<h1>XXV <br/> GREAT EXPLORERS AND THE FOUNDATION OF GEOGRAPHY.</h1>
<p>Geography is usually considered to be quite a modern subject. The idea
that great contributions were made to it in the Thirteenth Century
would ordinarily not be entertained. America was discovered at the end
of the Fifteenth Century. Knowledge of the East was obtained during
the Sixteenth Century. Africa was explored in the Nineteenth and a
detailed knowledge of Asia came to us in such recent years that the
books are still among the novelties of publication. Our knowledge of
Persia, of Northern India, of Thibet, and of the interior of China are
all triumphs of Nineteenth Century enterprise and exploration. As a
matter of fact, however, all portions of the East were explored, the
Capital and the dominions of Jenghis Khan described, Lhasa was entered
and the greater part of China thoroughly explored by travelers of the
Thirteenth Century, whose books still remain as convincing evidence of
the great work that they accomplished. This chapter of Thirteenth
Century accomplishment is, indeed, one of the most interesting and
surprising in the whole story of the time.</p>
<p>It is usually considered that the teaching, supposed to have been more
or less generally accepted, that the Antipodes did not exist,
prevented any significant development of geography until comparatively
modern times. While the question of the existence of antipodes was
discussed in the schools of the Middle Ages, and especially of the
Thirteenth Century when men's minds were occupied with practically all
of the important problems even of physical science, and while many
intelligent men accepted the idea that there could not be inhabitants
on the other side of the world because of physical difficulties which
supposedly made it impossible, it would be a mistake to think that
this idea was universally accepted. We have already called attention
to the fact in the chapter on "What was Taught at the
Universities," that Albertus Magnus, for instance, ridiculed the
notion that men could not live with their heads down, as was urged
against the doctrine of the existence of antipodes, by suggesting very
simply that for those on the other side of the earth what we call down
was really not down but up. This expresses, of course, the very heart
of the solution of the supposed difficulty.</p>
<p>As a matter of fact it seems clear that many of the great travelers
and explorers of the later Middle Ages harbored the notion that the
earth was round. As we shall note a little later in mentioning Sir
John Mandeville's work, the writer, whomever he was who took that
pseudonym, believed thoroughly in the rotundity of the earth and did
not hesitate to use some striking expressions—which have been often
quoted—that he had heard of travelers who by traveling continually to
the eastward had come back eventually to the point from which they
started. While in the schools, then, the existence of antipodes may
have been under discussion, there was a practical acceptance of their
existence among those who were better informed with regard to
countries and peoples and all the other topics which form the proper
subject matter of geography.</p>
<p>It must be realized, moreover, that though the existence of the
Antipodes is an important matter in geography, at this early period it
was a mere theory, not a condition antecedent to progress. It was
really a side issue as compared with many other questions relating to
the earth's surface and its inhabitants with which the medieval mind
was occupied. To consider that no knowledge of geography could be
obtained until there was a definite acceptance of the right view of
the earth's surface, would be to obliterate much precious knowledge.
The argument as to the existence of antipodes, as it was carried on,
was entirely outside of geography properly so-called. It never
influenced in the slightest degree the men who were consciously and
unconsciously laying deep and broad the foundations of modern
geography. To consider such a matter as vital to the development of as
many sided a subject as geography, illustrates very typically the
narrowness of view of so many modern scholars, who apparently can see
the value of nothing which does not entirely accord with modern
knowledge. The really interesting historian of knowledge,
however, is he who can point out the beginnings of what we now know,
in unexpected quarters in the medieval mind.</p>
<p>As the story of these travels and explorations is really a glorious
chapter in the history of the encouragement of things intellectual, as
well as an interesting phase of an important origin whose foundations
were laid broad and deep in the Thirteenth Century, it must be told
here in some detail. Our century was the great leader in exploration
and geography as in so many other matters in which its true place is
often unrecognized.</p>
<p>The people of the time are usually considered to have had such few
facilities for travel that they did not often go far from home, and
that what was known about distant countries, therefore, was very
little and mainly legendary. Nothing could be more false than any such
impression as this. The Crusades during the previous century had given
the people not only a deep interest in distant lands, but the
curiosity to go and see for themselves. Pilgrimages to the Holy Land
were frequent, ecclesiastics often traveled at least as far as Italy,
and in general the tide of travel in proportion to the number of
population must have been not very much less in amount than in our own
day. After the establishment of the religious orders, missionary
expeditions to the East became very common and during the Thirteenth
Century, as we shall see, the Franciscans particularly, established
themselves in many parts of the Near East, but also of the Far East,
especially in China. Many of those wrote accounts of their travels,
and so the literature of travel and exploration during the Thirteenth
Century is one of the most interesting chapters of the literature of
these times, while the wonderfully deep foundations that were laid for
the science of geography, are worthy to be set beside the great
origins in other sciences and in the arts, for which the century is so
noteworthy.</p>
<p>To most people it will come as a distinct surprise to learn that the
travelers and explorers of the Thirteenth Century—merchants,
ambassadors, and missionaries—succeeded in solving many of the
geographical problems that have been of deepest interest to the
generations of the last half of last century. The eastern part
of Asia particularly was traveled over and very thoroughly described
by them. Even the northern part of India, however, was not neglected
in spite of the difficulties that were encountered, and Thibet was
explored and Lhasa entered by travelers of the Thirteenth Century. Of
China as much was written as had been learned by succeeding
generations down practically to our own time. This may sound like a
series of fairy-tales instead of serious science, but it is the
travelers and explorers of the modern time who have thought it worth
while to comment on the writings of these old-time wanderers of the
Thirteenth Century, and who have pointed out the significance of their
work. These men described not only the countries through which they
passed, but also the characters of the people, their habits and
customs, their forms of speech, with many marvelous hints as regards
the relationship of the different languages, and even something about
the religious practises of these countries and their attitude toward
the great truths of Christianity when they were presented to them.</p>
<p>Undoubtedly one of the greatest travelers and explorers of all times
was Marco Polo, whose book was for so long considered to be mainly
made up of imaginary descriptions of things and places never seen, but
which the development of modern geographical science by travels and
expeditions has proved to be one of the most valuable contributions to
this department of knowledge that has ever been made. It took many
centuries for Marco Polo to come to his own in this respect but the
Nineteenth and Twentieth centuries have almost more than made up for
the neglect of their predecessors. Marco Polo suffered the same fate
as did Herodotus of whom Voltaire sneered "father of history, say,
rather, father of lies." So long as succeeding generations had no
knowledge themselves of the things of which both these great writers
had written, they were distrusted and even treated contemptuously.
