In the
thirteenth century the Polo brothers, merchants of Venice,
had wandered across the great Mongolian desert and after
climbing mountains as high as the moon, they had found their
way to the court of the great Khan of Cathay, the mighty
emperor of China. The son of one of the Polos, by the name
of Marco, had written a book about their adventures, which
covered a period of more than twenty years. The astonished
world had gaped at his descriptions of the golden towers of
the strange island of Zipangu, which was his Italian way of
spelling Japan. Many people had wanted to go east, that
they might find this gold-land and grow rich. But the trip was
too far and too dangerous and so they stayed at home.
Of course, there was always the possibility of making the
voyage by sea. But the sea was very unpopular in the Middle
Ages and for many very good reasons. In the first place, ships
were very small. The vessels on which Magellan made his
famous trip around the world, which lasted many years, were
not as large as a modern ferryboat. They carried from twenty
to fifty men, who lived in dingy quarters (too low to allow any
of them to stand up straight) and the sailors were obliged to
eat poorly cooked food as the kitchen arrangements were very
bad and no fire could be made whenever the weather was the
least bit rough. The mediaeval world knew how to pickle herring
and how to dry fish.
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