NOTE 1.—­I have, after some consideration, followed the example of Mr. H. Murray, in his edition of Marco Polo, in collecting together in a separate chapter a number of additional particulars concerning the Great City, which are only found in Ramusio.  Such of these as could be interpolated in the text of the older form of the narrative have been introduced between brackets in the last chapter.  Here I bring together those particulars which could not be so interpolated without taking liberties with one or both texts.

The picture in Ramusio, taken as a whole, is so much more brilliant, interesting, and complete than in the older texts, that I thought of substituting it entirely for the other.  But so much doubt and difficulty hangs over some passages of the Ramusian version that I could not satisfy myself of the propriety of this, though I feel that the dismemberment inflicted on that version is also objectionable.

NOTE 2.—­The tides in the Hang-chau estuary are now so furious, entering in the form of a bore, and running sometimes, by Admiral Collinson’s measurement, 11-1/2 knots, that it has been necessary to close by weirs the communication which formerly existed between the River Tsien-tang on the one side and the Lake Si-hu and internal waters of the district on the other.  Thus all cargoes are passed through the small city canal in barges, and are subject to transhipment at the river-bank, and at the great canal terminus outside the north gate, respectively.  Mr. Kingsmill, to whose notices I am indebted for part of this information, is, however, mistaken in supposing that in Polo’s time the tide stopped some 20 miles below the city.  We have seen (note 6, ch. lxv. supra) that the tide in the river before Kinsay was the object which first attracted the attention of Bayan, after his triumphant entrance into the city.  The tides reach Fuyang, 20 miles higher. (N. and Q., China and Japan, vol.  I. p. 53; Mid.  Kingd. I. 95, 106; J.N.Ch.Br.R.A.S., December, 1865, p. 6; Milne, p. 295; Note by Mr. Moule).

[Miss E. Scidmore writes (China, p. 294):  “There are only three wonders of the world in China—­The Demons at Tungchow, the Thunder at Lungchow, and the Great Tide at Hangchow, the last, the greatest of all, and a living wonder to this day of ‘the open door,’ while its rivals are lost in myth and oblivion....  The Great Bore charges up the narrowing river at a speed of ten and thirteen miles an hour, with a roar that can be heard for an hour before it arrives.”—­H.C.]

NOTE 3.—­For satisfactory elucidation as to what is or may have been authentic in these statements, we shall have to wait for a correct survey of Hang-chau and its neighbourhood.  We have already seen strong reason to suppose that miles have been substituted for li in the circuits assigned both to the city and to the lake, and we are yet more strongly impressed with the conviction that the same substitution has been made here in regard to the canal on the east of the city, as well as the streets and market-places spoken of in the next paragraph.