esent and so absent, as this vulgar _Latine_ of
_Marco Polo_; not so like himselfe, as the Three _Polo's_ were at
their returne to _Venice_, where none knew them.... Much are wee
beholden to _Ramusio_, for restoring this _Pole_ and Load-starre of
_Asia_, out of that mirie poole or puddle in which he lay drouned."
(III. p. 65.)

[17] Of these difficulties the following are some of the more prominent:--

1. The mention of the death of Kublai (see note 7, p. 38 of this
volume), whilst throughout the book Polo speaks of Kublai as if still
reigning.

2. Mr. Hugh Murray objects that whilst in the old texts Polo appears to
look on Kublai with reverence as a faultless Prince, in the Ramusian
we find passages of an opposite tendency, as in the chapter about
Ahmad.

3. The same editor points to the manner in which one of the Ramusian
additions represents the traveller to have visited the Palace of the
Chinese Kings at Kinsay, which he conceives to be inconsistent with
Marco's position as an official of the Mongol Government. (See vol.
ii. p. 208.)

If we could conceive the Ramusian additions to have been originally
notes written by old Maffeo Polo on his nephew's book, this hypothesis
would remove almost all difficulty.

One passage in Ramusio seems to bear a reference to the date at which
these interpolated notes were amalgamated with the original. In the
chapter on Samarkand (i. p. 191) the conversion of the Prince Chagatai
is said in the old texts to have occurred "not a great while ago"
(_il ne a encore grament de tens_). But in Ramusio the supposed
event is fixed at "one hundred and twenty-five years since." This
number could not have been uttered with reference to 1298, the year of
the dictation at Genoa, nor to any year of Polo's own life. Hence it
is probable that the original note contained a date or definite term
which was altered by the compiler to suit the date of his own
compilation, some time in the 14th century.]

[18] In the first edition of Ramusio the preface contained the following
passage, which is omitted from the succeeding editions; but as even
the first edition was issued after Ramusio's own death, I do not see
that any stress can be laid on this:

"A copy of the Book of Marco Polo, as it was originally written in
Latin, marvellously old, and perhaps direc