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0136 The Book of Ser Marco Polo : vol.1
マルコ=ポーロ卿の記録 : vol.1
The Book of Ser Marco Polo : vol.1 / 136 ページ(カラー画像)

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doi: 10.20676/00000269
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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."