国立情報学研究所 - ディジタル・シルクロード・プロジェクト
『東洋文庫所蔵』貴重書デジタルアーカイブ

333. SCIER   829

may refer to the JO fu cities, for which he found the number 39 in OXENHAM'S Historical Atlas.

But the main division of the Empire during the Mongol dynasties was in   lu, of which, at the time
the materials afterwards used in YS, 58, 1 a, were collected, there were 185. As to the fu, there were then 33; but these fu, although their areas were independent of the lu, were second in rank

to them, and cannot well have been mentioned by Polo. We could also think of the tlit,   yf f
tsung-kuan-fu, many of which coincided with lu seats; but there are serious difficulties in the way of such a solution. It seems as if the « 34 provinces » should be taken in connection with the 31 to 41 Jaryuei, since Polo says there was only one « judge » for each « province ».

YULE'S « Esher », Ricci-Ross's « Eshier » and BENEDETTO'S « Escier » (BI, 443) are not correct; they are due to copyists' wrong divisions of « de scier » into « d escier ». Sometimes the whole mistaken form has crept in as « descer » (or been altered, as in RAMUSIO, 53 b, to « Pecher »; the same alteration « Pecher » occurs in RAMUSio's edition of Barbosa, I, 292 a and b; cf. also DAMES, Barbosa, I, 54) ; but « Scier » is well attested by TA, P, Z, and Fra Mauro. Moreover, Polo's « Scier » is not to be interpreted phonetically as simply Ser (as YULE did, and despite « Xer » on REINEL'S map of 1516; cf. KAMMERER, La Mer Rouge, II, App. iv), but as Si + er, in two syllables. The name is1~.: , usually transcribed Sibr, a place on the southern coast of Arabia, but the real vocalization in mediaeval times must have been Sihâr. It is established by Chao Ju-kua (HR, 281) who, in 1225, wrote Jj . j Shih-ho (ho is *xât and ydt, with -t rendering also -1 and -r, so Sihar), later by Polo's « Scier » (= Sihär), and even in the 16th cent. (except for the first vowel), by BARBOSA'S « Xaer » (ed. DAMES, I, 64-68) and Barros's « Xael » (on this last form, cf. JA, 1919, II, 228).

The « Soer » adopted by YULE in one passage and interpreted by him as « Sohàr » in the Gulf of Oman (II, 340, 348) has justly embarrassed DAMES; so it may be worth remarking that it is only a misreading for « Seer » = « Scier ». In EI, s. v. « al-Shibr », A. GROHMANN has said that the Portuguese « Xaer » represented a pronunciation « Sabr », « visibly the most ancient », since sahr means « coast »; but Chao Ju-kua and Polo invalidate this argument.

On the Chinese map of the early 15th cent. which has been reproduced by PHILLIPS and which

is of Mussulman origin, we find (JNCB, )(lx, 224) a name   Q, Shih-li-êrh, in which I agree
with PHILLIPS in seeing « al-Shihr »; but the transcription would be wrong, and there must here be a clerical error for Shih-[]hei-êrh, Sihär, giving the same pronunciation as in Chao Ju-kua and in Polo.