The Travels of Marco Polo

Three classes of people live in this area. One, the Turkomans, Marco finds to be “a primitive people and dull of intellect” (749), although they also have “an excellent breed of horses” and “fine mules” (750). The Armenians and Greeks are the other two groups encountered and seem to have more to offer Polo:“the best and handsomest carpets in the world are woven here, and also silks of crimson and other rich colors” (752).

Polo states that this province “possesses the handsomest and most excellent baths of warm spring water found anywhere” (758-59). The most populous city is large enough to have an archbishop. In this province is also Mount Ararat, supposed resting place of Noah's Ark. Marco is fascinated by a fountain of oil found in what he calls Zorzania; this oil is used to cure rashes in people and animals. The oil has proved to be very popular as well as useful: “In the neighboring country no other fuel is used in lamps, and people come from distant parts to procure it” (772-73).

The land is bounded on two sides by seas, one of which “produces an abundance of fish” (782). Ownership of the land is split between the Tartars (Mongols) and the native peoples, with the mountains creating natural defenses that have kept those native peoples from being taken over by the Tartars. The kings of the country are said to have been “born with the mark of an eagle on the right shoulder (784). Silk, particularly a kind called ghellie, is prominent in this province.

This province is home to many manufacturers and traders and to production of muslin–cloths of gold and silk–and buckram, a kind of cotton cloth. Of the Kurds, Marco's opinion is not high: “They are all an unprincipled people whose occupation it is to rob merchants” (817-18).

Marco has high praise for this city: “It is the noblest and largest city in this part of the world” (830). In Baudas (or Baghdad or, formerly, Babylon) lived the Saracen leader called the Caliph, “who is understood to have amassed greater treasures than have ever been possessed by any other sovereign” (831). The bulk of this chapter is a relating of the events that led to the death of the Caliph, at the hands of a conqueror whose military deviousness convinced the Caliph to leave his fortified city. Hulaku, at the head of the conquering force, “gave orders for him [the Caliph] to be shut up in this same tower without sustenance; and there, in the midst of his wealth, the Caliph soon finished his miserable existence” (847-48).

The first of four chapters to address what amounted to a struggle for religious supremacy between the Muslim Caliph and the Christians in the area, this chapter sets the scene with a challenge set down by the Caliph: the New Testament Book of Matthew describes an episode wherein Jesus says, “If ye have faith as large as a grain of mustard seed, ye shall say unto this mountain–Move to yonder place, and it shall move” (853-55). The Caliph then challenges the Christians to prove that their faith is that powerful by actually moving a mountain. 

The Christians are then afraid. They wrack their brains but could not come up with a solution:“No other presented itself than that of imploring the Divine Being to grant them the aid of his mercy” (866-67). So they prayed, day and night. After eight days of such prayer, a bishop “was told that he should summon the cobbler to the mountain, as a person capable through divine grace of causing it to move” (869-70).

The story continues, as the cobbler is found and pressed into action. The cobbler at first professes humility. However, the story of how the cobbler lost his eye is that he followed the Old Testament instruction of “If thine eye offend thee, pluck it out and cast it from thee” (878-79) and removed his own eye. The cobbler prayed, as did all of the other Christians.

The procession reached the mountain, the cobbler prayed loudly, calling to the heavens, and the mountain moved:“The Caliph and all those by whom he was surrounded were struck with terror and dumbfounded” (891). The Caliph converted to Christianity right away and wore a cross next to his body from that point forward. 

The largest city in the province of Iraq, Tauris is a manufacturing and trade center from which the city sells its famous silks, some of which have gold in them: “The merchants active in foreign commerce acquire considerable wealth, but the inhabitants in general are poor” (902).

Near this city populated by “treacherous and unprincipled” (906) Muslims is a Christian monastery whose inhabitants are known for making girdles out of wool. The monks place those girdles on the altar during religious gatherings, in honor of the saint in whose name the monastery was founded. It is a peculiarity of these monk-made girdles that they are “esteemed good for rheumatic pains, on which account they are devoutly sought after by everyone” (918).