Just as soon, however, as definite knowledge began to come it was seen
how wonderfully accurate both of them were in their descriptions of
things they had actually seen, though they admitted certain
over-wonderful stories on the authority of others. Herodotus has now
come to be acknowledged as one of the greatest of historians. In
his lives of celebrated travelers, James Augustus St. John states the
change of mind with regard to Marco Polo rather forcibly:</p>
<p class="cite">
"When the travels of Marco Polo first appeared, they were generally
regarded as fiction; and as this absurd belief had so far gained
ground, that when he lay upon his death bed, his friends and nearest
relatives, coming to take their eternal adieu, conjured him as he
valued the salvation of his soul, to retract whatever he had
advanced in his book, or at least many such passages as every person
looked upon as untrue; but the traveler whose conscience was
untouched upon that score, declared solemnly, in that awful moment,
that far from being guilty of exaggeration, he had not described
one-half of the wonderful things which he had beheld. Such was the
reception which the discoveries of this extraordinary man
experienced when first promulgated. By degrees, however, as
enterprise lifted more and more the veil from Central and Eastern
Asia the relations of our traveler rose in the estimation of
geographers; and now that the world—though containing many unknown
tracts—has been more successfully explored, we begin to perceive
that Marco Polo, like Herodotus, was a man of the most rigid
veracity, whose testimony presumptuous ignorance alone can call in
question."</p>
<p>There is many a fable that clings around the name of Marco Polo, but
this distinguished traveler needs no fictitious adornments of his tale
to make him one of the greatest explorers of all time. It is sometimes
said that he helped to introduce many important inventions into Europe
and one even finds his name connected with the mariner's compass and
with gunpowder. There are probably no good grounds for thinking that
Europe owes any knowledge of either of these great inventions to the
Venetian traveler. With regard to printing there is more doubt and
Polo's passage with regard to movable blocks for printing paper money
as used in China may have proved suggestive.</p>
<p>There is no need, however, of surmises in order to increase his fame
for the simple story of his travels is quite sufficient for his
reputation for all time. As has been well said most of the modern
travelers and explorers have only been developing what Polo indicated
at least in outline, and they have been scarcely more than
describing with more precision of detail what he first touched upon
and brought to general notice. When it is remembered that he visited
such cities in Eastern Turkestan as Kashgar, Yarkand, and Khotan,
which have been the subject of much curiosity only satisfied in quite
recent years, that he had visited Thibet, or at least had traveled
along its frontier, that to him the medieval world owed some definite
knowledge of the Christian kingdom of Abyssinia and all that it was to
know of China for centuries almost, his merits will be readily
appreciated. As a matter of fact there was scarcely an interesting
country of the East of which Marco Polo did not have something to
relate from his personal experiences. He told of Burmah, of Siam, of
Cochin China, of Japan, of Java, of Sumatra, and of other islands of
the great Archipelago, of Ceylon, and of India, and all of these not
in the fabulous dreamland spirit of one who has not been in contact
with the East but in very definite and precise fashion. Nor was this
all. He had heard and could tell much, though his geographical lore
was legendary and rather dim, of the Coast of Zanzibar, of the vast
and distant Madagascar, and in the remotely opposite direction of
Siberia, of the shores of the Arctic Ocean, and of the curious customs
of the inhabitants of these distant countries.</p>
<p>How wonderfully acute and yet how thoroughly practical some of Polo's
observations were can be best appreciated by some quotations from his
description of products and industries as he saw them on his travels.
We are apt to think of the use of petroleum as dating from much later
than the Thirteenth Century, but Marco Polo had not only seen it in
the Near East on his travels, but evidently had learned much of the
great rock-oil deposits at Baku which constitute the basis for the
important Russian petroleum industry in modern times. He says:</p>
<p class="cite">
"On the north (of Armenia) is found a fountain from which a liquor
like oil flows, which, though unprofitable for the seasoning of
meat, is good for burning and for anointing camels afflicted with
the mange. This oil flows constantly and copiously, so that camels
are laden with it."</p>
<p>He is quite as definite in the information acquired with regard, to
the use of coal. He knew and states very confidently that there
were immense deposits of coal in China, deposits which are so
extensive that distinguished geologists and mineralogists who have
learned of them in modern times have predicted that eventually the
world's great manufacturing industries would be transferred to China.
