The Travels Of Marco Polo - Volume 1 Of 2 By Marco Polo And Rustichello Of Pisa










































 -  The fall of
    Baghdad was not immediately followed by its decay, and we have proof
    of its prosperity at the - Page 96
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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.

We have the will of the Venetian Pietro Viglioni, dated from Tauris, 10th December, 1264 (Archiv. Veneto, xxvi. 161- 165), which shows that he was but a pioneer. It was only under Arghun Khan (1284-1291) that Tauris became the great market for foreign, especially Genoese, merchants, as Marco Polo remarks on his return journey; with Ghazan and the new city built by that prince, Tauris reached a very high degree of prosperity, and was then really the chief emporium on the route from Europe to Persia and the far East. Sir Henry Yule had not changed his views, and if in the plate showing Probable View of Marco Polo's own Geography, the itinerary is not shown as running to Baghdad, it is mere neglect on the part of the draughtsman. - H. C.]

[A] Page 19.

[B] Vide Yule, vol. i. p. 5. It is noticeable that John of Pian de Carpine, who travelled 1245 to 1247, names it correctly.

[C] The modern name is Keis, an island lying off Linga.

[D] Vol. i. p. 110 (Introduction).

[14] It is stated by Neumann that this most estimable traveller once intended to have devoted a special work to the elucidation of Marco's chapters on the Oxus Provinces, and it is much to be regretted that this intention was never fulfilled. Pamir has been explored more extensively and deliberately, whilst this book was going through the press, by Colonel Gordon, and other officers, detached from Sir Douglas Forsyth's Mission. [We have made use of the information given by these officers and by more recent travellers. - H. C.]

[15] Half a year earlier, if we suppose the three years and a half to count from Venice rather than Acre. But at that season (November) Kublai would not have been at Kai-ping fu (otherwise Shang-tu).

[16] Pauthier, p. ix., and p. 361.

[17] That this was Marco's first mission is positively stated in the Ramusian edition; and though this may be only an editor's gloss it seems well-founded. The French texts say only that the Great Kaan, "l'envoia en un message en une terre ou bien avoit vj. mois de chemin." The traveller's actual Itinerary affords to Vochan (Yung-ch'ang), on the frontier of Burma, 147 days' journey, which with halts might well be reckoned six months in round estimate. And we are enabled by various circumstances to fix the date of the Yun-nan journey between 1277 and 1280. The former limit is determined by Polo's account of the battle with the Burmese, near Vochan, which took place according to the Chinese Annals in 1277. The latter is fixed by his mention of Kublai's son, Mangalai, as governing at Kenjanfu (Si-ngan fu), a prince who died in 1280.

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