NOTE 2.—­This word (G.  T. and Ram.) is in the Crusca Italian transformed into an adjective, “vaselle vernicate d’oro,” and both Marsden and Pauthier have substantially adopted the same interpretation, which seems to me in contradiction with the text.  In Pauthier’s text the word is vernigal, pl. vernigaux, which he explains, I know not on what authority, as “coupes sans anses vernies ou laquees d’or.”  There is, indeed, a Venetian sea-term, Vernegal, applied to a wooden bowl in which the food of a mess is put, and it seems possible that this word may have been substituted for the unknown Vernique.  I suspect the latter was some Oriental term, but I can find nothing nearer than the Persian Barni, Ar. Al-Barniya, “vas fictile in quo quid recondunt,” whence the Spanish word Albornia, “a great glazed vessel in the shape of a bowl, with handles.”  So far as regards the form, the change of Barniya into Vernique would be quite analogous to that change of Hundwaniy into Ondanique, which we have already met with. (See Dozy et Engelmann, Glos. des Mots Espagnols, etc., 2nd ed., 1867, p. 73; and Boerio, Diz. del.  Dial.  Venez.)

[F.  Godefroy, Dict., s.v.  Vernigal, writes:  “Coupe sans anse, vernie ou laquee d’or,” and quotes, besides Marco Polo, the Regle du Temple, p. 214, ed.  Soc.  Hist. de France: 

    “Les vernigaus et les escuelles.”

About vernegal, cf. Rockhill, Rubruck, p. 86, note.  Rubruck says (Soc. de Geog. p. 241):  “Implevimus unum veringal de biscocto et platellum unum de pomis et aliis fructibus.”  Mr. Rockhill translates veringal by basket.

Dr. Bretschneider (Peking, 28) mentions “a large jar made of wood and varnished, the inside lined with silver,” and he adds in a note “perhaps this statement may serve to explain Marco Polo’s verniques or vaselle vernicate d’oro, big enough to hold drink for eight or ten persons.”—­H.  C.]

A few lines above we have “of the capacity of a firkin.”  The word is bigoncio, which is explained in the Vocab.  Univ.  Ital. as a kind of tub used in the vintage, and containing 3 mine, each of half a stajo.  This seems to point to the Tuscan mina, or half stajo, which is = 1/3 of a bushel.  Hence the bigoncio would = a bushel, or, in old liquid measure, about a firkin.

NOTE 3.—­A buffet, with flagons of liquor and goblets, was an essential feature in the public halls or tents of the Mongols and other Asiatic races of kindred manners.  The ambassadors of the Emperor Justin relate that in the middle of the pavilion of Dizabulus, the Khan of the Turks, there were set out drinking-vessels, and flagons and great jars, all of gold; corresponding to the coupes (or hanas a mances), the verniques, and the grant