We are apt to think that this mineral wealth is not exploited by the
Chinese, yet even in Marco Polo's time, as one commentator has
remarked, the rich and poor of that land had learned the value of the
black stone.</p>
<p class="cite">
"Through the whole Province of Cathay," says Polo, "certain black
stones are dug from the mountains, which, put into the fire, burn
like wood, and being kindled, preserve fire a long time, and if they
be kindled in the evening they keep fire all the night."</p>
<p>Another important mineral product which even more than petroleum or
coal is supposed to be essentially modern in its employment is
asbestos. Polo had not only seen this but had realized exactly what it
was, had found out its origin and had recognized its value. Curiously
enough he attempts to explain the origin of a peculiar usage of the
word salamander (the salamander having been supposed to be an animal
which was not injured by fire) by reference to the incombustibility of
asbestos. The whole passage as it appears in The Romance of Travel and
Exploration deserves to be quoted. While discoursing about Dsungaria,
Polo says:</p>
<p class="cite">
"And you must know that in the mountain there is a substance from
which Salamander is made. The real truth is that the Salamander is
no beast as they allege in our part of the world, but is a substance
found in the earth. Everybody can be aware that it can be no
animal's nature to live in fire seeing that every animal is composed
of all the four elements. Now I, Marco Polo, had a Turkish
acquaintance who related that he had lived three years in that
region on behalf of the Great Khan, in order to procure these
salamanders for him. He said that the way they got them was by
digging in that mountain till they found a certain vein. The
substance of this vein was taken and crushed, and when so treated it
divides, as it were, into fibres of wool, which they set forth to
dry. When dry these fibres were pounded in a copper mortar and then
washed so as to remove all the earth and to leave only the fibres,
like fibres of wool. These were then spun and made into
napkins." Needless to say this is an excellent description of
asbestos.</p>
<p>It is not surprising, then, that the Twentieth Century so interested
in travel and exploration should be ready to lay its tributes at the
feet of Marco Polo, and that one of the important book announcements
of recent years should be that of the publication of an annotated
edition of Marco Polo from the hands of a modern explorer, who
considered that there was no better way of putting definitely before
the public in its true historical aspect the evolution of modern
geographical knowledge with regard to Eastern countries.</p>
<p>It can scarcely fail to be surprising to the modern mind that Polo
should practically have been forced into print. He had none of the
itch of the modern traveler for publicity. The story of his travels he
had often told and because of the wondrous tales he could unfold and
the large numbers he found it frequently so necessary to use in order
to give proper ideas of some of his wanderings, had acquired the
nickname of Marco Millioni. He had never thought, however, of
committing his story to writing or perhaps he feared the drudgery of
such literary labor. After his return from his travels, however, he
bravely accepted a patriot's duty of fighting for his native country
on board one of her galleys and was captured by the Genoese in a
famous sea-fight in the Adriatic in 1298. He was taken prisoner and
remained in captivity in Genoa for nearly a year.</p>
<p>It was during this time that one Rusticiano, a writer by profession,
was attracted to him and tempted him to tell him the complete story of
his travels in order that they might be put into connected form.
Rusticiano was a Pisan who had been a compiler of French romances and
accordingly Polo's story was first told in French prose. It is not
surprising that Rusticiano should have chosen French since he
naturally wished his story of Polo's travels to be read by as many
people as possible and realized that it would be of quite as much
interest to ordinary folk as to the literary circles of Europe. How
interesting the story is only those who have read it even with the
knowledge acquired by all the other explorers since his time, can
properly appreciate. It lacks entirely the egotistic quality that
usually characterizes an explorer's account of his travels, and,
indeed, there can scarcely fail to be something of
disappointment because of this fact. No doubt a touch more of personal
adventure would have added to the interest of the book. It was not a
characteristic of the Thirteenth Century, however, to insist on the
merely personal and consequently the world has lost a treat it might
otherwise have had. There is no question, however, or the greatness of
Polo's work as a traveler, nor of the glory that was shed by it on the
Thirteenth Century. Like nearly everything else that was done in this
marvelous century he represents the acme of successful endeavor in his
special line down even to our own time.</p>
<p>It has sometimes been said that Marco Polo's work greatly influenced
Columbus and encouraged him in his attempt to seek India by sailing
around the globe. Of this, however, there is considerable doubt. We
have learned in recent times, that a very definite tradition with
regard to the possibility of finding land by sailing straight westward
over the Atlantic existed long before Columbus' time. [Footnote 34]
Polo's indirect influence on Columbus by his creation of an interest
in geographical matters generally is much clearer. There can be no
doubt of how much his work succeeded in drawing men's minds to
geographical questions during the Fourteenth and Fifteenth centuries.</p>
<p class="footnote">
[Footnote 34: My learned friend, Father DeRoo, of Portland, Ore.,
who has written two very interesting volumes on the History of
America before Columbus, does not hesitate to say that Columbus may
even have met in his travels and spoken with sailors who had touched
on some portions of the American Continent, and that, of course, the
traditions with regard to Greenland were very clear.]</p>
<p>After Marco Polo, undoubtedly, the most enterprising explorer and
interesting writer on Travel in the Thirteenth Century was John of
Carpini, the author of a wonderful series of descriptions of things
seen in Northern Asia. Like so many other travelers and explorers at
this time John was a Franciscan Friar, and seems to have been one of
the early companions and disciples of St. Francis of Assisi, whom he
joined when he was only a young man himself. Before going on his
missionary and ambassadorial expedition he had been one of the most
prominent men in the order. He had much to do with its
propagation among the Northern nations of Europe, and occupied
successively the offices of custos or prior in Saxony and of
Provincial in Germany. He seems afterwards to have been sent as an
organizer into Spain and to have gone even as far as the Barbary
coast.</p>
<p>It is not surprising, then, that when, in 1245, Pope Innocent IV.
