1549, previous to which the gangs were of _galeotti
assoldati_.[21]
[Sidenote: Crew of a Galley and Staff of a Fleet.]
29. We have already mentioned that Sanudo requires for his three-banked
galley a ship's company of 250 men. They are distributed as follows:--
_Comito_ or Master 1
Quartermasters 8
Carpenters 2
Caulkers 2
In charge of stores and arms 4
Orderlies 2
Cook 1
Arblasteers 50
Rowers 180
-----
250 [22]
This does not include the _Sopracomito_, or Gentleman-Commander, who was
expected to be _valens homo et probus_, a soldier and a gentleman, fit to
be consulted on occasion by the captain-general. In the Venetian fleet he
was generally a noble.[23]
The aggregate pay of such a crew, not including the sopracomito, amounted
monthly to 60 _lire de' grossi_, or 600 florins, equivalent to 280_l._ at
modern gold value; and the cost for a year to nearly 3160_l._, exclusive
of the victualling of the vessel and the pay of the gentleman-commander.
The build or purchase of a galley complete is estimated by the same author
at 15,000 florins, or 7012_l._
We see that war cost a good deal in money even then.
Besides the ship's own complement Sanudo gives an estimate for the general
staff of a fleet of 60 galleys. This consists of a captain-general, two
(vice) admirals, and the following:--
6 _Probi homines_, or gentlemen of character, forming a council to the
Captain-General;
4 Commissaries of Stores;
2 Commissaries over the Arms;
3 Physicians;
3 Surgeons;
5 Master Engineers and Carpenters;
15 Master Smiths;
12 Master Fletchers;
5 Cuirass men and Helmet-makers;
15 Oar-makers and Shaft-makers;
10 Stone cutters for stone shot;
10 Master Arblast-makers;
20 Musicians;
20 Orderlies, &c.
[Sidenote: Music; and other particulars.]
30. The musicians formed an important part of the equipment. Sanudo says
that in going into action every vessel should make the greatest possible
display of colours; gonfalons and broad banners should float from stem to
stern, and gay pennons all along the bulwarks; whilst it was impossible to
have too much of noisy music, of pipes, trumpets, kettle-drums, and what
not, to put heart into the crew and strike fear into the enemy.[24]
So Joinville, in a glorious passage, describes the galley of his kinsman,
the Count of Jaffa, at the landing of St. Lewis in Egypt:--
"That galley made the most gallant figure of them all, for it was
painted all over, above water and below, with scutcheons of the count's
arms, the field of which was _or_ with a cross _patee gules_.[25] He had
a good 300 rowers in his galley, and every man of them had a target
blazoned with his arms in beaten gold. And, as they came on, the galley
looked to be some flying creature, with such spirit did the rowers spin
it along;--or rather, with the rustle of its flags, and the roar of its
nacaires and drums and Saracen horns, you might have taken it for a
rushing bolt of heaven."[26]
The galleys, which were very low in the water,[27] could not keep the sea
in rough weather, and in winter they never willingly kept the sea at
night, however fair the weather might be. Yet Sanudo mentions that he had
been with armed galleys to Sluys in Flanders.
I will mention two more particulars before concluding this digression.
When captured galleys were towed into port it was stern foremost, and with
their colours dragging on the surface of the sea.[28] And the custom of
saluting at sunset (probably by music) was in vogue on board the galleys
of the 13th century.[29]
We shall now sketch the circumstances that led to the appearance of our
Traveller in the command of a war-galley.
[1] I regret not to have had access to Jal's learned memoirs (_Archeologie
Navale_, Paris, 1839) whilst writing this section, nor since, except
for a hasty look at his Essay on the difficult subject of the oar
arrangements. I see that he rejects so great a number of oars as
I deduce from the statements of Sanudo and others, and that he regards
a large number of the rowers as supplementary.
[2] It seems the more desirable to elucidate this, because writers on
mediaeval subjects so accomplished as Buchon and Capmany have (it
would seem) entirely misconceived the matter, assuming that all the
men on one bench pulled at one oar.
[3] See _Coronelli, Atlante Veneto_, I. 139, 140. Marino Sanudo the Elder,
though not using the term _trireme_, says it was well understood from
ancient authors that the Romans employed their rowers _three to
a bench_ (p. 59).
[4] "_Ad terzarolos_" (_Secreta Fidelium Crucis_, p. 57). The Catalan
Worthy, Ramon de Muntaner, indeed constantly denounces the practice of
manning _all_ the galleys with _terzaruoli_, or _tersols_, as his term
is. But his reason is that these thirds-men were taken from the oar
when crossbowmen were wanted, to act in that capacity, and as such
they were good for nothing; the crossbowmen, he insists, should be men
specially enlisted for that service and kept to that. He would have
some 10 or 20 per cent, only of the fleet built very light and manned
in threes. He does not seem to have contemplated oars three-banked,
and crossbowmen _besides_, as Sanudo does. (See below; and _Muntaner_,
pp. 288, 323, 525, etc.)
In Sanudo we have a glimpse worth noting of the word _soldiers_
advancing towards the modern sense; he expresses a strong preference
for _soldati_ (viz. _paid_ soldiers) over _crusaders_ (viz.
volunteers), p. 74.
[5] _L'Armata Navale_, Roma, 1616, pp. 150-151.
[6] See a work to which I am indebted for a good deal of light and
information, the Engineer Giovanni Casoni's Essay: "_Dei Navigli
Poliremi usati nella Marina dagli Antichi Veneziani_," in
"_Esercitazioni dell' Ateneo Veneto_," vol. ii. p. 338. This great
_Quinquereme_, as it was styled, is stated to have been struck by
a fire-arrow, and blown up, in January 1570.
[7] _Pantera_, p. 22.
[8] _Lazarus Bayfius de Re Navali Veterum_, in _Gronovii Thesaurus_, Ven.
1737, vol. xi. p. 581. This writer also speaks of the Quinquereme
mentioned above (p. 577).
[9] _Marinus Sanutius_, p. 65.
[10] See the woodcuts opposite and at p. 37; also _Pantera_, p. 46
(who is here, however, speaking of the great-oared galleys), and
_Coronelli_, i. 140.
[11] _Casoni_, p. 324. He obtains these particulars from a manuscript work
of the 16th century by Cristoforo Canale.
[12] Signor Casoni (p. 324) expresses his belief that no galley of the
14th century had more than 100 oars. I differ from him with
hesitation, and still more as I find M. Jal agrees in this view. I
will state the grounds on which I came to a different conclusion. (1)
Marino Sanudo assigns 180 rowers for a galley equipped _ai Terzaruoli_
(p. 75). This seemed to imply something near 180 oars, for I do not
find any allusion to reliefs being provided. In the French galleys of
the 18th century there were no reliefs except in this way, that in
long runs without urgency only half the oars were pulled. (See _Mem.
d'un Protestant condamne aux Galeres_, etc., Reimprimes, Paris, 1865,
p. 447.) If four men to a bench were to be employed, then Sanudo seems
to calculate for his smaller galleys 220 men actually rowing (see pp.
75-78). This seems to assume 55 benches, i.e., 28 on one side and 27
on the other, which with 3-banked oars would give 165 rowers. (2)
Casoni himself refers to Pietro Martire d'Anghieria's account of a
Great Galley of Venice in which he was sent ambassador to Egypt from
the Spanish Court in 1503. The crew amounted to 200, of whom 150 were
for working the sails and oars, _that being the number of oars in each
galley_, one man to each oar and three to each bench. Casoni assumes
that this vessel must have been much larger than the galleys of the
14th century; but, however that may have been, Sanudo to his galley
assigns the larger crew of 250, of whom almost exactly the same
proportion (180) were rowers. And in he _galeazza_ described by Pietro
Martire the oars were used only as an occasional auxiliary. (See his
_Legationis Babylonicae Libri Tres_, appended to his 3 Decads
concerning the New World; _Basil_. 1533, f. 77 _ver._) (3) The galleys
of the 18th century, with their great oars 50 feet long pulled by six
or seven men each, had 25 benches to the side, and only 4' 6" (French)
gunnel-space to each oar. (See _Mem. d'un Protest._, p. 434.) I
imagine that a smaller space would suffice for the 3 light oars of the
mediaeval system, so that this need scarcely be a difficulty in the
face of the preceding evidence. Note also the _three hundred rowers_
in Joinville's description quoted at p. 40. The great galleys of the
Malay Sultan of Achin in 1621 had, according to Beaulieu, from 700 to
800 rowers, but I do not know on what system.
[13] _Marinus Sanutius_, p. 78. These titles occur also in the _Documenti
d'Amore_ of Fr. Barberino referred to at p. 117 of this volume:--
"Convienti qui manieri
_Portolatti e prodieri_
E presti galeotti
Aver, e forti e dotti."
[14] Spinello's works, according to Vasari, extended from 1334 till late
in the century. A religious picture of his at Siena is assigned to
1385, so the frescoes may probably be of about the same period. Of the
battle represented I can find no record.
[15] Engraved in Jal, i. 330; with other mediaeval illustrations of the
same points.
[16] To these Casoni adds _Sifoni_ for discharging Greek fire; but this he
seems to take from the Greek treatise of the Emperor Leo. Though I
have introduced Greek fire in the cut at p. 49, I doubt if there is
evidence of its use by the Italians in the thirteenth century.
Joinville describes it like something strange and new.
In after days the artillery occupied the same position, at the bow of
the galley.
Great beams, hung like battering rams, are mentioned by Sanudo, as
well as iron crow's-feet with fire attached, to shoot among the
rigging, and jars of quick-lime and soft soap to fling in the eyes of
the enemy. The lime is said to have been used by Doria against the
Venetians at Curzola (infra, p. 48), and seems to have been a usual
provision. Francesco Barberini specifies among the stores for his
galley: "_Calcina_, con lancioni, Pece, pietre, e ronconi" (p. 259.)
And Christine de Pisan, in her _Faiz du Sage Roy Charles_ (V. of
France), explains also the use of the soap: "_Item_, on doit avoir
pluseurs vaisseaulx legiers a rompre, comme _poz plains de chauls_ ou
pouldre, et gecter dedens; et, par ce, seront comme avuglez, au
brisier des poz. _Item_, on doit avoir autres _poz de mol savon_ et
gecter es nefzs des adversaires, et quant les vaisseaulx brisent, le
savon est glissant, si ne se peuent en piez soustenir et chieent en
l'eaue" (pt. ii. ch. 38).
[17] _Balislariae_, whence no doubt _Balistrada_ and our _Balustrade_.
Wedgwood's etymology is far-fetched. And in his new edition (1872),
though he has shifted his ground, he has not got nearer the truth.
[18] _Sanutius_, p. 53; _Joinville_, p. 40; _Muntaner_, 316, 403.
[19] See pp. 270, 288, 324, and especially 346.
[20] See the _Protestant_, cited above, p. 441, et seqq.
[21] _Venezia e le sue Lagune_, ii. 52.
[22] _Mar. Sanut._ p. 75.
[23] _Mar. Sanut._, p. 30.
[24] The Catalan Admiral Roger de Loria, advancing at daybreak to attack
the Provencal Fleet of Charles of Naples (1283) in the harbour of
Malta, "did a thing which should be reckoned to him rather as an act
of madness," says Muntaner, "than of reason. He said, 'God forbid that
I should attack them, all asleep as they are! Let the trumpets and
nacaires sound to awaken them, and I will tarry till they be ready for
action. No man shall have it to say, if I beat them, that it was by
catching them asleep.'" (_Munt._ p. 287.) It is what Nelson might have
done!
The Turkish admiral Sidi 'Ali, about to engage a Portuguese squadron
in the Straits of Hormuz, in 1553, describes the Franks as "dressing
their vessels with flags and coming on." (_J. As._ ix. 70.)
[25] A cross _patee_, is one with the extremities broadened out into
_feet_ as it were.
[26] Page 50.
[27] The galley at p. 49 is somewhat too high; and I believe it should
have had no _shrouds_.
[28] See _Muntaner_, passim, e.g. 271, 286, 315, 349.
[29] Ibid. 346.
VI. THE JEALOUSIES AND NAVAL WARS OF VENICE AND GENOA. LAMBA DORIA'S
EXPEDITION TO THE ADRIATIC; BATTLE OF CURZOLA; AND IMPRISONMENT OF MARCO
POLO BY THE GENOESE.
[Sidenote: Growing jealousies and outbreaks between the Republics.]
31. Jealousies, too characteristic of the Italian communities, were, in
the case of the three great trading republics of Venice, Genoa, and Pisa,
aggravated by commercial rivalries, whilst, between the two first of those
states, and also between the two last, the bitterness of such feelings had
been augmenting during the whole course of the 13th century.[1]
The brilliant part played by Venice in the conquest of Constantinople
(1204), and the preponderance she thus acquired on the Greek shores,
stimulated her arrogance and the resentment of her rivals. The three
states no longer stood on a level as bidders for the shifting favour of
the Emperor of the East. By treaty, not only was Venice established as the
most important ally of the empire and as mistress of a large fraction of
its territory, but all members of nations at war with her were prohibited
from entering its limits. Though the Genoese colonies continued to exist,
they stood at a great disadvantage, where their rivals were so predominant
and enjoyed exemption from duties, to which the Genoese remained subject.
Hence jealousies and resentments reached a climax in the Levantine
settlements, and this colonial exacerbation reacted on the mother States.
A dispute which broke out at Acre in 1255 came to a head in a war which
lasted for years, and was felt all over Syria. It began in a quarrel about
a very old church called St. Sabba's, which stood on the common boundary
of the Venetian and Genoese estates in Acre,[2] and this flame was blown
by other unlucky occurrences. Acre suffered grievously.[3] Venice at this
time generally kept the upper hand, beating Genoa by land and sea, and
driving her from Acre altogether. + Four ancient porphyry figures from St.
Sabba's were sent in triumph to Venice, and with their strange devices
still stand at the exterior corner of St. Mark's, towards the Ducal
Palace.[4]
But no number of defeats could extinguish the spirit of Genoa, and the
tables were turned when in her wrath she allied herself with Michael
Palaeologus to upset the feeble and tottering Latin Dynasty, and with it
the preponderance of Venice on the Bosphorus. The new emperor handed over
to his allies the castle of their foes, which they tore down with
jubilations, and now it was their turn to send its stones as trophies to
Genoa. Mutual hate waxed fiercer than ever; no merchant fleet of either
state could go to sea without convoy, and wherever their ships met they
fought.[5] It was something like the state of things between Spain and
England in the days of Drake.
[Illustration: Figures from St. Sabba's, sent to Venice.]
The energy and capacity of the Genoese seemed to rise with their success,
and both in seamanship and in splendour they began almost to surpass their
old rivals. The fall of Acre (1291), and the total expulsion of the Franks
from Syria, in great measure barred the southern routes of Indian trade,
whilst the predominance of Genoa in the Euxine more or less obstructed the
free access of her rival to the northern routes by Trebizond and Tana.
[Sidenote: Battle in Bay of Ayas in 1294.]
32. Truces were made and renewed, but the old fire still smouldered. In
the spring of 1294 it broke into flame, in consequence of the seizure in
the Grecian seas of three Genoese vessels by a Venetian fleet. This led to
an action with a Genoese convoy which sought redress. The fight took place
off Ayas in the Gulf of Scanderoon,[6] and though the Genoese were
inferior in strength by one-third they gained a signal victory, capturing
all but three of the Venetian galleys, with rich cargoes, including that
of Marco Basilio (or Basegio), the commodore.
This victory over their haughty foe was in its completeness evidently a
surprise to the Genoese, as well as a source of immense exultation, which
is vigorously expressed in a ballad of the day, written in a stirring
salt-water rhythm.[7] It represents the Venetians, as they enter the bay,
in arrogant mirth reviling the Genoese with very unsavoury epithets as
having deserted their ships to skulk on shore. They are described as
saying:--
"'Off they've slunk! and left us nothing;
We shall get nor prize nor praise;
Nothing save those crazy timbers
Only fit to make a blaze.'"
So they advance carelessly--
"On they come! But lo their blunder!
When our lads start up anon,
Breaking out like unchained lions,
With a roar, 'Fall on! Fall on!'"[8]
After relating the battle and the thoroughness of the victory, ending in
the conflagration of five-and-twenty captured galleys, the poet concludes
by an admonition to the enemy to moderate his pride and curb his arrogant
tongue, harping on the obnoxious epithet _porci leproxi_, which seems to
have galled the Genoese.[9] He concludes:--
"Nor can I at all remember
Ever to have heard the story
Of a fight wherein the Victors
Reaped so rich a meed of glory!"[10]
The community of Genoa decreed that the victory should be commemorated by
the annual presentation of a golden pall to the monastery of St. German's,
the saint on whose feast (28th May) it had been won.[11]
The startling news was received at Venice with wrath and grief, for the
flower of their navy had perished, and all energies were bent at once to
raise an overwhelming force.[12] The Pope (Boniface VIII.) interfered as
arbiter, calling for plenipotentiaries from both sides. But spirits were
too much inflamed, and this mediation came to nought.
Further outrages on both sides occurred in 1296. The Genoese residences at
Pera were fired, their great alum works on the coast of Anatolia were
devastated, and Caffa was stormed and sacked; whilst on the other hand a
number of the Venetians at Constantinople were massacred by the Genoese,
and Marco Bembo, their Bailo, was flung from a house-top. Amid such events
the fire of enmity between the cities waxed hotter and hotter.
[Sidenote: Lamba Doria's Expedition to the Adriatic.]
33. In 1298 the Genoese made elaborate preparations for a great blow at
the enemy, and fitted out a powerful fleet which they placed under the
command of LAMBA DORIA, a younger brother of Uberto of that illustrious
house, under whom he had served fourteen years before in the great rout of
the Pisans at Meloria.
The rendezvous of the fleet was in the Gulf of Spezia, as we learn from
the same pithy Genoese poet who celebrated Ayas. This time the Genoese
were bent on bearding St. Mark's Lion in his own den; and after touching
at Messina they steered straight for the Adriatic:--
"Now, as astern Otranto bears,
Pull with a will! and, please the Lord,
Let them who bragged, with fire and sword,
To waste our homesteads, look to theirs!"[13]
On their entering the gulf a great storm dispersed the fleet The admiral
with twenty of his galleys got into port at Antivari on the Albanian
coast, and next day was rejoined by fifty-eight more, with which he
scoured the Dalmatian shore, plundering all Venetian property. Some
sixteen of his galleys were still missing when he reached the island of
Curzola, or Scurzola as the more popular name seems to have been, the
Black Corcyra of the Ancients--the chief town of which, a rich and
flourishing place, the Genoese took and burned.[14] Thus they were engaged
when word came that the Venetian fleet was in sight.
Venice, on first hearing of the Genoese armament, sent Andrea Dandolo with
a large force to join and supersede Maffeo Quirini, who was already
cruising with a squadron in the Ionian sea; and, on receiving further
information of the strength of the hostile expedition, the Signory hastily
equipped thirty-two more galleys in Chioggia and the ports of Dalmatia,
and despatched them to join Dandolo, making the whole number under his
command up to something like ninety-five. Recent drafts had apparently
told heavily upon the Venetian sources of enlistment, and it is stated
that many of the complements were made up of rustics swept in haste from
the Euganean hills. To this the Genoese poet seems to allude, alleging
that the Venetians, in spite of their haughty language, had to go begging
for men and money up and down Lombardy. "Did _we_ do like that, think
you?" he adds:--
"Beat up for aliens? _We_ indeed?
When lacked we homeborn Genoese?
Search all the seas, no salts like these,
For Courage, Seacraft, Wit at need."[15]
Of one of the Venetian galleys, probably in the fleet which sailed under
Dandolo's immediate command, went Marco Polo as _Sopracomito_ or
Gentleman-Commander.[16]
[Sidenote: The Fleets come in sight of each other at Curzola.]
34. It was on the afternoon of Saturday the 6th September that the Genoese
saw the Venetian fleet approaching, but, as sunset was not far off, both
sides tacitly agreed to defer the engagement.[17]
The Genoese would appear to have occupied a position near the eastern end
of the Island of Curzola, with the Peninsula of Sabbioncello behind them,
and Meleda on their left, whilst the Venetians advanced along the south
side of Curzola. (See map on p. 50).
According to Venetian accounts the Genoese were staggered at the sight of
the Venetian armaments, and sent more than once to seek terms, offering
finally to surrender galleys and munitions of war, if the crews were
allowed to depart. This is an improbable story, and that of the Genoese
ballad seems more like truth. Doria, it says, held a council of his
captains in the evening at which they all voted for attack, whilst the
Venetians, with that overweening sense of superiority which at this time
is reflected in their own annals as distinctly as in those of their
enemies, kept scout-vessels out to watch that the Genoese fleet, which
they looked on as already their own, did not steal away in the darkness. A
vain imagination, says the poet:--
"Blind error of vainglorious men
To dream that we should seek to flee
After those weary leagues of sea
Crossed, but to hunt them in their den!"[18]
[Sidenote: The Venetians defeated, and Marco Polo a prisoner.]
35. The battle began early on Sunday and lasted till the afternoon. The
Venetians had the wind in their favour, but the morning sun in their eyes.
They made the attack, and with great impetuosity, capturing ten Genoese
galleys; but they pressed on too wildly, and some of their vessels ran
aground. One of their galleys too, being taken, was cleared of her crew
and turned against the Venetians. These incidents caused confusion among
the assailants; the Genoese, who had begun to give way, took fresh heart,
formed a close column, and advanced boldly through the Venetian line,
already in disorder. The sun had begun to decline when there appeared on
the Venetian flank the fifteen or sixteen missing galleys of Doria's
fleet, and fell upon it with fresh force. This decided the action. The
Genoese gained a complete victory, capturing all but a few of the Venetian
galleys, and including the flagship with Dandolo. The Genoese themselves
lost heavily, especially in the early part of the action, and Lamba
Doria's eldest son Octavian is said to have fallen on board his father's
vessel.[19] The number of prisoners taken was over 7000, and among these
was Marco Polo.[20]
[Illustration: Marco Polo's Galley going into action at Curzola.
"il sembloit que la galie volast, par les nageurs qui la contreingnoient
aux avirons, et sembloit que foudre cheist des ciex, au bruit que les
pennoncians menoient, et que les nacaues les tabours et les cors
sarrazinnois menoient, qui estoient en sa galie"
(_Joinville_, vide _ante_, p. 40)]
[Illustration: Scene of the Battle of Curzola.]
The prisoners, even of the highest rank, appear to have been chained.
Dandolo, in despair at his defeat, and at the prospect of being carried
captive into Genoa, refused food, and ended by dashing his head against a
bench.[21] A Genoese account asserts that a noble funeral was given him
after the arrival of the fleet at Genoa, which took place on the evening
of the 16th October.[22] It was received with great rejoicing, and the
City voted the annual presentation of a pallium of gold brocade to the
altar of the Virgin in the Church of St. Matthew, on every 8th of
September, the Madonna's day, on the eve of which the Battle had been won.
To the admiral himself a Palace was decreed. It still stands, opposite the
Church of St. Matthew, though it has passed from the possession of the
Family. On the striped marble facades, both of the Church and of the
Palace, inscriptions of that age, in excellent preservation, still
commemorate Lamba's achievement.[23] Malik al Mansur, the Mameluke Sultan
of Egypt, as an enemy of Venice, sent a complimentary letter to Doria
accompanied by costly presents.[24]
[Illustration: Church of San Matteo, Genoa]
The latter died at Savona 17th October, 1323, a few months before the most
illustrious of his prisoners, and his bones were laid in a sarcophagus
which may still be seen forming the sill of one of the windows of S.
Matteo (on the right as you enter). Over this sarcophagus stood the Bust
of Lamba till 1797, when the mob of Genoa, in idiotic imitation of the
French proceedings of that age, threw it down. All of Lamba's six sons had
fought with him at Meloria. In 1291 one of them, Tedisio, went forth into
the Atlantic in company with Ugolino Vivaldi on a voyage of discovery, and
never returned. Through Caesar, the youngest, this branch of the Family
still survives, bearing the distinctive surname of _Lamba-Doria_.[25]
As to the treatment of the prisoners, accounts differ; a thing usual in
such cases. The Genoese Poet asserts that the hearts of his countrymen
were touched, and that the captives were treated with compassionate
courtesy. Navagiero the Venetian, on the other hand, declares that most of
them died of hunger.[26]
[Sidenote: Marco Polo in prison dictates his book to Rusticiano of Pisa.
Release of Venetian prisoners.]
36. Howsoever they may have been treated, here was Marco Polo one of those
many thousand prisoners in Genoa; and here, before long, he appears to
have made acquaintance with a man of literary propensities, whose destiny
had brought him into the like plight, by name RUSTICIANO or RUSTICHELLO of
Pisa. It was this person perhaps who persuaded the Traveller to defer no
longer the reduction to writing of his notable experiences; but in any
case it was he who wrote down those experiences at Marco's dictation; it
is he therefore to whom we owe the preservation of this record, and
possibly even that of the Traveller's very memory. This makes the Genoese
imprisonment so important an episode in Polo's biography.
To Rusticiano we shall presently recur. But let us first bring to a
conclusion what may be gathered as to the duration of Polo's imprisonment.
It does not appear whether Pope Boniface made any new effort for
accommodation between the Republics; but other Italian princes did
interpose, and Matteo Visconti, Captain-General of Milan, styling himself
Vicar-General of the Holy Roman Empire in Lombardy, was accepted as
Mediator, along with the community of Milan. Ambassadors from both States
presented themselves at that city, and on the 25th May, 1299, they signed
the terms of a Peace.
These terms were perfectly honourable to Venice, being absolutely equal
and reciprocal; from which one is apt to conclude that the damage to the
City of the Sea was rather to her pride than to her power; the success of
Genoa, in fact, having been followed up by no systematic attack upon
Venetian commerce.[27] Among the terms was the mutual release of prisoners
on a day to be fixed by Visconti after the completion of all formalities.
This day is not recorded, but as the Treaty was ratified by the Doge of
Venice on the 1st July, and the latest extant document connected with the
formalities appears to be dated 18th July, we may believe that before the
end of August Marco Polo was restored to the family mansion in S. Giovanni
Grisostomo.
[Sidenote: Grounds on which the story of Marco Polo's capture at Curzola
rests.]
37. Something further requires to be said before quitting this event in
our Traveller's life. For we confess that a critical reader may have some
justification in asking what evidence there is that Marco Polo ever fought
at Curzola, and ever was carried a prisoner to Genoa from that unfortunate
action?
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_."[28]
To those who have no relish for biographies that round the meagre skeleton
of authentic facts with a plump padding of what _might have been_, this
sentence of Paulin Paris is quite refreshing in its stern limitation to
positive knowledge. And certainly no contemporary authority has yet been
found for the capture of our Traveller at Curzola. Still I think that the
fact is beyond reasonable doubt.
Ramusio's biographical notices certainly contain many errors of detail;
and some, such as the many years' interval which he sets between the
Battle of Curzola and Marco's return, are errors which a very little
trouble would have enabled him to eschew. But still it does seem
reasonable to believe that the main fact of Marco's command of a galley at
Curzola, and capture there, was derived from a genuine tradition, if not
from documents.
Let us then turn to the words which close Rusticiano's preamble (see
_post_, p. 2):--"Lequel (Messire Marc) puis demorant en le charthre de
Jene, fist retraire toutes cestes chouses a Messire Rustacians de Pise que
en celle meissme charthre estoit, au tens qu'il avoit 1298 anz que Jezu
eut vesqui." These words are at least thoroughly consistent with Marco's
capture at Curzola, as regards both the position in which they present
him, and the year in which he is thus presented.
There is however another piece of evidence, though it is curiously
indirect.
The Dominican Friar Jacopo of Acqui was a contemporary of Polo's, and was
the author of a somewhat obscure Chronicle called _Imago Mundi_.[29] Now
this Chronicle does contain mention of Marco's capture in action by the
Genoese, but attributes it to a different action from Curzola, and one
fought at a time when Polo could not have been present. The passage runs
as follows in a manuscript of the Ambrosian Library, according to an
extract given by Baldelli Boni:--
"In the year of Christ MCCLXXXXVI, in the time of Pope Boniface VI., of
whom we have spoken above, a battle was fought in Arminia, at the place
called Layaz, between xv. galleys of Genoese merchants and xxv. of
Venetian merchants; and after a great fight the galleys of the Venetians
were beaten, and (the crews) all slain or taken; and among them was
taken Messer Marco the Venetian, who was in company with those
merchants, and who was called _Milono_, which is as much as to say 'a
thousand thousand pounds,' for so goes the phrase in Venice. So this
Messer Marco Milono the Venetian, with the other Venetian prisoners, is
carried off to the prison of Genoa, and there kept for a long time. This
Messer Marco was a long time with his father and uncle in Tartary, and
he there saw many things, and made much wealth, and also learned many
things, for he was a man of ability. And so, being in prison at Genoa,
he made a Book concerning the great wonders of the World, i.e.,
concerning such of them as he had seen. And what he told in the Book was
not as much as he had really seen, because of the tongues of detractors,
who, being ready to impose their own lies on others, are over hasty to
set down as lies what they in their perversity disbelieve, or do not
understand. And because there are many great and strange things in that
Book, which are reckoned past all credence, he was asked by his friends
on his death-bed to correct the Book by removing everything that went
beyond the facts. To which his reply was that he had not told _one-half_
of what he had really seen!"[30]
This statement regarding the capture of Marco _at the Battle of Ayas_ is
one which cannot be true, for we know that he did not reach Venice till
1295, travelling from Persia by way of Trebizond and the Bosphorus, whilst
the Battle of Ayas of which we have purposely given some detail, was
fought in May, 1294. The date MCCLXXXXVI assigned to it in the preceding
extract has given rise to some unprofitable discussion. Could that date be
accepted, no doubt it would enable us also to accept this, the sole
statement from the Traveller's own age of the circumstances which brought
him into a Genoese prison; it would enable us to place that imprisonment
within a few months of his return from the East, and to extend its
duration to three years, points which would thus accord better with the
general tenor of Ramusio's tradition than the capture of Curzola. But the
matter is not open to such a solution. The date of the Battle of Ayas is
not more doubtful than that of the Battle of the Nile. It is clearly
stated by several independent chroniclers, and is carefully established in
the Ballad that we have quoted above.[31] We shall see repeatedly in the
course of this Book how uncertain are the transcriptions of dates in Roman
numerals, and in the present case the LXXXXVI is as certainly a mistake
for LXXXXIV as is Boniface VI. in the same quotation a mistake for
Boniface VIII.
But though we cannot accept the statement that Polo was taken prisoner at
_Ayas, in the spring of 1294_, we may accept the passage as evidence from
a contemporary source that he was _taken prisoner in some sea-fight with
the Genoese_, and thus admit it in corroboration of the Ramusian Tradition
of his capture in a sea-fight at Curzola in 1298, which is perfectly
consistent with all other facts in our possession.
[1] In this part of these notices I am repeatedly indebted to _Heyd._
(See supra, p. 9.)
[2] On or close to the Hill called _Monjoie_; see the plan from Marino
Sanudo at p. 18.
[3] "Throughout that year there were not less than 40 machines all at work
upon the city of Acre, battering its houses and its towers, and
smashing and overthrowing everything within their range. There were at
least ten of those engines that shot stones so big and heavy that they
weighed a good 1500 lbs. by the weight of Champagne; insomuch that
nearly all the towers and forts of Acre were destroyed, and only the
religious houses were left. And there were slain in this same war good
20,000 men on the two sides, but chiefly of Genoese and Spaniards."
(_Lettre de Jean Pierre Sarrasin_, in _Michel's Joinville_, p. 308.)
[4] The origin of these columns is, however, somewhat uncertain.
[See _Cicogna_, I. p. 379.]
[5] In 1262, when a Venetian squadron was taken by the Greek fleet in
alliance with the Genoese, the whole of the survivors of the captive
crews were _blinded_ by order of Palaeologus. (_Roman._ ii. 272.)
[6] See pp. 16, 41, and Plan of Ayas at beginning of Bk. I.
[7] See _Archivio Storico Italiano_, Appendice, tom. iv.
[8] Niente ne resta a prender
Se no li corpi de li legni:
Preixi som senza difender;
De bruxar som tute degni!
* * * *
Como li fom aproximai
Queli si levan lantor
Como leon descaenai
Tuti criando "_Alor! Alor!_"
This _Alor! Alor!_ ("Up, Boys, and at 'em"), or something similar,
appears to have been the usual war-cry of both parties. So a
trumpet-like poem of the Troubadour warrior Bertram de Born, whom
Dante found in such evil plight below (xxviii. 118 seqq.), in which he
sings with extraordinary spirit the joys of war:--
"Le us die que tan no m'a sabor
Manjars, ni beure, ni dormir,
Cum a quant ang cridar, ALOR!
D'ambas la partz; et aug agnir
Cavals voits per l'ombratge...."
"I tell you a zest far before
Aught of slumber, or drink, or of food,
I snatch when the shouts of ALOR
Ring from both sides: and out of the wood
Comes the neighing of steeds dimly seen...."
In a galley fight at Tyre in 1258, according to a Latin narrative, the
Genoese shout "Ad arma, ad arma! _ad ipsos, ad ipsos!_" The cry of the
Venetians before engaging the Greeks is represented by Martino da
Canale, in his old French, as "_or a yaus! or a yaus!_" that of the
Genoese on another occasion as _Aur! Aur!_ and this last is the shout
of the Catalans also in Ramon de Muntaner. (_Villemain, Litt. du Moyen
Age_, i. 99; _Archiv. Stor. Ital._ viii. 364, 506; _Pertz, Script._
xviii. 239; _Muntaner_, 269, 287.) Recently in a Sicilian newspaper,
narrating an act of gallant and successful reprisal (only too rare) by
country folk on a body of the brigands who are such a scourge to parts
of the island, I read that the honest men in charging the villains
raised a shout of "_Ad iddi! Ad iddi!_"
[9] A phrase curiously identical, with a similar sequence, is attributed
to an Austrian General at the battle of Skalitz in 1866. (_Stoffel's
Letters._)
[10] E no me posso aregordar
Dalcuno romanzo vertade
Donde oyse uncha cointar
Alcun triumfo si sobre!
[11] _Stella_ in _Muratori_, xvii. 984.
[12] _Dandulo_, Ibid. xii. 404-405.
[13] Or entram con gran vigor,
En De sperando aver triumpho,
Queli zerchando inter lo Gorfo
Chi menazeram zercha lor!
And in the next verse note the pure Scotch use of the word _bra_:--
Siche da Otranto se partim
Quella bra compagnia,
Per assar in Ihavonia,
D'Avosto a vinte nove di.
[14] The island of Curzola now counts about 4000 inhabitants; the town
half the number. It was probably reckoned a dependency of Venice at
this time. The King of Hungary had renounced his claims on the
Dalmatian coasts by treaty in 1244. (_Romanin_, ii. 235.) The gallant
defence of the place against the Algerines in 1571 won for Curzola
from the Venetian Senate the honourable title in all documents of
_fedelissima_. (_Paton's Adriatic_, I. 47.)
[15] Ma se si gran colmo avea
Perche andava mendigando
Per terra de Lombardia
Peccunia, gente a sodi?
Pone mente tu che l'odi
Se noi tegnamo questa via?
No, ma piu! ajamo omi nostrar
Destri, valenti, e avisti,
Che mai par de lor n' o visti
In tuti officj de mar.
[16] In July 1294, a Council of Thirty decreed that galleys should be
equipped by the richest families in proportion to their wealth. Among
the families held to equip one galley each, or one galley among two or
more, in this list, is the CA' POLO. But this was before the return of
the travellers from the East, and just after the battle of Ayas.
(_Romanin_, ii. 332; this author misdates Ayas, however.) When a levy
was required in Venice for any expedition the heads of each _contrada_
divided the male inhabitants, between the ages of twenty and sixty,
into groups of twelve each, called _duodene_. The dice were thrown to
decide who should go first on service. He who went received five
_lire_ a month from the State, and one _lira_ from each of his
colleagues in the _duodena_. Hence his pay was sixteen _lire_ a month,
about 2_s._ a day in silver value, if these were _lire ai grossi_, or
1_s._ 4_d._ if _lire dei piccoli_. (See _Romanin_, ii. 393-394.)
Money on such occasions was frequently raised by what was called an
_Estimo_ or _Facion_, which was a force loan levied on the citizens in
proportion to their estimated wealth; and for which they were entitled
to interest from the State.
[17] Several of the Italian chroniclers, as Ferreto of Vicenza and
Navagiero, whom Muratori has followed in his "Annals," say the battle
was fought on the 8th September, the so-called Birthday of the
Madonna. But the inscription on the Church of St. Matthew at Genoa,
cited further on, says the 7th, and with this agree both Stella and
the Genoese poet. For the latter, though not specifying the day of the
month, says it was on a Sunday:--
"Lo di de Domenga era
Passa prima en l'ora bona
Stormezam fin provo nona
Con bataio forte e fera."
Now the 7th September, 1298, fell on a Sunday.
[18] Ma li pensavam grande error
Che in fuga se fussem tuti metui
Che de si lonzi eram vegnui
Per cerchali a casa lor.
[19] "Note here that the Genoese generally, commonly, and by nature, are
the most covetous of Men, and the Love of Gain spurs them to every
Crime. Yet are they deemed also the most valiant Men in the World.
Such an one was Lampa, of that very Doria family, a man of an high
Courage truly. For when he was engaged in a Sea-Fight against the
Venetians, and was standing on the Poop of his Galley, his Son,
fighting valiantly at the Forecastle, was shot by an Arrow in the
Breast, and fell wounded to the Death; a Mishap whereat his Comrades
were sorely shaken, and Fear came upon the whole Ship's Company. But
Lampa, hot with the Spirit of Battle, and more mindful of his
Country's Service and his own Glory than of his Son, ran forward to
the spot, loftily rebuked the agitated Crowd, and ordered his Son's
Body to be cast into the Deep, telling them for their Comfort that the
Land could never have afforded his Boy a nobler Tomb. And then,
renewing the Fight more fiercely than ever, he achieved the Victory."
(_Benvenuto of Imola_, in _Comment. on Dante. in Muratori, Antiq._ i.
1146.)
("Yet like an English General will I die,
And all the Ocean make my spacious Grave;
Women and Cowards on the Land may lie,
The Sea's the Tomb that's proper for the Brave!"
--_Annus Mirabilis_.)
[20] The particulars of the battle are gathered from _Ferretus
Vicentinus_, in _Murat._ ix. 985 seqq.; _And. Dandulo_, in xii.
407-408; _Navagiero_, in xxiii. 1009-1010; and the Genoese Poem as
before.
[21] _Navagiero_, u.s. Dandulo says, "after a few days he died of grief";
Ferretus, that he was killed in the action and buried at Curzola.
[22] For the funeral, a MS. of Cibo Recco quoted by _Jacopo Doria_ in _La
Chiesa di San Matteo descritta_, etc., Genova, 1860, p. 26. For the
date of arrival the poem so often quoted:--
"_De Oitover_, a zoia, _a seze di_
Lo nostro ostel, con gran festa
En nostro porto, a or di sesta
Domine De restitui."
[23] S. Matteo was built by Martin Doria in 1125, but pulled down and
rebuilt by the family in a slightly different position in 1278. On
this occasion is recorded a remarkable anticipation of the feats of
American engineering: "As there was an ancient and very fine picture
of Christ upon the apse of the Church, it was thought a great pity
that so fine a work should be destroyed. And so they contrived an
ingenious method by which the apse bodily was transported without
injury, picture and all, for a distance of 25 ells, and firmly set
upon the foundations where it now exists." (_Jacopo de Varagine_ in
_Muratori_, vol. ix. 36.)
The inscription on S. Matteo regarding the battle is as follows:--"_Ad
Honorem Dei et Beate Virginis Marie Anno MCCLXXXXVIII Die Dominico VII
Septembris iste Angelus captus fuit in Gulfo Venetiarum in Civitate
Scursole et ibidem fuit prelium Galearum LXXVI Januensium cum Galeis
LXXXXVI Veneciarum. Capte fuerunt LXXXIIII per Nobilem Virum Dominum
Lambam Aurie Capitaneum et Armiratum tunc Comunis et Populi Janue cum
omnibus existentibus in eisdem, de quibus conduxit Janue homines vivos
carceratos VII cccc et Galeas XVIII, reliquas LXVI fecit cumburi in
dicto Gulfo Veneciarum. Qui obiit Sagone I. MCCCXXIII._" It is not
clear to what the _Angelus_ refers.
[24] _Rampoldi, Ann. Musulm._ ix. 217.
[25] _Jacopo Doria_, p. 280.
[26] _Murat._ xxiii. 1010. I learn from a Genoese gentleman, through my
friend Professor Henry Giglioli (to whose kindness I owe the
transcript of the inscription just given), that a faint tradition
exists as to the place of our traveller's imprisonment. It is alleged
to have been a massive building, standing between the _Grazie_ and the
Mole, and bearing the name of the _Malapaga_, which is now a barrack
for Doganieri, but continued till comparatively recent times to be
used as a civil prison. "It is certain," says my informant, "that men
of fame in arms who had fallen into the power of the Genoese _were_
imprisoned there, and among others is recorded the name of the
Corsican Giudice dalla Rocca and Lord of Cinarca, who died there in
1312;" a date so near that of Marco's imprisonment as to give some
interest to the hypothesis, slender as are its grounds. Another
Genoese, however, indicates as the scene of Marco's captivity certain
old prisons near the Old Arsenal, in a site still known as the _Vico
degli Schiavi_. (_Celesia, Dante in Liguria_, 1865, p. 43.) [Was not
the place of Polo's captivity the basement of the _Palazzo del Capitan
del Popolo_, afterwards _Palazzo del Comune al Mare_, where the
Customs (_Dogana_) had their office, and from the 15th century the
_Casa_ or _Palazzo di S. Giorgio?_--H. C.]
[27] The Treaty and some subsidiary documents are printed in the Genoese
_Liber Jurium_, forming a part of the _Monumenta Historiae Patriae_,
published at Turin. (See _Lib. Jur._ II. 344, seqq.) Muratori in his
Annals has followed John Villani (Bk. VIII. ch. 27) in representing
the terms as highly unfavourable to Venice. But for this there is no
foundation in the documents. And the terms are stated with substantial
accuracy in Navagiero. (_Murat. Script._ xxiii. 1011.)
[28] _Paulin Paris, Les Manuscrits Francois de la Bibliotheque du Roi_,
ii. 355.
[29] Though there is no precise information as to the birth or death of
this writer, who belonged to a noble family of Lombardy, the
Bellingeri, he can be traced with tolerable certainty as in life in
1289, 1320, and 1334. (See the Introduction to his Chronicle in the
Turin _Monumenta_, _Scriptores_ III.)
[30] There is another MS. of the _Imago Mundi_ at Turin, which has been
printed in the _Monumenta_. The passage about Polo in that copy
differs widely in wording, is much shorter, and contains no date. But
it relates his capture as having taken place at _La Glaza_, which I
think there can be no doubt is also intended for Ayas (sometimes
called _Giazza_), a place which in fact is called _Glaza_ in three of
the MSS. of which various readings are given in the edition of the
Societe de Geographie (p. 535).
[31] "E per meio esse aregordenti
De si grande scacho mato
Correa mille duxenti
Zonto ge novanta e quatro."
The Armenian Prince Hayton or Hethum has put it under 1293. (See
_Langlois, Mem. sur les Relations de Genes avec la Petite-Armenie_.)
VII. RUSTICIANO OR RUSTICHELLO OF PISA, MARCO POLO'S FELLOW-PRISONER AT
GENOA, THE SCRIBE WHO WROTE DOWN THE TRAVELS.
38. We have now to say something of that Rusticiano to whom all who value
Polo's book are so much indebted.
[Sidenote: Rusticiano, perhaps a prisoner from Meloria.]
The relations between Genoa and Pisa had long been so hostile that it was
only too natural in 1298 to find a Pisan in the gaol of Genoa. An unhappy
multitude of such prisoners had been carried thither fourteen years
before, and the survivors still lingered there in vastly dwindled numbers.
In the summer of 1284 was fought the battle from which Pisa had to date
the commencement of her long decay. In July of that year the Pisans, at a
time when the Genoese had no fleet in their own immediate waters, had
advanced to the very port of Genoa and shot their defiance into the proud
city in the form of silver-headed arrows, and stones belted with
scarlet.[1] They had to pay dearly for this insult. The Genoese, recalling
their cruisers, speedily mustered a fleet of eighty-eight galleys, which
were placed under the command of another of that illustrious House of
Doria, the Scipios of Genoa as they have been called, Uberto, the elder
brother of Lamba. Lamba himself with his six sons, and another brother,
was in the fleet, whilst the whole number of Dorias who fought in the
ensuing action amounted to 250, most of them on board one great galley
bearing the name of the family patron, St. Matthew.[2]
The Pisans, more than one-fourth inferior in strength, came out boldly,
and the battle was fought off the Porto Pisano, in fact close in front of
Leghorn, where a lighthouse on a remarkable arched basement still marks
the islet of MELORIA, whence the battle got its name. The day was the 6th
of August, the feast of St. Sixtus, a day memorable in the Pisan Fasti for
several great victories. But on this occasion the defeat of Pisa was
overwhelming. Forty of their galleys were taken or sunk, and upwards of
9000 prisoners carried to Genoa. In fact so vast a sweep was made of the
flower of Pisan manhood that it was a common saying then: "_Che vuol veder
Pisa, vada a Genova_!" Many noble ladies of Pisa went in large companies
on foot to Genoa to seek their husbands or kinsmen: "And when they made
enquiry of the Keepers of the Prisons, the reply would be, 'Yesterday
there died thirty of them, to-day there have died forty; all of whom we
have cast into the sea; and so it is daily.'"[3]
[Illustration: Seal of the Pisan Prisoners.]
A body of prisoners so numerous and important naturally exerted themselves
in the cause of peace, and through their efforts, after many months of
negotiation, a formal peace was signed (15th April, 1288). But through the
influence, as was alleged, of Count Ugolino (Dante's) who was then in
power at Pisa, the peace became abortive; war almost immediately
recommenced, and the prisoners had no release.[4] And, when the 6000 or
7000 Venetians were thrown into the prisons of Genoa in October 1298, they
would find there the scanty surviving remnant of the Pisan Prisoners of
Meloria, and would gather from them dismal forebodings of the fate before
them.
It is a fair conjecture that to that remnant Rusticiano of Pisa may have
belonged.
We have seen Ramusio's representation of the kindness shown to Marco
during his imprisonment by a certain Genoese gentleman who also assisted
him to reduce his travels to writing. We may be certain that this Genoese
gentleman is only a distorted image of Rusticiano, the Pisan prisoner in
the gaol of Genoa, whose name and part in the history of his hero's book
Ramusio so strangely ignores. Yet patriotic Genoese writers in our own
times have striven to determine the identity of this their imaginary
countryman![5]
[Sidenote: Rusticiano, a person known from other sources.]
39. Who, then, was Rusticiano, or, as the name actually is read in the
oldest type of MS., "Messire Rustacians de Pise"?
Our knowledge of him is but scanty. Still something is known of him
besides the few words concluding his preamble to our Traveller's Book,
which you may read at pp. 1-2 of the body of this volume.
In Sir Walter Scott's "Essay on Romance," when he speaks of the new mould
in which the subjects of the old metrical stories were cast by the school
of prose romancers which arose in the 13th century, we find the following
words:--
"Whatever fragments or shadows of true history may yet remain hidden
under the mass of accumulated fable which had been heaped upon them
during successive ages, must undoubtedly be sought in the metrical
romances.... But those prose authors who wrote under the imaginary names
of RUSTICIEN DE PISE, Robert de Borron, and the like, usually seized
upon the subject of some old minstrel; and recomposing the whole
narrative after their own fashion, with additional character and
adventure, totally obliterated in that operation any shades which
remained of the original and probably authentic tradition," &c.[6]
Evidently, therefore, Sir Walter regarded Rustician of Pisa as a person
belonging to the same ghostly company as his own Cleishbothams and
Dryasdusts. But in this we see that he was wrong.
In the great Paris Library and elsewhere there are manuscript volumes
containing the stories of the Round Table abridged and somewhat clumsily
combined from the various Prose Romances of that cycle, such as _Sir
Tristan, Lancelot, Palamedes, Giron le Courtois_, &c., which had been
composed, it would seem, by various Anglo-French gentlemen at the court of
Henry III., styled, or styling themselves, Gasses le Blunt, Luces du Gast,
Robert de Borron, and Helis de Borron. And these abridgments or recasts
are professedly the work of _Le Maistre Rusticien de Pise_. Several of
them were printed at Paris in the end of the 15th and beginning of the
16th centuries as the works of Rusticien de Pise; and as the preambles and
the like, especially in the form presented in those printed editions,
appear to be due sometimes to the original composers (as Robert and Helis
de Borron) and sometimes to Rusticien de Pise the recaster, there would
seem to have been a good deal of confusion made in regard to their
respective personalities.
From a preamble to one of those compilations which undoubtedly belongs to
Rustician, and which we shall quote at length by and bye, we learn that
Master Rustician "translated" (or perhaps _transferred?_) his compilation
from a book belonging to King Edward of England, at the time when that
prince went beyond seas to recover the Holy Sepulchre. Now Prince Edward
started for the Holy Land in 1270, spent the winter of that year in
Sicily, and arrived in Palestine in May 1271. He quitted it again in
August, 1272, and passed again by Sicily, where in January, 1273, he heard
of his father's death and his own consequent accession. Paulin Paris
supposes that Rustician was attached to the Sicilian Court of Charles of
Anjou, and that Edward "may have deposited with that king the Romances of
the Round Table, of which all the world was talking, but the manuscripts
of which were still very rare, especially those of the work of Helye de
Borron[7] ... whether by order, or only with permission of the King of
Sicily, our Rustician made haste to read, abridge, and re-arrange the
whole, and when Edward returned to Sicily he recovered possession of the
book from which the indefatigable Pisan had extracted the contents."
But this I believe is, in so far as it passes the facts stated in
Rustician's own preamble, pure hypothesis, for nothing is cited that
connects Rustician with the King of Sicily. And if there be not some such
confusion of personality as we have alluded to, in another of the
preambles, which is quoted by Dunlop as an utterance of Rustician's, that
personage would seem to claim to have been a comrade in arms of the two de
Borrons. We might, therefore, conjecture that Rustician himself had
accompanied Prince Edward to Syria.[8]
[Sidenote: Character of Rustician's Romance compilations.]
40. Rustician's literary work appears from the extracts and remarks of
Paulin Paris to be that of an industrious simple man, without method or
much judgment. "The haste with which he worked is too perceptible; the
adventures are told without connection; you find long stories of Tristan
followed by adventures of his father Meliadus." For the latter derangement
of historical sequence we find a quaint and ingenuous apology offered in
Rustician's epilogue to Giron le Courtois:--
"Cy fine le Maistre Rusticien de Pise son conte en louant et regraciant
le Pere le Filz et le Saint Esperit, et ung mesme Dieu, Filz de la
Benoiste Vierge Marie, de ce qu'il m'a done grace, sens, force, et
memoire, temps et lieu, de me mener a fin de si haulte et si noble
matiere come ceste-cy dont j'ay traicte les faiz et proesses recitez et
recordez a mon livre. Et se aucun me demandoit pour quoy j'ay parle de
Tristan avant que de son pere le Roy Meliadus, le respons que ma matiere
n'estoist pas congneue. Car je ne puis pas scavoir tout, ne mettre
toutes mes paroles par ordre. Et ainsi fine mon conte. Amen."[9]
In a passage of these compilations the Emperor Charlemagne is asked
whether in his judgment King Meliadus or his son Tristan were the better
man? The Emperor's answer is: "I should say that the King Meliadus was the
better man, and I will tell you why I say so. As far as I can see,
everything that Tristan did was done for Love, and his great feats would
never have been done but under the constraint of Love, which was his spur
and goad. Now that never can be said of King Meliadus! For what deeds he
did, he did them not by dint of Love, but by dint of his strong right arm.
Purely out of his own goodness he did good, and not by constraint of
Love." "It will be seen," remarks on this Paulin Paris, "that we are here
a long way removed from the ordinary principles of Round Table Romances.
And one thing besides will be manifest, viz., that Rusticien de Pise was
no Frenchman!"[10]
The same discretion is shown even more prominently in a passage of one of
his compilations, which contains the romances of Arthur, Gyron, and
Meliadus (No. 6975--see last note but one):--
"No doubt," Rustician says, "other books tell the story of the Queen
Ginevra and Lancelot differently from this; and there were certain
passages between them of which the Master, in his concern for the honour
of both those personages, will say not a word." Alas, says the French
Bibliographer, that the copy of Lancelot, which fell into the hands of
poor Francesca of Rimini, was not one of those _expurgated_ by our worthy
friend Rustician![11]
[Sidenote: Identity of the Romance Compiler with Polo's fellow-prisoner.]
41. A question may still occur to an attentive reader as to the identity
of this Romance-compiler Rusticien de Pise with the Messire _Rustacians de
Pise_, of a solitary MS. of Polo's work (though the oldest and most
authentic), a name which appears in other copies as _Rusta Pisan, Rasta
Pysan, Rustichelus Civis Pisanus, Rustico, Restazio da Pisa, Stazio da
Pisa_, and who is stated in the preamble to have acted as the Traveller's
scribe at Genoa.
M. Pauthier indeed[12] asserts that the French of the MS. Romances of
Rusticien de Pise is of the same barbarous character as that of the early
French MS. of Polo's Book to which we have just alluded, and which we
shall show to be the nearest presentation of the work as originally
dictated by the Traveller. The language of the latter MS. is so peculiar
that this would be almost perfect evidence of the identity of the writers,
if it were really the fact. A cursory inspection which I have made of two
of those MSS. in Paris, and the extracts which I have given and am about
to give, do not, however, by any means support M. Pauthier's view. Nor
would that view be consistent with the judgment of so competent an
authority as Paulin Paris, implied in his calling Rustician a _nom
recommandable_ in old French literature, and his speaking of him as
"versed in the secrets of the French Romance Tongue."[13] In fact the
difference of language in the two cases would really be a difficulty in
the way of identification, if there were room for doubt. This, however,
Paulin Paris seems to have excluded finally, by calling attention to the
peculiar formula of preamble which is common to the Book of Marco Polo and
to one of the Romance compilations of Rusticien de Pise.
The former will be found in English at pp. 1, 2, of our Translation; but
we give a part of the original below[14] for comparison with the preamble
to the Romances of Meliadus, Tristan, and Lancelot, as taken from MS. 6961
(Fr. 340) of the Paris Library:--
"_Seigneurs Empereurs et Princes, Ducs et Contes et Barons et Chevaliers
et Vavasseurs et Bourgeois, et tous les preudommes de cestui monde qui
avez talent de vous deliter en rommans, si prenez cestui (livre) et le
faites lire de chief en chief, si orrez toutes les grans aventure_ qui
advindrent entre les Chevaliers errans du temps au Roy Uter Pendragon,
jusques a le temps au Roy Artus son fils, et des compaignons de la Table
Ronde. Et sachiez tout vraiment que cist livres fust translatez du livre
Monseigneur Edouart le Roy d'Engleterre en cellui temps qu'il passa
oultre la mer au service nostre Seigneur Damedieu pour conquester le
Sant Sepulcre, et Maistre Rusticiens de Pise, lequel est ymaginez yci
dessus,[15] compila ce rommant, car il en translata toutes les
merveilleuses nouvelles et aventures qu'il trouva en celle livre et
traita tout certainement de toutes les aventures du monde, et si sachiez
qu'il traitera plus de Monseigneur Lancelot du Lac, et Mons'r Tristan le
fils au Roy Meliadus de Leonnoie que d'autres, porcequ'ilz furent sans
faille les meilleurs chevaliers qui a ce temps furent en terre; et li
Maistres en dira de ces deux pluseurs choses et pluseurs nouvelles que
l'en treuvera escript en tous les autres livres; et porce que le
Maistres les trouva escript au Livre d'Engleterre."
[Illustration: Palazzo di S Giorgio Genoa]
"Certainly," Paulin Paris observes, "there is a singular analogy between
these two prefaces. And it must be remarked that the formula is not an
ordinary one with translators, compilers, or authors of the 13th and 14th
centuries. Perhaps you would not find a single other example of it."[16]
This seems to place beyond question the identity of the Romance-compiler
of Prince Edward's suite in 1270, and the Prisoner of Genoa in 1298.
[Sidenote: Further particulars concerning Rustician.]
42. In Dunlop's History of Fiction a passage is quoted from the preamble
of _Meliadus_, as set forth in the Paris printed edition of 1528, which
gives us to understand that Rusticien de Pise had received as a reward for
some of his compositions from King Henry III. the prodigal gift of two
_chateaux_. I gather, however, from passages in the work of Paulin Paris
that this must certainly be one of those confusions of persons to which I
have referred before, and that the recipient of the chateaux was in
reality Helye de Borron, the author of some of the originals which
Rustician manipulated.[17] This supposed incident in Rustician's scanty
history must therefore be given up.
We call this worthy _Rustician_ or _Rusticiano_, as the nearest probable
representation in Italian form of the _Rusticien_ of the Round-Table MSS.
and the _Rustacians_ of the old text of Polo. But it is highly probable
that his real name was _Rustichello_, as is suggested by the form
_Rustichelus_ in the early Latin version published by the _Societe de
Geographie_. The change of one liquid for another never goes for much in
Italy,[18] and Rustichello might easily Gallicize himself as Rusticien. In
a very long list of Pisan officials during the Middle Ages I find several
bearing the name of _Rustichello_ or _Rustichelli_, but no _Rusticiano_ or
_Rustigiano_.[19]
Respecting him we have only to add that the peace between Genoa and Venice
was speedily followed by a treaty between Genoa and Pisa. On the 31st
July, 1299, a truce for twenty-five years was signed between those two
Republics. It was a very different matter from that between Genoa and
Venice, and contained much that was humiliating and detrimental to Pisa.
But it embraced the release of prisoners; and those of Meloria, reduced it
is said to less than one tithe of their original number, had their liberty
at last. Among the prisoners then released no doubt Rustician was one. But
we hear of him no more.
[1] _B. Marangone, Croniche della C. di Pisa_, in _Rerum Ital. Script._ of
_Tartini_, Florence, 1748, i. 563; _Dal Borgo, Dissert. sopra
l'Istoria Pisana_, ii. 287.
[2] The list of the whole number is preserved in the Doria archives, and
has been published by Sign. Jacopo D'Oria. Many of the Baptismal names
are curious, and show how far sponsors wandered from the Church
Calendar. _Assan, Alton, Turco, Soldan_ seem to come of the constant
interest in the East. _Alaone_, a name which remained in the family
for several generations, I had thought certainly borrowed from the
fierce conqueror of the Khalif (infra, p. 63). But as one Alaone,
present at this battle, had a son also there, he must surely have been
christened before the fame of Hulaku could have reached Genoa. (See
_La Chiesa di S. Matteo_, pp. 250, seqq.)
In documents of the kingdom of Jerusalem there are names still more
anomalous, e.g., _Gualterius Baffumeth, Joannes Mahomet_. (See _Cod.
Dipl. del Sac. Milit. Ord. Gerosol._ I. 2-3, 62.)
[3] _Memorial. Potestat. Regiens._ in _Muratori_, viii. 1162.
[4] See _Fragm. Hist. Pisan._ in _Muratori_, xxiv. 651, seqq.; and
_Caffaro_, _id._ vi. 588, 594-595. The cut in the text represents a
striking memorial of those Pisan Prisoners, which perhaps still
survives, but which at any rate existed last century in a collection
at Lucca. It is the seal of the prisoners as a body corporate:
SIGILLUM UNIVERSITATIS CARCERATORUM PISANORUM JANUE DETENTORUM, and
was doubtless used in their negotiations for peace with the Genoese
Commissioners. It represents two of the prisoners imploring the
Madonna, Patron of the Duomo at Pisa. It is from _Manni, Osserv. Stor.
sopra Sigilli Antichi_, etc., Firenze, 1739, tom. xii. The seal is
also engraved in _Dal Borgo_, op. cit. ii. 316.
[5] The Abate Spotorno in his _Storia Letteraria della Liguria_, II. 219,
fixes on a Genoese philosopher called Andalo del Negro, mentioned by
Boccaccio.
[6] I quote from Galignani's ed. of Prose Works, v. 712. This has
"Rusticien de _Puise_." In this view of the fictitious character of
the names of Rusticien and the rest, Sir Walter seems to have been
following Ritson, as I gather from a quotation in Dunlop's H. of
Fiction. (_Liebrecht's_ German Version, p. 63.)
[7] _Giron le Courtois_, and the conclusion of _Tristan_.
[8] The passage runs thus as quoted (from the preamble of the
_Meliadus_--I suspect in one of the old printed editions):--
"Aussi Luces du Gau (Gas) translata en langue Francoise une partie de
l'Hystoire de Monseigneur Tristan, et moins assez qu'il ne deust.
Moult commenca bien son livre et si ny mist tout les faicts de
Tristan, ains la greigneur partie. Apres s'en entremist Messire Gasse
le Blond, qui estoit parent au Roy Henry, et divisa l'Hystoire de
Lancelot du Lac, et d'autre chose ne parla il mye grandement en son
livre. Messire Robert de Borron s'en entremist et Helye de Borron, par
la priere du dit Robert de Borron, _et pource que compaignons feusmes
d'armes longuement_, je commencay mon livre," etc. (_Liebrecht's
Dunlop_, p. 80.) If this passage be authentic it would set beyond
doubt the age of the de Borrons and the other writers of Anglo-French
Round Table Romances, who are placed by the _Hist. Litteraire de la
France_, and apparently by Fr. Michel, under Henry II. I have no means
of pursuing the matter, and have preferred to follow Paulin Paris, who
places them under Henry III. I notice, moreover, that the _Hist.
Litt._ (xv. p. 498) puts not only the de Borrons but Rustician himself
under Henry II.; and, as the last view is certainly an error, the
first is probably so too.
[9] Transc. from MS. 6975 (now Fr. 355) of Paris Library.
[10] _MSS. Francois_, iii. 60-61.
[11] Ibid. 56-59.
[12] _Introd._ pp. lxxxvi.-vii. note.
[13] See _Jour. As._ ser. II. tom. xii. p. 251.
[14] "_Seignors Enperaor, & Rois, Dux & Marquois, Cuens, Chevaliers &
Bargions_ [for Borgiois] _& toutes gens qe uoles sauoir les deuerses
jenerasions des homes_, & les deuersites des deuerses region dou
monde, _si prennes cestui lire & le feites lire & chi troueres toutes
les grandismes meruoilles_," etc.
[15] The portrait of Rustician here referred to would have been a precious
illustration for our book. But unfortunately it has not been
transferred to MS. 6961, nor apparently to any other noticed by Paulin
Paris.
[16] _Jour. As._ as above.
[17] See _Liebrecht's Dunlop_, p. 77; and _MSS. Francois_, II. 349, 353.
The alleged gift to Rustician is also put forth by D'Israeli the Elder
in his _Amenities of Literature_, 1841, I. p. 103.
[18] E.g. Geronimo, _Girolamo_; and garofalo, _garofano_; Cristoforo,
_Cristovalo_; gonfalone, _gonfanone_, etc.
[19] See the List in _Archivio Stor. Ital._ VI. p. 64, seqq.
VIII. NOTICES OF MARCO POLO'S HISTORY, AFTER THE TERMINATION OF HIS
IMPRISONMENT AT GENOA.
43. A few very disconnected notices are all that can be collected of matter
properly biographical in relation to the quarter century during which Marco
Polo survived the Genoese captivity.
[Sidenote: Death of Marco's Father before 1300. Will of his brother
Maffeo.]
We have seen that he would probably reach Venice in the course of August,
1299. Whether he found his aged father alive is not known; but we know at
least that a year later (31st August, 1300) Messer Nicolo was no longer in
life.
This we learn from the Will of the younger Maffeo, Marco's brother, which
bears the date just named, and of which we give an abstract below.[1] It
seems to imply strong regard for the testator's brother Marco, who is made
inheritor of the bulk of the property, failing the possible birth of a
son. I have already indicated some conjectural deductions from this
document. I may add that the terms of the second clause, as quoted in the
note, seem to me to throw considerable doubt on the genealogy which
bestows a large family of sons upon this brother Maffeo. If he lived to
have such a family it seems improbable that the draft which he thus left
in the hands of a notary, to be converted into a Will in the event of his
death (a curious example of the validity attaching to all acts of notaries
in those days), should never have been superseded, but should actually
have been so converted after his death, as the existence of the parchment
seems to prove. But for this circumstance we might suppose the Marcolino
mentioned in the ensuing paragraph to have been a son of the younger
Maffeo.
Messer Maffeo, the uncle, was, we see, alive at this time. We do not know
the year of his death. But it is alluded to by Friar Pipino in the
Preamble to his Translation of the Book, supposed to have been executed
about 1315-1320; and we learn from a document in the Venetian archives
(see p. 77) that it must have been previous to 1318, and subsequent to
February 1309, the date of his last Will. The Will itself is not known to
be extant, but from the reference to it in this document we learn that he
left 1000 _lire_ of public debt[2] (_? imprestitorum_) to a certain Marco
Polo, called _Marcolino_. The relationship of this Marco to old Maffeo is
not stated, but we may suspect him to have been an illegitimate son.
[Marcolino was a son of Nicolo, son of Marco the Elder; see vol. ii.,
_Calendar_, No. 6.--H. C.]
[Sidenote: Documentary notices of Polo at this time. The sobriquet of
Milione.]
44. In 1302 occurs what was at first supposed to be a glimpse of Marco as
a citizen, slight and quaint enough; being a resolution on the Books of
the Great Council to exempt the respectable Marco Polo from the penalty
incurred by him on account of the omission to have his water-pipe duly
inspected. But since our Marco's claims to the designation of _Nobilis
Vir_ have been established, there is a doubt whether the _providus vir_ or
_prud'-homme_ here spoken of may not have been rather his namesake Marco
Polo of Cannareggio or S. Geremia, of whose existence we learn from
another entry of the same year.[3] It is, however, possible that Marco the
Traveller was called to the Great Council _after_ the date of the document
in question.
We have seen that the Traveller, and after him his House and his Book,
acquired from his contemporaries the surname, or nickname rather, of _Il
Milione_. Different writers have given different explanations of the
origin of this name; some, beginning with his contemporary Fra Jacopo
d'Acqui, (supra, p. 54), ascribing it to the family's having brought home
a fortune of a million of _lire_, in fact to their being _millionaires_.
This is the explanation followed by Sansovino, Marco Barbaro, Coronelli,
and others.[4] More far-fetched is that of Fontanini, who supposes the
name to have been given to the Book as containing a great number of
stories, like the _Cento Novelle_ or the _Thousand and One Nights!_ But
there can be no doubt that Ramusio's is the true, as it is the natural,
explanation; and that the name was bestowed on Marco by the young wits of
his native city, because of his frequent use of a word which appears to
have been then unusual, in his attempts to convey an idea of the vast
wealth and magnificence of the Kaan's Treasury and Court.[5] Ramusio has
told us that he had seen Marco styled by this sobriquet in the Books of
the Signory; and it is pleasant to be able to confirm this by the next
document which we cite. This is an extract from the Books of the Great
Council under both April, 1305, condoning the offence of a certain Bonocio
of Mestre in smuggling wine, for whose penalty one of the sureties had
been the NOBILIS VIR MARCHUS PAULO MILIONI.[6]
It is alleged that long after our Traveller's death there was always, in
the Venetian Masques, one individual who assumed the character of Marco
Milioni, and told Munchausenlike stories to divert the vulgar. Such, if
this be true, was the honour of our prophet among the populace of his own
country.[7]
45. A little later we hear of Marco once more, as presenting a copy of his
Book to a noble Frenchman in the service of Charles of Valois.
[Sidenote: Polo's relations with Thibault de Cepoy.]
This Prince, brother of Philip the Fair, in 1301 had married Catharine,
daughter and heiress of Philip de Courtenay, titular Emperor of
Constantinople, and on the strength of this marriage had at a later date
set up his own claim to the Empire of the East. To this he was prompted by
Pope Clement V., who in the beginning of 1306 wrote to Venice, stimulating
that Government to take part in the enterprise. In the same year, Charles
and his wife sent as their envoys to Venice, in connection with this
matter, a noble knight called THIBAULT DE CEPOY, along with an
ecclesiastic of Chartres called Pierre le Riche, and these two succeeded
in executing a treaty of alliance with Venice, of which the original,
dated 14th December, 1306, exists at Paris. Thibault de Cepoy eventually
went on to Greece with a squadron of Venetian Galleys, but accomplished
nothing of moment, and returned to his master in 1310.[8]
[Illustration: Miracle of S. Lorenzo]
During the stay of Thibault at Venice he seems to have made acquaintance
with Marco Polo, and to have received from him a copy of his Book. This is
recorded in a curious note which appears on two existing MSS. of Polo's
Book, viz., that of the Paris Library (10,270 or Fr. 5649), and that of
Bern, which is substantially identical in its text with the former, and
is, as I believe, a copy of it.[9] The note runs as follows:--
"Here you have the Book of which My Lord THIEBAULT, Knight and LORD OF
CEPOY, (whom may God assoil!) requested a copy from SIRE MARC POL,
Burgess and Resident of the City of Venice. And the said Sire Marc Pol,
being a very honourable Person, of high character and respect in many
countries, because of his desire that what he had witnessed should be
known throughout the World, and also for the honour and reverence he
bore to the most excellent and puissant Prince my Lord CHARLES, Son of
the King of France and COUNT OF VALOIS, gave and presented to the
aforesaid Lord of Cepoy the first copy (that was taken) of his said Book
after he had made the same. And very pleasing it was to him that his
Book should be carried to the noble country of France and there made
known by so worthy a gentleman. And from that copy which the said
Messire Thibault, Sire de Cepoy above-named, did carry into France,
Messire John, who was his eldest son and is the present Sire de
Cepoy,[10] after his Father's decease did have a copy made, and that
very first copy that was made of the Book after its being carried into
France he did present to his very dear and dread Lord Monseigneur de
Valois. Thereafter he gave copies of it to such of his friends as asked
for them.
"And the copy above-mentioned was presented by the said Sire Marc Pol to
the said Lord de Cepoy when the latter went to Venice, on the part of
Monseigneur de Valois and of Madame the Empress his wife, as Vicar
General for them both in all the Territories of the Empire of
Constantinople. And this happened in the year of the Incarnation of our
Lord Jesus Christ one thousand three hundred and seven, and in the month
of August."
Of the bearings of this memorandum on the literary history of Polo's Book
we shall speak in a following section.
[Sidenote: His marriage and his daughters. Marco as a merchant.]
46. When Marco married we have not been able to ascertain, but it was no
doubt early in the 14th century, for in 1324, we find that he had two
married daughters besides one unmarried. His wife's Christian name was
_Donata_, but of her family we have as yet found no assurance. I suspect,
however, that her name may have been Loredano (vide infra, p. 77).
Under 1311 we find a document which is of considerable interest, because
it is the only one yet discovered which exhibits Marco under the aspect of
a practical trader. It is the judgment of the Court of Requests upon a
suit brought by the NOBLE MARCO POLO of the parish of S. Giovanni
Grisostomo against one Paulo Girardo of S. Apollinare. It appears that
Marco had entrusted to the latter as a commission agent for sale, on an
agreement for half profits, a pound and a half of musk, priced at six
_lire of grossi_ (about 22_l._ 10_s._ in value of silver) the pound.
Girardo had sold half-a-pound at that rate, and the remaining pound which
he brought back was deficient of a _saggio_, or, one-sixth of an ounce,
but he had accounted for neither the sale nor the deficiency. Hence Marco
sues him for three _lire of Grossi_, the price of the half-pound sold, and
for twenty _grossi_ as the value of the saggio. And the Judges cast the
defendant in the amount with costs, and the penalty of imprisonment in the
common gaol of Venice if the amounts were not paid within a suitable
term.[11]
Again in May, 1323, probably within a year of his death, Ser Marco appears
(perhaps only by attorney), before the Doge and his judicial examiners, to
obtain a decision respecting a question touching the rights to certain
stairs and porticoes in contact with his own house property, and that
obtained from his wife, in S. Giovanni Grisostomo. To this allusion has
been already made (supra, p. 31).
[Sidenote: Marco Polo's Last Will and Death.]
47. We catch sight of our Traveller only once more. It is on the 9th of
January, 1324; he is labouring with disease, under which he is sinking day
by day; and he has sent for Giovanni Giustiniani, Priest of S. Proculo and
Notary, to make his Last Will and Testament. It runs thus:--
[Illustration: MARCO POLO'S LAST WILL]
[Illustration: SLIGHTLY REDUCED FROM A PHOTOGRAPH SPECIALLY TAKEN
IN ST. MARK'S LIBRARY BY SIGNOR BERTANI.]
"IN THE NAME OF THE ETERNAL GOD AMEN!
"In the year from the Incarnation of our Lord Jesus Christ 1323, on the
9th day of the month of January, in the first half of the 7th
Indiction,[12] at Rialto.
"It is the counsel of Divine Inspiration as well as the judgment of a
provident mind that every man should take thought to make a disposition
of his property before death become imminent, lest in the end it should
remain without any disposition:
"Wherefore I MARCUS PAULO of the parish of St. John Chrysostom, finding
myself to grow daily feebler through bodily ailment, but being by the
grace of God of a sound mind, and of senses and judgment unimpaired,
have sent for JOHN GIUSTINIANI, Priest of S. Proculo and Notary, and
have instructed him to draw out in complete form this my Testament:
"Whereby I constitute as my Trustees DONATA my beloved wife, and my dear
daughters FANTINA, BELLELA, and MORETA,[13] in order that after my
decease they may execute the dispositions and bequests which I am about
to make herein.
"First of all: I will and direct that the proper Tithe be paid.[14] And
over and above the said tithe I direct that 2000 _lire_ of Venice denari
be distributed as follows:[15]
"Viz., 20 _soldi_ of Venice _grossi_ to the Monastery of St. Lawrence
where I desire to be buried.
"Also 300 _lire_ of Venice denari to my sister-in-law YSABETA
QUIRINO,[16] that she owes me.
"Also 40 _soldi_ to each of the Monasteries and Hospitals all the way
from Grado to Capo d'Argine.[17]
"Also I bequeath to the Convent of SS. Giovanni and Paolo, of the Order
of Preachers, that which it owes me, and also 10 _lire_ to Friar RENIER,
and 5 _lire_ to Friar BENVENUTO the Venetian, of the Order of Preachers,
in addition to the amount of his debt to me.
"I also bequeath 5 _lire_ to every Congregation in Rialto, and 4 _lire_
to every Guild or Fraternity of which I am a member.[18]
"Also I bequeath 20 _soldi_ of Venetian grossi to the Priest Giovanni
Giustiniani the Notary, for his trouble about this my Will, and in order
that he may pray the Lord in my behalf.
"Also I release PETER the Tartar, my servant, from all bondage, as
completely as I pray God to release mine own soul from all sin and
guilt. And I also remit him whatever he may have gained by work at his
own house; and over and above I bequeath him 100 _lire_ of Venice
denari.[19]
"And the residue of the said 2000 _lire_ free of tithe, I direct to be
distributed for the good of my soul, according to the discretion of my
trustees.
"Out of my remaining property I bequeath to the aforesaid Donata, my
Wife and Trustee, 8 _lire_ of Venetian grossi annually during her life,
for her own use, over and above her settlement, and the linen and all
the household utensils,[20] with 3 beds garnished.
"And all my other property movable and immovable that has not been
disposed of [here follow some lines of mere technicality] I specially
and expressly bequeath to my aforesaid Daughters Fantina, Bellela, and
Moreta, freely and absolutely, to be divided equally among them. And I
constitute them my heirs as regards all and sundry my property movable
and immovable, and as regards all rights and contingencies tacit and
expressed, of whatsoever kind as hereinbefore detailed, that belong to
me or may fall to me. Save and except that before division my said
daughter Moreta shall receive the same as each of my other daughters
hath received for dowry and outfit [here follow many lines of
technicalities, ending]
"And if any one shall presume to infringe or violate this Will, may he
incur the malediction of God Almighty, and abide bound under the
anathema of the 318 Fathers; and farthermore he shall forfeit to my
Trustees aforesaid five pounds of gold;[21] and so let this my Testament
abide in force. The signature of the above named Messer Marco Paulo who
gave instructions for this deed.
"* I Peter Grifon, Priest, Witness.
"* I Humfrey Barberi, Witness.
"* I John Giustiniani, Priest of S. Proculo, and Notary, have completed
and authenticated (this testament)."[22]
We do not know, as has been said, how long Marco survived the making of
this will, but we know, from a scanty series of documents commencing in
June of the following year (1325), that he had _then_ been some time
dead.[23]
[Sidenote: Place of Sepulture. Professed Portraits of Polo.]
48. He was buried, no doubt, according to his declared wish, in the Church
of S. Lorenzo; and indeed Sansovino bears testimony to the fact in a
confused notice of our Traveller.[24] But there does not seem to have been
any monument to Marco, though the sarcophagus which had been erected to
his father Nicolo, by his own filial care, existed till near the end of
the 16th century in the porch or corridor leading to the old Church of S.
Lorenzo, and bore the inscription: "SEPULTURA DOMINI NICOLAI PAULO DE
CONTRATA S. IOANNIS GRISOSTEMI." The church was renewed from its
foundations in 1592, and then, probably, the sarcophagus was cast aside
and lost, and with it all certainty as to the position of the tomb.[25]
[Illustration: Pavement in front of San Lorenzo, Venice.]
[Illustration: S. Lorenzo as it was in the 15th century]
There is no portrait of Marco Polo in existence with any claim to
authenticity. The quaint figure which we give in the _Bibliography_, vol.
ii. p. 555, extracted from the earliest printed edition of his book, can
certainly make no such pretension. The oldest one after this is probably a
picture in the collection of Monsignor Badia at Rome, of which I am now
able, by the owner's courtesy, to give a copy. It is set down in the
catalogue to Titian, but is probably a work of 1600, or thereabouts, to
which the aspect and costume belong. It is inscribed "_Marcus Polvs
Venetvs Totivs Orbis et Indie Peregrator Primus._" Its history
unfortunately cannot be traced, but I believe it came from a collection at
Urbino. A marble statue was erected in his honour by a family at Venice in
the 17th century, and is still to be seen in the Palazzo Morosini-
Gattemburg in the Campo S. Stefano in that city. The medallion portrait on
the wall of the _Sala dello Scudo_ in the ducal palace, and which was
engraved in Bettom's "Collection of Portraits of Illustrious Italians," is
a work of imagination painted by Francesco Griselini in 1761.[26] From
this, however, was taken the medal by Fabris, which was struck in 1847 in
honour of the last meeting of the Italian Congresso Scientifico; and from
the medal again is copied, I believe, the elegant woodcut which adorns the
introduction to M. Pauthier's edition, though without any information as
to its history. A handsome bust, by Augusto Gamba, has lately been placed
among the illustrious Venetians in the inner arcade of the Ducal
Palace.[27] There is also a mosaic portrait of Polo, opposite the similar
portrait of Columbus in the Municipio at Genoa.
[Sidenote: Further History of the Polo Family.]
49. From the short series of documents recently alluded to,[28] we gather
all that we know of the remaining history of Marco Polo's immediate
family. We have seen in his will an indication that the two elder
daughters, Fantina and Bellela, were married before his death. In 1333 we
find the youngest, Moreta, also a married woman, and Bellela deceased. In
1336 we find that their mother Donata had died in the interval. We learn,
too, that Fantina's husband was MARCO BRAGADINO, and Moreta's, RANUZZO
DOLFINO.[29] The name of Bellela's husband does not appear.
Fantina's husband is probably the Marco Bragadino, son of Pietro, who in
1346 is mentioned to have been sent as Provveditore-Generale to act
against the Patriarch of Acquileia.[30] And in 1379 we find Donna Fantina
herself, presumably in widowhood, assessed as a resident of S. Giovanni
Grisostomo, on the _Estimo_ or forced loan for the Genoese war, at 1300
_lire_, whilst Pietro Bragadino of the same parish--her son as I
imagine--is assessed at 1500 _lire_.[31] [See vol. ii., _Calendar_.]
The documents show a few other incidents which may be briefly noted. In
1326 we have the record of a charge against one Zanino Grioni for
insulting Donna Moreta in the Campo of San Vitale; a misdemeanour punished
by the Council of Forty with two months' imprisonment.
[Illustration: Mosaic Portrait of Marco Polo at Genoa]
[Illustration: The Pseudo Marco Polo at Canton]
In March, 1328, Marco Polo, called Marcolino, of St. John Chrysostom (see
p. 66), represents before the _Domini Advocatores_ of the Republic that
certain _imprestita_ that had belonged to the late Maffeo Polo the Elder,
had been alienated and transferred in May 1318, by the late Marco Polo of
St. John Chrysostom and since his death by his heirs, without regard to
the rights of the said Marcolino, to whom the said Messer Maffeo had
bequeathed 1000 _lire_ by his will executed on 6th February, 1308 (i.e.
1309). The Advocatores find that the transfer was to that extent unjust
and improper, and they order that to the same extent it should be revoked
and annulled. Two months later the Lady Donata makes rather an unpleasant
figure before the Council of Forty. It would seem that on the claim of
Messer Bertuccio Quirino a mandate of sequestration had been issued by the
Court of Requests affecting certain articles in the Ca' Polo; including
two bags of money which had been tied and sealed, but left in custody of
the Lady Donata. The sum so sealed was about 80 _lire_ of grossi (300_l._
in silver value), but when opened only 45 _lire_ and 22 _grossi_ (about
170_l._) were found therein, and the Lady was accused of abstracting the
balance _non bono modo_. Probably she acted, as ladies sometimes do, on a
strong sense of her own rights, and a weak sense of the claims of law. But
the Council pronounced against her, ordering restitution, and a fine of
200 _lire_ over and above "_ut ceteris transeat in exemplum._"[32]
It will have been seen that there is nothing in the amounts mentioned in
Marco's will to bear out the large reports as to his wealth, though at the
same time there is no positive ground for a deduction to the contrary.[33]
The mention in two of the documents of Agnes Loredano as the sister of the
Lady Donata suggests that the latter may have belonged to the Loredano
family, but as it does not appear whether Agnes was maid or wife this
remains uncertain.[34]
Respecting the further history of the family there is nothing certain, nor
can we give unhesitating faith to Ramusio's statement that the last male
descendant of the Polos of S. Giovanni Grisostomo was Marco, who died
Castellano of Verona in 1417 (according to others, 1418, or 1425),[35] and
that the family property then passed to Maria (or _Anna_, as she is styled
in a MS. statement furnished to me from Venice), who was married in 1401
to Benedetto Cornaro, and again in 1414 to Azzo Trevisan. Her descendant
in the fourth generation by the latter was Marc Antonio Trevisano,[36] who
was chosen Doge in 1553.
