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Updated: June 29, 2025
Furthermore, in 1599 there appeared a religions parody by Fra Bartolomé Ponce, and there are said to be no less than six French, two English, and two German translations, not to mention a Latin one of Gil Polo's portion at least. Besides continuations, there are extant nearly a score of imitations of varying interest and merit.
As an illustration of the complete change in the rivers, we may take Polo's statement that a certain river, the Hun Ho, was so large and deep that merchants ascended it from the sea with heavily laden boats; today this river is simply a broad sandy bed, with shallow, rapid currents wandering hither and thither across it, absolutely unnavigable. But we do not have to depend upon written records.
His father is very rich and he has a hobby of collecting very old editions of books. He pays terrible prices for them. He bought an old, old copy of 'Marco Polo's Travels'; paid fifteen thousand dollars for it. And inside its cover Alfred found that old map with the curious writing on the back of it.
"As for that of the Salamancan," replied the curate, "let it go to swell the number of the condemned in the yard, and let Gil Polo's be preserved as if it came from Apollo himself: but get on, gossip, and make haste, for it is growing late." "This book," said the barber, opening another, "is the ten books of the 'Fortune of Love, written by Antonio de Lofraso, a Sardinian poet."
I have given some details concerning the Arab horse especially in Al-Yaman, among the Zu Mohammed, the Zu Husayn and the Banu Yam in Pilgrimage iii. 270. As late as Marco Polo's day they supplied the Indian market via Aden; but the "Eye o Al-Yaman" has totally lost the habit of exporting horses. "Tasbih"=saying, "Subhan' Allah."
In Marco Polo's time the middle door of the great portal was never opened save to admit the emperor, and that was still true a few months ago, but last winter a day came when the bars rolled back, and there entered no emperor, no ruler, but the representative of the People's Assembly, and then a placard was posted announcing that hereafter the door was open to every one, for all China belonged to the people.
Indeed, modern discovery has entirely confirmed the exactitude of Marco Polo's observation. It is true that he sometimes repeated some very tall stories which had been told to him, of dog-faced men in the Andaman Islands and of the 'male and female islands' so beloved of medieval geographers.
I want to keep him nearby to remind me of old times. Why back two years ago, I used to visit old Polo Garrett, who had the concession in the menagerie tent, just to get cussed out. Polo's vocabulary was limited to sassing back. 'What's eatin' ya?, 'Git outa here, 'Who's a-running this dump? 'Whar do ya git that stuff? were his mildest phrases.
The Morosinis asserted that Polo's sword was undrawn, but the Mocenigo family brought forward a man, who swore that he was one of the first to arrive, and pick up the sword and place it in its scabbard to prevent its being lost. No doubt he lied; but as Mocenigo's influence in the council was greater than that of the Morosini, the story was accepted.
The great Venetian traveller, Marco Polo, described Java from hearsay as being the largest island in the world, and the Portuguese finding this to be incorrect, as far as their knowledge of Java proper was concerned, but finding nevertheless, this "largest island in the world" to the south-east of Java, in fact, approximately in the longitudes and latitudes described by Polo; the Portuguese, I say, did the best thing they could both for Marco Polo's sake and their own, when they marked it on their charts where it was said to be, and with the name given to it by Polo, for he calls it Java Major to distinguish it from Sumatra, which island he named Java Minor.
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