THE TRAVELS OF MARCO POLO
THE COMPLETE YULE-CORDIER EDITION [Illustration: H. Yule]
Including the unabridged third edition (1903) of Henry Yule's annotated translation, as revised by Henri Cordier; together with
Cordier's later volume of notes and addenda (1920) IN TWO VOLUMES
VOLUME I
Containing the first volume of the 1903 edition
DEDICATION.
TO THE MEMORY OF SIR RODERICK I. MURCHISON, BART., K.C.B., G.C.ST.A., G.C.ST.S., ETC. THE PERFECT FRIEND WHO FIRST BROUGHT HENRY YULE AND JOHN MURRAY TOGETHER (HE ENTERED INTO REST, OCTOBER 22ND, 1871,) AND TO THAT OF HIS MUCH LOVED NIECE, HARRIET ISABELLA MURCHISON, WIFE OF KENNETH ROBERT MURCHISON, D.L., J.P., (SHE ENTERED INTO REST, AUGUST 9TH, 1902,) UNDER WHOSE EVER HOSPITABLE ROOF MANY OF THE PROOF SHEETS OF THIS EDITION WERE READ BY ME, I DEDICATE
THESE VOLUMES FROM THE OLD MURCHISON HOME, IN THANKFUL REMEMBRANCE OF ALL I OWE TO THE ABIDING AFFECTION, SYMPATHY, AND EXAMPLE OF BOTH.
TARADALE, AMY FRANCES YULE. ROSS-SHIRE, SEPTEMBER 11TH, 1902. SCOTLAND.
Ed e da noi si strano, Che quando ne ragiono I' non trovo nessuno, Che l'abbia navicato,
Le parti del Levante, La dove sono tante Gemme di gran valute E di molta salute:
E sono in quello giro
Balsamo, e ambra, e tiro, E lo pepe, e lo legno
Aloe, ch' e si degno,
E spigo, e cardamomo, Giengiovo, e cennamomo;
E altre molte spezie, Ciascuna in sua spezie,
E migliore, e piu fina, E sana in medicina. Appresso in questo loco Mise in assetto loco
Li tigri, e li grifoni, Leofanti, e leoni Cammelli, e dragomene, Badalischi, e gene,
E pantere, e castoro,
Le formiche dell' oro, E tanti altri animali,
1
Ch' io non so ben dir quail, Che son si divisati,
E si dissomigliati
Di corpo e di fazione, Di si fera ragione,
E di si strana taglia,
Ch'io non credo san faglia, Ch' alcun uomo vivente Potesse veramente
Per lingua, o per scritture
Recitar le figure
Delle bestie, e gli uccelli....
--From Il Tesoretto di Ser Brunetto Latini (circa MDCCLX.). (Florence, 1824, pp. 83 seqq.)
[Illustration]
[Greek:
Andra moi hennepe, Mousa, polytropon, hos mala polla Plagchthae . . . . . . .
Pollon d' anthropon iden astea kai noon egno]. Odyssey, I.
--"I AM BECOME A NAME; FOR ALWAYS ROAMING WITH A HUNGRY HEART MUCH HAVE I SEEN AND KNOWN; CITIES OF MEN, AND MANNERS, CLIMATES, COUNCILS, GOVERNMENTS, MYSELF NOT LEAST, BUT HONOURED OF THEM ALL."
TENNYSON.
"A SEDER CI PONEMMO IVI AMBODUI VOLTI A LEVANTE, OND' ERAVAM SALITI; CHE SUOLE A RIGUARDAR GIOVARE ALTRUI."
DANTE, Purgatory, IV.
