54
HERBERT FRANKE
peculiarity of the Chinese script, and Chinese script is something that would strike even the most casual observer as something different from any other script in Asia or Europe. Even William Rubruk, who had never been in China but only in Mongolia, gives an entirely correct description of the Chinese writing system. All this has cast some doubt on the contention that the Polo family spent a long time in China. But however that may be, until definite proof has been adduced that the Polo book is a world description, where the chapters on China are taken from some other, perhaps Persian, source (some expressions he uses are Persian), we must give him the benefit of the doubt and assume that he was there after all. Polo tells us that he was "the first Latin" to come to Kublai Khan's court. "Il (that is, Kublai) avait très grande joie de leur venue comme un qui n'a jamais vu aucun Latin." This is another statement in his book that is open to doubt. The Polos were certainly not the first Europeans who came to Kublai Khan's court. This is shown by a passage in a Chinese chronicle covering the time from the eleventh month of 1260 to the eighth month of 1261, that is, the beginnings of Kublai's reign. This chronicle is, at the same time, the most detailed annalistic source for any period of the Mongol dominion in China. There we find recorded under the seventh day of the second month of the second year of Chung-t'ung (June 6, 1261) that an embassy of the "Fa-lang" country came to Shang-tu (Dolon-nor) and was received in audience. Fa-lang is the Chinese rendering of Farang, the Franks, the name by which the Near Eastern peoples called Europeans. The description that these self-styled envoys gave of their country and their travels is very curious, but not more curious than some of the fantastic notions about the East that are found in European medieval literature: "These people came and presented garments made from vegetable fabrics (cotton?) and other presents. These envoys had travelled three years from their country to Shang-tu. They reported that their country is in the Far West beyond the Uighurs. In their country there is constant daylight and no night. It is evening there when the field mice come out of their holes. If somebody dies there, then Heaven is invoked and it might even happen that the person is restored to life. Flies and mosquitoes are born from wood. The women are very beautiful and the men usually have blue eyes and blonde hair. There are two oceans on the route from
54
HERBERT FRANKE
peculiarity of the Chinese script, and Chinese script is something that would strike even the most casual observer as something different from any other script in Asia or Europe. Even William Rubruk, who had never been in China but only in Mongolia, gives an entirely correct description of the Chinese writing system. All this has cast some doubt on the contention that the Polo family spent a long time in China. But however that may be, until definite proof has been adduced that the Polo book is a world description, where the chapters on China are taken from some other, perhaps Persian, source (some expressions he uses are Per- sian), we must give him the benefit of the doubt and assume that he was there after all. Polo tells us that he was "the first Latin* to come to Kublai Khan's court. "Il (that is, Kublai) avait très grande joie de leur venue comme un qui n'a jamais vu aucun Latin." This is another statement in his book that is open to doubt. The Polos were certainly not the first Europeans who came to Kublai Khan's court. This is shown by a passage in a Chinese chronicle covering the time from the eleventh month of 1260 to the eighth month of 1261, that is, the beginnings of Kublai's reign. This chronicle is, at the same time, the most detailed annalistic source for any period of the Mongol dominion in China. There we find recorded under the seventh day of the second month of the second year of Chung-t'ung (June 6, 1261) that an embassy of the "Fa-lang" country came to Shang-tu (Dolon-nor) and was received in audience. Fa-lang is the Chinese rendering of Farang, the Franks, the name by which the Near Eastern peoples called Europeans. The description that these self-styled envoys gave of their country and their travels is very curious, but not more curious than some of the fantastic notions about the East that are found in European medieval literature : "These people came and presented garments made from vegetable fabrics (cotton? ?) and other presents. These envoys had travelled three years from their country to Shang tu. They reported that their country is in the Far West beyond the Uighurs. In their country there is constant day-light and no night. It is evening there when the field mice come out of their holes. If somebody dies there, then Heaven is invoked and it might even happen that the person is restored to life. Flies and mosquitoes are born from wood. The women are very beautiful and the men usually have blue eyes and blonde hair. There are two oceans on the route from
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