THE EARLY EXPLORERS 



however, and took with them young Marco, passing through the 

 countries that after their time were closed to Europeans until the middle 

 of the nineteenth century. Marco Polo was then about twenty-one and 

 was very kindly received both then and on subsequent occasions, for he 

 discovered that the Khan was enthusiastic to hear everything about 

 foreign countries and took very good care that his wishes should be satis- 

 fied. Marco took out notebooks packed with all the information that 

 he could collect, much of which incidentally has come down to us. It 

 was as an escort for a noble Mongolian lady that the Polos returned as 

 far as Persia, this voyage being made by sea from Amoy. There were 

 long delays on the Sumatra coast and in India and it was two years 

 before they reached their destination, during which Polo had made the 

 most of his time. At the Battle of Curzola in 1298 he commanded one 

 of Dandola's galleys and the result was that he spent many months as a 

 captive in Genoa, a very fortunate circumstance for posterity for it was 

 while he was in prison that he dictated his famous book. In 1324 or 1325, 

 in his seventieth year, he died at Venice. His book is difficult to read 

 and rambles all over his many interests, but he gave Europe a mass of 

 information and certainly had a very considerable influence on the 

 history of the sea. 



Sir John Mandeville. 



After Marco Polo the next great figure in the history of exploration 

 is Sir John Mandeville, who may not have been a great explorer but 

 who was certainly a phenomenal liar. His experiences were published 

 in the middle of the fourteenth century. According to his book he was 

 an English knight who sailed on Michaelmas Dav, 1322, and performed 

 a wonderful voyage all round the then known globe. Genealogists have 

 contradicted most of the statements that he makes concerning his own 

 birth, and it is generally believed that the book was written by a Liege 

 physician of somewhat speckled reputation. All the experiences that 

 he gives as his own have been taken from some authority or other, but 

 as some of these authorities have been lost there is a certain amount of 

 value in them when one can get away from the gross exaggeration and 

 ornamentation which he adds to every story that he tells. One thing 

 must be said in his favour and that is that even at that age he had a 

 perfectly correct idea of the shape of the earth and knew the principle 

 of finding latitude by observation of the Pole Star. Incidentally he tells 

 a storv which he said that he heard in his youth, of how a certain man 

 travelled eastward until he returned to his own country. This particular 

 story has found no corroboration as to date, but it is distinctly 

 interesting. 



The End of the Era. 



The fourteenth century really ends the era of more or less casual 

 discovery, when men went to sea and were generallv blown at the mercy 

 of the winds until they increased the knowledge of the world more or less 

 unwillingly. After that there was a period when the dissensions of 

 Europe prevented any good work being done, and when that was ended 



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