A half century after Marco Polo's journey, a Muslim scholar little known here in the west traveled more than four times as far. Like Marco Polo, the record of his journey provides in some cases the only remaining written account of exotic places and people.
On Louisiana highway 1, just south of the leeway bridge in Jefferson parish, not far from where the road ends, is a marker for the Cheniere Caminada cemetery, all that remains of a once thriving town that disappeared virtually overnight.