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0126 Notes on Marco Polo : vol.1
Notes on Marco Polo : vol.1 / Page 126 (Color Image)

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doi: 10.20676/00000246
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110   84. BUCEFALO

84. BUCEFALO

bucefalo R   bucifalch Z

The name occurs only in R and Z, and I have adopted the form given in R, although it ought not to appear among our « French » forms of Western names; we should expect « Bucefale ». Z's « Bucifaich » must have come from a misreading *Bucifalc for a French *« Bucifale » or for an Italian *« Bucifalo ».

On the Kataghan breed of Badahsan, cf. Y, I, 162.

An Alexandrian city of Bucephala existed on the western bank of the Jelam ( Y, I, 104-105). On the other hand, the belief still obtains in the British garrisons of the Panjab that the Buddhist stiüpa of Manikyala is nothing eise than the tomb of Bucephalus. For Bucephala, cf. HALLBERG, 84. In Fra Mauro's maps there are two notices of the city of «Bucefala », in different scripts, one mentioning Alexander's « chaval x, and the other his « caualo ».

85. BUCKRAM

bocaran, bocarans, bocorain, bocoranç F

bocarani, bocarini, bocharani L, VB

bocassini (e bocariri) VB boccarano, bocharaui, bocharini L

boccassini, bochassini R

boccorame, bocharame, bocha-

ramine, bochorame, boco-

rame LT

bocharano VA

bochasin V

bochasini V, VA

boguerans FB

bouguerans FA, FA4, FB

bucarane, bucaranum, burca- rani G

bucaranus, buccaramus, buccuranus P

bucerani TA'

bucherame TA', TA3 bucherani, bucheranum Z

Polo mentions «buckram » at Arzingan, at Mosul, in Tibet, at «Mutifiii» (= Telingana), in Malabar, at Tana (near Bombay), at Cambay, and in Abyssinia. Two questions must be examined, the nature of the stuff and the origin of the name.

Although we must retain the word used by Polo, YULE already pointed out ( Y, I, 47-48) that the mediaeval «buckram» was a valuable material, not as now «a coarse open texture of cotton or hemp, loaded with gum, and used to stiffen certain articles of dress ». While hesitating between cotton and linen, HEYD (Hist. du commerce, it, 703) added that the last scholar to have examined the question, Victor GAY, had come to the conclusion that the ancient « buckram » was «a fine linen-cloth »; and the quotation from FRANCISQUE-MICHEL (Recherches sur le commerce, la fabrication et l'usage des étoffes de soie, d'or et d'argent ... , II, 1854, pp. 29-34) reproduced in Y, III, 80-81, would seem to imply that, according to FRANCISQUE-MICHEL, this « buckram » was made of linen. But this incomplete quotation does not do justice to FRANCISQUE-MICHEL, who, while he said that « buckram » was made of linen in the 14th cent., insisted that in the 13th it was a cotton-cloth. From the association of cotton and « buckram » in several passages of Polo,