day by day till
they came to Trebizond, and thence to Constantinople, from Constantinople
to Negropont, and from Negropont to Venice. And this was in the year 1295
of Christ's Incarnation.

And now that I have rehearsed all the Prologue as you have heard, we shall
begin the Book of the Description of the Divers Things that Messer Marco
met with in his Travels.

NOTE 1.--On these plates or tablets, which have already been spoken of, a
note will be found further on. (Bk. II. ch. vii.) Plano Carpini says of
the Mongol practice in reference to royal messengers: "Nuncios, quoscunque
et quotcunque, et ubicunque transmittit, oportet quod dent eis sine mora
equos subductitios et expensas" (669).

NOTE 2.--The mention of the King of England appears for the first time in
Pauthier's text. Probably we shall never know if the communication reached
him. But we have the record of several embassies in preceding and
subsequent years from the Mongol Khans of Persia to the Kings of England;
all with the view of obtaining co-operation in attack on the Egyptian
Sultan. Such messages came from Abaka in 1277; from Arghun in 1289 and
1291; from Ghazan in 1302; from Oljaitu in 1307. (See _Remusat_ in _Mem.
de l'Acad._ VII.)

[Illustration: Ancient Chinese War Vessel.]

NOTE 3.--Ramusio has "_nine_ sails." Marsden thinks even this lower number
an error of Ramusio's, as "it is well known that Chinese vessels do not
carry any kind of topsail." This is, however, a mistake, for they do
sometimes carry a small topsail of cotton cloth (and formerly, it would
seem from Lecomte, even a topgallant sail at times), though only in quiet
weather. And the evidence as to the number of sails carried by the great
Chinese junks of the Middle Ages, which evidently made a great impression
on Western foreigners, is irresistible. Friar Jordanus, who saw them in
Malabar, says: "With a fair wind they carry ten sails;" Ibn Batuta: "One
of these great junks carries from three sails to twelve;" Joseph, the
Indian, speaking of those that traded to India in the 15th century: "They
were very great, and had sometimes twelve sails, with innumerable rowers."
(_Lecomte_, I. 389; _Fr. Jordanus_, Hak. Soc., p. 55; _Ibn Batuta_, IV.
91; _Novus Orbis_, p. 148.) A fuller account of these vessels is given at
the beginning of Bk. III.

NOTE 4.--I.e. in this case Sumatra, as will appear hereafter. "It is quite
possible for a fleet of fourteen junks which required to keep togethe