The Book of Ser Marco Polo : vol.2 / Page 86 (Grayscale High Resolution Image)

0086	The Book of Ser Marco Polo : vol.2

kinsman of the blood Imperial. So you must know that from this province forward all the provinces mentioned in our book are subject to the Great Kaan; and even if this be not specially mentioned, you must understand that it is so.

Now let us have done with this matter, and I will tell you about the Province of Caidu.

NOTE 1.—Here Marco at least shows that he knew Tibet to be much more extensive than the small part of it that he had seen. But beyond this his information amounts to little.

NOTE 2.—“Or de pailiole.” “Oro di pagliuola” (pagliuola, “a spangle”) must have been the technical phrase for what we call gold-dust, and the French now call or en paillettes, a phrase used by a French missionary in speaking of this very region. (Ann. de la Foi, XXXVII. 427.) Yet the only example of this use of the word cited in the Voc. Ital. Universale is from the passage of the Crusca MS.; and Pipino seems not to have understood it, translating “aurum quod dicitur Deplaglola”; whilst Zurla says erroneously that pajola is an old Italian word for gold. Pegolotti uses argento in pagliuola (p. 219). A Barcelona tariff of 1271 sets as much on every mark of Pailola. And the old Portuguese navigators seem always to have used the same expression for the gold-dust of Africa, ouro de pajola. (See Major’s Prince Henry, pp. 111, 112, 116; Capmany Memorias, etc., II. App. p. 73; also “Aurum de Pajola,” in Usodimare of Genoa, see Gräber, Annali, II. 290, quoted by Peschel, p. 178.)

NOTE 3.—The cinnamon must have been the coarser cassia produced in the lower parts of this region. (See note to next chapter.) We have already (Book I. ch. xxxi.) quoted Tavernier’s testimony to the rage for coral among the Tibetans and kindred peoples. Mr. Cooper notices the eager demand for coral at Bathang: (See also Desgodins, La Mission du Thibet, 310.)

NOTE 4.—See supra, Bk. I. ch. lxi. note II.

NOTE 5.—The big Tibetan mastiffs are now well known. Mr. Cooper, at Ta-t’sien lu, notes that the people of Tibetan race “keep very large dogs, as large as Newfoundlands.” And he mentions a pack of dogs of another breed, tan and black, “fine animals of the size of setters.” The missionary M. Durand also, in a letter from the region in question, says, speaking of a large leopard: “Our brave watch-dogs had several times beaten him off gallantly, and one of them had even in single combat with him received a blow of the paw which had laid his skull open.” (Ann. de la Prop de la Foi, XXXVIII. 314.) On the title-page of vol. i. we have introduced one of these big Tibetan dogs as brought home by the Polos to Venice.

The “wild oxen called Beyanini” are probably some such species as the Gaur. Beyanini I suspect to be an Oriental word, but to stand for Buemini, i.e. Bohemian, a name which may have been given by the Venetians to either the bison or urus. Polo’s contemporary, Brunetto Latini, seems to speak of one of these as still existing in his day in Germany: “Autre buef naissent en Allemagne qui ont grans cors, et sont bons por sommier et por vin porter.” (Paris ed., p. 228; see also Lubbock, Pre-historic Times, 296-7.)

(Mr. Baber Travels, pp. 39, 40) writes: “A special interest attaches to the wild oxen, since they are unknown in any other part of China Proper. From a Lolo chief and his followers, most enthusiastic hunters, I afterwards learnt that the cattle are

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National Institute of Informatics - Digital Silk Road Project Digital Archive of Toyo Bunko Rare Books

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National Institute of Informatics - Digital Silk Road Project
Digital Archive of Toyo Bunko Rare Books