[puroresu]

Yep! Many Europeans didn't believe Marco Polo's reports about China. They thought he was exaggerating. Surely there couldn't be such a fine civilization far off in the east!

[allmendream]

In 1324, as Polo lay on his deathbed, a priest beseeched him to retract his “fables.” His reply: “I have not told half of what I saw.”

In other words. “I haven't told you the half of it.”

Little could a rather backwards and provincial Europe believe in the grandeur and wealth and culture that lay far off to the East, and most of their lords and priests didn't want to believe it. They figured if there was any culture at all it was “Prestor John” or some such Christian fable of a Christianized East.