The Travels of Marco Polo
Chapter 221 : "'It is much more likely that they [the ruc's quills] were the immensel

"'It is much more likely that they [the ruc's quills] were the immensely long midribs of the leaves of the rofia palm. These are from twenty to thirty feet long, and are not at all unlike an enormous quill stripped of the feathering portion'" (p. 55).

In another pa.s.sage he describes the palm, _Sagus ruffia (? raphia_):

"The _rofia_ has a trunk of from thirty to fifty feet in height, and at the head divides into seven or eight immensely long leaves. The midrib of these leaves is a very strong, but extremely light and straight pole....

These poles are often twenty feet or more in length, and the leaves proper consist of a great number of fine and long pinnate leaflets, set at right angles to the midrib, from eighteen to twenty inches long, and about one and a half broad," etc. (pp. 74, 75).

When Sir John Kirk came home in 1881-1882, I spoke to him on the subject, and he felt confident that the _rofia_ or _raphia_ palm-fronds were the original of the ruc's quills. He also kindly volunteered to send me a specimen on his return to Zanzibar. This he did not forget, and some time ago there arrived at the India Office not one, but four of these ruc's quills. In the letter which announced this despatch Sir John says:--

"I send to-day per s.s. _Arcot_ ... four fronds of the Raphia palm, called here 'Moale.' They are just as sold and s.h.i.+pped up and down the coast. No doubt they were sent in Marco Polo's time in exactly the same state, i.e. stripped of their leaflets, and with the tip broken off. They are used for making stages and ladders, and last long if kept dry. They are also made into doors, by being cut into lengths, and pinned through. The stages are made of three, like tripods, and used for picking cloves from the higher branches."

The largest of the four midribs sent (they do not differ much) is 25 feet 4 inches long, measuring 12 inches in girth at the b.u.t.t, and 5 inches at the upper end. I calculate that if it originally came to a point the whole length would be 45 feet, but, as this would not be so, we may estimate it at 35 to 40 feet. The thick part is deeply hollowed on the upper (?) side, leaving the section of the solid b.u.t.t in form a thick crescent. The leaflets are all gone, but when entire, the object must have strongly resembled a Brobdingnagian feather. Compare this description with that of Padre Bolivar in Ludolf, referred to above.

"In aliquibus ... regionibus vidi pennas alae istius avis prodigiosae, licet avem non viderim, Penna illa, prout ex forma colligebatur, erat ex mediocribus, longitudine 28 palmorum, lat.i.tudine trium. Calamus vero a radice usque ad extremitatem longitudine quinque palmorum, densitatis instar brachii moderati, robustissimus erat et durus. Pennulae inter se aequales et bene compositae, ut vix ab invicem nisi c.u.m violentia divellerentur. Colore erant valde nigro, calamus colore albo." (_Ludolfi, ad suam Hist. Aethiop., Comment._, p. 164.)

The last particular, as to colour, I am not able to explain: the others correspond well. The _palmus_ in this pa.s.sage may be anything from 9 to 10 inches.

I see this tree is mentioned by Captain R.F. Burton in his volume on the Lake Regions (vol. xxix. of the _Journal_ of the Royal Geographical Society, p. 34),[1] and probably by many other travellers.

I ought to mention here that some other object has been shown at Zanzibar as part of the wings of a great bird. Sir John Kirk writes that this (which he does not describe particularly) was in the possession of the Roman Catholic priests at Bagamoyo, to whom it had been given by natives of the interior, who declared that they had brought it from Tanganyika, and that it was part of the wing of a gigantic bird. On another occasion they repeated this statement, alleging that this bird was known in the Udoe (?) country near the coast. These priests were able to communicate directly with their informants, and certainly believed the story. Dr.

Hildebrand, also, a competent German naturalist, believed in it. But Sir John Kirk himself says that "what the priests had to show was most undoubtedly the whalebone of a comparatively small whale."

12.--A SPANISH EDITION OF MARCO POLO.

