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may refer to the 府 fu cities, for which he found the number 39 in OXENHAM's Historical Atlas.
But the main division of the Empire during the Mongol dynasties was in 路 lu, of which, at the time
the materials afterwards used in YS, 58, 1 a, were collected, there were 185. As to the fu, there
were then 33; but these fu, although their areas were independent of the lu, were second in rank
to them, and cannot well have been mentioned by Polo. We could also think of the 總管府
tsung-kuan-fu, many of which coincided with lu seats; but there are serious difficulties in the way
of such a solution. It seems as if the « 34 provinces » should be taken in connection with the 31 to
41 Jarγuči, since Polo says there was only one « judge » for each « province ».

333. SCIER

aner (?) TA³ escer F, P ezier FAt
astor, oscior, vsca LT escier F, FA, L, TA¹, TA³; R pecher R
cester, ester, socrer VB esier VA scier TA¹, TA², Z
descer, sciet, scyer Z estier FB ser P, TA¹, VA
ersac, su (?) V exyet, sor G ster L

YULE's « Esher », RICCI-ROSS's « Eshier » and BENEDETTO's « Escier » (B¹, 443) are not correct;
they are due to copyists' wrong divisions of « de scier » into « d escier ». Sometimes the whole
mistaken form has crept in as « descer » (or been altered, as in RAMUSIO, 53 b, to « Pecher »; the
same alteration « Pecher » occurs in Ramusio's edition of Barbosa, I, 292 a and b; cf. also DAMES,
Barbosa, I, 54); but « Scier » is well attested by TA, P, Z, and Fra Mauro. Moreover, Polo's « Scier »
is not to be interpreted phonetically as simply Šer (as YULE did, and despite « Xer » on REINEL's
map of 1516; cf. KAMMERER, La Mer Rouge, II, App. IV), but as Ši + er, in two syllables. The
name is شحر, usually transcribed Šiḥr, a place on the southern coast of Arabia, but the real voca-
lization in mediaeval times must have been Šiḥār. It is established by Chao Ju-kua (HR, 281)
who, in 1225, wrote 施 曷 Shih-ho (ho is *γât and γât, with -t rendering also -l and -r, so Šiḥar),
later by Polo's « Scier » (= Šiḥār), and even in the 16th cent. (except for the first vowel), by BARBOSA's
« Xaer » (ed. DAMES, I, 64-68) and Barros's « Xael » (on this last form, cf. JA, 1919, II, 228).
The « Soer » adopted by YULE in one passage and interpreted by him as « Sohār » in the Gulf
of Oman (II, 340, 348) has justly embarrassed DAMES; so it may be worth remarking that it is only
a misreading for « Scer » = « Scier ». In EI, s. v. « al-Shiḥr », A. GROHMANN has said that the Por-
tuguese « Xaer » represented a pronunciation « Šaḥr », « visibly the most ancient », since šaḥr means
« coast »; but Chao Ju-kua and Polo invalidate this argument.
On the Chinese map of the early 15th cent. which has been reproduced by PHILLIPS and which
is of Mussulman origin, we find (JNCB, XIX, 224) a name 失 里 兒 Shih-li-êrh, in which I agree
with PHILLIPS in seeing « al-Shiḥr »; but the transcription would be wrong, and there must here
be a clerical error for Shih-[黑]hei-êrh, Šiḥār, giving the same pronunciation as in Chao Ju-kua
and in Polo.