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0242 Notes on Marco Polo : vol.2
Notes on Marco Polo : vol.2 / Page 242 (Grayscale High Resolution Image)

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doi: 10.20676/00000246
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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