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| The Book of Ser Marco Polo : vol.1 |
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Citation Information
| CHAI'. XX. | HOW THE EMPLI OR GOES HUNTING | 407 |
| NOTE I. --` ` bait vers midi jusques éz la lifer Occeane, ou ily a deux jourizées." It is not possible in any way to reconcile this description as it stands with truth, though I do not see much room for doubt as to the direction of the excursion. Peking is I oo miles as the crow flies from the nearest point of the coast, at least six or seven d) s' march for such a camp, and the direction is south-east, or nearly so. The last circumstance would not be very material as Polo's compass-bearings are not very accurate. We shall find that he makes the general line of bearing from Peking towards Kiangnan, Sciloc or S. East, hence his Midi ought in consistency to represent S. West, an impossible direction for the Ocean. It is remarkable that Ramusio has Greco or N. East, which would by the same relative correction represent East. And other circumstances point to the frontier of Liao-tong as the direction of this excursion. Leaving the two days out of question, therefore, I should suppose the " Ocean Sea " to be struck at Shan-hai-k« an near the terminus of the Great Wall, and that the site of the standing hunting-camp is in the country to the north of that point. The Jesuit Verbiest accompanied the Emperor Kanghi on a tour in this direction in 1682, and almost immediately after passing the Wall the Emperor and his party seem to have struck off to the left for sport. Kúblái started on the " 1st of March," probably however the ist of the second Chinese month. Kanghi started from Peking on the 23rd of March, on the hunting-journey just referred to. NOTE 2.—We are told that Bajazet had 7000 falconers and 6000 dog-keepers ; whilst Sultan Mahomed Tughlak of India in the generation following Polo's, is said to have had Io,000 falconers, and 3000 other attendants as beaters. (Not. et Ext. XIII. p. I85. ) The Oriental practice seems to have assigned one man to the attendance on every hawk. This Kaempfer says was the case at the Court of Persia at the beginning of last century. There were about 800 hawks, and each had a special keeper. The same was the case with the Emperor Kanghi's hawking establishment, according to Gerbillon. (Am..Exot. p. 83 ; Gerb. 1st Journey, in Duhalde. ) No FE 3.—The French MSS. read Toscaor; the reading in the text I take from .. Ramusio. It is Turki, Tos/' 2íl JI*.wp.3, defined as " Gardien, surveillant de la route ; Wächter, Wache, Wegehiiter." (See Zenker, and Pavet de Cow-lei/le.) The word is perhaps also Mongol, for Rémusat has Tosiyal = " Veille." (11JJ/. As. I. 231.) Such an example of Polo's correctness both in the form and meaning of a Turki word is worthy of especial note, and shows how little he merits the wild and random treatment which has been often applied to the solution of like phrases in his book. [Palladius (p. 47) says that he has heard from men well acquainted with the customs of the Mongols, that at the present day i.n " battues," the leaders of the two flanks which surround the game, are called toscaul in Mongol.—H. C.] NOTE 4. — The remark in the previous note might be repeated here. The Bularguji was an officer of the Mongol camp, whose duties are thus described by Mahomed I lindú Shah in a work on the offices of the Perso-Mongol Court. " He is an officer appointed by the Council of State, who, at the time when the camp is struck, goes over the ground with his servants, and collects slaves of either sex, or cattle, such as horses, camels, oxen, and asses, that have been left behind, and retains them until the owners appear and prove their claim to the property, when he makes it over to them. The Bular uji sticks up a flag by his tent or hut to enable people to find him, and so recover their lost property." (Golden Horde, p. 245.) And in the Appendix to that work (p. 476) there is a copy of a warrant to such a Bularguji or Provost Marshal. The derivation appears therein as from Bular, hu, " Lost property." Isere again it was impossible to give both form and meaning of the word more exactly than Polo has donc. Though Hammer writes these terminations in ji (dschi), I believe chi (tschi) is preferable. We have this same word Bularghu in a grant of privileges to the Venetians by the Ilkhan Abusaid, 22nd December, 1320, which has been | ||
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