128 THE ADVENTURERS 



take the journey. There were periods when 

 great Tartar Caans controlled the whole of 

 Asia north of the Himalaya, together with the 

 grass land known now as European Russia. 

 These monarchs from Zenghis to Kublai and 

 later had post trails with post horses, and 

 horses in relay for ambassadors and despatch 

 riders bearing a golden tablet of office. Old 

 Kublai for example was busy building Pekin 

 when he sent the Polo brothers as envoys, 

 riding post with the golden tablet, to visit the 

 Pope in Rome and ask for a batch of priests to 

 teach him the Christian faith. For years 

 young Marco Polo, nephew of these merchants, 

 rode past as envoy, visiting every realm in 

 Asia. Very different were the rambUngs on the 

 pack trails of that rare scamp Fernao Mendes 

 Pinto who in the sixteenth century worked as a 

 slave on the Great Wall of China, travelled 

 with marching armies, and as a fugitive tramp 

 found his way by mysterious Lhassa, to the 

 coasts of further India. Another colossal 

 journey was that in the eighteenth century of 

 Vitus Bering the Dane with his Russian 

 trappers, and Stellar the German naturalist 

 trekking on horseback to the sea of Okhotsk. 

 There they built a ship, and sailed in search of 

 the mysterious straits of Anian leading through 