(sometime after the Mongol invasion of Eastern Europe and the
disastrous battle of Legamites which threatened to place European
civilization and Christianity in the power of the Tartars) resolved to
send a mission to the Tartar monarch, John of Carpini was selected for
the dangerous and important mission.</p>
<p>At this time Friar John was more than sixty years of age, but such was
the confidence in his ability and in his executive power that
everything on the embassy was committed to his discretion. He started
from Lyons on Easter Day, 1245. He sought the counsel first of his old
friend Wenceslaus, King of Bohemia, and from that country took with
him another friar, a Pole, to act as his interpreter. The first stage
in his journey was to Kiev, and from here, having crossed the Dnieper
and the Don to the Volga, he traveled to the camp of Batu, at this
time the senior living member of Jenghis Khan's family. Batu after
exchanging presents allowed them to proceed to the court of the
supreme Khan in Mongolia. As Col. Yule says, the stout-hearted old man
rode on horseback something like three thousand miles in the next
hundred days. The bodies of himself and companion had to be tightly
bandaged to enable them to stand the excessive fatigue of this
enormous ride, which led them across the Ural Mountains and River past
the northern part of the Caspian, across the Jaxartes, whose name they
could not find out, along the Dzungarian Lakes till they reached the
Imperial Camp, called the Yellow Pavilion, near the Orkhon River.
There had been an interregnum in the empire which was terminated by a
formal election while the Friars were at the Yellow Pavilion, where
they had the opportunity to see between three and four thousand envoys
and deputies from all parts of Asia and Eastern Europe, who brought
with them tributes and presents for the ruler to be elected.</p>
<p>It was not for three months after this, in November, that the Emperor
dismissed them with a letter to the Pope written in Latin, Arabic, and
Mongolian, but containing only a brief imperious assertion that the
Khan of the Tartars was the scourge of God for Christianity, and that
he must fulfill his mission. Then sad at heart, the ambassadors began
their homeward journey in the midst of the winter. Their sufferings
can be better imagined than described, but Friar John who does not
dwell on them much tells enough of them to make their realization
comparatively easy. They reached Kiev seven months later, in June, and
were welcomed there by the Slavonic Christians as though arisen from
the dead. From thence they continued their journey to Lyons where they
delivered the Khan's letter to the Pope.</p>
<p>Friar John embodied the information that he had obtained in this
journey in a book that has been called Liber Tartarorum (the Book of
the Tartars or according to another manuscript, History of the Mongols
whom we call Tartars). Col. Yule notes that like most of the other
medieval monks' itineraries, it shows an entire absence of that
characteristic traveler's egotism with which we have become abundantly
familiar in more recent years, and contains very little personal
narrative. We know that John was a stout man and this in addition to
his age when he went on the mission, cannot but make us realize the
thoroughly unselfish spirit with which he followed the call of Holy
Obedience, to undertake a work that seemed sure to prove fatal and
that would inevitably bring in its train suffering of the severest
kind. Of the critical historical value of his work a good idea can be
obtained from the fact, that half a century ago an educated Mongol,
Galsang Gombeyev, in the Historical and Philological Bulletin of the
Imperial Academy of St. Petersburg, reviewed the book and bore
testimony to the great accuracy of its statements, to the care with
which its details had been verified, and the evident personal
character of all its observations.</p>
<p>Friar John's book attracted the attention of compilers of information
with regard to distant countries very soon after it was issued, and an
abridgment of it is to be found in the Encyclopedia of Vincent of
Beauvais, which was written shortly after the middle of the
Thirteenth Century. At the end of the Sixteenth Century Hakluyt
published portions of the original work, as did Borgeron at the
beginning of the Seventeenth Century. The Geographical Society of
Paris published a fine edition of the work about the middle of the
Nineteenth Century, and at the same time a brief narrative taken down
from the lips of John's companion. Friar Benedict the Pole, which is
somewhat more personal in its character and fully substantiates all
that Friar John had written.</p>
<p>As can readily be understood the curiosity of his contemporaries was
deeply aroused and Friar John had to tell his story many times after
his return. Hence the necessity he found himself under of committing
it to paper, so as to save himself from the bother of telling it all
over again, and in order that his brother Franciscans throughout the
world might have the opportunity to read it.</p>
<p>Col. Yule says "The book must have been prepared immediately after the
return of the traveler, for the Friar Salimbene, who met him in France
in the very year of his return (1247) gives us these interesting
particulars: 'He was a clever and conversable man, well lettered, a
great discourser, and full of diversity of experience. He wrote a big
book about the Tartars (sic), and about other marvels that he had seen
and whenever he felt weary of telling about the Tartars, he would
cause this book of his to be read, as I have often heard and seen.
