Secondly, Of A Long Series Of Chapters
Of Very Unequal Length, Descriptive Of Notable Sights And Products, Of
Curious Manners And Remarkable Events, Relating To The Different Nations
And States Of Asia, But, Above All, To The Emperor Kublai, His Court,
Wars, And Administration.
A series of chapters near the close treats in a
verbose and monotonous manner of sundry wars that took place between the
various branches of the House of Chinghiz in the latter half of the 13th
century.
This last series is either omitted or greatly curtailed in all
the copies and versions except one; a circumstance perfectly accounted for
by the absence of interest as well as value in the bulk of these chapters.
Indeed, desirous though I have been to give the Traveller's work complete,
and sharing the dislike that every man who uses books must bear to
abridgments, I have felt that it would be sheer waste and dead-weight to
print these chapters in full.
[Illustration: Temple of 500 Genii at Canton after a Drawing by FELIX
REGAMEY]
This second and main portion of the Work is in its oldest forms undivided,
the chapters running on consecutively to the end.[1] In some very early
Italian or Venetian version, which Friar Pipino translated into Latin, it
was divided into three Books, and this convenient division has generally
been adhered to. We have adopted M. Pauthier's suggestion in making the
final series of chapters, chiefly historical, into a Fourth.
[Sidenote: Language of the original Work.]
51.
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