[17] That this was Marco’s first mission is positively stated in the
    Ramusian edition; and though this may be only an editor’s gloss it
    seems well-founded.  The French texts say only that the Great Kaan,
    “l’envoia en un message en une terre ou bien avoit vj. mois de
    chemin.”  The traveller’s actual Itinerary affords to Vochan
    (Yung-ch’ang), on the frontier of Burma, 147 days’ journey, which with
    halts might well be reckoned six months in round estimate.  And we are
    enabled by various circumstances to fix the date of the Yun-nan
    journey between 1277 and 1280.  The former limit is determined by
    Polo’s account of the battle with the Burmese, near Vochan, which took
    place according to the Chinese Annals in 1277.  The latter is fixed by
    his mention of Kublai’s son, Mangalai, as governing at Kenjanfu
    (Si-ngan fu), a prince who died in 1280. (See vol. ii. pp. 24, 31,
    also 64, 80.)

[18] Excepting in the doubtful case of Kan-chau, where one reading says
    that the three Polos were there on business of their own not necessary
    to mention, and another, that only Maffeo and Marco were there, “en
    legation.”

[19] Persian history seems to fix the arrival of the lady Kokachin in the
    North of Persia to the winter of 1293-1294.  The voyage to Sumatra
    occupied three months (vol. i. p. 34); they were five months detained
    there (ii. 292); and the remainder of the voyage extended to eighteen
    more (i. 35),—­twenty-six months in all.

The data are too slight for unexceptional precision, but the following adjustment will fairly meet the facts.  Say that they sailed from Fo-kien in January 1292.  In April they would be in Sumatra, and find the S.W.  Monsoon too near to admit of their crossing the Bay of Bengal.  They remain in port till September (five months), and then proceed, touching (perhaps) at Ceylon, at Kayal, and at several ports of Western India.  In one of these, e.g.  Kayal or Tana, they pass the S.W.  Monsoon of 1293, and then proceed to the Gulf.  They reach Hormuz in the winter, and the camp of the Persian Prince Ghazan, the son of Arghun, in March, twenty-six months from their departure.

I have been unable to trace Hammer’s authority (not Wassaf I find), which perhaps gives the precise date of the Lady’s arrival in Persia (see infra, p. 38).  From his narrative, however (Gesch. der Ilchane, ii. 20), March 1294 is perhaps too late a date.  But the five months’ stoppage in Sumatra must have been in the S.W.  Monsoon; and if the arrival in Persia is put earlier, Polo’s numbers can scarcely be held to.  Or, the eighteen months mentioned at vol. i. p. 35, must include the five months’ stoppage.  We may then suppose that they reached Hormuz about November 1293, and Ghazan’s camp a month or two later.