(Chron. Fr. Salembene Parmensis in Monum. Histor. ad Provinceam
Placent: Pertinentia, Parma 1857).'"</p>
<p>Another important traveler of the Thirteenth Century whose work has
been the theme of praise and extensive annotation in modern times was
William of Rubruk, usually known under the name of Rubruquis, a
Franciscan friar, thought, as the result of recent investigations,
probably to owe his cognomen to his birth in the little town of Rubruk
in Brabant, who was the author of a remarkable narrative of Asiatic
travel during the Thirteenth Century, and whose death seems to have
taken place about 1298. The name Rubruquis has been commonly used to
designate him because it is found in the Latin original of his work,
which was printed by Hayluyt in his collection of Voyages at the end
of the Sixteenth Century. Friar William was sent partly as an
ambassador and partly as an explorer by Louis IX. of France into
Tartary. At that time the descendants of Jenghis Khan ruled over an
immense Empire in the Orient and King Louis was deeply interested in
introducing Christianity into the East and if possible making their
rulers Christians. About the middle of the Thirteenth Century a rumor
spread throughout Europe that one of the nephews of the great Khan had
embraced Christianity. St. Louis thought this a favorable opportunity
for getting in touch with the Eastern Potentate and so he dispatched
at least two missions into Tartary at the head of the second of which
was William of Rubruk.</p>
<p>His accounts of his travels proved most interesting reading to his own
and to many subsequent generations, perhaps to none more than our own.
The Encyclopedia Britannica (ninth edition) says that the narrative of
his journey is everywhere full of life and interest, and some details
of his travels will show the reasons for this. Rubruk and his party
landed on the Crimean Coast at Sudak or Soldaia, a port which formed
the chief seat of communication between the Mediterranean countries
and what is now Southern Russia. The Friar succeeded in making his way
from here to the Great Khan's Court which was then held not far from
Karakorum. This journey was one of several thousand miles. The route
taken has been worked out by laborious study and the key to it is the
description given of the country intervening between the basin of the
Talas and Lake Ala-Kul. This enables the whole geography of the
region, including the passage of the River Ili, the plain south of the
Bal Cash, and the Ala-Kul itself, to be identified beyond all
reasonable doubt.</p>
<p>The return journey was made during the summertime, and the route lay
much farther to the north. The travelers traversed the Jabkan Valley
and passed north of the River Bal Cash, following a rather direct
course which led them to the mouth of the Volga. From here they
traveled south past Derbend and Shamakii to the Uraxes, and on through
Iconium to the coast of Cilicia, and finally to the port of Ayas,
where they embarked for Cyprus. All during his travels Friar William
made observations on men and cities, and rivers and mountains, and
languages and customs, implements and utensils, and most of
these modern criticism has accepted as representing the actual state
of things as they would appear to a medieval sightseer. Occasionally
during the period intervening between his time and our own, scholars
who thought that they knew better, have been conceited enough to
believe themselves in a position to point out glaring errors in
Rubruquis' accounts of what he saw. Subsequent investigation and
discovery have, as a rule, proved the accuracy of the earlier
observations rather than the modern scholar's corrections. An
excellent example of this is quoted in the Encyclopedia Britannica
article on Rubruquis already referred to.</p>
<SPAN name="opp405">{opp405}</SPAN>
<p class="image">
<ANTIMG alt="" src="images/i_opp405a.jpg" border=1><br/>
DOORWAY OF GIOTTO'S TOWER (FLORENCE)</p>
<p class="image">
<ANTIMG alt="" src="images/i_opp405b.jpg" border=1><br/>
PRINCIPAL DOOR OF BAPTISTERY (PISA, DIOTISALVI)</p>
<p>The writer says: "This sagacious and honest observer is denounced as
an ignorant and untruthful blunderer by Isaac Jacob Schmidt (a man no
doubt of useful learning, of a kind rare in his day but narrow and
long-headed and in natural acumen and candour far inferior to the
Thirteenth Century friar whom he maligns), simply because the evidence
of the latter as to the Turkish dialect of the Uigurs traversed a pet
heresy long since exploded which Schmidt entertained, namely, that the
Uigurs were by race and language Tibetan."</p>
<p>Some of the descriptions of the towns through which the travelers
passed are interesting because of comparisons with towns of
corresponding size in Europe. Karakorum, for instance, was described
as a small city about the same size as the town of St. Denis near
Paris. In Karakorum the ambassador missionary maintained a public
disputation with certain pagan priests in the presence of three of the
secretaries of the Khan. The religion of these umpires is rather
interesting from its diversity: the first was a Christian, the second
a Mohammedan, and the third a Buddhist. A very interesting feature of
the disputation was the fact that the Khan ordered under pain of death
that none of the disputants should slander, traduce, or abuse his
adversaries, or endeavor by rumor or insinuations to excite popular
indignation against them. This would seem to indicate that the great
Tartar Khan who is usually considered to have been a cruel, ignorant
despot, whose one quality that gave him supremacy was military valor,
was really a large, liberal-minded man. His idea seems to have been to
discover the truth of these different religions and adopt that
one which was adjudged to have the best groundwork of reason for it.
It is easy to understand, however, that such a disputation argued
through interpreters wholly ignorant of the subject and without any
proper understanding of the nice distinctions of words or any practise
in conveying their proper significance, could come to no serious
conclusion. The arguments, therefore, fell flat and a decision was not
rendered.</p>
<p>Friar William's work was not unappreciated by his contemporaries and
even its scientific value was thoroughly realized. It is not
surprising, of course, that his great contemporary in the Franciscan
order, Roger Bacon, should have come to the knowledge of his Brother
Minorite's book and should have made frequent and copious quotations
from it in the geographical section of his Opus Majus, which was
written some time during the seventh decade of the Thirteenth Century.
