Ii. p. 91.)
Mr. H. Ling Roth has given an interesting paper entitled On the
Signification of Couvade, in the Journ. Anthropological Institute,
XXII. 1893, pp. 204-243. He writes (pp. 221-222): - "From this survey it
would seem in the first place that we want a great deal more information
about the custom in the widely isolated cases where it has been reported,
and secondly, that the authenticity of some of the reported cases is
doubtful in consequence of authors repeating their predecessors' tales, as
Colquhoun did Marco Polo's, and V. der Haart did Schouten's. I should not
be at all surprised if ultimately both Polo's and Schouten's accounts
turned out to be myths, both these travellers making their records at a
time when the Old World was full of the tales of the New, so that in the
end, we may yet find the custom is not, nor ever has been, so widespread
as is generally supposed to have been the case."
I do not very well see how Polo, in the 13th and 14th centuries could make
his record at a time when the Old World was full of the tales of the
New, discovered at the end of the 15th century! Unless Mr. Ling Roth
supposes the Venetian Traveller acquainted with the various theories of
the Pre-Columbian discovery of America!!
9. - ALACAN. (Vol. ii. pp. 255 and 261.)
Dr. G. Schlegel writes, in the T'oung Pao (May, 1898, p. 153): "Abakan
or Abachan ought to be written Alahan.
