Category: Marco Polo (Page 1 of 3)

Marco Polo arrives in Tibet after leaving Ch’êng-tu-fu and traveling through the plain and valley for five days. He describes the province as “terribly devastated” after battle. Other towns and cities surrounding Tibet were also damaged (171). Polo describes how merchants and travelers in Tibet used large canes that produced a loud, obnoxious noise to scare away the dangerous beasts of prey abundant in the area. Polo says that the area is so desolate that it extends for a twenty day journey that is basically entirely spent without access to shelter or food. The area is deemed dangerous. 

He also describes some of the customs he notices, and disapproves of, in Tibet. Mainly the marriage customs, one in particular says that “…a woman is worthless unless she has had knowledge of many men” (172). The women were seen as not suited for marriage if they were  virgins. They would receive tokens to display on themselves from the prior men they had relationships with, and if she had many she was seen as “…most favorable by the gods” (173). He highlights religion again, saying that all of the natives are idolaters. He specifically describes them as “out-and-out bad,” and the “greatest rogues and the greatest robbers in the world,” clearly casting judgement on them because of the way and what they worship (173). He also describes them as “rascally,” again casting judgment towards them (173). He also judges them because of their currency and the fact that they use salt instead of paper money. When describing the trade in Tibet, he notes that they have gold and cinnamon in high quantities. 

Clearly, Polo believes he is morally superior to the people of Tibet because of their low quality environment, beasts, social customs, and religion. His judgement towards them because of their religion, reflects the same judgments he has carried throughout his narrative towards idolaters, especially due to his own religion. He does focus on and acknowledge the trade in Tibet, but spends more time judging the province because of its prior destruction. Tibet is a larger region, so it makes sense that Polo spent time reporting about the area and the things he saw, but his particular language in this section is interesting since he clearly casts more judgment towards this region than some of the others. His use of “out-and-out bad” in particular proves how judgemental he is towards idolaters, to the point where it can impact his entire perspective of a place.

The Hereford Mappamundi was created after the time that Marco Polo was traveling, but Marco Polo would not have chosen to use it while he was traveling anyway. The Hereford Mappamundi was not created with geography and travel in mind. Its purpose was to be symbolic, and display art and religion in relation to the world as it was understood at the time through a Christian lens. The purpose of a modern map is to be geographically accurate and informed. The modern map would’ve better reflected the distances and landscapes of the places Polo was traveling to.

The Hereford Mappamundi is a T-O map that divides the world into only three continents, Europe, Asia, and Africa. I noticed while I was mapping Armenia and China that they were almost directly next to each other, which is inaccurate to how close they are in reality. The orientation and arrangement of the map distorts the actual distance between the locations. The map is also very obviously Christian oriented. It depicts Jersualem at the center of the map, and the world, and orientates the map with east at the top to represent paradise and heaven. This was one of the biggest differences in mapping on the modern map versus the Hereford Mappamundi. It made it extremely difficult to accurately map the places Polo traveled to on the medieval map. Polo begins his journey in Venice, and to accurately mark where that is, I had to physically take a picture of the modern map and rotate it to the east so I would get a better idea of where everything was located.

The Hereford Mappamundi also uses icons and drawings to represent locations. It has over 500 drawings that have spiritual meanings or depict a curiosity for parts of the world that were unknown. It includes biblical scenes, cities, animals, and depictions of strange people of the world. Some of the drawings were confusing, but others helped me locate the places I was mapping. For example, there is a drawing of an elephant that represents how Indian and Persian solders would use them as fighting platforms, and that story and image helped me find Persia on the map. On the modern map there is a complete arial view of every city in the world. You can see shops, monuments, parks, roads, and topography, which made it significantly easier to map the places Polo traveled to on the map because they were extremely accurate.

Marco Polo is very focused on Christianity throughout his travel narrative. He frequently talks about it, especially when comparing Christianity to other religions he saw. This is where I believe Polo’s travels and the Hereford Mappamundi are the most related. The Hereford Mappamundi is a visual representation of the Christian world as it was understood at the time. Polo would’ve agreed with the way the biblical history was explaining the origins of the world. The drawings that depict monstrous races and the unknown were also depicted by Polo in his travel narrative. He says “…all the men on this island have heads like dogs…” which perfectly matches the dog headed people or Cynocephali featured on the mappamundi (Polo 256). He interprets the people in Asia through a Christian medieval lens, just like the map. Though I do think he would’ve appreciated a map that was more geographically accurate because of his long travels and interest in trade as a merchant. He spends a lot of his travel narrative talking about the time and distance it took to travel to a new place, and a map like the Hereford Mappamundi, would’ve been unhelpful for the practical aspects of his voyages. A modern map would’ve given him a clearer view of the locations he was traveling to.

