The fine bast between the bark and the wood of the trees was pounded down, and stretched out with glue, and then marked with the Khan’s seal. The money was created from the bark of mulberry tree. Marco Polo noted how the Khan had paper money created for him for ease of transport, and to carry lighter loads of cash around, rather than tons of metal coins. It was the winter capital of the Mongol-led Yuan Dynasty of China, under the reign of Kublai Khan, a great-great grandson of Genghis Khan. This city was in what is now central Beijing. Marco Polo came across this in his travels in the city of Khan-balik, which literally translates to ‘City of the Khan’. 1294, via BritannicaĪnother discovery he made which was unknown to Europeans at the time was currency in the form of paper money. Paper Money Portrait of Kublai Khan, artist unknown, c. The descriptions are quite accurate for a crocodile too, and suggest that he has observed them for some time.Ģ. Marco Polo describes the creature as a “serpent”, identifying it as a separate animal from snakes, which he mentions earlier, and is likely already familiar with, having hailed from Europe where there are various native snakes. Medieval depiction of a crocodile from Marco Polo’s time, c. He went on to add that “their mouth is big enough to swallow a man at one gulp.” The sheer fascination is clear when reading The Travels, although some historians and naturalists have disputed whether this really was a crocodile he was describing, or whether he used some generous poetic licence and sprinkled in some descriptions from Chinese mythical dragons. He came across the reptilians and described them as “loathsome creatures”. That is what Marco Polo had to do when he was on his travels in a place he called Kara-jang, which we now know as Yunnan Province, China. However, imagine describing a crocodile to people who had never even heard of one, let alone seen one. We may now think of crocodiles as something we would only see in a wildlife documentary on television, or in a zoo or safari park. Marco Polo’s Encounter with Crocodiles Mosaic of Marco Polo, displayed in the Palazzo Doria-Tursey, Genoa, Italy, 1867, via
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