RETURN OF MARCO POLO FROM HIS TRAVELS.

Waikato Times, Volume XXXII, Issue 2572, 5 January 1889, Page 2 (Supplement)

RETURN OF MARCO POLO FROM HIS TRAVELS.

Tiik journey buck occupied oiioi; move i.lireo years and a half. U uives us a s'.r.nye glimpse into the h>n.' iu'ervnJs of sili nee habitual to primitive, life to li'id th:it Hie.-o messengers, without moans of communicating any information of tli.-ir movements to their Koyal patron, were more than eight years altogether absent on Hie mission, from which they returned with so little success. In our own days iheir very existence would have been forgotten in such a long lapse of interest.

Let us liope that the holy oil from the sepulchre,the very thing Christianity could send to the inquiring heathen, was safely kept in some precious bottle of earliest glass from Murano, or polished stone lees brittle than glass, through all the dangers of the journey. Thus the I'oli disappeared again into the unknown for many additional years. Letters were not rife anywhere iu those days, and for them, lost out of the range of civilisation, though in the midst of another full and busy world with another civilisation, art, and philosophy of its own, there was no possibility of any communication with Venice, or distant friends It is evident that tlievfc sat very loose to Venice, having perhaps less personal acquaintance with the city than most of her merchant adventurers. Nicoolo and Matteo must have gone to Constantinople while still young—and Marco was but fifteen when he left the lagoons. They had apparently no ties of family tenderness to call them back, and custom and familiarity had made the strange world around, and the half savage tribes, and the primitive court with its barbaric magnificence, pleasant and in foresting to them. It was nearly a quarter of a century before they appeared out of the unknown again. The heads of the house gathered to the door to question the strange applicants, " for, seeing them so transfigured in countenance and disordered in dress, they could not believe that these were those of the Ca' Polo who had been believed dead for so many and many years. ,: The strangers had great trouble even to make it understood who they claimed to bo. " But at last these three gentlemen conceived the plan of making a bargain that in a certain time they should so act as to recover their identity and the recognition of their relatives, and honour from all the city." The expedient they adopted again reads like a scone out of tho " Arabian Nights," They invited all their relatives to a great banquet, which was prepared with much magnificence "in the same house," says the story-teller ; so that it is evident they must have already gained a certain credence from their own nearest relations. When the hour fixed for the banquet came, the following extraordinary scene occurred :—" Tile three came out of their chamber dressed j in long robes of crimson satin, according to the fashion of the time, which touched the ground. And when water had been offered for their hands, they placed their guests at table, and then taking off their satin robes put on rich damask of the same colours, ordering in the meanwhile Unit the first should be divided among the servants. Then, after eating something (no doubt a first course), they rose from the table and ag-iiu changed their dress, putting on ciimson velvet, and giving as before the damask robes to the servants, and at the end of there past they did the same with the velvet, putting on garments of ordinary cloth such as their guests wore. The persons invited were struck dumb with astonishment at these proceedings. And when the servants had left the hall Messer Marco, the youngest, rising from the table, went into his chamber, and brought out the three coarse cloth surcoats in wlii'ili they had come home. And imuicdiatesy the three began with sharp j knives to cut open the seams, and tear open tho lining, upon which there poured forth a quantity of precious stones rubies, sapphires, carbuncles, diamonds, and emeralds, which had been sewed into each coat with great care, so that nobody could have suspected that anything was there. For ou parting with the Great Khan they had changed all the wealth he bestowed upon them into precious stones, knowing certainly that if they had done otherwise they never cou'd by so long and diilieult a road have brought their property home in safety. The exhibition of such an extraordinary and infinite treasure of jewels and precious stones which covered the table, once more filled such nstonisnient that they were dumb and almost beside themselves with surprise ; and they at once recognised these honoured and venerated gentlemen of the Ca' I'olo, whom at first they had doubted, and received them with the greatest honour nud reverence. And when the story was spread about iu Venice the entire city, both nobles and people, j rushe I to the house to embrace them, and to make every demonstration of loving kindness and respect that could be imagined. And Mosser Matteo, who was the eldest, was created one of tin: most honoured magistrates of the city, and the youth of Venice resorted to the house to visit Messer Marco, who was most humane and gracious, and to put questions to him about Cathy and the Ureal: Khan, to which he made answer with so much benignity and courtesy that tlioy already all remained his debtors. And because in the continued repetition of his story of the grandeur of the Great Khan he stated the revenues of that prince to be from ten to fifteen millions, in gold, and counted all the other wealth of the country always iu millions the surname was given him of Marco Millone, which may be seen noted in the public books of the Republic. And the ceurl.yard of his house from that to this has Wn vulgarly railed the Corto Millione.'"—From Mrs Oliphant'3 "The Makers of Venice."'