34 



THE DISCOVERY OF AUSTRALIA 



contrary winds. They " employed eighteen months in the 

 Indian seas." At last they landed their princess in Persia, 

 and journeyed on by way of Trebizond and Constantinople 

 to Venice (1295). According to the traditionary story, 

 they were not recognized till they ripped open their thread- 

 bare garments, and poured on the table a stream of costly 

 jewels. 



In 1298 Marco was given command of a galley in a 



The Book of great naval battle with the Genoese. The Venetians 



Ser Marco we re defeated, and Marco was among the captured. In 



dictated prison he met with a gentleman of Pisa, who was so enter- 



I2Q8 - tained by his anecdotes of travel that he wrote them 



down, and made out of them the most famous and most 



important travel book in the world's history, " the Book 



of Ser Marco Polo concerning the kingdoms and marvels 



of the East." " From the creation of Adam to this present 



day," declares our Pisan editor, " no man whether pagan, 



or Saracen, or Christian, or other, ever saw or enquired 



into so much and such great things as Marco Polo." 



The claim was entirely just. How enormous was the 

 su ^den addition made to geographic knowledge we 

 Ocean. best realize by reading the pages in which Roger Bacon, 



most up-to-date and dare-devil of Marco's contempor- 

 aries, sought by patient study of Aristotle and Pliny 

 to discover the contents of the unknown world of East 

 and South. Now, for the first time, and at one magic 

 stroke, there stood revealed all the kingdoms of the world, 

 and all the glory thereof. From Constantinople to Pekin, 

 from Pekin to Java, from Java to Colombo and to Aden, 

 from Cairo to Madagascar, the whole Eastern world was 

 described in convincing detail. The substance of the 

 book was based on his own travels and his own experiences 

 recorded in his "notes." And, where he could not see 

 for himself, he had made careful inquiries from those 

 who had seen, or who claimed to have seen. He had 

 studied maps and charts of Chinese and Arabians. He 

 had listened to all the traveller's tales told by " persons 

 worthy of credit," all the rumours and legends written 

 in books or passed from mouth to mouth : and he had 



The 



