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Marco Polo, Rustichello of Pisa - The Travels of Marco Polo, 1
(Fraehn, Ueber die ehemalige Mong. Stadt Ukek, etc., Petersb. 1835; Gold. Horde;
Ibn Bat. II. 414; Abulfeda, in Buesching, V. 365; Ann. Minorum, sub anno 1400;
Petis de la Croix, II. 355, 383, 388; Hakluyt, ed. 1809, I. 375 and 472; Lepechin,
Tagebuch der Reise, etc., I. 235-237; Rockhill, Rubruck, 120-121, note 2.)
NOTE 5. - The great River Tigeri or Tigris is the Volga, as Pauthier rightly shows. It receives the same
name from the Monk Pascal of Vittoria in 1338. (Cathay, p. 234.) Perhaps this arose out of some
legend that the Tigris was a reappearance of the same river. The ecclesiastical historian, Nicephorus
Callistus, appears to imply that the Tigris coming from Paradise flows under the Caspian to emerge in
Kurdistan. (See IX. 19.)
The "17 days" applies to one stretch of desert. The whole journey from Ukek Bokhara would take some
60 days at least. Ibn Batuta is 58 days from Sarai to Bokhara, and of the last section he says, "we entered
the desert which extends between Khwarizm and Bokhara, and which has an extent of 18 days'
journey." (III. 19.)
CHAPTER III. HOW THE TWO BROTHERS, AFTER CROSSING A DESERT, CAME TO THE
CITY OF BOCARA, AND FELL IN WITH CERTAIN ENVOYS THERE.
After they had passed the desert, they arrived at a very great and noble city called BOCARA, the territory
of which belonged to a king whose name was Barac, and is also called Bocara. The city is the best in all
Persia.[NOTE 1] And when they had got thither, they found they could neither proceed further forward
nor yet turn back again; wherefore they abode in that city of Bocara for three years. And whilst they were
sojourning in that city, there came from Alau, Lord of the Levant, Envoys on their way to the Court of
the Great Kaan, the Lord of all the Tartars in the world. And when the Envoys beheld the Two Brothers
they were amazed, for they had never before seen Latins in that part of the world. And they said to the
Brothers: "Gentlemen, if ye will take our counsel, ye will find great honour and profit shall come
thereof." So they replied that they would be right glad to learn how. "In truth," said the Envoys, "the
Great Kaan hath never seen any Latins, and he hath a great desire so to do. Wherefore, if ye will keep us
company to his Court, ye may depend upon it that he will be right glad to see you, and will treat you with
great honour and liberality; whilst in our company ye shall travel with perfect security, and need fear to
be molested by nobody."[NOTE 2]
NOTE 1. - Hayton also calls Bokhara a city of Persia, and I see Vambery says that, up till the conquest
by Chinghiz, Bokhara, Samarkand, Balkh, etc., were considered to belong to Persia. ( Travels, p.
377.) The first Mongolian governor of Bokhara was Buka Bosha.
King Barac is Borrak Khan, great-grandson of Chagatai, and sovereign of the Ulus of Chagatai, from
1264 to 1270. The Polos, no doubt, reached Bokhara before 1264, but Borrak must have been sovereign
some time before they left it.
NOTE 2. - The language of the envoys seems rather to imply that they were the Great Kaan's own people
returning from the Court of Hulaku. And Rashid mentions that Sartak, the Kaan's ambassador to Hulaku,
returned from Persia in the year that the latter prince died. It may have been his party that the Venetians
joined, for the year almost certainly was the same, viz. 1265. If so, another of the party was Bayan,
afterwards the greatest of Kublai's captains, and much celebrated in the sequel of this book. (See
Erdmann's Temudschin, p. 214.)
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