Polo wrote at the end of Chapter 11 that it was twelve days' travel time to Persia from Tauris. The chapter consists of two religious stories that intersect. Persia is named as the final resting place of the three Magi that came to visit Jesus after his birth in Bethlehem. In fact, it is said that “the three are buried in that city in a fair sepulcher, and they are all three intact, even to their beards and hair” (922-23). The story of the Magi gets intermingled with the story of the inhabitants of a castle called Palasata, who worship fire. 

The intersecting stories conclude with the Magi going home, taking with them a gift from Jesus: a stone. It was “intended as a sign that they should remain as firm as a stone in the faith they had received from him” (936-37). The Magi, however, threw the stone in a pit and out came fire. The Magi corralled some of the fire and took it home, placing it in one of their churches. To this day, “they keep it continually burning, and adore that fire as a god, and make all their sacrifices with it” (939-41).

Marco lists the names of the eight kingdoms and then goes into some detail about the horses, asses, and camels used and traded in the country. He lists the crops that grow in the area and the kinds of goods traded in the kingdoms. He also talks of trouble:

There is also a regulation that in all roads where danger is anticipated, the inhabitants shall be obliged, if required by merchants, to provide trustworthy guards for their guidance and security between one district and another (962-63). 

The people in this city, which borders Persia, make a kind of cloth that has the same name as the city does. Marco includes few other facts about the city, moving on to incorporate it as part of a journey and passing through a large plain, dotted with date-bearing palm trees and filled with asses, game, and different kinds of birds good for hunting. On the other side of the plain is the kingdom of Kerman.

Like many lands in the area, Kerman is ruled by the Mongols but was once its own political entity. The kingdom, in its mountainous parts, has falcons that are very fast. The kingdom has antimony and steel. One by-product of this is that:

they manufacture here in great perfection all the articles of military equipment, such as saddles, bridles, spurs, swords, bows, quivers, and spoils of the rich; and the work is executed with so much taste and skill as to be an object of admiration (985-87).

Traveling onward from the Kingdom of Kerman takes one to a town that has been ravaged by the Mongols and then to a district that contains many things unknown in Europe. On a plain in that district, “dates, pomegranates, quinces, and a variety of other fruits, grow, among which is one called Adam’s apple, which is unknown in our cool climate” (1001-02). Marco also mentions birds, cattle, and sheep that he found unfamiliar, in size or in appearance. One thing he does find familiar is that the locals don't shy away from eating mutton and lamb: “We also find here sheep that are equal to an ass in size, with long thick tails, weighing thirty pounds and upwards, which are fat and excellent to eat” (1008-09).

Ormus is a city on an island. The weather in this city is perennially hot: “There blows, every day from about nine until noon, a land wind so intensely hot as to hinder breathing and suffocate the person exposed to it” (1045-46). To avoid this, the people huddle in huts built over the water and then “they immerse themselves to the chin in water and continue thus until it ceases to blow” (1047-48).

This chapter begins with a warning to not drink the water:“Should even a drop of it be swallowed, frequent calls of nature will result” (1087-88). The prohibition extends to salt made from the water in that desert, in the middle of which is fresh water and plenty of it, in the form of a river:“Here the wearied traveler stops to refresh himself and his cattle after the fatigues of the preceding journey” (1093-94). The river is actually a mid-desert oasis. Polo says that it takes three days across the desert to reach the river and another three days to finish crossing the desert.

The residents of this town make large mirrors, a product of the town's plentiful supply of steel, iron, and ondanique, which is “‘Indian steel,’ famous for its use in swords” (1098). Another specialty of the town is an eye salve called collyrium, the making of which produces an ash called spodium.

Polo again encounters a vast desert, which takes eight days to cross. No trees or fruit are to be had. The scant water has a bitter taste, and some travelers mix flour with the water as an incentive for their cattle to drink it:“Travelers are therefore obliged to carry with them as much as may be necessary for their sustenance” (1107). 

