Marco Polo, the famous traveller

MARCO POLO 1254-1324 (The Famous traveller)

INTRODUCTION

Marco Polo was a Venetian (Italian) explorer who traveled through Central Asia and China during the medieval.

Marco Polo was born in 1254 and he died in 1324. He was an Italian explorer from Venice. His mother died after giving him birth. His father(Niccilo Polo) and uncle (Maffeo Polo) were both merchants. He travelled with his father and uncle over the silkroad (which was an overland route to China) when he was seventeen in 1271.

THEIR ROUTE FROM VENICE TO CHINA

General route :

Venice --> Armemai --> Persia --> Afganistan --> Pamirs --> Silkroad to China

Detailed Route :

Venice-->the southern Caucasus-->the kingdom of Georgia-->Tabriz -->Hormuz on the Persian Gulf**-->Kerman-->Herat--> Balkh-->Badakhshan--> "the highest place in the world, the Pamirs-->Taklamakan desert (or Taim Basin-->Yarkand--> Khotan--> Cherchen-->Lop-Nor. --> Gobi desert-->Cambaluc (Beijing, China).

**They intended to take sea route to the Chinese port. From Hormuz, however, finding the ships "wretched affairs....only stitched together with twine made from the husk of the Indian nut", they decided to go overland to Cathay(China) and continued eastwards.

DIARY OF EVENTS

Badakhshan, where Marco Polo convalesced from an illness and stayed there for a year.

At Yarkand, he described that the locals were extremely prone to goiter, which Marco blamed on the local drinking water. In the rivers of Pem province were found "stones called jasper and chalcedony in plenty" - a reference to jade. At Pem, "when a woman's husband leaves her to go on a journey of more than 20 days, as soon as he has left, she takes another husband, and this she is fully entitled to do by local usage. And the men, wherever they go, take wives in the same way."

Cherchen was also a noted jade source.

It is the Gobi desert "This desert is reported to be so long that it would take a year to go from end to end; and at the narrowest point it takes a month to cross it. It consists entirely of mountains and sands and valleys. There is nothing at all to eat." Despite the dangers encountered during the Gobi crossing, Marco's account suggests that the route was safe and well established during Mongol's reign.

After they left Gobi, the first major city they passed was Suchow (Dunhuang), in Tangut province, where Marco stayed for a year.

Marco also noted the center of the asbestos industry in Uighuristan, with its capital Karakhoja; he added that the way to clean asbestos cloth was to throw it into a fire, and that a specimen was brought back from Cathay by the Polos and presented to the Pope.

At Mongolia, what impressed Marco most was the way in which the women got on with the lion's share of the work:"the men do not bother themselves about anything but hunting and warfare and falconry." In term of marriage, Marco described that the Mongols practiced polygamy. A Mongol man could take as many wives as he liked. On the death of the head of the house the eldest son married his father's wives, but not his own mother. A man could also take on his brother's wives if they were widowed. Marco rounded off his account of Mongol's home life by mentioning that alcoholic standby which had impressed Rubrouck before him:"They drink mare's milk subjected to a process that makes it like white wine and very good to drink. It is called koumiss".

In May 1275 the Polos arrived to the original capital of Kublai Khan at Shang-tu (then the summer residence), subsequently his winter palace at his capital, Cambaluc (Peking).

By then it had been 3 and half years since they left Venice and they had traveled total of 5600 miles on the journey.

Marco recalled it in detail on the greatest moment when he first met the Great Khan (right Fig.):
" They knelt before him and made obeisance with the utmost humility. The Great Khan bade them rise and received them honorably and entertained them with good cheer. He asked many questions about their condition and how they fared after their departure. The brothers assured him that they had indeed fared well, since they found him well and flourishing. Then they presented the privileges and letters which the Pope had sent, with which he was greatly pleased, and handed over the holy oil, which he received with joy and prized very hightly. When the Great Khan saw Marco, who was then a young stripling, he asked who he was. 'Sir' said Messer Niccolo, 'he is my son and your liege man.' 'He is heartly welcome,' said the Khan. What need to make a long story of it? Great indeed were the mirth and merry-making with which the Great khan and all his Court welcomed the arrival of these emissaries. And they were well served and attended to in all their needs. They stayed at Court and had a place of honor above the other barons."