Marco Polo’s travel narrative gave his predominately Christian audience an interesting perspective of the world and how it related to their view of Christianity. The Hereford Mappamundi would’ve reflected this world view but been inaccurate in regard to the geographical locations and distances between the places Polo traveled to. Its purpose was to create a map that could be considered a work of art and reflect Christianity in regard to the world. A modern map would’ve been useful to Marco Polo’s travels but couldn’t reflect an accurate picture of how a Christian would view the world like he did at the time. The differences between the maps show how the ideas of the world influence the way the physical locations are shown, versus the spiritual meanings.

Map: https://storymap.knightlab.com/edit/?id=marco-polo-travel-map

While it was sometimes difficult to plot the points of Marco Polo’s journey onto a modern map due to ancient locations and names not lining up with those of the modern day, it seems even more confusing trying to map these modern points onto my ancient map simply because of the visual differences and artistic vision of the two separate maps. Looking through a strictly visual lens to start, it is clear that the Tabula Rogeriana as an ancient piece of cartography carries different perspectives on the world from what we know today, the space being represented in physically and culturally different ways.

                  At a first glance, the Tabula Rogeriana looks like a completely different world, and the landmasses look like something you would see in the front pages of a high fantasy fiction novel. But turning the map upside down and taking a careful look will show that it does indeed represent the majority of mainland Europe and Asia, as well as Northern Africa. The difference in appearance comes from how the map has been oriented upside down, at least according to our traditional Eurocentric views on what a map should look like. Instead, and this is due to the map’s creator being Muslim, the map takes on an Islamic view of the world where South is oriented towards the top of the map.

                  The Tabula Rogeriana also provides an outlook that is more interpretive and is put together through scholarship and beliefs about the world, as well as the desire to see pathways and obstacles in relation to trade. It is organized into a kind of grid, where one might be able to pick out a certain section of the map and do a cursory analysis of the region based on the important features drawn in. Individual settlements, forests, mountains, lakes, rivers, and roads can be seen clearly on the map, as they are drawn to stand out sharply as features of note for a traveler through the region. Being able to see all of these geographical features from such a wide lens on the map offers an important but also very vague interpretation of direction and landscape across the continents. This is opposed to the digital modern maps of today, where a zoomed out view will show general topography and borders, but zooming in allows for extremely precise location tracking, names of roads and buildings, directions, and more.

                  This contrast carries over on a grander scale as well when looking at the organization of the world and its continents on the Tabula Rogeriana. With the precise tools, mapping, and satellite views of today, we have been able to carefully and accurately map out landmasses with greater care for scale. It is clear when looking at the ancient map and trying to plot points, there was not a lot of knowledge or care for the true scale of things, but the real focus was giving a simple regional overview. Compared to other ancient maps, this one is surprisingly easy to interpret when trying to make out the picture it is painting of the globe. You can see the European peninsula and the extension of Italy clearly, and make out the Middle East, Eastern Asia, and Northern Africa as separate entities – albeit ones still blocky in form and completely off scale. This becomes more of a problem when looking at all of the various islands, which generally are not differentiated from one another much, and are really just grouped together tightly to show that they are all in the water over there somewhere, but the distances between the islands are not mapped at all.

                  Based on all of these things you can point out between the two maps, I would generally say that when we look at maps today and all of our navigational devices, we are using them strictly directionally and for the sake of knowing where we are and which direction to travel next. In ancient maps such as the Tabula Rogeriana, I would say there is more cultural weight behind the cartography, and while the geography was not as well known, the cartographers of the period aimed to implement more cultural knowledge and ideas about how the world was connected. Growing trade and travel necessitated clear pathways and markings of what settlements were in a region, as well as potential geographical roadblocks to be encountered. Using my previous points I plotted on the modern map in relation to Marco Polo’s journey, and trying to plot them on this ancient map, it is interesting to see how difficult travel must have been and how impressive it was for him to include multiple measurements of distance, especially seeing how vague distances were when looking at the Southeastern Asian islands. Today, we would look at our GPS and think about ourselves, where we are, what our next stop is – ancient technologies were less precise, but the growth in travel subsequently grew the desire for knowledge of the wider world.

