es) is
sold in all the cities of the empire." (_Bretschneider, Hist. Bot.
Disc._I. p. 5.)--H. C.]

[12] It is probable that Persian, which had long been the language of
Turanian courts, was also the common tongue of foreigners at that of
the Mongols. _Pulisanghin_ and _Zardandan_, in the preceding list, are
pure Persian. So are several of the Oriental phrases noted at p. 84.
See also notes on _Ondanique_ and _Vernique_ at pp. 93 and 384 of this
volume, on _Tacuin_ at p. 448, and a note at p. 93 supra. The
narratives of Odoric, and others of the early travellers to Cathay,
afford corroborative examples. Lord Stanley of Alderley, in one of his
contributions to the Hakluyt Series, has given evidence from
experience that Chinese Mahomedans still preserve the knowledge of
numerous Persian words.

[13] Compare these errors with like errors of Herodotus, e.g., regarding
the conspiracy of the False Smerdis. (See Rawlinson's Introduction, p.
55.) There is a curious parallel between the two also in the supposed
occasional use of Oriental state records, as in Herodotus's accounts
of the revenues of the satrapies, and of the army of Xerxes, and in
Marco Polo's account of Kinsay, and of the Kaan's revenues. (Vol. ii
pp. 185, 216.)

[14] An example is seen in the voluminous _Annali Musulmani_ of _G. B.
Rampoldi_, Milan, 1825. This writer speaks of the Travels of Marco
Polo with his _brother_ and uncle; declares that he visited _Tipango_
(_sic_), Java, Ceylon, and the _Maldives_, collected all the
geographical notions of his age, traversed the two peninsulas of the
Indies, examined the islands of _Socotra, Madagascar, Sofala_, and
traversed with _philosophic eye_ the regions of Zanguebar, Abyssinia,
Nubia, and Egypt! and so forth (ix. 174). And whilst Malte-Brun
bestows on Marco the sounding and ridiculous title of "_the Humboldt
of the 13th century_," he shows little real acquaintance with his
Book. (See his _Precis_, ed. of 1836, I. 551 seqq.)

[15] See for example vol. i. p. 338, and note 4 at p. 341; also vol. ii.
p. 103. The descriptions in the style referred to recur in all seven
times; but most of them (which are in Book IV.) have been omitted in
this translation.

[16] [On the subject of Moses of Chorene and his works, I must refer to
the clever researches of the late Auguste Carriere, Professor