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

book was diffused and read. And now that the spirit of discovery began to stir, it was apparently regarded in a juster light as a Book of Facts, and not as a mere _Romman du Grant Kaan_.[13] But in fact this age produced new supplies of crude information in greater abundance than the knowledge of geographers was prepared to digest or co-ordinate, and the consequence is that the magnificent Work of Fra Mauro (1459), though the result of immense labour in the collection of facts and the endeavour to combine them, really gives a considerably less accurate idea of Asia than that which the Catalan Map had afforded.[14] And when at a still later date the great burst of discovery eastward and westward took effect, the results of all attempts to combine the new knowledge with the old was most unhappy. The first and crudest forms of such combinations attempted to realise the ideas of Columbus regarding the identity of his discoveries with the regions of the Great Kaan’s dominion;[15] but even after AMERICA had vindicated its independent position on the surface of the globe, and the new knowledge of the Portuguese had introduced CHINA where the Catalan Map of the 14th century had presented CATHAY, the latter country, with the whole of Polo’s nomenclature, was shoved away to the north, forming a separate system.[16] Henceforward the influence of Polo’s work on maps was simply injurious; and when to his nomenclature was added a sprinkling of Ptolemy’s, as was usual throughout the 16th century, the result was a most extraordinary hotch-potch, conveying no approximation to any consistent representation of facts. Thus, in a map of 1522,[17] running the eye along the north of Europe and Asia from West to East, we find the following succession of names: Groenlandia, or Greenland, as a great peninsula overlapping that of Norvegia and Suecia; Livonia, Plescovia and Moscovia, Tartaria bounded on the South by _Scithia extra Imaum_, and on the East, by the Rivers _Ochardes_ and _Bautisis_ (out of Ptolemy), which are made to flow into the Arctic Sea. South of these are _Aureacithis_ and _Asmirea_ (Ptolemy’s _Auxacitis_ and _Asmiræa_), and _Serica Regio_. Then following the northern coast _Balor Regio_,[18] _Judei Clausi_, _i.e._ the Ten Tribes who are constantly associated or confounded with the Shut-up Nations of Gog and Magog. These impinge upon the River _Polisacus_, flowing into the Northern Ocean in Lat. 75°, but which is in fact no other than Polo’s _Pulisanghin_![19] Immediately south of this is _Tholomon Provincia_ (Polo’s again), and on the coast _Tangut_, _Cathaya_, the Rivers _Caramoran_ and _Oman_ (a misreading of Polo’s _Quian_), _Quinsay_ and _Mangi_. [Sidenote: Gradual disappearance of Polo’s nomenclature.]