Page:Christianity in China, Tartary, and Thibet Volume I.djvu/347

Rh profess it, he nevertheless held it in great esteem and veneration.

Nicolo and Matteo Polo, who had entered the city of Pekin as merchants, quitted it in the capacity of ambassadors from the great khan of Tartary to the sovereign pontiff. A golden tablet stamped with the imperial seal, which Kublai had given them, served at once to mark their rank throughout the empire, and to obtain for them the assistance and protection they required. But though this golden tablet preserved them from pillage and massacre, it could not accelerate their journey, and it was not until they had undergone the fatigue of travelling for three years, that they arrived at Acre, which town they reached in the month of April, 1270. They were on the point of starting thence for Rome, when they heard of the recent death of Clement IV.; and though the legate apostolic had advised them to remain in the East until the election of the new pontiff, they preferred returning to their native country.

Their departure from Venice, whence they had originally started for the East, had only preceded the birth of Marco Polo by a few months; and when, after an absence of twenty years, they returned to their family, this young Venetian, who had lost his mother when in the cradle, saw his father for the first time. The accounts of the wonderful things Nicolo and Matteo had seen in Asia, so inflamed the imagination of young Marco, that he conceived a vehement desire to travel himself, and earnestly entreated his relations to take him with them when they should return to Tartary. Two years slipped by without the election of a successor to Clement IV.; and then the Venetians, finding this delay so much greater than they had anticipated,