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Updated: June 6, 2025
'Know that I come to-night from the Islands of the Inland Sea in the parts of Cathay, which are the dominions of King Ghaiour, lord of the Islands and the Seas and the Seven Palaces.
In one corner stood a Mongolian monster, a green and gold dragon of porcelain resting on a valuable faience pedestal a bit of ancient Cathay set down in the heart of London. In their magnificence the reception rooms excelled even this hall, boasting, as they did, a heterogeneous collection of rare antiques, of valuable relics, and of articles de virtu from practically the world over.
Verrazzano could not have been deceived and have mistaken some other sheet of water for this great sea, and so represented it on any chart, or communicated it in any other way to the maker of this map; for he makes no mention of the circumstance in his letter to the king to whom he would have been prompt to report so important a fact; as it would have proved the accomplishment of the object of his voyage, the discovery of a passage through this region to Cathay, or if not a passage, at least a way, which could have been made available for reaching the land of spices and aromatics, by reason of its low grade, evident by one sea being seen from the other, and its short distance.
The name of Kathay, or Cathay, was applied to this country by ancient writers, among whom was Marco Polo, a Venetian, who was about the first who penetrated its boundaries. I have assumed it, therefore, as a title, as much from its antiquity as for its euphony.
In Mexico he ate the ardent chile from the tender hand of his Guadalupita, and later on he was on time at a five o'clock family tea party in Japan, or he might have kotowed pidgin-love to a trusting maid in a China town of fair Cathay. It is said of these gallant rovers of the seas that they were subject to a peculiar malady when on shore.
A force was sent out from Yakutz, on the Lena, in 1643, which reached the Amur, and thus Russians came for the first time in contact with the Chinese, and a new method of reaching Cathay was thus obtained, while geography gained the knowledge of the extent of Northern Asia. It was not, however, till fifty years afterwards, in 1696, that the Russians reached Kamtschatka.
Malo on the twentieth of April, 1534, Cartier steered for Newfoundland, passed through the Straits of Belle Isle, entered the Gulf of Chaleurs, planted a cross at Gaspe, and, never doubting that he was on the high road to Cathay, advanced up the St. Lawrence till he saw the shores of Anticosti. But autumnal storms were gathering.
Then Sebastian Cabot began to think that this was a part of Asia never known before, and he set sail for home to tell the wonderful news. When he reached Bristol he found everybody still interested in India. It was a water route to India that was wanted, and not a new country. People cared more about reaching golden Cathay than about finding new, barren lands.
The canoes were heaped with fruit and cassava bread, and they had cotton, not in balls, but woven in pieces. And these Indians had about neck or in ear some bits of gold. These they changed cheerfully, taking and valuing what trifle was given. "Gold. Where do you get your gold? Do you know of Cipango or Cathay or India? Have ever you heard of Zaiton, or of Quinsai and Cublai Khan?"
As the prince in his brief outlook through the window of paradise saw on the panes moving pictures of life which Time had set there, so through the dusk of the fields and into the tangle of the forest it is easy to see this wind from far Cathay moving pictures of Oriental magic and mystery.
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