Page:Encyclopædia Britannica, Ninth Edition, v. 19.djvu/422

Rh 406 POLO clever and discreet, soon began to employ him in the public service. M. Pauthier, his most recent French editor, has found in the Chinese annals a record that in the year 1277 a certain Polo was nominated as a second- class commissioner or agent attached to the imperial council, a passage which we may without scruple apply to the young Venetian. His first public mission was one which carried him through the provinces of Shansi, Shensi, and Szechuen, and the wild country on the coast of Tibet, to the remote province of Yunnan, called by the Mongols Kardjany, and into northern Burmah (Mien). Marco, during his stay at court, had observed the khan s delight in hearing of strange countries, of their manners, marvels, and oddities, and had heard his frank expressions of disgust at the stupidity of envoys and commissioners who could tell of nothing but their official business. And he took care to store his memory or his note-book with all curious facts that were likely to interest Kublai, and these, on his return to court, he related with vivacity. This first journey led him through a country which twenty years ago was an almost absolute terra incognita, though within that time we have learned much regarding it through the journeys of Cooper, Gamier, Richthofen, Gill, Baber, and others. In this region there existed, and there still exists, in the deep valleys of the great rivers, and in the alpine regions which border them, a vast ethnological garden, as it were, of tribes of very various origin, and in every stage of semi-civilization or barbarism ; and these afforded many strange products and eccentric traits of manners to entertain the emperor. Marco rose rapidly in favour, and was often again employed on distant missions, as well as in domestic administration ; but we are able to gather but few details of his employment. At one time we know that he held for three years the government of the great city of Yang- chow ; on another occasion we find him visiting Kara- korum on the north of the Gobi, the former residence of the Great Khans ; again in Champa, or southern Cochin- China ; and, once more, on a mission to the southern states of India. We are not informed whether his father and uncle shared in such employments, though they are specially mentioned as having rendered material service to the khan, in forwarding the capture of the city of Siang- yang-foo (on the Han river) during the war against southern China, by the construction of powerful artillery engines a story, however, perplexed by chronological difficulties, which here we must pass over. In any case the elder Polos were gathering wealth, which they longed to carry back to their home in the lagoons, and after their long exile they began to dread what might follow old Kublai s death. The khan, how ever, was deaf to all suggestions of departure ; and but for a happy chance we should have lost our mediaeval Herodotus. Arghun, khan of Persia, the grandson of Kublai s brother Hulagu, lost in 1286 his favourite wife, Bolgana (Buhifjhdn or &quot;Sable&quot;) byname. Her dying injunction was that her place should be filled only by a lady of her own Mongol tribe. Ambassadors were despatched to the court of Khanbaligh to obtain such a bride. The message was courteously received, and the choice fell on the lady Cocachin (Kukachfm), a maiden of seventeen, &quot;moult bele dame et avenant.&quot; The overland road from Peking to Tabriz was not only of portentous length for so delicate a charge, but was then imperilled by war; so the envoys of Arghun proposed to return by sea. Having made acquaintance with the Venetians, and eager to profit by their experience, especially by that of Marco, who had just returned from his mission to India, they begged the khan as a favour to send the Franks in their company. He con sented with reluctance, but fitted out the party nobly for the voyage, charging them with friendly messages to the potentates of Christendom, including the king of England. They appear to have sailed from the port of Ch wan-chow (or CHINCHEW, q.v.) in Fuhkien, which was then the great haven of foreign trade, and was known to Western strangers as Zaitiin, in the beginning of 1292. The voyage was an ill-starred one, involving long detention on the coast of Sumatra, and in the south of India ; and two years or more passed before they arrived at their destination in Persia. Two out of the three envoys, and a vast propor tion of their suite perished by the way ; but the three hardier Venetians survived all perils, and so did the young lady, who had come to look on them with filial regard. It proved that Arghun Khan had been dead even before they quitted China ; his brother reigned in his stead ; and his son Ghazan succeeded to the lady s hand. She took leave of the kindly Venetians, not without tears ; they went on to Tabriz, and after a long delay there departed for Venice, which they seem to have reached about the end of 1295. The first biographer of Marco Polo was the famous geographical collector John Baptist Kamusio, who wrote more than two centuries after the traveller s death. Facts and dates sometimes contradict his statements, but his story is told with great life and picturesqueness, and we need not hesitate to accept, at least as a genuine tradition, a romantic story, too long for repetition here, of the arrival of the Polos at their family mansion in the parish of St John Chrysostom, of their appearance at its door in worn and outlandish garb, of the scornful denial of their identity, and of the shrewd stratagem by which they secured acknowledgment from the society of Venice. Some years pass ere we hear more of Marco Polo ; and it is then in a militant capacity. Jealousies, always too characteristic of Italian communi ties, were in the case of Venice and Genoa sharpened by direct commercial rivalry, and had been growing in bitter ness throughout the 13th century. In 1298 the Genoese made preparations on a great scale to strike a blow at their rivals on their own ground, and a powerful fleet of galleys, under Lamba Doria as admiral, made straight for the Adriatic. Venice, on hearing of the Genoese arma ment, hastily equipped a fleet still more numerous, and placed it under the command of Andrea Danclolo. The crew of a Venetian galley at this time amounted, all told, to 250 men, under a cotnito or master, but besides this officer each galley carried a sopracomito or gentleman com mander, who was usually a noble. On one of the galleys of Dandolo s fleet went Marco Polo in this last capacity. The hostile fleets met before the island of Curzola on the 6th September, and engaged next morning. The battle ended in a complete victory to Genoa, the details of which may still be read, inscribed on the fagacle of the church of St Matthew in that city. Sixty-six Venetian galleys were burnt in the Bay of Curzola, and eighteen were carried to Genoa, with 7000 prisoners, one of whom was Marco Polo. The captivity was of less than a year s duration ; for by the mediation of Milan peace was made, on honourable terms for both republics, by July 1299 ; and Marco Polo was probably restored to his family during that or the following month. But his captivity was memorable as being the means of bringing about the record of his remarkable experiences in the East. Up to this time he had doubtless often related his stories of Cathay among his friends ; and from these stories indeed, and the frequent employment in them (as it would seem) of a numerical expression unfamiliar in those days, he had acquired the nickname of Marco