own time, because they found it hard to believe that the world was inhabited by human beings all round it; that there was no sea of perpetual darkness, as they had been taught; and that the people of Asia were really ingenious and skilful traders and workers, and not savages and cannibals, as they had supposed. Perhaps, too, the big, swelling words and bombastic style, with which the worthy Rusticiano set forth Marco's book, caused some people to regard it with contempt and even suspicion. We cannot better conclude this chapter than with Rusticiano's prologue, or preface, to the book of Marco Polo:

GREAT Princes, Emperors, and Kings, Dukes, and Marquises, Counts, Knights, and Burgesses! and People of all degrees who desire to get knowledge of the various races of mankind and of the diversities of the sundry regions of the World, take this Book and cause it to be read to you. For ye shall find therein all kinds of wonderful things, and the divers histories of the great Hermenia, and of Persia, and of the Land of the Tartars, and of India, and of many another country of which our Book doth speak, particularly and in regular succession, according to the description of Messer Marco Polo, a wise and noble citizen of Venice, as he saw them with his own eyes. Some things indeed there be therein which he beheld not; but these he heard from men of credit and veracity. And we shall set down things seen as seen, and things heard as heard only, so that no jot of falsehood may mar the truth of our Book, and that all who shall read it or hear it read may put full faith in the truth of all its contents.

For let me tell you that since our Lord God did mould

11.]

RUSTICIANO'S PROLOGUE.

25

with his hands our first Father Adam, even until this day, never hath there been Christian, or Pagan, or Tartar, or Indian, or any man of any nation, who in his own person hath had so much knowledge and experience of the divers parts of the World and its Wonders as hath had this Messer Marco! And for that reason he bethought himself that it would be a very great pity did he not cause to be put in writing all the great marvels that he had seen, or on sure information heard of, so that other people who had not these advantages might, by his Book, get such knowledge. And I may tell you that in acquiring this knowledge he spent in those various parts of the World good six-and-twenty years. Now, being thereafter an inmate of the Prison of Genoa, he caused Messer Rusticiano of Pisa, who was in the said Prison likewise, to reduce the whole to writing; and this befell in the year 1298 from the birth of Jesus.

CHAPTER III.

MARCO DISCOURSES OF ANCIENT ARMENIA-THE KINGDOM OF GEORGIANIA-THE EXPLOITS OF ALEXANDER THE GREATSTORY OF THE MISERLY CALIPH OF BAGDAD AND HIS GOLD

A GREAT MARVEL.

N the former chapter we had the preface to Marco

IN

Polo's book as it was composed by Rusticiano. In reading the first chapter of the book itself, we can imagine the prisoner and illustrious traveller pacing up and down in his place of confinement, and dictating to his companion the words that are to be set down. And this is the first chapter of the work as dictated by Marco:

HERE THE BOOK BEGINS; AND FIRST IT SPEAKS OF THE LESSER HERMENIA.

THERE are two Hermenias, the Greater and the Less. The Lesser Hermenia is governed by a certain King, who maintains a just rule in his dominions, but is himself subject to the Tartar. The country contains numerous towns and villages, and has everything in plenty; moreover, it is a great country for sport in the chase of all manner of beasts and birds. It is, however, by no means a healthy

Ch. III.]

ARMENIA.

27

In days of old the

region, but grievously the reverse. nobles there were valiant men, and did doughty deeds of arms; but nowadays they are poor creatures, and good at naught. Howbeit, they have a city upon the sea, which is called LAYAS, at which there is a great trade. For you must know that all the spicery, and the cloths of silk and gold, and other valuable wares that come from the interior, are brought to that city. And the merchants of Venice and Genoa, and other countries, come thither to sell their goods, and to buy what they lack. And whatsoever persons would travel to the interior (of the East), merchants or others, they take their way by this city of Layas.

By "Hermenia" we are to understand that the traveller is speaking of the country now known as Armenia, a province of Turkey in Asia, lying to the westward, embracing the regions of the valley of the Euphrates and the mountainous Ararat. The subdivisions of the greater and the less Armenia are not known and used nowadays. Here is what Marco has to say about the other division of Armenia:

DESCRIPTION OF THE GREATER HERMENIA.

This is a great country. It begins at a city called ARZINGA, at which they weave the best buckrams in the world. It possesses also the best baths from natural springs that are anywhere to be found. The people of the country are Armenians, and are subject to the Tartar.

The country is indeed a passing great one, and in the summer it is frequented by the whole host of the Tartars of the Levant, because it then furnishes them with such

excellent pasture for their cattle. But in winter the cold is past all bounds, so in that season they quit this country and go to a warmer region where they find other good pastures. [At a castle called PAIPURTH, that you pass in going from Trebizond to Tauris, there is a very good silver mine.]

And you must know that it is in this country of Hermenia that the Ark of Noah exists on the top of a certain great mountain, on the summit of which snow is so constant that no one can ascend; for the snow never melts, and is constantly added to by new falls. Below, however, the snow does melt, and runs down, producing such rich and abundant herbage that in summer cattle are sent to pasture from a long way round about, and it never fails them. The melting snow also causes a great amount of mud on the mountain.

The country is bounded on the south by a kingdom called Mosul, the people of which are Jacobite and Nestorian Christians, of whom I shall have more to tell you presently. On the north it is bounded by the Land of the Georgians, of whom also I shall speak. On the confines from Georgiania there is a fountain from which oil springs in great abundance, insomuch that a hundred shiploads might be taken from it at one time. This oil is not good to use with food, but 'tis good to burn, and is also used to anoint camels that have the mange. People come from vast distances to fetch it, for in all the countries round about they have no other oil.

Between Trebizond and Erzerum was Paipurth, which must be the Baiburt of our day. Even in Marco Polo's time it appears that something was known about petroleum, or coal-oil; for the fountain of which he speaks is doubtless in the petroleum