To face Prologue. Chap.2

Map to illustrate the Geographical Position of the CITY of SARAI

rishib

Akhtuba •

Zaritzin

Vladimirovka

River

Volga

Enotayevsk

CHAPTER III.

HOW THE TWO BROTHERS, AFTER CROSSING A DESERT, CAME TO THE CITY OF BOCARA, AND FELL IN WITH CERTAIN ENVOYS THERE.

AFTER they had passed the desert, they arrived at a very great and noble city called BOCARA, the territory of which belonged to a king whose name was Barac, and is also called Bocara. The city is the best in all Persia.' And when they had got thither, they found they could neither proceed further forward nor yet turn back again; wherefore they abode in that city of Bacara for three years. And whilst they were sojourning in that city, there came from Alau, Lord of the Levant, Envoys on their way to the Court of the Great Kaan, the Lord of all the Tartars in the world. And when the Envoys beheld the Two Brothers they were amazed, for they had never before seen Latins in that part of the world. And they said to the Brothers: "Gentlemen, if ye will take our counsel, ye will find great honour and profit shall come thereof." So they replied that they would be right glad to learn how. "In truth,"

said the Envoys, "the Great Kaan hath never seen any Latins, and he hath a great desire so to do. Wherefore, if ye will keep us company to his Court, ye may depend upon it that he will be right glad to see you, and will treat with great honour and liberality; whilst in our company ye shall travel with perfect security, and need fear to be molested by nobody.""

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NOTE 1.-Hayton also calls Bokhara a city of Persia, and I see Vámbéry says that, up till the conquest by Chinghiz, Bokhara, Samarkand, Balkh, &c., were considered to belong to Persia. (Travels, p. 377.)

King Barac is Borrak Khan, great grandson of Chagatai, and sovereign of the Ulús of Chagatai, from 1264 to 1270. The Polos, no doubt, reached Bokhara before 1264, but Borrak must have been sovereign some time before they left it.

NOTE 2. The language of the envoys seems rather to imply that they were the Great Kaan's own people returning from the Court of Hulaku. And Rashid mentions that Sartak, the Kaan's ambassador to Hulaku, returned from Persia in the year that the latter prince died. It may have been his party that the Venetians joined, for the year almost certainly was the same, viz. 1265. If so, another of the party was Bayan, afterwards the greatest of Kublai's captains, and much celebrated in the sequel of this book (see Erdmann's Temudschin, p. 214).

Marsden justly notes that Marco habitually speaks of Latins, never of Franks. Yet I suspect his own mental expression was Farangi.

CHAPTER IV.

HOW THE TWO BROTHERS TOOK THE ENVOYS' COUNSEL, AND WENT TO THE COURT OF THE GREAT KAAN.

So when the Two Brothers had made their arrangements, they set out on their travels, in company with the Envoys, and journeyed for a whole year, going northward and north-eastward, before they reached the Court of that Prince. And on their journey they saw many marvels of divers and sundry kinds, but of these we shall say nothing at present, because Messer Mark, who has likewise seen them all, will give you a full account of them in the Book which follows.

CHAPTER V.

HOW THE TWO BROTHERS ARRIVED AT THE COURT OF THE
GREAT KAAN.

WHEN the Two Brothers got to the Great Kaan, he received them with great honour and hospitality, and showed much pleasure at their visit, asking them a great number of questions. First, he asked about the emperors, how they maintained their dignity, and administered justice in their dominions; and how they went forth to battle, and

so forth. And then he asked the like questions about the kings and princes and other potentates.

CHAPTER VI.

HOW THE GREAT KAAN ASKED ALL ABOUT THE MANNERS OF THE CHRISTIANS, AND PARTICULARLY ABOUT THE POPE OF ROME.

AND then he inquired about the Pope and the Church, and about all that is done at Rome, and all the customs of the Latins. And the Two Brothers told him the truth in all its particulars, with order and good sense, like sensible men as they were; and this they were able to do as they knew the Tartar language well.'

NOTE 1. The word generally used for Pope in the original is Apostoille (Apostolicus), the usual French expression of that age.

It is remarkable that for the most part the text edited by Pauthier has the correcter Oriental form Tatar, instead of the usual Tartar. Tattar is the word used by Yvo of Narbonne, in the curious letter given by Matthew Paris under 1243.

We are often told that Tartar is a vulgar European error. It is in any case a very old one; nor does it seem to be of European origin, but rather Armenian;* though the suggestion of Tartarus may have given it readier currency in Europe. Russian writers, or rather writers who have been in Russia, sometimes try to force on us a specific limitation of the word Tartar to a certain class of Oriental Turkish race, to whom the Russians appropriate the name. But there is no just ground for this. Tátár is used by Oriental writers of Polo's age exactly as Tartar was then, and is still, used in Western Europe, as a generic title for the Turanian hosts who followed Chinghiz and his successors. But I believe the name in this sense was unknown to Western Asia before the time of Chinghiz. And General Cunningham must overlook this when he connects the Tátariya coins, mentioned by Arab geographers of the 9th century, with "the Scythic or Tátár princes who ruled in Kabul" in the beginning of our era. Tartars on the Indian frontier in those centuries are surely to be classed with the Frenchmen whom Brennus led to Rome, or the Scotchmen who fought against Agricola.

* See J. As. ser. V. tom. xi. p. 203.

CHAPTER VII.

HOW THE GREAT KAAN SENT THE TWO BROTHERS AS HIS ENVOYS TO THE POPE.

WHEN that Prince, whose name was CUBLAY KAAN, Lord of the Tartars all over the earth, and of all the kingdoms and provinces and territories of that vast quarter of the world, had heard all that the Brothers had to tell him about the ways of the Latins, he was greatly pleased, and he took it into his head that he would send them on an Embassy to the Pope. So he urgently desired them to undertake this mission along with one of his Barons; and they replied that they would gladly execute all his commands as those of their Sovereign Lord. Then the Prince sent to summon to his presence one of his Barons whose name was CoGATAL, and desired him to get ready, for it was proposed to send him to the Pope along with the Two Brothers. The Baron replied that he would execute the Lord's commands to the best of his ability.

After this the Prince caused letters from himself to the Pope to be indited in the Tartar tongue,' and committed them to the Two Brothers and to that Baron of his own, and charged them with what he wished them to say to the Pope. Now the contents of the letter were to this purport: He begged that the Pope would send as many as an hundred persons of our Christian faith; intelligent men, acquainted with the Seven Arts, well qualified to enter into controversy, and able clearly to prove by force of argument to idolaters and other kinds of folk, that the Law of Christ was best, and that all other religions were false and naught; and that if they would prove this, he and all under him would become Christians and the Church's liegemen. Finally he charged his Envoys to bring back to him some Oil of the Lamp which burns on the Sepulchre of our Lord at Jerusalem.3