See, On The One
Hand, His Undisguised Admiration Of The Hard Life And Long Fastings Of
Sakya Muni; And On The Other How Enthusiastic He Gets In Speaking Of The
Great Kaan's Command Of The Good Things Of The World, But Above All Of His
Matchless Opportunities Of Sport![5]
[Illustration: PROBABLE VIEW OF MARCO POLO'S OWN GEOGRAPHY]
Of humour there are hardly any signs in his Book. His almost solitary joke
(I know but one more, and it pertains to the [Greek: ouk anaekonta])
occurs in speaking of the Kaan's paper-money when he observes that Kublai
might be said to have the true Philosopher's Stone, for he made his money
at pleasure out of the bark of Trees.[6] Even the oddest eccentricities of
outlandish tribes scarcely seem to disturb his gravity; as when he relates
in his brief way of the people called Gold-Teeth on the frontier of Burma,
that ludicrous custom which Mr. Tylor has so well illustrated under the
name of the Couvade. There is more savour of laughter in the few lines
of a Greek Epic, which relate precisely the same custom of a people on the
Euxine: -
- "In the Tibarenian Land
When some good woman bears her lord a babe,
'Tis he is swathed and groaning put to bed;
Whilst she, arising, tends his baths, and serves
Nice possets for her husband in the straw."[7]
[Sidenote: Absence of scientific notions.]
69. Of scientific notions, such as we find in the unveracious Maundevile,
we have no trace in truthful Marco.
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