The chapter-headings I have generally taken from Pauthier’s Text, but they are no essential part of the original work, and they have been slightly modified or enlarged where it seemed desirable.

* * * * *

    “Behold!  I see the Haven nigh at Hand,
    To which I meane my wearie Course to bend;
    Vere the maine Shete, and beare up with the Land,
    The which afore is fayrly to be kend,
    And seemeth safe from Storms that may offend.
       * * * * *
    There eke my Feeble Barke a while may stay,
  Till mery Wynd and Weather call her thence away.” 
      —­THE FAERIE QUEENE, I. xii. 1.

[Illustration]

[1] This “eclectic formation of the English text,” as I have called it for
    brevity in the marginal rubric, has been disapproved by Mr. de
    Khanikoff, a critic worthy of high respect.  But I must repeat that the
    duties of a translator, and of the Editor of an original text, at
    least where the various recensions bear so peculiar a relation to each
    other as in this case, are essentially different; and that, on
    reconsidering the matter after an interval of four or five years, the
    plan which I have adopted, whatever be the faults of execution, still
    commends itself to me as the only appropriate one.

Let Mr. de Khanikoff consider what course he would adopt if he were about to publish Marco Polo in Russian.  I feel certain that with whatever theory he might set out, before his task should be concluded he would have arrived practically at the same system that I have adopted.

[2] In Polo’s diction C frequently represents H., e.g., Cormos = Hormuz;
    Camadi probably = Hamadi; Caagiu probably = Hochau; Cacianfu =
    Hochangfu, and so on.  This is perhaps attributable to Rusticiano’s
    Tuscan ear.  A true Pisan will absolutely contort his features in the
    intensity of his efforts to aspirate sufficiently the letter C.
    Filippo Villani, speaking of the famous Aguto (Sir J. Hawkwood), says
    his name in English was Kauchouvole. (Murat.  Script. xiv. 746.)

[3] In the Venetian dialect ch and j are often sounded as in English,
    not as in Italian.  Some traces of such pronunciation I think there
    are, as in Coja, Carajan, and in the Chinese name Vanchu
    (occurring only in Ramusio, supra, p. 99).  But the scribe of the
    original work being a Tuscan, the spelling is in the main Tuscan.  The
    sound of the Qu is, however, French, as in Quescican, Quinsai,
    except perhaps in the case of Quenianfu, for a reason given in vol.
    ii. p. 29.