The Old Man of the Mountain, whose name was Alaodin, lives in a place whose name means “the place of heretics” (1121), and his followers are “holders of heretical tenets” (1122). The chief accomplishment of Alaodin was the construction of a garden “stored with every delicious fruit and fragrant shrub that could be procured” (1124). The garden is also home to many vices: it was inhabited by “dainty and beautiful damsels” (1127) and protected by a select group of warlike males “who showed a warlike disposition and appeared to possess the quality of daring courage” (1135-36). 

The damsels, as it turned out, were there to placate the drugged male youths, whom the Old Man intended to be his assassins. When a young man awoke from his drunken stupor, they saw the young girls cavorting and offered them exotic foods and wines, such that “until, intoxicated with excess of enjoyment amid rivulets of milk and wine, he believed himself assuredly in Paradise, and unwilling to relinquish its delights” (1143-44).

The temptations continue for five days, after which the young men are again drugged and carried out, to be pressed into service by the Old Man. When he promises them more of the same if they do whatever he asks, “all deemed themselves happy to receive the commands of their master and were ready to die in his service” (1149-51). The Old Man extended this practice to two other locations, run by his disciples. This made the Old Man of the Mountain a powerful adversary.

The Great Khan eventually found out about the actions of the Old Man of the Mountain and sent an army to sort things out. After a three-year siege, the Old Man, out of provisions, surrendered. He was captured and killed:“His castle was dismantled and his Garden of Paradise destroyed. And from that time there has been no Old Man of the Mountain” (1162-63).

Food, drink and settlements are plentiful for a time as the traveler goes onward. Another desert awaits, however, and “it is necessary that the traveler provide himself with water at the outset” (1169-70), for absolutely no water is to be found. The desert ends at a town that is known for its melons, which are “in great demand, being sweet as honey” (1174). Polo describes how they are preserved: “They are cut spirally in thin slices, as we do the pumpkin, and after they have been dried in the sun, are sent in large quantities to be sold to neighboring countries” (1173).

This city has long been the target of Mongol attacks:“It contained many palaces constructed of marble, and spacious squares, still visible, although in a ruinous state” (1178-79). Because of the sustained attacks, the city is surrounded by devastation, the countryside “destitute of every sign of habitation, the people having all fled to strong places in the mountains in order to safeguard themselves against the attacks of lawless marauders by whom these districts are overrun” (1183-84).

The castle is the setting for a market that sells corn and, plentifully, salt, that is “esteemed the purest that is found in the world” (1191) in a “quantity [...] so great that all the countries of the earth might be supplied by it” (1192). Polo mentions an animal peculiarity: “Here are found porcupines, which roll themselves up when the hunters set their dogs at them, and with great fury shoot out the quills or spines with which their skins are furnished, wounding both men and dogs” (1201-02). This town turns out to be on the edge of a desert.

This is a large kingdom containing many echoes of the passage of Alexander the Great. The princes are “all descended from Alexander by the daughter of Darius, king of the Persians” (1211) and “have borne the title in the Saracenic tongue of Zulkarnen, which is the equivalent of Alexander” (1211-12). Also to be found in the kingdom are horses “all foaled with a particular mark on the forehead” (1226), said to be reminiscent of that found on Alexander's famous horse, Bucephalus.

Precious stones abound, among them balas rubies and lapis lazuli. Also prevalent are copper, lead, gold, and silver. Among the prevalent wildlife are sheep, falcons, and hawks. 

The people of this province have their own language. They worship idols and are “skilled in the art of magic and in the invocation of demons” (1250). In their ears they wear gold and silver pendant rings studded with pearls and gems.

The province practices peace, which is enhanced by the geography, and specifically, “difficult passes in the mountains, which insure the inhabitants against invasion” (1262). Their pacifism extends to an abhorrence of killing animals. Of particular importance from this province is coral, which is sold in Europe “at a higher price than in any other part of the world” (1268-69). The chapter ends with Polo's decision to change course and head to China.

