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My father and Uncle and I are now departuring from Venice, Italy to Asia.
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I have set off to a new land with my father Nicolo and Maffeo Polo to a new land.
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We had not gone very far upon their journey when
they were recalled to Acre by the above-mentioned Syrian
Legate, who had just heard that he had been elected Pope.
The new Pope did not send a hundred missionaries, as
Kublai had asked, but he appointed instead two preaching
friars, who accompanied the Polos as far as Armenia, where
rumours of war frightened them into returning. -
We sailed direct from Venice to Acre towards the end
of the year 1271. We made a short journey southward to
Jerusalem, for the holy oil, and then returned to Acre for
letters from the Papal Legate. -
I have now arrive in China with my father and uncle.
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It's been 3 years and a half since I left Venice and we've just arrived at Khan's court.
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I was employed by the Khan in public buisness, sending me as a visiting administrator to several wild and distant provinces. I noted some of these strange customs of these provinces.
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The East Central is so full of splendour and magnificence, so noisy with nations and kings which was like a dream in men's minds.
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After some seventeen years of honourable service with
Kublai, the three Venetians became eager to return to Venice.
They were rich men, and Kublai was growing old, and they
knew that Kublai s death might deprive them of that
public assistance. -
Venice was war with Genoa and my family, being rich, had been called upon to equip a gallery.
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I was carried as a prisoner to Genoa, where I remained, in spite of efforts made to ransom him, for about three years, during which time he probably dictated his book in very bad French.
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I returned to Venice in the year of 1299 and shortly married Donata Badoer in 1300.
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My nickname is II Milione on account of my wonderful stories of Kublais splendour.
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At Acre, at Byzantium, at the busy cities on the Euxine, the merchants of Europe bartered with the stranger for silks, and jewels and precious balms, brought over the desert at great cost, in caravans from the unknown.
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The East of which he writes is the East of romance, not the East of the Anglo-Indian, with his Simla, his missions to Tibet, and Renter telegrams. In the East of romance there grows " the tree of the sun, or dry tree, a sort of landmark or milestone, at the end of the great desert.
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Trade route