[Illustration: Arms of the Trevisan family.]
The genealogy recorded by Marco Barbaro, as drawn up from documents by
Ramusio, makes the Castellano of Verona a grandson of our Marco by a son
Maffeo, whom we may safely pronounce not to have existed, and makes Maria
the daughter of Maffeo, Marco's brother--that is to say, makes a lady
marry in 1414 and have children, whose father was born in 1271 at the very
latest! The genealogy is given in several other ways, but as I have
satisfied myself that they all (except perhaps this of Barbaro's, which we
see to be otherwise erroneous) confound together the two distinct families
of Polo of S. Geremia and Polo of S. Giov. Grisostomo, I reserve my faith,
and abstain from presenting them. Assuming that the Marco or Marcolino
Polo, spoken of in the preceding page, was a near relation (as is
probable, though perhaps an illegitimate one), he is the only male
descendant of old Andrea of San Felice whom we can indicate as having
survived Marco himself; and from a study of the links in the professed
genealogies I think it not unlikely that both Marco the Castellano of
Verona and Maria Trevisan belonged to the branch of S. Geremia.[37] [See
vol. ii., _App. C_, p. 510.]
[49. _bis._--It is interesting to note some of the _reliques_ left by our
traveller.
I. The unfortunate Doge of Venice, Marino Faliero, seems to have possessed
many souvenirs of Marco Polo, and among them two manuscripts, one in the
handwriting of his celebrated fellow-citizen(?), and one adorned with
miniatures. M. Julius von Schlosser has reprinted (_Die aeltesten Medaillen
und die Antike_, Bd. XVIII., _Jahrb. d. Kunsthist. Samml. d. Allerhoechsten
Kaiserhauses_, Vienna, 1897, pp. 42-43) from the _Bulletino di arti,
industrie e curiosita veneziane_, III., 1880-81, p. 101,[38] the inventory
of the curiosities kept in the "Red Chamber" of Marino Faliero's palace in
the Parish of the SS. Apostles; we give the following abstract of it:--
Anno ab incarnacione domini nostri Jesu Christi 1351 deg. indictione sexta
mensis aprilis. Inuentarium rerum qui sunt in camera rubea domi
habitationis clarissimi domini MARINI FALETRO de confinio SS.
Apostolorum, scriptum per me Johannem, presbiterum, dicte ecclesie.
_Item_ alia capsaleta cum ogiis auri et argenti, inter quos unum anulum
con inscriptione que dicit: _Ciuble Can Marco Polo_, et unum torques cum
multis animalibus Tartarorum sculptis, que res donum dedit predictus
MARCUS cuidam Faletrorum.
_Item_ 2 capsalete de corio albo cum variis rebus auri et argenti, quas
habuit praedictus MARCUS a Barbarorum rege.
_Item_ 1 ensem mirabilem, qui habet 3 enses simul, quem habuit in suis
itineribus praedictus MARCUS.
_Item_ 1 tenturam de pannis indicis, quam habuit praedictus MARCUS.
_Item_ de itineribus MARCI praedicti liber in corio albo cum multis
figuris.
_Item_ aliud volumen quod vocatur _de locis mirabilibus Tartarorum,
scriptum manu praedicti_ MARCI.
II. There is kept at the Louvre, in the very valuable collection of China
Ware given by M. Ernest Grandidier, a white porcelain incense-burner said
to come from Marco Polo. This incense-burner, which belonged to Baron
Davillier, who received it, as a present, from one of the keepers of the
Treasury of St. Mark's at Venice, is an octagonal _ting_ from the Fo-kien
province, and of the time of the Sung Dynasty. By the kind permission of
M. P. Grandidier, we reproduce it from Pl. II. 6, of the _Ceramique
chinoise_, Paris, 1894, published by this learned amateur.--H. C.]
[1] 1. The Will is made in prospect of his voyage to Crete.
2. He had drafted his will with his own hand, sealed the draft, and
made it over to Pietro Pagano, priest of S. Felice and Notary, to draw
out a formal testament in faithful accordance therewith in case of the
Testator's death; and that which follows is the substance of the said
draft rendered from the vernacular into Latin. ("Ego Matheus Paulo ...
volens ire in Cretam, ne repentinus casus hujus vite fragilis me
subreperet intestatum, mea propria manu meum scripsi et condidi
testamentum, rogans Petrum Paganum ecclesie Scti. Felicis presbiterum
et Notarium, sana mente et integro consilio, ut, secundum ipsius
scripturam quam sibi tunc dedi meo sigillo munitam, meum scriberet
testamentum, si me de hoc seculo contigeret pertransire; cujus
scripture tenor translato vulgari in latinum per omnia talis est.")
3. Appoints as Trustees Messer Maffeo Polo his uncle, Marco Polo his
brother, Messer Nicolo Secreto (or Sagredo) his father-in-law, and
Felix Polo his cousin (_consanguineum_).
4. Leaves 20 _soldi_ to each of the Monasteries from Grado to Capo
d'Argine; and 150 _lire_ to all the congregations of Rialto, on
condition that the priests of these maintain an annual service in
behalf of the souls of his father, mother, and self.
5. To his daughter Fiordelisa 2000 _lire_ to marry her withal. To be
invested in safe mortgages in Venice, and the interest to go to her.
Also leaves her the interest from 1000 _lire_ of his funds in Public
Debt (? _de meis imprestitis_) to provide for her till she marries.
After her marriage this 1000 _lire_ and its interest shall go to his
male heir if he has one, and failing that to his brother Marco.
6. To his wife Catharine 400 _lire_ and all her clothes as they stand
now. To the Lady Maroca 100 _lire_.
7. To his natural daughter Pasqua 400 _lire_ to marry her withal. Or,
if she likes to be a nun, 200 _lire_ shall go to her convent and the
other 200 shall purchase securities for her benefit. After her death
these shall come to his male heir, or failing that be sold, and the
proceeds distributed for the good of the souls of his father, mother,
and self.
8. To his natural brothers Stephen and Giovannino he leaves 500
_lire_. If one dies the whole to go to the other. If both die before
marrying, to go to his male heir; failing such, to his brother Marco
or _his_ male heir.
9. To his uncle Giordano Trevisano 200 _lire_. To Marco de Tumba 100.
To Fiordelisa, wife of Felix Polo, 100. To Maroca, the daughter of the
late Pietro Trevisano, living at Negropont, 100. To Agnes, wife of
Pietro Lion, 100; and to Francis, son of the late Pietro Trevisano, in
Negropont, 100.
10. To buy Public Debt producing an annual 20 _lire ai grossi_ to be
paid yearly to Pietro Pagano, Priest of S. Felice, who shall pray for
the souls aforesaid: on death of said Pietro the income to go to
Pietro's cousin Lionardo, Clerk of S. Felice; and after him always to
the senior priest of S. Giovanni Grisostomo with the same obligation.
11. Should his wife prove with child and bear a son or sons they shall
have his whole property not disposed of. If a daughter, she shall have
the same as Fiordelisa.
12. If he have no male heir his Brother Marco shall have the
Testator's share of his Father's bequest, and 2000 _lire_ besides.
Cousin Nicolo shall have 500 _lire_, and Uncle Maffeo 500.
13. Should Daughter Fiordelisa die unmarried her 2000 _lire_ and
interest to go to his male heir, and failing such to Brother Marco and
his male heir. But in that case Marco shall pay 500 _lire_ to Cousin
Nicolo or his male heir.
14. Should his wife bear him a male heir or heirs, but these should
die under age, the whole of his undisposed property shall go to
Brother Marco or his male heir. But in that case 500 _lire_ shall be
paid to Cousin Nicolo.
15. Should his wife bear a daughter and she die unmarried, her 2000
_lire_ and interest shall go to Brother Marco, with the same
stipulation in behalf of Cousin Nicolo.
16. Should the whole amount of his property between cash and goods not
amount to 10,000 _lire_ (though he believes he has fully as much), his
bequests are to be ratably diminished, except those to his own
children which he does not wish diminished. Should any legatee die
before receiving the bequest, its amount shall fall to the Testator's
heir male, and failing such, the half to go to Marco or his male heir,
and the other half to be distributed for the good of the souls
aforesaid.
The witnesses are Lionardo priest of S. Felice, Lionardo clerk of the
same, and the Notary Pietro Pagano priest of the same.
[2] According to Romanin (I. 321) the _lira dei grossi_ was also called
_Lira d'imprestidi_, and if the _lire_ here are to be so taken, the
sum will be 10,000 ducats, the largest amount by far that occurs in
any of these Polo documents, unless, indeed, the 1000 _lire_ in Sec. 5 of
Maffeo Junior's Will be the like; but I have some doubt if such lire
are intended in either case.
[3] "(Resolved) That grace be granted to the respectable MARCO PAULO,
relieving him of the penalty he has incurred for neglecting to have
his water-pipe examined, seeing that he was ignorant of the order on
that subject." (See _Appendix C_. No. 3.) The other reference, to M.
Polo, of S. Geremia, runs as follows:--
[_MCCCII. indic. XV. die VIII. Macii q fiat gra Guillo aurifici q ipe
absolvat a pena i qua dicit icurisse p uno spotono sibi iueto veuiedo
de Mestre ppe domu Maci Pauli de Canareglo ui descenderat ad
bibendu._]
"That grace be granted to William the Goldsmith, relieving him of the
penalty which he is stated to have incurred on account of a spontoon
(_spontono_, a loaded bludgeon) found upon him near the house of MARCO
PAULO of Cannareggio, where he had landed to drink on his way from
Mestre." (See _Cicogna_, V. p. 606.)
[4] _Sansovino, Venezia, Citta Nobilissima e Singolare, Descritta_, etc.,
Ven. 1581, f. 236 v.; _Barbaro, Alberi; Coronelli, Allante Veneto_,
I. 19.
[5] The word _Millio_ occurs several times in the Chronicle of the Doge
Andrea Dandolo, who wrote about 1342; and _Milion_ occurs at least
once (besides the application of the term to Polo) in the History of
Giovanni Villani; viz. when he speaks of the Treasury of Avignon:--
"_diciotto_ milioni _di fiorini d'oro_ ec. _che ogni_ milione _e mille
migliaja di fiorini d' oro la valuta_." (xi. 20, Sec. 1; _Ducange_, and
_Vocab. Univ. Ital._). But the definition, thought necessary by
Villani, in itself points to the use of the word as rare. _Domilion_
occurs in the estimated value of houses at Venice in 1367, recorded in
the _Cronaca Magna_ in St. Mark's Library. (_Romanin_, III. 385).
[6] "Also; that Pardon be granted to Bonocio of Mestre for that 152 _lire_
in which he stood condemned by the Captains of the Posts, on account
of wine smuggled by him, in such wise: to wit, that he was to pay the
said fine in 4 years by annual instalments of one fourth, to be
retrenched from the pay due to him on his journey in the suite of our
ambassadors, with assurance that anything then remaining deficient of
his instalments should be made good by himself or his securities. And
his securities are the Nobles Pietro Morosini and MARCO PAULO
MILION." Under _Milion_ is written in an ancient hand "_mortuus_."
(See _Appendix C_, No. 4.)
[7] Humboldt tells this (_Examen_, II. 221), alleging _Jacopo d'Acqui_ as
authority; and Libri (_H. des Sciences Mathematiques_, II. 149),
quoting _Doglioni, Historia Veneziana_. But neither authority bears
out the citations. The story seems really to come from Amoretti's
commentary on the _Voyage du Cap. L. F. Maldonado_, Plaisance, 1812,
p. 67. Amoretti quotes as authority _Pignoria, Degli Dei Antichi_.
An odd revival of this old libel was mentioned to me recently by Mr.
George Moffatt. When he was at school it was common among the boys to
express incredulity by the phrase: "Oh, what a Marco Polo!"
[8] Thibault, according to Ducange, was in 1307 named Grand Master of the
Arblasteers of France; and Buchon says his portrait is at Versailles
among the Admirals (No. 1170). Ramon de Muntaner fell in with the
Seigneur de Cepoy in Greece, and speaks of him as "but a Captain of
the Wind, as his Master was King of the Wind." (See _Ducange, H. de
l'Empire de Const. sous les Emp. Francois_, Venice ed. 1729, pp. 109,
110; _Buchon, Chroniques Etrangeres_, pp. lv. 467-470.)
[9] The note is not found in the Bodleian MS., which is the third known
one of this precise type.
[10] Messire Jean, the son of Thibault, is mentioned in the accounts of
the latter in the _Chambre des Comptes_ at Paris, as having been with
his Father in Romania. And in 1344 he commanded a confederate
Christian armament sent to check the rising power of the Turks, and
beat a great Turkish fleet in the Greek seas. (_Heyd._ I. 377;
_Buchon_, 468.)
[11] The document is given in _Appendix C_, No. 5. It was found by Comm.
Barozzi, the Director of the Museo Civico, when he had most kindly
accompanied me to aid in the search for certain other documents in the
archives of the _Casa di Ricovero_, or Poor House of Venice. These
archives contain a great mass of testamentary and other documents,
which probably have come into that singular depository in connection
with bequests to public charities.
The document next mentioned was found in as strange a site, viz., the
_Casa degli Esposti_ or Foundling Hospital, which possesses similar
muniments. This also I owe to Comm. Barozzi, who had noted it some
years before, when commencing an arrangement of the archives of the
Institution.
[12] The Legal Year at Venice began on the 1st of March. And 1324 was 7th
of the Indiction. Hence the date is, according to the modern Calendar,
1324.
[13] Marsden says of Moreta and Fantina, the only daughters named by
Ramusio, that these may be thought rather familiar terms of endearment
than baptismal names. This is a mistake however. _Fantina_ is from one
of the parochial saints of Venice, S. Fantino, and the male name was
borne by sundry Venetians, among others by a son of Henry Dandolo's.
Moreta is perhaps a variation of Maroca, which seems to have been a
family name among the Polos. We find also the male name of Bellela,
written _Bellello, Bellero, Belletto_.
[14] The _Decima_ went to the Bishop of Castello (eventually converted
into Patriarch of Venice) to divide between himself, the Clergy, the
Church, and the Poor. It became a source of much bad feeling, which
came to a head after the plague of 1348, when some families had to pay
the tenth three times within a very short space. The existing Bishop
agreed to a composition, but his successor Paolo Foscari (1367)
claimed that on the death of every citizen an exact inventory should
be made, and a full tithe levied. The Signory fought hard with the
Bishop, but he fled to the Papal Court and refused all concession.
After his death in 1376 a composition was made for 5500 ducats yearly.
(_Romanin_, II. 406; III. 161, 165.)
[15] There is a difficulty about estimating the value of these sums from
the variety of Venice pounds or _lire_. Thus the _Lira dei piccoli_
was reckoned 3 to the ducat or zecchin, the _Lira ai grossi_ 2 to the
ducat, but the _Lira_ dei _grossi_ or _Lira d'imprestidi_ was equal to
10 ducats, or (allowing for higher value of silver then) about 3_l._
15_s._; a little more than the equivalent of the then Pound sterling.
This last money is _specified_ in some of the bequests, as in the 20
soldi (or 1 lira) to St. Lorenzo, and in the annuity of 8 lire to
Polo's wife; but it seems doubtful what money is meant when _libra_
only or _libra denariorum venetorum_ is used. And this doubt is not
new. Gallicciolli relates that in 1232 Giacomo Menotto left to the
Church of S. Cassiano as an annuity _libras denariorum venetorum
quatuor_. Till 1427 the church received the income as of _lire dei
piccoli_, but on bringing a suit on the subject it was adjudged that
_lire ai grossi_ were to be understood. (_Delle Mem. Venet. Ant._ II.
18.) This story, however, cuts both ways, and does not decide our
doubt.
[16] The form of the name _Ysabeta_ aptly illustrates the transition that
seems so strange from _Elizabeth_ into the _Isabel_ that the Spaniards
made of it.
[17] I.e. the extent of what was properly called the Dogado, all along the
Lagoons from Grado on the extreme east to Capo d'Argine (Cavarzere at
the mouth of the Adige) on the extreme west.
[18] The word rendered _Guilds_ is "_Scholarum_." The crafts at Venice
were united in corporations called _Fraglie_ or _Scholae_, each of
which had its statutes, its head called the _Gastald_, and its place
of meeting under the patronage of some saint. These acted as societies
of mutual aid, gave dowries to poor girls, caused masses to be
celebrated for deceased members, joined in public religious
processions, etc., nor could any craft be exercised except by members
of such a guild. (_Romanin_, I. 390.)
[19] A few years after Ser Marco's death (1328) we find the Great Council
granting to this Peter the rights of a natural Venetian, as having
been a long time at Venice, and well-conducted. (See App. C, _Calendar
of Documents_, No. 13.) This might give some additional colour to M.
Pauthier's supposition that this Peter the Tartar was a faithful
servant who had accompanied Messer Marco from the East 30 years
before. But yet the supposition is probably unfounded. Slavery and
slave-trade were very prevalent at Venice in the Middle Ages, and V.
Lazari, a writer who examined a great many records connected
therewith, found that by far the greater number of slaves were
described as _Tartars_. There does not seem to be any clear
information as to how they were imported, but probably from the
factories on the Black Sea, especially Tana after its establishment.
A tax of 5 ducats per head was set on the export of slaves in 1379,
and as the revenue so received under the Doge Tommaso Mocenigo
(1414-1423) amounted (so says Lazari) to 50,000 ducats, the startling
conclusion is that 10,000 slaves yearly were exported! This it is
difficult to accept. The slaves were chiefly employed in domestic
service, and the records indicate the women to have been about twice
as numerous as the men. The highest price recorded is 87 ducats paid
for a Russian girl sold in 1429. All the higher prices are for young
women; a significant circumstance. With the existence of this system
we may safely connect the extraordinary frequence of mention of
illegitimate children in Venetian wills and genealogies. (See _Lazari,
Del Traffico degli Schiavi in Venezia_, etc., in _Miscellanea di
Storia Italiana_, I. 463 seqq.) In 1308 the Khan Toktai of Kipchak
(see Polo, II. 496), hearing that the Genoese and other Franks were in
the habit of carrying off Tartar children to sell, sent a force
against Caffa, which was occupied without resistance, the people
taking refuge in their ships. The Khan also seized the Genoese
property in Sarai. (_Heyd._ II. 27.)
[20] "_Stracium et omne capud massariciorum_"; in Scotch phrase "_napery
and plenishing_." A Venetian statute of 1242 prescribes that a bequest
of _massariticum_ shall be held to carry to the legatee all articles
of common family use except those of gold and silver plate or
jeweller's work. (See _Ducange, sub voce._) _Stracci_ is still used
technically in Venice for "household linen."
[21] In the original _aureas libras quinque_. According to Marino Sanudo
the Younger (_Vite dei Dogi_ in _Muratori_ xxii. 521) this should be
pounds or _lire_ of _aureole_, the name of a silver coin struck by
and named after the Doge _Aurio_ Mastropietro (1178-1192): "Ancora fu
fatta una Moneta d'argento che si chiamava _Aureola_ per la casata del
Doge; _e quella Moneta che i Notai de Venezia mettevano di pena sotto
i loro instrumenti_." But this was a vulgar error. An example of the
penalty of 5 pounds of gold is quoted from a decree of 960; and the
penalty is sometimes expressed "_auri purissimi librae_ 5." A coin
called the _lira d'oro_ or _redonda_ is alleged to have been in use
before the ducat was introduced. (See _Gallicciolli_, II. 16.) But
another authority seems to identify the _lira a oro_ with the _lira
dei grossi_. (See _Zanetti, Nuova Racc. delle Monete &c. d'Italia_,
1775. I. 308)
[22] We give a photographic reduction of the original document. This, and
the other two Polo Wills already quoted, had come into the possession
of the Noble Filippo Balbi, and were by him presented in our own time
to the St. Mark's Library. They are all on parchment, in writing of
that age, and have been officially examined and declared to be
originals. They were first published by _Cicogna, Iscrizioni
Veneziane_, III. 489-493. We give Marco's in the original language,
line for line with the facsimile, in _Appendix C_.
There is no signature, as may be seen, except those of the Witnesses
and the Notary. The sole presence of a Notary was held to make a deed
valid, and from about the middle of the 13th century in Italy it is
common to find no actual signature (even of witnesses) except that of
the Notary. The peculiar flourish before the Notary's name is what is
called the _Tabellionato_, a fanciful distinctive monogram which each
Notary adopted. Marco's Will is unfortunately written in a very cramp
hand with many contractions. The other two Wills (of Marco the Elder
and Maffeo) are in beautiful and clear Gothic penmanship.
[23] We have noticed formerly (pp. 14-15, _note_) the recent discovery
of a document bearing what was supposed to be the autograph signature
of our Traveller. The document in question is the Minute of a
Resolution of the Great Council, attested by the signatures of three
members, of whom the last is MARCUS PAULLO. But the date alone, 11th
March, 1324, is sufficient to raise the gravest doubts as to this
signature being that of our Marco. And further examination, as I learn
from a friend at Venice, has shown that the same name occurs in
connection with analogous entries on several subsequent occasions up
to the middle of the century. I presume that this Marco Polo is the
same that is noticed in our _Appendix B_, II. as a voter in the
elections of the Doges Marino Faliero and Giovanni Gradenigo. I have
not been able to ascertain his relation to either branch of the Polo
family; but I suspect that he belonged to that of S. Geremia, of which
there _was_ certainly a Marco about the middle of the century.
[24] "Under the _angiporta_ (of S. Lorenzo) [see plate] is buried that
Marco Polo surnamed Milione, who wrote the Travels in the New World,
and who was the first before Christopher Columbus to discover new
countries. No faith was put in him because of the extravagant things
that he recounted; but in the days of our Fathers Columbus augmented
belief in him, by discovering that part of the world which eminent men
had heretofore judged to be uninhabited." (_Venezia ... Descritta_,
etc., f. 23 _v._) Marco Barbaro attests the same inscription in his
Genealogies (copy in Museo Civico at Venice).
[25] _Cicogna_, II. 385.
[26] _Lazari_, xxxi.
[27] In the first edition I noticed briefly a statement that had reached
me from China that, in the Temple at Canton vulgarly called "of the
500 gods," there is a foreign figure which from the name attached had
been supposed to represent Marco Polo! From what I have heard from Mr.
Wylie, a very competent authority, this is nonsense. The temple
contains 500 figures of _Arhans_ or Buddhist saints, and one of these
attracts attention from having a hat like a sailor's straw hat. Mr.
Wylie had not remarked the name. [A model of this figure was exhibited
at Venice at the international Geographical Congress, in 1881. I give
a reproduction of this figure and of the Temple of 500 Genii (_Fa Lum
Sze_) at Canton, from drawings by Felix Regamey made after photographs
sent to me by my late friend, M. Camille Imbault Huart, French Consul
at Canton.--H. C.]
[28] These documents are noted in Appendix C, Nos. 9-12, 14, 17, 18.
[29] I can find no _Ranuzzo_ Dolfino among the Venetian genealogies, but
several _Reniers_. And I suspect Ranuzzo may be a form of the latter
name.
[30] _Cappellari_ (see p. 77, footnote) under _Bragadino_.
[31] Ibid. and _Gallicciolli_, II. 146.
[32] The _lire_ of the fine are not specified; but probably _ai grossi_,
which would be = 37_l._ 10_s._; not, we hope, _dei_ grossi!
[33] Yet, if the family were so wealthy as tradition represents, it is
strange that Marco's brother Maffeo, _after_ receiving a share of his
father's property, should have possessed barely 10,000 _lire_,
probably equivalent to 5000 ducats at most. (See p. 65, supra.)
[34] An Agnes Loredano, Abbess of S. Maria delle Vergini, died in 1397.
(_Cicogna_, V. 91 and 629.) The interval of 61 years makes it somewhat
improbable that it should be the same.
[35] In the _Museo Civico_ (No. 2271 of the Cicogna collection) there is a
commission addressed by the Doge Michiel Steno in 1408, "_Nobili Viro
Marcho Paulo_," nominating him Podesta of Arostica (a Castello of the
Vicentino). This is probably the same Marco.
[36] The descent runs: (1) Azzo = Maria Polo; (2) Febo, Captain at Padua;
(3) Zaccaria, Senator; (4) Domenico, Procurator of St. Mark's; (5)
Marc' Antonio, Doge (_Cappellari_, _Campidoglio Veneto_, MS. St.
Mark's Lib.).
Marc' Antonio _nolebat ducari_ and after election desired to renounce.
His friends persuaded him to retain office, but he lived scarcely a
year after. (_Cicogna_, IV. 566.) [See p. 8.]
[37] In Appendix B will be found tabulated all the facts that seem to be
positively ascertained as to the Polo genealogies.
In the Venetian archives occurs a procuration executed by the Doge in
favour of the _Nobilis Vir_ SER MARCO PAULO that he may present
himself before the king of Sicily; under date, Venice 9th November,
1342. And some years later we have in the Sicilian Archives an order
by King Lewis of Sicily, directed to the Maestri Procuratori of
Messina, which grants to MARCO POLO of Venice, on account of services
rendered to the king's court, the privilege of free import and export
at the port of Messina, without payment of customs of goods to the
amount annually of 20 ounces. Dated in Catania 13th January, 1346
(1347?).
For the former notice I am indebted to the courtesy of Signor B.
Cecchetti of the Venetian Archives, who cites it as "transcribed in
the _Commemor._ IV. p. 5"; for the latter to that of the Abate Carini
of the _Reale Archivio_ at Palermo; it is in _Archivio della Regia
Cancellaria_ 1343-1357, f. 58.
The mission of this MARCO POLO is mentioned also in a rescript of the
Sicilian king Peter II., dated Messina, 14th November, 1340, in
reference to certain claims of Venice, about which the said Marco
appeared as the Doge's ambassador. This is printed in F. TESTA, _De
Vita et Rebus Gestis Federici II., Siciliae Regis_, Panormi, 1775, pp.
267 seqq. The Sicilian Antiquary Rosario Gregorio identifies the Envoy
with our Marco, dead long before. (See _Opere scelte del Canon Ros.
Gregorio_, Palermo, 1845, 3za ediz., p. 352.)
It is possible that this Marco, who from the latter notice seems to
have been engaged in mercantile affairs, may have been the Marcolino
above mentioned, but it is perhaps on the whole more probable that
this _nobilis vir_ is the Marco spoken of in the note at p. 74.
[38] _La Collezione del Doge Marin Faliero e i Tesori di Marco Polo_,
pp. 98-103. I have seen this article.--H. C.
IX. MARCO POLO'S BOOK; AND THE LANGUAGE IN WHICH IT WAS FIRST WRITTEN.
[Illustration: Porcelain Incense Burner, from the Louvre]
[Sidenote: General statement of what the Book contains.]
50. The Book itself consists essentially of Two Parts. _First_, of a
Prologue, as it is termed, the only part which is actual personal
narrative, and which relates, in a very interesting but far too brief
manner, the circumstances which led the two elder Polos to the Kaan's
Court, and those of their second journey with Mark, and of their return to
Persia through the Indian Seas. _Secondly_, of a long series of chapters
of very unequal length, descriptive of notable sights and products, of
curious manners and remarkable events, relating to the different nations
and states of Asia, but, above all, to the Emperor Kublai, his court,
wars, and administration. A series of chapters near the close treats in a
verbose and monotonous manner of sundry wars that took place between the
various branches of the House of Chinghiz in the latter half of the 13th
century. This last series is either omitted or greatly curtailed in all
the copies and versions except one; a circumstance perfectly accounted for
by the absence of interest as well as value in the bulk of these chapters.
Indeed, desirous though I have been to give the Traveller's work complete,
and sharing the dislike that every man who _uses_ books must bear to
abridgments, I have felt that it would be sheer waste and dead-weight to
print these chapters in full.
[Illustration: Temple of 500 Genii at Canton _after a Drawing by_ FELIX
REGAMEY]
This second and main portion of the Work is in its oldest forms undivided,
the chapters running on consecutively to the end.[1] In some very early
Italian or Venetian version, which Friar Pipino translated into Latin, it
was divided into three Books, and this convenient division has generally
been adhered to. We have adopted M. Pauthier's suggestion in making the
final series of chapters, chiefly historical, into a Fourth.
[Sidenote: Language of the original Work.]
51. As regards the language in which Marco's Book was first committed to
writing, we have seen that Ramusio assumed, somewhat arbitrarily, that it
was _Latin_; Marsden supposed it to have been the _Venetian_ dialect;
Baldelli Boni first showed, in his elaborate edition (Florence, 1827), by
arguments that have been illustrated and corroborated by learned men
since, that it was _French_.
That the work was originally written in _some_ Italian dialect was a
natural presumption, and slight contemporary evidence can be alleged in
its favour; for Fra Pipino, in the Latin version of the work, executed
whilst Marco still lived, describes his task as a translation _de
vulgari_. And in one MS. copy of the same Friar Pipino's Chronicle,
existing in the library at Modena, he refers to the said version as made
"_ex vulgari idiomate_ Lombardico." But though it may seem improbable that
at so early a date a Latin version should have been made at second hand, I
believe this to have been the case, and that some internal evidence also
is traceable that Pipino translated _not_ from the original but from an
Italian _version_ of the original.
The oldest MS. (it is supposed) in any Italian dialect is one in the
Magliabecchian Library at Florence, which is known in Italy as _L'Ottima_,
on account of the purity of its Tuscan, and as _Della Crusca_ from its
being one of the authorities cited by that body in their Vocabulary.[2]
It bears on its face the following note in Italian:--
"This Book called the Navigation of Messer Marco Polo, a noble Citizen
of Venice, was written in Florence by Michael Ormanni my great
grandfather by the Mother's side, who died in the Year of Grace One
Thousand Three Hundred and Nine; and my mother brought it into our
Family of Del Riccio, and it belongs to me Pier del Riccio and to my
Brother; 1452."
As far as I can learn, the age which this note implies is considered to be
supported by the character of the MS. itself.[3] If it be accepted, the
latter is a performance going back to within eleven years _at most_ of the
first dictation of the Travels. At first sight, therefore, this would
rather argue that the original had been written in pure Tuscan. But when
Baldelli came to prepare it for the press he found manifest indications of
its being a Translation from the _French_. Some of these he has noted;
others have followed up the same line of comparison. We give some detailed
examples in a note.[4]
[Sidenote: Old French Text published by the Societe de Geographie.]
52. The French Text that we have been quoting, published by the
Geographical Society of Paris in 1824, affords on the other hand the
strongest corresponding proof that it is an original and not a
Translation. Rude as is the language of the manuscript (Fr. 1116, formerly
No. 7367, of Paris Library), it is, in the correctness of the proper
names, and the intelligible exhibition of the itineraries, much superior
to any form of the Work previously published.
The language is very peculiar. We are obliged to call it French, but it is
not "Frenche of Paris." "Its style," says Paulin Paris, "is about as like
that of good French authors of the age, as in our day the natural accent
of a German, an Englishman, or an Italian, is like that of a citizen of
Paris or Blois." The author is at war with all the practices of French
grammar; subject and object, numbers, moods, and tenses, are in consummate
confusion. Even readers of his own day must at times have been fain to
guess his meaning. Italian words are constantly introduced, either quite
in the crude or rudely Gallicized.[5] And words also, we may add,
sometimes slip in which appear to be purely Oriental, just as is apt to
happen with Anglo-Indians in these days.[6] All this is perfectly
consistent with the supposition that we have in this MS. a copy at least
of the original words as written down by Rusticiano a Tuscan, from the
dictation of Marco an Orientalized Venetian, in French, a language foreign
to both.
But the character of the language _as French_ is not its only peculiarity.
There is in the style, apart from grammar or vocabulary, a rude
angularity, a rough dramatism like that of oral narrative; there is a want
of proportion in the style of different parts, now over curt, now diffuse
and wordy, with at times even a hammering reiteration; a constant
recurrence of pet colloquial phrases (in which, however, other literary
works of the age partake); a frequent change in the spelling of the same
proper names, even when recurring within a few lines, as if caught by ear
only; a literal following to and fro of the hesitations of the narrator; a
more general use of the third person in speaking of the Traveller, but an
occasional lapse into the first. All these characteristics are strikingly
indicative of the unrevised product of dictation, and many of them would
_necessarily_ disappear either in translation or in a revised copy.
Of changes in representing the same proper name, take as an example that
of the Kaan of Persia whom Polo calls _Quiacatu_ (Kaikhatu), but also
_Acatu, Catu_, and the like.
As an example of the literal following of dictation take the following:--
"Let us leave Rosia, and I will tell you about the Great Sea (the
Euxine), and what provinces and nations lie round about it, all in
detail; and we will begin with Constantinople--First, however, I should
tell you about a province, etc.... There is nothing more worth
mentioning, so I will speak of other subjects,--but there is one thing
more to tell you about Rosia that I had forgotten.... Now then let us
speak of the Great Sea as I was about to do. To be sure many merchants
and others have been here, but still there are many again who know
nothing about it, so it will be well to include it in our Book. We will
do so then, and let us begin first with the Strait of Constantinople.
"At the Straits leading into the Great Sea, on the West Side, there is a
hill called the Faro.--But since beginning on this matter I have changed
my mind, because so many people know all about it, so we will not put it
in our description but go on to something else." (See vol. ii. p. 487
seqq.)
And so on.
As a specimen of tautology and hammering reiteration the following can
scarcely be surpassed. The Traveller is speaking of the _Chughi_, i.e. the
Indian Jogis:--
"And there are among them certain devotees, called _Chughi_; these are
longer-lived than the other people, for they live from 150 to 200 years;
and yet they are so hale of body that they can go and come wheresoever
they please, and do all the service needed for their monastery or their
idols, and do it just as well as if they were younger; and that comes of
the great abstinence that they practise, in eating little food and only
what is wholesome; for they use to eat rice and milk more than anything
else. And again I tell you that these Chughi who live such a long time
as I have told you, do also eat what I am going to tell you, and you
will think it a great matter. For I tell you that they take quicksilver
and sulphur, and mix them together, and make a drink of them, and then
they drink this, and they say that it adds to their life; and in fact
they do live much longer for it; and I tell you that they do this twice
every month. And let me tell you that these people use this drink from
their infancy in order to live longer, and without fail those who live
so long as I have told you use this drink of sulphur and quicksilver."
(See G. T. p. 213.)
Such talk as this does not survive the solvent of translation; and we may
be certain that we have here the nearest approach to the Traveller's
reminiscences as they were taken down from his lips in the prison of
Genoa.
[Sidenote: Conclusive proof that the Old French Text is the source of all
the others.]
53. Another circumstance, heretofore I believe unnoticed, is in itself
enough to demonstrate the Geographic Text to be the source of all other
versions of the Work. It is this.
In reviewing the various classes or types of texts of Polo's Book, which
we shall hereafter attempt to discriminate, there are certain proper names
which we find in the different texts to take very different forms, each
class adhering in the main to one particular form.
Thus the names of the Mongol ladies introduced at pp. 32 and 36 of this
volume, which are in proper Oriental form _Bulughan_ and _Kukachin_,
appear in the class of MSS. which Pauthier has followed as _Bolgara_ and
_Cogatra_; in the MSS. of Pipino's version, and those founded on it,
including Ramusio, the names appear in the correcter forms _Bolgana_ or
_Balgana_ and _Cogacin_. Now _all the forms_ Bolgana, Balgana, Bolgara,
_and_ Cogatra, Cocacin _appear in the Geographic Text_.
Kaikhatu Kaan appears in the Pauthier MSS. as _Chiato_, in the Pipinian as
_Acatu_, in the Ramusian as _Chiacato. All three forms_, Chiato, Achatu,
and Quiacatu _are found in the Geographic Text_.
The city of Koh-banan appears in the Pauthier MSS. as _Cabanant_, in the
Pipinian and Ramusian editions as _Cobinam_ or _Cobinan_. _Both forms are
found in the Geographic Text_.
The city of the Great Kaan (Khanbalig) is called in the Pauthier MSS.
_Cambaluc_, in the Pipinian and Ramusian less correctly _Cambalu_. _Both
forms appear in the Geographic Text_.
The aboriginal People on the Burmese Frontier who received from the
Western officers of the Mongols the Persian name (translated from that
applied by the Chinese) of _Zardandan_, or Gold-Teeth, appear in the
Pauthier MSS. most accurately as Zardandan, but in the Pipinian as
_Ardandan_ (still further corrupted in some copies into _Arcladam_). Now
_both forms are found in the Geographic Text_. Other examples might be
given, but these I think may suffice to prove that this Text was the
common source of both classes.
In considering the question of the French original too we must remember
what has been already said regarding Rusticien de Pise and his other
French writings; and we shall find hereafter an express testimony borne in
the next generation that Marco's Book was composed _in vulgari Gallico_.
[Sidenote: Greatly diffused employment of French in that age.]
54. But, after all, the circumstantial evidence that has been adduced from
the texts themselves is the most conclusive. We have then every reason to
believe both that the work was written in French, and that an existing
French Text is a close representation of it as originally committed to
paper. And that being so we may cite some circumstances to show that the
use of French or quasi-French for the purpose was not a fact of a very
unusual or surprising nature. The French language had at that time almost
as wide, perhaps relatively a wider, diffusion than it has now. It was
still spoken at the Court of England, and still used by many English
writers, of whom the authors or translators of the Round Table Romances at
Henry III.'s Court are examples.[7] In 1249 Alexander III. King of
Scotland, at his coronation spoke in Latin and French; and in 1291 the
English Chancellor addressing the Scotch Parliament did so in French. At
certain of the Oxford Colleges as late as 1328 it was an order that the
students should converse _colloquio latino vel saltern gallico_.[8] Late
in the same century Gower had not ceased to use French, composing many
poems in it, though apologizing for his want of skill therein:--
"Et si jeo nai de Francois la faconde
* * * * *
Jeo suis Englois; si quier par tiele voie
Estre excuse."[9]
Indeed down to nearly 1385, boys in the English grammar-schools were
taught to construe their Latin lessons into French.[10] St. Francis of
Assisi is said by some of his biographers to have had his original name
changed to Francesco because of his early mastery of that language as a
qualification for commerce. French had been the prevalent tongue of the
Crusaders, and was that of the numerous Frank Courts which they
established in the East, including Jerusalem and the states of the Syrian
coast, Cyprus, Constantinople during the reign of the Courtenays, and the
principalities of the Morea. The Catalan soldier and chronicler Ramon de
Muntaner tells us that it was commonly said of the Morean chivalry that
they spoke as good French as at Paris.[11] Quasi-French at least was still
spoken half a century later by the numerous Christians settled at Aleppo,
as John Marignolli testifies;[12] and if we may trust Sir John Maundevile
the Soldan of Egypt himself and four of his chief Lords "_spak Frensche
righte wel!_"[13] Ghazan Kaan, the accomplished Mongol Sovereign of
Persia, to whom our Traveller conveyed a bride from Cambaluc, is said by
the historian Rashiduddin to have known something of the Frank tongue,
probably French.[14] Nay, if we may trust the author of the Romance of
Richard Coeur-de-Lion, French was in his day the language of still higher
spheres![15]
Nor was Polo's case an exceptional one even among writers on the East who
were not Frenchmen. Maundevile himself tells us that he put his book first
"out of Latyn into Frensche," and then out of French into English.[16] The
History of the East which the Armenian Prince and Monk Hayton dictated to
Nicolas Faulcon at Poictiers in 1307 was taken down in French. There are
many other instances of the employment of French by foreign, and
especially by Italian authors of that age. The Latin chronicle of the
Benedictine Amato of Monte Cassino was translated into French early in the
13th century by another monk of the same abbey, at the particular desire
of the Count of Militree (or Malta), "_Pour ce qu'il set lire et entendre
fransoize et s'en delitte._"[17] Martino da Canale, a countryman and
contemporary of Polo's, during the absence of the latter in the East wrote
a Chronicle of Venice in the same language, as a reason for which he
alleges its general popularity.[18] The like does the most notable example
of all, Brunetto Latini, Dante's master, who wrote in French his
encyclopaedic and once highly popular work _Li Tresor_.[19] Other examples
might be given, but in fact such illustration is superfluous when we
consider that Rusticiano himself was a compiler of French Romances.
But why the language of the Book as we see it in the Geographic Text
should be so much more rude, inaccurate, and Italianized than that of
Rusticiano's other writings, is a question to which I can suggest no reply
quite satisfactory to myself. Is it possible that we have in it a literal
representation of Polo's own language in dictating the story,--a rough
draft which it was intended afterwards to reduce to better form, and which
was so reduced (after a fashion) in French copies of another type,
regarding which we shall have to speak presently?[20] And, if this be the
true answer, why should Polo have used a French jargon in which to tell
his story? Is it possible that his own mother Venetian, such as he had
carried to the East with him and brought back again, was so little
intelligible to Rusticiano that French of some kind was the handiest
medium of communication between the two? I have known an Englishman and a
Hollander driven to converse in Malay; Chinese Christians of different
provinces are said sometimes to take to English as the readiest means of
intercommunication; and the same is said even of Irish-speaking Irishmen
from remote parts of the Island.
It is worthy of remark how many notable narratives of the Middle Ages have
been dictated instead of being written by their authors, and that in cases
where it is impossible to ascribe this to ignorance of writing. The
Armenian Hayton, though evidently a well-read man, possibly could not
write in Roman characters. But Joinville is an illustrious example. And
the narratives of four of the most famous Mediaeval Travellers[21] seem to
have been drawn from them by a kind of pressure, and committed to paper by
other hands. I have elsewhere remarked this as indicating how little
diffused was literary ambition or vanity; but it would perhaps be more
correct to ascribe it to that intense dislike which is still seen on the
shores of the Mediterranean to the use of pen and ink. On certain of those
shores at least there is scarcely any inconvenience that the majority of
respectable and good-natured people will not tolerate--inconvenience to
their neighbours be it understood--rather than put pen to paper for the
purpose of preventing it.
[1] 232 chapters in the oldest French which we quote as the _Geographic
Text_ (or G. T.), 200 in Pauthier's Text, 183 in the Crusca Italian.
[2] The MS. has been printed by Baldelli as above, and again by Bartoli in
1863.
[3] This is somewhat peculiar. I traced a few lines of it, which with Del
Riccio's note were given in facsimile in the First Edition.
[4] The Crusca is cited from Bartoli's edition.
French idioms are frequent, as _l'uomo_ for the French _on_;
_quattro-vinti_ instead of _ottanta_; etc.
We have at p. 35, "_Questo piano e molto_ cavo," which is nonsense,
but is explained by reference to the French (G. T.) "_Voz di qu'il est
celle plaingne mout_ chaue" (_chaude_).
The bread in Kerman is bitter, says the G. T. "_por ce que l'eive hi
est_ amer," because the water there is bitter. The Crusca mistakes the
last word and renders (p. 40) "_e questi e per lo_ mare _che vi
viene_."
"_Sachies de voir qe_ endementiers," know for a truth that whilst----,
by some misunderstanding of the last word becomes (p. 129) "_Sappiate
di vero_ sanza mentire."
"_Mes de sel_ font-il monoie"--"They make money of salt," becomes (p.
168) "_ma fannole_ da loro," _sel_ being taken for a pronoun, whilst
in
another place _sel_ is transferred bodily without translation.
"_Chevoil_," "hair" of the old French, appears in the Tuscan (p. 20)
as _cavagli_, "horses."--"_La Grant Provence_ Jereraus," the great
general province, appears (p. 68) as a province whose proper name is
_Ienaraus_. In describing Kublai's expedition against Mien or Burma,
Polo has a story of his calling on the Jugglers at his court to
undertake the job, promising them a Captain and other help,
"_Cheveitain et aide_." This has fairly puzzled the Tuscan, who
converts these (p. 186) into two Tartar tribes, "_quegli d'_ Aide
_e quegli di_ Caveita."
So also we have _lievre_ for hare transferred without change; _lait_,
milk, appearing as _laido_ instead of _latte_; _tres_, rendered as
"three"; _bue_, "mud," Italianised as _buoi_, "oxen," and so forth.
Finally, in various places when Polo is explaining Oriental terms we
find in the Tuscan MS. "_cioe a dire in_ Francesco."
The blunders mentioned are intelligible enough as in a version _from
the French_; but in the description of the Indian pearl-fishery we
have a startling one not so easy to account for. The French says, "the
divers gather the sea-oysters (_hostrige de Mer_), and in these the
pearls are found." This appears in the Tuscan in the extraordinary
form that the divers catch those fishes called _Herrings_ (Aringhe),
and in those Herrings are found the Pearls!
[5] As examples of these Italianisms: "_Et ont del_ olio _de la lanpe dou_
sepolchro _de Crist_"; "_L'Angel ven en vision pour mesajes de Deu a
un_ Veschevo _qe mout estoient home de_ sante vite"; "_E certes il
estoit bien_ beizongno"; "_ne trop caut ne trop_ fredo"; "_la_ crense"
(_credenza_); "remort" for noise (_rumore_) "inverno"; "jorno";
"dementique" (_dimenticato_); "enferme" for sickly; "leign" (_legno_);
"devisce" (_dovizia_); "ammalaide" (_ammalato_), etc. etc.
Professor Bianconi points out that there are also traces of _Venetian_
dialect, as _Pare_ for _pere_; _Mojer_ for wife; _Zabater_, cobbler;
_cazaor_, huntsman, etc.
I have not been able to learn to what extent books in this kind of
mixed language are extant. I have observed one, a romance in verse
called _Macaire_ (_Altfranzosische Gedichte aus Venez. Handschriften_,
von _Adolf Mussafia_, Wien, 1864), the language of which is not unlike
this jargon of Rustician's, e.g.:--
"'Dama,' fait-il, 'molto me poso merviler
De ves enfant quant le fi batecer
De un signo qe le vi sor la spal'a droiturer
Qe non ait nul se no filz d'inperer.'"--(p. 41)
[6] As examples of such Orientalisms: _Bonus_, "ebony," and _calamanz_,
"pencases," seem to represent the Persian abnus and kalamdan; the dead
are mourned by _les meres et les_ Araines, the _Harems_; in speaking
of the land of the Ismaelites or Assassins, called _Mulhete_, i.e. the
Arabic _Mulahidah_, "Heretics," he explains this term as meaning "des
_Aram_" (_Haram_, "the reprobate"). Speaking of the Viceroys of
Chinese Provinces, we are told that they rendered their accounts
yearly to the _Safators_ of the Great Kaan. This is certainly an
Oriental word. Sir H. Rawlinson has suggested that it stands for
_dafatir_ ("registers or public books"), pl. of _daftar_. This seems
probable, and in that case the true reading may have been _dafators_.
[7] Luces du Gast, one of the first of these, introduces himself thus:--
"Je Luces, Chevaliers et Sires du Chastel du Gast, voisins prochain de
Salebieres, comme chevaliers amoureus enprens a translater du Latin en
Francois une partie de cette estoire, non mie pour ce que je sache
gramment de Francois, ainz apartient plus ma langue et ma parleure a
la maniere de l'Engleterre que a celle de France, comme cel qui fu en
Engleterre nez, mais tele est ma volentez et mon proposement, que je
en langue francoise le translaterai." (_Hist. Litt. de La France_, xv.
494.)
[8] _Hist. Litt. de la France_, xv. 500.
[9] Ibid. 508.
[10] _Tyrwhitt's Essay on Lang., etc., of Chaucer_, p. xxii. (Moxon's Ed.
1852.)
[11] _Chroniques Etrangeres_, p. 502.
[12] "_Loquuntur linguam quasi Gallicam, scilicet quasi de Cipro_."
(See _Cathay_ p. 332.)
[13] Page 138.
[14] _Hammers Ilchan_, II. 148.
[15] After the capture of Acre, Richard orders 60,000 Saracen prisoners to
be executed:--
"They wer brought out off the toun,
Save twenty, he heeld to raunsoun.
They wer led into the place ful evene:
_Ther they herden Aungeles off Hevene_:
_They sayde_: 'SEYNYORS, TUEZ, TUEZ!
'Spares hem nought! Behedith these!'
Kyng Rychard herde the Aungelys voys,
And thankyd God, and the Holy Croys."
--_Weber_, II. 144.
Note that, from the rhyme, the Angelic French was apparently
pronounced "_Too-eese! Too-eese!_"
[16] [Refer to the edition of Mr. George F. Warner, 1889, for the
Roxburghe Club, and to my own paper in the _T'oung Pao_, Vol. II., No.
4, regarding the compilation published under the name of Maundeville.
Also _App. L_. 13--H. C.]
[17] _L'Ystoire de li Normand_, etc., edited by M. Champollion-Figeac,
Paris, 1835, p. v.
[18] "_Porce que lengue Frenceise cort parmi le monde, et est la plus
delitable a lire et a oir que nule autre, me sui-je entremis de
translater l'ancien estoire des Veneciens de Latin en Franceis._"
(Archiv. Stor. Ital. viii. 268.)
[19] "_Et se aucuns demandoit por quoi cist livres est escriz en Romans,
selonc le langage des Francois, puisque nos somes Ytaliens, je diroie
que ce est por. ij. raisons: l'une, car nos somes en France; et
l'autre porce que la parleure est plus delitable et plus commune a
toutes gens._" (Li Livres dou Tresor, p. 3.)
[20] It is, however, not improbable that Rusticiano's hasty and
abbreviated original was extended by a scribe who knew next to nothing
of French; otherwise it is hard to account for such forms as
_perlinage_ (pelerinage), _peseries_ (espiceries), _proque_ (see vol.
ii. p. 370), _oisi_ (G.T. p. 208), _thochere_ (toucher), etc. (See
_Bianconi_, 2nd Mem. pp. 30-32.)
[21] Polo, Friar Odoric, Nicolo Conti, Ibn Batuta.
X. VARIOUS TYPES OF TEXT OF MARCO POLO'S BOOK.
[Sidenote: Four Principal Types of Text. First, that of the Geographic, or
oldest French.]
55. In treating of the various Texts of Polo's Book we must necessarily go
into some irksome detail.
Those Texts that have come down to us may be classified under Four
principal Types.
I. The First Type is that of the Geographic Text of which we have already
said so much. This is found nowhere _complete_ except in the unique MS. of
the Paris Library, to which it is stated to have come from the old Library
of the French Kings at Blois. But the Italian _Crusca_, and the old Latin
version (No. 3195 of the Paris Library) published with the Geographic
Text, are evidently derived entirely from it, though both are considerably
abridged. It is also demonstrable that neither of these copies has been
translated from the other, for each has passages which the other omits,
but that both have been taken, the one as a copy more or less loose, the
other as a translation, from an intermediate _Italian_ copy.[1] A special
difference lies in the fact that the Latin version is divided into three
Books, whilst the Crusca has no such division. I shall show in a tabular
form the _filiation_ of the texts which these facts seem to demonstrate
(see Appendix G).
There are other Italian MSS. of this type, some of which show signs of
having been derived independently from the French;[2] but I have not been
able to examine any of them with the care needful to make specific
deductions regarding them.
[Sidenote: Second; the remodelled French Text, followed by Pauthier.]
56. II. The next Type is that of the French MSS. on which M. Pauthier's
Text is based, and for which he claims the highest authority, as having
had the mature revision and sanction of the Traveller. There are, as far
as I know, five MSS. which may be classed together under this type, three
in the Great Paris Library, one at Bern, and one in the Bodleian.
The high claims made by Pauthier on behalf of this class of MSS. (on the
first three of which his Text is formed) rest mainly upon the kind of
certificate which two of them bear regarding the presentation of a copy by
Marco Polo to Thibault de Cepoy, which we have already quoted (supra p.
69). This certificate is held by Pauthier to imply that the original of
the copies which bear it, and of those having a general correspondence
with them, had the special seal of Marco's revision and approval. To some
considerable extent their character is corroborative of such a claim, but
they are far from having the perfection which Pauthier attributes to them,
and which leads him into many paradoxes.
It is not possible to interpret rigidly the bearing of this so-called
certificate, as if no copies had previously been taken of _any_ form of
the Book; nor can we allow it to impugn the authenticity of the Geographic
Text, which demonstratively represents an older original, and has been (as
we have seen) the parent of all other versions, including some very old
ones, Italian and Latin, which certainly owe nothing to this revision.
The first idea apparently entertained by d'Avezac and Paulin Paris was
that the Geographic Text was _itself_ the copy given to the Sieur de
Cepoy, and that the differences in the copies of the class which we
describe as Type II. merely resulted from the modifications which would
naturally arise in the process of transcription into purer French. But
closer examination showed the differences to be too great and too marked
to admit of this explanation. These differences consist not only in the
conversion of the rude, obscure, and half Italian language of the original
into good French of the period. There is also very considerable
curtailment, generally of tautology, but also extending often to
circumstances of substantial interest; whilst we observe the omission of a
few notably erroneous statements or expressions; and a few insertions of
small importance. None of the MSS. of this class contain more than a few
of the historical chapters which we have formed into Book IV.
The only _addition_ of any magnitude is that chapter which in our
translation forms chapter xxi. of Book II. It will be seen that it
contains no new facts, but is only a tedious recapitulation of
circumstances already stated, though scattered over several chapters.
There are a few minor additions. I have not thought it worth while to
collect them systematically here, but two or three examples are given in a
note.[3]
There are also one or two corrections of erroneous statements in the G. T.
which seem not to be accidental and to indicate some attempt at revision.
Thus a notable error in the account of Aden, which seems to conceive of
the Red Sea as a _river_, disappears in Pauthier's MSS. A and B.[4] And we
find in these MSS. one or two interesting names preserved which are not
found in the older Text.[5]
But on the other hand this class of MSS. contains many erroneous readings
of names, either adopting the worse of two forms occurring in the G. T. or
originating blunders of its own.[6]
M. Pauthier lays great stress on the character of these MSS. as the sole
authentic form of the work, from their claim to have been specially
revised by Marco Polo. It is evident, however, from what has been said,
that this revision can have been only a very careless and superficial one,
and must have been done in great measure by deputy, being almost entirely
confined to curtailment and to the improvement of the expression, and that
it is by no means such as to allow an editor to dispense with a careful
study of the Older Text.
[Sidenote: The Bern MS. and two others form a sub-class of this Type.]
57. There is another curious circumstance about the MSS. of this type,
viz., that they clearly divide into two distinct recensions, of which both
have so many peculiarities and errors in common that they must necessarily
have been both derived from _one_ modification of the original text,
whilst at the same time there are such differences between the two as
cannot be set down to the accidents of transcription. Pauthier's MSS. A
and B (Nos. 16 and 15 of the List in App. F) form one of these
subdivisions: his C (No. 17 of List), Bern (No. 56), and Oxford (No. 6),
the other. Between A and B the differences are only such as seem
constantly to have arisen from the whims of transcribers or their
dialectic peculiarities. But between A and B on the one side, and C on the
other, the differences are much greater. The readings of proper names in C
are often superior, sometimes worse; but in the latter half of the work
especially it contains a number of substantial passages[7] which are to be
found in the G. T., but are altogether absent from the MSS. A and B;
whilst in one case at least (the history of the Siege of Saianfu, vol. ii.
p. 159) it diverges considerably from the G. T. _as well_ as from A and
B.[8]
I gather from the facts that the MS. C represents an older form of the
work than A and B. I should judge that the latter had been derived from
that older form, but intentionally modified from it. And as it is the MS.
C, with its copy at Bern, that alone presents the certificate of
derivation from the Book given to the Sieur de Cepoy, there can be no
doubt that it is the true representative of that recension.
[Sidenote: Third; Friar Pipino's Latin.]
58. III. The next Type of Text is that found in Friar Pipino's Latin
version. It is the type of which MSS. are by far the most numerous. In it
condensation and curtailment are carried a good deal further than in Type
II. The work is also divided into three Books. But this division does not
seem to have originated with Pipino, as we find it in the ruder and
perhaps older Latin version of which we have already spoken under Type I.
And we have demonstrated that this ruder Latin is a translation from an
Italian copy. It is probable therefore that an Italian version similarly
divided was the common source of what we call the Geographic Latin and of
Pipino's more condensed version.[9]
Pipino's version appears to have been executed in the later years of
Polo's life.[10] But I can see no ground for the idea entertained by
Baldelli-Boni and Professor Bianconi that it was executed with Polo's
cognizance and retouched by him.
[Sidenote: The Latin of Grynaeus a translation at fifth hand.]
59. The absence of effective publication in the Middle Ages led to a
curious complication of translation and retranslation. Thus the Latin
version published by Grynaeus in the _Novus Orbis_ (Basle, 1532) is
different from Pipino's, and yet clearly traceable to it as a base. In
fact it is a retranslation into Latin from some version (Marsden thinks
the printed Portuguese one) of Pipino. It introduces many minor
modifications, omitting specific statements of numbers and values,
generalizing the names and descriptions of specific animals, exhibiting
frequent sciolism and self-sufficiency in modifying statements which the
Editor disbelieved.[11] It is therefore utterly worthless as a Text, and
it is curious that Andreas Mueller, who in the 17th century devoted himself
to the careful editing of Polo, should have made so unfortunate a choice
as to reproduce this fifth-hand Translation. I may add that the French
editions published in the middle of the 16th century are _translations_
from Grynaeus. Hence they complete this curious and vicious circle of
translation: French--Italian--Pipino's Latin--Portuguese?--Grynaeus's
Latin--French![12]
[Sidenote: Fourth; Ramusio's Italian.]
60. IV. We now come to a Type of Text which deviates largely from any of
those hitherto spoken of, and the history and true character of which are
involved in a cloud of difficulty. We mean that Italian version prepared
for the press by G. B. Ramusio, with most interesting, though, as we have
seen, not always accurate preliminary dissertations, and published at
Venice two years after his death, in the second volume of the _Navigationi
e Viaggi_.[13]
The peculiarities of this version are very remarkable. Ramusio seems to
imply that he used as one basis at least the Latin of Pipino; and many
circumstances, such as the division into Books, the absence of the
terminal historical chapters and of those about the Magi, and the form of
many proper names, confirm this. But also many additional circumstances
and anecdotes are introduced, many of the names assume a new shape, and
the whole style is more copious and literary in character than in any
other form of the work.
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; and Lazari is rash enough to
ascribe the whole to a _rifacimento_ of Ramusio's own age, asserting it to
contain interpolations not merely from Polo's own contemporary Hayton, but
also from travellers of later centuries, such as Conti, Barbosa, and
Pigafetta. The grounds for these last assertions have not been cited, nor
can I trace them. But I admit _to a certain extent_ indications of modern
tampering with the text, especially in cases where proper names seem to
have been identified and more modern forms substituted. In days, however,
where an Editor's duties were ill understood, this was natural.
[Sidenote: Injudicious tamperings in Ramusio.]
61. Thus we find substituted for the _Bastra_ (or _Bascra_) of the older
texts the more modern and incorrect _Balsora_, dear to memories of the
Arabian Nights; among the provinces of Persia we have _Spaan_ (Ispahan)
where older texts read _Istanit_; for _Cormos_ we have _Ormus_; for
_Herminia_ and _Laias, Armenia_ and _Giazza; Coulam_ for the older
_Coilum; Socotera_ for _Scotra_. With these changes may be classed the
chapter-headings, which are undisguisedly modern, and probably Ramusio's
own. In some other cases this editorial spirit has been over-meddlesome
and has gone astray. Thus _Malabar_ is substituted wrongly for _Maabar_ in
one place, and by a grosser error for _Dalivar_ in another. The age of
young Marco, at the time of his father's first return to Venice, has been
arbitrarily altered from 15 to 19, in order to correspond with a date
which is itself erroneous. Thus also Polo is made to describe Ormus as on
an Island, contrary to the old texts and to the fact; for the city of
Hormuz was not transferred to the island, afterwards so famous, till some
years after Polo's return from the East. It is probably also the editor
who in the notice of the oil-springs of Caucasus (i. p. 46) has
substituted _camel-loads_ for _ship-loads_, in ignorance that the site of
those alluded to was probably Baku on the Caspian.
Other erroneous statements, such as the introduction of window-glass as
one of the embellishments of the palace at Cambaluc, are probably due only
to accidental misunderstanding.
[Sidenote: Genuine statements peculiar to Ramusio.]
62. Of circumstances certainly genuine, which are peculiar to this edition
of Polo's work, and which it is difficult to assign to any one but
himself, we may note the specification of the woods east of Yezd as
composed of _date trees_ (vol. i pp. 88-89); the unmistakable allusion to
the subterranean irrigation channels of Persia (p. 123); the accurate
explanation of the term _Mulehet_ applied to the sect of Assassins (pp.
139-142); the mention of the Lake (Sirikul?) on the plateau of Pamer, of
the wolves that prey on the wild sheep, and of the piles of wild rams'
horns used as landmarks in the snow (pp. 171-177). To the description of
the Tibetan Yak, which is in all the texts, Ramusio's version alone adds a
fact probably not recorded again till the present century, viz., that it
is the practice to cross the Yak with the common cow (p. 274). Ramusio
alone notices the prevalence of _goitre_ at Yarkand, confirmed by recent
travellers (i. p. 187); the vermilion seal of the Great Kaan imprinted on
the paper-currency, which may be seen in our plate of a Chinese note (p.
426); the variation in Chinese dialects (ii. p. 236); the division of the
hulls of junks into water-tight compartments (ii. p. 249); the
introduction into China from Egypt of the art of refining sugar (ii. p.
226). Ramusio's account of the position of the city of Sindafu (Ch'eng-tu
fu) encompassed and intersected by many branches of a great river (ii. p.
40), is much more just than that in the old text, which speaks of but one
river through the middle of the city. The intelligent notices of the
Kaan's charities as originated by his adoption of "idolatry" or Buddhism;
of the astrological superstitions of the Chinese, and of the manners and
character of the latter nation, are found in Ramusio alone. To whom but
Marco himself, or one of his party, can we refer the brief but vivid
picture of the delicious atmosphere and scenery of the Badakhshan plateaux
(ip. 158), and of the benefit that Messer Marco's health derived from a
visit to them? In this version alone again we have an account of the
oppressions exercised by Kublai's Mahomedan Minister Ahmad, telling how
the Cathayans rose against him and murdered him, with the addition that
Messer Marco was on the spot when all this happened. Now not only is the
whole story in substantial accordance with the Chinese Annals, even to the
name of the chief conspirator,[15] but those annals also tell of the
courageous frankness of "Polo, assessor of the Privy Council," in opening
the Kaan's eyes to the truth.
Many more such examples might be adduced, but these will suffice. It is
true that many of the passages peculiar to the Ramusian version, and
indeed the whole version, show a freer utterance and more of a literary
faculty than we should attribute to Polo, judging from the earlier texts.
It is possible, however, that this may be almost, if not entirely, due to
the fact that the version is the result of a double translation, and
probably of an editorial fusion of several documents; processes in which
angularities of expression would be dissolved.[16]
[Sidenote: Hypothesis of the sources of the Ramusian Version.]
63. Though difficulties will certainly remain,[17] the most probable
explanation of the origin of this text seems to me to be some such
hypothesis as the following:--I suppose that Polo in his latter years
added with his own hand supplementary notes and reminiscences, marginally
or otherwise, to a copy of his book; that these, perhaps in his lifetime,
more probably after his death, were digested and translated into
Latin;[18] and that Ramusio, or some friend of his, in retranslating and
fusing them with Pipino's version for the _Navigationi_, made those minor
modifications in names and other matters which we have already noticed.
The mere facts of digestion from memoranda and double translation would
account for a good deal of unintentional corruption.
That more than one version was employed in the composition of Ramusio's
edition we have curious proof in at least one passage of the latter. We
have pointed out at p. 410 of this volume a curious example of
misunderstanding of the old French Text, a passage in which the term _Roi
des Pelaines_, or "King of Furs," is applied to the Sable, and which in
the Crusca has been converted into an imaginary Tartar phrase _Leroide
pelame_, or as Pipino makes it _Rondes_ (another indication that Pipino's
Version and the Crusca passed through a common medium). But Ramusio
exhibits _both_ the true reading and the perversion: "_E li Tartari la
chiamano_ Regina delle pelli" (there is the true reading), "_E gli animali
si chiamano_ Rondes" (and there the perverted one).
We may further remark that Ramusio's version betrays indications that one
of its bases either was in the Venetian dialect, or had passed through
that dialect; for a good many of the names appear in Venetian forms, e.g.,
substituting the _z_ for the sound of _ch, j_, or soft _g_, as in _Goza,
Zorzania, Zagatay, Gonza_ (for Giogiu), _Quenzanfu, Coiganzu, Tapinzu,
Zipangu, Ziamba_.
[Sidenote: Summary in regard to Text of Polo.]
64. To sum up. It is, I think, beyond reasonable dispute that we have, in
what we call the Geographic Text, as nearly as may be an exact transcript
of the Traveller's words as originally taken down in the prison of Genoa.
We have again in the MSS. of the second type an edition pruned and
refined, probably under instructions from Marco Polo, but not with any
critical exactness. And lastly, I believe, that we have, imbedded in the
Ramusian edition, the supplementary recollections of the Traveller, noted
down at a later period of his life, but perplexed by repeated translation,
compilation, and editorial mishandling.
And the most important remaining problem in regard to the text of Polo's
work is the discovery of the supplemental manuscript from which Ramusio
derived those passages which are found only in his edition. It is possible
that it may still exist, but no trace of it in anything like completeness
has yet been found; though when my task was all but done I discovered a
small part of the Ramusian peculiarities in a MS. at Venice.[19]
65. Whilst upon this subject of manuscripts of our Author, I will give
some particulars regarding a very curious one, containing a version in the
_Irish_ language.
[Sidenote: Notice of a curious Irish Version of Polo.]
This remarkable document is found in the _Book of Lismore_, belonging to
the Duke of Devonshire. That magnificent book, finely written on vellum of
the largest size, was discovered in 1814, enclosed in a wooden box, along
with a superb crozier, on opening a closed doorway in the castle of
Lismore. It contained Lives of the Saints, the (Romance) History of
Charlemagne, the History of the Lombards, histories and tales of Irish
wars, etc., etc., and among the other matter this version of Marco Polo.
A full account of the Book and its mutilations will be found in _O'Curry's
Lectures on the MS. Materials of Ancient Irish History_, p. 196 seqq.,
Dublin, 1861. The _Book of Lismore_ was written about 1460 for Finghin
MacCarthy and his wife Catharine Fitzgerald, daughter of Gerald, Eighth
Earl of Desmond.
The date of the Translation of Polo is not known, but it may be supposed
to have been executed about the above date, probably in the Monastery of
Lismore (county of Waterford).
From the extracts that have been translated for me, it is obvious that the
version was made, with an astounding freedom certainly, from Friar
Francesco Pipino's Latin.
Both beginning and end are missing. But what remains opens thus; compare
it with Friar Pipino's real prologue as we give it in the Appendix![20]
"[Irish uncial text:
riguib ocus tassech na cathar sin. bai bratair rigui anaibit san fnses
inn cathr intansin. ba eoluc dano ss' nahilberlaib fransiscus aainm.
bhur iarum du ambant na maste ucut ocus cuingst fair inleabor doclod
fcula otengaid natartaired cg inteng laitanda]." &c.
--"Kings and chieftains of that city. There was then in the city a
princely Friar in the habit of St. Francis, named Franciscus, who was
versed in many languages. He was brought to the place where those nobles
were, and they requested of him to translate the book from the Tartar
(!) into the Latin language. 'It is an abomination to me,' said he, 'to
devote my mind or labour to works of Idolatry and Irreligion.' They
entreated him again. 'It shall be done,' said he; 'for though it be an
irreligious narrative that is related therein, yet the things are
miracles of the True God; and every one who hears this much against the
Holy Faith shall pray fervently for their conversion. And he who will
not pray shall waste the vigour of his body to convert them.' I am not
in dread of this Book of Marcus, for there is no lie in it. My eyes
beheld him bringing the relics of the holy Church with him, and he left
[his testimony], whilst tasting of death, that it was true. And Marcus
was a devout man. What is there in it, then, but that Franciscus
translated this Book of Marcus from the Tartar into Latin; and the years
of the Lord at that time were fifteen years, two score, two hundred, and
one thousand" (1255).
It then describes _Armein Bec_ (Little Armenia), _Armein Mor_ (Great
Armenia), _Musul, Taurisius, Persida, Camandi_, and so forth. The last
chapter is that on _Abaschia_:--
"ABASCHIA also is an extensive country, under the government of Seven
Kings, four of whom worship the true God, and each of them wears a
golden cross on the forehead; and they are valiant in battle, having
been brought up fighting against the Gentiles of the other three kings,
who are Unbelievers and Idolaters. And the kingdom of ADEN; a Soudan
rules over them.
"The king of Abaschia once took a notion to make a pilgrimage to the
Sepulchre of Jesus. 'Not at all,' said his nobles and warriors to him,
'for we should be afraid lest the infidels through whose territories you
would have to pass, should kill you. There is a Holy Bishop with you,'
said they; 'send him to the Sepulchre of Jesus, and much gold with
him'"--
The rest is wanting.
[1] In the following citations, the Geographic Text (G. T.) is quoted by
page from the printed edition (1824); the Latin published in the same
volume (G. L.) also by page; the Crusca, as before, from Bartoli's
edition of 1863. References in parentheses are to the present
translation:--
A. _Passages showing the G. L. to be a translation from the Italian,
and derived from the same Italian text as the_ Crusca.
Page
(1). G.T. 17 (I. 43). Il hi se laborent _le souran tapis_
dou monde.
Crusca, 17 .. E quivi si fanno _i sovrani tappeti_
del mondo.
G.L. 311 .. Et ibi fiunt _soriani et tapeti_
pulcriores de mundo.
(2). G.T. 23 (I. 69). Et adonc le calif mande par tuit les
cristiez ... _que en sa tere estoient_.
Crusca, 27 .. _Ora mando_ lo aliffo per tutti gli
Cristiani _ch' erano di la_.
G.L. 316 .. _Or misit_ califus pro Christianis
_qui erant ultra fluvium_
(the last words being clearly a
misunderstanding of the Italian _di la_).
(3). G.T. 198 (II. 313). Ont _sosimain_ (sesamum) de coi il
font le olio.
Crusca, 253 .. Hanno _sosimai_ onde fanno l' olio.
G.L. 448 .. Habent _turpes manus_ (taking _sosimani_
for _sozze mani_ "Dirty hands"!).
(4). Crusca, 52 (I. 158). _Cacciare e uccellare_ v' e lo migliore
del mondo.
G.L. 332 .. Et est ibi optimum _caciare et ucellare_.
(5). G.T. 124 (II. 36). Adonc treuve ... une Provence _qe est
encore_ de le confin dou Mangi.
Crusca, 162-3 .. L' uomo truova una Provincia _ch' e
chiamata ancora_ delle confine de' Mangi.
G.L. 396 .. Invenit unam Provinciam _quae vocatur
Anchota_ de confinibus Mangi.
(6). G.T. 146 (II. 119.) Les dames portent as jambes et es
braces, braciaus d'or et d'arjent de
grandisme vailance.
Crusca, 189 .. Le donne _portano alle braccia e alle
gambe bracciali d'oro_ e d'ariento
di gran valuta.
G.L. 411 .. Dominae eorum _portant ad brachia et
ad gambas brazalia de auro_ et de
argento magni valoris.
B. _Passages showing additionally the errors, or other peculiarities
of a translation from a French original, common to the Italian and the
Latin._
(7). G.T. 32 (I. 97.) Est celle plaingne mout _chaue_ (chaude).
Crusca, 35 .. Questo piano e molto _cavo_.
G.L. 322 .. Ista planities est multum _cava_.
(8). G.T. 36 (I. 110). Avent por ce que l'eive hi est _amer_.
Crusca, 40 .. E questo e _per lo mare_ che vi viene.
G.L. 324 .. Istud est _propter mare_ quod est ibi.
(9). G.T. 8 (I. 50.) Un roi qi est apeles par tout tens
Davit Melic, que veut a dir _en fransois_
Davit Roi.
Crusca, 20 .. Uno re il quale si chiama _sempre_
David Melic, cio e a dire _in francesco_
David Re.
G.L. 312 .. Rex qui _semper_ vocatur David Mellic,
quod sonat _in gallico_ David Rex.
These passages, and many more that might be quoted, seem to me to
demonstrate (1) that the Latin and the Crusca have had a common
original, and (2) that this original was an Italian version from the
French.
[2] Thus the _Pucci_ MS. at Florence, in the passage regarding the Golden
King (vol. ii. p. 17) which begins in G. T. "_Lequel fist faire_ jadis
_un rois qe fu apelles le Roi Dor_," renders "_Lo quale fa fare_
Jaddis _uno re_," a mistake which is not in the Crusca nor in the
Latin, and seems to imply derivation from the French directly, or by
some other channel (_Baldelli Boni_).
[3] In the Prologue (vol. i. p. 34) this class of MSS. alone names the
King of England.
In the account of the Battle with Nayan (i. p. 337) this class alone
speaks of the two-stringed instruments which the Tartars played whilst
awaiting the signal for battle. But the circumstance appears elsewhere
in the G. T. (p. 250).
In the chapter on _Malabar_ (vol. ii. p. 390), it is said that the
ships which go with cargoes towards Alexandria are not one-tenth of
those that go to the further East. This is not in the older French.
In the chapter on _Coilun_ (ii. p. 375), we have a notice of the
Columbine ginger so celebrated in the Middle Ages, which is also
absent from the older text.
[4] See vol. ii. p. 439. It is, however, remarkable that a like mistake is
made about the Persian Gulf (see i. 63, 64). Perhaps Polo _thought_ in
Persian, in which the word _darya_ means either _sea_ or a _large
river_. The same habit and the ambiguity of the Persian _sher_ led him
probably to his confusion of lions and tigers (see i. 397).
[5] Such are Pasciai-_Dir_ and _Ariora_ Kesciemur (i. p. 98.)
[6] Thus the MSS. of this type have elected the erroneous readings
_Bolgara, Cogatra, Chiato, Cabanant_, etc., instead of the correcter
_Bolgana, Cocacin, Quiacatu, Cobinan_, where the G. T. presents both
(supra, p. 86). They read _Esanar_ for the correct _Etzina_; _Chascun_
for _Casvin_; _Achalet_ for _Acbalec_; _Sardansu_ for _Sindafu_,
_Kayteu, Kayton, Sarcon_ for _Zaiton_ or _Caiton_; _Soucat_ for
_Locac_; _Falec_ for _Ferlec_, and so on, the worse instead of the
better. They make the _Mer Occeane_ into _Mer Occident_; the wild
asses (_asnes_) of the Kerman Desert into wild geese (_oes_); the
_escoillez_ of Bengal (ii. p. 115) into _escoliers_; the _giraffes_ of
Africa into _girofles_, or cloves, etc., etc.
[7] There are about five-and-thirty such passages altogether.
[8] The Bern MS. I have satisfied myself is an actual _copy_ of the Paris
MS. C.
The Oxford MS. closely resembles both, but I have not made the
comparison minutely enough to say if it is an exact copy of either.
[9] The following comparison will also show that these two Latin versions
have probably had a common source, such as is here suggested.
At the end of the Prologue the Geographic Text reads simply:--
"Or puis que je voz ai contez tot le fat dou prolegue ensi con voz
aves oi, adonc (commencerai) le Livre."
Whilst the Geographic Latin has:--
"_Postquam recitavimus et diximus facta et condictiones morum,
itinerum_ et ea quae nobis contigerunt per vias, _incipiemus
dicere ea quae vidimus. Et primo dicemus de Minore Hermenia_."
And Pipino:--
"_Narratione facta nostri itineris, nunc ad ea narranda quae vidimus
accedamus. Primo autem Armeniam Minorem describemus breviter_."
[10] Friar Francesco Pipino of Bologna, a Dominican, is known also as the
author of a lengthy chronicle from the time of the Frank Kings down to
1314; of a Latin Translation of the French History of the Conquest of
the Holy Land, by Bernard the Treasurer; and of a short Itinerary of a
Pilgrimage to Palestine in 1320. Extracts from the Chronicle, and the
version of Bernard, are printed in Muratori's Collection. As Pipino
states himself to have executed the translation of Polo by order of
his Superiors, it is probable that the task was set him at a general
chapter of the order which was held at Bologna in 1315. (See
_Muratori_, IX. 583; and _Quetif, Script. Ord. Praed._ I. 539). We do
not know why Ramusio assigned the translation specifically to 1320,
but he may have had grounds.
[11] See _Bianconi_, 1st Mem. 29 seqq.
[12] C. Dickens somewhere narrates the history of the equivalents for a
sovereign as changed and rechanged at every frontier on a continental
tour. The final equivalent received at Dover on his return was some 12
or 13 shillings; a fair parallel to the comparative value of the first
and last copies in the circle of translation.
[13] The Ramusios were a family of note in literature for several
generations. Paolo, the father of Gian Battista, came originally from
Rimini to Venice in 1458, and had a great repute as a jurist, besides
being a litterateur of some eminence, as was also his younger brother
Girolamo. G. B. Ramusio was born at Treviso in 1485, and early entered
the public service. In 1533 he became one of the Secretaries of the
Council of X. He was especially devoted to geographical studies, and
had a school for such studies in his house. He retired eventually from
public duties, and lived at Villa Ramusia, near Padua. He died in the
latter city, 10th July, 1557, but was buried at Venice in the Church
of S. Maria dell' Orto. There was a portrait of him by Paul Veronese
in the Hall of the Great Council, but it perished in the fire of 1577;
and that which is now seen in the Sala dello Scudo is, like the
companion portrait of Marco Polo, imaginary. Paolo Ramusio, his son,
was the author of the well-known History of the Capture of
Constantinople. (_Cicogna_, II. 310 seqq.)
[14] The old French texts were unknown in Marsden's time. Hence this
question did not present itself to him.
[15] _Wangcheu_ in the Chinese Annals; _Vanchu_ in Ramusio. I assume that
Polo's _Vanchu_ was pronounced as in English; for in Venetian the _ch_
very often has that sound. But I confess that I can adduce no other
instance in Ramusio where I suppose it to have this sound, except in
the initial sound of _Chinchitalas_ and twice in _Choiach_ (see II.
364).
Professor Bianconi, who has treated the questions connected with the
Texts of Polo with honest enthusiasm and laborious detail, will admit
nothing genuine in the Ramusian interpolations beyond the preservation
of some _oral traditions_ of Polo's supplementary recollections. But
such a theory is out of the question in face of a chapter like that on
Ahmad.
[16] Old Purchas appears to have greatly relished Ramusio's comparative
lucidity: "I found (says he) this Booke translated by Master Hakluyt
out of the Latine (i.e. among Hakluyt's MS. collections). But where
the blind leade the blind both fall: as here the corrupt _Latine_
could not but yeeld a corruption of truth in _English_. Ramusio,
Secretarie to the _Decemviri_ in _Venice_, found a better Copie and
published the same, whence you have the worke in manner new: so
renewed, that I have found the Proverbe true, that it is better to
pull downe an old house and to build it anew, then to repaire it; as I
also should have done, had I knowne that which in the event I found.
The _Latine_ is Latten, compared to _Ramusio's_ Gold. And hee which
hath the _Latine_ hath but _Marco Polo's_ carkasse or not so much, but
a few bones, yea, sometimes stones rather then bones; things divers,
averse, adverse, perverted in manner, disjoynted in manner, beyond
beliefe. I have seene some Authors maymed, but never any so mangled
and so mingled, so present and so absent, as this vulgar _Latine_ of
_Marco Polo_; not so like himselfe, as the Three _Polo's_ were at
their returne to _Venice_, where none knew them.... Much are wee
beholden to _Ramusio_, for restoring this _Pole_ and Load-starre of
_Asia_, out of that mirie poole or puddle in which he lay drouned."
(III. p. 65.)
[17] Of these difficulties the following are some of the more prominent:--
1. The mention of the death of Kublai (see note 7, p. 38 of this
volume), whilst throughout the book Polo speaks of Kublai as if still
reigning.
2. Mr. Hugh Murray objects that whilst in the old texts Polo appears to
look on Kublai with reverence as a faultless Prince, in the Ramusian
we find passages of an opposite tendency, as in the chapter about
Ahmad.
3. The same editor points to the manner in which one of the Ramusian
additions represents the traveller to have visited the Palace of the
Chinese Kings at Kinsay, which he conceives to be inconsistent with
Marco's position as an official of the Mongol Government. (See vol.
ii. p. 208.)
If we could conceive the Ramusian additions to have been originally
notes written by old Maffeo Polo on his nephew's book, this hypothesis
would remove almost all difficulty.
One passage in Ramusio seems to bear a reference to the date at which
these interpolated notes were amalgamated with the original. In the
chapter on Samarkand (i. p. 191) the conversion of the Prince Chagatai
is said in the old texts to have occurred "not a great while ago"
(_il ne a encore grament de tens_). But in Ramusio the supposed
event is fixed at "one hundred and twenty-five years since." This
number could not have been uttered with reference to 1298, the year of
the dictation at Genoa, nor to any year of Polo's own life. Hence it
is probable that the original note contained a date or definite term
which was altered by the compiler to suit the date of his own
compilation, some time in the 14th century.]
[18] In the first edition of Ramusio the preface contained the following
passage, which is omitted from the succeeding editions; but as even
the first edition was issued after Ramusio's own death, I do not see
that any stress can be laid on this:
"A copy of the Book of Marco Polo, as it was originally written in
Latin, marvellously old, and perhaps directly copied from the original
as it came from M. Marco's own hand, has been often consulted by me
and compared with that which we now publish, having been lent me by a
nobleman of this city, belonging to the Ca' Ghisi."
