Page:Oriental Religions - China.djvu/155

Rh is himself everywhere honorably entreated, even in the prodigious capital, three days' journey long; feasted at the houses of very high officials, who invited his fellow Mahommedans to meet him.^ Then the two Venetian Marco Polos, not following after commercial gain, but in pure desire to see the mysterious Kitai, stretch away thither from Bokhara to find the great Kublai so interested in the West and its faith, that he sends them back for a hundred teachers of Christianity, with respectful message to the Pope. Then with papal dignitaries in tow they make another yet wearier stretch of three and a half years through all seasons, whose perils prove too much for his Holiness's show-men ; but reach at last the gates of Clemenfou, where grand rejoicings are their meed. For seventeen years young Marco acts as ambassador in every part of China, commending himself to public service by learning four languages. Our "Middle Kingdom" opened the Eastern hemisphere to this earlier Columbus, as she was by and by to draw the later by her beckoning hand to explore the Western sea. In his charming narrative, to which, as to old Herodotus, every year adds fresh authority, he describes the frequent arrival of caravans, on whose cargoes the prices were fixed by experienced officers, fair profit being allowed; and reports that the Government issued paper-money, made exchangeable for other articles, or for bullion at the mint, — a charge of three per cent, however, being made for all renewals of worn-out bills ! ^ A thousand horse-and-cart loads of raw silk entered Pe-king daily; "to which city every thing most rare and costly from all parts of the world finds its way." ^ There are strange things about this old opener of the Orient; such as his having so greatly improved the maps of the world, though without science; and his not men-

Ibn Batuta, ch. xxiii. Marco Polo, B. II. ch. xviii. (Wright's Ed). Ibid., II. xvii.