Yet I Think, If We Read "Between The Lines," We Shall See Reason To Believe That The Wall Was In Polo's Mind At This Point Of The Dictation, Whatever May Have Been His Motive For Withholding Distincter Notice Of It.[7] I Cannot Conceive Why He Should Say:

"Here is what we call the country of Gog and Magog," except as intimating "Here we are beside the GREAT WALL known as the Rampart of Gog and Magog," and being there he tries to find a reason why those names should have been applied to it.

Why they were really applied to it we have already seen. (Supra, ch. iv. note 3.) Abulfeda says: "The Ocean turns northward along the east of China, and then expands in the same direction till it passes China, and comes opposite to the Rampart of Yajuj and Majuj;" whilst the same geographer's definition of the boundaries of China exhibits that country as bounded on the west by the Indo-Chinese wildernesses; on the south, by the seas; on the east, by the Eastern Ocean; on the north, by the land of Yajuj and Majuj, and other countries unknown. Ibn Batuta, with less accurate geography in his head than Abulfeda, maugre his travels, asks about the Rampart of Gog and Magog (Sadd Yajuj wa Majuj) when he is at Sin Kalan, i.e. Canton, and, as might be expected, gets little satisfaction.

[Illustration: The Rampart of Gog and Magog]

Apart from this interesting point Marsden seems to be right in the general bearing of his explanation of the passage, and I conceive that the two classes of people whom Marco tries to identify with Gog and Magog do substantially represent the two genera or species, TURKS and MONGOLS, or, according to another nomenclature used by Rashiduddin, the White and Black Tartars.

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