[19] For a moment I thought I had been lucky enough to light on a part of
the missing original of Ramusio in the Barberini Library at Rome.
A fragment of a Venetian version in that library (No. 56 in our list
of MSS.) bore on the fly-leaf the title "_Alcuni primi capi del Libro
di S. Marco Polo, copiati dall esemplare manoscritto di PAOLO
RANNUSIO._" But it proved to be of no importance. One brief passage of
those which have been thought peculiar to Ramusio; viz., the reference
to the Martyrdom of St. Blaize at Sebaste (see p. 43 of this volume),
is found also in the Geographic Latin.
It was pointed out by Lazari, that another passage (vol. i. p. 60) of
those otherwise peculiar to Ramusio, is found in a somewhat abridged
Latin version in a MS. which belonged to the late eminent antiquary
Emanuel Cicogna. (See List in Appendix F, No. 35.) This fact induced
me when at Venice in 1870 to examine the MS. throughout, and, though I
could give little time to it, the result was very curious.
I find that this MS. contains, not one only, but at least _seven_ of
the passages otherwise peculiar to Ramusio, and must have been one of
the elements that went to the formation of his text. Yet of his more
important interpolations, such as the chapter on Ahmad's oppressions
and the additional matter on the City of Kinsay, there is no
indication. The seven passages alluded to are as follows; the words
corresponding to Ramusian peculiarities are in italics, the references
are to my own volumes.
1. In the chapter on Georgia:
"Mare quod dicitur Gheluchelan _vel ABACU_"....
"Est ejus stricta via et dubia. Ab una parte est mare _quod dixi de
ABACU_ et ab alia nemora invia," etc. (See I. p. 59, note 8.)
2. "Et ibi optimi austures _dicti AVIGI_" (I. 50).
3. After the chapter on Mosul is another short chapter, already
alluded to:
"_Prope hanc civitatem (est) alia provincia dicta MUS e MEREDIEN in
qua nascitur magna quantitas bombacis, et hic fiunt bocharini et alia
multa, et sunt mercatores homines et artiste_." (See i. p. 60.)
4. In the chapter on _Tarcan_ (for Carcan, i.e. Yarkand):
"_Et maior pars horum habent unum ex pedibus grossum et habent gosum
in gula_; et est hic fertilis contracta." (See i. p. 187.)
5. In the Desert of Lop:
"_Homines trasseuntes appendunt bestiis suis capanullas_ [i.e.
campanellas] _ut ipsas senciant et ne deviare possint_" (i. p. 197.)
6. "Ciagannor, _quod sonat in Latino STAGNUM ALBUM_." (i. p. 296.)
7. "Et in medio hujus viridarii est palacium sive logia, _tota super
columpnas. Et in summitate cujuslibet columnae est draco magnus
circundans totam columpnam, et hic substinet eorum cohoperturam cum
ore et pedibus_; et est cohopertura tota de cannis hoc modo," etc.
(See i. p. 299.)
[20] My valued friend Sir Arthur Phayre made known to me the passage in
_O'Curry's Lectures_. I then procured the extracts and further
particulars from Mr. J. Long, Irish Transcriber and Translator in
Dublin, who took them from the Transcript of the _Book of Lismore_, in
the possession of the Royal Irish Academy. [Cf. _Anecdota Oxoniensia.
Lives of the Saints from the Book of Lismore, edited with a
translation ... by_ Whitley Stokes, Oxford, 1890.--_Marco Polo_ forms
fo. 79 a, 1--fo. 89 b, 2, of the MS., and is described pp. xxii.-xxiv.
of Mr. Whitley Stokes' Book, who has since published the Text in the
_Zeit. f. Celtische Philol._ (See _Bibliography_, vol. ii. p. 573.)--
H. C.]
XI. SOME ESTIMATE OF THE CHARACTER OF POLO AND HIS BOOK.
[Sidenote: Grounds of Polo's pre-eminence among mediaeval travellers.]
66. That Marco Polo has been so universally recognised as the King of
Mediaeval Travellers is due rather to the width of his experience, the
vast compass of his journeys, and the romantic nature of his personal
history, than to transcendent superiority of character or capacity.
The generation immediately preceding his own has bequeathed to us, in the
Report of the Franciscan Friar William de Rubruquis,[1] on the Mission
with which St. Lewis charged him to the Tartar Courts, the narrative of
one great journey, which, in its rich detail, its vivid pictures, its
acuteness of observation and strong good sense, seems to me to form a Book
of Travels of much higher claims than _any one series_ of Polo's chapters;
a book, indeed, which has never had justice done to it, for it has few
superiors in the whole Library of Travel.
Enthusiastic Biographers, beginning with Ramusio, have placed Polo on the
same platform with Columbus. But where has our Venetian Traveller left
behind him any trace of the genius and lofty enthusiasm, the ardent and
justified previsions which mark the great Admiral as one of the lights of
the human race?[2] It is a juster praise that the spur which his Book
eventually gave to geographical studies, and the beacons which it hung out
at the Eastern extremities of the Earth helped to guide the aims, though
scarcely to kindle the fire, of the greater son of the rival Republic. His
work was at least a link in the Providential chain which at last dragged
the New World to light.[3]
[Sidenote: His true claims to glory.]
67. Surely Marco's real, indisputable, and, in their kind, unique claims
to glory may suffice! _He was the first Traveller to trace a route across
the whole longitude of_ ASIA, _naming and describing kingdom after kingdom
which he had seen with his own eyes; the Deserts of_ PERSIA, _the
flowering plateaux and wild gorges of_ BADAKHSHAN, _the jade-bearing
rivers of_ KHOTAN, _the_ MONGOLIAN _Steppes, cradle of the power that had
so lately threatened to swallow up Christendom, the new and brilliant
Court that had been established at_ CAMBALUC: _The first Traveller to
reveal_ CHINA _in all its wealth and vastness, its mighty rivers, its huge
cities, its rich manufactures, its swarming population, the inconceivably
vast fleets that quickened its seas and its inland waters; to tell us of
the nations on its borders with all their eccentricities of manners and
worship; of_ TIBET _with its sordid devotees; of_ BURMA _with its golden
pagodas and their tinkling crowns; of_ LAOS, _of_ SIAM, _of_ COCHIN CHINA,
_of_ JAPAN, _the Eastern Thule, with its rosy pearls and golden-roofed
palaces; the first to speak of that Museum of Beauty and Wonder, still so
imperfectly ransacked, the_ INDIAN ARCHIPELAGO, _source of those aromatics
then so highly prized and whose origin was so dark; of_ JAVA _the Pearl of
Islands; of_ SUMATRA _with its many kings, its strange costly products,
and its cannibal races; of the naked savages of_ NICOBAR _and_ ANDAMAN;
_of_ CEYLON _the Isle of Gems with its Sacred Mountain and its Tomb of
Adam; of_ INDIA THE GREAT, _not as a dream-land of Alexandrian fables, but
as a country seen and partially explored, with its virtuous Brahmans, its
obscene ascetics, its diamonds and the strange tales of their acquisition,
its sea-beds of pearl, and its powerful sun; the first in mediaeval times
to give any distinct account of the secluded Christian Empire of_
ABYSSINIA, _and the semi-Christian Island of_ SOCOTRA; _to speak, though
indeed dimly, of_ ZANGIBAR _with its negroes and its ivory, and of the
vast and distant_ MADAGASCAR, _bordering on the Dark Ocean of the South,
with its Ruc and other monstrosities; and, in a remotely opposite region,
of_ SIBERIA _and the_ ARCTIC OCEAN, _of dog-sledges, white bears, and
reindeer-riding Tunguses_.
That all this rich catalogue of discoveries should belong to the
revelations of one Man and one Book is surely ample ground enough to
account for and to justify the Author's high place in the roll of Fame,
and there can be no need to exaggerate his greatness, or to invest him
with imaginary attributes.[4]
[Sidenote: His personal attributes seen but dimly.]
68. What manner of man was Ser Marco? It is a question hard to answer.
Some critics cry out against personal detail in books of Travel; but as
regards him who would not welcome a little more egotism! In his Book
impersonality is carried to excess; and we are often driven to discern by
indirect and doubtful indications alone, whether he is speaking of a place
from personal knowledge or only from hearsay. In truth, though there are
delightful exceptions, and nearly every part of the book suggests
interesting questions, a desperate meagreness and baldness does extend
over considerable tracts of the story. In fact his book reminds us
sometimes of his own description of Khorasan:--"_On chevauche par beaus
plains et belles costieres, la ou il a moult beaus herbages et bonne
pasture et fruis assez.... Et aucune fois y treuve l'en un desert de
soixante milles ou de mains, esquels desers ne treuve l'en point d'eaue;
mais la convient porter o lui!_"
Still, some shadowy image of the man may be seen in the Book; a practical
man, brave, shrewd, prudent, keen in affairs, and never losing his
interest in mercantile details, very fond of the chase, sparing of speech;
with a deep wondering respect for Saints, even though they be Pagan
Saints, and their asceticism, but a contempt for Patarins and such like,
whose consciences would not run in customary grooves, and on his own part
a keen appreciation of the World's pomps and vanities. See, on the one
hand, his undisguised admiration of the hard life and long fastings of
Sakya Muni; and on the other how enthusiastic he gets in speaking of the
great Kaan's command of the good things of the world, but above all of his
matchless opportunities of sport![5]
[Illustration: PROBABLE VIEW OF MARCO POLO'S OWN GEOGRAPHY]
Of humour there are hardly any signs in his Book. His almost solitary joke
(I know but one more, and it pertains to the [Greek: ouk anaekonta])
occurs in speaking of the Kaan's paper-money when he observes that Kublai
might be said to have the true Philosopher's Stone, for he made his money
at pleasure out of the bark of Trees.[6] Even the oddest eccentricities of
outlandish tribes scarcely seem to disturb his gravity; as when he relates
in his brief way of the people called Gold-Teeth on the frontier of Burma,
that ludicrous custom which Mr. Tylor has so well illustrated under the
name of the _Couvade_. There is more savour of laughter in the few lines
of a Greek Epic, which relate precisely the same custom of a people on the
Euxine:--
--"In the Tibarenian Land
When some good woman bears her lord a babe,
'Tis _he_ is swathed and groaning put to bed;
Whilst _she_, arising, tends his baths, and serves
Nice possets for her husband in the straw."[7]
[Sidenote: Absence of scientific notions.]
69. Of scientific notions, such as we find in the unveracious Maundevile,
we have no trace in truthful Marco. The former, "lying with a
circumstance," tells us boldly that he was in 33 deg. of South Latitude; the
latter is full of wonder that some of the Indian Islands where he had been
lay so far to the south that you lost sight of the Pole-star. When it
rises again on his horizon he estimates the Latitude by the Pole-star's
being so many _cubits_ high. So the gallant Baber speaks of the sun having
mounted _spear-high_ when the onset of battle began at Paniput. Such
expressions convey no notion at all to such as have had their ideas
sophisticated by angular perceptions of altitude, but similar expressions
are common among Orientals,[8] and indeed I have heard them from educated
Englishmen. In another place Marco states regarding certain islands in the
Northern Ocean that they lie so very far to the north that in going
thither one actually leaves the Pole-star a trifle behind towards the
south; a statement to which we know only one parallel, to wit, in the
voyage of that adventurous Dutch skipper who told Master Moxon, King
Charles II.'s Hydrographer, that he had sailed two degrees beyond the
Pole!
[Sidenote: Map constructed on Polo's data.]
70. The Book, however, is full of bearings and distances, and I have
thought it worth while to construct a map from its indications, in order
to get some approximation to Polo's own idea of the face of that world
which he had traversed so extensively. There are three allusions to maps
in the course of his work (II. 245, 312, 424).
In his own bearings, at least on land journeys, he usually carries us
along a great general traverse line, without much caring about small
changes of direction. Thus on the great outward journey from the frontier
of Persia to that of China the line runs almost continuously "_entre
Levant et Grec_" or E.N.E. In his journey from Cambaluc or Peking to Mien
or Burma, it is always _Ponent_ or W.; and in that from Peking to Zayton
in Fo-kien, the port of embarkation for India, it is _Sceloc_ or S.E. The
line of bearings in which he deviates most widely from truth is that of
the cities on the Arabian Coast from Aden to Hormuz, which he makes to run
steadily _vers Maistre_ or N.W., a conception which it has not been very
easy to realise on the map.[9]
[Sidenote: Singular omissions of Polo in regard to China; Historical
inaccuracies.]
71. In the early part of the Book we are told that Marco acquired several
of the languages current in the Mongol Empire, and no less than four
written characters. We have discussed what these are likely to have been
(i. pp. 28-29), and have given a decided opinion that Chinese was not one
of them. Besides intrinsic improbability, and positive indications of
Marco's ignorance of Chinese, in no respect is his book so defective as in
regard to Chinese manners and peculiarities. The Great Wall is never
mentioned, though we have shown reason for believing that it was in his
mind when one passage of his book was dictated.[10] The use of Tea, though
he travelled through the Tea districts of Fo-kien, is never mentioned;[11]
the compressed feet of the women and the employment of the fishing
cormorant (both mentioned by Friar Odoric, the contemporary of his later
years), artificial egg-hatching, printing of books (though the notice of
this art seems positively challenged in his account of paper-money),
besides a score of remarkable arts and customs which one would have
expected to recur to his memory, are never alluded to. Neither does he
speak of the great characteristic of the Chinese writing. It is difficult
to account for these omissions, especially considering the comparative
fulness with which he treats the manners of the Tartars and of the
Southern Hindoos; but the impression remains that his associations in
China were chiefly with foreigners. Wherever the place he speaks of had a
Tartar or Persian name he uses that rather than the Chinese one. Thus
_Cathay, Cambaluc, Pulisanghin, Tangut, Chagannor, Saianfu, Kenjanfu,
Tenduc, Acbalec, Carajan, Zardandan, Zayton, Kemenfu, Brius, Caramoran,
Chorcha, Juju_, are all Mongol, Turki, or Persian forms, though all have
Chinese equivalents.[12]
In reference to the then recent history of Asia, Marco is often
inaccurate, e.g. in his account of the death of Chinghiz, in the list of
his successors, and in his statement of the relation ship between notable
members of that House.[13] But the most perplexing knot in the whole book
lies in the interesting account which he gives of the Siege of Sayanfu or
Siang-yang, during the subjugation of Southern China by Kublai. I have
entered on this matter in the notes (vol. ii. p. 167), and will only say
here that M. Pauthier's solution of the difficulty is no solution, being
absolutely inconsistent with the story as told by Marco himself, and that
I see none; though I have so much faith in Marco's veracity that I am
loath to believe that the facts admit of no reconciliation.
Our faint attempt to appreciate some of Marco's qualities, as gathered
from his work, will seem far below the very high estimates that have been
pronounced, not only by some who have delighted rather to enlarge upon his
frame than to make themselves acquainted with his work,[14] but also by
persons whose studies and opinions have been worthy of all respect. Our
estimate, however, does not abate a jot of our intense interest in his
Book and affection for his memory. And we have a strong feeling that,
owing partly to his reticence, and partly to the great disadvantages under
which the Book was committed to writing, we have in it a singularly
imperfect image of the Man.
[Sidenote: Was Polo's Book materially affected by the Scribe Rusticiano?]
72. A question naturally suggests itself, how far Polo's narrative, at
least in its expression, was modified by passing under the pen of a
professed litterateur of somewhat humble claims, such as Rusticiano was.
The case is not a singular one, and in our own day the ill-judged use of
such assistance has been fatal to the reputation of an adventurous
Traveller.
We have, however, already expressed our own view that in the Geographic
Text we have the nearest possible approach to a photographic impression of
Marco's oral narrative. If there be an exception to this we should seek it
in the descriptions of battles, in which we find the narrator to fall
constantly into a certain vein of bombastic commonplaces, which look like
the stock phrases of a professed romancer, and which indeed have a strong
resemblance to the actual phraseology of certain metrical romances.[15]
Whether this feature be due to Rusticiano I cannot say, but I have not
been able to trace anything of the same character in a cursory inspection
of some of his romance-compilations. Still one finds it impossible to
conceive of our sober and reticent Messer Marco pacing the floor of his
Genoese dungeon, and seven times over rolling out this magniloquent
bombast, with sufficient deliberation to be overtaken by the pen of the
faithful amanuensis!
[Sidenote: Marco's reading embraced the Alexandrian Romances. Examples.]
73. On the other hand, though Marco, who had left home at fifteen years of
age, naturally shows very few signs of reading, there are indications that
he had read romances, especially those dealing with the fabulous
adventures of Alexander.
To these he refers explicitly or tacitly in his notices of the Irongate
and of Gog and Magog, in his allusions to the marriage of Alexander with
Darius's daughter, and to the battle between those two heroes, and in his
repeated mention of the _Arbre Sol_ or _Arbre Sec_ on the Khorasan
frontier.
The key to these allusions is to be found in that Legendary History of
Alexander, entirely distinct from the true history of the Macedonian
Conqueror, which in great measure took the place of the latter in the
imagination of East and West for more than a thousand years. This fabulous
history is believed to be of Graeco-Egyptian origin, and in its earliest
extant compiled form, in the Greek of the Pseudo-Callisthenes, can be
traced back to at least about A.D. 200. From the Greek its marvels spread
eastward at an early date; some part at least of their matter was known to
Moses of Chorene, in the 5th century;[16] they were translated into
Armenian, Arabic, Hebrew, and Syriac; and were reproduced in the verses of
Firdusi and various other Persian Poets; spreading eventually even to the
Indian Archipelago, and finding utterance in Malay and Siamese. At an
early date they had been rendered into Latin by Julius Valerius; but this
work had probably been lost sight of, and it was in the 10th century that
they were re-imported from Byzantium to Italy by the Archpriest Leo, who
had gone as Envoy to the Eastern Capital from John Duke of Campania.[17]
Romantic histories on this foundation, in verse and prose, became diffused
in all the languages of Western Europe, from Spain to Scandinavia,
rivalling in popularity the romantic cycles of the Round Table or of
Charlemagne. Nor did this popularity cease till the 16th century was well
advanced.
The heads of most of the Mediaeval Travellers were crammed with these
fables as genuine history.[18] And by the help of that community of legend
on this subject which they found wherever Mahomedan literature had spread,
Alexander Magnus was to be traced everywhere in Asia. Friar Odoric found
Tana, near Bombay, to be the veritable City of King Porus; John
Marignolli's vainglory led him to imitate King Alexander in setting up a
marble column "in the corner of the world over against Paradise," i.e.
somewhere on the coast of Travancore; whilst Sir John Maundevile, with a
cheaper ambition, borrowed wonders from the Travels of Alexander to adorn
his own. Nay, even in after days, when the Portuguese stumbled with
amazement on those vast ruins in Camboja, which have so lately become
familiar to us through the works of Mouhot, Thomson, and Garnier, they
ascribed them to Alexander.[19]
Prominent in all these stories is the tale of Alexander's shutting up a
score of impure nations, at the head of which were Gog and Magog, within a
barrier of impassable mountains, there to await the latter days; a legend
with which the disturbed mind of Europe not unnaturally connected that
cataclysm of unheard-of Pagans that seemed about to deluge Christendom in
the first half of the 13th century. In these stories also the beautiful
Roxana, who becomes the bride of Alexander, is _Darius's_ daughter,
bequeathed to his arms by the dying monarch. Conspicuous among them again
is the Legend of the Oracular Trees of the Sun and Moon, which with
audible voice foretell the place and manner of Alexander's death. With
this Alexandrian legend some of the later forms of the story had mixed up
one of Christian origin about the Dry Tree, _L'Arbre Sec_. And they had
also adopted the Oriental story of the Land of Darkness and the mode of
escape from it, which Polo relates at p. 484 of vol. ii.
[Sidenote: Injustice long done to Polo. Singular modern instance.]
74. We have seen in the most probable interpretation of the nickname
_Milioni_ that Polo's popular reputation in his lifetime was of a
questionable kind; and a contemporary chronicler, already quoted, has told
us how on his death-bed the Traveller was begged by anxious friends to
retract his extraordinary stories.[20] A little later one who copied the
Book "_per passare tempo e malinconia_" says frankly that he puts no faith
in it.[21] Sir Thomas Brown is content "to carry a wary eye" in reading
"Paulus Venetus"; but others of our countrymen in the last century express
strong doubts whether he ever was in Tartary or China.[22] Marden's
edition might well have extinguished the last sparks of scepticism.[23]
Hammer meant praise in calling Polo "_der Vater orientalischer
Hodogetik_," in spite of the uncouthness of the eulogy. But another grave
German writer, ten years after Marsden's publication, put forth in a
serious book that the whole story was a clumsy imposture![24]
[1] M. d'Avezac has refuted the common supposition that this admirable
traveller was a native of Brabant.
The form _Rubruquis_ of the name of the traveller William de Rubruk
has been habitually used in this book, perhaps without sufficient
consideration, but it is the most familiar in England, from its use by
Hakluyt and Purchas. The former, who first published the narrative,
professedly printed from an imperfect MS. belonging to the Lord
Lumley, which does not seem to be now known. But all the MSS. collated
by Messrs. Francisque-Michel and Wright, in preparing their edition of
the Traveller, call him simply Willelmus de Rubruc or Rubruk.
Some old authors, apparently without the slightest ground, having
called him _Risbroucke_ and the like, it came to be assumed that he
was a native of Ruysbroeck, a place in South Brabant.
But there is a place still called _Rubrouck_ in French Flanders. This
is a commune containing about 1500 inhabitants, belonging to the
Canton of Cassel and _arrondissement_ of Hazebrouck, in the Department
du Nord. And we may take for granted, till facts are alleged against
it, that _this_ was the place from which the envoy of St. Lewis drew
his origin. Many documents of the Middle Ages, referring expressly to
this place Rubrouck, exist in the Library of St. Omer, and a detailed
notice of them has been published by M. Edm. Coussemaker, of Lille.
Several of these documents refer to persons bearing the same name as
the Traveller, e.g., in 1190, Thierry de Rubrouc; in 1202 and 1221,
Gauthier du Rubrouc; in 1250, Jean du Rubrouc; and in 1258, Woutermann
de Rubrouc. It is reasonable to suppose that Friar William was of the
same stock. See _Bulletin de la Soc. de Geographie_, 2nd vol. for
1868, pp. 569-570, in which there are some remarks on the subject by
M. d'Avezac; and I am indebted to the kind courtesy of that eminent
geographer himself for the indication of this reference and the main
facts, as I had lost a note of my own on the subject.
It seems a somewhat complex question whether a native even of _French_
Flanders at that time should be necessarily claimable as a
Frenchman;[A] but no doubt on this point is alluded to by M. d'Avezac,
so he probably had good ground for that assumption. [See also _Yule's_
article in the _Encyclopaedia Britannica_, and _Rockhill's Rubruck_,
Int., p. xxxv.--H. C.]
That cross-grained Orientalist, I. J. Schmidt, on several occasions
speaks contemptuously of this veracious and delightful traveller,
whose evidence goes in the teeth of some of his crotchets. But I am
glad to find that Professor Peschel takes a view similar to that
expressed in the text: "The narrative of Ruysbroek [Rubruquis], almost
immaculate in its freedom from fabulous insertions, may be indicated
on account of its truth to nature as the greatest geographical
masterpiece of the Middle Ages." (_Gesch. der Erdkunde_, 1865, p.
151.)
[A] The County of Flanders was at this time in large part a fief of
the French Crown. (See _Natalis de Wailly_, notes to Joinville,
p. 576.) But that would not much affect the question either one
way or the other.
[2] High as Marco's name deserves to be set, his place is not beside the
writer of such burning words as these addressed to Ferdinand and
Isabella: "From the most tender age I went to sea, and to this day I
have continued to do so. Whosoever devotes himself to this craft must
desire to know the secrets of Nature here below. For 40 years now have
I thus been engaged, and wherever man has sailed hitherto on the face
of the sea, thither have I sailed also. I have been in constant
relation with men of learning, whether ecclesiastic or secular, Latins
and Greeks, Jews and Moors, and men of many a sect besides. To
accomplish this my longing (to know the Secrets of the World) I found
the Lord favourable to my purposes; it is He who hath given me the
needful disposition and understanding. He bestowed upon me abundantly
the knowledge of seamanship: and of Astronomy He gave me enough to
work withal, and so with Geometry and Arithmetic.... In the days of my
youth I studied works of all kinds, history, chronicles, philosophy,
and other arts, and to apprehend these the Lord opened my
understanding. Under His manifest guidance I navigated hence to the
Indies; for it was the Lord who gave me the will to accomplish that
task, and it was in the ardour of that will that I came before your
Highnesses. All those who heard of my project scouted and derided it;
all the acquirements I have mentioned stood me in no stead; and if in
your Highnesses, and in you alone, Faith and Constancy endured, to
Whom are due the Lights that have enlightened you as well as me, but
to the Holy Spirit?" (Quoted in _Humboldt's Examen Critique_, I. 17,
18.)
[3] Libri, however, speaks too strongly when he says: "The finest of all
the results due to the influence of Marco Polo is that of having
stirred Columbus to the discovery of the New World. Columbus, jealous
of Polo's laurels, spent his life in preparing means to get to that
Zipangu of which the Venetian traveller had told such great things;
his desire was to reach China by sailing westward, and in his way he
fell in with America." (_H. des Sciences Mathem._ etc. II. 150.)
The fact seems to be that Columbus knew of Polo's revelations only at
second hand, from the letters of the Florentine Paolo Toscanelli and
the like; and I cannot find that he _ever_ refers to Polo by name.
[How deep was the interest taken by Colombus in Marco Polo's travels
is shown by the numerous marginal notes of the Admiral in the printed
copy of the latin version of Pipino kept at the Bib. Colombina at
Seville. See _Appendix H_. p. 558.--H. C.] Though to the day of his
death he was full of imaginations about Zipangu and the land of the
Great Kaan as being in immediate proximity to his discoveries, these
were but accidents of his great theory. It was the intense conviction
he had acquired of the absolute smallness of the Earth, of the vast
extension of Asia eastward, and of the consequent narrowness of the
Western Ocean, on which his life's project was based. This conviction
he seems to have derived chiefly from the works of Cardinal Pierre
d'Ailly. But the latter borrowed his collected arguments from Roger
Bacon, who has stated them, erroneous as they are, very forcibly in
his _Opus Majus_ (p. 137), as Humboldt has noticed in his _Examen_
(vol. i. p. 64). The Spanish historian Mariana makes a strange jumble
of the alleged guides of Columbus, saying that some ascribed his
convictions to "the information given by _one Marco Polo, a Florentine
Physician!_" ("como otros dizen, por aviso que le dio _un cierto Marco
Polo, Medico Florentin_;" _Hist. de Espana_, lib. xxvi. cap 3).
Toscanelli is called by Columbus _Maestro Paulo_, which seems to have
led to this mistake; see Sign. _G. Uzielli_, in _Boll. della Soc.
Geog. Ital._ IX. p. 119, [Also by the same: _Paolo dal Pozzo
Toscanelli iniziatore della scoperta d' America_, Florence, 1892;
_Toscanelli_, No. 1; _Toscanelli_, Vol. V. of the _Raccolta
Colombiana_, 1894.--H. C.]
[4] "C'est diminuer l'expression d'un eloge que de l'exagerer."
(_Humboldt, Examen_, III. 13.)
[5] See vol. ii. p. 318, and vol. i. p. 404.
[6] Vol. i. p. 423.
[7] Vol. ii. p. 85, and _Apollonius Rhodius, Argonaut_. II. 1012.
[8] Chinese Observers record the length of Comets' tails by _cubits_!
[9] The map, perhaps, gives too favourable an idea of Marco's geographical
conceptions. For in such a construction much has to be supplied for
which there are no data, and that is apt to take mould from modern
knowledge. Just as in the book illustrations of ninety years ago we
find that Princesses of Abyssinia, damsels of Otaheite, and Beauties
of Mary Stuart's Court have all somehow a savour of the high waists,
low foreheads, and tight garments of 1810.
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. (_Majors 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.
The maps now to be seen painted on the walls of that Hall, and on
which Polo's route is marked, are not of any great interest. But in
the middle of the 15th century there was an old _Descriptio Orbis sive
Mappamundus_ in the Hall, and when the apartment was renewed in 1459 a
decree of the Senate ordered that such a map should be repainted on
the new walls. This also perished by a fire in 1483. On the motion of
Ramusio, in the next century, four new maps were painted. These had
become dingy and ragged, when, in 1762, the Doge Marco Foscarini
caused them to be renewed by the painter Francesco Grisellini. He
professed to have adhered closely to the old maps, but he certainly
did not, as Morelli testifies. Eastern Asia looks as if based on a
work of Ramusio's age, but Western Asia is of undoubtedly modern
character. (See _Operetti di Iacopo Morelli_, Ven. 1820, I. 299.)
[10] "Humboldt confirms the opinion I have more than once expressed that
too much must not be inferred from the silence of authors. He adduces
three important and perfectly undeniable matters of fact, as to which
no evidence is to be found where it would be most anticipated: In the
archives of Barcelona no trace of the triumphal entry of Columbus into
that city; _in Marco Polo no allusion to the Chinese Wall_; in the
archives of Portugal nothing about the voyages of Amerigo Vespucci in
the service of that crown." (_Varnhagen_ v. _Ense_, quoted by Hayward,
_Essays_, 2nd Ser. I. 36.) See regarding the Chinese Wall the remarks
referred to above, at p. 292 of this volume.
[11] [It is a strange fact that Polo never mentions the use of _Tea_ in
China, although he travelled through the Tea districts in Fu Kien, and
tea was then as generally drunk by the Chinese as it is now. It is
mentioned more than four centuries earlier by the Mohammedan merchant
Soleyman, who visited China about the middle of the 9th century. He
states (_Reinaud, Relation des Voyages faits par les Arabes et les
Persans dans l'Inde et a la Chine_, 1845, I. 40): "The people of China
are accustomed to use as a beverage an infusion of a plant, which they
call _sakh_, and the leaves of which are aromatic and of a bitter
taste. It is considered very wholesome. This plant (the leaves) is
sold in all the cities of the empire." (_Bretschneider, Hist. Bot.
Disc._I. p. 5.)--H. C.]
[12] It is probable that Persian, which had long been the language of
Turanian courts, was also the common tongue of foreigners at that of
the Mongols. _Pulisanghin_ and _Zardandan_, in the preceding list, are
pure Persian. So are several of the Oriental phrases noted at p. 84.
See also notes on _Ondanique_ and _Vernique_ at pp. 93 and 384 of this
volume, on _Tacuin_ at p. 448, and a note at p. 93 supra. The
narratives of Odoric, and others of the early travellers to Cathay,
afford corroborative examples. Lord Stanley of Alderley, in one of his
contributions to the Hakluyt Series, has given evidence from
experience that Chinese Mahomedans still preserve the knowledge of
numerous Persian words.
[13] Compare these errors with like errors of Herodotus, e.g., regarding
the conspiracy of the False Smerdis. (See Rawlinson's Introduction, p.
55.) There is a curious parallel between the two also in the supposed
occasional use of Oriental state records, as in Herodotus's accounts
of the revenues of the satrapies, and of the army of Xerxes, and in
Marco Polo's account of Kinsay, and of the Kaan's revenues. (Vol. ii
pp. 185, 216.)
[14] An example is seen in the voluminous _Annali Musulmani_ of _G. B.
Rampoldi_, Milan, 1825. This writer speaks of the Travels of Marco
Polo with his _brother_ and uncle; declares that he visited _Tipango_
(_sic_), Java, Ceylon, and the _Maldives_, collected all the
geographical notions of his age, traversed the two peninsulas of the
Indies, examined the islands of _Socotra, Madagascar, Sofala_, and
traversed with _philosophic eye_ the regions of Zanguebar, Abyssinia,
Nubia, and Egypt! and so forth (ix. 174). And whilst Malte-Brun
bestows on Marco the sounding and ridiculous title of "_the Humboldt
of the 13th century_," he shows little real acquaintance with his
Book. (See his _Precis_, ed. of 1836, I. 551 seqq.)
[15] See for example vol. i. p. 338, and note 4 at p. 341; also vol. ii.
p. 103. The descriptions in the style referred to recur in all seven
times; but most of them (which are in Book IV.) have been omitted in
this translation.
[16] [On the subject of Moses of Chorene and his works, I must refer to
the clever researches of the late Auguste Carriere, Professor of
Armenian at the Ecole des Langues Orientales.--H. C.]
[17] _Zacher, Forschungen zur Critik, &c., der Alexandersage_, Halle,
1867, p. 108.
[18] Even so sagacious a man as Roger Bacon quotes the fabulous letter of
Alexander to Aristotle as authentic. (_Opus Majus_, p. 137.)
[19] _J. As._ ser. VI. tom. xviii. p. 352.
[20] See passage from Jacopo d'Acqui, supra, p. 54.
[21] It is the transcriber of one of the Florence MSS. who appends this
terminal note, worthy of Mrs. Nickleby:--"Here ends the Book of Messer
M. P. of Venice, written with mine own hand by me Amalio Bonaguisi
when Podesta of Cierreto Guidi, to get rid of time and _ennui_. The
contents seem to me incredible things, not lies so much as miracles;
and it may be all very true what he says, but I don't believe it;
though to be sure throughout the world very different things are found
in different countries. But these things, it has seemed to me in
copying, are entertaining enough, but not things to believe or put any
faith in; that at least is my opinion. And I finished copying this at
Cierreto aforesaid, 12th November, A.D. 1392."
[22] _Vulgar Errors_, Bk. I. ch. viii.; _Astley's Voyages_, IV. 583.
[23] A few years before Marsden's publication, the Historical branch of
the R. S. of Science at Goettingen appears to have put forth as the
subject of a prize Essay the Geography of the Travels of Carpini,
Rubruquis, and especially of Marco Polo. (See _L. of M. Polo_, by
_Zurla_, in _Collezione di Vite e Ritratti d'Illustri Italiani_. Pad.
1816.)
[24] See _Staedtewesen des Mittelalters_, by _K. D. Huellmann_, Bonn, 1829,
vol. iv.
After speaking of the Missions of Pope Innocent IV. and St. Lewis,
this author sketches the Travels of the Polos, and then proceeds:--
"Such are the clumsily compiled contents of this ecclesiastical
fiction (_Kirchengeschichtlichen Dichtung_) disguised as a Book of
Travels, a thing devised generally in the spirit of the age, but
specially in the interests of the Clergy and of Trade.... This
compiler's aim was analogous to that of the inventor of the Song of
Roland, to kindle enthusiasm for the conversion of the Mongols, and so
to facilitate commerce through their dominions.... Assuredly the Poli
never got further than Great Bucharia, which was then reached by many
Italian Travellers. What they have related of the regions of the
Mongol Empire lying further east consists merely of recollections of
the bazaar and travel-talk of traders from those countries; whilst the
notices of India, Persia, Arabia, and Ethiopia, are borrowed from
Arabic Works. The compiler no doubt carries his audacity in fiction a
long way, when he makes his hero Marcus assert that he had been
seventeen years in Kublai's service," etc. etc. (pp. 360-362).
In the French edition of _Malcolm's History of Persia_ (II. 141),
Marco is styled "_pretre Venetien_"! I do not know whether this is due
to Sir John or to the translator.
[Polo is also called "a Venetian Priest," in a note, vol. i., p. 409,
of the original edition of London, 1815, 2 vols., 4to.--H. C.]
XII. CONTEMPORARY RECOGNITION OF POLO AND HIS BOOK.
[Sidenote: How far was there diffusion of his Book in his own day?]
75. But we must return for a little to Polo's own times. Ramusio states,
as we have seen, that immediately after the first commission of Polo's
narrative to writing (in Latin as he imagined), many copies of it were
made, it was translated into the vulgar tongue, and in a few months all
Italy was full of it.
The few facts that we can collect do not justify this view of the rapid
and diffused renown of the Traveller and his Book. The number of MSS. of
the latter dating from the 14th century is no doubt considerable, but a
large proportion of these are of Pipino's condensed Latin Translation,
which was not put forth, if we can trust Ramusio, till 1320, and certainly
not much earlier. The whole number of MSS. in various languages that we
have been able to register, amounts to about eighty. I find it difficult
to obtain statistical data as to the comparative number of copies of
different works existing in manuscript. With Dante's great Poem, of which
there are reckoned close upon 500 MSS.,[1] comparison would be
inappropriate. But of the Travels of Friar Odoric, a poor work indeed
beside Marco Polo's, I reckoned thirty-nine MSS., and could now add at
least three more to the list. [I described seventy-three in my edition of
_Odoric_.--H. C.] Also I find that of the nearly contemporary work of
Brunetto Latini, the _Tresor_, a sort of condensed Encyclopaedia of
knowledge, but a work which one would scarcely have expected to approach
the popularity of Polo's Book, the Editor enumerates some fifty MSS. And
from the great frequency with which one encounters in Catalogues both MSS.
and early printed editions of Sir John Maundevile, I should suppose that
the lying wonders of our English Knight had a far greater popularity and
more extensive diffusion than the veracious and more sober marvels of
Polo.[2] To Southern Italy Polo's popularity certainly does not seem at
any time to have extended. I cannot learn that any MS. of his Book exists
in any Library of the late Kingdom of Naples or in Sicily.[3]
Dante, who lived for twenty-three years after Marco's work was written,
and who touches so many things in the seen and unseen Worlds, never
alludes to Polo, nor I think to anything that can be connected with his
Book. I believe that no mention of _Cathay_ occurs in the _Divina
Commedia_. That distant region is indeed mentioned more than once in the
poems of a humbler contemporary, Francesco da Barberino, but there is
nothing in his allusions besides this name to suggest any knowledge of
Polo's work.[4]
Neither can I discover any trace of Polo or his work in that of his
contemporary and countryman, Marino Sanudo the Elder, though this worthy
is well acquainted with the somewhat later work of Hayton, and many of the
subjects which he touches in his own book would seem to challenge a
reference to Marco's labours.
[Sidenote: Contemporary references to Polo.]
76. Of contemporary or nearly contemporary references to our Traveller by
name, the following are all that I can produce, and none of them are new.
First there is the notice regarding his presentation of his book to
Thibault de Cepoy, of which we need say no more (supra, p. 68).
Next there is the Preface to Friar Pipino's Translation, which we give at
length in the Appendix (E) to these notices. The phraseology of this
appears to imply that Marco was still alive, and this agrees with the date
assigned to the work by Ramusio. Pipino was also the author of a
Chronicle, of which a part was printed by Muratori, and this contains
chapters on the Tartar wars, the destruction of the Old Man of the
Mountain, etc., derived from Polo. A passage not printed by Muratori has
been extracted by Prof. Bianconi from a MS. of this Chronicle in the
Modena Library, and runs as follows:--
"The matters which follow, concerning the magnificence of the Tartar
Emperors, whom in their language they call _Cham_ as we have said, are
related by Marcus Paulus the Venetian in a certain Book of his which has
been translated by me into Latin out of the Lombardic Vernacular. Having
gained the notice of the Emperor himself and become attached to his
service, he passed nearly 27 years in the Tartar countries."[5]
Again we have that mention of Marco by Friar Jacopo d'Acqui, which we have
quoted in connection with his capture by the Genoese, at p. 54.[6] And the
Florentine historian GIOVANNI VILLANI,[7] when alluding to the Tartars,
says:--
"Let him who would make full acquaintance with their history examine the
book of Friar Hayton, Lord of Colcos in Armenia, which he made at the
instance of Pope Clement V., and also the Book called _Milione_ which
was made by Messer Marco Polo of Venice, who tells much about their
power and dominion, having spent a long time among them. And so let us
quit the Tartars and return to our subject, the History of Florence."[8]
[Sidenote: Further contemporary references.]
77. Lastly, we learn from a curious passage in a medical work by PIETRO OF
ABANO, a celebrated physician and philosopher, and a man of Polo's own
generation, that he was personally acquainted with the Traveller. In a
discussion on the old notion of the non-habitability of the Equatorial
regions, which Pietro controverts, he says:[9]
[Illustration: Star at the Antarctic as sketched by Marco Polo[10].]
"In the country of the ZINGHI there is seen a star as big as a sack. I
know a man who has seen it, and he told me it had a faint light like a
piece of a cloud, and is always in the south.[11] I have been told of
this and other matters by MARCO the Venetian, the most extensive
traveller and the most diligent inquirer whom I have ever known. He saw
this same star under the Antarctic; he described it as having a great
tail, and drew a figure of it _thus_. He also told me that he saw the
Antarctic Pole at an altitude above the earth apparently equal to the
length of a soldier's lance, whilst the Arctic Pole was as much below
the horizon. 'Tis from that place, he says, that they export to us
camphor, lign-aloes, and brazil. He says the heat there is intense, and
the habitations few. And these things he witnessed in a certain island
at which he arrived by Sea. He tells me also that there are (wild?) men
there, and also certain very great rams that have very coarse and stiff
wool just like the bristles of our pigs."[12]
In addition to these five I know no other contemporary references to Polo,
nor indeed any other within the 14th century, though such there must
surely be, excepting in a Chronicle written after the middle of that
century by JOHN of YPRES, Abbot of St. Bertin, otherwise known as Friar
John the Long, and himself a person of very high merit in the history of
Travel, as a precursor of the Ramusios, Hakluyts and Purchases, for he
collected together and translated (when needful) into French all of the
most valuable works of Eastern Travel and Geography produced in the age
immediately preceding his own.[13] In his Chronicle the Abbot speaks at
some length of the adventures of the Polo Family, concluding with a
passage to which we have already had occasion to refer:
"And so Messers Nicolaus and Maffeus, with certain Tartars, were sent a
second time to these parts; but Marcus Pauli was retained by the Emperor
and employed in his military service, abiding with him for a space of 27
years. And the Cham, on account of his ability despatched him upon
affairs of his to various parts of Tartary and India and the Islands, on
which journeys he beheld many of the marvels of those regions. And
concerning these he afterwards composed a book in the French vernacular,
which said Book of Marvels, with others of the same kind, we do
possess." (_Thesaur. Nov. Anecdot._ III. 747.)
[Sidenote: Curious borrowings from Polo in the Romance of Bauduin de
Sebourc.]
78. There is, however, a notable work which is ascribed to a rather early
date in the 14th century, and which, though it contains no reference to
Polo by name, shows a thorough acquaintance with his book, and borrows
themes largely from it This is the poetical Romance of Bauduin de Sebourc,
an exceedingly clever and vivacious production, partaking largely of that
bantering, half-mocking spirit which is, I believe, characteristic of many
of the later mediaeval French Romances.[14] Bauduin is a knight who, after
a very wild and loose youth, goes through an extraordinary series of
adventures, displaying great faith and courage, and eventually becomes
King of Jerusalem. I will cite some of the traits evidently derived from
our Traveller, which I have met with in a short examination of this
curious work.
Bauduin, embarked on a dromond in the Indian Sea, is wrecked in the
territory of Baudas, and near a city called Falise, which stands on the
River of Baudas. The people of this city were an unbelieving race.
"Il ne creoient Dieu, Mahon, ne Tervogant,
Ydole, cruchefis, deable, ne tirant." P. 300.
Their only belief was this, that when a man died a great fire should be
made beside his tomb, in which should be burned all his clothes, arms, and
necessary furniture, whilst his horse and servant should be put to death,
and then the dead man would have the benefit of all these useful
properties in the other world.[15] Moreover, if it was the king that
died--
"Se li rois de la terre i aloit trespassant,
* * * * *
Si fasoit-on tuer, .viij. jour en un tenant,
Tout chiaus c'on encontroit par la chite passant,
Pour tenir compaingnie leur segnor soffisant.
Telle estoit le creanche ou pais dont je cant!"[16] P. 301.
Baudin arrives when the king has been dead three days, and through dread
of this custom all the people of the city are shut up in their houses. He
enters an inn, and helps himself to a vast repast, having been fasting for
three days. He is then seized and carried before the king, Polibans by
name. We might have quoted this prince at p. 87 as an instance of the
diffusion of the French tongue:
"Polibans sot Fransois, car on le doctrina:
j. renoies de Franche. vij. ans i demora,
Qui li aprist Fransois, si que bel en parla." P. 309.
Bauduin exclaims against their barbarous belief, and declares the
Christian doctrine to the king, who acknowledges good points in it, but
concludes:
"Vassaus, dist Polibans, a le chiere hardie,
Ja ne crerrai vou Dieux, a nul jour de ma vie;
Ne vostre Loy ne vaut une pomme pourie!" P. 311.
Bauduin proposes to prove his Faith by fighting the prince, himself
unarmed, the latter with all his arms. The prince agrees, but is rather
dismayed at Bauduin's confidence, and desires his followers, in case of
his own death, to burn with him horses, armour, etc., asking at the same
time which of them would consent to burn along with him, in order to be
his companions in the other world:
"La en i ot. ij'e. dont cascuns s'escria:
Nous morons volentiers, quant vo corps mort sara!"[17] P. 313.
Bauduin's prayer for help is miraculously granted; Polibans is beaten, and
converted by a vision. He tells Bauduin that in his neighbourhood, beyond
Baudas--
"ou. v. liewes, ou. vi.
Che un felles prinches, orgoellieus et despis;
De la Rouge-Montaingne est Prinches et Marchis.
Or vous dirai comment il a ses gens nouris:
Je vous di que chius Roys a fait un Paradis
Tant noble et gratieus, et plain de tels deliis,
* * * * *
Car en che Paradis est un riex establis,
Qui se partist en trois, en che noble pourpris:
En l'un coert li clares, d'espises bien garnis;
Et en l'autre li mies, qui les a resouffis;
Et li vins di pieument i queurt par droit avis--
* * * * *
Il n'i vente, ne gele. Che lies est de samis,
De riches dras de soie, bien ouvres a devis.
Et aveukes tout che que je chi vous devis,
I a. ij'e puchelles qui moult ont cler les vis,
Carolans et tresquans, menans gales et ris.
Et si est li dieuesse, dame et suppellatis,
Qui doctrine les autres et en fais et en dis,
Celle est la fille au Roy c'on dist des _Haus-Assis_."[18]
Pp. 319-320.
This Lady Ivorine, the Old Man's daughter, is described among other points
as having--
"Les iex vairs com faucons, nobles et agentis."[19] P. 320.
The King of the Mountain collects all the young male children of the
country, and has them brought up for nine or ten years:
"Dedens un lieu oscur: la les met-on toudis
Aveukes males bestes; kiens, et cas, et soris,
Culoeres, et lisaerdes, escorpions petis.
La endroit ne peut nuls avoir joie, ne ris." Pp. 320-321.
And after this dreary life they are shown the Paradise, and told that such
shall be their portion if they do their Lord's behest.
"S'il disoit a son homme: 'Va-t-ent droit a Paris;
Si me fier d'un coutel le Roy de Saint Denis,
Jamais n'aresteroit, ne par nuit ne par dis,
S'aroit tue le Roy, voiant tous ches marchis;
Et deuist estre a fources traines et mal mis.'" P. 321.
Bauduin determines to see this Paradise and the lovely Ivorine. The road
led by Baudas:
"Or avoit a che tamps, se l'istoire ne ment,
En le chit de Baudas Kristiens jusqu' a cent;
Qui manonent illoec par treu d'argent,
Que cascuns cristiens au Roy-Calife rent.
Li peres du Calife, qui regna longement,
Ama les Crestiens, et Dieu primierement:
* * * * *
Et lor fist establir. j. monstier noble et gent,
Ou Crestien faisoient faire lor sacrement.
Une mout noble piere lor donna proprement,
Ou on avoit pose Mahon moult longement."[20] P. 322.
The story is, in fact, that which Marco relates of Samarkand.[21] The
Caliph dies. His son hates the Christians. His people complain of the
toleration of the Christians and their minister; but he says his father
had pledged him not to interfere, and he dared not forswear himself. If,
without doing so, he could do them an ill turn, he would gladly. The
people then suggest their claim to the stone:
"Or leur donna vos peres, dont che fu mesprisons.
Ceste pierre, biaus Sire, Crestiens demandons:
Il ne le porront rendre, pour vrai le vous disons,
Si li monstiers n'est mis et par pieches et par mons;
Et s'il estoit desfais, jamais ne le larons
Refaire chi-endroit. Ensement averons
Faites et acomplies nostres ententions." P. 324.
The Caliph accordingly sends for Maistre Thumas, the Priest of the
Christians, and tells him the stone must be given up:
"Il a. c. ans ut plus c'on i mist a solas
Mahon, le nostre Dieu: dont che n'est mie estas
Que li vous monstiers soit fais de nostre harnas!" P. 324.
Master Thomas, in great trouble, collects his flock, mounts the pulpit,
and announces the calamity. Bauduin and his convert Polibans then arrive.
Bauduin recommends confession, fasting, and prayer. They follow his
advice, and on the third day the miracle occurs:
"L'escripture le dist, qui nous achertefie
Que le pierre Mahon, qui ou mur fut fiquie,
Sali hors du piler, coi que nul vous en die,
Droit enmi le monstier, c'onques ne fut brisie.
Et demoura li traus, dont le piere ert widie,
Sans piere est sans quailliel, a cascune partie;
Chou deseure soustient, par divine maistrie,
Tout en air proprement, n'el tenes a falie.
Encore le voit-on en ichelle partie:
Qui croire ne m'en voelt, si voist; car je l'en prie!" P. 327.
The Caliph comes to see, and declares it to be the Devil's doing. Seeing
Polibans, who is his cousin, he hails him, but Polibans draws back,
avowing his Christian faith. The Caliph in a rage has him off to prison.
Bauduin becomes very ill, and has to sell his horse and arms. His disease
is so offensive that he is thrust out of his hostel, and in his
wretchedness sitting on a stone he still avows his faith, and confesses
that even then he has not received his deserts. He goes to beg in the
Christian quarter, and no one gives to him; but still his faith and love
to God hold out:
"Ensement Bauduins chelle rue cherqua,
Tant qu'a .j. chavetier Bauduins s'arresta,
Qui chavates cousoit; son pain en garigna:
Jones fu et plaisans, apertement ouvra.
Bauduins le regarde, c'onques mot ne parla." P. 334.
The cobler is charitable, gives him bread, shoes, and a grey coat that was
a foot too short. He then asks Bauduin if he will not learn his trade; but
that is too much for the knightly stomach:
"Et Bauduins respont, li preus et li membrus:
J'ameroie trop miex que je fuisse pendus!" P. 335.
The Caliph now in his Council expresses his vexation about the miracle,
and says he does not know how to disprove the faith of the Christians. A
very sage old Saracen who knew Hebrew, and Latin, and some thirty
languages, makes a suggestion, which is, in fact, that about the moving of
the Mountain, as related by Marco Polo.[22] Master Thomas is sent for
again, and told that they must transport the high mountain of _Thir_ to
the valley of _Joaquin_, which lies to the westward. He goes away in new
despair and causes his clerk to _sonner le clocke_ for his people. Whilst
they are weeping and wailing in the church, a voice is heard desiring them
to seek a certain holy man who is at the good cobler's, and to do him
honour. God at his prayer will do a miracle. They go in procession to
Bauduin, who thinks they are mocking him. They treat him as a saint, and
strive to touch his old coat. At last he consents to pray along with the
whole congregation.
The Caliph is in his palace with his princes, taking his ease at a window.
Suddenly he starts up exclaiming:
"'Seignour, par Mahoumet que j'aoure et tieng chier,
Le Mont de Thir enportent le deable d'enfeir!'
Li Califes s'ecrie: 'Seignour, franc palasin,
Voies le Mont de Thir qui ch'est mis au chemin!
Ves-le-la tout en air, par mon Dieu Apolin;
Ja bientost le verrons ens ou val Joaquin!'" P. 345.
The Caliph is converted, releases Polibans, and is baptised, taking the
name of Bauduin, to whom he expresses his fear of the Viex de la Montagne
with his _Hauts-Assis_, telling anew the story of the Assassin's Paradise,
and so enlarges on the beauty of Ivorine that Bauduin is smitten, and his
love heals his malady. Toleration is not learned however:
"Bauduins, li Califes, fist baptisier sa gent,
Et qui ne voilt Dieu crore, li teste on li pourfent!" P. 350.
The Caliph gives up his kingdom to Bauduin, proposing to follow him to the
Wars of Syria. And Bauduin presents the Kingdom to the Cobler.
Bauduin, the Caliph, and Prince Polibans then proceed to visit the
Mountain of the Old Man. The Caliph professes to him that they want help
against Godfrey of Bouillon. The Viex says he does not give a _bouton_ for
Godfrey; he will send one of his _Hauts-Assis_ straight to his tent, and
give him a great knife of steel between _fie et poumon!_
After dinner they go out and witness the feat of devotion which we have
quoted elsewhere.[23] They then see the Paradise and the lovely Ivorine,
with whose beauty Bauduin is struck dumb. The lady had never smiled
before; now she declares that he for whom she had long waited was come.
Bauduin exclaims:
"'Madame, fu-jou chou qui sui le vous soubgis?'
Quant la puchelle l'ot, lors li geta. j. ris;
Et li dist: 'Bauduins, vous estes mes amis!'" Pp. 362-363.
The Old One is vexed, but speaks pleasantly to his daughter, who replies
with frightfully bad language, and declares herself to be a Christian. The
father calls out to the Caliph to kill her. The Caliph pulls out a big
knife and gives him a blow that nearly cuts him in two. The amiable
Ivorine says she will go with Bauduin:
"'Se mes peres est mors, n'en donne. j. paresis!'" P. 364.
We need not follow the story further, as I did not trace beyond this point
any distinct derivation from our Traveller, with the exception of that
allusion to the incombustible covering of the napkin of St. Veronica,
which I have quoted at p. 216 of this volume. But including this, here are
at least seven different themes borrowed from Marco Polo's book, on which
to be sure his poetical contemporary plays the most extraordinary
variations.
[Sidenote: Chaucer and Marco Polo.]
[78 _bis._--In the third volume of _The Complete Works of Geoffrey
Chaucer_, Oxford, 1894, the Rev. Walter W. Skeat gives (pp. 372 seqq.) an
_Account of the Sources of the Canterbury Tales_. Regarding _The Squieres
Tales_, he says that one of his sources was the Travels of Marco; Mr.
Keighley in his _Tales and Popular Fictions_, published in 1834, at p. 76,
distinctly derives Chaucer's Tale from the travels of Marco Polo. (_Skeat,
l. c._, p. 463, note.) I cannot quote all the arguments given by the Rev.
W. W. Skeat to support his theory, pp. 463-477.
Regarding the opinion of Professor Skeat of Chaucer's indebtedness to
Marco Polo, cf. _Marco Polo and the Squire's Tale_, by Professor John
Matthews Manly, vol. xi. of the _Publications of the Modern Language
Association of America_, 1896, pp. 349-362. Mr. Manly says (p. 360): "It
seems clear, upon reviewing the whole problem, that if Chaucer used Marco
Polo's narrative, he either carelessly or intentionally confused all the
features of the setting that could possibly be confused, and retained not
a single really characteristic trait of any person, place or event. It is
only by twisting everything that any part of Chaucer's story can be
brought into relation with any part of Polo's. To do this might be
allowable, if any rational explanation could be given for Chaucer's
supposed treatment of his 'author,' or if there were any scarcity of
sources from which Chaucer might have obtained as much information about
Tartary as he seems really to have possessed; but such an explanation
would be difficult to devise, and there is no such scarcity. Any one of
half a dozen accessible accounts could be distorted into almost if not
quite as great resemblance to the _Squire's Tale_ as Marco Polo's can."
Mr. A. W. Pollard, in his edition of _The Squire's Tale_ (Lond., 1899)
writes: "A very able paper, by Prof. J. M. Manly, demonstrates the
needlessness of Prof. Skeat's theory, which has introduced fresh
complications into an already complicated story. My own belief is that,
though we may illustrate the Squire's Tale from these old accounts of
Tartary, and especially from Marco Polo, because he has been so well
edited by Colonel Yule, there is very little probability that Chaucer
consulted any of them. It is much more likely that he found these details
where he found more important parts of his story, i.e. in some lost
romance. But if we must suppose that he provided his own local colour, we
have no right to pin him down to using Marco Polo to the exclusion of
other accessible authorities." Mr. Pollard adds in a note (p. xiii.):
"There are some features in these narratives, e.g. the account of the
gorgeous dresses worn at the Kaan's feast, which Chaucer with his love of
colour could hardly have helped reproducing if he had known them."--H. C.]
[1] See _Ferrazzi, Manuele Dantesca_, Bassano, 1865, p. 729.
[2] In Quaritch's catalogue for Nov. 1870 there is only one old edition of
Polo; there are _nine_ of Maundevile. In 1839 there were nineteen MSS.
of the latter author _catalogued_ in the British Museum Library. There
are _now_ only six of Marco Polo. At least twenty-five editions of
Maundevile and only five of Polo were printed in the 15th century.
[3] I have made personal enquiry at the National Libraries of Naples and
Palermo, at the Communal Library in the latter city, and at the
Benedictine Libraries of Monte Cassino, Monreale, S. Martino, and
Catania.
In the 15th century, when Polo's book had become more generally
diffused we find three copies of it in the Catalogue of the Library of
Charles VI. of France, made at the Louvre in 1423, by order of the
Duke of Bedford.
The estimates of value are curious. They are in _sols parisis_, which
we shall not estimate very wrongly at a shilling each:--
"No. 295. _Item_. Marcus Paulus; _en ung cahier escript de lettre
formee en francois, a deux coulombes. Commt. ou ii'e fo._ 'deux freres
prescheurs,' _et ou derrenier_ 'que sa arrieres.' _X. s. p._
"No. 334. _Item_. Marcus Paulus. _Couvert de drap d'or, bien escript &
enlumine, de lettre de forme en francois, a deux coulombes. Commt. ou
ii'e fol._; 'il fut Roys,' _& ou derrenier_ 'propremen,' _a deux
fermouers de laton. XV. s. p._
"No. 336. _Item_. Marcus Paulus; _non enlumine, escript en francois,
de lettre de forme. Commt. ou ii'e fo._ 'vocata moult grant,' _& ou
derrenier_ 'ilec dist il.' _Couvert de cuir blanc, a deux fermouers de
laton. XII. s. p._"
(_Inventaire de la Bibliotheque du Roi Charles VI._, etc.
Paris, Societe des Bibliophiles, 1867.)
[4] See _Del Reggimento e de' Costumi delle donne di Messer Francesco da
Barberino_, Roma, 1815, pp. 166 and 271. The latter passage runs thus,
on _Slavery_:--
"E fu indutta prima da Noe,
E fu cagion lo vin, perche si egge:
Ch' egli e un paese, dove
Son molti servi in parte di Cathay:
Che per questa cagione
Hanno a nimico il vino,
E non ne beon, ne voglion vedere."
The author was born the year before Dante (1264), and though he lived
to 1348 it is probable that the poems in question were written in his
earlier years. _Cathay_ was no doubt known by dim repute long before
the final return of the Polos, both through the original journey of
Nicolo and Maffeo, and by information gathered by the Missionary
Friars. Indeed, in 1278 Pope Nicolas III., in consequence of
information said to have come from Abaka Khan of Persia, that Kublai
was a baptised Christian, sent a party of Franciscans with a long
letter to the Kaan _Quobley_, as he is termed. They never seem to have
reached their destination. And in 1289 Nicolas IV. entrusted a similar
mission to Friar John of Monte Corvino, which eventually led to very
tangible results. Neither of the Papal letters, however, mentions
_Cathay_. (See _Mosheim_, App. pp. 76 and 94.)
[5] See _Muratori_, IX. 583, seqq.; _Bianconi_, Mem. I. p. 37.
[6] This Friar makes a strange hotch-potch of what he had read, e.g.:
"The Tartars, when they came out of the mountains, made them a king,
viz., the son of Prester John, who is thus vulgarly termed _Vetulus de
la Montagna!_" (_Mon. Hist. Patr._ Script. III. 1557.)
[7] G. Villani died in the great plague of 1348. But his book was begun
soon after Marco's was written, for he states that it was the sight of
the memorials of greatness which he witnessed at Rome, during the
Jubilee of 1300, that put it into his head to write the history of the
rising glories of Florence, and that he began the work after his
return home. (Bk. VIII. ch. 36.)
[8] Book V. ch. 29.
[9] _Petri Aponensis Medici ac Philosophi Celeberrimi, Conciliator_,
Venice, 1521, fol. 97. Peter was born in 1250 at Abano, near Padua,
and was Professor of Medicine at the University in the latter city.
He twice fell into the claws of the Unholy Office, and only escaped
them by death in 1316.
[10] [It is curious that this figure is almost exactly that which among
oriental carpets is called a "cloud." I have heard the term so applied
by Vincent Robinson. It often appears in old Persian carpets, and also
in Chinese designs. Mr. Purdon Clarke tells me it is called _nebula_
in heraldry; it is also called in Chinese by a term signifying cloud;
in Persian, by a term which he called _silen-i-khitai_, but of this I
can make nothing.--_MS. Note by Yule_.]
[11] The great Magellanic cloud? In the account of Vincent Yanez Pinzon's
Voyage to the S.W. in 1499 as given in Ramusio (III. 15) after Pietro
Martire d'Anghieria, it is said:--"Taking the astrolabe in hand, and
ascertaining the Antarctic Pole, they did not see any star like our
Pole Star; but they related that they saw another manner of stars very
different from ours, and which they could not clearly discern because
of a certain dimness which diffused itself about those stars, and
obstructed the view of them." Also the Kachh mariners told Lieutenant
Leech that midway to Zanzibar there was a town (?) called Marethee,
where the North Pole Star sinks below the horizon, and they steer by
_a fixed cloud in the heavens_. (Bombay Govt. Selections, No. XV. N.S.
p. 215.)
The great Magellan cloud is mentioned by an old Arab writer as a white
blotch at the foot of Canopus, visible in the Tehama along the Red
Sea, but not in Nejd or 'Irak. Humboldt, in quoting this, calculates
that in A.D. 1000 the Great Magellan would have been visible at Aden
some degrees above the horizon. (_Examen_, V. 235.)
[12] This passage contains points that are omitted in Polo's book, besides
the drawing implied to be from Marco's own hand! The island is of
course Sumatra. The animal is perhaps the peculiar Sumatran wild-goat,
figured by Marsden, the hair of which on the back is "coarse and
strong, almost like bristles." (_Sumatra_, p. 115.)
[13] A splendid example of Abbot John's Collection is the _Livre des
Merveilles_ of the Great French Library (No. 18 in our _App. F._).
This contains Polo, Odoric, William of Boldensel, the Book of the
Estate of the Great Kaan by the Archbishop of Soltania, Maundevile,
Hayton, and Ricold of Montecroce, of which all but Polo and Maundevile
are French versions by this excellent Long John. A list of the Polo
miniatures is given in _App. F_. of this Edition, p. 527.
It is a question for which there is sufficient ground, whether the
Persian Historians Rashiduddin and Wassaf, one or other or both, did
not derive certain information that appears in their histories, from
Marco Polo personally, he having spent many months in Persia, and at
the Court of Tabriz, when either or both may have been there. Such
passages as that about the Cotton-trees of Guzerat (vol. ii. p. 393,
and note), those about the horse trade with Maabar (id. p. 340, and
note), about the brother-kings of that country (id. p. 331), about the
naked savages of Necuveram (id. p. 306), about the wild people of
Sumatra calling themselves subjects of the Great Kaan (id. pp. 285,
292, 293, 299), have so strong a resemblance to parallel passages in
one or both of the above historians, as given in the first and third
volumes of Elliot, that the probability, at least, of the Persian
writers having derived their information from Polo might be fairly
maintained.
[14] _Li Romans de Bauduin de Sebourc III'e Roy de Jherusalem_; Poeme du
XIV'e Siecle; Valenciennes, 1841. 2 vols. 8vo. I was indebted to two
references of M. Pauthier's for knowledge of the existence of this
work. He cites the legends of the Mountain, and of the Stone of the
Saracens from an abstract, but does not seem to have consulted the
work itself, nor to have been aware of the extent of its borrowings
from Marco Polo. M. Genin, from whose account Pauthier quotes,
ascribes the poem to an early date after the death of Philip the Fair
(1314). See _Pauthier_, pp. 57, 58, and 140.
[15] See Polo, vol. i. p. 204, and vol. ii. p. 191.
[16] See Polo, vol. i. p. 246.
[17] See Polo, vol. ii. p. 339.
[18] See Polo, vol. i. p. 140. _Hashishi_ has got altered into
_Haus Assis_.
[19] See vol. i. p. 358, note.
[20] See vol. i. p. 189, note 2.
[21] Vol. i. pp. 183-186.
[22] Vol. i. pp. 68 seqq. The virtuous cobler is not left out, but is made
to play second fiddle to the hero Bauduin
[23] Vol. i. p. 144.
XIII. NATURE OF POLO'S INFLUENCE ON GEOGRAPHICAL KNOWLEDGE.
[Sidenote: Tardy operation, and causes thereof.]
79. Marco Polo contributed such a vast amount of new facts to the
knowledge of the Earth's surface, that one might have expected his book to
have had a sudden effect upon the Science of Geography: but no such result
occurred speedily, nor was its beneficial effect of any long duration.
No doubt several causes contributed to the slowness of its action upon the
notions of Cosmographers, of which the unreal character attributed to the
Book, as a collection of romantic marvels rather than of geographical and
historical facts, may have been one, as Santarem urges. But the essential
causes were no doubt the imperfect nature of publication before the
invention of the press; the traditional character which clogged geography
as well as all other branches of knowledge in the Middle Ages; and the
entire absence of scientific principle in what passed for geography, so
that there was no organ competent to the assimilation of a large mass of
new knowledge.
Of the action of the first cause no examples can be more striking than we
find in the false conception of the Caspian as a gulf of the Ocean,
entertained by Strabo, and the opposite error in regard to the Indian Sea
held by Ptolemy, who regards it as an enclosed basin, when we contrast
these with the correct ideas on both subjects possessed by Herodotus. The
later Geographers no doubt knew his statements, but did not appreciate
them, probably from not possessing the evidence on which they were based.
[Sidenote: General characteristics of Mediaeval Cosmography.]
80. As regards the second cause alleged, we may say that down nearly to
the middle of the 15th century cosmographers, as a rule, made scarcely any
attempt to reform their maps by any elaborate search for new matter, or by
lights that might be collected from recent travellers. Their world was in
its outline that handed down by the traditions of their craft, as
sanctioned by some Father of the Church, such as Orosius or Isidore, as
sprinkled with a combination of classical and mediaeval legend; Solinus
being the great authority for the former. Almost universally the earth's
surface is represented as filling the greater part of a circular disk,
rounded by the ocean; a fashion that already existed in the time of
Aristotle and was ridiculed by him.[1] No dogma of false geography was
more persistent or more pernicious than this. Jerusalem occupies the
central point, because it was found written in the Prophet Ezekiel: "_Haec
dicit Dominus Deus: Ista est Jerusalem_, in medio gentium _posui eam, et
in circuitu ejus terras_;"[2] a declaration supposed to be corroborated by
the Psalmist's expression, regarded as prophetic of the death of Our Lord:
"_Deus autem, Rex noster, ante secula operatus est salutem_ in medio
Terrae" (Ps. lxxiii. 12).[3] The Terrestrial Paradise was represented as
occupying the extreme East, because it was found in Genesis that the Lord
planted a garden east ward in Eden.[4] _Gog and Magog_ were set in the far
north or north-east, because it was said again in Ezekiel: "_Ecce Ego
super te Gog Principem capitis Mosoch et Thubal ... et ascendere te faciam
de lateribus Aquilonis_," whilst probably the topography of those
mysterious nationalities was completed by a girdle of mountains out of the
Alexandrian Fables. The loose and scanty nomenclature was mainly borrowed
from Pliny or Mela through such Fathers as we have named; whilst vacant
spaces were occupied by Amazons, Arimaspians, and the realm of Prester
John. A favourite representation of the inhabited earth was this [Symbol];
a great O enclosing a T, which thus divides the circle in three parts; the
greater or half-circle being Asia, the two quarter circles Europe and
Africa.[5] These Maps were known to St. Augustine.[6]
[Sidenote: Roger Bacon as a geographer.]
81. Even Ptolemy seems to have been almost unknown; and indeed had his
Geography been studied it might, with all its errors, have tended to some
greater endeavours after accuracy. Roger Bacon, whilst lamenting the
exceeding deficiency of geographical knowledge in the Latin world, and
purposing to essay an exacter distribution of countries, says he will not
attempt to do so by latitude and longitude, for that is a system of which
the Latins have learned nothing. He himself, whilst still somewhat
burdened by the authoritative dicta of "saints and sages" of past times,
ventures at least to criticise some of the latter, such as Pliny and
Ptolemy, and declares his intention to have recourse to the information of
those who have travelled most extensively over the Earth's surface. And
judging from the good use he makes, in his description of the northern
parts of the world, of the Travels of Rubruquis, whom he had known and
questioned, besides diligently studying his narrative,[7] we might have
expected much in Geography from this great man, had similar materials been
available to him for other parts of the earth. He did attempt a map with
mathematical determination of places, but it has not been preserved.[8]
It may be said with general truth that the world-maps current up to the
end of the 13th century had more analogy to the mythical cosmography of
the Hindus than to any thing properly geographical. Both, no doubt, were
originally based in the main on real features. In the Hindu cosmography
these genuine features are symmetrised as in a kaleidoscope; in the
European cartography they are squeezed together in a manner that one can
only compare to a pig in brawn. Here and there some feature strangely
compressed and distorted is just recognisable. A splendid example of this
kind of map is that famous one at Hereford, executed about A.D. 1275, of
which a facsimile has lately been published, accompanied by a highly
meritorious illustrative Essay.[9]
82. Among the Arabs many able men, from the early days of Islam, took an
interest in Geography, and devoted labour to geographical compilations, in
which they often made use of their own observations, of the itineraries of
travellers, and of other fresh knowledge. But somehow or other their maps
were always far behind their books. Though they appear to have had an
early translation of Ptolemy, and elaborate Tables of Latitudes and
Longitudes form a prominent feature in many of their geographical
treatises, there appears to be no Arabic map in existence, laid down with
meridians and parallels; whilst _all_ of their best known maps are on the
old system of the circular disk. This apparent incapacity for map-making
appears to have acted as a heavy drag and bar upon progress in Geography
among the Arabs, notwithstanding its early promise among them, and in
spite of the application to its furtherance of the great intellects of
some (such as Abu Rihan al-Biruni), and of the indefatigable spirit of
travel and omnivorous curiosity of others (such as Mas'udi).
[Sidenote: Marino Sanudo the Elder.]
83. Some distinct trace of acquaintance with the Arabian Geography is to
be found in the World-Map of Marino Sanudo the Elder, constructed between
1300 and 1320; and this may be regarded as an exceptionally favourable
specimen of the cosmography in vogue, for the author was a diligent
investigator and compiler, who evidently took a considerable interest in
geographical questions, and had a strong enjoyment and appreciation of a
map.[10] Nor is the map in question without some result of these
characteristics. His representation of Europe, Northern Africa, Syria,
Asia Minor, Arabia and its two gulfs, is a fair approximation to general
facts; his collected knowledge has enabled him to locate, with more or
less of general truth, Georgia, the Iron Gates, Cathay, the Plain of
Moghan, Euphrates and Tigris, Persia, Bagdad, Kais, Aden (though on the
wrong side of the Red Sea), Abyssinia (_Habesh_), Zangibar (_Zinz_), Jidda
(Zede), etc. But after all the traditional forms are too strong for him.
Jerusalem is still the centre of the disk of the habitable earth, so that
the distance is as great from Syria to Gades in the extreme West, as from
Syria to the India Interior of Prester John which terminates the extreme
East. And Africa beyond the Arabian Gulf is carried, according to the
Arabian modification of Ptolemy's misconception, far to the eastward until
it almost meets the prominent shores of India.
[Sidenote: The Catalan Map of 1375, the most complete mediaeval embodiment
of Polo's Geography.]
84. The first genuine mediaeval attempt at a geographical construction
that I know of, absolutely free from the traditional _idola_, is the Map
of the known World from the Portulano Mediceo (in the Laurentian Library),
of which an extract is engraved in the atlas of Baldelli-Boni's Polo. I
need not describe it, however, because I cannot satisfy myself that it
makes much use of Polo's contributions, and its facts have been embodied
in a more ambitious work of the next generation, the celebrated Catalan
Map of 1375 in the great Library of Paris. This also, but on a larger
scale and in a more comprehensive manner, is an honest endeavour to
represent the known world on the basis of collected facts, casting aside
all theories pseudo-scientific or pseudo-theological; and a very
remarkable work it is. 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. The
Eastern Peninsula of India is indeed absent altogether, but the Peninsula
of Hither India is for the first time in the History of Geography
represented with a fair approximation to its correct form and
position,[11] and Sumatra also (_Java_) is not badly placed. Carajan,
Vocian, Mien, and Bangala, are located with a happy conception of their
relation to Cathay and to India. Many details in India foreign to Polo's
book,[12] and some in Cathay (as well as in Turkestan and Siberia, which
have been entirely derived from other sources) have been embodied in the
Map. But the study of his Book has, I conceive, been essentially the basis
of those great portions which I have specified, and the additional matter
has not been in mass sufficient to perplex the compiler. Hence we really
see in this Map something like the idea of Asia that the Traveller himself
would have presented, had he bequeathed a Map to us.
[Some years ago, I made a special study of the Far East in the Catalan
Map. (_L'Extreme-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.]
[Illustration: Part of the Catalan Map (1375).]
[Sidenote: Confusions in Cartography of the 16th century, from the
endeavour to combine new and old information.]
85. In the following age we find more frequent indications that Polo's
book was diffused and read. And now that the spirit of discovery began to
stir, it was apparently regarded in a juster light as a Book of Facts, and
not as a mere _Romman du Grant Kaan_.[13] But in fact this age produced
new supplies of crude information in greater abundance than the knowledge
of geographers was prepared to digest or co-ordinate, and the consequence
is that the magnificent Work of Fra Mauro (1459), though the result of
immense labour in the collection of facts and the endeavour to combine
them, really gives a considerably less accurate idea of Asia than that
which the Catalan Map had afforded.[14]
And when at a still later date the great burst of discovery eastward and
westward took effect, the results of all attempts to combine the new
knowledge with the old was most unhappy. The first and crudest forms of
such combinations attempted to realise the ideas of Columbus regarding the
identity of his discoveries with the regions of the Great Kaan's
dominion;[15] but even after AMERICA had vindicated its independent
position on the surface of the globe, and the new knowledge of the
Portuguese had introduced CHINA where the Catalan Map of the 14th century
had presented CATHAY, the latter country, with the whole of Polo's
nomenclature, was shoved away to the north, forming a separate system.[16]
Henceforward the influence of Polo's work on maps was simply injurious;
and when to his nomenclature was added a sprinkling of Ptolemy's, as was
usual throughout the 16th century, the result was a most extraordinary
hotch-potch, conveying no approximation to any consistent representation
of facts.
Thus, in a map of 1522,[17] running the eye along the north of Europe and
Asia from West to East, we find the following succession of names:
Groenlandia, or Greenland, as a great peninsula overlapping that of
Norvegia and Suecia; Livonia, Plescovia and Moscovia, Tartaria bounded on
the South by _Scithia extra Imaum_, and on the East, by the Rivers
_Ochardes_ and _Bautisis_ (out of Ptolemy), which are made to flow into
the Arctic Sea. South of these are _Aureacithis_ and _Asmirea_ (Ptolemy's
_Auxacitis_ and _Asmiraea_), and _Serica Regio_. Then following the
northern coast _Balor Regio_,[18] _Judei Clausi_, i.e. the Ten Tribes who
are constantly associated or confounded with the Shut-up Nations of Gog
and Magog. These impinge upon the River _Polisacus_, flowing into the
Northern Ocean in Lat. 75 deg., but which is in fact no other than Polo's
_Pulisanghin!_[19] Immediately south of this is _Tholomon Provincia_
(Polo's again), and on the coast _Tangut_, _Cathaya_, the Rivers
_Caramoran_ and _Oman_ (a misreading of Polo's _Quian_), _Quinsay_ and
_Mangi_.
[Sidenote: Gradual disappearance of Polo's nomenclature.]
86. The Maps of Mercator (1587) and Magini (1597) are similar in
character, but more elaborate, introducing China as a separate system.
Such indeed also is Blaeu's Map (1663) excepting that Ptolemy's
contributions are reduced to one or two.
In Sanson's Map (1659) the data of Polo and the mediaeval Travellers are
more cautiously handled, but a new element of confusion is introduced in
the form of numerous features derived from Edrisi.
It is scarcely worth while to follow the matter further. With the increase
of knowledge of Northern Asia from the Russian side, and that of China
from the Maps of Martini, followed by the surveys of the Jesuits, and with
the real science brought to bear on Asiatic Geography by such men as De
l'Isle and D'Anville, mere traditional nomenclature gradually disappeared.
And the task which the study of Polo has provided for the geographers of
later days has been chiefly that of determining the true localities that
his book describes under obsolete or corrupted names.
[My late illustrious friend, Baron _A. E. Nordenskioeld_, who has devoted
much time and labour to the study of Marco Polo (see his _Periplus_,
Stockholm, 1897), and published a facsimile edition of one of the French
MSS. kept in the Stockholm Royal Library (see vol. ii. _Bibliography_, p.
570), has given to _The Geographical Journal_ for April, 1899, pp.
396-406, a paper on _The Influence of the "Travels of Marco Polo" on Jacobo
Gastaldi's Maps of Asia_. 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). Cf. _Periplus_, liv., lv., and lvi.
I may refer to what both Yule and myself say supra of the Catalan
Map.--H. C.]
[Sidenote: Alleged introduction of Block-printed Books into Europe by
Marco Polo.]
87. Before concluding, it may be desirable to say a few words on the
subject of important knowledge other than geographical, which various
persons have supposed that Marco Polo must have introduced from Eastern
Asia to Europe.
Respecting the mariner's compass and gunpowder I shall say nothing, as no
one now, I believe, imagines Marco to have had anything to do with their
introduction. But from a highly respectable source in recent years we have
seen the introduction of Block-printing into Europe connected with the
name of our Traveller. The circumstances are stated as follows:[20]
"In the beginning of the 15th century a man named Pamphilo Castaldi, of
Feltre ... was employed by the Seignory or Government of the Republic,
to engross deeds and public edicts of various kinds ... the initial
letters at the commencement of the writing being usually ornamented with
red ink, or illuminated in gold and colours
"According to Sansovino, certain stamps or types had been invented some
time previously by Pietro di Natali, Bishop of Aquiloea.[21] These were
made at Murano of glass, and were used to stamp or print the outline of
the large initial letters of public documents, which were afterwards
filled up by hand.... Pamphilo Castaldi improved on these glass types,
by having others made of wood or metal, and having seen several Chinese
books which the famous traveller Marco Polo had brought from China, and
of which the entire text was printed with wooden blocks, he caused
moveable wooden types to be made, each type containing a single letter;
and with these he printed several broadsides and single leaves, at
Venice, in the year 1426. Some of these single sheets are said to be
preserved among the archives at Feltre....
"The tradition continues that John Faust, of Mayence ... became
acquainted with Castaldi, and passed some time with him, at his
_Scriptorium_,... at Feltre;"
and in short developed from the knowledge so acquired the great invention
of printing. Mr. Curzon goes on to say that Panfilo Castaldi was born in
1398, and died in 1490, and that he gives the story as he found it in an
article written by Dr. Jacopo Facen, of Feltre, in a (Venetian?) newspaper
called _Il Gondoliere_, No. 103, of 27th December, 1843.
In a later paper Mr. Curzon thus recurs to the subject:[22]
"Though none of the early block-books have dates affixed to them, many
of them are with reason supposed to be more ancient than any books
printed with moveable types. Their resemblance to Chinese block-books is
so exact, that they would almost seem to be copied from the books
commonly used in China. _The impressions are taken off on one side of
the paper only, and in binding, both the Chinese, and ancient German, or
Dutch block-books, the blank sides of the pages are placed opposite each
other_, and sometimes pasted together.... The impressions are not taken
off with printer's ink, but _with a brown paint or colour, of a much
thinner description, more in the nature of Indian ink, as we call it,
which is used in printing Chinese books_. Altogether the German and
Oriental block-books are so precisely alike, in almost every respect,
that ... we must suppose that the process of printing then must have
been copied from ancient Chinese specimens, brought from that country by
some early travellers, whose names have not been handed down to our
times."
The writer then refers to the tradition about _Guttemberg_ (so it is
stated on this occasion, not Faust) having learned Castaldi's art, etc.,
mentioning a circumstance which he supposes to indicate that Guttemberg
had relations with Venice; and appears to assent to the probability of the
story of the art having been founded on specimens brought home by Marco
Polo.
This story was in recent years diligently propagated in Northern Italy,
and resulted in the erection at Feltre of a public statue of Panfilo
Castaldi, bearing this inscription (besides others of like tenor):--
"_To Panfilo Castaldi the illustrious Inventor of Movable Printing
Types, Italy renders this Tribute of Honour, too long deferred._"
In the first edition of this book I devoted a special note to the exposure
of the worthlessness of the evidence for this story.[23] This note was,
with the present Essay, translated and published at Venice by Comm.
Berchet, but this challenge to the supporters of the patriotic romance, so
far as I have heard, brought none of them into the lists in its defence.
But since Castaldi has got his statue from the printers of Lombardy, would
it not be mere equity that the mariners of Spain should set up a statue at
Huelva to the Pilot Alonzo Sanchez of that port, who, according to Spanish
historians, after discovering the New World, died in the house of Columbus
at Terceira, and left the crafty Genoese to appropriate his journals, and
rob him of his fame?
Seriously; if anybody in Feltre cares for the real reputation of his
native city, let him do his best to have that preposterous and
discreditable fiction removed from the base of the statue. If Castaldi has
deserved a statue on other and truer grounds let _him_ stand; if not, let
him be burnt into honest lime! I imagine that the original story that
attracted Mr. Curzon was more _jeu d'esprit_ than anything else; but that
the author, finding what a stone he had set rolling, did not venture to
retract.
[Sidenote: Frequent opportunities for such introduction in the age
following Polo's.]
