DAVIS. — CERTAIN OLD CHINESE NOTES. 249 



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or Rubrouck who was in China a few years before Marco Polo and who 

 simply said "The common money of Cathay consists of pieces of 

 cotton-paper, about a palm in length and breadth, upon which certain 

 lines are printed, resembling the seal of Mangu Khan." This men- 

 tion anticipated by a few years the account given by Marco Polo who 

 was in China for a period of about twenty-five years, covering practi- 

 cally the last quarter of the thirteenth century. Polo's description of 

 the paper money which he then found in actual use in China as a 

 medium of trade, was minute enough in detail and sufficiently sug- 

 gestive in character to have aroused the financiers of Christendom to 

 an appreciative sense of the possible uses of credit, had it reached the 

 eyes of a people far enough advanced in knowledge of currency and 

 banking to have comprehended what was thus laid before them. It 

 must be remembered, however, that this description was made public 

 in the days of Edward III, when banking as a profession was unknown, 

 and at a time when students had still to wait about one hundred years 

 before they should see a printed book. Authors then had to rely on 

 manuscripts as the medium through which they could communicate 

 with the public. Eighty-five of the Polo manuscripts which served 

 the readers in those days, written in five languages, have been pre- 

 served. It is doubtless true that some have been destroyed, still it 

 must be remembered that such manuscripts were in their day precious 

 things, to be preserved with care, read and passed on. It is obvious 

 that the number of manuscripts in circulation, which could have 

 furnished the public information as to the conditions of life in China, 

 and the number of persons who could have profited by their perusal 

 were very limited. Moreover, it must be remembered that the stories 

 of travellers like Marco Polo were received with incredulity, so that, 

 even after it became possible through the invention of moveable types, 

 for writers to reach a larger public by means of printed books, their 

 influence was very slight. These facts adequately explain why 

 Europe failed to benefit by the information furnished by Marco Polo. 

 What might have been learned at that time concerning this subject, 

 had the circumstances been favorable, is to be found in the following 

 words, taken from Polo's account of his travels : 3 



"In this city of Kanbalu is the Mint of the grand Khan, who may truly be 

 said to possess the secret of the alchemists, as he has the art of producing money 

 by the following process. He causes the bark to be stripped from those mul- 

 berry-trees the leaves of which are used for feeding silk-worms, and takes 



3 The Travels of Marco Polo the Venetian, with an Introduction by John 

 Masefield, London and New York (1907). 



