of slightly earlier date (_Le Jus de St. Nicolas_),
the King of Africa, invaded by the Christians, summons all his allies and
feudatories, among whom appear the Admirals of Coine (_Iconium_) and
Orkenie (_Hyrcania_), and the _Amiral d'outre l'Arbre-Sec_ (as it were of
"the Back of Beyond") in whose country the only current coin is
millstones! Friar Odoric tells us that he heard at Tabriz that the _Arbor
Secco_ existed in a mosque of that city; and Clavijo relates a confused
story about it in the same locality. Of the _Duerre Baum_ at Tauris there
is also a somewhat pointless legend in a Cologne MS. of the 14th century,
professing to give an account of the East. There are also some curious
verses concerning a mystical _Duerre Bom_ quoted by Fabricius from an old
Low German Poem; and we may just allude to that other mystic _Arbor Secco_
of Dante--

--"una pianta dispogliata
Di fiori e d'altra fronda in ciascun ramo,"

though the dark symbolism in the latter case seems to have a different
bearing.

(_Maundevile_, p. 68; _Schiltberger_, p. 113; Anselm. in _Canisii
Thesaurus_, IV. 781; _Pereg. Quat._ p. 81; _Niceph. Callist._ VIII. 30;
_Theatre Francais au Moyen Age_, pp. 97, 173; _Cathay_, p. 48; _Clavijo_,
p. 90; _Orient und Occident_, Goettingen, 1867, vol. i.; _Fabricii Vet.
Test. Pseud._, etc., I. 1133; _Dante, Purgat._ xxxii. 35.)

But why does Polo bring this _Arbre Sec_ into connection with the Sun Tree
of the Alexandrian Legend? I cannot answer this to my own entire
satisfaction, but I can show that such a connection had been imagined in
his time.

Paulin Paris, in a notice of MS. No. 6985. (_Fonds Ancien_) of the
National Library, containing a version of the _Chansons de Geste
d'Alixandre_, based upon the work of L. Le Court and Alex. de Bernay, but
with additions of later date, notices amongst these latter the visit of
Alexander to the Valley Perilous, where he sees a variety of wonders,
among others the _Arbre des Pucelles_. Another tree at a great distance
from the last is called the ARBRE SEC, and reveals to Alexander the secret
of the fate which attends him in Babylon. (_Les MSS. Francais de la Bibl.
du Roi_, III. 105.)[4] Again the English version of _King Alisaundre_,
published in Weber's Collection, shows clearly enough that in _its_ French
original the term _Arbre Sec_ was applied to the Oracular Trees, though
the word has been miswritten, and misunderstood by Weber. The King, as in
the Greek a