[4] For example, that enthusiastic student of mediaeval Geography, Joachim
Lelewel, speaks of Polo's "gibberish" (le baragouinage du Venitien)
with special reference to such names as Zayton and Kinsay, whilst
we now know that these names were in universal use by all foreigners
in China, and no more deserve to be called gibberish than
Bocca-Tigris, Leghorn, Ratisbon, or Buda.
[5] I am quite sensible of the diffidence with which any outsider should
touch any question of Chinese language or orthography. A Chinese
scholar and missionary (Mr. Moule) objects to my spelling chau,
whilst he, I see, uses chow. I imagine we mean the same sound,
according to the spelling which I try to use throughout the book. Dr.
C. Douglas, another missionary scholar, writes chau.
[Illustration: MARCO POLO'S ITINERARIES,
No. I.
(Prologue; Book I. Chapters 1-36; and Book IV.)]
[Illustration: SKETCH SHOWING CHIEF MONARCHIES OF ASIA IN LATTER PART OF
13th CENTURY]
THE BOOK OF MARCO POLO.
PROLOGUE.
Great Princes, Emperors, and Kings, Dukes and Marquises, Counts, Knights,
and Burgesses! and People of all degrees who desire to get knowledge of
the various races of mankind and of the diversities of the sundry regions
of the World, take this Book and cause it to be read to you. For ye shall
find therein all kinds of wonderful things, and the divers histories of
the Great Hermenia, and of Persia, and of the Land of the Tartars, and of
India, and of many another country of which our Book doth speak,
particularly and in regular succession, according to the description of
Messer Marco Polo, a wise and noble citizen of Venice, as he saw them with
his own eyes.
