tomb of Adam; of India the Great, not as a dreamland of Alexandrian
fables, but as a country seen and personally explored, with its
virtuous Brahmans, its obscene ascetics, its diamonds, and the
strange tales of their acquisition, its sea-beds of pearl, and
its powerful sun: the first in mediæval times to give any distinct
account of the secluded Christian empire of Abyssinia, and the
semi-Christian island of Socotra; to speak, though indeed dimly,
of Zanzibar, with its negroes and its ivory, and of the vast and
distant Madagascar, bordering on the dark ocean of the South, with
its Ruc and other monstrosities, and, in a remotely opposite region,
of Siberia and the Arctic Ocean, of dog-sledges, white bears, and
reindeer-riding Tunguses."

[Illustration: FRA MAURO'S MAP, 1457.]

Marco Polo's is thus one of the greatest names in the history of
geography; it may, indeed, be doubted whether any other traveller
has ever added so extensively to our detailed knowledge of the
earth's surface. Certainly up to the time of Mr. Stanley no man
had on land visited so many places previously unknown to civilised
Europe. But the lands he discovered, though already fully populated,
were soon to fall into disorder, and to be closed to any civilising
influences. Nothing for a long time followed from these discoveries,
and indeed almost up to the present day his accounts were received
with incredulity, and he himself was regarded more as "Marco Millione"
than as Marco Polo.

Extensive as were Marco Polo's travels, they were yet exceeded in
extent, though not in variety, by those of the greatest of Arabian
travellers, Mohammed Ibn Batuta, a native of Tangier, who began his