The journeys of the famous Poli are among the most thrilling and significant records of Venetian history. Through them we are able to realise something of the Republic’s debt to the lands of the East--a debt not to be summed up in enumeration of embroidery and jewels and perfumes and secrets of colour. In part at least it consisted of legends and traditions that filtered into Venice through the hearing and speech of her travellers--age-old lessons in wisdom, which must have invested some of the common things of Venetian life with new meaning and done something to break down the barriers which ignorance erects between man and man, knowledge and knowledge. In the beautiful Persian rendering of the story of _The Three Magi_, as told by Marco Polo, she came into touch with comparative theology, the familiar Christian tale drawn from an earlier source. Marco Polo tells how he first found at Sara the beautiful tombs of Jaspar, Melchior and Balthasar, with their bodies completely preserved; how the people of that place knew nothing of their history save that they were the bodies of kings; but three days’ journey onward he had come to the city of the fire-worshippers and been informed of the three who had set out to worship a newly born Prophet, carrying with them gifts to test the extent of his powers--gold for the earthly King, myrrh for the physician, incense for the God. “And when they were come there where the Child was born, the youngest of these three Kings went all alone to see the Child, and there he found that it was like himself, for it seemed of his age and form. Then he went out much marvelling, and after him went in the second of the Kings, who was near in age to the first, and the Child seemed to him, as to the first, of his own form and age, and he also went out much perplexed. Then went in the third, who was of great age, and it happened to him as to the other two, and he also went out very pensive. And when all the Kings were together, they told one another what they had seen; and they marvelled much and said they would go in all three together. Then they went together into the Child’s presence, and they found Him of the likeness and age that He really was, for He was only three days old. Then they adored Him and offered Him their gold and incense and myrrh. The Child took all their offerings and gave them a closed box, and then the three Kings departed and returned to their country.” Marco Polo goes on to relate how the Kings, finding the box heavy to bear, sat down by a well to open it, and, when they had opened it, they found only stones inside. These, in their disappointment, they threw into the well and lo! from the stones fire ascended which they gathered up and took home with them to worship. With it they burned all their sacrifices, renewing it from one altar to another. Other tales he told them from the wisdom of the East--of the idealist who found no joy in earthly existence, and