is situated the Earthly Paradise, 'whither no one can go but by God's permission.' 'I think also,' he goes on, that the water I have described may proceed from it, though it be far off, and that stopping at the place I have just left, it forms this lake. There are great indications of this being the terrestrial paradise, for its site coincides with the opinion of the holy and wise theologians whom I have mentioned; and moreover, the other evidences agree with the supposition, for I have never either read or heard of fresh water coming in so large a quantity, in close conjunction with the water of the sea; the idea is also corroborated by the blandness of the temperature; and if the water of which I speak does not proceed from the Earthly Paradise, it appears to be still more marvellous, for I do not believe that there is any river in the world so large or so deep.' Whether approached by the East or by the West, this Earthly Paradise was to be sought, all were agreed, in the neighbourhood of Cathay.

This great kingdom of the East had long been dimly known as an object of curiosity and

Francis

can Mis

wonder. By the revival of Christianity at the time of St. Francis and St. Dominic a great sionaries. impulse was given to missionary travel, and the marvellous tales brought back by wandering friars took a firm hold on the imagination of Europe. Rubruquis, a Flemish Franciscan, who, about the middle of the thirteenth century, was sent by St. Louis on a mission to the Tartar chiefs, brought back the report that 'there is a certain province on the other side of Cathay, and whatever a man's age be when he enters that province he never gets any older. The friar is careful to add that he does not believe a word of this report, but it found credence from others, and so late as 1512 Juan Ponce de Leon, an old Spanish cavalier, Governor of Puerto Rico, landed in Florida while he was cruising in search of a country alleged to contain a miraculous Fountain of Youth. Be

The

Fountain

of Youth. sides Rubruquis there were other friars whose accounts of the East were well known to later explorers. John of Plano Carpini in the Thirteenth Century was followed later by John of Monte Corvino, who passed many years of his

life at the Court of the Grand Khan of Cathay, founded a flourishing Christian community, built a church, and was made Archbishop of Cambalu, or Pekin. Odoric of Pordenone was, like these, a Franciscan; his residence at Pekin belongs to the early part of the Fourteenth Century. The reports brought by these travellers of the survival of some remnants of Nestorian Christianity in the East lent colour to the legend of Prester John, the mythical Christian potentate, who continued to be an object of research down to the time of the Portuguese voyages. The greatest of all mediaeval travellers, Marco Polo, who spent a quarter of Marco a century, from 1271 to 1295, in the East, was a Venetian of a noble merchant family, and did more perhaps than any other writer to excite interest in the glories of Cathay. The accounts given by Marco Polo and Odoric, long believed to be adorned and heightened by fables, have come to be recognised as veracious and exact narratives, erring here and there only from natural misconceptions. Their descriptions of Kubla the Great Khan's Court, of the magnificence of Khan.

Polo.

his retinue, and the resources and extent of his Empire, might well excite Western curiosity and stimulate the efforts of voyagers. It was not without reason that Hakluyt included in his compilation the stories of some of these Eastern travellers; without them his epic would lack its true beginning. The travels of Marco Polo were too well known to be inserted, but they are essential to the completeness of the book.

The quest of Cathay, then, is the main theme of this long poem of adventure; it is the purpose and soul of centuries of travel. But the theme is diversified with episodes and digressions and underplots. The singleness of an enterprise is not necessarily reflected in the minds and hearts of all who take part in it. Men who left their homes, and sailed to an unknown world, were influenced by the most diverse motives, political or religious, commercial or scientific. In not a few cases the 'good unsought discoveries' made by the way caused the original purpose to be forgotten. The Letters of Columbus, at the outset of the history, foreshadow some later developments.

of Colum

Columbus himself was full of zeal for the spread The aims of Christianity, and the increase of knowledge. bus. But it was necessary to show that his expedition would pay its promoters in temporal coin. “I gave to the subject,' he says in the account of his Third Voyage, six or seven years of great anxiety, explaining, to the best of my ability, how great service might be done to our Lord, by this undertaking, in promulgating His sacred name and our holy faith among so many nations;—an enterprise so exalted in itself, and so calculated to enhance the glory and immortalize the renown of the greatest sovereigns. It was also requisite to refer to the temporal prosperity, which was foretold in the writings of so many trustworthy and wise historians, who related that great riches were to be found in those parts. And at the same time I thought it desirable to bring to bear upon the subject, the sayings and opinions of those who have written upon the geography of the world. And finally, your Highnesses came to the determination that the undertaking should be entered spread of Chrisupon.' To add a whole realm to Christendom tianity.

The