These conversational descriptions respecting the remote dominions of the Grand Khan, with which Marco Polo often interested the imaginative Venetians, were to have a much wider field of influence in another form,—one which was a most potent element among the leading agencies which opened to the people of Western Europe great pathways of discovery and of commerce around the earth. In order to perceive how these descriptions of Cathay led to the exploration of the Atlantic Ocean and the discovery of the continent of America, the fortunes of Marco Polo must be followed farther. It appears that shortly after his return to Venice he was placed in command of a fleet, which subsequently was captured by the Genoese in a naval engagement. While confined in Genoa as a prisoner of war, his remarkable adventures as an explorer of remote eastern countries became known, and he was often visited and questioned by inquisitive people. Wearied by the frequent repetition of the story of his wanderings in Cathay, he at last applied himself to writing an account of his extensive journeys by the aid of such notes and memoranda as he had taken while in the East. Assisted by a Genoese gentleman, he completed his curious and instructive narrative, which was soon copied, translated into different languages, and distributed among the people of Europe.[78] As justly claimed by Yule, Marco Polo was the first traveller “to trace a route across the longitude of Asia, naming and describing kingdom after kingdom which he had seen with his own eyes; the deserts of Persia, the flowering plateaux and wild gorges of Badakhshan, the jade-bearing rivers of Khotan, the Mongolian steppes, ... the new and brilliant court that had been established at Cambaluc; the first traveller to reveal China in all its wealth and vastness, its mighty rivers, its huge cities, its rich manufactures, its swarming population, the inconceivably vast fleets that quickened its seas and its inland waters; to tell us of the nations on its borders with all their eccentricities of manners and worship; of Tibet with its sordid devotees; of Burma, with its golden pagodas and their tinkling crowns; of Laos, of Siam, of Cochin China, of Japan, the Eastern Thule, with its rosy pearls and golden-roofed palaces; the first to speak of that museum of beauty and wonder, still so imperfectly ransacked, the Indian archipelago, source of aromatics then so highly prized and whose origin was so dark; of Java, the pearl of islands; of Sumatra with its many kings, its strange costly products, and its cannibal races; of the naked savages of Nicobar and Andaman; of Ceylon, the isle of gems, with its sacred mountain and its tomb of Adam; of India the great, not as a dreamland of Alexandrian fables but as a country seen and partially explored, with its virtuous Brahmans, its obscene ascetics, its diamonds and the strange tales of their acquisition, its sea-beds of pearl, and its powerful sun; the first in medieval times to