The Travels of Marco Polo
Chapter 41 : [11] The great Magellanic cloud? In the account of Vincent Yanez Pinzon's Voyage t

[11] The great Magellanic cloud? In the account of Vincent Yanez Pinzon's Voyage to the S.W. in 1499 as given in Ramusio (III. 15) after Pietro Martire d'Anghieria, it is said:--"Taking the astrolabe in hand, and ascertaining the Antarctic Pole, they did not see any star like our Pole Star; but they related that they saw another manner of stars very different from ours, and which they could not clearly discern because of a certain dimness which diffused itself about those stars, and obstructed the view of them." Also the Kachh mariners told Lieutenant Leech that midway to Zanzibar there was a town (?) called Marethee, where the North Pole Star sinks below the horizon, and they steer by _a fixed cloud in the heavens_. (Bombay Govt. Selections, No. XV. N.S.

p. 215.)

The great Magellan cloud is mentioned by an old Arab writer as a white blotch at the foot of Canopus, visible in the Tehama along the Red Sea, but not in Nejd or 'Irak. Humboldt, in quoting this, calculates that in A.D. 1000 the Great Magellan would have been visible at Aden some degrees above the horizon. (_Examen_, V. 235.)

[12] This pa.s.sage contains points that are omitted in Polo's book, besides the drawing implied to be from Marco's own hand! The island is of course Sumatra. The animal is perhaps the peculiar Sumatran wild-goat, figured by Marsden, the hair of which on the back is "coa.r.s.e and strong, almost like bristles." (_Sumatra_, p. 115.)

[13] A splendid example of Abbot John's Collection is the _Livre des Merveilles_ of the Great French Library (No. 18 in our _App. F._).

This contains Polo, Odoric, William of Boldensel, the Book of the Estate of the Great Kaan by the Archbishop of Soltania, Maundevile, Hayton, and Ricold of Montecroce, of which all but Polo and Maundevile are French versions by this excellent Long John. A list of the Polo miniatures is given in _App. F_. of this Edition, p. 527.

It is a question for which there is sufficient ground, whether the Persian Historians Ras.h.i.+duddin and Wa.s.saf, one or other or both, did not derive certain information that appears in their histories, from Marco Polo personally, he having spent many months in Persia, and at the Court of Tabriz, when either or both may have been there. Such pa.s.sages as that about the Cotton-trees of Guzerat (vol. ii. p. 393, and note), those about the horse trade with Maabar (id. p. 340, and note), about the brother-kings of that country (id. p. 331), about the naked savages of Necuveram (id. p. 306), about the wild people of Sumatra calling themselves subjects of the Great Kaan (id. pp. 285, 292, 293, 299), have so strong a resemblance to parallel pa.s.sages in one or both of the above historians, as given in the first and third volumes of Elliot, that the probability, at least, of the Persian writers having derived their information from Polo might be fairly maintained.

[14] _Li Romans de Bauduin de Sebourc III'e Roy de Jherusalem_; Poeme du XIV'e Siecle; Valenciennes, 1841. 2 vols. 8vo. I was indebted to two references of M. Pauthier's for knowledge of the existence of this work. He cites the legends of the Mountain, and of the Stone of the Saracens from an abstract, but does not seem to have consulted the work itself, nor to have been aware of the extent of its borrowings from Marco Polo. M. Genin, from whose account Pauthier quotes, ascribes the poem to an early date after the death of Philip the Fair (1314). See _Pauthier_, pp. 57, 58, and 140.

[15] See Polo, vol. i. p. 204, and vol. ii. p. 191.

[16] See Polo, vol. i. p. 246.

[17] See Polo, vol. ii. p. 339.

[18] See Polo, vol. i. p. 140. _Has.h.i.+s.h.i.+_ has got altered into _Haus a.s.sis_.

[19] See vol. i. p. 358, note.

[20] See vol. i. p. 189, note 2.

[21] Vol. i. pp. 183-186.

[22] Vol. i. pp. 68 seqq. The virtuous cobler is not left out, but is made to play second fiddle to the hero Bauduin

[23] Vol. i. p. 144.

XIII. NATURE OF POLO'S INFLUENCE ON GEOGRAPHICAL KNOWLEDGE.

[Sidenote: Tardy operation, and causes thereof.]

79. Marco Polo contributed such a vast amount of new facts to the knowledge of the Earth's surface, that one might have expected his book to have had a sudden effect upon the Science of Geography: but no such result occurred speedily, nor was its beneficial effect of any long duration.