Marco Polo is renowned for his travels across the Medieval world, but notable, he would never have used a navigational tool such as the Ebstorf mappamundi during his travels. A concept such as using a map for directional information was not standardized and most travelers would resort to hiring guides or consulting manuscripts akin to those of Marco Polo’s for navigation. Because of this, mapping Polo’s travel route on an incomplete, biased, and overall incomprehensive is a argues endeavor since the creator of the map was not focused on geography, place, location, or even realistic accuracy. Instead, the Ebstorf map is filled with European ideas of the eastern world based on classical literature and Biblical overtones. Additionally, parts of Asia are completely unknown and not mapped at all. It is not even just Asia that is at risk. Domestically, countries are shrunk down to unproportionale sizes or in the case of Italy, Marco Polo’s native land, represented as sole city.

In comparison to a modern map, the Ebstorf map falls phenomenally short at being a device a traveler can use to orient themselves. The most notable difference is the overall size. While I had initially only plotted out Polo’s journey through mainland China on a modern map, doing as such on the Ebstorf map was simply impossible. To begin, China is not labeled as a definitive place on the map. The general direction of Asia is north of the “T” aspect of the map, dividing the world into three segments, leaves very little room to definitively mark each city Polo noted in his travels. Instead, I traced Polo’s journey starting from his departure in Venice. As mentioned previously, Italy is not represented geographically, but rather as a large circle of churches with a lion nearby comprise the city of Rome. Rome is reprehensive of a larger theme of the map: religion and its influence on the physical landscape of the world. Italy is only represented as Rome because of its ties with the Vatican and the Holy Sea. In contrast, Polo’s trail on a modern map shows only factual information of where he traveled and says nothing to how medieval people such as Polo would view the rest of the world.

The Ebstorf map puts into conversation European ideas of religion with the locations of places, showing how God and His Kingdom are everywhere in the mortal world, functioning more as the “medieval European’s view of the world” opposed to what it realistically looks like. Marco Polo reflects this in his accounts of his journey. Every place he goes, Polo mentions Christianity or how the area he is currently traveling through differs from the traditional Christian values. For instance, the second area plotted on the map is Jerusalem, which is notably one of the largest icons on the map, but also in the center of the whole world. Jerusalem is the Holy City, one of the most significant cities in the Christian world, so it being in the center of the world further supports how medieval map makers were influenced by the religion at the time. Other locations like Ayas, Saba, and the Grave of Saint Thomas, while not explicitly shown on the map can be located through iconography of Christian elements. In particular, Saba, the city where one of the three magi who came and bore gifts to the baby Jesus, is reportedly buried there, with the other two buried in surrounding locations. Saba is not on the map, but a turret where a plume of fire is spitting out at the top resembles the castle Polo talks about where “fire is worshipped”. The symbolism of the castle standing in for any geographic location or even a name is representative of how the map was “made for Europeans by Europeans”.  Inversely, areas of the world such as Myanmar are not with any definitive characteristics. The boarders of the map consist of mythical and misshapen people which fit the medieval narrative of not knowing what is beyond the gates of their own world. Polo “visits” such a place when he travels to the city of Mein, in Myanmar. There, Polo encounters what the Ebstof map considers “the boarder of civilization and humanity” and makes his journey seem like he has traveled across planes into a land of chaos and magic.

Marco Polo’s tales of travel were some of the most popular in the medieval world and even in the present day. His travel accounts give insight into how travelers from Europe would view the world and then bring back their discoveries and share them with others. This in turn influences how medieval map makers would style their maps, creating the world in the image of how a European would view it since that was all the information they had to base their designs off.

MAP: https://uploads.knightlab.com/storymapjs/fbe66306001392d57a9e7aec871afb8a/ebstorf-map/index.html

Cameron DeVries

Blog Post #5

The Travels of Marco Polo: India

November 13, 2025

For my final blog post, I am looking at Marco Polo’s time in India, which makes up one of the final chapters of the book and is one of the larger sections dedicated to one place. Marco Polo’s descriptions of India are far more in depth in comparison to some other sections like the islands between China and India in the last section, both due to the larger amount of time Marco Polo spends in India, and India’s established place in the world of “civilization” and economy.

