[15] Wangcheu In The Chinese Annals; Vanchu In Ramusio.

I assume that Polo's Vanchu was pronounced as in English; for in Venetian the ch very often has that sound.

But I confess that I can adduce no other instance in Ramusio where I suppose it to have this sound, except in the initial sound of Chinchitalas and twice in Choiach (see II. 364).

Professor Bianconi, who has treated the questions connected with the Texts of Polo with honest enthusiasm and laborious detail, will admit nothing genuine in the Ramusian interpolations beyond the preservation of some oral traditions of Polo's supplementary recollections. But such a theory is out of the question in face of a chapter like that on Ahmad.

[16] Old Purchas appears to have greatly relished Ramusio's comparative lucidity: "I found (says he) this Booke translated by Master Hakluyt out of the Latine (i.e. among Hakluyt's MS. collections). But where the blind leade the blind both fall: as here the corrupt Latine could not but yeeld a corruption of truth in English. Ramusio, Secretarie to the Decemviri in Venice, found a better Copie and published the same, whence you have the worke in manner new: so renewed, that I have found the Proverbe true, that it is better to pull downe an old house and to build it anew, then to repaire it; as I also should have done, had I knowne that which in the event I found. The Latine is Latten, compared to Ramusio's Gold. And hee which hath the Latine hath but Marco Polo's carkasse or not so much, but a few bones, yea, sometimes stones rather then bones; things divers, averse, adverse, perverted in manner, disjoynted in manner, beyond beliefe. I have seene some Authors maymed, but never any so mangled and so mingled, so present and so absent, as this vulgar Latine of Marco Polo; not so like himselfe, as the Three Polo's were at their returne to Venice, where none knew them.... Much are wee beholden to Ramusio, for restoring this Pole and Load-starre of Asia, out of that mirie poole or puddle in which he lay drouned." (III. p. 65.)

[17] Of these difficulties the following are some of the more prominent: -

1. The mention of the death of Kublai (see note 7, p. 38 of this volume), whilst throughout the book Polo speaks of Kublai as if still reigning.

2. Mr. Hugh Murray objects that whilst in the old texts Polo appears to look on Kublai with reverence as a faultless Prince, in the Ramusian we find passages of an opposite tendency, as in the chapter about Ahmad.

3. The same editor points to the manner in which one of the Ramusian additions represents the traveller to have visited the Palace of the Chinese Kings at Kinsay, which he conceives to be inconsistent with Marco's position as an official of the Mongol Government. (See vol. ii. p. 208.)

If we could conceive the Ramusian additions to have been originally notes written by old Maffeo Polo on his nephew's book, this hypothesis would remove almost all difficulty.

One passage in Ramusio seems to bear a reference to the date at which these interpolated notes were amalgamated with the original. In the chapter on Samarkand (i. p. 191) the conversion of the Prince Chagatai is said in the old texts to have occurred "not a great while ago" (il ne a encore grament de tens). But in Ramusio the supposed event is fixed at "one hundred and twenty-five years since." This number could not have been uttered with reference to 1298, the year of the dictation at Genoa, nor to any year of Polo's own life. Hence it is probable that the original note contained a date or definite term which was altered by the compiler to suit the date of his own compilation, some time in the 14th century.]

[18] In the first edition of Ramusio the preface contained the following passage, which is omitted from the succeeding editions; but as even the first edition was issued after Ramusio's own death, I do not see that any stress can be laid on this:

"A copy of the Book of Marco Polo, as it was originally written in Latin, marvellously old, and perhaps directly copied from the original as it came from M. Marco's own hand, has been often consulted by me and compared with that which we now publish, having been lent me by a nobleman of this city, belonging to the Ca' Ghisi."

[19] For a moment I thought I had been lucky enough to light on a part of the missing original of Ramusio in the Barberini Library at Rome. A fragment of a Venetian version in that library (No. 56 in our list of MSS.) bore on the fly-leaf the title "Alcuni primi capi del Libro di S. Marco Polo, copiati dall esemplare manoscritto di PAOLO RANNUSIO." But it proved to be of no importance. One brief passage of those which have been thought peculiar to Ramusio; viz., the reference to the Martyrdom of St. Blaize at Sebaste (see p. 43 of this volume), is found also in the Geographic Latin.

It was pointed out by Lazari, that another passage (vol. i. p. 60) of those otherwise peculiar to Ramusio, is found in a somewhat abridged Latin version in a MS. which belonged to the late eminent antiquary Emanuel Cicogna. (See List in Appendix F, No. 35.) This fact induced me when at Venice in 1870 to examine the MS. throughout, and, though I could give little time to it, the result was very curious.

I find that this MS. contains, not one only, but at least seven of the passages otherwise peculiar to Ramusio, and must have been one of the elements that went to the formation of his text. Yet of his more important interpolations, such as the chapter on Ahmad's oppressions and the additional matter on the City of Kinsay, there is no indication.

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