[10] “Humboldt confirms the opinion I have more than once expressed that too much must not be inferred from the silence of authors. He adduces three important and perfectly undeniable matters of fact, as to which no evidence is to be found where it would be most anticipated: In the archives of Barcelona no trace of the triumphal entry of Columbus into that city; in Marco Polo no allusion to the Chinese Wall; in the archives of Portugal nothing about the voyages of Amerigo Vespucci in the service of that crown.” (Varnhagen v. Ense, quoted by Hayward, Essays, 2nd Ser. I. 36.) See regarding the Chinese Wall the remarks referred to above, at [p. 292] of this volume.
[11] [It is a strange fact that Polo never mentions the use of Tea in China, although he travelled through the Tea districts in Fu Kien, and tea was then as generally drunk by the Chinese as it is now. It is mentioned more than four centuries earlier by the Mohammedan merchant Soleyman, who visited China about the middle of the 9th century. He states (Reinaud, Relation des Voyages faits par les Arabes et les Persans dans l’Inde et à la Chine, 1845, I. 40): “The people of China are accustomed to use as a beverage an infusion of a plant, which they call sakh, and the leaves of which are aromatic and of a bitter taste. It is considered very wholesome. This plant (the leaves) is sold in all the cities of the empire.” (Bretschneider, Hist. Bot. Disc. I. p. 5.)—H. C.]
[12] It is probable that Persian, which had long been the language of Turanian courts, was also the common tongue of foreigners at that of the Mongols. Pulisanghin and Zardandan, in the preceding list, are pure Persian. So are several of the Oriental phrases noted at [p. 84]. See also notes on Ondanique and Vernique at pp. [93] and [384] of this volume, on Tacuin at [p. 448], and a note at [p. 93] supra. The narratives of Odoric, and others of the early travellers to Cathay, afford corroborative examples. Lord Stanley of Alderley, in one of his contributions to the Hakluyt Series, has given evidence from experience that Chinese Mahomedans still preserve the knowledge of numerous Persian words.
[13] Compare these errors with like errors of Herodotus, e.g., regarding the conspiracy of the False Smerdis. (See Rawlinson’s Introduction, p. 55.) There is a curious parallel between the two also in the supposed occasional use of Oriental state records, as in Herodotus’s accounts of the revenues of the satrapies, and of the army of Xerxes, and in Marco Polo’s account of Kinsay, and of the Kaan’s revenues. (Vol. ii pp. 185, 216.)
[14] An example is seen in the voluminous Annali Musulmani of G. B. Rampoldi, Milan, 1825. This writer speaks of the Travels of Marco Polo with his brother and uncle; declares that he visited Tipango (sic), Java, Ceylon, and the Maldives, collected all the geographical notions of his age, traversed the two peninsulas of the Indies, examined the islands of Socotra, Madagascar, Sofala, and traversed with philosophic eye the regions of Zanguebar, Abyssinia, Nubia, and Egypt! and so forth (ix. 174). And whilst Malte-Brun bestows on Marco the sounding and ridiculous title of “the Humboldt of the 13th century,” he shows little real acquaintance with his Book. (See his Précis, ed. of 1836, I. 551 seqq.)
[15] See for example [vol. i. p. 338], and note 4 at [p. 341]; also vol. ii. p. 103. The descriptions in the style referred to recur in all seven times; but most of them (which are in Book IV.) have been omitted in this translation.
[16] [On the subject of Moses of Chorene and his works, I must refer to the clever researches of the late Auguste Carrière, Professor of Armenian at the École des Langues Orientales.—H. C.]
[17] Zacher, Forschungen zur Critik, &c., der Alexandersage, Halle, 1867, p. 108.
[18] Even so sagacious a man as Roger Bacon quotes the fabulous letter of Alexander to Aristotle as authentic. (Opus Majus, p. 137.)
[19] J. As. sér. VI. tom. xviii. p. 352.