Here, he jumps right into the marvels and wonders of India and what he encounters there. One of the first things he mentions is the dress of the people in the kingdom of Maabar, which does not leave much to the imagination. He notes how everyone walks around stark naked except sometimes for a simple loincloth type covering, and even the king goes mostly naked. He maintains his matter of factness about this, which is interesting considering how he would have seen the same thing in the previous section and called the people savages. This is similar to when he mentions the Brahmans, or the guys that use enchantments and incantations to protect the pearl divers from dangerous sea creatures. Marco Polo has been wary of magic in other sections, but kind of just mentions the Brahmans in a matter of fact way here. Later in the chapter he even talks about how the Brahmans may be cleaner and live longer than any others because of their lifestyle, and how they have great connection to birds and beasts.

Another immediate point of interest here are the great signs of wealth, which I can connect to the points I have already mentioned. The king, who is mostly naked like his people, is differentiated by the absurd amount of gems and jewels he wears on himself as a sign of his great wealth. Marco Polo also talks about the natural wealth through pearls, which are collected from oysters by the pearl divers along the shore, who are protected by the aforementioned Brahmans. All across India, he marvels at the gems and shows of wealth he sees, as well as spices such as pepper and ginger, which he sees an abundance of. This makes sense as India would have been a central location for trade and the flow of luxury goods during this time. Like many of the other places he visits, he also makes note of the interesting wildlife, such as exotic birds, big cats, monkeys, and elephants that are used for warfare.  He also talks about cows, and how they do not eat them here.

This goes into the religion, and how Marco Polo still holds strong to his Christian faith and does not believe those who worship other religions are exactly on the right track. He sees how the Hindus do not eat cows, and sees the different deities they worship, and once again just labels everyone as idolators. Still, even when seeming confused by the temples and religious customs such as those of the Yogis and their nakedness, he is not super harsh or judgmental here and seems like a curious observer, reporting back to the Khan and recording all he finds. Some other customs he encountered was he culture of loyalty, where when a husband died their wives would burn themselves alive alongside him. The king was also allowed to choose anyone to be his wife with no argument, and he even married the wife of his brother.

As per usual, he does not talk much about his own living situation, but mentions how hot it was in India, and how the climate could be harsh. He also warns against certain places where traveling upstream would lead to pirates that were known for taking all your goods. This is a large chapter, and there is a lot to cover here, but he generally keeps his same attitude of curiosity and level headedness, while also maintaining his position as a Christian. At the end of the day, he is also an important merchant, so while the customs may confuse him, something he understands very well is how to report back for the purpose of trade. He always lists the spices, animal products, gems, and other goods that may be valuable and where they can be found, as well as potential dangers to traders such as pirates.

The perception of race in Marco Polo’s Medieval travels is a complex and needless to say, very misguided. In particular, I wish to discuss race in Japan and how it corelated with cartography.

To begin, Marco Polo’s “adventure” through Japan simply did not happen. The account of the land is horrifically inaccurate and there is no proof other than his own word that he traveled there. The way in which Polo describes Japan is comparable to a fictional land of horror like one from the popular anime series “Attack on Titan (AoT)”. The people of Japan are similar to the titan creatures, an exaggerated, misshapen, gigantic  mutation of humans. These titans live exclusively on an excluded island and eat the regular inhabitants. Similarly, Polo describes most “tribes” of the Japanese as deformed cannibals who are unidentifiable between male and female (again just like the titans in Aot).

I believe that Marco Polo bases his descriptions of the Japanese off of the medieval Mappamudies that would have been circulating throughout Italy in his life time. Most people except for those wealthy enough to travel would never have any exposure to other cultures/races and would only hear about them through stories (like in the bible) or ancient myths like Gog and Magog. In these stories warped adaptations of other races would be put to paper on maps. So even though Marco Polo never went to Japan he still made those claims based on the knowledge he was working with.

Marco Polo describes Japan as a large island far out at sea, about 1,500 miles away from the mainland. He describes the inhabitants as “…fair-complexioned, good-looking, and well-mannered” (Polo 244). However, he does call them idolaters, meaning he views their religion as strange or wrong. Interestingly, he notes that they are independent and “…exercising no authority over any nation but themselves,” which is different from the places Polo has previously described (Polo 244). He makes Japan seem like a distant and isolated place that’s completely separated from everywhere else.

