- Pauthier's text seems to be the only one which says that Marco
was sent by the Great Kaan. The G. Text says merely: "Si qe jeo March Pol
qe plusor foies hoi faire le conte de la rende de tous cestes couses," -
"had several times heard the calculations made."
NOTE 2. - Toman is 10,000. And the first question that occurs in
considering the statements of this chapter is as to the unit of these
tomans, as intended by Polo. I believe it to have been the tael (or
Chinese ounce) of gold.
We do not know that the Chinese ever made monetary calculations in gold.
But the usual unit of the revenue accounts appears from Pauthier's
extracts to have been the ting, i.e. a money of account equal to ten
taels of silver, and we know (supra, ch. l. note 4) that this was in
those days the exact equivalent of one tael of gold.
The equation in our text is 10,000 x = 70,000 saggi of gold, giving x,
or the unit sought, = 7 saggi. But in both Ramusio on the one hand, and
in the Geog. Latin and Crusca Italian texts on the other hand, the
equivalent of the toman is 80,000 saggi; though it is true that neither
with one valuation nor the other are the calculations consistent in any of
the texts, except Ramusio's.[1] This consistency does not give any
greater weight to Ramusio's reading, because we know that version to have
been edited, and corrected when the editor thought it necessary:
