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National Institute of Informatics - Digital Silk Road Project
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| Notes on Marco Polo : vol.1 |
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Citation Information
71. BEYAMINI 95
l~ From Mussulman and Greek sources we learn that, at the time of the war between Bärkä and
Hüiägü, the Mussulman Bärkä asked for the help of Baibars, the Mamluk sultan of Egypt; the
it messengers from Bärkä and those from Baibars all passed through Constantinople coming and
i3 going both ways. The Egyptian sources relate how envoys from Baibars to Bärkä were detained
by Michael Palaeologus, and how Bärkä's troops ravaged the suburbs of Constantinople in retaliation. Although Byzantine writers seem to give for these events dates later than 1262, the most probable year in which the elder Polos went on to Bukhara, it is very tempting to suppose a connection between the two. In other words, the extraordinary movement which made the elder Polos turn their backs to the place to which they wanted to return would be due, as Polo says, to the war between Bärkä and Hüiägü, but inasmuch as the entanglements of that war had stopped all friendly intercourse between Bärkä's dominions and the Byzantine Empire.
BETTALA
bachalar TA 3, LT betala R bettala Z
bartalar VA betalat V bettalar F, L
bathalar TA' betelar FA, FB bitarssa VB
The form «Bettalar» of F and cognate mss. has been preferred to the «Bettaia» of Z (and R) by RR, 293, and B', 439. But, in spite of B, 178, the -a final, which occurs in VB also, is confirmed by Ibn Battûtah's «Battàla », already quoted by YULE ( Y, I, 337), and the only other possible form would be *« Bettalâ» = *Bettalam. The modern name is Patlam, on the coast of Ceylon; cf. YULE, Hobson-Jobson 2, 746, s.v. «Putlam ». I hold the -r to be of secondary origin, due to copyists; we have other examples of it (in «Succiu », « Caccia modun », etc.).
«Bettaia» is perhaps the I" f,6 Ti-san-chiang, or « Third Creek», of the Tao-i chih-lio of
1349-1350, but it may also be that the « Ocean of A DA Ta-lang » of the same work (the sentence has been misunderstood by ROCKHILL) is corrupt for « Ocean of [Pal-ta-lang », i.e. of Patlam (cf. ROCKHILL in TP, 1915, 385-387; FUJITA, 89 b).
BEYAMINI beyamini R
The word occurs only in RAMUSIO, as the name of the « wild ox » of Tibet. YULE'S *buemini, «Bohemian» ( Y, II, 52), is as much out of the question as RR's Arabic baha`im, «cattle» (RR, 183). YULE took this « wild ox » to be some sort of gayal (Bos gavaeus), perhaps the Baur (Bos
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