Polo says that Japan has gold in great abundance, in quantities so great they can’t be measured. He says that they don’t export it from the island because no traders go there, which is how they possess so much of it. They possess so much that one ruler’s palace is made out of gold. The island also has pearls, which are just as valuable as the white ones and also have a spiritual significance, like the pearls in Maabar. This is shown through their custom of placing pearls in the mouths of the dead when they are buried. By describing Japan’s gold and pearls, Polo shows how much wealth and trade matter to him and have been important throughout his travels. It’s something he values and continues to share with his audience.

Polo says the people’s idols here are similar to those in Cathay and Manzi. Then, his tone noticeably shifts, and he begins to describe the idols in an exaggerated and judgmental way. He says they have animal heads, multiple heads, or multiple hands and that the works of the idols are “…so manifold and of such devilish contrivance….” He claims he can’t write about them in his book because it’s too horrible to expose to his Christian audience (Polo 247). While Polo is often judgmental of religions outside of Christianity, here he seems particularly hostile to the ideologies of these people. He also again contrasts between admiring the physical region, trade, or people of a place, and condemning their beliefs and practices.

Polo ends his account by writing that the people of Japan “…kill their captive and make a meal of him with their kinsfolk….and this human flesh they consider the choicest of all foods” (Polo 248). This detail exposes how little Polo actually knows about Japan and how the stereotypes of the East were spread in medieval Europe. By describing them as cannibals he creates fear and pushes stereotypes to his European audience, so the East is seen as distant, savage, and strange, and Christianity is framed as the most moral religion. Polo finishes writing, “…I will tell you no more of this country or of these islands, because they are so out-of-the-way and because we have never been there” (Polo 249). It’s extremely interesting that Polo admits he never visited Japan, despite describing it in vivid detail. This confession perfectly places Japan as the furthest point on his journey, so far away that it seems more like an exotic idea than a reality.

Marco Polo sailed westward for about sixty miles from Ceylon and arrives in Maabar, or Greater India. He calls Maabar “…the best part of India,” describing it as the “richest and most splendid province in the world” (Polo 260). Polo’s account focuses on the region’s foreign customs, trading practices, climate, religion, and extraordinary wealth, which is especially interesting to Polo, probably because of his background as a merchant.

Polo focuses particular attention to the precious pearls and gems that are found in Maabar in the sea between the island and the mainland. They are the foundation of the regions good fortune. Merchants form partnerships with each other during the spring months to dive and fish for these pearls that are not only monetarily valuable but are also a symbol of social status and religious commitment. The king himself wears “…so many gems and pearls that their price exceeds that of a fine city” (Polo 262). His necklace of 104 pearls represents the 104 prayers he recites to his idols every morning and night. Polo seems impressed by this commerce and representation of status and often admires the king. Besides for his gems and pearls, the king, and everyone else in Maabar, is stark naked all year round. Polo credits this to the extremely hot and humid climate. The only time the region gets rain is during the summer months, and without that rain the heat would be unbearable. Yet Polo is very clear through his writing that he finds this strange. The idea of nakedness is so unnatural to him and disrupts his own cultural expectations. During his recount, he frequently shifts between admirations for the culture, and disapproval to things he finds unnatural.

The pearls are the driving force behind the large trading scene in Maabar, and it interests Polo. The king issues a proclamation several times a year, that encourages merchants to bring him their finest pearls and gems, which he then buys at twice their value. Polo admires the trade and customs here, but he is also fascinated by the omens and “superstitions” that surround trade, like the unlucky hour of choiach where merchants refuse to bargain or buy. Or judging whether a bargain is good or bad based off of where a tarantula cries. Polo doesn’t explicitly judge or mock these customs, but his tone suggest that he likely recorded them to be marveled by his European audience and to emphasize how far he’s traveled from home.

Beyond trading customs, Polo admires the strict justice system of the province, noting his pleasant surprise that merchants and nobles can sleep on the highway during their merchant travels without being scared of theft saying, “It is a proof of the excellent justice kept by the king…” (Polo 271). But Polo is disturbed, by the region’s marriage and death customs, specifically self-immolation, which is the practice of a widow burning herself to death alongside her husband during his funeral. He says, “And I assure you that there are many who do as I have told you” (Polo 265). He feels like he has to emphasize himself to prove that these customs really do occur, because to him it seems so unbelievable.

Polo’s account not only describes the interesting culture of Maabar but also reveals information about his own cultural norms. He portrays the region and India as an unbelievable place that is so different from his own to his European audience.