88. Mr. Curzon's own observations, which I have italicised about the
resemblance of the two systems are, however, very striking, and seem
clearly to indicate the derivation of the art from China. But I should
suppose that in the tradition, if there ever was any genuine tradition of
the kind at Feltre (a circumstance worthy of all doubt), the name of Marco
Polo was introduced merely because it was so prominent a name in Eastern
Travel. The fact has been generally overlooked and forgotten[24] that, for
many years in the course of the 14th century, not only were missionaries
of the Roman Church and Houses of the Franciscan Order established in the
chief cities of China, but a regular trade was carried on overland between
Italy and China, by way of Tana (or Azov), Astracan, Otrar and Kamul,
insomuch that instructions for the Italian merchant following that route
form the two first chapters in the Mercantile Handbook of Balducci
Pegolotti (circa 1340).[25] 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 he 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. 36.
[2] In Dante's Cosmography, Jerusalem is the centre of our [Greek:
oikoumenae], whilst the Mount of Purgatory occupies the middle of the
Antipodal hemisphere:--
"Come cio sia, se'l vuoi poter pensare,
Dentro raccolto immagina Sion
Con questo monte in su la terra stare,
Si, ch' ambodue hann' un solo orrizon
E diversi emisperi"....
--_Purg._ IV. 67.
[3] The belief, with this latter ground of it, is alluded to in curious
verses by Jacopo Alighieri, Dante's son:--
"_E molti gran Profeti
Filosofi e Poeti_
Fanno il colco dell' Emme
Dov' e Gerusalemme;
_Se le loro scritture
Hanno vere figure:
E per la Santa fede
Cristiana ancor si vede
Che' l' suo principio Cristo_
Nel suo mezzo _conquisto
Per cui prese morte
E vi pose la sorte_."
--(_Rime Antiche Toscane_, III. 9.)
Though the general meaning of the second couplet is obvious, the
expression _il colco dell' Emme_, "the couch of the M," is puzzling.
The best solution that occurs to me is this: In looking at the world
map of Marino Sanudo, noticed on p. 133, as engraved by Bongars in the
_Gesta Dei per Francos_, you find geometrical lines laid down,
connecting the N.E., N.W., S.E., and S.W. points, and thus forming a
square inscribed in the circular disk of the Earth, with its diagonals
passing through the Central Zion. The eye easily discerns in these a
great M inscribed in the circle, with its middle angular point at
Jerusalem. Gervasius of Tilbury (with some confusion in his mind
between tropic and equinoxial, like that which Pliny makes in speaking
of the Indian Mons Malleus) says that "some are of opinion that the
Centre is in the place where the Lord spoke to the woman of Samaria at
the well, for there, at the summer solstice, the noonday sun descends
perpendicularly into the water of the well, casting no shadow; a thing
which the philosophers say occurs at Syene"! (_Otia Imperialia_, by
Liebrecht, p. 1.)
[4] This circumstance does not, however, show in the Vulgate.
[5] "Veggiamo in prima in general la terra
Come risiede e come il mar la serra.
Un T dentro ad un O mostra il disegno
Come in tre parti fu diviso il Mondo,
E la superiore e il maggior regno
Che quasi piglia la meta del tondo.
ASIA chiamata: il gambo ritto e segno
Che parte il terzo nome dal secondo
AFFRICA dico da EUROPA: il mare
Mediterran tra esse in mezzo appare."
--_La Sfera_, di F. Leonardo di Stagio Dati, Lib. iii. st. 11.
[6] _De Civ. Dei_, xvi. 17, quoted by _Peschel_, 92.
[7] _Opus Majus_, Venice ed. pp. 142, seqq.
[8] _Peschel_, p. 195. This had escaped me.
[9] By the Rev. W. L. Bevan, M.A., and the Rev. H. W. Phillott, M.A. In
Asia, they point out, the only name showing any recognition of modern
knowledge is Samarcand.
[10] His work, _Liber Secretorum Fidelium Crucis_, intended to stimulate a
new Crusade, has three capital maps, besides that of the World, one of
which, translated, but otherwise in facsimile, is given at p. 18 of
this volume. But besides these maps, he gives, in a tabular form of
parallel columns, the reigning sovereigns in Europe and Asia connected
with his historical retrospect, just on the plan presented in Sir
Harris Nicolas's Chronology of History.
[11] I do not see that al-Biruni deserves the credit in this respect
assigned to him by Professor Peschel, so far as one can judge from the
data given by Sprenger (_Peschel_, p. 128; _Post und Reise-Routen_,
81-82.)
[12] For example, _Delli_, which Polo does not name; _Diogil_ (Deogir); on
the Coromandel coast _Setemelti_, which I take to be a clerical error
for _Sette-Templi_, the Seven Pagodas; round the Gulf of Cambay we
have _Cambetum_ (Kambayat), _Cocintaya_ (Kokan-Tana, see vol. ii. p.
396), _Goga, Baroche, Neruala_ (Anharwala), and to the north _Moltan_.
Below Multan are _Hocibelch_ and _Bargelidoa_, two puzzles. The former
is, I think, _Uch-baligh_, showing that part of the information was
from Perso-Mongol sources.
[13] I see it stated by competent authority that _Romman_ is often applied
to any prose composition in a Romance language.
In or about 1426, Prince Pedro of Portugal, the elder brother of the
illustrious Prince Henry, being on a visit to Venice, was presented by
the Signory with a copy of Marco Polo's book, together with a map
already alluded to. (_Major's P. Henry_, pp. 61, 62.)
[14] This is partly due also to Fra Mauro's reversion to the fancy of the
circular disk limiting the inhabited portion of the earth.
[15] An early graphic instance of this is Ruysch's famous map (1508). The
following extract of a work printed as late as 1533 is an example of
the like confusion in verbal description: "The Territories which are
beyond the limits of Ptolemy's Tables have not yet been described on
certain authority. Behind the Sinae and the Seres, and beyond 180 deg. of
East Longitude, many countries were discovered by one [_quendam_]
Marco Polo a Venetian and others, and the sea-coasts of those
countries have now recently again been explored by Columbus the
Genoese and Amerigo Vespucci in navigating the Western Ocean.... To
this part (of Asia) belong the territory called that of the
_Bachalaos_ [or Codfish, Newfoundland], _Florida_, _the Desert of
Lop_, _Tangut_, _Cathay_, the realm of _Mexico_ (wherein is the vast
city of _Temistitan_, built in the middle of a great lake, but which
the older travellers styled QUINSAY), besides _Paria_, _Uraba_, and
the countries of the _Canibals_." (_Joannis Schoneri Carolostadtii
Opusculum Geogr._, quoted by Humboldt, _Examen_, V. 171, 172.)
[16] In Robert Parke's Dedication of his Translation of Mendoza's, London,
1st of January, 1589, he identifies China and Japan with the regions
of which _Paulus Venetus_ and _Sir John Mandeuill_ "wrote long agoe."
--_MS. Note by Yule_.
[17] "_Totius Europae et Asiae Tabula Geographica, Auctore Thoma D.
Aucupario. Edita Argentorati_, MDXXII." Copied in Witsen.
[18] This strange association of _Balor_ (i.e., Bolor, that name of so
many odd vicissitudes, see pp. 178-179 infra) with the shut-up
Israelites must be traced to a passage which Athanasius Kircher quotes
from _R. Abraham Pizol_ (qu. Peritsol?): "_Regnum_, inquit, Belor
_magnum et excelsum nimis, juxta omnes illos qui scripserunt
Historicos_. Sunt in eo Judaei _plurimi inclusi, et illud in latere
Orientali et Boreali_," etc. (_China Illustrata_, p. 49.)
[19] Vol. ii. p. 1.
[20] _A short Account of Libraries of Italy_, by the Hon. R. Curzon
(the late Lord de la Zouche); in _Bibliog. and Hist. Miscellanies;
Philobiblon Society_, vol. i, 1854, pp. 6. seqq.
[21] P. del Natali was Bishop of Equilio, a city of the Venetian Lagoons,
in the latter part of the 14th century. (See _Ughelli, Italia Sacra_,
X. 87.) There is no ground whatever for connecting him with these
inventions. The story of the glass types appears to rest entirely and
solely on one obscure passage of Sansovino, who says that under the
Doge Marco Corner (1365-1367): "_certe Natale Veneto lascio un libro
della materie delle forme da giustar intorno alle lettere, ed il modo
di formarle di vetro_." There is absolutely nothing more. Some kind of
stencilling seems indicated.
[22] _History of Printing in China and Europe_, in _Philobiblon_, vol. vi.
p. 23.
[23] See _Appendix L_. in First Edition.
[24] Ramusio himself appears to have been entirely unconscious of it,
vide supra, p. 3
[25] This subject has been fully treated in _Cathay and the Way Thither_.
XIV. EXPLANATIONS REGARDING THE BASIS ADOPTED FOR THE PRESENT TRANSLATION.
89. It remains to say a few words regarding the basis adopted for our
English version of the Traveller's record.
[Sidenote: Text followed by Marsden and by Pauthier.]
Ramusio's recension was that which Marsden selected for translation. But
at the date of his most meritorious publication nothing was known of the
real literary history of Polo's Book, and no one was aware of the peculiar
value and originality of the French manuscript texts, nor had Marsden seen
any of them. A translation from one of those texts is a translation at
first hand; a translation from Ramusio's Italian is, as far as I can
judge, the translation of a translated compilation from two or more
translations, and therefore, whatever be the merits of its matter,
inevitably carries us far away from the spirit and style of the original
narrator. M. Pauthier, I think, did well in adopting for the text of his
edition the MSS. which I have classed as of the second Type, the more as
there had hitherto been no publication from those texts. But editing a
text in the original language, and translating, are tasks substantially
different in their demands.
[Sidenote: Eclectic formation of the English Text of this Translation.]
90. It will be clear from what has been said in the preceding pages that I
should not regard as a fair or full representation of Polo's Work, a
version on which the Geographic Text did not exercise a material
influence. But to adopt that Text, with all its awkwardnesses and
tautologies, as the absolute subject of translation, would have been a
mistake. What I have done has been, in the first instance, to translate
from Pauthier's Text. The process of abridgment in this text, however it
came about, has been on the whole judiciously executed, getting rid of the
intolerable prolixities of manner which belong to many parts of the
Original Dictation, but _as a general rule_ preserving the matter. Having
translated this,--not always from the Text adopted by Pauthier himself,
but with the exercise of my own judgment on the various readings which
that Editor lays before us,--I then compared the translation with the
Geographic Text, and transferred from the latter not only all items of
real substance that had been omitted, but also all expressions of special
interest and character, and occasionally a greater fulness of phraseology
where condensation in Pauthier's text seemed to have been carried too far.
And finally I introduced _between brackets_ everything peculiar to
Ramusio's version that seemed to me to have a just claim to be reckoned
authentic, and that could be so introduced without harshness or
mutilation. Many passages from the same source which were of interest in
themselves, but failed to meet one or other of these conditions, have been
given in the notes.[1]
[Sidenote: Mode of rendering proper names.]
91. As regards the reading of proper names and foreign words, in which
there is so much variation in the different MSS. and editions, I have done
my best to select what seemed to be the true reading from the G. T. and
Pauthier's three MSS., only in some rare instances transgressing this
limit.
Where the MSS. in the repetition of a name afforded a choice of forms, I
have selected that which came nearest the real name when known. Thus the
G. T. affords _Baldasciain, Badascian, Badasciam, Badausiam, Balasian_. I
adopt BADASCIAN, or in English spelling BADASHAN, because it is closest to
the real name _Badakhshan_. Another place appears as COBINAN, _Cabanat,
Cobian_. I adopt the first because it is the truest expression of the real
name _Koh-benan_. In chapters 23, 24 of Book I., we have in the G. T.
_Asisim, Asciscin, Asescin_, and in Pauthier's MSS. _Hasisins, Harsisins_,
etc. I adopt ASCISCIN, or in English spelling ASHISHIN, for the same
reason as before. So with _Creman, Crerman, Crermain_, QUERMAN, Anglice
KERMAN; Cormos, HORMOS, and many more.[2]
In two or three cases I have adopted a reading which I cannot show
_literatim_ in any authority, but because such a form appears to be the
just resultant from the variety of readings which are presented; as in
surveying one takes the mean of a number of observations when no one can
claim an absolute preference.
Polo's proper names, even in the French Texts, are _in the main_ formed on
an Italian fashion of spelling.[3] I see no object in preserving such
spelling in an English book, so after selecting the best reading of the
name I express it in English spelling, printing _Badashan, Pashai,
Kerman_, instead of _Badascian, Pasciai, Querman_, and so on.
And when a little trouble has been taken to ascertain the true form and
force of Polo's spelling of Oriental names and technical expressions, it
will be found that they are in the main as accurate as Italian lips and
orthography will admit, and not justly liable either to those disparaging
epithets[4] or to those exegetical distortions which have been too often
applied to them. Thus, for example, _Cocacin, Ghel_ or _Ghelan, Tonocain,
Cobinan, Ondanique, Barguerlac, Argon, Sensin, Quescican, Toscaol,
Bularguci, Zardandan, Anin, Caugigu, Coloman, Gauenispola, Mutfili,
Avarian, Choiach_, are not, it will be seen, the ignorant blunderings
which the interpretations affixed by some commentators would imply them to
be, but are, on the contrary, all but perfectly accurate utterances of the
names and words intended.
The _-tcheou_ (of French writers), _-choo_, _-chow_, or _-chau_[5] of
English writers, which so frequently forms the terminal part in the names
of Chinese cities, is almost invariably rendered by Polo as _-giu_. This
has frequently in the MSS., and constantly in the printed editions, been
converted into _-gui_, and thence into _-guy_. This is on the whole the
most constant canon of Polo's geographical orthography, and holds in
_Caagiu_ (Ho-chau), _Singiu_ (Sining-chau), _Cui-giu_ (Kwei-chau),
_Sin-giu_ (T'sining-chau), _Pi-giu_ (Pei-chau), _Coigangiu_
(Hwaingan-chau), _Si-giu_ (Si-chau), _Ti-giu_ (Tai-chau), _Tin-giu_
(Tung-chau), _Yan-giu_ (Yang-chau), _Sin-giu_ (Chin-chau), _Cai-giu_
(Kwa-chau), _Chinghi-giu_ (Chang-chau), _Su-giu_ (Su-chau), _Vu-giu_
(Wu-chau), and perhaps a few more. In one or two instances only (as
_Sinda-ciu_, _Caiciu_) he has _-ciu_ instead of _-giu_.
The chapter-headings I have generally taken from Pauthier's Text, but they
are no essential part of the original work, and they have been slightly
modified or enlarged where it seemed desirable.
* * * * *
"Behold! I see the Haven nigh at Hand,
To which I meane my wearie Course to bend;
Vere the maine Shete, and beare up with the Land,
The which afore is fayrly to be kend,
And seemeth safe from Storms that may offend.
* * * * *
There eke my Feeble Barke a while may stay,
Till mery Wynd and Weather call her thence away."
--THE FAERIE QUEENE, I. xii. 1.
[Illustration]
[1] This "eclectic formation of the English text," as I have called it for
brevity in the marginal rubric, has been disapproved by Mr. de
Khanikoff, a critic worthy of high respect. But I must repeat that the
duties of a translator, and of the Editor of an original text, at
least where the various recensions bear so peculiar a relation to each
other as in this case, are essentially different; and that, on
reconsidering the matter after an interval of four or five years, the
plan which I have adopted, whatever be the faults of execution, still
commends itself to me as the only appropriate one.
Let Mr. de Khanikoff consider what course he would adopt if he were
about to publish Marco Polo in Russian. I feel certain that with
whatever theory he might set out, before his task should be concluded
he would have arrived practically at the same system that I have
adopted.
[2] In Polo's diction C frequently represents H., e.g., _Cormos_ = Hormuz;
_Camadi_ probably = Hamadi; _Caagiu_ probably = Hochau; _Cacianfu_ =
Hochangfu, and so on. This is perhaps attributable to Rusticiano's
Tuscan ear. A true Pisan will absolutely contort his features in the
intensity of his efforts to aspirate sufficiently the letter C.
Filippo Villani, speaking of the famous Aguto (Sir J. Hawkwood), says
his name in English was _Kauchouvole_. (_Murat. Script._ xiv. 746.)
[3] In the Venetian dialect _ch_ and _j_ are often sounded as in English,
not as in Italian. Some traces of such pronunciation I think there
are, as in _Coja, Carajan_, and in the Chinese name _Vanchu_
(occurring only in Ramusio, supra, p. 99). But the scribe of the
original work being a Tuscan, the spelling is in the main Tuscan. The
sound of the _Qu_ is, however, French, as in _Quescican, Quinsai_,
except perhaps in the case of _Quenianfu_, for a reason given in vol.
ii. p. 29.
[4] For example, that enthusiastic student of mediaeval Geography, Joachim
Lelewel, speaks of Polo's "gibberish" (_le baragouinage du Venitien_)
with special reference to such names as _Zayton_ and _Kinsay_, whilst
we now know that these names were in universal use by all foreigners
in China, and no more deserve to be called gibberish than
_Bocca-Tigris_, _Leghorn_, _Ratisbon_, or _Buda_.
[5] I am quite sensible of the diffidence with which any outsider should
touch any question of Chinese language or orthography. A Chinese
scholar and missionary (Mr. Moule) objects to my spelling _chau_,
whilst he, I see, uses _chow_. I imagine we mean the same sound,
according to the spelling which I try to use throughout the book. Dr.
C. Douglas, another missionary scholar, writes _chau_.
[Illustration: MARCO POLO'S ITINERARIES,
No. I.
(Prologue; Book I. Chapters 1-36; and Book IV.)]
[Illustration: SKETCH SHOWING CHIEF MONARCHIES OF ASIA IN LATTER PART OF
13th CENTURY]
THE BOOK OF MARCO POLO.
PROLOGUE.
Great Princes, Emperors, and Kings, Dukes and Marquises, Counts, Knights,
and Burgesses! and People of all degrees who desire to get knowledge of
the various races of mankind and of the diversities of the sundry regions
of the World, take this Book and cause it to be read to you. For ye shall
find therein all kinds of wonderful things, and the divers histories of
the Great Hermenia, and of Persia, and of the Land of the Tartars, and of
India, and of many another country of which our Book doth speak,
particularly and in regular succession, according to the description of
Messer Marco Polo, a wise and noble citizen of Venice, as he saw them with
his own eyes. Some things indeed there be therein which he beheld not; but
these he heard from men of credit and veracity. And we shall set down
things seen as seen, and things heard as heard only, so that no jot of
falsehood may mar the truth of our Book, and that all who shall read it or
hear it read may put full faith in the truth of all its contents.
For let me tell you that since our Lord God did mould with his hands our
first Father Adam, even until this day, never hath there been Christian,
or Pagan, or Tartar, or Indian, or any man of any nation, who in his own
person hath had so much knowledge and experience of the divers parts of
the World and its Wonders as hath had this Messer Marco! And for that
reason he bethought himself that it would be a very great pity did he not
cause to be put in writing all the great marvels that he had seen, or on
sure information heard of, so that other people who had not these
advantages might, by his Book, get such knowledge. And I may tell you that
in acquiring this knowledge he spent in those various parts of the World
good six-and-twenty years. Now, being thereafter an inmate of the Prison
at Genoa, he caused Messer Rusticiano of Pisa, who was in the said Prison
likewise, to reduce the whole to writing; and this befell in the year 1298
from the birth of Jesus.
CHAPTER I.
HOW THE TWO BROTHERS POLO SET FORTH FROM CONSTANTINOPLE TO TRAVERSE THE
WORLD.
It came to pass in the year of Christ 1260, when Baldwin was reigning at
Constantinople,[NOTE 1] that Messer Nicolas Polo, the father of my lord
Mark, and Messer Maffeo Polo, the brother of Messer Nicolas, were at the
said city of CONSTANTINOPLE, whither they had gone from Venice with their
merchants' wares. Now these two Brethren, men singularly noble, wise, and
provident, took counsel together to cross the GREATER SEA on a venture of
trade; so they laid in a store of jewels and set forth from
Constantinople, crossing the Sea to SOLDAIA.[NOTE 2]
NOTE 1.--Baldwin II (de Courtenay), the last Latin Emperor of
Constantinople, reigned from 1237 to 1261, when he was expelled by Michael
Palaeologus.
The date in the text is, as we see, that of the Brothers' voyage across
the Black Sea. It stands 1250 in all the chief texts. But the figure is
certainly wrong. We shall see that, when the Brothers return to Venice in
1269, they find Mark, who, according to Ramusio's version, was _born after
their departure_, a lad of fifteen. Hence, if we rely on Ramusio, they
must have left Venice about 1253-54. And we shall see also that they
reached the Volga in 1261. Hence their start from Constantinople may well
have occurred in 1260, and this I have adopted as the most probable
correction. Where they spent the interval between 1254 (if they really
left Venice so early) and 1260, nowhere appears. But as their brother,
Mark the Elder, in his Will styles himself "_whilom of Constantinople_,"
their headquarters were probably there.
[Illustration: Castle of Soldaia or Sudak]
NOTE 2.--In the Middle Ages the Euxine was frequently called _Mare Magnum_
or _Majus_. Thus Chaucer:--
"In the GRETE SEE,
At many a noble Armee hadde he be."
The term Black Sea (_Mare Maurum_ v. _Nigrum_) was, however, in use, and
Abulfeda says it was general in his day. That name has been alleged to
appear as early as the 10th century, in the form [Greek: Skoteinae], "The
Dark Sea"; but an examination of the passage cited, from Constantine
Porphyrogenitus, shows that it refers rather to the Baltic, whilst that
author elsewhere calls the Euxine simply Pontus. (_Reinaud's Abulf._ I.
38, _Const. Porph. De Adm. Imp._ c. 31, c. 42.)
+ _Sodaya, Soldaia_, or _Soldachia_, called by Orientals _Sudak_, stands
on the S.E. coast of the Crimea, west of Kaffa. It had belonged to the
Greek Empire, and had a considerable Greek population. After the Frank
conquest of 1204 it apparently fell to Trebizond. It was taken by the
Mongols in 1223 for the first time, and a second time in 1239, and during
that century was the great port of intercourse with what is now Russia. At
an uncertain date, but about the middle of the century, the Venetians
established a factory there, which in 1287 became the seat of a consul. In
1323 we find Pope John XXII. complaining to Uzbek Khan of Sarai that the
Christians had been ejected from Soldaia and their churches turned into
mosques. Ibn Batuta, who alludes to this strife, counts Sudak as one of
the four great ports of the World. The Genoese got Soldaia in 1365 and
built strong defences, still to be seen. Kaffa, with a good anchorage, in
the 14th century, and later on Tana, took the place of Soldaia as chief
emporium in South Russia. Some of the Arab Geographers call the Sea of
Azov the Sea of Sudak.
The Elder Marco Polo in his Will (1280) bequeaths to the Franciscan Friars
of the place a house of his in _Soldachia_, reserving life occupation to
his own son and daughter, then residing in it. Probably this establishment
already existed when the two Brothers went thither. (_Elie de
Laprimaudare_, passim; _Gold. Horde_, 87; _Mosheim_, App. 148; _Ibn Bat._
I. 28, II. 414; _Cathay_, 231-33; _Heyd_, II. passim.)
CHAPTER II.
HOW THE TWO BROTHERS WENT ON BEYOND SOLDAIA.
Having stayed a while at Soldaia, they considered the matter, and thought
it well to extend their journey further. So they set forth from Soldaia
and travelled till they came to the Court of a certain Tartar Prince,
BARCA KAAN by name, whose residences were at SARA[NOTE 1] and at BOLGARA
[and who was esteemed one of the most liberal and courteous Princes that
ever was among the Tartars.][NOTE 2] This Barca was delighted at the
arrival of the Two Brothers, and treated them with great honour; so they
presented to him the whole of the jewels that they had brought with them.
The Prince was highly pleased with these, and accepted the offering most
graciously, causing the Brothers to receive at least twice its value.
[Illustration: Map to illustrate the Geographical Position of the CITY of
SARAI]
[Illustration: Part of the Remains of the CITY of SARAI near TZAREV North
of the AKHTUBA Branch of the VOLGA]
After they had spent a twelvemonth at the court of this Prince there broke
out a great war between Barca and Alau, the Lord of the Tartars of the
Levant, and great hosts were mustered on either side.[NOTE 3]
But in the end Barca, the Lord of the Tartars of the Ponent, was defeated,
though on both sides there was great slaughter. And by reason of this war
no one could travel without peril of being taken; thus it was at least on
the road by which the Brothers had come, though there was no obstacle to
their travelling forward. So the Brothers, finding they could not retrace
their steps, determined to go forward. Quitting Bolgara, therefore, they
proceeded to a city called UCACA, which was at the extremity of the
kingdom of the Lord of the Ponent;[NOTE 4] and thence departing again, and
passing the great River Tigris, they travelled across a Desert which
extended for seventeen days' journey, and wherein they found neither town
nor village, falling in only with the tents of Tartars occupied with their
cattle at pasture.[NOTE 5]
NOTE 1.-- + Barka Khan, third son of Juji, the first-born of Chinghiz,
ruled the _Ulus_ of Juji and Empire of Kipchak (Southern Russia) from 1257
to 1265. He was the first Musulman sovereign of his race. His chief
residence was at SARAI (Sara of the text), a city founded by his brother
and predecessor Batu, on the banks of the Akhtuba branch of the Volga. In
the next century Ibn Batuta describes Sarai as a very handsome and
populous city, so large that it made half a day's journey to ride through
it. The inhabitants were Mongols, Aas (or Alans), Kipchaks, Circassians,
Russians, and Greeks, besides the foreign Moslem merchants, who had a
walled quarter. Another Mahomedan traveller of the same century says the
city itself was not walled, but, "The Khan's Palace was a great edifice
surmounted by a golden crescent weighing two _kantars_ of Egypt, and
encompassed by a wall flanked with towers," etc. Pope John XXII., on the
26th February 1322, defined the limits of the new Bishopric of Kaffa,
which were Sarai to the east and Varna to the west.
Sarai became the seat of both a Latin and a Russian metropolitan, and of
more than one Franciscan convent. It was destroyed by Timur on his second
invasion of Kipchak (1395-6), and extinguished by the Russians a century
later. It is the scene of Chaucer's half-told tale of Cambuscan:--
"At _Sarra_, in the Londe of Tartarie,
There dwelt a King that werried Russie."
["_Mesalek-al-absar_ (285, 287), says Sarai, meaning 'the Palace,' was
founded by Bereke, brother of Batu. It stood in a salty plain, and was
without walls, though the palace had walls flanked by towers. The town was
large, had markets, _madrasas_--and baths. It is usually identified with
Selitrennoye Gorodok, about 70 miles above Astrakhan." (_Rockhill,
Rubruck_, p. 260, note.)--H. C.]
Several sites exhibiting extensive ruins near the banks of the Akhtuba
have been identified with Sarai; two in particular. One of these is not
far from the great elbow of the Volga at Tzaritzyn: the other much lower
down, at Selitrennoye Gorodok or Saltpetre-Town, not far above Astrakhan.
The upper site exhibits by far the most extensive traces of former
population, and is declared unhesitatingly to be the sole site of Sarai by
M. Gregorieff, who carried on excavations among the remains for four
years, though with what precise results I have not been able to learn. The
most dense part of the remains, consisting of mounds and earth-works,
traces of walls, buildings, cisterns, dams, and innumerable canals,
extends for about 7-1/2 miles in the vicinity of the town of Tzarev, but a
tract of 66 miles in length and 300 miles in circuit, commencing from near
the head of the Akhtuba, presents remains of like character, though of
less density, marking the ground occupied by the villages which encircled
the capital. About 2-1/2 miles to the N.W. of Tzarev a vast mass of such
remains, surrounded by the traces of a brick rampart, points out the
presumable position of the Imperial Palace.
M. Gregorieff appears to admit no alternative. Yet it seems certain that
the indications of Abulfeda, Pegolotti, and others, with regard to the
position of the capital in the early part of the 14th century, are not
consistent with a site so far from the Caspian. Moreover, F. H. Mueller
states that the site near Tzarev is known to the Tartars as the "Sarai of
Janibek Khan" (1341-1357). Now it is worthy of note that in the coinage of
Janibek we repeatedly find as the place of mintage, _New Sarai_. Arabshah
in his History of Timur states that 63 years had elapsed from the
foundation to the destruction of Sarai. But it must have been at least 140
years since the foundation of Batu's city. Is it not possible, therefore,
that both the sites which we have mentioned were successively occupied by
the Mongol capital; that the original Sarai of Batu was at Selitrennoye
Gorodok, and that the _New Sarai_ of Janibek was established by him, or by
his father Uzbeg in his latter days, on the upper Akhtuba? Pegolotti
having carried his merchant from Tana (Azov) to Gittarchan (Astrakhan),
takes him _one day_ by river to Sara, and from Sara to _Saracanco_, also
by river, eight days more. (_Cathay_, p. 287.) In the work quoted I have
taken Saracanco for Saraichik, on the Yaik. But it was possibly the Upper
or New Sarai on the Akhtuba. Ibn Batuta, marching on the frozen river,
reached Sarai in three days from Astrakhan. This could not have been at
Tzarev, 200 miles off.
In corroboration (_quantum valeat_) of my suggestion that there must have
been two Sarais near the Volga, Professor Bruun of Odessa points to the
fact that Fra Mauro's map presents _two_ cities of Sarai on the Akhtuba;
only the Sarai of Janibeg is with him no longer _New_ Sarai, but _Great_
Sarai.
The use of the latter name suggests the possibility that in the
_Saracanco_ of Pegolotti the latter half of the name may be the Mongol
_Kunk_ "Great." (See _Pavet de Courteille_, p. 439.)
Professor Bruun also draws attention to the impossibility of Ibn Batuta's
travelling from Astrakhan to Tzarev in three days, an argument which had
already occurred to me and been inserted above.
[The Empire of Kipchak founded after the Mongol Conquest of 1224, included
also parts of Siberia and Khwarizm; it survived nominally until
1502.--H. C.]
(_Four Years of Archaeological Researches among the Ruins of Sarai_ [in
Russian] by M. Gregorieff [who appears to have also published a pamphlet
specially on the site, but this has not been available]; _Historisch-
geographische Darstellung des Stromsystems der Wolga, von Ferd. Heinr.
Mueller_, Berlin, 1839, 568-577; _Ibn. Bat._ II. 447; _Not. et Extraits_,
XIII. i. 286; _Pallas, Voyages; Cathay_, 231, etc.; _Erdmann, Numi
Asiatici_, pp. 362 seqq.; _Arabs._ I. p. 381.)
NOTE 2.--BOLGHAR, our author's Bolgara, was the capital of the region
sometimes called Great Bulgaria, by Abulfeda _Inner Bulgaria_, and stood a
few miles from the left bank of the Volga, in latitude about 54 deg. 54', and
90 miles below Kazan. The old Arab writers regarded it as nearly the limit
of the habitable world, and told wonders of the cold, the brief summer
nights, and the fossil ivory that was found in its vicinity. This was
exported, and with peltry, wax, honey, hazel-nuts, and Russia leather,
formed the staple articles of trade. The last item derived from Bolghar
the name which it still bears all over Asia. (See Bk. II. ch. xvi., and
Note.) Bolghar seems to have been the northern limit of Arab travel, and
was visited by the curious (by Ibn Batuta among others) in order to
witness the phenomena of the short summer night, as tourists now visit
Hammerfest to witness its entire absence.
Russian chroniclers speak of an earlier capital of the Bulgarian kingdom,
Brakhimof, near the mouth of the Kama, destroyed by Andrew, Grand Duke of
Rostof and Susdal, about 1160; and this may have been the city referred to
in the earlier Arabic accounts. The fullest of these is by Ibn Fozlan, who
accompanied an embassy from the Court of Baghdad to Bolghar, in A.D. 921.
The King and people had about this time been converted to Islam, having
previously, as it would seem, professed Christianity. Nevertheless, a
Mahomedan writer of the 14th century says the people had then long
renounced Islam for the worship of the Cross. (_Not. et Extr._ XIII. i.
270.)
[Illustration: Ruins of Bolghar.]
Bolghar was first captured by the Mongols in 1225. It seems to have
perished early in the 15th century, after which Kazan practically took its
place. Its position is still marked by a village called Bolgari, where
ruins of Mahomedan character remain, and where coins and inscriptions have
been found. Coins of the Kings of Bolghar, struck in the 10th century,
have been described by Fraehn, as well as coins of the Mongol period
struck at Bolghar. Its latest known coin is of A.H. 818 (A.D. 1415-16). A
history of Bolghar was written in the first half of the 12th century by
Yakub Ibn Noman, Kadhi of the city, but this is not known to be extant.
Fraehn shows ground for believing the people to have been a mixture of
Fins, Slavs, and Turks. Nicephorus Gregoras supposes that they took their
name from the great river on which they dwelt ([Greek: Boulga]).
["The ruins [of Bolghar]," says Bretschneider, in his _Mediaeval
Researches_, published in 1888, vol. ii. p. 82, "still exist, and have
been the subject of learned investigation by several Russian scholars.
These remains are found on the spot where now the village _Uspenskoye_,
called also _Bolgarskoye_ (Bolgari), stands, in the district of Spask,
province of Kazan. This village is about 4 English miles distant from the
Volga, east of it, and 83 miles from Kazan." Part of the Bulgars removed
to the Balkans; others remained in their native country on the shores of
the Azov Sea, and were subjugated by the Khazars. At the beginning of the
9th century, they marched northwards to the Volga and the Kama, and
established the kingdom of Great Bulgaria. Their chief city, Bolghar, was
on the bank of the Volga, but the river runs now to the west; as the Kama
also underwent a change in its course, it is possible that formerly
Bolghar was built at the junction of the two rivers. (Cf. _Reclus, Europe
russe_, p. 761.) The Bulgars were converted to Islam in 922. Their country
was first invaded by the Mongols under Subutai in 1223; this General
conquered it in 1236, the capital was destroyed the following year, and
the country annexed to the kingdom of Kipchak. Bolghar was again destroyed
in 1391 by Tamerlan. In 1438, Ulugh Mohammed, cousin of Toka Timur,
younger son of Juji, transformed this country into the khanate of Kazan,
which survived till 1552. It had probably been the capital of the Golden
Horde before Sarai.
With reference to the early Christianity of the Bulgarians, to which Yule
refers in his note, the _Laurentian Chronicle_ (A.D. 1229), quoted by
Shpilevsky, adduces evidence to show that in the Great City, i.e.
_Bulgar_, there were Russian Christians and a Christian cemetery, and the
death of a Bulgarian Christian martyr is related in the same chronicle as
well as in the Nikon, Tver, and Tatischef annals in which his name is
given. (Cf. Shpilevsky, _Anc. towns and other Bulgaro-Tartar monuments_,
Kazan, 1877, p. 158 seq.; _Rockhill's Rubruck_, Hakl. Soc. p. 121, note.)
--H. C.]
The severe and lasting winter is spoken of by Ibn Folzan and other old
writers in terms that seem to point to a modern mitigation of climate. It
is remarkable, too, that Ibn Fozlan speaks of the aurora as of very
frequent occurrence, which is not now the case in that latitude. We may
suspect this frequency to have been connected with the greater cold
indicated, and perhaps with a different position of the magnetic pole. Ibn
Fozlan's account of the aurora is very striking:--"Shortly before sunset
the horizon became all very ruddy, and at the same time I heard sounds in
the upper air, with a dull rustling. I looked up and beheld sweeping over
me a fire-red cloud, from which these sounds issued, and in it movements,
as it were, of men and horses; the men grasping bows, lances, and swords.
This I saw, or thought I saw. Then there appeared a white cloud of like
aspect; in it also I beheld armed horsemen, and these rushed against the
former as one squadron of horse charges another. We were so terrified at
this that we turned with humble prayer to the Almighty, whereupon the
natives about us wondered and broke into loud laughter. We, however,
continued to gaze, seeing how one cloud charged the other, remained
confused with it a while, and then sundered again. These movements lasted
deep into the night, and then all vanished."
(_Fraehn, Ueber die Wolga Bulgaren_, Petersb. 1832; _Gold. Horde_, 8, 9,
423-424; _Not. et Extr._ II. 541; _Ibn Bat._ II. 398; _Bueschings Mag._ V.
492; _Erdmann, Numi Asiat._ I. 315-318, 333-334, 520-535; _Niceph.
Gregoras_, II. 2, 2.)
NOTE 3.--ALAU is Polo's representation of the name of Hulaku, brother of
the Great Kaans Mangu and Kublai and founder of the Mongol dynasty in
Persia. In the Mongol pronunciation guttural and palatal consonants are
apt to be elided, hence this spelling. The same name is written by Pope
Alexander IV., in addressing the Khan, _Olao_, by Pachymeres and Gregoras
[Greek: Chalau] and [Greek: Chalaon], by Hayton _Haolon_, by Ibn Batuta
_Hulaun_, as well as in a letter of Hulaku's own, as given by Makrizi.
The war in question is related in Rashiduddin's history, and by Polo
himself towards the end of the work. It began in the summer of 1262, and
ended about eight months later. Hence the Polos must have reached Barka's
Court in 1261.
Marco always applies to the Mongol Khans of Persia the title of "Lords of
the East" (_Levant_), and to the Khans of Kipchak that of "Lords of the
West" (_Ponent_). We use the term _Levant_ still with a similar specific
application, and in another form _Anatolia_. I think it best to preserve
the terms _Levant_ and _Ponent_ when used in this way.
[Robert Parke in his translation out of Spanish of Mendoza, _The Historie
of the great and mightie kingdome of China_ ... London, printed by I.
Wolfe for Edward White, 1588, uses the word _Ponent_: "You shall
understande that this mightie kingdome is the Orientalest part of all
Asia, and his next neighbour towards the _Ponent_ is the kingdome of
_Quachinchina_ ... (p. 2)."--H. C.]
NOTE 4.--UCACA or UKEK was a town on the right bank of the Volga, nearly
equidistant between Sarai and Bolghar, and about six miles south of the
modern Saratov, where a village called _Uwek_ still exists. Ukek is not
mentioned before the Mongol domination, and is supposed to have been of
Mongol foundation, as the name Ukek is said in Mongol to signify a dam of
hurdles. The city is mentioned by Abulfeda as marking the extremity of
"the empire of the Barka Tartars," and Ibn Batuta speaks of it as "one day
distant from the hills of the Russians." Polo therefore means that it was
the frontier of the Ponent towards Russia. Ukek was the site of a
Franciscan convent in the 14th century; it is mentioned several times in
the campaigns of Timur, and was destroyed by his army. It is not mentioned
under the form Ukek after this, but appears as _Uwek_ and _Uwesh_ in
Russian documents of the 16th century. Perhaps this was always the
Slavonic form, for it already is written _Uguech_ (= Uwek) in Wadding's
14th century catalogue of convents. Anthony Jenkinson, in Hakluyt, gives
an observation of its latitude, as _Oweke_ (51 deg. 40'), and Christopher
Burrough, in the same collection, gives a description of it as _Oueak_,
and the latitude as 51 deg. 30' (some 7' too much). In his time (1579) there
were the remains of a "very faire stone castle" and city, with old tombs
exhibiting sculptures and inscriptions. All these have long vanished.
Burrough was told by the Russians that the town "was swallowed into the
earth by the justice of God, for the wickednesse of the people that
inhabited the same." Lepechin in 1769 found nothing remaining but part of
an earthen rampart and some underground vaults of larger bricks, which the
people dug out for use. He speaks of coins and other relics as frequent,
and the like have been found more recently. Coins with Mongol-Arab
inscriptions, struck at Ukek by Tuktugai Khan in 1306, have been described
by Fraehn and Erdmann.
(_Fraehn, Ueber die ehemalige Mong. Stadt Ukek_, etc., Petersb. 1835;
_Gold. Horde_; _Ibn Bat._ II. 414; _Abulfeda, in Buesching_, V. 365; _Ann.
Minorum_, sub anno 1400; _Petis de la Croix_, II. 355, 383, 388;
_Hakluyt_, ed. 1809, I. 375 and 472; _Lepechin, Tagebuch der Reise_, etc.,
I. 235-237; _Rockhill, Rubruck_, 120-121, note 2.)
NOTE 5.--The great River Tigeri or Tigris is the Volga, as Pauthier
rightly shows. It receives the same name from the Monk Pascal of Vittoria
in 1338. (_Cathay_, p. 234.) Perhaps this arose out of some legend that
the Tigris was a reappearance of the same river. The ecclesiastical
historian, Nicephorus Callistus, appears to imply that the Tigris coming
from Paradise flows under the Caspian to emerge in Kurdistan. (See IX.
19.)
The "17 days" applies to one stretch of desert. The whole journey from
Ukek Bokhara would take some 60 days at least. Ibn Batuta is 58 days from
Sarai to Bokhara, and of the last section he says, "we entered the desert
which extends between Khwarizm and Bokhara, and _which has an extent of 18
days' journey_." (III. 19.)
CHAPTER III.
HOW THE TWO BROTHERS, AFTER CROSSING A DESERT, CAME TO THE CITY OF BOCARA,
AND FELL IN WITH CERTAIN ENVOYS THERE.
After they had passed the desert, they arrived at a very great and noble
city called BOCARA, the territory of which belonged to a king whose name
was Barac, and is also called Bocara. The city is the best in all
Persia.[NOTE 1] And when they had got thither, they found they could
neither proceed further forward nor yet turn back again; wherefore they
abode in that city of Bocara for three years. And whilst they were
sojourning in that city, there came from Alau, Lord of the Levant, Envoys
on their way to the Court of the Great Kaan, the Lord of all the Tartars
in the world. And when the Envoys beheld the Two Brothers they were
amazed, for they had never before seen Latins in that part of the world.
And they said to the Brothers: "Gentlemen, if ye will take our counsel, ye
will find great honour and profit shall come thereof." So they replied
that they would be right glad to learn how. "In truth," said the Envoys,
"the Great Kaan hath never seen any Latins, and he hath a great desire so
to do. Wherefore, if ye will keep us company to his Court, ye may depend
upon it that he will be right glad to see you, and will treat you with
great honour and liberality; whilst in our company ye shall travel with
perfect security, and need fear to be molested by nobody."[NOTE 2]
NOTE 1.--Hayton also calls Bokhara a city of Persia, and I see Vambery
says that, up till the conquest by Chinghiz, Bokhara, Samarkand, Balkh,
etc., were considered to belong to Persia. (_Travels_, p. 377.) The first
Mongolian governor of Bokhara was Buka Bosha.
King Barac is Borrak Khan, great-grandson of Chagatai, and sovereign of
the Ulus of Chagatai, from 1264 to 1270. The Polos, no doubt, reached
Bokhara before 1264, but Borrak must have been sovereign some time before
they left it.
NOTE 2.--The language of the envoys seems rather to imply that they were
the Great Kaan's own people returning from the Court of Hulaku. And Rashid
mentions that Sartak, the Kaan's ambassador to Hulaku, returned from
Persia in the year that the latter prince died. It may have been his party
that the Venetians joined, for the year almost certainly was the same,
viz. 1265. If so, another of the party was Bayan, afterwards the greatest
of Kublai's captains, and much celebrated in the sequel of this book. (See
_Erdmann's Temudschin_, p. 214.)
Marsden justly notes that Marco habitually speaks of _Latins_, never of
_Franks_. Yet I suspect his own mental expression was _Farangi_.
CHAPTER IV.
HOW THE TWO BROTHERS TOOK THE ENVOYS' COUNSEL, AND WENT TO THE COURT OF
THE GREAT KAAN.
So when the Two Brothers had made their arrangements, they set out on
their travels, in company with the Envoys, and journeyed for a whole year,
going northward and north-eastward, before they reached the Court of that
Prince. And on their journey they saw many marvels of divers and sundry
kinds, but of these we shall say nothing at present, because Messer Mark,
who has likewise seen them all, will give you a full account of them in
the Book which follows.
CHAPTER V.
HOW THE TWO BROTHERS ARRIVED AT THE COURT OF THE GREAT KAAN.
When the Two Brothers got to the Great Kaan, he received them with great
honour and hospitality, and showed much pleasure at their visit, asking
them a great number of questions. First, he asked about the emperors, how
they maintained their dignity, and administered justice in their
dominions; and how they went forth to battle, and so forth. And then he
asked the like questions about the kings and princes and other potentates.
CHAPTER VI.
HOW THE GREAT KAAN ASKED ALL ABOUT THE MANNERS OF THE CHRISTIANS, AND
PARTICULARLY ABOUT THE POPE OF ROME.
And then he inquired about the Pope and the Church, and about all that is
done at Rome, and all the customs of the Latins. And the Two Brothers told
him the truth in all its particulars, with order and good sense, like
sensible men as they were; and this they were able to do as they knew the
Tartar language well.[NOTE 1]
NOTE 1.--The word generally used for Pope in the original is _Apostoille_
(_Apostolicus_), the usual French expression of that age.
It is remarkable that for the most part the text edited by Pauthier has
the correcter Oriental form _Tatar_, instead of the usual _Tartar_.
_Tattar_ is the word used by Yvo of Narbonne, in the curious letter given
by Matthew Paris under 1243.
We are often told that _Tartar_ is a vulgar European error. It is in any
case a very old one; nor does it seem to be of European origin, but rather
Armenian;[1] though the suggestion of Tartarus may have given it readier
currency in Europe. Russian writers, or rather writers who have been in
Russia, sometimes try to force on us a specific limitation of the word
_Tartar_ to a certain class of Oriental Turkish race, to whom the Russians
appropriate the name. But there is no just ground for this. _Tatar_ is
used by Oriental writers of Polo's age exactly as Tartar was then, and is
still, used in Western Europe, as a generic title for the Turanian hosts
who followed Chinghiz and his successors. But I believe the name in this
sense was unknown to Western Asia before the time of Chinghiz. And General
Cunningham must overlook this when he connects the _Tatariya_ coins,
mentioned by Arab geographers of the 9th century, with "the Scythic or
Tatar princes who ruled in Kabul" in the beginning of our era. Tartars on
the Indian frontier in those centuries are surely to be classed with the
Frenchmen whom Brennus led to Rome, or the Scotchmen who fought against
Agricola.
[1] See _J. As._ ser. V. tom. xi. p. 203.
CHAPTER VII.
HOW THE GREAT KAAN SENT THE TWO BROTHERS AS HIS ENVOYS TO THE POPE.
When that Prince, whose name was CUBLAY KAAN, Lord of the Tartars all over
the earth, and of all the kingdoms and provinces and territories of that
vast quarter of the world, had heard all that the Brothers had to tell him
about the ways of the Latins, he was greatly pleased, and he took it into
his head that he would send them on an Embassy to the Pope. So he urgently
desired them to undertake this mission along with one of his Barons; and
they replied that they would gladly execute all his commands as those of
their Sovereign Lord. Then the Prince sent to summon to his presence one
of his Barons whose name was COGATAL, and desired him to get ready, for it
was proposed to send him to the Pope along with the Two Brothers. The
Baron replied that he would execute the Lord's commands to the best of his
ability.
After this the Prince caused letters from himself to the Pope to be
indited in the Tartar tongue,[NOTE 1] and committed them to the Two
Brothers and to that Baron of his own, and charged them with what he
wished them to say to the Pope. Now the contents of the letter were to
this purport: He begged that the Pope would send as many as an hundred
persons of our Christian faith; intelligent men, acquainted with the Seven
Arts,[NOTE 2] well qualified to enter into controversy, and able clearly
to prove by force of argument to idolaters and other kinds of folk, that
the Law of Christ was best, and that all other religions were false and
naught; and that if they would prove this, he and all under him would
become Christians and the Church's liegemen. Finally he charged his Envoys
to bring back to him some Oil of the Lamp which burns on the Sepulchre of
our Lord at Jerusalem.[NOTE 3]
NOTE 1.-- + The appearance of the Great Kaan's letter may be illustrated
by two letters on so-called Corean paper preserved in the French archives;
one from Arghun Khan of Persia (1289), brought by Buscarel, and the other
from his son Oljaitu (May, 1305), to Philip the Fair. These are both in
the Mongol language, and according to Abel Remusat and other authorities,
in the Uighur character, the parent of the present Mongol writing.
Facsimiles of the letters are given in Remusat's paper on intercourse with
Mongol Princes, in _Mem. de l' Acad. des Inscript._ vols. vii. and viii.,
reproductions in J. B. Chabot's _Hist. de Mar Jabalaha III._, Paris, 1895,
and preferably in Prince Roland Bonaparte's beautiful _Documents Mongols_,
Pl. XIV., and we give samples of the two in vol. ii.[1]
NOTE 2.--"The Seven Arts," from a date reaching back nearly to classical
times, and down through the Middle Ages, expressed the whole circle of a
liberal education, and it is to these Seven Arts that the degrees in arts
were understood to apply. They were divided into the _Trivium_ of
Rhetoric, Logic, and Grammar, and the _Quadrivium_ of Arithmetic,
Astronomy, Music, and Geometry. The 38th epistle of Seneca was in many
MSS. (according to Lipsius) entitled "_L. Annaei Senecae Liber de Septem
Artibus liberalibus._" I do not find, however, that Seneca there mentions
categorically more than five, viz., Grammar, Geometry, Music, Astronomy,
and Arithmetic. In the 5th century we find the Seven Arts to form the
successive subjects of the last seven books of the work of Martianus
Capella, much used in the schools during the early Middle Ages. The Seven
Arts will be found enumerated in the verses of Tzetzes (_Chil. XI._ 525),
and allusions to them in the mediaeval romances are endless. Thus, in one
of the "Gestes d'Alexandre," a chapter is headed "_Comment Aristotle
aprent a Alixandre les Sept Arts._" In the tale of the Seven Wise Masters,
Diocletian selects that number of tutors for his son, each to instruct him
in one of the Seven Arts. In the romance of _Erec and Eneide_ we have a
dress on which the fairies had portrayed the Seven Arts (_Franc. Michel,
Recherches_, etc. II. 82); in the _Roman de Mahommet_ the young impostor
is master of all the seven. There is one mediaeval poem called the
_Marriage of the Seven Arts_, and another called the _Battle of the Seven
Arts_. (See also Dante, _Convito_, Trat. II. c. 14; _Not. et Ex._ V., 491
seqq.)
NOTE 3.--The Chinghizide Princes were eminently liberal--or indifferent--
in religion; and even after they became Mahomedan, which, however, the
Eastern branch never did, they were rarely and only by brief fits
persecutors. Hence there was scarcely one of the non-Mahomedan Khans of
whose conversion to Christianity there were not stories spread. The first
rumours of Chinghiz in the West were as of a Christian conqueror; tales
may be found of the Christianity of Chagatai, Hulaku, Abaka, Arghun,
Baidu, Ghazan, Sartak, Kuyuk, Mangu, Kublai, and one or two of the
latter's successors in China, all probably false, with one or two doubtful
exceptions.
[1] See plates with ch. xvii. of Bk. IV. See also the Uighur character in
the second _Paiza_, Bk. II. ch. vii.
[Illustration: The Great Kaan delivering a Golden Tablet to the Brothers.
From a miniature of the 14th century.]
CHAPTER VIII.
HOW THE GREAT KAAN GAVE THEM A TABLET OF GOLD, BEARING HIS ORDERS IN THEIR
BEHALF.
When the Prince had charged them with all his commission, he caused to be
given them a Tablet of Gold, on which was inscribed that the three
Ambassadors should be supplied with everything needful in all the
countries through which they should pass--with horses, with escorts, and,
in short, with whatever they should require. And when they had made all
needful preparations, the three Ambassadors took their leave of the
Emperor and set out.
When they had travelled I know not how many days, the Tartar Baron fell
sick, so that he could not ride, and being very ill, and unable to proceed
further, he halted at a certain city. So the Two Brothers judged it best
that they should leave him behind and proceed to carry out their
commission; and, as he was well content that they should do so, they
continued their journey. And I can assure you, that whithersoever they
went they were honourably provided with whatever they stood in need of, or
chose to command. And this was owing to that Tablet of Authority from the
Lord which they carried with them.[NOTE 1]
So they travelled on and on until they arrived at Layas in Hermenia, a
journey which occupied them, I assure you, for three years.[NOTE 2] It
took them so long because they could not always proceed, being stopped
sometimes by snow, or by heavy rains falling, or by great torrents which
they found in an impassable state.
[Illustration: Castle of Ayas.]
NOTE 1.--On these Tablets, see a note under Bk. II. ch. vii.
NOTE 2.--AYAS, called also Ayacio, Aiazzo, Giazza, Glaza, La Jazza, and
_Layas_, occupied the site of ancient Aegae, and was the chief port of
Cilician Armenia, on the Gulf of Scanderoon. _Aegae_ had been in the 5th
century a place of trade with the West, and the seat of a bishopric, as we
learn from the romantic but incomplete story of Mary, the noble
slave-girl, told by Gibbon (ch. 33). As Ayas it became in the latter part
of the 13th century one of the chief places for the shipment of Asiatic
wares arriving through Tabriz, and was much frequented by the vessels of
the Italian Republics. The Venetians had a _Bailo_ resident there.
Ayas is the _Leyes_ of Chaucer's Knight,--
("At LEYES was he and at Satalie")--
and the Layas of Froissart. (Bk. III. ch. xxii.) The Gulf of Layas is
described in the xix. Canto of Ariosto, where Mafisa and Astolfo find on
its shores a country of barbarous Amazons:--
"Fatto e 'l porto a sembranza d' una luna," etc.
Marino Sanuto says of it: "Laiacio has a haven, and a shoal in front of it
that we might rather call a reef, and to this shoal the hawsers of vessels
are moored whilst the anchors are laid out towards the land." (II. IV. ch.
xxvi.)
The present Ayas is a wretched village of some 15 huts, occupied by about
600 Turkmans, and standing inside the ruined walls of the castle. This
castle, which is still in good condition, was built by the Armenian kings,
and restored by Sultan Suleiman; it was constructed from the remains of
the ancient city; fragments of old columns are embedded in its walls of
cut stone. It formerly communicated by a causeway with an advanced work on
an island before the harbour. The ruins of the city occupy a large space.
(_Langlois, V. en Cilicie_, pp. 429-31; see also _Beaufort's Karamania_,
near the end.) A plan of Ayas will be found at the beginning of Bk. I.
--H. Y. and H. C.
CHAPTER IX.
HOW THE TWO BROTHERS CAME TO THE CITY OF ACRE.
[Ilustration: ACRE AS IT WAS WHEN LOST (A.D. 1291). FROM THE PLAN GIVEN BY
MARINO SANUTO]
They departed from Layas and came to ACRE, arriving there in the month of
April, in the year of Christ 1269, and then they learned that the Pope was
dead. And when they found that the Pope was dead (his name was Pope * *),
[NOTE 1] they went to a certain wise Churchman who was Legate for the
whole kingdom of Egypt, and a man of great authority, by name THEOBALD OF
PIACENZA, and told him of the mission on which they were come. When the
Legate heard their story, he was greatly surprised, and deemed the thing
to be of great honour and advantage for the whole of Christendom. So his
answer to the two Ambassador Brothers was this: "Gentlemen, ye see that
the Pope is dead; wherefore ye must needs have patience until a new Pope
be made, and then shall ye be able to execute your charge." Seeing well
enough that what the Legate said was just, they observed: "But while the
Pope is a-making, we may as well go to Venice and visit our households."
So they departed from Acre and went to Negropont, and from Negropont they
continued their voyage to Venice.[NOTE 2] On their arrival there, Messer
Nicolas found that his wife was dead, and that she had left behind her a
son of fifteen years of age, whose name was MARCO; and 'tis of him that
this Book tells.[NOTE 3] The Two Brothers abode at Venice a couple of
years, tarrying until a Pope should be made.
NOTE 1.--The deceased Pope's name is omitted both in the Geog. Text and in
Pauthier's, clearly because neither Rusticiano nor Polo remembered it. It
is supplied correctly in the Crusca Italian as _Clement_, and in Ramusio
as _Clement IV._
It is not clear that _Theobald_, though generally adopted, is the
ecclesiastic's proper name. It appears in different MSS. as _Teald_ (G.
T.), _Ceabo_ for _Teabo_ (Pauthier), _Odoaldo_ (Crusca), and in the
Riccardian as _Thebaldus de Vice-comitibus de Placentia_, which
corresponds to Ramusio's version. Most of the ecclesiastical chroniclers
call him _Tedaldus_, some _Thealdus_. _Tedaldo_ is a real name, occurring
in Boccaccio. (Day iii. Novel 7.)
NOTE 2.--After the expulsion of the Venetians from Constantinople,
Negropont was the centre of their influence in Romania. On the final
return of the travellers they again take Negropont on their way. [It was
one of the ports on the route from Venice to Constantinople, Tana,
Trebizond.--H. C.]
NOTE 3.--The _edition_ of the Soc. de Geographie makes Mark's age
_twelve_, but I have verified from inspection the fact noticed by Pauthier
that the _manuscript_ has distinctly xv. like all the other old texts. In
Ramusio it is _nineteen_, but this is doubtless an arbitrary correction to
suit the mistaken date (1250) assigned for the departure of the father
from Constantinople.
There is nothing in the old French texts to justify the usual statement
that Marco was born after the departure of his father from Venice. All
that the G. T. says is: "Meser Nicolau treuve que sa fame estoit morte, et
les remes un filz de xv. anz que avoit a nom Marc," and Pauthier's text is
to the same effect. Ramusio, indeed, has: "M. Nicolo trovo, che sua moglie
era morta, la quale nella sua partita haveva partorito un figliuolo," and
the other versions that are based on Pipino's seem all to have like
statements.
CHAPTER X.
HOW THE TWO BROTHERS AGAIN DEPARTED FROM VENICE, ON THEIR WAY BACK TO THE
GREAT KAAN, AND TOOK WITH THEM MARK, THE SON OF MESSER NICOLAS.
When the Two Brothers had tarried as long as I have told you, and saw that
never a Pope was made, they said that their return to the Great Kaan must
be put off no longer. So they set out from Venice, taking Mark along with
them, and went straight back to Acre, where they found the Legate of whom
we have spoken. They had a good deal of discourse with him concerning the
matter, and asked his permission to go to JERUSALEM to get some Oil from
the Lamp on the Sepulchre, to carry with them to the Great Kaan, as he had
enjoined.[NOTE 1] The Legate giving them leave, they went from Acre to
Jerusalem and got some of the Oil, and then returned to Acre, and went to
the Legate and said to him: "As we see no sign of a Pope's being made, we
desire to return to the Great Kaan; for we have already tarried long, and
there has been more than enough delay." To which the Legate replied:
"Since 'tis your wish to go back, I am well content." Wherefore he caused
letters to be written for delivery to the Great Kaan, bearing testimony
that the Two Brothers had come in all good faith to accomplish his charge,
but that as there was no Pope they had been unable to do so.
NOTE 1.--In a Pilgrimage of date apparently earlier than this, the Pilgrim
says of the Sepulchre: "The Lamp which had been placed by His head (when
He lay there) still burns on the same spot day and night. _We took a
blessing from it_ (i.e. apparently took some of the oil as a beneficent
memorial), and replaced it." (_Itinerarium Antonini Placentini_ in
_Bollandists_, May, vol. ii. p. xx.)
["Five great oil lamps," says Daniel, the Russian Hegoumene, 1106-1107
(_Itineraires russes en Orient_, trad. pour la Soc. de l'Orient Latin, par
Mme. B. de Khitrowo, Geneva, 1889, p. 13), "burning continually night and
day, are hung in the Sepulchre of Our Lord."--H. C.]
CHAPTER XI.
HOW THE TWO BROTHERS SET OUT FROM ACRE, AND MARK ALONG WITH THEM.
When the Two Brothers had received the Legate's letters, they set forth
from Acre to return to the Grand Kaan, and got as far as Layas. But
shortly after their arrival there they had news that the Legate aforesaid
was chosen Pope, taking the name of Pope Gregory of Piacenza; news which
the Two Brothers were very glad indeed to hear. And presently there
reached them at Layas a message from the Legate, now the Pope, desiring
them, on the part of the Apostolic See, not to proceed further on their
journey, but to return to him incontinently. And what shall I tell you?
The King of Hermenia caused a galley to be got ready for the Two
Ambassador Brothers, and despatched them to the Pope at Acre.[NOTE 1]
[Illustration: Portrait of Pope Gregory X.]
NOTE 1.--The death of Pope Clement IV. occurred on St Andrew's Day (29th
November), 1268; the election of Tedaldo or Tebaldo of Piacenza, a member
of the Visconti family, and Archdeacon of Liege, did not take place till
1st September, 1271, owing to the factions among the cardinals. And it is
said that some of them, anxious only to get away, voted for Theobald in
full belief that he was dead. The conclave, in its inability to agree, had
named a committee of six with full powers which the same day elected
Theobald, on the recommendation of the Cardinal Bishop of Portus (John de
Toleto, said, in spite of his name, to have been an Englishman). This
facetious dignitary had suggested that the roof should be taken off the
Palace at Viterbo where they sat, to allow the divine influences to
descend more freely on their counsels (_quia nequeunt ad nos per tot tecta
ingredi_). According to some, these doggerel verses, current on the
occasion, were extemporised by Cardinal John in the pious exuberance of
his glee:--
"Papatus munus tulit Archidiaconus unus
Quem Patrem Patrum fecit discordia Fratrum."
The Archdeacon, a man of great weight of character, in consequence of
differences with his Bishop (of Liege), who was a disorderly liver, had
gone to the Holy Land, and during his stay there he contracted great
intimacy with Prince Edward of England (Edward I.). Some authors, e.g.
John Villani (VIII. 39), say that he was Legate in Syria; others, as
Rainaldus, deny this; but Polo's statement, and the authority which the
Archdeacon took on himself in writing to the Kaan, seem to show that he
had some such position.
He took the name of Gregory X., and before his departure from Acre,
preached a moving sermon on the text, "_If I forget thee, O Jerusalem_,"
etc. Prince Edward fitted him out for his voyage.
Gregory reigned barely four years, dying at Arezzo 10th January, 1276. His
character stood high to the last, and some of the Northern Martyrologies
enrolled him among the saints, but there has never been canonisation by
Rome. The people of Arezzo used to celebrate his anniversary with
torch-light gatherings at his tomb, and plenty of miracles were alleged to
have occurred there. The tomb still stands in the Duomo at Arezzo, a
handsome work by Margaritone, an artist in all branches, who was the Pope's
contemporary. There is an engraving of it in _Gonnelli, Mon. Sepolc. di
Toscana_.
(_Fra Pipino_ in _Muratori_, IX. 700; _Rainaldi Annal._ III. 252 seqq.;
_Wadding_, sub. an. 1217: _Bollandists_, 10th January; _Palatii, Gesta
Pontif. Roman._ vol. iii., and _Fasti Cardinalium_, I. 463, etc.)
CHAPTER XII.
HOW THE TWO BROTHERS PRESENTED THEMSELVES BEFORE THE NEW POPE.
And when they had been thus honourably conducted to Acre they proceeded to
the presence of the Pope, and paid their respects to him with humble
reverence. He received them with great honour and satisfaction, and gave
them his blessing. He then appointed two Friars of the Order of Preachers
to accompany them to the Great Kaan, and to do whatever might be required
of them. These were unquestionably as learned Churchmen as were to be
found in the Province at that day--one being called Friar Nicolas of
Vicenza, and the other Friar William of Tripoli.[NOTE 1] He delivered to
them also proper credentials, and letters in reply to the Great Kaan's
messages [and gave them authority to ordain priests and bishops, and to
bestow every kind of absolution, as if given by himself in proper person;
sending by them also many fine vessels of crystal as presents to the Great
Kaan].[NOTE 2] So when they had got all that was needful, they took leave
of the Pope, receiving his benediction; and the four set out together from
Acre, and went to Layas, accompanied always by Messer Nicolas's son Marco.
Now, about the time that they reached Layas, Bendocquedar, the Soldan of
Babylon, invaded Hermenia with a great host of Saracens, and ravaged the
country, so that our Envoys ran a great peril of being taken or slain.
[NOTE 3] And when the Preaching Friars saw this they were greatly
frightened, and said that go they never would. So they made over to Messer
Nicolas and Messer Maffeo all their credentials and documents, and took
their leave, departing in company with the Master of the Temple.[NOTE 4]
NOTE 1.--Friar William, of Tripoli, of the Dominican convent at Acre,
appears to have served there as early as 1250. [He was born circa 1220, at
Tripoli, in Syria, whence his name.--H. C.] He is known as the author of a
book, _De Statu Saracenorum post Ludovici Regis de Syria reditum_,
dedicated to Theoldus, Archdeacon of Liege (i.e. Pope Gregory). Of this
some extracts are printed in Duchesne's _Hist. Francorum Scriptores_.
There are two MSS. of it, with different titles, in the Paris Library, and
a French version in that of Berne. A MS. in Cambridge Univ. Library, which
contains among other things a copy of Pipino's Polo, has also the work of
Friar William:--"_Willelmus Tripolitanus, Aconensis Conventus, de Egressu
Machometi et Saracenorum, atque progressu eorumdem, de Statu
Saracenorum_," etc. It is imperfect; it is addressed THEOBALDO
_Ecclesiarcho digno Sancte Terre Peregrino Sancto_. And from a cursory
inspection I imagine that the Tract appended to one of the Polo MSS. in
the British Museum (Addl. MSS., No. 19,952) is the same work or part of
it. To the same author is ascribed a tract called _Clades Damiatae_.
(_Duchesne_, V. 432; _D'Avezac_ in _Rec. de Voyages_, IV. 406; _Quetif,
Script. Ord. Praed._ I. 264-5; _Catal. of MSS. in Camb. Univ. Library_, I.
22.)
NOTE 2.--I presume that the powers, stated in this passage from Ramusio to
have been conferred on the Friars, are exaggerated. In letters of
authority granted in like cases by Pope Gregory's successors, Nicolas III.
(in 1278) and Boniface VIII. (in 1299), the missionary friars to remote
regions are empowered to absolve from excommunication and release from
vows, to settle matrimonial questions, to found churches and appoint
_idoneos rectores_, to authorise Oriental clergy who should publicly
submit to the Apostolic See to enjoy the _privilegium clericale_, whilst
in the absence of bishops those among the missionaries who were priests
might consecrate cemeteries, altars, palls, etc., admit to the Order of
Acolytes, but nothing beyond. (See _Mosheim, Hist. Tartar. Eccles._ App.
Nos. 23 and 42.)
NOTE 3.--The statement here about Bundukdar's invasion of Cilician Armenia
is a difficulty. He had invaded it in 1266, and his second devastating
invasion, during which he burnt both Layas and Sis, the king's residence,
took place in 1275, a point on which Marino Sanuto is at one with the
Oriental Historians. Now we know from Rainaldus that Pope Gregory left
Acre in November or December, 1271, and the text appears to imply that our
travellers left Acre before him. The utmost corroboration that I can find
lies in the following facts stated by Makrizi:--
On the 13th Safar, A.H. 670 (20th September 1271), Bundukdar arrived
unexpectedly at Damascus, and after a brief raid against the Ismaelians he
returned to that city. In the middle of Rabi I. (about 20-25 October) the
Tartars made an incursion in northern Syria, and the troops of Aleppo
retired towards Hamah. There was great alarm at Damascus; the Sultan sent
orders to Cairo for reinforcements, and these arrived at Damascus on the
9th November. The Sultan then advanced on Aleppo, sending corps likewise
towards Marash (which was within the Armenian frontier) and Harran. At the
latter place the Tartars were attacked and those in the town slaughtered;
the rest retreated. The Sultan was back at Damascus, and off on a
different expedition, by 7th December. Hence, if the travellers arrived at
Ayas towards the latter part of November they would probably find alarm
existing at the advance of Bundukdar, though matters did not turn out so
serious as they imply.
"Babylon," of which Bundukdar is here styled Sultan, means Cairo, commonly
so styled (_Bambellonia d'Egitto_) in that age. Babylon of Egypt is
mentioned by Diodorus quoting Ctesias, by Strabo, and by Ptolemy; it was
the station of a Roman Legion in the days of Augustus, and still survives
in the name of _Babul_, close to old Cairo.
Malik Dahir Ruknuddin Bibars Bundukdari, a native of Kipchak, was
originally sold at Damascus for 800 dirhems (about 18_l._), and returned
by his purchaser because of a blemish. He was then bought by the Amir
Alauddin Aidekin _Bundukdar_ ("The Arblasteer") whose surname he
afterwards adopted. He became the fourth of the Mameluke Sultans, and
reigned from 1259 to 1276. The two great objects of his life were the
repression of the Tartars and the expulsion of the Christians from Syria,
so that his reign was one of constant war and enormous activity. William
of Tripoli, in the work above mentioned, says: "Bondogar, as a soldier,
was not inferior to Julius Caesar, nor in malignity to Nero." He admits,
however, that the Sultan was sober, chaste, just to his own people, and
even kind to his Christian subjects; whilst Makrizi calls him one of the
best princes that ever reigned over Musulmans. Yet if we take Bibars as
painted by this admiring historian and by other Arabic documents, the
second of Friar William's comparisons is justified, for he seems almost a
devil in malignity as well as in activity. More than once he played tennis
at Damascus and Cairo within the same week. A strange sample of the man is
the letter which he wrote to Boemond, Prince of Antioch and Tripoli, to
announce to him the capture of the former city. After an ironically polite
address to Boemond as having by the loss of his great city had his title
changed from Princeship (_Al-Brensiyah_) to Countship (_Al-Komasiyah_),
and describing his own devastations round Tripoli, he comes to the attack
of Antioch: "We carried the place, sword in hand, at the 4th hour of
Saturday, the 4th day of Ramadhan,... Hadst thou but seen thy Knights
trodden under the hoofs of the horses! thy palaces invaded by plunderers
and ransacked for booty! thy treasures weighed out by the hundredweight!
thy ladies (_Damataka_, 'tes DAMES') bought and sold with thine own gear,
at four for a dinar! hadst thou but seen thy churches demolished, thy
crosses sawn in sunder, thy garbled Gospels hawked about before the sun,
the tombs of thy nobles cast to the ground; thy foe the Moslem treading
thy Holy of the Holies; the monk, the priest, the deacon slaughtered on
the Altar; the rich given up to misery; princes of royal blood reduced to
slavery! Couldst thou but have seen the flames devouring thy halls; thy
dead cast into the fires temporal with the fires eternal hard at hand; the
churches of Paul and of Cosmas rocking and going down--, then wouldst thou
have said, 'Would God that I were dust!' ... As not a man hath escaped to
tell thee the tale, I TELL IT THEE!"
A little later, when a mission went to treat with Boemond, Bibars himself
accompanied it in disguise, to have a look at the defences of Tripoli. In
drawing out the terms, the Envoys styled Boemond _Count_, not _Prince_, as
in the letter just quoted. He lost patience at their persistence, and made
a movement which alarmed them. Bibars nudged the Envoy Mohiuddin (who
tells the story) with his foot to give up the point, and the treaty was
made. On their way back the Sultan laughed heartily at their narrow
escape, "sending to the devil all the counts and princes on the face of
the earth."
(_Quatremere's Makrizi_, II. 92-101, and 190 seqq.; _J. As._ ser. I. tom.
xi. p. 89; _D'Ohsson_, III. 459-474; _Marino Sanuto_ in Bongars, 224-226,
etc.)
NOTE 4.--The ruling Master of the Temple was Thomas Berard (1256-1273),
but there is little detail about the Order in the East at this time. They
had, however, considerable possessions and great influence in Cilician
Armenia, and how much they were mixed up in its affairs is shown by a
circumstance related by Makrizi. In 1285, when Sultan Mansur, the
successor of Bundukdar, was besieging the Castle of Markab, there arrived
in Camp the Commander of the Temple (_Kamandur-ul Dewet_) of the Country
of Armenia, charged to negotiate on the part of the King of Sis (i.e. of
Lesser Armenia, Leon III. 1268-1289, successor of Hayton I. 1224-1268),
and bringing presents from him and from the Master of the Temple, Berard's
successor, William de Beaujeu (1273-1291). (III. 201.)--H. Y. and H. C.
CHAPTER XIII.
HOW MESSER NICOLO AND MESSER MAFFEO POLO, ACCOMPANIED BY MARK, TRAVELLED
TO THE COURT OF THE GREAT KAAN.
So the Two Brothers, and Mark along with them, proceeded on their way, and
journeying on, summer and winter, came at length to the Great Kaan, who
was then at a certain rich and great city, called KEMENFU.[NOTE 1] As to
what they met with on the road, whether in going or coming, we shall give
no particulars at present, because we are going to tell you all those
details in regular order in the after part of this Book. Their journey
back to the Kaan occupied a good three years and a half, owing to the bad
weather and severe cold that they encountered. And let me tell you in good
sooth that when the Great Kaan heard that Messers Nicolo and Maffeo Polo
were on their way back, he sent people a journey of full 40 days to meet
them; and on this journey, as on their former one, they were honourably
entertained upon the road, and supplied with all that they required.
NOTE 1.--The French texts read _Clemeinfu_, Ramusio _Clemenfu_. The Pucci
MS. guides us to the correct reading, having _Chemensu_ (_Kemensu_) for
_Chemenfu_. KAIPINGFU, meaning something like "City of Peace," and called
by Rashiduddin _Kaiminfu_ (whereby we see that Polo as usual adopted the
Persian form of the name), was a city founded in 1256, four years before
Kublai's accession, some distance to the north of the Chinese wall. It
became Kublai's favourite summer residence, and was styled from 1264
_Shangtu_ or "Upper Court." (See infra, Bk. I. ch. lxi.) It was known to
the Mongols, apparently by a combination of the two names, as _Shangdu
Keibung_. It appears in D'Anville's map under the name of _Djao-Naiman
Sume_. Dr. Bushell, who visited Shangtu in 1872, makes it 1103 _li_ (367
miles) by road distance via Kalgan from Peking. The busy town of Dolonnur
lies 26 miles S.E. of it, and according to Kiepert's _Asia_ that place is
about 180 miles in a direct line north of Peking.
(See _Klaproth_ in _J. As._ XI. 365; _Gaubil_, p. 115; _Cathay_, p. 260;
_J. R. G. S._ vol. xiiii.)
CHAPTER XIV.
HOW MESSER NICOLO AND MESSER MAFFEO POLO AND MARCO PRESENTED THEMSELVES
BEFORE THE GREAT KAAN.
And what shall I tell you? when the Two Brothers and Mark had arrived at
that great city, they went to the Imperial Palace, and there they found
the Sovereign attended by a great company of Barons. So they bent the knee
before him, and paid their respects to him, with all possible reverence
[prostrating themselves on the ground]. Then the Lord bade them stand up,
and treated them with great honour, showing great pleasure at their
coming, and asked many questions as to their welfare, and how they had
sped. They replied that they had in verity sped well, seeing that they
found the Kaan well and safe. Then they presented the credentials and
letters which they had received from the Pope, which pleased him right
well; and after that they produced the Oil from the Sepulchre, and at that
also he was very glad, for he set great store thereby. And next, spying
Mark, who was then a young gallant,[NOTE 1] he asked who was that in their
company? "Sire," said his father, Messer Nicolo, "'tis my son and your
liegeman."[NOTE 2] "Welcome is he too," quoth the Emperor. And why should
I make a long story? There was great rejoicing at the Court because of
their arrival; and they met with attention and honour from everybody.
So there they abode at the Court with the other Barons.
NOTE 1.--"_Joenne Bacheler_."
NOTE 2.--"_Sire, il est mon filz et vostre_ homme." The last word in the
sense which gives us the word _homage_. Thus in the miracle play of
Theophilus (13th century), the Devil says to Theophilus:--
"Or joing
Tes mains, et si devien _mes hom_.
_Theoph._ Vez ci que je vous faz _hommage_."
So infra (Bk. I. ch. xlvii.) Aung Khan is made to say of Chinghiz: "_Il
est_ mon homes _et mon serf_." (See also Bk. II. ch. iv. note.) St. Lewis
said of the peace he had made with Henry III.: "Il m'est mout grant
honneur en la paix que je foiz au Roy d'Angleterre pour ce qu'il est _mon
home_, ce que n'estoit pas devant." And Joinville says with regard to the
king, "Je ne voz faire point de serement, car je n'estoie pas _son home_"
(being a vassal of Champagne). A famous Saturday Reviewer quotes the term
applied to a lady: "_Eddeva puella_ homo _Stigandi Archiepiscopi_."
(_Theatre Francais au Moyen Age_, p. 145; _Joinville_, pp. 21, 37; _S.
R._, 6th September, 1873, p. 305.)
CHAPTER XV.
HOW THE EMPEROR SENT MARK ON AN EMBASSY OF HIS.
Now it came to pass that Marco, the son of Messer Nicolo, sped wondrously
in learning the customs of the Tartars, as well as their language, their
manner of writing, and their practice of war; in fact he came in brief
space to know several languages, and four sundry written characters. And
he was discreet and prudent in every way, insomuch that the Emperor held
him in great esteem.[NOTE 1] And so when he discerned Mark to have so much
sense, and to conduct himself so well and beseemingly, he sent him on an
ambassage of his, to a country which was a good six months' journey
distant.[NOTE 2] The young gallant executed his commission well and with
discretion. Now he had taken note on several occasions that when the
Prince's ambassadors returned from different parts of the world, they were
able to tell him about nothing except the business on which they had gone,
and that the Prince in consequence held them for no better than fools and
dolts, and would say: "I had far liever hearken about the strange things,
and the manners of the different countries you have seen, than merely be
told of the business you went upon;"--for he took great delight in hearing
of the affairs of strange countries. Mark therefore, as he went and
returned, took great pains to learn about all kinds of different matters
in the countries which he visited, in order to be able to tell about them
to the Great Kaan.[NOTE 3]
NOTE 1.--The word Emperor stands here for _Seigneur_.
What the four characters acquired by Marco were is open to discussion.
The Chronicle of the Mongol Emperors rendered by Gaubil mentions, as
characters used in their Empire, the Uighur, the Persian and Arabic, that
of the Lamas (Tibetan), that of the Niuche, introduced by the Kin Dynasty,
the Khitan, and the _Bashpah_ character, a syllabic alphabet arranged, on
the basis of the Tibetan and Sanskrit letters chiefly, by a learned chief
Lama so-called, under the orders of Kublai, and established by edict in
1269 as the official character. Coins bearing this character, and dating
from 1308 to 1354, are extant. The forms of the Niuche and Khitan were
devised in imitation of Chinese writing, but are supposed to be syllabic.
Of the Khitan but one inscription was known, and no key. "The Khitan had
two national scripts, the 'small characters' (_hsiao tzu_) and the 'large
characters' (ta tzu)." S. W. Bushell, _Insc. in the Juchen and Allied
Scripts_, Cong. des Orientalistes, Paris, 1897.--_Die Sprache und Schrift
der Juchen_ von Dr. W. Grube, Leipzig, 1896, from a polyglot MS.
dictionary, discovered by Dr. F. Hirth and now kept in the Royal Library,
Berlin.--H. Y. and H. C.
Chinghiz and his first successors used the Uighur, and sometimes the
Chinese character. Of the Uighur character we give a specimen in Bk. IV.
It is of Syriac origin, undoubtedly introduced into Eastern Turkestan by
the early Nestorian missions, probably in the 8th or 9th century. The
oldest known example of this character so applied, the _Kudatku Bilik_, a
didactic poem in Uighur (a branch of Oriental Turkish), dating from A.D.
1069, was published by Prof. Vambery in 1870. A new edition of the
_Kudatku Bilik_ was published at St. Petersburg, in 1891, by Dr. W.
Radloff. Vambery had a pleasing illustration of the origin of the Uighur
character, when he received a visit at Pesth from certain Nestorians of
Urumia on a begging tour. On being shown the original MS. of the _Kudatku
Bilik_, they read the character easily, whilst much to their astonishment
they could not understand a word of what was written. This Uighur is the
basis of the modern Mongol and Manchu characters. (Cf. E. Bretschneider,
_Mediaeval Researches_, I. pp. 236, 263.)--H. Y. and H. C.
[Illustration: Hexaglot Inscription on the East side of the Kiu Yong Kwan]
[Illustration: Hexaglot Inscription on the West side of the Kiu Yong Kwan]
[At the village of Keuyung Kwan, 40 miles north of Peking, in the sub-
prefecture of Ch'ang Ping, in the Chih-li province, the road from Peking
to Kalgan runs beyond the pass of Nankau, under an archway, a view of
which will be found at the end of this volume, on which were engraved, in
1345, two large inscriptions in six different languages: Sanskrit,
Tibetan, Mongol, _Bashpah_, Uighur, Chinese, and a language unknown till
recently. Mr. Wylie's kindness enabled Sir Henry Yule to present a specimen
of this. (A much better facsimile of these inscriptions than Wylie's
having since been published by Prince Roland Bonaparte in his valuable
_Recueil des Documents de l'Epoque Mongole_, this latter is, by
permission, here reproduced.) The Chinese and Mongol inscriptions have
been translated by M. Ed. Chavannes; the Tibetan by M. Sylvain Levi
(_Jour. Asiat._, Sept.-Oct. 1894, pp. 354-373); the Uighur, by Prof. W.
Radloff (Ibid. Nov.-Dec. 1894, pp. 546, 550); the Mongol by Prof. G. Huth.
(Ibid. Mars-Avril 1895, pp. 351-360.) The sixth language was supposed by
A. Wylie (_J. R. A. S._ vol. xvii. p. 331, and N.S., vol. v. p. 14) to be
Neuchih, Niuche, Niuchen or Juchen. M. Deveria has shown that the
inscription is written in _Si Hia_, or the language of Tangut, and gave a
facsimile of a stone stele (_pei_) in this language kept in the great
Monastery of the Clouds (Ta Yun Ssu) at Liangchau in Kansuh, together with
a translation of the Chinese text, engraved on the reverse side of the
slab. M. Deveria thinks that this writing was borrowed by the Kings of
Tangut from the one derived in 920 by the Khitans from the Chinese.
(_Stele Si-Hia de Leang-tcheou_ ... _J. As._, 1898; _L'ectriture du
royaumes de Si-Hia ou Tangout_, par M. Deveria ... Ext. des Mem ...
presentes a l'Ac. des. Ins. et B. Let. 1'ere Ser. XI., 1898.) Dr. S. W.
