Mrs. Hugh Fraser

Origin—Venice’s Growth—Treaties with the Emperor—Pietro Orseolo Annihilates the Pirates—Welcome on His Return—Story of Marco Polo—A Trader with the East—A Strange Journey—Bokhara—Capital of Kublai Khan—Impressed with Christian Ideals—Return Journey—At Home in Venice—Failure of Plans to Convert the Tartars—Again in the Far East—Lost for Twenty-five Years—Return to Venice with Vast Wealth—A Gorgeous Banquet—Marco’s Rehabilitation—Ruskin and the Church.

The origin of the ceremony known as the wedding of the sea dates from the reign of Pietro Orseolo, the son of that Pietro who left the world for the cloister, after two years of, to him, extremely unsympathetic labour. The old gentleman had prophesied the boy’s rise to his father’s plane, during one of the former’s very few visits to him, in these words: “I know that they will make you Doge, and I know that you will prosper.” The prophecy was more than fulfilled, for young Pietro proved to be a good man and a strong ruler, and he raised Venice from the position of a small state, torn to pieces by internal warfare, and constantly at the mercy of her stronger neighbours, to an eminence from which, looking back at her immediate past, and down upon the development of those same neighbours, she could call herself the “Queen of the Seas,” and that without fear that any would attempt to challenge her self-assumed title.

He began his work by trying to lay that fruitful cause of so many quarrels, the question of allegiance to the Empire of the East or to that of the West, by making treaties with both, and that done—his decks, so to speak, cleared for action—he turned his attention to the freebooters, who for a long time past had been exacting a heavy annual tribute from the weakness of the distracted State.

In the first combat that followed he defeated them handsomely, and they, in revenge, not daring to jeopardise themselves in the lagoons and canals, turned upon the coast towns of Dalmatia, sacking and looting them one after another.

These latter, in despair, appealed to Venice for help, and Pietro jumped at the chance, and gathered together a fleet as quickly as he could arm it. From the ecclesiastical authorities he received St. Mark’s banner, and set sail, as we are told, in the early spring.

Contrary winds, or rather fortunate ones, drove them over to Grado, whose Patriarch was the son of the murdered Candiano, the predecessor of Pietro’s father, and Pietro was somewhat nervous of approaching the former in the midst of his own people. But the Patriarch had buried the old feud, perhaps with the aid of the thought that Pietro’s cause, at the moment, was his own, and sailed out to meet them, and brought with him the Standard of St. Heonagora, which he left with them.

Sailing away, Pietro received the submission of all the defenceless ports and islands from Grado clear to the pirates’ stronghold, the rock-enclosed city of Lagorta, the sight of which might have given pause to a much stronger force than that which he had brought with him; but, as Napier so truly says, moral force is the greatest thing in war, from wherever or whatever it may be derived, and, strong in the righteousness of his cause, his belief in himself, and, it may be, fortified by the homage of the ports and islands, he attacked, seized, and destroyed it utterly.

The welcome which Venice gave him on his return was no half-hearted affair, as one may imagine, since he had sailed away from a State—and returned with a small empire in his lap. The Clergy, all in the most sumptuous vestments, were pulled across from the historic olive woods of Castello and met Pietro in his own magnificent barge, at the Lido, where the Bishop prayed and the priests sang and the incense rose, and the Bishop sprinkled Pietro with holy water, and poured what was left into the lagoon, imploring the Almighty to make the sea safe both for them and for all others who should sail upon it.

In this search for flowers, one cannot stay in one part of the garden, methodically extracting the choice of its beds, and then move, as methodically, on to the next; so I must be excused if, seeing a bloom, I pick it, and look around me afterwards for another, instead of keeping my eyes on those on either side of me, when I might be tempted to smaller and weaker blossoms, and so, my basket filled, find no room for the best, when I come upon them afterwards.

Marco Polo was one of a family of merchants, quiet and law-abiding people, and who traded successfully, in spite of the almost continuous state of war in which their world was plunged, with the near East, and particularly with Constantinople, where for many years they had been in perfect safety, thanks to the chests full of treaties which the Venetians had made with the rulers of the Eastern Capital.

But now, as Marco came into his manhood, his affairs were no longer quite so secure, for a change of dynasty seemed to be approaching the near East, and the Venetians, being allies of the old House, were by consequence the enemies of the new, and of their friends—a state of things not at all to the taste of those steady, somewhat pompous men of affairs who, until that time, had had this extremely satisfactory market to themselves.

Foreseeing, probably, that their State would presently be involved in a war for the commercial supremacy of the East, the outcome of which was, to say the least of it, doubtful, Marco and his brother resolved to take time by the forelock and establish a new trading base before the old one was lost to them for ever; so, after a great deal of prolonged discussion, and one may imagine how much adding and subtracting and multiplying and dividing of figures, the two men started, sailed for the Crimea, where a foothold at least had already been obtained, and a base of supplies partially established.

