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| The Book of Ser Marco Polo : vol.2 |
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Citation Information
APP. L. SUPPLEMENTARY NOTES ON SPECIAL SUBJECTS 605
which he gives have won him some credit as a linguist, but only the Greek and the Hebrew (which were readily accessible) are what they pretend to be, and that which he calls Saracen actually comes from the Cosmographia of ./Ethicus ! His knowledge of Mohammedanism and its Arabic formulae impressed even Yule. He was, however, wholly indebted for that information to the Liber de Statu Saracenoruia of William of Tripoli (circa 1270), as he was to the Historia Orientis of Hetoum, the Armenian (1307), for much of what he wrote about Egypt. In the last case, indeed, he shows a rare sign of independence, for he does not, with II etoum, end his history of the sultanate about 1300, but carries it on to the death of En-Násir (1341), and names two of his successors. Although his statements about them are not historically accurate, this fact and a few other details suggest that he may really have been in Egypt, if not at Jerusalem, but the proportion of original matter is so very far short of what might be expected that even this is extremely doubtful."
With this final quotation, we may take leave of John of Mandeville, aliàs
John a Beard. H. C.
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