The young Marco Polo was impressed with the stories his father told him about his travels. His desire for adventure increased with every detail and with every anecdote about those distant and unknown worlds. He wanted to accompany his father and his uncle above all else. And he would get it. That announced second journey, which would take place between 1271 and 1275, would become his greatest and definitive journey, the one that would make them enter the legend.
The Polos remain in their city for about two years, waiting for a new pope to be appointed. However, after verifying that the election is taking too long, they decide to return to the Eastern route, this time in the company of Marco, and return to the court of the Great Khan.
They leave Venice and disembark in San Juan de Acre, the last square that the crusaders retain in Palestine. There they meet again with the papal legate, Tedaldo Visconti da Piacenza, whom they ask permission to travel to Jerusalem and collect the oil from the lamp of the tomb of Jesus Christ that Kublai had requested from Niccolò and Matteo on the first trip.
The legate granted them the requested permission, and, after having taken the oil in Jerusalem, the Polos returned to San Juan de Acre. They intended to inform Tedaldo that, since he still had no elected pontiff, they believed it was his duty to go again to meet the Great Khan and inform him.
The papal representative agreed and gave them a letter addressed to the Mongol emperor. In it he explained that the Polo brothers had brought their embassy with them, but that they had not been able to carry it out entirely because the papal see was vacant.
Armed with the credentials of the legacy, the Polo family resumed their journey to reach Kublai’s domain. From San Juan de Acre they reached Laiazzo, from where they planned to organize the trip to Cathay, as the north of modern-day China was called at that time. But in Laiazzo they received the news that the conclave meeting in Viterbo had elected precisely Tedaldo Visconti as pope, who adopted the name Gregory X.
Naturally, this news made them very happy, and their hopes were not frustrated. Shortly afterwards, an emissary from the new Supreme Pontiff arrived in Laiazzo, asking them to return to Acre and meet with him before his departure for Rome.
The three travelers return to the Palestinian city, where the new pope shows them great deference and gives them his blessing. Furthermore, he agrees that, if not the hundred “wise men” requested by Kublai, they will be accompanied by two preaching friars, Nicholas of Vicenza and William of Tripoli, with messages of friendship for the Great Khan.
The five expedition members then head to Laiazzo, but as soon as they arrive they learn that the Sultan of Babylon (the name given in the West to the Mamluk governor of Egypt) has invaded Armenia with a large army. The friars become cowed and refuse to continue, leaving the letters and dispatches of the pontiff in the hands of the Polos.
Marco, Niccolò and Matteo resume their journey. They leave Little Armenia, an unhealthy country with a lot of game, and enter the dominions of the Seljuk Turks of Anatolia. These lands are inhabited by “simple, rough-spoken people,” horse breeders dedicated to grazing on the plateaus, as well as Armenians and Greeks, who reside in the cities as artisans and merchants.
Then they pass to Greater Armenia, where, according to tradition, the mountain of Ararat stands with Noah’s ark, but which is impossible to ascend due to the perpetual snow that covers it.
From Armenia the Polos entered Georgia, whose sovereigns were said to be born with an eagle sign on their right shoulder. Marco’s account highlights that the Georgians are “a strong and brave race, skilled in arms.” He also tells that, due to its narrow roads and dangerous passes between mountains, Alexander the Great could not cross this territory, so he built a fortress, called the Iron Gate, to prevent the nomads from the north from attacking him.
After crossing Armenia and Georgia, the travelers headed south and passed through Mosul, a wealthy kingdom with a Muslim majority, but where there were also many Nestorians and Jacobites, famous above all for its transparent silk and gold cloths known as “muslins”. Marco keeps mentioning the Kurds, who live in the mountains and don’t make a good impression on him. He says of them that they are “bad people; men with terrible weapons who plunder, if they can, the merchants.”
Leaving Mosul behind, the three Venetians arrived at Baghdad, on the banks of the Tigris, “where the caliph of all the Saracens of the world is located”, a city that left them impressed. Marco tells how Baghdad was conquered by the Mongol Khan Hulagu – brother of Kublai, the Great Khan – in 1255.
Baghdad, due to the terrible plunder of the Mongols, was a city almost in ruins when the Polos visited it, although signs of its past splendor could still be seen. Marco also talks about Basra, where the best palm trees and the tastiest dates in the world grow.
