What the Traveller Didn't See . . .

Archival Quality Communication

AQC for Today, for Tomorrow, and for ever . . . .

Marco Polo is probably the most famous traveller in history; certainly in Europe. He spent much time in the Orient, but it is amazing what he didn't tell us. I once spent a number of years reading the Travels. I took the book to work and read a chapter or two on each fifteen minute break. Most of the chapters are extremely short, and it is a very long book. I spent longer than necessary because I changed jobs at least twice in that time, and lost the book for a stretch of several years, but did eventually complete it. I spent so long at it that I developed a curious relationship with the book, a kind of proprietary feeling, and so I always react with interest anytime Marco or his book is mentioned.

My impression of the book, besides the interesting curiosities he speaks of, is that it is the journal of a merchant. He is interested in cost, value, and merchantable wares. He is greatly interested in natural and domestic resources; he seems to have been the first to tell the West about coal; but he also speaks of other minerals, such as cinnabar, and oil. Interesting customs are his bread and butter. He wishes to report them back to the Qa'an. According to Polo there were many towns in Asia at that time which practiced cannibalism. Many of them ate their dead relatives, ostensibly to keep the person's spirit in the family. Polo uses the phrase "they eat him up rump and stump" a number of times; certainly a colourful way to express the idea.

E. M. Forster has written an interesting essay on the book. He speaks of the great impression it made in Europe, and remarks:

Yet it is not a first-rate book, for the reason that its author is interested in novelties, to the exclusion of human beings. Herodotus was interested in both, and he is a great traveller in consequence. Marco Polo is only a little traveller. He could bring back thrilling statistics, he could also discourse quaintly about oddities, such as the one-eyed cobbler who moved a mountain near Mosul, or the exportation of dried pygmies from India, but he could not differentiate between men and make them come alive, and the East that he evoked is only a land of strange customs.

Forster suggests that anyone who really wants to understand the East should read the Memoirs of the Emperour Babur, of whom he has also written an essay, which includes the delicious line: "One could scarcely travel two miles without being held up by an Emperor."

Of the early travellers who came to America many returned home and wrote reports of the wonders of the new country; but, as they travelled here only in summer, they omitted to speak of the New England winters, and many settlers found the hard way just how difficult these could be. One wrote of the glowing accounts, after bitter experience: "truly they wrote in strawberry time."

Travel narrative is is not history, it is a form of autobiography. A traveller sees only what he sees. He may talk to people who tell him things that he does not see, but then he is dependent on them, and his critical faculties to determine the truth of what he hears. Traveller's accounts can provide important clues to what was going on in a certain area, like a snapshot. Nevertheless, the traveller does not always understand what he sees, and often he is deliberately given misleading information. The locals may want him to think the place is better than it actually is, or to have a little humour at his expense. The traveller will notice some things that the locals know so well they don't pay much attention to them; on the other hand, he will not understand some of the things he sees (or doesn't see), but assume he does, and so he will not ask for the essential piece of information that would give him true understanding.

It is also obvious that no matter how far one goes, and how long he stays, a single person can only see a tiny fraction of a country as huge as ours. It is very easy to think that what we see is all there is. I can illustrate this easily. Francois Michaux travelled through Kentucky in 1802. His memoirs are perceptive and valuable. He still did not see everything: I notice that he says Kentucky farmers did not keep sheep because it was too difficult to keep them in the wilderness. It was difficult; but I find in the estate inventories at this time that many of our local farmers have ten to fifteen sheep, some more. They all have spinning wheels and looms, but without sheep's wool these will be of little use. Michaux was observant and his observations are valuable, it just happened that he did not see sheep as he travelled through the Commonwealth. His conclusion, that farmers did not keep them, was unjustified. We can understand how he came to this conclusion, but we cannot accept his word about what he didn't see . . .

I notice that many of the accounts of travels down the Ohio River are accepted by various historians without question. Does Mrs. So and So, or General Whimsy, state such and such about a town along the river? Writers will gratefully accept almost any statement as truth in the most uncritical fashion. It is true that all of these accounts are of great interest to us. The good historian can find a way to use almost any observation he finds. Nevertheless, there are limitations inherent in this type of literature, and any statement read should not be used without criticism. We must always be aware of what the traveller didn't see.

This is an Archival Quality Communication

James Duvall, M. A.
Researcher
Boone County Public Library

Note: Forster's essays can be found in Abinger Harvest: Essays on Books, People and Places (New York: Meridian, 1955)

You can read Michaux's Travels online.