Читать книгу The Voyages of Marco Polo - Марко Поло - Страница 8

[Original Dedication.]

TO

HER ROYAL HIGHNESS,

MARGHERITA,

Princess of Piedmont, THIS ENDEAVOUR TO ILLUSTRATE THE LIFE AND WORK OF A RENOWNED ITALIAN IS BY HER ROYAL HIGHNESS'S GRACIOUS PERMISSION Dedicated WITH THE DEEPEST RESPECT BY

H. YULE.

[1] Cathay and The Way Thither, being a Collection of Minor Medieval Notices of China. London, 1866. The necessities of the case have required the repetition in the present work of the substance of some notes already printed (but hardly published) in the other.

[2] Viz. Mr. Hugh Murray's. I mean no disrespect to Mr. T. Wright's edition, but it is, and professes to be, scarcely other than a reproduction of Marsden's, with abridgment of his notes.

[3] In the Quarterly Review for July, 1868.

[4] M. Nicolas Khanikoff.

[5] In the Preliminary Notices will be found new matter on the Personal and Family History of the Traveller, illustrated by Documents; and a more elaborate attempt than I have seen elsewhere to classify and account for the different texts of the work, and to trace their mutual relation.

As regards geographical elucidations, I may point to the explanation of the name Gheluchelan (i. p. 58), to the discussion of the route from Kerman to Hormuz, and the identification of the sites of Old Hormuz, of Cobinan and Dogana, the establishment of the position and continued existence of Keshm, the note on Pein and Charchan, on Gog and Magog, on the geography of the route from Sindafu to Carajan, on Anin and Coloman, on Mutafili, Cail, and Ely.

As regards historical illustrations, I would cite the notes regarding the Queens Bolgana and Cocachin, on the Karaunahs, etc., on the title of King of Bengal applied to the K. of Burma, and those bearing upon the Malay and Abyssinian chronologies.

In the interpretation of outlandish phrases, I may refer to the notes on Ondanique, Nono, Barguerlac, Argon, Sensin, Keshican, Toscaol, Bularguchi, Gat-paul, etc.

Among miscellaneous elucidations, to the disquisition on the Arbre Sol or Sec in vol. i., and to that on Mediaeval Military Engines in vol. ii.

In a variety of cases it has been necessary to refer to Eastern languages for pertinent elucidations or etymologies. The editor would, however, be sorry to fall under the ban of the mediaeval adage:

"Vir qui docet quod non sapit Definitur Bestia!"

and may as well reprint here what was written in the Preface to Cathay:

I am painfully sensible that in regard to many subjects dealt with in the following pages, nothing can make up for the want of genuine Oriental learning. A fair familiarity with Hindustani for many years, and some reminiscences of elementary Persian, have been useful in their degree; but it is probable that they may sometimes also have led me astray, as such slender lights are apt to do.