Cameron DeVries

Blog Post #4

The Travels of Marco Polo: Lesser Java

November 6, 2025

In the section entitled “From China to India”, I chose to look at Marco Polo’s descriptions of the island he calls “Lesser Java”, as this is one of the longer descriptions of this section and the place during this leg of the journey in which he runs into the most people and provides interesting descriptions. This area is part of Indonesia, and was part of his long journey by ship throughout the islands of Eastern and Southern Asia on the way to India. One thing to note first is that this is one of the few places in the narratives where Marco Polo gives a brief description of his own living conditions and interaction with the place he is staying in. When talking about Sumatra, one of the various kingdoms he encounters across the island, he says that he spent 5 months there due to weather. His descriptions showed some amount of struggle but also the ways that he and his people adapted to living in this uncharted territory. He says, “we dug a big trench round our encampment” and recalls using the timber from the area and supplies from trading with the native islanders to create wooden towers and fortifications that they lived in.

The reason for digging these trenches and building fortifications ties back to his writings on the people of Lesser Java, which is one of the aspects of this journey that he writes very harshly about in this section. This is a large island, and Marco Polo refers to eight different kingdoms, each with individual rulers and languages, and how all of them are idolaters (besides the people of Ferlec, having been converted to Islam). It is with these people that Marco Polo dives into his judgmental and denigrating comments – he claims they “live like beasts”, eat “every other sort of flesh, clean or unclean”, and “whatever they see first when they wake in the morning, that they worship.” To me, this section is interesting due to how matter of fact Marco Polo had remained before (for the most part) during his travels throughout Europe and the more mapped out parts of Asia. Here, he attacks dress, hygiene, diet, religion, appearance, and seemingly anything else he can think of. In the kingdom of Sumatra, he refers to the natives as “nasty and brutish folk who kill men for food.” This all goes hand in hand with the general attitude of this entire China to India chapter, where he ranges from the trite “savage” comments, to describing these islanders as looking like dogs and all sorts of other things.

Something that remains in line with Marco Polo’s attitude and position as a merchant is his view of the natural resources and “treasures” of the region he is passing through. Some comments he makes on this front detail how “the island abounds in treasure and in costly products”, including descriptions of how delicious wine is made in tree stumps, how the fish and camphor are the best in the world, and how all kinds of precious woods, spices, fruits and plants can be found in Lesser Java. Kind of going hand in hand with this is description of the wonders of wildlife he encounters, such as elephants, monkeys, and rhinos, which he calls unicorns.

It is interesting to see Marco Polo’s mercantile nature and outlook on exotic goods continue to come out here, but also now to see how his views on wealth are tied into the people nearby and the ways in which they use it. He approves of nature’s wealth here, but seeing as this part of the world may have been considered off the beaten track or apart from what was considered “major civilization” during this time, he doesn’t document a lot of large empires, structures, or shows of wealth in this region, which was something that impressed him throughout China. He seems curious and sees potential for trade, but still lets slip his Eurocentric and Christian nature, and his judgment comes out when presented with these more drastically different ways of life across Indonesia.

In this post I want to discuss how Marco Polo’s travel through India and China shows the evolving style of travel narratives/accounts. When we first started this class with Ibn Fadlan, his narrative of the “Land of Darkness” has a very personal feel to the story. While this has been the base line for our class, I want to put it into conversation with Benjamin of  Tudela. While Benjamin  still has his personal notes on his journey (specifically race, which I will discuss next blog post) it is not the same as Fadlan. We see that both the travel narrative and the travel account are blooming at very similar times alongside one another. How does this connect to Marco Polo? Polo is a culmination of the two ideas of what a travel text looks like. Polo (or Rustichello) blends the impersonal strictly “factual” (or as factual as one can get with personal bias obscuring the world) such as the four qualities that belongs to the people of the Khans while still talking about his own stories during his travels. We see that the idea of a travel text has evolved not only to show people back at home (who could afford to read the text)  serves to inform people of foreign areas (or also reinforce their ideas of what they want to believe) but also to fill their heads with mystical stories of wonder. The factual evidence begins with writers such as Benjamin of  Tudela who was very goal focused. Additionally, it is only natural to assume the human condition will add in it’s own perceptions of the world based on how the individual was raised. This can be seen with writers such as Ibn Fadlan.