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The Polos' first encounter with the maritime Silk Road was disappointing. They intended to go by ship from the Gulf port of Hormuz, but on their arrival found the available vessels were, in their opinion, manifestly unseaworthy. That led them to them to abandon the sea voyage and turn north instead, where they joined a branch of the overland route at the city of Balkh. In 1271, the Arabian dhow  had not impressed the Italian merchants. Marco Polo writes, "Their ships are very bad and many founder because they are not fastened with iron nails but stitched together with thread made from coconut husks...The ships have one mast, one sail, and one rudder and are not decked; when they loaded them, they covered their cargo with skins, and on top of these they put the horses which they ship to India for sale". To European eyes, they were little more than open boats. Furthermore, without decks, cargo would be exposed to violent weather, as well as the hooves of whatever was loaded...

  A few years before Rabban Sawma and Rabban Marcos made their journey from Beijing to Baghdad (circa 1278-1280), Marco Polo, his father Niccolo, and his uncle Maffeo, travelled the Silk Road in the opposite direction (circa 1271-1275).  The Rabbans were Nestorian monks making a pilgrimage to Jerusalem. The Polos were Italian merchants, hoping to capitalise on their connections with China's emperor Kublai Khan. Different backgrounds and expectations, one religious, one economic, produced unique accounts of the famous land route between East and West, each with their own emphasis. For Niccolo and Maffeo, it was their second trip to the Court of the Great Khan. Their first crossing was made some time after 1262, returning to Venice in 1269. The Travels of Marco Polo  (written 1298) is therefore the story of the later experience of the Polo family. MERCHANTS POLO Marco Polo Snr's will (drafted 1280) mentions a fraterna copagnia , essentially a family partnership between thre...

From East To West   The idea of the Middle Kingdom is that China is at the centre of all things under Heaven. Inside the borders was order and balance (civilisation). Outside was disorder and violence (barbarians). Few therefore experienced the entire journey along the Silk Road from China to Europe. The first known travellers were Rabban Bar Sawma and his companion Markos. These two intrepid souls left Beijing (Khan-Baliq) about 1278 AD, reaching Baghdad a couple of years later. Then, in 1287, Rabban Sawma left Baghdad on an embassy to the Frankish kings, visiting Paris and Bordeaux before returning via Rome the following year. The story of Sawma and Markos was not rediscovered until the late nineteenth century, when manuscripts written in Old Syriac were found in Turkey. Since translated into French and English, these papers recorded a summarized version of original accounts by the travellers, and were written some time before 1318. The 'possibility' of such a journey, a comp...