For three and a half years they journeyed on, detained often by floods and bad weather. The news of their coming travelled before them to the Kaan, and he sent his servants forty days’ journey to meet them. The Kaan received them with joy, was graciously pleased with the letters and credentials sent by the Pope, and accepted young Marco as his liegeman and responsible messenger. Marco sped well in learning the language, customs and writing of the Tartars, but it is clear he must have acquired other than scholastic accomplishments. He was endowed with tact and power of observation, and returned from his first embassy full of news of the men and customs he had encountered; “for he had seen on several occasions that when the messengers the Great Kaan had sent into various parts of the world returned and told him the results of the embassy on which they had gone, and could tell him no other news of the countries where they had been, the Kaan said they were ignorant fools.” For seventeen years young Messer Marco was employed in continual coming and going. He was learned in many strange and hidden things, and was placed in honour high above the barons--the darling of Cublay’s heart. Again and again the three Venetians asked for leave of absence to visit their country, but so great was the love Cublay bore to them that he could not bear to be parted from them; until at last an embassy arrived from Argon, King of Levant, asking for a new wife of the lineage of his dead wife Bolgana, and the Kaan is persuaded by Argon’s messengers to allow Marco and his two uncles to depart with them in charge of the lady. They set out by sea, and after some twenty months’ sailing and many disasters arrived at their destination. King Argon was dead, and the lady Cocachin was bestowed on his son. Of the six hundred followers who had set out with them on their journey only eighteen had survived it. Their mission accomplished, the Poli made their way to Trebizond, from Trebizond to Constantinople and from Constantinople to Venice. This was in the year 1295. [Illustration: THE DOGANA.]