Bacon says that Brother William traversed the Oriental and Northern
regions and the places adjacent to them, and wrote accounts of them
for the illustrious King of France who sent him on the expedition to
Tartary. He adds: "I have read his book diligently and have compared
it with similar accounts." Roger Bacon recognized by a sort of
scientific intuition of his own, certain passages which have proved to
be the best in recent times. The description, for instance, of the
Caspian was the best down to this time, and Friar William corrects the
error made by Isidore, and which had generally been accepted before
this, that the Caspian Sea was a gulf. Rubruk, as quoted by Roger
Bacon, states very explicitly that it nowhere touches the ocean but is
surrounded on all sides by land. For those who do not think that the
foundations of scientific geography were laid until recent times, a
little consultation of Roger Bacon's Opus Majus would undoubtedly be a
revelation.</p>
<p>It is probably with regard to language that one might reasonably
expect to find least that would be of interest to modern scholars in
Friar William's book. As might easily have been gathered from previous
references, however, it is here that the most frequent surprises as to
the acuity of this medieval traveler await the modern reader.
Scientific philology is so much a product of the last century, that it
is difficult to understand how this old-time missionary was able
to reach so many almost intuitive recognitions of the origin and
relationships of the languages of the people among whom he traveled.
He came in contact with the group of nations occupying what is now
known as the Near East, whose languages, as is well known, have
constituted a series of the most difficult problems with which
philology had to deal until its thorough establishment on scientific
lines enabled it to separate them properly. It is all the more
surprising then, to find that Friar William should have so much in his
book that even the modern philologist will read with attention and
unstinted admiration.</p>
<p>With regard to this Colonel Yule, whose personal experience makes him
a valuable guide in such matters, has written a paragraph which
contains so much compressed information that we venture to quote it
entire. It furnishes the grounds for the claim (which might seem
overstrained if it were not that its author was himself one of the
greatest of modern explorers) that William was an acute and most
intelligent observer, keen in the acquisition of knowledge; and the
author in fact of one of the best narratives of travel in existence.
Col. Yule says:
<p><p class="cite">
"Of his interest and acumen in matters of language we may cite
examples. The language of the Pascatir (or Bashkirds) and of the
Hungarians is the same, as, he had learned from Dominicans who had
been among them. The language of the Ruthenians, Poles, Bohemians,
and Slavonians is one, and is the same with that of the Wandals or
Wends. In the town of Equinus (immediately beyond the Ili, perhaps
Aspara) the people were Mohammedans speaking Persian, though so far
remote from Persia. The Yugurs (or Uigurs) of the country about the
Cailac had formed a language and character of their own, and in that
language and character the Nestorians of that tract used to perform
their office and write their books. The Yugurs are those among whom
are found the fountain and root of the Turkish and Comanian tongue.
Their character has been adopted by the Moghals. In using it they
begin writing from the top and write downwards, whilst line follows
line from left to right. The Nestorians say their service, and have
their holy book in Syriac, but know nothing of the language,
just as some of our Monks sing the mass without knowing Latin. The
Tibet people write as we do, and their letters have a strong
resemblance to ours. The Tangut people write from right to left like
the Arabs, and their lines advance upwards."</p>
<p>There were other matters besides language and religion on which Friar
William made observations, and though his book is eminently human
giving us a very interesting view of his own personality and of his
difficulties with his dragoman, which many a modern Eastern traveler
will sympathize with, and a picture that includes the detail that he
was a very heavy man, <i>valde ponderosus</i>, which makes his travel on
horseback for some 10,000 miles all the more wonderful; it also
contains a mass of particulars, marvelously true—or so near the truth
as to be almost more interesting—as to Asiatic nature, ethnography,
manners, morals, commercial customs, and nearly everything else
relating to the life of the peoples among whom he traveled. A typical
example of this is to be found in the following suggestive paragraph:</p>
<p>"The current money of Cathay is of cotton paper, a palm in length and
breath, and on this they print lines like those of Mangu Khan's seal:
'imprimunt lineas sicut est sigillum Mangu'"—a remarkable expression.
"They write with a painter's pencil and combine in one character
several letters, forming one expression: 'faciunt in una figura plures
literas comprehendentes unam dictionem'"—a still more remarkable
utterance, showing an approximate apprehension of the nature of
Chinese writing.</p>
<p>There are other distinguished travelers whose inspiration came to them
during the Thirteenth Century though their works were published in the
early part of the next century. Some of these we know mainly through
their adaptation and incorporation into his work without due
recognition, by that first great writer of spurious travels Sir John
Mandeville. Mandeville's work was probably written some time during
the early part of the second half of the Fourteenth Century, but he
used materials gathered from travelers of the end of the Thirteenth
and the beginning of the next (his own) century. Sir Henry Yule has
pointed out, that by far the greater part of the supposed more
distant travels of Sir John Mandeville were appropriated from the
narrative of Friar Odoric, a monk, who became a member of the
Franciscan order about the end of the Thirteenth Century, and whose
travels as a missionary in the East gave him the opportunities to
collect a precious fund of information which is contained in Odoric's
famous story of his voyages. Of Odoric himself we shall have something
to say presently.</p>
<p>In the meantime it seems well worth while calling to attention, that
the accepted narrative of Sir John Mandeville as it is called, and
which may have been written by a physician of the name of John of
Burgoigne under an assumed name, contains a number of interesting
anticipations of facts that were supposed to enter into the domain of
human knowledge much later in the intellectual development of the
race. In certain passages, and especially in one which is familiar
from its being cited by Dr. Johnson in the preface to his dictionary,
Mandeville, to use the name under which the story is best known, shows
that he had a correct idea of the form of the earth and of position in
latitude as it could be ascertained by observation of the Pole Star.
