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. 1 



Another great event which stimulated the commercial 

 activity of the Italians in the thirteenth and fourteenth 

 centuries, 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 botli 

 against Poland and Japan. The popes and the sovereigns 

 of Europe, alarmed alike for their dominions and their 

 faith, despatched ambassadors to the Great Khan ; the 

 mission resulted in allaying apprehension for the further 

 advance of their formidable neighbours 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 which the realities of travel appear as extra- 

 ordinary as the incidents of romance, contain accounts 

 of Ceylon equally interesting and reliable. 



MAKCO POLO, who left Venice as a youth in the year 

 1271, and resided seventeen years at the court of Kubla 

 Khan, was the first European who penetrated to China 

 Proper ; whence he embarked in 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 which he landed, but he 



1 GIBBOX, Decl. and Fall, eh. Ix. 

 The last of the Venetian " argosies" 



which reached the shores of England 



T T 2 



was cast away on the Isle of Wight, 



A.D. 1587. 



