emeralds, into which form they had converted most of their property. This exhibition naturally changed the character of the welcome they received from their relatives, who were then eager to learn how they had come by such riches.
In describing the wealth of the Great Khan, Marco Polo, who was the chief spokesman of the party, was obliged to use the numeral "million" to express the amount of his wealth and the number of the population over whom he ruled. This was regarded as part of the usual travellers' tales, and Marco Polo was generally known by his friends as "Messer Marco Millione."
Such a reception of his stories was no great encouragement to Marco to tell the tale of his remarkable travels, but in the year of his arrival at Venice a war broke out between Genoa and the Queen of the Adriatic, in which Marco Polo was captured and cast into prison at Genoa. There he found as a fellow-prisoner one Rusticano of Pisa, a man of some learning and a sort of predecessor of Sir Thomas Malory, since he had devoted much time to re-writing, in prose, abstracts of the many romances relating to the Round Table. These he wrote, not in Italian (which can scarcely be said to have existed for literary purposes in those days), but in French, the common language of chivalry throughout Western Europe. While in prison with Marco Polo, he took down in French the narrative of the great traveller, and thus preserved it for all time. Marco Polo was released in 1299, and returned to Venice, where he died some time after 9th January, 1334, the date of his will.
Of the travels thus detailed in Marco Polo's book, and of their importance and significance in
