]

70. The Book, however, is full of bearings and distances, and I have
thought it worth while to construct a map from its indications, in order
to get some approximation to Polo's own idea of the face of that world
which he had traversed so extensively. There are three allusions to maps
in the course of his work (II. 245, 312, 424).

In his own bearings, at least on land journeys, he usually carries us
along a great general traverse line, without much caring about small
changes of direction. Thus on the great outward journey from the frontier
of Persia to that of China the line runs almost continuously "_entre
Levant et Grec_" or E.N.E. In his journey from Cambaluc or Peking to Mien
or Burma, it is always _Ponent_ or W.; and in that from Peking to Zayton
in Fo-kien, the port of embarkation for India, it is _Sceloc_ or S.E. The
line of bearings in which he deviates most widely from truth is that of
the cities on the Arabian Coast from Aden to Hormuz, which he makes to run
steadily _vers Maistre_ or N.W., a conception which it has not been very
easy to realise on the map.[9]

[Sidenote: Singular omissions of Polo in regard to China; Historical
inaccuracies.]

71. In the early part of the Book we are told that Marco acquired several
of the languages current in the Mongol Empire, and no less than four
written characters. We have discussed what these are likely to have been
(i. pp. 28-29), and have given a decided opinion that Chinese was not one
of them. Besides intrinsic improbability, and positive indications of
Marco's ignorance of Chinese, in no respect is his book so defective as in
regard to Chinese manners and peculiarities. The Great Wall is never
mentioned, though we have shown reason for believing that it was in his
mind when one passage of his book was dictated.[10] The use of Tea, though
he travelled through the Tea districts of Fo-kien, is never mentioned;[11]
the compressed feet of the women and the employment of the fishing
cormorant (both mentioned by Friar Odoric, the contemporary of his later
years), artificial egg-hatching, printing of books (though the notice of
this art seems positively challenged in his account of paper-money),
besides a score of remarkable arts and customs which one would have
expected to recur to his memory, are never alluded to. Neither does he
speak of the great characteristic of the Chinese writing. It is difficult
to account for these omissions, especially considering the com