Chap. IV.] CEYLON AS KNOWN TO VENETIANS. 635 



tions obtained the delicacies of India and China, down 

 to the period when the overland route and the Eed Sea 

 were deserted for the grander passage by the Cape of 

 Good Hope.^ 



Another great event which stimulated the commercial 

 activity of the Itahans in the thirteenth and fourteenth 

 centimes, was the extraordinary progress of the Mongols, 

 who in an incredibly short space of time absorbed Cen- 

 tral Asia into one powerful empire, overthrew the 

 ancient monarchy of China, penetrated to the heart of 

 Eussia, and directed their arms with equal success both 

 against Poland and Japan. Tlie popes and the sovereigns 

 of Europe, ahke alarmed for thek dominions and their 

 faith, despatched ambassadors to the Great Khan ; the 

 mission resulted in allajTing apprehension for the further 

 advance of their formidable neiglibours towards the 

 west, and the vigilant merchants of Venice addressed 

 themselves to effect an opening for trade in the new 

 domains of the Tartar princes. 



It is to this commercial enterprise that we are in- 

 debted for the first authentic information regarding 

 China and India, that reached Europe after the silence 

 of the middle ages ; and the voyages of the Venetians, 

 in some of wliich the reahties of travel appear as extra- 

 ordinary as the incidents of romance, contain accounts 

 of Ceylon equally interesting and rehable. 



Marco Polo, who left Venice as a youth in the year 

 1271, and resided seventeen years at the court of Kul^la 

 Khan, was the first European who penetrated to China 

 Proper ; whence he embarked in a.d. 1291, at Fo-Kien, 

 and passing through the Straits of Malacca, rested at 

 Ceylon, on his homeward route by Ormuz. 



He does not name the port in Ceylon at wliicli he 



* Giiiuox, Ded. and Fall, ch. Ix. 

 Tlie last of the Venetiau ''argosies" 

 whicli reached the shores of England 



T T 2 



was cast away on the Isle of "Wight, 

 A.D. 1587. 