THE GOLDEN AGE OF PEKING UNDER KUBLAI KHAN

Marco went on great length to describe Kublia's capital, ceremonies, hunting and public assistance, and they were all to be found on a much smaller scale in Europe. Marco Polo fell in love with the capital, which later became part of Peking, then called Cambaluc or Khanbalig, meant 'city of the Khan.'

i) cultural achievements

The idea of paper substituting gold and silver was a total surprise even to the merchantile Polos. Marco attributed the success of paper money to Kublai stature as a ruler. "With these pieces of paper they can buy anything and pay for anything. And I can tell you that the papers that reckon as ten bezants do not weight one."

Marco's expressions of wonder at "stones that burn like logs" show us how ignorant even a man of a leading Mediterranean seapower could be in the 13th century. Coal was by no means unknown in Europe but was new to Marco: "
It is true that they have plenty of firewood, too. But the population is so enormous and there are so many bath-houses and baths constantly being heated, that it would be impossible to supply enough firewood, since there is no one who does not visit a bath-house at least 3 times a week and take a bath - in winter every day, if he can manage it. Every man of rank or means has his own bathroom in his house....so these stones, being very plentiful and very cheap, effect a great saving of wood."

ii) communication system

Marco was equally impressed with the efficient communication system in the Mongol world. There were three main grades of dispatch, which may be rendered in modern terms as 'second class', 'first class', and 'On His Imperial Majesty's Service: Top Priority'. 'Second class' messages were carried by foot-runners, who had relay-stations three miles apart. Marco affirmed that those courier horsemen could travel 250 or 300 miles in a day.

iii) powerful and prosperous civilisation

Marco Polo traveled in great deal in China. He was amazed with China's enormous power, great wealth, and complex social structure. China under the Yuan (The Mongol Empire) dynasty was a huge empire whose internal economy dwarfed that of Europe.

He reported that Iron manufacture was around 125,000 tons a year (a level not reached in Europe before the 18th century) and salt production was on a prodigious scale: 30,000 tons a year in one province alone. A canal-based transportation system linked China's huge cities and markets in a vast internal communication network in which paper money and credit facilities were highly developed. The citizens could purchase paperback books with paper money, eat rice from fine porcelain bowls and wear silk garments, lived in prosperous city that no European town could match.

iv) open society
Kublai Khan appointed Marco Polo as an official of the Privy Council in 1277 and for 3 years he was a tax inspector in Yanzhou, a city on the Grand Canal, northeast of Nanking. He also visited Karakorum and part of Siberia. Meanwhile his father and uncle took part in the assault on the town of Siang Yang Fou, for which they designed and constructed siege engines. He frequently visited Hangzhou, another city very near Yangzhou. At one time Hangzhou was the capital of the Song dynasty and had a beautiful lakes and many canals, like Marco's hometown, Venice. Marco fell in love with it.

In 1293, first christian missionaries arrived in Peking. :)

ADVENTURES AND HAZARDS FACED THROUGHOUT THE JOURNEY:

Traversing thousands of miles, on horseback mostly, through uncharted deserts, over steep mountain passes, exposed to extreme weathers, to wild animals and very uncivilized and unfamiliar tribesmen.

They arrived Badakhshan, where Marco Polo convalesced from an illness and stayed there for a year. This desert is reported to be so long that it would take a year to go from end to end; and at the narrowest point it takes a month to cross it. It consists entirely of mountains and sands and valleys. There is nothing at all to eat. At Yarkand, he described that the locals were extremely prone to goiter, which Marco blamed on the local drinking water.

SUCCESS IN ACHIEVING THE AIM OF THEIR JOURNEY

Marco Polo travelled to China with his father and uncle over the Silk Road which was an overland route to China. He worked for Kublai Khan, the Mongol Emperor, for seventeen years.

He brought back ivory, jade, jewels, porcelain and silk. He told about the Chinese use of coal, money and compasses.