“Mare quod dicitur Gheluchelan vel ABACU"....

    “Est ejus stricta via et dubia.  Ab una parte est mare quod dixi de
    ABACU et ab alia nemora invia,” etc. (See I. p. 59, note 8.)

    2.  “Et ibi optimi austures dicti AVIGI” (I. 50).

    3.  After the chapter on Mosul is another short chapter, already
    alluded to: 

    “Prope hanc civitatem (est) alia provincia dicta MUS e MEREDIEN in
    qua nascitur magna quantitas bombacis, et hic fiunt bocharini et alia
    multa, et sunt mercatores homines et artiste.” (See i. p. 60.)

    4.  In the chapter on Tarcan (for Carcan, i.e.  Yarkand): 

    “Et maior pars horum habent unum ex pedibus grossum et habent gosum
    in gula; et est hic fertilis contracta.” (See i. p. 187.)

    5.  In the Desert of Lop: 

    “Homines trasseuntes appendunt bestiis suis capanullas [i.e.
    campanellas] ut ipsas senciant et ne deviare possint” (i. p. 197.)

    6.  “Ciagannor, quod sonat in Latino STAGNUM ALBUM.” (i. p. 296.)

7.  “Et in medio hujus viridarii est palacium sive logia, tota super columpnas.  Et in summitate cujuslibet columnae est draco magnus circundans totam columpnam, et hic substinet eorum cohoperturam cum ore et pedibus; et est cohopertura tota de cannis hoc modo,” etc.  (See i. p. 299.)

[20] My valued friend Sir Arthur Phayre made known to me the passage in
    O’Curry’s Lectures.  I then procured the extracts and further
    particulars from Mr. J. Long, Irish Transcriber and Translator in
    Dublin, who took them from the Transcript of the Book of Lismore, in
    the possession of the Royal Irish Academy. [Cf. Anecdota Oxoniensia. 
    Lives of the Saints from the Book of Lismore, edited with a
    translation ... by Whitley Stokes, Oxford, 1890.—­Marco Polo forms
    fo. 79 a, 1—­fo. 89 b, 2, of the MS., and is described pp. xxii.-xxiv.
    of Mr. Whitley Stokes’ Book, who has since published the Text in the
    Zeit. f.  Celtische Philol. (See Bibliography, vol. ii. p. 573.)—­
    H. C.]

XI.  SOME ESTIMATE OF THE CHARACTER OF POLO AND HIS BOOK.

[Sidenote:  Grounds of Polo’s pre-eminence among mediaeval travellers.]

66.  That Marco Polo has been so universally recognised as the King of Mediaeval Travellers is due rather to the width of his experience, the vast compass of his journeys, and the romantic nature of his personal history, than to transcendent superiority of character or capacity.

The generation immediately preceding his own has bequeathed to us, in the Report of the Franciscan Friar William de Rubruquis,[1] on the Mission with which St. Lewis charged him to the Tartar Courts, the narrative of one great journey, which, in its rich detail, its vivid pictures, its acuteness of observation and strong good sense, seems to me to form a Book of Travels of much higher claims than any one series of Polo’s chapters; a book, indeed, which has never had justice done to it, for it has few superiors in the whole Library of Travel.