The Travels of Marco Polo
Chapter 265 : II., p. 6.SARAI."Cordier (Yule) identifiziert den von Pegolotti gewahlten Namen S

II., p. 6.

SARAI.

"Cordier (Yule) identifiziert den von Pegolotti gewahlten Namen Saracanco mit dem jungeren Sarai oder Zarew (dem Sarai grande Fra Mauros), was mir vollkommen untunlich erscheint; es ware dann die Route des Reisenden geradezu ein Zickzackweg gewesen, der durch nichts zu rechtfertigen ware."

(Dr. Ed. FRIEDMANN, _Pegolotti_, p. 14.)

Prof. Pelliot writes to me: "Il n'y a aucune possibilite de retrouver dans _Saracanco, Sarai + Kunk_. Le mot _Kunk_ n'est pas autrement atteste, et la construction mongole ou turque exigerait _kunk-sarai_."

XIII., pp. 25-26.

SHANG TU.

See also A. POZDNEIEV, _Mongoliya i Mongoly_, II., pp. 303 seq.

XV., pp. 27, 28-30. Now it came that Marco, the son of Messer Nicolo, sped wondrously in learning the customs of the Tartars, as well as their language, their manner of writing, and their practice of war--in fact he came in a brief s.p.a.ce to know several languages, and four sundry written characters.

On the linguistic office called _Sse yi kwan_, cf. an interesting note by H. MASPERO, p. 8, of _Bul. Ecole franc. Ext. Orient_, XII., No. 1, 1912.

XV., p. 28 n. Of the Khitan but one inscription was known and no key.

Prof. Pelliot remarks, _Bul. Ecole franc. Ext. Orient_, IV., July-Sept., 1904: "In fact a Chinese work has preserved but five k'i-tan characters, however with the Chinese translation." He writes to me that we do not know _any_ k'itan inscription, but half a dozen characters reproduced in a work of the second half of the fourteenth century. The Uighur alphabet is of Aramean origin through Sogdian; from this point of view, it is not necessary to call for Estranghelo, nor Nestorian propaganda. On the other hand we have to-day doc.u.ments in Uighur writing older than the _Kudatku Bilik_.

BOOK FIRST.

ACCOUNT OF REGIONS VISITED OR HEARD OF ON THE JOURNEY FROM THE LESSER ARMENIA TO THE COURT OF THE GREAT KAAN AT CHANDU.

BOOK I.

VI., p. 63. "There is also on the river, as you go from Baudas to Kisi, a great city called Bastra, surrounded by woods, in which grow the best dates in the world."

"The products of the country are camels, sheep and dates." (At Pi-ss-lo, Basra. CHAU JU-KWA, p. 137.)

VI., pp. 63, 65. "In Baudas they weave many different kinds of silk stuffs and gold brocades, such as _nasich_, and _nac_, and _cramoisy_, and many other beautiful tissue richly wrought with figures of beasts and birds."

In the French text we have _na.s.sit_ and _nac_.

"S'il faut en croire M. Defremery, au lieu de _na.s.sit_, il faut evidemment lire _na.s.sij_ (necidj), ce qui signifie un tissu, en general, et designe particulierement une etoffe de soie de la meme espece que le _nekh_. Quant aux etoffes sur lesquelles etaient figures des animaux et des oiseaux, le meme orientaliste croit qu'il faut y reconnaitre le _thardwehch_, sorte d'etoffe de soie qui, comme son nom l'indique, representait des scenes de cha.s.se. On sait que l'usage de ces representations est tres ancien en Orient, comme on le voit dans des pa.s.sages de Philostrate et de Quinte-Curce rapportes par Mongez." (FRANCISQUE-MICHEL, _Recherches sur le Commerce_, I., p. 262.)

VI., p. 67.

DEATH OF MOSTAS'IM.

According to Al-Fakhri, translated by E. Amar (_Archives marocaines_ XVI., p. 579), Mostas'im was put to death with his two eldest sons on the 4th of safar, 656 (3rd February, 1258).

XI., p. 75. "The [the men of Tauris] weave many kinds of beautiful and valuable stuffs of silk and gold."

Francisque-Michel (I., p. 316) remarks: "De ce que Marco Polo se borne a nommer Tauris comme la ville de Perse ou il se fabriquait maints draps d'or et de soie, il ne faudrait pas en conclure que cette industrie n'existat pas sur d'autres points du meme royaume. Pour n'en citer qu'un seul, la ville d'Arsacie, ancienne capitale des Parthes, connue aujourd'hui sous le nom de Caswin, possedait vraisemblablement deja cette industrie des beaux draps d'or et de soie qui existait encore au temps de Huet, c'est-a-dire au XVII'e siecle."

XIII., p. 78. "Messer Marco Polo found a village there which goes by the name of CALA ATAPERISTAN, which is as much as to say, 'The Castle of the Fire-wors.h.i.+ppers.'"

With regard to Kal'ah-i Atashparastan, Prof. A.V.W. Jackson writes (_Persia_, 1906, p. 413): "And the name is rightly applied, for the people there do wors.h.i.+p fire. In an article ent.i.tled _The Magi in Marco Polo (Journ. Am. Or. Soc._, 26, 79-83) I have given various reasons for identifying the so-called 'Castle of the Fire-Wors.h.i.+ppers' with Kashan, which Odoric mentions or a village in its vicinity, the only rival to the claim being the town of Nan, whose Gabar Castle has already been mentioned above."