He knew also, as we noted at the beginning of this article, that there
are antipodes, and if ships were sent on voyages of discovery they
might sail around the world. As Col. Yule has pointed out, Mandeville
tells a curious story which he had heard in his youth of how "a worthy
man did travel ever eastward until he came to his own country again."</p>
<p>Odoric of whom we have already spoken must be considered as the next
great missionary traveler of this age. He took Franciscan vows when
scarcely a boy and was encouraged to travel in the East by the example
of his Holy Father St. Francis, and also by the interest and
missionary zeal to convert the East which had been aroused by Marco
Polo's travels. His long journeys will be more readily understood,
however, if we realize, as is stated in the article on him in the
Encyclopedia Britannica, an authority that will surely be unsuspected
of too great partiality for the work of Catholic missionaries, that
"There had risen also during the latter half of the Thirteenth Century
an energetic missionary action, extending all over the East on the
part of both the new orders of Preaching and Minorite (or Dominican
and Franciscan) Friars which had caused members of these orders,
of the last especially, to become established in Persia and what is
now Southern Russia, in Tartary and in China."</p>
<p>In the course of his travels in the East Odoric visited Malabar
touching at Pandarini (twenty miles north of Calicut), at Craganore
and at Quilon, preceding thence, apparently, to Ceylon and to the
Shrine of St. Thomas at Mailapur near Madras.</p>
<p>Even more interesting than his travels in India, however, are those in
China. He sailed from the Hindustan Peninsula in a Chinese junk to
Sumatra, visiting various ports on the northern coast of that island
and telling something about the inhabitants and the customs of the
country. According to Sir Henry Yule he then visited Java and it would
seem also the coast of Borneo, finally reaching Kanton, at that time
known to Western Asiatics as Chin Kalan or Great China. From there he
went to the great ports of Fuhkeen and Schwan Chow, where he found two
houses of his order, thence he proceeded to Fuchau from which place he
struck across the mountains into Chekaeng and then visited Hang Chow
at that time renowned under the name of Cansay. Modern authorities in
exploration have suggested that this might be King Sae, the Chinese
name for Royal Residence, which was then one of the greatest cities of
the world. Thence Odoric passed northward by Nanking, and, crossing
the great Kiang, embarked on the Grand Canal and traveled to Cambaluc
or Pekin, where he remained for three years and where it is thought
that he was attached to one of the churches founded by Archbishop John
of Monte Corvino, who was at this time in extreme old age.</p>
<p>The most surprising part of Odoric's travels were still to come. When
the fever for traveling came upon him again he turned almost directly
westward to the Great Wall and through Shenshua. From here the
adventurous traveler (we are still practically quoting Sir Henry Yule)
entered Thibet and appears to have visited Lhasa. Considering how much
of interest has been aroused by recent attempts to enter Lhasa and the
surprising adventures that men have gone through in the effort, the
success of this medieval monk in such an expedition would seem
incredible, if it were not substantiated by documents that place
the matter beyond all doubt even in the minds of the most
distinguished modern authorities in geography and exploration. How
Odoric returned home is not definitely known, though certain
fragmentary notices seem to indicate that he passed through Khorasan
and probably Tabriz to Europe.</p>
<p>It only remains to complete the interest of Odoric's wondrous tale to
add that during a large portion of these years' long journeys his
companion was Friar James, an Irishman who had been attracted to Italy
in order to become a Franciscan. As appears from a record in the
public books of the town of Udine in Italy, where the monastery of
which both he and Odoric were members was situated, a present of two
marks was made by the municipal authorities to the Irish friar shortly
after Odoric's death. The reason for the gift was stated to be, that
Friar James had been for the love of God and of Odoric (a typical
Celtic expression and characteristic) a companion of the blessed
Odoric in his wanderings. Unfortunately Odoric died within two years
after his return though not until the story of his travels had been
taken down in homely Latin by Friar William of Bologna. Shortly after
his death Odoric became an object of reverence on the part of his
brother friars and of devotion on the part of the people, who
recognized the wonderful apostolic spirit that he had displayed in his
long wanderings, and the patience and good-will with which he had
borne sufferings and hardships for the sake of winning the souls of
those outside the Church.</p>
<p>Sir Henry Yule summed up his opinion of Odoric in the following
striking passage which bears forcible testimony also to the healthy
curiosity of the times with regard to all these original sources of
information which were recognized as valuable because first hand:</p>
<p class="cite">
"The numerous MSS. of Odoric's narrative that have come down to our
time (upwards of forty are known), and chiefly from the Fourteenth
Century, show how speedily and widely it acquired popularity. It
does not deserve the charge of general mendacity brought up against
it by some, though the language of other writers who have spoken of
the traveler as a man of learning is still more injudicious. Like
most of the medieval travelers, he is indiscriminating in accepting
strange tales; but while some of these are the habitual stories of
the age, many particulars which he recited attest the genuine
character of the narrative, and some of those which Tiraboschi and
others have condemned as mendacious interpolations are the very
seals of truth."</p>
<p>Besides Odoric there is another monkish traveler from whom Mandeville
has borrowed much, though without giving him any credit. This is the
well-known Praemonstratensian Monk Hayton, who is said to have been a
member of a princely Armenian family and who just at the beginning of
the Fourteenth Century dictated a work on the affairs of the Orient
and especially the history of the nearer East in his own time, of
