w wrinkled graybeards, the stripling now a portly man, all three
attired in rather shabby clothes of Tartar cut, and "with a certain
indescribable smack of the Tartar about them, both in air and accent,"
some words of explanation were needed to prove their identity. After a
few days they invited a party of old friends to dinner, and bringing
forth three shabby coats, ripped open the seams and welts, and began
pulling out and tumbling upon the table such treasures of diamonds and
emeralds, rubies and sapphires, as could never have been imagined,
"which had all been stitched up in those dresses in so artful a fashion
that nobody could have suspected the fact." In such wise had they
brought home from Cathay their ample earnings; and when it became known
about Venice that the three long-lost citizens had come back,
"straightway the whole city, gentle and simple, flocked to the house to
embrace them, and to make much of them, with every conceivable
demonstration of affection and respect."[331]

[Footnote 330: Pauthier's _Marco Polo_, p. 361; Yule's _Marco
Polo_, p. li.]

[Footnote 331: Ramusio, _apud_ Yule's _Marco Polo_, vol. i. p.
xxxvii.]

[Sidenote: Marco Polo's book written in prison at Genoa, 1299.]

Three years afterward, in 1298, Marco commanded a galley in the great
naval battle with the Genoese near Curzola. The Venetians were totally
defeated, and Marco was one of the 7,000 prisoners taken to Genoa, where
he was kept in durance for about a year. One of his companions in
captivity was a certain Rusticiano, of Pisa, who was glad to listen to
his descriptions of Asia, and to act as his amanuensis. French was then,
at the close of the Crusades, a language as generally understood
throughout Europe as later, in the age of Louis XIV.; and Marco's
narrative was duly taken down by the worthy Rusticiano in rather lame
and shaky French. In the summer of 1299 Marco was set free and returned
to Venice, where he seems to have led a quiet life until his death in
1324.

[Sidenote: Its great contributions to geographical knowledge.]

"The Book of Ser Marco Polo concerning the Kingdoms and Marvels of the
East" is one of the most famous and important books of the Middle Ages.
It contributed more new facts toward a knowledge of the earth's surface
than any book that had ever been written before. Its author was "the
first traveller to trace a route across the whole longitude of Asia;"
the fir