and probably took the diseases of all; for 600 men of their little fleet died on the way. The two Persian envoys also died; and when the expedition reached Ormuz, the bridegroom of their Tartar princess was no longer living; nor, as they soon learned, Kubla Khan. His death released the Polos from their promise to return and resume their offices, bringing with them other western Christians to improve his Tartar subjects. They were now free to do what they would with their remaining years.
It was in 1295 that three men of strange aspect appeared on the steps of the Polo Palace at Venice, and were going to enter it as their own, when they were ordered off. Two of them were old, and one middle-aged; they were dark-complexioned, and wore an outlandish dress, and their speech was difficult to understand. When they declared themselves Polos, they were treated as impostors. The absent Polos had long been supposed dead, and their relatives had inhabited the palace for many years. The applicants were evidently foreigners, and in no way resembling the Polos.
The strangers then named the families in Venice with whom their own had formerly associated, and induced them to assemble; and then, in a strange accent, and using many outlandish words, they related their adventures so as to be in part understood. Moreover, they unripped the folds and belts of their dress, and turned out such an enormous mass of precious stones as won the belief and veneration of all present. All Venice was soon at their doors, congratulating them. High offices were conferred on the old men, and Marco had no peace for the eagerness of the ladies to hear all about Kubla Khan and the land of Cathay. A population of millions was so wonderful an idea at Venice that the listeners gave the traveller the name of Marco of the Millions, and the family palace was known for centuries as the Court of the Millions—some, however, supposing that the emeralds, diamonds, carbuncles, and sapphires which were showered from the travellers’ clothes originated the title, causing the Polos to be regarded as millionaires, as we should say in our day.
The old men settled down at home contentedly; and Marco’s father married again, and had three more sons, when Marco was supposed to be lost. But Marco felt adrift at first, and as if he had passed from a familiar life into a strange one, so that he made no difficulty about accepting a naval command against the Genoese, a few months after his return. The Genoese were in that case the aggressors; Marco was called on as the most experienced navigator in Venice; and forth he went—only to be taken prisoner. He broke the enemy’s line, but was not supported, and surrendered when wounded. The Genoese were proud of their prisoner, and treated him well, only requiring from him perpetual narratives of the Great Khan and far Cathay. Marco had soon had enough of this, and he listened to the counsel of persons who insisted that these things should be written down. He was assisted to obtain from Venice the original notes of his travels; and he dictated to a zealous scribe that narrative which is the foundation of all our knowledge of the far East.
That narrative suggested new ideas to the minds of successive generations, so that out of it came the conception of a continuous voyage, and the discovery of the Cape passage, on the one hand, and, on the other, of a westerly access to China and the discovery of America. Meantime, the nature and aims of commerce were prodigiously raised and expanded, and those results were obtained which follow from the bringing face to face of various tribes and nations. The first copy of Marco Polo’s travels was made in 1298, and from that time more copies were made and circulated. The more his fame spread, the more decidedly did his captors refuse the great ransom offered by his father and uncle; but, at last, the citizens of Genoa began to be ashamed of so treating such a man, and they successfully petitioned the government for his release. He dutifully tended his father, and raised a monument to his memory; he was affectionate to his father’s second family, by whom the family name was for a short time supported, as Marco had no son by the marriage he entered into at Venice. He left two daughters, and the name died out with a grandson of his father’s. Marco’s will was made after he was seventy; but we do not know the date of his death. What we know about his death is, that his friends implored him, for the salvation of his soul, to confess the lies he had imposed upon the world under the name of his travels, and especially to separate the true from the false in his narrative; and that he swore by his salvation that he had not only told no lies, but reserved in his own breast many things which his countrymen could not be expected to believe. Even this solemn declaration failed to satisfy society at the time, and it has required centuries to establish the rightful reputation of Marco Polo, the travelling merchant of the thirteenth century. Even now there are obscure or unintelligible parts in his geographical statements; but we have learned from former generations to wait for light instead of accusing our instructor. Lapse of time has so confirmed and illustrated Marco Polo’s narrative that we are bound to respect where we cannot understand him; and he may not even yet have attained his full fame.
There cannot have been many other men who have so seemed to themselves to live two lives in one. His Chinese life,—the half of his mature years, must have been to him the most natural and familiar, as he took to it early, and formed his mind upon it, so that Venice must have seemed most like a foreign country. The link between the two was his commerce,—the character of commerce being,—at least in those days,—much the same all over the world; and everywhere it was honoured. It would not have been easy in the time of the Polos to find provincial, or even metropolitan people who congratulated themselves on not being connected with anybody “engaged in trade.”
It is enough to refer to “the Royal Merchant” to whom the traders of London owed the comfort of a shelter, instead of standing in Lombard Street in all weathers, to confer on their affairs. Sir
