Can be no need to exaggerate his greatness, or to invest him
with imaginary attributes.[4]
[Sidenote: His personal attributes seen but dimly.]
68. What manner of man was Ser Marco? It is a question hard to answer.
Some critics cry out against personal detail in books of Travel; but as
regards him who would not welcome a little more egotism! In his Book
impersonality is carried to excess; and we are often driven to discern by
indirect and doubtful indications alone, whether he is speaking of a place
from personal knowledge or only from hearsay. In truth, though there are
delightful exceptions, and nearly every part of the book suggests
interesting questions, a desperate meagreness and baldness does extend
over considerable tracts of the story. In fact his book reminds us
sometimes of his own description of Khorasan: - "On chevauche par beaus
plains et belles costieres, la ou il a moult beaus herbages et bonne
pasture et fruis assez.... Et aucune fois y treuve l'en un desert de
soixante milles ou de mains, esquels desers ne treuve l'en point d'eaue;
mais la convient porter o lui!"
Still, some shadowy image of the man may be seen in the Book; a practical
man, brave, shrewd, prudent, keen in affairs, and never losing his
interest in mercantile details, very fond of the chase, sparing of speech;
with a deep wondering respect for Saints, even though they be Pagan
Saints, and their asceticism, but a contempt for Patarins and such like,
whose consciences would not run in customary grooves, and on his own part
a keen appreciation of the World's pomps and vanities. See, on the one
hand, his undisguised admiration of the hard life and long fastings of
Sakya Muni; and on the other how enthusiastic he gets in speaking of the
great Kaan's command of the good things of the world, but above all of his
matchless opportunities of sport![5]
[Illustration: PROBABLE VIEW OF MARCO POLO'S OWN GEOGRAPHY]
Of humour there are hardly any signs in his Book. His almost solitary joke
(I know but one more, and it pertains to the [Greek: ouk anaekonta])
occurs in speaking of the Kaan's paper-money when he observes that Kublai
might be said to have the true Philosopher's Stone, for he made his money
at pleasure out of the bark of Trees.[6] Even the oddest eccentricities of
outlandish tribes scarcely seem to disturb his gravity; as when he relates
in his brief way of the people called Gold-Teeth on the frontier of Burma,
that ludicrous custom which Mr. Tylor has so well illustrated under the
name of the Couvade. There is more savour of laughter in the few lines
of a Greek Epic, which relate precisely the same custom of a people on the
Euxine:
