But Also Many Additional Circumstances
And Anecdotes Are Introduced, Many Of The Names Assume A New Shape, And
The Whole Style Is More Copious And Literary In Character Than In Any
Other Form Of The Work.
Whilst some of the changes or interpolations seem to carry us further from
the truth, others contain facts of Asiatic nature or history, as well as
of Polo's own experiences, which it is extremely difficult to ascribe to
any hand but the Traveller's own.
This was the view taken by Baldelli,
Klaproth, and Neumann;[14] but Hugh Murray, Lazari, and Bartoli regard the
changes as interpolations by another hand; and Lazari is rash enough to
ascribe the whole to a rifacimento of Ramusio's own age, asserting it to
contain interpolations not merely from Polo's own contemporary Hayton, but
also from travellers of later centuries, such as Conti, Barbosa, and
Pigafetta. The grounds for these last assertions have not been cited, nor
can I trace them. But I admit to a certain extent indications of modern
tampering with the text, especially in cases where proper names seem to
have been identified and more modern forms substituted. In days, however,
where an Editor's duties were ill understood, this was natural.
[Sidenote: Injudicious tamperings in Ramusio.]
61. Thus we find substituted for the Bastra (or Bascra) of the older
texts the more modern and incorrect Balsora, dear to memories of the
Arabian Nights; among the provinces of Persia we have Spaan (Ispahan)
where older texts read Istanit; for Cormos we have Ormus; for
Herminia and Laias, Armenia and Giazza; Coulam for the older
Coilum; Socotera for Scotra.
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