Introductory Notices

Introduction, p. 6.

Speaking of Pashai, Sir Aurel Stein (Geog. Journ.), referring to the notes and memoranda brought home by the great Venetian traveller, has the following remarks: “We have seen how accurately it reproduces information about territories difficult of access at all times, and far away from his own route. It appears to me quite impossible to believe that such exact data, learned at the very beginning of the great traveller’s long wanderings, could have been reproduced by him from memory alone close on thirty years later when dictating his wonderful story to Rusticiano during his captivity at Genoa. Here, anyhow, we have definite proof of the use of those ‘notes and memoranda which he had brought with him,’ and which, as Ramusio’s ‘Preface’ of 1553 tells us (see Yule, Marco Polo, I., Introduction, p. 6), Messer Marco, while prisoner of war, was believed to have had sent to him by his father from Venice. How grateful must geographer and historical student alike feel for these precious materials having reached the illustrious prisoner safely!”

Introduction, p. 10 n.