Schmidt's full-size drawing, are 12.2 in. by 3'65 in. The weight is not given. In the French texts nothing is said of the size of the tablets. But Ramusio's copy, in the Prologue, where the tablets given by Kiacatu are mentioned (supra, p. 33), says that they were a cubit in length and 5 fingers in breadth, and weighed 3 to 4 marks each, i.e. 24 to 32 ounces. (Dupré de St. Maur, Essai sur les Monnoies, &c., 1746, p. viii.; also (on saiga) see Pertz, Script. XVII. 357 ; Rubruq. 312; Golden Horde. 21920, 521; Ilch. II. 166 seqq., 355-6; D'Ohsson, III. 412-13; Q. R. 177180; Ham. Wassáf, 154, 176; Makrizi, IV. 158; St. Martin, Mém. sur l'Armenie, II. 137, 169; M. Mas Latrie in Bibl. de l'Éc. des Chartes, IV. 585 seqq.; J. As. ser. 5, tom. xvii. 536 seqq.; Schmidt, über eine Mongol. Quadratinschrift, &c., Acad. St. P., 1847; Russian paper by Grigorieff on same subject, 1846.) NOTE 3.-Umbrella. The phrase in Pauthier's text is "Palieque que on dit ombrel." The Latin text of the Soc. de Géographie has "unum pallium de auro," which I have adopted as probably correct, looking to Burma, where the old etiquettes as to umbrellas are in full force. These etiquettes were probably in both countries of old Hindu origin. Pallium, according to Muratori, was applied in the Middle Ages to a kind of square umbrella, by which is probably meant rather a canopy on four staves, which was sometimes assigned by authority as an honourable privilege. But the genuine umbrella would seem to have been used also, for Polo's contemporary, Martino da Canale, says that, when the Doge goes forth of his palace, “si vait apres lui un damoiseau qui porte une umbrele de dras à or sur son chief," which umbrella had been given by "Monseigneur l'Apostoille." There is a picture by Girolamo Gambarota, in the Sala del Gran Consiglio, at Venice, which represents the investiture of the Doge with the umbrella by Pope Alexander III. and Frederick Barbarossa (concerning which see Sanuto Junior, in Muratori XXII. 512). The word Parasol also occurs in the Petrarchian vocabulary (14th century) as the equivalent of saioual (Pers. sáyában or sáiwán, an umbrella). Carpini notices that umbrellas (solinum vel tentoriolum in hasta) were carried over the Tartar nobles and their wives, even on horseback; and a splendid one, covered with jewels, was one of the presents made to Kuyuk Kaan on his enthronement. With respect to the honorary character attaching to umbrellas in China, I may notice that recently an English resident of Ningpo, on his departure for Europe, was presented by the Chinese citizens, as a token of honour, with a pair of Wanmin san, umbrellas of enormous size. The umbrella must have gone through some curious vicissitudes; for at one time we find it familiar, at a later date apparently unknown, and then reintroduced as some strange novelty. Arrian speaks of the σkiádia, or umbrellas, as used by all Indians of any consideration; but the thing of which he spoke was familiar to the use of Greek and Roman ladies, and many examples of it, borne by slaves behind their mistresses, are found on ancient vase-paintings. Athenaeus quotes from Anacreon the description of a "beggar on horseback" who "like a woman bears An ivory parasol over his delicate head." An Indian prince, in a Sanskrit inscription of the 9th century, boasts of having wrested from the King of Márwár the two umbrellas pleasing to Parvati, and white as the summer moonbeams. Prithi Ráj, the last Hindu king of Delhi, is depicted by the poet Chand as shaded by a white umbrella on a golden staff. An unmistakeable umbrella, copied from a Saxon MS. in the Harleian collection, is engraved in Wright's History of Domestic Manners, p. 75. The fact that the gold umbrella is one of the paraphernalia of high church dignitaries in Italy seems to presume acquaintance with the thing from a remote period. A decorated umbrella also accompanies the host when sent out to the sick, at least where I write, in Palermo. Ibn Batuta says that in his time all the people of Constantinople, civil and military, great and small, carried great umbrellas over their heads, summer and winter. Ducange quotes, from a MS. of the Paris Library, the Byzantine court regulations about umbrellas, which are of the genuine Pan-Asiatic spirit ;—σkiádia xpvσokókKiva extend from the Hypersebastus to the Grand Stratopedarchus, and so on; exactly as used to be the case, with different titles, in Java. And yet it is curious that John Marignolli, Ibn Batuta's contemporary in the middle of the 14th century, and Barbosa in the 16th century, are alike at pains to describe the umbrella as some strange object. And in our own country it is commonly stated that the umbrella was first used in the last century, and that Jonas Hanway (died 1786) was one of the first persons who made a practice of carrying one. The word umbrello is, however, in Minsheu's dictionary. (Murat. Dissert. II. 229; Archiv. Storic. Ital. VIII. 274, 560; Klapr. Mém. III.; Carp. 759; N. and Q., C. and J. II. 180; Arrian, Indica, XVI.; Smith's Dict., G. and R. Ant., s. v. umbraculum; J. R. A. S., v. 351; Rás Mála, I. 221; I. B. II. 440; Cathay, 381; Ramus. I. f. 301.) Alexander, according to Athenaeus, feasted his captains to the number of 6000, and made them all sit upon silver chairs. The same author relates that the King of Persia, among other rich presents, bestowed upon Entimus the Gortynian, who went up to the king in imitation of Themistocles, a silver chair and a gilt umbrella. (Bk. I. Epit. ch. 31, and II. 31.) The silver chair has come down to our own day in India, and is much affected by native princes. NOTE 4. I have not been able to find any allusion, except in our (Half the Length and Breadth of the Original, Second Example of a with Superscription in the UIGHUR Character, found near the River Duper 1845. uenfelder T author, to tablets with gerfalcons (shonkár). The shonkár appears, however, according to Erdmann, on certain coins of the Golden Horde, struck, at Sarai. There is a passage from Wassáf used by Hammer, in whose words it runs that the Sayad Imámuddín, appointed (A.D. 683) governor of Shiraz by Arghun Khan, "was invested with both the Mongol symbols of delegated sovereignty, the Golden Lion's Head, and the golden Cat's Head." It would certainly have been more satisfactory to find "Gerfalcon's Head" in lieu of the latter; but it is probable that the same object is meant. The cut below exhibits the conventional effigy of a gerfalcon as sculptured over one of the gates of Iconium, Polo's Conia. The head might easily pass for a conventional representation of a cat's head, and is indeed strikingly like the grotesque representation that bears that name in medieval architecture. (Erdmann, Numi Asiatici, I. 339; Ilch. I. 370.) Sculptured Gerfalcon from the Gate of Iconium. |