Besides intrinsic improbability, and positive indications of
Marco's ignorance of Chinese, in no respect is his book so defective as in
regard to Chinese manners and peculiarities. The Great Wall is never
mentioned, though we have shown reason for believing that it was in his
mind when one passage of his book was dictated.[10] The use of Tea, though
he travelled through the Tea districts of Fo-kien, is never mentioned;[11]
the compressed feet of the women and the employment of the fishing
cormorant (both mentioned by Friar Odoric, the contemporary of his later
years), artificial egg-hatching, printing of books (though the notice of
this art seems positively challenged in his account of paper-money),
besides a score of remarkable arts and customs which one would have
expected to recur to his memory, are never alluded to. Neither does he
speak of the great characteristic of the Chinese writing. It is difficult
to account for these omissions, especially considering the comparative
fulness with which he treats the manners of the Tartars and of the
Southern Hindoos; but the impression remains that his associations in
China were chiefly with foreigners. Wherever the place he speaks of had a
Tartar or Persian name he uses that rather than the Chinese one. Thus
Cathay, Cambaluc, Pulisanghin, Tangut, Chagannor, Saianfu, Kenjanfu,
Tenduc, Acbalec, Carajan, Zardandan, Zayton, Kemenfu, Brius, Caramoran,
Chorcha, Juju, are all Mongol, Turki, or Persian forms, though all have
Chinese equivalents.[12]
In reference to the then recent history of Asia, Marco is often
inaccurate, e.g. in his account of the death of Chinghiz, in the list of
his successors, and in his statement of the relation ship between notable
members of that House.[13] But the most perplexing knot in the whole book
lies in the interesting account which he gives of the Siege of Sayanfu or
Siang-yang, during the subjugation of Southern China by Kublai. I have
entered on this matter in the notes (vol. ii. p. 167), and will only say
here that M. Pauthier's solution of the difficulty is no solution, being
absolutely inconsistent with the story as told by Marco himself, and that
I see none; though I have so much faith in Marco's veracity that I am
loath to believe that the facts admit of no reconciliation.
Our faint attempt to appreciate some of Marco's qualities, as gathered
from his work, will seem far below the very high estimates that have been
pronounced, not only by some who have delighted rather to enlarge upon his
frame than to make themselves acquainted with his work,[14] but also by
persons whose studies and opinions have been worthy of all respect. Our
estimate, however, does not abate a jot of our intense interest in his
Book and affection for his memory. And we have a strong feeling that,
owing partly to his reticence, and partly to the great disadvantages under
which the Book was committed to writing, we have in it a singularly
imperfect image of the Man.
[Sidenote: Was Polo's Book materially affected by the Scribe Rusticiano?]
72. A question naturally suggests itself, how far Polo's narrative, at
least in its expression, was modified by passing under the pen of a
professed litterateur of somewhat humble claims, such as Rusticiano was.
The case is not a singular one, and in our own day the ill-judged use of
such assistance has been fatal to the reputation of an adventurous
Traveller.
We have, however, already expressed our own view that in the Geographic
Text we have the nearest possible approach to a photographic impression of
Marco's oral narrative. If there be an exception to this we should seek it
in the descriptions of battles, in which we find the narrator to fall
constantly into a certain vein of bombastic commonplaces, which look like
the stock phrases of a professed romancer, and which indeed have a strong
resemblance to the actual phraseology of certain metrical romances.[15]
Whether this feature be due to Rusticiano I cannot say, but I have not
been able to trace anything of the same character in a cursory inspection
of some of his romance-compilations. Still one finds it impossible to
conceive of our sober and reticent Messer Marco pacing the floor of his
Genoese dungeon, and seven times over rolling out this magniloquent
bombast, with sufficient deliberation to be overtaken by the pen of the
faithful amanuensis!
[Sidenote: Marco's reading embraced the Alexandrian Romances. Examples.]
73. On the other hand, though Marco, who had left home at fifteen years of
age, naturally shows very few signs of reading, there are indications that
he had read romances, especially those dealing with the fabulous
adventures of Alexander.
To these he refers explicitly or tacitly in his notices of the Irongate
and of Gog and Magog, in his allusions to the marriage of Alexander with
Darius's daughter, and to the battle between those two heroes, and in his
repeated mention of the Arbre Sol or Arbre Sec on the Khorasan
frontier.
The key to these allusions is to be found in that Legendary History of
Alexander, entirely distinct from the true history of the Macedonian
Conqueror, which in great measure took the place of the latter in the
imagination of East and West for more than a thousand years. This fabulous
history is believed to be of Graeco-Egyptian origin, and in its earliest
extant compiled form, in the Greek of the Pseudo-Callisthenes, can be
traced back to at least about A.D. 200. From the Greek its marvels spread
eastward at an early date; some part at least of their matter was known to
Moses of Chorene, in the 5th century;[16] they were translated into
Armenian, Arabic, Hebrew, and Syriac; and were reproduced in the verses of
Firdusi and various other Persian Poets; spreading eventually even to the
Indian Archipelago, and finding utterance in Malay and Siamese.
