To the twelfth;[NOTE 2]
so that when one is asked the year of his birth he answers that it was in
the year of the Lion (let us say), on such a day or night, at such an
hour, and such a moment. And the father of a child always takes care to
write these particulars down in a book. When the twelve yearly symbols
have been gone through, then they come back to the first, and go through
with them again in the same succession.]
NOTE 1. - It is odd that Marsden should have sought a Chinese explanation
of the Arabic word Takwim even with Tavernier before him: "They sell in
Persia an annual almanac called Tacuim, which is properly an ephemeris
containing the longitude and latitude of the planets, their conjunctions
and oppositions, and other such matter. The Tacuim is full of
predictions regarding war, pestilence, and famine; it indicates the
favourable time for putting on new clothes, for getting bled or purged,
for making a journey, and so forth. They put entire faith in it, and
whoever can afford one governs himself in all things by its rules." (Bk.
V. ch. xiv.)
The use of the term by Marco may possibly be an illustration of what I
have elsewhere propounded, viz.
