Quite rightly, this outstanding man stands at the head of the list. His journey takes place in the second half of the thirteenth century; he travels to the remotest East, leads us into the strangest situations before which we stand astonished, so fabulous do they seem. Even if the details aren’t immediately clear to us, the packed account of this wide-ranging traveller is skilfully designed to arouse in us a sensation of the infinite, of immensity. We find ourselves at the court of Kubla Khan, the successor to Genghis, who rules over boundless territories. For what can one make of an empire and its expanse of which, among much else, it can be said, ‘Persia is a large province which consists of nine kingdoms,’ and by such a standard of measurement all the rest is to be assessed? Hence, the residence in the north of China, unencompassable; the Khan’s palace, a city within a city; the treasures, the weapons, heaped high; officials, soldiers and courtiers beyond all count; and each with his consort summoned to banquet upon banquet. Just such a sojourn in just such a country! The proper means for every pleasure; in particular, an army of hunters and a delight in the hunt over vast expanses. Tame leopards, trained falcons, the liveliest assistants of the hunters, countless prey in heaps. In addition, gifts lavished and received, all year long. Gold and silver, jewels, pearls, every kind of precious object in the possession of the prince and of his favourites; all the while the rest of the millions of underlings have to scrape by on counterfeit coins.142
Were we to betake ourselves on a journey out of the capital, we wouldn’t be able to tell where the city ends because of the many suburbs. Right away we come upon residence after residence, village upon village and along the majestic river a succession of pleasure gardens. All reckoned by days of travel – and not a few at that.
The traveller commissioned by the emperor now heads toward other areas; he leads us across trackless deserts, then to provinces rich in herds, up mountain ranges, to people of wondrous customs and demeanour, and at the end he lets us gaze across ice and snow toward the eternal night of the Pole. Then suddenly he brings us as on a magic cloak down along the Indian peninsula. Beneath us we glimpse Ceylon, Madagascar, Java; our gaze strays to islands with weird names; and yet, everywhere he lets us learn so many particular qualities of human forms and customs, of landscapes, trees, plants and animals, as to vouch for the truth of his overview, even if much of it may seem fanciful as a fairy tale. Only a well-trained geographer could order and prove all this. We have had to be satisfied with a general impression since neither notes nor annotations were available to aid our first studies.