located by Fra Mauro on his map just north of the « Çardandam », that is, with the spelling and on the spot we should expect if Polo had spoken of the mahâràja of Ta-li. Therefore, while I readily admit that Conti's « Maarazia » has a fair chance of being the basis of Fra Mauro's « Maharaç », I do not preclude the other possibility, to wit, that the latter name might be of Polian origin.
While in the country of the Qara-Jang, Polo had heard of Bengal. This is only too natural, in view of the intercourse which, since the beginning of our era, was conducted across Upper Burma between north-eastern India and Yün-nan (cf. BEFEO, iv, 142-152, 183, 412). Rasidu-'dDin describes both the sea-route from India to China and the land-route via Bengal and Burma. The itinerary by land is very corrupt. YULE had studied it in the first edition of Cathay with the translation given in the first edition of ELLIOT's History of India; but, when ELLIOT's first volume was revised and re-edited by DOWSON, YULE published in JRAS, NS, Iv [1870], 340-356, a fresh commentary, much more accurate. It is a pity that this paper of 1870 should have been overlooked by CORDIER when preparing the second edition of Cathay. The result is that in Y', III, 131-132, we still see the itinerary from India to Yün-nan reach first the Uman, that is, Wu-man or « Black Barbarians », afterwards the Zardandân (and finally the Qara-Jang, omitted from the quotation in Cathay). The « Wu-man », however, are the Qara-Jang themselves, and could only be mentioned after the Zardandân (moreover, the Chinese name « Wu-man » does not seem to have passed abroad). But in his paper of 1870, YULE here read with DowsoN ,.,l Arman, not
Uman, and was probably right when he saw in Arman a transcription of the native name of Burma (see « Mien »). A comprehensive monograph on all the texts referring to the ancient trade route between India and Yün-nan is badly wanted.
Only Z and R give the name, as «Turcomani qui vocantur Caramani » (Z), and «i Turchomani, the si chiamano Caramani » (R). Although he knew R, YULE ( Y, I, 43) has tacitly left out the name of the « Caramani ». RR, 20, and B1, 19, have translated « that part of Turcomania called Caramania»; but the text concerns the name of a people, not the name of the country. In RR, 416, it is added that « Caramania » is mentioned only in Z (our Z'), and that the other texts have Konieh instead. Nor is this correct; instead of the name of Konieh (Quniyäh), Z does not have « Caramania » but what seems to be a clerical corruption « Turchia » (see « Como »). As a matter of fact, there are two redactions of that passage, one being that of F, etc., the other that of Z, V, and R. RAMUSIO was wrong to include both, and I think there was no more reason, in translations like those of RR and B', which do not give the different redactions of one and the same passage, to follow here RAMusIO's example and reproduce twice the list « Caesaria, Sevasta », with an arbitrary interval of some twenty lines.
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