Travels of Marco Polo. 3 



occupying important positions. On their return they sailed 

 through the China sea and Indian ocean to India, stojjping at 

 the Philippine and Spice islands, Sumatra and Ceylon ; from 

 India they traveled 1)}^ land through Persia and Asia Minor, and 

 by the Black and Mediterranean seas to Venice. Soon after his 

 return Marco Polo was taken prisoner by the Genoese, and during 

 his captivity wrote an accurate description of the countries 

 through which he traveled and in which he had lived so many 

 years, and of the island of Cipango or Japan,with its inexhaustible 

 riches of gold and pearls, 500 miles east of China. He also de- 

 scribed the voyages of the Chinese to the islands of the Pacific, to 

 Ceylon, and to India, and of the rich trade carried on by the Mo- 

 hammedans Ijetween the Spice islands, India and the Mediterra- 

 nean. These travels became gradually known to geographers, and 

 in the fifteenth century gave a new impulse to geographic study. 



About the same time the old maps of Ptolemy, which had been 

 hopelessly obscured by thegraj^hic fancies of thecosmographers 

 of the dark ages, were, with his writings, brought from the East 

 to Italy. The maps of the dark ages showed the Mediterranean 

 and the countries around it, Arabia, Persia, Media, Gog and Ma- 

 gog, and a little of northern Africa ; but so vaguely and incor- 

 rectly that today one would scarcely recognize these countries 

 on existing maps. . - 



Toscanelli, an Italian, ^jrepared a map about 1474, taking the 

 travels of Marco Polo as his guide. On other maps Cathay, or 

 China, had been delineated as east of Europe ; Toscanelli 's trans- 

 ferred it to the west. His map shows the Atlantic ocean, Cipango 

 100° west of Europe, and still further westward, Cathay. He 

 sent a copy of this map to the king of Portugal, and subsequently 

 another to Columbus, urging him to make his contemiDlated voy- 

 age to '■ The land Avhere the spices are born, where the temples 

 and royal palaces are covered with planks of gold " (plate 3*). 



Let us consider the condition of Europe at the time of the voy- 

 ages of the Northmen to America, and the great changes which 

 were gradually preparing the way for the colonization of America. 



FiDr nearly one thousand years B C the shij^s of TyxQ and 

 Sidon, Alexandria and Greece, sailed through the Mediterranean 

 into the Atlantic ocean as far as Britain. The early sailors were 

 more adventurous and their ships more seaAVorthy than those of 



* Reproduced from Fiske, op. cit., p. 357. 



