CHAPTER III 



MARCO POLO 



AUTHORITIES : 



YULE'S Marco Polo. 



YULE'S Cathay and the Way Thither. 



BEAZLEY'S Dawn of Modern Geography. 



IN the early thirteenth century the Eastern world was The open- 

 turned upside down by the Tartars or Mongols, whose 

 conquests extended over the whole of the North of Asia 

 and the East of Europe. Now the Mongols were heathen, 

 but they were heathen with a singularly open and in- 

 quisitive mind. Here then to Europe was both a danger 

 and an opportunity ; a danger that the Mongol deluge, 

 which had swept the East, might also sweep the West : 

 an opportunity to convert the open-minded heathen to 

 Christian civilization, and to find in him an ally against 

 the Mahomedans. 



It was just at this time that the sons of Francis were Missionary 

 seeking knightly venture in distant lands; and in I2 53 ^Yndscan 

 one of them, William de Rubruquis, had visited the Great from 1253. 

 Kaan in the heart of Mongolia, and came back to tell 

 his fellow Franciscan Roger Bacon of the singular 

 "Parliament of Religions," held at the suggestion 

 of the Mongol chief, and under his presidency, in 

 which Saracens, Christians and Buddhists had contended 

 for their Faiths. He brought back news also that Cathay 

 was bounded on the East by an open sea : news which 

 may have been in Roger Bacon's mind when he quoted 

 the opinion of Aristotle that the distance by sea from Spain 

 to Asia could not be very great : an opinion which did 



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