cean," or the wealth of mulberry trees throughout the land,
on which lived the silkworms that have made China so famous for her
silk.

Then there are the people famous for their manufacture of fine
porcelain ware. "Great quantities of porcelain earth were here
collected into heaps and in this way exposed to the action of the
atmosphere for some forty years, during which time it was never
disturbed. By this process it became refined and fitted for
manufacture." Such is Marco's only allusion to china ware. With regard
to tea he is entirely silent.

But he is the first European to tell us about the islands of Japan,
fifteen hundred miles from the coast of China, now first discovered
to the geographers of the West.

"Zipangu," says Marco, "is an island situated at a distance from the
mainland. The people are fair and civilised in their manners--they
possess precious metals in extraordinary abundance. The people are
white, of gentle manners, idolaters in religion under a king of their
own. These folk were attacked by the fleet of Kublai Khan in 1264 for
their gold, for the King's house, windows, and floors were covered
with it, but the King allowed no exportation of it."

[Illustration: MARCO POLO. From a woodcut in the first printed edition
of Marco Polo's _Travels_, Nuremburg, 1477.]

Thus Marco Polo records in dim outline the existence of land beyond
that ever dreamed of by Europeans--indeed, denied by Ptolemy and other
geographers of the West. In the course of his service under Kublai
Khan he opened up the eight provinces of Tibet, the whole of south-east
Asia from Canton to Bengal, and the archipelago of farther India. He
tells us, too, of Tibet, that wide country "vanquished and wasted by
the Khan for the space of twenty days' journey"--a great wilderness
wanting people, but overrun by wild beasts. Here were great Tibetan
dogs as large as asses. Still on duty for Kublai Khan, Marco reached
Bengal, "which borders upon India." But he was glad enough to return
to his adopted Chinese home, "the richest and most famous country of
all the East."

At last the Polo family wearied of Court honours, and they were anxious
to return to their own people at Venice. However, the Khan was very
unwilling to let them go. One day their chance came. The Persian ruler
was anxious to marry a princess of the house of Kublai Khan, and it
was decided to send the lady by sea under the protection of the trusted
Polos, rather than to allo