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| The Book of Ser Marco Polo : vol.1 |
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Citation Information
136 INTRODUCTION
knowledge of the Portuguese had introduced CHINA where
the Catalan Map of the 14th century had presented CATHAY,
the latter country, with the whole of Polo's nomenclature, was
shoved away to the north, forming a separate system.* Hence-
forward the influence of Polo's work on maps was simply
injurious ; and when to his nomenclature was added a
sprinkling of Ptolemy's, as was usual throughout the 16th century,
the result was a most extraordinary hotch-potch, conveying no
approximation to any consistent representation of facts.
Thus, in a map of 1522,t running the eye along the north
of Europe and Asia from West to East, we find the following
succession of names : Groenlandia, or Greenland, as a great
peninsula overlapping that of Norvegia and Suecia ; Livonia,
Plescovia and Ioscovia, Tartana bounded on the South by
Scithia extra Imaur, and on the East, by the Rivers Ochardes
and Bautisis (out of Ptolemy), which are made to flow into
the Arctic Sea. South of these are Aureacithis and Asmirea
(Ptolemy's Auxacitis and Asmircea), and Serica Regio. Then
following the northern coast Baler Regio,+ Judei Clausi, i.e.
the Ten Tribes who are constantly associated or confounded
with the Shut-up Nations of Gog and Magog. These impinge
upon the River Polisacus, flowing into the Northern Ocean in
Lat. 75°, but which is in fact no other than Polo's Puli-
sanghin ! § Immediately south of this is Tholomon Provincia
(Polo's again), and on the coast Tangut, Cathaya, the Rivers
Polo a Venetian and others, and the sea-coasts of those countries have now recently again been explored by Columbus the Genoese and Amerigo Vespucci in navigating the Western Ocean. . . . To this part (of Asia) belong the territory called that of the Bachalaos [or Codfish, Newfoundland], Florida, the Desert of Lop, Tangut, Cathay, the realm of Mexico (wherein is the vast city of Temistitan, built in the middle of a great lake, but which the older travellers styled QuiNsAv), besides Paria, Uraba,
and the countries of the Canibals." (Joannis Schoneri Carolostadtii Opusculum
Geogr., quoted by Humboldt, Examen, V. 171, 172.)
* In Robert Parke's Dedication of his Translation of Mendoza's, London, Ist of January, 1589, he identifies China and Japan with the regions of which Paulus Venous and Sir john Mandeuill " wrote long agoe."—MS. Vote by Yule.
t " Totius Europae et Asiae Tabula Geog rapllica, Auctore Thoma D. Aucuparzo. Edita Argentorati, MDXXII." Copied in Witsen.
$ This strange association of Balor (i.e., Bolor, that name of so many odd vicissitudes, see pp. 178-179 infra) with the shut-up Israelites must be traced to a passage which Athanasius Kircher quotes from R. Abraham Pizol (qu. Peritsol ?) : " Regnunz, inquit, Belor magnum et excelsum nimis, juxta omnes illos qui scripserunt Historicos. Sunt in eo Judaei plurinzi inclusi, et ilhad in latere Orientali et Boreali,"
etc. (China Illustrata, p. 49.) § Vol. ii. p. I.
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