IIIF Color HighRes
National Institute of Informatics - Digital Silk Road Project
| |||||||||
|
| IIIF Color HighRes |
| Cathay and the Way Thither : vol.2 |
 |
 |
 |
 |
 |
 |
|
|
 |
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
| no caption |
Citation Information
372 RECOLLECTIONS OF TRAVEL IN THE EAST,
in a straight line over all the empire of Uzbek, Katay, the Indies, and Ethiopia to the world's end.
The other half was divided between the other two brothers. Cham had Africa (including the Holy Land) by Carthage and Tunis to the world's end. Japhet the younger had Europe where we are now, that is to say, all on this side from Hungary, and all on this side from Rome,3 including
where the Wallachians are ? The Caspian, the Sea of Marmora, the Mediterranean, the Baltic, have all claims to the title of the White Sea, but
none of these will do, and what we call the White Sea seems too remote
from Hungary and Wallachia. There was indeed a Great Hungary, and a Great Wallachia recognized towards the Ural. (See Roger Bacon's
Opus Majus, Venice, 1750, p. 173.) Fra Mauro has a Mar Biancho repre-
sented as a large lake in this quarter ; whether it stands for Lake Ladoga, the White Sea, or the Baikal (as Zurla thinks), would be difficult to say,
so compressed is his northern geography; but it is most likely that it
means whatever Marignolli means by the same expression. Indeed a
glance at Fra Mauro's Map
makes Marignolli's division
of the earth much more intelligible. The only modifi-
cation required is that Mari-
gnolli conceives Ethiopia as running out eastward, to the
south of the Indian Ocean,
as remote Africa does in the geography of Edrisi and
other Arab writers, as well
as that of Ptolemy and the geographer of Ravenna.
Make this modification and
then you will see how one half of the hemisphere is
divided into Europe and
Africa, whilst the other is Asia, in which " a straight line" may be drawn from the White Sea, passing successively through the empire of Uzbek, Cathay, the Indies, Ethiopia, and the World's End !
1
"Africam ubi est Terra Sancta."
2 Turusium, which I venture to correct to Tunisium.
3 Dobner prints it "scilicet ab Ungaria, Cytra, et Roma," treating all three as proper names apparently. I suspect it should be " scilicet ab Ungariâ, citrà et Romaniâ," meaning perhaps from Hither Hungary, viz., our modern Hungary as distinguished from the Great Hungary of note (3) supra.
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
Copyright (C) 2003-2019 National Institute of Informatics and The Toyo Bunko. All Rights Reserved.