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Notes on Marco Polo : vol.2 |
838 345. SUGIU
345. SUGIU (c. 151)
cingui VB
ciugiu, siugiu, tiugiu F
figui V
fuçiu, fuçui Z
fuygiu Ft
signi, singni TA'
siguy FA, P siugui Fr
singin (?) P5 sugiu F, L
singu, sygu TA3 suigiu L
singui LT, P5(?), VA, sygui, syguy P
VB, VL; G, R syngui G
singuy FAt, FB synguy FB
Ch. x 44i Su-chou in Chiang-su, which had retained then, as now, its old name of Su-chou,
although its administrative name had become the lu of T. P'ing-chiang. It is this last name
which is used by the diarist of 1276 (TP, 1915, 394).
346. SUMATRA
samara F, Fr, FA, FB, L, samaria G samatra Ft, Z
LT, P, VA, VL; R samarra TA3 samor, sarzer VB
samarcha TAI samatea V sumatra Z
YULE ( Y, II, 292, 294) has retained « Samara »; he must have forgotten that the preliminary list of chapters in F (the only place in F which has also an almost correct form for « Mogedaxo ») already provides « Samatra », which has been adopted in RR, 433, and BI, 447. But the only reading in Z is « Sumatra », which is far superior, and I have no hesitation in deciding for it; correct forms rarely turn up by accident.
This name, which has become for us the name of the whole island, was borne in Polo's time by a state in its north-western part. Odoric mentions this state as being in the same island as « Lamori » (see « Lambri ») under the name of « Sumoitra » or « Sumultra » ( Wy, 446; ? = *Sumottra; hence « Sumobor » in Maundeville). Conti, c. 1430, was the first to apply the name of « Sciamuthera » to the whole island, and this was taken over by Fra Mauro as « Siamotra » (the only reading on the map, despite Zu, 50, and HALLBERG, 493); in 1492, Girolamo da Santo Stefano uses « Siamatra » in the same way as Conti (M. LONGHENA, Viaggi ... di ... Conti, 232). There was no longer a state of « Sumatra » when the Portuguese arrived in the beginning of the 16th cent., and the city, if it still survived, must have certainly dwindled to insignificance. Nevertheless a letter from Lisbon, dated 1515, speaks of the island « called Sumotra from a port of the said island » (cf. Y, II, 295; Hobson-Jobson2, 866). Barbosa has a long notice on «Çamatra» (DAMES, Barbosa, II, 181-189).
Ragidu-'d-Din knew of the country of « Sùmütra» beyond the «island» of Lâmuri; Ibn Battûtah
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