The Travels of Marco Polo — Volume 1

Volume I

Containing the first volume of the 1903 edition

DEDICATION.

TO THE MEMORY OF SIR RODERICK I. MURCHISON, BART., K.C.B., G.C.ST.A., G.C.ST.S., ETC. THE PERFECT FRIEND WHO FIRST BROUGHT HENRY YULE AND JOHN MURRAY TOGETHER (HE ENTERED INTO REST, OCTOBER 22ND, 1871,) AND TO THAT OF HIS MUCH LOVED NIECE, HARRIET ISABELLA MURCHISON, WIFE OF KENNETH ROBERT MURCHISON, D.L., J.P., (SHE ENTERED INTO REST, AUGUST 9TH, 1902,) UNDER WHOSE EVER HOSPITABLE ROOF MANY OF THE PROOF SHEETS OF THIS EDITION WERE READ BY ME, I DEDICATE THESE VOLUMES FROM THE OLD MURCHISON HOME, IN THANKFUL REMEMBRANCE OF ALL I OWE TO THE ABIDING AFFECTION, SYMPATHY, AND EXAMPLE OF BOTH.

TARADALE, AMY FRANCES YULE. ROSS-SHIRE, SEPTEMBER 11TH, 1902. SCOTLAND.

* * * * Ed è da noi sì strano, Che quando ne ragiono I’ non trovo nessuno, Che l’abbia navicato, * * * * Le parti del Levante, Là dove sono tante Gemme di gran valute E di molta salute: E sono in quello giro Balsamo, e ambra, e tiro, E lo pepe, e lo legno Aloe, ch’è sì degno, E spigo, e cardamomo, Giengiovo, e cennamomo; E altre molte spezie, Ciascuna in sua spezie, E migliore, e più fina, E sana in medicina. Appresso in questo loco Mise in assetto loco Li tigri, e li grifoni, Leofanti, e leoni Cammelli, e dragomene, Badalischi, e gene, E pantere, e castoro, Le formiche dell’oro, E tanti altri animali, Ch’io non so ben dir quali, Che son sì divisati, E sì dissomigliati Di corpo e di fazione, Di sì fera ragione, E di sì strana taglia, Ch’io non credo san faglia, Ch’alcun uomo vivente Potesse veramente Per lingua, o per scritture Recitar le figure Delle bestie, e gli uccelli....

—From Il Tesoretto di Ser Brunetto Latini (circa MDCCLX.). (Florence, 1824, pp. 83 seqq.)

Ἂνδρα μοι ἔννεπε, Μοῦσα, πολύτροπον, ὃς μάλα πολλὰ Πλάγχθη . . . . . . . Πολλῶν δ᾽ ἀνθρώπων ἴδεν ἄστεα καὶ νόον ἔγνω.

Odyssey, I.

————“I AM BECOME A NAME; FOR ALWAYS ROAMING WITH A HUNGRY HEART MUCH HAVE I SEEN AND KNOWN; CITIES OF MEN, AND MANNERS, CLIMATES, COUNCILS, GOVERNMENTS, MYSELF NOT LEAST, BUT HONOURED OF THEM ALL.”

TENNYSON.

“A SEDER CI PONEMMO IVI AMBODUI VÔLTI A LEVANTE, OND’ERAVAM SALITI; CHÈ SUOLE A RIGUARDAR GIOVARE ALTRUI.”

DANTE, Purgatory, IV.

CONTENTS OF VOL. I.

page DEDICATION iii

NOTE BY MISS YULE v

PREFACE TO THIRD EDITION vii

PREFACE TO SECOND EDITION xi

ORIGINAL PREFACE xxi

ORIGINAL DEDICATION xxv

MEMOIR OF SIR HENRY YULE BY AMY FRANCES YULE, L.A.SOC. ANT. SCOT. xxvii

A BIBLIOGRAPHY OF SIR HENRY YULE’S WRITINGS lxxv

SYNOPSIS OF CONTENTS lxxxiii

EXPLANATORY LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS TO VOL. I. xcvii

INTRODUCTORY NOTICES 1–144

THE BOOK OF MARCO POLO.

NOTE BY MISS YULE.

I desire to take this opportunity of recording my grateful sense of the unsparing labour, learning, and devotion, with which my father’s valued friend, Professor Henri Cordier, has performed the difficult and delicate task which I entrusted to his loyal friendship.

Apart from Professor Cordier’s very special qualifications for the work, I feel sure that no other Editor could have been more entirely acceptable to my father. I can give him no higher praise than to say that he has laboured in Yule’s own spirit.

The slight Memoir which I have contributed (for which I accept all responsibility), attempts no more than a rough sketch of my father’s character and career, but it will, I hope, serve to recall pleasantly his remarkable individuality to the few remaining who knew him in his prime, whilst it may also afford some idea of the man, and his work and environment, to those who had not that advantage.

