46 MARCO POLO. 



less celebrated for the singularity of his adventures and the 

 vast extent of country through which he traversed, than for 

 the effect produced by the relation of his travels upon the 

 progress of navigation and commerce. The north and east 

 of Asia, the islands of the East, and the extremity of Africa 

 were then wholly unknown; and thus Marco Polo, and the 

 learned cosmographers who first gave credit to his narrative, 

 may be said to have prepared the way for the two greatest 

 geographical discoveries of modern times the Cape of Good 

 Hope, and America. By Marco Polo's travels, the erroneous 

 notions of the ancients disappeared; science became regene- 

 rated ; and if, in the long series of ages, we search for those 

 men who, by the greatness and influence of their discoveries, 

 have most contributed to the progress of geography and a 

 knowledge of the globe, the modest name of the Venetian 

 traveller may be placed in the same line with those of Alex- 

 ander the Great and Christopher Columbus. 



ESTHER. 

 Were his travels believed at the time? 



MRS. F. 



His narrative was read with eagerness, but was considered, 

 by many, to be such a tissue of falsehood and exaggeration, 

 that the friends and relatives of Marco Polo entreated him, 

 when on his death-bed, to retract or disavow the passages 

 which the world regarded as fiction; but Marco Polo declared 

 that, so far from having exaggerated the truth, he had not 

 related half the wonders to which he had been eye witness ; 

 but, like our own countryman Bruce, he could not gain cre- 

 dence for what subsequent travellers have proved to be fact. 



FREDERICK. 



I can't see why he was not believed! 



MRS. F. 



When we take the knowledge of the age into consideration, 

 there was nothing extraordinary in the incredulity of the 

 public; for the Tartars were, at that time, considered as 



