a Prologue, as it is termed, the only part which is actual personal
narrative, and which relates, in a very interesting but far too brief
manner, the circumstances which led the two elder Polos to the Kaan’s
Court, and those of their second journey with Mark, and of their return
to Persia through the Indian Seas. _Secondly_, of a long series of
chapters of very unequal length, descriptive of notable sights and
products, of curious manners and remarkable events, relating to the
different nations and states of Asia, but, above all, to the Emperor
Kúblái, his court, wars, and administration. A series of chapters near
the close treats in a verbose and monotonous manner of sundry wars that
took place between the various branches of the House of Chinghiz in the
latter half of the 13th century. This last series is either omitted
or greatly curtailed in all the copies and versions except one; a
circumstance perfectly accounted for by the absence of interest as well
as value in the bulk of these chapters. Indeed, desirous though I have
been to give the Traveller’s work complete, and sharing the dislike
that every man who _uses_ books must bear to abridgments, I have felt
that it would be sheer waste and dead-weight to print these chapters in
full.
[Illustration: Porcelain Incense-Burner, from the Louvre.]
This second and main portion of the Work is in its oldest forms
undivided, the chapters running on consecutively to the end.[1] In some
very early Italian or Venetian version, which Friar Pipino translated
into Latin, it was divided into three Books, and this convenient
division has generally been adhered to. We have adopted M. Pauthier’s
suggestion in making the final series of chapters, chiefly historical,
into a Fourth.
[Sidenote: Language of the original Work.]