[Illustration: Messer Marco Polo, with Messer Nicolo and Messer Maffeo, returned from xxvi years' sojourn in the Orient, is denied entrance to the Ca' Polo. (See Int. p. 4)]
CONTENTS OF VOL. I. DEDICATION
NOTE BY MISS YULE
PREFACE TO THIRD EDITION PREFACE TO SECOND EDITION ORIGINAL PREFACE
ORIGINAL DEDICATION
MEMOIR OF SIR HENRY YULE BY AMY FRANCES YULE, L.A.SOC. ANT. SCOT. A BIBLIOGRAPHY OF SIR HENRY YULE'S WRITINGS
SYNOPSIS OF CONTENTS
EXPLANATORY LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS TO VOL. I.
2
INTRODUCTORY NOTICES THE BOOK OF MARCO POLO. NOTE BY MISS YULE
I desire to take this opportunity of recording my grateful sense of the unsparing labour, learning, and devotion, with which my
father's valued friend, Professor Henri Cordier, has performed the difficult and delicate task which I entrusted to his loyal friendship.
Apart from Professor Cordier's very special qualifications for the work, I feel sure that no other Editor could have been more entirely acceptable to my father. I can give him no higher praise than to say that he has laboured in Yule's own spirit.
The slight Memoir which I have contributed (for which I accept all responsibility), attempts no more than a rough sketch of my father's character and career, but it will, I hope, serve to recall pleasantly his remarkable individuality to the few remaining who knew him in his prime, whilst it may also afford some idea of the man, and his work and environment, to those who had not that advantage.
No one can be more conscious than myself of its many shortcomings, which I will not attempt to excuse. I can, however, honestly say that these have not been due to negligence, but are rather the blemishes almost inseparable from the fulfilment under the gloom of bereavement and amidst the pressure of other duties, of a task undertaken in more favourable circumstances.
Nevertheless, in spite of all defects, I believe this sketch to be such a record as my father would himself have approved, and I know also that he would have chosen my hand to write it.
In conclusion, I may note that the first edition of this work was dedicated to that very noble lady, the Queen (then Crown Princess) Margherita of Italy. In the second edition the Dedication was reproduced within brackets (as also the original preface), but not renewed. That precedent is again followed.
I have, therefore, felt at liberty to associate the present edition of my father's work with the Name MURCHISON, which for more than a generation was the name most generally representative of British Science in Foreign Lands, as of Foreign Science in Britain.
A. F. YULE.
PREFACE TO THIRD EDITION
Little did I think, some thirty years ago, when I received a copy of the first edition of this grand work, that I should be one day entrusted with the difficult but glorious task of supervising the third edition. When the first edition of the Book of Ser Marco Polo reached "Far Cathay," it created quite a stir in the small circle of the learned foreigners, who then resided there, and became a starting-point for many researches, of which the results have been made use of partly in the second edition, and partly in the present. The Archimandrite PALLADIUS and Dr. E. BRETSCHNEIDER, at Peking, ALEX. WYLIE, at Shanghai--friends of
mine who have, alas! passed away, with the exception of the Right Rev. Bishop G. E. MOULE, of Hangchau, the only survivor of this little group of hard-working scholars,--were the first to explore the Chinese sources of information which were to yield a rich harvest into their hands.
When I returned home from China in 1876, I was introduced to Colonel HENRY YULE, at the India Office, by our common friend, Dr. REINHOLD ROST, and from that time we met frequently and kept up a correspondence which terminated only with the life of the great geographer, whose friend I had become. A new edition of the travels of Friar Odoric of Pordenone, our "mu-
tual friend," in which Yule had taken the greatest interest, was dedicated by me to his memory. I knew that Yule contemplated a third edition of his Marco Polo, and all will regret that time was not allowed to him to complete this labour of love, to see it published. If the duty of bringing out the new edition of Marco Polo has fallen on one who considers himself but an unworthy successor of the first illustrious commentator, it is fair to add that the work could not have been entrusted to a more respectful disciple. Many of our tastes were similar; we had the same desire to seek the truth, the same earnest wish to be exact, perhaps the same sense of humour, and, what is necessary when writing on Marco Polo, certainly the same love for Venice and its history. Not only am I, with the late CHARLES SCHEFER, the founder and the editor of the Recueil de Voyages