154 
THE VOYAGE OF THE VEGA. 
[chap. 
journeys among the peoples of Middle Asia, gave some in¬ 
formation regarding the most northerly lands of this quarter 
of the world also. The chapters which treat of this subject 
bear the distinctive titles; “ On the land of the Tartars living 
in the north,” “ On another region to which merchants only 
travel in waggons drawn by dogs,” and “ On the region where 
darkness prevails” {De regione tenebramtm). From the state¬ 
ments in these chapters it follows that hunters and traders 
already inhabited or wandered about in the present Siberia, and 
brought thence valuable furs of the black fox, sable, beaver, &c. 
The northernmost living men were said to be handsome, tall and 
stout, but very pale for want of the sun. They obeyed no king 
or chief, but were coarse and uncivilised and lived as beasts.^ 
Among the products of the northern countries white bears are 
mentioned, from which it appears that at that time the hunters 
had already reached the coast of the Polar Sea. But Marco 
Polo nowhere says expressly that Asia is bounded on the north 
by the sea. 
All the maps of North Asia which have been published down 
to the middle of the sixteenth century, are based to a greater or 
less extent on interpretations of the accounts of Herodotus, 
Pliny, and Marco Polo. When they do not surround the whole 
Indian Ocean with land, they give to Asia a much less extent 
posterity merely as the original of this character if he had not, soon after 
his return home, taken part in a war against Genoa, in the course of which 
he was taken prisoner, and, during his imprisonment, related his recol¬ 
lections of his travels to a fellow-prisoner, who committed them to writing, 
in what language is still uncertain. The work attracted great attention and 
was soon spread, first in written copies, then by the press in a large number 
of different languages. It has not been translated into Swedish, but in the 
Royal Library in Stockholm there is a very important and hitherto little 
known manuscript of it from the middle of the fourteenth century, of 
which an edition is in course of publication in photo-lithographic facsimile. 
1 Homines illius regionis sunt pulchri, magni, et corpulenti, sed sunt mul- 
tum pallidi , . . . et sunt homines inculti, et immorigerati et bestialiter 
viventes. 
