3 1 2  Rhubarb  and  Rheum  Officinale.  {Am^y%!^' 
144  La  grant  province  general,  ou  ces  trois  provinces  sont,  est  Tanqut. 
Et  partoutes  les  montagnes  de  ces  provinces  se  trouve  le  reobarbe  in 
grant  habondance.  Et  illec  l'achatent  les  marchans  et  les  portent  par 
le  monde."    And  further,  "  Ci  diet  de  la  cite*  de  Siguy :  Siguy  est  une 
rtres  noble  cite  et  grande  Et  si  y  a  si  grant  plante*  de  gent  que 
H'on  n'en  puet  savoir  le  nombre,  ....  mais  ils  ne  sont  point  hommes 
•4'armes,  ains  sont  marchans  et  gens  moult  soubtilz  de  tous  mestiers. 
jEt  si  a  en  ceste  cite  moult  de  philosophies  et  moult  de  mires  [me'di- 
<cins  ?].  .  .  .  Et  es  montaignes  de  ceste  cite  croist  reobarbe  et  gin- 
tgembre  aussi  a  grant  plante."  Professor  Fluckiger  does  not  think  with 
5Pauthier,  Marco  Polo's  editor  and  commentater,  that  by  Siguy  is  to  be 
^understood  Su-tscheu  in  the  province  of  Kiang-su,  but  Sining  in  the 
western  part  of  the  province  of  Schen-si.  The  doubt  remains,  how  it 
was  possible  that  ginger  (gingembre)  could  occur  together  with  rhu- 
barb ;  but  that  rhubarb  was  wanting  in  the  comparatively  well-known 
province  of  Kiang-su  is  certain. 
As  a  Venetian,  Marco  Polo  naturally  turned  his  attention  to  rhu- 
barb. It  is  known  that  the  Venetians  as  well  as  their  neighbors  the 
Genoese  obtained  supplies  of  Asiatic  products  not  only  through  the 
Red  Sea  and  across  Egypt,  but  that  their  commercial  routes  from 
Central  Asia  found  an  exit  also  by  the  Sea  of  Azov  or  the  Syrian 
coasts.  In  this  way,  possibly,  rhubarb  may  have  been  supplied  when 
the  Sultan  of  Egypt  interposed  difficulties  to  transmit  through  his  do- 
minions. 
During  the  whole  of  the  middle  ages  rhubarb  does  not  appear  to 
liave  been  a  very  important  article  of  commerce.  "  Rabarbara  "  occurs 
rin  the  commercial  police  regulations  of  the  city  of  Bruges  in  1380,  as 
an  import  from  Italy.  In  1445,  rhubarb  was  imported  into  Dantzic  from 
Riga,  and  it  was  one  of  the  valuable  drugs  which,  in  1497,  were  sought 
in  the  first  doubling  of  the  Cape  of  Good  Hope.  The  Portuguese  and 
Italians,  who  reached  India  at  the  commencement  of  the  sixteenth 
century,  obtained  from  Calicut  and  Cochin  rhubarb  that  had  been  im- 
ported from  China  vid  Malacca. 
Garcia  de  Orta  gives  further  information  respecting  the  commercial 
routes  which  the  trade  of  that  time  (1563)  struck  out.  It  reached  Or- 
muz  in  the  Persian  Gulf,  made  its  way  through  Mesopotamia  to  Al- 
eppo and  thence  to  Alexandria,  where  the  Venetians  took  it  in  hand. 
Garcia  states  that  rhubarb  was  supplied  direct  from  Canton  to  Ormuz. 
