THE MONGOLS. The way Marco Polo happened to visit the court of the Mongol emperor was this. The Mongol Tartars were great conquerors, and they not only subdued the Chinese but marched westward, overrunning most of Russia and stopping only when they were on the frontiers of Italy. For a long time southern Russia remained under their rule. Their capital was just north of the Great Wall of China. The Mongol emperor did not hate Europeans, and even sent to the pope for missionaries to teach his people. Marco Polo's father and uncle while on a trading expedition had found their way to his court, and on a second journey, in 1271, they took with them Marco, a lad of seventeen years. The emperor was much interested in his western visitors and took young Marco into his service. [Illustration: THE MONGOL EMPEROR OF MARCO POLO'S TIME After an old Chinese manuscript] MARCO POLO'S TRAVELS. Marco Polo traveled over China on official errands, while his father and uncle were gathering wealth by trade. After many years they desired to return to Italy, but the emperor was unwilling to lose such able servants. It happened, however, that the emperor wished to send a princess as a bride to the Khan or Emperor of Persia, also a Mongol sovereign, and the three Polos, who were known to be trustworthy seamen, were selected to escort the princess to her royal husband. After doing this they did not return to China, but went on to Italy. They had been absent twenty-four years, and they found that their relatives had given them up for dead and did not recognize them. It was like the old story of Ulysses, who, when he returned to his native Ithaca after his wanderings, was recognized by nobody. The Polos proved the truth of what they said by showing the great treasures which they had sewed into the dresses of coarse stuff of a Tartar pattern which they wore. They displayed jewels of the greatest value, diamonds, emeralds, rubies, and sapphires. [Illustration: MAP OF MARCO POLO'S TRAVELS The known world is in white, the undiscovered in black, and that first described by Marco Polo is dotted] WHAT MARCO POLO TOLD. In the account Marco Polo wrote of his travels and of the countries he had visited he described a wonderful palace of the Great Emperor. Its walls were covered with gold and silver, the dining hall seated six thousand people, and its ceiling was inlaid with gold. This palace seemed to Marco Polo so large, so rich, and so beautiful that no man on earth could design anything to equal it. The robes of the emperor and his twelve thousand nobles and knights were of silk and beaten gold, each having a girdle of gold decorated with precious stones.