XIV., p. 78.

PERSIA.

Speaking of Saba and of Cala Ataperistan, Prof. E.H. Parker (_Asiatic Quart. Rev._, Jan., 1904, p. 134) has the following remarks: "It is not impossible that certain unexplained statements in the Chinese records may shed light upon this obscure subject. In describing the Arab Conquest of Persia, the Old and New T'ang Histories mention the city of Hia-lah as being amongst those captured; another name for it was _Sam_ (according to the Chinese initial and final system of spelling words). A later Chinese poet has left the following curious line on record: 'All the priests venerate Hia-lah.' The allusion is vague and undated, but it is difficult to imagine to what else it can refer. The term _seng_, or 'bonze,' here translated 'priests,' was frequently applied to Nestorian and Persian priests, as in this case."

XIV., p. 80. "Three Kings."

Regarding the legend of the stone cast into a well, cf. F.W.K. MuLLER, _Uigurica_, pp. 5-10 (Pelliot).

XVII., p. 90. "There are also plenty of veins of steel and _Ondanique_."

"The _ondanique_ which Marco Polo mentions in his 42nd chapter is almost certainly the _pin t'ieh_ or 'pin iron' of the Chinese, who frequently mention it as coming from Arabia, Persia, Cophene, Hami, Ouigour-land and other High Asia States." (E.H. PARKER, _Journ. North China Br. Roy.

Asiatic Soc._, x.x.xVIII., 1907, p. 225.)

XVIII., pp. 97, 100. "The province that we now enter is called REOBARLES.... The beasts also are peculiar.... Then there are sheep here as big as a.s.ses; and their tails are so large and fat, that one tail shall weight some 30 lbs. They are fine fat beasts, and afford capital mutton."

Prof. E.H. PARKER writes in the _Journ. of the North China Branch of the Royal Asiatic Soc._, x.x.xVII., 1906, p. 196: "Touching the fat-tailed sheep of Persia, the _Shan-ha-king_ says the Yueh-ch or Indo-Scythy had a 'big-tailed sheep' the correct name for which is _hien-yang_. The Sung History mentions sheep at Hami with tails so heavy that they could not walk. In the year 1010 some were sent as tribute to China by the King of Kuche."

"Among the native products [at Mu lan p'i, Murabit, Southern Coast of Spain] are foreign sheep, which are several feet high and have tails as big as a fan. In the spring-time they slit open their bellies and take out some tens of catties of fat, after which they sew them up again, and the sheep live on; if the fat were not removed, (the animal) would swell up and die." (CHAU JU-KWA, pp. 142-3.)

"The Chinese of the T'ang period had heard also of the trucks put under these sheep's tails. 'The Ta-sh have a foreign breed of sheep (_hu-yang_) whose tails, covered with fine wool, weigh from ten to twenty catties; the people have to put carts under them to hold them up. Fan-kuo-ch as quoted in Tung-si-yang-k'au." (HIRTH and ROCKHILL, p. 143.)

Leo Africa.n.u.s, _Historie of Africa_, III., 945 (Hakluyt Soc. ed.), says he saw in Egypt a ram with a tail weighing eighty pounds!:

OF THE AFRICAN RAMME.

"There is no difference betweene these rammes of Africa and others, saue onely in their tailes, which are of a great thicknes, being by so much the grosser, but how much they are more fatte, so that some of their tailes waigh tenne, and other twentie pounds a peece, and they become fatte of their owne naturall inclination: but in Egypt there are diuers that feede them fatte with bran and barly, vntill their tailes growe so bigge that they cannot remooue themselves from place to place: insomuch that those which take charge of them are faine to binde little carts vnder their tailes, to the end they may haue strength to walke. I my selfe saw at a citie in Egypt called Asiot, and standing vpon Nilus, about an hundred and fiftie miles from Cairo, one of the saide rams tailes that weighed fowerscore pounds, and others affirmed that they had seene one of those tailes of an hundred and fiftie pounds weight. All the fatte therefore of this beast consisteth in his taile; neither is there any of them to be founde but onely in Tunis and in Egypt." (LEO AFRICa.n.u.s, edited by Dr.

Robert BROWN, III., 1896, Hakluyt Society, p. 945.)

XVIII., pp. 97, 100 n.

Dr. B. Laufer draws my attention to what is probably the oldest mention of this sheep from Arabia, in Herodotus, Book III., Chap. 113:

"Concerning the spices of Arabia let no more be said. The whole country is scented with them, and exhales an odour marvellously sweet. There are also in Arabia two kinds of sheep worthy of admiration, the like of which is nowhere else to be seen; the one kind has long tails, not less than three cubits in length, which, if they were allowed to trail on the ground, would be bruised and fall into sores. As it is, all the shepherds know enough of carpentering to make little trucks for their sheep's tails. The trucks are placed under the tails, each sheep having one to himself, and the tails are then tied down upon them. The other kind has a broad tail, which is a cubit across sometimes."

Canon G. Rawlinson, in his edition of Herodotus, has the following note on this subject (II., p. 500):--