When European travelers reached China by sea via Malacca and the Philippines in the 16th century, they were not initially aware that China was the same country as the "Cathay" about which they had read in Marco Polo nor that his "Cambaluc" was the city known to the southern Chinese as Pekin. It was not until the Jesuit Matteo Ricci's first visit to Beijing in 1598 that he encountered Central Asian visitors ("Arabian Turks, or Mohammedans" in his description) who confirmed that the city they were in was "Cambaluc." the publication of his journals by his aide announced to Europe that "Cathay" was China and "Cambaluc" Beijing. The journal then fancifully explained that name was "partly of Chinese and partly of Tartar origin", from "Tartar" "cam" ("great"), Chinese "" ("north"), and Chinese "Lu" (used for nomads in Chinese literature. Many European maps continued to show "Cathay" and its capital "Cambaluc" somewhere in northeast China for much of the 17th century.