The Travels of Marco Polo Volume I Part 49

NOTE 1.--On these plates or tablets, which have already been spoken of, a note will be found further on. (Bk. II. ch. vii.) Plano Carpini says of the Mongol practice in reference to royal messengers: "Nuncios, quoscunque et quotcunque, et ubicunque transmitt.i.t, oportet quod dent eis sine mora equos subduct.i.tios et expensas" (669).

NOTE 2.--The mention of the King of England appears for the first time in Pauthier's text. Probably we shall never know if the communication reached him. But we have the record of several emba.s.sies in preceding and subsequent years from the Mongol Khans of Persia to the Kings of England; all with the view of obtaining co-operation in attack on the Egyptian Sultan. Such messages came from abaka in 1277; from Arghun in 1289 and 1291; from Ghazan in 1302; from Oljaitu in 1307. (See _Remusat_ in _Mem.

de l'Acad._ VII.)

[Ill.u.s.tration: Ancient Chinese War Vessel.]

NOTE 3.--Ramusio has "_nine_ sails." Marsden thinks even this lower number an error of Ramusio's, as "it is well known that Chinese vessels do not carry any kind of topsail." This is, however, a mistake, for they do sometimes carry a small topsail of cotton cloth (and formerly, it would seem from Lecomte, even a topgallant sail at times), though only in quiet weather. And the evidence as to the number of sails carried by the great Chinese junks of the Middle Ages, which evidently made a great impression on Western foreigners, is irresistible. Friar Jorda.n.u.s, who saw them in Malabar, says: "With a fair wind they carry ten sails;" Ibn Batuta: "One of these great junks carries from three sails to twelve;" Joseph, the Indian, speaking of those that traded to India in the 15th century: "They were very great, and had sometimes twelve sails, with innumerable rowers."

(_Lecomte_, I. 389; _Fr. Jorda.n.u.s_, Hak. Soc., p. 55; _Ibn Batuta_, IV.

91; _Novus...o...b..s_, p. 148.) A fuller account of these vessels is given at the beginning of Bk. III.

NOTE 4.--I.e. in this case Sumatra, as will appear hereafter. "It is quite possible for a fleet of fourteen junks which required to keep together to take three months at the present time to accomplish a similar voyage. A Chinese trader, who has come annually to Singapore in junks for many years, tells us that he has had as long a pa.s.sage as sixty days, although the average is eighteen or twenty days." (_Logan_ in _J. Ind. Archip._ II.

609.)

NOTE 5.--Ramusio's version here varies widely, and looks more probable: "From the day that they embarked until their arrival there died of mariners and others on board 600 persons; and of the three amba.s.sadors only one survived, whose name was Goza (_Coja_); but of the ladies and damsels died but one."

It is worth noting that in the case of an emba.s.sy sent to Cathay a few years later by Ghazan Khan, on the return by this same route to Persia, the chief of the two Persian amba.s.sadors, and the Great Khan's envoy, who was in company, both died by the way. Their voyage, too, seems to have been nearly as long as Polo's; for they were seven years absent from Persia, and of these only four in China. (See _Wa.s.saf_ in _Elliot_, III.

47.)

NOTE 6.--Ramusio's version states that on learning Arghun's death (which they probably did on landing at Hormuz), they sent word of their arrival to Kiacatu, who directed them to conduct the lady to Casan, who was then in the region of the _Arbre Sec_ (the Province of Khorasan) guarding the frontier pa.s.ses with 60,000 men, and that they did so, and then turned back to Kiacatu (probably at Tabriz), and stayed at his Court nine months.

Even the Geog. Text seems to imply that they had become personally known to Casan, and I have no doubt that Ramusio's statement is an authentic expansion of the original narrative by Marco himself, or on his authority.

Arghun Khan died 10th March, 1291. He was succeeded (23rd July) by his brother Kaikhatu (_Quiacatu_ of Polo), who was put to death 24th March, 1295.

We learn from Hammer's History of the Ilkhans that when Ghazan, the son of Arghun (_Casan_ of Polo), who had the government of the Khorasan frontier, was on his return to his post from Tabriz, where his uncle Kaikhatu had refused to see him, "he met at Abher the amba.s.sador whom he had sent to the Great Khan to obtain in marriage a relative of the Great Lady Bulghan.

This envoy brought with him the Lady KuKaCHIN (our author's _Cocachin_), with presents from the Emperor, and the marriage was celebrated with due festivity." Abher lies a little west of Kazvin.

Hammer is not, I find, here copying from Wa.s.saf, and I have not been able to procure a thorough search of the work of Rashiduddin, which probably was his authority. As well as the date can be made out from the History of the Ilkhans, Ghazan must have met his bride towards the end of 1293, or quite the beginning of 1294. Rashiduddin in another place mentions the fair lady from Cathay; "The _ordu_ (or establishment) of Tukiti Khatun was given to KUKACHI KHATUN, who had been brought from the Kaan's Court, and who was a kinswoman of the late chief Queen Bulghan. Kukachi, the wife of the Padshah of Islam, Ghazan Khan, died in the month of Shaban, 695," i.e.

in June, 1296, so that the poor girl did not long survive her promotion.

(See _Hammer's Ilch._ II. 20, and 8, and I. 273; and _Quatremere's Rashiduddin_, p. 97.) Kukachin was the name also of the wife of Chingkim, Kublai's favourite son; but she was of the Kungurat tribe. (_Deguignes_, IV. 179.)

NOTE 7.--Here Ramusio's text says: "During this journey Messers Nicolo, Maffeo, and Marco heard the news that the Great Khan had departed this life; and this caused them to give up all hope of returning to those parts."

NOTE 8.--This Princess of Manzi, or Southern China, is mentioned only in the Geog. Text and in the Crusca, which is based thereon. I find no notice of her among the wives of Ghazan or otherwise.

On the fall of the capital of the Sung Dynasty--the Kinsay of Polo--in 1276, the Princesses of that Imperial family were sent to Peking, and were graciously treated by Kublai's favourite Queen, the Lady Jamui. This young lady was, no doubt, one of those captive princesses who had been brought up at the Court of Khanbalik. (See _De Mailla_, IX. 376, and infra Bk. II.

ch. lxv., note 6.)

BOOK FIRST.

ACCOUNT OF REGIONS VISITED OR HEARD OF ON THE JOURNEY FROM THE LESSER ARMENIA TO THE COURT OF THE GREAT KAAN AT CHANDU.

[Ill.u.s.tration: Aias, the LAIAS of POLO, from an Admiralty Chart]

[Ill.u.s.tration: Position of _Dilawar_, the supposed Site of POLO'S DILAVAR]

BOOK I.

CHAPTER I.

HERE THE BOOK BEGINS; AND FIRST IT SPEAKS OF THE LESSER HERMENIA.

There are two Hermenias, the Greater and the Less. The Lesser Hermenia is governed by a certain King, who maintains a just rule in his dominions, but is himself subject to the Tartar.[NOTE 1] The country contains numerous towns and villages,[NOTE 2] and has everything in plenty; moreover, it is a great country for sport in the chase of all manner of beasts and birds. It is, however, by no means a healthy region, but grievously the reverse.[NOTE 3] In days of old the n.o.bles there were valiant men, and did doughty deeds of arms; but nowadays they are poor creatures, and good at nought, unless it be at boozing; they are great at that. Howbeit, they have a city upon the sea, which is called LAYAS, at which there is a great trade. For you must know that all the spicery, and the cloths of silk and gold, and the other valuable wares that come from the interior, are brought to that city. And the merchants of Venice and Genoa, and other countries, come thither to sell their goods, and to buy what they lack. And whatsoever persons would travel to the interior (of the East), merchants or others, they take their way by this city of Layas.[NOTE 4]

Having now told you about the Lesser Hermenia, we shall next tell you about Turcomania.

NOTE 1.--The _Pet.i.te Hermenie_ of the Middle Ages was quite distinct from the Armenia Minor of the ancient geographers, which name the latter applied to the western portion of Armenia, west of the Euphrates, and immediately north of Cappadocia.

But when the old Armenian monarchy was broken up (1079-80), Rupen, a kinsman of the Bagratid Kings, with many of his countrymen, took refuge in the Taurus. His first descendants ruled as _barons_; a t.i.tle adopted apparently from the Crusaders, but still preserved in Armenia. Leon, the great-great-grandson of Rupen, was consecrated King under the supremacy of the Pope and the Western Empire in 1198. The kingdom was at its zenith under Hetum or Hayton I., husband of Leon's daughter Isabel (1224-1269); he was, however, prudent enough to make an early submission to the Mongols, and remained ever staunch to them, which brought his territory constantly under the flail of Egypt. It included at one time all Cilicia, with many cities of Syria and the ancient Armenia Minor, of Isauria and Cappadocia. The male line of Rupen becoming extinct in 1342, the kingdom pa.s.sed to John de Lusignan, of the royal house of Cyprus, and in 1375 it was put an end to by the Sultan of Egypt. Leon VI., the ex-king, into whose mouth Froissart puts some extraordinary geography, had a pension of 1000_l._ a year granted him by our Richard II., and died at Paris in 1398.

[Ill.u.s.tration: Coin of King Hetum and his Queen Isabel.]

The chief remaining vestige of this little monarchy is the continued existence of a _Catholicos_ of part of the Armenian Church at Sis, which was the royal residence. Some Armenian communities still remain both in hills and plains; and the former, the more independent and industrious, still speak a corrupt Armenian.

Polo's contemporary, Marino Sanuto, compares the kingdom of the Pope's faithful Armenians to one between the teeth of four fierce beasts, the _Lion_ Tartar, the _Panther_ Soldan, the Turkish _Wolf_, the Corsair _Serpent_.

(_Dulaurier_, in _J. As._ ser. V. tom. xvii.; _St. Martin, Arm._; _Mar.

San._ p. 32; _Froissart_, Bk. II. ch. xxii. seqq.; _Langlois, V. en Cilicie_, 1861, p. 19.)

NOTE 2.--"_Maintes villes et maint chasteaux_" This is a constantly recurring phrase, and I have generally translated it as here, believing _chasteaux (castelli)_ to be used in the frequent old Italian sense of a _walled_ village or small walled town, or like the Eastern _Kala'_ applied in Khorasan "to everything--town, village, or private residence-- surrounded by a wall of earth." (_Ferrier_, p. 292; see also _A. Conolly_, I. p. 211.) Martini, in his _Atlas Sinensis_, uses "_Urbes_, _oppida_, castella," to indicate the three cla.s.ses of Chinese administrative cities.

NOTE 3.--"_Enferme durement_." So Marino Sanuto objects to Lesser Armenia as a place of debarkation for a crusade "_quia terra est infirma_"

Langlois, speaking of the Cilician plain: "In this region once so fair, now covered with swamps and brambles, fever decimates a population which is yearly diminishing, has nothing to oppose to the scourge but incurable apathy, and will end by disappearing altogether," etc. (_Voyage_, p. 65.) Cilician Armenia retains its reputation for sport, and is much frequented by our naval officers for that object. Ayas is noted for the extraordinary abundance of turtles.

NOTE 4.--The phrase twice used in this pa.s.sage for the _Interior_ is _Fra terre_, an Italianism (_Fra terra_, or, as it stands in the Geog. Latin, "_infra terram Orientis_"), which, however, Murray and Pauthier have read as an allusion to the _Euphrates_, an error based apparently on a marginal gloss in the published edition of the Soc. de Geographie. It is true that the province of Comagene under the Greek Empire got the name of _Euphratesia_, or in Arabic _Furatiah_, but that was not in question here. The great trade of Ayas was with Tabriz, via Sivas, Erzingan, and Erzrum, as we see in Pegolotti. Elsewhere, too, in Polo we find the phrase _fra terre_ used, where Euphrates could possibly have no concern, as in relation to India and Oman. (See Bk. III. chs. xxix. and x.x.xviii., and notes in each case.)

With regard to the phrase _spicery_ here and elsewhere, it should be noted that the Italian _spezerie_ included a vast deal more than ginger and other things "hot i' the mouth." In one of Pegolotti's lists of _spezerie_ we find drugs, dye-stuffs, metals, wax, cotton, etc.