were ethnologists and geographers at heart as well as
missionaries, and have left us priceless accounts of the
lands which they visited. In the year of grace 1268, much
was known about central Asia, for in 1245 the Pope had sent
the Italian friar John of Plano Carpini thither, and in 1251
another friar, William of Rubruck, a French Fleming, had been
sent by the saintly Louis, King of France. Both got as far as
Karakorum, the Tartar camp on the borders of northern China,
though they did not enter China itself. They had brought back
innumerable stories about the nomad conquerors, who carried
their tents on carts, and drank fermented mares' milk, about
the greatness of the khan and his welcome to the strangers
from the West, and the interest with which he listened to
their preaching.[15] These tales were common property now,
and Marco Polo must have listened to them.

Marco Polo was always talking of the Tartars, always asking
about them. Indeed, he had reason to be interested in them.
This (as we have said) was the year of grace 1268, and eight
years before (some, indeed, say fifteen years) his father,
Nicolo Polo, and his uncle Maffeo had vanished into Tartary.
They were rich merchants, trading with their own ship to
Constantinople, and there they had decided to go on a
commercial venture into the lands of the Golden Horde, which
lay to the north of the Black Sea. So they had sailed over to
the Crimea, where they had a counting-house at Soldaia, and
taking with them a store of costly jewels, for they were
jewel merchants, they had set off on horseback to visit the
Khan of the West Tartars. So much the Venetians knew, for
word had come back from Soldaia of their venture; but they