Bushell in two papers (_Inscriptions in the Juchen and Allied Scripts,
Actes du XI. Congres Orientalistes_, Paris, 1897, 2nd. sect., pp. 11, 35,
and the _Hsi Hsia Dynasty of Tangut, their Money and their peculiar
Script, J. China Br. R. A. S._, xxx. N.S. No. 2, pp. 142, 160) has also
made a special study of the same subject. The Si Hia writing was adopted
by Yuan Ho in 1036, on which occasion he changed the title of his reign to
Ta Ch'ing, i.e. "Great Good Fortune." Unfortunately, both the late M.
Deveria and Dr. S. W. Bushell have deciphered but few of the Si Hia
characters.--H. C.]
The orders of the Great Kaan are stated to have been published habitually
in six languages, viz., Mongol, Uighur, Arabic, Persian, Tangutan
(Si-Hia), and Chinese.--H. Y. and H. C.
Ghazan Khan of Persia is said to have understood Mongol, Arabic, Persian,
something of Kashmiri, of Tibetan, of Chinese, and a little of the _Frank_
tongue (probably French).
The annals of the Ming Dynasty, which succeeded the Mongols in China,
mention the establishment in the 11th moon of the 5th year Yong-lo (1407)
of the _Sse yi kwan_, a linguistic office for diplomatic purposes. The
languages to be studied were Niuche, Mongol, Tibetan, Sanskrit, Bokharan
(Persian?) Uighur, Burmese, and Siamese. To these were added by the Manchu
Dynasty two languages called _Papeh_ and _Pehyih_, both dialects of the
S.W. frontier. (See infra, Bk. II. ch. lvi.-lvii., and notes.) Since 1382,
however, official interpreters had to translate Mongol texts; they were
selected among the Academicians, and their service (which was independent
of the _Sse yi kwan_ when this was created) was under the control of the
_Han-lin-yuen_. There may have been similar institutions under the Yuen,
but we have no proof of it. At all events, such an office could not then
be called _Sse yi kwan_ (_Sse yi_, Barbarians from four sides); Niuche
(Niuchen) was taught in Yong-lo's office, but not Manchu. The _Sse yi
kwan_ must not be confounded with the _Hui t'ong kwan_, the office for the
reception of tributary envoys, to which it was annexed in 1748. (_Gaubil_,
p. 148; _Gold. Horde_, 184; _Ilchan._ II. 147; _Lockhart_ in _J. R. G. S._
XXXVI. 152; _Koeppen_, II. 99; G. Deveria, _Hist. du College des
Interpretes de Peking_ in _Melanges_ Charles de Harlez, pp. 94-102; MS.
Note of Prof. A. Vissiere; _The Tangut Script in the Nan-K'ou Pass_, by
Dr. S. W. Bushell, _China Review_, xxiv. II. pp. 65-68.)--H. Y. and H. C.
Pauthier supposes Mark's four acquisitions to have been _Bashpah-Mongol,
Arabic, Uighur_, and _Chinese_. I entirely reject the Chinese. Sir H. Yule
adds: "We shall see no reason to believe that he knew either language or
character" [Chinese]. The blunders Polo made in saying that the name of
the city, Suju, signifies in our tongue "Earth" and Kinsay "Heaven" show
he did not know the Chinese characters, but we read in Bk. II. ch.
lxviii.: "And Messer Marco Polo himself, of whom this Book speaks, did
govern this city (Yanju) for three full years, by the order of the Great
Kaan." It seems to me [H. C.] hardly possible that Marco could have for
three years been governor of so important and so Chinese a city as
Yangchau, in the heart of the Empire, without acquiring a knowledge of the
spoken language.--H. C. The other three languages seem highly probable.
The fourth may have been Tibetan. But it is more likely that he counted
separately two varieties of the same character (e.g. of the Arabic and
Persian) as two "_lettres de leur escriptures_"--H. Y. and H. C.
NOTE 2.--[Ramusio here adds: "Ad und citta, detta Carazan," which, as we
shall see, refers to the Yun-nan Province.]--H. C.
NOTE 3.--From the context no doubt Marco's employments were honourable and
confidential; but _Commissioner_ would perhaps better express them than
Ambassador in the modern sense. The word _Ilchi_, which was probably in
his mind, was applied to a large variety of classes employed on the
commissions of Government, as we may see from a passage of Rashiduddin in
D'Ohsson, which says that "there were always to be found in every city
from one to two hundred _Ilchis_, who forced the citizens to furnish them
with free quarters," etc., III. 404. (See also 485.)
CHAPTER XVI.
HOW MARK RETURNED FROM THE MISSION WHEREON HE HAD BEEN SENT.
When Mark returned from his ambassage he presented himself before the
Emperor, and after making his report of the business with which he was
charged, and its successful accomplishment, he went on to give an account
in a pleasant and intelligent manner of all the novelties and strange
things that he had seen and heard; insomuch that the Emperor and all such
as heard his story were surprised, and said: "If this young man live, he
will assuredly come to be a person of great worth and ability." And so
from that time forward he was always entitled MESSER MARCO POLO, and thus
we shall style him henceforth in this Book of ours, as is but right.
Thereafter Messer Marco abode in the Kaan's employment some seventeen
years, continually going and coming, hither and thither, on the missions
that were entrusted to him by the Lord [and sometimes, with the permission
and authority of the Great Kaan, on his own private affairs.] And, as he
knew all the sovereign's ways, like a sensible man he always took much
pains to gather knowledge of anything that would be likely to interest
him, and then on his return to Court he would relate everything in regular
order, and thus the Emperor came to hold him in great love and favour. And
for this reason also he would employ him the oftener on the most weighty
and most distant of his missions. These Messer Marco ever carried out with
discretion and success, God be thanked. So the Emperor became ever more
partial to him, and treated him with the greater distinction, and kept him
so close to his person that some of the Barons waxed very envious thereat.
And thus it came about that Messer Marco Polo had knowledge of, or had
actually visited, a greater number of the different countries of the World
than any other man; the more that he was always giving his mind to get
knowledge, and to spy out and enquire into everything in order to have
matter to relate to the Lord.
CHAPTER XVII.
HOW MESSER NICOLO, MESSER MAFFEO, AND MESSER MARCO, ASKED LEAVE OF THE
GREAT KAAN TO GO THEIR WAY.
When the Two Brothers and Mark had abode with the Lord all that time that
you have been told [having meanwhile acquired great wealth in jewels and
gold], they began among themselves to have thoughts about returning to
their own country; and indeed it was time. [For, to say nothing of the
length and infinite perils of the way, when they considered the Kaan's
great age, they doubted whether, in the event of his death before their
departure, they would ever be able to get home.[NOTE 1]] They applied to
him several times for leave to go, presenting their request with great
respect, but he had such a partiality for them, and liked so much to have
them about him, that nothing on earth would persuade him to let them go.
Now it came to pass in those days that the Queen BOLGANA, wife of ARGON,
Lord of the Levant, departed this life. And in her Will she had desired
that no Lady should take her place, or succeed her as Argon's wife, except
one of her own family [which existed in Cathay]. Argon therefore
despatched three of his Barons, by name respectively OULATAY, APUSCA, and
COJA, as ambassadors to the Great Kaan, attended by a very gallant
company, in order to bring back as his bride a lady of the family of Queen
Bolgana, his late wife.[NOTE 2]
When these three Barons had reached the Court of the Great Kaan, they
delivered their message, explaining wherefore they were come. The Kaan
received them with all honour and hospitality, and then sent for a lady
whose name was COCACHIN, who was of the family of the deceased Queen
Bolgana. She was a maiden of 17, a very beautiful and charming person, and
on her arrival at Court she was presented to the three Barons as the Lady
chosen in compliance with their demand. They declared that the Lady
pleased them well.[NOTE 3]
Meanwhile Messer Marco chanced to return from India, whither he had gone
as the Lord's ambassador, and made his report of all the different things
that he had seen in his travels, and of the sundry seas over which he had
voyaged. And the three Barons, having seen that Messer Nicolo, Messer
Maffeo, and Messer Marco were not only Latins, but men of marvellous good
sense withal, took thought among themselves to get the three to travel
with them, their intention being to return to their country by sea, on
account of the great fatigue of that long land journey for a lady. And the
ambassadors were the more desirous to have their company, as being aware
that those three had great knowledge and experience of the Indian Sea and
the countries by which they would have to pass, and especially Messer
Marco. So they went to the Great Kaan, and begged as a favour that he
would send the three Latins with them, as it was their desire to return
home by sea.
The Lord, having that great regard that I have mentioned for those three
Latins, was very loath to do so [and his countenance showed great
dissatisfaction]. But at last he did give them permission to depart,
enjoining them to accompany the three Barons and the Lady.
NOTE 1.--Pegolotti, in his chapters on mercantile ventures to Cathay,
refers to the dangers to which foreigners were always liable on the death
of the reigning sovereign. (See _Cathay_, p. 292.)
NOTE 2.--Several ladies of the name of BULUGHAN ("Zibellina") have a place
in Mongol-Persian history. The one here indicated, a lady of great beauty
and ability, was known as the _Great Khatun_ (or Lady) Bulughan, and was
(according to strange Mongol custom) the wife successively of Abaka and of
his son ARGHUN, the Argon of the text, Mongol sovereign of Persia. She
died on the banks of the Kur in Georgia, 7th April, 1286. She belonged to
the Mongol tribe of Bayaut, and was the daughter of Hulaku's Chief
Secretary Gugah. (_Ilchan._ I. 374 _et passim; Erdmann's Temudschin_, p.
216.)
The names of the Envoys, ULADAI, APUSHKA, and KOJA, are all names met with
in Mongol history. And Rashiduddin speaks of an Apushka of the Mongol
Tribe of Urnaut, who on some occasion was sent as Envoy to the Great Kaan
from Persia,--possibly the very person. (See _Erdmann_, 205.)
Of the Lady Cocachin we shall speak below.
NOTE 3.--Ramusio here has the following passage, genuine no doubt: "So
everything being ready, with a great escort to do honour to the bride of
King Argon, the Ambassadors took leave and set forth. But after travelling
eight months by the same way that they had come, they found the roads
closed, in consequence of wars lately broken out among certain Tartar
Princes; so being unable to proceed, they were compelled to return to the
Court of the Great Kaan."
CHAPTER XVIII.
HOW THE TWO BROTHERS AND MESSER MARCO TOOK LEAVE OF THE GREAT KAAN, AND
RETURNED TO THEIR OWN COUNTRY.
And when the Prince saw that the Two Brothers and Messer Marco were ready
to set forth, he called them all three to his presence, and gave them two
golden Tablets of Authority, which should secure them liberty of passage
through all his dominions, and by means of which, whithersoever they
should go, all necessaries would be provided for them, and for all their
company, and whatever they might choose to order.[NOTE 1] He charged them
also with messages to the King of France, the King of England,[NOTE 2] the
King of Spain, and the other kings of Christendom. He then caused thirteen
ships to be equipt, each of which had four masts, and often spread twelve
sails.[NOTE 3] And I could easily give you all particulars about these,
but as it would be so long an affair I will not enter upon this now, but
hereafter, when time and place are suitable. [Among the said ships were at
least four or five that carried crews of 250 or 260 men.]
And when the ships had been equipt, the Three Barons and the Lady, and the
Two Brothers and Messer Marco, took leave of the Great Kaan, and went on
board their ships with a great company of people, and with all necessaries
provided for two years by the Emperor. They put forth to sea, and after
sailing for some three months they arrived at a certain Island towards the
South, which is called JAVA,[NOTE 4] and in which there are many wonderful
things which we shall tell you all about by-and-bye. Quitting this Island
they continued to navigate the Sea of India for eighteen months more
before they arrived whither they were bound, meeting on their way also
with many marvels, of which we shall tell hereafter.
And when they got thither they found that Argon was dead, so the Lady was
delivered to CASAN, his son.
But I should have told you that it is a fact that, when they embarked,
they were in number some 600 persons, without counting the mariners; but
nearly all died by the way, so that only eight survived.[NOTE 5]
The sovereignty when they arrived was held by KIACATU, so they commended
the Lady to him, and executed all their commission. And when the Two
Brothers and Messer Marco had executed their charge in full, and done all
that the Great Kaan had enjoined on them in regard to the Lady, they took
their leave and set out upon their journey.[NOTE 6] And before their
departure, Kiacatu gave them four golden tablets of authority, two of
which bore gerfalcons, one bore lions, whilst the fourth was plain, and
having on them inscriptions which directed that the three Ambassadors
should receive honour and service all through the land as if rendered to
the Prince in person, and that horses and all provisions, and everything
necessary, should be supplied to them. And so they found in fact; for
throughout the country they received ample and excellent supplies of
everything needful; and many a time indeed, as I may tell you, they were
furnished with 200 horsemen, more or less, to escort them on their way in
safety. And this was all the more needful because Kiacatu was not the
legitimate Lord, and therefore the people had less scruple to do mischief
than if they had had a lawful prince.[NOTE 7]
Another thing too must be mentioned, which does credit to those three
Ambassadors, and shows for what great personages they were held. The Great
Kaan regarded them with such trust and affection, that he had confided to
their charge the Queen Cocachin, as well as the daughter of the King of
Manzi,[NOTE 8] to conduct to Argon the Lord of all the Levant. And those
two great ladies who were thus entrusted to them they watched over and
guarded as if they had been daughters of their own, until they had
transferred them to the hands of their Lord; whilst the ladies, young and
fair as they were, looked on each of those three as a father, and obeyed
them accordingly. Indeed, both Casan, who is now the reigning prince, and
the Queen Cocachin his wife, have such a regard for the Envoys that there
is nothing they would not do for them. And when the three Ambassadors took
leave of that Lady to return to their own country, she wept for sorrow at
the parting.
What more shall I say? Having left Kiacatu they travelled day by day till
they came to Trebizond, and thence to Constantinople, from Constantinople
to Negropont, and from Negropont to Venice. And this was in the year 1295
of Christ's Incarnation.
And now that I have rehearsed all the Prologue as you have heard, we shall
begin the Book of the Description of the Divers Things that Messer Marco
met with in his Travels.
NOTE 1.--On these plates or tablets, which have already been spoken of, a
note will be found further on. (Bk. II. ch. vii.) Plano Carpini says of
the Mongol practice in reference to royal messengers: "Nuncios, quoscunque
et quotcunque, et ubicunque transmittit, oportet quod dent eis sine mora
equos subductitios et expensas" (669).
NOTE 2.--The mention of the King of England appears for the first time in
Pauthier's text. Probably we shall never know if the communication reached
him. But we have the record of several embassies in preceding and
subsequent years from the Mongol Khans of Persia to the Kings of England;
all with the view of obtaining co-operation in attack on the Egyptian
Sultan. Such messages came from Abaka in 1277; from Arghun in 1289 and
1291; from Ghazan in 1302; from Oljaitu in 1307. (See _Remusat_ in _Mem.
de l'Acad._ VII.)
[Illustration: Ancient Chinese War Vessel.]
NOTE 3.--Ramusio has "_nine_ sails." Marsden thinks even this lower number
an error of Ramusio's, as "it is well known that Chinese vessels do not
carry any kind of topsail." This is, however, a mistake, for they do
sometimes carry a small topsail of cotton cloth (and formerly, it would
seem from Lecomte, even a topgallant sail at times), though only in quiet
weather. And the evidence as to the number of sails carried by the great
Chinese junks of the Middle Ages, which evidently made a great impression
on Western foreigners, is irresistible. Friar Jordanus, who saw them in
Malabar, says: "With a fair wind they carry ten sails;" Ibn Batuta: "One
of these great junks carries from three sails to twelve;" Joseph, the
Indian, speaking of those that traded to India in the 15th century: "They
were very great, and had sometimes twelve sails, with innumerable rowers."
(_Lecomte_, I. 389; _Fr. Jordanus_, Hak. Soc., p. 55; _Ibn Batuta_, IV.
91; _Novus Orbis_, p. 148.) A fuller account of these vessels is given at
the beginning of Bk. III.
NOTE 4.--I.e. in this case Sumatra, as will appear hereafter. "It is quite
possible for a fleet of fourteen junks which required to keep together to
take three months at the present time to accomplish a similar voyage. A
Chinese trader, who has come annually to Singapore in junks for many
years, tells us that he has had as long a passage as sixty days, although
the average is eighteen or twenty days." (_Logan_ in _J. Ind. Archip._ II.
609.)
NOTE 5.--Ramusio's version here varies widely, and looks more probable:
"From the day that they embarked until their arrival there died of
mariners and others on board 600 persons; and of the three ambassadors
only one survived, whose name was Goza (_Coja_); but of the ladies and
damsels died but one."
It is worth noting that in the case of an embassy sent to Cathay a few
years later by Ghazan Khan, on the return by this same route to Persia,
the chief of the two Persian ambassadors, and the Great Khan's envoy, who
was in company, both died by the way. Their voyage, too, seems to have
been nearly as long as Polo's; for they were seven years absent from
Persia, and of these only four in China. (See _Wassaf_ in _Elliot_, III.
47.)
NOTE 6.--Ramusio's version states that on learning Arghun's death (which
they probably did on landing at Hormuz), they sent word of their arrival
to Kiacatu, who directed them to conduct the lady to Casan, who was then
in the region of the _Arbre Sec_ (the Province of Khorasan) guarding the
frontier passes with 60,000 men, and that they did so, and then turned
back to Kiacatu (probably at Tabriz), and stayed at his Court nine months.
Even the Geog. Text seems to imply that they had become personally known
to Casan, and I have no doubt that Ramusio's statement is an authentic
expansion of the original narrative by Marco himself, or on his authority.
Arghun Khan died 10th March, 1291. He was succeeded (23rd July) by his
brother Kaikhatu (_Quiacatu_ of Polo), who was put to death 24th March,
1295.
We learn from Hammer's History of the Ilkhans that when Ghazan, the son of
Arghun (_Casan_ of Polo), who had the government of the Khorasan frontier,
was on his return to his post from Tabriz, where his uncle Kaikhatu had
refused to see him, "he met at Abher the ambassador whom he had sent to
the Great Khan to obtain in marriage a relative of the Great Lady Bulghan.
This envoy brought with him the Lady KUKACHIN (our author's _Cocachin_),
with presents from the Emperor, and the marriage was celebrated with due
festivity." Abher lies a little west of Kazvin.
Hammer is not, I find, here copying from Wassaf, and I have not been able
to procure a thorough search of the work of Rashiduddin, which probably
was his authority. As well as the date can be made out from the History of
the Ilkhans, Ghazan must have met his bride towards the end of 1293, or
quite the beginning of 1294. Rashiduddin in another place mentions the
fair lady from Cathay; "The _ordu_ (or establishment) of Tukiti Khatun was
given to KUKACHI KHATUN, who had been brought from the Kaan's Court, and
who was a kinswoman of the late chief Queen Bulghan. Kukachi, the wife of
the Padshah of Islam, Ghazan Khan, died in the month of Shaban, 695," i.e.
in June, 1296, so that the poor girl did not long survive her promotion.
(See _Hammer's Ilch._ II. 20, and 8, and I. 273; and _Quatremere's
Rashiduddin_, p. 97.) Kukachin was the name also of the wife of Chingkim,
Kublai's favourite son; but she was of the Kungurat tribe. (_Deguignes_,
IV. 179.)
NOTE 7.--Here Ramusio's text says: "During this journey Messers Nicolo,
Maffeo, and Marco heard the news that the Great Khan had departed this
life; and this caused them to give up all hope of returning to those
parts."
NOTE 8.--This Princess of Manzi, or Southern China, is mentioned only in
the Geog. Text and in the Crusca, which is based thereon. I find no notice
of her among the wives of Ghazan or otherwise.
On the fall of the capital of the Sung Dynasty--the Kinsay of Polo--in
1276, the Princesses of that Imperial family were sent to Peking, and were
graciously treated by Kublai's favourite Queen, the Lady Jamui. This young
lady was, no doubt, one of those captive princesses who had been brought
up at the Court of Khanbalik. (See _De Mailla_, IX. 376, and infra Bk. II.
ch. lxv., note 6.)
BOOK FIRST.
ACCOUNT OF REGIONS VISITED OR HEARD OF ON THE JOURNEY FROM THE LESSER
ARMENIA TO THE COURT OF THE GREAT KAAN AT CHANDU.
[Illustration: Aias, the LAIAS of POLO, from an Admiralty Chart]
[Illustration: Position of _Dilawar_, the supposed Site of POLO'S DILAVAR]
BOOK I.
CHAPTER I.
HERE THE BOOK BEGINS; AND FIRST IT SPEAKS OF THE LESSER HERMENIA.
There are two Hermenias, the Greater and the Less. The Lesser Hermenia is
governed by a certain King, who maintains a just rule in his dominions,
but is himself subject to the Tartar.[NOTE 1] The country contains
numerous towns and villages,[NOTE 2] and has everything in plenty;
moreover, it is a great country for sport in the chase of all manner of
beasts and birds. It is, however, by no means a healthy region, but
grievously the reverse.[NOTE 3] In days of old the nobles there were
valiant men, and did doughty deeds of arms; but nowadays they are poor
creatures, and good at nought, unless it be at boozing; they are great at
that. Howbeit, they have a city upon the sea, which is called LAYAS, at
which there is a great trade. For you must know that all the spicery, and
the cloths of silk and gold, and the other valuable wares that come from
the interior, are brought to that city. And the merchants of Venice and
Genoa, and other countries, come thither to sell their goods, and to buy
what they lack. And whatsoever persons would travel to the interior (of
the East), merchants or others, they take their way by this city of
Layas.[NOTE 4]
Having now told you about the Lesser Hermenia, we shall next tell you
about Turcomania.
NOTE 1.--The _Petite Hermenie_ of the Middle Ages was quite distinct from
the Armenia Minor of the ancient geographers, which name the latter
applied to the western portion of Armenia, west of the Euphrates, and
immediately north of Cappadocia.
But when the old Armenian monarchy was broken up (1079-80), Rupen, a
kinsman of the Bagratid Kings, with many of his countrymen, took refuge in
the Taurus. His first descendants ruled as _barons_; a title adopted
apparently from the Crusaders, but still preserved in Armenia. Leon, the
great-great-grandson of Rupen, was consecrated King under the supremacy of
the Pope and the Western Empire in 1198. The kingdom was at its zenith
under Hetum or Hayton I., husband of Leon's daughter Isabel (1224-1269);
he was, however, prudent enough to make an early submission to the
Mongols, and remained ever staunch to them, which brought his territory
constantly under the flail of Egypt. It included at one time all Cilicia,
with many cities of Syria and the ancient Armenia Minor, of Isauria and
Cappadocia. The male line of Rupen becoming extinct in 1342, the kingdom
passed to John de Lusignan, of the royal house of Cyprus, and in 1375 it
was put an end to by the Sultan of Egypt. Leon VI., the ex-king, into
whose mouth Froissart puts some extraordinary geography, had a pension of
1000_l._ a year granted him by our Richard II., and died at Paris in 1398.
[Illustration: Coin of King Hetum and his Queen Isabel.]
The chief remaining vestige of this little monarchy is the continued
existence of a _Catholicos_ of part of the Armenian Church at Sis, which
was the royal residence. Some Armenian communities still remain both in
hills and plains; and the former, the more independent and industrious,
still speak a corrupt Armenian.
Polo's contemporary, Marino Sanuto, compares the kingdom of the Pope's
faithful Armenians to one between the teeth of four fierce beasts, the
_Lion_ Tartar, the _Panther_ Soldan, the Turkish _Wolf_, the Corsair
_Serpent_.
(_Dulaurier_, in _J. As._ ser. V. tom. xvii.; _St. Martin, Arm._; _Mar.
San._ p. 32; _Froissart_, Bk. II. ch. xxii. seqq.; _Langlois, V. en
Cilicie_, 1861, p. 19.)
NOTE 2.--"_Maintes villes et maint chasteaux_" This is a constantly
recurring phrase, and I have generally translated it as here, believing
_chasteaux (castelli)_ to be used in the frequent old Italian sense of a
_walled_ village or small walled town, or like the Eastern _Kala'_ applied
in Khorasan "to everything--town, village, or private residence--
surrounded by a wall of earth." (_Ferrier_, p. 292; see also _A. Conolly_,
I. p. 211.) Martini, in his _Atlas Sinensis_, uses "_Urbes_, _oppida_,
castella," to indicate the three classes of Chinese administrative cities.
NOTE 3.--"_Enferme durement_." So Marino Sanuto objects to Lesser Armenia
as a place of debarkation for a crusade "_quia terra est infirma_"
Langlois, speaking of the Cilician plain: "In this region once so fair,
now covered with swamps and brambles, fever decimates a population which
is yearly diminishing, has nothing to oppose to the scourge but incurable
apathy, and will end by disappearing altogether," etc. (_Voyage_, p. 65.)
Cilician Armenia retains its reputation for sport, and is much frequented
by our naval officers for that object. Ayas is noted for the extraordinary
abundance of turtles.
NOTE 4.--The phrase twice used in this passage for the _Interior_ is _Fra
terre_, an Italianism (_Fra terra_, or, as it stands in the Geog. Latin,
"_infra terram Orientis_"), which, however, Murray and Pauthier have read
as an allusion to the _Euphrates_, an error based apparently on a marginal
gloss in the published edition of the Soc. de Geographie. It is true that
the province of Comagene under the Greek Empire got the name of
_Euphratesia_, or in Arabic _Furatiyah_, but that was not in question
here. The great trade of Ayas was with Tabriz, via Sivas, Erzingan, and
Erzrum, as we see in Pegolotti. Elsewhere, too, in Polo we find the phrase
_fra terre_ used, where Euphrates could possibly have no concern, as in
relation to India and Oman. (See Bk. III. chs. xxix. and xxxviii., and
notes in each case.)
With regard to the phrase _spicery_ here and elsewhere, it should be noted
that the Italian _spezerie_ included a vast deal more than ginger and
other things "hot i' the mouth." In one of Pegolotti's lists of _spezerie_
we find drugs, dye-stuffs, metals, wax, cotton, etc.
CHAPTER II.
CONCERNING THE PROVINCE OF TURCOMANIA.
In Turcomania there are three classes of people. First, there are the
Turcomans; these are worshippers of Mahommet, a rude people with an
uncouth language of their own.[NOTE 1] They dwell among mountains and
downs where they find good pasture, for their occupation is
cattle-keeping. Excellent horses, known as _Turquans_, are reared in their
country, and also very valuable mules. The other two classes are the
Armenians and the Greeks, who live mixt with the former in the towns and
villages, occupying themselves with trade and handicrafts. They weave the
finest and handsomest carpets in the world, and also a great quantity of
fine and rich silks of cramoisy and other colours, and plenty of other
stuffs. Their chief cities are CONIA, SAVAST [where the glorious Messer
Saint Blaise suffered martyrdom], and CASARIA, besides many other towns and
bishops' sees, of which we shall not speak at present, for it would be too
long a matter. These people are subject to the Tartar of the Levant as
their Suzerain.[NOTE 2] We will now leave this province, and speak of the
Greater Armenia.
NOTE 1.--Ricold of Montecroce, a contemporary of Polo, calls the Turkmans
_homines bestiales_. In our day Ainsworth notes of a Turkman village: "The
dogs were very ferocious;... the people only a little better." (_J. R. G.
S._ X. 292.) The ill report of the people of this region did not begin
with the Turkmans, for the Emperor Constantine Porphyrog. quotes a Greek
proverb to the disparagement of the three _kappas_, Cappadocia, Crete, and
Cilicia. (In _Bandurit_ I. 6.)
NOTE 2.--In Turcomania Marco perhaps embraces a great part of Asia Minor,
but he especially means the territory of the decaying Seljukian monarchy,
usually then called by Asiatics _Rum_, as the Ottoman Empire is now, and
the capital of which was Iconium, KUNIYAH, the Conia of the text, and
Coyne of Joinville. Ibn Batuta calls the whole country Turkey
(_Al-Turkiyah_), and the people _Turkman_; exactly likewise does Ricold
(_Thurchia_ and _Thurchimanni_). Hayton's account of the various classes
of inhabitants is quite the same in substance as Polo's. [The Turkmans
emigrated from Turkestan to Asia Minor before the arrival of the Seljukid
Turks. "Their villages," says Cuinet, _Turquie d'Asie_, II. p. 767, "are
distinguished by the peculiarity of the houses being built of sun-baked
bricks, whereas it is the general habit in the country to build them of
earth or a kind of plaster, called _djes_"--H. C.] The migratory and
pastoral Turkmans still exist in this region, but the Kurds of like habits
have taken their place to a large extent. The fine carpets and silk
fabrics appear to be no longer produced here, any more than the excellent
horses of which Polo speaks, which must have been the remains of the
famous old breed of Cappadocia. [It appears, however (Vital Cuinet's
_Turquie d'Asie_, I. p. 224), that fine carpets are still manufactured at
Koniah, also a kind of striped cotton cloth, called _Aladja_.--H. C.]
A grant of privileges to the Genoese by Leon II., King of Lesser Armenia,
dated 23rd December, 1288, alludes to the export of horses and mules,
etc., from Ayas, and specifies the duties upon them. The horses now of
repute in Asia as Turkman come from the east of the Caspian. And Asia
Minor generally, once the mother of so many breeds of high repute, is now
poorer in horses than any province of the Ottoman empire.
(_Pereg. Quat._ p. 114; _I.B._ II. 255 seqq.; _Hayton_, ch. xiii.; _Liber
Jurium Reip. Januensis_, II. 184; _Tchihatcheff, As. Min._, 2'de partie,
631.)
[The Seljukian Sultanate of Iconium or Rum, was founded at the expense of
the Byzantines by Suleiman (1074-1081); the last three sovereigns of the
dynasty contemporaneous with Marco Polo are Ghiath ed-din Kaikhosru III.
(1267-1283), Ghiath ed-din Mas'ud II. (1283-1294), Ala ed-din Kaikobad
III. (1294-1308), when this kingdom was destroyed by the Mongols of
Persia. Privileges had been granted to Venice by Ghiath ed-din Kaikhosru
I. (+ 1211), and his sons Izz ed-din Kaikaua (1211-1220), and Ala ed-din
Kaikobad I. (1220-1237); the diploma of 1220 is unfortunately the only one
of the three known to be preserved. (Cf. Heyd, I. p. 302.)--H. C.]
Though the authors quoted above seem to make no distinction between Turks
and Turkmans, that which we still understand does appear to have been made
in the 12th century: "That there may be some distinction, at least in
name, between those who made themselves a king, and thus achieved such
glory, and those who still abide in their primitive barbarism and adhere
to their old way of life, the former are nowadays termed _Turks_, the
latter by their old name of _Turkomans_." (_William of Tyre_, i. 7.)
Casaria is KAISARIYA, the ancient Caesareia of Cappadocia, close to the
foot of the great Mount Argaeus. _Savast_ is the Armenian form (_Sevasd_)
of Sebaste, the modern SIVAS. The three cities, Iconium, Caesareia, and
Sebaste, were metropolitan sees under the Catholicos of Sis.
[The ruins of Sebaste are situated at about 6 miles to the east of modern
Sivas, near the village of Gavraz, on the _Kizil Irmak_. In the 11th
century, the King of Armenia, Senecherim, made his capital of Sebaste. It
belonged after to the Seljukid Turks, and was conquered in 1397 by Bayezid
Ilderim with Tokat, Castambol and Sinope. (Cf. _Vital Cuinet_.)
One of the oldest churches in Sivas is St. George (_Sourp-Kevork_),
occupied by the Greeks, but claimed by the Armenians; it is situated near
the centre of the town, in what is called the "Black Earth," the spot
where Timur is said to have massacred the garrison. A few steps north of
St. George is the Church of St. Blasius, occupied by the Roman Catholic
Armenians. The tomb of St. Blasius, however, is shown in another part of
the town, near the citadel mount, and the ruins of a very beautiful
Seljukian Medresseh. (From a MS. Note by Sir H. Yule. The information had
been supplied by the American Missionaries to General Sir C. Wilson, and
forwarded by him to Sir H. Yule.)
It must be remembered that at the time of the Seljuk Turks, there were
four Medressehs at Sivas, and a university as famous as that of Amassia.
Children to the number of 1000, each a bearer of a copy of the Koran, were
crushed to death under the feet of the horses of Timur, and buried in the
"Black Earth"; the garrison of 4000 soldiers were buried alive.
St. Blasius, Bishop of Sebaste, was martyred in 316 by order of Agricola,
Governor of Cappadocia and Lesser Armenia, during the reign of Licinius.
His feast is celebrated by the Latin Church on the 3rd of February, and by
the Greek Church on the 11th of February. He is the patron of the Republic
of Ragusa in Dalmatia, and in France of wool-carders.
At the village of Hullukluk, near Sivas, was born in 1676 Mekhitar,
founder of the well-known Armenian Order, which has convents at Venice,
Vienna, and Trieste.--H. C.]
CHAPTER III.
DESCRIPTION OF THE GREATER HERMENIA.
This is a great country. It begins at a city called ARZINGA, at which they
weave the best buckrams in the world. It possesses also the best baths
from natural springs that are anywhere to be found.[NOTE 1] The people of
the country are Armenians, and are subject to the Tartar. There are many
towns and villages in the country, but the noblest of their cities is
Arzinga, which is the See of an Archbishop, and then ARZIRON and
ARZIZI.[NOTE 2]
The country is indeed a passing great one, and in the summer it is
frequented by the whole host of the Tartars of the Levant, because it then
furnishes them with such excellent pasture for their cattle. But in winter
the cold is past all bounds, so in that season they quit this country and
go to a warmer region, where they find other good pastures. [At a castle
called PAIPURTH, that you pass in going from Trebizond to Tauris, there is
a very good silver mine.[NOTE 3]]
And you must know that it is in this country of Armenia that the Ark of
Noah exists on the top of a certain great mountain [on the summit of which
snow is so constant that no one can ascend;[NOTE 4] for the snow never
melts, and is constantly added to by new falls. Below, however, the snow
does melt, and runs down, producing such rich and abundant herbage that in
summer cattle are sent to pasture from a long way round about, and it
never fails them. The melting snow also causes a great amount of mud on
the mountain].
The country is bounded on the south by a kingdom called Mosul, the people
of which are Jacobite and Nestorian Christians, of whom I shall have more
to tell you presently. On the north it is bounded by the Land of the
Georgians, of whom also I shall speak. On the confines towards Georgiania
there is a fountain from which oil springs in great abundance, insomuch
that a hundred shiploads might be taken from it at one time. This oil is
not good to use with food, but 'tis good to burn, and is also used to
anoint camels that have the mange. People come from vast distances to
fetch it, for in all the countries round about they have no other
oil.[NOTE 5]
Now, having done with Great Armenia, we will tell you of Georgiania.
NOTE 1.--[Erzinjan, Erzinga, or Eriza, in the vilayet of Erzrum, was
rebuilt in 1784, after having been destroyed by an earthquake.
"Arzendjan," says Ibn Batuta, II. p. 294, "is in possession of
well-established markets; there are manufactured fine stuffs, which are
called after its name." It was at Erzinjan that was fought in 1244 the
great battle, which placed the Seljuk Turks under the dependency of the
Mongol Khans.--H. C.] I do not find mention of its hot springs by modern
travellers, but Lazari says Armenians assured him of their existence. There
are plenty of others in Polo's route through the country, as at Ilija,
close to Erzrum, and at Hassan Kala.
The _Buckrams_ of Arzinga are mentioned both by Pegolotti (circa 1340) and
by Giov. d'Uzzano (1442). But what were they?
Buckram in the modern sense is a coarse open texture of cotton or hemp,
loaded with gum, and used to stiffen certain articles of dress. But this
was certainly _not_ the mediaeval sense. Nor is it easy to bring the
mediaeval uses of the term under a single explanation. Indeed Mr. Marsh
suggests that probably two different words have coalesced. Fr.-Michel says
that _Bouqueran_ was _at first_ applied to a light cotton stuff of the
nature of muslin, and _afterwards_ to linen, but I do not see that he
makes out this history of the application. Douet d'Arcq, in his _Comptes
de l'Argenterie_, etc., explains the word simply in the modern sense, but
there seems nothing in his text to bear this out.
A quotation in Raynouard's Romance Dictionary has "_Vestirs de polpra e
de_ bisso _que est_ bocaran," where Raynouard renders _bisso_ as _lin_; a
quotation in Ducange also makes Buckram the equivalent of Bissus; and
Michel quotes from an inventory of 1365, "_unam culcitram pinctam_ (qu.
punctam?) _albam factam_ de bisso _aliter_ boquerant."
Mr. Marsh again produces quotations, in which the word is used as a
proverbial example of _whiteness_, and inclines to think that it was a
bleached cloth with a lustrous surface.
It certainly was not _necessarily_ linen. Giovanni Villani, in a passage
which is curious in more ways than one, tells how the citizens of Florence
established races for their troops, and, among other prizes, was one which
consisted of a _Bucherame di bambagine_ (of cotton). Polo, near the end of
the Book (Bk. III. ch. xxxiv.), speaking of Abyssinia, says, according to
Pauthier's text: "_Et si y fait on moult beaux_ bouquerans et autres draps
de coton." The G. T. is, indeed, more ambiguous: "_Il hi se font maint
biaus dras_ banbacin e bocaran" (cotton _and_ buckram). When, however, he
uses the same expression with reference to the delicate stuffs woven on
the coast of Telingana, there can be no doubt that a cotton texture is
meant, and apparently a fine muslin. (See Bk. III. ch. xviii.) Buckram is
_generally_ named as an article of price, _chier bouquerant_, _rice
boquerans_, etc, but not always, for Polo in one passage (Bk. II. ch.
xlv.) seems to speak of it as the clothing of the poor people of Eastern
Tibet.
Plano Carpini says the tunics of the Tartars were either of buckram
(_bukeranum_), of _purpura_ (a texture, perhaps velvet), or of _baudekin_,
a cloth of gold (pp. 614-615). When the envoys of the Old Man of the
Mountain tried to bully St. Lewis, one had a case of daggers to be offered
in defiance, another a _bouqueran_ for a winding sheet (_Joinville_, p.
136.)
In accounts of materials for the use of Anne Boleyn in the time of her
prosperity, _bokeram_ frequently appears for "lyning and taynting" (?)
gowns, lining sleeves, cloaks, a bed, etc., but it can scarcely have been
for mere stiffening, as the colour of the buckram is generally specified
as the same as that of the dress.
A number of passages seem to point to a _quilted_ material. Boccaccio (Day
viii. Novel 10) speaks of a quilt (_coltre_) of the whitest buckram of
Cyprus, and Uzzano enters buckram quilts (_coltre di Bucherame_) in a list
of _Linajuoli_, or linen-draperies. Both his handbook and Pegolotti's
state repeatedly that buckrams were sold by the piece or the half-score
pieces--never by measure. In one of Michel's quotations (from _Baudouin de
Sebourc_) we have:
"Gaufer li fist premiers armer d'un auqueton
Qui fu de _bougherant_ et _plaine de bon coton_."
Mr. Hewitt would appear to take the view that Buckram meant a quilted
material; for, quoting from a roll of purchases made for the Court of
Edward I., an entry for Ten Buckrams to make sleeves of, he remarks, "The
sleeves appear to have been of _pourpointerie_," i.e. quilting. (_Ancient
Armour_, I. 240.)
This signification would embrace a large number of passages in which the
term is used, though certainly not all. It would account for the mode or
sale by the piece, and frequent use of the expression _a_ buckram, for its
habitual application to _coltre_ or counterpanes, its use in the
_auqueton_ of Baudouin, and in the jackets of Falstaff's "men in buckram,"
as well as its employment in the frocks of the Mongols and Tibetans. The
winter _chapkan_, or long tunic, of Upper India, a form of dress which, I
believe, correctly represents that of the Mongol hosts, and is probably
derived from them, is almost universally of quilted cotton.[1] This
signification would also facilitate the transfer of meaning to the
substance now called buckram, for that is used as a _kind_ of quilting.
The derivation of the word is very uncertain. Reiske says it is Arabic,
_Abu-Kairam_, "Pannus cum intextis figuris"; Wedgwood, attaching the
modern meaning, that it is from It., _bucherare_, to pierce full of holes,
which might be if _bucherare_ could be used in the sense of _puntare_, or
the French _piquer_; Marsh connects it with the _bucking_ of linen; and
D'Avezac thinks it was a stuff that took its name from _Bokhara_. If the
name be local, as so many names of stuffs are, the French form rather
suggests _Bulgaria_. [Heyd, II. 703, says that Buckram (Bucherame) was
principally manufactured at Erzinjan (Armenia), Mush, and Mardin
(Kurdistan), Ispahan (Persia), and in India, etc. It was shipped to the
west at Constantinople, Satalia, Acre, and Famagusta; the name is derived
from Bokhara.--H. C.]
(_Della Decima_, III. 18, 149, 65, 74, 212, etc.; IV. 4, 5, 6, 212;
_Reiske's_ Notes to _Const. Porphyrogen._ II.; _D'Avezac_, p. 524; _Vocab.
Univ. Ital.; Franc.-Michel, Recherches_, etc. II. 29 seqq.; _Philobiblon
Soc. Miscell._ VI.; _Marsh's Wedgwood's Etym. Dict._ sub voce.)
[Illustration: Castle of Baiburt.]
NOTE 2.--Arziron is ERZRUM, which, even in Tournefort's time, the Franks
called _Erzeron_ (III. 126); [it was named _Garine_, then
_Theodosiopolis_, in honour of Theodosius the Great; the present name was
given by the Seljukid Turks, and it means "Roman Country"; it was taken by
Chinghiz Khan and Timur, but neither kept it long. Odorico (_Cathay_, I.
p. 46), speaking of this city, says it "is mighty cold." (See also on the
low temperature of the place, Tournefort, _Voyage du Levant_, II. pp.
258-259.) Arzizi, ARJISH, in the vilayet of Van, was destroyed in the
middle of the 19th century; it was situated on the road from Van to Erzrum.
Arjish Kala was one of the ancient capitals of the Kingdom of Armenia; it
was conquered by Toghrul I., who made it his residence. (Cf. Vital Cuinet,
_Turquie d'Asie_, II. p. 710).--H. C.]
Arjish is the ancient _Arsissa_, which gave the Lake Van one of its names.
It is now little more than a decayed castle, with a village inside.
Notices of Kuniyah, Kaisariya, Sivas, Arzan-ar-Rumi, Arzangan, and Arjish,
will be found in Polo's contemporary Abulfeda. (See _Buesching_, IV.
303-311.)
NOTE 3.--Paipurth, or Baiburt, on the high road between Trebizond and
Erzrum, was, according to Neumann, an Armenian fortress in the first
century, and, according to Ritter, the castle _Baiberdon_ was fortified by
Justinian. It stands on a peninsular hill, encircled by the windings of
the R. Charok. [According to Ramusio's version Baiburt was the third relay
from Trebizund to Tauris, and travellers on their way from one of these
cities to the other passed under this stronghold.--H. C.] The Russians, in
retiring from it in 1829, blew up the greater part of the defences. The
nearest silver mines of which we find modern notice, are those of
_Gumish-Khanah_ ("Silverhouse"), about 35 miles N.W. of Baiburt; they are
more correctly mines of lead rich in silver, and were once largely worked.
But the _Masalak-al-absar_ (14th century), besides these, speaks of two
others in the same province, one of which was near _Bajert_. This
Quatremere reasonably would read _Babert_ or Baiburt. (_Not. et Extraits_,
XIII. i. 337; _Texier_, _Armenie_, I. 59.)
NOTE 4.--Josephus alludes to the belief that Noah's Ark still existed, and
that pieces of the pitch were used as amulets. (_Ant._ I. 3. 6.)
Ararat (16,953 feet) was ascended, first by Prof. Parrot, September 1829;
by Spasski Aotonomoff, August 1834; by Behrens, 1835; by Abich, 1845; by
Seymour in 1848; by Khodzko, Khanikoff, and others, for trigonometrical
and other scientific purposes, in August 1850. It is characteristic of the
account from which I take these notes (_Longrimoff_, in _Bull. Soc. Geog.
Paris_, ser. IV. tom. i. p. 54), that whilst the writer's countrymen,
Spasski and Behrens, were "moved by a noble curiosity," the Englishman is
only admitted to have "gratified a tourist's whim"!
NOTE 5.--Though Mr. Khanikoff points out that springs of naphtha are
abundant in the vicinity of Tiflis, the mention of _ship-loads_ (in
Ramusio indeed altered, but probably by the Editor, to _camel-loads_), and
the vast quantities spoken of, point to the naphtha-wells of the Baku
Peninsula on the Caspian. Ricold speaks of their supplying the whole
country as far as Baghdad, and Barbaro alludes to the practice of
anointing camels with the oil. The quantity collected from the springs
about Baku was in 1819 estimated at 241,000 _poods_ (nearly 4000 tons),
the greater part of which went to Persia. (_Pereg. Quat._ p. 122;
_Ramusio_, II. 109; _El. de Laprim._ 276; _V. du Chev. Gamba_, I. 298.)
[The phenomenal rise in the production of the Baku oil-fields between
1890-1900, may be seen at a glance from the Official Statistics where the
total output for 1900 is given as 601,000,000 poods, about 9,500,000 tons.
(Cf. _Petroleum_, No. 42, vol. ii. p. 13.)]
[1] Polo's contemporary, the Indian Poet Amir Khusru, puts in the mouth
of his king Kaikobad a contemptuous gibe at the Mongols with their
cotton-quilted dresses. (_Elliot_, III. p. 526.)
CHAPTER IV.
OF GEORGIANIA AND THE KINGS THEREOF.
In GEORGIANIA there is a King called David Melic, which is as much as to
say "David King"; he is subject to the Tartar.[NOTE 1] In old times all
the kings were born with the figure of an eagle upon the right shoulder.
The people are very handsome, capital archers, and most valiant soldiers.
They are Christians of the Greek Rite, and have a fashion of wearing their
hair cropped, like Churchmen.[NOTE 2]
This is the country beyond which Alexander could not pass when he wished
to penetrate to the region of the Ponent, because that the defile was so
narrow and perilous, the sea lying on the one hand, and on the other lofty
mountains impassable to horsemen. The strait extends like this for four
leagues, and a handful of people might hold it against all the world.
Alexander caused a very strong tower to be built there, to prevent the
people beyond from passing to attack him, and this got the name of the
IRON GATE. This is the place that the Book of Alexander speaks of, when it
tells us how he shut up the Tartars between two mountains; not that they
were really Tartars, however, for there were no Tartars in those days, but
they consisted of a race of people called COMANIANS and many besides.[NOTE
3]
[Illustration: Mediaeval Georgian Fortress, from a drawing dated 1634. "La
provence est tonte plene de grant montagne et d'estroit pas et de fort"]
[In this province all the forests are of box-wood.[NOTE 4]] There are
numerous towns and villages, and silk is produced in great abundance. They
also weave cloths of gold, and all kinds of very fine silk stuffs. The
country produces the best goshawks in the world [which are called
_Avigi_].[NOTE 5] It has indeed no lack of anything, and the people live
by trade and handicrafts. 'Tis a very mountainous region, and full of
strait defiles and of fortresses, insomuch that the Tartars have never
been able to subdue it out and out.
There is in this country a certain Convent of Nuns called St. Leonard's,
about which I have to tell you a very wonderful circumstance. Near the
church in question there is a great lake at the foot of a mountain, and in
this lake are found no fish, great or small, throughout the year till Lent
come. On the first day of Lent they find in it the finest fish in the
world, and great store too thereof; and these continue to be found till
Easter Eve. After that they are found no more till Lent come round again;
and so 'tis every year. 'Tis really a passing great miracle![NOTE 6]
That sea whereof I spoke as coming so near the mountains is called the Sea
of GHEL or GHELAN, and extends about 700 miles.[NOTE 7] It is twelve days'
journey distant from any other sea, and into it flows the great River
Euphrates and many others, whilst it is surrounded by mountains. Of late
the merchants of Genoa have begun to navigate this sea, carrying ships
across and launching them thereon. It is from the country on this sea also
that the silk called _Ghelle_ is brought.[NOTE 8] [The said sea produces
quantities of fish, especially sturgeon, at the river-mouths salmon, and
other big kinds of fish.][NOTE 9]
NOTE 1.--Ramusio has: "One part of the said province is subject to the
Tartar, and the other part, owing to its fortresses, remains subject to
the King David." We give an illustration of one of these mediaeval
Georgian fortresses, from a curious collection of MS. notices and drawings
of Georgian subjects in the Municipal Library at Palermo, executed by a
certain P. Cristoforo di Castelli of that city, who was a Theatine
missionary in Georgia, in the first half of the 17th century.
The G. T. says the King was _always_ called David. The Georgian Kings of
the family of Bagratidae claimed descent from King David through a prince
Shampath, said to have been sent north by Nebuchadnezzar; a descent which
was usually asserted in their public documents. Timur in his Institutes
mentions a suit of armour given him by the King of Georgia as forged by
the hand of the Psalmist King. David is a very frequent name in their
royal lists. [The dynasty of the Bagratidae, which was founded in 786 by
Ashod, and lasted until the annexation of Georgia by Russia on the 18th
January, 1801, had nine reigning princes named David. During the second
half of the 12th century the princes were: Dawith (David) IV. Narin
(1247-1259), Dawith V. (1243-1272), Dimitri II. Thawdadebuli (1272-1289),
Wakhtang II. (1289-1292), Dawith VI. (1292-1308).--H. C.] There were two
princes of that name, David, who shared Georgia between them under the
decision of the Great Kaan in 1246, and one of them, who survived to 1269,
is probably meant here. The name of David was borne by the last titular
King of Georgia, who ceded his rights to Russia in 1801. It is probable,
however, as Marsden has suggested, that the statement about the King
_always_ being called David arose in part out of some confusion with the
title of _Dadian_, which, according to Chardin (and also to P. di
Castelli), was always assumed by the Princes of Mingrelia, or Colchis as
the latter calls it. Chardin refers this title to the Persian _Dad_,
"equity." To a portrait of "Alexander, King of Iberia," or Georgia Proper,
Castelli attaches the following inscription, giving apparently his
official style: "With the sceptre of David, Crowned by Heaven, First King
of the Orient and of the World, King of Israel," adding, "They say that he
has on his shoulder a small mark of a cross, '_Factus est principatus
super humerum ejus_,' and they add that he has all his ribs in one piece,
and not divided." In another place he notes that when attending the King
in illness his curiosity moved him strongly to ask if these things were
true, but he thought better of it! (_Khanikoff; Jour. As._ IX. 370, XI.
291, etc.; _Tim. Instit._ p. 143; _Castelli_ MSS.)
[A descendant of these Princes was in St. Petersburg about 1870. He wore
the Russian uniform, and bore the title of Prince Bagration-Mukransky.]
NOTE 2.--This fashion of tonsure is mentioned by Barbaro and Chardin. The
latter speaks strongly of the beauty of both sexes, as does Della Valle,
and most modern travellers concur.
NOTE 3.--This refers to the Pass of Derbend, apparently the Sarmatic Gates
of Ptolemy, and _Claustra Caspiorum_ of Tacitus, known to the Arab
geographers as the "Gate of Gates" (_Bab-ul-abwab_), but which is still
called in Turkish _Demir-Kapi_, or the Iron Gate, and to the ancient Wall
that runs from the Castle of Derbend along the ridges of Caucasus, called
in the East _Sadd-i-Iskandar_, the Rampart of Alexander. Bayer thinks the
wall was probably built originally by one of the Antiochi, and renewed by
the Sassanian Kobad or his son Naoshirwan. It is ascribed to the latter by
Abulfeda; and according to Klaproth's extracts from the _Derbend Namah_,
Naoshirwan completed the fortress of Derbend in A.D. 542, whilst he and
his father together had erected 360 towers upon the Caucasian Wall which
extended to the Gate of the Alans (i.e. the Pass of Dariel). Mas'udi says
that the wall extended for 40 parasangs over the steepest summits and
deepest gorges. The Russians must have gained some knowledge as to the
actual existence and extent of the remains of this great work, but I have
not been able to meet with any modern information of a very precise kind.
According to a quotation from _Reinegg's Kaukasus_ (I. 120, a work which I
have not been able to consult), the remains of defences can be traced for
many miles, and are in some places as much as 120 feet high. M. Moynet
indeed, in the _Tour du Monde_ (I. 122), states that he traced the wall to
a distance of 27 versts (18 miles) from Derbend, but unfortunately,
instead of describing remains of such high interest from his own
observation, he cites a description written by Alex. Dumas, which he says
is quite accurate.
["To the west of Narin-Kaleh, a fortress which from the top of a
promontory rises above the city, the wall, strengthened from distance to
distance by large towers, follows the ridge of the mountains, descends
into the ravines, and ascends the slopes to take root on some remote peak.
If the natives were to be believed, this wall, which, however, no longer
has any strategetical importance, had formerly its towers bristling upon
the Caucasus chain from one sea to another; at least, this rampart did
protect all the plains at the foot of the eastern Caucasus, since vestiges
were found up to 30 kilometres from Derbend." (_Reclus, Asie russe_, p.
160.) It has belonged to Russia since 1813. The first European traveller
who mentions it is Benjamin of Tudela.
Bretschneider (II. p. 117) observes: "Yule complains that he was not able
to find any modern information regarding the famous Caucasian Wall which
begins at Derbend. I may therefore observe that interesting details on the
subject are found in Legkobytov's _Survey of the Russian Dominions beyond
the Caucasus_ (in Russian), 1836, vol. iv. pp. 158-161, and in Dubois de
Montpereux's _Voyage autour du Caucase_, 1840, vol. iv. pp. 291-298, from
which I shall give here an abstract."
(He then proceeds to give an abstract, of which the following is a part:)
"The famous _Dagh bary_ (mountain wall) now begins at the village of
_Djelgan_ 4 versts south-west of Derbend, but we know that as late as the
beginning of the last century it could be traced down to the southern gate
of the city. This ancient wall then stretches westward to the high
mountains of Tabasseran (it seems the Tabarestan of Mas'udi).... Dubois de
Montpereux enumerates the following sites of remains of the wall:--In the
famous defile of _Dariel_, north-east of Kazbek. In the valley of the
_Assai_ river, near Wapila, about 35 versts north-east of Dariel. In the
valley of the Kizil river, about 15 versts north-west of Kazbek. Farther
west, in the valley of the _Fiag_ or _Pog_ river, between _Lacz_ and
_Khilak_. From this place farther west about 25 versts, in the valley of
the _Arredon_ river, in the district of _Valaghir_. Finally, the
westernmost section of the Caucasian Wall has been preserved, which was
evidently intended to shut up the maritime defile of _Gagry_, on the Black
Sea."--H. C.]
There is another wall claiming the title of _Sadd-i-Iskandar_ at the S.E.
angle of the Caspian. This has been particularly spoken of by Vambery, who
followed its traces from S.W. to N.E. for upwards of 40 miles. (See his
_Travels in C. Asia_, 54 seqq., and _Julius Braun_ in the _Ausland_, No.
22, of 1869.)
Yule (II. pp. 537-538) says, "To the same friendly correspondent
[Professor Braun] I owe the following additional particulars on this
interesting subject, extracted from _Eichwald, Periplus des Kasp. M._ I.
128.
"'At the point on the mountain, at the extremity of the fortress (of
Derbend), where the double wall terminates, there begins a single wall
constructed in the same style, only this no longer runs in a straight
line, but accommodates itself to the contour of the hill, turning now to
the north and now to the south. At first it is quite destroyed, and showed
the most scanty vestiges, a few small heaps of stones or traces of towers,
but all extending in a general bearing from east to west.... It is not
till you get 4 versts from Derbend, in traversing the mountains, that you
come upon a continuous wall. Thenceforward you can follow it over the
successive ridges ... and through several villages chiefly occupied by the
Tartar hill-people. The wall ... makes many windings, and every 3/4 verst
it exhibits substantial towers like those of the city-wall, crested with
loop-holes. Some of these are still in tolerably good condition; others
have fallen, and with the wall itself have left but slight vestiges.'
"Eichwald altogether followed it up about 18 versts (12 miles) not
venturing to proceed further. In later days this cannot have been
difficult, but my kind correspondent had not been able to lay his hand on
information.
[Illustration: View of Derbend
"Alexandre ne poit paser quand il vost aler au Ponent ... car de l'un les
est la mer, et de l'autre est gran montagne que ne se poent cavaucher. La
vre est mout estroit entre la montagne et la mer."]
"A letter from Mr. Eugene Schuyler communicates some notes regarding
inscriptions that have been found at and near Derbend, embracing Cufic of
A.D. 465, Pehlvi, and even Cuneiform. Alluding to the fact that the other
_Iron-gate_, south of Shahrsabz, was called also _Kalugah_, or _Kohlugah_
he adds: 'I don't know what that means, nor do I know if the Russian
Kaluga, south-west of Moscow, has anything to do with it, but I am told
there is a Russian popular song, of which two lines run:
'"Ah Derbend, Derbend Kaluga,
Derbend my little Treasure!"'
"I may observe that I have seen it lately pointed out that _Koluga_ is a
Mongol word signifying a _barrier_; and I see that Timkowski (I. 288)
gives the same explanation of _Kalgan_, the name applied by Mongols and
Russians to the gate in the Great Wall, called Chang-kia-Kau by the
Chinese, leading to Kiakhta."
The story alluded to by Polo is found in the mediaeval romances of
Alexander, and in the Pseudo-Callisthenes on which they are founded. The
hero chases a number of impure cannibal nations within a mountain barrier,
and prays that they may be shut up therein. The mountains draw together
within a few cubits, and Alexander then builds up the gorge and closes it
with gates of brass or iron. There were in all twenty-two nations with
their kings, and the names of the nations were Goth, Magoth, Anugi, Eges,
Exenach, etc. Godfrey of Viterbo speaks of them in his rhyming verses:--
"Finibus Indorum species fuit una virorum;
Goth erat atque Magoth dictum cognomen eorum
* * * * *
Narrat Esias, Isidorus et Apocalypsis,
Tangit et in titulis Magna Sibylla suis.
Patribus ipsorum tumulus fuit venter eorum," etc.
Among the questions that the Jews are said to have put, in order to test
Mahommed's prophetic character, was one series: "Who are Gog and Magog?
Where do they dwell? What sort of rampart did Zu'lkarnain build between
them and men?" And in the Koran we find (ch. xviii. _The Cavern_): "They
will question thee, O Mahommed, regarding Zu'lkarnain. Reply: I will tell
you his history"--and then follows the story of the erection of the
Rampart of Yajuj and Majuj. In ch. xxi. again there is an allusion to
their expected issue at the latter day. This last expectation was one of
very old date. Thus the Cosmography of Aethicus, a work long believed
(though erroneously) to have been abridged by St. Jerome, and therefore to
be as old at least as the 4th century, says that the Turks of the race of
Gog and Magog, a polluted nation, eating human flesh and feeding on all
abominations, never washing, and never using wine, salt, nor wheat, shall
come forth in the Day of Antichrist from where they lie shut up behind the
Caspian Gates, and make horrid devastation. No wonder that the irruption
of the Tartars into Europe, heard of at first with almost as much
astonishment as such an event would produce now, was connected with this
prophetic legend![1] The Emperor Frederic II., writing to Henry III. of
England, says of the Tartars: "'Tis said they are descended from the Ten
Tribes who abandoned the Law of Moses, and worshipped the Golden Calf.
They are the people whom Alexander Magnus shut up in the Caspian
Mountains."
[See the chapter _Gog et Magog dans le roman en alexandrins_, in Paul
Meyer's _Alexandre le Grand dans la Litterature francaise_. Paris, 1886,
II. pp. 386-389.--H. C.]:
"Gos et Margos i vienent de la tiere des Turs
Et. cccc. m. hommes amenerent u plus,
Il en jurent la mer dont sire est Neptunus
Et le porte d'infier que garde Cerberus
Que l'orguel d'Alixandre torneront a reues
Por cou les enclot puis es estres desus.
Dusc' al tans Antecrist n'en istera mais nus."
According to some chroniclers, the Emperor Heraclius had already let loose
the Shut-up Nations to aid him against the Persians, but it brought him no
good, for he was beaten in spite of their aid, and died of grief.
The theory that the Tartars were Gog and Magog led to the Rampart of
Alexander being confounded with the Wall of China (see infra, Bk. I. ch.
lix.), or being relegated to the extreme N.E. of Asia, as we find it in
the Carta Catalana.
These legends are referred to by Rabbi Benjamin, Hayton, Rubruquis,
Ricold, Matthew Paris, and many more. Josephus indeed speaks of the Pass
which Alexander fortified with gates of steel. But his saying that the
King of Hyrcania was Lord of this Pass points to the Hyrcanian Gates of
Northern Persia, or perhaps to the Wall of Gomushtapah, described by
Vambery.
Ricold of Montecroce allows two arguments to connect the Tartars with the
Jews who were shut up by Alexander; one that the Tartars hated the very
name of Alexander, and could not bear to hear it; the other, that their
manner of writing was very like the Chaldean, meaning apparently the
Syriac (_ante_, p. 29). But he points out that they had no resemblance to
Jews, and no knowledge of the law.
Edrisi relates how the Khalif Wathek sent one Salem the Dragoman to
explore the Rampart of Gog and Magog. His route lay by Tiflis, the Alan
country, and that of the Bashkirds, to the far north or north-east, and
back by Samarkand. But the report of what he saw is pure fable.
In 1857, Dr. Bellew seems to have found the ancient belief in the legend
still held by Afghan gentlemen at Kandahar.
At Gelath in Imeretia there still exists one valve of a large iron gate,
traditionally said to be the relic of a pair brought as a trophy from
Derbend by David, King of Georgia, called the Restorer (1089-1130). M.
Brosset, however, has shown it to be the gate of Ganja, carried off in
1139.
(_Bayer in Comment. Petropol._ I. 401 seqq.; _Pseudo-Callisth._ by
_Mueller_, p. 138; _Gott. Viterb._ in _Pistorii Nidani Script. Germ._ II.
228; _Alexandriade_, pp. 310-311; _Pereg._ IV. p. 118; _Acad. des Insc.
Divers Savans_, II. 483; _Edrisi_, II. 416-420, etc.)
NOTE 4.--The box-wood of the Abkhasian forests was so abundant, and formed
so important an article of Genoese trade, as to give the name of _Chao de
Bux_ (Cavo di Bussi) to the bay of Bambor, N.W. of Sukum Kala', where the
traffic was carried on. (See _Elie de Laprim._ 243.) Abulfeda also speaks
of the Forest of Box (_Shara' ul-buks_) on the shores of the Black Sea,
from which box-wood was exported to all parts of the world; but his
indication of the exact locality is confused. (_Reinaud's Abulf._ I. 289.)
At the present time "Boxwood abounds on the southern coast of the Caspian,
and large quantities are exported from near Resht to England and Russia.
It is sent up the Volga to Tsaritzin, from thence by rail to the Don, and
down that river to the Black Sea, from whence it is shipped to England."
(_MS. Note_, H. Y.)
[Cf. V. Helm's _Cultivated Plants_, edited by J. S. Stallybrass, Lond.,
1891, _The Box Tree_, pp. 176-179.--H. C.]
NOTE 5.--Jerome Cardan notices that "the best and biggest goshawks come
from Armenia," a term often including Georgia and Caucasus. The name of
the bird is perhaps the same as _'Afci_, "Falco montanus." (See _Casiri_,
I. 320.) Major St. John tells me that the _Terlan_, or goshawk, much used
in Persia, is still generally brought from Caucasus. (_Cardan, de Rer.
Varietate_, VII. 35.)
NOTE 6.--A letter of Warren Hastings, written shortly before his death,
and after reading Marsden's Marco Polo, tells how a fish-breeder of
Banbury warned him against putting pike into his fish-pond, saying, "If
you should leave them where they are _till Shrove Tuesday_ they will be
sure to spawn, and then you will never get any other fish to breed in it."
(_Romance of Travel_, I. 255.) Edward Webbe in his Travels (1590,
reprinted 1868) tells us that in the "Land of Siria there is a River
having great store of fish like unto Salmon-trouts, but no Jew can catch
them, though either Christian and Turk shall catch them in abundance with
great ease." The circumstance of fish being got only for a limited time in
spring is noticed with reference to Lake Van both by Tavernier and Mr.
Brant.
But the exact legend here reported is related (as M. Pauthier has already
noticed) by Wilibrand of Oldenburg of a stream under the Castle of
Adamodana, belonging to the Hospitallers, near Naversa (the ancient
_Anazarbus_), in Cilicia under Taurus. And Khanikoff was told the same
story of a lake in the district of Akhaltzike in Western Georgia, in
regard to which he explains the substance of the phenomenon as a result of
the rise of the lake's level by the melting of the snows, which often
coincides with Lent. I may add that Moorcroft was told respecting a sacred
pond near Sir-i-Chashma, on the road from Kabul to Bamian, that the fish
in the pond were not allowed to be touched, but that they were accustomed
to desert it for the rivulet that ran through the valley regularly every
year _on the day of the vernal equinox_, and it was then lawful to catch
them.
Like circumstances would produce the same effect in a variety of lakes,
and I have not been able to identify the convent of St. Leonard's. Indeed
Leonard (_Sant Lienard_, G. T.) seems no likely name for an Armenian
Saint; and the patroness of the convent (as she is of many others in that
country) was perhaps Saint _Nina_, an eminent personage in the Armenian
Church, whose tomb is still a place of pilgrimage; or possibly St.
_Helena_, for I see that the Russian maps show a place called _Elenovka_
on the shores of Lake Sevan, N.E. of Erivan. Ramusio's text, moreover,
says that the lake was _four days in compass_, and this description will
apply, I believe, to none but the lake just named. This is, according to
Monteith, 47 miles in length and 21 miles in breadth, and as far as I can
make out he travelled round it in three very long marches. Convents and
churches on its shores are numerous, and a very ancient one occupies an
island on the lake. The lake is noted for its fish, especially magnificent
trout.
(_Tavern._ Bk. III. ch. iii.; _J. R. G. S._ X. 897; _Pereg. Quat._ p. 179;
_Khanikoff_, 15; _Moorcroft_, II. 382; _J. R. G. S._ III. 40 seqq.)
Ramusio has: "In this province there is a fine city called TIFLIS, and
round about it are many castles and walled villages. It is inhabited by
Christians, Armenians, Georgians, and some Saracens and Jews, but not
many."
NOTE 7.--The name assigned by Marco to the Caspian, "Mer de Gheluchelan"
or "Ghelachelan," has puzzled commentators. I have no doubt that the
interpretation adopted above is the correct one. I suppose that Marco said
that the sea was called "La Mer de Ghel ou (de) Ghelan," a name taken from
the districts of the ancient _Gelae_ on its south-western shores, called
indifferently _Gil_ or _Gilan_, just as many other regions of Asia have
like duplicate titles (singular and plural), arising, I suppose, from the
change of a _gentile_ into a _local_ name. Such are Lar, Laran, Khutl,
Khutlan, etc., a class to which Badakhshan, Wakhan, Shaghnan, Mungan,
Chag-hanian, possibly Bamian, and many others have formerly belonged, as
the adjectives in some cases surviving, _Badakhshi, Shaghni, Wakhi_, etc.,
show[2] The change exemplified in the induration of these _gentile
plurals_ into _local singulars_ is everywhere traced in the passage from
earlier to later geography. The old Indian geographical lists, such as are
preserved in the Puranas, and in Pliny's extracts from Megasthenes, are,
in the main, lists of _peoples_, not of provinces, and even where the real
name seems to be local a _gentile_ form is often given. So also _Tochari_
and _Sogdi_ are replaced by _Tokharistan_ and _Sughd_; the _Veneti_ and
_Taurini_ by Venice and Turin; the _Remi_ and the _Parisii_, by Rheims and
Paris; _East-Saxons_ and _South-Saxons_ by Essex and Sussex; not to
mention the countless _-ings_ that mark the tribal settlement of the
Saxons in Britain.
Abulfeda, speaking of this territory, uses exactly Polo's phrase, saying
that the districts in question are properly called _Kil-o-Kilan_, but by
the Arabs _Jil-o-Jilan_. Teixeira gives the Persian name of the sea as
_Darya Ghilani_. (See _Abulf._ in _Buesching_, v. 329.)
[The province of Gil (Gilan), which is situated between the mountains and
the Caspian Sea, and between the provinces of Azerbaijan and Mazanderan
(H. C.)], gave name to the silk for which it was and is still famous,
mentioned as _Ghelle_ (_Gili_) at the end of this chapter. This _Seta
Ghella_ is mentioned also by Pegolotti (pp. 212, 238, 301), and by Uzzano,
with an odd transposition, as Seta _Leggi_, along with Seta _Masandroni_,
i.e. from the adjoining province of Mazanderan (p. 192). May not the
Spanish _Geliz_, "a silk-dealer," which seems to have been a puzzle to
etymologists, be connected with this? (See _Dosy and Engelmann_, 2nd ed.
p. 275.) [Prof. F. de Filippi (_Viaggo in Persia nel_ 1862,... Milan,
1865, 8vo) speaks of the silk industry of Ghilan (pp. 295-296) as the
principal product of the entire province.--H. C]
The dimensions assigned to the Caspian in the text would be very correct
if length were meant, but the Geog. Text with the same figure specifies
_circuit_ (_zire_). Ramusio again has "a circuit of 2800 miles." Possibly
the original reading was 2700; but this would be in excess.
NOTE 8.--The Caspian is termed by Vincent of Beauvais _Mare Seruanicum_,
the Sea of Shirwan, another of its numerous Oriental names, rendered by
Marino Sanuto as _Mare Salvanicum_. (III. xi. ch. ix.) But it was
generally known to the Franks in the Middle Ages as the SEA OF BACU. Thus
Berni:--
"Fuor del deserto la diritta strada
Lungo il Mar di Bacu miglior pareva."
(_Orl. Innam._ xvii. 60.)
And in the _Sfera_ of Lionardo Dati (circa 1390):--
"Da Tramontana di quest' Asia Grande
Tartari son sotto la fredda Zona,
Gente bestial di bestie e vivande,
Fin dove _l'Onda di Baccu_ risuona," etc. (p. 10.)
This name is introduced in Ramusio, but probably by interpolation, as well
as the correction of the statement regarding Euphrates, which is perhaps a
branch of the notion alluded to in _Prologue_, ch. ii. note 5. In a later
chapter Marco calls it the _Sea of Sarai_, a title also given in the Carta
Catalana. [Odorico calls it Sea of _Bacuc_ (_Cathay_) and Sea of _Bascon_
(Cordier). The latter name is a corruption of Abeskun, a small town and
island in the S.E. corner of the Caspian Sea, not far from Ashurada.--H.
C.]
We have little information as to the Genoese navigation of the Caspian,
but the great number of names exhibited along its shores in the map just
named (1375) shows how familiar such navigation had become by that date.
See also _Cathay_, p. 50, where an account is given of a remarkable
enterprise by Genoese buccaneers on the Caspian about that time. Mas'udi
relates an earlier history of how about the beginning of the 9th century a
fleet of 500 Russian vessels came out of the Volga, and ravaged all the
populous southern and western shores of the Caspian. The unhappy
population was struck with astonishment and horror at this unlooked-for
visitation from a sea that had hitherto been only frequented by peaceful
traders or fishermen. (II. 18-24.)
NOTE 9.--[The enormous quantity of fish found in the Caspian Sea is
ascribed to the mass of vegetable food to be found in the shallower waters
of the North and the mouth of the Volga. According to Reclus, the Caspian
fisheries bring in fish to the annual value of between three and four
millions sterling.--H. C.]
[1] See Letter of Frederic to the Roman Senate, of 20th June, 1241, in
_Breholles_. Mahommedan writers, contemporary with the Mongol
invasions, regarded these as a manifest sign of the approaching end of
the world. (See Elliot's _Historians_, II. p. 265.)
[2] When the first edition was published, I was not aware of remarks to
like effect regarding names of this character by Sir H. Rawlinson in
the _J. R. As. Soc._ vol. xi. pp. 64 and 103.
CHAPTER V.
OF THE KINGDOM OF MAUSUL.
On the frontier of Armenia towards the south-east is the kingdom of
MAUSUL. It is a very great kingdom, and inhabited[NOTE 1] by several
different kinds of people whom we shall now describe.
First there is a kind of people called ARABI, and these worship Mahommet.
Then there is another description of people who are NESTORIAN and JACOBITE
Christians. These have a Patriarch, whom they call the JATOLIC, and this
Patriarch creates Archbishops, and Abbots, and Prelates of all other
degrees, and sends them into every quarter, as to India, to Baudas, or to
Cathay, just as the Pope of Rome does in the Latin countries. For you must
know that though there is a very great number of Christians in those
countries, they are all Jacobites and Nestorians; Christians indeed, but
not in the fashion enjoined by the Pope of Rome, for they come short in
several points of the Faith.[NOTE 2]
All the cloths of gold and silk that are called _Mosolins_ are made in
this country; and those great Merchants called _Mosolins_, who carry for
sale such quantities of spicery and pearls and cloths of silk and gold,
are also from this kingdom.[NOTE 3]
There is yet another race of people who inhabit the mountains in that
quarter, and are called CURDS. Some of them are Christians, and some of
them are Saracens; but they are an evil generation, whose delight it is to
plunder merchants.[NOTE 4]
[Near this province is another called MUS and MERDIN, producing an immense
quantity of cotton, from which they make a great deal of buckram[NOTE 5]
and other cloth. The people are craftsmen and traders, and all are subject
to the Tartar King.]
NOTE 1.--Polo could scarcely have been justified in calling MOSUL a very
great kingdom. This is a bad habit of his, as we shall have to notice
again. Badruddin Lulu, the last Atabeg of Mosul of the race of Zenghi had
at the age of 96 taken sides with Hulaku, and stood high in his favour.
His son Malik Salih, having revolted, surrendered to the Mongols in 1261
on promise of life; which promise they kept in Mongol fashion by torturing
him to death. Since then the kingdom had ceased to exist as such. Coins of
Badruddin remain with the name and titles of Mangku Kaan on their reverse,
and some of his and of other atabegs exhibit curious imitations of Greek
art. (_Quat. Rash._ p. 389 _Jour. As._ IV. VI. 141.).--H. Y. and H. C.
[Mosul was pillaged by Timur at the end of the 14th century; during the
15th it fell into the hands of the Turkomans, and during the 16th, of
Ismail, Shah of Persia.--H. C.]
[The population of Mosul is to-day 61,000 inhabitants--(48,000 Musulmans,
10,000 Christians belonging to various churches, and 3000 Jews).--H. C.]
[Illustration: Coin of Badruddin of Mausul.]
NOTE 2.--The Nestorian Church was at this time and in the preceding
centuries diffused over Asia to an extent of which little conception is
generally entertained, having a chain of Bishops and Metropolitans from
Jerusalem to Peking. The Church derived its name from Nestorius, Patriarch
of Constantinople, who was deposed by the Council of Ephesus in 431. The
chief "point of the Faith" wherein it came short, was (at least in its
most tangible form) the doctrine that in Our Lord there were two Persons,
one of the Divine Word, the other of the Man Jesus; the former dwelling in
the latter as in a Temple, or uniting with the latter "as fire with iron."
_Nestorin_, the term used by Polo, is almost a literal transcript of the
Arab form _Nasturi_. A notice of the Metropolitan sees, with a map, will
be found in _Cathay_, p. ccxliv.
_Jathalik_, written in our text (from G. T.) _Jatolic_, by Fr. Burchard
and Ricold _Jaselic_, stands for [Greek: Katholikos]. No doubt it was
originally _Gathalik_, but altered in pronunciation by the Arabs. The term
was applied by Nestorians to their Patriarch; among the Jacobites to the
_Mafrian_ or Metropolitan. The Nestorian Patriarch at this time resided at
Baghdad. (_Assemani_, vol. iii. pt. 2; _Per. Quat._ 91, 127.)
The Jacobites, or Jacobins, as they are called by writers of that age (Ar.
_Ya'ubkiy_), received their name from Jacob Baradaeus or James Zanzale,
Bishop of Edessa (so called, Mas'udi says, because he was a maker of
_barda'at_ or saddle-cloths), who gave a great impulse to their doctrine
in the 6th century. [At some time between the years 541 and 578, he
separated from the Church and became a follower of the doctrine of
Eutyches.--H. C.] The Jacobites then formed an independent Church, which
at one time spread over the East at least as far as Sistan, where they had
a see under the Sassanian Kings. Their distinguishing tenet was
_Monophysitism_, viz., that Our Lord had but one Nature, the Divine. It
was in fact a rebound from Nestorian doctrine, but, as might be expected
in such a case, there was a vast number of shades of opinion among both
bodies. The chief locality of the Jacobites was in the districts of Mosul,
Tekrit, and Jazirah, and their Patriarch was at this time settled at the
Monastery of St. Matthew, near Mosul, but afterwards, and to the present
day, at or near Mardin. [They have at present two patriarchates: the
Monastery of Zapharan near Baghdad and Etchmiadzin.--H. C.] The Armenian,
Coptic, Abyssinian, and Malabar Churches all hold some shade of the
Jacobite doctrine, though the first two at least have Patriarchs apart.
(_Assemani_, vol. ii.; _Le Quien_, II. 1596; _Mas'udi_, II. 329-330; _Per.
Quat._ 124-129.)
NOTE 3.--We see here that _mosolin_ or _muslin_ had a very different
meaning from what it has now. A quotation from Ives by Marsden shows it to
have been applied in the middle of last century to a strong cotton cloth
made at Mosul. Dozy says the Arabs use _Maucili_ in the sense of muslin,
and refers to passages in 'The Arabian Nights.' [Bretschneider (_Med.
Res._ II. p. 122) observes "that in the narrative of Ch'ang Ch'un's
travels to the west in 1221, it is stated that in Samarkand the men of the
lower classes and the priests wrap their heads about with a piece of white
_mo-sze_. There can be no doubt that mo-sze here denotes 'muslin,' and the
Chinese author seems to understand by this term the same material which we
are now used to call muslin."--H. C.] I have found no elucidation of
Polo's application of _mosolini_ to a class of merchants. But, in a letter
of Pope Innocent IV. (1244) to the Dominicans in Palestine, we find
classed as different bodies of Oriental Christians, "_Jacobitae,
Nestoritae, Georgiani, Graeci, Armeni, Maronitae, et_ Mosolini." (_Le
Quien_, III. 1342.)
NOTE 4.--"The Curds," says Ricold, "exceed in malignant ferocity all the
barbarous nations that I have seen.... They are called _Curti_, not
because they are curt in stature, but from the Persian word for
_Wolves_.... They have three principal vices, viz., Murder, Robbery, and
Treachery." Some say they have not mended since, but his etymology is
doubtful. _Kurt_ is Turkish for a wolf, not Persian, which is _Gurg_; but
the name (_Karduchi, Kordiaei_, etc.) is older, I imagine, than the
Turkish language in that part of Asia. Quatremere refers it to the Persian
_gurd_, "strong, valiant, hero." As regards the statement that some of the
Kurds were Christians, Mas'udi states that the Jacobites and certain other
Christians in the territory of Mosul and Mount Judi were reckoned among
the Kurds. (_Not. et Ext._ XIII. i. 304.) [The Kurds of Mosul are in part
nomadic and are called _Kotcheres_, but the greater number are sedentary
and cultivate cereals, cotton, tobacco, and fruits. (_Cuinet._) Old
Kurdistan had Shehrizor (Kerkuk, in the sanjak of that name) as its
capital.--H. C.]
NOTE 5.--Ramusio here, as in all passages where other texts have
_Bucherami_ and the like, puts _Boccassini_, a word which has become
obsolete in its turn. I see both _Bochayrani_ and _Bochasini_ coupled, in
a Genoese fiscal statute of 1339, quoted by Pardessus. (_Lois Maritimes_,
IV. 456.)
MUSH and MARDIN are in very different regions, but as their actual
interval is only about 120 miles, they _may_ have been under one
provincial government. Mush is essentially Armenian, and, though the seat
of a Pashalik, is now a wretched place. Mardin, on the verge of the
Mesopotamian Plain, rises in terraces on a lofty hill, and there, says
Hammer, "Sunnis and Shias, Catholic and Schismatic Armenians, Jacobites,
Nestorians, Chaldaeans, Sun-, Fire-, Calf-, and Devil-worshippers dwell
one over the head of the other." (_Ilchan._ I. 191.)
CHAPTER VI.
OF THE GREAT CITY OF BAUDAS, AND HOW IT WAS TAKEN.
Baudas is a great city, which used to be the seat of the Calif of all the
Saracens in the world, just as Rome is the seat of the Pope of all the
Christians.[NOTE 1] A very great river flows through the city, and by this
you can descend to the Sea of India. There is a great traffic of merchants
with their goods this way; they descend some eighteen days from Baudas,
and then come to a certain city called KISI, where they enter the Sea of
India.[NOTE 2] There is also on the river, as you go from Baudas to Kisi,
a great city called BASTRA, surrounded by woods, in which grow the best
dates in the world.[NOTE 3]
In Baudas they weave many different kinds of silk stuffs and gold
brocades, such as _nasich_, and _nac_, and _cramoisy_, and many another
beautiful tissue richly wrought with figures of beasts and birds. It is
the noblest and greatest city in all those regions.[NOTE 4]
Now it came to pass on a day in the year of Christ 1255, that the Lord of
the Tartars of the Levant, whose name was Alaue, brother to the Great Kaan
now reigning, gathered a mighty host and came up against Baudas and took
it by storm.[NOTE 5] It was a great enterprise! for in Baudas there were
more than 100,000 horse, besides foot soldiers. And when Alaue had taken
the place he found therein a tower of the Califs, which was full of gold
and silver and other treasure; in fact the greatest accumulation of
treasure in one spot that ever was known.[NOTE 6] When he beheld that
great heap of treasure he was astonished, and, summoning the Calif to his
presence, he said to him: "Calif, tell me now why thou hast gathered such
a huge treasure? What didst thou mean to do therewith? Knewest thou not
that I was thine enemy, and that I was coming against thee with so great
an host to cast thee forth of thine heritage? Wherefore didst thou not
take of thy gear and employ it in paying knights and soldiers to defend
thee and thy city?"
