=Commant Messires Marcs se partist de l’ysle de Bretaingne et de la proyère que fist=. _“Et pourquoy vous en feroie-je lonc conte? Si print nef |Messires Marcs| et se partist en nageant vers la terre ferme. Or |Messires Marc Pol| moult ama cel roiaume de |Bretaingne la grant| pour son viex renon et s’ancienne franchise, et pour sa saige et bonne Royne (que Diex gart), et pour les mainz homes de vaillance et bons chaceours et les maintes bonnes et honnestes dames qui y estoient. Et sachiés tout voirement que en estant delez le bort la nef, et en esgardant aus roches blanches que l’en par dariere-li lessoit, |Messires Marc| prieoit Diex, et disoit-il: ‘Ha Sires Diex ay merci de cestuy vieix et noble royaume; fay-en pardurable forteresse de liberté et de joustice, et garde-le de tout meschief de dedens et de dehors; donne à sa gent droit esprit pour ne pas Diex guerroyer de ses dons, ne de richesce ne de savoir; et conforte-les fermement en ta foy’ ...”_ A loud _Amen_ seemed to peal from without, and the awakened reader started to his feet. And lo! it was the thunder of the winter-storm crashing among the many-tinted crags of Monte Pellegrino,—with the wind raging as it knows how to rage here in sight of the Isles of Æolus, and the rain dashing on the glass as ruthlessly as it well could have done, if, instead of Æolic Isles and many-tinted crags, the window had fronted a dearer shore beneath a northern sky, and looked across the grey Firth to the rain-blurred outline of the Lomond Hills. But I end, saying to Messer Marco’s prayer, Amen. PALERMO, _31st December, 1874_. ---------------------------------------------------------------------- [1] It would be ingratitude if this Preface contained no acknowledgment of the medals awarded to the writer, mainly for this work, by the Royal Geographical Society, and by the Geographical Society of Italy, the former under the Presidence of Sir Henry Rawlinson, the latter under that of the Commendatore C. Negri. Strongly as I feel the too generous appreciation of these labours implied in such awards, I confess to have been yet more deeply touched and gratified by practical evidence of the approval of the two distinguished Travellers mentioned above; as shown by Baron von Richthofen in his spontaneous proposal to publish a German version of the book under his own immediate supervision (a project in abeyance, owing to circumstances beyond his or my control); by Mr. Ney Elias in the fact of his having carried these ponderous volumes with him on his solitary journey across the Mongolian wilds! [2] I am grateful to Mr. de Khanikoff for his especial recognition of these in a kindly review of the first edition in the _Academy_. [3] Especially from Lieutenant Garnier’s book, mentioned further on; the only existing source of illustration for many chapters of Polo.