As we go to press we receive the newly published volume, _El Libro de Marco Polo--Aus dem vermachtnis des_ Dr. Hermann Knust _nach der Madrider Handschrift herausgegeben von_ Dr. R. Stuebe. Leipzig, Dr. Seele & Co., 1902, 8vo., pp. xxvi.-114. It reproduces the old Spanish text of the ma.n.u.script Z-I-2 of the Escurial Library from a copy made by Senor D. Jose Rodriguez for the Society of the Spanish Bibliophiles, which, being unused, was sold by him to Dr. Hermann Knust, who made a careful comparison of it with the original ma.n.u.script. This copy, found among the papers of Dr. Knust after his death, is now edited by Dr. Stuebe. The original 14th century MS., written in a good hand on two columns, includes 312 leaves of parchment, and contains several works; among them we note: 1, a Collection ent.i.tled _Flor de las Ystorias de Oriente_ (fol. 1-104), made on the advice of Juan Fernandez de Heredia, Grand Master of the Order of St. John of Jerusalem (1377), of which _Marco Polo_ (fol. 50-104) is a part; 2 and _Secretum Secretorum_ (fol. 254 _r_-fol. 312 _v._); this MS.

is not mentioned in our List, _App. F._, II. p. 546, unless it be our No.

60.

The ma.n.u.script includes 68 chapters, the first of which is devoted to the City of Lob and Sha-chau, corresponding to our Bk. I., ch. 39 and 40 (our vol. i. pp. 196 seqq.) ch. 65 (p. 111) corresponds approximatively to our ch. 40, Bk. III. (vol. ii. p. 451); chs. 66, 67, and the last, 68, would answer to our chs. 2, 3, and 4 of Bk. I. (vol i., pp. 45 seqq.). A concordance of this Spanish text, with Pauthier's, Yule's, and the Geographic Texts, is carefully given at the beginning of each of the 68 chapters of the Book.

Of course this edition does not throw any new light on the text, and this volume is but a matter of curiosity.

13.--SIR JOHN MANDEVILLE.

One of the last questions in which Sir Henry Yule[2] took an interest in, was the problem of the authors.h.i.+p of the book of Travels which bears the name of SIR JOHN MANDEVILLE, the worthy Knight, who, after being for a long time considered as the "Father of English Prose" has become simply "the name claimed by the compiler of a singular book of Travels, written in French, and published between 1357 and 1371."[3]

It was understood that "JOHAN MAUNDEUILLE, chiualer, ia soit ceo qe ieo ne soie dignes, neez et norriz Dengleterre de la ville Seint Alban," crossed the sea "lan millesme ccc'me vintisme et secund, le jour de Seint Michel,"[4] that he travelled since across the whole of Asia during the 14th century, that he wrote the relation of his travels as a rest after his fatiguing peregrinations, and that he died on the 17th of November, 1372, at Liege, when he was buried in the Church of the Guillemins.

No work has enjoyed a greater popularity than Mandeville's; while we describe but eighty-five ma.n.u.scripts of Marco Polo's, and I gave a list of seventy-three ma.n.u.scripts of Friar Odoric's relation,[5] it is by hundreds that Mandeville's ma.n.u.scripts can be reckoned. As to the printed editions, they are, so to speak, numberless; Mr. Carl Schonborn[6] gave in 1840, an incomplete bibliography; Tobler in his _Bibliographia geographica Palestinae_ (1867),[7] and Rohricht[8] after him compiled a better bibliography, to which may be added my own lists in the _Bibliotheca Sinica_[9] and in the _T'oung-Pao_.[10]

Campbell, _Ann. de la Typog. neerlandaise_, 1874, p. 338, mentions a Dutch edition: _Reysen int heilighe lant_, s.l.n.d., folio, of which but two copies are known, and which must be dated as far back as 1470 [see p.

600], I believed hitherto (I am not yet sure that Campbell is right as to his date) that the first printed edition was German, s.l.n.d., very likely printed at Basel, about 1475, discovered by Tross, the Paris Bookseller.[11] The next editions are the French of the 4th April, 1480,[12] and 8th February of the same year,[13] Easter being the 2nd of April, then the Latin,[14] Dutch,[15] and Italian[16] editions, and after the English editions of Pynson and Wynkin de Worde.

In what tongue was Mandeville's Book written?

The fact that the first edition of it was printed either in German or in Dutch, only shows that the scientific progress was greater and printing more active in such towns as Basel, Nuremberg and Augsburg than in others.

At first, one might believe that there were three original texts, probably in French, English, and vulgar Latin; the Dean of Tongres, Radulphus of Rivo, a native of Breda, writes indeed in his _Gesta Pontific.u.m Leodiensium_, 1616, p. 17: "Hoc anno Ioannes Mandeuilius natione Anglus vir ingenio, & arte medendi eminens, qui toto fere terrarum orbe peragrato, _tribus linguis_ peregrinationem suam doctissime _conscripsit_, in alium orbe nullis finibus clausum, logeque hoc quietiorem, & beatiorem migrauit 17. Nouembris. Sepultus in Ecclesia Wilhelmitarum non procul a moenibus Ciuitatis Leodiensis." The Dean of Tongres died in 1483;[17] Mr.

