93 and 384 of this
volume, on Tacuin at p. 448, and a note at p. 93 supra. The
narratives of Odoric, and others of the early travellers to Cathay,
afford corroborative examples. Lord Stanley of Alderley, in one of his
contributions to the Hakluyt Series, has given evidence from
experience that Chinese Mahomedans still preserve the knowledge of
numerous Persian words.
[13] Compare these errors with like errors of Herodotus, e.g., regarding
the conspiracy of the False Smerdis. (See Rawlinson's Introduction, p.
55.) There is a curious parallel between the two also in the supposed
occasional use of Oriental state records, as in Herodotus's accounts
of the revenues of the satrapies, and of the army of Xerxes, and in
Marco Polo's account of Kinsay, and of the Kaan's revenues. (Vol. ii
pp. 185, 216.)
[14] An example is seen in the voluminous Annali Musulmani of G. B.
Rampoldi, Milan, 1825. This writer speaks of the Travels of Marco
Polo with his brother and uncle; declares that he visited Tipango
(sic), Java, Ceylon, and the Maldives, collected all the
geographical notions of his age, traversed the two peninsulas of the
Indies, examined the islands of Socotra, Madagascar, Sofala, and
traversed with philosophic eye the regions of Zanguebar, Abyssinia,
Nubia, and Egypt! and so forth (ix. 174). And whilst Malte-Brun
bestows on Marco the sounding and ridiculous title of "the Humboldt
of the 13th century," he shows little real acquaintance with his
Book.
