Very different was the state of affairs in the thirteenth century. The European who started east had an unblazed trail before him. He had to make his way on foot or on horseback, by sail or row boats, through mountain passes, trackless forests, and vast deserts, and across streams and seas. On the land, he encountered robbers; on the waters, pirates. Everywhere were people with unknown customs and strange languages. The chances were that the adventurous traveler, instead of returning home, would leave his bones to whiten foreign sands. Yet one traveler encountered and passed through all these dangers, returned safe home, and dictated an account of his travels,--a true story, as wonderful as the tales of the “Arabian Nights.” Perhaps some day you will read the story of Marco Polo’s travels. Marco Polo began life with three advantages; he was born in the thirteenth century, he was a Venetian, and he was a Polo. Venice, in the Middle Ages, was one of the commercial centers of the world. The great oceans were as yet uncrossed; the Italian cities sent forth merchant-vessels which brought across the Mediterranean the goods conveyed overland by caravans from the East,--the spices, gold, and jewels of Asia. Among the Venetian families made wealthy by commerce--the merchant-princes, as they were called--was the Polo family. About the middle of the thirteenth century, there were three Polo brothers engaged in commerce. Two of these brothers went to the East, first to the Crimea and thence to Cathay, as China was then called. They were probably the first European travelers who reached China. They went to Cambaluc, or Peking, where they were graciously received by the great emperor, Kublai Khan. He was the grandson of Jenghiz, who had made himself master of northern China. The son and grandson of Jenghiz extended his conquests, so that the kingdom of Kublai Khan embraced China, northern Asia, Persia, Armenia, and parts of Asia Minor and Russia. Under this powerful ruler, the East was not only bound together in one vast empire, it was open to Europeans as it had never been before and has never been since. Kublai Khan welcomed the Polo brothers to his court, and they spent there several years. At last they returned to Venice, where Nicolo had left his wife; his son Marco, born the year of his departure, was now a youth of about eighteen. The Polo brothers remained in Venice two years and then returned to Cathay. With them went Marco Polo, a brave, intelligent youth. They passed through the country around the sources of the river Oxus and crossed the plateau of Pamir and the great desert of Gobi. Much of this country had never before been visited by Europeans, and we have no record of its being revisited until a few years ago when the Orient was again to some extent opened to the world.