The Calif wist not what to answer, and said never a word. So the Prince
continued, "Now then, Calif, since I see what a love thou hast borne thy
treasure, I will e'en give it thee to eat!" So he shut the Calif up in the
Treasure Tower, and bade that neither meat nor drink should be given him,
saying, "Now, Calif, eat of thy treasure as much as thou wilt, since thou
art so fond of it; for never shalt thou have aught else to eat!"
So the Calif lingered in the tower four days, and then died like a dog.
Truly his treasure would have been of more service to him had he bestowed
it upon men who would have defended his kingdom and his people, rather
than let himself be taken and deposed and put to death as he was.[NOTE 7]
Howbeit, since that time, there has been never another Calif, either at
Baudas or anywhere else.[NOTE 8]
Now I will tell you of a great miracle that befell at Baudas, wrought by
God on behalf of the Christians.
NOTE 1.--This form of the Mediaeval Frank name of BAGHDAD, _Baudas_ [the
Chinese traveller, Ch'ang Te, _Si Shi Ki_, XIII. cent., says, "the kingdom
of _Bao-da_," H. C.], is curiously like that used by the Chinese
historians, _Paota_ (_Pauthier; Gaubil_), and both are probably due to the
Mongol habit of slurring gutturals. (See _Prologue_, ch. ii. note 3.)
[Baghdad was taken on the 5th of February, 1258, and the Khalif
surrendered to Hulaku on the 10th of February.--H. C.]
NOTE 2.--Polo is here either speaking without personal knowledge, or is so
brief as to convey an erroneous impression that the Tigris flows to Kisi,
whereas three-fourths of the length of the Persian Gulf intervene between
the river mouth and Kisi. The latter is the island and city of KISH or
KAIS, about 200 miles from the mouth of the Gulf, and for a long time one
of the chief ports of trade with India and the East. The island, the
_Cataea_ of Arrian, now called Ghes or Kenn, is singular among the islands
of the Gulf as being wooded and well supplied with fresh water. The ruins
of a city [called Harira, according to Lord Curzon,] exist on the north
side. According to Wassaf, the island derived its name from one Kais, the
son of a poor widow of Siraf (then a great port of Indian trade on the
northern shore of the Gulf), who on a voyage to India, about the 10th
century, made a fortune precisely as Dick Whittington did. The proceeds of
the cat were invested in an establishment on this island. Modern attempts
to nationalise Whittington may surely be given up! It is one of the tales
which, like Tell's shot, the dog Gellert, and many others, are common to
many regions. (_Hammer's Ilch._ I. 239; _Ouseley's Travels_, I. 170;
_Notes and Queries_, 2nd s. XI. 372.)
Mr. Badger, in a postscript to his translation of the History of Oman
(_Hak. Soc._ 1871), maintains that Kish or Kais was at this time a city on
the mainland, and identical from Siraf. He refers to Ibn Batuta (II. 244),
who certainly does speak of visiting "the city of Kais, called also
Siraf." And Polo, neither here nor in Bk. III. ch. xl., speaks of Kisi as
an island. I am inclined, however, to think that this was from not having
visited it. Ibn Batuta says nothing of Siraf as a seat of trade; but the
historian Wassaf, who had been in the service of Jamaluddin al-Thaibi, the
Lord of Kais, in speaking of the export of horses thence to India, calls
it "the _Island_ of Kais." (Elliot, III. 34.) Compare allusions to this
horse trade in ch. xv. and in Bk. III. ch. xvii. Wassaf was precisely a
contemporary of Polo.
NOTE 3.--The name is _Bascra_ in the MSS., but this is almost certainly
the common error of _c_ for _t_. BASRA is still noted for its vast
date-groves. "The whole country from the confluence of the Euphrates and
Tigris to the sea, a distance of 30 leagues, is covered with these trees."
(_Tav._ Bk. II. ch. iii.)
NOTE 4.--From Baudas, or Baldac, i.e. Baghdad, certain of these rich silk
and gold brocades were called _Baldachini_, or in English _Baudekins_.
From their use in the state canopies and umbrellas of Italian dignitaries,
the word _Baldacchino_ has come to mean a canopy, even when architectural.
[_Baldekino, baldacchino_, was at first entirely made of silk, but
afterwards silk was mixed (_sericum mixtum_) with cotton or thread. When
Hulaku conquered Baghdad part of the tribute was to be paid with that kind
of stuff. Later on, says Heyd (II. p. 697), it was also manufactured in
the province of Ahwaz, at Damas and at Cyprus; it was carried as far as
France and England. Among the articles sent from Baghdad to Okkodai Khan,
mentioned in the _Yuean ch'ao pi shi_ (made in the 14th century), quoted by
Bretschneider (_Med. Res._ II. p. 124), we note: _Nakhut_ (a kind of gold
brocade), _Nachidut_ (a silk stuff interwoven with gold), _Dardas_ (a
stuff embroidered in gold). Bretschneider (p. 125) adds: "With respect to
_nakhut_ and _nachidut_, I may observe that these words represent the
Mongol plural form of _nakh_ and _nachetti_.... I may finally mention that
in the _Yuean shi_, ch. lxxviii. (on official dresses), a stuff, _na-shi-
shi_, is repeatedly named, and the term is explained there by _kin kin_
(gold brocade)."--H. C.] The stuffs called _Nasich_ and _Nac_ are again
mentioned by our traveller below (ch. lix.). We only know that they were
of silk and gold, as he implies here, and as Ibn Batuta tells us, who
mentions _Nakh_ several times and _Nasij_ once. The latter is also
mentioned by Rubruquis (_Nasic_) as a present made to him at the Kaan's
court. And Pegolotti speaks of both _nacchi_ and _nacchetti_ of silk and
gold, the latter apparently answering to _Nasich_. _Nac, Nacques, Nachiz,
Naciz, Nasis_, appear in accounts and inventories of the 14th century,
French and English. (See _Dictionnaire des Tissus_, II. 199, and _Douet d'
Arcq, Comptes de l'Argenterie des Rois de France_, etc., 334.) We find no
mention of _Nakh_ or _Nasij_ among the stuffs detailed in the _Ain
Akbari_, so they must have been obsolete in the 16th century. [Cf. Heyd,
_Com. du Levant_, II. p. 698; _Nacco_, nachetto, comes from the Arabic
_nakh_ (_nekh_); _nassit_ (_nasith_) from the Arabic _necidj_.--H. C.]
_Quermesis_ or Cramoisy derived its name from the Kermes insect (Ar.
_Kirmiz_) found on _Quercus coccifera_, now supplanted by cochineal. The
stuff so called is believed to have been originally a crimson velvet, but
apparently, like the mediaeval _Purpura_, if not identical with it, it
came to indicate a tissue rather than a colour. Thus Fr.-Michel quotes
velvet of vermeil cramoisy, of violet, and of blue cramoisy, and
_pourpres_ of a variety of colours, though he says he has never met with
_pourpre blanche_. I may, however, point to Plano Carpini (p. 755), who
describes the courtiers at Karakorum as clad in white _purpura_.
The London prices of _Chermisi_ and _Baldacchini_ in the early part of the
15th century will be found in Uzzano's work, but they are hard to
elucidate.
Babylon, of which Baghdad was the representative, was famous for its
variegated textures in very early days. We do not know the nature of the
goodly Babylonish garment which tempted Achan in Jericho, but Josephus
speaks of the affluence of rich stuffs carried in the triumph of Titus,
"gorgeous with life-like designs from the Babylonian loom," and he also
describes the memorable Veil of the Temple as a [Greek: peplos Babylonios]
of varied colours marvellously wrought. Pliny says King Attalus invented
the intertexture of cloth with gold; but the weaving of damasks of a
variety of colours was perfected at Babylon, and thence they were called
Babylonian.
The brocades wrought with figures of animals in gold, of which Marco
speaks, are still a _specialite_ at Benares, where they are known by the
name of _Shikargah_ or hunting-grounds, which is nearly a translation of
the name _Thard-wahsh_ "beast-hunts," by which they were known to the
mediaeval Saracens. (See _Q. Makrizi_, IV. 69-70.) Plautus speaks of such
patterns in carpets, the produce of Alexandria--"_Alexandrina_ belluata
_conchyliata tapetia_." Athenaeus speaks of Persian carpets of like
description at an extravagant entertainment given by Antiochus Epiphanes;
and the same author cites a banquet given in Persia by Alexander, at which
there figured costly curtains embroidered with animals. In the 4th century
Asterius, Bishop of Amasia in Pontus, rebukes the Christians who indulge
in such attire: "You find upon them lions, panthers, bears, huntsmen,
woods, and rocks; whilst the more devout display Christ and His disciples,
with the stories of His miracles," etc. And Sidonius alludes to upholstery
of like character:
"Peregrina det supellex
* * *
Ubi torvus, et per artem
Resupina flexus ora,
It equo reditque telo
Simulacra bestiarum
Fugiens fugansque Parthus." (_Epist._ ix. 13.)
A modern Kashmir example of such work is shown under ch. xvii.
(_D'Avezac_, p. 524; _Pegolotti_, in _Cathay_, 295, 306; _I. B._ II. 309,
388, 422; III. 81; _Della Decima_, IV. 125-126; _Fr.-Michel, Recherches_,
etc., II. 10-16, 204-206; _Joseph. Bell. Jud._ VII. 5, 5, and V. 5, 4;
_Pliny_, VIII. 74 (or 48); _Plautus, Pseudolus_, I. 2; _Yonge's
Athenaeus_, V. 26 and XII. 54; _Mongez_ in _Mem. Acad._ IV. 275-276.)
NOTE 5.--[Bretschneider (_Med. Res._ I. p. 114) says: "Hulagu left
Karakorum, the residence of his brother, on the 2nd May, 1253, and
returned to his ordo, in order to organize his army. On the 19th October
of the same year, all being ready, he started for the west." He arrived at
Samarkand in September, 1255. For this chapter and the following of Polo,
see: _Hulagu's Expedition to Western Asia, after the Mohammedan Authors_,
pp. 112-122, and the _Translation of the Si Shi Ki_ (Ch'ang Te), pp.
122-156, in Bretschneider's _Mediaeval Researches_, I.--H. C.]
NOTE 6.--["Hulagu proceeded to the lake of _Ormia_ (Urmia), when he
ordered a castle to be built on the island of _Tala_, in the middle of the
lake, for the purpose of depositing here the immense treasures captured at
Baghdad. A great part of the booty, however, had been sent to Mangu Khan."
(_Hulagu's Exp._, Bretschneider, _Med. Res._ I. p. 120.) Ch'ang Te says
(_Si Shi Ki_, p. 139): "The palace of the Ha-li-fa was built of fragrant
and precious woods. The walls of it were constructed of black and white
jade. It is impossible to imagine the quantity of gold and precious stones
found there."--H. C.]
NOTE 7.--
"I said to the Kalif: 'Thou art old,
Thou hast no need of so much gold.
Thou shouldst not have heaped and hidden it here,
Till the breath of Battle was hot and near,
But have sown through the land these useless hoards
To spring into shining blades of swords,
And keep thine honour sweet and clear.
* * * * *
Then into his dungeon I locked the drone,
And left him to feed there all alone
In the honey-cells of his golden hive:
Never a prayer, nor a cry, nor a groan
Was heard from those massive walls of stone,
Nor again was the Kalif seen alive.'
This is the story, strange and true,
That the great Captain Alau
Told to his brother, the Tartar Khan,
When he rode that day into Cambalu.
By the road that leadeth to Ispahan." (_Longfellow_.)[1]
The story of the death of Mosta'sim Billah, the last of the Abbaside
Khalifs, is told in much the same way by Hayton, Ricold, Pachymeres, and
Joinville. The memory of the last glorious old man must have failed him,
when he says the facts were related by some merchants who came to King
Lewis, when before Saiette (or Sidon), viz. in 1253, for the capture of
Baghdad occurred five years later. Mar. Sanuto says melted gold was poured
down the Khalif's throat--a transfer, no doubt, from the old story of
Crassus and the Parthians. Contemporary Armenian historians assert that
Hulaku slew him with his own hand.
All that Rashiduddin says is: "The evening of Wednesday, the 14th of
Safar, 656 (20th February, 1258), the Khalif was put to death in the
village of Wakf, with his eldest son and five eunuchs who had never
quitted him." Later writers say that he was wrapt in a carpet and trodden
to death by horses.
[Cf. _The Story of the Death of the last Abbaside Caliph, from the Vatican
MS. of Ibn-al-Furat_, by G. le Strange (_Jour. R. As. Soc._, April, 1900,
pp. 293-300). This is the story of the death of the Khalif told by
Ibn-al-Furat (born in Cairo, 1335 A.D.):
"Then Hulagu gave command, and the Caliph was left a-hungering, until his
case was that of very great hunger, so that he called asking that somewhat
might be given him to eat. And the accursed Hulagu sent for a dish with
gold therein, and a dish with silver therein, and a dish with gems, and
ordered these all to be set before the Caliph al Musta'sim, saying to him,
'Eat these.' But the Caliph made answer, 'These be not fit for eating.'
Then said Hulagu: 'Since thou didst so well know that these be not fit for
eating, why didst thou make a store thereof? With part thereof thou
mightest have sent gifts to propitiate us, and with part thou shouldst
have raised an army to serve thee and defend thyself against us! And
Hulagu commanded them to take forth the Caliph and his son to a place
without the camp, and they were here bound and put into two great sacks,
being afterwards trampled under foot till they both died--the mercy of
Allah be upon them."--H. C.]
The foundation of the story, so widely received among the Christians, is
to be found also in the narrative of Nikbi (and Mirkhond), which is cited
by D'Obsson. When the Khalif surrendered, Hulaku put before him a plateful
of gold, and told him to eat it. "But one does not eat gold," said the
prisoner. "Why, then," replied the Tartar, "did you hoard it, instead of
expending it in keeping up an army? Why did you not meet me at the Oxus?"
The Khalif could only say, "Such was God's will!" "And that which has
befallen you was also God's will," said Hulaku.
Wassaf's narrative is interesting:--"Two days after his capture the Khalif
was at his morning prayer, and began with the verse (_Koran_, III. 25),
'Say God is the Possessor of Dominion! It shall be given to whom He will;
it shall be taken from whom He will: whom He will He raiseth to honour;
whom He will He casteth to the ground.' Having finished the regular office
he continued still in prayer with tears and importunity. Bystanders
reported to the Ilkhan the deep humiliation of the Khalif's prayers, and
the text which seemed to have so striking an application to those two
princes. Regarding what followed there are different stories. Some say
that the Ilkhan ordered food to be withheld from the Khalif, and that when
he asked for food the former bade a dish of gold be placed before him,
etc. Eventually, after taking counsel with his chiefs, the Padishah
ordered the execution of the Khalif. It was represented that the
blood-drinking sword ought not to be stained with the gore of Mosta'sim. He
was therefore rolled in a carpet, just as carpets are usually rolled up,
insomuch that his limbs were crushed."
The avarice of the Khalif was proverbial. When the Mongol army was
investing Miafarakain, the chief, Malik Kamal, told his people that
everything he had should be at the service of those in need: "Thank God, I
am not like Mosta'sim, a worshipper of silver and gold!"
(_Hayton_ in _Ram._ ch. xxvi.; _Per. Quat._ 121; _Pachym. Mic. Palaeol._
II. 24; _Joinville_, p. 182; _Sanuto_, p. 238; _J. As._ ser. V. tom. xi.
490, and xvi. 291; _D'Ohsson_, III. 243; _Hammer's Wassaf_, 75-76; _Quat.
Rashid._ 305.)
NOTE 8.--Nevertheless Froissart brings the Khalif to life again one
hundred and twenty years later, as "_Le Galifre de Baudas_." (Bk. III. ch.
xxiv.)
[1] Not that Alaue (_pace_ Mr. Longfellow) ever did see Cambalu.
CHAPTER VII.
HOW THE CALIF OF BAUDAS TOOK COUNSEL TO SLAY ALL THE CHRISTIANS IN HIS
LAND.
I will tell you then this great marvel that occurred between Baudas and
Mausul.
It was in the year of Christ[NOTE 1] ... that there was a Calif at Baudas
who bore a great hatred to Christians, and was taken up day and night with
the thought how he might either bring those that were in his kingdom over
to his own faith, or might procure them all to be slain. And he used daily
to take counsel about this with the devotees and priests of his
faith,[NOTE 2] for they all bore the Christians like malice. And, indeed,
it is a fact, that the whole body of Saracens throughout the world are
always most malignantly disposed towards the whole body of Christians.
Now it happened that the Calif, with those shrewd priests of his, got hold
of that passage in our Gospel which says, that if a Christian had faith as
a grain of mustard seed, and should bid a mountain be removed, it would be
removed. And such indeed is the truth. But when they had got hold of this
text they were delighted, for it seemed to them the very thing whereby
either to force all the Christians to change their faith, or to bring
destruction upon them all. The Calif therefore called together all the
Christians in his territories, who were extremely numerous. And when they
had come before him, he showed them the Gospel, and made them read the
text which I have mentioned. And when they had read it he asked them if
that was the truth? The Christians answered that it assuredly was so.
"Well," said the Calif, "since you say that it is the truth, I will give
you a choice. Among such a number of you there must needs surely be this
small amount of faith; so you must either move that mountain there,"--and
he pointed to a mountain in the neighbourhood--"or you shall die an ill
death; unless you choose to eschew death by all becoming Saracens and
adopting our Holy Law. To this end I give you a respite of ten days; if
the thing be not done by that time, ye shall die or become Saracens." And
when he had said this he dismissed them, to consider what was to be done
in this strait wherein they were.
NOTE 1.--The date in the G. Text and Pauthier is 1275, which of course
cannot have been intended. Ramusio has 1225.
[The Khalifs in 1225 were Abu'l Abbas Ahmed VII. en-Nassir lidini 'llah
(1180-1225) and Abu Nasr Mohammed IX. ed-Dhahir bi-emri 'llah
(1225-1226).--H. C.]
NOTE 2.--"_Cum sez regisles et cum sez casses._" (G. T.) I suppose the
former expression to be a form of _Regules_, which is used in Polo's book
for persons of a religious _rule_ or order, whether Christian or Pagan.
The latter word (_casses_) I take to be the Arabic _Kashish_, properly a
Christian Presbyter, but frequently applied by old travellers, and
habitually by the Portuguese (_caxiz, caxix_), to Mahomedan Divines. (See
_Cathay_, p. 568.) It may, however, be _Kazi_.
Pauthier's text has simply "a ses prestres de la Loi."
CHAPTER VIII.
HOW THE CHRISTIANS WERE IN GREAT DISMAY BECAUSE OF WHAT THE CALIF HAD
SAID.
The Christians on hearing what the Calif had said were in great dismay,
but they lifted all their hopes to God, their Creator, that He would help
them in this their strait. All the wisest of the Christians took counsel
together, and among them were a number of bishops and priests, but they
had no resource except to turn to Him from whom all good things do come,
beseeching Him to protect them from the cruel hands of the Calif.
So they were all gathered together in prayer, both men and women, for
eight days and eight nights. And whilst they were thus engaged in prayer
it was revealed in a vision by a Holy Angel of Heaven to a certain Bishop
who was a very good Christian, that he should desire a certain Christian
Cobler,[NOTE 1] who had but one eye, to pray to God; and that God in His
goodness would grant such prayer because of the Cobler's holy life.
Now I must tell you what manner of man this Cobler was. He was one who led
a life of great uprightness and chastity, and who fasted and kept from all
sin, and went daily to church to hear Mass, and gave daily a portion of
his gains to God. And the way how he came to have but one eye was this. It
happened one day that a certain woman came to him to have a pair of shoes
made, and she showed him her foot that he might take her measure. Now she
had a very beautiful foot and leg; and the Cobler in taking her measure
was conscious of sinful thoughts. And he had often heard it said in the
Holy Evangel, that if thine eye offend thee, pluck it out and cast it from
thee, rather than sin. So, as soon as the woman had departed, he took the
awl that he used in stitching, and drove it into his eye and destroyed it.
And this is the way he came to lose his eye. So you can judge what a holy,
just, and righteous man he was.
NOTE 1.--Here the G. T. uses a strange word: "_Or te vais a tel_
cralantur." It does not occur again, being replaced by _chabitier_
(savetier). It has an Oriental look, but I can make no satisfactory
suggestion as to what the word meant.
CHAPTER IX.
HOW THE ONE-EYED COBLER WAS DESIRED TO PRAY FOR THE CHRISTIANS.
Now when this vision had visited the Bishop several times, he related the
whole matter to the Christians, and they agreed with one consent to call
the Cobler before them. And when he had come they told him it was their
wish that he should pray, and that God had promised to accomplish the
matter by his means. On hearing their request he made many excuses,
declaring that he was not at all so good a man as they represented. But
they persisted in their request with so much sweetness, that at last he
said he would not tarry, but do what they desired.
CHAPTER X.
HOW THE PRAYER OF THE ONE-EYED COBLER CAUSED THE MOUNTAIN TO MOVE.
And when the appointed day was come, all the Christians got up early, men
and women, small and great, more than 100,000 persons, and went to church,
and heard the Holy Mass. And after Mass had been sung, they all went forth
together in a great procession to the plain in front of the mountain,
carrying the precious cross before them, loudly singing and greatly
weeping as they went. And when they arrived at the spot, there they found
the Calif with all his Saracen host armed to slay them if they would not
change their faith; for the Saracens believed not in the least that God
would grant such favour to the Christians. These latter stood indeed in
great fear and doubt, but nevertheless they rested their hope on their God
Jesus Christ.
So the Cobler received the Bishop's benison, and then threw himself on his
knees before the Holy Cross, and stretched out his hands towards Heaven,
and made this prayer: "Blessed LORD GOD ALMIGHTY, I pray Thee by Thy
goodness that Thou wilt grant this grace unto Thy people, insomuch that
they perish not, nor Thy faith be cast down, nor abused nor flouted. Not
that I am in the least worthy to prefer such request unto Thee; but for
Thy great power and mercy I beseech Thee to hear this prayer from me Thy
servant full of sin."
And when he had ended this his prayer to God the Sovereign Father and
Giver of all grace, and whilst the Calif and all the Saracens, and other
people there, were looking on, the mountain rose out of its place and
moved to the spot which the Calif had pointed out! And when the Calif and
all his Saracens beheld, they stood amazed at the wonderful miracle that
God had wrought for the Christians, insomuch that a great number of the
Saracens became Christians. And even the Calif caused himself to be
baptised in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Ghost,
Amen, and became a Christian, but in secret. Howbeit, when he died they
found a little cross hung round his neck; and therefore the Saracens would
not bury him with the other Califs, but put him in a place apart. The
Christians exulted greatly at this most holy miracle, and returned to
their homes full of joy, giving thanks to their Creator for that which He
had done.[NOTE 1]
And now you have heard in what wise took place this great miracle. And
marvel not that the Saracens hate the Christians; for the accursed law
that Mahommet gave them commands them to do all the mischief in their
power to all other descriptions of people, and especially to Christians;
to strip such of their goods, and do them all manner of evil, because they
belong not to their law. See then what an evil law and what naughty
commandments they have! But in such fashion the Saracens act, throughout
the world.
Now I have told you something of Baudas. I could easily indeed have told
you first of the affairs and the customs of the people there. But it would
be too long a business, looking to the great and strange things that I
have got to tell you, as you will find detailed in this Book.
So now I will tell you of the noble city of Tauris.
NOTE 1.--We may remember that at a date only three years before Marco
related this story (viz. in 1295), the cottage of Loreto is asserted to
have changed its locality for the third and last time by moving to the
site which it now occupies.
Some of the old Latin copies place the scene at Tauris. And I observe that
a missionary of the 16th century does the same. The mountain, he says, is
between Tauris and Nakhshiwan, and is called _Manhuc_. (_Gravina_,
_Christianita nell' Armenia_, etc., Roma, 1605, p. 91.)
The moving of a mountain is one of the miracles ascribed to Gregory
Thaumaturgus. Such stories are rife among the Mahomedans themselves. "I
know," says Khanikoff, "at least half a score of mountains which the
Musulmans allege to have come from the vicinity of Mecca."
Ramusio's text adds here: "All the Nestorian and Jacobite Christians from
that time forward have maintained a solemn celebration of the day on which
the miracle occurred, keeping a fast also on the eve thereof."
F. Goering, a writer who contributes three articles on Marco Polo to the
_Neue Zuericher-Zeitung_, 5th, 6th, 8th April, 1878, says: "I heard related
in Egypt a report which Marco Polo had transmitted to Baghdad. I will give
it here in connection with another which I also came across in Egypt.
"'Many years ago there reigned in Babylon, on the Nile, a haughty Khalif
who vexed the Christians with taxes and corvees. He was confirmed in his
hate of the Christians by the Khakam Chacham Bashi or Chief Rabbi of the
Jews, who one day said to him: "The Christians allege in their books that
it shall not hurt them to drink or eat any deadly thing. So I have
prepared a potion that one of them shall taste at my hand: if he does not
die on the spot then call me no more Chacham Bashi!" The Khalif
immediately sent for His Holiness the Patriarch of Babylon, and ordered
him to drink up the potion. The Patriarch just blew a little over the cup
and then emptied it at a draught, and took no harm. His Holiness then on
his side demanded that the Chacham Bashi should quaff a cup to the health
of the Khalif, which he (the Patriarch) should first taste, and this the
Khalif found only fair and right. But hardly had the Chacham Bashi put the
cup to his lips than he fell down and expired.' Still the Musulmans and
Jews thirsted for Christian blood. It happened at that time that a mass of
the hill Mokattani became loose and threatened to come down upon Babylon.
This was laid to the door of the Christians, and they were ordered to stop
it. The Patriarch in great distress has a vision that tells him summon the
saintly cobbler (of whom the same story is told as here)--the cobbler bids
the rock to stand still and it does so to this day. 'These two stories may
still be heard in Cairo'--from whom is not said. The hill that threatened
to fall on the Egyptian Babylon is called in Turkish _Dur Dagh_, 'Stay, or
halt-hill.' (L.c. April, 1878")--_MS. Note_, H. Y.
CHAPTER XI.
OF THE NOBLE CITY OF TAURIS.
Tauris is a great and noble city, situated in a great province called
YRAC, in which are many other towns and villages. But as Tauris is the
most noble I will tell you about it.[NOTE 1]
The men of Tauris get their living by trade and handi crafts, for they
weave many kinds of beautiful and valuable stuffs of silk and gold. The
city has such a good position that merchandize is brought thither from
India, Baudas, CREMESOR,[NOTE 2] and many other regions; and that attracts
many Latin merchants, especially Genoese, to buy goods and transact other
business there; the more as it is also a great market for precious stones.
It is a city in fact where merchants make large profits.[NOTE 3]
The people of the place are themselves poor creatures; and are a great
medley of different classes. There are Armenians, Nestorians, Jacobites,
Georgians, Persians, and finally the natives of the city themselves, who
are worshippers of Mahommet. These last are a very evil generation; they
are known as TAURIZI.[NOTE 4] The city is all girt round with charming
gardens, full of many varieties of large and excellent fruits.[NOTE 5]
Now we will quit Tauris, and speak of the great country of Persia. [From
Tauris to Persia is a journey of twelve days.]
NOTE 1.--Abulfeda notices that TABRIZ was vulgarly pronounced _Tauriz_,
and this appears to have been adopted by the Franks. In Pegolotti the name
is always _Torissi_.
Tabriz is often reckoned to belong to Armenia, as by Hayton. Properly it
is the chief city of _Azerbaijan_, which never was included in 'IRAK. But
it may be observed that Ibn Batuta generally calls the Mongol Ilkhan of
Persia _Sahib_ or _Malik ul-'Irak_, and as Tabriz was the capital of that
sovereign, we can account for the mistake, whilst admitting it to be one.
[The destruction of Baghdad by Hulaku made Tabriz the great commercial and
political city of Asia, and diverted the route of Indian products from the
Mediterranean to the Euxine. It was the route to the Persian Gulf by
Kashan, Yezd, and Kerman, to the Mediterranean by Lajazzo, and later on by
Aleppo,--and to the Euxine by Trebizond. The destruction of the Kingdom of
Armenia closed to Europeans the route of Tauris.--H. C.]
NOTE 2.--_Cremesor_, as Baldelli points out, is GARMSIR, meaning a hot
region, a term which in Persia has acquired several specific applications,
and especially indicates the coast-country on the N.E. side of the Persian
Gulf, including Hormuz and the ports in that quarter.
NOTE 3.--[Of the Italians established at Tabriz, the first whose name is
mentioned is the Venetian Pietro Viglioni (Vioni); his will, dated 10th
December, 1264, is still in existence. (_Archiv. Venet._ XXVI. pp.
161-165; _Heyd_, French Ed., II. p. 110.)--H. C.] At a later date (1341)
the Genoese had a factory at Tabriz headed by a consul with a council of
twenty four merchants, and in 1320 there is evidence of a Venetian
settlement there. (_Elie de la Prim_, 161; _Heyd_, II. 82.)
Rashiduddin says of Tabriz that there were gathered there under the eyes
of the Padishah of Islam "philosophers, astronomers, scholars, historians,
of all religions, of all sects; people of Cathay, of Machin, of India, of
Kashmir, of Tibet, of the Uighur and other Turkish nations, Arabs and
Franks." Ibn Batuta, "I traversed the bazaar of the jewellers, and my eyes
were dazzled by the varieties of precious stones which I beheld. Handsome
slaves, superbly dressed, and girdled with silk, offered their gems for
sale to the Tartar ladies, who bought great numbers. [Odoric (ed. Cordier)
speaks also of the great trade of Tabriz.] Tabriz maintained a large
population and prosperity down to the 17th century, as may be seen in
Chardin. It is now greatly fallen, though still a place of importance."
(_Quat. Rash._, p. 39; _I. B._ II. 130.)
[Illustration: Ghazan Khan's Mosque at Tabriz.--(From Fergusson.)]
NOTE 4.--In Pauthier's text this is _Touzi_, a mere clerical error, I
doubt not for _Torizi_, in accordance with the G. Text ("_le peuple de la
cite que sunt apeles_ Tauriz"), with the Latin, and with Ramusio. All that
he means to say is that the people are called _Tabrizis_. Not recondite
information, but 'tis his way. Just so he tells us in ch[*illegible*]u
that the people of Hermenia are called Hermins, and elsewhere that the
people of Tebet are called Tebet. So Hayton thinks it not inappropriate to
say that the people of Catay are called Cataini, that the people of
Corasmia are called Corasmins, and that the people of the cities of Persia
are called Persians.
NOTE 5.--Hamd Allah Mastaufi, the Geographer, not long after Polo's time,
gives an account of Tabriz, quoted in Barbier de Meynard's _Dict. de la
Perse_, p. 132. This also notices the extensive gardens round the city,
the great abundance and cheapness of fruits, the vanity, insolence, and
faithlessness of the Tabrizis, etc. (p. 132 seqq.) Our cut shows a relic
of the Mongol Dynasty at Tabriz.
CHAPTER XII.
OF THE MONASTERY OF ST. BARSAMO ON THE BORDERS OF TAURIS.
On the borders of (the territory of) Tauris there is a monastery called
after Saint Barsamo, a most devout Saint. There is an Abbot, with many
Monks, who wear a habit like that of the Carmelites, and these to avoid
idleness are continually knitting woollen girdles. These they place upon
the altar of St. Barsamo during the service, and when they go begging
about the province (like the Brethren of the Holy Spirit) they present
them to their friends and to the gentlefolks, for they are excellent
things to remove bodily pain; wherefore every one is devoutly eager to
possess them.[NOTE 1]
NOTE 1.--Barsauma ("The Son of Fasting") was a native of Samosata, and an
Archimandrite of the Asiatic Church. He opposed the Nestorians, but became
himself still more obnoxious to the orthodox as a spreader of the
Monophysite Heresy. He was condemned by the Council of Chalcedon (451),
and died in 458. He is a Saint of fame in the Jacobite and Armenian
Churches, and several monasteries were dedicated to him; but by far the
most celebrated, and doubtless that meant here, was near Malatia. It must
have been famous even among the Mahomedans, for it has an article in
Bakui's Geog. Dictionary. (_Dir-Barsuma_, see _N. et Ext._ II. 515.) This
monastery possessed relics of Barsauma and of St. Peter, and was sometimes
the residence of the Jacobite Patriarch and the meeting-place of the
Synods.
A more marvellous story than Marco's is related of this monastery by
Vincent of Beauvais: "There is in that kingdom (Armenia) a place called
St. Brassamus, at which there is a monastery for 300 monks. And 'tis said
that if ever an enemy attacks it, the defences of the monastery move of
themselves, and shoot back the shot against the besieger."
(_Assemani_ in vol. ii. _passim; Tournefort_, III. 260; _Vin. Bell. Spec.
Historiale_, Lib. XXX. c. cxlii.; see also _Mar. Sanut._ III. xi. c. 16.)
CHAPTER XIII.
OF THE GREAT COUNTRY OF PERSIA; WITH SOME ACCOUNT OF THE THREE KINGS.
Persia is a great country, which was in old times very illustrious and
powerful; but now the Tartars have wasted and destroyed it.
In Persia is the city of SABA, from which the Three Magi set out when they
went to worship Jesus Christ; and in this city they are buried, in three
very large and beautiful monuments, side by side. And above them there is
a square building, carefully kept. The bodies are still entire, with the
hair and beard remaining. One of these was called Jaspar, the second
Melchior, and the third Balthasar. Messer Marco Polo asked a great many
questions of the people of that city as to those Three Magi, but never one
could he find that knew aught of the matter, except that these were three
kings who were buried there in days of old. However, at a place three
days' journey distant he heard of what I am going to tell you. He found a
village there which goes by the name of CALA ATAPERISTAN,[NOTE 1] which is
as much as to say, "The Castle of the Fire-worshippers." And the name is
rightly applied, for the people there do worship fire, and I will tell you
why.
They relate that in old times three kings of that country went away to
worship a Prophet that was born, and they carried with them three manner
of offerings, Gold, and Frankincense, and Myrrh; in order to ascertain
whether that Prophet were God, or an earthly King, or a Physician. For,
said they, if he take the Gold, then he is an earthly King; if he take the
Incense he is God; if he take the Myrrh he is a Physician.
So it came to pass when they had come to the place where the Child was
born, the youngest of the Three Kings went in first, and found the Child
apparently just of his own age; so he went forth again marvelling greatly.
The middle one entered next, and like the first he found the Child
seemingly of his own age; so he also went forth again and marvelled
greatly. Lastly, the eldest went in, and as it had befallen the other two,
so it befell him. And he went forth very pensive. And when the three had
rejoined one another, each told what he had seen; and then they all
marvelled the more. So they agreed to go in all three together, and on
doing so they beheld the Child with the appearance of its actual age, to
wit, some thirteen days.[NOTE 2] Then they adored, and presented their
Gold and Incense and Myrrh. And the Child took all the three offerings,
and then gave them a small closed box; whereupon the Kings departed to
return into their own land.
NOTE 1.--_Kala' Atishparastan_, meaning as in the text. (_Marsden_.)
NOTE 2.--According to the Collectanea ascribed to Bede, Melchior was a
hoary old man; Balthazar in his prime, with a beard; Gaspar young and
beardless. (_Inchofer, Tres Magi Evangelici_, Romae, 1639.)
CHAPTER XIV.
WHAT BEFELL WHEN THE THREE KINGS RETURNED TO THEIR OWN COUNTRY.
And when they had ridden many days they said they would see what the Child
had given them. So they opened the little box, and inside it they found a
stone. On seeing this they began to wonder what this might be that the
Child had given them, and what was the import thereof. Now the
signification was this: when they presented their offerings, the Child had
accepted all three, and when they saw that they had said within themselves
that He was the True God, and the True King, and the True Physician.[NOTE
1] And what the gift of the stone implied was that this Faith which had
begun in them should abide firm as a rock. For He well knew what was in
their thoughts. Howbeit, they had no understanding at all of this
signification of the gift of the stone; so they cast it into a well. Then
straightway a fire from Heaven descended into that well wherein the stone
had been cast.
And when the Three Kings beheld this marvel they were sore amazed, and it
greatly repented them that they had cast away the stone; for well they
then perceived that it had a great and holy meaning. So they took of that
fire, and carried it into their own country, and placed it in a rich and
beautiful church. And there the people keep it continually burning, and
worship it as a god, and all the sacrifices they offer are kindled with
that fire. And if ever the fire becomes extinct they go to other cities
round about where the same faith is held, and obtain of that fire from
them, and carry it to the church. And this is the reason why the people of
this country worship fire. They will often go ten days' journey to get of
that fire.[NOTE 2]
Such then was the story told by the people of that Castle to Messer Marco
Polo; they declared to him for a truth that such was their history, and
that one of the three kings was of the city called SABA, and the second of
AVA, and the third of that very Castle where they still worship fire, with
the people of all the country round about.[NOTE 3]
Having related this story, I will now tell you of the different provinces
of Persia, and their peculiarities.
NOTE 1.--"_Mire_." This was in old French the popular word for a Leech;
the politer word was _Physicien_. (_N. et E._ V. 505.)
Chrysostom says that the Gold, Myrrh, and Frankincense were mystic gifts
indicating King, Man, God; and this interpretation was the usual one.
Thus Prudentius:--
"Regem, Deumque adnunciant
Thesaurus et fragrans odor
Thuris Sabaei, at myrrheus
Pulvis sepulchrum praedocet." (_Hymnus Epiphanius_.)
And the Paris Liturgy:--
"Offert Aurum _Caritas_,
Et Myrrham _Austeritas_,
Et Thus _Desiderium_.
Auro _Rex_ agnoscitur,
_Homo_ Myrrha, colitur
Thure _Deus_ gentium."
And in the "Hymns, Ancient and Modern":--
"Sacred gifts of mystic meaning:
Incense doth their God disclose,
Gold the King of Kings proclaimeth,
Myrrh His sepulchre foreshows."
NOTE 2.--"Feruntque (Magi), si justum est credi, etiam ignem caelitus
iapsum apud se sempiternis foculis custodire, cujus portionem exiguam, ut
faustam praeisse quondam Asiaticis Regibus dicunt." (_Ammian. Marcell._
XXIII. 6.)
NOTE 3.--Saba or Sava still exists as SAVAH, about 50 miles S.W. of
Tehran. It is described by Mr. Consul Abbott, who visited it in 1849, as
the most ruinous town he had ever seen, and as containing about 1000
families. The people retain a tradition, mentioned by Hamd Allah Mastaufi,
that the city stood on the shores of a Lake which dried up miraculously at
the birth of Mahomed. Savah is said to have possessed one of the greatest
Libraries in the East, until its destruction by the Mongols on their first
invasion of Persia. Both Savah and Avah (or Abah) are mentioned by
Abulfeda as cities of Jibal. We are told that the two cities were always
at loggerheads, the former being Sunni and the latter Shiya. [We read in
the _Travels_ of Thevenot, a most intelligent traveller, "qu'il n'a rien
erit de l'ancienne ville de Sava qu'il trouva sur son chemin, et ou il a
marque lui-meme que son esprit de curiosite l'abandonna." (_Voyages_, ed.
1727, vol. v. p. 343. He died a few days after at Miana, in Armenia, 28th
November, 1667). (_MS. Note._--H. Y.)]
As regards the position of AVAH, Abbott says that a village still stands
upon the site, about 16 miles S.S.E. of Savah. He did not visit it, but
took a bearing to it. He was told there was a mound there on which
formerly stood a Gueber Castle. At Savah he could find no trace of Marco
Polo's legend. Chardin, in whose time Savah was not quite so far gone to
decay, heard of an alleged tomb of Samuel, at 4 leagues from the city.
This is alluded to by Hamd Allah.
Keith Johnston and Kiepert put Avah some 60 miles W.N.W. of Savah, on the
road between Kazvin and Hamadan. There seems to be some great mistake
here.
Friar Odoric puts the locality of the Magi at _Kashan_, though one of
the versions of Ramusio and the Palatine MS. (see Cordier's Odoric, pp.
xcv. and 41 of his Itinerary), perhaps corrected in this, puts it at
_Saba_--H. Y. and H. C.
We have no means of fixing the _Kala' Atishparastan_. It is probable,
however, that the story was picked up on the homeward journey, and as it
seems to be implied that this castle was reached three days _after
leaving_ Savah, I should look for it between Savah and Abher. Ruins to
which the name _Kila'-i-Gabr_, "Gueber Castle," attaches are common in
Persia.
As regards the Legend itself, which shows such a curious mixture of
Christian and Parsi elements, it is related some 350 years earlier by
Mas'udi: "In the Province of Fars they tell you of a Well called the Well
of Fire, near which there was a temple built. When the Messiah was born
the King Koresh sent three messengers to him, the first of whom carried a
bag of Incense, the second a bag of Myrrh, and the third a bag of Gold.
They set out under the guidance of the Star which the king had described
to them, arrived in Syria, and found the Messiah with Mary His Mother.
This story of the three messengers is related by the Christians with
sundry exaggerations; it is also found in the Gospel. Thus they say that
the Star appeared to Koresh at the moment of Christ's birth; that it went
on when the messengers went on, and stopped when they stopped. More ample
particulars will be found in our Historical Annals, where we have given
the versions of this legend as current among the Guebers and among the
Christians. It will be seen that Mary gave the king's messengers a round
loaf, and this, after different adventures, they hid under a rock in the
province of Fars. The loaf disappeared underground, and there they dug a
well, on which they beheld two columns of fire to start up flaming at the
surface; in short, all the details of the legend will be found in our
Annals." The Editors say that Mas'udi had carried the story to Fars by
mistaking _Shiz_ in Azerbaijan (the Atropatenian Ecbatana of Sir H.
Rawlinson) for _Shiraz_. A rudiment of the same legend is contained in the
Arabic Gospel of the Infancy. This says that Mary gave the Magi one of the
bands in which the Child was swathed. On their return they cast this into
their sacred fire; though wrapt in the flame it remained unhurt.
We may add that there was a Christian tradition that the Star descended
into a well between Jerusalem and Bethlehem. Gregory of Tours also relates
that in a certain well, at Bethlehem, from which Mary had drawn water, the
Star was sometimes seen, by devout pilgrims who looked carefully for it,
to pass from one side to the other. But only such as merited the boon
could see it.
(See _Abbott_ in _J. R. G. S._ XXV. 4-6; _Assemani_, III. pt. 2, 750;
_Chardin_, II. 407; _N. et Ext._ II. 465; _Dict. de la Perse_, 2, 56, 298;
_Cathay_, p. 51; _Mas'udi_, IV. 80; _Greg. Turon. Libri Miraculorum_,
Paris, 1858, I. 8.)
Several of the fancies that legend has attached to the brief story of the
Magi in St. Matthew, such as the royal dignity of the persons; their
location, now in Arabia, now (as here) at Saba in Persia, and again (as in
Hayton and the Catalan Map) in Tarsia or Eastern Turkestan; the notion
that one of them was a Negro, and so on, probably grew out of the
arbitrary application of passages in the Old Testament, such as: "_Venient
legati ex Aegypto_: AETHIOPIA _praevenit manus ejus Deo_" (Ps. lxviii.
31). This produced the Negro who usually is painted as one of the Three.
"_Reges_ THARSIS _et Insulae munera offerent: Reges_ ARABUM _et_ SABA
_dona adducent_" (lxxii. 10). This made the Three into Kings, and fixed
them in Tarsia, Arabia, and Sava. "_Mundatio Camelorum operiet te,
dromedarii Madian et_ EPHA: _omnes de_ SABA _venient aurum et thus
deferentes et laudem Domino annunciantes_" (Is. lx. 6). Here were Ava and
Sava coupled, as well as the gold and frankincense.
One form of the old Church Legend was that the Three were buried at
_Sessania Adrumetorum_ (Hadhramaut) in Arabia, whence the Empress Helena
had the bodies conveyed to Constantinople, [and later to Milan in the time
of the Emperor Manuel Comnenus. After the fall of Milan (1162), Frederic
Barbarossa gave them to Archbishop Rainald of Dassel (1159-1167), who
carried them to Cologne (23rd July, 1164).--H. C.]
The names given by Polo, Gaspar, Melchior, and Balthasar, have been
accepted from an old date by the Roman Church; but an abundant variety of
other names has been assigned to them. Hyde quotes a Syriac writer who
calls them Aruphon, Hurmon, and Tachshesh, but says that some call them
Gudphorbus, Artachshasht, and Labudo; whilst in Persian they were termed
Amad, Zad-Amad, Drust-Amad, i.e. _Venit, Cito Venit, Sincerus Venit_. Some
called them in Greek, Apellius, Amerus, and Damascus, and in Hebrew,
Magaloth, Galgalath, and Saracia, but otherwise Ator, Sator, and
Petatoros! The Armenian Church used the same names as the Roman, but in
Chaldee they were Kaghba, Badadilma, Badada Kharida. (_Hyde, Rel. Vet.
Pers._ 382-383; _Inchofer, ut supra; J. As._ ser. VI. IX. 160.)
[Just before going to press we have read Major Sykes' new book on
_Persia_. Major Sykes (ch. xxiii.) does not believe that Marco visited
Baghdad, and he thinks that the Venetians entered Persia near Tabriz, and
travelled to Sultania, Kashan, and Yezd. Thence they proceeded to Kerman
and Hormuz. We shall discuss this question in the Introduction.--H. C.]
CHAPTER XV.
OF THE EIGHT KINGDOMS OF PERSIA, AND HOW THEY ARE NAMED.
Now you must know that Persia is a very great country, and contains eight
kingdoms. I will tell you the names of them all.
The first kingdom is that at the beginning of Persia, and it is called
CASVIN; the second is further to the south, and is called CURDISTAN; the
third is LOR; the fourth [SUOLSTAN]; the fifth ISTANIT; the sixth SERAZY;
the seventh SONCARA; the eighth TUNOCAIN, which is at the further
extremity of Persia. All these kingdoms lie in a southerly direction
except one, to wit, Tunocain; that lies towards the east, and borders on
the (country of the) Arbre Sol.[NOTE 1]
In this country of Persia there is a great supply of fine horses; and
people take them to India for sale, for they are horses of great price, a
single one being worth as much of their money as is equal to 200 livres
Tournois; some will be more, some less, according to the quality.[NOTE 2]
Here also are the finest asses in the world, one of them being worth full
30 marks of silver, for they are very large and fast, and acquire a
capital amble. Dealers carry their horses to Kisi and Curmosa, two cities
on the shores of the Sea of India, and there they meet with merchants who
take the horses on to India for sale.
In this country there are many cruel and murderous people, so that no day
passes but there is some homicide among them. Were it not for the
Government, which is that of the Tartars of the Levant, they would do
great mischief to merchants; and indeed, maugre the Government, they often
succeed in doing such mischief. Unless merchants be well armed they run
the risk of being murdered, or at least robbed of everything; and it
sometimes happens that a whole party perishes in this way when not on
their guard. The people are all Saracens, i.e. followers of the Law of
Mahommet.[NOTE 3]
In the cities there are traders and artizans who live by their labour and
crafts, weaving cloths of gold, and silk stuffs of sundry kinds. They have
plenty of cotton produced in the country; and abundance of wheat, barley,
millet, panick, and wine, with fruits of all kinds.
[Some one may say, "But the Saracens don't drink wine, which is prohibited
by their law." The answer is that they gloss their text in this way, that
if the wine be boiled, so that a part is dissipated and the rest becomes
sweet, they may drink without breach of the commandment; for it is then no
longer called wine, the name being changed with the change of
flavour.[NOTE 4]]
NOTE 1.--The following appear to be Polo's Eight Kingdoms:--
I. KAZVIN; then a flourishing city, though I know not why he calls it a
kingdom. Persian 'Irak, or the northern portion thereof, seems intended.
Previous to Hulaku's invasion Kazvin seems to have been in the hands of
the Ismailites or Assassins.
II. KURDISTAN. I do not understand the difficulties of Marsden, followed
by Lazari and Pauthier, which lead them to put forth that Kurdistan is not
Kurdistan but something else. The boundaries of Kurdistan according to
Hamd Allah were Arabian 'Irak, Khuzistan, Persian 'Irak, Azerbaijan and
Diarbekr. (_Dict. de la P._ 480.) [Cf. Curzon, _Persia pass._--H. C.]
Persian Kurdistan, in modern as in mediaeval times, extends south beyond
Kermanshah to the immediate border of Polo's next kingdom, viz.:
III. LUR or Luristan. [On Luristan, see Curzon, _Persia_, II. pp. 273-303,
with the pedigree of the Ruling Family of the Feili Lurs (Pusht-i-Kuh), p.
278.--H. C.] This was divided into two principalities, Great Lur and
Little Lur, distinctions still existing. The former was ruled by a Dynasty
called the _Fasluyah_ Atabegs, which endured from about 1155 to 1424,
[when it was destroyed by the Timurids; it was a Kurd Dynasty, founded by
Emad ed-din Abu Thaher (1160-1228), and the last prince of which was
Ghiyas ed-din (1424). In 1258 the general Kitubuka (Hulagu's _Exp. to
Persia_, Bretschneider, _Med. Res._ I. p. 121) is reported to have reduced
the country of Lur or Luristan and its Atabeg Teghele.--H. C.]. Their
territory lay in the mountainous district immediately west of Ispahan, and
extended to the River of Dizful, which parted it from Little Lur. The
stronghold of the Atabegs was the extraordinary hill fort of Mungasht, and
they had a residence also at Aidhej or Mal-Amir in the mountains south of
Shushan, where Ibn Batuta visited the reigning Prince in 1327. Sir H.
Rawlinson has described Mungasht, and Mr. Layard and Baron de Bode have
visited other parts, but the country is still very imperfectly known.
Little Luristan lay west of the R. Dizful, extending nearly to the Plain
of Babylonia. Its Dynasty, called Kurshid, [was founded in 1184 by the
Kurd Shodja ed-din Khurshid, and existed till Shah-Werdy lost his throne
in 1593.--H. C.].
The Lurs are akin to the Kurds, and speak a Kurd dialect, as do all those
Ilyats, or nomads of Persia, who are not of Turkish race. They were noted
in the Middle Ages for their agility and their dexterity in thieving. The
tribes of Little Lur "do not affect the slightest veneration for Mahomed
or the Koran; their only general object of worship is their great Saint
Baba Buzurg," and particular disciples regard with reverence little short
of adoration holy men looked on as living representatives of the Divinity.
(_Ilchan._ I. 70 seqq.; _Rawlinson_ in _J. R. G. S._ IX.; _Layard_ in
_Do._ XVI. 75, 94; _Ld. Strangford_ in _J. R. A. S._ XX. 64; _N. et E._
XIII. i. 330, _I. B._ II. 31; _D'Ohsson_, IV. 171-172.)
IV. SHULISTAN, best represented by Ramusio's _Suolstan_, whilst the old
French texts have _Cielstan_ (i.e. Shelstan); the name applied to the
country of the _Shuls_, or _Shauls_, a people who long occupied a part of
Luristan, but were expelled by the Lurs in the 12th century, and settled
in the country between Shiraz and Khuzistan (now that of the Mamaseni,
whom Colonel Pelly's information identifies with the Shuls), their central
points being Naobanjan and the fortress called Kala' Safed or "White
Castle." Ibn Batuta, going from Shiraz to Kazerun, encamped the first day
in the country of the Shuls, "a Persian desert tribe which includes some
pious persons." (_Q. R._ p. 385; _N. et E._ XIII. i. 332-333; _Ilch._ I.
71; _J. R. G. S._ XIII. Map; _I. B._ II. 88.) ["Adjoining the Kuhgelus on
the East are the tents of the Mamasenni (qy. Mohammed Huseini) Lurs,
occupying the country still known as Shulistan, and extending as far east
and south-east as Fars and the Plain of Kazerun. This tribe prides itself
on its origin, claiming to have come from Seistan, and to be directly
descended from Rustam, whose name is still borne by one of the Mamasenni
clans." (Curzon, _Persia_, II. p. 318.)--H. C.]
V. ISPAHAN? The name is in Ramusio _Spaan_, showing at least that he or
some one before him had made this identification. The unusual combination
_ff_, i.e. sf, in manuscript would be so like the frequent one _ft_, i.e.
st, that the change from Isfan to Istan would be easy. But why Istan_it_?
VI. SHIRAZ [(_Shir_ = milk, or _Shir_ = lion)--H. C.] representing the
province of Fars or Persia Proper, of which it has been for ages the chief
city. [It was founded after the Arab conquest in 694 A.D., by Mohammed,
son of Yusuf Kekfi. (Curzon, _Persia_, II. pp. 93-110.)--H. C.] The last
Dynasty that had reigned in Fars was that of the Salghur Atabegs, founded
about the middle of the 12th century. Under Abubakr (1226-1260) this
kingdom attained considerable power, embracing Fars, Kerman, the islands
of the Gulf and its Arabian shores; and Shiraz then flourished in arts and
literature; Abubakr was the patron of Saadi. From about 1262, though a
Salghurian princess, married to a son of Hulaku, had the nominal title of
Atabeg, the province of Fars was under Mongol administration. (_Ilch.
passim_.)
VII. SHAWANKARA or Shabankara. The G. T. has _Soucara_, but the Crusca
gives the true reading _Soncara_. It is the country of the Shawankars, a
people coupled with the Shuls and Lurs in mediaeval Persian history, and
like them of Kurd affinities. Their princes, of a family Fasluyah, are
spoken of as influential before the Mahomedan conquest, but the name of
the people comes prominently forward only during the Mongol era of Persian
history. [Shabankara was taken in 1056 from the Buyid Dynasty, who ruled
from the 10th century over a great part of Persia, by Fazl ibn Hassan
(Fazluieh-Hasunieh). Under the last sovereign, Ardeshir, Shabankara was
taken in 1355 by the Modhafferians, who reigned in Irak, Fars, and Kerman,
one of the Dynasties established at the expense of the Mongol Ilkhans
after the death of Abu Said (1335), and were themselves subjugated by
Timur in 1392.--H. C.] Their country lay to the south of the great salt
lake east of Shiraz, and included Niriz and Darabjird, Fassa, Forg, and
Tarum. Their capital was I/g or I/j, called also Irej, about 20 miles
north-west of Darab, with a great mountain fortress; it was taken by
Hulaku in 1259. The son of the prince was continued in nominal authority,
with Mongol administrators. In consequence of a rebellion in 1311 the
Dynasty seems to have been extinguished. A descendant attempted to revive
their authority about the middle of the same century. The latest
historical mention of the name that I have found is in Abdurrazzak's
_History of Shah Rukh_, under the year H. 807 (1404). (See _Jour. As._ 3d.
s. vol. ii. 355.) But a note by Colonel Pelly informs me that the name
Shabankara is still applied (1) to the district round the towns of Runiz
and Gauristan near Bandar Abbas; (2) to a village near Maiman, in the old
country of the tribe; (3) to a _tribe_ and district of Dashtistan, 38
farsakhs west of Shiraz.
With reference to the form in the text, _Soncara_, I may notice that in
two passages of the _Masalak-ul-Absar_, translated by Quatremere, the name
occurs as _Shankarah_. (_Q. R._ pp. 380, 440 seqq.; _N. et E._ XIII.;
_Ilch._ I. 71 and _passim; Ouseley's Travels_, II. 158 seqq.)
VIII. TUN-O-KAIN, the eastern Kuhistan or Hill country of Persia, of which
Tun and Kain are chief cities. The practice of indicating a locality by
combining two names in this way is common in the East. Elsewhere in this
book we find _Ariora-Keshemur_ and _Kes-macoran_ (Kij-Makran). Upper Sind
is often called in India by the Sepoys _Rori-Bakkar_, from two adjoining
places on the Indus; whilst in former days, Lower Sind was often called
_Diul-Sind. Karra-Manikpur, Uch-Multan, Kunduz-Baghlan_ are other
examples.
The exact expression _Tun-o-Kain_ for the province here in question is
used by Baber, and evidently also by some of Hammer's authorities.
(_Baber_, pp. 201, 204; see _Ilch._ II. 190; I. 95, 104, and _Hist. de
l'Ordre des Assassins_, p. 245.)
[We learn from (Sir) C. Macgregor's (1875) _Journey through Khorasan_ (I.
p. 127) that the same territory including Ghain or Kain is now called by
the analogous name of Tabas-o-Tun. Tun and Kain (Ghain) are both described
in their modern state, by Macgregor. (Ibid. pp. 147 and 161.)--H. C.]
Note that the identification of _Suolstan_ is due to Quatremere (see _N.
et E._ XIII. i. circa p. 332); that of _Soncara_ to Defremery (_J. As._
ser. IV. tom. xi. p. 441); and that of _Tunocain_ to Malte-Brun. (_N. Ann.
des V._ xviii. p. 261.) I may add that the _Lurs_, the _Shuls_, and the
Shabankaras are the subjects of three successive sections in the
_Masalak-al-Absar_ of _Shihabuddin Dimishki_, a work which reflects much of
Polo's geography. (See _N. et E._ XIII. i. 330-333; Curzon, _Persia_, II.
pp. 248 and 251.)
NOTE 2.--The horses exported to India, of which we shall hear more
hereafter, were probably the same class of "Gulf Arabs" that are now
carried thither. But the Turkman horses of Persia are also very valuable,
especially for endurance. Kinneir speaks of one accomplishing 900 miles in
eleven days, and Ferrier states a still more extraordinary feat from his
own knowledge. In that case one of those horses went from Tehran to
Tabriz, returned, and went again to Tabriz, within twelve days, including
two days' rest. The total distance is about 1100 miles.
The _livre tournois_ at this period was equivalent to a little over 18
francs of modern French silver. But in bringing the value to our modern
gold standard we must add one-third, as the ratio of silver to gold was
then 1:12 instead of 1:16. Hence the equivalent in gold of the livre
tournois is very little less than 1_l._ sterling, and the price of the
horse would be about 193_l._[1]
Mr. Wright quotes an ordinance of Philip III. of France (1270-1285) fixing
the maximum price that might be given for a palfrey at 60 _livres
tournois_, and for a squire's _roncin_ at 20 livres. Joinville, however,
speaks of a couple of horses presented to St. Lewis in 1254 by the Abbot
of Cluny, which he says would at the time of his writing (1309) have been
worth 500 livres (the pair, it would seem). Hence it may be concluded in a
general way that the _ordinary_ price of imported horses in India
approached that of the highest class of horses in Europe. (_Hist. of Dom.
Manners_, p. 317; _Joinville_, p. 205.)
About 1850 a very fair Arab could be purchased in Bombay for 60_l._, or
even less; but prices are much higher now.
With regard to the donkeys, according to Tavernier, the fine ones used by
merchants in Persia were imported from Arabia. The mark of silver was
equivalent to about 44_s._ of our silver money, and allowing as before for
the lower relative value of gold, 30 marks would be equivalent to 88_l._
sterling.
_Kisi_ or Kish we have already heard of. _Curmosa_ is Hormuz, of which we
shall hear more. With a Pisan, as Rusticiano was, the sound of _c_ is
purely and strongly aspirate. Giovanni d'Empoli, in the beginning of the
16th century, another Tuscan, also calls it _Cormus_. (See _Archiv. Stor.
Ital._ Append. III. 81.)
NOTE 3.--The character of the nomad and semi-nomad tribes of Persia in
those days--Kurds, Lurs, Shuls, Karaunahs, etc.--probably deserved all
that Polo says, and it is not changed now. Take as an example Rawlinson's
account of the Bakhtyaris of Luristan: "I believe them to be individually
brave, but of a cruel and savage character; they pursue their blood feuds
with the most inveterate and exterminating spirit.... It is proverbial in
Persia that the Bakhtiyaris have been compelled to forego altogether the
reading of the _Fatihah_ or prayer for the dead, for otherwise they would
have no other occupation. They are also most dextrous and notorious
thieves." (_J. R. G. S._ IX. 105.)
NOTE 4.--The Persians have always been lax in regard to the abstinence
from wine.
According to Athenaeus, Aristotle, in his _Treatise on Drinking_ (a work
lost, I imagine, to posterity), says, "If the wine be moderately boiled it
is less apt to intoxicate." In the preparation of some of the sweet wines
of the Levant, such as that of Cyprus, the must is boiled, but I believe
this is not the case _generally_ in the East. Baber notices it as a
peculiarity among the Kafirs of the Hindu Kush. Tavernier, however, says
that at Shiraz, besides the wine for which that city was so celebrated, a
good deal of _boiled wine_ was manufactured, and used among the poor and
by travellers. No doubt what is meant is the sweet liquor or syrup called
_Dushab_, which Della Valle says is just the Italian _Mostocotto_, but
better, clearer, and not so mawkish (I. 689). (_Yonge's Athen._ X. 34;
_Baber_, p. 145; _Tavernier_, Bk. V. ch. xxi.)
[1] The _Encyc. Britann._, article "Money," gives the livre tournois of
this period as 18.17 francs. A French paper in _Notes and Queries_
(4th S. IV. 485) gives it under St. Lewis and Philip III. as
equivalent to 18.24 fr., and under Philip IV. to 17.95. And lastly,
experiment at the British Museum, made by the kind intervention of my
friend, Mr. E. Thomas, F.R.S., gave the weights of the _sols_ of St.
Lewis (1226-1270) and Philip IV. (1285-1314) respectively as 63 grains
and 61-1/2 grains of remarkably pure silver. These trials would give
the _livres_ (20 sols) as equivalent to 18.14 fr. and 17.70 fr.
respectively.
CHAPTER XVI.
CONCERNING THE GREAT CITY OF YASDI.
Yasdi also is properly in Persia; it is a good and noble city, and has a
great amount of trade. They weave there quantities of a certain silk
tissue known as _Yasdi_, which merchants carry into many quarters to
dispose of. The people are worshippers of Mahommet.[NOTE 1]
When you leave this city to travel further, you ride for seven days over
great plains, finding harbour to receive you at three places only. There
are many fine woods [producing dates] upon the way, such as one can easily
ride through; and in them there is great sport to be had in hunting and
hawking, there being partridges and quails and abundance of other game, so
that the merchants who pass that way have plenty of diversion. There are
also wild asses, handsome creatures. At the end of those seven marches
over the plain you come to a fine kingdom which is called Kerman.[NOTE 2]
NOTE 1.--YEZD, an ancient city, supposed by D'Anville to be the
_Isatichae_ of Ptolemy, is not called by Marco a kingdom, though having a
better title to the distinction than some which he classes as such. The
atabegs of Yezd dated from the middle of the 11th century, and their
Dynasty was permitted by the Mongols to continue till the end of the 13th,
when it was extinguished by Ghazan, and the administration made over to
the Mongol Diwan.
Yezd, in pre-Mahomedan times, was a great sanctuary of the Gueber worship,
though now it is a seat of fanatical Mahomedanism. It is, however, one of
the few places where the old religion lingers. In 1859 there were reckoned
850 families of Guebers in Yezd and fifteen adjoining villages, but they
diminish rapidly.
[Heyd (_Com. du Levant_, II. p. 109) says the inhabitants of Yezd wove the
finest silk of Taberistan.--H. C.] The silk manufactures still continue,
and, with other weaving, employ a large part of the population. The
_Yazdi_, which Polo mentions, finds a place in the Persian dictionaries,
and is spoken of by D'Herbelot as _Kumash-i-Yezdi_, "Yezd stuff." ["He
[Nadir Shah] bestowed upon the ambassador [Hakeem Ataleek, the prime
minister of Abulfiez Khan, King of Bokhara] a donation of a thousand
mohurs of Hindostan, twenty-five pieces of _Yezdy_ brocade, a rich dress,
and a horse with silver harness...." (_Memoirs of Khojah Abdulkurreem, a
Cashmerian of distinction ... transl. from the original Persian_, by
Francis Gladwin ... Calcutta, 1788, 8vo, p. 36.)--H. C.]
Yezd is still a place of important trade, and carries on a thriving
commerce with India by Bandar Abbasi. A visitor in the end of 1865 says:
"The external trade appears to be very considerable, and the merchants of
Yezd are reputed to be amongst the most enterprising and respectable of
their class in Persia. Some of their agents have lately gone, not only to
Bombay, but to the Mauritius, Java, and China."
(_Ilch._ I. 67-68; _Khanikoff, Mem._ p. 202; _Report by Major R. M.
Smith_, R.E.)
Friar Odoric, who visited Yezd, calls it the third best city of the
Persian Emperor, and says (_Cathay_, I. p. 52): "There is very great store
of victuals and all other good things that you can mention; but especially
is found there great plenty of figs; and raisins also, green as grass and
very small, are found there in richer profusion than in any other part of
the world." [He also gives from the smaller version of Ramusio's an awful
description of the Sea of Sand, one day distant from Yezd. (Cf. Tavernier,
1679, I. p. 116.)--H. C.]
NOTE 2.--I believe Della Valle correctly generalises when he says of
Persian travelling that "you always travel in a plain, but you always have
mountains on either hand" (I. 462). [Compare Macgregor, I. 254: "I really
cannot describe the road. Every road in Persia as yet seems to me to be
exactly alike, so ... my readers will take it for granted that the road
went over a waste, with barren rugged hills in the distance, or near; no
water, no houses, no people passed."--H. C.] The distance from Yezd to
Kerman is, according to Khanikoff's survey, 314 _kilometres_, or about 195
miles. Ramusio makes the time eight days, which is probably the better
reading, giving a little over 24 miles a day. Westergaard in 1844, and
Khanikoff in 1859, took _ten_ days; Colonel Goldsmid and Major Smith in
1865 _twelve_. ["The distance from Yezd to Kerman by the present high
road, 229 miles, is by caravans, generally made in nine stages; persons
travelling with all comforts do it in twelve stages; travellers whose time
is of some value do it easily in _seven_ days." (_Houtum-Schindler_, l.c.
pp. 490-491.)--H. C.]
Khanikoff observes on this chapter: "This notice of woods easy to ride
through, covering the plain of Yezd, is very curious. Now you find it a
plain of great extent indeed from N.W. to S.E., but narrow and arid;
indeed I saw in it only thirteen inhabited spots, counting two
caravanserais. Water for the inhabitants is brought from a great distance
by subterraneous conduits, a practice which may have tended to desiccate
the soil, for every trace of wood has completely disappeared."
Abbott travelled from Yezd to Kerman in 1849, by a road through Bafk,
_east_ of the usual road, which Khanikoff followed, and parallel to it;
and it is worthy of note that he found circumstances more accordant with
Marco's description. Before getting to Bafk he says of the plain that it
"extends to a great distance north and south, and is probably 20 miles in
breadth;" whilst Bafk "is remarkable for its _groves of date-trees_, in
the midst of which it stands, and which occupy a considerable space."
Further on he speaks of "wild tufts and bushes growing abundantly," and
then of "thickets of the _Ghez_ tree." He heard of the wild asses, but did
not see any. In his report to the Foreign Office, alluding to Marco Polo's
account, he says: "It is still true that wild asses and other game are
found in the _wooded spots_ on the road." The ass is the _Asinus Onager_,
the _Gor Khar_ of Persia, or _Kulan_ of the Tartars. (_Khan. Mem._ p. 200;
Id. _sur Marco Polo_, p. 21; _J. R. G. S._ XXV. 20-29; _Mr. Abbott's MS.
Report in Foreign office_.) [The difficulty has now been explained by
General Houtum-Schindler in a valuable paper published in the _Jour. Roy.
As. Soc._ N.S. XIII., October, 1881, p. 490. He says: "Marco Polo
travelled from Yazd to Kerman via Bafk. His description of the road, seven
days over great plains, harbour at three places only, is perfectly exact.
The fine woods, producing dates, are at Bafk itself. (The place is
generally called Baft.) Partridges and quails still abound; wild asses I
saw several on the western road, and I was told that there were a great
many on the Bafk road. Travellers and caravans now always go by the
eastern road via Anar and Bahramabad. Before the Sefaviehs (i.e. before
A.D. 1500) the Anar road was hardly, if ever, used; travellers always took
the Bafk road. The country from Yazd to Anar, 97 miles, seems to have been
totally uninhabited before the Sefaviehs. Anar, as late as A.D. 1340, is
mentioned as the frontier place of Kerman to the north, on the confines of
the Yazd desert. When Shah Abbas had caravanserais built at three places
between Yazd and Anar (Zein ud-din, Kerman-shahan, and Shamsh), the
eastern road began to be neglected." (Cf. Major Sykes' _Persia_, ch.
xxiii.)--H. C.]
CHAPTER XVII.
CONCERNING THE KINGDOM OF KERMAN.
Kerman is a kingdom which is also properly in Persia, and formerly it had
a hereditary prince. Since the Tartars conquered the country the rule is
no longer hereditary, but the Tartar sends to administer whatever lord he
pleases.[NOTE 1] In this kingdom are produced the stones called turquoises
in great abundance; they are found in the mountains, where they are
extracted from the rocks.[NOTE 2] There are also plenty of veins of steel
and _Ondanique_.[NOTE 3] The people are very skilful in making harness of
war; their saddles, bridles, spurs, swords, bows, quivers, and arms of
every kind, are very well made indeed according to the fashion of those
parts. The ladies of the country and their daughters also produce
exquisite needlework in the embroidery of silk stuffs in different
colours, with figures of beasts and birds, trees and flowers, and a
variety of other patterns. They work hangings for the use of noblemen so
deftly that they are marvels to see, as well as cushions, pillows quilts,
and all sorts of things.[NOTE 4]
In the mountains of Kerman are found the best falcons in the world. They
are inferior in size to the Peregrine, red on the breast, under the neck,
and between the thighs; their flight so swift that no bird can escape
them.[NOTE 5]
On quitting the city you ride on for seven days, always finding towns,
villages, and handsome dwelling-houses, so that it is very pleasant
travelling; and there is excellent sport also to be had by the way in
hunting and hawking. When you have ridden those seven days over a plain
country, you come to a great mountain; and when you have got to the top of
the pass you find a great descent which occupies some two days to go down.
All along you find a variety and abundance of fruits; and in former days
there were plenty of inhabited places on the road, but now there are none;
and you meet with only a few people looking after their cattle at pasture.
From the city of Kerman to this descent the cold in winter is so great
that you can scarcely abide it, even with a great quantity of
clothing.[NOTE 6]
NOTE 1.--Kerman is mentioned by Ptolemy, and also by Ammianus amongst the
cities of the country so called (_Carmania_): "_inter quas nitet_ Carmana
_omnium mater_." (XXIII. 6.)
M. Pauthier's supposition that _Sirjan_ was in Polo's time the capital, is
incorrect. (See _N. et E._ XIV. 208, 290.) Our Author's Kerman is the city
still so called; and its proper name would seem to have been _Kuwashir_.
(See _Reinaud, Mem. sur l'Inde_, 171; also _Sprenger P. and R. R._ 77.)
According to Khanikoff it is 5535 feet above the sea.
Kerman, on the fall of the Beni Buya Dynasty, in the middle of the 11th
century, came into the hands of a branch of the Seljukian Turks, who
retained it till the conquests of the Kings of Khwarizm, which just
preceded the Mongol invasion. In 1226 the Amir Borak, a Kara Khitaian, who
was governor on behalf of Jalaluddin of Khwarizm, became independent under
the title of Kutlugh Sultan. [He died in 1234.] The Mongols allowed this
family to retain the immediate authority, and at the time when Polo
returned from China the representative of the house was a lady known as
the _Padishah Khatun_ [who reigned from 1291], the wife successively of
the Ilkhans Abaka and Kaikhatu; an ambitious, clever, and masterful woman,
who put her own brother Siyurgutmish to death as a rival, and was herself,
after the decease of Kaikhatu, put to death by her brother's widow and
daughter [1294]. The Dynasty continued, nominally at least, to the reign
of the Ilkhan Khodabanda (1304-13), when it was extinguished. [See Major
Sykes' _Persia_, chaps, v. and xxiii.]
Kerman was a Nestorian see, under the Metropolitan of Fars. (_Ilch.
passim; Weil_, III. 454; _Lequien_, II. 1256.)
["There is some confusion with regard to the names of Kerman both as a
town and as a province or kingdom. We have the names Kerman, Kuwashir,
Bardshir. I should say the original name of the whole country was Kerman,
the ancient Karamania. A province of this was called Kureh-i-Ardeshir,
which, being contracted, became Kuwashir, and is spoken of as the province
in which Ardeshir Babekan, the first Sassanian monarch, resided. A part of
Kureh-i-Ardeshir was called Bardshir, or Bard-i-Ardeshir, now occasionally
Bardsir, and the present city of Kerman was situated at its north-eastern
corner. This town, during the Middle Ages, was called Bardshir. On a coin
of Qara Arslan Beg, King of Kerman, of A.H. 462, Mr. Stanley Lane Poole
reads Yazdashir instead of Bardshir. Of Al Idrisi's Yazdashir I see no
mention in histories; Bardshir was the capital and the place where most of
the coins were struck. Yazdashir, if such a place existed, can only have
been a place of small importance. It is, perhaps, a clerical error for
Bardshir; without diacritical points, both words are written alike. Later,
the name of the city became Kerman, the name Bardshir reverting to the
district lying south-west of it, with its principal place Mashiz. In a
similar manner Mashiz was often, and is so now, called Bardshir. Another
old town sometimes confused with Bardshir was Sirjan or Shirjan, once more
important than Bardshir; it is spoken of as the capital of Kerman, of
Bardshir, and of Sardsir. Its name now exists only as that of a district,
with principal place S'aidabad. The history of Kerman, 'Agd-ul-'Ola,
plainly says Bardshir is the capital of Kerman, and from the description
of Bardshir there is no doubt of its having been the present town Kerman.
It is strange that Marco Polo does not give the name of the city. In
Assemanni's _Bibliotheca Orientalis_ Kuwashir and Bardashir are mentioned
as separate cities, the latter being probably the old Mashiz, which as
early as A.H. 582 (A.D. 1186) is spoken of in the _History of Kerman_ as
an important town. The Nestorian bishop of the province Kerman, who stood
under the Metropolitan of Fars, resided at Hormuz." (_Houtum-Schindler_,
l.c. pp. 491-492.)
There does not seem any doubt as to the identity of Bardashir with the
present city of Kerman. (See _The Cities of Kirman in the time of
Hamd-Allah Mustawfi and Marco Polo_, by Guy le Strange, _Jour. R. As. Soc._
April, 1901, pp. 281, 290.) Hamd-Allah is the author of the Cosmography
known as the _Nuzhat-al-Kulub_ or "Heart's Delight." (Cf. Major Sykes'
_Persia_, chap. xvi., and the _Geographical Journal_ for February, 1902, p.
166.)--H. C.]
NOTE 2.--A MS. treatise on precious stones cited by Ouseley mentions
_Shebavek_ in Kerman as the site of a Turquoise mine. This is probably
_Shahr-i-Babek_, about 100 miles west of the city of Kerman, and not far
from _Parez_, where Abbott tells us there is a mine of these stones, now
abandoned. Goebel, one of Khanikoff's party, found a deposit of turquoises
at Taft, near Yezd. (_Ouseley's Travels_, I. 211; _J. R. G. S._ XXVI.
63-65; _Khan. Mem._ 203.)
["The province Kerman is still rich in turquoises. The mines of Pariz or
Parez are at Chemen-i-mo-aspan, 16 miles from Pariz on the road to
Bahramabad (principal place of Rafsinjan), and opposite the village or
garden called God-i-Ahmer. These mines were worked up to a few years ago;
the turquoises were of a pale blue. Other turquoises are found in the
present Bardshir plain, and not far from Mashiz, on the slopes of the
Chehel tan mountain, opposite a hill called the Bear Hill (tal-i-Khers).
The Shehr-i-Babek turquoise mines are at the small village Karik, a mile
from Medvar-i-Bala, 10 miles north of Shehr-i-Babek. They have two shafts,
one of which has lately been closed by an earthquake, and were worked up
to about twenty years ago. At another place, 12 miles from Shehr-i-Babek,
are seven old shafts now not worked for a long period. The stones of these
mines are also of a very pale blue, and have no great value."
(_Houtum-Schindler_, l.c. 1881, p. 491.)
The finest turquoises came from Khorasan; the mines were near Maaden,
about 48 miles to the north of Nishapuer. (Heyd, _Com. du Levant_, II. p.
653; Ritter, _Erdk._ pp. 325-330.)
It is noticeable that Polo does not mention indigo at Kerman.--H. C.]
NOTE 3.--Edrisi says that excellent iron was produced in the "cold
mountains" N.W. of Jiruft, i.e. somewhere south of the capital; and _Jihan
Numa_, or Great Turkish Geography, that the steel mines of Niriz, on the
borders of Kerman, were famous. These are also spoken of by Teixeira.
Major St. John enables me to indicate their position, in the hills east of
Niriz. (_Edrisi_, vol. i. p. 430; _Hammer, Mem. lur la Perse_, p. 275;
_Teixeira, Relaciones_, p. 378; and see Map of Itineraries, No. II.)
["Marco Polo's steel mines are probably the Parpa iron mines on the road
from Kerman to Shiraz, called even to-day M'aden-i-fulad (steel mine);
they are not worked now. Old Kerman weapons, daggers, swords, old
stirrups, etc., made of steel, are really beautiful, and justify Marco
Polo's praise of them" (_Houtum-Schindler_, l.c. p. 491)--H. C.]
_Ondanique_ of the Geog. Text, _Andaine_ of Pauthier's, _Andanicum_ of the
Latin, is an expression on which no light has been thrown since Ramusio's
time. The latter often asked the Persian merchants who visited Venice, and
they all agreed in stating that it was a sort of steel of such surpassing
value and excellence, that in the days of yore a man who possessed a
mirror, or sword, of _Andanic_ regarded it as he would some precious
jewel. This seems to me excellent evidence, and to give the true clue to
the meaning of _Ondanique_. I have retained the latter form because it
points most distinctly to what I believe to be the real word, viz.
_Hundwaniy_, "Indian Steel."[1] (See _Johnson's Pers. Dict._ and _De
Sacy's Chrestomathie Arabe_, II. 148.) In the _Vocabulista Arabico_, of
about A.D. 1200 (Florence, 1871, p. 211), _Hunduwan_ is explained by
_Ensis_. Vuellers explains _Hundwan_ as "anything peculiar to India,
especially swords," and quotes from Firdusi, "_Khanjar-i-Hundwan_," a
hanger of Indian steel.
The like expression appears in the quotation from Edrisi below as
_Hindiah_, and found its way into Spanish in the shapes of _Alhinde,
Alfinde, Alinde_, first with the meaning of _steel_, then assuming, that
of _steel mirror_, and finally that of metallic foil of a glass mirror.
(See _Dozy_ and _Engelmann_, 2d ed. pp. 144-145.) _Hint_ or _Al-hint_ is
used in Berber also for steel. (See _J. R. A. S._ IX. 255.)
The sword-blades of India had a great fame over the East, and Indian
steel, according to esteemed authorities, continued to be imported into
Persia till days quite recent. Its fame goes back to very old times.
Ctesias mentions two wonderful swords of such material that he got from
the king of Persia and his mother. It is perhaps the _ferrum candidum_ of
which the Malli and Oxydracae sent a 100 talents weight as a present to
Alexander.[2] Indian Iron and Steel ([Greek: sidaeros Indikos kai
stomoma]) are mentioned in the _Periplus_ as imports into the Abyssinian
ports. _Ferrum Indicum_ appears (at least according to one reading) among
the Oriental _species_ subject to duty in the Law of Marcus Aurelius and
Commodus on that matter. Salmasius notes that among surviving Greek
chemical treatises there was one [Greek: peri baphaes Indikou sidaerou],
"On the Tempering of Indian Steel." Edrisi says on this subject: "The
Hindus excel in the manufacture of iron, and in the preparation of those
ingredients along with which it is fused to obtain that kind of soft Iron
which is usually styled _Indian Steel_ (HINDIAH).[3] They also have
workshops wherein are forged the most famous sabres in the world.... It is
impossible to find anything to surpass the edge that you get from Indian
Steel (_al-hadid al-Hindi_)."
Allusions to the famous sword-blades of India would seem to be frequent in
Arabic literature. Several will be found in Hamasa's collection of ancient
Arabic poems translated by Freytag. The old commentator on one of these
passages says: "_Ut optimos gladios significet_ ... Indicos _esse dixit_,"
and here the word used in the original is _Hundwaniyah_. In Manger's
version of Arabshah's _Life of Timur_ are several allusions of the same
kind; one, a quotation from _Antar_, recalls the _ferrum candidum_ of
Curtius:
"Albi (gladii) Indici _meo in sanguine abluuntur_."
In the histories, even of the Mahomedan conquest of India, the Hindu
infidels are sent to _Jihannam_ with "the well-watered blade of the Hindi
sword"; or the sword is personified as "a Hindu of good family." Coming
down to later days, Chardin says of the steel of Persia: "They combine it
with Indian steel, which is more tractable ... and is much more esteemed."
Dupre, at the beginning of this century, tells us: "I used to believe ...
that the steel for the famous Persian sabres came from certain mines in
Khorasan. But according to all the information I have obtained, I can
assert that no mine of steel exists in that province. What is used for
these blades comes in the shape of disks from Lahore." Pottinger names
_steel_ among the imports into Kerman from India. Elphinstone the
Accurate, in his _Caubul_, confirms Dupre: "Indian Steel [in Afghanistan]
is most prized for the material; but the best swords are made in Persia
and in Syria;" and in his _History of India_, he repeats: "The steel of
India was in request with the ancients; it is celebrated in the oldest
Persian poem, and is still the material of the scimitars of Khorasan and
Damascus."[4]
Klaproth, in his _Asia Polyglotta_, gives _Andun_ as the Ossetish and
_Andan_ as the Wotiak, for Steel. Possibly these are essentially the same
with _Hundwaniy_ and _Alhinde_, pointing to India as the original source
of supply. [In the _Sikandar Nama, e Bara_ (or "Book of Alexander the
Great," written A.D. 1200, by Abu Muhammad bin Yusuf bin Mu,
Ayyid-i-Nizamu-'d-Din), translated by Captain H. Wilberforce Clarke
(Lond., 1881, large 8vo), steel is frequently mentioned: Canto xix. 257,
p. 202; xx. 12, p. 211; xlv. 38, p. 567; lviii. 32, pp. 695, 42, pp. 697,
62, 66, pp. 699; lix. 28, p. 703.--H. C.]
