The Hindu-Arabic Numerals c11.43

c11.43

Only a little later than this the brothers Nicolo and Maffeo Polo entered upon their famous wanderings.¹ Leaving Constantinople in 1260, they went by the Sea of Azov to Bokhara, and thence to the court of Kublai Khan, penetrating China, and returning by way of Acre in 1269 with a commission which required them to go back to China two years later. This time they took with them Nicolo’s son Marco, the historian of the journey, and went across the plateau of Pamir; they spent about twenty years in China, and came back by sea from China to Persia.