No doubt several causes contributed to the slowness of its action upon the notions of Cosmographers, of which the unreal character attributed to the Book, as a collection of romantic marvels rather than of geographical and historical facts, may have been one, as Santarem urges. But the essential causes were no doubt the imperfect nature of publication before the invention of the press; the traditional character which clogged geography as well as all other branches of knowledge in the Middle Ages; and the entire absence of scientific principle in what pa.s.sed for geography, so that there was no organ competent to the a.s.similation of a large ma.s.s of new knowledge.

Of the action of the first cause no examples can be more striking than we find in the false conception of the Caspian as a gulf of the Ocean, entertained by Strabo, and the opposite error in regard to the Indian Sea held by Ptolemy, who regards it as an enclosed basin, when we contrast these with the correct ideas on both subjects possessed by Herodotus. The later Geographers no doubt knew his statements, but did not appreciate them, probably from not possessing the evidence on which they were based.

[Sidenote: General characteristics of Mediaeval Cosmography.]

80. As regards the second cause alleged, we may say that down nearly to the middle of the 15th century cosmographers, as a rule, made scarcely any attempt to reform their maps by any elaborate search for new matter, or by lights that might be collected from recent travellers. Their world was in its outline that handed down by the traditions of their craft, as sanctioned by some Father of the Church, such as Orosius or Isidore, as sprinkled with a combination of cla.s.sical and mediaeval legend; Solinus being the great authority for the former. Almost universally the earth's surface is represented as filling the greater part of a circular disk, rounded by the ocean; a fas.h.i.+on that already existed in the time of Aristotle and was ridiculed by him.[1] No dogma of false geography was more persistent or more pernicious than this. Jerusalem occupies the central point, because it was found written in the Prophet Ezekiel: "_Haec dicit Dominus Deus: Ista est Jerusalem_, in medio gentium _posui eam, et in circuitu ejus terras_;"[2] a declaration supposed to be corroborated by the Psalmist's expression, regarded as prophetic of the death of Our Lord: "_Deus autem, Rex noster, ante secula operatus est salutem_ in medio Terrae" (Ps. lxxiii. 12).[3] The Terrestrial Paradise was represented as occupying the extreme East, because it was found in Genesis that the Lord planted a garden east ward in Eden.[4] _Gog and Magog_ were set in the far north or north-east, because it was said again in Ezekiel: "_Ecce Ego super te Gog Principem capitis Mosoch et Thubal ... et ascendere te faciam de lateribus Aquilonis_," whilst probably the topography of those mysterious nationalities was completed by a girdle of mountains out of the Alexandrian Fables. The loose and scanty nomenclature was mainly borrowed from Pliny or Mela through such Fathers as we have named; whilst vacant s.p.a.ces were occupied by Amazons, Arimaspians, and the realm of Prester John. A favourite representation of the inhabited earth was this [Symbol]; a great O enclosing a T, which thus divides the circle in three parts; the greater or half-circle being Asia, the two quarter circles Europe and Africa.[5] These Maps were known to St. Augustine.[6]

[Sidenote: Roger Bacon as a geographer.]

81. Even Ptolemy seems to have been almost unknown; and indeed had his Geography been studied it might, with all its errors, have tended to some greater endeavours after accuracy. Roger Bacon, whilst lamenting the exceeding deficiency of geographical knowledge in the Latin world, and purposing to essay an exacter distribution of countries, says he will not attempt to do so by lat.i.tude and longitude, for that is a system of which the Latins have learned nothing. He himself, whilst still somewhat burdened by the authoritative dicta of "saints and sages" of past times, ventures at least to criticise some of the latter, such as Pliny and Ptolemy, and declares his intention to have recourse to the information of those who have travelled most extensively over the Earth's surface. And judging from the good use he makes, in his description of the northern parts of the world, of the Travels of Rubruquis, whom he had known and questioned, besides diligently studying his narrative,[7] we might have expected much in Geography from this great man, had similar materials been available to him for other parts of the earth. He did attempt a map with mathematical determination of places, but it has not been preserved.[8]

It may be said with general truth that the world-maps current up to the end of the 13th century had more a.n.a.logy to the mythical cosmography of the Hindus than to any thing properly geographical. Both, no doubt, were originally based in the main on real features. In the Hindu cosmography these genuine features are symmetrised as in a kaleidoscope; in the European cartography they are squeezed together in a manner that one can only compare to a pig in brawn. Here and there some feature strangely compressed and distorted is just recognisable. A splendid example of this kind of map is that famous one at Hereford, executed about A.D. 1275, of which a facsimile has lately been published, accompanied by a highly meritorious ill.u.s.trative Essay.[9]

82. Among the Arabs many able men, from the early days of Islam, took an interest in Geography, and devoted labour to geographical compilations, in which they often made use of their own observations, of the itineraries of travellers, and of other fresh knowledge. But somehow or other their maps were always far behind their books. Though they appear to have had an early translation of Ptolemy, and elaborate Tables of Lat.i.tudes and Longitudes form a prominent feature in many of their geographical treatises, there appears to be no Arabic map in existence, laid down with meridians and parallels; whilst _all_ of their best known maps are on the old system of the circular disk. This apparent incapacity for map-making appears to have acted as a heavy drag and bar upon progress in Geography among the Arabs, notwithstanding its early promise among them, and in spite of the application to its furtherance of the great intellects of some (such as Abu Rihan al-Biruni), and of the indefatigable spirit of travel and omnivorous curiosity of others (such as Mas'udi).

