We are told that Prince Pedro of Portugal in 1426 received from the Signory of Venice a map which was supposed to be either an original or a copy of one by Marco Polo’s own hand. (Majors P. Henry, p. 62.) There is no evidence to justify any absolute expression of disbelief; and if any map-maker with the spirit of the author of the Carta Catalana then dwelt in Venice, Polo certainly could not have gone to his grave uncatechised.  But I should suspect the map to have been a copy of the old one that existed in the Sala dello Scudo of the Ducal Palace.

The maps now to be seen painted on the walls of that Hall, and on which Polo’s route is marked, are not of any great interest.  But in the middle of the 15th century there was an old Descriptio Orbis sive Mappamundus in the Hall, and when the apartment was renewed in 1459 a decree of the Senate ordered that such a map should be repainted on the new walls.  This also perished by a fire in 1483.  On the motion of Ramusio, in the next century, four new maps were painted.  These had become dingy and ragged, when, in 1762, the Doge Marco Foscarini caused them to be renewed by the painter Francesco Grisellini.  He professed to have adhered closely to the old maps, but he certainly did not, as Morelli testifies.  Eastern Asia looks as if based on a work of Ramusio’s age, but Western Asia is of undoubtedly modern character. (See Operetti di Iacopo Morelli, Ven. 1820, I. 299.)

[10] “Humboldt confirms the opinion I have more than once expressed that
    too much must not be inferred from the silence of authors.  He adduces
    three important and perfectly undeniable matters of fact, as to which
    no evidence is to be found where it would be most anticipated:  In the
    archives of Barcelona no trace of the triumphal entry of Columbus into
    that city; in Marco Polo no allusion to the Chinese Wall; in the
    archives of Portugal nothing about the voyages of Amerigo Vespucci in
    the service of that crown.” (Varnhagen v. Ense, quoted by Hayward,
    Essays, 2nd Ser.  I. 36.) See regarding the Chinese Wall the remarks
    referred to above, at p. 292 of this volume.

[11] [It is a strange fact that Polo never mentions the use of Tea in
    China, although he travelled through the Tea districts in Fu Kien, and
    tea was then as generally drunk by the Chinese as it is now.  It is
    mentioned more than four centuries earlier by the Mohammedan merchant
    Soleyman, who visited China about the middle of the 9th century.  He
    states (Reinaud, Relation des Voyages faits par les Arabes et les
    Persans dans l’Inde et a la Chine, 1845, I. 40):  “The people of China
    are accustomed to use as a beverage an infusion of a plant, which they
    call sakh, and the leaves of which are aromatic and of a bitter
    taste.  It is considered very wholesome.  This plant (the leaves) is
    sold in all the cities of the empire.” (Bretschneider, Hist.  Bot. 
    Disc.I. p. 5.)—­H.  C.]