Pp.
262-263, Does Not Share Sir Henry Yule's Opinion Regarding This
Itinerary, And He Writes:
"To return to our travellers, who started on their second great
journey in 1271, Sir Henry Yule, in his introduction,[A] makes them
travel via Sivas to Mosul and Baghdad, and thence by sea to Hormuz,
and this is the itinerary shown on his sketch map.
This view I am
unwilling to accept for more than one reason. In the first place, if,
with Colonel Yule, we suppose that Ser Marco visited Baghdad, is it
not unlikely that he should term the River Volga the Tigris,[B] and
yet leave the river of Baghdad nameless? It may be urged that Marco
believed the legend of the reappearance of the Volga in Kurdistan, but
yet, if the text be read with care and the character of the traveller
be taken into account, this error is scarcely explicable in any other
way, than that he was never there.
"Again, he gives no description of the striking buildings of Baudas,
as he terms it, but this is nothing to the inaccuracy of his supposed
onward journey. To quote the text, 'A very great river flows through
the city,... and merchants descend some eighteen days from Baudas, and
then come to a certain city called Kisi,[C] where they enter the Sea
of India.' Surely Marco, had he travelled down the Persian Gulf, would
never have given this description of the route, which is so untrue as
to point to the conclusion that it was vague information given by some
merchant whom he met in the course of his wanderings.
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