Nature Bulletin No. 591   February 13, 1960
Forest Preserve District of Cook County
Daniel Ryan, President
Roberts Mann, Conservation Editor
David H. Thompson, Senior Naturalist

****:MARCO POLO

In the year 1295 a man named Marco Polo returned to his native Venice 
with a fortune in jewels sewn inside his ragged, outlandish clothing. He 
had been away twenty-four years on a trip with his father, Nicolo, and 
his uncle, Maffeo Polo. They had been forgotten by their family and 
friends. Three years later he was captured during a naval battle with the 
Genoese and lay in prison for several months. During this time he 
dictated an account of his travels and experiences to a fellow prisoner 
who wrote down over 200 chapters in a kind of French. Thus, he left to 
posterity one of the greatest books of all time, "The Travels of Marco 
Polo. "

Starting in 1271 when he was seventeen, they traveled overland across 
the entire length of Asia. Four years later, after many delays and detours 
due to hostile tribes, bitter winters, swollen rivers, mountain ranges and 
great deserts, they reached the court of Kublai, the Grand Khan of the 
Mongols, at Kanbalu -- now called Peiping.

Among the sights, new to European eyes, that he witnessed on this 
journey was". . . a fountain of oil which discharges so great a quantity 
as to furnish loading for many camels. " It was used" .... as an unguent 
for the cure of cutaneous distempers ... . and it is also good for burning. 
" About anthracite coal he says,". . . there is found a sort of black stone, 
which they dig out of the mountains, where it runs in veins. When 
lighted, it burns like charcoal. . . . These stones do not flame, except a 
little when first lighted. " On the Pamir Plateau " . . . there are wild 
animals in great numbers, particularly sheep of a large size, having 
horns, three, four and even six palms in length. " This largest of all wild 
sheep, now called Marco Polo's sheep, remained unknown to science 
for the next 600 years.

The Khan received them warmly because he was keenly interested in 
distant lands, their resources and their people, and, because the three 
Polo's were the first Europeans he had ever met. Young Marco soon 
became a favorite. He quickly learned the Tartar languages and greatly 
pleased Kublai by his alert mind and his ability to observe and describe 
what he had seen. For the next seventeen years he served as a trusted 
representative of the aging Khan, making many journeys to distant parts 
of the empire on state business. At that time Kublai ruled all of China 
and was probably the sovereign of more of the world's people than has 
ever acknowledged one man's supremacy. His empire stretched at least 
nominally, from eastern Europe to the Pacific Ocean, and from the 
Arctic shore of Siberia to India. Marco was the first to reveal China in 
its wealth and vastness.

Hunting with trained falcons, cheetahs and dogs, as well as with arrows 
and spears, was the principal sport of the Mongols The Khan's hunting 
expeditions were conducted in a very elaborate manner with thousands 
of people taking part under strict regulations. Marco's account of game 
management and conservation, as practiced by the Khan, is strikingly 
similar to our present-day methods. He says, "There is an order which 
prohibits every person throughout all the countries subject to the Great 
Khan from daring to kill hares, roebucks, fallow deer, stags or other 
animals of that kind, or any large birds between the months of March 
and October. This is that they may increase and multiply; and, as the 
breach of this r is attended with punishment, game of every description 
increases prodigiously." Marco also describes the Khan's game 
preserves, his system of planting millet and other grain as food and 
cover for pheasants and quails.

His incredible stories earned him the nickname, "Marco Millioni."