Later the travelers passed through the city of Tauris and skirted the coast of the Persian Gulf, with its mountains “where falcons are born” and its scorching sand deserts. Having saved the deserts, they enter Persia, destroyed and decimated by the Mongol invasion. Marco Polo does not forget to mention in his tour the city of Sava, from where the three Wise Men left who worshiped the baby Jesus in Bethlehem according to Christian tradition.
The travelers probably crossed the kingdom of Kerman, rich in turquoise stones, through the cities of Yasdi and Camandi, in a very hot plain, and through the province of the Caraonas, sons of Tatar fathers and Indian mothers dedicated to plundering, who, he claims , with diabolical spells they were capable of darkening the day.
Upon reaching the region of Muleet they hear the story of the Old Man of the Mountain, who lived in Alamut Castle, and his sect of assassins. When the Mongols of Hulagu arrived in Persia they decided to destroy Alamut and put an end to the Old Man and his followers, although the castle was so strong that it took them three years to conquer and raze it.
After Alamut, after crossing a long desert, they reached the city of Sapurgam, and then passed through Balkh, Talikan, surrounded by mountains of rock salt, and Eshkashem. The route continued through the province of Badakhshan, in the northeast of Afghanistan, where there is an abundance of purple rubies (balax) that are extracted from a mountain. Silver and lapis lazuli are also found there in large quantities. The rubies are only for the king, and anyone else who dares to take them is beheaded.
Throughout this entire journey, travelers witness the desolation caused by the Tatars, who have exterminated entire populations and reduced fertile lands to wastelands, but they take advantage of the passage to acquire numerous precious stones at a good price.
Around that time, Marco falls ill, affected by fever and the harshness of the trip, and this forces the Polos to stop in the mountains for a year. They most likely spent that time in the Badakhshan region, near the Vakhan corridor that links the Hindu Kush mountain range and Pakistan to the south, and the Pamir plateau and Tajikistan to the north.
When they resume their journey, Marco has taken advantage of the long rest to learn the Persian and Mongolian languages.
Beyond Persia, instead of heading directly to Mongolia, the Polo three appear to have headed to Kashmir in northern India. They considered its inhabitants idolaters, given over to all kinds of enchantments, witchcraft and diabolical rites.
The Venetians then turn north, following the course of the Amu Daria River and entering the high peaks of the Pamir plateau. An endless ascension across the “roof of the world”, where the air is so frozen that the flame of the fire does not heat, there are no birds flying and not a blade of grass grows. The descent of the Pamirs takes them forty days.
After this arduous journey they reach the city of Kashgar, the main point of the Silk Road, populated by merchants of all races, and continue through central Asia. Whether he visited it or not, Marco speaks of Samarkand, which he describes as a “great and noble city,” although not many years ago Genghis Khan had reduced it to rubble.
In the north of Turkestan they reach the city of Peyn, where rivers flow and carry minerals such as jasper and chalcedony within them. From Shache, lost among sandy beaches of bitter waters, they reach Lop, where they regain their strength before facing the terrible crossing of the Gobi Desert, that sea of ??sand full of dunes, mountains and valleys. Gobi is so immense that it would take a year to cross its widest part, and no one lives in it, neither men nor animals, because there is no water or vegetation.
After thirty days, the three Venetians arrived in the province of Kamul, near the border with Mongolia, where hospitality is practiced to such an extent that, when a stranger stayed in a house, the owner, in addition to providing him with food and bed, he offered his wife during the days that the stay lasted. With such a gesture, the inhabitants of Kamul believed they were ensuring a good harvest.
After passing Uyghuristan, the Polo arrived at Shangdu (the legendary Xanadú), summer residence and hunting reserve of the Great Khan, surrounded by a wall more than 25 kilometers long. In the enclosure there was a large marble palace with golden halls, but the emperor, in memory of his nomadic ancestors, stayed in the Mongolian manner, in a tent made of silk and bamboo canes.
The Italians’ dual mission was to complete the assignment Kublai had given them and to expand the family’s business dealings into new lands, and they had succeeded. But the Mongol ruler would have other plans for the youngest Polo.
This text is part of an article published in number 443 of the magazine Historia y Vida. Do you have something to contribute? Write to us at redaccionhyv@historiayvida.com.
