Indeed, if he had visited it at all, he would
have been aware that it was essentially a part of India, whilst in fact he
evidently regarded it as an Indo-Chinese region, like Zardandan,
Mien, and Caugigu.
There is no notice, I believe, in any history, Indian or Chinese, of an
attempt by Kublai to conquer Bengal. The only such attempt by the Mongols
that we hear of is one mentioned by Firishta, as made by way of Cathay and
Tibet, during the reign of Alauddin Masa'ud, king of Delhi, in 1244, and
stated to have been defeated by the local officers in Bengal. But Mr.
Edward Thomas tells me he has most distinctly ascertained that this
statement, which has misled every historian "from Badauni and Firishtah to
Briggs and Elphinstone, is founded purely on an erroneous reading" (and
see a note in Mr. Thomas's Pathan Kings of Dehli, p. 121).
The date 1290 in the text would fix the period of Polo's final departure
from Peking, if the dates were not so generally corrupt.
The subject of the last part of this paragraph, recurred to in the next,
has been misunderstood and corrupted in Pauthier's text, and partially in
Ramusio's. These make the escuilles or escoilliez (vide Ducange in
v. Escodatus, and Raynouard, Lex. Rom. VI. 11) into scholars and
what not. But on comparison of the passages in those two editions with the
Geographic Text one cannot doubt the correct reading.
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