They left Constantinople while the struggle between Paleologus and the Latins was at its worst, and took with them a stock of goods, as being the most portable and convenient agent of exchange in the mysterious and practically unknown countries for which they were bound. They seem to have had some idea of the products of the East, however, and no doubt expected to make a most profitable journey among the barbarians.

A stranger journey has never, perhaps, been taken. The East, the huge, ponderous, top-heavy old East, was only known of at all through the emissaries of Innocent IV and, as an occasional assistance against the Saracens, by the Crusaders.

Their wanderings from Soldadina to Bokhara must have been eventful enough, for that part of the world was quite as much at war with itself as was Europe, but Bokhara itself must have been a weary memory to them afterwards, for they were kept there for the better part of three years, being unable either to advance or to retire—the unknown in front and the over-risky deserts behind.

Here they were picked up by some envoys journeying to the court of Kublai Khan—who offered to take them with them, assuring them that the great Prince would be overjoyed to receive them, since he had never seen a European in his life.

They spoke no more than the truth, for when, after months of hard travel over the steppes and through the hot, arid, pungent dust—the days as hot as fire itself, the nights, as often as not, bitterly chill—the two hardy brothers arrived at the Khan’s Capital, he received them with great honour and placed everything of his at their service, as though they were brother Princes. A gentle-mannered, polite, very imaginative person they found him, with an unlit fire of religious feeling, to which their devout Catholicism very soon put a match. A wise man—one may well say a great one—the empty idolatry of his own people could have no attraction for him, and when the two brothers, at his earnest request, expounded to him some of the leading tenets of Christianity, he was so struck with its ideals that he begged them to take a petition to the Pope, that His Holiness would send him a hundred men—wise men—versed in the uses of argument and capable of converting his Tartars by convincing their reason in the matter; a task for wise men, indeed, when the reason of the average Tartar is taken into consideration, unless the Khan intended to supplement their efforts by making an appeal of his own to other of their senses.

The two brothers started on their return journey by themselves, carrying with them a passport in the shape of a golden tablet on which the Prince’s injunctions to whomsoever it might be shown were carved. Three years it took the adventurous pair to arrive at Acre, one of the last outposts of civilisation, when they were told that the Pope was dead.

Having been informed by the legate that there was little chance of a Pope’s being elected for a long time to come, and, seeing that only to a Pope could the petition be delivered, they cast about for some way to fill in the time, and bethought them of Venice. Neither of them had paid their native state a visit in fifteen years, and Marco, it appears, had a child there. His wife was probably dead, though it is impossible to be sure of it, and Marco’s heart was naturally moved at the prospect of an entirely new experience, that of holding his own child in his arms.

So to Venice they repaired, and in the pleasures of renewing their acquaintance with old-time friends, and bathing in the comforts and delights of civilisation, the Khan and his business gradually faded from their minds. The election of a new Pope seemed to be as far away as ever, too, and the whole world of the church was divided into camps, with no prospect that any one could see of a solution of the trouble.

It must be explained that the Emperor had taken it into his autocratic heart, at that time, to elect a Pope of his own, and force recognition from the rule of Christianity in the usual fashion if his presumption were resented.

As time went by the explorers’ hearts began to get restless again, for that fever never leaves its victims alone for long, and their imaginations turned to the East, where the Khan was still waiting for them; with that, it appears, their religious instincts awoke again, and the business of converting the Tartars became the most important thing in the world to them.

In a very short while they were once more in Acre, where they had another interview with the Legate Tibaldo di Piacenza, who was soon to move from Acre to the throne of Peter (as Gregory), from whom they obtained a document which should explain to Kublai Khan the impossibility of satisfying his wishes in the absence of a supreme authority.

They had got no further than Armenia when they were overtaken by messengers from Tibaldo, announcing his election and bidding them come to Acre, where he would do what he could in the matter of the desired mission.

So to Acre they returned; but Gregory could not find anything like a hundred wise men who were willing to undertake such an errand, and, since he needed all of such that he could find near him just then, the Emperor having by no means relinquished his ambitions, he compromised by despatching a couple of Dominicans.

These pious men, however, while they had been willing enough to risk themselves in an ordinary venture, shrank—and quite reasonably—from the prospect which the brothers unfolded to them on the way; it must be confessed that the chances they were asked to take were rather appalling, and, at the last point from which they could return safely, they left the brothers and made back whence they had come.

So the three (for Marco’s son accompanied them) struck out into the hinterland alone, and for three long years they journeyed on ceaselessly, now in peace, now fighting, now fed, now half starved, until at last they came to the rising ground, from whose sandy height they had looked their last on the city of Kublai Khan eight years before.

