[Dr. Bretschneider (Hist. of Bot.  Disc. I. p. 3) says:  “In corroboration of Polo’s statement regarding the explosions produced when burning bamboos, I may adduce Sir Joseph Hooker’s Himalayan Journals (edition of 1891, p. 100), where in speaking of the fires in the jungles, he says:  ’Their triumph is in reaching a great bamboo clump, when the noise of the flames drowns that of the torrents, and as the great stem-joints burst, from the expansion of the confined air, the report is as that of a salvo from a park of artillery.’”—­H.  C]

[Illustration:  Mountaineers on the Borders of Sze ch’wan and Yun-nan.]

Richthofen remarks that nowhere in China does the bamboo attain such a size as in this region.  Bamboos of three palms in girth (28 to 30 inches) exist, but are not ordinary, I should suppose, even in Sze-ch’wan.  In 1855 I took some pains to procure in Pegu a specimen of the largest attainable bamboo.  It was 10 inches in diameter.

NOTE 3.—­M.  Gabriel Durand, a missionary priest, thus describes his journey in 1861 to Kiangka, via Ta-t’sien-lu, a line of country partly coincident with that which Polo is traversing:  “Every day we made a journey of nine or ten leagues, and halted for the night in a Kung-kuan.  These are posts dotted at intervals of about ten leagues along the road to Hlassa, and usually guarded by three soldiers, though the more important posts have twenty.  With the exception of some Tibetan houses, few and far between, these are the only habitations to be seen on this silent and deserted road....  Lytang was the first collection of houses that we had seen in ten days’ march.” (Ann. de la Propag. de la Foi, XXXV. 352 seqq.)

NOTE 4.—­Such practices are ascribed to many nations.  Martini quotes something similar from a Chinese author about tribes in Yunnan; and Garnier says such loose practices are still ascribed to the Sifan near the southern elbow of the Kin-sha Kiang.  Even of the Mongols themselves and kindred races, Pallas asserts that the young women regard a number of intrigues rather as a credit and recommendation than otherwise.  Japanese ideas seem to be not very different.  In old times Aelian gives much the same account of the Lydian women.  Herodotus’s Gindanes of Lybia afford a perfect parallel, “whose women wear on their legs anklets of leather.  Each lover that a woman has gives her one; and she who can show most is the best esteemed, as she appears to have been loved by the greatest number of men.” (Martini Garnier, I. 520; Pall.  Samml. II. 235; Ael.  Var.  Hist. III. 1; Rawl.  Herod. Bk.  IV. ch. clxxvi.)

["Among some uncivilised peoples, women having many gallants are esteemed better than virgins, and are more anxiously desired in marriage.  This is, for instance, stated to be the case with the Indians of Quito, the Laplanders in Regnard’s days, and the Hill Tribes of North Aracan.  But in each of these cases we are expressly told that want of chastity is considered a merit in the bride, because it is held to be the best testimony to the value of her attractions.” (Westermarck, Human Marriage, p. 81.)—­H.C.]