Nehru's Word: Marco Polo, the great traveller

Jawaharlal Nehru was not only a great freedom fighter and statesman, but a wonderful story-teller as well. When Maulana Azad invited him to become the Chairman of the newly-founded Sahitya Akademi, he made it clear that he was being invited in his capacity as “a man of letters” and not as Prime Minister. This week, we bring to you a delightful example of his writing from his ‘Glimpses of World History’, his account of the life and travels of Marco Polo, the great Italian adventurer, who travelled from Venice to the court of Kublai Khan, the first Mongol emperor of China, in the 13th century. It reads like a fairy tale, and conveys the excitement and romance of the fantastic travels:

Mangu, the Great Khan, died in 1239….Kublai Khan, the Governor of China, now became the Great Khan. Kublai had long been in China, and this country interested him. He therefore moved his capital from Karakorum to Peking, changing the name of the city to Khanbalik, the “City of the Khan”….

Kublai Khan, after settling down in Peking and becoming a respectable Chinese monarch, especially encouraged visitors from foreign countries. To him journeyed two merchants from Venice, the brothers Nicolo Polo and Maffeo Polo. They had gone right up to Bokhara in quest of business, and there they met some envoys sent by Kublai Khan to Hulagu in Persia. They were induced to join this caravan, and thus they journeyed to the Court of the Great Khan in Peking.

Nicolo and Maffeo were well received by Kublai Khan, and they told him about Europe and Christianity and the Pope. Kublai was greatly interested, and seems to have been attracted towards Christianity. He sent the Polos back to Europe in 1269 with a message for the Pope. He asked that 100 learned men, “intelligent men acquainted with the seven arts” and able to justify Christianity, should be sent to him.

But the two Polos on their return found Europe and the Pope in a bad way. There were no such 100 learned men to be had. After two years’ delay, they journeyed back with two Christian friars or monks. What was far more important, they took with them Nicolo’s son, a young man named Marco.

The three Polos started on their tremendous journey and crossed the whole length of Asia by the land routes. Even now, to follow the route of the Polos would take the best part of a year. Partly the Polos followed the old route of Hiuen Tsang. They went via Palestine to Armenia and then to Mesopotamia and the Persian Gulf, where they met merchants from India.

Across Persia to Balkh, and over the mountains to Kashgar, and then to Khotan and the Lop-Nor, the Wandering Lake. Again, the desert, and so on to the fields of China and Peking…

The three Polos took three and a half years to reach Peking from Venice, and during this long period Marco mastered the Mongol language, and perhaps Chinese also. Marco became a favourite with the Great Khan, and for nearly 17 years he served him. He was made governor, and went on official missions to different parts of China.

Although Marco and his father were homesick and wanted to return to Venice, it was not easy to get the Khan’s permission. At last, they had a chance of returning. The Mongol ruler of the Ilkhan Empire in Persia, who was a cousin of Kublai’s, lost his wife. He wanted to marry again, but his old wife had made him promise not to marry any woman outside their clan. So, Argon (that was his name) sent envoys to Kublai Khan and begged him to send a suitable woman of the clan to him.

Kublai Khan selected a young Mongol princess, and the three Polos were added to her escort as they were experienced travellers. They went by sea from the south of China to Sumatra and stayed there for some time. The Buddhist Empire of Sri Vijaya flourished in Sumatra then, but it was shrinking. From Sumatra the party came to South India.

The Princess and Marco and the party made a fairly long stay in India. They seem to have been in no hurry, and it took them two years to reach Persia. But meanwhile the expectant bridegroom had died! He had waited long enough. Perhaps it was not such a great misfortune. The young Princess married Argon’s son, who was much more her age.

The Polos left the Princess and went on towards home via Constantinople. They reached Venice in 1295, twenty-four years after they had left it. No one recognized them, and it is said that to impress their old friends and others, they gave a feast, and in the middle of it they ripped open their shabby and padded clothes. Immediately valuable jewels— diamonds, rubies, emeralds and other kinds— came out in heaps and astonished the guests.

But still, few people believed the stories of the Polos about their adventures in China and India...Three years later, in 1295, Venice went to war with the city of Genoa….The Venetians got beaten, and many thousands of them were made prisoners by the Genoese. Among these prisoners was our friend Marco Polo. Sitting in his prison in Genoa, he wrote, or rather dictated, an account of his travels. In this way the Travels of Marco Polo came into existence. What a useful place prison is in which to do good work!

In these travels Marco describes China especially, and the many journeys he made through it; he also describes to some extent Siam, Java, Sumatra, Ceylon and South India. He tells us of the great Chinese seaports crowded with ships from all parts of the Orient, some so large as to carry crews of 300 or 400 men. He describes China as a smiling and prosperous country with many cities and boroughs; and manufactures of “cloth of silk and gold and many fine taffetas”; and “fine vineyards, fields and gardens”; and “excellent hostelries for travellers” all along the routes.

He tells of a special messenger service for imperial messages. These messages travelled at the rate of 400 miles in 24 hours by relays of horses — which is very good going indeed. We are informed that the people of China used black stones, which they dug out of the ground, in place of firewood. This obviously means that they worked coal-mines and used coal as fuel. Kublai Khan issued paper money — that is, he issued paper notes with the promise to pay in gold, as is done today.

Marco’s story was, and still is, a wonderful story of travel. To the people of Europe in their tight little countries with their petty jealousies it was an eye-opener. It brought home to them the greatness and wealth and marvels of the larger world. It induced them to take to the sea more. Europe was growing. Its young civilization was finding its feet and struggling against the restrictions of the Middle Ages. It was full of energy, like a youth on the verge of manhood. This urge to the sea and the quest of wealth and adventure carried the Europeans later to America, round the Cape of Good Hope, to the Pacific, to India, to China and Japan.

(Selected and edited by Mridula Mukherjee, former Professor of History at JNU and former Director of Nehru Memorial Museum & Library).

(This was first published in National Herald on Sunday)