y started again for the East, taking young
Mark with them. At Acre they took counsel with an eminent churchman,
TEDALDO (or Tebaldo) VISCONTI, Archdeacon of Liege, whom the Book
represents to have been Legate in Syria, and who in any case was a
personage of much gravity and influence. From him they got letters to
authenticate the causes of the miscarriage of their mission, and started
for the further East. But they were still at the port of Ayas on the Gulf
of Scanderoon, which was then becoming one of the chief points of arrival
and departure for the inland trade of Asia, when they were overtaken by
the news that a Pope was at last elected, and that the choice had fallen
upon their friend Archdeacon Tedaldo. They immediately returned to Acre,
and at last were able to execute the Kaan's commission, and to obtain a
reply. But instead of the hundred able teachers of science and religion
whom Kublai is said to have asked for, the new Pope, Gregory X., could
supply but two Dominicans; and these lost heart and drew back when they
had barely taken the first step of the journey.

Judging from certain indications we conceive it probable that the three
Venetians, whose second start from Acre took place about November 1271,
proceeded by Ayas and Sivas, and then by Mardin, Mosul, and Baghdad, to
Hormuz at the mouth of the Persian Gulf, with the view of going on by sea,
but that some obstacle arose which compelled them to abandon this project
and turn north again from Hormuz.[13] They then traversed successively
Kerman and Khorasan, Balkh and Badakhshan, whence they ascended the Panja
or upper Oxus to the Plateau of Pamir, a route not known to have been
since followed by any European traveller except Benedict Goes, till the
spirited expedition of Lieutenant John Wood of the Indian Navy in
1838.[14] Crossing the Pamir highlands the travellers descended upon
Kashgar, whence they proceeded by Yarkand and Khotan, and the vicinity of
Lake Lob, and eventually across the Great Gobi Desert to Tangut, the name
then applied by Mongols and Persians to territory at the extreme
North-west of China, both within and without the Wall. Skirting the
northern frontier of China they at last reached the presence of the Kaan,
who was at his usual summer retreat at Kai-ping fu, near the base of the
Khingan Mountains, and nearly 100 miles north of the Great Wall at Kalgan.
If there be no mistake in the time (three years and a half) ascribed to
this journey