MARCO POLO AND HIS BOOK.
INTRODUCTORY NOTICES.
Introduction, p. 6.
Speaking of Pashai, Sir Aurel Stein (Geog. Journ.), referring to the notes and memoranda brought home by the great Venetian traveller, has the following remarks: “We have seen how accurately it reproduces information about territories difficult of access at all times, and far away from his own route. It appears to me quite impossible to believe that such exact data, learned at the very beginning of the great traveller’s long wanderings, could have been reproduced by him from memory alone close on thirty years later when dictating his wonderful story to Rusticiano during his captivity at Genoa. Here, anyhow, we have definite proof of the use of those ‘notes and memoranda which he had brought with him,’ and which, as Ramusio’s ‘Preface’ of 1553 tells us (see Yule, Marco Polo, I., Introduction, p. 6), Messer Marco, while prisoner of war, was believed to have had sent to him by his father from Venice. How grateful must geographer and historical student alike feel for these precious materials having reached the illustrious prisoner safely!”
Introduction, p. 10 n.
KHAKHAN.
“Mr. Rockhill’s remarks about the title Khakhan require supplementing. Of course, the Turks did not use the term before 560 (552 was the exact year), because neither they nor their name ‘Turk’ had any self-assertive existence before then, and until that year they were the ‘iron-working slaves’ of the Jou-jan. The Khakhan of those last-named Tartars naturally would not allow the petty tribe of Turk to usurp his exclusive and supreme title. But even a century and a half before this, the ruler of the T’u-kuh-hun nomads had already borne the title of Khakhan, which (the late Dr. Bretschneider agreed with me in thinking) was originally of Tungusic and not of Turkish origin. The T’u-kuh-hun were of the same race as the half-Mongol, half-Tungusic Tobas, who ruled for two centuries over North China.... The title of Khakhan, in various bastard forms, was during the tenth century used by the Kings of Khoten and Kuche, as well as by the petty Ouigour Kings of Kan Chou, Si Chou, etc.” (E. H. Parker, Asiatic Quart. Rev., Jan., 1904, pp. 139–140.)