"Finally, Apart From The Fact That Baghdad, Since Its Fall, Was Rather
Off The Main Caravan Route, Marco So Evidently
Travels east from Yezd
and thence south to Hormuz, that unless his journey be described
backwards, which is highly improbable,
It is only possible to arrive
at one conclusion, namely, that the Venetians entered Persia near
Tabriz, and travelled to Sultania, Kashan, and Yezd. Thence they
proceeded to Kerman and Hormuz, where, probably fearing the sea
voyage, owing to the manifest unseaworthiness of the ships, which he
describes as 'wretched affairs,' the Khorasan route was finally
adopted. Hormuz, in this case, was not visited again until the return
from China, when it seems probable that the same route was retraced to
Tabriz, where their charge, the Lady Kokachin, 'moult bele dame et
avenant,' was married to Ghazan Khan, the son of her fiance Arghun. It
remains to add that Sir Henry Yule may have finally accepted this view
in part, as in the plate showing Probable View of Marco Polo's own
Geography,[D] the itinerary is not shown as running to Baghdad."
I may be allowed to answer that when Marco Polo started for the
East, Baghdad was not rather off the main caravan route. The fall of
Baghdad was not immediately followed by its decay, and we have proof
of its prosperity at the beginning of the 14th century. Tauris had not
yet the importance it had reached when the Polos visited it on their
return journey.
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