HOW MARK RETURNED FROM THE MISSION WHEREON HE HAD
BEEN SENT.
When Mark returned from his ambassage he presented himself before the
Emperor, and after making his report of the business with which he
was charged, and its successful accomplishment, he went on to give an
account in a pleasant and intelligent manner of all the novelties and
strange things that he had seen and heard; insomuch that the Emperor
and all such as heard his story were surprised, and said: “If this
young man live, he will assuredly come to be a person of great worth
and ability.” And so from that time forward he was always entitled
MESSER MARCO POLO, and thus we shall style him henceforth in this Book
of ours, as is but right.
Thereafter Messer Marco abode in the Kaan’s employment some seventeen
years, continually going and coming, hither and thither, on the
missions that were entrusted to him by the Lord [and sometimes, with
the permission and authority of the Great Kaan, on his own private
affairs.] And, as he knew all the sovereign’s ways, like a sensible
man he always took much pains to gather knowledge of anything that
would be likely to interest him, and then on his return to Court he
would relate everything in regular order, and thus the Emperor came
to hold him in great love and favour. And for this reason also he
would employ him the oftener on the most weighty and most distant of
his missions. These Messer Marco ever carried out with discretion and
success, God be thanked. So the Emperor became ever more partial to
him, and treated him with the greater distinction, and kept him so
close to his person that some of the Barons waxed very envious thereat.
And thus it came about that Messer Marco Polo had knowledge of, or had
actually visited, a greater number of the different countries of the
World than any other man; the more that he was always giving his mind
to get knowledge, and to spy out and enquire into everything in order
to have matter to relate to the Lord.