spelling, printing Badashan, Pashai, Kerman, instead of Badascian, Pasciai, Querman, and so on.

*

And when a little trouble has been taken to ascertain the true form and force of Polo's spelling of Oriental names and technical expressions, it will be found that they are in the main as accurate as Italian lips and orthography will admit, and not justly liable either to those disparaging epithets or to those exegetical distortions which have been too often applied to them. Thus, for example, Cocacin, Ghel or Ghelan, Tonocain, Cobinan, Ondanique, Barguerlac, Argon, Sensin, Quescican, Toscaol, Bularguci, Zardandan, Anin, Caugigu, Coloman, Gauenispola, Mutfili, Avarian, Choiach, are not, it will be seen, the ignorant blunderings which the interpretations affixed by some commentators would imply them to be, but are on the contrary all but perfectly accurate utterances of the names and words intended.

The -tchéou (of French writers), choo, -chow, or -chau† of English writers, which so frequently forms the terminal part in the names of Chinese cities, is almost invariably rendered by Polo as -giu. This has frequently in the MSS., and constantly in the printed editions, been converted into -gui, and thence into -guy. This is on the whole the most constant canon of Polo's geographical orthography, and holds in Caagiu (Hochau), Singiu (Sining-chau), Cui-giu (Kwei-chau), Sin-giu (T'sining-chau), Pi-giu (Pei-chau), Coigangiu (Hwainganchau), Si-giu (Si-chau), Ti-gia (Tai-chau), Tin-giu (Tungchau), Yan-giu (Yang-chau), Sin-giu (Chin-chau), Cai-giu (Kwa-chau), Chinghi-gin (Chang-chau), Su-giu (Su-chau), Vugiu (Wu-chau), and perhaps a few more. In one or two instances only (as Sinda-ciu, Caiciu) he has -ciu instead of -giu.

* For example, that enthusiastic student of medieval geography, Joachim Lelewel, speaks of Polo's "gibberish" (le baragouinage du Venétien) with special reference to such names as Zayton and Kinsay, whilst we now know that these names were in universal use by all foreigners in China, and no more deserve to be called gibberish than Bocca-Tigris, Leghorn, Ratisbon, or Buda.

I am quite sensible of the diffidence with which any outsider should touch any question of Chinese language or orthography. A Chinese scholar and missionary (Mr. Moule) objects to my spelling chau, whilst he, I see, uses chow. I imagine we mean the same sound, according to the spelling which I try to use throughout the book. Dr. C. Douglas, another missionary scholar, writes chau.

The chapter-headings I have generally taken from Pauthier's Text, but they are no essential part of the original work, and they have been slightly modified or enlarged where it seemed desirable.

C

THE

BOOK OF MARCO POLO.

PROLOGUE.

GREAT PRINCES, Emperors, and Kings, Dukes and Marquises, Counts, Knights, and Burgesses! and People of all degrees who desire to get knowledge of the various races of mankind and of the diversities of the sundry regions of the World, take this Book and cause it to be read to you. For ye shall find therein all kinds of wonderful things, and the divers histories of the Great Hermenia, and of Persia, and of the Land of the Tartars, and of India, and of many another country of which our Book doth speak, particularly and in regular succession, according to the description of Messer Marco Polo, a wise and noble citizen of Venice, as he saw them with his own eyes. Some things indeed there be therein which he beheld not; but these he heard from men of credit and veracity. And we shall set down things seen as seen, and things heard as heard only, so that no jot of falsehood may mar the truth of our Book, and that all who shall read it or hear it read may put full faith in the truth of all its contents.

For let me tell you that since our Lord God did mould with his hands our first Father Adam, even until this day, never hath there been Christian, or Pagan, or Tartar, or Indian, or any man of any nation, who in his own person hath had so much knowledge and experience of the divers parts of the World and its Wonders as hath had this Messer Marco! And for that reason he bethought himself

VOL. I.

B

that it would be a very great pity did he not cause to be put in writing all the great marvels that he had seen, or on sure information heard of, so that other people who had not these advantages might, by his Book, get such knowledge. And I may tell you that in acquiring this knowledge he spent in those various parts of the World good six-and-twenty years. Now, being thereafter an inmate of the Prison at Genoa, he caused Messer Rusticiano of Pisa, who was in the said Prison likewise, to reduce the whole to writing; and this befell in the year 1298 from the birth of Jesus.

CHAPTER I.

HOW THE TWO BROTHERS POLO SET FORTH FROM CONSTANTINOPLE TO TRAVERSE THE WORLD.

It came to pass in the year of Christ 1260, when Baldwin was reigning at Constantinople,' that Messer Nicolas Polo, the father of my lord Mark, and Messer Maffeo Polo, the brother of Messer Nicolas, were at the said city of ConSTANTINOPLE, whither they had gone from Venice with their merchant's wares. Now these two Brethren, men singularly noble, wise, and provident, took counsel together to cross the GREATER SEA on a venture of trade; so they laid in a store of jewels and set forth from Constantinople, crossing the Sea to SOLDAIA.

NOTE 1. Baldwin II. (de Courtenay), the last Latin Emperor of Constantinople, reigned from 1237 to 1261, when he was expelled by Michael Palaeologus.

The date in the text is, as we see, that of the Brothers' voyage across the Black Sea. It stands 1250 in all the chief texts. But the figure is certainly wrong. We shall see that, when the Brothers return to Venice in 1269, they find Mark, who, according to Ramusio's version, was born after their departure, a lad of fifteen. Hence, if we rely on Ramusio,