HOW THE TWO BROTHERS, AFTER CROSSING A DESERT, CAME TO THE
CITY OF BOCARA, AND FELL IN WITH CERTAIN ENVOYS THERE.
After they had passed the desert, they arrived at a very great and
noble city called BOCARA, the territory of which belonged to a king
whose name was Barac, and is also called Bocara. The city is the best
in all Persia.{1} And when they had got thither, they found they could
neither proceed further forward nor yet turn back again; wherefore they
abode in that city of Bocara for three years. And whilst they were
sojourning in that city, there came from Alau, Lord of the Levant,
Envoys on their way to the Court of the Great Kaan, the Lord of all the
Tartars in the world. And when the Envoys beheld the Two Brothers they
were amazed, for they had never before seen Latins in that part of the
world. And they said to the Brothers: “Gentlemen, if ye will take our
counsel, ye will find great honour and profit shall come thereof.” So
they replied that they would be right glad to learn how. “In truth,”
said the Envoys, “the Great Kaan hath never seen any Latins, and he
hath a great desire so to do. Wherefore, if ye will keep us company
to his Court, ye may depend upon it that he will be right glad to see
you, and will treat you with great honour and liberality; whilst in
our company ye shall travel with perfect security, and need fear to be
molested by nobody.”{2}
NOTE 1.—Hayton also calls Bokhara a city of Persia, and I see
Vámbéry says that, up till the conquest by Chinghiz, Bokhara,
Samarkand, Balkh, etc., were considered to belong to Persia.
(_Travels_, p. 377.) The first Mongolian governor of Bokhara was
Buka Bosha.
King Barac is Borrak Khan, great-grandson of Chagatai, and
sovereign of the Ulús of Chagatai, from 1264 to 1270. The Polos,
no doubt, reached Bokhara before 1264, but Borrak must have been
sovereign some time before they left it.
NOTE 2.—The language of the envoys seems rather to imply that
they were the Great Kaan’s own people returning from the Court of
Hulaku. And Rashid mentions that Sartak, the Kaan’s ambassador to
Hulaku, returned from Persia in the year that the latter prince
died. It may have been his party that the Venetians joined, for the
year almost certainly was the same, viz. 1265. If so, another of
the party was Bayan, afterwards the greatest of Kublai’s captains,
and much celebrated in the sequel of this book. (See _Erdmann’s
Temudschin_, p. 214.)
Marsden justly notes that Marco habitually speaks of _Latins_,
never of _Franks_. Yet I suspect his own mental expression was
_Farangi_.