With the descent of the farther slope, they vanished from the world, as completely as though they had been swallowed up in a “dust-devil,” and a quarter of a century passed before they reappeared, by which time every memory of them had grown dim in Venice.

It was, as I have said, only after twenty-five years that they managed to make their way across Asia, slowly and, it must be supposed, anxiously, for they carried with them a burden of wealth, the like of which had never before been heard of in prosaic Europe. As they had vanished in the twilight, so they returned in the dusk, three figures, crouching in the long boat, looking about them at the dim bulk of house, church, and palace with eager eyes, and whispering to each other, as old, long-forgotten landmarks rose up from the water to greet them. They must have chuckled to themselves, too, at the thought of the amazement of their relations at the joke which they were going to play upon them presently. For a sorry appearance they must have presented, yet beneath the rough Tartar clothing was hidden that which would have bought a street of those shadowy buildings that loomed up on either side of them.

The Casa Polo happened that night to be full of their relations, brought together for a “festa” of some sort, and when they arrived in the courtyard the sounds and the lights must have warmed the travellers’ hearts. Nothing could have been more to their taste, or at least to that of Marco, who was decidedly fond of the “lime-light,” than the prospect of being thus precipitated into a crowd of strange relations. That the present owners might not be enthusiastic about giving up the “Casa” to its rightful owners does not seem to have occurred to them, for they advanced boldly and knocked, announcing themselves loudly when the windows filled with heads, and the gate—which may be seen to this day in the Corte della Sabbinera—with bodies, and the air with voices, demanding to know who these evil-looking strangers were and by what right they came thundering at the doors of a noble House.

A difficult business it proved for the three to so much as make themselves understood, for their Venetian was rusty and their faces were those of absolute strangers. They were dirty and brown and altogether foreign, but they seem to have made some impression, for they were allowed to make a serious attempt at establishing their identity, by asking every one present to a great banquet on the following day—when, as the story goes, they astonished the company vastly by changing their dress no less than three times during the meal, each time for a more gorgeous one, until the climax came upon young Marco’s leaving the table and bringing into the room the three coarse Tartar coats in which they had returned, and ripping them open, when such a rain of jewels fell upon the table that the company sprang to its feet with cries, for nothing like it had been heard of in the memory of man. At the sight of such prodigious wealth, it seems the relations recognised them instantly, as is the habit of relations to this day, and fell upon their necks, and all the young plants of grace came to the house from all over the town and also fell upon their necks and made much of them, and the night must have slid into the day in a blaze of glory and wine.

So the adventurers came home again, and for years afterwards Marco continued to relate the amazing tales of their adventures, not ceasing even when he was in prison in Genoa, after the battle of Cuozla.

I must, with permission, take this opportunity of warning all and sundry against a too serious consideration of the late Mr. Ruskin in any other capacity than as a student of the beautiful. In that he is alone. As a philosopher—or as a theologian—he is also alone, and I would very strongly recommend my readers to leave him in his loneliness. I would not take the space to notice the calumnies on the Church and her history with which his immortal work is interlarded, save that she and her teachings are, as far as can be judged from contemporary writings, utterly unknown to any one outside of her own Communion. Again and again I have picked up articles, written by men of known learning, professors, clergymen, men of letters, whose names are almost household words, that set forth, with all complacency and assurance—not as statements about which there might be some reasonable doubt, but as facts, so well known as to admit of no further question—such appalling lies—there is no other word for it—that one is driven, at times, to the point of wondering if it is an epidemic from which they are suffering—a disease which they have caught unconsciously and in spite of themselves. On most other subjects they are sane—on other questions which they undertake to discuss they are informed—they must be, or else how could they have arrived at their present eminence? Yet, for the discussion of this, admittedly the most intricate of studies and one for the understanding of which a lifetime of labour is hardly sufficient, they never appear to feel the need of any sort of serious preparation. In the same way, while they will vigorously adhere to facts, elsewhere, refraining manfully from entangling comment, here they seem to lose all sense of moral obligations in the direction of effectual research, and, naturally kindly, as many of them are, they become simply venomous. Naturally accurate and conscientious, they develop a spirit of vicious speculation, which amounts to a possession.

I will not enlarge upon this topic, nor would I have embarked upon it at all were it not that the spirit of Ruskin—narrow, self-centred, self-contented, utterly uninformed, making a religion of ill-will, and ill-will into a religion—has as much sway in our day as it had in his, and its expression in his works is the reflection of the real feelings of many, many people to-day. Let none doubt that; and the fact that the calumniators are, some of them, men of blameless private life, or of unquestionable mental integrity in their own work, makes them all the more difficult to reach, for the pride which those private virtues engender is a horribly thick armour to penetrate.