Polo was the first traveller to trace a route across the whole longitude of Asia, naming and describing kingdom after kingdom which he had seen; the first to speak of the new and brilliant court which had been established at Peking; the first to reveal China in all its wealth and vastness, and to tell of the nations on its borders; the first to tell more of Tibet than its name, to speak of Burma, of Laos, of Siam, of Cochin-China, of Japan, of Java, of Sumatra and other islands of the archipelago, of the Nicobar and Andaman Islands, of Ceylon and its sacred peak, of India but as a country seen and partially explored; the first in mediæval times to give any distinct account of the secluded Christian empire of Abyssinia, and of the semi-Christian island of Sokotra, and to speak, however dimly, of Zanzibar, and of the vast and distant Madagascar; while he carries us also to the remotely opposite region of Siberia and the Arctic shores, to speak of dog-sledges, white bears, and reindeer-riding Tunguses. Among Polo’s successors were John of Montecorvino (_c._ 1247–1328), a Franciscan, who became Archbishop of Peking, and wrote the first valuable account of the Coromandel coast of India about 1291; and Jordanus, a French Dominican, who, having carried Catholicism into India about 1320, improved even upon Polo’s account of the general geography, climate, and products of the peninsula. Another Franciscan who was also a skilled observer both in China and India was Odoric of Pordenone (_c._ 1236–81).