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| The Book of Ser Marco Polo : vol.1 |
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Citation Information
292
MARCO POLO Boo I.
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from the merchants of Turkestan making short marriages with the Ladakhi women."
—H. C.]
Our author gives the odd word Guasmul as the French equivalent of Argon. M. Pauthier has first, of Polo's editors, given the true explanation from Ducange. The word appears to have been in use in the Levant among the Franks as a name for the half-breeds sprung from their own unions with Greek women. It occurs three times in the history of George Pachymeres. Thus he says (Mich. Pal. III. 9), that the Emperor Michael " depended upon the Gasmuls, or mixt breeds (ovuµíKroc), which is the sense of this word of the Italian tongue, for these were born of Greeks and Italians, and sent them to man his ships ; for the race in question inherited at once the military wariness and quick wit of the Greeks, and the dash and pertinacity of the Latins." Again (IV. 26) he speaks of these " Gasmuls, whom a Greek would call ôc'yeveîs, men sprung from Greek mothers and Italian fathers." Nicephorus Gregoras also relates how Michael Palaeologus, to oppose the projects of Baldwin for the recovery of his fortunes, manned 6o galleys, chiefly with the tribe of Gasmuls (-yevos Tor) I aaµovAcKor)), to whom he assigns the same characteristics as Pachymeres. (IV. v. 5, also VI. iii. 3, and XIV. x. i I.) One MS. of Nicetas Choniates also, in his annals of Manuel Comnenus (see Paris ed. p. 425), speaks of " the light troops whom we call Basmuls." Thus it would seem that, as in the analogous case of the Turcopli, sprung from Turk fathers and Greek mothers, their name had come to be applied technically to a class of troops. According to Buchon, the laws of the Venetians in Candia mention, as different races in that island, the Vas nzilo, Latino, Blaco, and Griego.
Ducange, in one of his notes on Joinville, says : " During the time that the French possessed Constantinople, they gave the name of Gas-moules to those who were born of French fathers and Greek mothers ; or more probably Gaste-moules, by way of derision, as if such children by those irregular marriages . . . . had in some sort debased the wombs of their mothers ! " I have little doubt (pace tanti viri) that the word is in a Gallicized form the same with the surviving Italian Guazzabúglio, a hotch-potch, or mish-mash. In Davanzati's Tacitus, the words " Colluviem il'a»z nationum " (Annal. II. 55) are rendered " quello guazzabuglio di nazioni," in which case we corne very close to the meaning assigned to Guasnzul. The Italians are somewhat behind in matters of etymology, and I can get no light from them on the history of this word. (See Buchan, Chroniques Etrangeres, p. xv. ; Ducange, Gloss, Graecitatis, and his note on Joinville, in Bohn's Chron. of the Crusades, 466.)
NOTE 5.—It has often been cast in Marco's teeth that he makes no mention of the Great Wall of China, and that is true ; whilst the apologies made for the omission have always seemed to me unsatisfactory. [I find in Sir G. Staunton's account of Macartney's Embassy (II. p. 185) this most amusing explanation of the reason why Marco Polo did not mention the wall : " A copy of Marco Polo's route to China, taken from the Doge's Library at Venice, is sufficient to decide this question. By this route it appears that, in fact, that traveller did not pass through Tartary to Pekin, but that after having followed the usual track of the caravans, as far to the eastward from Europe as Samarcand and Cashgar, he bent his course to the southeast across the River Ganges to Bengal (!), and, keeping to the southward of the Thibet mountains, reached the Chinese province of Shensee, and through the adjoining province of Shansee to the capital, without interfering with the line of the Great Wall."—H. C.] We shall see presently that the Great Wall is spoken of by Marco's contemporaries Rashiduddin and Abulfeda. Yet I think, if we read " between the lines," we shall see reason to believe that the Wall was in Polo's mind at this point of the dictation, whatever may have been his motive for withholding distincter notice of it.* I cannot conceive why he should say : " Here is what we call the country of G og and Magog," except as intimating " Here we are
* I owe the suggestion of this to a remark in Otpert's Presbyter Johannes, p. 77.
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