The Travels of Marco Polo — Volume 1 eBook

This eBook from the Gutenberg Project consists of approximately 1,230 pages of information about The Travels of Marco Polo — Volume 1.

The Travels of Marco Polo — Volume 1 eBook

This eBook from the Gutenberg Project consists of approximately 1,230 pages of information about The Travels of Marco Polo — Volume 1.

["There are two Mongol terms, which resemble this word Bularguchi, viz. Balagachi and Buluguchi.  But the first was the name used for the door-keeper of the tent of the Khan.  By Buluguchi the Mongols understood a hunter and especially sable hunters.  No one of these terms can be made consistent with the accounts given by M. Polo regarding the Bularguchi.  In the Kui sin tsa shi, written by Chow Mi, in the former part of the 14th century, interesting particulars regarding Mongol hunting are found.” (Palladius, 47.) In chapter 101. Djan-ch’i, of the Yuen-shi, Falconers are called Ying fang pu lie, and a certain class of the Falconers are termed Bo-lan-ghi. (Bretschneider, Med.  Res. I. p. 188.)—­H.  C.]

NOTE 5.—­A like description is given by Odoric of the mode in which a successor of Kublai travelled between Cambaluc and Shangtu, with his falcons also in the chamber beside him.  What Kublai had adopted as an indulgence to his years and gout, his successors probably followed as a precedent without these excuses.

[With regard to the gout of Kublai Khan, Palladius (p. 48) writes:  “In the Corean history allusion is made twice to the Khan’s suffering from this disease.  Under the year 1267, it is there recorded that in the 9th month, envoys of the Khan with a letter to the King arrived in Corea.  Kubilai asked for the skin of the Akirho munho, a fish resembling a cow.  The envoy was informed that, as the Khan suffered from swollen feet it would be useful for him to wear boots made of the skin of this animal, and in the 10th month, the king of Corea forwarded to the Khan seventeen skins of it.  It is further recorded in the Corean history, that in the 8th month of 1292, sorcerers and Shaman women from Corea were sent at the request of the Khan to cure him of a disease of the feet and hands.  At that time the king of Corea was also in Peking, and the sorcerers and Shaman women were admitted during an audience the King had of the Khan.  They took the Khan’s hands and feet and began to recite exorcisms, whilst Kubilai was laughing.”—­H.  C.]

NOTE 6.—­Marsden and Pauthier identify Cachar Modun with Tchakiri Mondou, or Moudon, which appears in D’Anville’s atlas as the title of a “Levee de terre naturelle,” in the extreme east of Manchuria, and in lat. 44 deg., between the Khinga Lake and the sea.  This position is out of the question.  It is more than 900 miles, in a straight line from Peking, and the mere journey thither and back would have taken Kublai’s camp something like six months.  The name Kachar Modun is probably Mongol, and as Katzar is = “land, region,” and Modun = “wood” or “tree,” a fair interpretation lies on the surface.  Such a name indeed has little individuality.  But the Jesuit maps have a Modun Khotan ("Wood-ville”) just about the locality supposed, viz. in the region north of the eastern extremity of the Great Wall.

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The Travels of Marco Polo — Volume 1 from Project Gutenberg. Public domain.