Few Europeans had ever visited Asia in the thirteenth century, and none had seen more than a tiny part of that vast, mysterious continent to the east. Rumors of magnificent kingdoms, unbelievable riches, fierce warrior tribes were common... but a young man named Marco Polo was determined to find out the truth for himself!
In the year 1271, when he was just seventeen, Marco set sail on a fantastic voyage that was to last twenty-four years—and produce the most exciting travel diary every written. He would become the first European to trace a route completely across the vast expanse of Asia... the first to write of incredible Tibet, of golden-towered Burma, of the pink pearls and jewel-studded palaces of Japan.
Marco Polo's travels would take him to Java and Sumatra, India and Ceylon, and to arctic regions where people rode in dog-drawn sleds. He would be the first European to see the Great Wall of China, the Grand Canal, paper money, the black stones we now call coal, and hundreds of other things that were still unheard of in Europe!
But the greatest surprise of all awaited Marco at the marble palace of the Kublai Khan in legendary Cathay (now China). For rather than the savage conqueror the Khan was believed to be, he found a wise and just ruler, beloved by all his subjects. Marco and the Khan formed a friendship which was to last for the eighteen years the adventurer remained in Cathay... years during which he would often visit the dazzling pleasure city of Xanadu.
No man has ever experienced a more exciting and unusual trip than Marco Polo's—and the careful journals he kept all through his travels let us see a vivid portrait of each exotic episode!
—from the dust jacket
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