which, from the place of his nativity and bringing up, he had abundant
information, while he found all round him in France, where he was
living at the time, the greatest thirst for knowledge with regard to
this part of the world. His book seems to have been dictated
originally in French at Poictiers, and to have attracted great
attention because of its subject, many copies of it being made as well
as translations into other languages within a few years after its
original appearance.</p>
<p>The story of Odoric is a forcible reminder of how much the
missionaries accomplished for geography, ethnology, and ethnography in
the Thirteenth Century, as they did in succeeding centuries. If what
the missionaries have added to these sciences were to have been lost,
there would have been enormous gaps in the knowledge with which modern
scholars began their scientific labors in philology. It may be a
surprise to most people, moreover, to be thus forcibly reminded of the
wonderful evangelizing spirit which characterized the later middle
age. Needless to say these graduates of the Thirteenth Century
universities who wandered in distant eastern lands, brought with them
their European culture for the uplifting of the Orientals, and brought
back to Europe many ideas that were to be fruitful sources of
suggestions not only for geographical, ethnological, philological, and
other departments of learning, but also in manufactures and in arts.</p>
<p>We mentioned the fact that Odoric in his travels eventually reached
Cambaluc, or Pekin, where he found Archbishop John of Monte Corvino
still alive though at an advanced age, and was probably attached for
the three years of his stay to one of the churches that had been
founded by this marvelous old Friar, who had been made Archbishop
because of the wonderful power of organization and administration
displayed during his earlier career as a missionary. The story of this
grand old man of the early Franciscan missions is another one of the
romances of Thirteenth Century travels and exploration which well
deserves to be studied in detail. Unfortunately the old Archbishop was
too much occupied with his work as a missionary and an ecclesiastic to
return to Europe in order to tell of it, or to write any lengthy
account of his experiences. Like many another great man of the
Thirteenth Century he was a doer and not a writer, and, but for the
casual mention of him by others, the records of his deeds would only
be found in certain ecclesiastical records, and his work would now be
known to the Master alone, for whom it was so unselfishly done.</p>
<p>It will be noted that most of these traveling missionaries were
Franciscans but it must not be thought that it was only the
Franciscans who sent out such missionaries. The Dominicans
(established at the beginning of the Thirteenth Century) also did
wonderful missionary work and quite as faithfully as even their
Franciscan brothers. Undoubtedly the Franciscans surpassed them in the
extent of their labors, but then the Dominicans were founded with the
idea of preaching and uplifting the people of Europe rather than of
spreading the good news of the Gospel outside the bounds of
Christianity as it then existed. From the very earliest traditions of
their order the Franciscans had their eyes attracted towards the East.
The story that St. Francis himself went to the Holy Land at the
beginning of the Thirteenth Century in order to convert Saladin, the
Eastern monarch whose name has been made famous by the stories of the
Crusade in which Richard Coeur de Lion took part, has been doubted,
but it seems to be founded on too good contemporary authority to be
considered as entirely apocryphal. St. Francis' heart went out to
those in darkness who knew nothing of the Christ whom he had learned
to love so ardently, and it was a supreme desire of his life that the
good tidings of Christianity should be spread by his followers all
over the world. While they did this great work they accomplished
unwittingly great things in all the series of sciences now
included under the term geography, and gathered precious information
as to the races of men, their relations to one another and to the part
of the earth in which they live. The scientific progress thus made
will always redound largely to their credit in the story of the
intellectual development of modern Europe. Most of their work was far
ahead of the times and was not to be properly appreciated until quite
recent generations, but this must only emphasize our sympathy for
those obscure, patient but fruitful workers in a great field of human
knowledge. As to what should be thought of those who ignorant of their
work proclaim that the Church did not tolerate geography it is hard to
say. Our geographical knowledge comes mainly from travelers whose wish
it is to gain commercial opportunities for themselves or their
compatriots; that of the Middle Ages was gained by men who wished
anxiously to spread the light of Christianity throughout the world.
The geographical societies of these earlier days were the religious
orders who sent but the explorers and travelers, furnished them on
their return with an enthusiastic audience to hear their stories, and
then helped to disseminate their books all over the then civilized
world.</p>
<p>There is probably no better refutation of the expression so often
heard from those who know nothing about it, with regard to the
supposed laziness of the Monks of the Middle Ages, than this chapter
of the story of their exploration and missionary labors during the
Thirteenth Century. It is usually supposed that if a Monk was fat he
could not possibly have accomplished any serious work in life. Some of
these men were <i>valde ponderosi</i>, very weighty, yet they did not
hesitate to take on themselves these long journeys to the East. Their
lives are the best illustration of the expression of Montalembert:</p>
<p class="cite">
"Let us then banish into the world of fiction that affirmation so
long repeated by foolish credulity which made monasteries an asylum
for indolence and incapacity, for misanthropy and pusillanimity, for
feeble and melancholic temperaments, and for men who were no longer
fit to serve society in the world. It was not the sick souls, but on
the contrary the most vigorous and healthful the human race has ever
produced who presented themselves in crowds to fill them."</p>
<br/>
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