aged fifteen
years.

Our three travellers betook themselves from Syria to Mosul, quite close
to the ruins of Nineveh on the Tigris, and thence to Baghdad and Hormuz,
a town situated on the small strait between the Persian Gulf and the
Arabian Sea. Then they proceeded northwards through the whole of Persia
and northern Afghanistan, and along the Amu-darya to the Pamir,
following routes which had to wait 600 years for new travellers from
Europe. Past Yarkand, Khotan, and Lop-nor, and through the whole of the
Gobi desert, they finally made their way to China.

It was in the year 1275 that, after several years' wanderings, they came
to the court of the Great Khan in eastern Mongolia. The potentate was so
delighted with Marco Polo, who learned to read and write several Eastern
languages, that he took him into his service. The first commission he
entrusted to the young Venetian was an official journey to northern and
western China. Polo had noticed that Kublai Khan liked to hear curious
and extraordinary accounts from foreign countries, and he therefore
treasured up in his memory all he saw and experienced in order to relate
it to the Emperor on his return. Accordingly he steadily rose higher in
the estimation of Kublai Khan, and was sent out on other official
journeys, even as far as India and the borders of Tibet, was for three
years governor of a large town, and was also employed at the capital,
Peking.

Marco Polo relates how the Emperor goes hunting. He sits in a palanquin
like a small room, with a roof, and carried by four elephants. The
outside of the palanquin is overlaid with plates of beaten gold and the
inside is draped with tiger skins. A dozen of his best gerfalcons are
beside him, and near at hand ride several of his attendant lords.
Presently one of them will exclaim, "Look, Sire, there are some cranes."
Then the Emperor has the roof opened and throws out one of the falcons
to strike down the game; this sport gives him great satisfaction. Then
he comes to his camp, which is composed of 10,000 tents. His own
audience tent is so large that it can easily hold 1000 persons, and he
has another for private interviews, and a third for sleeping. They are
supported by three tent-poles, are covered outside with tiger skins, and
inside with ermine and sable. Marco Polo says that the tents are so fine
and costly that it is not every king who could pay for them.

Only the most illustrious noblemen can wait on the Emper