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[22] I have to regret that unavoidable circumstances have interrupted my pleasant task, and have compelled me to leave this preface, and some part of the commentary, in a cruder state than I should have allowed, had time permitted of the search for further particulars or illustrations of the author’s life, mission, and descriptions.

[23] The French editor regards this as his surname. Is it not more probably only the genitive of his father’s name?

[24] “Which I suspect to be Conengue or Khounouk, a port of Persia, on the Persian Gulf,” (French Editor). Speaking without having seen the letter, I should rather suspect it to be the island and roadstead of Karrack, called by the Arabs Khârej, but also locally, as appears by the Government charts, Khárg. (My friend Mr. Badger thinks it may be El-Kât, an ancient port still much frequented, fifty miles south-west of the mouth of the Euphrates.) I find from M. D’Avezac in Rec. de Voyages, (iv. 421), that this letter is published in Quétif & Echard, Scriptoris Ordinis Dom., i. p. 549, and that the second letter is given by Wadding, Annales Minorum, vi. 359.

[25] Tauris, Tabriz; Tongan, which the French editor calls “Djagorgan” (?), is probably Daumghan in Persia, south of Astrabad, mentioned by Marco Polo (ii. 17), with an allusion to the Christians there; and Marogo is Maragha in the plain east of Lake Urumia, formerly the capital of the Tartar Hulaku.

[26] Which shows that the places indicated by Jordanus were in India. Paroco is of course Baroch, and Columbum, Coulam or Quilon. Respecting the identity of this last we shall, however, have to speak more fully. Supera, the French editor states, after D’Anville, to be “the port now called Sefer, the Sefara el Hind of the Arabs.” It is doubtless the Supara of Ptolomy, which he places on the north of the first great river south of the Namadus or Nerbudda. Masudi also says that Sefara was four days’ journey from Cambay. These indications fix Supera on the Tapti, over against Surat, and probably as the ancient representative of that port. (See Reinaud’s Mém. sur la Géog. de l’Inde, and Vincent’s Periplus of the Erythræan Sea, p. 385.)

[27] A town on the island of Salsette, about twelve miles from Bombay, and formerly a port of considerable importance.

[28] According to the Acta Sanctorum of the Bollandists, this martyrdom took place, 1st April 1322. There is a letter from Francis of Pisa (I presume in the MS. above quoted), a comrade and friend of Jordanus, which gives similar details. They are also found in the Bibliotheca Hispanica Vetus of Nicol. Antonio, p. 268. (French Editor’s Comment.) See also below, pp. ix-xii.

[29] Quoted by the French editor from Odericus Raynaldus, Annal. Eccles., No. 55.

[30] The French editor supposes Semiscat to be, perhaps, a misreading for Samirkat = Samarkand. Mr. Badger suggests judiciously Someisât, the ancient Samosata. There was another see under Sultania, viz., Verna, supposed by D’Avezac to be Orna or Ornas, which he identifies with Tana, the seat of a Venetian factory at the mouth of the Don, on the site of ancient Tanais. (Rec. de Voy., iv. 510.)

[31] The editor does not give his authority for this. Sultania was destroyed by Tamerlane, and never recovered its former importance. It was still a city of some size in the time of Chardin, but is now apparently quite deserted. It is not mentioned by M. Polo.

[32] I conclude, from a passage near the end of the work (ch. xiv.), that the actual residence of Jordanus at Columbum, previous to his writing, lasted only a year, or thereabouts.

[33] I have now no doubt that the date in the next line is wrong. For, according to M. D’Avezac (in the same volume of the Rec. de Voyages, which contains Jordanus, p. 417), the celebrated traveller Odoricus of Friuli, who was at Tana in 1322, sent home a letter describing this martyrdom as having occurred in the preceding year. It is in the Bib. Royale (now Impériale) at Paris. The narrative, in still greater detail than here, is indeed to be found in the Itinerary of Odoricus, as published in Hakluyt, at least in the Latin; the English translation does not give the details. From this error in date, as well as the better style of Latin, I should doubt if this chronicle was written by our Jordanus.

[34] Diu, on the coast of Guzerat, where the old Portuguese warriors afterwards made such a gallant defence against the “Moors” in 1547.

[35] Yusuf.

[36] Sic. I suppose it should be Abraham, according to the well-known Mussulman tradition; perhaps called, as Mr. Badger kindly suggests, Aben (or Ibn) Azer, the son of Azer, the Mussulman name for Terah.

[37] In Keith Johnstone’s new and beautiful atlas Quilon is identified with Kayan or Kain-Kulam. This, I have no doubt, is quite a mistake. The places, though near, are quite distinct, and in the beginning of the sixteenth century were under distinct sovereigns. I may here notice what I venture, with respect, to think is an error in Mr. Major’s edition of Conti (India in the Fifteenth Century). Conti, on his first arrival in Malabar, lands at “Pudefitania,” and, after describing his visit to Bengal, and his ascent of the Ganges, returns to Pudefitania. Mr. Major interprets this in the last place Burdwan. But, apart from other arguments, it is evidently in both passages the same place, i.e., Pudipatanam, one of the old forgotten ports on the coast of Malabar, but mentioned by Barbosa and the Geographer in Ramusio. Other names mentioned by Conti are in need of examination. Maarazia, the great city on the Ganges which he visits, is certainly not Muttra, as the editor has it, but Benares. The Braminical name, Baranási, is near enough to Conti’s.

[38] Wilson’s preface to Mackenzie’s Collections, p. xcviii.

[39] See the relations of Mahomedan voyagers published by Renaudot, and again by Reinaud.

[40] See end of note to ch. v. para. 16.