With regard to the effect upon fire ascribed to the “great cold,” Ramusio’s version inserts the expression “gli fu affermato per miracolo,” “it was asserted to him as a wonderful circumstance.”  And Humboldt thinks it so strange that Marco should not have observed this personally that he doubts whether Polo himself passed the Pamir.  “How is it that he does not say that he himself had seen how the flames disperse and leap about, as I myself have so often experienced at similar altitudes in the Cordilleras of the Andes, especially when investigating the boiling-point of water?” (Cent.  Asia, Germ.  Transl.  I. 588.) But the words quoted from Ramusio do not exist in the old texts, and they are probably an editorial interpolation indicating disbelief in the statement.

MM.  Huc and Gabet made a like observation on the high passes of north-eastern Tibet:  “The argols gave out much smoke, but would not burn with any flame”; only they adopted the native idea that this as well as their own sufferings in respiration was caused by some pernicious exhalation.

Major Montgomerie, R.E., of the Indian Survey, who has probably passed more time nearer the heavens than any man living, sends me the following note on this passage:  “What Marco Polo says as to fire at great altitudes not cooking so effectually as usual is perfectly correct as far as anything boiled is concerned, but I doubt if it is as to anything roasted.  The want of brightness in a fire at great altitudes is, I think, altogether attributable to the poorness of the fuel, which consists of either small sticks or bits of roots, or of argols of dung, all of which give out a good deal of smoke, more especially the latter if not quite dry; but I have often seen a capital blaze made with the argols when perfectly dry.  As to cooking, we found that rice, dal, and potatoes would never soften properly, no matter how long they were boiled.  This, of course, was due to the boiling-point being only from 170 deg. to 180 deg..  Our tea, moreover, suffered from the same cause, and was never good when we were over 15,000 feet.  This was very marked.  Some of my natives made dreadful complaints about the rice and dal that they got from the village-heads in the valleys, and vowed that they only gave them what was very old and hard, as they could not soften it!”

[Illustration:  MARCO POLO’S ITINERARIES No.  III Regions on and near the Upper Oxus]

NOTE 3.—­Bolor is a subject which it would take several pages to discuss with fulness, and I must refer for such fuller discussion to a paper in the J.  R. G. S. vol. xlii. p. 473.