World Travelers
WORLDHISTORY PROJECT1200 / LESSON 2.5OPENERWORLD TRAVELERSUnless otherwise noted, this work is licensed under CC BY 4.0. Credit: “World Travelers”, OER Project, www.oerproject.com/PurposeMarco Polo was a famous fourteenth-century explorer. This activity will sharpen your critical-thinking skills by asking you to figure out what the explorer was describing in each passage from The Travels of Marco Polo.Process1.Passage:“It is a fact that all over the country of Cathay there is a kind of black stone existing in beds in the mountains, which they dig out and burn like firewood. If you supply the fire with them at night, and see that they are well kindled, you will find them still alight in the morning; and they make such capital fuel that no other is used throughout the country. It is true that they have plenty of wood also, but they do not burn it, because those stones burn better and cost less.”What is Polo describing? What evidence supports your answer?2.Passage:“Now you must know that from this city ... proceed many roads and highways leading to a variety of provinces ... [and] every twenty-five miles of the journey [there is] a station which they call Yamb, or, as we should say, the “Horse-Post-House.” And at each of those stations ... there is a large and handsome building ... in which they find all the rooms furnished with fine beds and all other necessary articles.... At some of these stations, moreover, there shall be posted some four hundred horses standing ready.... Butthey are provided with horses and all the other necessaries just like those we have described, so that the Emperor’s messengers, come they from what region they may, find everything ready for them.... And in this way the Emperor, who has an immense numberof these runners, receives dispatches with news from places ten days’ journey off in one day and night....”What is Polo describing? What evidence supports your answer?
WORLD HISTORY PROJECT1200 / LESSON 2.5OPENERWORLD TRAVELERS3.Passage:“There are wild elephants in the country, and numerous unicorns, which are very nearly as big. They have hair like that of a buffalo, feet like those of an elephant, and a horn in the middle of the forehead, which is black and very thick. They do no mischief, however, with the horn, but with the tongue alone; for this is covered all over with long and strong prickles and when savage with anyone they crush him under their knees and then rasp him with their tongue. The head resembles that of a wild boar, and they carry it ever bent towards the ground. They delight much to abide in mire and mud.”What is Polo describing? What evidence supports your answer?4.Based on what you read, how would you describe the China that Marco Polo visited?