Note 78 — Chapter II · 1295-1487.

Concerning Marco Polo, Humboldt remarks: “Jacquet, who was unhappily too early removed by a premature death from the investigation of Asiatic languages, and who, like Klaproth and myself, was long occupied with the work of the great Venetian traveller, wrote to me, as follows, shortly before his decease: ‘I am as much struck as yourself by the composition of the Milione. It is undoubtedly founded on the direct and personal observation of the traveller, but he probably also made use of documents either officially or privately communicated to him. Many things appear to have been borrowed from Chinese and Mongolian works, although it is difficult to determine their precise influence on the composition of the Milione; owing to the successive translations from which Polo took his extracts. Whilst our modern travellers are only too well pleased to occupy their readers with their personal adventures, Marco Polo takes pains to blend his own observations with the official data communicated to him, of which, as Governor of the city of Yangui, he was able to have a large number.’ (See my Asie Centrale, t. ii. p. 395.) The compiling method of the celebrated traveller likewise explains the possibility of his being able to dictate his book at Genoa, in 1295, to his fellow-prisoner and friend, Messer Rustizielo of Pisa, as if the documents had been lying before him. (Compare Marsden, Travels of Marco Polo, p. xxxiii).” Humboldt: Cosmos. Otté’s trans. vol. ii. p. 625. Note.