Text, a passage in which the term Roi
des Pelaines, or "King of Furs," is applied to the Sable, and which in
the Crusca has been converted into an imaginary Tartar phrase Leroide
pelame, or as Pipino makes it Rondes (another indication that Pipino's
Version and the Crusca passed through a common medium). But Ramusio
exhibits both the true reading and the perversion: "E li Tartari la
chiamano Regina delle pelli" (there is the true reading), "E gli animali
si chiamano Rondes" (and there the perverted one).
We may further remark that Ramusio's version betrays indications that one
of its bases either was in the Venetian dialect, or had passed through
that dialect; for a good many of the names appear in Venetian forms, e.g.,
substituting the z for the sound of ch, j, or soft g, as in Goza,
Zorzania, Zagatay, Gonza (for Giogiu), Quenzanfu, Coiganzu, Tapinzu,
Zipangu, Ziamba.
[Sidenote: Summary in regard to Text of Polo.]
64. To sum up. It is, I think, beyond reasonable dispute that we have, in
what we call the Geographic Text, as nearly as may be an exact transcript
of the Traveller's words as originally taken down in the prison of Genoa.
We have again in the MSS.
