Prominent in all these stories is the tale of Alexander’s shutting up a score of impure nations, at the head of which were Gog and Magog, within a barrier of impassable mountains, there to await the latter days; a legend with which the disturbed mind of Europe not unnaturally connected that cataclysm of unheard-of Pagans that seemed about to deluge Christendom in the first half of the 13th century. In these stories also the beautiful Roxana, who becomes the bride of Alexander, is _Darius’s_ daughter, bequeathed to his arms by the dying monarch. Conspicuous among them again is the Legend of the Oracular Trees of the Sun and Moon, which with audible voice foretell the place and manner of Alexander’s death. With this Alexandrian legend some of the later forms of the story had mixed up one of Christian origin about the Dry Tree, _L’Arbre Sec_. And they had also adopted the Oriental story of the Land of Darkness and the mode of escape from it, which Polo relates at p. 484 of vol. ii. [Sidenote: Injustice long done to Polo. Singular modern instance.] 74. We have seen in the most probable interpretation of the nickname _Milioni_ that Polo’s popular reputation in his lifetime was of a questionable kind; and a contemporary chronicler, already quoted, has told us how on his death-bed the Traveller was begged by anxious friends to retract his extraordinary stories.[20] A little later one who copied the Book “_per passare tempo e malinconia_” says frankly that he puts no faith in it.[21] Sir Thomas Brown is content “to carry a wary eye” in reading “Paulus Venetus”; but others of our countrymen in the last century express strong doubts whether he ever was in Tartary or China.[22] Marden’s edition might well have extinguished the last sparks of scepticism.[23] Hammer meant praise in calling Polo “_der Vater orientalischer Hodogetik_,” in spite of the uncouthness of the eulogy. But another grave German writer, ten years after Marsden’s publication, put forth in a serious book that the whole story was a clumsy imposture![24] ---------------------------------------------------------------------- [1] M. d’Avezac has refuted the common supposition that this admirable traveller was a native of Brabant. The form _Rubruquis_ of the name of the traveller William de Rubruk has been habitually used in this book, perhaps without sufficient consideration, but it is the most familiar in England, from its use by Hakluyt and Purchas. The former, who first published the narrative, professedly printed from an imperfect MS. belonging to the Lord Lumley, which does not seem to be now known. But all the MSS. collated by Messrs. Francisque-Michel and Wright, in preparing their edition of the Traveller, call him simply Willelmus de Rubruc or Rubruk.