[Sidenote: Marino Sanudo the Elder.]

83. Some distinct trace of acquaintance with the Arabian Geography is to be found in the World-Map of Marino Sanudo the Elder, constructed between 1300 and 1320; and this may be regarded as an exceptionally favourable specimen of the cosmography in vogue, for the author was a diligent investigator and compiler, who evidently took a considerable interest in geographical questions, and had a strong enjoyment and appreciation of a map.[10] Nor is the map in question without some result of these characteristics. His representation of Europe, Northern Africa, Syria, Asia Minor, Arabia and its two gulfs, is a fair approximation to general facts; his collected knowledge has enabled him to locate, with more or less of general truth, Georgia, the Iron Gates, Cathay, the Plain of Moghan, Euphrates and Tigris, Persia, Bagdad, Kais, Aden (though on the wrong side of the Red Sea), Abyssinia (_Habesh_), Zangibar (_Zinz_), Jidda (Zede), etc. But after all the traditional forms are too strong for him.

Jerusalem is still the centre of the disk of the habitable earth, so that the distance is as great from Syria to Gades in the extreme West, as from Syria to the India Interior of Prester John which terminates the extreme East. And Africa beyond the Arabian Gulf is carried, according to the Arabian modification of Ptolemy's misconception, far to the eastward until it almost meets the prominent sh.o.r.es of India.

[Sidenote: The Catalan Map of 1375, the most complete mediaeval embodiment of Polo's Geography.]

84. The first genuine mediaeval attempt at a geographical construction that I know of, absolutely free from the traditional _idola_, is the Map of the known World from the Portulano Mediceo (in the Laurentian Library), of which an extract is engraved in the atlas of Baldelli-Boni's Polo. I need not describe it, however, because I cannot satisfy myself that it makes much use of Polo's contributions, and its facts have been embodied in a more ambitious work of the next generation, the celebrated Catalan Map of 1375 in the great Library of Paris. This also, but on a larger scale and in a more comprehensive manner, is an honest endeavour to represent the known world on the basis of collected facts, casting aside all theories pseudo-scientific or pseudo-theological; and a very remarkable work it is. In this map it seems to me Marco Polo's influence, I will not say on geography, but on map-making, is seen to the greatest advantage. His Book is the basis of the Map as regards Central and Further Asia, and partially as regards India. His names are often sadly perverted, and it is not always easy to understand the view that the compiler took of his itineraries. Still we have Cathay admirably placed in the true position of China, as a great Empire filling the south-east of Asia. The Eastern Peninsula of India is indeed absent altogether, but the Peninsula of Hither India is for the first time in the History of Geography represented with a fair approximation to its correct form and position,[11] and Sumatra also (_Java_) is not badly placed. Carajan, Vocian, Mien, and Bangala, are located with a happy conception of their relation to Cathay and to India. Many details in India foreign to Polo's book,[12] and some in Cathay (as well as in Turkestan and Siberia, which have been entirely derived from other sources) have been embodied in the Map. But the study of his Book has, I conceive, been essentially the basis of those great portions which I have specified, and the additional matter has not been in ma.s.s sufficient to perplex the compiler. Hence we really see in this Map something like the idea of Asia that the Traveller himself would have presented, had he bequeathed a Map to us.

[Some years ago, I made a special study of the Far East in the Catalan Map. (_L'Extreme-Orient dans l'Atlas catalan de Charles V._, Paris, 1895), and I have come to the conclusion that the cartographer's knowledge of Eastern Asia is drawn almost entirely from Marco Polo. We give a reproduction of part of the Catalan Map.--H. C.]

[Ill.u.s.tration: Part of the Catalan Map (1375).]

[Sidenote: Confusions in Cartography of the 16th century, from the endeavour to combine new and old information.]

