NOTES. 



P 2 ) p. 253. See the proofs, in my Exanien crit. T. ii. p. 316 320. 

 Josafat Barbara (1436) and Ghislin von Busbeck (1555) still found, between 

 Tana (Asof), Caffa, and the Erdil (the Volga), A'ani and Gothic tribes speak- 

 ing German (Ramusio, delle Navigatioui et Viaggi, Vol. ii. p. 92 b and 98 a). 

 Roger Bacon always terms Rubruquis only frater Willielmus, quern dominua 

 Rex Francise misit ad Tartaros. 



t 393 ) p. 254. The great and fine work of Marco Polo (II Milione di Messer 

 Marco Polo), as we possess it in the correct edition of Count Baldelli, is in- 

 correctly called "Travels" ; it is for the most part a descriptive, one might 

 say a statistical, work ; in which it is difficult to distinguish what the traveller 

 saw himself what he learned from others, and what he derived from topogra- 

 phic descriptions, in which the Chinese literature is so rich, and which might 

 be accessible to him through his Persian interpreters. The striking resemblance 

 between the narrative of the travels of Hiuan-thsang, the Buddhistic pilgrim of 

 the seventh century, and that which Marco Polo found in 1277 (respecting the 

 Pamir-Highland), early drew my whole attention. Jacquet, who an early de- 

 cease withdrew from tlie investigation of Asiatic languages, and who, like Klaproth 

 and myself, was long occupied with the great Venetian traveller, wrote to me, 

 a short time before his death, " Je suis frappe comme vous de la forme de re- 

 daction litteraire du Milione. Le fond appartient sans doute a 1'observation 

 directe et persoimelle du voyageur, mais il a probablement employe des docu- 

 ments qui lui out ete communiques soit omciellement, soit en particulier. 

 Bien des choses paraissent avoir ete empruntees & des livres Chinois et Mon- 

 gols, bien que ces influences sur la composition du Milione soient difficiles a 

 reconnaitre dans les traductious successives sur lesquelles Polo aura fonde sea 

 extraits." Whilst our modern travellers are only too well pleased to occupy 

 their readers with their own persons, Marco Polo takes no less pains to blend 

 his own observations with the official data communicated to him ; of which, 

 as governor of the city of Yangui, he might have many. (See my Asie cen- 

 trale, T. ii. p. 395.) The compiling method of the illustrious traveller also 

 helps to explain the possibility of his dictating his book while confined in the 

 prison at* Genoa, in 1295, to his fellow-prisoner and friend Messer Rustigielo 

 of Pisa, as if the documents had been lying before him. (Compare Marsden, 

 Travels of Marco Polo, p. xxxiii.) 



( m ) p. 254. Purchas, Pilgrims, Part iii. ch. 28 and 56 (p. 23 and 24). 



( 393 ) p. 254. Navarrete, Coleccion de los Viages y Descubrimientos que 

 hicieron por mar los Espafloles, T. i. p. 261 ; Washington Irving, History 

 of the Life and Voyages of Christopher Columbus, 1828, Vol. iv. p. 297. 



