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Marco Polo, Rustichello of Pisa - The Travels of Marco Polo, 1
notes. These are contained in an interleaved copy obligingly placed at my disposal by Miss Yule, but I
luckily found assistance from various other quarters. The following works have proved of the greatest
assistance to me: - The articles of General HOUTUM-SCHINDLER in the Journal of the Royal
Asiatic Society, and the excellent books of Lord CURZON and of Major P. MOLESWORTH
SYKES on Persia, M. GRENARD'S account of DUTREUIL DE RHINS' Mission to Central Asia,
BRETSCHNEIDER'S and PALLADIUS' remarkable papers on Mediaeval Travellers and Geography,
and above all, the valuable books of the Hon. W. W. ROCKHILL on Tibet and Rubruck, to which the
distinguished diplomatist, traveller, and scholar kindly added a list of notes of the greatest importance to
me, for which I offer him my hearty thanks.
My thanks are also due to H.H. Prince ROLAND BONAPARTE, who kindly gave me permission to
reproduce some of the plates of his Recueil de Documents de l'Epoque Mongole, to M.
LEOPOLD DELISLE, the learned Principal Librarian of the Bibliotheque Nationale, who gave me the
opportunity to study the inventory made after the death of the Doge Marino Faliero, to the Count de
SEMALLE, formerly French Charge d'Affaires at Peking, who gave me for reproduction a number of
photographs from his valuable personal collection, and last, not least, my old friend Comm. NICOLO
BAROZZI, who continued to lend me the assistance which he had formerly rendered to Sir Henry Yule
at Venice.
Since the last edition was published, more than twenty-five years ago, Persia has been more thoroughly
studied; new routes have been explored in Central Asia, Karakorum has been fully described, and
Western and South-Western China have been opened up to our knowledge in many directions. The
results of these investigations form the main features of this new edition of Marco Polo. I have
suppressed hardly any of Sir Henry Yule's notes and altered but few, doing so only when the light of
recent information has proved him to be in error, but I have supplemented them by what, I hope, will be
found useful, new information.[2]
Before I take leave of the kind reader, I wish to thank sincerely Mr. JOHN MURRAY for the courtesy
and the care he has displayed while this edition was going through the press.
HENRI CORDIER.
PARIS, 1st of October, 1902.
[1] Miss Yule has written the Memoir of her father and the new Dedication.
[2] Paragraphs which have been altered are marked thus +; my own additions
are placed between brackets [ ]. - H. C.
PREFACE TO SECOND EDITION.
The unexpected amount of favour bestowed on the former edition of this Work has been a great
encouragement to the Editor in preparing this second one.
Not a few of the kind friends and correspondents who lent their aid before have continued it to the
present revision. The contributions of Mr. A. WYLIE of Shang-hai, whether as regards the amount of
labour which they must have cost him, or the value of the result, demand above all others a grateful
record here. Nor can I omit to name again with hearty acknowledgment Signor Comm. G. BERCHET of
Venice, the Rev. Dr. CALDWELL, Colonel (now Major-General) R. MACLAGAN, R.E., Mr. D.
HANBURY, F.R.S., Mr. EDWARD THOMAS, F.R.S. (Corresponding Member of the Institute), and
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