With its people at the Court of the Great Kaan
in Mongolia; whilst the latter of the two with characteristic acumen had
seen that they were identical with the Seres of classic fame.
[Sidenote: Their intercourse with Kublai Kaan.]
17. Kublai had never before fallen in with European gentlemen. He was
delighted with these Venetians, listened with strong interest to all that
they had to tell him of the Latin world, and determined to send them back
as his ambassadors to the Pope, accompanied by an officer of his own
Court. His letters to the Pope, as the Polos represent them, were mainly
to desire the despatch of a large body of educated missionaries to convert
his people to Christianity. It is not likely that religious motives
influenced Kublai in this, but he probably desired religious aid in
softening and civilizing his rude kinsmen of the Steppes, and judged, from
what he saw in the Venetians and heard from them, that Europe could afford
such aid of a higher quality than the degenerate Oriental Christians with
whom he was familiar, or the Tibetan Lamas on whom his patronage
eventually devolved when Rome so deplorably failed to meet his advances.
[Sidenote: Their return home, and Marco's appearance on the scene.]
18. The Brothers arrived at Acre in April,[10] 1269, and found that no
Pope existed, for Clement IV. was dead the year before, and no new
election had taken place. So they went home to Venice to see how things
stood there after their absence of so many years.
The wife of Nicolo was no longer among the living, but he found his son
Marco a fine lad of fifteen.
The best and most authentic MSS. tell us no more than this. But one class
of copies, consisting of the Latin version made by our Traveller's
contemporary, Francesco Pipino, and of the numerous editions based
indirectly upon it, represents that Nicolo had left Venice when Marco was
as yet unborn, and consequently had never seen him till his return from
the East in 1269.[11]
We have mentioned that Nicolo Polo had another legitimate son, by name
Maffeo, and him we infer to have been younger than Marco, because he is
named last (Marcus et Matheus) in the Testament of their uncle Marco the
Elder. We do not know if they were by the same mother. They could not have
been so if we are right in supposing Maffeo to have been the younger, and
if Pipino's version of the history be genuine. If however we reject the
latter, as I incline to do, no ground remains for supposing that Nicolo
went to the East much before we find him there viz., in 1260, and Maffeo
may have been born of the same mother during the interval between 1254 and
1260.
