That cross-grained Orientalist, I. J. Schmidt, on several occasions speaks contemptuously of this veracious and delightful traveller, whose evidence goes in the teeth of some of his crotchets.  But I am glad to find that Professor Peschel takes a view similar to that expressed in the text:  “The narrative of Ruysbroek [Rubruquis], almost immaculate in its freedom from fabulous insertions, may be indicated on account of its truth to nature as the greatest geographical masterpiece of the Middle Ages.” (Gesch. der Erdkunde, 1865, p. 151.)

      [A] The County of Flanders was at this time in large part a fief of
          the French Crown. (See Natalis de Wailly, notes to Joinville,
          p. 576.) But that would not much affect the question either one
          way or the other.

[2] High as Marco’s name deserves to be set, his place is not beside the
    writer of such burning words as these addressed to Ferdinand and
    Isabella:  “From the most tender age I went to sea, and to this day I
    have continued to do so.  Whosoever devotes himself to this craft must
    desire to know the secrets of Nature here below.  For 40 years now have
    I thus been engaged, and wherever man has sailed hitherto on the face
    of the sea, thither have I sailed also.  I have been in constant
    relation with men of learning, whether ecclesiastic or secular, Latins
    and Greeks, Jews and Moors, and men of many a sect besides.  To
    accomplish this my longing (to know the Secrets of the World) I found
    the Lord favourable to my purposes; it is He who hath given me the
    needful disposition and understanding.  He bestowed upon me abundantly
    the knowledge of seamanship:  and of Astronomy He gave me enough to
    work withal, and so with Geometry and Arithmetic....  In the days of my
    youth I studied works of all kinds, history, chronicles, philosophy,
    and other arts, and to apprehend these the Lord opened my
    understanding.  Under His manifest guidance I navigated hence to the
    Indies; for it was the Lord who gave me the will to accomplish that
    task, and it was in the ardour of that will that I came before your
    Highnesses.  All those who heard of my project scouted and derided it;
    all the acquirements I have mentioned stood me in no stead; and if in
    your Highnesses, and in you alone, Faith and Constancy endured, to
    Whom are due the Lights that have enlightened you as well as me, but
    to the Holy Spirit?” (Quoted in Humboldt’s Examen Critique, I. 17,
    18.)

[3] Libri, however, speaks too strongly when he says:  “The finest of all
    the results due to the influence of Marco Polo is that of having
    stirred Columbus to the discovery of the New World.  Columbus, jealous
    of Polo’s laurels, spent his life in preparing means to get to that
    Zipangu of which the Venetian traveller had told such great things;
    his desire was to reach China by sailing westward, and in his way he
    fell in with America.” (H. des Sciences Mathem. etc.  II. 150.)