No one can be more conscious than myself of its many shortcomings, which I will not attempt to excuse. I can, however, honestly say that these have not been due to negligence, but are rather the blemishes almost inseparable from the fulfilment under the gloom of bereavement and amidst the pressure of other duties, of a task undertaken in more favourable circumstances.

Nevertheless, in spite of all defects, I believe this sketch to be such a record as my father would himself have approved, and I know also that he would have chosen my hand to write it.

In conclusion, I may note that the first edition of this work was dedicated to that very noble lady, the Queen (then Crown Princess) Margherita of Italy. In the second edition the Dedication was reproduced within brackets (as also the original preface), but not renewed. That precedent is again followed.

I have, therefore, felt at liberty to associate the present edition of my father’s work with the Name MURCHISON, which for more than a generation was the name most generally representative of British Science in Foreign Lands, as of Foreign Science in Britain.

A. F. YULE.

PREFACE TO THIRD EDITION.

Little did I think, some thirty years ago, when I received a copy of the first edition of this grand work, that I should be one day entrusted with the difficult but glorious task of supervising the third edition. When the first edition of the Book of Ser Marco Polo reached “Far Cathay,” it created quite a stir in the small circle of the learned foreigners, who then resided there, and became a starting-point for many researches, of which the results have been made use of partly in the second edition, and partly in the present. The Archimandrite PALLADIUS and Dr. E. BRETSCHNEIDER, at Peking, ALEX. WYLIE, at Shang-hai—friends of mine who have, alas! passed away, with the exception of the Right Rev. Bishop G. E. MOULE, of Hang-chau, the only survivor of this little group of hard-working scholars,—were the first to explore the Chinese sources of information which were to yield a rich harvest into their hands.

When I returned home from China in 1876, I was introduced to Colonel HENRY YULE, at the India Office, by our common friend, Dr. REINHOLD ROST, and from that time we met frequently and kept up a correspondence which terminated only with the life of the great geographer, whose friend I had become. A new edition of the travels of Friar Odoric of Pordenone, our “mutual friend,” in which Yule had taken the greatest interest, was dedicated by me to his memory. I knew that Yule contemplated a third edition of his Marco Polo, and all will regret that time was not allowed to him to complete this labour of love, to see it published. If the duty of bringing out the new edition of Marco Polo has fallen on one who considers himself but an unworthy successor of the first illustrious commentator, it is fair to add that the work could not have been entrusted to a more respectful disciple. Many of our tastes were similar; we had the same desire to seek the truth, the same earnest wish to be exact, perhaps the same sense of humour, and, what is necessary when writing on Marco Polo, certainly the same love for Venice and its history. Not only am I, with the late CHARLES SCHEFER, the founder and the editor of the Recueil de Voyages et de Documents pour servir à l’Histoire de la Géographie depuis le XIIIᵉ jusqu’à la fin du XVIᵉ siècle, but I am also the successor, at the École des langues Orientales Vivantes, of G. PAUTHIER, whose book on the Venetian Traveller is still valuable, so the mantle of the last two editors fell upon my shoulders.

I therefore, gladly and thankfully, accepted Miss AMY FRANCIS YULE’S kind proposal to undertake the editorship of the third edition of the Book of Ser Marco Polo, and I wish to express here my gratitude to her for the great honour she has thus done me.

Unfortunately for his successor, Sir Henry Yule, evidently trusting to his own good memory, left but few notes. These are contained in an interleaved copy obligingly placed at my disposal by Miss Yule, but I luckily found assistance from various other quarters. The following works have proved of the greatest assistance to me:—The articles of General HOUTUM-SCHINDLER in the Journal of the Royal Asiatic Society, and the excellent books of Lord CURZON and of Major P. MOLESWORTH SYKES on Persia, M. GRENARD’S account of DUTREUIL de RHINS’ Mission to Central Asia, BRETSCHNEIDER’S and PALLADIUS’ remarkable papers on Mediæval Travellers and Geography, and above all, the valuable books of the Hon. W. W. ROCKHILL on Tibet and Rubruck, to which the distinguished diplomatist, traveller, and scholar kindly added a list of notes of the greatest importance to me, for which I offer him my hearty thanks.

My thanks are also due to H.H. Prince ROLAND BONAPARTE, who kindly gave me permission to reproduce some of the plates of his Recueil de Documents de l’Époque Mongole, to M. LÉOPOLD DELISLE, the learned Principal Librarian of the Bibliothèque Nationale, who gave me the opportunity to study the inventory made after the death of the Doge Marino Faliero, to the Count de SEMALLÉ, formerly French Chargé d’Affaires at Peking, who gave me for reproduction a number of photographs from his valuable personal collection, and last, not least, my old friend Comm. NICOLÒ BAROZZI, who continued to lend me the assistance which he had formerly rendered to Sir Henry Yule at Venice.

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