Many people live in this province, as evidenced by the “many castles and habitations” (1275). The road then leads to great heights, to a large lake between two mountain ranges. Flowing from the lake is a river; the quality of the water from that water is such “that the leanest cattle turned out upon it would become fat in the course of ten days” (1282-83). The people make tools and horns and fences out of the large sheep to be found there.

The Great Khan rules here, both the city and the surrounding province, which “is extensive and contains many towns and castles” (1299). Echoing earlier cities, this one is a manufacturing city, producing cotton, flax, and hemp, and sporting orchards and vineyards. It is also a trade city: “Merchants from this country travel to all parts of the world” (1302). But Polo says that they don't necessarily represent themselves well: “In truth they are a wretched, sordid race, eating badly and drinking worse” (1302).

One of the largest cities Polo has been to so far, “Samarkand is a noble city, adorned with beautiful gardens and surrounded by a plain in which are produced all the fruits that man can desire” (1306-08). The city is also, so the story goes, home to a miracle. A group of Christians built a church, dedicated to St. John the Baptist. At the base of that church was a square stone, which had been taken from a Muslim temple. This had been permissible because the ruler had converted from Islam to Christianity. When the ruler died, the Muslims demanded that the square stone be returned. The Christians had no choice but to pray:

When the day arrived on which they were to make restitution of the stone, it came to pass that through the intercession of the saint, the pillar raised itself from its base to the height of three palms in order to facilitate the removal of the stone; and in that situation, without any kind of support, it remains to the present day (1319-21).

The people who live in the province of Karkan have throat tumors and swollen legs. The water is said to have caused the throat tumors; no cause is given for the swollen legs. However, “the people are expert artisans” (1326).

Polo states that “[e]verything necessary for human life is here in the greatest plenty” (1332-33). Kotan is one of many settlements. It produces many things for weaving, including cotton, flax, grain, and hemp. It also produces much wine. The city's inhabitants are good traders but not good soldiers.

A river runs through the city of Peyn; in that river are precious stones: chalcedony, jasper, or jade. Cotton powers the city's manufacturing and trade. With regard to matrimony, there is:

this custom, that if a married man goes to a distance from home to be absent twenty days, his wife has a right, if she is inclined, to take another husband; and the men, on the same principle, marry wherever they happen to reside (1341-43).

Echoing nearby Peyn, Charchan has a large stream in which can be found chalcedony and jasper, which are sold in China:“Such is their abundance that they form an important article of commerce” (1349-50). The water, however, is “for the most part bitter and unpalatable, although in a few places sweet and good” (1351) because the ground is primarily sand.

Lop is the name of both the town and the desert; travelers tend to stop in the former before crossing the latter because it takes a month. For the crossing, “camels are commonly here employed in preference to asses, because they carry heavy burdens and require less food” (1365-67). Those who cross the desert must take care: “It is asserted as an established fact that this desert is the abode of many evil spirits which lure travelers to their destruction with the most extraordinary illusions” (1373-74). Polo lists examples of strange sights and sounds, made by “spirits of the desert” (1383), that tempt travelers to their deaths.

The people in this province specialize in growing wheat. They also practice animal sacrifice, in deference to “idols of various kinds” (1394), and cremation of humans, in deference to astrological aspects: “Dreading unfavorable influence, the relations do not dare to burn the corpse until the astrologers have prescribed the proper time” (1406-07). Polo goes into great detail in describing the rituals performed for both the animal sacrifices and the human cremations.

This city has provisions aplenty, leaving the men to other pursuits:

The men are addicted to pleasure, and attend to little else besides playing upon instruments, singing, dancing, reading, writing, according to the custom of the country, and the pursuit, in short, of every kind of amusement (1433-35).

The practice of receiving travelers is a strong one; men leave their homes in deference to travelers. As a result, “the stranger lives in the house with the females as if they were his own wives” (1437). A brief interlude ensued after a command from the Great Khan to abandon such practices. As a result, “their failure to offer this hospitality to strangers [...] brought ruin on their families” (1449). After three years, the people returned to their former ways.