Warner, on the authority of the _Bulletin de l'Inst. Archeol. Liegeois_, xvi. 1882, p. 358, gives 1403 as the date of the death of Radulphus.

However, Mandeville himself says (_Warner, Harley_, 4383) at the end of his introduction, p. 3:--"Et sachez qe ieusse cest escript mis en latyn pur pluis briefment deuiser; mes, pur ceo qe plusours entendent mieltz romantz qe latin, ieo lay mys en romance, pur ceo qe chescun lentende et luy chiualers et les seignurs et lez autres n.o.bles homes qi ne sciuent point de latin ou poy, et qount estee outre meer, sachent et entendent, si ieo dye voir ou noun, et si ieo erre en deuisant par noun souenance ou autrement, qils le puissent adresser et amender, qar choses de long temps pa.s.sez par la veue tornent en obly, et memorie de homme ne puet mye tot retenir ne comprendre." From this pa.s.sage and from the Latin text: "Incipit itinerarius a terra Angliae ad partes Iherosolimitanas et in ulteriores transmarinas, editus primo in lingua gallicana a milite suo autore anno incarnacionis Domini m. ccc. lv, in civitate Leodiensi, et paulo post in eadem civitate translatus in hanc formam latinam." (P. 33 of the _Relation des Mongols ou Tartars par le frere Jean du Plan de Carpin_, Paris, 1838). D'Avezac long ago was inclined to believe in an unique French version. The British Museum, English MS. (Cott., t.i.tus. C. xvi.), on the other hand, has in the Prologue (cf. ed. 1725, p. 6): "And zee schulle undirstonde, that I have put this Boke out of _Latyn_ into _Frensche_, and translated it azen out of _Frensche_ into _Englyssche_, that every Man of my Nacioun may undirstonde it...."[18]

But we shall see that--without taking into account the important pa.s.sage in French quoted above, and probably misunderstood by the English translator--the English version, a sentence of which, not to be found in the Latin ma.n.u.scripts, has just been given, is certainly posterior to the French text, and therefore that the abstract of t.i.tus C. xvi, has but a slight value. There can be some doubt only for the French and the Latin texts.

Dr. Carl Schonborn[19] and Herr Eduard Matzner,[20] "respectively seem to have been the first to show that the current Latin and English texts cannot possibly have been made by Mandeville himself. Dr. J. Vogels states the same of unprinted Latin versions which he has discovered in the British Museum, and he has proved it as regards the Italian version."[21]

"In Latin, as Dr. Vogels has shown, there are five independent versions.

Four of them, which apparently originated in England (one ma.n.u.script, now at Leyden, being dated in 1390) have no special interest; the fifth, or vulgate Latin text, was no doubt made at Liege, and has an important bearing on the author's ident.i.ty. It is found in twelve ma.n.u.scripts, all of the 15th century, and is the only Latin version as yet printed."[22]

The universal use of the French language at the time would be an argument in favour of the original text being in this tongue, if corrupt proper names, abbreviations in the Latin text, etc., did not make the fact still more probable.

The story of the English version, as it is told by Messrs. Nicholson and Warner, is highly interesting: The English version was made from a "mutilated archetype," in French (Warner, p. x.) of the beginning of the 15th century, and was used for all the known English ma.n.u.scripts, with the exception of the Cotton and Egerton volumes--and also for all the printed editions until 1725. Mr. Nicholson[23] pointed out that it is defective in the pa.s.sage extending from p. 36, l. 7: "And there were to ben 5 Soudans," to p. 62, l. 25: "the Monkes of the Abbeye of ten tyme," in Halliwell's edition (1839) from t.i.tus C. xvi, which corresponds to Mr.

Warner's Egerton text, p. 18, l. 21: "for the Sowdan," and p. 32, l. 16, "synges oft tyme." It is this bad text which, until 1725,[24] has been printed as we just said, with numerous variants, including the poor edition of Mr. Ashton[25] who has given the text of East instead of the Cotton text under the pretext that the latter was not legible.[26]

Two revisions of the English version were made during the first quarter of the 15th century; one is represented by the British Museum Egerton MS.

1982 and the abbreviated Bodleian MS. e. Mus. 116; the other by the Cotton MS. t.i.tus C. xvi. This last one gives the text of the edition of 1725 often reprinted till Halliwell's (1839 and 1866).[27] The Egerton MS.

