[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 Mediæval 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 mediæval adage:
“Vir qui docet quod non sapit
Definitur Bestia!”
and may as well reprint here what was written in the Preface to Cathay: