This has occasioned great perplexity to
commentators in endeavouring to explain his geography conformably with
modern maps, and which even is often impossible to be done with any
tolerable certainty. The arrangement, likewise, of his descriptions is
altogether arbitrary, so that the sequence does not serve to remove the
difficulty; and the sections appear to have been drawn up in a desultory
manner just as they occurred to his recollection, or as circumstances in
the conversation or inquiry of others occasioned him to commit his
knowledge to paper. - E.
[2] Gurgistan, usually called Georgia. - E.
[3] This manufacture from Mosul or Moxul, on the Tigris, must be carefully
distinguished from the muslins of India, which need not be
described. - E
[4] These buckrams seem to have been some coarse species of cotton cloth,
in ordinary wear among the eastern nations. The word occurs
frequently, in these early travels in Tartary, but its proper meaning
is unknown - E.
[5] This word is inexplicable, unless by supposing it some corruption of
Syra Horda, the golden court or imperial residence, which was
usually in Tangut or Mongalia, on the Orchen or Onguin. But in the
days of Marco, the khans had betaken themselves to the luxurious ease
of fixed residences and he might have misunderstood the information he
received of the residence of Mangu. - E.
[6] Marco Polo is no more answerable for the truth of this ridiculous
legend of the 13th century, than the archbishop of Paris of the 19th
is for many, equally absurd, that are narrated in the French national
Catechism. Both were good catholics, and rehearsed what they had
heard, and what neither of them pretended to have seen. - E.
SECTION III
Of the Country of Persia, the Cities of Jasdi, Cermam and Camandu, and the
Province of Reobarle.
Tauris is a great city in the province of Hircania[1], and is a very
populous place. The inhabitants live by the exercise of manufacture and
trade, fabricating, especially, stuffs of silk and gold. The foreign
merchants who reside there make very great gains, but the inhabitants are
generally poor. They are a mixed people, of Nestorians, Armenians,
Jacobites, Georgians, Persians, and Mahometans. These last are perfidious
and treacherous people, who think all well got which they can filch or
steal from those of other religions; and this wickedness of the Saracens
has induced many of the Tartars to join their religion; and if a Saracen be
killed by a Christian, even while engaged in the act of robbery, he is
esteemed to have died a martyr.
