Museum Notes

Press, Volume LXXV, Issue 22851, 26 October 1939, Page 2 (Supplement)

Museum Notes

Some 200 years before Columbus pet out by see to discover the East, another Italian, 17 year old. MaroO Polo of Venice, set out over the ancient caravan trails for fabled Cathay, He returned at the age of 40 with stories which were too much for the Europe of his day, go milch so that the copyist of Florence engaged to write his manuscript ■ apologises in a preface:

“The contents seem to me incredihle things, not lies sp much as miracles; and it may he all very true what he says, but I don’t believe it." Knowing of modern oil-wells, we no longer smile about certain “fountains" in Georgia from which sprang oil “that is good tg burn." though it was more used to “annolnt camels that have the mange.” And we are quite familiar with the uses of a “certain black stone” which when lighted "burns like charcoal and retains the fire better than wood.”

Venetian merchants were amazed also that throughout the great Mongol realm, extending from Poland to the China Sea, people were satisfied with money consisting of stamped pieces of paper made from the inner bark of the ipaper mulberry tree. As for the relative importance of China and Europe, Marco estimated that the Yangtse river carried more shipping than all the waterways of Christendom. Since then the world of the West has with increasing wonder been

CHINA AND JAPAN Marco Polo

(By R. S. Duff)

realising its debt to the East. In the next few weeks let us approach China as Marco Polo did, not as a civilised European discovering savage Asiatics, but as a savage discovering civilisation. The. splendidly illustrated story of Marco Polo’s amazing exploits is published in the November 1928 number of the “National Geographic Magazine.” For those

who wish to read more deeply there .is the book ‘‘Travels of Marco Polo,” translated and edited by Colonel Sir Henery Yule.

Crossing the Rubicon

. The Rubicon is a small Italian river running into the Adriatic Sea 00 miles from the town of Rimini. In the times of Sulla, the famous Roman dictator, the short course of the Rubicon traced the frontier between the Roman province of Umbria and Cisalpine Gaul. Wish* ing to be guarded against renewed incursions, the Roman Senate had decreed that anyone crossing over the, river with armed men would be regarded as. a foe to the Republic. In 49 B.C. Julius Caesar happened to be in Cisalpine Gaul with some legions when he heard of the intrigues Pompey was brewing against him in Home, paesar made up his mind to revenge himself, and. gathering his legions, marched towards Rome. The Rubicon lay on his. way, To pass beyond was to wage war against the Republic of Rome. Caesar stopped, hesitating for a few minutes on the bank of the river; but at last he shouted: "Alea jacta esti” or “The die is cast," and ordered his troops to cross over. Since that time the expression “to cross the Rubicon” has been applied to all decisive actions that do not permit of drawing hack, whatever the consequences.