Marco Polo
translation: Henry Yule, Henri Cordier

THE TRAVELS OF MARCO POLO
Volume II.
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THE GREAT DESERT.

After reproducing the description of the Great Desert in Sir Henry Yule's version, Stein adds, Ruins of Desert Cathay, I., p. 518:

"It did not need my journey to convince me that what Marco here tells us about the risks of the desert was but a faithful reflex of old folklore beliefs he must have heard on the spot. Sir Henry Yule has shown long ago that the dread of being led astray by evil spirits haunted the imagination of all early travellers who crossed the desert wastes between China and the oases westwards. Fa-hsien's above-quoted passage clearly alludes to this belief, and so does Hiuan Tsang, as we have seen, where he points in graphic words the impressions left by his journey through the sandy desert between Niya and Charchan.

"Thus, too, the description we receive through the Chinese historiographer, Ma Tuan-lin, of the shortest route from China towards Kara-shahr, undoubtedly corresponding to the present track to Lop-nor, reads almost like a version from Marco's book, though its compiler, a contemporary of the Venetian traveller, must have extracted it from some earlier source. 'You see nothing in any direction but the sky and the sands, without the (...)

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