Avicenna, in his fifth book _De Anima_, according to Roger Bacon,
distinguishes three very different species of iron: "1st. Iron which is
good for striking or bearing heavy strokes, and for being forged by hammer
and fire, but not for cutting-tools. Of this hammers and anvils are made,
and this is what we commonly call _Iron_ simply. 2nd. That which is purer,
has more heat in it, and is better adapted to take an edge and to form
cutting-tools, but is not so malleable, viz. _Steel_. And the 3rd is that
which is called ANDENA. This is less known among the Latin nations. Its
special character is that like silver it is malleable and ductile under a
very low degree of heat. In other properties it is intermediate between
iron and steel." (_Fr. R. Baconis Opera Inedita_, 1859, pp. 382-383.) The
same passage, apparently, of Avicenna is quoted by Vincent of Beauvais,
but with considerable differences. (See _Speculum Naturale_, VII. ch. lii.
lx., and _Specul. Doctrinale_, XV. ch. lxiii.) The latter author writes
_Alidena_, and I have not been able to refer to Avicenna, so that I am
doubtful whether his _Andena_ is the same term with the _Andaine_ of
Pauthier and our _Ondanique_.
The popular view, at least in the Middle Ages, seems to have regarded
_Steel_ as a distinct natural species, the product of a necessarily
different _ore_, from iron; and some such view is, I suspect, still common
in the East. An old Indian officer told me of the reply of a native friend
to whom he had tried to explain the conversion of iron into steel--"What!
You would have me believe that if I put an ass into the furnace it will
come forth a horse." And Indian Steel again seems to have been regarded as
a distinct natural species from ordinary steel. It is in fact made by a
peculiar but simple process, by which the iron is converted _directly_
into cast-steel, without passing through any intermediate stage analogous
to that of _blister-steel_. When specimens were first examined in England,
chemists concluded that the steel was made direct from the _ore_. The
_Ondanique_ of Marco no doubt was a fine steel resembling the Indian
article. (_Mueller's Ctesias_, p. 80; _Curtius_, IX. 24; _Mueller's Geog.
Gr. Min._ I. 262; _Digest. Novum_, Lugd. 1551, Lib. XXXIX. Tit. 4;
_Salmas. Ex. Plinian._ II. 763; _Edrisi_, I. 65-66; _J. R. S. A._ A. 387
seqq.; _Hamasae Carmina_, I. 526; _Elliot_, II. 209, 394; _Reynolds's
Utbi_, p. 216.)
[Illustration: Texture, with Animals, etc., from a Cashmere Scarf in the
Indian Museum.
"De deverses maineres labores a bestes et ausiaus mout richement."]
NOTE 4.--Paulus Jovius in the 16th century says, I know not on what
authority, that Kerman was then celebrated for the fine temper of its
steel in scimitars and lance-points. These were eagerly bought at high
prices by the Turks, and their quality was such that one blow of a Kerman
sabre would cleave an European helmet without turning the edge. And I see
that the phrase, "Kermani blade" is used in poetry by Marco's contemporary
Amir Khusru of Delhi. (_P. Jov. Hist. of his own Time_, Bk. XIV.;
_Elliot_, III. 537.)
There is, or was in Pottinger's time, still a great manufacture of
_matchlocks_ at Kerman; but rose-water, shawls, and carpets are the
staples of the place now. Polo says nothing that points to shawl-making,
but it would seem from Edrisi that some such manufacture already existed
in the adjoining district of Bamm. It is possible that the "hangings"
spoken of by Polo may refer to the carpets. I have seen a genuine Kerman
carpet in the house of my friend, Sir Bartle Frere. It is of very short
pile, very even and dense; the design, a combination of vases, birds, and
floral tracery, closely resembling the illuminated frontispiece of some
Persian MSS.
The shawls are inferior to those of Kashmir in exquisite softness, but
scarcely in delicacy of texture and beauty of design. In 1850, their
highest quality did not exceed 30 _tomans_ (14_l._) in price. About 2200
looms were employed on the fabric. A good deal of Kerman wool called
_Kurk_, goes via Bandar Abbasi and Karachi to Amritsar, where it is mixed
with the genuine Tibetan wool in the shawl manufacture. Several of the
articles named in the text, including _pardahs_ ("cortines") are woven in
shawl-fabric. I scarcely think, however, that Marco would have confounded
woven shawl with needle embroidery. And Mr. Khanikoff states that the silk
embroidery, of which Marco speaks, is still performed with great skill and
beauty at Kerman. Our cut illustrates the textures figured with animals,
already noticed at p. 66.
The Guebers were numerous here at the end of last century, but they are
rapidly disappearing now. The Musulman of Kerman is, according to
Khanikoff, an epicurean gentleman, and even in regard to wine, which is
strong and plentiful, his divines are liberal. "In other parts of Persia
you find the scribblings on the walls of Serais to consist of
philosophical axioms, texts from the Koran, or abuse of local authorities.
From Kerman to Yezd you find only rhymes in praise of fair ladies or good
wine."
(_Pottinger's Travels_; _Khanik. Mem._ 186 seqq., and _Notice_, p. 21;
_Major Smith's Report_; _Abbott's MS. Report_ in F. O.; _Notes by Major O.
St. John_, R.E.)
NOTE 5.--Parez is famous for its falcons still, and so are the districts
of Aktur and Sirjan. Both Mr. Abbott and Major Smith were entertained with
hawking by Persian hosts in this neighbourhood. The late Sir O. St. John
identifies the bird described as the _Shahin_ (Falco _Peregrinator_), one
variety of which, the _Farsi_, is abundant in the higher mountains of S.
Persia. It is now little used in that region, the _Terlan_ or goshawk
being most valued, but a few are caught and sent for sale to the Arabs of
Oman. (_J. R. G. S._ XXV. 50, 63, and _Major St. John's Notes_.)
["The fine falcons, 'with red breasts and swift of flight,' come from
Pariz. They are, however, very scarce, two or three only being caught
every year. A well-trained Pariz falcon costs from 30 to 50 tomans (12_l._
to 20_l._), as much as a good horse." (_Houtum-Schindler_, l.c. p. 491.)
Major Sykes, _Persia_, ch. xxiii., writes: "Marco Polo was evidently a
keen sportsman, and his description of the _Shahin_, as it is termed,
cannot be improved upon." Major Sykes has a list given him by a Khan of
seven hawks of the province, all black and white, except the _Shahin_,
which has yellow eyes, and is the third in the order of size.--H. C.]
NOTE 6.--We defer geographical remarks till the traveller reaches Hormuz.
[1] A learned friend objects to Johnson's _Hundwaniy_ = "Indian Steel," as
too absolute; some word for _steel_ being wanted. Even if it be so, I
observe that in three places where Polo uses _Ondanique_ (here, ch.
xxi., and ch. xlii.), the phrase is always "_steel and ondanique_."
This looks as if his mental expression were _Pulad-i-Hundwani_,
rendered by an idiom like Virgil's _pocula et aurum_.
[2] Kenrick suggests that the "bright iron" mentioned by Ezekiel among the
wares of Tyre (ch. xxvii. 19) can hardly have been anything else than
Indian Steel, because named with cassia and _calamus_.
[3] Literally rendered by Mr. Redhouse: "The Indians do well the combining
of mixtures of the chemicals with which they (smelt and) cast the soft
iron, and it becomes _Indian_ (steel), being referred to India (in
this expression)."
[4] In _Richardson's Pers. Dict._, by Johnson, we have a word _Rohan,
Rohina_ (and other forms). "The finest Indian steel, of which the most
excellent swords are made; also the swords made of that steel."
CHAPTER XVIII.
OF THE CITY OF CAMADI AND ITS RUINS; ALSO TOUCHING THE CARAUNA ROBBERS.
After you have ridden down hill those two days, you find yourself in a
vast plain, and at the beginning thereof there is a city called CAMADI,
which formerly was a great and noble place, but now is of little
consequence, for the Tartars in their incursions have several times
ravaged it. The plain whereof I speak is a very hot region; and the
province that we now enter is called REOBARLES.
The fruits of the country are dates, pistachioes, and apples of Paradise,
with others of the like not found in our cold climate. [There are vast
numbers of turtledoves, attracted by the abundance of fruits, but the
Saracens never take them, for they hold them in abomination.] And on this
plain there is a kind of bird called francolin, but different from the
francolin of other countries, for their colour is a mixture of black and
white, and the feet and beak are vermilion colour.[NOTE 1]
The beasts also are peculiar; and first I will tell you of their oxen.
These are very large, and all over white as snow; the hair is very short
and smooth, which is owing to the heat of the country. The horns are short
and thick, not sharp in the point; and between the shoulders they have a
round hump some two palms high. There are no handsomer creatures in the
world. And when they have to be loaded, they kneel like the camel; once
the load is adjusted, they rise. Their load is a heavy one, for they are
very strong animals. Then there are sheep here as big as asses; and their
tails are so large and fat, that one tail shall weigh some 30 lbs. They
are fine fat beasts, and afford capital mutton.[NOTE 2]
In this plain there are a number of villages and towns which have lofty
walls of mud, made as a defence against the banditti,[NOTE 3] who are very
numerous, and are called CARAONAS. This name is given them because they
are the sons of Indian mothers by Tartar fathers. And you must know that
when these Caraonas wish to make a plundering incursion, they have certain
devilish enchantments whereby they do bring darkness over the face of day,
insomuch that you can scarcely discern your comrade riding beside you; and
this darkness they will cause to extend over a space of seven days'
journey. They know the country thoroughly, and ride abreast, keeping near
one another, sometimes to the number of 10,000, at other times more or
fewer. In this way they extend across the whole plain that they are going
to harry, and catch every living thing that is found outside of the towns
and villages; man, woman, or beast, nothing can escape them! The old men
whom they take in this way they butcher; the young men and the women they
sell for slaves in other countries; thus the whole land is ruined, and has
become well-nigh a desert.
The King of these scoundrels is called NOGODAR. This Nogodar had gone to
the Court of Chagatai, who was own brother to the Great Kaan, with some
10,000 horsemen of his, and abode with him; for Chagatai was his uncle.
And whilst there this Nogodar devised a most audacious enterprise, and I
will tell you what it was. He left his uncle who was then in Greater
Armenia, and fled with a great body of horsemen, cruel unscrupulous
fellows, first through BADASHAN, and then through another province called
PASHAI-DIR, and then through another called ARIORA-KESHEMUR. There he lost
a great number of his people and of his horses, for the roads were very
narrow and perilous. And when he had conquered all those provinces, he
entered India at the extremity of a province called DALIVAR. He
established himself in that city and government, which he took from the
King of the country, ASEDIN SOLDAN by name, a man of great power and
wealth. And there abideth Nogodar with his army, afraid of nobody, and
waging war with all the Tartars in his neighbourhood.[NOTE 4]
Now that I have told you of those scoundrels and their history, I must add
the fact that Messer Marco himself was all but caught by their bands in
such a darkness as that I have told you of; but, as it pleased God, he got
off and threw himself into a village that was hard by, called CONOSALMI.
Howbeit he lost his whole company except seven persons who escaped along
with him. The rest were caught, and some of them sold, some put to
death.[NOTE 5]
NOTE 1.--Ramusio has "Adam's apple" for apples of Paradise. This was some
kind of _Citrus_, though Lindley thinks it impossible to say precisely
what. According to Jacques de Vitry it was a beautiful fruit of the Citron
kind, in which the bite of human teeth was plainly discernible. (Note to
_Vulgar Errors_, II. 211; _Bongars_, I. 1099.) Mr. Abbott speaks of this
tract as "the districts (of Kerman) lying towards the South, which are
termed the Ghermseer or Hot Region, where the temperature of winter
resembles that of a charming spring, and where the palm, orange, and
lemon-tree flourish." (_MS. Report_; see also _J. R. G. S._ XXV. 56.)
["Marco Polo's apples of Paradise are more probably the fruits of the
Konar tree. There are no plantains in that part of the country. Turtle
doves, now as then, are plentiful, and as they are seldom shot, and are
said by the people to be unwholesome food, we can understand Marco Polo's
saying that the people do not eat them." (_Houtum-Schindler_, l.c. pp.
492-493.)--H. C.]
The Francolin here spoken of is, as Major Smith tells me, the _Darraj_ of
the Persians, the _Black Partridge_ of English sportsmen, sometimes called
the Red-legged Francolin. The Darraj is found in some parts of Egypt,
where its peculiar call is interpreted by the peasantry into certain
Arabic words, meaning "Sweet are the corn-ears! Praised be the Lord!" In
India, Baber tells us, the call of the Black Partridge was (less piously)
rendered "_Shir daram shakrak_," "I've got milk and sugar!" The bird seems
to be the [Greek: attagas] of Athenaeus, a fowl "speckled like the
partridge, but larger," found in Egypt and Lydia. The Greek version of its
cry is the best of all: "[Greek: tris tois kakourgois kaka]" ("Threefold
ills to the ill-doers!"). This is really like the call of the black
partridge in India as I recollect it. [_Tetrao francolinus_.--H. C.]
(_Chrestomathie Arabe_, II. 295; _Baber_, 320; _Yonge's Atken._ IX. 39.)
NOTE 2.--Abbott mentions the humped (though small) oxen in this part of
Persia, and that in some of the neighbouring districts they are taught to
kneel to receive the load, an accomplishment which seems to have struck
Mas'udi (III. 27), who says he saw it exhibited by oxen at Rai (near
modern Tehran). The Ain Akbari also ascribes it to a very fine breed in
Bengal. The whimsical name _Zebu_, given to the humped or Indian ox in
books of Zoology, was taken by Buffon from the exhibitors of such a beast
at a French Fair, who probably invented it. That the humped breeds of oxen
existed in this part of Asia in ancient times is shown by sculptures at
Kouyunjik. (See cut below.)
[Illustration: Humped Oxen from the Assyrian Sculptures at Koyunjik.]
A letter from Agassiz, printed in the Proc. As. Soc. Bengal (1865), refers
to wild "zebus," and calls the species a small one. There is no wild
"zebu," and some of the breeds are of enormous size.
["White oxen, with short thick horns and a round hump between the
shoulders, are now very rare between Kerman and Bender 'Abbas. They are,
however, still to be found towards Beluchistan and Mekran, and they kneel
to be loaded like camels. The sheep which I saw had fine large tails; I
did not, however, hear of any having so high a weight as thirty pounds."
(_Houtum-Schindler_, l.c. p. 493.)--H. C.]
The fat-tailed sheep is well known in many parts of Asia and part of
Africa. It is mentioned by Ctesias, and by Aelian, who says the shepherds
used to extract the tallow from the live animal, sewing up the tail again;
exactly the same story is told by the Chinese Pliny, Ma Twan-lin. Marco's
statements as to size do not surpass those of the admirable Kampfer: "In
size they so much surpass the common sheep that it is not unusual to see
them as tall as a donkey, whilst all are much more than three feet; and as
to the tail I shall not exceed the truth, though I may exceed belief, if I
say that it sometimes reaches 40 lbs. in weight." Captain Hutton was
assured by an Afghan sheep-master that tails had occurred in his flocks
weighing 12 Tabriz _mans_, upwards of 76 lbs.! The Afghans use the fat as
an aperient, swallowing a dose of 4 to 6 lbs! Captain Hutton's friend
testified that trucks to bear the sheep-tails were sometimes used among
the Taimunis (north of Herat). This may help to locate that ancient and
slippery story. Josafat Barbaro says he had seen the thing, but is vague
as to place. (_Aelian Nat. An._ III. 3, IV. 32; _Amoen. Exoticae;
Ferrier_, H. of Afghans, p. 294; _J. A. S._ B. XV. 160.)
[Rabelais says (Bk. I. ch. xvi.): "Si de ce vous efmerveillez,
efmerveillez vous d'advantage de la queue des beliers de la Scythie, qui
pesait plus de trente livres; et des moutons de Surie, esquels fault (si
Tenaud, dict vray) affuster une charrette au cul, pour la porter tant
qu'elle est longue et pesante." (See G. Capus, _A travers le roy. de
Tamerlan_, pp. 21-23, on the fat sheep.)--H. C.]
NOTE 3.--The word rendered _banditti_ is in Pauthier _Carans_, in G. Text
_Caraunes_, in the Latin "_a_ scaranis _et malandrinis_." The last is no
doubt correct, standing for the old Italian _Scherani_, bandits. (See
_Cathay_, p. 287, note.)
NOTE 4.--This is a knotty subject, and needs a long note.
The KARAUNAHS are mentioned often in the histories of the Mongol regime in
Persia, first as a Mongol tribe forming a _Tuman_, i.e. a division or
corps of 10,000 in the Mongol army (and I suspect it was the phrase the
_Tuman of the Karaunahs_ in Marco's mind that suggested his repeated use
of the number 10,000 in speaking of them); and afterwards as daring and
savage freebooters, scouring the Persian provinces, and having their
headquarters on the Eastern frontiers of Persia. They are described as
having had their original seats on the mountains north of the Chinese wall
near _Karaun Jidun_ or _Khidun_; and their special accomplishment in war
was the use of Naphtha Fire. Rashiduddin mentions the _Karanut_ as a
branch of the great Mongol tribe of the Kungurats, who certainly had their
seat in the vicinity named, so these may possibly be connected with the
Karaunahs. The same author says that the Tuman of the Karaunahs formed the
_Inju_ or _peculium_ of Arghun Khan.
Wassaf calls them "a kind of goblins rather than human beings, the most
daring of all the Mongols"; and Mirkhond speaks in like terms.
Dr. Bird of Bombay, in discussing some of the Indo-Scythic coins which
bear the word _Korano_ attached to the prince's name, asserts this to
stand for the name of the Karaunah, "who were a Graeco-Indo-Scythic tribe
of robbers in the Punjab, who are mentioned by Marco Polo," a somewhat
hasty conclusion which Pauthier adopts. There is, Quatremere observes, no
mention of the Karaunahs before the Mongol invasion, and this he regards
as the great obstacle to any supposition of their having been a people
previously settled in Persia. Reiske, indeed, with no reference to the
present subject, quotes a passage from Hamza of Ispahan, a writer of the
10th century, in which mention is made of certain troops called
_Karaunahs_. But it seems certain that in this and other like cases the
real reading was _Kazawinah_, people of Kazvin. (See _Reiske's Constant.
Porphyrog._ Bonn. ed. II. 674; _Gottwaldt's Hamza Ispahanensis_, p. 161;
and _Quatremere_ in _J. A._ ser. V. tom. xv. 173.) Ibn Batuta only once
mentions the name, saying that Tughlak Shah of Dehli was "one of those
Turks called _Karaunas_ who dwell in the mountains between Sind and
Turkestan." Hammer has suggested the derivation of the word _Carbine_ from
_Karawinah_ (as he writes), and a link in such an etymology is perhaps
furnished by the fact that in the 16th century the word _Carbine_ was used
for some kind of irregular horseman.
(_Gold. Horde_, 214; _Ilch._ I. 17, 344, etc.; _Erdmann_, 168, 199, etc.;
_J. A. S._, B. X. 96; _Q. R._ 130; _Not. et Ext._ XIV. 282; _I. B._ III.
201; _Ed. Webbe, his Travailes_, p. 17, 1590. Reprinted 1868.)
As regards the account given by Marco of the origin of the Caraonas, it
seems almost necessarily a mistaken one. As Khanikoff remarks, he might
have confounded them with the Biluchis, whose Turanian aspect (at least as
regards the Brahuis) shows a strong infusion of Turki blood, and who might
be rudely described as a cross between Tartars and Indians. It is indeed
an odd fact that the word _Karani_ (vulgo _Cranny_) is commonly applied in
India at this day to the mixed race sprung from European fathers and
Native mothers, and this might be cited in corroboration of Marsden's
reference to the Sanskrit _Karana_, but I suspect the coincidence arises
in another way. _Karana_ is the name applied to a particular class of mixt
blood, whose special occupation was writing and accounts. But the prior
sense of the word seems to have been "clever, skilled," and hence a writer
or scribe. In this sense we find _Karani_ applied in Ibn Batuta's day to a
ship's clerk, and it is used in the same sense in the _Ain Akbari_.
Clerkship is also the predominant occupation of the East-Indians, and
hence the term Karani is applied to them from their business, and not from
their mixt blood. We shall see hereafter that there is a Tartar term
_Arghun_, applied to fair children born of a Mongol mother and _white_
father; it is possible that there may have been a correlative word like
_Karaun_ (from _Kara_, black) applied to dark children born of Mongol
father and black mother, and that this led Marco to a false theory.
[Major Sykes (_Persia_) devotes a chapter (xxiv.) to _The Karwan
Expedition_ in which he says: "Is it not possible that the Karwanis are
the Caraonas of Marco Polo? They are distinct from the surrounding
Baluchis, and pay no tribute."--H. C.]
[Illustration: Portrait of a Hazara.]
Let us turn now to the name of Nogodar. Contemporaneously with the
Karaunahs we have frequent mention of predatory bands known as
_Nigudaris_, who seem to be distinguished from the Karaunahs, but had a
like character for truculence. Their headquarters were about Sijistan, and
Quatremere seems disposed to look upon them as a tribe indigenous in that
quarter. Hammer says they were originally the troops of Prince Nigudar,
grandson of Chaghatai, and that they were a rabble of all sorts, Mongols,
Turkmans, Kurds, Shuls, and what not. We hear of their revolts and
disorders down to 1319, under which date Mirkhond says that there had been
one-and-twenty fights with them in four years. Again we hear of them in
1336 about Herat, whilst in Baber's time they turn up as _Nukdari_, fairly
established as tribes in the mountainous tracts of Karnud and Ghur, west
of Kabul, and coupled with the Hazaras, who still survive both in name and
character. "Among both," says Baber, "there are some who speak the Mongol
language." Hazaras and _Takdaris_ (read _Nukdaris_) again occur coupled in
the _History of Sind_. (See _Elliot_, I. 303-304.) [On the struggle
against Timur of Toumen, veteran chief of the Nikoudrians (1383-84), see
Major David Price's _Mahommedan History_, London, 1821, vol. iii. pp.
47-49, H. C.] In maps of the 17th century, as of Hondius and Blaeuw, we
find the mountains north of Kabul termed _Nochdarizari_, in which we cannot
miss the combination Nigudar-Hazarah, whencesoever it was got. The Hazaras
are eminently Mongol in feature to this day, and it is very probable that
they or some part of them are the descendants of the Karaunahs or the
Nigudaris, or of both, and that the origination of the bands so called,
from the scum of the Mongol inundation, is thus in degree confirmed. The
Hazaras generally are said to speak an old dialect of Persian. But one
tribe in Western Afghanistan retains both the name of Mongols and a
language of which six-sevenths (judging from a vocabulary published by
Major Leech) appear to be Mongol. Leech says, too, that the Hazaras
generally are termed _Moghals_ by the Ghilzais. It is worthy of notice that
Abu'l Fazl, who also mentions the Nukdaris among the nomad tribes of Kabul,
says the Hazaras were the remains of the Chaghataian army which Mangu Kaan
sent to the aid of Hulaku, under the command of Nigudar Oghlan. (_Not. et
Ext._ XIV. 284; _Ilch._ I. 284, 309, etc,; _Baber_, 134, 136, 140; _J. As._
ser. IV. tom. iv. 98; _Ayeen Akbery_, II. 192-193.)
So far, excepting as to the doubtful point of the relation between
Karaunahs and Nigudaris, and as to the origin of the former, we have a
general accordance with Polo's representations. But it is not very easy to
identify with certainty the inroad on India to which he alludes, or the
person intended by Nogodar, nephew of Chaghatai. It seems as if two
persons of that name had each contributed something to Marco's history.
We find in Hammer and D'Ohsson that one of the causes which led to the war
between Barka Khan and Hulaku in 1262 (see above, _Prologue_, ch. ii.) was
the violent end that had befallen three princes of the House of Juji, who
had accompanied Hulaku to Persia in command of the contingent of that
House. When war actually broke out, the contingent made their escape from
Persia. One party gained Kipchak by way of Derbend; another, in greater
force, led by NIGUDAR and Onguja, escaped to Khorasan, pursued by the
troops of Hulaku, and thence eastward, where they seized upon Ghazni and
other districts bordering on India.
But again: Nigudar Aghul, or Oghlan, son of (the younger) Juji, son of
_Chaghatai_, was the leader of the Chaghataian contingent in Hulaku's
expedition, and was still attached to the Mongol-Persian army in 1269,
when Borrak Khan, of the House of Chaghatai, was meditating war against
his kinsman, Abaka of Persia. Borrak sent to the latter an ambassador, who
was the bearer of a secret message to Prince Nigudar, begging him not to
serve against the head of his own House. Nigudar, upon this, made a
pretext of retiring to his own headquarters in _Georgia_, hoping to reach
Borrak's camp by way of Derbend. He was, however, intercepted, and lost
many of his people. With 1000 horse he took refuge in Georgia, but was
refused an asylum, and was eventually captured by Abaka's commander on
that frontier. His officers were executed, his troops dispersed among
Abaka's army, and his own life spared under surveillance. I find no more
about him. In 1278 Hammer speaks of him as dead, and of the Nigudarian
bands as having been formed out of his troops. But authority is not given.
The second Nigudar is evidently the one to whom Abu'l Fazl alludes.
Khanikoff assumes that the Nigudar who went off towards India about 1260
(he puts the date earlier) was Nigudar, the grandson of Chaghatai, but he
takes no notice of the second story just quoted.
In the former story we have bands under _Nigudar_ going off by Ghazni,
_and conquering country on the Indian frontier_. In the latter we have
_Nigudar, a descendant of Chaghatai_, trying to escape from his camp _on
the frontier of Great Armenia_. Supposing the Persian historians to be
correct, it looks as if Marco had rolled two stories into one.
Some other passages may be cited before quitting this part of the subject.
A chronicle of Herat, translated by Barbier de Meynard, says, under 1298:
"The King Fakhruddin (of Herat) had the imprudence to authorise _the Amir
Nigudar_ to establish himself in a quarter of the city, with 300
adventurers from 'Irak. This little troop made frequent raids in Kuhistan,
Sijistan, Farrah, etc., spreading terror. Khodabanda, at the request of
his brother Ghazan Khan, came from Mazanderan to demand the immediate
surrender of these brigands," etc. And in the account of the tremendous
foray of the Chaghataian Prince Kotlogh Shah, on the east and south of
Persia in 1299, we find one of his captains called _Nigudar_ Bahadur.
(_Gold. Horde_, 146, 157, 164; _D'Ohsson_, IV. 378 seqq., 433 seqq., 513
seqq.; _Ilch._ I. 216, 261, 284; II. 104; _J. A._ ser. V. tom. xvii.
455-456, 507; _Khan. Notice_, 31.)
As regards the route taken by Prince Nogodar in his incursion into India,
we have no difficulty with BADAKHSHAN. PASHAI-DIR is a copulate name; the
former part, as we shall see reason to believe hereafter, representing the
country between the Hindu Kush and the Kabul River (see infra, ch. xxx.);
the latter (as Pauthier already has pointed out), DIR, the chief town of
Panjkora, in the hill country north of Peshawar. In _Ariora-Keshemur_ the
first portion only is perplexing. I will mention the most probable of the
solutions that have occurred to me, and a second, due to that eminent
archaeologist, General A. Cunningham. (1) _Ariora_ may be some corrupt or
Mongol form of _Aryavartta_, a sacred name applied to the Holy Lands of
Indian Buddhism, of which Kashmir was eminently one to the Northern
Buddhists. _Oron_, in Mongol, is a Region or Realm, and may have taken the
place of _Vartta_, giving _Aryoron_ or Ariora. (2) "_Ariora_," General
Cunningham writes, "I take to be the _Harhaura_ of Sanscrit--i.e. the
Western Panjab. Harhaura was the North-Western Division of the _Nava-
Khanda_, or Nine Divisions of Ancient India. It is mentioned between
_Sindhu-Sauvira_ in the west (i.e. Sind), and _Madra_ in the north (i.e.
the Eastern Panjab, which is still called _Madar-Des_). The name of
Harhaura is, I think, preserved in the Haro River. Now, the Sind-Sagor
Doab formed a portion of the kingdom of Kashmir, and the joint names, like
those of Sindhu-Sauvira, describe only one State." The names of the Nine
Divisions in question are given by the celebrated astronomer, Varaha
Mihira, who lived in the beginning of the 6th century, and are repeated by
Al Biruni. (See _Reinaud, Mem. sur l'Inde_, p. 116.) The only objection to
this happy solution seems to lie in Al Biruni's remark, that the names in
question were in general no longer used even in his time (A.D. 1030).
There can be no doubt that _Asidin Soldan_ is, as Khanikoff has said,
Ghaiassuddin Balban, Sultan of Delhi from 1266 to 1286, and for years
before that a man of great power in India, and especially in the Panjab,
of which he had in the reign of Ruknuddin (1236) held independent
possession.
Firishta records several inroads of Mongols in the Panjab during the reign
of Ghaiassuddin, in withstanding one of which that King's eldest son was
slain; and there are constant indications of their presence in Sind till
the end of the century. But we find in that historian no hint of the chief
circumstances of this part of the story, viz., the conquest of Kashmir and
the occupation of _Dalivar_ or _Dilivar_ (G. T.), evidently (whatever its
identity) in the plains of India. I do find, however, in the history of
Kashmir, as given by Lassen (III. 1138), that in the end of 1259,
Lakshamana Deva, King of Kashmir, was killed in a campaign against the
_Turushka_ (Turks or Tartars), and that their leader, who is called
Kajjala, got hold of the country and held it till 1287.[1] It is difficult
not to connect this both with Polo's story and with the escapade of
Nigudar about 1260, noting also that this occupation of Kashmir extended
through the whole reign of Ghaiassuddin.
We seem to have a memory of Polo's story preserved in one of Elliot's
extracts from Wassaf, which states that in 708 (A.D. 1308), after a great
defeat of a Mongol inroad which had passed the Ganges, Sultan Ala'uddin
Khilji ordered a pillar of Mongol heads to be raised before the Badaun
gate, "_as was done with the_ Nigudari _Moghuls_" (III. 48).
We still have to account for the occupation and locality of _Dalivar_;
Marsden supposed it to be _Lahore_; Khanikoff considers it to be
_Dirawal_, the ancient desert capital of the Bhattis, properly (according
to Tod) _Deorawal_, but by a transposition common in India, as it is in
Italy, sometimes called _Dilawar_, in the modern State of Bhawalpur. But
General Cunningham suggests a more probable locality in DILAWAR on the
west bank of the Jelam, close to Darapur, and opposite to Mung. These two
sites, Dilawar-Darapur on the west bank, and Mung on the east, are
identified by General Cunningham (I believe justly) with Alexander's
Bucephala and Nicaea. The spot, which is just opposite the battlefield of
Chilianwala, was visited (15th December, 1868) at my request, by my friend
Colonel R. Maclagan, R.E. He writes: "The present village of Dilawar
stands a little above the town of Darapur (I mean on higher ground),
looking down on Darapur and on the river, and on the cultivated and wooded
plain along the river bank. The remains of the Old Dilawar, in the form of
quantities of large bricks, cover the low round-backed spurs and knolls of
the broken rocky hills around the present village, but principally on the
land side. They cover a large area of very irregular character, and may
clearly be held to represent a very considerable town. There are no
indications of the form of buildings,... but simply large quantities of
large bricks, which for a long time have been carried away and used for
modern buildings.... After rain coins are found on the surface.... There
can be no doubt of a very large extent of ground, of very irregular and
uninviting character, having been covered at some time with buildings. The
position on the Jelam would answer well for the Dilawar which the Mongol
invaders took and held.... The strange thing is that the name should not
be mentioned (I believe it is not) by any of the well-known Mahomedan
historians of India. So much for Dilawar.... The people have no
traditions. But there are the remains; and there is the name, borne by the
existing village on part of the old site." I had come to the conclusion
that this was almost certainly Polo's Dalivar, and had mapped it as such,
before I read certain passages in the _History of Ziyauddin Barni_, which
have been translated by Professor Dowson for the third volume of Elliot's
_India_. When the comrades of Ghaiassuddin Balban urged him to conquests,
the Sultan pointed to the constant danger from the Mongols,[2] saying:
"These accursed wretches have heard of the wealth and condition of
Hindustan, and have set their hearts upon conquering and plundering it.
_They have taken and plundered Lahor within my territories, and no year
passes that they do not come here and plunder the villages_.... They even
talk about the conquest and sack of Delhi." And under a later date the
historian says: "The Sultan... marched to Lahor, and ordered the
rebuilding of the fort which the Mughals had destroyed in the reigns of
the sons of Shamsuddin. The towns and villages of Lahor which the Mughals
had devastated and laid waste he repeopled." Considering these passages,
and the fact that Polo had no personal knowledge of Upper India, I now
think it probable that Marsden was right, and that _Dilivar_ is really a
misunderstanding of "_Citta_ di Livar" for _Lahawar_ or Lahore.
The _Magical darkness_ which Marco ascribes to the evil arts of the
Karaunas is explained by Khanikoff from the phenomenon of _Dry Fog_, which
he has often experienced in Khorasan, combined with the _Dust Storm_ with
which we are familiar in Upper India. In Sind these phenomena often
produce a great degree of darkness. During a battle fought between the
armies of Sindh and Kachh in 1762, such a fog came on, obscuring the light
of day for some six hours, during which the armies were intermixed with
one another and fighting desperately. When the darkness dispersed they
separated, and the consternation of both parties was so great at the
events of the day that both made a precipitate retreat. In 1844 this
battle was still spoken of with wonder. (_J. Bomb. Br. R. A. S._ I. 423.)
Major St. John has given a note on his own experience of these curious
Kerman fogs (see _Ocean Highways_, 1872, p. 286): "Not a breath of air was
stirring, and the whole effect was most curious, and utterly unlike any
other fog I have seen. No deposit of dust followed, and the feeling of the
air was decidedly damp. I unfortunately could not get my hygrometer till
the fog had cleared away."
[_General Houtum-Schindler_, l.c. p. 493, writes: "The magical darkness
might, as Colonel Yule supposes, be explained by the curious dry fogs or
dust storms, often occurring in the neighbourhood of Kerman, but it must
be remarked that Marco Polo was caught in one of these storms down in
Jiruft, where, according to the people I questioned, such storms now never
occur. On the 29th of September, 1879, at Kerman, a high wind began to
blow from S.S.W. at about 5 P.M. First there came thick heavy clouds of
dust with a few drops of rain. The heavy dust then settled down, the
lighter particles remained in the air, forming a dry fog of such density
that large objects, like houses, trees, etc., could not even faintly be
distinguished at a distance of a hundred paces. The barometers suffered no
change, the three I had with me remained in _statu quo_." "The heat is
over by the middle of September, and after the autumnal equinox, there are
a few days of what is best described as a dense dry fog. This was
undoubtedly the haze referred to by Marco Polo." (_Major Sykes_, ch. iv.)
--H. C.]
Richthofen's remarkable exposition of the phenomena of the _loess_ in
North China, and of the sub-aerial deposits of the steppes and of Central
Asia throws some light on this. But this hardly applies to St John's
experience of "no deposit of dust." (See Richthofen, _China_, pp. 96-97 s.
_MS. Note_, H. Y.)
The belief that such opportune phenomena were produced by enchantment was
a thoroughly Tartar one. D'Herbelot relates (art. _Giagathai_) that in an
action with a rebel called Mahomed Tarabi, the Mongols were encompassed by
a dust storm which they attributed to enchantment on the part of the
enemy, and it so discouraged them that they took to flight.
NOTE 5.--The specification that only _seven_ were saved from Marco's
company is peculiar to Pauthier's Text, not appearing in the G. T.
Several names compounded of _Salm_ or _Salmi_ occur on the dry lands on
the borders of Kerman. Edrisi, however (I. p. 428), names a place called
KANAT-UL-SHAM as the first march in going from Jiruft to Walashjird.
Walashjird is, I imagine, represented by _Galashkird_, Major R. Smith's
third march from Jiruft (see my Map of Routes from Kerman to Hormuz); and
as such an indication agrees with the view taken below of Polo's route,
I am strongly disposed to identify Kanat-ul-Sham with his _castello_ or
walled village of _Canosalmi_.
["Marco Polo's Conosalmi, where he was attacked by robbers and lost the
greater part of his men, is perhaps the ruined town or village Kamasal
(Kahn-i-asal = the honey canal), near Kahnuj-i-pancheh and Vakilabad in
Jiruft. It lies on the direct road between Shehr-i-Daqianus (Camadi) and
the Nevergun Pass. The road goes in an almost due southerly direction. The
Nevergun Pass accords with Marco Polo's description of it; it is very
difficult, on account of the many great blocks of sandstone scattered upon
it. Its proximity to the Bashakird mountains and Mekran easily accounts
for the prevalence of robbers, who infested the place in Marco Polo's
time. At the end of the Pass lies the large village Shamil, with an old
fort; the distance thence to the site of Hormuz or Bender 'Abbas (lying
more to the west) is 52 miles, two days' march. The climate of Bender
'Abbas is very bad, strangers speedily fall sick, two of my men died
there, all the others were seriously ill." (_Houtum-Schindler_, l.c. pp.
495-496.) Major Sykes (ch. xxiii.) says: "Two marches from Camadi was
Kahn-i-Panchur, and a stage beyond it lay the ruins of Fariab or Pariab,
which was once a great city, and was destroyed by a flood, according to
local legend. It may have been Alexander's Salmous, as it is about the
right distance from the coast, and if so, could not have been Marco's
_Cono Salmi_. Continuing on, Galashkird mentioned by Edrisi, is the next
stage."--H. C.]
The raids of the Mekranis and Biluchis long preceded those of the
Karaunas, for they were notable even in the time of Mahmud of Ghazni, and
they have continued to our own day to be prosecuted nearly on the same
stage and in the same manner. About 1721, 4000 horsemen of this
description plundered the town of Bander Abbasi, whilst Captain Alex.
Hamilton was in the port; and Abbott, in 1850, found the dread of Biluch
robbers to extend almost to the gates of Ispahan. A striking account of
the Biluch robbers and their characteristics is given by General Ferrier.
(See _Hamilton_, I. 109; _J. R. G. S._ XXV.; _Khanikoff's Memoire; Macd.
Kinneir_, 196; _Caravan Journeys_, p. 437 seq.)
[1] _Khajlak_ is mentioned as a leader of the Mongol raids in India by the
poet Amir Khusru (A.D. 1289; see _Elliot_ III. 527).
[2] Professor Cowell compares the Mongol inroads in the latter part of the
13th and beginning of the 14th century, in their incessant recurrence,
to the incursions of the Danes in England. A passage in Wassaf
(_Elliot_, III. 38) shows that the Mongols were, circa 1254-55,
already in occupation of Sodia on the Chenab, and districts adjoining.
CHAPTER XIX.
OF THE DESCENT TO THE CITY OF HORMOS.
The Plain of which we have spoken extends in a southerly direction for
five days' journey, and then you come to another descent some twenty miles
in length, where the road is very bad and full of peril, for there are
many robbers and bad characters about. When you have got to the foot of
this descent you find another beautiful plain called the PLAIN OF FORMOSA.
This extends for two days' journey; and you find in it fine streams of
water with plenty of date-palms and other fruit-trees. There are also many
beautiful birds, francolins, popinjays, and other kinds such as we have
none of in our country. When you have ridden these two days you come to
the Ocean Sea, and on the shore you find a city with a harbour which is
called HORMOS.[NOTE 1] Merchants come thither from India, with ships
loaded with spicery and precious stones, pearls, cloths of silk and gold,
elephants' teeth, and many other wares, which they sell to the merchants
of Hormos, and which these in turn carry all over the world to dispose of
again. In fact, 'tis a city of immense trade. There are plenty of towns
and villages under it, but it is the capital. The King is called RUOMEDAM
AHOMET. It is a very sickly place, and the heat of the sun is tremendous.
If any foreign merchant dies there, the King takes all his property.
In this country they make a wine of dates mixt with spices, which is very
good. When any one not used to it first drinks this wine, it causes
repeated and violent purging, but afterwards he is all the better for it,
and gets fat upon it. The people never eat meat and wheaten bread except
when they are ill, and if they take such food when they are in health it
makes them ill. Their food when in health consists of dates and salt-fish
(tunny, to wit) and onions, and this kind of diet they maintain in order
to preserve their health.[NOTE 2]
Their ships are wretched affairs, and many of them get lost; for they have
no iron fastenings, and are only stitched together with twine made from
the husk of the Indian nut. They beat this husk until it becomes like
horse-hair, and from that they spin twine, and with this stitch the planks
of the ships together. It keeps well, and is not corroded by the
sea-water, but it will not stand well in a storm. The ships are not
pitched, but are rubbed with fish-oil. They have one mast, one sail, and
one rudder, and have no deck, but only a cover spread over the cargo when
loaded. This cover consists of hides, and on the top of these hides they
put the horses which they take to India for sale. They have no iron to make
nails of, and for this reason they use only wooden trenails in their
shipbuilding, and then stitch the planks with twine as I have told you.
Hence 'tis a perilous business to go a voyage in one of those ships, and
many of them are lost, for in that Sea of India the storms are often
terrible.[NOTE 3]
The people are black, and are worshippers of Mahommet. The residents avoid
living in the cities, for the heat in summer is so great that it would
kill them. Hence they go out (to sleep) at their gardens in the country,
where there are streams and plenty of water. For all that they would not
escape but for one thing that I will mention. The fact is, you see, that
in summer a wind often blows across the sands which encompass the plain,
so intolerably hot that it would kill everybody, were it not that when
they perceive that wind coming they plunge into water up to the neck, and
so abide until the wind have ceased.[NOTE 4] [And to prove the great heat
of this wind, Messer Mark related a case that befell when he was there.
The Lord of Hormos, not having paid his tribute to the King of Kerman the
latter resolved to claim it at the time when the people of Hormos were
residing away from the city. So he caused a force of 1600 horse and 5000
foot to be got ready, and sent them by the route of Reobarles to take the
others by surprise. Now, it happened one day that through the fault of
their guide they were not able to reach the place appointed for their
night's halt, and were obliged to bivouac in a wilderness not far from
Hormos. In the morning as they were starting on their march they were
caught by that wind, and every man of them was suffocated, so that not one
survived to carry the tidings to their Lord. When the people of Hormos
heard of this they went forth to bury the bodies lest they should breed a
pestilence. But when they laid hold of them by the arms to drag them to
the pits, the bodies proved to be so _baked_, as it were, by that
tremendous heat, that the arms parted from the trunks, and in the end the
people had to dig graves hard by each where it lay, and so cast them
in.][NOTE 5]
The people sow their wheat and barley and other corn in the month of
November, and reap it in the month of March. The dates are not gathered
till May, but otherwise there is no grass nor any other green thing, for
the excessive heat dries up everything.
When any one dies they make a great business of the mourning, for women
mourn their husbands four years. During that time they mourn at least once
a day, gathering together their kinsfolk and friends and neighbours for
the purpose, and making a great weeping and wailing. [And they have women
who are mourners by trade, and do it for hire.]
Now, we will quit this country. I shall not, however, now go on to tell
you about India; but when time and place shall suit we shall come round
from the north and tell you about it. For the present, let us return by
another road to the aforesaid city of Kerman, for we cannot get at those
countries that I wish to tell you about except through that city.
I should tell you first, however, that King Ruomedam Ahomet of Hormos,
which we are leaving, is a liegeman of the King of Kerman.[NOTE 6]
On the road by which we return from Hormos to Kerman you meet with some
very fine plains, and you also find many natural hot baths; you find
plenty of partridges on the road; and there are towns where victual is
cheap and abundant, with quantities of dates and other fruits. The wheaten
bread, however, is so bitter, owing to the bitterness of the water, that
no one can eat it who is not used to it. The baths that I mentioned have
excellent virtues; they cure the itch and several other diseases.[NOTE 7]
Now, then, I am going to tell you about the countries towards the north,
of which you shall hear in regular order. Let us begin.
NOTE 1.--Having now arrived at HORMUZ, it is time to see what can be made
of the Geography of the route from Kerman to that port.
The port of Hormuz, [which had taken the place of Kish as the most
important market of the Persian Gulf (H. C.)], stood upon the mainland. A
few years later it was transferred to the island which became so famous,
under circumstances which are concisely related by Abulfeda:--"Hormuz is
the port of Kerman, a city rich in palms, and very hot. One who has
visited it in our day tells me that the ancient Hormuz was devastated by
the incursions of the Tartars, and that its people transferred their abode
to an island in the sea called Zarun, near the continent, and lying west
of the old city. At Hormuz itself no inhabitants remain, but some of the
lowest order." (In _Buesching_, IV. 261-262.) Friar Odoric, about 1321,
found Hormuz "on an island some 5 miles distant from the main." Ibn
Batuta, some eight or nine years later, discriminates between Hormuz or
Moghistan on the mainland, and New Hormuz on the Island of Jeraun, but
describes only the latter, already a great and rich city.
The site of the Island Hormuz has often been visited and described; but I
could find no published trace of any traveller having verified the site of
the more ancient city, though the existence of its ruins was known to John
de Barros, who says that a little fort called _Cuxstac_ (_Kuhestek_ of P.
della Valle, II. p. 300) stood on the site. An application to Colonel
Pelly, the very able British Resident at Bushire, brought me from his own
personal knowledge the information that I sought, and the following
particulars are compiled from the letters with which he has favoured me:--
"The ruins of Old Hormuz, well known as such, stand several miles up a
creek, and in the centre of the present district of Minao. They are
extensive (though in large part obliterated by long cultivation over the
site), and the traces of a long pier or Bandar were pointed out to Colonel
Pelly. They are about 6 or 7 miles from the fort of Minao, and the Minao
river, or its stony bed, winds down towards them. The creek is quite
traceable, but is silted up, and to embark goods you have to go a farsakh
towards the sea, where there is a custom-house on that part of the creek
which is still navigable. Colonel Pelly collected a few bricks from the
ruins. From the mouth of the Old Hormuz creek to the New Hormuz town, or
town of Turumpak on the island of Hormuz, is a sail of about three
farsakhs. It may be a trifle more, but any native tells you at once that
it is three farsakhs from Hormuz Island to the creek where you land to go
up to Minao. _Hormuzdia_ was the name of the region in the days of its
prosperity. Some people say that Hormuzdia was known as _Jerunia_, and Old
Hormuz town as _Jerun_." (In this I suspect tradition has gone astray.)
"The town and fort of Minao lie to the N.E. of the ancient city, and are
built upon the lowest spur of the Bashkurd mountains, commanding a gorge
through which the Rudbar river debouches on the plain of Hormuzdia." In
these new and interesting particulars it is pleasing to find such precise
corroboration both of Edrisi and of Ibn Batuta. The former, writing in the
12th century, says that Hormuz stood on the banks of a canal or creek from
the Gulf, by which vessels came up to the city. The latter specifies the
breadth of sea between Old and New Hormuz as _three farsakhs_. (_Edrisi_,
I. 424; _I. B._ II. 230.)
I now proceed to recapitulate the main features of Polo's Itinerary from
Kerman to Hormuz. We have:--
Marches
1. From Kerman across a plain to the top of a
mountain-pass, where _extreme cold was
experienced_ . . . . . . . . 7
2. A descent, occupying . . . . . . . 2
3. A great plain, called _Reobarles_, in a much warmer
climate, abounding in francolin partridge, and in
dates and tropical fruit, with a ruined city of former
note, called _Camadi_, near the head of the plain,
which extends for . . . . . . . . 5
4. A second very bad pass, descending for 20 miles, say 1
5. A well-watered fruitful plain, which is crossed to
_Hormuz_, on the shores of the Gulf . . . . 2
--
Total 17
No European traveller, so far as I know, has described the most direct
road from Kerman to Hormuz, or rather to its nearest modern representative
Bander Abbasi,--I mean the road by Baft. But a line to the eastward of
this, and leading through the plain of Jiruft, was followed partially by
Mr. Abbott in 1850, and completely by Major R. M. Smith, R.E., in 1866.
The details of this route, except in one particular, correspond closely in
essentials with those given by our author, and form an excellent basis of
illustration for Polo's description.
Major Smith (accompanied at first by Colonel Goldsmid, who diverged to
Mekran) left Kerman on the 15th of January, and reached Bander Abbasi on
the 3rd of February, but, as three halts have to be deducted, his total
number of marches was exactly the same as Marco's, viz. 17. They divide as
follows:--
Marches
1. From Kerman to the caravanserai of Deh Bakri in the
pass so called. "The ground as I ascended became
covered with snow, and the weather bitterly cold"
(_Report_) . . . . . . . . . 6
2. Two miles _over very deep snow_ brought him to the
top of the pass; he then descended 14 miles to his halt.
Two miles to the south of the crest he passed a second
caravanserai: "The two are evidently built so near one
another to afford shelter to travellers who may be
unable to cross the ridge during heavy snow-storms."
The next march continued the descent for 14 miles, and
then carried him 10 miles along the banks of the
Rudkhanah-i-Shor. The approximate height of the pass
above the sea is estimated at 8000 feet. We have thus
for the descent the greater part of . . . . 2
3. "Clumps of date-palms growing near the village showed
that I had now reached a totally different climate."
(_Smith's Report_.) And Mr. Abbott says of the same
region: "Partly wooded ... and with thickets of reeds
abounding with francolin and _Jirufti_ partridge....
The lands yield grain, millet, pulse, French- and
horse-beans, rice, cotton, henna, Palma Christi, and dates,
and in part are of great fertility.... Rainy season from
January to March, after which a luxuriant crop of grass."
Across this plain (districts of Jiruft and Rudbar), the
height of which above the sea, is something under 2000
feet . . . . . . . . . . . 6
4. 6-1/2 hours, "nearly the whole way over a most difficult
mountain-pass," called the Pass of Nevergun . . . 1
5. Two long marches over a plain, part of which is described
as "continuous cultivation for some 16 miles," and the rest
as a "most uninteresting plain" . . . . . 2
--
Total as before . . . . 17
In the previous edition of this work I was inclined to identify Marco's
route _absolutely_ with this Itinerary. But a communication from Major St.
John, who surveyed the section from Kerman towards Deh Bakri in 1872,
shows that this first section does not answer well to the description. The
road is not all plain, for it crosses a mountain pass, though not a
formidable one. Neither is it through a thriving, populous tract, for,
with the exception of two large villages, Major St. John found the whole
road to Deh Bakri from Kerman as desert and dreary as any in Persia. On
the other hand, the more direct route to the south, which is that always
used except in seasons of extraordinary severity (such as that of Major
Smith's journey, when this route was impassable from snow), answers
better, as described to Major St. John by muleteers, to Polo's account.
The first _six days_ are occupied by a gentle ascent through the districts
of Bardesir and Kairat-ul-Arab, which are the best-watered and most
fertile uplands of Kerman. From the crest of the pass reached in those six
marches (which is probably more than 10,000 feet above the sea, for it was
closed by snow on 1st May, 1872), an easy descent of _two days_ leads to
the Garmsir. This is traversed in four days, and then a very difficult
pass is crossed to reach the plains bordering on the sea. The cold of this
route is much greater than that of the Deh Bakri route. Hence the
correspondence with Polo's description, as far as the descent to the
Garmsir, or Reobarles, seems decidedly better by this route. It is
admitted to be quite possible that on reaching this plain the two routes
coalesced. We shall assume this provisionally, till some traveller gives
us a detailed account of the Bardesir route. Meantime all the remaining
particulars answer well.
[General Houtum-Schindler (l.c. pp. 493-495), speaking of the Itinerary
from Kerman to Hormuz and back, says: "Only two of the many routes between
Kerman and Bender 'Abbas coincide more or less with Marco Polo's
description. These two routes are the one over the Deh Bekri Pass [see
above, Colonel Smith], and the one via Sardu. 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 via
Baft, Urzu, and the Zendan Pass, for instance, has only four stages in
plains; the road, via Rahbur, Rudbar and the Nevergun Pass only six; and
the road via Sirjan also only six."
Marches.
The Sardu route, which seems to me to be the one
followed by Marco Polo, has five stages through fertile
and populous plains to Sarvizan . . . . . 5
One day's march ascends to the top of the Sarvizan Pass 1
Two days' descent to Rahjird, a village close to the
ruins of old Jiruft, now called Shehr-i-Daqianus . . 2
Six days' march over the "vast plain" of Jiruft and Rudbar
to Fariab, joining the Deh Bekri route at Kerimabad, one
stage south of the Shehr-i-Daqianus . . . . 6
One day's march through the Nevergun Pass to Shamil,
descending . . . . . . . . . 1
Two days' march through the plain to Bender 'Abbas or
Hormuz . . . . . . . . . . 2
--
In all . . . . . . 17
The Sardu road enters the Jiruft plain at the ruins of the old city, the
Deh Bekri route does so at some distance to the eastward. The first six
stages performed by Marco Polo in seven days go through fertile plains and
past numerous villages. Regarding the cold, "which you can scarcely
abide," Marco Polo does not speak of it as existing on the mountains only;
he says, "From the city of Kerman to this descent the cold in winter is
very great," that is, from Kerman to near Jiruft. The winter at Kerman
itself is fairly severe; from the town the ground gradually but steadily
rises, the absolute altitudes of the passes crossing the mountains to the
south varying from 8000 to 11,000 feet. These passes are up to the month
of March always very cold; in one it froze slightly in the beginning of
June. The Sardu Pass lies lower than the others. The name is Sardu, not
Sardu from sard, "cold." Major Sykes (_Persia_, ch. xxiii.) comes to the
same conclusion: "In 1895, and again in 1900, I made a tour partly with
the object of solving this problem, and of giving a geographical existence
to Sardu, which appropriately means the 'Cold Country.' I found that there
was a route which exactly fitted Marco's conditions, as at Sarbizan the
Sardu plateau terminates in a high pass of 9200 feet, from which there is
a most abrupt descent to the plain of Jiruft, Komadin being about 35
miles, or two days' journey from the top of the pass. Starting from
Kerman, the stages would be as follows:--I. Jupar (small town); 2.
Bahramjird (large village); 3. Gudar (village); 4. Rain (small town)....
Thence to the Sarbizan pass is a distance of 45 miles, or three desert
stages, thus constituting a total of 110 miles for the seven days. This is
the camel route to the present day, and absolutely fits in with the
description given.... The question to be decided by this section of the
journey may then, I think, be considered to be finally and most
satisfactorily settled, the route proving to lie between the two selected
by Colonel Yule, as being the most suitable, although he wisely left the
question open."--H. C.]
In the abstract of Major Smith's Itinerary as we have given it, we do not
find Polo's city of _Camadi_. Major Smith writes to me, however, that this
is probably to be sought in "the ruined city, the traces of which I
observed in the plain of Jiruft near Kerimabad. The name of the city is
now apparently lost." It is, however, known to the natives as the _City of
Dakianus_, as Mr. Abbott, who visited the site, informs us. This is a name
analogous only to the Arthur's ovens or Merlin's caves of our own country,
for all over Mahomedan Asia there are old sites to which legend attaches
the name of _Dakianus_ or the Emperor Decius, the persecuting tyrant of
the Seven Sleepers. "The spot," says Abbott, "is an elevated part of the
plain on the right bank of the Hali Rud, and is thickly strewn with
kiln-baked bricks, and shreds of pottery and glass.... After heavy rain the
peasantry search amongst the ruins for ornaments of stone, and rings and
coins of gold, silver, and copper. The popular tradition concerning the
city is that it was destroyed by a flood long before the birth of Mahomed."
[General Houtum-Schindler, in a paper in the _Jour. R. As. Soc._, Jan.
1898, p. 43, gives an abstract of Dr. Houtsma's (of Utrecht) memoir, _Zur
Geschichte der Saljuqen von Kerman_, and comes to the conclusion that
"from these statements we can safely identify Marco Polo's Camadi with the
suburb Qumadin, or, as I would read it, Qamadin, of the city of Jiruft."--
(Cf. _Major Sykes' Persia_, chap. xxiii.: "Camadi was sacked for the first
time, after the death of Toghrul Shah of Kerman, when his four sons
reduced the province to a condition of anarchy.")
Major P. Molesworth Sykes, _Recent Journeys in Persia_ (_Geog. Journal_,
X. 1897, p. 589), says: "Upon arrival in Rudbar, we turned north wards
and left the Farman Farma, in order to explore the site of Marco Polo's
'Camadi.'... We came upon a huge area littered with yellow bricks eight
inches square, while not even a broken wall is left to mark the site of
what was formerly a great city, under the name of the Sher-i-Jiruft."--H.
C.] The actual distance from Bamm to the City of Dakianus is, by Abbott's
Journal, about 66 miles.
The name of REOBARLES, which Marco applies to the plain intermediate
between the two descents, has given rise to many conjectures. Marsden
pointed to _Rudbar_, a name frequently applied in Persia to a district on
a river, or intersected by streams--a suggestion all the happier that he
was not aware of the fact that there is a district of RUDBAR exactly in
the required position. The last syllable still requires explanation.
I ventured formerly to suggest that it was the Arabic _Lass_, or, as Marco
would certainly have written it, _Les_, a robber. Reobarles would then be
RUDBAR-I-LASS, "Robber's River District." The appropriateness of the name
Marco has amply illustrated; and it appeared to me to survive in that of
one of the rivers of the plain, which is mentioned by both Abbott and
Smith under the title of _Rudkhanah-i-Duzdi_, or Robbery River, a name
also applied to a village and old fort on the banks of the stream. This
etymology was, however, condemned as an inadmissible combination of
Persian and Arabic by two very high authorities both as travellers and
scholars--Sir H. Rawlinson and Mr. Khanikoff. The _Les_, therefore, has
still to be explained.[1]
[Major Sykes (_Geog. Journal_, 1902, p. 130) heard of robbers, some five
miles from Minab, and he adds: "However, nothing happened, and after
crossing the Gardan-i-Pichal, we camped at Birinti, which is situated just
above the junction of Rudkhana Duzdi, or 'River of Theft,' and forms part
of the district of Rudan, in Fars."
"The Jiruft and Rudbar plains belong to the germsir (hot region), dates,
pistachios, and konars (apples of Paradise) abound in them. Reobarles is
Rudbar or Ruedbaris." (_Houtum-Schindler_, l.c. 1881, p. 495.)--H. C.]
We have referred to Marco's expressions regarding the great cold
experienced on the pass which formed the first descent; and it is worthy
of note that the title of "The Cold Mountains" is applied by Edrisi to
these very mountains. Mr. Abbott's MS. Report also mentions in this
direction, _Sardu_, said to be a cold country (as its name seems to
express [see above,--H. C.]), which its population (Iliyats) abandon in
winter for the lower plains. It is but recently that the importance of
this range of mountains has become known to us. Indeed the _existence_ of
the chain, as extending continuously from near Kashan, was first indicated
by Khanikoff in 1862. More recently Major St. John has shown the magnitude
of this range, which rises into summits of 15,000 feet in altitude, and
after a course of 550 miles terminates in a group of volcanic hills some
50 miles S.E. of Bamm. Yet practically this chain is ignored on all our
maps!
Marco's description of the "Plain of Formosa" does not apply, now at
least, to the _whole_ plain, for towards Bander Abbasi it is barren. But
to the eastward, about Minao, and therefore about Old Hormuz, it has not
fallen off. Colonel Pelly writes: "The district of Minao is still for
those regions singularly fertile. Pomegranates, oranges, pistachio-nuts,
and various other fruits grow in profusion. The source of its fertility is
of course the river, and you can walk for miles among lanes and cultivated
ground, partially sheltered from the sun." And Lieutenant Kempthorne, in
his notes on that coast, says of the same tract: "It is termed by the
natives the Paradise of Persia. It is certainly most beautifully fertile,
and abounds in orange-groves, and orchards containing apples, pears,
peaches, and apricots; with vineyards producing a delicious grape, from
which was at one time made a wine called _amber-rosolli_"--a name not easy
to explain. _'Ambar-i-Rasul_, "The Prophet's Bouquet!" would be too bold a
name even for Persia, though names more sacred are so profaned at Naples
and on the Moselle. Sir H. Rawlinson suggests _'Ambar-'asali_, "Honey
Bouquet," as possible.
When Nearchus beached his fleet on the shore of _Harmozeia_ at the mouth
of the _Anamis_ (the River of Minao), Arrian tells us he found the country
a kindly one, and very fruitful in every way except that there were no
olives. The weary mariners landed and enjoyed this pleasant rest from
their toils. (_Indica_, 33; _J. R. G. S._ V. 274.)
[Illustration: MARCO POLO'S ITINERARIES
No. II.
Kerman to Hormuz (Bk I. Ch. 19)]
The name Formosa is probably only Rusticiano's misunderstanding of
_Harmuza_, aided, perhaps, by Polo's picture of the beauty of the plain.
We have the same change in the old _Mafomet_ for Mahomet, and the converse
one in the Spanish _hermosa_ for _formosa_. Teixeira's Chronicle says that
the city of Hormuz was founded by Xa Mahamed Dranku, i.e. Shah Mahomed
Dirhem-Ko, in "a plain of the same name."
The statement in Ramusio that Hormuz stood upon an island, is, I doubt
not, an interpolation by himself or some earlier transcriber.
When the ships of Nearchus launched again from the mouth of the Anamis,
their first day's run carried them past a certain desert and bushy island
to another which was large and inhabited. The desert isle was called
_Organa_; the large one by which they anchored _Oaracta_. (_Indica_, 37.)
Neither name is quite lost; the latter greater island is Kishm or
_Brakht_; the former _Jerun_,[2] perhaps in old Persian _Gerun_ or
_Geran_, now again desert though no longer bushy, after having been for
three centuries the site of a city which became a poetic type of wealth
and splendour. An Eastern saying ran, "Were the world a ring, Hormuz would
be the jewel in it."
["The _Yuean shi_ mentions several seaports of the Indian Ocean as carrying
on trade with China; Hormuz is not spoken of there. I may, however, quote
from the Yuean History a curious statement which perhaps refers to this
port. In ch. cxxiii., biography of Arsz-lan, it is recorded that his
grandson Hurdutai, by order of Kubilai Khan, accompanied _Bu-lo no-yen_ on
his mission to the country of _Ha-rh-ma-sz_. This latter name may be
intended for Hormuz. I do not think that by the Noyen _Bulo_, M. Polo
could be meant, for the title Noyen would hardly have been applied to him.
But Rashid-eddin mentions a distinguished Mongol, by name _Pulad_, with
whom he was acquainted in Persia, and who furnished him with much
information regarding the history of the Mongols. This may be the _Bu-lo
no-yen_ of the Yuean History." (Bretschneider, _Med. Res._ II. p. 132.)--H.
C.]
NOTE 2.--A spirit is still distilled from dates in Persia, Mekran, Sind,
and some places in the west of India. It is mentioned by Strabo and
Dioscorides, according to Kaempfer, who says it was in his time made under
the name of a medicinal stomachic; the rich added _Radix Chinae_,
ambergris, and aromatic spices; the poor, liquorice and Persian absinth.
(_Sir B. Frere_; _Amoen. Exot._ 750; _Macd. Kinneir_, 220.)
["The _date_ wine with spices is not now made at Bender 'Abbas. Date
arrack, however, is occasionally found. At Kerman a sort of wine or arrack
is made with spices and alcohol, distilled from sugar; it is called
Ma-ul-Hayat (water of life), and is recommended as an aphrodisiac. Grain in
the Shamil plain is harvested in April, dates are gathered in August."
(_Houtum-Schindler_, l.c. p. 496.)
See "Remarks on the Use of Wine and Distilled Liquors among the
Mohammedans of Turkey and Persia," pp. 315-330 of _Narrative of a Tour
through Armenia, Kurdistan, Persia, and Mesopotamia_.... By the Rev.
Horatio Southgate,... London, 1840, vol. ii.--H. C.]
[Sir H. Yule quotes, in a MS. note, these lines from Moore's _Light of the
Harem_:
"Wine, too, of every clime and hue,
Around their liquid lustre threw
_Amber Rosolli_[3]--the bright dew
From vineyards of the Green Sea gushing."] See above, p. 114.
[Illustration: The Double or Latin Rudder, as shown in the Navicella of
Giotto. (From Eastlake.)]
The date and dry-fish diet of the Gulf people is noticed by most
travellers, and P. del a Valle repeats the opinion about its being the
only wholesome one. Ibn Batuta says the people of Hormuz had a saying,
"_Khorma wa mahi lut-i-Padshahi_," i.e. "Dates and fish make an Emperor's
dish!" A fish, exactly like the tunny of the Mediterranean in general
appearance and habits, is one of the great objects of fishery off the Sind
and Mekran coasts. It comes in pursuit of shoals of anchovies, very much
like the Mediterranean fish also. (_I. B._ II. 231; _Sir B. Frere_.)
[Friar Odoric (_Cathay_, I. pp. 55-56) says: "And there you find (before
arriving at Hormuz) people who live almost entirely on dates, and you get
forty-two pounds of dates for less than a groat; and so of many other
things."]
NOTE 3.--The stitched vessels of Kerman ([Greek: ploiaria rapta]) are
noticed in the _Periplus_. Similar accounts to those of our text are given
of the ships of the Gulf and of Western India by Jordanus and John of
Montecorvino. (_Jord._ p. 53; _Cathay_, p. 217.) "Stitched vessels," Sir
B. Frere writes, "are still used. I have seen them of 200 tons burden; but
they are being driven out by iron-fastened vessels, as iron gets cheaper,
except where (as on the Malabar and Coromandel coasts) the pliancy of a
stitched boat is useful in a surf. Till the last few years, when steamers
have begun to take all the best horses, the Arab horses bound to Bombay
almost all came in the way Marco Polo describes." Some of them do still,
standing over a date cargo, and the result of this combination gives rise
to an extraordinary traffic in the Bombay bazaar. From what Colonel Pelly
tells me, the stitched build in the Gulf is _now_ confined to
fishing-boats, and is disused for sea-going craft.
[Friar Odoric (_Cathay_, I. p. 57) mentioned these vessels: "In this
country men make use of a kind of vessel which they call _Jase_, which is
fastened only with stitching of twine. On one of these vessels I embarked,
and I could find no iron at all therein." _Jase_ is for the Arabic
_Djehaz_.--H. C.]
The fish-oil used to rub the ships was whale-oil. The old Arab voyagers of
the 9th century describe the fishermen of Siraf in the Gulf as cutting up
the whale-blubber and drawing the oil from it, which was mixed with other
stuff, and used to rub the joints of ships' planking. (_Reinaud_, I. 146.)
Both Montecorvino and Polo, in this passage, specify _one rudder_, as if
it was a peculiarity of these ships worth noting. The fact is that, in the
Mediterranean at least, the double rudders of the ancients kept their
place to a great extent through the Middle Ages. A Marseilles MS. of the
13th century, quoted in Ducange, says: "A ship requires three rudders, two
in place, and one to spare." Another: "Every two-ruddered bark shall pay a
groat each voyage; every one-ruddered bark shall," etc. (See Due. under
_Timonus_ and _Temo_.) Numerous proofs of the use of two rudders in the
13th century will be found in "_Documenti inediti riguardanti le due
Crociate di S. Ludovico IX., Re di Francia_, etc., da _L. T. Belgrano_,
Genova, 1859." Thus in a specification of ships to be built at Genoa for
the king (p. 7), each is to have "_Timones duo_, affaiticos, grossitudinis
palmorum viiii et dimidiae, longitudinis cubitorum xxiiii." Extracts given
by Capmany, regarding the equipment of galleys, show the same thing, for
he is probably mistaken in saying that one of the _dos timones_ specified
was a spare one. Joinville (p. 205) gives incidental evidence of the same:
"Those Marseilles ships have each two rudders, with each a tiller (?
_tison_) attached to it in such an ingenious way that you can turn the
ship right or left as fast as you would turn a horse. So on the Friday the
king was sitting upon one of these tillers, when he called me and said to
me," etc.[4] Francesco da Barberino, a poet of the 13th century, in the
7th part of his _Documenti d'Amore_ (printed at Rome in 1640), which
instructs the lover to whose lot it may fall to escort his lady on a
sea-voyage (instructions carried so far as to provide even for the case of
her death at sea!), alludes more than once to these plural rudders. Thus--
"---- se vedessi avenire
Che vento ti rompesse
_Timoni_ ...
In luogo di timoni
Fa spere[5] e in aqua poni." (P. 272-273.)
[Illustration: ILLUSTRATIONS OF THE DOUBLE RUDDER OF THE MIDDLE AGES
12th Century Illumination (After Pertz)
Seal of Winchelsea.
12th Century Illumination (After Pertz)
From Leaning Tower (After Jal)
After Spinello Aretini at Siena
From Monument of St Peter Martyr]
And again, when about to enter a port, it is needful to be on the alert
and ready to run in case of a hostile reception, so the galley should
enter stern foremost--a movement which he reminds his lover involves the
reversal of the ordinary use of the two rudders:--
"_L' un timon leva suso
L' altro leggier tien giuso_,
Ma convien levar mano
Non mica com soleano,
Ma per contraro, e face
Cosi 'l guidar verace." (P. 275.)
A representation of a vessel over the door of the Leaning Tower at Pisa
shows this arrangement, which is also discernible in the frescoes of
galley-fights by Spinello Aretini, in the Municipal Palace at Siena.
[Godinho de Eredia (1613), describing the smaller vessels of Malacca which
he calls _balos_ in ch. 13, _De Embarcacoes_, says: "At the poop they have
two rudders, one on each side to steer with." E por poupa dos ballos, tem
2 lemes, hum en cada lado pera o governo. (_Malacca, l'Inde merid. et le
Cathay_, Bruxelles, 1882, 4to, f. 26.)--H. C.]
The midship rudder seems to have been the more usual in the western seas,
and the double quarter-rudders in the Mediterranean. The former are
sometimes styled _Navarresques_ and the latter _Latins_. Yet early seals
of some of the Cinque Ports show vessels with the double rudder; one of
which (that of Winchelsea) is given in the cut.
In the Mediterranean the latter was still in occasional use late in the
16th century. Captain Pantero Pantera in his book, _L'Armata Navale_
(Rome, 1614, p. 44), says that the Galeasses, or great galleys, had the
helm _alla Navarresca_, but also a great oar on each side of it to assist
in turning the ship. And I observe that the great galeasses which precede
the Christian line of battle at Lepanto, in one of the frescoes by Vasari
in the Royal Hall leading to the Sistine Chapel, have the quarter-rudder
very distinctly.
The Chinese appear occasionally to employ it, as seems to be indicated in
a woodcut of a vessel of war which I have traced from a Chinese book in
the National Library at Paris. (See above, p. 37.) [For the Chinese words
for _rudder_, see p. 126 of J. Edkins' article on _Chinese Names for Boats
and Boat Gear, Jour. N. China Br. R. As. Soc._ N.S. XI. 1876.--H. C.] It
is also used by certain craft of the Indian Archipelago, as appears from
Mr. Wallace's description of the Prau in which he sailed from Macassar to
the Aru Islands. And on the Caspian, it is stated in Smith's "Dict. of
Antiquities" (art. _Gubernaculum_), the practice remained in force till
late times. A modern traveller was nearly wrecked on that sea, because the
two rudders were in the hands of two pilots who spoke different languages,
and did not understand each other!
(Besides the works quoted see _Jal, Archeologie Navale_, II. 437-438, and
_Capmany, Memorias_, III. 61.)
[Major Sykes remarks (_Persia_, ch. xxiii.): "Some unrecorded event,
probably the sight of the unseaworthy craft, which had not an ounce of
iron in their composition, made our travellers decide that the risks of
the sea were too great, so that we have the pleasure of accompanying them
back to Kerman and thence northwards to Khorasan."--H. C.]
NOTE 4.--So also at Bander Abbasi Tavernier says it was so unhealthy that
foreigners could not stop there beyond March; everybody left it in April.
Not a hundredth part of the population, says Kaempfer, remained in the
city. Not a beggar would stop for any reward! The rich went to the towns
of the interior or to the cool recesses of the mountains, the poor took
refuge in the palm-groves at the distance of a day or two from the city. A
place called 'Ishin, some 12 miles north of the city, was a favourite
resort of the European and Hindu merchants. Here were fine gardens,
spacious baths, and a rivulet of fresh and limpid water.
The custom of lying in water is mentioned also by Sir John Maundevile, and
it was adopted by the Portuguese when they occupied Insular Hormuz, as P.
della Valle and Linschoten relate. The custom is still common during great
heats, in Sind and Mekran (Sir B. F.).
An anonymous ancient geography (_Liber Junioris Philosophi_) speaks of a
people in India who live in the Terrestrial Paradise, and lead the life of
the Golden Age.... The sun is so hot _that they remain all day in the
river!_
The heat in the Straits of Hormuz drove Abdurrazzak into an anticipation
of a verse familiar to English schoolboys: "Even the bird of rapid flight
was burnt up in the heights of heaven, as well as the fish in the depths
of the sea!" (_Tavern._ Bk. V. ch. xxiii.; _Am. Exot._ 716, 762; _Mueller,
Geog. Gr. Min._ II. 514; _India in XV. Cent._ p. 49.)
NOTE 5.--A like description of the effect of the _Simum_ on the human body
is given by Ibn Batuta, Chardin, A. Hamilton, Tavernier, Thevenot, etc.;
and the first of these travellers speaks specially of its prevalence in
the desert near Hormuz, and of the many graves of its victims; but I have
met with no reasonable account of its poisonous action. I will quote
Chardin, already quoted at greater length by Marsden, as the most complete
parallel to the text: "The most surprising effect of the wind is not the
mere fact of its causing death, but its operation on the bodies of those
who are killed by it. It seems as if they became decomposed without losing
shape, so that you would think them to be merely asleep, when they are not
merely dead, but in such a state that if you take hold of any part of the
body it comes away in your hand. And the finger penetrates such a body as
if it were so much dust." (III. 286.)
Burton, on his journey to Medina, says: "The people assured me that this
wind never killed a man in their Allah-favoured land. I doubt the fact. At
Bir Abbas the body of an Arnaut was brought in swollen, and decomposed
rapidly, the true diagnosis of death by the poison-wind." Khanikoff is
very distinct as to the immediate fatality of the desert wind at Khabis,
near Kerman, but does not speak of the effect on the body after death.
This Major St. John does, describing a case that occurred in June, 1871,
when he was halting, during intense heat, at the post-house of Pasangan, a
few miles south of Kom. The bodies were brought in of two poor men, who
had tried to start some hours before sunset, and were struck down by the
poisonous blast within half-a-mile of the post-house. "It was found
impossible to wash them before burial.... Directly the limbs were touched
they separated from the trunk." (_Oc. Highways, ut. sup._) About 1790,
when Timur Shah of Kabul sent an army under the Sirdar-i-Sirdaran to put
down a revolt in Meshed, this force on its return was struck by Simum in
the Plain of Farrah, and the Sirdar perished, with a great number of his
men. (_Ferrier, H. of the Afghans_, 102; _J. R. G. S._ XXVI. 217; _Khan.
Mem._ 210.)
NOTE 6.--The History of Hormuz is very imperfectly known. What I have met
with on the subject consists of--(1) An abstract by Teixeira of a
chronicle of Hormuz, written by Thuran Shah, who was himself sovereign of
Hormuz, and died in 1377; (2) some contemporary notices by Wassaf, which
are extracted by Hammer in his History of the Ilkhans; (3) some notices
from Persian sources in the 2nd Decade of De Barros (ch. ii.). The last do
not go further back than Gordun Shah, the father of Thuran Shah, to whom
they erroneously ascribe the first migration to the Island.
One of Teixeira's Princes is called _Ruknuddin Mahmud_, and with him
Marsden and Pauthier have identified Polo's Ruomedam Acomet, or as he is
called on another occasion in the Geog. Text, _Maimodi Acomet_. This,
however, is out of the question, for the death of Ruknuddin is assigned to
A.H. 675 (A.D. 1277), whilst there can, I think, be no doubt that Marco's
account refers to the period of his return from China, viz. 1293 or
thereabouts.
We find in Teixeira that the ruler who succeeded in 1290 was _Amir
Masa'ud_, who obtained the Government by the murder of his brother
Saifuddin Nazrat. Masa'ud was cruel and oppressive; most of the
influential people withdrew to Bahauddin Ayaz, whom Saifuddin had made
Wazir of Kalhat on the Arabian coast. This Wazir assembled a force and
drove out Masa'ud after he had reigned three years. He fled to Kerman and
died there some years afterwards.
Bahauddin, who had originally been a slave of Saifuddin Nazrat's,
succeeded in establishing his authority. But about 1300 great bodies of
Turks (i.e. Tartars) issuing from Turkestan ravaged many provinces of
Persia, including Kerman and Hormuz. The people, unable to bear the
frequency of such visitations, retired first to the island of Kishm, and
then to that of Jerun, on which last was built the city of New Hormuz,
afterwards so famous. This is Teixeira's account from Thuran Shah, so far
as we are concerned with it. As regards the transfer of the city it agrees
substantially with Abulfeda's, which we have already quoted (supra,
note 1).
Hammer's account from Wassaf is frightfully confused, chiefly I should
suppose from Hammer's own fault; for among other things he assumes that
Hormuz was always on an island, and he distinguishes between the Island of
Hormuz and the Island of Jerun! We gather, however, that Hormuz before the
Mongol time formed a government subordinate to the Salghur Atabegs of Fars
(see note 1, ch. xv.), and when the power of that Dynasty was falling, the
governor Mahmud Kalhati, established himself as Prince of Hormuz, and
became the founder of a petty dynasty, being evidently identical with
Teixeira's Ruknuddin Mahmud above-named, who is represented as reigning
from 1246 to 1277. In Wassaf we find, as in Teixeira, Mahmud's son Masa'ud
killing his brother Nazrat, and Bahauddin expelling Masa'ud. It is true
that Hammer's surprising muddle makes Nazrat kill Masa'ud; however, as a
few lines lower we find Masa'ud alive and Nazrat dead, we may safely
venture on this correction. But we find also that Masa'ud appears as
_Ruknuddin_ Masa'ud, and that Bahauddin does not assume the princely
authority himself, but proclaims that of _Fakhruddin Ahmed_ Ben Ibrahim
At-Thaibi, a personage who does not appear in Teixeira at all. A MS.
history, quoted by Ouseley, _does_ mention Fakhruddin, and ascribes to him
the transfer to Jerun. Wassaf seems to allude to Bahauddin as a sort of
Sea Rover, occupying the islands of Larek and Jerun, whilst Fakhruddin
reigned at Hormuz. It is difficult to understand the relation between the
two.
It is _possible_ that Polo's memory made some confusion between the names
of RUKNUDDIN Masa'ud and Fakhruddin AHMED, but I incline to think the
latter is his RUOMEDAN AHMED. For Teixeira tells us that Masa'ud took
refuge at the court of Kerman, and Wassaf represents him as supported in
his claims by the Atabeg of that province, whilst we see that Polo seems
to represent Ruomedan Acomat as in hostility with that prince. To add to
the imbroglio I find in a passage of Wassaf Malik Fakhruddin Ahmed
at-Thaibi sent by Ghazan Khan in 1297 as ambassador to Khanbalig, staying
there some years, and dying off the Coromandel coast on his return in
1305. (Elliot, iii. pp. 45-47.)
Masa'ud's seeking help from Kerman to reinstate him is not the first case
of the same kind that occurs in Teixeira's chronicle, so there may have
been some kind of colour for Marco's representation of the Prince of
Hormuz as the vassal of the Atabeg of Kerman ("_l'homme de cest roy de
Creman_;" see _Prologue_, ch. xiv. note 2). M. Khanikoff denies the
_possibility_ of the existence of any _royal dynasty_ at Hormuz at this
period. That there _was_ a dynasty of _Maliks_ of Hormuz, however, at this
period we must believe on the concurring testimony of Marco, of Wassaf,
and of Thuran Shah. There was also, it would seem, another
_quasi_-independent principality in the Island of Kais. (_Hammer's Ilch._
II. 50, 51; _Teixeira, Relacion de los Reyes de Hormuz; Khan. Notice_,
p. 34.)
The ravages of the Tartars which drove the people of Hormuz from their
city may have begun with the incursions of the Nigudaris and Karaunahs,
but they probably came to a climax in the great raid in 1299 of the
Chaghataian Prince Kotlogh Shah, son of Dua Khan, a part of whose bands
besieged the city itself, though they are said to have been repulsed by
Bahauddin Ayas.
[The Dynasty of Hormuz was founded about 1060 by a Yemen chief Mohammed
Dirhem Ko, and remained subject to Kerman till 1249, when Rokn ed-din
Mahmud III. Kalhati (1242-1277) made himself independent. The immediate
successors of Rokn ed-din were Saif ed-din Nazrat (1277-1290), Masa'ud
(1290-1293), Bahad ed-din Ayaz Sayfin (1293-1311). Hormuz was captured by
the Portuguese in 1510 and by the Persians in 1622.--H. C.]
NOTE 7.--The indications of this alternative route to Kerman are very
vague, but it may probably have been that through Finn, Tarum, and the
Sirjan district, passing out of the plain of Hormuz by the eastern flank
of the Ginao mountain. This road would pass near the hot springs at the
base of the said mountain, Sarga, Khurkhu, and Ginao, which are described
by Kaempfer. Being more or less sulphureous they are likely to be useful in
skin-diseases: indeed, Hamilton speaks of their efficacy in these. (I.
95.) The salt-streams are numerous on this line, and dates are abundant.
The bitterness of the bread was, however, more probably due to another
cause, as Major Smith has kindly pointed out to me: "Throughout the
mountains in the south of Persia, which are generally covered with dwarf
oak, the people are in the habit of making bread of the acorns, or of the
acorns mixed with wheat or barley. It is dark in colour, and very hard,
bitter, and unpalatable."
Major St. John also noticed the bitterness of the bread in Kerman, but his
servants attributed it to the presence in the wheat-fields of a bitter
leguminous plant, with a yellowish white flower, which the Kermanis were
too lazy to separate, so that much remained in the thrashing, and imparted
its bitter flavour to the grain (surely the _Tare_ of our Lord's
Parable!).
