This work
they cause to be wrought over face and neck and chest, arms and hands, and
belly, and, in short, the whole body; and they look on it as a token of
elegance, so that those who have the largest amount of this embroidery are
regarded with the greatest admiration.
NOTE 1. - No province mentioned by Marco has given rise to wider and wilder
conjectures than this, Cangigu as it has been generally printed.
M. Pauthier, who sees in it Laos, or rather one of the states of Laos
called in the Chinese histories Papesifu, seems to have formed the most
probable opinion hitherto propounded by any editor of Polo. I have no
doubt that Laos or some part of that region is meant to be described,
and that Pauthier is right regarding the general direction of the course
here taken as being through the regions east of Burma, in a north-easterly
direction up into Kwei-chau. But we shall be able to review the geography
of this tract better, as a whole, at a point more advanced. I shall then
speak of the name CAUGIGU, and why I prefer this reading of it.
I do not believe, for reasons which will also appear further on, that Polo
is now following a route which he had traced in person, unless it be in
the latter part of it.