85. In the following age we find more frequent indications that Polo's book was diffused and read. And now that the spirit of discovery began to stir, it was apparently regarded in a juster light as a Book of Facts, and not as a mere _Romman du Grant Kaan_.[13] But in fact this age produced new supplies of crude information in greater abundance than the knowledge of geographers was prepared to digest or co-ordinate, and the consequence is that the magnificent Work of Fra Mauro (1459), though the result of immense labour in the collection of facts and the endeavour to combine them, really gives a considerably less accurate idea of Asia than that which the Catalan Map had afforded.[14]

And when at a still later date the great burst of discovery eastward and westward took effect, the results of all attempts to combine the new knowledge with the old was most unhappy. The first and crudest forms of such combinations attempted to realise the ideas of Columbus regarding the ident.i.ty of his discoveries with the regions of the Great Kaan's dominion;[15] but even after AMERICA had vindicated its independent position on the surface of the globe, and the new knowledge of the Portuguese had introduced CHINA where the Catalan Map of the 14th century had presented CATHAY, the latter country, with the whole of Polo's nomenclature, was shoved away to the north, forming a separate system.[16]

Henceforward the influence of Polo's work on maps was simply injurious; and when to his nomenclature was added a sprinkling of Ptolemy's, as was usual throughout the 16th century, the result was a most extraordinary hotch-potch, conveying no approximation to any consistent representation of facts.

Thus, in a map of 1522,[17] running the eye along the north of Europe and Asia from West to East, we find the following succession of names: Groenlandia, or Greenland, as a great peninsula overlapping that of Norvegia and Suecia; Livonia, Plescovia and Moscovia, Tartaria bounded on the South by _Scithia extra Imaum_, and on the East, by the Rivers _Ochardes_ and _Bautisis_ (out of Ptolemy), which are made to flow into the Arctic Sea. South of these are _Aureacithis_ and _Asmirea_ (Ptolemy's _Auxacitis_ and _Asmiraea_), and _Serica Regio_. Then following the northern coast _Balor Regio_,[18] _Judei Clausi_, i.e. the Ten Tribes who are constantly a.s.sociated or confounded with the Shut-up Nations of Gog and Magog. These impinge upon the River _Polisacus_, flowing into the Northern Ocean in Lat. 75, but which is in fact no other than Polo's _Pulisanghin!_[19] Immediately south of this is _Tholomon Provincia_ (Polo's again), and on the coast _Tangut_, _Cathaya_, the Rivers _Caramoran_ and _Oman_ (a misreading of Polo's _Quian_), _Quinsay_ and _Mangi_.

[Sidenote: Gradual disappearance of Polo's nomenclature.]

86. The Maps of Mercator (1587) and Magini (1597) are similar in character, but more elaborate, introducing China as a separate system.

Such indeed also is Blaeu's Map (1663) excepting that Ptolemy's contributions are reduced to one or two.

In Sanson's Map (1659) the data of Polo and the mediaeval Travellers are more cautiously handled, but a new element of confusion is introduced in the form of numerous features derived from Edrisi.

It is scarcely worth while to follow the matter further. With the increase of knowledge of Northern Asia from the Russian side, and that of China from the Maps of Martini, followed by the surveys of the Jesuits, and with the real science brought to bear on Asiatic Geography by such men as De l'Isle and D'Anville, mere traditional nomenclature gradually disappeared.

And the task which the study of Polo has provided for the geographers of later days has been chiefly that of determining the true localities that his book describes under obsolete or corrupted names.

[My late ill.u.s.trious friend, Baron _A. E. Nordenskiold_, who has devoted much time and labour to the study of Marco Polo (see his _Periplus_, Stockholm, 1897), and published a facsimile edition of one of the French MSS. kept in the Stockholm Royal Library (see vol. ii. _Bibliography_, p.

570), has given to _The Geographical Journal_ for April, 1899, pp.

396-406, a paper on _The Influence of the "Travels of Marco Polo" on Jacobo Gastaldi's Maps of Asia_. He writes (p. 398) that as far as he knows, none "of the many learned men who have devoted their attention to the discoveries of Marco Polo, have been able to refer to any maps in which all or almost all those places mentioned by Marco Polo are given. All friends of the history of geography will therefore be glad to hear that such an atlas from the middle of the sixteenth century really does exist, viz.

Gastaldi's 'Prima, seconda e terza parte dell Asia.'" All the names of places in Ramusio's Marco Polo are introduced in the maps of Asia of Jacobo Gastaldi (1561). Cf. _Periplus_, liv., lv., and lvi.

I may refer to what both Yule and myself say supra of the Catalan Map.--H. C.]

[Sidenote: Alleged introduction of Block-printed Books into Europe by Marco Polo.]

87. Before concluding, it may be desirable to say a few words on the subject of important knowledge other than geographical, which various persons have supposed that Marco Polo must have introduced from Eastern Asia to Europe.