1982 has been reproduced in a magnificent volume edited in 1889 for the Roxburghe Club par Mr. G.F. Warner, of the British Museum;[28] this edition includes also the French text from the Harley MS. 4383 which, being defective from the middle of chap. xxii. has been completed with the Royal MS. 20 B.X. Indeed the Egerton MS. 1982 is the only complete English ma.n.u.script of the British Museum,[29] as, besides seven copies of the defective text, three leaves are missing in the Cotton MS. after f.

53, the text of the edition of 1725 having been completed with the Royal MS. 17 B.[30]

Notwithstanding its great popularity, Mandeville's Book could not fail to strike with its similarity with other books of travels, with Friar Odoric's among others. This similarity has been the cause that occasionally the Franciscan Friar was given as a companion to the Knight of St. Albans, for instance, in the ma.n.u.scripts of Mayence and Wolfenb.u.t.tel.[31] Some Commentators have gone too far in their appreciation and the Udine monk has been treated either as a plagiary or a liar! Old Samuel Purchas, in his address to the Reader printed at the beginning of Marco Polo's text (p.

65), calls his countryman! Mandeville the greatest Asian traveller next (if next) to Marco Polo, and he leaves us to understand that the worthy knight has been pillaged by some priest![32] Astley uses strong language; he calls Odoric a _great liar!_[33]

Others are fair in their judgment, Malte-Brun, for instance, marked what Mandeville borrowed from Odoric, and La Renaudiere is also very just in the _Biographie Universelle_. But what Malte-Brun and La Renaudiere showed in a general manner, other learned men, such as Dr. S. Bormans, Sir Henry Yule, Mr. E.W.B. Nicholson,[34] Dr. J. Vogels,[35] M. Leopold Delisle, Herr A. Bovenschen,[36] and last, not least, Dr. G.F. Warner, have in our days proved that not only has the book bearing Mandeville's name been compiled from the works of Vincent of Beauvais, Jacques of Vitry, Boldensel, Carpini, Odoric, etc., but that it was written neither by a Knight of St. Albans, by an Englishman, or by a Sir John Mandeville, but very likely by the physician John of Burgundy or John a Beard.

In a repertory of _La Librairie de la Collegiale de Saint Paul a Liege au XV'e. Siecle_, published by Dr. Stanislas Bormans, in the _Bibliophile Belge_, Brussels, 1866, p. 236, is catalogued under No. 240: _Legenda de Joseph et a.s.seneth ejus uxore, in papiro. In eodem itinerarium Johannis de Mandevilla militis, apud guilhelmitanos Leodienses sepulti_.

Dr. S. Bormans has added the following note: "Jean Mandeville, ou Manduith, theologien et mathematicien, etait ne a St. Alban en Angleterre d'une famille n.o.ble. On le surnomma pour un motif inconnu, _ad Barbam_ et _magnovilla.n.u.s_. En 1322, il traversa la France pour aller en Asie, servit quelque temps dans les troupes du Sultan d'Egypte et revint seulement en 1355 en Angleterre. Il mourut a Liege chez les Guilhemins, le 17th Novembre, 1372. Il laissa au dit monastere plusieurs MSS. de ses oeuvres fort vantes, tant de ses voyages que de la medecine, ecrits de sa main; il y avait encore en ladite maison plusieurs meubles qu'il leur laissa pour memoire. Il a laisse quelques livres de medecine qui n'ont jamais ete imprimes, des _tabulae astronomicae_, de _chorda recta et umbra, de doctrina theologica_. La relation de son voyage est en latin, francais et anglais; il raconte, en y melant beaucoup de fables, ce qu'il a vu de curieux en Egypte, en Arabie et en Perse."

Then is inserted, an abstract from Lefort, _Liege Herald_, at the end of the 17th century, from _Jean d'Outremeuse_, which we quote from another publication of Dr. Bormans' as it contains the final sentence: "Mort enfin, etc." not to be found in the paper of the _Bibliophile Belge_.

