74 pages • 2 hours read
The Travels of Marco Polo
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Themes
Dangerous Travel
Polo includes many examples of hazards that other travelers might encounter if they visit the places he has. For example: “The multitude of tigers makes traveling dangerous unless a number of persons go in company” (3534-35). If it’s not wild animals roaming freely in the plains, it’s wild birds lying in wait in high mountains.
It’s not only wildlife that can threaten travelers, either; more likely is the danger posed to travelers by other humans: “They are all an unprincipled people whose occupation it is to rob merchants” (817-18). As well, fighting between cities, countries, and empires can make traveling through these lands hazardous.
Another potential threat is weather-based phenomenon, such as snow and ice or torrential rains. Deserts arrive often, and sometimes take weeks to cross: “The merchants, therefore, who in traveling from one province to another must pass through vast deserts and tracts of sand, where no kind of herbage is to be met with” (954-55).
Religious Differences
Time and again, the peoples that Polo visits are described as Muslims: “They are all followers of the Mahometan religion” (964–965). In many cases, as here, this is stated simply as a fact. In one instance, the religion of a people has no bearing on the way they act: “In the mountainous parts there is a race of people named Kurds, some of whom are Christians and others Mahometans.
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