The Travels of Marco Polo — Volume 1 by Marco Polo and da Pisa Rusticiano

claims to glory may suffice! _He was the first Traveller to trace a route across the whole longitude of_ ASIA, _naming and describing kingdom after kingdom which he had seen with his own eyes; the Deserts of_ PERSIA, _the flowering plateaux and wild gorges of_ BADAKHSHAN, _the jade-bearing rivers of_ KHOTAN, _the_ MONGOLIAN _Steppes, cradle of the power that had so lately threatened to swallow up Christendom, the new and brilliant Court that had been established at_ CAMBALUC: _The first Traveller to reveal_ CHINA _in all its wealth and vastness, its mighty rivers, its huge cities, its rich manufactures, its swarming population, the inconceivably vast fleets that quickened its seas and its inland waters; to tell us of the nations on its borders with all their eccentricities of manners and worship; of_ TIBET _with its sordid devotees; of_ BURMA _with its golden pagodas and their tinkling crowns; of_ LAOS, _of_ SIAM, _of_ COCHIN CHINA, _of_ JAPAN, _the Eastern Thule, with its rosy pearls and golden-roofed palaces; the first to speak of that Museum of Beauty and Wonder, still so imperfectly ransacked, the_ INDIAN ARCHIPELAGO, _source of those aromatics then so highly prized and whose origin was so dark; of_ JAVA _the Pearl of Islands; of_ SUMATRA _with its many kings, its strange costly products, and its cannibal races; of the naked savages of_ NICOBAR _and_ ANDAMAN; _of_ CEYLON _the Isle of Gems with its Sacred Mountain and its Tomb of Adam; of_ INDIA THE GREAT, _not as a dream-land of Alexandrian fables, but as a country seen and partially explored, with its virtuous Brahmans, its obscene ascetics, its diamonds and the strange tales of their acquisition, its sea-beds of pearl, and its powerful sun; the first in mediæval times to give any distinct account of the secluded Christian Empire of_ ABYSSINIA, _and the semi-Christian Island of_ SOCOTRA; _to speak, though indeed dimly, of_ ZANGIBAR _with its negroes and its ivory, and of the vast and distant_ MADAGASCAR, _bordering on the Dark Ocean of the South, with its Ruc and other monstrosities; and, in a remotely opposite region, of_ SIBERIA _and the_ ARCTIC OCEAN, _of dog-sledges, white bears, and reindeer-riding Tunguses_. That all this rich catalogue of discoveries should belong to the revelations of one Man and one Book is surely ample ground enough to account for and to justify the Author’s high place in the roll of Fame, and there can be no need to exaggerate his greatness, or to invest him with imaginary attributes.[4] [Sidenote: His personal attributes seen but dimly.]