Beginnings of the American People | Page 6

civilization moderated the temper of the
later Khans, who exhibited a genial and condescending curiosity in the
people of Christendom. Diplomatic relations were established between

Tartar and Christian princes. In the Paris archives may still be seen
letters written from Tabriz to the kings of France bearing official
Chinese seals of the thirteenth century. For the first time Europeans
were welcome beyond the Great Wall. Kublai Khan sent presents to the
Pope and requested Christian missionaries for the instruction of his
people. Traders and travelers were hospitably received, clever
adventurers were taken into favor and loaded with benefits and high
office.
It was in 1271 that two prosperous Italian merchants, Maffeo and
Nicolo Polo, at the invitation of Kublai Khan, left Venice, taking with
them Nicolo's son, the young Marco, destined to be the most famous of
mediæval travelers. Going out by way of the Tigris River to Hormos,
they turned eastward, and after many weary months journeying across
Persia and China arrived at the city of Cambulac, now known as Peking.
Here they remained for twenty years, favored guests or honored
servants at the court of the Grand Khan. Henceforth Maffeo and Nicolo
retire into the background; we catch occasional glimpses of them,
shrewd Venetians, unobtrusively putting money in their purses, while
the young Marco occupies the center of the stage as royal favorite,
member of the Privy Council, or trusted ambassador to every part of
the emperor's wide domains. A happy chance enabled them to return at
last; and by a route no European had yet taken: from Peking to Zaiton;
thence by sea through the famous Malacca Straits to Ceylon and India;
up to Hormos and across to Tabriz and Trebizond; and so, by way of
the Bosphorus, home to Venice, with a tale of experiences rivaling the
Arabian Nights, and a fortune stitched up in the seams of their clothes.
The fortune, in "rubies, sapphires, carbuncles, diamonds, and
emeralds," was straightway turned out before the admiring gaze of
friends; while the story was told, to friends and enemies alike, many
times over, and presently, in a Genoese prison, set down in French--The
Book of Ser Marco Polo the Venetian concerning the Kingdoms and
Marvels of the East. It was only one of many books of that age
describing the countries of the Orient, for Marco Polo was only the
most famous of the travelers of his time. Diplomatic agents, such as
Carpini, the legate of Innocent IV, or William de Rubruquis, the

ambassador of St. Louis; missionaries, such as John de Corvino,
Jordanus de Severac, or Friar Beatus Oderic, laboring to establish the
faith in India and China; merchants, such as Pegalotti and Schiltberger,
seeking advantage in the way of trade:--these, and many more besides,
penetrated into every part of Asia and recorded in letters, in dry and
precise merchant hand-books, in naïve and fascinating narrative
accounts, a wealth of information about this old world now first
discovered to Europeans.
For the revelations of the travelers amounted to a discovery of Asia. In
the age before printing news spread from mouth to mouth. Reading had
not yet replaced conversation, and a narrative of events was alike the
duty and the privilege of every chance visitor from far or near. What a
celebrity, then, was the Asiatic voyager, returning home after many
years! It is said of Marco Polo that even in Genoa, where he was held a
prisoner, "when his rare qualities and marvelous travels became known
there, the whole city gathered to see him. 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 Grand Chan, which indeed compelled him daily to
repeat his story till he was weary, was advised to put the matter in
writing." And certainly those voluble Italians were not men to remain
silent. Thousands, who never read the book of Ser Marco or the
charming narratives of Rubruquis or Friar Oderic, must have heard
many of their wonderful stories as they were carried by the merchants
and priests, students, minstrels, and high diplomatic agents who went
up and down the highways of Europe in the fourteenth century.
And the tale was marvelous, indeed, to the unaccustomed ears of
Europe,--a tale of innumerable populous cities and great rivers, a tale of
industry and thrift and glutted markets, above all a tale of treasure.
What was doubtless heard most eagerly and told again with most verve
were the accounts of cities with "walles of silver and bulwarkes or
towers of golde," palaces "entirely roofed with fine gold," lakes full of
pearls, of Indian princes wearing on their arms "gold and