delighted with these Venetians, listened with strong interest to all
that they had to tell him of the Latin world, and determined to send
them back as his ambassadors to the Pope, accompanied by an officer
of his own Court. His letters to the Pope, as the Polos represent
them, were mainly to desire the despatch of a large body of educated
missionaries to convert his people to Christianity. It is not likely
that religious motives influenced Kúblái in this, but he probably
desired religious aid in softening and civilizing his rude kinsmen of
the Steppes, and judged, from what he saw in the Venetians and heard
from them, that Europe could afford such aid of a higher quality than
the degenerate Oriental Christians with whom he was familiar, or the
Tibetan Lamas on whom his patronage eventually devolved when Rome so
deplorably failed to meet his advances.
[Sidenote: Their return home, and Marco’s appearance on the scene.]