IIIF Color HighRes
National Institute of Informatics - Digital Silk Road Project
| |||||||||
|
| IIIF Color HighRes |
| The Book of Ser Marco Polo : vol.1 |
 |
 |
 |
 |
 |
 |
|
|
 |
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
Citation Information
298 MARCO POLO BooK I.
,+
4
*OE
Travels, and the Caccabis Chukor of Gray. According to Cunningham the name is applied in Ladak to the bird sometimes called the Snow-pheasant, Jerdan's Snow-cock, Tetraogallus hinzalayensis of Gray. And it must be the latter which Moorcroft speaks of as " the gigantic Chukor, much larger than the common partridge, found in large coveys on the edge of the snow ; . . . . one plucked and drawn weighed 5 lbs." ; described by Vigne as " a partridge as large as a hen-turkey " ; the original perhaps of that partridge " larger than a vulture " which formed one of the presents from an Indian King to Augustus Caesar. [With reference to the large Tibetan partridge found in the Nan-shan Mountains in the meridian of Sha-chau by Prjevalsky, '1. E. D. Morgan in a note (P. R. Geog. S. ix. 1887, p. 219), writes : " Megaloperdl-ix thibetanus. Its general name in Asia is ullar, a word of Kirghiz or Turkish origin ; the Mongols call it hajlik, and the Tibetans kung-nzo. There are two other varieties of this bird found in the Himalaya and Altai Mountains, but the habits of life and call-note of all three are the same."] From the extensive diffusion of the term, which seems to be common to India, Tibet, and Persia (for the latter, see Abbott in f R. G. S. XXV. 41), it is likely enough to be of Mongol origin, not improbably Tsokhor, " dappled or pied." (Kovalevsky, No. 2196, and Stralzlenberg's Vocabulary ; see also Ladak, 205 ; HIoorcr. I. 313, 432 ; Jerclan's Birds of India, III. 549, 572 ; Dunlop, Hzurtjngjn Himalaya, 178 ; J. A. S. B. VI. 774.)
The chakór is mentioned by Baber (p. 282) ; and also by the Hindi poet Chand (Rás Mála, I. 23o, and hid. Antiquary, I. 273). If the latter passage is genuine, it is adverse to my Mongol etymology, as Chand lived before the Mongol era.
The keeping of partridges for the table is alluded to by Chaucer in his portrait of the Franklin, Prologue, Cant. Tales:
" It snewed in his hous of mete and drinke, Of alle deyntees that men coud of thinke, After the sondry sesons of the yere,
So changed he his mete and his soupere. Full many a fat partrjch hadde he in nzeu'e, And many a breme and many a luce in ste\' e."
CHAPTER LXI.
OF THE CITY OF CHANDU, AND THE KAAN'S PALACE THERE.
Z.
~
AND when you have ridden three days from the city
last- mentioned, between north-east and north, you come
to a city called CHANDU,1 which was built by the Kaan
now reigning. There is at this place a very fine marble
Palace, the rooms of which are all gilt and painted with
figures of men and beasts and birds, and with a variety
of trees and flowers, all executed with such exquisite
art that you regard them with delight and astonishment.'
Round this Palace a wall is built, inclosing a compass
A
r
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
Copyright (C) 2003-2019 National Institute of Informatics and The Toyo Bunko. All Rights Reserved.