Along with pedestrian descriptions of the mining (of antimony, steel, and zinc) and the religions followed (Muslims, Nestorian Christians, and idol-worshipers), Polo tells of “a substance of the nature of the salamander, for when woven into cloth and thrown into the fire, it does not burn” (1458-59), detailing how the fibers are found, prepared, and left in a fire to make it turn white:“When they draw it out it has not been injured by the flame and is as white as snow” (1464).

Succuir is both a town and a district, part of a province called Tangut. The people themselves are not traders but do sell a large amount of one particular plant:“Throughout all the mountainous parts of it the most excellent kind of rhubarb is produced in large quantities; and merchants, who buy loads of it, convey it to all parts of the world” (1473-75). Merchants are urged to keep their cattle and asses away from a poisonous plant, the consumption of which “causes the hoofs of the animal to drop off” (1476).

The abbeys and monasteries in this city have “a multitude of idols, some of wood, some of stone, and some of clay. They are all highly polished, gilded, and carved in a masterly style”(1484-85). The other thing of note that Polo observes is the “unrestricted intercourse of the sexes” (1488). For women who initiate such liaisons, “the connection does not constitute an offense” (1489-90). The same does not apply for men.

This city serves mainly as a way station for travelers heading into the desert to the north. The inhabitants don't want for much: “The fruits of the soil and the meat of the cattle supply the wants of the people, and they do not concern themselves with trade” (1504). Crossing the desert “in which there are no dwellings nor any inhabitants,” (1506) is said to take forty days; the reward is reaching Karakorum.

Karakorum is a big city, the onetime home of the Mongols:“It is surrounded with a strong rampart of earth, since there is not a good supply of stone in that part of the country” (1512). Polo relates the story of the origin of the Mongols, making reference to the leader Ung Khan, to whom his people paid tribute. (Polo also inserts a mention of the famed Christian Crusader Prester John.) The Khan devised a divide-and-conquer strategy for keeping his people from gathering enough strength to overthrow him; the result was a vast migration away from Karakorum, leaving Ung Khan with no source of tribute.

In 1187, the Mongols make their leader Genghis Khan, “a man of proved integrity, great wisdom, commanding eloquence, and celebrated valor” (1529-30). He had such a presence that he inspired all of the Mongols to pledge allegiance to him. He requested an alliance with Prester John, by seeking that man's daughter in marriage.

In the first of the three chapters chronicling a battle between the famed Mongol leader Genghis Khan and the legendary Christian leader Prester John, the Great Khan himself led a great army into Prester John's territory and then signaled his intent to do battle.

The Christian leader marched at the head of a large army to the same plain and stopped ten miles from the Mongol horde. The Great Khan asks his astrologers and magicians to divine the winner of the battle, and Polo details just what they did:“They took a green reed, and dividing it lengthways into two parts, they wrote on one part the name of their master, and on the other the name of Prester John” (1552-53). The magicians then placed the two pieces of the reed some distance from each other and told the Great Khan that the piece that came out on top would bear the name of the winner of the upcoming battle:“While the astrologers were reading their books, they perceived the two pieces begin to approach each other, and after a brief interval they saw the one marked with the name of Genghis Khan place itself on top of the other” (1556-58).

Seeing the portent that they were hoping to see, the Mongols ventured forth and routed the army of Prester John, killing him in the process. The Great Khan then took over the kingdom and claimed the daughter whom he had asked for in Chapter 47. The chapter goes from high to low for the Great Khan in the span of a sentence: “After this battle he continued for six years to make himself master of additional kingdoms and cities until at length, in the siege of a castle named Thaigin, he was struck in the knee by an arrow, and dying of the wound, was buried in the Altai Mountains” (1562-64).

