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RETURN OF THE WANDERERS.

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that the three, having been gone so many years, had wandered off into the Sea of Darkness and had perished miserably, or had been destroyed by the wild creatures of that terrible region.

How the three Polos so far convinced their relations, who were in possession of the Polo mansion

in Venice, as to gain admittance, we do not know; but John Baptist Ramusio, who has written an entertaining history of the Polo family, sets forth what was done by the three Polos to prove that they were what they claimed to be, after they had taken possession of their house. They explained that they had been in the service of the Great Khan, or Emperor, of the Mongol Empire, and

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that they had amassed wealth while in the region variously known as Cathay, China, Mongolia, and the Far East. Here is what the good John Baptist Ramusio has to tell of the device by which Maffeo, Nicolo, and young Marco Polo finally convinced their neighbours of the truth of their marvellous story:

They invited a number of their kindred to an entertainment, which they took care to have prepared with great state and splendour in that house of theirs ; and when the hour arrived for sitting down to table, they came forth of their chamber, all three clothed in crimson satin, fashioned in long robes reaching to the ground, such as people in those days wore within doors. And when water for the hands had been served, and the guests were set, they took off those robes and put on others of crimson damask, whilst the first suits were by their orders cut up and divided among the servants. Then after partaking of some of the dishes, they went out again and came back in robes of crimson velvet; and when they had again taken their seats, the second suits were divided as before. When dinner was over, they did the like with the robes of velvet, after they had put on dresses of the ordinary fashion worn by the rest of the company. These proceedings caused much wonder and amazement among the guests. But when the cloth had been drawn, and all the servants had been ordered to retire from the dining-hall, Messer Marco, as the youngest of the three, rose from table, and, going into another chamber, brought forth the three shabby dresses of coarse stuff which they had worn when they first arrived. Straightway they took sharp knives and began to rip up some of the seams and welts, and to take out of them

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jewels of the greatest value in vast quantities, such as rubies, sapphires, carbuncles, diamonds, and emeralds, which had all been stitched up in those dresses in so artful a fashion that nobody could have suspected the fact. For when they took leave of the Great Can, they had changed all the wealth that he had bestowed upon them into this mass of rubies, emeralds, and other jewels, being well aware of the impossibility of carrying with them so great an amount of gold over a journey of such extreme length and difficulty. Now this exhibition of such a huge treasure of jewels and precious stones, all tumbled out upon the table, threw the guests into fresh amazement, insomuch that they seemed quite bewildered and dumbfounded. And now

they recognised that in spite of all former doubts these were in truth those honoured and worthy gentlemen of the Ca' Polo* that they claimed to be; and so all paid them the greatest honour and reverence. And when the story got wind in Venice, straightway the whole city, gentle and simple, flocked to the house to embrace them, and to make much of them, with every conceivable demonstration of affection and respect. On Messer Maffeo, who was the eldest, they conferred the honours of an office that was of great dignity in those days; whilst the young men came daily to visit and converse with the ever polite and gracious Messer Marco, and to ask him questions about Cathay and the Great Can, all of which he answered with such kindly courtesy that every man felt himself in a manner his debtor. And as it happened that in the story, which he was constantly called on to repeat, of the magnificence of the Great Can, he would speak of his revenues as amounting to ten or fifteen millions of gold, and in like manner, when recounting other instances of great wealth in those parts, would always make use of the term

* House of Polo.

millions, so they gave him the nickname of MESSER MARCO MILLIONI a thing which I have noted also in the Public Books of this Republic where mention is made of him. The Court of his House, too, at S. Giovanni Chrisostomo, has always from that time been popularly known as the Court of the Millioni.

It is with the youngest of the three Polos that our story has to do; for Marco, the son of Nicolo, was the author of the book that bears his name; and he was the most famous traveller of his time, as we shall presently see. He was seventeen years old when he first started on his adventurous journey into Far Cathay. He was forty-one years old when he returned to his native city of Venice, with his father and his uncle Maffeo; and it was not until three or four years later, while he was a prisoner of war, that he began to write, or dictate, the tale of his wonderful travels.

The two Polo brothers, Nicolo and Maffeo, began their wanderings in the Far East before Marco was born. After several years of trading and travelling in that region of the world, which was called the Levant, because the sun was seen to rise there (from the French verb lever, to rise), the two Polos were in Constantinople in 1260. From that city they went on a trading venture round the northern shore of the Black Sea to the Crimea and the Sea of Azov, and thence into Western Asia and to Bokhara, where

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THE MONGOLS.

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they remained three years. While there, they heard distinct and trustworthy tales of the Great Khan, as he was called-the Emperor of the Mongols— and they resolved to go and see the splendours of his court.

At that time the Mongolian Empire was one of the largest, if not the largest, in the world. The Mongols, beginning their wandering life in the northern part of Asia, had overrun all the western part of that continent, and as far to the southward as the island of Sumatra, excepting India. To the eastward, the islands of Cipango, or Japan, alone resisted the dominion of the Great Khan; and in the west, his hordes had even broken over the borders of Europe, had taken possession of the country · now known as Russia, had invaded Poland and Hungary, and had established themselves on the mouths of the Danube. During the reign of the great Jenghiz Khan and his immediate successors, it has been said, "In Asia and Eastern Europe scarcely a dog might bark without Mongol leave, from the borders of Poland and the coast of Cilicia to the Amur and the Yellow Sea."

When the two Polos arrived at the chief city of the Mongol Empire, Kublai Khan, a grandson of the great Jenghiz, was the reigning Sovereign. The Khan had never seen any Europeans, and he was greatly pleased with the appearance of the Polo