In his introduction to the _Chronique et geste de Jean des Preis dit d'Outremeuse_, Brussels, F. Hayez, 1887 (_Collection des Chroniques belges inedites_), Dr. Stanislas Bormans writes, pp. cx.x.xiii.-cx.x.xiv.: "L'an M.CCC.LXXII, mourut a Liege, le 12 Novembre, un homme fort distingue par sa naissance, avant de s'y faire connoitre sous le nom de Jean de Bourgogne dit a la Barbe. Il s'ouvrit neanmoins au lit de la mort a Jean d'Outremeuse, son compere, et inst.i.tue son executeur testamentaire. De vrai il se t.i.tra, dans le precis de sa derniere volonte, messire _Jean de Mandeville, chevalier, comte de Montfort en Angleterre, et seigneur de l'isle de Campdi et du chateau Perouse_. Ayant cependant eu le malheur de tuer, en son pays, un comte qu'il ne nomme pas, il s'engagea a parcourir les trois parties du monde. Vint a Liege en 1343. Tout sorti qu'il etoit d'une n.o.blesse tres-distinguee, il aima de s'y tenir cache. Il etoit, au reste, grand naturaliste, profond philosophe et astrologue, y joint en particulier une connoissance tres singuliere de la physique, se trompant rarement lorsqu'il disoit son sentiment a l'egard d'un malade, s'il en reviendroit ou pas. Mort enfin, on l'enterra aux F.F. Guillelmins, au faubourg d'Avroy, comme vous avez vu plus amplement cydessous."

It is not the first time that the names _Jean de Mandeville_ and _Jean a la Barbe_ are to be met with, as Ortelius, in his description of Liege, included in his Itinerary of Belgium, has given the epitaph of the knightly physician:[37(1)]

"Leodium primo aspectu ostentat in sinistra ripa (nam dextra vinetis plena est,) magna, & populosa suburbia ad collium radices, in quorum iugis multa sunt, & pulcherrima Monasteria, inter quae magnific.u.m illud ac n.o.bile D.

Laurentio dicatum ab Raginardo episcopo, vt habet Sigebertus, circa ann.

sal. M XXV aedificatum est in hac quoq. regione Guilelmitaru Coen.o.bium in quo epitaphiu hoc Ioannis a Mandeuille excepimus: _Hic iacet vir n.o.bilis Dns Ioes de Mandeville al Dcus ad barbam miles dns de Capdi natus de Anglia medicie pfessor deuotissimus orator et bonorum largissimus paupribus erogator qui toto quasi orbe l.u.s.trato leodii diem vite sue clausit extremum ano Dni M CCC LXXI[37(2)] mensis novebr die XVII_.[37(3)]

"Haec in lapide, in quo caelata viri armati imago, leonem calcantis, barba bifurcata, ad caput ma.n.u.s benedicens, & vernacula haec verba: _vos ki paseis sor mi pour lamour deix proies por mi_. Clypeus erat vacuus, in quo olim laminam fuisse dicebant aeream, & eius in ea itidem caelata insignia, leonem videlicet argenteum, cui ad pectus lunula rubea, in campo caeruleo, quem limbus ambiret denticulatus ex auro, eius n.o.bis ostendebat & cultros, ephippiaque, & calcaria, quibus vsum fuisse a.s.serebat in peragrando toto fere terrarum orbe, vt clarius eius testatur itinerarium, quod typis etiam excusum pa.s.sim habetur."[37]

Dr. Warner writes in the _National Biography_:

"There is abundant proof that the tomb of the author of the _Travels_ was to be seen in the Church of the Guillemins or Guillelmites at Liege down to the demolition of the building in 1798. The fact of his burial there, with the date of his death, 17th November, 1372, was published by Bale in 1548 (_Summarium_ f. 149 _b_), and was confirmed independently by Jacob Meyer (_Annales rerum Flandric_. 1561, p. 165) and Lud. Guicciardini.

(_Paesi Ba.s.si_, 1567, p. 281.)"

In a letter dated from Bodley's Library, 17th March, 1884, to _The Academy_, 12th April, 1884, No. 623, Mr. Edward B. Nicholson drew attention to the abstract from Jean d'Ontremeuse, and came to the conclusion that the writer of Mandeville's relation was a _profound liar_, and that he was the Liege Professor of Medicine, John of Burgundy or _a la Barbe_. He adds: "If, in the matter of literary honesty, John a Beard was a bit of a knave, he was very certainly no fool."

On the other hand, M. Leopold Delisle,[38] has shown that two ma.n.u.scripts, Nouv. acq. franc. 4515 (Barrois, 24) and Nouv. acq. franc.

4516 (Barrois, 185), were part formerly of one volume copied in 1371 by Raoulet of Orleans and given in the same year to King Charles V. by his physician Gervaise Crestien, viz. one year before the death of the so-called Mandeville; one of these ma.n.u.scripts--now separate--contains the Book of Jehan de Mandeville, the other one, a treatise of "la preservacion de epidimie, minucion ou curacion d'icelle faite de maistre Jehan de Bourgoigne, autrement dit a la Barbe, professeur en medicine et cytoien du Liege," in 1365. This bringing together is certainly not fortuitous.