[General Houtum-Schindler says (l.c. p. 496): "Marco Polo's return journey
was, I am inclined to think, via Urzu and Baft, the shortest and most
direct road. The road via Tarum and Sirjan is very seldom taken by
travellers intending to go to Kerman; it is only frequented by the
caravans going between Bender 'Abbas and Bahramabad, three stages west of
Kerman. Hot springs, 'curing itch,' I noticed at two places on the
Urzu-Baft road. There were some near Qal'ah Asgber and others near Dashtab;
they were frequented by people suffering from skin-diseases, and were
highly sulphureous; the water of those near Dashtab turned a silver ring
black after two hours' immersion. Another reason of my advocating the Urzu
road is that the bitter bread spoken of by Marco Polo is only found on it,
viz. at Baft and in Bardshir. In Sirjan, to the west, and on the roads to
the east, the bread is sweet. The bitter taste is from the Khur, a bitter
leguminous plant, which grows among the wheat, and whose grains the people
are too lazy to pick out. There is not a single oak between Bender 'Abbas
and Kerman; none of the inhabitants seemed to know what an acorn was. A
person at Baft, who had once gone to Kerbela via Kermanshah and Baghdad,
recognised my sketch of tree and fruit immediately, having seen oak and
acorn between Kermanshah and Qasr-i-Shirin on the Baghdad road." Major
Sykes writes (ch. xxiii.): "The above description undoubtedly refers to the
main winter route, which runs via Sirjan. This is demonstrated by the fact
that under the Kuh-i-Ginao, the summer station of Bandar Abbas, there is a
magnificent sulphur spring, which, welling from an orifice 4 feet in
diameter, forms a stream some 30 yards wide. Its temperature at the source
is 113 degrees, and its therapeutic properties are highly appreciated. As
to the bitterness of the bread, it is suggested in the notes that it was
caused by being mixed with acorns, but, to-day at any rate, there are no
oak forests in this part of Persia, and I would urge that it is better to
accept our traveller's statement, that it was due to the bitterness of the
water."--However, I prefer Gen. Houtum-Schindler's theory.--H. C.]
[1] It is but fair to say that scholars so eminent as Professors Sprenger
and Blochmann have considered the original suggestion lawful and
probable. Indeed, Mr. Blochmann says in a letter: "After studying a
language for years, one acquires a natural feeling for anything
un-idiomatic; but I must confess I see nothing un-Persian in
_rudbar-i-duzd_, nor in _rudbar-i-lass_.... How common _lass_ is, you
may see from one fact, that it occurs in children's reading-books." We
must not take _Reobarles_ in Marco's French as rhyming to (French)
_Charles_; every syllable sounds. It is remarkable that _Las_, as the
name of a small State near our Sind frontier, is said to mean, "in the
language of the country," _a level plain_. (_J. A. S. B._ VIII. 195.)
It is not clear what is meant by the language of the country. The
chief is a Brahui, the people are Lumri or Numri Biluchis, who are,
according to Tod, of Jat descent.
[2] Sir Henry Rawlinson objects to this identification (which is the same
that Dr. Karl Mueller adopts), saying that _Organa_ is more probably
"Angan, formerly Argan." To this I cannot assent. Nearchus sails 300
stadia from the mouth of Anamis to Oaracta, and _on his way_ passes
Organa. Taking 600 stadia to the degree (Dr. Mueller's value), I make
it just 300 stadia from the mouth of the Hormuz creek to the eastern
point of Kishm. Organa must have been either Jerun or Larek; Angan
(_Hanjam_ of Mas'udi) is out of the question. And as a straight run
must have passed quite close to Jerun, not to Larek, I find the former
most probable. Nearchus next day proceeds 200 stadia along Oaracta,
and anchors in sight of another island (Neptune's) which was separated
by 40 stadia from Oaracta. _This_ was Angan; no other island answers,
and for this the distances answer with singular precision.
[3] Moore refers to _Persian Tales_.
[4] This _tison_ can be seen in the cuts from the tomb of St. Peter Martyr
and the seal of Winchelsea.
[5] _Spere_, bundles of spars, etc., dragged overboard.
CHAPTER XX.
OF THE WEARISOME AND DESERT ROAD THAT HAS NOW TO BE TRAVELLED.
On departing from the city of Kerman you find the road for seven days most
wearisome; and I will tell you how this is.[NOTE 1] The first three days
you meet with no water, or next to none. And what little you do meet with
is bitter green stuff, so salt that no one can drink it; and in fact if
you drink a drop of it, it will set you purging ten times at least by the
way. It is the same with the salt which is made from those streams; no one
dares to make use of it, because of the excessive purging which it
occasions. Hence it is necessary to carry water for the people to last
these three days; as for the cattle, they must needs drink of the bad
water I have mentioned, as there is no help for it, and their great thirst
makes them do so. But it scours them to such a degree that sometimes they
die of it. In all those three days you meet with no human habitation; it
is all desert, and the extremity of drought. Even of wild beasts there are
none, for there is nothing for them to eat.[NOTE 2]
After those three days of desert [you arrive at a stream of fresh water
running underground, but along which there are holes broken in here and
there, perhaps undermined by the stream, at which you can get sight of it.
It has an abundant supply, and travellers, worn with the hardships of the
desert, here rest and refresh themselves and their beasts.][NOTE 3]
You then enter another desert which extends for four days; it is very much
like the former except that you do see some wild asses. And at the
termination of these four days of desert the kingdom of Kerman comes to an
end, and you find another city which is called Cobinan.
NOTE 1. ["The present road from Kerman to Kubenan is to Zerend about 50
miles, to the Sar i Benan 15 miles, thence to Kubenan 30 miles--total 95
miles. Marco Polo cannot have taken the direct road to Kubenan, 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, via Kuhpayeh 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 Kerman, says Mr. Khanikoff, "is
very correct. As the only place in the Desert of Lut where water is found
is the dirty, salt, bitter, and green water of the rivulet called
_Shor-Rud_ (the Salt River), we can have no doubt of the direction of Marco
Polo's route from Kerman so far." Nevertheless I do not agree with
Khanikoff that the route lay N.E. in the direction of Ambar and Kain, for a
reason which will appear under the next chapter. I imagine the route to
have been nearly due north from Kerman, in the direction of Tabbas or of
Tun. And even such a route would, according to Khanikoff's own map, pass
the Shor-Rud, though at a higher point.
I extract a few lines from that gentleman's narrative: "In proportion as
we got deeper into the desert, the soil became more and more arid; at
daybreak I could still discover a few withered plants of _Caligonum_ and
_Salsola_, and not far from the same spot I saw a lark and another bird of
a whitish colour, the last living things that we beheld in this dismal
solitude.... The desert had now completely assumed the character of a land
accursed, as the natives call it. Not the smallest blade of grass, no
indication of animal life vivified the prospect; no sound but such as came
from our own caravan broke the dreary silence of the void." (_Mem._ p.
176.)
[Major P. Molesworth Sykes (_Geog. Jour._ X. p. 578) writes: "At Tun, I
was on the northern edge of the great Dash-i-Lut (Naked Desert), which lay
between us and Kerman, and which had not been traversed, in this
particular portion, since the illustrious Marco Polo crossed it, in the
opposite direction, when travelling from Kerman to 'Tonocain' via
Cobinan." Major Sykes (_Persia_, ch. iii.) seems to prove that geographers
have, without sufficient grounds, divided the great desert of Persia into
two regions, that to the north being termed Dasht-i-Kavir, and that
further south the Dasht-i-Lut--and that Lut is the one name for the whole
desert, Dash-i-Lut being almost a redundancy, and that _Kavir_ (the arabic
_Kafr_) is applied to every saline swamp. "This great desert stretches
from a few miles out of Tehran practically to the British frontier, a
distance of about 700 miles."--H. C.]
NOTE 3.--I can have no doubt of the genuineness of this passage from
Ramusio. Indeed some such passage is necessary; otherwise why distinguish
between three days of desert and four days more of desert? The underground
stream was probably a subterraneous canal (called _Kanat_ or _Karez_),
such as is common in Persia; often conducted from a great distance. Here
it may have been a relic of abandoned cultivation. Khanikoff, on the road
between Kerman and Yezd, not far west of that which I suppose Marco to be
travelling, says: "At the fifteen inhabited spots marked upon the map,
they have water which has been brought from a great distance, and at
considerable cost, by means of subterranean galleries, to which you
descend by large and deep wells. Although the water flows at some depth,
its course is tracked upon the surface by a line of more abundant
vegetation." (Ib. p. 200.) Elphinstone says he has heard of such
subterranean conduits 36 miles in length. (I. 398.) Polybius speaks of
them: "There is no sign of water on the surface; but there are many
underground channels, and these supply tanks in the desert, that are known
only to the initiated.... At the time when the Persians got the upper hand
in Asia, they used to concede to such persons as brought spring-water to
places previously destitute of irrigation, the usufruct for five
generations. And Taurus being rife with springs, they incurred all the
expense and trouble that was needed to form these underground channels to
great distances, insomuch that in these days even the people who make use
of the water don't know where the channels begin, or whence the water
comes." (X. 28.)
CHAPTER XXI.
CONCERNING THE CITY OF COBINAN AND THE THINGS THAT ARE MADE THERE.
Cobinan is a large town.[NOTE 1] The people worship Mahommet. There is
much Iron and Steel and _Ondanique_, and they make steel mirrors of great
size and beauty. They also prepare both _Tutia_ (a thing very good for the
eyes) and _Spodium_; and I will tell you the process.
They have a vein of a certain earth which has the required quality, and
this they put into a great flaming furnace, whilst over the furnace there
is an iron grating. The smoke and moisture, expelled from the earth of
which I speak, adhere to the iron grating, and thus form _Tutia_, whilst
the slag that is left after burning is the _Spodium_.[NOTE 2]
NOTE 1.--KUH-BANAN is mentioned by Mokaddasi (A.D. 985) as one of the
cities of Bardesir, the most northerly of the five circles into which he
divides Kerman. (See _Sprenger, Post- und Reise-routen des Orients_, p.
77.) It is the subject of an article in the Geog. Dictionary of Yakut,
though it has been there mistranscribed into _Kubiyan_ and _Kukiyan_. (See
Leipzig ed. 1869, iv. p. 316, and _Barbier de Meynard_, _Dict. de la
Perse_, p. 498.) And it is also indicated by Mr. Abbott (_J. R. G. S._
XXV. 25) as the name of a district of Kerman, lying some distance to the
east of his route when somewhat less than half-way between Yezd and
Kerman. It would thus, I apprehend, be on or near the route between Kerman
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-Banan deserving the title
of _une cite 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 Shamakhi, about Shiraz, and in the deserts of Luristan and Lar."
(_Kaempfer_, 409, 413.)
["It is strange that Marco Polo speaks of Kubenan only on his return
journey from Kerman; on the down journey he must have been told that
Kubenan was in close proximity; it is even probable that he passed there,
as Persian travellers of those times, when going from Kerman to Yazd, and
_vice versa_, always called at Kubenan." (_Houtum-Schindler_, l.c. p.
490.) In all histories this name is written Kubenan, not Kuhbenan; the
pronunciation to-day is Kobenan and Kobenun.--H. C.]
I had thought my identification of _Cobinan_ original, but a communication
from Mr. Abbott, and the opportunity which this procured me of seeing his
MS. Report already referred to, showed that he had anticipated me many
years ago. The following is an extract: "_Districts of Kerman * * * Kooh
Benan_. This is a hilly district abounding in fruits, such as grapes,
peaches, pomegranates, _sinjid_ (sweet-willow), walnuts, melons. A great
deal of madder and some asafoetida is produced there. _This is no doubt
the country alluded to by Marco Polo, under the name of Cobinam_, as
producing iron, brass, and tutty, and which is still said to produce iron,
copper, and tootea." There appear to be lead mines also in the district,
as well as asbestos and sulphur. Mr. Abbott adds the names of nine
villages, which he was not able to verify by comparison. These are Puz,
Tarz, Gujard, Aspaj, Kuh-i-Gabr, Dahnah, Bughin, Bassab, Radk. The
position of Kuh Banan is stated to lie between Bahabad (a place also
mentioned by Yakut as producing _Tutia_) and Ravi, but this does not help
us, and for approximate position we can only fall back on the note in Mr.
Abbott's field-book, as published in the _J. R. G. S._, viz. that the
_District_ lay in the mountains E.S.E. from a caravanserai 10 miles S.E.
of Gudran. To get the seven marches of Polo's Itinerary we must carry the
_Town_ of Kuh Banan as far north as this indication can possibly admit,
for Abbott made only five and a half marches from the spot where this
observation was made to Kerman. Perhaps Polo's route deviated for the sake
of the fresh water. That a district, such as Mr. Abbott's Report speaks
of, should lie unnoticed, in a tract which our maps represent as part of
the Great Desert, shows again how very defective our geography of Persia
still is.
["During the next stage to Darband, we passed ruins that I believe to be
those of Marco Polo's 'Cobinan' as the modern Kuhbenan does not at all fit
in with the great traveller's description, and it is just as well to
remember that in the East the caravan routes seldom change." (Captain P.
M. Sykes, _Geog. Jour._ X. p. 580.--See _Persia_, ch. xxiii.)
Kuh Banan has been visited by Mr. E. Stack, of the Indian Civil Service.
(_Six Months in Persia_, London, 1882, I. 230.)--H. C.]
NOTE 2.--_Tutty_ (i.e. Tutia) is in modern English an impure oxide of
zinc, collected from the flues where brass is made; and this appears to be
precisely what Polo describes, unless it be that in his account the
production of tutia from an ore of zinc is represented as the object and
not an accident of the process. What he says reads almost like a condensed
translation of Galen's account of _Pompholyx_ and _Spodos_: "Pompholyx is
produced in copper-smelting as _Cadmia_ is; and it is also produced from
Cadmia (carbonate of zinc) when put in the furnace, as is done (for
instance) in Cyprus. The master of the works there, having no copper ready
for smelting, ordered some pompholyx to be prepared from cadmia in my
presence. Small pieces of cadmia were thrown into the fire in front of the
copper-blast. The furnace top was covered, with no vent at the crown, and
intercepted the soot of the roasted cadmia. This, when collected,
constitutes _Pompholyx_, whilst that which falls on the hearth is called
_Spodos_, a great deal of which is got in copper-smelting." Pompholyx, he
adds, is an ingredient in salves for eye discharges and pustules. (_Galen,
De Simpl. Medic._, p. ix. in Latin ed., Venice, 1576.) Matthioli, after
quoting this, says that Pompholyx was commonly known in the laboratories
by the Arabic name of _Tutia_. I see that pure oxide of zinc is stated to
form in modern practice a valuable eye-ointment.
Teixeira speaks of tutia as found only in Kerman, in a range of mountains
twelve parasangs from the capital. The ore got here was kneaded with
water, and set to bake in crucibles in a potter's kiln. When well baked,
the crucibles were lifted and emptied, and the _tutia_ carried in boxes to
Hormuz for sale. This corresponds with a modern account in Milburne, which
says that the tutia imported to India from the Gulf is made from an
argillaceous ore of zinc, which is moulded into tubular cakes, and baked
to a moderate hardness. The accurate Garcia da Horta is wrong for once in
saying that the tutia of Kerman is no mineral, but the ash of a certain
tree called _Goan_.
(_Matth. on Dioscorides_, Ven. 1565, pp. 1338-40; _Teixeira, Relacion de
Persia_, p. 121; _Milburne's Or. Commerce_, I. 139; _Garcia_, f. 21 v.;
_Eng. Cyc._, art. _Zinc_.)
[General A. Houtum-Schindler (_Jour. R. As. Soc._ N.S. XIII. October,
1881, p. 497) says: "The name Tutia for collyrium is now not used in
Kerman. Tutia, when the name stands alone, is sulphate of copper, which in
other parts of Persia is known as Kat-i-Kebud; Tutia-i-sabz (green Tutia)
is sulphate of iron, also called Zaj-i-siyah. A piece of Tutia-i-zard
(yellow Tutia) shown to me was alum, generally called Zaj-i-safid; and a
piece of Tutia-i-safid (white Tutia) seemed to be an argillaceous zinc
ore. Either of these may have been the earth mentioned by Marco Polo as
being put into the furnace. The lampblack used as collyrium is always
called Surmah. This at Kerman itself is the soot produced by the flame of
wicks, steeped in castor oil or goat's fat, upon earthenware saucers. In
the high mountainous districts of the province, Kubenan, Pariz, and
others, Surmah is the soot of the Gavan plant (Garcia's goan). This plant,
a species of Astragalus, is on those mountains very fat and succulent;
from it also exudes the Tragacanth gum. The soot is used dry as an
eye-powder, or, mixed with tallow, as an eye-salve. It is occasionally
collected on iron gratings.
"Tutia is the Arabicised word dudha, Persian for smokes.
"The Shems-ul-loghat calls Tutia a medicine for eyes, and a stone used for
the fabrication of Surmah. The Tohfeh says Tutia is of three kinds--yellow
and blue mineral Tutia, Tutia-i-qalam (collyrium) made from roots, and
Tutia resulting from the process of smelting copper ore. 'The best
Tutia-i-qalam comes from Kerman.' It adds, 'Some authors say Surmah is
sulphuret of antimony, others say it is a composition of iron'; I should
say any _black_ composition used for the eyes is Surmah, be it lampblack,
antimony, iron, or a mixture of all.
"Teixeira's Tutia was an impure oxide of zinc, perhaps the above-mentioned
Tutia-i-safid, baked into cakes; it was probably the East India Company's
Lapis Tutia, also called Tutty. The Company's Tutenague and Tutenage,
occasionally confounded with Tutty, was the so-called 'Chinese Copper,'
an alloy of copper, zinc, and iron, brought from China."
Major Sykes (ch. xxiii.) writes: "I translated Marco's description of
_tutia_ (which is also the modern Persian name), to a khan of Kubenan, and
he assured me that the process was the same to-day; spodium he knew
nothing about, but the sulphate of zinc is found in the hills to the east
of Kubenan."
Heyd (_Com._ II. p. 675) says in a note: "Il resulte de l'ensemble de ce
passage que les matieres designees par Marco Polo sous le nom de 'espodie'
(spodium) etaient des scories metalliques; en general, le mot spodium
designe les residus de la combustion des matieres vegetales ou des os (de
l'ivoire)."--H. C.]
CHAPTER XXII.
OF A CERTAIN DESERT THAT CONTINUES FOR EIGHT DAYS' JOURNEY.
When you depart from this City of Cobinan, you find yourself again in a
Desert of surpassing aridity, which lasts for some eight days; here are
neither fruits nor trees to be seen, and what water there is is bitter and
bad, so that you have to carry both food and water. The cattle must needs
drink the bad water, will they nill they, because of their great thirst.
At the end of those eight days you arrive at a Province which is called
TONOCAIN. It has a good many towns and villages, and forms the extremity
of Persia towards the North.[NOTE 1] It also contains an immense plain on
which is found the ARBRE SOL, which we Christians call the _Arbre Sec_;
and I will tell you what it is like. It is a tall and thick tree, having
the bark on one side green and the other white; and it produces a rough
husk like that of a chestnut, but without anything in it. The wood is
yellow like box, and very strong, and there are no other trees near it nor
within a hundred miles of it, except on one side, where you find trees
within about ten miles' distance. And there, the people of the country
tell you, was fought the battle between Alexander and King Darius.[NOTE 2]
The towns and villages have great abundance of everything good, for the
climate is extremely temperate, being neither very hot nor very cold. The
natives all worship Mahommet, and are a very fine-looking people,
especially the women, who are surpassingly beautiful.
NOTE 1.--All that region has been described as "a country divided into
deserts that are salt, and deserts that are not salt." (_Vigne_, I. 16.)
_Tonocain_, as we have seen (ch. xv. note 1), is the Eastern Kuhistan of
Persia, but extended by Polo, it would seem to include the whole of
Persian Khorasan. No city in particular is indicated as visited by the
traveller, but the view I take of the position of the _Arbre Sec_, as well
as his route through Kuh-Banan, would lead me to suppose that he reached
the Province of TUN-O-KAIN about Tabbas.
["Marco Polo has been said to have traversed a portion of (the
Dash-i-Kavir, great Salt Desert) on his supposed route from Tabbas to
Damghan, about 1272; although it is more probable that he marched further
to the east, and crossed the northern portion of the Dash-i-Lut, Great Sand
Desert, separating Khorasan in the south-east from Kerman, and occupying a
sorrowful parallelogram between the towns of Neh and Tabbas on the north,
and Kerman and Yezd on the south." (Curzon, _Persia_, II. pp. 248 and 251.)
Lord Curzon adds in a note (p. 248): "The Tunogan of the text which was
originally mistaken for Damghan, is correctly explained by Yule as Tun-o-
(i.e. and) Kain." Major Sykes writes (ch. xxiii.): "The section of the Lut
has not hitherto been rediscovered, but I know that it is desert
throughout, and it is practically certain that Marco ended these unpleasant
experiences at Tabas, 150 miles from Kubenan. To-day the district is known
as Tun-o-Tabas, Kain being independent of it."--H. C.]
NOTE 2.--This is another subject on which a long and somewhat discursive
note is inevitable.
One of the Bulletins of the Soc. de Geographie (ser. III. tom. iii. p.
187) contains a perfectly inconclusive endeavour, by M. Roux de Rochelle,
to identify the _Arbre Sec_ or _Arbre Sol_ with a manna-bearing oak
alluded to by Q. Curtius as growing in Hyrcania. There can be no doubt
that the tree described is, as Marsden points out, a _Chinar_ or Oriental
Plane. Mr. Ernst Meyer, in his learned _Geschichte der Botanik_
(Koenigsberg, 1854-57, IV. 123), objects that Polo's description of the
_wood_ does not answer to that tree. But, with due allowance, compare with
his whole account that which Olearius gives of the Chinar, and say if the
same tree be not meant. "The trees are as tall as the pine, and have very
large leaves, closely resembling those of the vine. The fruit looks like a
chestnut, but has no kernel, so it is not eatable. The wood is of a very
brown colour, and full of veins; the Persians employ it for doors and
window-shutters, and when these are rubbed with oil they are incomparably
handsomer than our walnut-wood joinery." (I. 526.) The Chinar-wood is used
in Kashmir for gunstocks.
The whole tenor of the passage seems to imply that some eminent
_individual_ Chinar is meant. The appellations given to it vary in the
different texts. In the G. T. it is styled in this passage, "The _Arbre
Seule_ which the Christians call the _Arbre Sec_," whilst in ch. cci. of
the same (infra, Bk. IV. ch. v.) it is called "_L'Arbre Sol_, which in the
Book of Alexander is called _L'Arbre Seche_" Pauthier has here "_L'Arbre
Solque_, que nous appelons _L'Arbre Sec_," and in the later passage
"_L'Arbre Soul_, que le Livre Alexandre apelle _Arbre Sec_;" whilst
Ramusio has here "_L'Albero del Sole_ che si chiama per i Cristiani
_L'Albor Secco_," and does not contain the later passage. So also I think
all the old Latin and French printed texts, which are more or less based
on Pipino's version, have "The _Tree of the Sun_, which the Latins call
the _Dry Tree_."
[G. Capus says (_A travers le roy. de Tamerlan_, p. 296) that he found at
Khodjakent, the remains of an enormous plane-tree or _Chinar_, which
measured no less than 48 metres (52 yards) in circumference at the base,
and 9 metres diameter inside the rotten trunk; a dozen tourists from
Tashkent one day feasted inside, and were all at ease.--H. C.]
Pauthier, building as usual on the reading of his own text (_Solque_),
endeavours to show that this odd word represents _Thoulk_, the Arabic name
of a tree to which Forskal gave the title of _Ficus Vasta_, and this Ficus
Vasta he will have to be the same as the Chinar. _Ficus Vasta_ would be a
strange name surely to give to a Plane-tree, but Forskal may be acquitted
of such an eccentricity. The _Tholak_ (for that seems to be the proper
vocalisation) is a tree of Arabia Felix, very different from the Chinar,
for it is the well-known Indian Banyan, or a closely-allied species, as
may be seen in Forskal's description. The latter indeed says that the Arab
botanists called it _Delb_, and that (or _Dulb_) is really a synonym for
the Chinar. But De Sacy has already commented upon this supposed
application of the name Delb to the _Tholak_ as erroneous. (See _Flora
Aegyptiaco-Arabica_, pp. cxxiv. and 179; _Abdallatif, Rel. de l'Egypte_,
p. 80; _J. R. G. S._ VIII. 275; _Ritter_, VI. 662, 679.)
The fact is that the _Solque_ of M. Pauthier's text is a mere copyist's
error in the reduplication of the pronoun _que_. In his chief MS. which he
cites as A (No. 10,260 of Bibl. Nationale, now _Fr_. 5631) we can even see
how this might easily happen, for one line ends with _Solque_ and the next
begins with _que_. The true reading is, I doubt not, that which this MS.
points to, and which the G. Text gives us in the second passage quoted
above, viz. _Arbre_ SOL, occurring in Ramusio as _Albero del_ SOLE. To
make this easier of acceptation I must premise two remarks: first, that
_Sol_ is "the Sun" in both Venetian and Provencal; and, secondly, that in
the French of that age the prepositional sign is not _necessary_ to the
genitive. Thus, in Pauthier's own text we find in one of the passages
quoted above, "_Le Livre Alexandre_, i.e. Liber Alexandri;" elsewhere,
"_Cazan le fils Argon_," "_a la mere sa femme_," "_Le corps Monseigneur
Saint Thomas si est en ceste Province_;" in Joinville, "_le commandemant
Mahommet_" "_ceux de la_ Haulequa _estoient logiez entour les heberges le
soudanc, et establiz pour le cors le soudanc garder_;" in Baudouin de
Sebourc, "_De l'amour Bauduin esprise et enflambee_."
Moreover it is the TREE OF THE SUN that is prominent in the legendary
History of Alexander, a fact sufficient in itself to rule the reading. A
character in an old English play says:--
"_Peregrine_. Drake was a didapper to Mandevill:
Candish and Hawkins, Frobisher, all our Voyagers
Went short of Mandevil. But had he reached
To this place--here--yes, here--this wilderness,
And seen the _Trees of the Sun and Moon_, that speak
And told King Alexander of his death;
He then
Had left a passage ope to Travellers
That now is kept and guarded by Wild Beasts."
(_Broome's Antipodes_, in _Lamb's Specimens_.)
The same trees are alluded to in an ancient Low German poem in honour of
St. Anno of Cologne. Speaking of the Four Beasts of Daniel's Vision:--
"The third beast was a Libbard;
Four Eagle's Wings he had;
This signified the Grecian Alexander,
Who with four Hosts went forth to conquer lands
Even to the World's End,
Known by its Golden Pillars.
In India he the Wilderness broke through
_With Trees twain he there did speak_," etc.
(In _Schilteri Thesaurus Antiq. Teuton._ tom. i.[1])
These oracular Trees of the Sun and Moon, somewhere on the confines of
India, appear in all the fabulous histories of Alexander, from the
Pseudo-Callisthenes downwards. Thus Alexander is made to tell the story in
a letter to Aristotle: "Then came some of the towns-people and said, 'We
have to show thee something passing strange, O King, and worth thy
visiting; for we can show thee trees that talk with human speech.' So they
led me to a certain park, in the midst of which were the Sun and Moon, and
round about them a guard of priests of the Sun and Moon. And there stood
the two trees of which they had spoken, like unto cypress trees; and round
about them were trees like the myrobolans of Egypt, and with similar fruit.
And I addressed the two trees that were in the midst of the park, the one
which was male in the Masculine gender, and the one that was female in the
Feminine gender. And the name of the Male Tree was the Sun, and of the
female Tree the Moon, names which were in that language _Muthu_ and
_Emausae_.[2] And the stems were clothed with the skins of animals; the
male tree with the skins of he-beasts, and the female tree with the skins
of she-beasts.... And at the setting of the Sun, a voice, speaking in the
Indian tongue, came forth from the (Sun) Tree; and I ordered the Indians
who were with me to interpret it. But they were afraid and would not," etc.
(_Pseudo-Callisth._ ed. Mueller, III. 17.)
The story as related by Firdusi keeps very near to the Greek as just
quoted, but does not use the term "Tree of the Sun." The chapter of the
Shah Nameh containing it is entitled _Didan Sikandar dirakht-i-goyara_,
"Alexander's interview with the Speaking Tree." (_Livre des Rois_, V.
229.) In the _Chanson d'Alixandre_ of Lambert le Court and Alex. de
Bernay, these trees are introduced as follows:--
"'Signor,' fait Alixandre, 'je vus voel demander,
Se des merveilles d'Inde me saves rien conter.'
Cil li ont respondu: 'Se tu vius escouter
Ja te dirons merveilles, s'es poras esprover.
La sus en ces desers pues ii Arbres trover
Qui c pies ont de haut, et de grossor sunt per.
Li Solaus et La Lune les ont fait si serer
Que sevent tous langages et entendre et parler.'"
(Ed. 1861 (Dinan), p. 357.)
Maundevile informs us precisely where these trees are: "A 15 journeys in
lengthe, goynge be the Deserts of the tother side of the Ryvere Beumare,"
if one could only tell where that is![3] A mediaeval chronicler also tells
us that Ogerus the Dane (_temp. Caroli Magni_) conquered all the parts
beyond sea from Hierusalem to the Trees of the Sun. In the old Italian
romance also of _Guerino detto il Meschino_, still a chapbook in S. Italy,
the Hero (ch. lxiii.) visits the Trees of the Sun and Moon. But this is
mere imitation of the Alexandrian story, and has nothing of interest.
(_Maundevile_, pp. 297-298; _Fasciculus Temporum_ in _Germ. Script.
Pistorii Nidani_, II.)
It will be observed that the letter ascribed to Alexander describes the
two oracular trees as resembling two cypress-trees. As such the Trees of
the Sun and Moon are represented on several extant ancient medals, e.g. on
two struck at Perga in Pamphylia in the time of Aurelian. And Eastern
story tells us of two vast cypress-trees, sacred among the Magians, which
grew in Khorasan, one at Kashmar near Turshiz, and the other at Farmad
near Tuz, and which were said to have risen from shoots that Zoroaster
brought from Paradise. The former of these was sacrilegiously cut down by
the order of the Khalif Motawakkil, in the 9th century. The trunk was
despatched to Baghdad on rollers at a vast expense, whilst the branches
alone formed a load for 1300 camels. The night that the convoy reached
within one stage of the palace, the Khalif was cut in pieces by his own
guards. This tree was said to be 1450 years old, and to measure 33-3/4
cubits in girth. The locality of _this_ "Arbor Sol" we see was in
Khorasan, and possibly its fame may have been transferred to a
representative of another species. The plane, as well as the cypress, was
one of the distinctive trees of the Magian Paradise.
In the Peutingerian Tables we find in the N.E. of Asia the rubric "_Hic
Alexander Responsum accepit_," which looks very like an allusion to the
tale of the Oracular Trees. If so, it is remarkable as a suggestion of the
antiquity of the Alexandrian Legends, though the rubric may of course be
an interpolation. The Trees of the Sun and Moon appear as located in India
Ultima to the east of Persia, in a map which is found in MSS. (12th
century) of the _Floridus of Lambertus_; and they are indicated more or
less precisely in several maps of the succeeding centuries. (_Ouseley's
Travels_, I. 387; _Dabistan_, I. 307-308; _Santarem, H. de la Cosmog._ II.
189, III. 506-513, etc.)
Nothing could show better how this legend had possessed men in the Middle
Ages than the fact that Vincent of Beauvais discerns an allusion to these
Trees of the Sun and Moon in the blessing of Moses on Joseph (as it runs
in the Vulgate), "_de pomis fructuum Solis ac Lunae_." (Deut. xxxiii. 14.)
Marco has mixt up this legend of the Alexandrian Romance, on the
authority, as we shall see reason to believe, of some of the recompilers
of that Romance, with a famous subject of _Christian_ Legend in that age,
the ARBRE SEC or Dry Tree, one form of which is related by Maundevile and
by Johan Schiltberger. "A lytille fro Ebron," says the former, "is the
Mount of Mambre, of the whyche the Valeye taketh his name. And there is a
Tree of Oke that the Saracens clepen _Dirpe_, that is of Abraham's Tyme,
the which men clepen THE DRYE TREE." [Schiltberger adds that the heathen
call it _Kurru Thereck_, i.e. (Turkish) _Kuru Dirakht_ = Dry Tree.] "And
theye seye that it hathe ben there sithe the beginnynge of the World; and
was sumtyme grene and bare Leves, unto the Tyme that Oure Lord dyede on
the Cros; and thanne it dryede; and so dyden alle the Trees that weren
thanne in the World. And summe seyn be hire Prophecyes that a Lord, a
Prynce of the West syde of the World, shalle wynnen the Lond of
Promyssioun, i.e. the Holy Lond, withe Helpe of Cristene Men, and he
schalle do synge a Masse under that Drye Tree, and than the Tree shall
wexen grene and bere both Fruyt and Leves. And thorghe that Myracle manye
Sarazines and Jewes schulle ben turned to Cristene Feithe. And, therefore,
they dou gret Worschipe thereto, and kepen it fulle besyly. And alle be it
so that it be drye, natheless yit he berethe great vertue," etc.
The tradition seems to have altered with circumstances, for a traveller of
nearly two centuries later (Friar Anselmo, 1509) describes the oak of
Abraham at Hebron as a tree of dense and verdant foliage: "The Saracens
make their devotions at it, and hold it in great veneration, for it has
remained thus green from the days of Abraham until now; and they tie
scraps of cloth on its branches inscribed with some of their writing, and
believe that if any one were to cut a piece off that tree he would die
within the year." Indeed even before Maundevile's time Friar Burchard
(1283) had noticed that though the famous old tree was dry, another had
sprung from its roots. And it still has a representative.
As long ago as the time of Constantine a fair was held under the Terebinth
of Mamre, which was the object of many superstitious rites and excesses.
The Emperor ordered these to be put a stop to, and a church to be erected
at the spot. In the time of Arculph (end of 7th century) the dry trunk
still existed under the roof of this church; just as the immortal
Banyan-tree of Prag exists to this day in a subterranean temple in the Fort
of Allahabad.
It is evident that the story of the Dry Tree had got a great vogue in the
13th century. In the _Jus du Pelerin_, a French drama of Polo's age, the
Pilgrim says:--
"S'ai puis en maint bon lieu et a maint saint este,
S'ai este au _Sec-Arbre_ et dusc'a Dureste."
And in another play of slightly earlier date (_Le Jus de St. Nicolas_),
the King of Africa, invaded by the Christians, summons all his allies and
feudatories, among whom appear the Admirals of Coine (_Iconium_) and
Orkenie (_Hyrcania_), and the _Amiral d'outre l'Arbre-Sec_ (as it were of
"the Back of Beyond") in whose country the only current coin is
millstones! Friar Odoric tells us that he heard at Tabriz that the _Arbor
Secco_ existed in a mosque of that city; and Clavijo relates a confused
story about it in the same locality. Of the _Duerre Baum_ at Tauris there
is also a somewhat pointless legend in a Cologne MS. of the 14th century,
professing to give an account of the East. There are also some curious
verses concerning a mystical _Duerre Bom_ quoted by Fabricius from an old
Low German Poem; and we may just allude to that other mystic _Arbor Secco_
of Dante--
--"una pianta dispogliata
Di fiori e d'altra fronda in ciascun ramo,"
though the dark symbolism in the latter case seems to have a different
bearing.
(_Maundevile_, p. 68; _Schiltberger_, p. 113; Anselm. in _Canisii
Thesaurus_, IV. 781; _Pereg. Quat._ p. 81; _Niceph. Callist._ VIII. 30;
_Theatre Francais au Moyen Age_, pp. 97, 173; _Cathay_, p. 48; _Clavijo_,
p. 90; _Orient und Occident_, Goettingen, 1867, vol. i.; _Fabricii Vet.
Test. Pseud._, etc., I. 1133; _Dante, Purgat._ xxxii. 35.)
But why does Polo bring this _Arbre Sec_ into connection with the Sun Tree
of the Alexandrian Legend? I cannot answer this to my own entire
satisfaction, but I can show that such a connection had been imagined in
his time.
Paulin Paris, in a notice of MS. No. 6985. (_Fonds Ancien_) of the
National Library, containing a version of the _Chansons de Geste
d'Alixandre_, based upon the work of L. Le Court and Alex. de Bernay, but
with additions of later date, notices amongst these latter the visit of
Alexander to the Valley Perilous, where he sees a variety of wonders,
among others the _Arbre des Pucelles_. Another tree at a great distance
from the last is called the ARBRE SEC, and reveals to Alexander the secret
of the fate which attends him in Babylon. (_Les MSS. Francais de la Bibl.
du Roi_, III. 105.)[4] Again the English version of _King Alisaundre_,
published in Weber's Collection, shows clearly enough that in _its_ French
original the term _Arbre Sec_ was applied to the Oracular Trees, though
the word has been miswritten, and misunderstood by Weber. The King, as in
the Greek and French passages already quoted, meeting two old churls, asks
if they know of any marvel in those parts:--
"'Ye, par ma fay,' quoth heo,
'A great merveille we wol telle the;
That is hennes in even way
The mountas of ten daies journey,
Thou shalt find trowes[5] two:
Seyntes and holy they buth bo;
Higher than in othir countray all.
ARBESET men heom callith.'
* * * * *
'Sire Kyng,' quod on, 'by myn eyghe
Either Trough is an hundrod feet hygh,
They stondith up into the skye;
That on to the _Sonne_, sikirlye;
That othir, we tellith the nowe,
Is sakret in the _Mone_ vertue.'"
(_Weber_, I. 277.)
Weber's glossary gives "_Arbeset_ = Strawberry Tree, _arbous, arbousier,
arbutus_"; but that is nonsense.
Further, in the French Prose Romance of Alexander, which is contained in
the fine volume in the British Museum known as the Shrewsbury Book (Reg.
XV. e. 6), though we do not find the Arbre Sec so named, we find it
described and pictorially represented. The Romance (fol. xiiii. v.)
describes Alexander and his chief companions as ascending a certain
mountain by 2500 steps which were attached to a golden chain. At the top
they find the golden Temple of the Sun and an old man asleep within.
It goes on:--
"Quant le viellart les vit si leur demanda s'ils vouloient veoir les
Arbres sacrez de la Lune et du Soleil que nous annuncent les choses qui
sont a avenir. Quant Alexandre ouy ce si fut rempli de mult grant ioye. Si
lui respondirent, 'Ouye sur, nous les voulons veoir.' Et cil lui dist, 'Se
tu es nez de prince malle et de femelle il te convient entrer en celui
lieu.' Et Alexandre lui respondi, 'Nous somes nez de compagne malle et de
femelle.' Dont se leve le viellart du lit ou il gesoit, et leur dist,
'Hostez vos vestemens et vos chauces.' Et Tholomeus et Antigonus et
Perdiacas le suivrent. Lors comencerent a aler parmy la forest qui estoit
enclose en merveilleux labour. Illec trouverent les arbres semblables a
loriers et oliviers. Et estoient de cent pies de haults, et decouroit
d'eulz incens ypobaume[6] a grant quantite. Apres entrerent plus avant en
la forest, et trouverent _une arbre durement hault qui n'avoit ne fueille
ne fruit_. Si seoit sur cet arbre une grant oysel qui avoit en son chief
une creste qui estoit semblable au paon, et les plumes du col
resplendissants come fin or. Et avoit la couleur de rose. Dont lui dist le
viellart, 'Cet oysel dont vous vous merveillez est appeles Fenis, lequel
n'a nul pareil en tout le monde.' Dont passerent outre, et allerent aux
Arbres du Soleil et de la Lune. Et quant ils y furent venus, si leur dist
le viellart, 'Regardez en haut, et pensez en votre coeur ce que vous
vouldrez demander, et ne le dites de la bouche.' Alisandre luy demanda en
quel language donnent les Arbres response aux gens. Et il lui respondit,
'L'Arbre du Soleil commence a parler Indien.' Dont baisa Alexandre les
arbres, et comenca en son ceur a penser s'il conquesteroit tout le monde
et retourneroit en Macedonie atout son ost. Dont lui respondit l'Arbre du
Soleil, 'Alexandre tu seras Roy de tout le monde, mais Macedonie tu ne
verras jamais,'" etc.
The appearance of the Arbre Sec in Maps of the 15th century, such as those
of Andrea Bianco (1436) and Fra Mauro (1459), may be ascribed to the
influence of Polo's own work; but a more genuine evidence of the
prevalence of the legend is found in the celebrated Hereford Map
constructed in the 13th century by Richard de Haldingham. This, in the
vicinity of India and the Terrestrial Paradise, exhibits a Tree with the
rubric "_Albor Balsami est Arbor Sicca_."
The legends of the Dry Tree were probably spun out of the words of the
Vulgate in Ezekiel xvii. 24: "_Humiliavi lignum sublime et exaltavi lignum
humile; et siccavi lignum viride_ et frondescere feci lignum aridum."
Whether the _Rue de l'Arbre Sec_ in Paris derives its name from the legend
I know not. [The name of the street is taken from an old sign-board; some
say it is derived from the gibbet placed in the vicinity, but this is more
than doubtful.--H. C.]
[Illustration: Commentles arbres du soleil et De la lune prophe tiserent
la mort alixandre.]
The actual tree to which Polo refers in the text was probably one of those
so frequent in Persia, to which age, position, or accident has attached a
character of sanctity, and which are styled _Dirakht-i-Fazl_, Trees of
Excellence or Grace, and often receive titles appropriate to Holy Persons.
Vows are made before them, and pieces torn from the clothes of the
votaries are hung upon the branches or nailed to the trunks. To a tree of
such a character, imposing in decay, Lucan compares Pompey:
"Stat magni nominis umbra.
Qualis frugifero quercus sublimis in agro,
_Exuvias veteres populi sacrataque gestans
Dona ducum_ * * * * *
--Quamvis primo nutet casura sub Euro,
Tot circum silvae firmo se robore tollant,
Sola tamen colitur."
(_Pharsalia_, I. 135.)
The Tree of Mamre was evidently precisely one of this class; and those who
have crossed the Suez Desert before railway days will remember such a
_Dirakht-i-Fazl_, an aged mimosa, a veritable _Arbre Seul_ (could we
accept that reading), that stood just half-way across the Desert,
streaming with the _exuviae veteres_ of Mecca Pilgrims. The majority of
such holy trees in Persia appear to be Plane-trees. Admiration for the
beauty of this tree seems to have occasionally risen into superstitious
veneration from a very old date. Herodotus relates that the Carians, after
their defeat by the Persians on the Marsyas, rallied in the sacred grove
of Plane-trees at Labranda. And the same historian tells how, some years
later, Xerxes on his march to Greece decorated a beautiful Chinar with
golden ornaments. Mr. Hamilton, in the same region, came on the remains of
a giant of the species, which he thought might possibly be the very same.
Pliny rises to enthusiasm in speaking of some noble Plane-trees in Lycia
and elsewhere. Chardin describes one grand and sacred specimen, called
King Hosain's Chinar, and said to be more than 1000 years old, in a suburb
of Ispahan, and another hung with amulets, rags, and tapers in a garden at
Shiraz.[7] One sacred tree mentioned by the Persian geographer Hamd Allah
as distinguishing the grave of a holy man at Bostam in Khorasan (the
species is not named, at least by Ouseley, from whom I borrow this) comes
into striking relation with the passage in our text. The story went that
it had been the staff of Mahomed; as such it had been transmitted through
many generations, until it was finally deposited in the grave of Abu
Abdallah Dasitani, where it struck root and put forth branches. And it is
explicitly called _Dirakht-i-Khushk_, i.e. literally L'ARBRE SEC.
This last legend belongs to a large class. The staff of Adam, which was
created in the twilight of the approaching Sabbath, was bestowed on him in
Paradise and handed down successively to Enoch and the line of Patriarchs.
After the death of Joseph it was set in Jethro's garden, and there grew
untouched, till Moses came and got his rod from it. In another form of the
legend it is Seth who gets a branch of the Tree of Life, and from this
Moses afterwards obtains his rod of power. These Rabbinical stories seem
in later times to have been developed into the Christian legends of the
wood destined to form the Cross, such as they are told in the Golden
Legend or by Godfrey of Viterbo, and elaborated in Calderon's _Sibila del
Oriente_. Indeed, as a valued friend who has consulted the latter for me
suggests, probably all the Arbre Sec Legends of Christendom bore mystic
reference to the Cross. In Calderon's play the Holy Rood, seen in vision,
is described as a Tree:--
----"cuyas hojas,
Secas mustias y marchitas,
Desnudo el tronco dejaban
Que, entre mil copas floridas
De los arboles, el solo
Sin pompa y sin bizaria
Era cadaver del prado."
There are several Dry-Tree stories among the wonders of Buddhism; one is
that of a sacred tree visited by the Chinese pilgrims to India, which had
grown from the twig which Sakya, in Hindu fashion, had used as a
tooth-brush; and I think there is a like story in our own country of the
Glastonbury Thorn having grown from the staff of Joseph of Arimathea.
["St Francis' Church is a large pile, neere which, yet a little without
the Citty, growes a tree which they report in their legend grew from the
Saint's Staff, which on going to sleepe he fixed in the ground, and at
his waking found it had grown a large tree. They affirm that the wood
of its decoction cures sundry diseases." (_Evelyn's Diary_, October,
1644.)--H. C.]
In the usual form of the mediaeval legend, Adam, drawing near his end,
sends Seth to the gate of Paradise, to seek the promised Oil of Mercy.
The Angel allows Seth to put his head in at the gate. Doing so (as an old
English version gives it)--
--"he saw a fair Well,
Of whom all the waters on earth cometh, as the Book us doth tell;
Over the Well stood a Tree, with bowes broad and lere
Ac it _ne bare leaf ne rind, but as it for-olded were_;
A nadder it had beclipt about, all naked withouten skin,
That was the Tree and the Nadder that first made Adam do sin!"
The Adder or Serpent is coiled about the denuded stem; the upper branches
reach to heaven, and bear at the top a new-born wailing infant, swathed in
linen, whilst (here we quote a French version)--
"Les larmes qui de lui issoient
Contreval l'Arbre en avaloient;
Adonc regarda l'enfant Seth
Tout contreval de L'ARBRE SECQ;
Les rachines qui le tenoient
Jusques en Enfer s'en aloient,
Les larmes qui de lui issirent
Jusques dedans Enfer cheirent."
The Angel gives Seth three kernels from the fruit of the Tree. Seth
returns home and finds his father dead. He buries him in _the valley of
Hebron_, and places the three grains under his tongue. A triple shoot
springs up of Cedar, Cypress, and Pine, symbolising the three Persons of
the Trinity. The three eventually unite into one stem, and this tree
survives in various forms, and through various adventures in connection
with the Scripture History, till it is found at the bottom of the Pool of
Bethesda, to which it had imparted healing Virtue, and is taken thence to
form the Cross on which Our Lord suffered.
The English version quoted above is from a MS. of the 14th century in the
Bodleian, published by Dr. Morris in his collection of _Legends of the
Holy Rood_. I have modernised the spelling of the lines quoted, without
altering the words. The French citation is from a MS. in the Vienna
Library, from which extracts are given by Sign. Adolfo Mussafia in his
curious and learned tract (_Sulla Legenda del Legno della Croce_, Vienna,
1870), which gives a full account of the fundamental legend and its
numerous variations. The examination of these two works, particularly
Sign. Mussafia's, gives an astonishing impression of the copiousness with
which such Christian Mythology, as it may fairly be called, was diffused
and multiplied. There are in the paper referred to notices of between
fifty and sixty different _works_ (not MSS. or _copies_ of works merely)
containing this legend in various European languages.
(_Santarem_, III. 380, II. 348; _Ouseley_, I. 359 seqq. and 391;
_Herodotus_, VII. 31; _Pliny_, XII. 5; _Chardin_, VII. 410, VIII. 44 and
426; _Fabricius_, _Vet. Test. Pseud._ I. 80 seqq.; _Cathay_, p. 365;
_Beal's Fah-Hian_, 72 and 78; _Pelerins Bouddhistes_, II. 292; _Della
Valle_, II. 276-277.)
[Illustration: Chinar, or Oriental Plane]
He who injured the holy tree of Bostam, we are told, perished the same
day: a general belief in regard to those _Trees of Grace_, of which we
have already seen instances in regard to the sacred trees of Zoroaster and
the Oak of Hebron. We find the same belief in Eastern Africa, where
certain trees, regarded by the natives with superstitious reverence, which
they express by driving in votive nails and suspending rags, are known to
the European residents by the vulgar name of _Devil Trees_. Burton relates
a case of the verification of the superstition in the death of an English
merchant who had cut down such a tree, and of four members of his
household. It is the old story which Ovid tells; and the tree which
Erisichthon felled was a _Dirakht-i-Fazl_:
"Vittae mediam, memoresque tabellae
Sertaque cingebant, voti argumenta potentis."
(_Metamorph._ VIII. 744.)
Though the coincidence with our text of Hamd Allah's Dry Tree is very
striking, I am not prepared to lay stress on it as an argument for the
geographical determination of Marco's _Arbre Sec_. His use of the title
more than once to characterise the whole frontier of Khorasan can hardly
have been a mere whim of his own: and possibly some explanation of that
circumstance will yet be elicited from the Persian historians or
geographers of the Mongol era.
Meanwhile it is in the vicinity of Bostam or Damghan that I should incline
to place this landmark. If no one _very_ cogent reason points to this, a
variety of minor ones do so; such as the direction of the traveller's
journey from Kerman through Kuh Banan; the apparent vicinity of a great
Ismailite fortress, as will be noticed in the next chapter; the connection
twice indicated (see _Prologue_, ch. xviii. note 6, and Bk. IV. ch. v.) of
the Arbre Sec with the headquarters of Ghazan Khan in watching the great
passes, of which the principal ones debouche at Bostam, at which place
also buildings erected by Ghazan still exist; and the statement that the
decisive battle between Alexander and Darius was placed there by local
tradition. For though no such battle took place in that region, we know
that Darius was murdered near Hecatompylos. Some place this city west of
Bostam, near Damghan; others east of it, about Jah Jerm; Ferrier has
strongly argued for the vicinity of Bostam itself. Firdusi indeed places
the final battle on the confines of Kerman, and the death of Darius within
that province. But this could not have been the tradition Polo met with.
I may add that the temperate climate of Bostam is noticed in words almost
identical with Polo's by both Fraser and Ferrier.
The Chinar abounds in Khorasan (as far as any tree can be said to _abound_
in Persia), and even in the Oases of Tun-o-Kain wherever there is water.
Travellers quoted by Ritter notice Chinars of great size and age at
Shahrud, near Bostam, at Meyomid, and at Mehr, west of Sabzawar, which
last are said to date from the time of Naoshirwan (7th century). There is
a town to the N.W. of Meshid called _Chinaran_, "The Planes." P. Della
Valle, we may note, calls Tehran "la citta dei platani."
The following note by De Sacy regarding the Chinar has already been quoted
by Marsden, and though it may be doubtful whether the term Arbre Sec had
any relation to the idea expressed, it seems to me too interesting to be
omitted: "Its sterility seems to have become proverbial among certain
people of the East. For in a collection of sundry moral sentences
pertaining to the Sabaeans or Christians of St. John ... we find the
following: 'The vainglorious man is like a showy Plane Tree, rich in
boughs but producing nothing, and affording no fruit to its owner.'" The
same reproach of sterility is cast at the Plane by Ovid's Walnut:--
"At postquam platanis, _sterilem praebentibus umbram_,
Uberior quavis arbore venit honos;
Nos quoque fructiferae, si nux modo ponor in illis,
Coepimus in patulas luxuriare comas." (_Nux_, 17-20.)
I conclude with another passage from Khanikoff, though put forward in
special illustration of what I believe to be a mistaken reading (_Arbre
Seul_): "Where the Chinar is of spontaneous growth, or occupies the centre
of a vast and naked plain, this tree is even in our own day invested with
a quite exceptional veneration, and the locality often comes to be called
'The Place of the Solitary Tree.'" (_J. R. G. S._ XXIX. 345; _Ferrier_,
69-76; _Fraser_, 343; _Ritter_, VIII. 332, XI. 512 seqq.; _Della Valle_,
I. 703; _De Sacy's Abdallatif_, p. 81; _Khanikoff_, _Not._ p. 38.)
[See in Fr. Zarncke, _Der Priester Johannes_, II., in the chap. _Der Baum
des Seth_, pp. 127-128, from MS. (14th century) from Cambridge, this
curious passage (p. 128): "Tandem rogaverunt eum, ut arborem siccam, de
qua multum saepe loqui audierant, liceret videre. Quibus dicebat: 'Non est
appellata arbor sicca recto nomine, sed arbor Seth, quoniam Seth, filius
Adae, primi patris nostri, eam plantavit.' Et ad arborem Seth fecit eos
ducere, prohibens eos, ne arborem transmearent, sed [si?] ad patriam suam
redire desiderarent. Et cum appropinquassent, de pulcritudine arboris
mirati sunt; erat enim magnae immensitatis et miri decoris. Omnium enim
colorum varietas inerat arbori, condensitas foliorum et fructuum
diversorum; diversitas avium omnium, quae sub coelo sunt. Folia vero
invicem se repercutientia dulcissimae melodiae modulamine resonabant, et
aves amoenos cantus ultra quam credi potest promebant; et odor suavissimus
profudit eos, ita quod paradisi amoenitate fuisse. Et cum admirantes
tantam pulcritudinem aspicerent, unus sociorum aliquo eorum maior aetate,
cogitans [cogitavit?] intra se, quod senior esset et, si inde rediret,
cito aliquo casu mori posset. Et cum haec secum cogitasset, coepit arborem
transire, et cum transisset, advocans socios, iussit eos post se ad locum
amoenissimum, quem ante se videbat plenum deliciis sibi paratum [paratis?]
festinare. At illi retrogressi sunt ad regem, scilicet presbiterum
Iohannem. Quos donis amplis ditavit, et qui cum eo morari voluerunt
libenter et honorifice detinuit. Alii vero ad patriam reversi sunt."--In
common with Marsden and Yule, I have no doubt that the _Arbre Sec_ is the
_Chinar_. Odoric places it at Tabriz and I have given a very lengthy
dissertation on the subject in my edition of this traveller (pp. 21-29),
to which I must refer the reader, to avoid increasing unnecessarily the
size of the present publication.--H. C.]
[1] "Daz dritte Dier was ein Lebarte
Vier arin Vederich her havite;
Der beceichnote den Criechiskin Alexanderin,
Der mit vier Herin vuer aftir Landin,
Unz her die Werilt einde,
Bi guldinin Siulin bikante.
In Indea her die Wusti durchbrach,
_Mit zwein Boumin her sich da gesprach_," etc.
[2] It is odd how near the word _Emausae_ comes to the E. African _Mwezi_;
and perhaps more odd that "the elders of U-nya-Mwezi ('the Land of the
Moon') declare that their patriarchal ancestor became after death the
first Tree, and afforded shade to his children and descendants.
According to the Arabs the people still perform pilgrimage to a holy
tree, and believe that the penalty of sacrilege in cutting off a twig
would be visited by sudden and mysterious death." (_Burton_ in _F. R.
G. S._ XXIX. 167-168.)
[3] "The River _Buemar_, in the furthest forests of India," appears
to come up in one of the versions of Alexander's Letter to Aristotle,
though I do not find it in Mueller's edition. (See Zacher's
_Pseudo-Callisthenes_, p. 160.) 'Tis perhaps Ab-i-Amu!
[4] It is right to notice that there may be some error in the _reference_
of Paulin Paris; at least I could not trace the _Arbre Sec_ in the MS.
which he cites, nor in the celebrated Bodleian Alexander, which
appears to contain the same version of the story. [The fact is that
Paulin Paris refers to the _Arbre_, but without the word _sec_, at the
top of the first column of fol. 79 _recto_ of the MS. No. _Fr._ 368
(late 6985).--H. C.]
[5] Trees.
[6] Opobalsamum.
[7] A recent traveler in China gives a perfectly similar description of
sacred trees in Shansi. Many bore inscriptions in large letters. "If
you pray, you will certainly be heard."--_Rev. A. Williamson_,
_Journeys in N. China_, I. 163, where there is a cut of such a tree
near Taiyuanfu. (See this work, I. ch. xvi.) Mr. Williamson describes
such a venerated tree, an ancient acacia, known as the Acacia of the
T'ang, meaning that it existed under that Dynasty (7th to 10th
century). It is renowned for its healing virtues, and every available
spot on its surface was crowded with votive tablets and inscriptions.
(Ib. 303.)
CHAPTER XXIII.
CONCERNING THE OLD MAN OF THE MOUNTAIN.
Mulehet is a country in which the Old Man of the Mountain dwelt in former
days; and the name means "_Place of the Aram_." I will tell you his whole
history as related by Messer Marco Polo, who heard it from several natives
of that region.
The Old Man was called in their language ALOADIN. He had caused a certain
valley between two mountains to be enclosed, and had turned it into a
garden, the largest and most beautiful that ever was seen, filled with
every variety of fruit. In it were erected pavilions and palaces the most
elegant that can be imagined, all covered with gilding and exquisite
painting. And there were runnels too, flowing freely with wine and milk
and honey and water; and numbers of ladies and of the most beautiful
damsels in the world, who could play on all manner of instruments, and
sung most sweetly, and danced in a manner that it was charming to behold.
For the Old Man desired to make his people believe that this was actually
Paradise. So he had fashioned it after the description that Mahommet gave
of his Paradise, to wit, that it should be a beautiful garden running with
conduits of wine and milk and honey and water, and full of lovely women
for the delectation of all its inmates. And sure enough the Saracens of
those parts believed that it _was_ Paradise!
Now no man was allowed to enter the Garden save those whom he intended to
be his ASHISHIN. There was a Fortress at the entrance to the Garden,
strong enough to resist all the world, and there was no other way to get
in. He kept at his Court a number of the youths of the country, from 12 to
20 years of age, such as had a taste for soldiering, and to these he used
to tell tales about Paradise, just as Mahommet had been wont to do, and
they believed in him just as the Saracens believe in Mahommet. Then he
would introduce them into his garden, some four, or six, or ten at a time,
having first made them drink a certain potion which cast them into a deep
sleep, and then causing them to be lifted and carried in. So when they
awoke, they found themselves in the Garden.[NOTE 1]
NOTE 1.--Says the venerable Sire de Joinville: "_Le Vieil de la Montaingne
ne creoit pas en Mahommet, aincois creoit en la Loi de Haali, qui fu Oncle
Mahommet._" This is a crude statement, no doubt, but it has a germ of
truth. Adherents of the family of 'Ali as the true successors of the
Prophet existed from the tragical day of the death of Husain, and among
these, probably owing to the secrecy with which they were compelled to
hold their allegiance, there was always a tendency to all manner of
strange and mystical doctrines; as in one direction to the glorification
of 'Ali as a kind of incarnation of the Divinity, a character in which his
lineal representatives were held in some manner to partake; in another
direction to the development of Pantheism, and release from all positive
creed and precepts. Of these Aliites, eventually called _Shiahs_, a chief
sect, and parent of many heretical branches, were the Ismailites, who took
their name, from the seventh Imam, whose return to earth they professed to
expect at the end of the World. About A.D. 1090 a branch of the Ismaili
stock was established by Hassan, son of Sabah, in the mountainous
districts of Northern Persia; and, before their suppression by the
Mongols, 170 years later, the power of the quasi-spiritual dynasty which
Hassan founded had spread over the Eastern Kohistan, at least as far as
Kain. Their headquarters were at Alamut ("Eagle's Nest"), about 32 miles
north-east of Kazwin, and all over the territory which they held they
established fortresses of great strength. De Sacy seems to have proved
that they were called _Hashishiya_ or _Hashishin_, from their use of the
preparation of hemp called _Hashish_; and thence, through their system of
murder and terrorism, came the modern application of the word Assassin.
The original aim of this system was perhaps that of a kind of
_Vehmgericht_, to punish or terrify orthodox persecutors who were too
strong to be faced with the sword. I have adopted in the text one of the
readings of the G. Text _Asciscin_, as expressing the original word with
the greatest accuracy that Italian spelling admits. In another author we
find it as _Chazisii_ (see _Bollandists_, May, vol. ii. p. xi.); Joinville
calls them _Assacis_; whilst Nangis and others corrupt the name into
_Harsacidae_, and what not.
The explanation of the name MULEHET as it is in Ramusio, or _Mulcete_ as
it is in the G. Text (the last expressing in Rusticiano's Pisan tongue the
strongly aspirated _Mulhete_), is given by the former: "This name of
Mulehet is as much as to say in the Saracen tongue '_The Abode of
Heretics_,'" the fact being that it does represent the Arabic term
_Mulhid_, pl. _Mulahidah_, "Impii, heretici," which is in the Persian
histories (as of Rashiduddin and Wassaf) the title most commonly used to
indicate this community, and which is still applied by orthodox Mahomedans
to the Nosairis, Druses, and other sects of that kind, more or less
kindred to the Ismaili. The writer of the _Tabakat-i-Nasiri_ calls the
sectarians of Alamut _Mulahidat-ul-maut_, "Heretics of Death."[1] The
curious reading of the G. Text which we have preserved "_vaut a dire des_
Aram," should be read as we have rendered it. I conceive that Marco was
here unconsciously using one Oriental term to explain another. For it
seems possible to explain _Aram_ only as standing for _Haram_, in the
sense of "wicked" or "reprobate."
In Pauthier's Text, instead of _des aram_, we find "_veult dire en
francois_ Diex Terrien," or Terrestrial God. This may have been
substituted, in the correction of the original rough dictation, from a
perception that the first expression was unintelligible. The new phrase
does not indeed convey the meaning of _Mulahidah_, but it expresses a main
characteristic of the heretical doctrine. The correction was probably made
by Polo himself; it is certainly of very early date. For in the romance of
Bauduin de Sebourc, which I believe dates early in the 14th century, the
Caliph, on witnessing the extraordinary devotion of the followers of the
Old Man (see note 1, ch. xxiv.), exclaims:
"Par Mahon ...
Vous estes _Diex en terre_, autre coze n'i a!" (I. p. 360.)
So also Fr. Jacopo d'Aqui in the _Imago Mundi_, says of the Assassins:
"Dicitur iis quod sunt in Paradiso magno _Dei Terreni_"--expressions, no
doubt, taken in both cases from Polo's book.
Khanikoff, and before him J. R. Forster, have supposed that the name
_Mulehet_ represents _Alamut_. But the resemblance is much closer and more
satisfactory to _Mulhid_ or _Mulahidah_. _Mulhet_ is precisely the name by
which the kingdom of the Ismailites is mentioned in Armenian history, and
_Mulihet_ is already applied in the same way by Rabbi Benjamin in the 12th
century, and by Rubruquis in the 13th. The Chinese narrative of Hulaku's
expedition calls it the kingdom of _Mulahi_. (_Joinville_, p. 138; _J.
As._ ser. II., tom. xii. 285; _Benj. Tudela_, p. 106; _Rub._ p. 265;
_Remusat_, _Nouv. Melanges_, I. 176; _Gaubil_, p. 128; _Pauthier_, pp.
cxxxix.-cxli.; _Mon. Hist. Patr. Scriptorum_, III. 1559, Turin, 1848.)
[Cf. on _Mulehet_, _melahideh_, Heretics, plural of _molhid_. Heretic, my
note, pp. 476-482 of my ed. of Friar Odoric.--H. C.]
"Old Man of the Mountain" was the title applied by the Crusaders to the
chief of that branch of the sect which was settled in the mountains north
of Lebanon, being a translation of his popular Arabic title
_Shaikh-ul-Jibal_. But according to Hammer this title properly belonged, as
Polo gives it, to the Prince of Alamut, who never called himself Sultan,
Malik, or Amir; and this seems probable, as his territory was known as the
_Balad-ul-Jibal_. (See _Abulf._ in _Buesching_, V. 319.)
[1] Elliot, II. 290.
CHAPTER XXIV.
HOW THE OLD MAN USED TO TRAIN HIS ASSASSINS.
When therefore they awoke, and found themselves in a place so charming,
they deemed that it was Paradise in very truth. And the ladies and damsels
dallied with them to their hearts' content, so that they had what young
men would have; and with their own good will they never would have quitted
the place.
Now this Prince whom we call the Old One kept his Court in grand and noble
style, and made those simple hill-folks about him believe firmly that he
was a great Prophet. And when he wanted one of his _Ashishin_ to send on
any mission, he would cause that potion whereof I spoke to be given to one
of the youths in the garden, and then had him carried into his Palace. So
when the young man awoke, he found himself in the Castle, and no longer in
that Paradise; whereat he was not over well pleased. He was then conducted
to the Old Man's presence, and bowed before him with great veneration as
believing himself to be in the presence of a true Prophet. The Prince
would then ask whence he came, and he would reply that he came from
Paradise! and that it was exactly such as Mahommet had described it in the
Law. This of course gave the others who stood by, and who had not been
admitted, the greatest desire to enter therein.
So when the Old Man would have any Prince slain, he would say to such a
youth: "Go thou and slay So and So; and when thou returnest my Angels
shall bear thee into Paradise. And shouldst thou die, natheless even so
will I send my Angels to carry thee back into Paradise." So he caused them
to believe; and thus there was no order of his that they would not affront
any peril to execute, for the great desire they had to get back into that
Paradise of his. And in this manner the Old One got his people to murder
any one whom he desired to get rid of. Thus, too, the great dread that he
inspired all Princes withal, made them become his tributaries in order
that he might abide at peace and amity with them.[NOTE 1]
I should also tell you that the Old Man had certain others under him, who
copied his proceedings and acted exactly in the same manner. One of these
was sent into the territory of Damascus, and the other into
Curdistan.[NOTE 2]
NOTE 1.--Romantic as this story is, it seems to be precisely the same that
was current over all the East. It is given by Odoric at length, more
briefly by a Chinese author, and again from an Arabic source by Hammer in
the _Mines de l'Orient_.
The following is the Chinese account as rendered by Remusat: "The soldiers
of this country (Mulahi) are veritable brigands. When they see a lusty
youth, they tempt him with the hope of gain, and bring him to such a point
that he will be ready to kill his father or his elder brother with his own
hand. After he is enlisted, they intoxicate him, and carry him in that
state into a secluded retreat, where he is charmed with delicious music
and beautiful women. All his desires are satisfied for several days, and
then (in sleep) he is transported back to his original position. When he
awakes, they ask what he has seen. He is then informed that if he will
become an Assassin, he will be rewarded with the same felicity. And with
the texts and prayers that they teach him they heat him to such a pitch
that whatever commission be given him he will brave death without regret
in order to execute it."
The Arabic narrative is too long to extract. It is from a kind of
historical romance called The _Memoirs of Hakim_, the date of which Hammer
unfortunately omits to give. Its close coincidence in substance with
Polo's story is quite remarkable. After a detailed description of the
Paradise, and the transfer into it of the aspirant under the influence of
_bang_, on his awaking and seeing his chief enter, he says, "O chief! am I
awake or am I dreaming?" To which the chief: "O such an One, take heed
that thou tell not the dream to any stranger. Know that Ali thy Lord hath
vouchsafed to show thee the place destined for thee in Paradise....
Hesitate not a moment therefore in the service of the Imam who thus deigns
to intimate his contentment with thee," and so on.
William de Nangis thus speaks of the Syrian Shaikh, who alone was known to
the Crusaders, though one of their historians (_Jacques de Vitry_, in
_Bongars_, I. 1062) shows knowledge that the headquarters of the sect was
in Persia: "He was much dreaded far and near, by both Saracens and
Christians, because he so often caused princes of both classes
indifferently to be murdered by his emissaries. For he used to bring up in
his palace youths belonging to his territory, and had them taught a
variety of languages, and above all things to fear their Lord and obey him
unto death, which would thus become to them an entrance into the joys of
Paradise. And whosoever of them thus perished in carrying out his Lord's
behests was worshipped as an angel." As an instance of the implicit
obedience rendered by the _Fidawi_ or devoted disciples of the Shaikh, Fra
Pipino and Marino Sanuto relate that when Henry Count of Champagne
(titular King of Jerusalem) was on a visit to the Old Man of Syria, one
day as they walked together they saw some lads in white sitting on the top
of a high tower. The Shaikh, turning to the Count, asked if he had any
subjects as obedient as his own? and without giving time for reply made a
sign to two of the boys, who immediately leapt from the tower, and were
killed on the spot. The same story is told in the _Cento Novelle Antiche_,
as happening when the Emperor Frederic was on a visit (imaginary) to the
Veglio. And it is introduced likewise as an incident in the Romance of
Bauduin de Sebourc:
"Volles veioir merveilles? dist li Rois Seignouris"
to Bauduin and his friends, and on their assenting he makes the signal to
one of his men on the battlements, and in a twinkling
"Quant le vinrent en l'air salant de tel avis,
Et aussi liement, et aussi esjois,
Qu'il deust conquester mil livres de parisis!
Ains qu'il venist a tiere il fut mors et fenis,
Surles roches agues desrompis corps et pis,"[1] etc.
(_Cathay_, 153; _Remusat, Nouv. Mel._ I. 178; _Mines de l'Orient_, III.
201 seqq.; _Nangis_ in _Duchesne_, V. 332; _Pipino_ in _Muratori_, IX.
705; _Defremery_ in _J. As._ ser. V. tom. v. 34 seqq.; _Cent. Nov.
Antiche_, Firenze, 1572, p. 91; _Bauduin de Sebourc_, I. 359.)
The following are some of the more notable murders or attempts at murder
ascribed to the Ismailite emissaries either from Syria or from Persia:--
A.D. 1092. Nizum-ul-Mulk, formerly the powerful minister of Malik Shah,
Seljukian sovereign of Persia, and a little later his two sons. 1102. The
Prince of Homs, in the chief Mosque of that city. 1113. Maudud, Prince of
Mosul, in the chief Mosque of Damascus. About 1114. Abul Muzafar 'Ali,
Wazir of Sanjar Shah, and Chakar Beg, grand-uncle of the latter. 1116.
Ahmed Yel, Prince of Maragha, at Baghdad, in the presence of Mahomed,
Sultan of Persia. 1121. The Amir Afdhal, the powerful Wazir of Egypt, at
Cairo. 1126. Kasim Aksonkor, Prince of Mosul and Aleppo, in the Great
Mosque at Mosul. 1127. Moyin-uddin, Wazir of Sanjar Shah of Persia. 1129.
Amir Billah, Khalif of Egypt. 1131. Taj-ul Muluk Buri, Prince of Damascus.
1134. Shams-ul-Muluk, son of the preceding. 1135-38. The Khalif
Mostarshid, the Khalif Rashid, and Daud, Seljukian Prince of Azerbaijan.
1149. Raymond, Count of Tripoli. 1191. Kizil Arzlan, Prince of Azerbaijan.
1192. Conrad of Montferrat, titular King of Jerusalem; a murder which King
Richard has been accused of instigating. 1217. Oghulmish, Prince of
Hamadan.
And in 1174 and 1176 attempts to murder the great Saladin. 1271. Attempt
to murder Ala'uddin Juwaini, Governor of Baghdad, and historian of the
Mongols. 1272. The attempt to murder Prince Edward of England at Acre.
In latter years the _Fidawi_ or Ismailite adepts appear to have let out
their services simply as hired assassins. Bibars, in a letter to his court
at Cairo, boasts of using them when needful. A Mahomedan author ascribes
to Bibars the instigation of the attempt on Prince Edward. (_Makrizi_, II.
100; _J. As._ XI. 150.)
NOTE 2.--Hammer mentions as what he chooses to call "Grand Priors" under
the Shaikh or "Grand Master" at Alamut, the chief, in Syria, one in the
Kuhistan of E. Persia (Tun-o-Kain), one in Kumis (the country about
Damghan and Bostam), and one in Irak; he does not speak of any in
Kurdistan. Colonel Monteith, however, says, though without stating
authority or particulars, "There were several divisions of them (the
Assassins) scattered throughout Syria, _Kurdistan_ (near the Lake of Wan),
and Asia Minor, but all acknowledging as Imaum or High Priest the Chief
residing at Alamut." And it may be noted that Odoric, a generation after
Polo, puts the Old Man at _Millescorte_, which looks like _Malasgird_,
north of Lake Van, (_H. des Assass._ p. 104; _J. R. G. S._ III. 16;
_Cathay_, p. ccxliii.)
[1] This story has been transferred to Peter the Great, who is alleged to
have exhibited the docility of his subjects in the same way to the
King of Denmark, by ordering a Cossack to jump from the Round Tower at
Copenhagen, on the summit of which they were standing.
CHAPTER XXV.
HOW THE OLD MAN CAME BY HIS END.
Now it came to pass, in the year of Christ's Incarnation, 1252, that Alaue,
Lord of the Tartars of the Levant, heard tell of these great crimes of the
Old Man, and resolved to make an end of him. So he took and sent one of
his Barons with a great Army to that Castle, and they besieged it for
three years, but they could not take it, so strong was it. And indeed if
they had had food within it never would have been taken. But after being
besieged those three years they ran short of victual, and were taken. The
Old Man was put to death with all his men [and the Castle with its Garden
of Paradise was levelled with the ground]. And since that time he has had
no successor; and there was an end to all his villainies.[NOTE 1]
Now let us go back to our journey.
NOTE 1.--The date in Pauthier is 1242; in the G. T. and in Ramusio 1262.
Neither is right, nor certainly could Polo have meant the former.
When Mangku Kaan, after his enthronement (1251), determined at a great
_Kurultai_ or Diet, on perfecting the Mongol conquests, he entrusted his
brother Kublai with the completion of the subjugation of China and the
adjacent countries, whilst his brother Hulaku received the command of the
army destined for Persia and Syria. The complaints that came from the
Mongol officers already in Persia determined him to commence with the
reduction of the Ismailites, and Hulaku set out from Karakorum in
February, 1254. He proceeded with great deliberation, and the Oxus was not
crossed till January, 1256. But an army had been sent long in advance
under "one of his Barons," Kitubuka Noyan, and in 1253 it was already
actively engaged in besieging the Ismailite fortresses. In 1255, during
the progress of the war, ALA'UDDIN MAHOMED, the reigning Prince of the
Assassins (mentioned by Polo as Alaodin), was murdered at the instigation
of his son Ruknuddin Khurshah, who succeeded to the authority. A year
later (November, 1256) Ruknuddin surrendered to Hulaku. [Bretschneider
(_Med. Res._ II. p. 109) says that Alamut was taken by Hulaku, 20th
December, 1256.--H. C.] The fortresses given up, all well furnished with
provisions and artillery engines, were 100 in number. Two of them,
however, Lembeser and Girdkuh, refused to surrender. The former fell after
a year; the latter is stated to have held out for _twenty years_--
actually, as it would seem, about fourteen, or till December, 1270.
Ruknuddin was well treated by Hulaku, and despatched to the Court of the
Kaan. The accounts of his death differ, but that most commonly alleged,
according to Rashiduddin, is that Mangku Kaan was irritated at hearing of
his approach, asking why his post-horses should be fagged to no purpose,
and sent executioners to put Ruknuddin to death on the road. Alamut had
been surrendered without any substantial resistance. Some survivors of the
sect got hold of it again in 1275-1276, and held out for a time. The
dominion was extinguished, but the sect remained, though scattered indeed
and obscure. A very strange case that came before Sir Joseph Arnould in
the High Court at Bombay in 1866 threw much new light on the survival of
the Ismailis.
Some centuries ago a _Dai_ or Missionary of the Ismailis, named Sadruddin,
made converts from the Hindu trading classes in Upper Sind. Under the name
of _Khojas_ the sect multiplied considerably in Sind, Kach'h, and Guzerat,
whence they spread to Bombay and to Zanzibar. Their numbers in Western
India are now probably not less than 50,000 to 60,000. Their doctrine, or
at least the books which they revere, appear to embrace a strange jumble
of Hindu notions with Mahomedan practices and Shiah mysticism, but the
main characteristic endures of deep reverence, if not worship, of the
person of their hereditary Imam. To his presence, when he resided in
Persia, numbers of pilgrims used to betake themselves, and large
remittances of what we may call _Ismail's Pence_ were made to him. Abul
Hassan, the last Imam but one of admitted lineal descent from the later
Shaikhs of Alamut, and claiming (as they did) descent from the Imam Ismail
and his great ancestor 'Ali Abu Talib, had considerable estates at
Mehelati, between Kum and Hamadan, and at one time held the Government of
Kerman. His son and successor, Shah Khalilullah, was killed in a brawl at
Yezd in 1818. Fatteh 'Ali Shah, fearing Ismailite vengeance, caused the
homicide to be severely punished, and conferred gifts and honours on the
young Imam, Agha Khan, including the hand of one of his own daughters. In
1840 Agha Khan, who had raised a revolt at Kerman, had to escape from
Persia. He took refuge in Sind, and eventually rendered good service both
to General Nott at Kandahar and to Sir C. Napier in Sind, for which he
receives a pension from our Government.
For many years this genuine Heir and successor of the _Viex de la
Montaingne_ has had his headquarters at Bombay, where he devotes, or for a
long time did devote, the large income that he receives from the faithful
to the maintenance of a racing stable, being the chief patron and promoter
of the Bombay Turf!
A schism among the Khojas, owing apparently to the desire of part of the
well-to-do Bombay community to sever themselves from the peculiarities of
the sect and to set up as respectable Sunnis, led in 1866 to an action in
the High Court, the object of which was to exclude Agha Khan from all
rights over the Khojas, and to transfer the property of the community to
the charge of Orthodox Mahomedans. To the elaborate addresses of Mr.
Howard and Sir Joseph Arnould, on this most singular process before an
English Court, I owe the preceding particulars. The judgment was entirely
in favour of the Old Man of the Mountain.
[Illustration: H. H. Agha Khan Mehelati, late Representative of the Old
Man of the Mountain.
"Le Seigneur Viel, que je vous ai dit si tient sa court ... et fait a
croire a cele simple gent qui li est entour que il est un grant
prophete."]
[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. If tidings of war or threatened disturbance should arise
from Central Asia or Persia, the Agha is always one of the first to hear
of it, and seldom fails to pay a visit to the Governor or to some old
friend high in office to hear the news and offer the services of a tried
sword and an experienced leader to the Government which has so long
secured him a quiet refuge for his old age." Agha Khan died in April,
1881, at the age of 81. He was succeeded by his son Agha Ali Shah, one of
the members of the Legislative Council. (See _The Homeward Mail, Overland
Times of India_, of 14th April, 1881.)]
The _Bohras_ of Western India are identified with the Imami-Ismailis in
some books, and were so spoken of in the first edition of this work. This
is, however, an error, originally due, it would seem, to Sir John Malcolm.
The nature of their doctrine, indeed, seems to be very much alike, and the
Bohras, like the Ismailis, attach a divine character to their _Mullah_ or
chief pontiff, and make a pilgrimage to his presence once in life. But the
_persons_ so reverenced are quite different; and the Bohras recognise all
the 12 Imams of ordinary Shiahs. Their first appearance in India was
early, the date which they assign being A.H. 532 (A.D. 1137-1138). Their
chief seat was in Yemen, from which a large emigration to India took place
on its conquest by the Turks in 1538. Ibn Batuta seems to have met with
Bohras at Gandar, near Baroch, in 1342. (_Voyages_, IV. 58.)
A Chinese account of the expedition of Hulaku will be found in Remusat's
_Nouveaux Melanges_ (I.), and in Pauthier's Introduction. (_Q. R._
115-219, esp. 213; _Ilch._ vol. i.; _J. A. S. B._ VI. 842 seqq.) [A new and
complete translation has been given by Dr. E. Bretschneider, _Med. Res._ I.
112 seqq.--H. C.]
There is some account of the rock of Alamut and its exceedingly slender
traces of occupancy, by Colonel Monteith, in _J. R. G. S._ III. 15, and
again by Sir Justin Sheil in vol. viii. p. 431. There does not seem to be
any specific authority for assigning the Paradise of the Shaikh to Alamut;
and it is at least worthy of note that another of the castles of the
Mulahidah, destroyed by Hulaku, was called _Firdus_, i.e. Paradise. In any
case, I see no reason to suppose that Polo visited Alamut, which would
have been quite out of the road that he is following.
It is possible that "the Castle," to which he alludes at the beginning of
next chapter, and which set him off upon this digression, was
_Girdkuh_.[1] It has not, as far as I know, been identified by modern
travellers, but it stood within 10 or 12 miles of Damghan (to the west or
north-west). It is probably the _Tigado_ of Hayton, of which he thus
speaks: "The Assassins had an impregnable castle called Tigado, which was
furnished with all necessaries, and was so strong that it had no fear of
attack on any side. Howbeit, Halooen commanded a certain captain of his
that he should take 10,000 Tartars who had been left in garrison in
Persia, and with them lay siege to the said castle, and not leave it till
he had taken it. Wherefore the said Tartars continued besieging it for
seven whole years, winter and summer, without being able to take it. At
last the Assassins surrendered, from sheer want of clothing, but not of
victuals or other necessaries." So Ramusio; other copies read "27 years."
In any case it corroborates the fact that Girdkuh was said to have held
out for an extraordinary length of time. If Rashiduddin is right in naming
1270 as the date of surrender, this would be quite a recent event when the
Polo party passed, and draw special attention to the spot. (_J. As._ ser.
IV. tom. xiii. 48; _Ilch._ I. 93, 104, 274; _Q. R._ p. 278; _Ritter_,
VIII. 336.) A note which I have from _Djihan Numa_ (I. 259) connects
Girdkuh with a district called _Chinar_. This may be a clue to the term
_Arbre Sec_; but there are difficulties.
[1] [Ghirdkuh means "round mountain"; it was in the district of Kumis,
three parasangs west of Damghan. Under the year 1257, the _Yuean shi_
mentions the taking of the fortress of _Ghi-rh-du-kie_ by
_K'ie-di-bu-hua_. (_Bretschneider, Med. Res._ I. p. 122;
II. 110.)--H. C.]
CHAPTER XXVI.
CONCERNING THE CITY OF SAPURGAN.
On leaving the Castle, you ride over fine plains and beautiful valleys,
and pretty hill-sides producing excellent grass pasture, and abundance of
fruits, and all other products. Armies are glad to take up their quarters