This chapter lists six successors to Genghis Khan as head of the Mongols, ending with Kublai Khan, “who became greater and more powerful than all the others, inasmuch as he inherited all that his predecessors possessed, and afterwards, during a reign of nearly sixty years, took over the remainder of the world” (1568-70). Polo says that the successors to Genghis Khan were taken to the same mountain on which he was laid to rest.

Polo describes the nomadic nature of the Mongols, saying that they aim to keep comfortable during the various seasons by seeking out colder places in the summer and hotter places in the winter. He describes the portable nature of their living spaces:

Their huts or tents are formed of rods covered with felt, and being perfectly round, and neatly put together, they can gather them into one bundle and make them up as packages, which they carry along with them upon a sort of cart with four wheels (1584-86).

The Mongols also employ a cart to transport wives, children, utensils, and provisions.

This chapter delves into the religious practices of the Mongols. They worship two deities, one “whose nature is sublime and heavenly” (1607-08) and the other, “who presides over their earthly concerns, protects their children, and guards their cattle and their grain” (1610-11). This latter deity has a family, all of whom are marked by a kind of food offering. As for clothing conventions, the wealthy among the Mongols “dress in cloth of gold and silks, with skins of the sable, the ermine, and other animals, all in the richest fashion” (1615-16).

This long chapter goes into detail about the way the Mongols fight. Foremost is with the bow, usually wielded by a warrior on horseback:

When these Tartars come to engage in battle, they never mix with the enemy, but keep hovering about him, firing arrows first from one side and then from the other, occasionally pretending to fly, and during their flight shooting arrows backwards at their pursuers, killing men and horses as easily as if they were fighting face to face (1644-46).

The last chapters focusing on the Mongols deal with justice and punishment. The sentence for robbery (that doesn't merit a death sentence) is beating with a rod, “as many as one hundred and seven” (1656) times. The number of times the convicted person is struck corresponds to what has been stolen. A person who has some money could use it to avoid such treatment: “If the thief can pay nine times the value of the property stolen, he escapes all further punishment” (1658-59).

To cross this large plain takes forty days; the traveler is then at the ocean. The climate in this plain is, at times, extreme: “In winter the cold is so excessive that neither birds nor beasts can remain there” (1680-81). On a mountain near the ocean live peregrine falcons, which are a favorite of the Great Khan.

Travelers who go in the direction of the kingdom of Erginul are “frequently terrified at night by the voices of spirits” (1694). In the district of Sinju can be found “many wild cattle that, in point of size, may be compared to elephants” (1700); the hair on that cattle, Polo says, is more delicate than silk. 

Kalachan, the largest city of the province, is known for a kind of fabric called “camlets, the finest known in the world, of the hair of camels and likewise of white wool” (1728). Merchants buy many of these fabrics and sell them elsewhere, including in China.

The Great Khan now controls this territory, having seized it after the battle described in Chapter 50. Notable in this province is a large store of “the stone that produces azure coloring” (1738) and “a rich mine of silver, whence large quantities of that metal are obtained” (1754). One town in particular, called Sindachu, has a reputation for producing fine weapons and equipment for armies. Another is known for the manufacture of fabrics made out of camel hair. 

In the city of Chagan Nor is one of the Great Khan's palaces, “which he is fond of visiting because it is surrounded by lakes and streams which are the haunt of many swans” (1758-59). It is there that the Great Khan practices his falconry and looks after a nearby preponderance of partridges and quail, providing them with shelter and directing a few of his subjects to feed those birds regularly:“So accustomed are they to this feeding, that when the grain is scattered and the man whistles, they immediately assemble from every quarter” (1768-69).

This, the longest chapter in the book so far, mentions many details about the ruling place of the Great Khan Kublai. As it turns out, the Great Khan is in this place only three months out of the year. That doesn’t stop him from ordering the construction of a royal palace “admirable for the elegance of its design as well as for the skill of its execution” (1776-77). The palace grounds are massive, with walls “to such an extent as to enclose sixteen miles of the adjoining plain” (1778-79). In the grounds is a royal park in which live birds, deer, goats, and other animals, including “about ten thousand horses and mares” (1796).