POLONAISE 



Marco, conferred dignities upon 

 him, and even appointed him to 

 an administrative post. 



For three years Marco was 

 governor of the city of Yangchow ; 

 he was employed in various 

 political missions to India and to 

 other parts of China. The khan 

 was loth to let his visitors go when 

 they expressed a wish to return to 

 Europe, but in 1292 he permitted 

 them to accompany an embassy 

 to Persia, to conduct a Mongol 

 princess as a bride to the shah. 

 During the two years occupied in 



Polonius and his daughter Ophelia. 



From an illustration to Hamlet by 



H. C. Selous 



reaching their destination, many 

 of the retinue perished. Largely 

 owing to the care of the Venetians 

 the girl survived, and was duly 

 handed to her bridegroom. The 

 Polos did not reach Venice until 

 1295. Three years later Marco, 

 while fighting the Genoese, was 

 taken prisoner, and during his 

 confinement dictated an account 

 in French to one of his fellow 

 captives, Rusticiano of Pisa, who 

 eventually published it as The 

 Book of Marco Polo, which has 

 been translated into many lan- 

 guages. Polo made his will, pre- 

 served in S. Mark's library, Jan. 9, 

 1324, and died probably in the 

 same year. See Travels of Marco 

 Polo, ed. T. Wright, 1899. 



Polonaise (Fr., Polish). State- 

 ly Polish national dance in three- 

 four time. It has a strong accent 

 on the first beat of the bar, whereas 

 the Mazurka has the accent on the 

 second beat. Its closing cadence 

 represents the final courtly bow. 

 It was idealised by Chopin, whose 

 Polonaises are, however, too com- 

 plex to convey the impression of 

 the real dance. See Dancing. 



Polonium. Radioactive sub- 

 stance discovered by Pierre and 

 Marie Curie in 1898. It is a product 

 of radium emanation, and is also 

 known as radium F. Polonium has 

 not yet been obtained pure in suffi- 



6234 



cient quantity to i 

 make a deter- 

 mination of its \ 

 atomic weight or , 

 spectrum possi- : 

 ble. See Radium, i 



Polonius. 

 Character in < 

 Shakespeare's f 

 Hamlet, famous 

 for the rules of 

 conduct which he 

 gives to his son 

 Laertes and to 

 his daughter 

 Ophelia. Coun- 

 sellor of King 

 Claudius, he fails to convince him 



POLTAVA 



Poltava, Russia. Memorial church on the battlefield, 

 with grave o! soldiers surmounted by a cross 



tion of the Poltavka and the Vors- 



that disappointed love for Ophelia kla, and is a rly. junction on the 

 is the cause of Hamlet's mental Kharkov -Nikolaiev rly. Its chief 

 disturbance, and, setting himself to industries are the making of to- 

 spy on the queen and the prince at bacco, candles, soap, and leather, 

 their interview after the perform- Pop. 84,000. Peter the Great's 

 ance of The Mouse-Trap, he is signal victory over the Swedes 

 killed by Hamlet, who mistakes in 1709 is commemorated by a 

 him for the king. See Hamlet. 



Polotsk. Town of W. Russia. 

 It is in the govt., and 60 m. N.W., 

 of Vitebsk, at the confluence of the 



memorial stone set up in the town 

 in 1849 and tumuli on the battle- 

 field, 3m. to theN.W. 



Poltava was captured by the 



Dvina and Polota, and a rly. June- Germans in March, 1918, and was 



tion half way between Dvinsk and prominent in the anti-Bolshevist 



Vitebsk. A very old town, it was campaigns of 1919, being captured 



once the capital of an independent by Denikin (q.v.) in that year, 



principality. At the first partition Poltava, BATTLE OF. Fought 



of Poland in 1772 it was allotted to July 8> 170 9, between the Swedish 



Russia. The old Kremlin encloses army o f Charles XII and the Rus- 



the Greek Catholic cathedral of S. sians under Peter t he Great. In 



bophia. The town was captured S p ite O f unbroken success, Charles's 



by the Germans in March, 1918. army was reduced to an efficient 



force of 20,000 men, chiefly cav- 



Fishing village of airy, the powder had deteriorated, 



On the 

 Bodmin, 



Pop. 31,000. 



Polperro. 



Cornwall, England, 

 coast, 13 m. from 

 occupies a pic- 

 turesque position j 

 in a valley and is 

 of special interest 

 to geologists. The 

 chief industry is 

 the pilchard fish- 

 ery. Polperro has 

 a small harbour, 

 and here is a coast- 

 guard station. 

 Formerly it was a 

 market town. 

 Poltava OR 



PULTAVA. Govt. of 



S.W. Russia. It 

 is bounded N. by 

 Chernigov and 

 Kursk, E. by Kharkov, S. by Kher- 

 son and Ekaterinoslav, and W. by 

 Kiev. The country, watered by 



and communications with Sweden 

 were cut off. Poland being as yet 



Po'.perro, Cornwall. Town and harbour 



inland 



unable to help, the king could only 

 rely upon the Tartars, Zaporogian 

 Cossacks, and Wallachians, and 



the Dnieper and its tributaries, is while awaiting their arrival laid 

 extremely fertile, being within the siege to Poltava in May. A Rus- 

 black earth wheat belt. The chief sian relief force captured the 

 manufactures are flour, tobacco, Zaporogian camp and entrenched 



itself behind 



spirits, and sugar. Its area is 

 19,265 sq. m. Pop. 3,716,000. 

 Poltava OR PULTAVA. Town of 



the river Vorskla. 

 Charles having been incapacitated 

 by a wound, Marshal Rehnskjold 



Russia, and capital of the govt. of succeeded in the command of the 

 the same name. It is 70 m. S.W. of Swedish arfiny, and on July 8 

 Kharkov and stands at the June- (N.S. ) attacked the lines of the 



