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National Institute of Informatics - Digital Silk Road Project
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| IIIF Color HighRes |
| The Book of Ser Marco Polo : vol.1 |
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Citation Information
INTRODUCTION
•
his Majesty's frank expressions of disgust at the stupidity of his
commissioners when they could speak of nothing but the official
business on which they had been sent. Profiting by these
observations, he took care to store his memory or his note-books
with all curious facts that were likely to interest Kúblái, and
related them with vivacity on his return to Court. This first
journey, which led him through a region which is still very
nearly a terra incognita, and in which there existed and still
exists, among the deep valleys of the Great Rivers flowing down
from Eastern Tibet, and in the rugged mountain ranges
bordering Yun-nan and Kwei-chau, a vast Ethnological Garden,
as it were, of tribes of various race and in every stage of
uncivilisation, afforded him an acquaintance with many strange
products and eccentric traits of manners, wherewith to delight
the Emperor.
Mark rose rapidly in favour, and often served Kúblái again
on distant missions, as well as in domestic administration, but
we gather few details as to his employments. At one time we
know that he held for three years the government of the great
city of Yang-chau, though we need not try to magnify this office,
as some commentators have done, into the viceroyalty of one of
the great provinces of the Empire ; on another occasion we
find him with his uncle Maffeo, passing a year at Kan-chau in
Tangut ; again, it would appear, visiting Kara Korum, the old
capital of the Kaans in Mongolia ; on another occasion in
Champa or Southern Cochin China ; and again, or perhaps as a
part of the last expedition, on a mission to the Indian Seas,
when he appears to have visited several of the southern states of
India. We are not informed whether his father and uncle
shared in such employments ; * and the story of their services
rendered to the Kaan in promoting the capture of the city of
Siang-yang, by the construction of powerful engines of attack, is
too much perplexed by difficulties of chronology to be cited
with confidence. Anyhow they were gathering wealth, and
after years of exile they began to dread what might follow old
Kúblái's death, and longed to carry their gear and their own
grey heads safe home to the Lagoons. The aged Emperor
* Excepting in the doubtful case of Kan-chau, where one reading says that the three Polos were there on business of their own not necessary to mention, and s another, that only Maffeo and Marco were there, " en légation."
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