The Travels of Marco Polo — Volume 1 by Marco Polo and da Pisa Rusticiano

enough to demonstrate the Geographic Text to be the source of all other versions of the Work. It is this. In reviewing the various classes or types of texts of Polo’s Book, which we shall hereafter attempt to discriminate, there are certain proper names which we find in the different texts to take very different forms, each class adhering in the main to one particular form. Thus the names of the Mongol ladies introduced at pp. 32 and 36 of this volume, which are in proper Oriental form _Bulughán_ and _Kukáchin_, appear in the class of MSS. which Pauthier has followed as _Bolgara_ and _Cogatra_; in the MSS. of Pipino’s version, and those founded on it, including Ramusio, the names appear in the correcter forms _Bolgana_ or _Balgana_ and _Cogacin_. Now _all the forms_ Bolgana, Balgana, Bolgara, _and_ Cogatra, Cocacin _appear in the Geographic Text_. Kaikhátú Kaan appears in the Pauthier MSS. as _Chiato_, in the Pipinian as _Acatu_, in the Ramusian as _Chiacato. All three forms_, Chiato, Achatu, and Quiacatu _are found in the Geographic Text_. The city of Koh-banan appears in the Pauthier MSS. as _Cabanant_, in the Pipinian and Ramusian editions as _Cobinam_ or _Cobinan_. _Both forms are found in the Geographic Text_. The city of the Great Kaan (Khanbalig) is called in the Pauthier MSS. _Cambaluc_, in the Pipinian and Ramusian less correctly _Cambalu_. _Both forms appear in the Geographic Text_. The aboriginal People on the Burmese Frontier who received from the Western officers of the Mongols the Persian name (translated from that applied by the Chinese) of _Zardandán_, or Gold-Teeth, appear in the Pauthier MSS. most accurately as Zardandan, but in the Pipinian as _Ardandan_ (still further corrupted in some copies into _Arcladam_). Now _both forms are found in the Geographic Text_. Other examples might be given, but these I think may suffice to prove that this Text was the common source of both classes. In considering the question of the French original too we must remember what has been already said regarding Rusticien de Pise and his other French writings; and we shall find hereafter an express testimony borne in the next generation that Marco’s Book was composed _in vulgari Gallico_. [Sidenote: Greatly diffused employment of French in that age.]