s of General HOUTUM-SCHINDLER
in the _Journal of the Royal Asiatic Society_, and the excellent books of
Lord CURZON and of Major P. MOLESWORTH SYKES on Persia, M. GRENARD'S
account of DUTREUIL DE RHINS' Mission to Central Asia, BRETSCHNEIDER'S and
PALLADIUS' remarkable papers on Mediaeval Travellers and Geography, and
above all, the valuable books of the Hon. W. W. ROCKHILL on Tibet and
Rubruck, to which the distinguished diplomatist, traveller, and scholar
kindly added a list of notes of the greatest importance to me, for which I
offer him my hearty thanks.

My thanks are also due to H.H. Prince ROLAND BONAPARTE, who kindly gave me
permission to reproduce some of the plates of his _Recueil de Documents de
l'Epoque Mongole_, to M. LEOPOLD DELISLE, the learned Principal Librarian
of the Bibliotheque Nationale, who gave me the opportunity to study the
inventory made after the death of the Doge Marino Faliero, to the Count de
SEMALLE, formerly French Charge d'Affaires at Peking, who gave me for
reproduction a number of photographs from his valuable personal
collection, and last, not least, my old friend Comm. NICOLO BAROZZI, who
continued to lend me the assistance which he had formerly rendered to Sir
Henry Yule at Venice.

Since the last edition was published, more than twenty-five years ago,
Persia has been more thoroughly studied; new routes have been explored in
Central Asia, Karakorum has been fully described, and Western and
South-Western China have been opened up to our knowledge in many
directions. The results of these investigations form the main features of
this new edition of _Marco Polo_. I have suppressed hardly any of Sir Henry
Yule's notes and altered but few, doing so only when the light of recent
information has proved him to be in error, but I have supplemented them by
what, I hope, will be found useful, new information.[2]

Before I take leave of the kind reader, I wish to thank sincerely Mr. JOHN
MURRAY for the courtesy and the care he has displayed while this edition
was going through the press.

HENRI CORDIER.
PARIS, _1st of October, 1902_.

[1] Miss Yule has written the Memoir of her father and the new Dedication.

[2] Paragraphs which have been altered are marked thus +; my own additions
are placed between brackets [ ].--H. C.

[Illustration:
"Now strike your Sailes yee jolly Mariners,
For we be come into a quiet Rode"....
--THE FAERIE QUEENE, I. xii. 42.]

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